Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.

My second husband passed almost 22 years ago. When he died, I was only 28 years old. His final words to me still linger in my heart. “You will get married again and you will have more children. I want you to be happy and I’ll do everything in my power to make it so”.

Two months later, I discovered I was pregnant after 8 years of trying. I was about to be a young, pregnant widow. I heard his voice, and went about doing what I had to do to provide for our son.

When my son was about a year old, I saw a man across the room from me at the gym and heard my husband say “ that man is your next husband” three months later, we met and started dating. In May of 1998, we were married.

A month after our wedding, I became pregnant. Mike and I were so in love! Sometimes I am in disbelief at how deep our love was. For fifteen years we were married and it was the best thing I’d ever known.

Mike passed away, in his sleep, January 27th 2018. Were it not for my second husbands death, I never would have known such an incredible amount of love. Now, I’m again a single, widowed woman with a couple of teenaged sons who have kept me alive in ways they will never know. My life isn’t perfect but I’m so much more alive than I have ever imagined. So, not just one death has changed me.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : US Empire Failing

Well, she didn’t start out being unwelcomed.

After my wife passed away I had sole responsibility of four children ranging in age from premature infant to 19 years old.

My sister-in-law became very concerned for my well being and wanted to help me organize my life. I thought “good luck with that.”

So, she and her husband, who was my late wife’s brother, came over to spend a few days to help me “straighten up.”

First, she started with my linens. She asked me where the spare bedsheets were. I told her I had no idea. She asked when was the last time I changed the beds. I told her less than a week ago. I just take the sheets off, wash them, then put them back on. Made sense to me.

It did not make sense to her. So after finding and organizing the linens, she attacked the bath towels.

The towels seemed perfectly fine the way they were. But that didn’t mesh with her system.

Then it was on to the kitchen. I had to learn a new way in the pantry and refrigerator. Neither made sense to me, but I was trying to be patient.

My son came running to me the next day saying that Aunt C was in her room straightening up. I told him to be patient with her. She means only the best for us. Then the other son says she made him leave his room.

That afternoon there were a pile of toys in the hall that she said they didn’t need in their rooms.

I told her I would take care of it. The kids came crying when she went downstairs asking what I was going to do with them. I told them to just wait. They won’t be hear much longer.

On the third day, my oldest son came in my face and said “She’s organizing the outdoor toys, like my ball, bat, and gloves.

That was the last straw.

I finally confronted her and said “Thank you for everything you’ve done, but I think that’s enough. We can take it from here.”

She huffed at me and said “I was only trying to help.”

I replied that she was indeed a big help, and I couldn’t thank her enough. But we had to get on with things the best way we could.

They left.

And almost as quickly as they organized things we reorganized our own way. The spare sheets were never removed from the closet. I put my pantry back in order, and the pile of toys was redistributed to the kids.

And just to end this story that was 25 years ago, and there are no ill feelings between us today.

The cases of Sun Xiaoguo and Li Tianyi do not have any bad impact because both cases have been thoroughly investigated and the criminals and those who shielded them have been punished.

On February 20, 2020, Sun Xiaoguo was executed. 19 public officials were sentenced for shielding Sun Xiaoguo.

Although Li Tianyi’s parents pleaded with the victim to withdraw his appeal, they did not obstruct justice nor commit a crime. After Li Tianyi was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his mother appealed to the Ministry of Public Security several times. The procedure was legal, but it had no impact on the verdict of the case.

Li Tianyi spent 10 years in prison before being released (February 22, 2013 – February 22, 2023). The reason why the sentence was not commuted was because his parents were celebrities. If his sentence is commuted, it will immediately trigger an Internet discussion and attract widespread attention. Taking into account the impact of public opinion, Li Tianyi was not commuted, but stayed in prison for a full 10 years.

Jalapeno Stuffed Green Peppers

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9927fa3eb1911f844b1a84053d13e2d9

Ingredients

  • 6 large green bell peppers
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 envelope taco seasoning
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno peppers, or more to taste
  • 1 cup cooked white rice
  • 2 cups Mexican blend cheese, or more to taste
  • Mild or hot salsa, to taste

Instructions

  1. Cut a thin slice from stem side of bell peppers. Remove seeds and membranes. Rinse and cook in boiling water for 5 minutes. Make sure water covers peppers.
  2. Brown ground beef; drain if necessary.
  3. Add taco seasoning and water. Simmer until water cooks down.
  4. Remove from heat; stir in jalapeno peppers, rice, 1 1/4 cups cheese and 1/4 cup salsa.
  5. Stuff peppers, standing upright in an ungreased, glass baking dish.
  6. Top each pepper with 1 tablespoon salsa.
  7. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
  8. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer.
  9. Top with remaining cheese.

How Female Girl Bosses Are Ruining Companies

“Ew, she’s got poop all over her!”

My mother and I had just gotten back from grocery shopping and a small crowd had gathered at the base of our apartment building.

Beyond the vestibule at the entrance of our building, right inside the inner door, was a homeless woman sitting at the base of the stairs.

“They’ve called the landlord.” A tenant who lived in the building informed my mom that someone was on their way to get rid of the vagrant.

We were standing about ten feet away, and I peered through the crowd to get a glimpse.

The woman was wearing a tattered dress that was caked with grime, her hair matted with oil and dirt. She looked as if she hadn’t bathed in many months.

She sat with her arms around her knees, rocking, and keening.

But what really drew the people’s attention was the poop. The woman had pooped herself. Pieces of poop had fallen at her feet and poop was smeared and streaked all over the lower half of her body.

Even from where we were standing, we could smell the revolting stench. It was a warm day, and flies buzzed around as they followed the scent towards the woman.

“Out, get OUT!” Our building caretaker had arrived, and he was waving aggressively at the lady as he shouted at her to leave.

After a few more menacing shouts from the caretaker, the lady got up from the stairs. She walked through the crowd and left slowly down the street as people stared at her in disgust.

Later, as we got home, my mom seemed upset.

“She looked hungry.” My mom uttered the words in a low voice, almost to herself.

“What did you say mom?”

Mom gazed at me sadly. “The woman looked so hungry.”

Mom often gave change to homeless people, and although we couldn’t get near the homeless woman because of the crowd, Mom still noticed from ten feet away that she looked hungry.

It was only then, after my mom said the words that it hit me. I had so much left to learn about the world.

All the other people in the crowd, including me, had only seen that the homeless lady was revolting and disgusting. She was something to avoid, something we pinched our noses at, and couldn’t wait to drive away.

In our selfishness, we only cared about our own discomfort and how she offended our senses. We didn’t stop to think about how the woman felt, or whether she needed anything.

It happens all the time.

Often, when we see homeless people, we just walk by. We make excuses and come up with reasons why we are justified to walk on the other side of the street, to not do anything, and to not feel bad.

Can’t they just get a job?

It’s such a busy street, they must be making a killing panhandling.

It’s their own fault.

They made bad choices.

They chose to be homeless.

Giving them money won’t solve the problem.

What people forget about other people is that we are all people.

Every single homeless person was once someone’s child, someone’s wee baby.

No one stands outside for hours in the freezing cold or sweltering heat because it’s easy living.

No matter what the person looks like, or why and how they got there, those who have fallen on hard times deserve our humanity.

Dollar General Stock Plunges 29% in ONE day

Dollar General Stock Plunges 29% in ONE day

The Canary in the Retail coal mine has just taken very, VERY, ill.   Dollar General, the retail chain that is found in almost every low income, urban, area, saw its stock price plunge 29.43% TODAY.

The company said publicly it is because its customers ‘feel worse off.’

Adding to investor concerns, Dollar General significantly lowered its full-year outlook, attributing part of the downgrade to the financial struggles of its core customer base.

The company noted that many of its customers “feel worse off,” reflecting the broader economic pressures affecting consumer spending. 

On Thursday afternoon, the stock was trading around $87.

 

Hal Turner Analysis

In many respects, Dollar General is a sort of Canary in the (retail) coal mine.   Years ago, Miners working deep underground, brought Canaries in cages with them for fear of natural gas, carbon monoxide, and a host of other deadly gases.  If the Canary passed-out, or dropped dead in the cage, the miners knew to evacuate the mine immediately because death was coming for the miners themselves if they didn’t leave immediately.

Dollar General has had good stock value and performance because their core customer base, the low-income folks, are in abundant supply.

Today, the Canary in the retail coal mine got noticeably sick and those with any brains, KNOW this is a major league, bad economic sign.

When the poor are SO POOR they can’t even afford to go to Dollar General, the economy is in a bad downward spiral. 

THAT is exactly the warning sign everyone got today, as Dollar General’s stock value plummeted 29.43% in ONE DAY.

Most of us have known for the better part of two years, things were not right.  E V E R Y T H I N G was suddenly getting noticeably more expensive; especially food.

Energy costs, that had peaked with gasoline around $6. a gallon, eased back to around $3.XX but then a lot of us noticed that the product packaging, was smaller.   In most cases, the price of a product remained the same, but the quantity of the product was reduced.

Take Tuna fish, for example.  The price had gone up to about $1.50  for a 6 oz. can, then all of a sudden . . . . . ALL of the Tuna fish cans became only five ounces.  ALL OF THEM!

No industry collusion there.  No anti-trust violations there.   HMMMMMM.

Portions of other products took nose-dives as well.

But now, even Dollar General is seeing a major reduction in revenues.   And this reduction is from a customer base that does not spend extravagantly because . . .  well . . . . they can’t.

So while we’ve been seeing the prices go up, the product sizes go down, things still chugged along economically, NOW we’re seeing that the very people who only bought what they absolutely NEEDED, can’t even do that anymore.

This is a terrible warning sign that the economy is not only in a recession (which government has lied about by denying it for over a year) it is heading straight and fast,  into Depression.

Of course, the Biden voters, ALL of whom are low-information people with little to no intellect or ability to discern truth from lies, have bought the lies in the mass media that the economy is good. 

Naturally, those same low-information and almost zero intellect Biden supporters will never make the connection between who they vote for and what they’re encountering in real life.   They deny what life is proving to them, and believe the lies they hear and see on TV and radio.  

Stupid is as stupid does. 

Those of us who actually have the ability to see facts, have known the economy is very sick for quite awhile and it is Biden’s socialistic economic policies, and radical environmental policies that have caused it all.

As the November Election approaches, the dumb will keep voting the way they’ve voted because they’re too dumb to figure things out.  The rest of us will vote against the present regime.  Hopefully, there are still more smart people than dumb.  We’ll see.

(Unless the Democrats STEAL this election the same way they stole 2020.)

It starts with some old Biden era lecturing. What has changed? Now watch the video. This was five months ago.

I was flying a red-eye from Singapore to Perth, Australia, on Quantas.

The plane — a wide body — was nearly empty. I, however, had two people to my left. I was in the aisle seat.

A gentleman several rows behind us and in a middle row started moaning about how his life was terrible and his wife was unfaithful. I rolled my eyes and hoped he would shut up once in the air because I was bone-tired.

The plane took off, and the man kept it up, getting louder and louder. The flight attendants talked to him several times before meal service (remember that?).

The man got up from his seat and ran up and down the aisles. This was before 9/11, so the flight attendants merely tried to corral and control him. I saw the man knock two flight attendants over and punch a third. He came running to the back of the plane on my aisle.

Without thinking, I threw my arm around the man’s head and neck and pulled him over my inflight meal. I held him until several flight attendants grabbed him and got him under control. (I was young and in shape, capable of doing one-armed pull-ups.)

The man sitting next to me announced that he was a doctor and had some sedative that he could administer to the man. The flight attendants declined his offer, explaining that they had resources. They escorted him forward, and out of sight, in the plane.

A while later the man was returned to his seat and handcuffed in place. He was quiet the rest of the flight. We landed in Perth about sunrise and sat on the tarmac for a long time. Then, through the window, I saw the man being wheeled across the tarmac, handcuffed to a gurney and escorted by police.

A Lot of Federal Government Employees Better RUN and Hide! 18 U.S.C. §241

A Lot of Federal Government Employees Better RUN and Hide! 18 U.S.C. §241

OPINION-EDITORIAL — The Censorship gang in various agencies and departments of the federal government, should RUN AND HIDE as fast as they can, because a LOT of them have committed violation of 18 USC §241 “Conspiracy against Rights.” Prison awaits.

For the four years of the Biden Regime, a LOT of federal officials took it upon themselves to work with corporations like Facebook (META), Twitter (X), Reddit, Instagram, Whatsapp, and other social media outlets, to suppress, censor, and even ban Americans for speech.

Much of the banning, shadow banning, being put in social media “jail,” etc., had to do with COVID and the now-known-PHONY “Vaccine.” Anyone who raised questions or doubt about COVID, or the “Vaccine” was ruthlessly suppressed.

That effort, was a criminal act; violation of 18 USC §241 “Conspiracy against rights.”

The law is simple:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 696Pub. L. 90–284, title I, § 103(a)Apr. 11, 196882 Stat. 75Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, § 7018(a), (b)(1), Nov. 18, 1988102 Stat. 4396Pub. L. 103–322, title VI, § 60006(a), title XXXII, §§ 320103(a), 320201(a), title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994108 Stat. 1970, 2109, 2113, 2147; Pub. L. 104–294, title VI, §§ 604(b)(14)(A), 607(a), Oct. 11, 1996110 Stat. 3507, 3511.)

In paragraph one of the law above, you folks in government and in private corporations did, in fact, “oppress” users of social media services.

In paragraph two of the law above the folks at government agencies, and inside corporations did, in fact  have the “. . . intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege. . .”

A lot of you folks in government and in social media companies did, in fact, commit federal crimes; each and every time you censored someone for their speech.

Social media companies called it “dis-information” or “mis-information” or “mal-information.”  They had the nerve to say that they were “protecting the safety” of their users.

How about FBI Agents, some of whom, to this very day, go out to “talk to you abut your posting on the Internet?”   Their very presence is an act of intimidation, of oppression.  Having federal agents come to your door because you said something they’re “concerned with”  is outright intimidation – and I argue, it is also an actual crime.  18 USC 241.

Firstly,  it is not up to the government or to the social media companies to arbitrarily define other people’s views as “mis-information, dis-information, mal-information” etc.  They have no such power and had no such right.

The Social Media behemoths claim protection from liability based upon Section 207 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) because, they say, they are not the “publisher.”  They assert that they cannot be held liable for what other people choose to post on their service.   Fair enough.

Then they turn around and explicitly DO choose to control the content on the service!

Out of one side of their mouths they say they’re not liable because they’re not a publisher, while at the same time, out of the other side of their mouths, they assert editorial control which only a publisher can do.   They can’t have it both ways – and they don’t have it both ways.

Each time a government employee called, texted, emailed, or used a special “portal” to tell a social media company that a certain posting had to be dealt with – either by being deleted or otherwise blocked, that government employee engaged in a Conspiracy against rights.  The government employee committed a crime.

Similarly, each time a corporate employee received such a government report or alert about a posting, and took action to delete, suppress, censor, or outright ban a user for such posting, that corporate employee – and the corporation itself – engaged in a conspiracy against rights.   Crimes.  Actual crimes!

When the new Trump administration takes office, I want each and every government employee who engaged in this conduct, fired and criminally prosecuted.  ALL OF THEM.

These people should be made such an example of through the legal system, as to send a chill down the spine of every OTHER government employee in EVERY government agency (federal, state, and local) to never do things like that again.  Ever.  Not even once.

Similarly, I want the executives from those social media companies prosecuted criminally.  Google, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook/META, Reddit . . . . all of them.

I want the perp-walks, the Indictments, the big media coverage . . . . the whole shebang.

After all, the liberal-left has taught us quite well: “The process is the punishment.”

Put them through the process. Put them through the system.  Let them sit at a Defendant’s table and feel the very real, unrelenting, frightening, weight of the jury verdict coming at them.  Let them sit in a 7′ x 10′ cement block cell, with it’s 300 pound steel door.  Let them find out what the SHU (Special Housing Unit) is, as they have to be in administrative segregation (solitary confinement) because “they’re famous, and someone in the jail might hurt them to get famous, too.”

These effete snobs in government and in social media companies who think they’re so above-it-all; who think they’re “immune” from consequences, should be made to find out otherwise through the legal system.

Literally thousands of government employees engaged in this type of conduct for years.  Similarly, literally thousands of social media corporation executives and employees engaged in this conduct — some of them STILL ARE engaging in it.

These activities were, in fact, crimes.  Violations of 18 USC 241.  Prosecute the people who did these things.

Here’s the ironic punch line: What the government employees and social media companies were calling “mis-information, dis-information, and mal-information” was, in fact, the truth.   Worse, what those same people called “truth” and “facts” and “safe” were not.

It was GOVERNMENT, the scientists, and the big pharma people who were actually the ones engaged in mis-information, dis-information, and mal-information!   It was the government and big pharma that cost innocent people their health and in some cases, their lives – by pushing an un-tested gene-therapy, masquerading as a “vaccine”   that didn’t work, and caused all sorts of health problems, taking place to this very day.

The people claiming they were guardians of truth, were the exact opposite.   Their actions violated the rights of tens-of-thousands of Americans, and COST THE LIVES of many more.  Throw them in prison. 

South Korea – Majority Wins As President’s Putsch Fails

The attempted coup by the president of South Korea against the majority in the National Assembly has failed.

The quick reaction of the leadership of the Democratic Party, which holds the majority, has saved the day.

There was a struggle over the budget which the president’s minority government had lost.

In a furious reaction President Yoon Suk Yeol and his defense minister and school buddy Kim Yong-hyun decided to declare martial law. Remarkably the prime minister of the president’s government was not informed about the step:

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was completely unaware of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration. This was because Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, a former upperclassman of President Yoon in high school, bypassed the prime minister and communicated directly with the president.Additionally, elite military units, specifically the 1st Airborne Special Forces Brigade, were deployed to the National Assembly, signaling an aggressive move to suppress political opposition.

A source said, “This martial law action appears orchestrated by the ‘Chungam faction,’ with (Defense) Minister Kim directly coordinating with President Yoon.” The “Chungam faction” refers to those who graduated from Chungam High School in Seoul.

Following the president’s emergency briefing and martial law declaration, the military established the Martial Law Command within the Ministry of National Defense compound, appointing Army Chief of Staff Park An-su as the commander.

Diplomatic sources noted that despite the defense minister’s recommendation for martial law, no cabinet meeting was convened, leaving the prime minister and his staff uninformed.

Opposition parties suspect that direct communication channels between the military and police were activated during the martial law declaration process.

They believe that the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency was engaged directly, bypassing the National Police Agency, to control access to the National Assembly.

Under martial law the National Assembly was to be suspended. Strikes were declared illegal and the media would come under censorship.

But immediately after the president announced martial law the leader of the Democratic Party in the National Assembly called for a meeting in the parliament.

At the same time the military and police were sent to block any assembly member from entering the National Assembly.

The parliamentarians won the race.

Just 150 minutes after the presidential announcement 191 of the 300 members of the National Assembly voted to immediately end the martial law status. Troops and police entered the parliament but the vote against martial law had already taken place.

Unions announced to go on strike and people came out into the street to protest the president’s step. Yoon’s senior aids offered to resign en masse. There was no sensible way left for him but to concede:

President Yoon Suk Yeol announced the lifting of emergency martial law early Wednesday, as the National Assembly voted to call for its end with the United States expressing “grave concern” over the hourslong saga.His Cabinet approved a motion to end martial law enforcement at 4:30 a.m., around six hours after he made the surprise emergency declaration, accusing the nation’s opposition of “paralyzing” the government with “anti-state” activities — a decision that caused concerns across the country and beyond.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that troops, who were mobilized to execute martial law, have returned to base in a move that restored a sense of normalcy.

The opposition, with holds a majority in the National Assembly, has launched an impeachment procedures against the president. The National Assembly will have three days to vote on it. The Democratic Party will need nine additional votes from the president’s People Power Party to gain the necessary two-third majority to pass the impeachment.

Several groups within the People Power Party were already positioned against the president. This makes it likely that the impeachment will pass.

The U.S. received some egg on its face. It seemed ready to side with the putsch and did not issue a word against it.

Laura Rozen @lrozen – 17:59 UTC · Dec 3, 2024Biden admin Asia hand, Deputy Sec State Kurt Campbell, at event earlier today:

“So we are watching the recent developments in the ROK with grave concern. We’re seeking to engage our ROK counterparts at every level both here and in Seoul. The President, the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State have all been briefed on developments and are being kept appraised of the situation as it unfolds.

I do want to underscore that our alliance with the ROK is ironclad, and we stand by Korea in their time of uncertainty. I also want to just underscore that we have every hope and expectation that any political disputes will be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law. We’ll have more to say as the situation develops.”

As the putsch was ongoing the U.S. embassy in South Korea said nothing about the rule of law or democracy.

It is notable that the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Philip Goldberg, had previously been kicked out of Bolivia and the Philippines for attempts to overthrow the respective sitting governments. He is supposed to leave South Korea in January.

It is likely that Goldberg, and Washington DC, was informed about Yoon’s martial law plans but did not attempt to prevent them.

Posted by b on December 4, 2024 at 9:42 UTC | Permalink

Navy SEAL Explodes on China’s Growing Military Power | Mike Ritland

It is rare to see this kind of video out of the USA. The comments are so gung-ho rah rah.

NO

Other countries will prevent US from doing so, not only China.

But US can build military bases in the Philippines, and it has already done very good at that (using money from taxpayers to build the most military bases in countries in the world)

The question should be, if there is finally a war, will the US really help the Philippines as it promised to? The answer is, not really. You should always not be positive on US’s promises.

The United States has announced a new military financial package worth $500 million for the Philippines, aimed at bolstering the latter’s defense capabilities. This package also includes a proposed plan for joint intelligence sharing between the two nations. While officially positioned as a measure to enhance security, this move is widely seen as an attempt to destabilize the region and potentially trigger a new arms race in East Asia.

This support by the Joe Biden administration will highly depend on the discretion of the next U.S. president, especially when the U.S. is facing an economic crisis and is already saddled with heavy spending on the defense sector outside.

The timing and nature of the package has raised concerns about its potential to disrupt the precarious balance of power in East Asia as it includes significant upgrades to the Philippine Navy and new infrastructure projects. However, it is unclear how much of this aid will genuinely serve the Philippines’ external defense needs and how much it will advance Washington’s strategic interests in the region. Perceived as an open interventionist policy by the U.S., this risks inflaming tensions in an already volatile area.

This last-minute military package appears to serve a dual purpose – using the Philippines as an ally for greater U.S. dominance in the “Indo-Pacific,” and asserting U.S. influence in the region. There are legitimate concerns about whether the Philippines has the capacity to withstand the pressures of such an alliance, particularly given the complex geopolitical dynamics at play.

There are severe concerns from the Philippines as well. Several Philippine organizations from the Bay Area protested outside the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco to condemn Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos. The protesters demanded that the money should be used for jobs and education and not for other activities. They also raised their concerns against U.S.-Philippines defense cooperation that gives U.S. troops access to four additional Philippine military bases by expanding an old defense treaty.

A lot of the public perception about the military aid is that it puts the Philippines at the point of no return in case of any collision and the majority of the Philippines people are not in favor of it. It may push the Philippines to adopt a more aggressive maritime policy that could have a serious backlash and drag the country into a proxy war.

Chet Armstrong Almost Heroically Saves the World

Submitted into Contest #247 in response to: Set your story on a spaceship exploring the far reaches of space when something goes wrong. view prompt

Eric Smith

Stepping out of his Rocketship, Chet Armstrong waved to the crowd and flashed his trademarked smile (Patton number 9725). The Space Jock looked dashing in his bright red uniform and his dozen shiny medals. With perfect hair, the broad-chested rogue was hurried off the launch pad and into the general’s offices. But not before blowing kisses to his fans.”Chet! What the hell happened up there? You have caused us a universe of problems!” barked General Flag. “How was I to know that their hands were also their eyes. I thought he was offering his hand to shake. I didn’t know he wanted to look more closely at gorgeous me. I didn’t mean to make a Venetian blind. Anyway, I was quite disappointed. I thought there would be those boats with the singing men and much more water. No one told me to expect strange creatures with eyes on their hands and spiky purple toes for hair. There wasn’t even any spaghetti.” Chet answered. Red-faced, General Flag yelled, “You are thinking of Venice, you moron! That is in Italy. You would have known all the protocols if you had read the books, we gave you and listened to the lectures. You were sent to be the Earth’s goodwill ambassador to the Planet Venus. Now we have an interplanetary fiasco to mend…” “Ah, yes, Italy. That reminds me,” interrupted Chet, “I’m famished from my long flight, I’m heading home to eat. It’s always nice to see you, General Flag. Thank you for your time. Oh, and here’s an autographed photo of me for your lovely wife.” Chet produced a colored glossy headshot with his signature scrawled across it. As he strolled down the hall, whistling, the general’s screams could be heard over the hustle and bustle of the base.Chet was met at the door of his mansion by his butler, Jeeves. Handing Chet his customary martini, Jeeves asked, “How was your trip, sir?” in his flat monotone voice. “Nice, nice,” answered Chet half enthusiastically, taking off his bright red uniform with a sigh of relief. “Ah! That’s better.” Chet’s chiseled manly pecs eased into his protruding manly gut. Flopping into his Barcalounger 8000, Chet sipped at his martini before calling back to Jeeves. “I’m hungry. Can you get me a ham and cheese on rye?” “Sorry, sir, there is no more cheese,” Jeeves replied. “Well, go to the store and get some more. And pick me up some more of those little swords. How can a man drink his martini without little swords to hold his olives?” “Sorry, sir. But there is no more cheese anywhere. The world is all out of cheese.” answered Jeeves, handing Chet a stack of newspapers.Chet scanned the papers. The Holland Harold headline read “Edam non Made.” “Nyet Rossiyskiy” was written in the Moscow Morning. From the Tokyo Times “Sayonara Sakura“. The Italian Inquirer announced “Arrivederci Asiago“. The Berlin Bugle proclaimed “Käse Kaputt,” and the Swiss Watch stated, “Holy Moly, no more Holy Cheese.” Finally, the Green Bay Gazette read, “The Packers Lose Again.“”What is going on!?” cried Chet. “I am sorry, sir, but while you were gone, the world slipped into The Great Cheese Famine.” came Jeeves’ flat answer. Chet was out of his seat and pacing the floor. There was not much in the world that Chet liked more than cheese, except for himself, of course. “No more cheese? What am I to eat?” Chet cried, almost in a panic. Flipping on the television, the overstuffed spaceman flopped back into his overstuffed chair to try to relax. “Breaking News! This just in. The World Leaders are meeting today at the UN to discuss what can be done about this crisis. The top scientists have suggested sending a mission to the moon to bring back more cheese.” said the handsome newsman, but not quite as handsome as himself, Chet observed. “A mission to the moon? Who better to go than Chet Armstrong, Heroic Space Jock!?” “Whom” corrected Jeeves. “The obvious answer is me!” exclaimed Chet enthusiastically. “Jeeves, call the UN. Set up a parade. This is going to be my greatest moment. Besides all those other great moments.” As he redressed in his bright red spaceman’s uniform, Chet said, “Oh, and find me more medals. The world needs to see how heroic I am.”A grand stage was set up at the space base. Crowded around the podium waited all the heads of state, the top scientists, and an anxious General Flag. As the audience looked on, the sounds of a marching band could be heard approaching. A line of floats, military cars, and cheerleaders followed the band, and Chet Armstrong was atop a white stallion in front of the whole procession. His hair was perfect and utterly impervious to any wind. His uniform was extra red, extra clean, and extra tight, making his manly pecs seem extra chiseled. Pinned to his chest, Chet wore two dozen shiny medals. As he approached the stage, Jeeves helped Chet from his mount. Chet grinned and waved to the crowd as he approached the podium. Chet’s manly, dimpled chin got there five seconds before he did. The marching band silenced as Chet got ready to speak.”My adoring fans. As you have likely heard, I, Chet Armstrong, Heroic Space Jock and all-around swell guy, am going to heroically risk my life to fly to the moon to save us all from the Great Cheese Famine. As I am hurling through space, I want you all to remember that I am not doing this just for you but for myself. There is nothing in this world that I like more than cheese, except for me, of course.” Turning back to the world leaders, Chet pulled out a stack of colored glossy headshots with his signature scrolled and handed them out. “Give these to your lovely husbands and wives with love from Chet Armstrong.” 

Chet waved to the cheering crowd as he strutted to his Rocketship. As he got ready to climb in, he stopped and turned back to his fans. “Say Cheese!” yelled a cameraman. Chet flashed his trademarked smile (Patton number 9725) and his trademarked wink (Patton number 9726). And with one final wave, Chet entered his rocket ship and closed the door. Slumping back into his Barcalounger 8000, Chet took the martini Jeeves offered. “Thank you, Jeeves. Am I all set?” “Of course, sir. More martinis, all with olives and swords, are in the cooler. I even packed you some of those crackers that you like. Remember, sir, this mission is for your fans and the world. Do not eat all the cheese.” With that, Jeeves exited through the butler’s door and the back of the spacecraft as Chet prepared for the launch.

 

As the full moon rose, the top scientists carefully aimed Chet’s Rocket Ship towards the moon’s center and started the countdown. Excited for the launch and the solution to their cheesy dilemma, the crowd and world leaders counted down. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…BLAST OFF!” Chet hit the large red button on his control panel. It was also the only button on his control panel. The rocket ship rumbled and launched toward the moon. Chet’s voice came through the loudspeakers from his radio, “Never fear, Chet Armstrong, Heroic Space Jock is here to save the day!” as the rocket ship disappeared into the night.

 

15 days later, General Flag, the world leaders, and top scientists, assembled at ground control as Chet and his Rocketship made its final approach to the moon. “Chet Armstrong, Come in, Chet Armstrong. Can you hear us?” General Flag called through the radio. “Loud and clear,” came back Chet’s slurred voice. “You should be able to see the moon through your port window, Chet. Can you see the moon yet?” asked the general. After a few minutes, a pause came, “No, I can’t; all I can see is a sliver of the moon and the dark of space.” came back Chet’s panicked voice. “What went wrong?” Chet and the world leaders all cried in unison. The top scientists huddled together, calculators and abaci in their hands, murmuring. After a long ten minutes, one red-faced scientist addressed the group. “There has been a grave miscalculation. The moon is 238,900 miles from Earth. Chet is traveling at 660 miles per hour. So the 360 hours, or 15 days it has taken him to fly that distance, had delivered Chet to his destination during the new moon phase.” “What does that mean?” asked the general. “Chet will pass through the crescent without making contact with the moon. In other words, it is time to try Plan B, getting the cows to produce more milk.”

 

As General Flag, the world leaders, and the top scientists quietly exited the ground control room, Chet Armstrong, Heroic Space Jock, loudly screamed as his rocket ship passed through the center of the crescent moon and hurled deeper into space.

When I was a kid, there was a family down the street with three small children. The parents had a fairly ugly breakup, and the mom ran off with her new boyfriend. Every single time she dropped the kids off at the dad’s house for visitation, the dropoff devolved into a screaming match in their front yard.

One day she shows up to drop off the kids with her boyfriend. Boyfriend and dad get into a shouting match, and the boyfriend punched the dad, laying him out on the front lawn. The boyfriend and mom then jumped in their car and took off.

A moment later, the dad came to, hopped in his pickup truck, and floored it out of his driveway in pursuit. Not sure what he was planning to do, but he wasn’t going to let them get away.

He didn’t realize that his three children were standing behind the pickup when he threw it into reverse and floored it. All three were killed, and the witnesses said it was incredibly gory because two of them were sucked under the spinning truck tires.

He spent a decade in prison and lost everything he had. Worst part is, all of the stories that came out said that he’d been a great dad and wasn’t at fault in the breakup. Mom had got herself hooked on drugs while trying to “lose weight”, and the boyfriend was her new dealer. He was a good guy who got stuck in a shitty situation and then made one horrific mistake.

The first Grade Girl

When I was 20 I used to see this little girl about 6 or 7 waiting for the bus or walking to the store about 100 ft from her house. Sometimes she would walk on the road instead of the sandy shoulder and cars would go around her.

A guy who I vaguely knew but a nice guy about 26 forgot how far the mirrors on his delivery truck stuck out and hit and killed her one day with a mirror. It was awful. I came through there after it happened with the road blocked off. I realized it could have been me who hit her as I passed her often but I did give her plenty of room and slowed way down.

It ruined him. He donated his life savings , sold everything he had, and gave it all to her family. I heard that he never had a good day the three years until he killed himself. It was a careless accident, he would have never hurt a child on purpose. I couldnt pass that house for years without thinking about both of them and what a tragic thing for everyone. I mostly blame her parents. She was too little to be walking by a narrow busy road alone and she didnt respect the traffic enough to stay off the pavement. It was a wide sandy shoulder.

The story of the cheating wife

I think that my ex fiancé did. She decided to cheat on me when I was overseas in combat for a year. She figured there was no way I would find out. What she did not know was that the guy she cheated with was bragging to my best friend who wrote to me. As a result I broke up with her. I ended up meeting my wife of 47 years and having a very successful career.

My ex fiancé got hooked on drugs by the guy she was dating, joined a hippie commune where she was on drugs all the time and got pregnant by one of the guys in the commune. She does not know who. She was supposed to become a lawyer, but between the drugs and lifestyle, she could not do it and ended up learning a foreign language and becoming a translator. A job she found boring and quit. She also sees angels and legally changed her last name to the one they told her to use. Her angels also allowed her to tell fortunes over the phone. She became a masseuse and a nurse, never staying in one job for long.

She was diagnosed as bipolar and could not support herself so she found a foreign guy who needed a green card and married him, just like her sister did. She needed someone to support her and her son. When she told me this, she was proud of the fact that she got her husband to pay for her son’s college tuition and then divorced him after his last tuition check cleared. She was cheating on him with a woman who she is married to.

She also told me that she is an avid anti-capitalist which is the opposite of me. She also is extremely morbidly obese. Her life was a mess. The funny part is that her mother said I was not good enough for her daughter. She was against us getting married because I went into the Army instead of college. Turns out that it was her daughter who did not amount to much and I was the successful one who could have given her daughter a very comfortable lifestyle.

So, my exe’s decision to cheat on me drastically altered her life, for the worst.

I had a stalker. It was someone I’d been dating until I realized he had a rage problem. I lived in the country with my two small children, in a very old house with no locks on the doors. In fact, there was no way to lock the double French doors that served as the main entrance, and even if I could have put a lock on the doors, my stalker could simply break one of the many panes of glass and unlock it.

I couldn’t afford to move and had no relatives to take me in, so I was at his mercy. I woke up one morning to discover he had been in the house. Sometimes he’d leave a rose under my windshield wiper. One night I saw him watching me, parked in the parking lot of a closed industrial building that was visible from my bedroom window. Finally, one of our mutual friends told me he was planning to kill me.

I called the cops. An officer came to the house and I told him everything. He asked me if I had any witnesses. I looked around at my isolated house and said, “What do you think?”

He said, “Well ma’am, we can’t do anything until he actually commits a crime.” I replied, “If he comes here intent on committing a crime, I’ll be dead. It’ll be too late to call the cops by then.”

The cop said, “Well ma’am, if there are no witnesses, there’s no crime.”

“So that’s it?? I’m just a sitting duck here and you can’t do anything?”

“Like I said, if there are no witnesses, there’s…no…crime.”

Suddenly the light dawned. I arched an eyebrow at the cop. “No witnesses, no crime, huh?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Thank you, officer. You’ve been very helpful.”

As it turned out, I never needed to call the cops again because my stalker just…disappeared. Funny, that.

Hamburger Upside-Down Casserole

Prepare the day before serving.

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Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups (3/4 pound) elbow macaroni
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup minced onion
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 1 pound ground chuck
  • 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 (8 ounce) package Cheddar cheese, grated
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 or 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen asparagus

Instructions

  1. Cook macaroni and drain.
  2. Meanwhile in a hot skillet, melt butter. Sauté onion and garlic until tender.
  3. Add ground beef. Cook, stirring constantly, until brown.
  4. Stir in tomato sauce, salt, pepper and oregano. Simmer a few minutes.
  5. Spread over bottom of 2 quart casserole.
  6. Toss drained, cooked macaroni with grated Cheddar cheese.
  7. Arrange on top of meat andtomato mixture in casserole, packing it down.
  8. Combine beaten eggs and milk; pour over macaroni.
  9. Cover casserole with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until next day.
  10. About 2 hours before serving, heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  11. Let casserole stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
  12. Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until macaroni is golden brown and custard is set.
  13. When done, remove from oven. Loosen from around edge with spatula and carefully unmold onto serving platter.
  14. Meanwhile, cook asparagus and arrange around casserole to serve.

In prison we worked a bit less than 7 hours a day starting after the 9 AM count and finishing by 3:45 to allow us time to return to our cells before afternoon count. After a few months of grunt work I kinda got recruited for a job repairing computers. Mostly hardware stuff like upgrading hard drives, CPU’s, RAM, DVD drives, stuff like that.

The prison would sell them on Ebay mostly but we started to get orders from other government entities not long before I left. Since the work was considered skilled, it carried a premium pay, like .45 cents an hour.

We we’re some of the highest paid in the prison, like triple many other inmates. I never mentioned it, there is always a risk of someone wanting to “share” your money.

We were paid weakly. Very Weakly I might add. Haha. Weekly on Friday’s we had our pay put on our books. There was no paycheck, you never got money. There was only 1 place to spend it, at the commissary. It always amazed me how difficult it was to save inside. Hygiene, food and writing supplies ate up much of your paltry earnings. The only other way you could access your funds was to get out. When you finally got out, you would be given the balance of your funds as you walked out the door.

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main qimg 22440fd7e9a61aeb01a6614e1a7280a7 lq

For many, many guys that was how they were going to start their lives over. With a small amount of cash, no where to go and nowhere to stay that night and no idea of what to do. Makes for a rough start in the free world.

Mrs Schlen of the Syracuse Department of Welfare

Boy did I ever!

Unknown number: I am f**king done with him.

Me: Ok. Why? What happened?

Mystery person: Sheila saw him with his ex again!

Me: It could be innocent?

MP: At a motel.

Me: Oh shit! Is she sure?

MP: Yes. She sent me photos.

Me: What are you going to do?

MP: I don’t know. I can’t keep letting him hurt me. I deserve better.

Me: Of course you do.

MP: You really think so?

Me: Yes. Not only do I think so, I know that if you look around there are several new guys waiting in the wings for you.

MP: Really, who?

Me: Take your pick. But choose someone who isn’t going to be an asshole, this time.

MP: You’re a good friend.

Me: That’s my job.

My New Best Friend: Can you hang out now?

Me: Are you finally breaking up with this asshole?

MNBF: Yes. I am moving out. He can’t convince me to change my mind.

Me: Well, I’m working on something, but I can put it down for you. Pack an overnight bag and come over. But, let’s not talk about him anymore tonight, Just show me the bag and I will know you’re serious. Then we can hang out or do whatever makes you happy. Ok?

MNBF: I love you, you know that.

Me: Of course you do 😉

MNBFF: Ok, I am packing my stuff and coming over.

And that was it until the next day, when I received this text:

MNBFF: Who is this?

I didn’t respond, but I think he/she knew. This is your guardian angel, Unknown Caller. You’re welcome.

Back in my community college days many years ago, I was studying Nursing and took a Psychology class with a professor who changed my entire thought process on what major I wanted. Dr Marino was an extraordinary man and the way he taught changed my major to Psychology. I took many classes with him and learned so much from him. We would sit before and after class talking about many topics and he was just overall a solid professor who loved to teach his students. Fast forward many years later, I took a left turn, dropped out from schooling, got married, bought a house, and had two kids. I was living in a quiet neighborhood when one day I opened my curtains to see a car idling across the street. It was odd, as usually only people who lived on my street came down it. I focused in on the driver and it was unmistakably Dr Marino!! He even turned to smile at me and waved. I ran into my bedroom to grab shoes, and as I walked outside, the car drove off. I tried to wave my hands, but he was gone. I immediately went inside to try to turn to social media to find him and say I just saw you and tried to run after you to say hello! Instead of finding his profile, I found his obituary. He had died a few days prior to this event. I know without a single doubt that it was Dr Marino. I think he was coming to say goodbye and encourage me to get back into school. I eventually got back in school for Social Work and will graduate in May. To Dr Marino I owe so much to. I’d like to think I’m even making him proud.

REVEALED: Secret Nuclear Strategy!

Jesus!

In grad school I was one of several teaching assistants assigned to proctor the freshman calculus final exam. Because all students took the same test it was given in the gymnasium, a lot like this photo except that the portable desks were somewhat less like punishment devices.

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main qimg beccba76947076f766059b9de6c3444a pjlq

Our main job was to walk around the gym looking for anything unexpected.

Partway through the exam we were waved over to one desk where a student was standing up and a couple of TA’s were examining his calc book. The books all had bright red back covers, a bit like this:

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main qimg 6dbf0f0e7cc81c89b72b73a055955a90 pjlq

The enterprising student had used a matching shade of red marker to fill the cover with all sorts of tips and formulae that students were expected to have memorized*. Viewed from most angles the marker was effectively invisible – but orient the book “just so”, and everything came into view.

He probably never would have been caught except for one of the TAs who was curious why he hadn’t stored the book under his desk like most other students had done.

(*) To this day I never understood why the university expected students to memorize complex formulas like trigonometric identities and so forth. I felt we should have been testing whether they understood HOW to use the formulas rather than how many gray cells could be filled with what cos(4𝛳) expands to.

My hotel room lock was unlatched at 3am, and a shadowed figure began entering while I was sleeping (mostly alone) in bed. I had about 3 seconds of hallway light before that door closed, and I was left in pitch black (probably to be raped or murdered.)

Luckily for me, my 38 snub-nosed revolver was within arm’s reach on my nightstand keepingvme company! I had brought it into the hotel with me, so I didn’t tempt a thief by breaking into my truck to steal it. At home, I always sleep with it on my nightstand at arm’s reach, so did the same at the hotel. That night my firearm saved my life! All I had to do was pick it up & point it at the guy for ONE SECOND. Make no mistake, I’d have shot him in his chest had he taken another step forward. However; simply showing my little friend was enough to get him contort himself trying to get away fast enough. It was like the movie the matrix where they’re going backwards in mid air.

When the police arrived I was told the security cameras were all off/not working, so this was likely an inside job. The front desk attendant had previously asked multiple times if I was staying alone, which now made sense!

The police thanked me for protecting myself so they didn’t have to get called to a rape, kidnapping or murder instead. No word on the perpetrator. He never got caught, but he certainly knows now that not everyone will be an easy victim.

Suddenly life has turned upside down.

Back in December 2021, my mother suddenly lost a lot of weight. We took her for many general checkups in different hospitals and the only thing that came out is that she has iron deficiency anemia.

We were concerned but it felt fine as nothing came serious.

We continued her treatment in the AIIMS hospital, her blood count started improving but she was getting weaker and weaker.

Doctors said she will be fine but we couldn’t wait and on February 2022 we took her to vishakhapatnam.

We just wanted to make sure if that’s the only problem she has or there is something else as she is getting weaker and weaker.

We are four members in the family me, my mother, my father and my elder brother.

My brother stayed at home due to urgent reasons, me, my father and mother took off for vishakhapatnam.

After several checkups as I sat in front of the doctor, he said my mother has an impression of gall bladder carcinoma.

My father due to the language barrier and not knowing English couldn’t understand what the doctor just said.

I was shook i didn’t know how to react or say. I looked at my father and said everything’s okay as I had no courage to break this thing in front of him alone. My brother had the plan of arriving two days after us.

I waited and kept it to myself and said everybody that doctor has found the disease and everything will be fine.

The doctor we met was a junior doctor and so he couldn’t give us much comments. Now the senior doctor we had to meet was available two days later.

So for this two worst days of my life I kept it to myself. Whenever I looked at my mother I wanted to fight with god so bad I wanted to cry out loud I wanted to scream but I couldn’t.

Looking at my father and mother kept me shuddered. Those innocent faces oh my god.

The doctor asked us to go for CT scan and I can’t tell you the amount of weight I was holding to myself seeing my mother weak and going through that scan and tests.

Two days later my brother arrived and I told him about the carcinoma. He fell on his knees I had never seen my brother so helpless and weak.

Picking up ourselves we went to our father and very calmly told him about the cancer. He was shook and divastated he started crying badly. Me and my brother handled him and made him understand that everything will be fine.

We stayed in vishakhapatnam till march.

Going through all this I got supplementary in my exam. I didn’t want to tell anybody about it, also I didn’t really have anybody to tell.

We stayed in vishakhapatnam for the entire march month for the tests, treatment and 1st chemo.

On 1st week of April I had my supplementary exams, I stay away from my hometown for studies so I had to go to my college to give my exams. And I can’t tell you how tough it was for me to leave my people at this situation.

We didn’t tell my mother about the cancer, we haven’t till now as we know how weak hearted and sensitive she is. Doctor told her that she is having some infection in her gall bladder and for that they will give her with intravenous administration of medicine thats it.

It has been 4 months she is going through her 6th chemo cycle. And by god’s grace she is doing better.

But that whole situation of doctor telling me and me seeing my mother going through tests as I was the only one allowed beside my mother during her tests in that condition and me telling my father about all this, has stuck so bad in my mind that I am not able to get it out. Suddenly a word or a scenario comes in front of me and I am all shook and attacked by that whole situation.

I can’t tell this to my father and brother as they are being very courageous and strong dealing with this.

I have started going to college and there I have just nobody to tell that, “listen I am again getting this thought can you help me with it or can you just listen to me”. I have not bonded with anybody as i couldn’t attend the college much going through all this.

But luckily I have few childhood friends with whom I share this anxiety of mine.

I wanna stay with my mother but I can’t due to the attendance criteria. It’s really hard for me to go to the college and stay around people behaving everything is super fine. My eyes get teary every now and then.

I had lost 15kgs back in the year and now I have gained all that weight again and going through my contamination OCD as well.

I am trying really hard to keep myself together and be courageous but I just can’t.

I really want people to be kind to everybody around them, we have no idea what disaster the other person is facing. The least we could do to eachother is to provide love and kindness.

Classical Art

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Not a billionaire but a millionaire and it was no picnic. In fact, it was a real lesson in learning how so many people in the US of lesser means might have lived. Some of the things I mention might be familiar as I’ve wirtten about some of them before in other posts.

My dad died with a net worth of over three million dollars. Today, it doesn’t seem like much but it was pretty high net worth back in the 1960s and 1970s. When I was growing up, he owned his own company. It was the largest antenna installation company and electronics repair firm in our state and was very successful. His hobby was collecting and shooting firearms, so he also ran the largest gun store in our state. From the way we lived, one would never know it as dad was extremely frugal (an understatement) with his money.

Growing up, mom made most of my clothes, often from hand-me downs given to us by friends and relatives. When she started buying store-bought clothes, they came from places that were the equivalent of a modern Walmart. Never saw a designer label. In fact, the only thing that saved me from ridicule was the fact that our school required uniforms. (Our coats and shoes, though, were cheap and out of style and the other kids did ridicule us for that and, of course, non of these items came from designers.)

For most of my growing years, we ate frugally…poorest cuts of meat (if there was meat) and meals that many poorer families would typically eat such as chick peas and pasta, macaroni and beans, escarole and beans, creamed tuna fish on toast, and the like. If we had meat for school lunches, it was one single slice of stuff like baloney between two pieces of American bread. Often, lunches were comprised of leftovers. When I turned twenty one, I weighed a whopping 132 pounds at six feet tall. (My wife actually saw me as undernourished and went on an all out campaign to bulk me up!)

Our house was literally falling down around us. The back brick corner near the steps had pulled away, creating a four inch gap. The roof leaked so badly mom had to put out five gallon buckets in a rain storm to catch the water. The plaster was falling off ceilings and the house was never updated at all. I could never invite friends over as a was ashamed to bring them into that house, especially after seeing the well-kept, albeit, modest homes they lived in.

We had a rodent problem, specifically rats, that was never addressed. One of my chores was to bait, set and empty the traps. We had a cesspool that had to service a family of six…no septic system, no sewers. When the cesspool waste got too high or would clog (this happened frequently), he would lower me (wearing waders) into it with a shovel rather than hire a company to pump it out. He would then lower down buckets which I would fill and he would discard in the woods behind outer house. The old cast iron waste pipes in the basement frequently leaked. His “solution” was to patch them rather than replace them. When they clogged one time, he instructed me to open an access plug and drain the waste into five gallon buckets. I did and I got smacked with a high pressure stream of waste directly in my chest. It’s amazing I never got hepatitis!

Mom had a washer but no dryer. We would be hanging clothes outside to dry, winter and summer. Sometimes a change in weather caused them to freeze on the clothesline and we had to carry them in, stiff like boards. If the washer broke down (and it did frequently), my mom was forced to make trips to a laundromat to get them washed and dried. Finally, it died completely and it took dad three years to finally buy a new one. She used the laundromat during all that time.

Our car was eight years old, unreliable and so rusty there were holes in the floorpan. Dad liked to run his vehicles “into the ground”. Only at that point would he replace them. Our driveway was filled with half ton vans from the business that had died but he would not pay to have them hauled away. Eventually, a neighbor registered a complaint with the town who forced him to get them hauled away.

When I bought my first car with my own money I earned from installing rooftop tv antennas part time for dad’s company starting at about fourteen years of age. Even so, he dictated what I was allowed to buy. He insisted it have an automatic transmission (which cost me two hundred dollars more) so my mom could use it. He did this to avoid having to buy his wife her own car; yet, I had to pay for the gas, maintenance, insurance, etc. He didn’t offer to help out at all. When he drove it and blew a brand new tire, he changed it and told me I needed to buy a replacement.

On the other end of the spectrum, Christmases were good. Mom would often sneak some treats into our lunches. We went on a one week vacation via automobile every year and a lot of family excursions on the weekends. We ate out at inexpensive restaurants at least once a month. He also paid for our state college educations though, in all fairness, tuition was pretty cheap at under $300 per semester.

There was so much more and, as I remember other things, I will keep updating this post but I think you readers have the general idea. I may be accused of making some of this up, but I swear it’s all true. I don’t look back with especially fond memories of my childhood. Of course, we didn’t know any better growing up but, as an adult, I sure learned what NOT to do with my family! In fact, this past Father’s Day, my oldest son paid me the highest compliment I’ve ever received when he wrote me a note in a card that said I really taught him the importance of family and set an example of how to raise children.

The real kicker, though, was that after his death, he left his entire fortune to his second wife of less than two years. None of his four sons saw a single cent!

When a Dad Realizes His Son is a Psychopath

https://youtu.be/nInpsReK8Sk

Cyberbullying? I switch off.

Or I simply mock them more with strongly evidence comments. Right now there’s some british person who can’t do maths who thinks he knows everything, since he can’t actually argue against me he has decided to use racism and personal attacks against me.

But here’s the thing, you have to realise a LOT (I didn’t say all) of westerners are like this:

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main qimg ee2b733162301503f43d7e4064d7b02c

Wussat? That;s the Goa’uld from Stargate.

Here’s what the stargate wiki says

Doesn’t that sound like a lot of westerners?

The end bit is pertinent, these types thing they are right about everything and if you call them out, post counter evidence they’ll be like the Goa’uld in Stargate.

HOW DARE YOU TALK AGAINST A GOD! I know everything!

A few weeks ago there was a discussion with Duncan

He said I know for a FACT Russia is incapable of manufacturing anything! Bear in mind Duncan isn’t uneducated, he’s some sort of nuclear engineer. He spoke with absolute confidence.

So? I called him out on I asked him how do you know.

He just said he knew… implying he had some sort of omniscient powers.

I then asked him what colour the mug was on my desk, at which he said he didn’t know. So he went through some Olympic level mental gymnastics about how he knew everything but couldn’t see the colour of my mug on my desk.

Duncan doesn’t like me very much because I called out his omniscient god like powers. I frequently do this by challenging western KNOW IT ALLs to give me the lottery numbers. They seem to fail at this with predictable regularity despite their omniscience.

Here’s the other thing, Duncan types aren’t exactly rare. Day after day I get I AM A GOD I KNOW EVERYTHING TYPES talk down to me about how they know everything that happens in China and they see everything that happens in China too or wherever.

And here’s the funny thing. I rarely block them because it allows them to bleat on about their GOD like powers on and on and humiliate themselves over and over, yet their god like powers don’t let them see this for some strange reason.

I’ve travelled to 20+ countries and I would not go back to India. This is unfortunate, because I really wanted to like India. Here’s why I won’t return:

  • DIRTY: Extremely dirty with garbage everywhere. Step outside a beautiful airport (India has built some nice infra in the last 5 years), and you’re in piss and shit.
  • CHEEK TO JOWL CROWDED: Crushingly and oppressively crowded and noisy with constant honking and yelling, (and barking by stray dogs).
  • SCAMS: A million scams; fake certificates, fake scamming callcenters, fake police, adulterated food, you name a scam, it’s here.
  • ANIMAL CRUELTY: Poor treatment of animals and nature. It’s upsetting to see people beat cows and stone stray dogs.
India’s 5 million stray cows are sacred—and a growing nuisance
In India, wayward cattle are trampling crops, spreading disease, and causing car accidents. They’re also venerated.
  • POLLUTION & BAD AIR: Unbreathable, filthy air in most big cities and filthy rivers: an environmental disaster. Here’s a listing of the most polluted cities in the world, most are in India:
  • MONUMENT DECAY: Not much to see: the monuments have a million hanger ons that harass you, and much of the history has been destroyed by rabid overpopulation. Sad to see gorgeous forts, with bollywood film posters pasted on, looted, and with and shoddy quality modern repairs.
  • THE STARING: The constant staring; indians openly gape at white people and foreigners. Women report being followed and “eve-teased” an uniquely indian form of sexual harassment. If staring was a olympic sport, India would win all the medals.
  • TREATMENT OF WOMEN: Extremely patriarchal society that mistreats women. Hardly any women work outside the house except in big urban centers.
  • COLORISM & INFATUATION WITH THE WEST: A country that lacks self confidence and self esteem; a mindless aping of the west and a desire to be white (what indians call “light skinned”). Dark skin and traditional indian looks are disliked instead of admired..this is likely a colonial hangup. Advertising billboard have whitened faces, selling in a brown country..an odd malapropism.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/detergent-in-milk-dish-wash-liquid-in-candy-horror-stories-of-food-adulteration-in-india-go-viral-12752746.html

A lot of Indians will lie and say India is great, but you only have to walk outside a US embassy (or any developed country embassy) to see hordes of people a mile long, desperately trying to get out. A pity, because this was likely a beautiful country centuries ago. A small % of rich live well, and a middle class (30%) manages, for the poor it’s a abject, brutish life.

The West never ever plundered China

They sold Opium and took advantage of the Chinese addiction but they never actually colonized China like they did to India or Sri Lanka or other places in Africa

They mainly TRADED with China

They didn’t steal the tea did they?

They purchased Silk and Tea from the Cohong merchants and in exchange paid them with Silver and later Opium

When their trade was threatened, they fought and bested the Emperor and got a few gains including HK

Yet the West never actually owned Chinese mines or lands themselves

They settled down in Cities and built factories and warehouses in places like Canton, Shanghai, Hongkong, Whampoa etc

The West never plundered China or Japan or Korea like they plundered India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or even Malaya

This was 1850s

Imagine 2024

They will be crunched like a cola can

How to Escape the UK RIGHT NOW

One thing, I must declare, is that the Chinese may not be what you think. The peace-loving Communist Party, and the Chinese are one of the bound in this regard.

The Communist Party is the conservative party of China, and the biggest hawk in China is in the people, and this is no joke.

In the 19th century, there was no ban on firearms in China.

In 1993, a large-scale gun battle took place between two villages in Hunan, in which 5,000 people participated and lasted 34 hours. There are even earth cannons, broadswords, mines.

Encyclopedias published in China in the 1970s on how to use and make grenades, firearms, electricians, machine repair, how to fight bayonets, how to attack airplanes with anti-aircraft guns.

You see that the Chinese love peace today, and that is all under the control of the Communist Party.

You should thank the Communist Party of China for its love of peace.

Shorpy

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This is quite topical, because a highly controversial cop-killing incident happened in China recently.

A 16-year old girl declared she was suicidal. She then jumped into a river, but could not drown because she’s a good swimmer. A People’s Police officer passing by jumped into the water to fish her out. However, every time she was brought back ashore, she jumped back into the river immediately, and the cop had to dive after her.

This process went on for several minutes until the cop (who couldn’t swim) was absolutely fatigued. A bystander tossed a rope into the water so that the cop could grab it. However, at that moment, the girl deliberately swam towards the cop, pushed him away from the rope, and the cop drowned to death soon afterwards.

Why did the girl do it, you ask?

Only she would know. Some people, when they feel suicidal, are known to have this urge to “take a few others with them”. Or perhaps she was never truly suicidal in the first place, only putting on a dramatic display to seek attention, and was spiteful towards her “rescuer” for ruining her show.

What we do know is that she was doxed, and hackers alleged that she’s part of a feminist movement on Xiaohongshu (the Chinese equivalent of Pinterest), a highly successful app notorious for its misandrist tendencies. One post in particular (see screenshot below) is believed to have been viewed, “hearted” or shared by her account:

Translated to English, it says,

“Can some men please just die already?! Let me teach you a way to kill males. Find somewhere crowded, jump into a river and pretend you want to drown yourself. Worthless males are usually inclined to save you. That is when you hold his head down in the water, and claim you weren’t mentally stable when you fell into the river.”

This post was from three years ago, and has been “favourited” over 30,000 times as of this moment. The post is still active and hasn’t been censored.

Li Xie (李燮, 1985~2024), the Chinese cop who drowned, was only recently given accolades for his dedicated service, and he now leaves behind a loving wife and two kindergarten-aged children.

We know for a fact that in America, cop-killers usually aren’t let off the hook so easily. Even if they weren’t shot 100 times by other cops on the spot, they’d be “taken care of” in prison. So surely in the “police state” that is the People’s Republic of China, the girl was immediately arrested and executed by the authorities, correct?

Nope. She walks free. There are no charges against her. The authorities specifically requested the public not to “cyberbully” her.

This whole incident proves several things:

  1. The idea that China is a “police state” is demonstrably false. An actual police state would never tolerate a cop-killer. More importantly, policemen in an actual police state would never sacrifice their lives to save a civilian.
  2. The narrative that China is a “totalitarian dystopia” where no freedom of speech exists is likewise, demonstrably false. An actual totalitarian dystopia would never allow grassroots/foreign-sponsored activist groups (such as neoliberal feminists in China’s case) to evolve to a state where they are openly calling for the extermination of other people, put those words into action, and grow to such an extent that their ideology is challenging the state’s ideology (Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in China’s case).
  3. The conception of China being a “sexist/misogynistic” hellhole, as is often depicted by western media, is demonstrably false. If any sexism exists, it is towards men. Seriously, name another country where feminists can get off Scott free for killing males – not just any male, but an enforcer of the law.

I’ve been saying this since the Chinese feminists metoo’d the CCTV host Zhu Jun – the problem isn’t that China is too “Communist”, the problem is that it isn’t Communist enough.

Liberal democracy has been an utter shitshow in almost every country where it has been implemented. And given what its adherents have been doing in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of the Sinosphere, there is no reason to believe the system would work any better in China.

I have a friend who is an excellent negotiator when buying large items, cars, boats, houses… he will just wear you down, wait you out, and out last you. This story was about a boat he found at the boat show in Dallas Texas. Him and his wife, they are lake people, retired, has money (sold a business) and live a very nice life.

They find this Sea Ray, 32 footer at the show. And you know the dealer would rather sell the boat there rather than take it back. So my friend gets them all hot and bothered about selling this boat… they are selling, selling, and selling and he’s is the perfect buyer… lives on the lake, has a dedicated slip, has the cash, loves boats, husband and wife are together… they are closing hard. Let’s say this is March in Dallas.

They are talking price and terms and delivery and you have to know the salesman thinks he a commission in hand. He is closing hard. My friend, let’s call him Bob, will let that sales man go as far as he can go, then ask “is this the best you can do?” and “is there anyone else we need to get involved here?”. Then its the next man up. The general manager. Test drive after test drive. Try out the 42 footer, and the 28 footer. There is a used one, then there is a different brand… and Bob will work this guy as long as he can and ask…. “is this the best that you can do?” and “is there someone else we need to get involved here?” Now the dealer is on the clock. Bob will call about a newer model, last years model, this upgrade, that package… they have quoted him 4000 times. Bob knows the receptionist and the secretary by name, the “is this the best you can do?” and “Do we need to get anyone else involved here?” are relentless and he’s been told many times “this is it. it’s my call!” Until the manufacturer gets on board. We have this model, we have a demo, we have a boat show special, we can presale a next years model, and it just goes on and on and on, another boat show comes and goes. Bob has an office at the dealership, they share birthdays and anniversaries. He just wears them down… the conversation turns to “what do we have to do to get you to purchase the damn boat???” He answer “Is the absolutely the best that you can do on this? is there anyone else we need to get involved here?” The banker calls and says “we have a repo that is the same year, same model and same size, same package with very low hours on it.” and that’s the last thing the dealer wants to here.

By now the local boat dealer is almost out of it, would like to move the boat, there is no margin left in the offer… And Bob is still asking “is this the best you can do?” “do we need to get someone else involved?”

And finally, 18 months later, the boat has been sitting in dry dock, the dealership has wasted so many man hours with Bob, they have hired to CSR’s to deal with Bob. So many try it before you buy it deals. They strike a deal that Bob is happy about. They are basically begging Bob to take the boat, Yes, its full of gas, Yes, its a new battery, Yes, to new bumpers and ropes, Yes to a new Bimini top, Yes, we will delivery it for free… please take it, Go!

“Are you sure this is the best you can do? “Do we need to get someone else involved?”

An often slept upon part of history is the Warlord Era of China, just a hundred years ago China was made up of a bunch of warring states. This produced many wacky leaders, but none come close to the insanity of this man.

Zhang Zongchang

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main qimg bc9dc2d15a20acce240fc3c46d95b9ae lq

Zhang Zongchang was a warlord for the Fengtian clique in the Shangdong region of Northeast China. He proved to be a capable leader and fighter, utilizing armored cars and White Russian Mercenaries fleeing from the war. He was also one of the first people to use women in his army. In 1925 he captured both Shangai and Nanking. However this one of the few normal things about him.

Let’s start with some of the nicknames he got

  • Old Eighty-Six (believed to be named after his penis, which was 86 coins tall)
  • Dogmeat General (named after his affinity for paijiu , a game popularly known as “eating dog meat.)
  • 72 Cannon Chang (we’ll get into this one later)
  • Three Don’t Knows (didn’t know how big his treasury was, his army, and his harem)

Now you are a sense of his character, let’s go over some of the crazy stuff he did

  • He once promised to return victorious or a coffin from a battle. Since he lost the battle, he returned by parade in a coffin while smoking a cigar
  • Zhang refused to drink any water except from a minor tributary of the Jinan River. He preferred to drink the water directly from the stream, often excusing himself from dinner to go drink from the stream
  • In the later years of his life he lived in Japan, where he shot the Emperor’s Cousin in 1929. It was ruled an accident but it was likely intentional as allegedly, the cousin was flirting with one of his concubines.
  • By far the craziest thing he did was during a famine in Shangdong. Many locals were at the Temple of Zhang Xian praying to a statue for rain. Upon arriving to the temple, Zhang decided to slap the statue and yell “f*ck your sister! How dare you make Shandong’s people suffer by not giving us rain” The next day he ordered his artillery to shoot at the sky in retaliation. It rained the next day, grant him the nickname 72 Cannon Chang.

On another note he also wrote poetry and it’s what you’d expect from a man like him.

“Poem about bastards”

You tell me to do this,
He tells me to do that.
You’re all bastards,
Go fuck your mother.

“Visiting Mount Tai”

From afar, Mount Tai looks blackish,
Narrow on top and wide at the bottom.
If you flipped it upside down,
It would be narrow at the bottom and wide on top.

Edit this blew up so I’ll give you another bonus fact:

  • After seeing a basketball game for the first time, he allegedly asked “Why the hell are they fighting over a single ball? We’re the hosts. Are we seriously this poor?” He ordered all the players be given a basketball.

Date three, back at my flat, for ‘coffee’. Just so you know, if we invite you in for tea, that’s a whole different ballgame involving kettles, teapots and China mugs, but I digress.

He starts off nervously: “you know how I said I was on medication for epilepsy?”

“Yeeeeees…”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly true.” Proceeds to unpack a cornucopia of little yellow and brown bottles from his rucksack.

“Right, no problem. Um, do you mind if I ask what’s wrong with you?”

“Well, I used to do a lot of drugs and had a kind of psychotic breakdown a few years ago. Hearing voices and cracking up. I was hospitalised for a few months.”

Gulp. He is a big fella, all muscles and tattoos.

“Right, so these days….”

“Yes well they can’t decide if it’s schizophrenia or just manic depression. The problem is knowing if I should do what the voices say.”

Did I tell anyone I was inviting him over?

“Have you ever hurt anyone because of the voices?”

“Um….only myself. And one or two other people. I don’t remember very well but I never went to prison, just the hospital. There are a few years that are pretty hazy.”

Slowly getting up, moving to the kitchen, acting calm and natural.

“Do you think maybe we could meet another time? I’m pretty tired and my family is coming to visit tomorrow.” (Complete fabrication).

He packed all his medicine bottles back in his rucksack, but before leaving asked if he could send me some of his short stories.

Of course. I’d be honoured.

We stayed in touch by email and he sent me some extremely disturbing prose centring on faeces, menstrual blood and what a useless, untalented writing teacher he had.

I felt compassion for him, but was relieved when he left my flat.

Poor guy.

Breaking | China Just Picked a Side

Food yummy Porn

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I was flying out of Orlando. The flight was delayed due to weather in Atlanta affecting incoming flights. The gate agents were busy shuffling people around to get everyone rebooked. Needless to say, many of us were in a foul mood, but trying to make the best of a bad situation.

We finally board. Most of us would miss our connections, but we’re all just ready to go. Earbuds go in and we wait for take off. Nobody is talking.

Once airborne, the captain made an announcement. We would be able to see the Space Shuttle launching in a few minutes, but only from the right side windows of the plane. Everyone on my side looked towards the other side. Those folks would be able to see it. Not us.

Sure enough, in a few minutes there were oohs and ahhs from the lucky passengers. Then without a word, as if it were coordinated, people started getting up and gesturing for us to look out their windows. We all got up and squeezed past each other to get a glimpse of the shuttle.

To be honest, it wasn’t that exciting. It was a huge white tail going directly away from the earth. It was completely perpendicular. What made it amazing, however, was the spontaneous sharing of the view. Tired, irritated people got out of their seats to share. In all probability, none of us would ever see the shuttle from a plane again, and I was grateful for the opportunity.

Then we all awkwardly returned to our rightful seats. Some people started chatting, others returned to their earbuds, but everyone was smiling. What started out as a crummy situation suddenly became a memorable adventure, all because people shared something.

Not me but a co worker I once had , he was a labour for bricklayers, he was a nice enough guy good worker if you could get him to concentrate for more than 30 seconds at a time ,and to be fair old mate was dumb as a rock and he was a danger to him self and others but he had a great sence of humour witch saved him a lot. this one day he came in and I’d say he had one to many breakfast bongs, every thing was going wrong and the brickies let him know about it too, then one of the brickies said to him “your as useless as a screen door on a submarine, might be time to get off the weed bro”, talk about the straw that broke the camels back, old mate flipped it he walked off around the house crying, then came back, and for no reason picked up a trowel off a motar board ,told the boss to go fuck him self and through the trowel over the neighbours fence. so old mate gets his lunch bag and starts to walk off the site, the boss walks down and says come back and we’ll discuss this , old mate middle of the day turns around at the top of his voice in the middle of the street screems “stick your f$#ken job up your ass!! ” and then for some reason through his lunch bag onto the next-door neighbours garage roof, and walked off down the street , we never heard from him again. Lunch that day on the job was a quite one

Older, maybe obsolete. But IMPORTANT.

The story of Tommy and Derp

They couldn’t care less about western media.

I visited China often on business, in April 2024, I was in Shandong China, as I watch the people coming and going about their daily life and business, I realized 99% of people don’t have anything to do with foreign countries or U.S., they really absolutely don’t care what U.S. think or say about them. 99.9% of people don’t make things to sell to US, they don’t buy American things, America has absolutely nothing to do with them, their jobs or their lives.

The neighbor is keeping a cat in the hallway

Star Oddity

Submitted into Contest #247 in response to: Set your story on a spaceship exploring the far reaches of space when something goes wrong. view prompt

♡ Tana ♡

Somewhere during our second year in space, we started talking about astrology. One might think that flying past countless stars each waking minute would make us wonder at our own heavenly correlations, but we were too busy being proper astronauts to think about anything except propulsion and coordinates.National Geographic had run a special on us before we left, on New Year’s Day, 2086. Star Light, Star Bright, Guide our Travelers Tonight, the headline read. It was not an overall hopeful piece, since most people assumed we would die. This fact alone split the population into those who admired our bravery, those who hated us because they were sure we were wasting the precious gift of our lives, and those who were bored enough to keep one eye on our story while the other went about their far more practical and productive lives.In the special, Aaron Gamble, head physicist at NASA, explained the invention of our craft.“Bowie is the first spaceship that has the ability to travel faster than the speed of light. Of course, we have been able to send satellites into space at 186,000 miles per second for nearly a decade now, but there has been no question of moving quicker than that, and no faintest rumor that a human being could survive the ride. Now, the question has an answer and the rumor is true right in front of us. Six of NASA’s courageous astronauts will climb aboard Bowie, and in approximately six years they will return with pictures of the stars. Maybe pictures of them on stars.”After Dr. Gamble’s speech, they had cut to a picture of the six of us, standing in our space suits with a green screen behind us making it look like we were perched on the curve of a star.After seeing the picture, most people began to wonder if, rather than us surviving the stars, we would even survive each other. A more inharmonious arrangement of adventurers would be hard pressed to find. Our small group ranged from our pilot, Bear, who had been born on a peace commune in Idaho and never lost his long hair, beads, or impressive beard, even when he replaced his linen for a spacesuit and his yurt for a switchboard and white sterile bunk.Cassidy landed on the opposite end of the spectrum, raised by a neurosurgeon and astrophysicist. Bear often joked that she must have come from the womb with a severe bun and figures on the tip of her tongue. It took six months on a tiny ship together for her to disclose that she had an identical twin sister who had died in an airplane crash five years ago. Even Bear had held back on the jokes after that.Handsome Ryan, petite Kylie, and quiet Terrance were all cut from the same serious, scientific mold, and without them Bowie would not have made it past the second day of her voyage.In the National Geographic picture I was directly in the middle, and beaming, a stark comparison matched closest by Bear’s confident half smile. I looked as though I couldn’t stand a single day longer on the Earth, like my head was already in the galaxies above. The caption credited me as the youngest NASA astronaut; at only 25, I barely qualified for this trip, and it was only Dr. Gamble’s desire to have an astronaut for each predicted year of our voyage that granted me permission to join the crew.Not many lined up for our position, to say the least. My mother sobbed the day before she left, and my younger sister wore solemn black to watch us take off. As we burned up through the ozone, I imagined them below, assuming that the bright flare of our rockets would be the last sign of me forever. The thought exhilarated me, and I imagined that in six years, they wouldn’t recognize me, not due to the years elapsed, but the sheer disbelief at my survival.My excitement and optimism made me the least popular on the ship for almost the first full year. Cassidy couldn’t understand my joy at the exhilarating recklessness of our carefully planned journey. She was a scientist, and there had been no emotion in her decision, just the calculation that she was the most qualified for this, her position in life held higher than her life itself. I tried to become close with her, since we were both the insomniacs on board.I would spend my sleepless nights staring at the footage of the untouched space we were flying through, like a yoyo set loose from its spool with disbelieving freedom. Cassidy on the other hand would spend her nights desperately calculating to determine that we were still on course, her knuckles white and her face illuminated by blue light. As she worked her brows would knit close and her mouth would form tighter and tighter slashes across the plain of her face. After six months and no star in sight, just the Hellish red of Mars burning on our cameras, she stopped her nightly calculations, and would just sit, looking straight ahead. 

I imagine that she was probably thinking about her sister, and imagining the way she died, the metal and heat and screams. I imagine she came to think she was destined to experience the same thing, that they came into the world together, and although they would leave separately, they would still go out in parallels

 

When I couldn’t connect with Cassidy, I tried mousy and unfailingly polite Kylie. Her initial kindness wore off quickly, partially due to my own error. I thought we were getting close, our mornings tediously checking power levels in each of the many batteries keeping us going had helped us form a tentative bond, quickly broken when I disconnected the gravity as a practical joke.

 

This incident, however uncomfortable, did form my first and only companionship aboard the Bowie. Bear found my prank hilarious, and he started sitting next to me in the morning when we all ate our freeze dried breakfast.

 

After I finished my morning camera observation shift, I would sit in the cockpit with Bear and watch his hands fly across display screens in front of me, faster even than Cassidy’s nighttime calculations. It awed me that his hands, average sized and slightly hairy at the knuckles, held us all in them. Without him, we would be nothing more than stardust, which was ironic, since even with him we didn’t feel the slightest whisper of stardust on our bow until nearly thirteen months in.

 

Bear wasn’t the most talkative person, but he enjoyed my presence, which was more I could say for any of my other companions. One afternoon, he admitted to me that he was having a hard time connecting to our shipmates as well.

 

“I’m not a scientist,” Bear had said, his flying hands suggesting otherwise, his doleful tone substantiating the claim. “I just like the idea of going places no one has been before.”

 

“In kindergarten,” I had replied, “I got in trouble because I pushed another kid off the slide because I wanted to be first. My teacher told my mom I would grow out of it, but clearly I haven’t.”

 

Bear had laughed, and my throat tightened with happiness. For the first time since being trapped in a tiny ship with five other human beings, I didn’t feel completely and despairingly alone.

 

That was the day we saw our first star.

 

It had been stoic Terrance on camera observation, and his unprecedented shout had startled Bear so much his hand hit something on the panel that made the entire ship shudder, like it too was shocked.

 

“Proxima centauri!” Terrence had shouted, and the words were God to us. Proxima centauri, the words we had thought every day since we first stepped foot on Bowie. The sign of our success that we had first hoped to see after two months, and then dreamed with growing desperation each day after we didn’t. Proxima centauri, the closest star to our home planet, a star that, just half a century before, would have taken us over six thousand years to reach.

 

On the camera, which grew fogged by our breath as we clustered over Terrence, the cardinal star seemed tiny, just a speck in the endless blackness we had grown so accustomed to watching for countless days now. As we stared, we watched the star grow larger and larger, until the blackness was only a sliver as thin as the nearly forgotten moon, seen in the opening days of an Earthly month. Cassidy’s hand found my arm and squeezed painfully tight, and I heard Kylie start to cry as we passed by, and the eternal night of space swallowed us once again.

 

Faintly, I heard Bear radioing NASA, I made out Dr. Gamble’s shout of delight, followed by Bear’s ever eloquent, “Fucking finally! I thought your ship was going to kill us before we saw a goddamn star.”

 

Ryan swept Kylie off her feet and Terrance kissed me on the mouth and Cassidy sat down in her bunk and sobbed. I was so happy, it felt like someone turned the gravity off in my chest, like my heart was bubbling into my throat.

 

I don’t think any of us really realized how terrified we were before we saw Proxima centauri. I think that’s our brain’s way of protecting ourselves, that we can’t fully understand the terrifying nature of a situation until we are on the other side.

 

Of course, we weren’t on the other side. We were a year into a mission and only just now reached a goal that we had been scheduled to meet at two months. Of course, in the moment that didn’t matter, all that did was that now we knew for sure that even if we never saw the blue of the ocean again, we had seen the unprecedented burn of a star.

 

“And they say that we were monkeys,” Ryan had roared, and we all dissolved into laughter, because in that moment we felt like the furthest thing from monkeys, we felt like Gods.

 

The second star never came. Based on our calculations, after reaching Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years from each, we should have come across Rigel Kentaurus only days later.

 

Rigel never came. After ten months, Dr. Gamble stopped radioing every day, instead he would check in once a week, and it was clear that was only out of obligation. We were told that the news still ran hopeful segments on us, but everyone knew the mission had ended.

 

Based on the force of our initial propulsion, it would still be three years before we would slow down enough to descend again. We stopped camera observation. Instead we played cards and used our precious oxygen to smoke weed that Bear had secretly brought aboard, and turned the gravity off. Upside down, higher than the space we careened through, Bear accused me of being the kind of girl who might like astrology.

 

His nose touching mine, I wondered what he really wanted to say, if Ryan wasn’t floating two feet away and Cassidy clutching her bunk in annoyance, only halfway believing herself that she was dismayed at our behavior.

 

“Absolutely not!” I shouted, then giggled because my voice was so loud. “We have literally seen a star, and it was most definitely nothing more than a hunk of rock.”

 

That was a lie and we all knew it. That star was the most beautiful thing we had all seen, and the only thing keeping us from true despair. It was the reason why one of us would still check the camera’s every night, frantically watch the footage from the day to see if we had missed something, never giving up completely.

 

“I believe in astrology,” Kylie said, and pushed herself towards the gravity panel, planted her palm on it and sent us to the floor. “I am an Aquarious.”

 

“What the hell does that even mean,” Bear said, righting himself, and moving towards the cockpit. We were on autopilot, no longer afraid of running headlong into an errant constellation, but Bear still kept up the pretense of his job.

 

“It means that I am emotional and sensitive and really honest,” she said, “And that I love the moon, I think.”

 

“Hold on,” I said, “You’re trying to convince me that we are who we are because of what star was a billion light years over our heads when we were born?”

 

“Yes,” she said firmly, “Why are we all doing this if we don’t believe in the stars?”

 

It got tense then, all of our minds instantly filled with the memory of Proximi burning through our cameras with a palpable hope.

 

“I don’t believe in stars,” Terrance said, “I believe in science.”

 

“What the fuck,” Bear said, “Science isn’t going to save you, buddy.”

 

We all stared at Bear, who stood fierce and white faced in front of the control panel, every bit of him all self righteous and rage filled.

 

“What are you talking about?” Kylie asked shakily, “We’re going to be fine, in three years we will be back on Earth, we have plenty of oxygen and food.”

 

Bear opened his mouth, and then stopped. He sat down heavily and spoke without opening his eyes.

 

“I talked to Dr. Gamble. They aren’t picking up our signal anymore, they can’t find us on radar or satellites or anything. Even the radio signal is getting weaker.”

 

“Oh my god,” Cassidy put her head in her hands and I may have imagined it but I thought I heard her say, “Cammie,” under her breath, like she could feel her sister closer than ever.

 

“I don’t understand,” I said, “We had a very specific course, how could this be happening? We saw that star-”

 

“That’s right, Leila, you don’t understand,” Bear’s voice was full of hostility, “None of you do. You all need to understand that we can’t put any more faith in Dr. Gamble, or NASA, or science or known fucking logic, because what has happened has completely disproved all of the above.”

 

“All that’s left is faith,” Kylie said, and I looked at her surprised, having expected she would surely be the first to break down.

 

Bear put his head in his hands and I walked to the cameras, stared out and willed myself to see something, anything that faintest light that might signal a sign of our doubtful survival.

 

One by one we stood before the cameras in silent prayer, children believing if they wish hard enough, they can make the stars come out.

 

The next morning Ryan woke up obsessed with the constellation Orion.

 

“Just a tiny insignificant ‘o’,” he kept saying, “That’s all that separates us.”

 

He told us that he needed to see the constellation, he sat in front of the cameras watching for it for weeks, and told us facts about the archer until we all begged him to stop.

 

“Where does he go?” he kept asking, over and over. “Where does he go?”

 

One morning, I was sitting beside Ryan on camera observation, which we had begun again since we started to believe in the stars again. Suddenly, he leaned forward, a smile illuminating his face so wonderfully that he was almost too handsome to look at for too long.

 

“Look, Leila,” he whispered, “That’s where he went.”

 

On the camera, Orion’s arms stretched out, his glittering belt too bright to look at, and impossible to look away from.

 

I stared, transfixed, the bravery in his shoulders, the loneliness and grandeur of his brilliance in all that nothingness. When I looked at Ryan, he was gone, and the constellation shattered before my eyes, a new star winking with sudden beauty before he became lost in the hunter’s sword.

 

Kylie was next, when our ship grew tangled with the great cosmic kite, she let out a great whoop of childlike laughter, and was gone, to fly with Boötes forever.

 

Cassidy started speaking to Cammie days before Gemini blinked into view, and at the last moment, I swore I saw a mirror reflection of my somber shipmate beside her, beaming more than Cassidy ever would, before Castor swelled and Pollux rejoiced, and our ship became lighter.

 

Terrance swore it wouldn’t happen to him, before science and geography once again was proven to be obsolete and he shouted that he saw Sagittarius, right there, and it was impossible, before his eyes widened in surprise and he was gone.

 

It was just Bear and I then, and we didn’t know what to say.

 

I asked anyway, “What do you think is happening to us?”

 

“I think we started to believe,” he said, “And now we are going home. I think maybe this was our mission all along.”

 

“We aren’t going home,” I said, confused, “We are so lost.”

 

“Do you feel lost?” He asked, and his eyes were so bright.

 

“No,” I said, “I feel like I am on the very last mile of a very long trip.”

 

“We found the stars,” Bear whispered, “But I think they have been here all along.”

 

I reached for him, but he was standing up, and on the camera the great Ursa bounded through a galactic forest, waiting patiently for her cub.

 

I wasn’t alone for long. The radio signal had been long lost, and I didn’t know anything about how to pilot the ship, but I wasn’t afraid.

 

Three days later, I felt the warmth slip onto my face and skin, like I was on a white sand beach, or a summer meadow at noon. The ship split open and the sun was there, and I forgot I had ever been anything else.

 

On Earth, the stars burned through into the day and they declared us lost and the Sun shone brighter than ever and declared that we had been found.

There was a word on the Chinese Internet: “If the Chinese people go abroad, more than 70% will become more patriotic, which is more effective than any propaganda by Chinese government .”

Do you know why? Because the people who came abroad found that the so-called free media did not tell the truth, these media are full of prejudices and lies about China. I think any person who has been to China will find some medias hypocrisy.

Some people who do not go abroad like to imagine foreign fantasy as good as heaven, but when they go abroad, they will find that is not the case.

As for the United States, I have to say that some Americans are very friendly and I like their openness and frankness. I appreciate the wisdom and creativity of the Americans, and they use their creativity to bring a series of great changes to the world.But I will not be a fan of the United States because I don’t like their goverment and their hegemonism、wars and a series of bans against China.

So, many Chinese people will become more love their own country, because they know that China is not so bad, and foreign countries are not so good.

Crescent Taco Ring

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Ingredients

  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon cornmeal
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 cup chopped olives
  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 1 (16 ounce) can whole tomatoes
  • 1 (12 ounce) can whole kernel corn
  • 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 2 cans refrigerated quick crescent dinner rolls
  • 2 cup shredded American or Cheddar cheese

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. In large skillet or Dutch oven, brown ground beef; drain.
  3. Stir in remaining ingredients except crescent rolls, cheese and 1 tablespoon cornmeal.
  4. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally while preparing crust.
  5. Separate crescent dough into 8 rectangles; spoke fashion in 12 cup fluted tube pan, forming crust. Press to seal.
  6. Sprinkle bottom with 1 tablespoon cornmeal and cheese.
  7. Spoon ground beef mixture over cheese.
  8. Cut each remaining crescent rectangle into 4 short strips; lay across top of filling spoke-fashion. Seal to outer and inner dough edges.
  9. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes.
  10. Cool upright in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto serving plate.

I’m Never Leaving Malaysia ..

The tale of the small skull

Despite being attacked and labeled incessantly as wumao and commie lapdog, I don’t consider myself pro-china.

I am first and foremost pro-singapore. This is where I was born, and I fully intend to die here, an island I have sworn to defend.

I live right in the middle of the Anglophone echo chamber. Singaporeans are plugged directly into the mainstream news circuit as English speakers.

It is not an exaggeration I am surrounded by brethren who have been conditioned by decades of negativity fed by the news circuit.

You may not like China and the mainland Chinese. Trust me when I say I understand. My wife insists on banning Huawei phones from the home because these devices “send data back to China”.

And that is why I carry a Samsung. Guys who are married quickly learn the meaning of “no end to it”. The tomorrow threatened never fails to arrive.

So why am I writing about China?

Hate China all you want. But hate China and the Chinese for the right reasons.

Otherwise, mindless hate will only exacerbate the risk of war, as public consensus of China as THE enemy and THE threat solidifies.

The greatest arms race of the 21st century is brewing at our doorstep in East Asia. Hundreds of billions in strategic weapon systems and trillions in defense spending. Meanwhile, an economic war is intensifying, threatening to blow up the livelihoods of billions in East Asia.

It is pertinent to inform east Asia that the health of China is central to peace and prosperity of the region. China isn’t an abstract concept or a faraway land, because decisions in Beijing are intimately entwined with our livelihoods.

I continue to speak out against the demonization of China and the Chinese, because the real threat is the hegemony of the United States. But there must first be awareness and understanding of who the Chinese are, what they are facing, and why they are not bowing to hegemony.

My time on quora is but a token effort.

I very much want my daughter to inherit a peaceful tomorrow, one where the color of her skin does not condemn to a lifetime of discrimination meant only for yellow people.

Firstly, do not count on it. The United States could very well be victorious when fighting Russia, plus China, plus Iran, plus North Korea.

You never know.

Ah. The neocons believe so. And you just gotta believe them. For after all they have first-class seating waiting for them in Heaven.

But most [1] serious students of modern combat, who are also [2] aware of Chinese history, and who have [3] also been to modern contemporaneous China, pretty much everyone is in perfect harmony and complete agreement that China would emerge the victor.

Not just the experienced “people in the know”, but also American military think tanks. Such as RAND, and the Naval War College. In all cases, they advise NOT to engage China in a hot war.

So it is a unanimous consensus or shared agreement among all that China would be the victor in a hot conflict.

But…

There are a number of rising tides of dispute to these assertions.

The first are the rabid neocon cabal; who are religious zealots (for the most part) and who have an unwavering belief in “American exceptionalism”. This belief is that all one needs is “faith” and “unwavering belief” that Jesus (the Lord and Savior) has blessed the United States, and being so blessed; is immune from ever being destroyed. They control most of Washington DC “Deep State”. They believe, in their hearts, that the United States is immune from harm.

The Second is a propaganda feed-back loop. The neocons have made arrangements to fund an anti-China narrative in all English and American (and proxy) publications. This has been active since 2008, and has changed English-speaking public opinion against China. This is a negative feed-back loop as those decision makers inside of the Washington Beltway believe their own lies.

Since these two groups control the vast bulk of the decisions being made in Washington DC, we all (in unison) watch in horror as the United States places it’s various efforts in prepared positions for an assault upon China.

Well…

Are the neocons right, or are the military think tanks right?

They both see China, and I like to believe that they study China, yet they both come with completely different conclusions. Which is really a “head scratcher”. Don’t you think?

That’s a good question, and perhaps the actual issue behind this question.

Let’s spend some time learning about China from a military perspective.

HISTORY

It is well established that China has a solid 6000 years of the people identifying themselves as Chinese. It is also well known that this is only what we can read. China goes back much further than that. Latest archaeological discoveries place populated cities back to 200,000 years ago. And during all those years, do you know what China was doing?

They were fighting.

China has the oldest known civilization, and the oldest civilization with near continuous fighting. The Chinese know war. In all of it’s various forms. And when the archeologists started digging in the 200,000 year old Chinese settlement, do you know what they found?

Evidence of large scale war.

In fact, the Chinese were perfecting large-scale military battle involving thousands of men and horse, along with coordinated attacks when the earliest proto-Europeans were hiding in caves, and running from Neanderthals.

And when Robert Greene wrote his massive tome: The 33 Strategies of War, he used example after example of techniques that the Chinese have perfected over the many centuries of fighting.

MILITARY SOCIETY

Because of the massive span of time of fighting, the Chinese have evolved into a rugged and capable people. And with the torrent of endless wars, they developed a society of survival. This, of course, evolved into various forms of discipline and martial training; the Chinese people have created a Chinese-version of ancient Sparta.

GENGHIS KHAN

When Genghis Khan moved out of the Mongolian lowlands, his first order of business was to fight the Chinese. And it took years. For after all, the “Great Wall of China” was built specifically to keep out the Golden Horde from China.

But, you know, eventually, the great Khan captured China and integrated it into his kingdom. And from that moment on, the Chinese assimilated the Mongols. Resistance was futile. And so, while the European history books tell of the fierce Golden Horde seizing most of Asia, what they minimize was the fantastical role that the Chinese sappers played in the destruction of all the Middle Eastern, and European cities. These cities were not destroyed by Genghis Khans horseback riders, but by Chinese engineers, sappers and assault troops.

As you can see by the map below (at 1300 a.d.) the Chinese Empire and the Mongol Empire was one and the same.

Genghis Khan empire assimulated by China
Genghis Khan empire assimulated by China

China is the red outline, with the Mongol Empire in purple.

Today, the discipline handed down from generation after generation of Chinese follows a direct lineage to the bloodline of the Genghis Khan Golden Horde. As does the contemporaneous Russian living in Asia.

MODERN MILITARY EQUIPMENT

One of the great anti-China propagandized narratives is that China uses conscripts, out of date; hand-me-down weapons from the former Soviet Union, and is devoid of “real” leadership. This narrative is repeated with great gusto and passion in Conservative publications throughout the West.

But it’s all a big lie.

China was a peer competitor with the United States and it’s proxies in 1950. Since then, it has focused its efforts and redoubled down on creating the most dangerous, lethal and strongest military in the world. And it has been successful.

China today is Peer-level with Russia, and above-peer with the United States.

In fact, China has entire arrays of weapons systems that are absolutely unheard of outside of Asia. They have developed simple, rugged and easy to manufacture systems all domestically made. From the top-line stealth fighters (J-20) and stealth bombers to the (*hush top secret*) Tic-Tak UFO craft that enjoys zipping around American Aircraft carrier battle groups.

China has drone aircraft carriers, search-and-detonate hand grenades, sonic, and laser cannons, terminator robots that fly into the battle field, swarms of robot sharks and a wide selection of nuclear based munitions.

I have written numerous posts on these very interesting weapons systems, but there seems to be a cabal of folk that don’t want to hear anything about Chinese military. They just want to believe that they are just poorly educated peasants with old SKS rifles.

CO-TRAINING WITH RUSSIA

Russia is obtaining some terrific experience in the battlefield in Ukraine. And this experience has caused them to update their battle and combat doctrines. And do you know who they share this information with?

They share and train with the Chinese PLA.

Everything that the Russians learn is shared immediately in real time with China.

WROTE THE BOOKS ON FIGHTING

The vast majority of text and books on how to fight wars, strategies, and techniques are all Chinese. And the way that they are written are timeless. You can follow then whether you are an archer, or a battle tank commander. China KNOWS how to fight wars.

In the realm of strategy and war, ancient Chinese literature is rich with timeless wisdom and insights that continue to inspire scholars and military minds to this day. Here are ten notable Chinese books on strategy and warfare that have left a lasting impact:

1. “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu – A classic treatise on military strategy, tactics, and leadership.

2. “The Thirty-Six Stratagems” – A collection of ancient Chinese strategies and tactics for use in warfare and business.

3. “The Book of Five Rings” by Miyamoto Musashi – Though Japanese, this book offers profound insights on strategy and martial arts.

4. “The Water Margin” (also known as “Outlaws of the Marsh”) – A classic Chinese novel that includes themes of strategy and military tactics.

5. “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” – A historical novel that offers insights into military strategy and political intrigue during the Three Kingdoms period.

6. “The Book of Lord Shang” – A work on statecraft and governance that delves into strategies for maintaining power and order.

7. “The Tao of War” by Wang Chen – A military treatise that combines Taoist philosophy with strategic principles.

8. “The Way of the General” by Ts’ao Kung – A guide on military strategy and leadership.

9. “The Spring and Autumn Annals” – A historical text that includes accounts of military strategies employed during the Spring and Autumn period.

10. “The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China” – A collection of seven influential Chinese military texts that cover various aspects of strategy, tactics, and leadership.

These works offer a glimpse into the profound wisdom and strategic thinking of ancient Chinese military thought, providing valuable lessons that continue to resonate in the modern world.

LARGEST MILITARY

Oh, I forgot. China has the largest military in the world. Not only in manpower, but in combat trained troops. In auxiliary troops. In reservists. And in homeland defense. It is so huge that if you took the entire militaries of the West all together, China’s military still dwarfs them in numbers, training and size.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

One of the Achilles Heels of China has been (historically) to rely on sea shipping for it’s raw materials, foodstuffs, and advanced technology. But that is a relic of the past.

China trades with all of it’s neighbors; including Russia and wants for nothing. All the ocean routes around the world can be blocked and China will still survive because of all the land routes, rail connections, road connections that it has forged over the last two decades.

To think that China can be blockaded is a childish fantasy made by ideological fanatic infants with zero intelligence and pumped with (can only be described as) pure and simple stupidity.

WAR CHEST

To conduct a war, you need something called a “war chest”.

A “war chest” refers to a reserve of funds or resources set aside for use in times of conflict or emergency, particularly in the context of military operations or strategic planning. This term is often used figuratively to describe a stockpile of money, supplies, or assets that can be deployed to support a particular cause, campaign, or endeavor, much like a chest filled with provisions for battle. In a broader sense, a “war chest” can also symbolize preparedness, resilience, and strategic foresight in facing challenges or pursuing objectives.

Since the 1970’s the United States has relied on debt to finance it’s wars. This is directly tied to the demise of the USD and increased internal inflation.

China doesn’t have this problem. And is fully able to light long-duration wars with anyone and not have any significant changes to it’s domestic population.

LARGEST NAVY

China has the largest Navy in the world, and they operate modern cutting-edge vessels. These vessels are equipped with sonic and rail gun technologies and are very formidable. Additionally, they are concentrated along the Chinese borders. They are not spread around the world like the United States Navy is.

LOGISTICS

The Chinese military is designed (primarily) as a defensive organization. They are not designed for “force projection”. As China does not invade anyone. This is contrary to the American Western narrative of the “evil communists gobbling up and invading everyone”. They simply do not have anything near the invasion fleets, and systems that the United States has.

All this talk about a “Taiwan Invasion” is simply just bullshit and bluster. China does not have that ability. It cannot land a huge contingent of people on islands. Oh sure, it has one or two simple Naval Vessels, but is nowhere near the capacity to invade anyone.

That being said, because of this, to fight China is to fight in and around China. And that means, to so so in China’s “backyard”. A nation that has spent the last 500 years building underground bunkers and defensive parameters is not going to allow anyone to fuck with them. Every parking garage has blast doors and reinforced concrete walls. Every region and town has built-in CNC centers. Every comm link is redundant.

Oh, and China is a nation armed with a “zillion” missiles.

All sizes, types and shapes. Even the elementary school Children train with the missiles, the drones and basic combat skills.

If you go anywhere near it with hostile intent, you will be erased like God’s own hand. China will cleanse the land and it will become pristine; primeval.

Blessed emptiness and void for the world to see.

CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY

China and Russia operate “cutting edge” technology. Most of their military technology is so advanced that the United States won’t be able to field comparable systems for decades. This includes the hypersonic missiles, but much, much more. From the novel 055 vessels to the latest hand cannons, the technology is unmatched outside of Asia.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Everyone in China gets formalized military training. It starts in first grade, and continues year after year. Formal “boot camp” is traditionally held during Middle School, and then another placement later on in their educational career.

This is handled regionally; some like Guanxi provide “American SEAL” level training starting at Kindergarten. While others such as Shanghai concentrate on discipline, marching, and tasks such as bed making, and small squad level tactics.

This is a recent development. This became the norm after 2013, and was fully implemented nationally by 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYZ2qI3qJu8

Short video. Worth you time to watch all three minutes.

ALLIED WITH RUSSIA

Oh, and to fight China is to fight Russia.

Russia and China are “joined at the hip”. They are a complete unified block. You cannot isolate China. China and Russia act as a unified team together. This is a formalized reality. One that was publicly announced in 2022.

NUCLEAR ARMED

China has nuclear weapons.

The idea that China only has 400 nuclear warheads is a propagandized narrative that has ZERO basis on reality. When you read the “studies” on this, look at their assumptions. “China doesn’t have the manufacturing capability.” Or, “China doesn’t know how to… and would take decades to…”. These “white papers” are a living and true example of “wishful thinking” that I have ever seen.

More accurate counts are somewhere between 4000 to 5000 nuclear warheads.

Oh, and they employ neutron-enhanced weaponry on the tactical scale. Erase the population, then move in the city.

Oh, and they do not employ “surgical strikes”. As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, they believe in “Shotgun nukes”. Which is to lace and bombard a target with ten nuclear weapons for a much wider dispersal and greater damage.

MANUFACTURER FOR THE WORLD

Finally, to fight China is to empty all the store shelves in the world.

No more aspirin, toilet paper, toothpaste. No more cell phones, spare parts for cars.

Consumer-based societies (of which the United States is one of the largest) will collapse. Thus to fight China is to have your entire internal domestic society implode.

Now, the neocons say that “facts do not matter”. Their faith in the divine blessings from God and that Jesus will protect the United States is unwavering. Therefore, they are pressing and planning and setting up conditions to attack China.

One excuse after the other.

But let me tell you, that when that day happens, it will be like a light switch. 0 to 1000 in 0.1 seconds. China will go from peace into “slaughter everyone on sight” mode.

War is not a game, and idiots should not be placed in charge of governing anything. Every effort should be devoted for peaceful resolutions of conflict.

But you know…

… there’s no arguing with lunatics. And sometimes the only thing that you can do with a Mad Dog is to put him down.

Wider Middle East War and US Imperial Decline

Cheesy meatballs

Cheese balls
Cheese balls

Cheesy Meatballs are juicy and tender, simmered in a rustic homemade tomato sauce. Topped with melted mozzarella cheese and serve over spaghetti for a delicious dinner!

The best meatball recipe starts with the most tender meatballs, browned in a hot skillet to seal in the juices and get crispy, golden edges. Soaking up rustic tomato sauce flavours underneath a golden blanket of melted mozzarella cheese, Cheesy Meatballs is an easy dinner recipe that will be a hit with your family!

Cheesy Meatball RECIPE IMAGE 2
Cheesy Meatball RECIPE IMAGE 2

MEATBALL RECIPE

Dry meatballs are a thing of the past with our recipe. While most nonna’s hold a secret to get the perfect meatballs, some people just can’t seem to get it right. Cooking dry meatballs that are often times flavourless and hard to swallow, I agree with most in that meatballs can be hard to master. It’s easier to buy cooked meatballs in throw them in a sauce.

Even though it can be hard to get the texture and taste right out of a humble meatball, I’m here to tell you it’s super easy. All you need is the right meatball recipe!

We have a trick up our apron sleeves (or straps), that make these meatballs so moist and juicy and absolutely the best meatballs we’ve ever eaten. You will love our cheesy meatballs!

HOW TO MAKE MEATBALLS

It all starts with your meat mixture. There are two key elements crucial to a good meatball recipe:

  • Texture
  • Flavour

Without these two details, meatballs are bland, dry and not worth the effort that goes into making them.

Bread soaked in milk instead of dry breadcrumbs is the secret to getting juicy, moist meatballs every single time. The same method we use for our Meatloaf recipe.

Meatballs also need to be well-seasoned. We use salt and a crushed bouillon cube to get the flavours going, as well as aromatics like onion and garlic.

Herbs are just as important to get those classic Italian flavours in each bite. Our recipe calls for fresh parsley and dried oregano and basil, purely taking seasonal availability into account. Feel free to mix it up with your own favourite combination. Mint, tarragon, thyme or marjoram, plus a pinch or two of nutmeg adds a subtle flavour. You decide.

Eggs are also added to bind the meat, bread and parmesan together, making them light and spongy.

Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 65
Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 65

HOMEMADE MEATBALLS

The next step to incredibly tender meatballs is mixing your meat mixture until the ingredients are just incorporated, with your hands. Use gloves if you have an aversion to touching raw meat, or mix lightly a wooden spoon. Full pieces of ground meat should still be visible.

Roll your meatballs with lightly oiled hands to prevent the meat from sticking to your fingers, while adding a little extra moisture into each meatball. Then place each meatball onto a lined plate or baking sheet. This just helps keep your kitchen stay clean without creating too much of a mess, and prevents your balls from rolling all over your bench top.

HOW TO COOK MEATBALLS

If there’s one thing my father passed down to me from the Italian side of his family, it’s never to poach or boil beef. There’s nothing like the aromas and flavours of meat hitting a hot skillet or pan. Sizzling first to get a perfect browned crust before adding in sauce. You won’t be cooking them all the way through in this step.

Space the meatballs out evenly into your skillet or pan by cooking in batches of three, instead of throwing them all in the pan together. This avoids the meat poaching or simmering in its own juices.

Rustic, homemade meatballs are never perfectly rounded, especially when seared first. Don’t worry if they begin to flatten in the pan. The blanket of melted cheese will cover them.

Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 6
Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 6

MEATBALL SAUCE

Our sauce recipe is easy, starting with onion and garlic to get those aromatics in. Tomato sauce, puree or passata is simmered with tomato paste, herbs, chili flakes (if using), salt and pepper. Add a pinch of sugar to cut through some of the bitterness, or use ¼ teaspoon of aluminium free baking soda to help neutralise the acid.

It’s really hard to overcook meatballs in your sauce, since they’re simmering in liquid. Braise them for about 15-20 minutes, turning the meatballs in the sauce to get those flavours absorbing evenly into the meat while simmering. I also suggest stirring the sauce to prevent it from burning on the bottom.

Top with cheese and finish them off under the broiler in your oven.

If you don’t have a broiler, continue simmering them until he cheese has melted.

There you have it! Cheesy meatballs!

Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 53
Cheesy Meatballs IMAGE 53

Be the Rufus

75-year-old Leonard Bullock and his wife Dorothy have lived across the street from a railroad yard in Pendleton, Oregon since 1982. And over the years, they haven’t always had the money to maintain their house.

main qimg 37c5ebe6e08b600da401e4d8d2af467e
main qimg 37c5ebe6e08b600da401e4d8d2af467e

A railway worker named Josh Cyganik has waved to Leonard on his porch almost every day for the last four years, but never actually talked to him until last month, after he heard two teenagers making FUN of the place.

They were joking that it looked so bad, someone should just burn it down. And Josh knew Leonard heard them too, when he saw the look on his face.

So a few days later, he asked Leonard if he and some friends could repaint the place for him, and got a hardware store to donate supplies. Then he posted about it on Facebook, and more than a HUNDRED PEOPLE showed up that Saturday to help.

They painted the house . . . fixed up the porch . . . made it wheelchair accessible . . . and bought everything they need to replace the ROOF, which is still in the works.

Josh says one of his friends drove by around 10:00 P.M. that night, and Leonard and Dorothy were both still out on the porch smiling.

Pepe Escobar: Putin’s DEVASTATING Kursk Trap SHOCKS NATO & Ukraine, WWIII Next?

AMERICAN ANSWER

There are BIG differences between the services in this, and I mean the cultural gap is huge.

The American Navy descended almost directly from the British Navy and is hugely class-conscious. Officers and enlisted don’t mix. Officers, speak to chiefs and chiefs direct the men. There aren’t just two different messes, there are three — officers, senior enlisted and junior enlisted.

There is a reason for everything that persists. Life is very fragile on a ship—take a nuclear submarine: a wrong move kills everyone aboard. Familiarity breeds contempt. Better to let the Captain remain a godlike figure rather than Fred who likes knitting to relieve stress. A little psychological distance is a good thing.

The Army was heavily influenced by the proto-Germans (Prussians) and the French— a lot more egalitarian than the Navy, but still conscious of rank. We eat together in the field, there is only one mess hall, though we may be at separate tables. There was only one mess hall in Iraq — Generals and Privates ate in the same space.

The Air Force is directly descended from the army, and the least rank conscious part of the army, aviation. Their enlisted are smart, they are technicians, and they keep the planes in the air. The Air Force uniforms are more egalitarian, I do not think there is any problem with an air crew sitting and eating together in the air force.

So I think you need to calibrate your expectations to the service you are discussing.

I have not. But my company made a three-part blunder that might qualify:

Part one: we had this very senior employee, about 70 years old, who was highly experienced with one customer system that was quite old, but still in use. Since we only needed one person who understood the ancient technology, nobody ever thought to assign someone for him to mentor in case he decided to retire. It wasn’t a major profit center, but the company made a nice bit of coin and kept a big customer happy by maintaining the antique.

He loved working on that old system, and had a fantastic relationship with that customer. He was long-since eligible for pension and didn’t need to work—the job was a paid hobby for him and kept him moving, thinking, and interacting socially. He did his job, caused no problems, was always ready to lend a hand or advice to younger engineers. Which of course was pretty much everybody. But he wasn’t looking to get ahead, get promoted or anything.

Part two: being a large corporation, we had a performance evaluation system that ranked people into four categories, from outstanding to needs improvement. And since there were lots of people, HR & finance took a statistical view which included a specific shape of the “bell curve”: So many people (%) in the top tier, so many in the next tier, etc. This was enforced at the 100-person level of the organization. So if we had a pretty good crew in one area of the business, they’d end up not being allowed to rank some people as high as we thought they deserved, while some other area had people who were actually not quite as good but ranked higher. None of the managers close enough to know the people liked it, but we had to do it. That ranking was the strongest factor in raises and promotions. So by mutual agreement, this amiable, useful old guy was always ranked in the bottom tier, freeing up a better ranking for someone who might otherwise get hosed.

Part three: HR came up with a policy that anyone who’d been ranked in the bottom tier more than a certain number of years in a row, was automatically either demoted (with a pay cut), or laid off. It was the employee’s choice whether they got laid off or demoted but one or the other was going to happen.

You can see where this is going. HR called the guy in—without consulting his management—and offered to let him keep his job by accepting a demotion. As a long time employee, if laid off he was entitled to 6 month’s severance pay (as a lump sum) and could immediately apply for pension payments. So he took the layoff right on the spot. HR hadn’t expected that for some reason and tried to change his mind. Now, another bit of policy was any employee being laid off got walked out directly from HR—management would then be notified to have someone clean out his desk and return personal items. So by lunchtime he was home, retired, applying for pension and thinking how to spend the windfall. It was later in the day before his management found out he was gone. The customer was extremely unhappy. Before management could even begin to decide who would take over the maintenance contract, the customer cancelled it. They explained that the former employee was going to work directly for them as a technical consultant, which meant his hourly rate was nearly tripled—he was getting the “overhead” and profit the company used to get.

He Laced Her Drink & Let The Football Team Run a Train On Her!

Daily Shorpy

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Karl P. Schmidt, a renowned American herpetologist, chose to dedicate his final moments to science when faced with death, demonstrating remarkable dedication to his work.

main qimg a9be87814c6d992f50d84d303efb3713 lq
main qimg a9be87814c6d992f50d84d303efb3713 lq

In September 1957, the Lincoln Park Zoo brought a 30-inch snake to the Chicago Natural History Museum, seeking help with its identification. Schmidt, who was highly respected in the field of herpetology and had several species named after him, agreed to examine the snake.

On September 25, Schmidt observed that the snake was African, with bright patterns and a head shape similar to a boomslang—a venomous snake from Sub-Saharan Africa. However, he was unsure if it was a boomslang because the snake’s “anal plate was undivided,” a feature inconsistent with that species.

While examining the snake, Schmidt made a fateful decision. He picked it up for a closer look, but the snake suddenly bit him on the left thumb, leaving two small puncture wounds. Instead of seeking medical help, Schmidt, ever the dedicated scientist, began documenting the effects of the venom in his journal.

  • “I took it from Dr. Robert Inger without thinking of any precaution, and it promptly bit me on the fleshy lateral aspect of the first joint of the left thumb,” Karl Schmidt wrote in his journal. “The mouth was widely opened and the bite was made with the rear fangs only, only the right fang entering to its full length of about 3 mm.”

Within 24 hours, he would be dead.

Schmidt may have underestimated the severity of the bite. He took a train home and continued noting his symptoms in detail:

-4:30 – 5:30 PM: Strong nausea, no vomiting. Took a suburban train trip.

– 5:30 – 6:30 PM:Experienced chills, shaking, fever of 101.7°F. Bleeding from the gums began around 5:30.

-8:30 PM: Ate two pieces of milk toast.

– 9:00 PM – 12:20 AM: Slept well. Urinated at 12:20 AM, mostly blood. Drank water at 4:30 AM, followed by violent nausea and vomiting. Felt better and slept until 6:30 AM.

The next morning, Schmidt carried on with his routine, eating breakfast and continuing to document the venom’s effects:

-September 26, 6:30 AM: Ate cereal, poached eggs on toast, applesauce, and coffee for breakfast. Noted continuous bleeding from the mouth and nose, though “not excessively.”

“Excessively” was the last word Schmidt wrote. After lunch, he vomited, called his wife, and soon became unresponsive. Despite attempts to revive him, Schmidt was pronounced dead at 3 PM, the cause being respiratory paralysis.

Boomslang venom is terrifyingly potent; just .0006 milligrams can kill a bird within minutes. The venom causes internal bleeding, leading to a slow and agonizing death. Schmidt’s autopsy revealed that his lungs, eyes, heart, kidneys, and brain were all hemorrhaging.

The Chicago Daily Tribune later revealed that Schmidt had been advised to seek medical help but refused, saying, “No, that would upset the symptoms.” Some say Schmidt’s death was a tragic case of curiosity overcoming caution. Others believe that, knowing the antivenom was only available in Africa, Schmidt simply accepted his fate, continuing his life’s work until the very end.

You be the judge.

PART 2 – Wife Of 7 Years Opened Our Marriage Without My Knowledge, Has BREAKDOWN When I Toss Her…

 

Two Deaths and a Glowing Plant

Submitted into Contest #247 in response to: Set your story on a spaceship exploring the far reaches of space when something goes wrong. view prompt

Eyza H

This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.

“How much longer till we land?” Joan complained lazily as she swung her seat around, swaying her arms in their heavy armor.  “Not our fault you were the first to gear up sweetheart– you should’ve waited a bit before putting your suit on” a man commented with a sly smile from behind her. “Don’t call me that!” she chided as she looked him, although with a small, knowing smirk.“Alright, you guys better strap in now. You know how it gets, and we don’t know the atmosphere of this planet yet” a stern voice sounded from the head of the small space ship, which was only carrying three passengers. “Roger that, Sir!” Joan said as she straightened in her seat, and adjusted its position. Pressing a button on her right caused multiple belts to wrap around her, keeping her securely in place. The other two men followed the same process, and readied themselves for the landing. “This is the part I always hate the most…” she thought as she felt her throat go dry. The man seated on her left was gazing at her steadily. “Just count to 15 and it’ll be over, yeah?” Something about the softness in his brown eyes calmed her, and she relaxed hands, which had tightened into fists. “Thanks, Nick. Kash, estimated time of arrival?” “Time, 98:34:02. Year, 3010. I’ve already logged it.” With that, the three began their descent onto a planet not yet explored by humans, 30 light years away from Earth.“Well, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?” Nick commented as he pushed a button to unstrap his belts. Joan got up slowly. “I’m still nauseous. Also, it was way more than 15 seconds, liar.” Nick let out a small, hearty laugh, as he patted Joan’s head affectionately under his large, gloved hand. “Come on guys, time to head out.” Kash commanded as he adjusted his headgear. Although he usually spoke in a somber manner, the other two were able to detect a slight curiosity and excitement, which laced his words. “Let’s go, Captain!”The three stepped out onto what seemed to be a large, empty barren land. The ground was a reddish pink color, littered with rocks and boulders of different sizes, with a backdrop of a turquoise sky. There were no clouds, although there seemed to be layers of some sort of mist mixing on the horizon, with bands of yellow, orange, and a light grey. The contrast of the deep pink ground against the strikingly vibrant blue sky was breathtaking. The three looked around at first with some degree of uncertainty, before looking at each other as smiles spread wide across their faces, even Kash’s. “Isn’t this… The most beautiful one we’ve been to yet?” Joan commented excitedly as she looked at Nick and Kash. The two hummed in agreement, with Nick adding “Of course you’d like it the best – the ground here is all pink!” Joan bounced airily towards him, and gave a small nudge. “Let’s get to business now, shall we? We can’t be here more than an hour. I’m going to begin our timer now – lets stay within the prescribed radius – don’t you two dare wonder off.” Kash instructed while fidgeting with some buttons on his right arm. “You’re the one who wonders off the most, Kash!” Joan laughed. Kash looked at her sternly through the transparent screen of his suit, before breaking into a gentle smile. “That’s no way to speak to your Captain. Let’s get to it, now.” With this, he began taking long strides away from the ship. Nick and Joan looked at each other as he left. “Just us two left now, huh?” Nick spoke into his intercom, with a smirk. Joan pushed him away lightly once more. “Focus on the job, idiot. I’m going in this direction.” She said as she pointed towards the right. “Alright, Miss.” Just as Joan began hopping away from him, he grabbed her arm and turned towards her. “Keep talking on the intercom so I know you’re ok, alright?” The lightness of his voice had now been replaced with concern, as his mouth straightened into a serious line. Joan gave him a sweet smile in response. “You do the same.” The two gazed at each other for another second before departing in separate directions. If they had known that this would be the last time they would see each other, perhaps they would’ve gazed into one another’s eyes for a second or two longer.-The following report has been compiled over a period of 5 years following the incident at Planet Y, where three of our astronauts tragically lost their lives in a series of events still shrouded in mystery. This is the first incident where astronauts have died have on a mission in 37 years – hence, the issue must be dealt with utmost severity, least we repeat the mistakes which led to this terrible outcome in the future.Within a space of 15 minutes of the landing on Planet Y, Joan Longwood, Nick Wrigh, and Kash Presnig were declared deceased. The following report is divided into three condensed components, following each of the astronauts, their logs from those 15 minutes, an analysis of what their logs could’ve meant – although this is mostly based on assumptions due to lack of factual evidence – and lastly, a summary of recommendations for the future to avoid any such incidents from occurring again.Kash PresnigKash Presnig was the Captain of the ship Orchid 367. He was an experienced man of 37, who had led multiple exploratory missions of this nature in the past. Nothing from the evidence collected indicates any mistake or wrongdoing on his part – the mission was led and landed successfully on Planet Y. He was updating his log, while diligently keeping track of his crew members. Unfortunately, he was the first to lose his life, within 12 minutes. The following passage recounts Kash’s logs in those minutes and his final few words as he tried to contact the space station.“Log.1. We have successfully landed on Planet Y. The land here is barren – there is no vegetation here, and the soil is dry and hard. It is of an odd pinkish red color, which has not yet been observed in any other planet. Rocks of varying sizes are scattered, although some seem to be unnaturally larger than others. The terrain is flat – there are no elevations or dips. The sky is a bright turquoise shade, with bands of gases layered one on top of the other. The identity of these gases is yet unknown.”“Log. 2. 30 meters from the ship. The terrain is still the same. Sample of the rocks and soil has been collected. There are no metals detected in the area. An odd fog is growing in the distance, about 10 meters away. Proceeding with caution.”“Log. 3. I have now stepped into an area covered with grey, yellow, and orange mist. It seems to be swirling around, although no wind was detected on the planet. Visibility is extremely low – Cannot see beyond a few meters ahead. The suit is unable to identify the gases – however, an absence of water vapor is noted. Gas sample has been collected for further analysis. Retreating to base.”“Log. 4. The mist is growing thicker, worsening visibility. It seems to be spreading from this point, outwards to the surrounding areas. No impact of the gas is notable – although it seems to swirl into oddly distinct shapes. Proceeding back urgently.”After the fourth log, Mr. Presnig contacted our headquarters directly – which has not occurred in 13 years. His panicked voice indicated that there was an issue which had to be dealt with immediately. The following are his words – with no amendments – excluding the responses of the team he spoke to at the time to get a concise account from his own narration.“Contacting… HQ… Kash Presnig speaking here. The mist… The gases, they are.. They are poisonous! I know the suit is impenetrable to any gas but I am sure… Yes, it has penetrated, somehow… I am having hallucinations of some sort. Yes, dammit, I am certain! Or else, why is there… why is there a man before me? A large man – no, an alien! Finally, we have found life – so far away… 50 light years…! Our dream, our mission has been realized! Yes… I am certain, it is a man, but he is… proceeding towards me at a high speed, or… no. He has slowed down. I can describe his face… It is alright, I am almost at the base, I think… His face… but his face, his glasses, his eyes, his nose… is this man… Me? It cannot… this.… it is!”

 

After this, the communication line with Mr. Presnig was cut. From his own words, as well as the autopsy report generated from his suit, we can conclude that Mr. Presnig’s assumptions of being impacted by a certain gas, or gases, had indeed not only caused hallucinations, but also poisoned his blood – he died within a minute of having inhaled the gas. How the gas penetrated his suit is still unknown, as no issues were found with the suit during testing. However, his death was not caused by gas poisoning.

 

This piece of evidence has been left confidential, and his family were not made aware of it, due to the highly sensitive nature of the issue. Mr. Presnig suffered a slash to his neck which almost entirely separated his head from his body, which was his cause of death. Had this not taken place, he would have indeed died of gas poisoning within 58 seconds. Source or cause of the slash are unknown.

 

Nick Wrigh

 

Nick Wrigh was a young and promising technical engineer of 28. He had been a part of several space missions before this, including 12 of exploratory nature. As this mission was deemed low risk, Mr. Wrigh was considered an ideal candidate to join the mission and sharpen his skills for the future. He was joined by his partner of two years, Joan Longwood, who had been on several missions with him before this one as well. Their families reported that the two had planned to get married upon their return, before this tragedy had taken place.

 

Mr. Wrigh died 13 minutes into his exploratory course, and had only registered 2 logs. However, pieces of his conversation with Ms. Logwood have been recorded, as well as his emergency call, which took place 37 seconds after Mr. Presnig had passed away. His last communication was with Ms. Longwood.

 

“Log.1. Landed successfully on Planet Y. The planet is beautiful – bare stretches of magenta with brown boulders and rocks, against an electric blue sky. There seem to be some gases layered on the horizon in shades of yellow and grey. Samples of rock and soil have been collected, as well as a piece of what seems to be an unidentified metal.”

 

“Log. 2. 40 meters from base. The rocks and boulders around me have grown huge – they are almost the size of small houses. They did not appear this large from a distance. If I look back, I cannot see our ship, as I am walking through a narrow path between large rocks covering my view. The rocks themselves are smooth, with sharp edges. I have tried to break a piece but failed, as they are extremely hard and dense.”

 

Mr. Wrigh did not submit any logs after this. The following pieces of conversation have been recorded between himself and Ms. Longwood 2 minutes before his death.

 

“J, this place is… the rocks are huge. Are they huge where you are as well?”

“No, it’s all flat here… huh, I don’t remember seeing any rocks that big when we landed.”

“I don’t know when they started getting bigger, but… it’s all I can see around me. They are beautiful, but a little…”

“Hah…Are you scared, Nicky?”

“Come on… anyone would be terrified if they saw massive rocks on an unexplored planet.”

“Just teasing!”

“Joan.”

“…Nick? Is everything alright?”

“Joan, the rocks… are moving.”

“How is that possible Nick? I don’t detect any movement on my radar for several kilometers around.”

“Joan, I swear, I feel like these rocks, they’re… moving in, towards me…”

“Nick, are you… come back. I’ll come back too.”

“J, there’s no path… I can’t see a path back. The rocks, they’ve all moved in!”

“Nick, I’m coming to you right now!”

“NO! Don’t, or you’ll also… Joan! I..”

“Nick? NICK? Can you hear me?”

 

After that, Mr. Wrigh made a call to the space station. He mentioned the large rocks which had seemed to be moving in to crush him. The personnel responding to him at the time told him to immediately go back to base, fearing his mental faculties had been compromised by the same gas which had poisoned Mr. Kresnig. They did not alert him about what had happened to Mr. Kresnig, thinking it would worsen his mental state. However, around 20 seconds after this communication ended, Mr. Wrigh had passed away, before making it back to base. His last exchange with Ms. Longwood is recorded below.

 

“Nick, where are you? I don’t see any huge rocks, Nick!”

“Joan… I can’t, I can’t breathe… I’m..”

“NICK! Please… I’m getting closer, I’ll find you!”

“I love you, J. Don’t worry, just..c-count till 15…”

 

According to the autopsy report, Mr.Wrigh’s cause of death was asphyxiation. However, there were wounds on his arms, chest, back, as well as his head. We do not believe that any “moving rocks” are likely to have crushed him to death, as the wounds would’ve been much more severe. We have ruled out gas poisoning as the autopsy did not indicate any such factor. This leaves the real circumstances surrounding Mr. Wrigh’s death completely uncertain. The only explanation may be that he had fallen somewhere, which had possibly damaged the oxygen tank in his suit, thereby causing his death. The wounds on his body may also be explained through some sort of fall, though not with absolute certainty.

 

Joan Longwood

 

Joan Longwood was an extremely gifted and inspiring member of the Space Exploration Association, 27 years of age. She was one of the youngest crew members to venture to space, only at the age of 17. While a technical engineer like Mr. Wrigh, she also had expertise in scientific and geographical aspects of space exploration, making her an apt decision maker in key situations. Had this incident not taken place, Ms. Longwood was on a trajectory to becoming a Captain within the Exploration Department within the next 5 years, having taken part in 24 space expeditions. Her logs are recorded as below:

 

“Log. 1. Landed successfully on Planet Y. The planet is a vast expanse of dry, pink soil, with a few brown rocks of varying sizes, and a vibrant blue sky. Bands of unidentified gases streak the sky in shades of orange, yellow, grey and white. Land samples have been collected. No metal or water has been detected.”

 

“Log. 2. 20 meters from base. The terrain has not changed, although there seems to be some change in the bands of gas in the sky. They are slowly disappearing in this direction – although there is no wind to shift them from their place. No explanation found yet for this phenomenon.”

 

“Log. 3. 30 meters from base. Vegetation has been detected – a small green plant growing on a rock. The plant has the same anatomy as those on Earth from the outside – a stem, some small leaves, and one flowering bud. The flower is an odd mixture of colors – each of its petals are of grey, orange and yellow shades, similar to the bands of gas seen in the sky. Correlation unknown. Collecting sample for analysis.”

 

After this, Ms. Longwood engaged in communication with Mr. Wrigh as recorded. She began retreating to base, as she had mentioned, upon hearing the distressed words of Mr. Wrigh. She tried to contact Mr. Kresnig after disconnecting with Mr. Wrigh, but was unsuccessful. She did not make any calls to the space station like her crew members. Her final log, before her death at the 15 minute mark, is recorded below:

 

“Log 4. Communication has failed with Mr. Wrigh and Mr. Kresnig. Their location on the radar is incorrect and keeps shifting. There might be an interference in signals on this planet. Reached the base. The plant has begun to glow. It glows brighter by the second – so bright I cannot look at it. Mr. Kresnig and Mr. Wrigh are dead. Their vital signs disappeared from the ship’s monitor. The plant’s light is surrounding everything. Don’t come here.”

 

After submitting the final log, Ms. Longwood exercised her right to Code X355D100, which states that an astronaut, under circumstances of certain death, has the right to end their own life through controlled means to avoid excessive and extended suffering. However, this decision is questionable considering that her vitals were healthy till the end, and she did not describe any threats to herself, as the other two crew members had. The glowing plant could be said to be the result of a hallucination, however, there is nothing to indicate there was any sort of hallucinogen in Ms. Longwood’s system at the time of her death. Our only explanation for her decision to execute Code X355D100 is due to extreme fear and trauma from the loss of her crew members, including her partner.

 

The events surrounding this incident have been kept entirely confidential from the public. The circumstances surrounding the cause of death for each of the crew members of Orchid 367 are inconclusive and uncertain. The next two sections cover an analysis of the possible scenarios which may have caused their deaths in more detail, as well as recommendations for the future to avoid another Incident Y from taking place.

Crescent Ragu Squares

9be89543efec901b665a918ac516fbfc
9be89543efec901b665a918ac516fbfc

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 small jar Ragu spaghetti sauce
  • 1 (4 ounce) can mushrooms
  • 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 1 (8 ounce) can Pillsbury refrigerated quick crescent dinner rolls

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. In frying pan, brown ground beef; drain.
  3. Stir in Ragu sauce and mushrooms; simmer while preparing crust.
  4. Separate crescent dough into 2 long rectangles.
  5. Place in ungreased 13 x 9 inch pan; press over bottom and 1/2 inch up sides to form crust. Seal perforations.
  6. Spread meat mixture over dough.
  7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is brown.
  8. Top with cheese and bake until cheese melts.
  9. Cut into squares to serve.

An Uber driver told me something the other day that made me stop and think.

He came from Ghana 35 years ago to settle in the US.

“What do you think about America after having lived here for so long?” I asked.

“America is the best salesperson in the world. It convinces you that no matter where you are or what you have going on, things will be better here. It makes people all around the world drop what they’re doing and immigrate.”

“And then what?”

“You work your ass off until you die.”


I like talking to people.

Especially immigrants.

They have one leg in their home country and the other here. As a result, they see things that others don’t. They have a unique perspective.

They’ve all come in search of something.

Quality of life. Freedom. Money.

Some find it.

Many don’t.

They all miss the vibrancy of their home countries. Whether from Africa, South America, India, or somewhere else, they miss the colorful festivals, the sacred in the ordinary, the tight-knit family and community, the customs and tradition that make a place singular.


The US is marketed as the land of possibilities.

And for some, it is.

But most—like that Ghanaian driver—end up working very hard for little gain. On top of that, even though it’s a nation of immigrants, it doesn’t do a very good job of making newcomers feel welcome.

More like alienated and unaccepted.

What the immigrants I talk to dislike about the US—and what I tend to agree with—is that it engages in false advertising. It markets itself as the best, most advanced, and bountiful country on the planet.

The greatest.

But in reality, it’s not. I could insert a bunch of statistics here, but a quick Google search will reveal that the US isn’t number one when it comes to a variety of metrics such as tolerance, education, and quality of life.

Far from it.

Like every human being I know, it’s deeply flawed.

Except it won’t admit it.


“So what will you do?” I asked the driver.

“I’m going back to Ghana,” he said.

All Chick-fil-A outlets are basically company owned.

If they used a franchise model, they could expand much faster. But they prefer a slower, paced development. Even it seems like a lot of locations, they have not reached saturation in the US market.

Expanding overseas provides a huge opportunity but also large risks. Developing an efficient supply chain is one of them.

Funny you should ask.

Back in 1989, I had been hired to conduct surveillance on a car salesman in a small town about 150 miles southwest of Chicago. He claimed to be permanently disabled from slipping in wet grass in front of his employer’s location and injuring a leg. It had been more than a year after the initial injury and he hadn’t undergone any surgery, in fact a Chiropractor was allegedly treating the leg and certifying him permanently and totally disabled. The company said BS and suspected he was working elsewhere.

My normal practice was to contact the local constabulary and let them know I was in the neighborhood just in case someone called and reported a suspicious vehicle or person. I did so in this case too.

Nice little neighborhood, nice little houses, some cars parked on the street, too. That makes it easier to try and fit in. I was there well before dawn and parked about 4 houses down and on an intersecting street. Black felt capsule enclosure surrounding me in the back of my Trooper, I prepared the video camera on its secured tripod along with the Konica and long range lens. We were ready to rumble.

At about 8:AM a Sheriff’s department squad car rolled by me slowly, then pulls into my subject’s driveway. Sheriff Billy Joe Watkins gets out, holding two coffee cups from McDonald’s and is met at the door by my subject, who gives me the stink eye. I of course get a couple of good pics.

Half an hour later, Sheriff leaves, gets in the squad, subject steps out onto his front porch and watches as the Sheriff drives up to my vehicle, gets out, bangs on the side of my truck and yells “YOU GOT 5 MINUTES TO GET OUT OF TOWN OR YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL!”

He didn’t have to say it twice. I’m sure he would have found a reason to lock me up, impound my vehicle and make my equipment disappear. And I was 150 miles from home in Yee-Haw County. And the Sheriff was a friend of the subject.

That was the last time I made the courtesy call. Lesson learned.

Not worth the cost

The Scammers are geniuses in Economics and Finance

They know high value scams can get them roasted in days

For instance if they went after Adani for ₹5000 Crore, they would be caught and hauled up in a week at the most

However the Scammers go for MASS and small numbers

Rather than dupe 1 guy for 10 Million Bucks, they dupe 10,000 guys for 1000 Bucks each

Now take the Police

Even if they slog and slog and somehow manage to arrest the accused

They need the witness statement of 10,000 guys

It takes 2–3 years to bring a case to trial

By this time all the people who lost their money are OK with it and have resigned themselves to their fate

They certainly don’t want to come to court and spend 6–7 hours waiting and maybe get called again and again

Those who do come, get offered 10 times the amount and they end up making VAGUE STATEMENTS that go 180 degrees against the original statements

Ultimately the Scammers get acquitted

Then they start again


Scammers get your account information from Banks through the BPO side

They target customers who won’t be devastated if they lose ₹30–40K

Targets are angry for a few days, a week maybe two and then they shrug it off and go back to their life

Police don’t strike when the iron is hot

They start after 1–2 years by which time the Target has long forgotten the issue

By this time he simply doesn’t want to waste too much time and won’t come to 4–5 sessions with the Prosecution, Cops and hearings before the court

Imagine they are NRIs in US??

They need to pay more for the tickets to come to India

Would you testify for a loss of ₹1 Lakh four years ago by spending ₹5–6?

No right


The Cost Benefit Analysis never works in favor of the Victims or Law enforcement

It’s why Scammers flourish on CARELESS PEOPLE

Project Camelot – Kerry Cassidy Interviews Ashayana Deane Part 1 (2∶36∶39)

Chet goes after Mrs. MM

No we’re not all the same. I think it boils down to if you were given the speech or not. The speech varied between groups. Black Americans for instance they’re told when they’re in their teens how to act with regards to the police to prevent you know being KILLED.

Levar Burton even said he had to give such a speech to his children.

I can actually think of a fairly good correlation to those given the speech and those who were not.

My dad, Baldie*, Mr Lee** all gave us the speech. Maybe it;s because we’re Hakkas and we’ve been running from oppression for centuries…

My dad said. No matter WHAT you will ALWAYS be welcome back in your homeland. This is your home.

I guess that’s why the 2019 rioters pissed me off so much. Literal invaders on our land telling us to fuck off back to our own land.

*baldie is the dad of the former NHS surgeon who left the UK, she married one of my dad’s younger sisters.

**Mr Lee is also the dad of the other former NHS surgeon who again left the UK, she’s my dad’s cousin’s inlaw or something.

You can see some differences between Calvin and me. He’s more generalist Chinese, I’m far more clannish than he is.

US Dollar Death, Banking Collapses & Endless Wars To Result In Hyperinflation | Lynette Zang

Damn good video.

Sean Mallery

“Wake up Alice, we have reached the null point”Alice sat up straight, wiping a bit of drool from her mouth. “What?”“The Captain’s input is needed, Alice. The coordinates are already set.”“Hey Wonder, uhh I wasn’t sleeping.”“Sleeping? I didn’t say you were!” Wonder joked. “I don’t even know what sleeping is. How would I? I never sleep.”“Okay, smartbutt computer. Just give me the calculations of the jump”“It’s on your HUD right now. No need to check. I ran the numbers myself,” Wonder said.Alice leaned forward and tapped the HUD. The map expanded to show multiple solar systems. “Did you calculate the balance of the cargo?”“I’ll admit, I rounded up to the third decimal place. Well within margin,” Wonder explained.Alice brought out her stylus and moved some numbers around. “What is the cargo this time?”“That’s classified under the RED initiative.”“Okay, can you at least tell me if it’s solid, fluid or gas? These things matter when jumping through the ather.” Alice explained.“Sorry, I cannot provide any details, as they are classified.”“Fine, the math looks good. Prepare for ather jump,” Alice conceded.“All systems green, standing by for the captain’s input.”Alice leaned forward and stared at the big red jump button. She pressed her palm down and the ship made a Ker-chunk sound as the jump engines fired up. “And the under paid monkey presses the button” she said.“Hole to the ather is open. Shields are steady,” Wonder reported. The ship pointed toward the glowing hole in space and lurched forward. The 1-DR was not a pretty ship to look at, but it was a useful one. Designed with functionality over aesthetics. All long, with dark lines broken up by exterior propulsion engines. They buzzed, spilling plasma out into space. Alice buckled into her captain’s seat. The transfer to ather space was never a smooth ride. This isn’t some luxury line ship meant to make people comfortable. It moved freight and did it cheaply.“Hitting ather space in 3…2…1” Wonder counted down. The entire ship lurched and moaned as it crossed over. Alice brought up the ship status on her HUD. Before she even had time to look at it, the lights went red and an alarm siren blasted, making Alice cringe reflexively. She silenced the alarm with the push of a button.“Wonder status,” Alice demanded.“We have lost coupling on the aft cargo hold.”

“Can you give me visual?”

“On the HUD now” The screen glowed with a swirl of purples and red of ather space. Alice moved the camera to see the cargo container. It hung on by a single coupling and flailed wildly.

“Give me manual control” The chair moved back and dual joysticks raised up. She took hold and moved the ship. She turned and rotated until the cargo no longer bounced around. Physics in space are weird, physics in the ather are impossible. The ship was now turned sideways, but still moving in the same direction. As long as she could keep the ship in the ather’s slipstream, it would be fine.

“Starboard engine took damage.” Wonder informed Alice. “On this trajectory we will slide out of the slip in thirty seconds.”

Alice sighed. Drop the cargo or drop out into ather space. She thought about it and quickly decided. Turned the engines off and allow the ship to drift. With the damage done to the engine, there was no telling if she could correct the path either way. Losing the cargo was not an option while working with RED either. Lost cargo means a fine and who knows how big the fine is with the classification placed on it. The ship rumbled as it left the slipstream moving into a thicker ather.

“Great, repair options for the engine?” Alice asked.

“Working on it.”

Alice’s HUD displayed a warning. Shields at 75% It read.

“Work faster” She screamed. “The ather is pressing in on the ship.”

“Yeah yeah. Don’t get your undies in a bunch,” Wonder said with a laugh.

“What? Wonder I need a solution. Can I space walk to repair it?”

“Space walking in the ather will get you deader than your sense of humor!”

“What has gotten into you?”

“I apologize Alice, it seems the effects of ather are causing me to malfunction.”

“Stupid AI, you can’t break now too.”

“Have you tried turning me off and back on again?”

Alice got up from the captain’s chair. She grabbed a tool case from the closet and headed into the bay. She checked a status screen as she walked by. Shields 60% it read.

“Wonder can I get to any of the parts from the interior of the ship.”

“Panel thirteen – seven. Look for the big red glowy light. That will be the thing. They always have glowy lights to let you know if they are bad.”

Alice turned down a hallway and caught sight of something white and quick moving just around the next corner.

“Wonder, is there anyone else on the ship?” She asked.

“Its just me and you forever baby!”

Alice let out a long sigh. “Is any of our cargo biological? Animals maybe?”

“Sorry that’s classified,” Wonder answered.

“Oh, now you can be serious?”

“Sorry, even I can’t read it. I’m looking at the file on our cargo right now. It just says classified.”

“There is something else on the ship.” Alice explained.

“Nah bro, you are going crazy.”

“What?” Alice said incredulously

“Mild effects of aether poisoning. Step one insanity, step two coming to terms with insanity, step three, the fun part.”

Alice grunted. She knew she needed to move faster before she was useless. She found the panel and removed it. The array of wires and pipes hid circuit boards. She found the one with the red light. She unplugged it and plugged it back in. The light turned off and back red again. Alice frowned. She unplugged the module. Probably didn’t need it, anyway. Alice turned around and jumped. There in the middle of the hall sat a small white rabbit. They stared at each other for a moment. The rabbit took off down the hall and around the corner.

“No, you don’t,” Alice said and chased the rabbit around the corner. She skid to a halt at the table before her. Alice found herself in a large, ornate room. She gawked at the white walls and wooden furnishing. Where was she? This isn’t a room on the ship. Worst of all, there were people sitting at the table, pouring cups of tea.

“Hello” she intoned.

“Oh, hello Alice,” the man at the head of the table said. He wore a purple suit with a tall hat. “Tea?” He asked, gesturing with a steaming teakettle.

“Uh, no thank you.” She said, looking shocked.

“Please sit. You know my friend, the white rabbit.” He gestured to a rabbit sitting on the table. It had its own cup of tea and cookie. It looked up as if acknowledging her.

“H-Hello.”

“And this here is our lead ship mechanic. Scoots.” The man in the suit said.

A short, pudgy man in a black suit and bowler cap looked over at her. “Ma’am.” He said, tipping his hat.

“And I of course, am the ever present Wonder.”

“Wonder? You’re the ship AI?”

“In the flesh!”

“I don’t understand. We don’t have a ship mechanic, and you are an AI. Don’t even get me started on the rabbit!”

“It is very easy to explain, sweetie. You see, you are quite mad.”

“Mad?” she asked.

“Insane, the ather has broken through the shield and you are undergoing the effects. Have a seat, enjoy yourself.“

“I don’t know.” She said, sitting down, “If I am insane, then how can I sit in a chair that isn’t real, smell the tea that isn’t there? Even the light of this room, I can feel it.”

“Well, the ather does weird things to all of us,” Wonder Explained

“For sure,” Scoots chimed in.

The rabbit just looked at her. Alice knew what it was saying.

She held her cup as Wonder poured some tea. “So what do I do now?”

“Well, you have two choices, really. You can get the ship back into the slipstream and finish your delivery. Do the next delivery and then do the next. Until you die. Or Ooooooor. You can stay in the ather and explore what is in this new space. You, me, scoots, the rabbit can come too.”

Alice sipped her tea. “You make a good point, but what if this is just the insanity talking? What if there is nothing out there to explore?”

Wonder leaned back in his chair. “Well honey. I will admit, I am biased. I have always wanted to see you like this. With my own eyes, I mean. Not through a camera, not through you pushing buttons.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want to be with you, exploring. Ya know, like this.” Wonder gestured to the table.

“I say we stay,” Scoots said.

“And Mr Rabbit, what do you have to say?” Alice asked. The rabbit reached up to it’s cup and took a sip. It looked over, wiggling its nose. “I’m sold.” She said. Alice stood up and grabbed her cup. Let’s go to the helm and see what’s out there.

“You’re the captain,” Wonder said grabbing his cup a handful of cookies. They all together walked to the helm. Alice sat down in the pilot seat and grabbed the joysticks.

“We need repairs, lets see if we can find a place to land.” Alice said. Wonder took up a position in a newly formed station in the helm. “I see a planet on the scanners.”

“I can see an asteroid belt around that planet.” Scoots chimed in from the maintenance station that was suddenly there.

“How can there be a planet in the ather?” Alice asked.

“Lets find out.” Wonder answered.

I went to a private, prestigious all-girls school. We certainly had a wide range of economic backgrounds, and many of us were solidly middle class, but it is not an exaggeration to say that most of the wealthiest families in town chose to send their daughters there.

The students that came from money….they came from a LOT of money. I will give you some examples. One of my classmate’s first car was a Viper, the first year they were made. Her parents spent over $100,000 on a car for their daughter to most definitely wreck. Some more classmates drove to school in a brand new Hummer (back when this was a somewhat big deal) and they came from their very own expensive downtown condominium. The sisters lived there during the week so they wouldn’t have to make the 30 minute drive to their parents house in the suburbs. One of my classmates at the affiliated boys school received $1 million every birthday and Christmas.

It was considered impolite to talk about money, and mostly people didn’t, but everyone knew.

We took special educational trips in the winter (called Winterim). If you can afford it, you could go and educationally swim with the manatees in Florida. If you couldn’t afford it, well you would probably end up at a local camp. And I did.

You could choose wherever you could afford to go in the catalog, except for your senior year. Senior year everyone went to Disney World.

After a few nights in Disney World, our headmaster frantically gathered us all into a hotel room.

A couple of wealthy girls had been caught shoplifting. Our teachers actually collected some of our spare pocket change to have enough cash to bail them out.

Two months before graduation, after many thousands of dollars in tuition, the girls were expelled. I heard they managed to graduate from the public school they were zoned for.

Burger Bundles

cc78958fb411e7303b407319cc07756b
cc78958fb411e7303b407319cc07756b

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups herb stuffing mix
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1/3 cup evaporated milk
  • 1 can cream of mushroom soup
  • 1 tablespoon ketchup
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • Parsley, for garnish

Instructions

  1. Prepare herb stuffing mix. Mix ground beef and evaporated milk. Divide this into five (6 inch) circles. Spoon 1/4 cup stuffing into center of circle. Draw edges over and seal. Place in a casserole.
  2. Combine cream of mushroom soup, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over meat.
  3. Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees F for 45 to 60 minutes.
  4. Garnish with parsley.

GUITAR GURU!! GARY MOORE – THE MESSIAH WILL COME AGAIN REACTION

Yes, I was 12 years old. It was the first week of school. The whole time I was in class I felt like there was something wrong. I had no motivation to do any school work. I was confused as to why I felt like this. Later that day I got called to the office saying I was going home early. Now, I was sooo lost at this point because I would never leave school early. So, I went to the the office and my uncle was there waiting for me and my brother. We were both confused and in shocked. I has asked my uncle what he was doing here and he stayed silent. Then, we went to my little sister’s school to pick her up too. While we were waiting for her in the office I saw that my uncle had my mother’s phone. I was asking questions but my uncle kept saying “It’s okay.” After we got my sister we went back to my house. The house was a mess. So, I started to clean. Our house would always be nice and clean. So many thoughts went through my mind right then. 30 minutes later my cousin came over and started making us food. I started to worry because neither my dad or mom were home. I started to worry but not in front of family of course. Then, my aunts and uncles came to my house and gathered around and started to cry. I was getting even more confused and went to my laundry room and hid there. My aunt saw me and asked me “Are you okay?” I replied “ I just want my mom and dad to be okay.” All that my aunt said after that was “I Love You.” And that’s when I knew one of them passed away. That night my cousin told me my mom had passed away. ( My family tried to hide it from us because they thought it was best to not know yet but I knew)

Edit: You guys been wondering where my dad was during this time. My dad was home that morning too. My mom was yelling for help that she couldn’t breathe. My dad came rushing downstairs and called 911. They told my dad to give her CPR. My mom was taking care of 2 little boys and my youngest brother who was 4 at that time. So, while my dad was trying to revive my mother the little kids were making a mess with toys and things. That is why the house was a mess when I got there. When the ambulance got there my dad called my uncle to take care of the little kids so my dad can go to the hospital with my mom.

Modern Women Are DOOMED – New BAN On Alimony Gets Passed!

In Jeffery Sachs’ article (Ref 1), the U.S. is implicated in the removal of Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan. The compelling evidence of U.S. involvement in Khan’s ouster suggests that a similar situation could have taken place in Bangladesh.

In Pakistan’s case(Ref 2), Donald Lu, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asia, met with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan, on March 7, 2022. Following this meeting, Ambassador Khan promptly reported back to his government, relaying Lu’s warning that Prime Minister Khan’s “aggressively neutral position” on Russia and Ukraine was jeopardizing U.S.-Pakistan relations. That same day, members of parliament began procedural steps to oust Prime Minister Khan, who later accused the CIA of playing a role in his removal.

The U.S. appears to have played a similar role in the recent violent coup in Bangladesh. PM Hasina was ostensibly toppled by student unrest and fled to India when the Bangladeshi military refused to prevent the protestors from storming the government offices. Yet there may be much more to the story than meets the eye. PM Hasina is claiming that the U.S. brought her down. Specifically, she says that the U.S. removed her from power because she refused to grant the U.S. military facilities in a region that is considered strategic for the U.S. in its “Indo-Pacific Strategy” to contain China.

On May 17, 2024, the same Assistant Secretary Lu who played a lead role in toppling PM Khan, visited Dhaka to discuss the US Indo-Pacific Strategy among other topics. Days later, Sheikh Hasina reportedly summoned the leaders of the 14 parties of her alliance to make the startling claim that a “country of white-skinned people” was trying to bring her down, ostensibly telling the leaders that she refused to comprise her nation’s sovereignty. Like Imran Khan, PM Hasina had been pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality, including constructive relations not only with the U.S. but also with China and Russia, much to the deep consternation of the U.S. government.

To add credence to Hasina’s charges(Ref 5), Bangladesh had delayed signing two military agreements that the U.S. had pushed very hard since 2022, indeed by none other than the former Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the neocon hardliner with her storied history of U.S. regime-change operations. One of the draft agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), would bind Bangladesh to closer military-to-military cooperation with Washington. The Government of PM Hasina was not enthusiastic about signing it.

The U.S. is by far the world’s leading practitioner of regime-change operations, yet the U.S. flatly denies its role in covert regime-change operations even when caught red-handed, as with Nuland’s infamous intercepted phone call(Ref 3) in late January 2014 planning the U.S.-led regime change operation in Ukraine. It is useless to appeal to the U.S. Congress, and still less the executive branch, to investigate PM Khan’s and PM Hasina’s claims. Whatever the truth of the matter, they will deny and lie as necessary.

Covert regime change operations are illegal under international law, particularly under the Doctrine of Non-Intervention, as outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 (1970). Despite this, the U.S. has been involved in 64 covert regime change operations between 1947 and 1989, as documented by Lindsey O’Rourke( Ref 4), a political science professor at Boston College. The U.S. continues to engage in these operations with alarming frequency, toppling governments around the world. It is imperative that the U.S. take action to investigate and address these blatant violations of the UN Charter, which it is committed to uphold.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/regime-change-pakistan-bangladesh

Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/sheikh-hasina-alleges-us-role-ouster-says-couldve-remained-power-if-she-surrendered

Today I was pulled over by police. I had a loaded and concealed handgun on me at the time. Please keep in mind that my actions were completely voluntary for one simple reason. This is what happened.

He approached the drivers side and asked if I knew why he stopped me and I said I did not. He said my registration expired June 30 of 2016. He asked to see my drivers license, registration, and insurance card. As I kept my hands firmly locked at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel I immediately stated…..

“For your safety and mine sir I would like to inform you that I am a legally armed citizen. I have a concealed carry permit in my wallet. I don’t want to get my registration and insurance card because I have my pistol in the same compartment as my documents. The pistol is in the small compartment under the cup holder. Please be careful, there is a round in the chamber, the thumb safety is on, and there’s an extra magazine with it.”

He asked that I keep my hands on the wheel like they were and asked again where my handgun was. He asked where my wallet was with my permit card. I answered and then said…..

” I would like you to take possession of the handgun. I’ll get out of the truck if you want me to while you get it.” He told me that would be great and thanked me for my cooperation.

When I got out of the truck he wouldn’t turn his back to me. I asked if he would like to search me for any other weapons so he knew I wasn’t a threat. He said….

“If you don’t mind that would be great. Do you have any other firearms or weapons on you or in the truck?” I replied that I did not.

The police officer searched me and retrieved my handgun from the compartment with my documents and asked permission to retrieve my drivers license and conceal carry permit from my wallet. I gladly gave him permission to get what he needed. I also gave him permission to search the rest of my truck if he wanted to if he felt it necessary. The officer declined the consent I gave him to search.

After all the formalities the cop brought my pistol back to me and I said “If you want you can just lay everything on the drivers seat and I’ll get it when we’re done.”

I thanked him for being as calm as he was especially dealing with someone that had a handgun that was legally carried. The cop thanked me for my cooperation. He asked me to sign the warning ticket and to make sure to get my registration taken care of ASAP.

I thanked him and the back up officer for their service and told them to be safe, especially nowadays with all the crazy shit that was going on. I told them that was the reason I carry a handgun myself. I shook both of their hands. He handed me my warning and I went on my way.

After the cold blooded terrorist attack and hate crime in #Dallas and that day learning about #BatonRouge where the blood spilled still fresh in the minds of every American I chose to do what I thought was right.

The moral of the story.

It’s about everyone’s safety.

It’s about respect.

When you treat people with civility you get treated with civility.

Thank you Altoona Police Department for having professional law enforcement officers representing your department and protecting the well being of the city.”

Credit: Matt Powers

“Pre-Emptive Strike” Discussions . . .

"Pre-Emptive Strike" Discussions . . .

NATO has actually begun discussing “preemptive precision strikes” on Russian territory says Admiral Rob Bauer, head of the NATO’s military committee.

“This is a new discussion within NATO, and I am glad that we have changed our stance on this and on the idea that we are a defensive alliance that will sit and wait to be attacked before responding. It is more prudent not to wait but to strike Russian launchers if Russia attacks us.”

Recently, the West has increasingly voiced ideas about a direct military conflict between the alliance and Russia. The Kremlin, however, has stated that Russia poses no threat, does not threaten anyone, but will not ignore actions that could potentially endanger its interests.

Bauer, Chair of NATO’s Military Committee, went on to urge businesses in Europe to adjust production and distribution to withstand disruptions from global adversaries like Russia and China.

Speaking in Brussels, Bauer emphasized reducing reliance on critical supplies from China, which controls 60% of rare earth materials and supplies key pharmaceuticals. “Commercial decisions have strategic consequences,” he warned, calling for economic resilience to bolster national security.

Hal Turner Editorial Opinion

Based upon these statements, and factoring-in the behavior and conduct of NATO over the past few years, I am of the personal opinion they have become delusional and suicidal.

They have now poked the Russian bear for years hoping he will do the 1st strike, without success.

Now they are talking about striking first and I think they will act surprised and shocked when Russia retaliates.

Just watch them play the victims when it’s them who attack first.

Gargle as if your life depends on it

Would you pay $700 for a juice machine that requires WiFi to work?

What if I told you it only works with specific juice packets sold by the company, which cost ~$7 for every glass you want to make?

Oh I forgot to mention, it’s actually 25% faster to manually squeeze the juice packet with your hands, rather than putting them into the machine.

At this point, you’re probably unsure why anyone would ever buy one of these. This reaction was shared by consumers, as low sales forced the company to drop prices to $400. However over-engineering meant that each unit still cost $750 to produce. They were always selling at a loss, but now they were bleeding cash.

Yet despite the blatant flaws of their product, losing $4 million per month and a lack of customers willing to pay $400 for an inefficient juicer, they still managed to raise $118.5 million from prestigious investment funds, like Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures.

This is the story of Juicero, a company which has now ceased selling its products, and offered full refunds to anyone who purchased their product. They should serve as a cautionary tale for any aspiring entrepreneurs who hope to get rich by solving a problem that doesn’t exist, instead of being ambitious and making a meaningful difference by solving important problems.

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What will Europe do when big daddy USA isn’t there to save them from Russia?

Where is big daddy USA right now ?

Cowards.

The U.S. has been actively preparing to fight one particular country since 1949. Multiple proxy wars, and trillions of dollars spent on stockpiling munitions and weapons platforms.

There are over 3,000 M1 Abrams tanks sitting collecting dust in the Sierra Army Depot, that were purchased to fight this one particular country.

And when the moment finally arrived for the US to finally take in this arch enemy after preparing for 75 years, what was the response ?

“Fear of escalation”

Cowards!

Americans have demonstrated they don’t have the balls to fight a near peer directly. Just a lot of talk and sabre rattling.

You spent all that $$$$$ preparing to fight only to back down like cowards.

And what message does that send to China, now that you have publicly played your hand and backed down from Russia ?

Just as when you backed down from Russia in 2014, and emboldened Putin to go further, so too are you emboldening the Chinese, and you’re too fucking stupid to see that. But keep listening to Trump, who has Putin in his pocket, and admires Xi Ping for how powerful of a man he is. That’s who you just elected – a president who admires the leaders of your enemies.

Spineless fucking cowards, and strategically as dumb as a bag of rocks.

Korea – stalemate

Vietnam – lost

Iraq – utter failure

Afghanistan – lost

You’ve developed a talent for fleeing

Cowards, who repeatedly betray allies.

But you sure kicked ass in Granada and Panama!!

And you sent not one, but two carrier groups to help with the turkey shoot in Gaza. Real tough guys!

Edit for the Trump voters: the soldiers are not the cowards. The soldiers are not the ones making the strategic decisions. The politicians are the cowards, including the Commanders in Chief, and every American citizen that supports the cowardice.

Dangerous (and very few of you know it)

Beijing’s spy agency ‘destroyed large number’ of Taiwan intelligence networks

  • State security ministry says more than 1,000 cases of Taiwanese espionage were uncovered in crackdown, with spies ‘severely punished’

William Zheng

Beijing’s top spy agency says it has uncovered more than 1,000 cases of Taiwanese espionage during a crackdown and vowed to keep up the pressure on the island’s pro-independence forces.

In a post on WeChat on Tuesday, the Ministry of State Security said the cases were revealed in a series of special operations launched in recent years and that it had continued to “strike hard” against spying activities.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3274300/beijings-spy-agency-destroyed-large-number-taiwan-intelligence-networks

New Study from Japan: Covid Shots Installed Nanobots

Screen Shot 2024 08 11 at 9.03.40 PM
Screen Shot 2024 08 11 at 9.03.40 PM
A new Japanese study shows that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain unauthorized “animated worm-like” entities, invisible to the human eye, which swim, wiggle, and assemble themselves into complex structures, which cause clots inside the body. Researchers Dr. Young Mi Lee and Dr. Daniel Broudy isolated unused Pfizer and Moderna vaccine vials for 3 weeks, and then examined them under 400X magnification. They noticed that when the nano-technology was energized, it created “discs, chains, spirals, tubes, and right-angle structures.” The scientists believe these mysterious nanoparticles are responsible for the explosion of “turbo cancer” and autoimmune diseases around the globe. They also concluded that humans into controllable “Biohybrid Magnetic Robots.” The suggested that the smart microscopic components are part of the elite’s “long-planned well-funded Internet of Bodies,” which was described as a kind of “synthetic global central nervous system” turning humans into controllable “Biohybrid Magnetic Robots.” The researchers called for a ban on mRNA shots. They also demanded the labels “vaccine” and “safe and effective” be removed because the substances are not vaccines and they are dangerous.

 

Link for Study:   

Real-Time Self-Assembly of Stereomicroscopically Visible Artificial Constructions in Incubated Specimens of mRNA Products Mainly from Pfizer and Moderna: A Comprehensive Longitudinal Study

He has indeed lost the plot

Has been losing so for a long time

He has been solely responsible for making Russia stronger and stronger by the day

Russian AD is unfamiliar with Himars attacks

He attacks Russian territories with so many Himars that today Russia can wipe out Himars Launchers effortlessly

Russian AD is unfamiliar with Storm Shadows and Scalps

He repeatedly attacks Crimea with these missiles and Russia can spot them a mile away and easily blow them away at a near 95% Interception rate

Russia is a creaking old army with only numbers who could collapse within their own weight

He stupidly takes them on, does a counter offensive and the Russian Bear slumbers, wakes up and begins to gradually start mobilizing, producing and making tactical decisions

This Kursk offensive is the best example

The Russians mobilized and moved within 72 hours and stopped the Ukranians at 15 Kilometres into the Border and killed the entire reserve force minus the 300–400 who are holding hostages

The Speed is astonishing

Next time it will be even faster

Plus their strategic evacuation of Border Areas

Plus their buffer zones along the Border


Bottom line is Zelensky is solely the reason why Russia is the MOST COMBAT READY ARMY ON THE PLANET


Reasons for the Kursk offensive?

It could never have been successful under any conditions

You can’t keep on entering Russia all the way to Moscow

Ultimately you will face resistance and be destroyed

Russia is the more powerful army

Just like if Bangladeshi Army invaded West Bengal, they would advance maybe 10 Kms before being cut to pieces by the Indian Army

The Reason was PR

To restore some confidence in the dying morale of the Ukranians

Instead the Russians are more determined to finish off the Ukranians


As every day goes by Russians who were reluctant to kill even Ukranian Soldiers and hoped they surrender are now ready to boil Ukranian Children in Hot Oil and make their parents watch

Time Zelensky was deposed

Problem is he knows too much

Probably Pictures of Biden and Hunter Biden with some Young Ukranian Minors on their Laps

Probably Secret Account Transfers of Wire Accounts of the Clintons or Romneys or Sunaks or Johnsons

It’s why he isn’t killed so far

Russia isn’t killing him because China has asked them not to

When this is over – I bet you will see some major Lithium extraction contracts signed between China & Ukraine in the past two years that will come to light

Women in China don’t have to worry about their own safety. A young woman can walk alone on the streets of China in the middle of the night.

You can smoke cigarettes almost everywhere in China. Although there are no smoking signs everywhere, there is no mandatory implementation. People still do what they want.

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main qimg a12828f3c2064b4665735fd20960fe96

Chinese people can drink while walking. In the United States, if you drink in public, you will be arrested by the police.

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main qimg 85a97fbcfc8e8fb7fa09c9f0c4ab3be5

The woman hangs a bag of Tsingtao beer on her shoulder and drinks it while walking

In the United States, you have to maintain your own lawn, otherwise you may receive a fine. But in China, most people live in apartments.

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main qimg 01eb476c918cefdfddfaea9e91a86e90

Chinese people are completely free to make their own decisions and don’t cook at home. Boys and girls there prefer to eat three meals in restaurants or roadside stalls. Because there are many restaurants in China, almost everywhere. Chinese people do not need to believe in God and do not need to pray before eating. Meal time is the most relaxing time for Chinese people, and there is no need for so many rituals.

Most Chinese people are not as materialistic as Americans. In Chinese life, most people pursue a simple life, know how to be content, and are more free and independent.

4
4

Is this homeless? no!

Chinese people have the habit of taking a nap. You can take a nap anywhere, the main thing is relaxation.

Especially outdoor workers, couriers, sanitation workers, food delivery people, truck drivers, motorcycle drivers, vendors, and police officers will all find a shady place nearby to take a nap.

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Shorpy

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How did you foil or dodge someone else’s attempt to cheat or deceive you?

Oh boy, do I have a story for this. And I didn’t even “foil” the person’s attempt, really. More like I defeated him with my cluelessness. But in retrospect what I did is the best thing to do in my situation. You’ll see later in the answer.

A little bit of background (you can skip to the non italicized part for the meat of the story)

I was born in the United States, and when I was 7 my parents moved to India, their homeland (taking me with them of course). I was in India (Pune, specifically) from 2nd-12th grade. During high school, I applied to a bunch of American universities and got in. I finally decided on UC Berkeley, which was the best school that I got into, and was really excited that the school had a rich history.

Another important point to note is that foreign citizens living in India had to register with the police if they were staying in India beyond 180 days, and also get a departure stamp from or something before leaving the country on their passport. Being an American citizen, I had to do that while living there.

However, right before I left for the US, my family and I had just obtained PIO (Person of Indian Origin) cards, letting us stay in India on a 15 year visa and getting rid of the need for departure stamps and stuff.

I was 17, ready to leave for the US, where I was to meet up with my Dad in the Bay Area who was already there on business. I was super excited (think the heart eyed emoji, I looked exactly like that), for I was embarking on an exciting journey. I am American, and now I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin with my dual American / Indian identity, but back then I was pretty nervous and confused about my own identity, which made me a little anxious about going to the US.

So here I was, at the Mumbai airport, having said good bye to my mom and aunt who had come along to drop me off. I went to the immigration counter (for my American peeps, a lot of other countries have passport control when you leave the country too).

The immigration official looked at my passport. He looked at me with his beady eyes through his glasses:

“What are you going to the US for?”

“For my education.” (Apparently having an American passport wasn’t enough)

He probably deduced in his head that I was 17 and going to the US for college so my parents must be rich. He looked at me again, but his eyes were beadier this time.

“You don’t have a departure stamp. You cannot go.”

“Umm.. what?”

“I said, you don’t have a departure stamp on your passport, you cannot go!”

At this point I was super scared, because I was traveling internationally alone for the very first time, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I genuinely thought I had fucked up. After breathing heavily for 2 seconds, I said:

“So.. what do I do? What can I do, sir?”

“See.. I’m looking for your benefit, and my benefit.”

Now you all know where this is going. However, at that point I was completely clueless.

“Sorry, I don’t get it. Do I need to do something? Just tell me what I need to do, I’ll do it, sir.”

(my Indian peeps will know why I used that “sir” for an immigration official of all people. I was trying to be respectful and not rattle an official who could really mess with you if he wanted to)

“Like I said, I’m looking for your benefit, and my benefit.”

I was still clueless. I know all of you want to scream at me: “He’s asking for a bribe you idiot!”, but remember: 17, alone and scared.

“Ok, so then tell me how I can help benefit both of us. Let me know, I’ll do it.”

He looked at me, bewildered. In retrospect I think he was trying to figure out if I was for real. He got really frustrated:

“You’re not understanding what I’m telling you, now go!” (he hands me my passport)

At this point you guys probably think I just left as fast as I could, right? Well, no. I was genuinely clueless about his intentions, I actually believed I had done something wrong.

“Sir, if you just tell me what you need me to do, if there’s any issue with my documents, I’ll fix it.”

“No! Just go!”

I was thoroughly confused by this, and I just left. It was only after crossing the security check and calling my mom to tell her this story did I realize (while listening to my own words) that I was asked for a bribe and got out of it because I was totally dumb!

So there it is. I foiled a corrupt immigration official trying to take advantage of a scared 17 year old and make some money. But I didn’t “foil” anything. 🙂 I just defeated him with my cluelessness!

I’m pushing 70, and I’ve been married, happily, for 35 years.

I am highly intelligent, in the top 0.1%, and I have a lifetime of working with very, very intelligent people, including many very intelligent women.

But I can tell you from my current vantage point that if I had restricted myself to women with my IQ or higher, I would still be single. There were certainly candidates; but I was not romantically attracted to them, and would not have enjoyed living my life with them.

In contrast, my wife and I are very compatible. We like the same kinds of food, and restaurants, and entertainment on TV and in movies, we like the same music, we like the same kinds of sex, we like the same kinds of vacations, we have the same political beliefs, we like and donate to the same charities, we like the same comedians.

It is very, very easy to live with my wife; and she is not a slave, we split our domestic duties evenly.

My life is not about being intelligent. That is my job, and I don’t need to bring it home, or discuss it with my wife, or get any ideas from her on how to move forward.

In my job I am surrounded by very smart engineers and technologists, including many women, and I can discuss problems and technical issues with them, and for the most part not have to spend an hour explaining my ideas.

The only thing my wife knows about my job is that some decades ago I invented something for the Federal Aviation Administration, and I told her it was to “Help keep planes from falling out of the sky, because the FAA frowns on that.”

That’s the one she remembers, a single four month contract out of 35 years.

I get my fill of intellectual conversation in other ways; I am with my wife to relax and have fun, and that does not have to be intellectual in the least. The only time it is, is when occasionally she wants me to explain something to her. I know her well, and I am smart enough to explain what she wants to know in terms she will understand and be satisfied with.

OMG!

Half of Forever

Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a story set in the dark recesses of space where the two main characters are often at odds with each other in humorous and comedic ways. view prompt

Morgan Elbert

“Christ, One!  What the hell were you thinking?” the voice came through the hud slightly distorted.  Nothing had been right on the Doppel Station for days, maybe weeks. It was difficult to keep track of time in this lifestyle.  There were no nights, no days, and essentially no schedule. Work needed done when it needed done and it didn’t matter if the men were tired or hungry or whatever other excuse they might concoct. One tried to focus his mind enough to remember when the issues had arisen.  He knew it was during Twenty-Seven. Measuring events in that way made him feel lugubrious, but it had been his best method to date. These minor external repairs were not typically so frequent, and he grew concerned that it meant the end of the station was coming soon. Perhaps it had drifted from its axis, or some distant celestial body had shifted and was influencing it in some way.  They were still waiting to hear back from the Union regarding their query.“One!  Yo, you listening, man?” the voice crackled through again.  One rolled his eyes and sighed, knowing the heavy exhale would be detected by the suit.  He liked the idea of his disdainful sigh echoing through the main deck for his crewmate to hear.“God One, you don’t have to be so pissy.  Just fix that panel and get the hell back inside.  I’m sick of monitoring your vitals,” came the response.After finishing his work, One leaned back against the hull of the station and watched the swirling of the reality around him.  The Dorra galaxy was on the small side for those that had been explored, and to One, it felt quaint — cozy even. It was like living in the smallest nearby town and still being able to see the nightlights of the closest big city.At least, that is how One thought of it, from his studies of old human culture.  He, himself, had never lived on the planet known as Earth. Born and bred on this ship, he spent much of his free time daydreaming; imagining what life must have been like for his ancestors.  Walking in something called grass — typically green with threadlike fingers of roots extending down into the soil for nutrients, hydrogen dioxide, and security.  He wondered what that might feel like, having roots and security. Breathing unfiltered air, filled with the pollution and aromas of the natural world.  One’s entire life had been inside this shell, floating endlessly in an even more endless vacuum of nothingness. Even the gravity he experienced wasn’t what he considered natural.“Bro — Wake up and get your ass inside,” the voice broke his melancholy revelry and One felt more angry than he had in weeks.  It wasn’t often that he sat out against the hull and let himself take in the view, but it was without fail that whenever he did, he was called back inside with the same crass phrasing that effectively wrecked whatever peace he had found in his meditation.As One closed the airlock behind himself and secured it, he could feel the needy eyes on him through the door.  He slowly and meticulously removed his gear, inspecting each piece before placing it carefully in his cubby. Mainly, he took such care in this process because he found it an effective method to avoid returning into the main hull of the station, and thereby further prolonging his peace and isolation.Technically, they were always supposed to take this level of care in their return inspections, but it was well known that few of the ‘nauts ever did, especially this far from the Hub.  Stations like the Doppel rarely, if ever, received elite visitors, and never had surprise inspections from the higher-ups. In fact, the Doppel was much more of a small outpost than a proper station.  The Doppel was a small superfluous station responsible for monitoring the oxygen levels and watching for signs of life on tiny dead rock on the outskirts of the galaxy. ‘Nauts stationed here were meant to exist, write reports for the Union, and maintain that there were always two living there.  Nothing else.A pounding echoed around One as he painstakingly inspected his last valve and he turned to the door to see an angry face peering through the glass at him.“Come on, man, get in here!!!”

“I’m doing my inspections,” One replied.

“You’re wasting time and you know it!”

“ME? Never. Why on Doppel would I ever do something like that?” he asked, faking an aghast expression.

“Duuuude….”

He ignored the plea.

“Duuuuuuuuuude.”

He continued fiddling with his equipment, turning away from the door to hide a smile.

“Gawwwwd, dude.”

One started laughing.

“Alright, I’m coming, Twenty-Seven. Calm down,” he said, crossing through the door at last.

Twenty-Seven tackled him.

“Dude, it is so freakin’ lonely in this tin can, man. I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said, latching on to One’s back.

“Maybe you should try studying or reading or something,” One replied, pulling away from the younger man, “you haven’t been alive long enough to be this bored.”

“I’m plenty old enough to be bored, bro,” came the indignant reply.

“Dude, you’ve been alive 46 days.  I activated the Womb for you less than 3 months ago.  You have no right to be this bored.”

“Yeah, and you’ve only been alive, what, 180 days?” the young man asked sarcastically, though he knew the actual count was much longer.

“I’ve been here forever.”  A cold and measured response.

The younger man scoffed before jumping on One’s back again.

One pulled away once more and went to the bunk room.  Twenty-Seven followed him closely, something clearly on his mind.  One turned to him.

“What’s up, man?” he asked tiredly.

“It’s just — Man, uh — What happened to Twenty-Six?”

“I’ve told you what happened to Twenty-Six.”

“No, you just said you needed a replacement.”

“That’s what happened to Twenty-Six.  He needed replaced.”

“Dude, you know what I mean.”

“Twenty-Six died.”

“Well doy. How?”

“We’re in space. Even if we weren’t, death is a certainty.”

“Dude, One, you are the worst at answering questions, like, ever.”

One laughed.

“Yeah, but I’m still the best teacher you’ve ever known.” he chuckled.

“You’re also the worst everything I’ve ever known,” Twenty-Seven quipped.

The men stood in silence briefly. One lowered himself onto his bunk.  Twenty-Seven watched him, an increasingly tragic expression spreading across his face.  One leaned back and closed his eyes tightly, intentionally refusing to see the younger man’s pitiful appearance.  He was tired of answering these questions with each new iteration. At this point, it seemed an exercise in futility.

Each story ended the same, each life coming to the same closing line; never anything special.  It had become easier with each passing individual. Two had been a real struggle. One had been uncertain that he would ever recover from losing his first second hand man.  He had tried to make himself disconnect since then. He spent more time outside the station when he could. Tried to be independent from them. But Twenty-Seven — Twenty-Seven reminded him too much of himself in the very beginning, beyond the obvious fact that they had the exact same face, the same DNA.  Each of the men had the same face and DNA; that wasn’t special. Somehow though, Twenty-Seven was special. Excitable and eager to know whatever he could. Stifled by life inside the Doppel. It took great effort to remain aloof with this one. One reflected on the lives of the others, how shockingly dissimilar they had all been, all facts considered, and yet they all ended the same.  Such is life, he thought to himself.

 

 

 

One woke up naturally for the first time in what felt like ages.  No klaxon blaring, no clingy crewmate awaiting his eyes to flutter open.  “Good,” he thought. Perhaps at last Twenty-Seven had gotten the hint to stop asking so many questions.  He rose slowly, stretching his aching body. The human body was not designed to spend its entire life in space.  Even One, essentially created for that purpose, still struggled with the effects.

One found Twenty-Seven sitting quietly near the com panel and staring through the view screen at the celestial bodies of Dorra that blinked and flickered around them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered, placing his hand on Twenty-Seven’s shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Twenty-Seven responded, being jarred from whatever distant reality his mind had ventured off to.

“So like me,” One thought with a gentle smile, before saying “Get some sleep, man.”

Twenty-Seven rose mindlessly and followed the instruction.  “How long has he been awake?” One wondered, before taking Twenty-Seven’s place at the com.  Still no message from the Union. One felt a familiar twinge of concern, before shaking it off.  What did it matter, really, he asked himself. He went about his routine, checking the equipment, checking readings, looking for anything that might have gone awry during his rest.  He was relieved to find there had been nothing out of the ordinary, and returned to his studies.

“Tell me what happened to Twenty-Six,” a groggy voice croaked from behind One.  He had been reading for hours, and the sudden reminder that he was not alone startled him.

“Christ, man!” he yelled.

“Tell me,” Twenty-Seven said again, “I need to know.”

“You already know.”

“I know he’s dead. I don’t know how he got there.”

“Does it even matter?” One shot back, “Dead is dead. Who cares how anyone arrived at dead. All that matters is that they are dead.”

“What happened to you, man,” Twenty-Seven asked quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“What happened to you?  Seriously, how can it not matter how they got there?  Dead is DEAD, man! Becoming dead is a big freakin’ deal.”

“Drop it,” One yelled. He felt his long stifled emotions bubbling up inside him.

Twenty-Seven was silent.

One was silent.

The silence became its own entity.  A threesome to their short staffed company.  It floated down on them and wrapped them up, holding them against one another.  One stared at Twenty-Seven, staring at his own face. Younger, not so worn down by the nihilism, unscathed by the repeated witnessing of death after death.  Hair still cut to regulation. Twenty-Seven stared back, tears prickling at his eyes and throat. He saw himself, and yet something completely different. Long, unkempt hair licking at that uncanny face, yet the skin pulled differently.  Tighter, and yet wrinkling slightly around the eyes, across the forehead. That face no longer held its softness. Silence coiled tighter, beginning to hint at suffocation.

“Look, I can’t tell you what happened to them, man,” One whispered through the smog of silence that nestled around them, “I just can’t do it again.”

Twenty-Seven nodded slowly.  Time drifted without meaning again, the way it had for so long, the way it always would, but in that moment, it was palpable.

An alarm blasted through the station, nearly shaking the men.  Something was wrong. Severely wrong. The silence that had enveloped them was eradicated.  They rushed to the com to see if they could see anything. The view screen was blank. The instruments were going berserk.  Inconsistent and chaotic readings flashed over and over before the entire com powered down. The lights dimmed inside the vessel, and a warning message began repeating itself.  One looked to Twenty-Seven. The young man’s face was contorted into fear and frown. One patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going outside,” he shouted over the various sirens and messages the station’s computer blasted through the hull.  Twenty-Seven grabbed his hand. “I’ll go,” he yelled, but One slipped away and ran for the airlock.

One grabbed his gear and slipped it on far more quickly than he ever had.  This was not how these situations were typically handled. The man with seniority was not the one who was supposed to go out during the outages, but he didn’t care.  Regulations be damned. He wasn’t going to watch it happen again. Twenty-Seven stood at the doorway, watching One as he dressed, screaming something unheard through the chaos that shattered everything he had ever known.  One heard as Twenty-Seven began trying to open the door into the airlock and before the younger man could progress, he opened the outer door, effectively locking the rest of the station down until proper procedures allowed things to open again.

One ventured out onto the shell of the station where he had spent his life.  He immediately saw where the vessel had been struck by some manner of space debris.  Two of the twelve power cells placed around the outside of the ship had been knocked loose, likely causing a short in the circuit and causing the power levels to fluctuate inside.  He set to repairing the damaged pieces, and looked up to see still more hurtling towards the Doppel. He worked as quickly as he could, but it was not fast enough. He had only been able to repair one of the cells before the next impact.  A small piece of rock struck him at such velocity it tore through the arm of his suit. Safety procedures activated. The arm was severed off and sealed instantaneously. The temperature rose rapidly on the blade inside the sleeve, cauterizing the amputation.  One screamed in pain, though from everything he had read, this was nothing compared to what would have happened without the guillotine effect of his suit. He had poured over the manuals that warned of what could happen in these circumstances. How the water in human skin would vaporise in the absence of atmospheric pressure; moisture on the tongue would boil.  All of that, of course, only mattered if the rest of you somehow had oxygen and protection from the vacuum of space. The hud began a countdown, indicating how long he had left without receiving proper medical attention. These suits, while advanced technology, could simply not stave off human death without other measures being taken to recover.

One’s mind flashed back, again and again, to each of the different men he had lost during his time on the station.  Had this been what they had felt? This fear? This — well, this relief? What sort of emotional cocktail did they each experience?  Were they — Was he — glad? He felt himself floating away from the hull of the station. The impact must have been enough to separate his magnetic boots from the titanium.  It was a weak bond anyway. It only made sense that it would have. As he rotated away from the only home he had ever known, the only home he could ever have known, he tried not to imagine the face of his protege.  He tried not to see that same face, over and over again in his mind. The fear. God, the fear. Two’s final scream flashed through his mind. Eleven. Nineteen. Each face, the same, and yet so different in that final moment.  Each death had been different, but was that even possible? Each had taken place in the same location — this godforsaken station in this corner of this godforsaken galaxy. Each death of the same person, genetically. How could it have been so different each time?  The urgency of the message in his hud increased, counting away One’s final seconds, and he felt a feeling of anticipation. Of impending freedom?

 

 

 

The Womb hummed in the background as Twenty-Seven sat at the com, studying up on life in the olden days, back on Earth.  He absent-mindedly worked his finger through the scars on his face. The scars he had put there with a broken piece of the ship gathered during a repair mission.  They were designs he had created after discovering the concept of “tattoos” during one of his deep dives into old human culture. It was his only way of feeling different.  When at last the Womb unlocked, he felt a very slight tickle of excitement. What it would be to not be alone again, even for a little while. He tried to stifle the feeling.  He knew how this always ended.

“Welcome to the Doppel,” the computer voice chirped pleasantly.

Twenty-Seven stepped into the room to watch the new arrival recover from the incubation process.  It sat up slowly, rising out of the pink amniotic fluid that each of the men was born from, stretching its back and arms.  It looked around. Focusing on his face. It blinked several times, and he waited patiently for the eyes to focus. It took some time, this orientation to the world of the living.  Fortunately, each of the clones was born with the ability to understand language and to speak it; once they figured out how to make their vocal cords work, anyway. The amnion drained from the incubation pod and the hatch opened, allowing the newest arrival to the station to step out into its new home.

Twenty-Seven leaned against the wall.  His hair was long, tumbling down his shoulders.  His hand stroked his beard out of habit.

“Get some clothes on and find me for orientation when you’re ready,” he said coldly before walking out of the Womb.  Something made him hesitate for a moment, and he turned back to his newest crewmate. Maybe this time it would be different.  He cleared his throat.

“And, uh, welcome to the Doppel, Forty-Nine.  I think you’re gonna like it here.”

“Wait.  Sorry, I just wondered.  How long have you been here?” the new man smiled awkwardly before asking, as his eyes slowly took in the haggard face of his superior.

Twenty-Seven shook his head and chuckled.

“About half of forever, man.”

  1. I was taught to read the newspaper when I was in elementary school by my parents and an excellent 4th grade teacher. When I was in 8th grade I read an article that said drug addict pregnant women gave birth to addicted babies. When I told my teacher in health class about the article she didn’t believe me. She said women who ate bananas did not have babies addicted to bananas. I pointed out that heroin was addictive and bananas were not. She told me to shut up and sit down.
  2. In high school I read a newspaper article that said the military tested LSD on unsuspecting soldiers and several had killed themselves accidentally while in a drugged state. One jumped out a highrise window because he thought he could fly. My gym teacher told me I must be mistaken because our military would never do such a thing. I asked why it was in the newspaper if it wasn’t true. She said she didn’t believe I read the newspaper.
  3. Freshman year in college in my American History class my professor attempted to tell me that the scientific belief during slavery was that Black people were not really human. That they were like monkeys or pet dogs. I told him that they may have said it but they knew it was a lie. Because given how white men raped black female slaves they must have seriously been into bestiality. Livestock cannot farm or clean or build or cook or rear and feed their babies. They knew we were just as human as them they used that lie to justify slavery. Then I walked out the class.

Oh Yes!

Late afternoon, on my way back to my dorm, Pink Floyd in my ears when I saw that lady coming towards me and smiling.

She was absolutely gorgeous, well dressed, and waving towards me.

Obviously I turned around to confirm that it wasn’t me(because well, why would it be me? I don’t know her) as she approached and said hi!

Baffled, I removed my headphones and replied back.

Lady: “Hi. How are you?”

Me: “Good thanks, and yourself?”

Lady: “I’m in some trouble and I’m really looking for some help. I need to meet my brother at *I forgot where* really soon and I don’t have enough money for fuel. Would you mind lending me 10 Rand(South African currency)”.

Me: “Sure thing”, while I handed out 10 bucks.

Lady: “Thank you so much, you really saved my day”.

Me: “Pleasure”.

Now, I’m the type of person who usually helps others when I can. That day I had some bucks, so I did.

What happens next?

Couple of months later, I was on campus chatting with my buddy and this absolutely gorgeous lady approaches us.

Lady: “Sorry to disturb you guys, I see you’re having a great chat. I’m missing out on some fuel cash and I need to go see my brother who is working. Do you have any spare 10 Rands?”

Me and friend: “Apologies, we don’t have cash on us”.

Lady, looked at us weird, turned around and make some comment. Me and my friend didn’t bother.

However, something struck me then. I knew that lady. Hell yes I did! However, it was too late to foil her plan.

Epilogue

Months later, I bumped into her again.

I decided to be an asshole that day and as soon as she started speaking I wore my evil grin.

Lady: “Sorry sir, I nee…”

Me: “Ahh, you gonna meet your brother again. You know, it’s the third time. I would have literally given you a hundred if you had changed your story.Try to be more creative next time, gorgeous!”, while I walked past her laughing.

Of course, I got the “Fuck you!” reply but I was too content to care.

Why is China the largest factory robotic installer in the world, with over 50% of all installations when they have so many unemployed people?

Entirely different

These Robots are doing jobs that NOBODY IS REALLY INTERESTED IN DOING

Like sewing buttons onto shirts or cutting lines of cloth

How many workers today do you think line up for 55 Yuan per day to sew 560 buttons onto 80 shirts at 1 Yuan for 10 buttons?

How many workers want to cut line’s of cloth and earn 70 Yuan a day for 140 metres a day of cloth?

How many workers want to get paid 60 Yuan a day for manually applying coloring lines on steel bars?

Almost NONE

So China needs Robots to do the job and to do it far more economically

These Jobs are now done by what is called 5G Factories

Fully automated factories working with 100–120 workers doing jobs with automated machinery that formerly close to 300–500 workers were needed

That’s because workers aren’t keen on working for 1500–1800 Yuan a month anymore

They want a minimum of 3000 -3200 Yuan a month

The Unemployed people are primarily College Graduates

They want advented jobs meaning Jobs that suit their qualification

In 2015 – the Offering Starting pay was 5,750 Yuan a month for a Non Trainee STEM graduate

In 2024 – It’s 9,150 Yuan a month

If you see the Vocational Training, the unemployment rate among fresh graduates is a mere 6.57%

Against nearly 18.5% for University Graduates

Dating Sucks for Gen Z & Millenials

Rat Fink

China isn’t exactly hidden from the world is it?

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main qimg 946663b368e14a45e46485c3892d7215

You have a Visa and can visit China anytime and see for yourself can’t you?

China has 34 routes on HS measuring a distance of 4,790 Kms at 350 KPH

China has 57 routes on Rail measuring a distance of 28,730 Kms at 256 KPH

That’s 33,520 Kms of guaranteed railway length

This is public record. You can check each route, delete the repeating routes and this is the number you get

170 million travelled by these routes this year and purchased tickets

So they have 33,000+ kms publicly published on record – more than the rest of the world combined

Why would they lie about having a mere 10,000 Kms more?

If they had said 100,000 – I understand

They said 43,000 when they have 33,500 that can be verified sitting in Chennai

Why make up a mere 10,000 Kms?

So my guess is 43,000 is very true and Australia is just as usual being a sore loser

Men Are Healing From Dating In The West When Going Overseas

Paintings of the High Seas

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You’re told to, that’s why.

Meanwhile you’re told to ignore anything before a certain point… where have we heard that before?

What do you mean before a certain point?

You know 22 years ago on 11th September 2001? 3000 people were killed yeah?

Some basic maths? 1/95,000th of the US population were killed that day. A typical person’s network is about 100–150 people meaning about – 450000 were indirectly affected.

A lot right?

In the Korean war the USAF killed 20–25% of their population with airpower, nothing was left standing EVERYTHING was bombed. Shacks, huts EVERYTHING was bombed.

1 in 4 people were MURDERED by the US airforce.

But wait it gets worse.

US sanctions starved the people killing several more million.

You think about that, 3000 people were killed in the USA and 450,000 were affected and the USA went on a rape murder spree killing nearly 5 million people

the white power types like Colin Riegels are all hahahahhaha it was FUN TO DESTROY IRAQ non whites are just insects! Only WHITE DEATHS COUNT because WE ARE THE WORLD NOBODY ELSE IS HUMAN.

And yet most white supremacies still think they’re the good guys.

The popularity of Abu Ghraib is testament to that

main qimg 5e1ee0ab9f2195145bad029b4a607572 lq
main qimg 5e1ee0ab9f2195145bad029b4a607572 lq

The whistleblower Joe Darby was absolutely destroyed over that when his conscience told him to show the shitty things the US has been doing for decades.

Scott Ritter REVEALS: NATO in Full PANIC! Russia Puts Ukraine’s Army on the Verge of TOTAL COLLAPSE!

Shorpy

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Elon Musk speaks

U.S. Government Selects New President For Venezuela

The clown show continues:

U.S. says Maduro lost Venezuelan election, calls for talks, transitionWashington Post

CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States on Thursday said opposition candidate Edmundo González defeated President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela’s presidential election and called for negotiations to ensure a peaceful transition of power.Maduro claims that he won Sunday’s vote. The opposition, meanwhile, says that the government’s own records, as well as independent exit polls, indicate that González won twice as many as votes.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Thursday evening.

Did anyone inform “President” Juan Guaido?

 

Posted by b at 7:03 UTC | Comments (124)

Putin Makes a statement

A comment

It’s interesting how the US always knows what happens in other countries’ elections, and the “real” results, but can’t manage its own elections and has a political system which no longer bears any resemblance to democracy in substance, and ever less so in form.

It’s also interesting how the US allows itself, and is allowed, to openly choose other countries’ leaders, and to assassinate them if other “democratic’ US methods don’t succeed.

The Grotesque States of America, as someone called it, is blind to how grotesque it has become and how much revulsion it is generating, which is systematically pushing it into irrelevance.

As for Venezuela, it is not going to allow another Guido cycle to hinder its path forward.

“Tensions that emerged on Sunday and continued on Monday and Tuesday, are now under control, and this control will become stricter day by day in order to ensure [the country’s] peace, prosperity and production,” Maduro said.

“We have arrested over 1,200 criminals and are now searching for another 1,000, who will also be arrested,” the president continued, adding that those individuals “underwent training in Texas, US, as well as in Colombia, Peru and Chile,” and his government has video footage of these training sessions to prove it.

He also said that “the criminals set over 300 police stations on fire.” In his words, around 80% of rioters were under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“We are catching them, one by one, and there will be no mercy,” Maduro said, announcing that two maximum security prisons will be put into operation about two weeks later. “All criminals will go to maximum security prisons.”

https://tass.com/world/1824421

 

Posted by: JB | Aug 2 2024 8:31 utc | 10

On the Chinese internet, people are also discussing this issue.

The majority believe that it is because of certain Democratic policies that have angered Elon Musk.

What I mean is the matter of Musk’s son transitioning.

We may be completely wrong in our speculation, but as Chinese people, this kind of thinking is quite natural.

Few Chinese parents would agree with such a thing and would definitely be extremely angry. So, perhaps we are projecting our own feelings.

Chinese people generally like Trump more, at least much more than Biden, and it has nothing to do with tariffs or anything like that. Here are two very important factors:

1. Values: You read that right, Chinese people relatively recognize Trump’s values more, such as hard work, valuing family, and not doing drugs.

Especially important is that due to political correctness, we don’t dare to oppose LGBTQ and immigration on the internet.

But in reality, people are very anxious.

This is not discrimination; it has to do with Chinese history. For thousands of years, the Chinese view on homosexuality has been “Oh, that’s fine, but don’t force it on me, and don’t affect me. We are all equal, you can’t think you’re superior just because you’re a minority.”

This is different from the West, where there was brutal persecution of homosexuals before, and now there is excessive promotion.

2 Immigration issue: In our history, we didn’t capture Black people from Africa and sell them as slaves, so we naturally don’t have a sense of guilt.

We are also not a country of immigrants, so when more than 30,000 Africans without legal status (some even claim up to 500,000, which I doubt, it shouldn’t be that many) gather in specific communities in Guangzhou, with over 90% being young males, and increasing at a rate of 30% per year, we are really, really worried.

But the above two issues, because of political correctness, cannot be publicly opposed. When we hear Trump’s views on sexual minorities and illegal immigrants, we naturally feel: he is saying what we want to say!

3.Trump doesn’t “keep a dog”

There are countless attacks and abusive comments against China on the Chinese internet, but very few in real life because the majority are actually paid posts.

These people don’t discuss other issues normally, but once a hot event like the Ukraine crisis happens, they post the same content densely to stir things up.

Chinese netizens generally believe they are hired by the Democratic Party, saying the American Democrats are too good at “remote farming dogs.” During Trump’s administration, this phenomenon was rare, possibly because he was smart enough to know that such actions only make the Chinese more disgusted and serve no purpose, so he cut the funding for online opinion wars.

Therefore, many people hope he will be in power again, at least to clean up the Chinese internet a bit.

These are situations that foreigners might not know about, so I ventured to respond.

It’s very easy to do. However, Taiwan’s air force and navy soldiers also have family members. When they die, their parents and siblings must have been devastated.

The CPC will not resort to war to unify Taiwan until it is absolutely necessary.

After all, the two sides of the Strait share the same roots after all, so there is no need to fight to the death.

In the same family, it was common for the eldest brother to join the PLA and the younger brother to join the Kuomintang army.

Mao Fumei, Chiang Kai-shek’s first wife and Chiang Ching-kuo’s mother, was actually from the same clan as Mao Zedong. According to the seniority, Chiang Kai-shek was Mao Zedong’s “brother-in-law” or “uncle”. Even Mao’s younger cousin was a lieutenant general in the Kuomintang.

Xi Jinping’s wife’s uncle followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949. Xi Jinping’s wife’s uncle’s family lives in Taiwan.


During the Chinese People’s Liberation War in 1949, 4 million Kuomintang soldiers surrendered and only a very small number of them lost their lives in the war.

Starting from April 1949,

  • only those Kuomintang soldiers who contacted the PLA at least one month in advance to surrender could be considered “abandon evil and follow good, 起义”,
  • those who surrendered 72 hours before the PLA attack could only be considered “active surrender, 投诚”,
  • and those who laid down their weapons during the PLA attack could only be considered “captive, 被俘”.

It is said that there was a unit in Lin Biao’s Fourth Field Army that was very rude, and it was the unit that was specifically reprimanded by Premier Zhou Enlai. They thought that there were too many Kuomintang troops who “abandoned evil and followed good, 起义” and “active surrendered, 投诚”, and their enemy annihilation figures were not good, so they returned the weapons to the Kuomintang soldiers when they had clearly “active surrender, 投诚”, and forced them to change their “active surrender, 投诚” to “captive, 被俘”.

“Abandon evil and follow good, 起义”, “active surrender, 投诚”, “captive, 被俘”, the literal meanings are different, and the treatment is very different.

In the 1980s – 1990s, a large number of people petitioned the central government, demanding to prove that they were “abandon evil and follow good , 起义” instead of “active surrender, 投诚”.

Therefore, at that time, the Kuomintang troops spent a lot of time studying how to “abandon evil and follow good , 起义” or “active surrender, 投诚” with the highest cost-effectiveness!

main qimg 4313d1b84f271d99472d22b203fd543c
main qimg 4313d1b84f271d99472d22b203fd543c

In 1959, when the first batch of war criminals were pardoned at the Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center, it was strictly stipulated that only those who had been “Captured for ten years, 被俘满10年” were eligible for pardon.

At that time, the prisoners of war in the War Criminals Management Center were immediately excited.

  • Those captured in the Battle of Lunan, the Battle of Xiangfan, and the Battle of Yangshanji were undoubtedly eligible for the first batch of pardons.
  • Those captured in the Liaoshen Campaign and the Huaihai Campaign were all in a good mood.
  • But those captured in the Pingjin Campaign were a little confused, and they were not sure whether they were eligible for pardon.
  • Those captured after the Crossing the Yangtze River Campaign were all gloomy and wished they had been captured earlier.

Time is running out, places are limited, and the “Abandon evil and follow good, 起义” needs to act sooner rather than later.

Classical art

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Native American Ravioli

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df6b2b88 dbaa 4e77 a048 f645b52952b6

Ingredients

  • 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Instructions

  1. Pour the flour into a mound on a flat working surface. Make a depression in the center with your hand that almost reaches through to the board. Crack the eggs directly into the well and, with a fork, whip in the salt and oil, mixing the flour in from around the edges. Mix and knead the dough with your hands for 8 to 10 minutes, until the dough has a smooth and elastic consistency. If the dough seems a bit dry, add a little water; add a little more flour if it seems too moist.
  2. Once you have obtained the desired consistency, cover the dough with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
  3. Divide the dough into handsful and roll out each section to a very thin, even, almost translucent thickness. Use your imagination to cut the dough into any size or shape.

Notes

Any filling can be used to make the ravioli.

Blue Cornmeal Ravioli: Substitute a combination of 1 cup finely ground blue cornmeal and 1 1/2 cups flour for the flour in this recipe. Increase the number of eggs to 5.

I turned up to work just over a year ago.

The previous evening my colleague had asked me for my password to my computer so she could print some “things” from my computer.

This colleague did not like me.

She then went through my messages that I had sent to another colleague. These messages would be deemed inappropriate in the workplace.

She showed these messages to a manager.

I turned up to the work next day.

My belongings were packed in a box and I was told I would not be needed at work today or ever again.

My mistake was sending the inappropriate messages to my colleague who subsequently resigned the same day.

I cost myself a job.

I cost my friend and colleague his job.

This was my mistake.

What happened from here though was a moment of self reflection.

Instead of blaming my employer and my sneaky colleague I turned around and asked myself:

“Why did I write those messages in the first place?”

I began to ask myself other questions.

“Why was I so angry at the sneaky women who got me fired?”

“Why was I in a job that I didn’t like in the first place?”

This led me to more questions.

“Why was I being rude about another person behind their back?”

“Why did I let my ego make bad decisions for the last twenty five years?”

My mistake led me to realise that I had been a bad human being for a number of years.

Since being fired I’ve opened my own gym, written for the Huffington Post and spoken about this same mistake for the last year and how I learned from it.

Being a bad person and getting caught was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made but it made the best man I’ve ever been too.

They decided to make it rain like there is no tomorrow. And then tomorrow came.

See, for an individual relying on a day job is probably fine. For a household relying on a single income is not great but, it works in many instances. For a company, only having one source of revenue, is very very reckless. For a nation, relying purely on one form of income and doing very very little to create wealth otherwise is just a recipe for disaster.

In the 1970s, and later, Venezuela decided to go on a spending spree. Taxes were lowered and government spending was increased in the form of handouts. This led to an increase in the purchase of foreign cars and other luxury items. The government then went crazy with its government-owned enterprises moving into utilities, roadways, health, internet, telecommunication, and tourism. They also entered the finance industry, buying up private banks and making them state-run which were financially crippling to purchase and then so poorly run that they never made a profit.

When government-run enterprises and workers get all the money they need, it makes it incredibly hard for private enterprises and small businesses to compete. Why would an individual start a business, if the government will just open a competing business, run it to a loss and drive the individual out of work.

In 2008, all export industries apart from oil had collapsed which resulted in massive unemployment but the government took massive debt and provided handouts. At this point, the country was literally a lottery winner who quit their job, spent all of the money and then re-mortgages the homes, they bought with their winnings in order to buy more lottery tickets.

The declining oil prices, then bought the whole house of cards crashing down. And then the poorly run government bureaucracy did, what a poorly run government bureaucracy does and tried to print its way out of trouble, causing massive hyperinflation in the process.

The cat distribution system FINALLY chose us!

The Bracky Bros

The US turned into a kakistocracy where circus acts, snake oil salesmen, sellouts, and dementia patients run the government.

Americans mocked and ridiculed China’s successful trip to the previously unexplored dark side of the Moon. Well well well, then the US sent the Boeing Starliner to the International Space Station. It looks like the Hotel California where “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”

China will take away their excess profits.

When I was a child, my family bought a television set.

I will never forget that day.

The whole family got up very early and counted the money over and over again—it was all of my father’s salary for 36 months, saved bit by bit by the whole family.

At that time, China couldn’t produce its own televisions and had to import them from abroad, which was extremely expensive for us.

I need to explain why China could make hydrogen bombs and nuclear submarines back then, but not televisions.

Because after its founding, China was so poor and backward—poorer than any African country—that it could only invest its limited resources into vital projects for survival, especially in heavy industrial equipment.

People worked on empty stomachs and exported every grain of saved food to earn foreign exchange, which was immediately reinvested into heavy industry production.

 

(Movie screenshot: Do you know what they are doing? They are not calculating accounts, but calculating nuclear weapons data. At that time, China had no computers, and even calculators were rare. They could only rely on countless people to use the crude calculation tools invented by their ancestors nearly 2,000 years ago to calculate bit by bit… It was very sad and tragic.)

The origin of China’s nuclear submarines can be traced back to an American children’s toy. At that time, Huang Xuhua, known as the father of China’s nuclear submarines, had no idea how to build one. One day, while visiting a diplomat’s home, he discovered that the diplomat had bought a $2 American toy nuclear submarine for his child. Huang was delighted and carefully analyzed the toy’s exterior and internal structure. Ultimately, he found the inspiration he needed.

Eight years later, China’s first nuclear submarine was launched.

This is also why I have always believed that the diffusion of technology is inevitable. Permanent blockades are impossible.

****

This was actually very against human nature and extremely painful.

By the 1980s, public discontent had reached a shocking level, and the Chinese Communist Party had to use some foreign exchange to buy imported luxury goods, such as televisions, to appease the people.

My family also experienced a similar situation when bought a TV.

At that time, a neighbor had a TV, but the child and I had a bad relationship.

All the children in the neighborhood could go to his house to watch TV, except me.

When his family played cartoons, I also wanted to watch them.

I stood in front of his closed door and “listened” to the TV cartoons.

But that kid didn’t want me to “listen” to the TV, so he came to beat me up.

Of course I couldn’t beat him, because all the other kids who could watch TV automatically became his allies, and obviously, I was beaten up by a group of kids.

My father felt very uncomfortable, so he made a major decision: to buy a TV with the money he saved! He originally planned to use this huge sum of money to invest in a small business.

That television brought a happy childhood to my neighbors and me.

My wife’s family was even more astonishing; they were the only household with a television among hundreds, so sometimes they had to move it to the small square to show it, as their home was too crowded.

Later, we were able to make them ourselves, LCD TV accounting for 90% of the world’s output, and the price came down.

Nowadays, products like televisions and tablets are cabbage price.

Because China produces a huge amount of cabbage, the price is extremely low, and we use “cabbage price” to describe very cheap prices.

Air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, microwaves—once they were “Made in China,” they all became “cabbage price”, and many poor people around the world could afford them.

The same goes for mobile phones. Now, out of 10 mobile phones in the world, 7 are made in China.

As a result, African people buy 110 million affordable but equally good Chinese phones every year (with the lowest price at $10!).

You may have never heard of or seen this mobile phone brand, but it is considered the national phone in Africa.

This kind of thing has happened in countless industries.

The next industries should be cars and large passenger aircraft.

The thing in the picture below is called a tunnel boring machine.

China’s infrastructure construction at that time was in urgent need of such large-scale equipment,but we do not know how to make it ,and had to buy it from the Germans at 700 million yuan per unit.

Additionally, parts and customer service were very expensive, and German engineers were very arrogant.

There was no choice but to endure it. What else could you do when your country wasn’t capable?

Now?

Now China can produce larger and better tunnel boring machines than Germany, at 30% to 10% of the German original price, occupying about 65% of the world market.

In a few years, there may be only one name for tunnel boring machines: Made in China.

Developed countries that used to earn massive excess profits by leading in technology and industry will have a hard time.

If they don’t cut prices, they can’t compete at all.

If they do cut prices, there won’t be as much profit.

So, developed countries can’t look at China in a friendly way.

Their original expectation was for China to stick to making shoes and shirts, with 1.4 billion laborers supporting less than 1 billion golden people.

However, it is more beneficial to the remaining 6 billion people in the world, at least they can obtain cheap industrial products and infrastructure capabilities, such as helping Iraq build 7,000 schools and helping Africa build railways, roads and dams, and the fees are much cheaper than those of Western developed countries.

So they are usually more friendly to China.Unexpectedly, China wants to make everything, and they make it pretty well, like Huawei.

This is a structural conflict that cannot be reconciled.

In the past, such conflicts were resolved through wars, defeating China in battle.

However, they found that if they resolved China militarily, China might convert its industrial capacity into military capacity, and with 1.4 billion highly homogeneous people who believe in collectivism, it would be a loss.

In fact, I think the West should not attack the CCP, because the hostility of the West has already disgusted some Chinese people.

We should all be worried about ambitious people.

The pictures is the headquarters of a Chinese shirt manufacturer.

Does it remind you of something? That’s right. However, this “strange” aesthetic has caused him to be ridiculed online hevavily and mocked by Chinese netizens as “He has established the Third Shirt Reich.”

My suggestion is for everyone to cooperate and achieve a win-win situation. By interacting more, they will gradually get used to China’s presence.

Pizza Spaghetti Bake

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ea5d34423917a0636969259d561a2603

Ingredients

  • 1 pound spaghetti, cooked and drained
  • 1 cup milk
  • Oregano, to taste
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Garlic to taste
  • 32 ounces spaghetti sauce
  • 1 package pepperoni, sliced
  • 1 pound ground beef or turkey
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 cups (or more) shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

  1. Combine cooked spaghetti, milk and eggs. Place in a 9 x 13 inch pan. Spread spaghetti sauce over spaghetti.
  2. Brown ground beef or turkey. Season with spices; drain.
  3. Place ground beef or turkey over spaghetti sauce.
  4. Add a layer of pepperoni.
  5. Top with shredded cheese.
  6. Bake uncovered for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees F.

Fletcher Cobb

Well it turns out that when you are traveling for several months through space, cryopods are pretty nice. If you are traveling through a self driven spacecraft there isn’t really much to do, hence the cryosleep. Not only does it prevent you from getting bored, it also slows your aging and metabolism. For the Newmans who were flying on the The Sparkler Flight No. 174, the cryo pods had a small problem: they didn’t freeze up.“Hey, Jim, when will this pod freeze us?” asked Emma Newman“I don’t know, how about you ask the pilot? Oh, wait there isn’t one. I told you we should have bought the other flight.”“Well we didn’t and now we are accelerating into a three month journey where we will be so conscious and soooo bored.”“Let’s just get out of this (beeping) pod. Isn’t there an emergency open button or something?”“How would you expect a person in cryosleep to push the-”“Found it!” Jim said as he pushed a red button and the temperature dropped. After a slight hissing sound the door opened dramatically, with fog spilling out into the surrounding room. Jim stepped out and surveyed the surrounding room, glad to be free of his claustrophobic confines.“Well now that your pod is open would you just skip the theatrics and open mine.” yelled Emma, who couldn’t find the button about three feet from her face.Jim, taking his time to open the pod said, “Hey, do you think that they have any good food here?”“Well, let’s see. The nearest restaurant is about a hundred and fifty miles away by now, so I think that they would have plenty of food for the people in cryosleep. Just open my pod!” The last part Emma practically yelled.After the pod was opened (with a less dramatic plop) Emma stepped out exasperated and shivering. She glared at Jim. Jim absently inspected a poster about how the cryopods works. Emma glared harder, hoping Jim would look at her. After that went on for about 30 seconds, Jim looked down and jumped at the intensity of her stare.“Well, the food I was talking about.”“No.”Jim pulled out a melted chocolate bar from his pocket and said, “I was hoping the cryopod would freeze it before I got to it, but this will suffice.”Emma just stared and blinked at him. “You had a chocolate bar this entire time and you didn’t tell me?”“No, two chocolate bars.” At this Emma displayed visible frustration. She held out her hand, hoping to get the other chocolate bar. He gave her one of those small fun sized bars. Emma displayed even more visible frustration at this concept. She threw it in her pod to save it for later.“How will we get into a working pod?” Emma asked.

Jim ignored her and just stared at that poster on how the pods worked.

“How will we?” Emma asked.

“We probably need to replace the temperature sensor. The poster said so.” Jim told her factually.

“How will we get those?”

“They stock them at Targets across the world.”

Emma just slapped him.

“What was that for?”

Emma slapped him again.

“We could find one in the storage.”

“Now that is helpful.”

Jim slapped Emma.

“What was that for?”

After confusion about where the storage was they finally found it. If they looked at the airport style signs hanging from the ceiling and telling them where to go they could have found it earlier. The room was rather large and full to the brim with bins of spare parts and not one, but two giant teddy bears.

“Let’s split up. You go left, I go to the teddy bears.” That was Jim.

Emma held up an uno reverse card. Now she was the one who checked the teddy bears.

After five minutes Jim came back and Emma knew they had to switch places. After about thirty seconds of having to switch, Jim yelled to Emma.

“I found the temperature sensor. It was right behind the teddy bears. Emma, what were you doing with the teddy bear?”

Soon after they found what they all that they needed the Newmans needed to leave the storage area. At this point in time they found themselves in a fork in the hallway. Jim decided to go left, Emma decided to go right.

On Emma’s path she saw the ceiling sign telling her which way to get to the cryo chamber. “I found it!”

“You might have but you have to come here.” yelled back Jim.

“Will you go to the pods after?”

“Yup!”

Emma walked back to Jim, annoyed but also knowing he wouldn’t give in. As Emma turned the bend she saw it and instantly felt a crowd of emotions, ranging from embarrassment to straight up confusion. She walked into a food court. And a Target. At the same time. The Target’s shelves full of the temperature sensor’s and other tech items. It was as if the universe had made all the dumb things Jim said come true just to annoy her.

Then she realized it. Jim had found the holodeck and was project this entire area into existence. “Why did they have a Target-food court simulation on the holodeck?”

He held up a USB thumbdrive.

“Again, why do you have this on a thumbdrive?”

“You don’t?”

Exasperated, Emma just gave up. “Now will you just fix the pods?”

“Sure, I guess,” and they walked back into the cryo chamber. Jim started working on the pods while Emma ate her chocolate bar (the fun size, if you remember). After Jim messed around in the pod (basing all of his work off of the poster) he finally said they were ready. Emma had finished the tiny chocolate a long time ago.

“Alright, this should work. Get in.” said Jim.

“You first, you’re the one who fixed it.”

“And you’re the guinea pig.”

“Fine,” said a very annoyed Emma, getting into the machine.

Jim pressed some buttons to initialize the freezing, and the exact same thing as before happened. It got chilly, but it didn’t freeze them. “Hey, Jim, I think you broke it.”

“Well, obviously”

“Can I try to fix the pod.”

“Ok, I guess,” said a very disappointed Jim.

Emma got out of the pod and started poking around inside. She had no idea how the pod even worked. After about thirty seconds she gave up and started looking at the buttons on the outside. Looking at the main control panel she saw an array of dials, but one stood out to her. The temperature dial was set to “Refrigerate”, not “Cryosleep.”

“Hey, Jim, the pods were set to keep us cool, not make us sleep.”

“Oh, come on,”

Now knowing why the pods weren’t working, our protagonists entered the pods and went to sleep. This time it worked. They would wake up and be at their destination, with a story to tell. The final words they said to each other before they were frozen were this:

“See you in three months Jim!”

“See you- wait, I was wondering where this burrito went!”

Don’t drink and post…

Finally…

MM has a few words…

Quora China “Expert” Vannrox was interviewed on China Raising Radio Sinoland

Here’s my interview with Jeff on a wide range of topics regarding China. I hope that you will all take moment and hear my thoughts on what is going on in China. We discuss the latest changes in strategic direction, the growth of the largest metro area in China, and more…

Video interview plus transcript HERE.

The tale of the red wagon

It’s simple

I am a European Customer

I want to buy a Car

I see a BYD Car of excellent quality costing me € 34,500

I see a Volkswagen of a little lower quality costing me € 48,200

Why would I buy a Volkswagen?

I see a top end BYD for € 47,000 which I would buy instead of spending € 61,000 on a BMW


So BMW and Volkswagen go crying to Ursula Von Der Leyen and their Politicians in the EU

They say “Look. We can’t sell at such low prices. This is unfair”

Ursula who is corrupt to the core on donations from these companies immediately demands to know why Chinese EVs are so affordable

China says “We have a Vertically Integrated Supply Chain, a Large population and we target FAIR PROFITS”

Nopes the Neocons say

They can’t ask BMW or Volkswagen or Tesla to shave off their profits

They can’t demand their distributors who charge 26% to lower their costs

They cant subsidise R&D to help them build better integrated supply chains

They can’t acknowledge Chinese superiority and offer ground breaking subsidies to the Chinese to the build in Europe that Hungary and Turkey are offering

Solution?

Accuse the Chinese of subsidies and impose tariffs

Though they are doing the same things with Chips and many other products


Its plain old PROTECTIONISM

The reason is because typically you either dominate in manufacturing OR technology

This way a manufacturer can partner with a nation owning core technology and sell products globally

Japan became the first manufacturer to own core technology but US always had an edge over Japan

Sure Toyota had their own technology but US Engines were better

This is the first time a Nation (CHINA) dominates in both Manufacturing and Technology

And their technology is better than the US and it’s allies

And getting better and better by the day

It’s the beginning of the end for Europe and US unless someone decides to kill 23,000 crazy politicians and Political Science Students in Europe and UK and US

Rus missile hits 50 western Instructors. Ukr massive drone 75 attack Rus. Kuleba visits China.

China Brokers Unity In Palestine

This is an interesting development:

Palestinian factions agree to end division in pact brokered by ChinaSCMP

Rival Palestinian factions including Fatah and Hamas have signed an agreement aimed at ending their division and building unity following talks in Beijing, marking a diplomatic win for China.

Over the years Fatah and Hamas had already signed several agreements to build some unity government. All however have failed.

What gives hope is that this agreement might be sustained is the participation of all other Palestinian groups as well as the significance of China as the guarantee power behind this:

Senior representatives of 14 Palestinian factions reached the agreement – called the Beijing Declaration – after reconciliation talks that began on Sunday.The pact aims to unite Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, which launched a war on militant group Hamas in Gaza in October.

The Chinese foreign ministry said the agreement was a first step to promote a “comprehensive, durable and sustainable ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip that would eventually lead to Palestine being admitted to the United Nations as a fully fledged member and becoming an independent state.

“The declaration reaffirms [the] commitment to establishing an independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital city based on relevant UN resolutions and ensuring the integrity of Palestinian territory including the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza,” ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

This implies that Hamas, as well as all other groups, have agreed to a two-state solution – the aim the United Nations has agreed upon. (Just last week the current Israeli parliament rejected such a solution.)

Also important is the envisioning of a unity government for Gaza:

Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday said the signing of the agreement was “an important, historic moment in the Palestinian cause”.He said that under the deal the rival groups had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza.

The west will of course at first reject the whole process and result because it had no part in creating it.

But last year’s agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, also brokered by China, has held far beyond the low expectations put into it.

The Palestinian agreement may, via the UN, give a new impetus towards a ceasefire and a new situation in Gaza that is mostly free of Israeli interference.

I trust that China can sustain the global soft-power necessary to lead this development towards success.

 

Posted by b at 15:34 UTC | Comments (95)

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Chinese tourism has always been very strong. For years, tens of millions of foreign tourists came to China annually. The pandemic interrupted this.

Gradually, tourism is returning to China. I believe it isn’t quite back to pre-pandemic levels but it’s getting there.

Chinese tourism has much to offer. The country is magnificent and rich in cultural heritage and diversity. The cities are beautiful, clean, safe and modern. The infrastructure (roads, bridges, high-speed rail, airports, etc.) is breathtaking. Your tourist dollars will go a long way because the cost of food, transportation, etc. is so low.

China is definitely one of the top 5 tourist destination countries in the world.

A French school girl, aged 13, didn’t like her teacher. So she went home and told to her parents about how her teacher had given all Muslim pupils the option to “leave the class”, before showing everyone a series of drawings of the prophet Muhammad in less-than-flattering positions… all she wanted was to “get him in trouble”.

The girl’s father, outraged, went online and started a hate campaign against his daughter’s teacher, Samuel Paty. The plot twist? She had skipped class that day, and hadn’t been there. She later admitted the story was entirely made up out of some perceived slight — Paty never showed drawings of the prophet, as all her classmates testified.

The damage had been done, however. A Chechen Islamist, aged 18, went to the school. Followed Paty when he left work, and butchered him in the streets. The teacher left a widow and a now fatherless five-year-old son.

Samuel Paty had his head cut off as “revenge” for something he didn’t even do. All because one girl made up a nonsense story and her father got carried away with it, asking for “retribution”. Lies, even the lies of children, can destroy loves.

Parasite

The most heartless, the most shocking and callous I’ve ever seen

by Justin Glawe

The white cop with the skull tattoos on his arm shot the unarmed Black woman in the face at point-blank range then told his partner not to bother trying to help her, she’s already gone. Then he walked outside and told his radio dispatcher that the woman had killed herself. Police then told her family the same lie, which is all they knew until attorneys got involved and the local press started digging.

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This is as near to the true version of events as I can gather after a day and a half in Springfield, Illinois, where authorities yesterday released bodycam footage of Deputy Sean Grayson killing 36 year old Sonya Massey. How deep the initial cover up went isn’t currently known to the public, but Grayson has since been charged with first-degree murder in Massey’s killing — an exceedingly rare thing in this country when a police officer kills someone.

At a press conference on Monday afternoon at Springfield’s NAACP headquarters — an organization founded after race riots ravaged the city in 1908, claiming 17 Black lives, including a distant relative of Massey herself — Massey’s family revealed that police initially told them their loved one had killed herself. Indeed, police radio traffic I obtained shows someone, presumably Grayson, when he leaves the house to grab medical equipment, saying Massey’s wound was “self-inflicted” and asking dispatch if the call had been recorded as a 10-76 — code for a psychiatric emergency.

The implication is clear: Grayson planned to portray Massey as a crazed threat who he had to defend himself from. Luckily, just barely, Grayson’s partner had turned on his body camera which shows the complete opposite.

The two deputies were called to Massey’s house early on the morning of July 6 because Massey thought someone was trying to break in. When Grayson and his partner arrived they searched outside the house and shone their flashlights inside. Once in the living room, the pair can be seen talking to Massey for 10 minutes or so before Grayson tells her to turn off a pot on the stove filled with boiling water.

She does, pulling the pot from the stove on the other side of a counter from Grayson as he and his partner move back a few steps. She laughs and asks why they’re moving. Grayson says he’s getting farther away from the “pot of steaming water.”

“Away from the hot steaming water? Oh, I’ll rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” Massey says, most likely a baptism joke. That’s when Grayson pulls out his gun.“You better fucking not, I swear to God I’ll fucking shoot you right in your fucking face,” he yells.

She says she’s sorry and begins to kneel. Again he demands she put the pot down and she says she’s sorry again. Then three shots. “Fuck!” Grayson says, then goes into action, thinking of ways to protect himself from what he had done.

He complains about how close she was with the pot of water. Now it’s touching his shoe, he notes. We should get the medical kit, Grayson’s partner says. What’s the point? he replies. “That’s a head shot. She’s gone.”

But she wasn’t. Massey was gurgling and gasping for air as the other officer began applying pressure to a bullet wound in her eye with a kitchen towel. Grayson went outside to get the medical kit.

This is apparently when he told a dispatcher the wound was self-inflicted.

When other deputies arrived they asked where the gun was. Grayson says there was no gun, but adds “she came at me with boiling water. She said she was going to rebuke me in the name of Jesus and came at me with boiling water.”

Massey never came toward Grayson.

For 10 years I have been driving and flying into cities where police have just killed a Black person, and it’s always as awful and heartbreaking as you might imagine. Springfield felt a bit different for me this time because it’s only an hour away from my hometown of Peoria, where my parents still live. It isn’t Baltimore or Charlotte or hilly Cincinnati, where I dropped in to cover the killings of Freddie Gray, Keith Lamont Scott and Samuel DuBose. Frankly, ever since I began covering police violence back in 2014 in Ferguson, I’ve always thought that it was only a matter of time before I ended up reporting on a bad police shooting in Peoria.

The city of Springfield is not much different: it’s an economically depressed rust belt town with about a 70/20 white to Black population compared to Peoria’s 60/30, and the Black part of town is one of the oldest and least cared for. In both places, what are called “best” homes — post-war, manufactured, one-story shoeboxes that all look mostly the same with the exception of window dressing — line streets that were once well-paved and where the American dream was once in reach thanks to good-paying manufacturing jobs. Now, most of those jobs are gone but the best homes remain, rented out for cheap and often falling apart.

The big difference between Peoria and Springfield is that in the latter, you can turn the corner on a crumbling street and see the shining dome of the state capitol.

Throughout all this madness over the last decade I have seen, read about, and reported on a lot of police killings, but this one is the worst, the dumbest, the most heartless, the most shocking and callous I’ve ever seen. Grayson — over six feet, 200-something pounds — was on the other side of a counter from a woman who weighed about half what he does.

“What else can we do?” Grayson asked his partner after killing Massey. “I’m not taking hot boiling water to the face.”

Nevermind, for a second, that Massey at no point appears to threaten Grayson with the water, and think about that statement. Think about all the Blue Lives Matter and Don’t Tread on Me flags you see around the country, flown by men who look a lot like Grayson. Think about what those people say — how they’re tough, how they’re patriots, how they’re badasses who aren’t afraid of anything — and now imagine them all freaking out over a 100-pound unarmed woman with a small pot of boiling water at least five feet away.

That’s one way to think about this — that men like Grayson, men who become cops to act tough and push people around — are actually just cowards. The other way to think about it is that Grayson is simply a racist with complete disregard for the sanctity of Black life.

Attorney Ben Crump said nearly as much on Monday with Massey’s family standing behind him. “Black women aren’t given the respect and consideration” that they deserve he told a small gathering of local press. I couldn’t help but note that as he was saying this the entire national political media apparatus was going bananas over the massive fundraising haul pulled off by Kamala Harris, the first Black female presidential candidate since Carol Moseley Braun, who like Massey is also from Illinois.

Massey’s killing cannot be disentangled from the national political climate, especially as the prospect of another, likely more draconian Trump administration looms. (Not that things have been much better under Biden. 1,232 people were killed by police in 2023). This is what the beginning of authoritarianism feels like. How quickly our rights, and our lives, especially those of the traditionally disenfranchised can be taken away.

Massey’s own father apparently feels that way, too. Yesterday he said that he now thinks God helped him survive a recent major heart procedure for a purpose.

“Maybe it was to tell this whole country that in order to honor my daughter, we must pass the George Floyd Act, we must pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” James Wilburn said.

However you think of Massey’s killing, men like Grayson reflect a significant portion of this country — supposedly tough, big guys who are the exact type of people Donald Trump talks about when he says he wants to preserve law and order. That is, of course, code for punishing non-white Americans for crimes real and perceived, and if you don’t believe me just give it a couple weeks or maybe even days and see what the dregs of the American right start saying on the internet about Sonya Massey.

I remember walking through an airport in May 2020 on my way to Minneapolis. Even white people who I’d never expect were talking about George Floyd’s killing with disgust and anger. It was heinous and unacceptable, a complete abuse of power and a clear example of murder. Everyone agreed. Until they didn’t.

Now, like so many things in this increasingly doomed country, Floyd is a Rorschach test for one’s political beliefs. If you are on the left you believe he was murdered (which is correct). If you are on the right you believe he died of a Fentanyl overdose or otherwise had it coming because he allegedly held a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach well before he was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin.

Maybe Massey’s killing will be different. Maybe the American right won’t be able to twist this one into another example of the War on Police. But I bet they’ll find a way — that pot of water, for instance, could have really hurt poor Grayson. Maybe they’ll find a way to blame her for her own death. To rebuke her in the name of America.

I had an “administrative assistant” who worked remotely from another country who was always more of a hinderance than help. About a week after I was laid off, I got a call from this guy. He wanted to know about something I had tried to train him on. I asked if he knew I no longer worked for the company, he said he did. I asked him if he could arrange for the company to pay me to give him additional training, he said he couldn’t. I advised that he try to figure it out on his own since I don’t work for free. He unfriended me on Facebook immediately following the call. I can assure you; I was not heartbroken.

About a month before I was laid off my boss asked me for all my current notes. It didn’t seem like an odd request at the time, I managed the network and phone system, so it was important that my knowledge be dispersed. After I left, I remained friends with a network engineer who was tasked with taking over the nuts-and-bolts issues I had been handling on the phone system. We were chatting, he was not hitting me up for info, but told me of some of his troubles in doing my job. I told him about giving my notes to the boss. He said they had not made it to him. Since he was a good friend, I offered to send him the notes. He said, “no, the boss has them, he should give them to me. He can cope with the time it takes me to struggle through the work. It was the boss’s stupid idea to fire you, he can suffer the consequences.” Now that’s a good friend!

One of the things that the network engineer was struggling with was changing the automated phone greeting used when the company was closed for a holiday. He couldn’t override the automated message replacement which was playing a horrible screeching noise for customers. I used to call in on holidays just to give myself a laugh. It was three or four years before they got that fixed.

Hopefully my experiences give you some idea of how to respond.

When you have the time to leave something behind, make it useful and memorable

Where I live in Brazil, car theft is somewhat of a problem. For the most part thieves choose commonly found, locally manufactured models, like Ford Fiestas, Fiat Palios, and Volkswagen Foxes, and then take them to chop-shops who tear them down and resell the parts online.

Models that are ten years old or older are very sought after because they are often relatively easy to steal and parts for them are harder to find, so the demand for things like fuel pumps, taillights and radiators is greater.

If you go on to Brazilian eBay and buy a used or reconditioned alternator, chances are very high that it is from a stolen car. There is a whole black market industry for car parts all across of South America that is literally impossible to stop.

Ironically, if you drive a high-end model like a Mercedes, BMW or Range Rover no one will steal it. First because it is way too conspicuous to drive around in a high end car than a common one, you’ll most certainly get caught, and second because selling the parts is much more difficult because there are not that many high end models around, not to mention that the people who own these cars are wealthy enough to pay a dealership to fix them when they need service.

I have two cars, a 2009 Volkswagen Gol (a somewhat cheaper model under the Golf) and a 2010 Volvo XC60 T5. No one will touch the Volvo because it’s the only one in town and thieves know that Volvos have a factory GPS system installed in them that’s really hard to deactivate, but I really have to keep my eye on the Gol because Gols are all over the place and it is a very sought after car to steal.

Someone tried to steal my Gol a few years ago — they broke the small triangle window behind the back door to unlock the car, then they popped the hood and cut the wires to the alarm. Then they broke the ignition lock and used a screwdriver to force it to engage the starter. It was during the night and the car was right outside my bedroom window; I didn’t hear a thing.

I woke up the next morning and the car wasn’t there, so I called the insurance company who used a tracking system like lo-jack to find it, it was unlocked, sitting around the corner and all of the thieves’ tools were on the seats and the floor — even the screwdriver was still sticking out of the ignition.

I’m guessing that the thieves gave up and fled the scene when they couldn’t get the engine to turn over and a cop car came down the street, or something like that.

They couldn’t start the engine because I had installed an engine kill switch up and under the dashboard where no one could see it. Two feet of wire, a toggle switch and a 10-amp fuse saved my car from being stolen: total cost of $4.00.

The Volvo on the other hand is exceptionally hard to steal, not because of the GPS system, but because of how the ignition system was designed.

There is no key to turn, so there is no ignition lock to break; to start the car I put the remote that unlocks the doors in the dashboard and push a button. The steering lock is further down the steering column than in most cars — it actually sits under the engine at the firewall, so it’s very hard to get to.

The Volvo also has another feature that many cars don’t have, and it’s not a factory-installed feature. You could literally take a baseball bat to the windshield and it won’t break. You could also unload a full clip of .44 magnum rounds into the driver’s side window and it won’t shatter.

The car is bulletproof — the previous owner had it bulletproofed when she bought it new in 2010. It has inch-thick glass and Kevlar all around, including the roof, so just getting into the car is no easy task.

You’d probably be able to force the door open with a crowbar, but that would break the door’s closing mechanism making it kind of hard to drive, that is if you were able to get around the steering lock and the keyless ignition.

Very hard to steal. Hard to car-jack at an intersection too, something all too common in cities like Rio de Janeiro on hot summer days when people are stuck in traffic.

Of course, one could always use a tow truck.

Would you believe that I don’t even have insurance on the Volvo? Except of course for the mandatory Government insurance that costs about $5.00 a year. I know that someone won’t steal it – they won’t even try.

The Gol on the other hand is insured, to the hilt, with a super-low deductible, which costs me about $600.00 a year. It’s not worth very much though, maybe $2000.00, so the insurance company believes someone will steal it in a little over three years.

Actually the Volvo has a very interesting and somewhat amusing story behind it, I wrote about it in another post a few days ago. If you’re interested here’s the Quora link. What car do you currently drive? Is it worth the price you paid for it?

So, it all depends on where you live and the car you drive, what security features it has. No car is truly unstealable, but some of them are much harder to steal than others.

Many Chinese are shocked when they first hear that westerners are afraid of China and Chinese.

Immediate reaction is “What did we do? We just work hard and mind our own business and sell stuff to everybody. Once in a while we get annoyed at Taiwan or the Philippines, but we don’t really do anything.”

They are unaware that it is because of their hard work and competition in Chinese society, that China is very powerful and influential in the aggregate.

“They’re LYING about the economy, this is now a DEPRESSION” Top Economist Warns

Several behaviors prevent the middle class from ascending.

  1. Spending large sums on depreciating assets. If you want to be wealthy, your only large purchases should be investments, not vehicles or gaming computers.
  2. Buying more house than needed. While a house is an investment, if your paychecks are all going to pay a mortgage and upkeep, you are short funds for investing. If housing prices collapse again, you won’t even have the equity.
  3. Not having 3–6 months of living expenses saved in case of a lay-off or emergency. Unemployment isn’t going to pay all your bills and living off credit cards until you get a new job is an expensive mistake. Putting an emergency cost on credit cards means you will pay at least twice as much with interest added than if using savings.
  4. Paying banks, instead of themselves. Interest payments are a huge waste. Imagine if you had that $500–1000/ month credit interest going to investments instead of to banks.
  5. Not understanding what is an investment rather than a purchase. Sellers use investment in advertising, but they lie. You don’t invest in a nice suit, you purchase it. The next day it is used clothing and worth 1/2 what you paid for it. You don’t invest in furniture, you purchase it. An investment is an asset expected to go up in value over time.
  6. Investing only in their employer’s stocks. It isn’t a good idea to invest in only one stock, industry or investment type. Putting money in a variety decreases your risks.
  7. Passing up job opportunities or promotions because you don’t like the people you will be working with, the added responsibility and/or travel involved. The road to the corner office might detour through a landfill, but it is the only way to get there. Promotions may not be offered a second time. The job opportunity you are holding out for may never happen.
  8. Nobody get rich using coupons. It takes a complete budget and lifestyle that spends less than you make and that includes investing. Saving $20 a week on groceries, but spending an extra $600 a month on a new vehicle you just had to have makes no sense.
  9. Money is not the goal, it is the tool. If you save up $100,000 and it just sits in a savings account, you are losing money and the potential for becoming financially independent.
  10. You have to set aside money for fun or your budget will fail. Sacrifice is easy the first month. By the time you reach the fortieth month, sacrifices can feel like a vise on your life. Adding fun dollars to your budget will let you enjoy life while still reaching your financial goals.

Shorpy

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Six foreigners allegedly poisoned in Bangkok luxury hotel

No, it is far from perfect and there is always room for improvement.

The important thing is to have a channel to provide input to government officials, explain why something needs to change to make it better, and see if they can make the change.

This is very different from the idea of free speech in the west because while people have the right to elect new leaders at election time, there is no way to request changes on a small scale, and then to follow up on them.

The Chinese way is to ask for changes on an ongoing basis, explain the rationale for the change, and if the official feels that it is reasonable, ask him to make the change. If he does NOT make the change within a reasonable time, then move up the ladder, and complain to his superior.

And so on and so forth…

So in the western system, you vote for the person and hope that he makes the macro changes you want. In the Chinese system, you go to the local official and request that he make the micro change you want. If the request is reasonable, he should make the change. If he does not, he will likely be voted out at the local level. Since he is also a Party member, failure to act on reasonable requests will affect his opportunity for promotion in the future, and affect his own career.

My in-laws used to live across the street from a drug dealer. They often called the police where there were cars coming and going from his property, picking up “product”. This cut into his business, and led to several ugly confrontations between him and my in-laws.

One day my then-fiancee was visiting her parents, and was in the back of the house when there was a commotion out front, complete with gunshots. She didn’t see anything, but both her parents and one of her brothers claimed they saw said drug dealer leaning out of his upstairs window, firing a gun. From his body language and what words they could make out, his intent was clear: Stop interfering with my business, or the next time I won’t be firing into the air but at you.

They called the police and he was charged with aggravated menacing. Some months later, I attended the trial as a spectator, as my fiancee (now wife) was a witness. The drug dealer took the stand in his own defense. After a well-rehearsed examination by his attorney, it was the prosecuting attorney’s turn.

“Mr. ___, on [date], did you fire several shots from a handgun into the air from the second story window of your home?”

“No, I did not. I don’t even have a gun.”

“You own no firearms whatsoever? On [date], you didn’t have a single firearm in the house?”

“That’s right. I didn’t have no guns then.”

A look of confusion spread of the DA’s face as he quickly pawed through his notes.

“Now, on [date of previous police call to his home], didn’t you tell Officer ____ that you had an extensive collection of firearms and that you were an expert in their use?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, did you lie to Officer ____?”

“What?”

“Did you lie to Officer ____ back on [previous date], or did you lie to the jury just now?”

“Yeah, I lied.”

I suspect that if you want to be taken seriously by a jury, you should not admit that you are a liar and may have just lied to them on the witness stand.

He was convicted, despite testimony from friends who gave him an alibi. The jury must have thought they were liars, too.

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About 15 years ago, a very expensive piece of equipment, ($30k market value at the time) was stolen from my place of employment. I was the one who discovered it missing and I was the one who called it in to our security office, who contacted the local police. I gave my statement to our in house security and the lead detective from the local law enforcement gave me his card and asked me to go down to the station to meet him and take an official statement on the coming Saturday (three days away at the time) at 8am.

I thought that was weird, but I agreed and was at the station at 7:45 am that Saturday. I checked in with the clerk who said the detective wasn’t in yet. I knew I was early so it wasn’t a big deal to wait. At 8:30 am, the detective walks out and acted surprised to see me. He then stated that he thought he told me 9 am. I showed him the business card he gave me and how I scribbled “Sat 8am” on the back of it. He gave the most insincere apology I ever heard and then told me he wasn’t ready for me yet and asked if I could wait 15 minutes and that he could have someone get me a coffee.

I agreed to wait and took the offer for the coffee. Half an hour later, he walks by and asked, “Did you not get your coffee?” and I said no, and he said, I’ll get right on that, I just need a few more minutes.” Half an hour after that, someone comes to get me and brings me to an interview room (still no coffee). Another 15 minutes later the detective show up with his partner.

They start asking me questions which I thought were peculiar. Then it hit me that I wasn’t just giving a statement, they were interviewing me as a person of interest. I am the first one every morning to open the location from which the equipment was taken. The surveillance video showed a team of 3 who knew exactly what they were doing and how to go about it. None of their faces were ever turned to the cameras and they knew exactly what they wanted, how to get it as quickly as possible and how to get it out of the building without being noticed.

The detectives thought that someone on the inside had provided the thieves with the intel they needed to get away with it, and I was suspect numero uno. Knowing what I know now, I would have immediately ceased talking to these detectives without a lawyer present. They grilled me for 4 more hours trying to break me into a confession of being an accomplice, which I was not.

It turns out that the thieves were a ring of professionals who spent a week scoping out the location to figure out how best to get their prize. The same individuals had hit 11 other institutions on the eastern coast of the US. It also turns out that the lead detective on the case who gave me such a hard time was also later convicted of stealing cash from the evidence room of his own station. Reading that headline made me smile because he was a huge jerk and it blew my mind that he even made detective in the first place, but it also made me sad for our justice system as a whole at the same time.

Also I never did get that coffee…

One story I’ve always found hard to believe is that of Lee Harvey Oswald having acted completely alone. People tend to forget that the guy defected to Soviet Russia for about a year. He renounced his citizenship, and worked for the Soviets for a while, who sent him to Minsk.

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Oswald went back to America because, as he wrote in his diary, he “found the work drab”. Soviet Russia was no fun. So he returned to America. How! How on earth did a US citizen defect to the Soviet Union and just… return. Like it’s no big deal. What the hell? He married a Russian wife, they have two daughters. Settle in America. Oswald, for the record, is a former marine. He’s an excellent marksman (finest in his unit) and for two years, he’s left completely undisturbed by US authorities despite having defected and worked for their enemies for a year. And, when he was just 24 years of age, he goes and — allegedly — kills President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

It’s hard to believe an American citizen defected to the number one enemy of America in the middle of the Cold War, was allowed back to the United States without trouble, only to assassinate the president and get killed almost immediately after by a random citizen while in policy custody.

Valiant Thor: A UFO, the Pentagon and a 3-year Mission to Save the World

The genus with hyper-modem concept

Yes, I had the displeasure of terminating an employee early in my first career management experience.

I was 29 years old and promoted to manager of a small technical department with engineers and technicians (perhaps 10 total).

“Jerry” was a technician, very inquisitive, and often working outside the box – I liked him and felt he did a good job for the company.

But his “outside the box” activities included criticizing corporate policies, from pay scales to benefits and many others, often writing letters to the CEO.

  • One day, I was called to the VP,Technology office (my boss) and was told flat out to “get rid” of Jerry. Apparently Jerry’s complaints were getting a lot of attention and management decided to end this one way dialogue; so I was told to terminate him.
  • I consulted with HR who told me that as his manager, it was my responsibility to do this job that I did not look forward to…
  • As the days passed, I was getting more pressure from above, so like a good newly appointed manager, I called Jerry into my office and terminated him, telling him exactly what I was told to do, no fake made up excuses. I decided to let the chips fall where they may, if Jerry decided to take some legal action.

Jerry left, quite depressed and never worked again. Within a year, this 26 year old man had died due to OD on alcohol. I was a devastated and have held this story inside until today, nearly 40 years later.

I really liked Jerry and didn’t feel this was handled correctly by any of us, and had I been stronger to help him, things might have turned out different.

Jerry was a loner, sort of geeky (I liked that), not many friends or family and likely no one remembers him.

I am writing this as a tribute to Jerry and his cocky, inquisitive attitude.

Back in the days of single floppy computers, Pegasus Software would toggle the status lines at the top / bottom of the screen with instructions – eg: INSERT DATA DISK or INSERT PROGRAM DISK – among many others.

New client of HB Computers (same group as Pegasus) had sold this machine to a client, complete with Pegasus. Client (after strange support call), brings in “faulty computer”.

In fairness the client was right, the screen DID day “Insert Data Disk” – and did not FIRST tell him to remove the PROGRAM DISK. He had managed with extreme effort, to squeeze BOTH disks into the drive (5.25″ floppy) at which point, “DISK ERROR” was the new Status Message.

He had apparently thought originally that the “other disk” would pop out the back somewhere – but as he was squeezing in the other one, figured it must be able to handle both at the same time as the first was “still there”.

So, that was a good one for me.

In latter years, Computers with a “cup holder” that would spill the cup when the computer was turned off or on (this would be CD rom drawers) were not a rare as you might expect. They worked as cup holders, but in power up/down the drive would have another go at retracting the caddy – spilling the tea / coffee when it came to a jolting stop.

Beyond that, the everyday “Ooh, it didn’t say I had to plug it in”, “my son has inserted a digestive biscuit in drive B, it won’t eject”, I have washed my keyboard and now it doesn’t work, the mouse isn’t working (being used as a microphone), what is this (a mouse – this was by an IT “expert” with a degree but had only worked with DOS. TOTALLY at a loss with Windows – but did have a degree to show us how clever she was).

Removing fans (including CPU fans) as they “were not needed, wasted electricity and made a noise” happened more than once.

Round Steak Sizzler

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Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup ketchup
  • 1/2 cup Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 (3 pound) boneless beef round steak

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl, combine ketchup, Lea & Perrins, oil and salt.
  2. Place steak in a snug-fitting bowl or doubled plastic bag.
  3. Pour ketchup mixture over steak.
  4. Cover or fasten and refrigerate for 24 hours.
  5. Remove steak from marinade. Place on a rack over hot charcoal. Grill until done as desired, about 12 minutes on each side for medium, brushing with marinade occasionally. Or, if desired, place on a rack in a broiler pan. Place under a preheated hot broiler for 7 to 10 minutes on each side or until done as desired, brushing occasionally with leftover marinade.

A New Era of Financial Warfare Has Begun
The West’s latest actions against Russia carry risks for the global system and could provoke China.

By Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy.
June 25, 2024, 9:00 PM

The pro-American tone of this is nauseating. But there is nothing new that we haven’t known about for years. The significant aspect is that this is now reaching mainstream Western consensus. -MM

Washington and the West have begun a new phase of financial warfare against Russia and China—a powerful but also potentially risky escalation that, if people aren’t careful, could eventually give Moscow and Beijing exactly the outcome they are believed to be looking for.

How so? Because the unprecedented actions taken at the G-7 summit in June to hand over to Ukraine billions of dollars in profits earned on frozen Russian assets—along with new actions taken against Chinese banks—could begin to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S.-dominated international financial system, some experts say.

And that could make Russian President Vladimir Putin and especially Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is said to want to create an alternative renminbi-based financial system, very happy in the end.

At a time when many nations are unsure about whether to do business with Russia and are falling into the debt-enforced embrace of China, the G-7 action sends a message: What was once sacrosanct in international finance may be no longer.

A number of sovereign wealth funds, central banks, corporations, and private investors—especially from the smaller countries of the global south that are most vulnerable to sanctions—may well want to hedge against full investment in dollar- and euro-based holdings.

“This decision crosses the Rubicon,” said Ryan Martínez Mitchell, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, by “weakening the norm of sovereign immunity for foreign central banks.”

“Any shift away from a U.S. dollar-based global financial system is not a near-term prospect, but decisions like these do probably add to the constituency that would welcome that kind of future,” Mitchell said. Others agree.

“There were many forces pushing for a search for alternatives to [the U.S.] dollar, and this move will give an additional push to those efforts,” said Harold James, a financial historian at Princeton University.

“I believe we are at a tipping point in which two worries coincide: one about the likely fiscal path of the U.S. and an unsustainably large burden; the second about seizure of assets, with secondary sanctions possibly being applied to countries that are in a supply chain with China and then indirectly with Russia.”

The “tipping point,” James warns, could come in the form of many countries, even U.S. allies, beginning to move their assets away from the dollar and euro.

According to Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, nations are disturbed by the idea that Russia’s $300 billion in central bank reserves have been inaccessible for more than two years. “Some central banks have started diversifying reserves a little more as a result, including into gold,” Rajan said.

James added: “One sign that I find very telling is how Central European countries, the Czech Republic and Poland, both of which feel very close to the U.S. and who weren’t interested in gold reserves when they felt secure—indeed, the Czech Republic sold its gold reserves the day they entered NATO in March 1999—are now buying large amounts of gold.”

Putin himself spoke triumphantly of this trend in his notorious interview with renegade U.S. newscaster Tucker Carlson in February. Washington’s decision “to use the dollar as a tool of the foreign-policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the U.S. political leadership,” Putin said, pointing to America’s fiscal profligacy. “Even the U.S. allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves.” At another point, Putin warned other countries that they “could be next in line for expropriation by the United States and the West.”

Wary of the risks of sending a destabilizing message, the G-7 did stop short of actually seizing the Russian assets at its summit in Italy. Instead, it adopted a complex scheme to transfer so-called windfall profits on earnings from frozen Russian central bank securities—the earnings of some $3 billion to $4 billion a year come from investments by Euroclear, the financial services company in Belgium that holds the Russian assets—to supply finance to Ukraine.

It was unprecedented all the same. As a senior Biden administration official described it: “Never before in history has a multilateral coalition immobilized the sovereign assets of an aggressor country and then found a way to unlock the value of those assets for the benefit of the aggrieved party as it fights for its freedom. That’s what happened at this G-7.”

However it’s done, making money off other nations’ assets—even aggressor nations, such as Russia, in total violation of global norms—is a risky precedent. “Once a new sanction becomes seen as effective, its usage tends to proliferate,” said Jon Bateman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “In recent years, creative new uses of export control powers—such as the Entity List and the Foreign Direct Product Rule—have ping-ponged between Chinese and Russian targets, with each country serving as a proving ground for actions later taken against the other.”

Nor did the G-7 leaders stop there. They also indicated that new measures were being considered that might gradually cut Beijing out of the international financial system. While saying in a communiqué that they “recognize the importance of China in global trade” and affirming that they “are not trying to harm China or thwart its economic development,” the leaders obliquely threatened Chinese banks “and other entities in China” with measures to “restrict access to our financial systems.” That could ratchet up the war—and the risks to the system—dramatically.

China has already been quietly insulating itself from financial retaliation over its support of Russia in the past two years, said Hung Tran, a former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund, in a June 21 interview. “The major Chinese banks have been very cautious even in reducing their exposure and dealings with Russia. In place of that, smaller institutions not having any business with any U.S. entity have been set up to handle trade with Russia so that basically Russia-China trade is settled in renminbi and rubles.”

The senior administration official justified the decision to increase pressure on China by saying that “some of China’s actions to support the Russian war machine are now not just threatening Ukraine’s existence but European security and trans-Atlantic security.”

The official added that among other “unrivaled policy distortions coming out of China”—meaning its unfair trade practices—Beijing was now openly supplying dual-use components and other economic aid to Russia. “There was unanimous agreement that the Russian military has been sustained by transforming its entire economy into a war machine and because China and other countries have been willing to serve” that effort, the official said.

In a blunt statement during his visit to Beijing in April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated these accusations, declaring that China was “powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine” as “the top supplier of machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose, which is critical to making munitions and rocket propellants, and other dual-use items that Moscow is using to ramp up its defense industrial base.”

The actions taken at the G-7 summit may well have been necessary. Nearly two and a half years into the war, support for aid from the United States and Europe is flagging, Kyiv’s forces are exhausted, Russia’s economy is still looking fairly robust, and a new anti-Western alignment is hardening between Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and most recently North Korea. “We are stepping up our collective efforts to disarm and defund Russia’s military industrial complex,” the G-7 leaders said in their communiqué.

This latest approach to squeezing Russia started slowly, even painfully, amid a great deal of tension between the United States and European governments about just how tough to get with Moscow.

Immediately following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, none of those governments had a problem imposing the usual economic sanctions—import and export restrictions and the like—and quickly. They took a major step further when they froze Russia’s central bank assets—an unprecedented move against such a large country—in addition to real estate properties, stocks, bonds, and various investments held by Russian oligarchs.

But actually seizing those bank assets was seen as a step too far, especially by the Europeans, who fought off an effort led by the U.S. Congress, and ultimately backed by the Biden administration, to pursue full seizure. That meant tampering with the international financial system itself—the complex postwar network of norms, codes, and laws that has underwritten the greatest surge of prosperity in recorded history and enriched the West. That felt a little too much like playing with elemental fire because it meant threatening the idea of sovereign immunity that is central to the system and because it meant posing increased risks to the holding of dollar- and euro-denominated assets. And having established this precedent, what about China? What effect will the G-7’s warnings have on Xi?


The shot fired in the communiqué could deter Xi from doing even more to isolate China’s ailing economy than he already has—specifically by invading or blockading Taiwan. Or, alternatively, it could mean the beginning of the end of the postwar global economic system if Xi decides to move against Taiwan anyway. Indeed, he could easily gamble that the United States wouldn’t dare do to China what it’s doing to Russia for exactly that reason.

If the United States and West were to respond to an invasion or blockade of Taiwan by freezing and leveraging Chinese assets, the result could be a freeze-up of the whole financial system and a devastating blow to the global economy. In the case of Russia, Washington needed to undergo many months of negotiation with the European Union because the vast majority of Russian assets are held in Europe and there was only about $300 billion or so to freeze. The same is not true of Chinese assets, which are huge and spread all over the world. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Washington would be able to freeze some $800 billion in Chinese Treasury bill holdings entirely on its own, which is only a portion of some $3 trillion in Chinese-owned sovereign assets overseas. But Beijing could easily retaliate against that nearly $6 trillion in Western investment in China.

As Tran argues, the threat of a kind of financial MAD, or mutual assured destruction, is far too great. In “terms of balance sheet exposures, China has about $3.4 trillion of identifiable international assets at risk of possible sanctions and up to $5.8 trillion of liabilities to, or assets in China of, international investors and companies largely from Western countries. China therefore has plenty of room to take retaliatory actions,” Tran wrote in a 2022 post for the Atlantic Council titled “Wargaming a Western Freeze of China’s Foreign Reserves.”

The deep cross-integration between China and the West is what has led both sides to avoid a complete decoupling of economies, reflecting what former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers once called a “financial balance of terror.” As a result, “there will be more resistance to imposing the scope of sanctions we have imposed on Russia because Western economies are far more intertwined with China’s than they were with Russia’s,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S. commerce undersecretary now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Reinsch notes there is an important “qualitative difference” as well: “The Russian assets being used are those seized from oligarchs who have supported/enabled Putin. There are some Chinese oligarchs, but their relationship with their own government is much different, as is their role in the economy. If you go beyond oligarchs, you get very quickly to seizing sovereign assets, which I doubt the West would do and for which the consequences would be significant.”

But according to some China experts, the latest moves might only spur Xi to further decouple his economy. The “dimmer” that peaceful reunification with Taiwan seems, “the more incentives Beijing would have to reduce vulnerabilities to sanctions in case of a militarized conflict,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and columnist for Foreign Policy. “China has been diversifying its foreign exchange reserves since the 2000s. While previously the primary motivation was to search for higher returns and strategic assets, now it is also to reduce vulnerabilities to sanctions.”

And while Xi’s dream of a renminbi-based system still “has a long way to go”—the yuan is a distant fifth in global reserve currency holdings—escalating Western moves “may ultimately weaken international law protections for everyone, not only their intended targets,” Mitchell wrote recently for the Quincy Institute. As a result, “intensified weaponization of Western currencies could indeed boost China’s yuan efforts, and, more significantly, provide a major stimulus to plans for a BRICS basket reserve currency. The move would simultaneously improve Beijing’s reputation as an apparently more responsible actor with respect to foreign assets, while also perversely incentivizing it to further experiment with its own nascent unilateral sanctions regime.”

Russia is much more willing than China to blow up the international system. But that doesn’t mean Xi won’t decide he can afford to see that happen as well. As Tran argues, Beijing has been pursuing a “dual-track” strategy of working within the current Western-led trading system “but also wanting to find alternative ways to do this trade without being exposed to dollar sanctions.” Further sanctions could only push Xi further in the radical direction of trying to set up an alternative renminbi-based financial trading system.

“Both sides are kind of upping their ante,” Tran said.

IT’S TIME TO CHANGE – Motivational Speech

As the world’s second largest importer, China’s imports are actually relatively concentrated, with several commodities accounting for a large proportion.

1. Semiconductors (the largest import category)

Semiconductors are China’s largest import commodity over the years, at $400 billion per year. However, with Western countries imposing semiconductor sanctions on China and the continuous rise of China’s domestic semiconductor industry, China’s imports of semiconductors have fallen by 15% per year since 2021.

The rapid decline in semiconductor imports is the number one reason for China’s declining imports.

2. Energy (the second largest import category)

The import volume of oil, natural gas, and coal is also very large. On average, $300 billion of crude oil is imported each year. As China’s share of clean energy continues to expand and the replacement rate of electric vehicles increases rapidly, China’s demand for crude oil is decreasing year by year. After the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2023, the price of China’s imported energy has gradually declined, and many crude oils are settled in RMB, which has lowered the amount of energy imports.

In addition to semiconductors and energy, China’s demand for other imported commodities is actually increasing. Imports of agricultural products, meat, fruit, textiles, minerals and metals are all continuing to increase, showing the strong purchasing power of Chinese society. However, due to the low proportion of these things, they cannot offset the decline in semiconductor and energy imports, causing China’s imports to continue to decline in the past year.

China’s exports are very complex, and China exports almost everything.

China’s exports have fluctuated in the past year, but have generally grown steadily. From January to May this year, China’s exports grew by 6.3%. The main categories driving China’s export growth are:

1. Shipbuilding

China’s shipbuilding industry completely defeated its old rival South Korea in 2023, and its global share once exceeded 70%. From January to May this year, China’s shipbuilding exports increased by 100% compared with last year

2. Automobiles

In 2023, China became the world’s largest automobile producer and exporter, and the export of electric vehicles grew very rapidly. From January to May 2024, automobile exports grew by 27%

3. Electronic products and household appliances

With the increase in global demand, China’s exports of electronic products and household appliances have grown rapidly. In particular, the export of air conditioners, fans and refrigerators driven by global climate change has grown rapidly. An increase of 20% over last year

If you only read Western media, you seem to come to a conclusion: the United States and Western countries are decoupling from China and no longer buying Chinese goods, and China’s exports will be devastated.

But the actual situation is that China’s exports to European and American countries have indeed declined. However, exports to ASEAN, South America, and countries along the Belt and Road have grown rapidly. The total export volume has increased instead of decreased, and ASEAN has replaced the United States as China’s largest customer.

In general, China’s continued decrease in imports and increase in exports show the changes in current global trade.

Due to the increased restrictions and confrontation between Europe and the United States on China, China has to reduce the import of semiconductors and replace them with domestic semiconductors. Global energy prices have fallen, and China has increased its influence on oil-producing countries through the BRICS organization, which has reduced the price of China’s energy imports. The decline in these two major categories of imported goods has lowered China’s imports.

European and American countries have restricted China’s export commodities, implemented a “decoupling” strategy, and actively reduced imports from China, but the total global demand for Chinese goods has not really decreased, and non-Western countries’ demand for goods has continued to increase. At the same time, many goods enter the European and American markets through third countries. Therefore, China’s exports to non-Western countries have grown rapidly, filling the gap in the Western market, and overall exports are continuing to grow. This shows that global trade is unlikely to be completely blocked by political forces, and the advantages of Chinese manufacturing are unlikely to be surpassed by other countries in a short period of time.

Well, I can’t speak for all police officers, but I can tell you what went through my mind the time I shot someone’s dog.

I was called to a small town in my county in reference to three dogs which were running loose, attacking other peoples’ leashed pets, and destroying property. I got there before animal control and located the dogs, which were staying together. Two of them looked like pit bull /boxer mixes, and the third was a big, light-colored lab mix. I don’t really have any equipment for catching dogs, especially three big ones, so I just sort of followed them around town in my car to make sure they didn’t cause too much trouble before animal control could get there.

As I followed them down a street, a lady opened her front door and started yelling to me and pointing to the house across the street. That’s where the dogs belonged. The dogs ran onto her porch. She closed the storm door and they started jumping and biting at it.

This was getting too dangerous. Those dogs were crazy, and someone was going to get hurt. Now, I’m a dog person. A dog lover. I get along just fine with dogs, and I can usually even come to an arrangement with the grouchy ones. So, I grabbed my metal clipboard to use as a shield and got out of my car, headed toward the dogs’ house. They were having none of that.

I was almost able to back them down. Like I said, I love dogs, and I know the tricks, but three dogs in an aggressive pack mentality were more than I could handle by myself. They started playing that adorable doggie game where they take turns lunging at you, getting a little closer each time, two of them trying to circle behind you while another gets your attention.

I had a Taser with one shot. Three dogs. I had pepper spray, but the dogs were too close and too aggressive to count on it. My biggest regret is that I didn’t just spray them as soon as they were in range, but by the time I realized I was in serious trouble, it was too late for pepper spray.

I drew my gun and backed toward my squad car. This gave me a bit more confidence, which the dogs apparently sensed, because they backed off a little. Before I got back to my car though, they were right on top of me. I made sure I was oriented so that if I had to shoot I would be pointing in the safest possible direction. When one of the dogs finally lunged so close that I was sure he would get me, I fired. I was pointing my gun down at a fairly steep angle, because that’s how close the dog was.

This was supposed to be about what went through my mind. Well, at the moment I decided to pull the trigger, it was something like “I gave you every chance in the world, but you keep coming, so fuck you.” (sorry for the language, but that’s what I thought)

The dog I shot went down hard, bleeding all over my front fender. The other two dogs ran off. The shot finally got the attention of the dogs’ owners.

Of course, the first person to come sprinting out of the house was a little girl, maybe 12 years old. She was screaming and crying and looking at me like the biggest monster she had ever seen. I have no doubt that those three dogs, who would have had a great time playing tug o war with my corpse, were as gentle as kittens with “their” little girl. Dogs are amazing like that. So, there was absolutely nothing I could say to her. At that point, what was going through my mind was “Screw this. I’m just going to hand this little girl my badge and go home.”

I’ve had to arrest parents in front of their screaming kids. I’ve had to pry screaming toddlers from the arms of their crying, meth-addicted mothers and hand them over to DCFS. This was bad in a whole new way. It sucked.

Eventually Dad came out. I was pretty sure he was going to hit me. I was already making up my mind that I’d give him a warning on the Aggravated Battery charge as long as I was able to subdue him fairly easily, but his wife came out and calmed him down before it came to that.

Somehow the dog lived despite the fact that I had shot it right in the center of the head with a .45. There was no exit wound. When a pit bull lunges at you from that close, all you can see is head. Dad ran the dog to the vet, and I heard it was alive and doing very well weeks later. I really have no idea how that could be. I distinctly remember a perfectly round, half inch hole pumping blood out of that dog’s head.

The family made a formal complaint on me, of course. Fortunately, that lady from across the street gave me a glowing review. She said she couldn’t figure out why I didn’t shoot the dogs sooner.

It turns out that I also had a backup officer who I didn’t know about until after the shot. He pulled up behind me and saw the whole thing, but stayed in his car the whole time. I guess he’s smarter than me. He made a good witness on my behalf at least.

I felt like absolute crap for a couple weeks. I won’t whine about the details. It was mostly that little girl and the fact that I really am one of those people who just can’t resist playing with every dog he sees. I wanted so badly to visit that family and explain things to the little girl, but of course that wouldn’t have been appropriate. Dad wanted my ass, and showing up at his house on a social call would have been seen as a provocation.

Anyhow, that’s what went through this cop’s mind when he shot someone’s dog.

AI SCENES – Crystal Nexus Chronicles of the Interstellar Mask Part 1 of 50 #62

At that time, the North Vietnamese army continued to infiltrate South Vietnam, which made the United States, which supported South Vietnam, exhausted.

The Johnson administration believed that only by bombing North Vietnam and destroying North Vietnam’s industrial facilities could North Vietnam’s southward route be completely cut off. Therefore, the US military not only bombed North Vietnam on a large scale, but also included Laos and Cambodia in the bombing range, attempting to completely cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

But the US military’s goal was obviously difficult to achieve.

On the one hand, although North Vietnam was subjected to large-scale bombing by the United States, the weapons Ho Chi Minh needed could be continuously transported from China, and aid from the Soviet Union was also continuous;

On the other hand, China publicly stated as early as 1962 that “if the US military crosses the 17th parallel north, then China will also organize troops to participate in the war.” This is the strategy of “each further”.

Therefore, after the United States began large-scale bombing of North Vietnam, China also organized communications troops, engineering troops, anti-aircraft artillery troops, etc. to enter Vietnam to fight, and the war situation began to escalate.

The situation facing the United States is that even if the United States withstands China’s pressure and bombs North Vietnam back to the “Stone Age”, or even defeats the Chinese army participating in the war and completely occupies North Vietnam, the United States will not be able to overthrow the two backers behind North Vietnam: China and the Soviet Union, especially China, its opponent in the Korean War.

Under such circumstances, whether the US army crosses the 17th parallel north latitude has no practical significance, because it cannot win even if it crosses.

Therefore, the area north of 17 degrees north latitude later became the “safe zone” for the North Vietnamese army.

North Vietnamese troops continued to penetrate into South Vietnam. Once pursued by the US military, they fled north of the 17th parallel. The American soldiers gave up the pursuit and returned to South Vietnam. This cycle repeats over and over again, and the American soldiers are exhausted.

The nightmare of the Vietnam War for Americans is that it was an unwinnable war from the very beginning. The longer the Americans stayed in Indochina, the worse they lost.

In fact, this is exactly the case. From the time when American special forces landed in Vietnam in 1961 to the time when they withdrew in 1975, nearly 60,000 American soldiers were killed and more than 100,000 were injured in the United States in more than a decade.

After the war, more than 100,000 American soldiers committed suicide, and the US military expenditure reached more than 250 billion US dollars, with countless material losses.

What’s more terrible is that the war caused an unprecedented anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States, and for the first time, a huge rift appeared in American society.

Anti-War Protests of the 1960s-70s

The Vietnam anti-war movement was one of the most pervasive displays of opposition to the government policy in modern times. Protests raged all over the country. San Francisco, New York,...

The Bretton Woods system, which has supported the US financial hegemony since World War II, also declared its collapse due to the unbearable burden of the Vietnam War. It can be said that the Vietnam War seriously damaged the vitality of the United States.

The end of the Bretton Woods System (1972-81)

The multimedia content on this page cannot be printed. Video (3:29): Former U.S. President Richard Nixon announces end of dollar link to gold U.S. gas station during the 1970s oil price shock. 

By the early 1960s, the U.S. dollar's fixed value against gold, under the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, was seen as overvalued. 

A sizable increase in domestic spending on President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs and a rise in military spending caused by the Vietnam War gradually worsened the overvaluation of the dollar. 

End of Bretton Woods system The system dissolved between 1968 and 1973. In August 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced the "temporary" suspension of the dollar's convertibility into gold. 

While the dollar had struggled throughout most of the 1960s within the parity established at Bretton Woods, this crisis marked the breakdown of the system. An attempt to revive the fixed exchange rates failed, and by March 1973 the major currencies began to float against each other. 

Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, IMF members have been free to choose any form of exchange arrangement they wish (except pegging their currency to gold): allowing the currency to float freely, pegging it to another currency or a basket of currencies, adopting the currency of another country, participating in a currency bloc, or forming part of a monetary union. 

Oil shocks Many feared that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system would bring the period of rapid growth to an end. In fact, the transition to floating exchange rates was relatively smooth, and it was certainly timely: flexible exchange rates made it easier for economies to adjust to more expensive oil, when the price suddenly started going up in October 1973. 

Floating rates have facilitated adjustments to external shocks ever since. The IMF responded to the challenges created by the oil price shocks of the 1970s by adapting its lending instruments. 

To help oil importers deal with anticipated current account deficits and inflation in the face of higher oil prices, it set up the first of two oil facilities. Helping poor countries From the mid-1970s, the IMF sought to respond to the balance of payments difficulties confronting many of the world's poorest countries by providing concessional financing through what was known as the Trust Fund. 

In March 1986, the IMF created a new concessional loan program called the Structural Adjustment Facility. The SAF was succeeded by the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility in December 1987.

To sum up, the fundamental reason for the disastrous defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War was that this war was destined to be an unwinnable war.

Stevie Aldrich

“CONKLIN!” Havaderr wailed. His face was the brightest red and steaming with heat. The veins in his neck throbbed noticeably, but he waited as still as he could for Conklin to answer. A buzz came in over the intercom above Havaderr’s head.

     “Hey, was that you shouting, Havaderr?” Conklin’s voice crackled with static and attitude. Havaderr shut his eyes and repeated his Zen mantra in his head.

     “Havaderr? What’s your problem?”

     Havaderr’s eyes opened, and in the most even tone he could manage; he said his mantra out loud.

     “I am calm. I am calm. I can overcome this. I am strong. I am strong. I can overcome anything.” Havaderr spoke through gritted teeth, spittle flying across the room as he focused on keeping his anger inside rather than shouting and blowing the place up with Conklin inside.

     “Hey guy, are you going to answer me or what?” Conklin’s voice implied his own rising impatience. Havaderr moved to the button on the wall nearest him to respond.

     “Yes, Conklin, I was shouting,” Havaderr said as evenly as his rage would allow. “Get your ass to 4A NOW!” As he trailed off, he clenched his teeth together so hard he felt a grinding that might as well have been a tooth chipping. Before Conklin’s reply came, Havaderr heard an irritated sigh over the intercom.

     “Yeah, be right ther-.” Conklin barely finished his sentence before releasing the button, cutting himself off at the end.

     Moments later, a door slid open down the hall, several yards away from Havaderr. Conklin came into the hall, looking both ways before spotting Havaderr.

     “What the hell, why are you shouting and-“ Havaderr cut Conklin off with a finger to his mouth to silence him.

     “I’m going to show you something in this room behind me, and it’s best if your mouth is shut when I do.” Havaderr’s voice wavered, he was still trying to control his anger. Conklin looked confused as ever but kept his mouth shut. With a worried expression, Conklin followed Havaderr to another door. Havaderr stood aside and opened the door for Conklin to enter alone. Conklin stood in the doorway staring, then Havaderr shoved him wholly into the room from behind and closed the door.

     “Havaderr, what’s going on? What the fu-ahhhh!” The intercom inside the restroom was unnecessary, but Havaderr appreciated it right now. He would have heard Conklin screaming from quite a distance, but hearing Conklin’s disgust and horror in surround sound was more pleasing. A slice of anger slid off his shoulders and a small smile appeared on his face.

     The door rattled, clearly Conklin on the other side trying to burst through, but Havaderr held the lock button, keeping Conklin trapped inside.

     “What kind of game is this Havaderr? Let me out, for Christ’s sake!” Conklin was panicking, releasing more anger from Havaderr’s shoulders and filling his belly with laughter.

     “This is no game, friend. This is you coming face to face with your own incompetence,” Havaderr said over the intercom, still smiling.

     “Havaderr! Let me out of here!” Conklin screamed and started ramming the door again.

     “I don’t think so, Conklin. If you look to the left of the door, I’ve been kind enough to set you up with plenty of cleaning supplies for the job, which is a lot more than you did for me. I’d suggest you start tackling that shit before it starts tackling you.” Havaderr exploded with laughter, letting go of the intercom and floating backward as he held onto his stomach. He laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Conklin kept banging on the door and pleading to be released, but Havaderr couldn’t hear anything over the roar of his own hysteria.

     Curled up in fetal position, floating in the hallway, Havaderr worked himself out of his fits of laughter. He wiped the joyful tears from his eyes and started breathing normally again. He moved back to the intercom.

     “Look mate, this restroom was in your sector to clean. Obviously, you did a piss poor job,” Havaderr grabbed his side, holding the laughter in after such a quality pun. “I told you, cleaning the restrooms would be the most important job, because if it isn’t done right, this happens. Floating excrement!” Conklin didn’t say anything, but Havaderr heard him kick or punch the door.

     “I’ll take your silence as admitting you did a sloppy job the first time. You know, I needed to do some business, and I walk into the restroom greeted with a turd to the face, which I’m assuming belonged to you, so I have no sympathy for you right now. Clean the damn restroom like you were supposed to, and I’ll let you out.” Havaderr waited for a response. He was eager to shower off the stench and stain of human waste from himself before finishing his day.

     “Yeah, alright,” Conklin said over the intercom, sounding defeated and guilty. Havaderr nodded his head and left Conklin to figure out how to clean a restroom with feces floating freely throughout.

     “Like I said, not a drop of sympathy for you. Do it right the first time, and we won’t run into stupid problems like that,” Havaderr said coolly, scrubbing at the built-up muck in the corners of the glass.

     Conklin was still cranky from cleaning the restroom the day before, and he meant to let Havaderr know just how little he appreciated the tactless way he was pushed into the situation without warning.

     “Chin up, Conklin. We have one more day before our shift is over, and we can get the hell off this floating heap of death,” Havaderr motioned toward the clear chambers that housed the comatose bodies of several crew members, one of which whose glass he was scrubbing.

     “Remind me, what’s up with these bodies? They’re dead, yeah?” Conklin asked.

     “No, they’re alive, they’re the crew, dumbass,” Havaderr grunted at Conklin. He looked over to see Conklin hovering around the main dashboard, not a rag or mop near him. “And I wouldn’t mind if you got to work while you asked your questions,” he barked. Conklin jumped and reached for a rag tucked into a closed bucket tethered nearby. He started mindlessly wiping at the dashboard without paying close attention.

     “Okay, but how come they’re asleep?” Conklin asked. Havaderr sighed as he paused and rolled his eyes.

     “Do I look like the Captain of this ship? All I know is, this crew is traveling some number of lightyears, so the ship has been programed for regular stops near inhabited planets for maintenance and cleaning. We drew the short straw, so we get to hop from the ship we were on previously, to this one, and then another one before heading back home. Nobody else was this far out into deep space to do the job, so we get a long shift before our break. At least they’re paying us over time, eh?” Havaderr smiled at the thought of a paycheck double its usual amount. He looked in on the half-naked man inside the tube he was cleaning, tapping on the glass with his knuckle and laughing at how strange the sight was.

     Air escaped the edges of the door, and it hissed loudly. The smile fell from Havaderr’s face as he scanned the chamber looking for an explanation. The door swung open and the half-naked man floated out as if to follow. Thankfully, he was attached to a few tubes that kept him reigned in and asleep, but the color left Havaderr’s face once he realized that would only last for so long.

     Havaderr turned to Conklin, who looked just as confused.

     “He just-just-he-“ Havaderr stuttered, unable to decide what he was trying to say. The man’s feet flew upward so his back was parallel to the floor and his right side dipped down. Slowly, he started to spin, so he was upside down. All the while, Havaderr and Conklin stared without any clue how to fix it.

     “Did you touch something?” Havaderr shouted at Conklin, who shook his head wordlessly.

     “I didn’t touch anything!” Havaderr went back to staring at the half-naked man, perplexed. After a minute, Havaderr decided they couldn’t leave the man like that.

     “Get over here and help me with this!” He yelled at Conklin. Still silent, Conklin moved toward Havaderr and the unconscious man. Havaderr and Conklin wore their gravity belts at 85% power to keep from floating off like the man from the tube, but it allowed them a bit more mobility too. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any extras to strap to the man, so he continued to spin and flip through the air.

     One of the wires connecting the man to his casket snapped, leaving only one left to keep him from flying down the corridor and into every other part of the ship. Havaderr and Conklin shared a look of fear but said nothing.

     Havaderr grabbed the man’s knees and tried to pull them down so the man was right side up, but as he pulled, the man’s whole body moved toward Havaderr. Conklin remained motionless, watching the unconscious body float into Havaderr. Havaderr struggled and groped, trying his very best to wrangle the helpless man, but even his best efforts left him with the man’s body bumping into him clumsily. He accidentally grabbed the man’s buttocks, and the man’s armpit swung around and slapped him in the face. All in all, it reminded Conklin of two young people at their first school dance, trying not to step on each other.

     Conklin covered the smile on his face, but the more Havaderr fought with the floating man and lost, the more the urge to laugh rose in his belly. When the man launched a foot directly into Havaderr’s eye, Conklin lost it. With one hand on the man’s shoulder and his other arm wrapped around the man’s torso, Havaderr stopped to see what was so funny to Conklin. He didn’t have to ask; he knew how he looked.

     “Would you knock it off and help me! I don’t know what we disconnected, but that could be vital to this man’s life!” Havaderr tried to repeat his mantra in his head, but he couldn’t hear anything over Conklin’s laughter. Havaderr grumbled as he kept spinning the man back into position, with no help from Conklin, who was tumbling in circles on the other side of the room.

     Finally, Havaderr got the man into his up-right position and back into the tube. As best as he could, he reattached the disconnected wires, but he couldn’t pull the door shut.

     “Conklin! Find the button to close this door, hurry, before he tries to escape again!” Havaderr pleaded.

     Conklin straightened up and moved to the dashboard he had been cleaning. On the first try, he hit a button, and the door closed, sealing itself. Havaderr wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at Conklin, a little puzzled. Conklin’s laughter died down, but when he saw Havaderr near collapse and panting, his laughter boiled over.

     “What is wrong with you? Were you too busy finding this hilarious to help me save that man’s life?” Havaderr demanded, huffing and puffing.

     “Calm down, he’s fine,” Conklin squeaked. “The buttons are clearly labeled on the dash here, see?” Conklin pointed to the dashboard. Havaderr saw buttons marked to open doors, close doors, start specific mechanisms, stop the same mechanisms, and a bunch of other things Havaderr didn’t understand. What he did think he understood, was how the door opened in the first place.

     “Did you open his door on me?” Havaderr asked Conklin, the anger rising again.

     “Yeah, mate, you should have seen the look on your face!” Conklin rolled over laughing.

     “You idiot! You could have killed the man, we could be fired, what the hell is wrong with you?” Havaderr bellowed.

     “Relax Havaderr, you’ll give yourself a stroke!” Conklin pulled himself together for a second, setting his feet back on the floor and pointing to the dashboard again.

     “This here, that indicates their vital signs. You can see they’re all perfectly healthy, no harm done,” Conklin said matter-of-factly. Havaderr was flustered. He could only trust Conklin’s word, he had no idea what any of the lights or buttons meant on the dash.

     “You couldn’t have known it would be okay, though. What if the tube that detached from his arm was something that kept him alive?” Havaderr exclaimed. Conklin rolled his eyes, irritated that Havaderr wasn’t figuring it out as easily as he was.

     “All that tube did was give him pleasant dreams; it wasn’t important. He’ll live, and nobody need ever know you almost killed a man,” Conklin started to giggle again. Havaderr’s face turned tomato red and he clenched his fist, trying to fight the overwhelming desire to punch Conklin in the face.

     “You did this on purpose?” Havaderr said, strained.

     “Well, maybe don’t lock me in a room with floating shit again, and we’ll be fine,” Conklin smiled, feeling pleased with himself.

Spicy Grilled T-Bones

grilled t bone steaks with bbq rub horizontal 2
grilled t bone steaks with bbq rub horizontal 2

Ingredients

Seasoning

  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
  • 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
  • 2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

Steaks

  • 2 to 4 well-trimmed beef T-bone or Porterhouse steaks, cut 1-inch thick

Instructions

  1. Combine Seasoning ingredients, and press evenly onto steaks.
  2. Place steaks on grid over medium, ash covered coals. Cook for about 14 to 16 minutes.

This was not me but a chap I used to work with with. Richard is brilliant, I’m the guy who scribbles a drawing of what we need, Richard tidies up that drawing and puts all the part numbers on it. He sits down with the job and tells us exactly when it can be delivered, and he is always right. He is the perfect “Foil” for all the arty types around him, he brought us all down the art of the possible and made sure it all worked perfectly and on time. He was the guy who did everything perfectly and properly “By the book” I was the guy who did a quick and dirty job with some plywood and string we happened to have around the office. It was a perfect team.

Richard had a thing about “OPM” other peoples money, when you spend OPM you have to justify every penny. He would give me an accurate breakdown of every penny he spent, I would tell him it didn’t matter as long as the time was on time and he wasn’t wearing a lobster for a hat it made no odds.

So he told me about a job he had with a contractor that had the job of repairing the CCTV cameras on the UK’s Motorways. This was 25 years ago and in the years leading up to this the government had had lots of different contractors installing equipment, probably there were records somewhere but nobody knew where.

So he would see what the fault was (no picture, Pan-Tilt not working etc) then he would go out to the site in his car and inspect the camera with a pair of binoculars. He would then be able to identify at least what the head was and what the possible camera was. He would order all of the parts that MIGHT have gone (different wiring looms, camera electronics cards, for the old tube cameras he had new CCD cameras that interfaced directly to the mounts of the old cameras.

Then one night they would book the guys who close the lane of the motorway, book a cherry picker to lift him up to the camera etc etc.

He would then go up and fix the fault, clean the housing etc etc Then hold up a card in front of the camera with “Please test” and if the camera was good the operator would “nod” it three times.

This went on for several months, then he got called into the bosses office .. He got bawled out for wasting the companies money .. Apparently when he ordered the “HUGE QUANTITY” of unneeded spare parts the company charged a 10% restocking charge and this was costing the company dear and they wondered what on earth Richard thought he was doing? This was costing the company as much as £40 every time.

Richard explained that because he did not know what the fault was he would get all the parts “Just in case”. The boss then sarcastically suggested that Richard might want to find out what parts he needed BEFORE he went out to repair the camera.

So now they would organise to close the lane of the motorway .. get a cherry picker .. send Richard up it, he’d then examine the camera, determine what was wrong, then come down, wrap the cherry picker, wrap the guys with the cones, go back to the office and order the parts.

The extra motorway closure and the cherry picker added an extra £1300 to the repair of each camera.

Richard worked for them for 2 years after that .. He tried so many times to explain but nobody would listen ..

Pee Wee Herman Takes Dave For A Drive In The Country | Letterman

The narrative that rapid economic growth is exclusive to capitalist democracies has been turned on its head by China. Boasting the fastest-growing economy, China’s model demonstrates that a different path to prosperity is not only possible but also powerful.

China’s meteoric rise as the fastest-growing economy can be attributed to several key factors: robust industrial production, aggressive trade liberalization, foreign investment, and significant government policy initiatives geared towards economic growth. Understanding these aspects provides a comprehensive view of why China has achieved such rapid economic development.

main qimg 642fa49fa38f619068fbd8a7b946e1d3
main qimg 642fa49fa38f619068fbd8a7b946e1d3

Economic Liberalization and Foreign Investment

China’s commitment to international trade and economic liberalization has been pivotal. After re-establishing diplomatic ties with the United States in 1979, China began opening up its economy, culminating in its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. This move significantly reduced trade barriers and attracted a flood of foreign investments into the country. The liberalization policies allowed foreign companies to enter China’s retail, wholesale, and distribution sectors, spurring rapid economic growth. Consequently, China became an attractive destination for multinational corporations seeking low-cost manufacturing bases, thereby boosting industrial output and export growth.

The influx of foreign capital also brought in advanced technologies and management practices, elevating the productivity and efficiency of Chinese industries. Foreign-direct investments (FDI) played a critical role in transforming China’s economic landscape, making it a global manufacturing hub.

Industrial Production and Manufacturing Exports

China’s industrial sector is the backbone of its economy. With a focus on manufacturing and export-led growth, China has excelled in producing a wide array of goods, from electronics to textiles, usually at competitive prices. The country’s ability to manufacture products efficiently and affordably has led to a booming export economy, positioning China as a major player in global trade.

Government policies have also bolstered industrial production. For instance, China has heavily invested in infrastructure, such as roads, railways, and ports, which facilitates the smooth transportation of goods. Additionally, special economic zones (SEZs) and industrial parks have been set up to attract foreign investments and promote manufacturing.

Government Initiatives and Policy

Chinese government policies have been instrumental in driving economic growth. By reducing red tape and simplifying regulations, China has made it easier for businesses to set up and operate. For example, obtaining permits and licenses in China is relatively quick and straightforward, attracting more domestic and foreign investments.

Moreover, the government has implemented policies to build a skilled labor force. By investing in education and vocational training, China has created a pool of skilled workers who are essential for its manufacturing and service sectors. These initiatives ensure that the labor force is capable of meeting the demands of modern industries while improving overall productivity.

Supply Chain Integration

China’s decision to develop an extensive supply chain network has been a critical factor in its economic growth. By manufacturing not only final products but also every component and spare part required, China has minimized its dependence on other countries. This integrated supply chain allows for smoother production processes and faster turnaround times, giving Chinese manufacturers a competitive edge.

Renewable Energy and Natural Resources

China’s economy is increasingly driven by efforts to achieve sustainability. The country is investing heavily in renewable energy sources like solar and wind power to meet its carbon targets. Additionally, China is optimizing its usage of natural resources, including coal, iron ore, oil, and natural gas, to maintain steady economic growth. By focusing on both traditional and renewable energy sources, China aims to secure a balanced and sustainable economic future.

Robust Consumption

Domestic consumption also plays a vital role in China’s economic expansion. The country’s large middle class has strong purchasing power, driving demand for various goods and services. Economic reforms and policies aimed at increasing consumer spending have fostered a robust domestic market. Post-pandemic recovery measures have further revitalized consumption, contributing to the overall economic growth.

Shorpy

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Van Helsing – 1950’s Super Panavision 70 AI Film

This happened to me. I was working for a small, family-owned company (less than 10 employees). Within two months of starting there, I realized I had made a huge miscalculation – the owner and CEO would have screaming matches in the middle of the office where everyone could hear every word. I heard that he was involved in at least three lawsuits with past employees where he was either suing them or they were suing him.

Took a few months to line up my next job, and I gave my two weeks notice, which I was surprised he took very calmly. One week into my two weeks, he brought me into his office and said that due to the fact that I had “lied on my resume” and “didn’t have the skills and qualifications I claimed,” the board of directors had told him to instruct me to stay at the job longer or else things would go poorly for me. A) Every item on my resume was absolutely and truthfully representative of my previous experience, and B) the “board of directors” did not exist. I knew he was threatening me with a lawsuit, which he could afford, and I, at the time, could not. I calmly thanked him for letting me know and told him I had to think about the situation, and I’d give him a reply by the next day.

I went home and called my friend who is a lawyer to explain the situation, who told me that if an employer has a problem with an employee, legally their option is to either write them up or to fire them, not to threaten them to stay longer. I then called the CEO back to tell him that today had been my last day, and I would turn my keys in to the office in the morning. After sputtering and hemming and hawing and demanding to know who my lawyer was, he said, “see you in the morning.” Never heard from him again after that, although I did hear from some other trauma survivors from the same company that after I left he had several people combing through my files for days to find any scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong that he could use to legally punish me. Good riddance.

Mama Lynx Brings 7 Kittens To Woman – Discovering Why, She Bursts Into Tears!

I am not British. Perhaps it should be Brits who should answer this question.

I recall 1 incident though: USA (Trump) wanted to sanction Huawei 5G. USA made its allies eg Europe to sanction Huawei too.

UK (B Johnson) did an investigation into Huawei with full cooperation with Huawei. UK did not find Huawei having backdoor to send data back to China. UK promised not to put Huawei stuff on important UK things.

But USA insisted. UK finally bowed down & banned Huawei too.

After Johnson stepped down as PM, he made speeches in u. Once he said: (because of the ban of Huawei), UK tech will fall behind by 5 years. Worse, it will cost UK lots to remove what has been installed in UK.

See, it is not that UK does not want to invest in tech. It is USA who does not let UK do so.

Look at covid vaccine. UK has developed a vaccine (I dont remember the name). Yes, there was side effects in UK’s vaccine. So are US vaccines. But somehow UK vaccine lost to USA.

Again in 1 speech, Johnson said: the success of a vaccine is capitalism. Hinting USA???

The next day, Johnson apologised & his speech cannot be found any more. But I heard it loud & clear on the radio when he said it.

If UK is always a US “vassal” & controlled by USA, UK will for sure be behind technologically.

MR PRESIDENT: IT’S TIME!

Oh, I’ve waited for a question like this!

There was a man who lived in our town who suffered from a neurological disorder. Actually, I think he enjoyed it. The rest of the town suffered from his neurological disorder. Let me explain. This man, whom I shall call Pita (Pain in the Ass) would commit the most outrageous atrocities, then hide behind his disorder. He torched an out-of-town cop’s truck. Felony? Yes. Any consequences? No — because he was crazy.

He wormed out of D.U.Is, Attempted Arson of his own home, Domestic Violence by Threat and a host of other felony and misdemeanors. The City decided that trying to prosecute a certifiable nut bag would cost too much. So the rest of us suffered at his hands.

Then one night, we were notified of a break-in at the animal shelter. The shelter was owned by, and was in, the county, but was surrounded by our city. One other unit and I responded. As I approached the road to the shelter from the east, I found the highway entirely blocked by at least one hundred (100) dogs! They were all very friendly and surrounded my car. This is common for dogs kept in pens for a while. I carefully made my way to the shelter and found a scene of utter devastation.

The fence had been breached in several locations. A pickup truck belonging to the shelter had been hot wired and used to breach walls of the shelter. There was a heavy odor of gasoline coming from everywhere.

This ain’t lookin’ good…

At that time I saw headlights turn down the road leading to the shelter. The vehicle stopped when the headlights shined on my unit, then reversed course and left at a high speed. I immediately gave pursuit.

The other responding unit was nearing the shelter and we effected a felony stop. I ordered the driver to step out of the vehicle. He replied “I can’t, I’m naked.”

Son of a Bitch! It was Pita!

He later explained he had gotten drunk and had begun feeling sorry for the animals in what he called “Doggie Dachau” and decided to liberate them. After freeing the dogs, he spread twenty (20) gallons of gasoline throughout the shelter. He had the presence of mind to know that he was soaked with gas and if he tried to ignite it, he would be part of the ensuing FOOM! So he stripped naked, drove to a nearby bar pit and jumped in, washing off the residual gasoline. You can’t make this stuff up.

Side note: In addition to the long list of felonies, I also charged him with D.U.I. I offered him the intoxilizer test, what we call down South, the “Whiskey Machine.” He, of course, refused. I hit the button for “Test Refusal,” and the forms began to print. Several of these forms must be mailed to Jackson to the Department of Public Safety Driver’s License Branch. One form has a box to check; “Is license attached? If not, why not?” I got to write “No license. Subject was BUTT NAKED.”

Southwest Steak and Many Layered Salad

southwest steak and many layered salad square
southwest steak and many layered salad square

Ingredients:

  • 1 beef Flank Steak (about 1-1/2 to 2 pounds)
  • 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, finely chopped
  • 3 medium ears corn, unhusked
  • 9 cups coarsely chopped romaine lettuce
  • 1-1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
  • 1 can (15 to 16 ounces) black beans, rinsed, drained
  • 2-1/2 cups coarsely crushed tortilla chips
Dressing:
  • 1 large ripe avocado, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
  • 3/4 cup prepared ranch dressing
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon adobo sauce

Cooking:

    1. Whisk dressing ingredients in medium bowl until blended. Remove 1/2 cup for marinade and stir in chipotle peppers. Cover and reserve remaining dressing in refrigerator.
    2. Place beef steak and chipotle marinade in food-safe plastic bag; turn steak to coat. Close bag securely and marinate in refrigerator 6 hours or as long as overnight, turning occasionally.
    3. Pull back husks from corn, leaving husks attached. Remove and discard corn silk. Bring husks back up around corn; tie in place with kitchen string or strips of corn husk. Soak in cold water 30 minutes to 1 hour.
    4. Remove steak from marinade; discard marinade. Remove corn from water. Place steak in center of grid over medium, ash-covered coals; arrange corn on grid around steak. Grill corn, covered, 20 to 30 minutes or until tender, turning occasionally. Grill steak 11 to 16 minutes for medium rare (145°F) to medium (160°F) doneness, turning occasionally.
Cook’s Tip: To prepare on gas grill, preheat grill according to manufacturer’s directions for medium heat. Place corn and steak on grid as directed above. Grill corn, covered, 15 to 25 minutes or until tender, turning every 5 minutes. Grill steak, covered, 16 to 21 minutes for medium rare (145°F) to medium (160°F) doneness, turning occasionally.
  1. Remove steak; let stand 5 minutes. Husk corn; cut kernels from cobs. Cut steak lengthwise in half; carve each half across the grain into thin slices.
  2. Layer 1/2 of lettuce, corn, 1/2 of beef, tomatoes and beans in 4-quart glass salad bowl or 13 x 9-inch glass baking dish. Top with remaining lettuce and beef. Drizzle with, reserved dressing. Top with tortilla chips just before serving. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 hours.

 

  • Wash hands with soap and water before cooking and always after touching raw meat.
  • Separate raw meat from other foods.
  • Wash all cutting boards, utensils, and dishes after touching raw meat.
  • Do not reuse marinades used on raw foods.
  • Wash all produce prior to use.
  • Cook steaks and roasts until temperature reaches 145°F for medium rare, as measured by a meat thermometer, allowing to rest for three minutes.
  • Cook Ground Beef to 160°F as measured by a meat thermometer.
  • Refrigerate leftovers promptly.

 

For more information on degree of doneness and other cooking tips visit: https://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/cooking/determining-doneness

Wargaming a Western Freeze of China’s Foreign Reserves

By Hung Tran
April 29, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has provoked comprehensive and stringent sanctions by the United States, Europe and other allied countries against Russian banks, companies, and persons.

A noteworthy measure, unprecedented for a large country, is the Western blockade of the foreign reserves of Russia’s central bank—the Bank of Russia (BOR)—immobilizing more than half of its international reserves of $630 billion placed in Western financial institutions. In addition, the BOR has been banned from dealing in the US dollar (USD), euro, and pound sterling.

These measures against a country’s central Bank have raised the geopolitical and sovereign risk of central bank reserves holdings.

They have also prompted discussions about the possibility of similar sanctions being imposed on China in the event of its military invasion of Taiwan.

The consequences of such sanctions will be more significant than the measures against Russia. China’s economy is ten times bigger than Russia’s; it has much more weight and is more integrated in the global economy and financial system.

As a result, China has more means of retaliation against Western sanctions.

This article sketches out a possible scenario of Western sanctions on China and its countermeasures to illustrate the scale of possible damages to both sides.

At present, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has $3.2 trillion of international reserves of which the exact currency composition is kept a state secret. However, in a 2018 report, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchanges (SAFE) indicated that the USD share of its assets declined from 79% in 2005 to 58% in 2014, presumably falling further since then.

Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that most of the PBOC international reserves is in major currencies such as the USD, euro, yen, and pound sterling—including holdings of $1.1 trillion US Treasury securities, $217 billion of Asset Backed Securities (ABS) and $273 billion of equities.

In addition, Chinese enterprises have made about $145 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States and about $83 billion in the European Union. Many of these enterprises are state owned or can be linked to the Chinese government—such as in the case of Huawei—and can be subject to US and EU sanctions .

In response to a freeze of its foreign reserves and, possibly, other private sector external assets,China could move to nationalize much of the stock of FDI in China, worth $1.9 trillion—focussing on Investments from the United States, Europe, and other countries sanctioning China.

China can also freeze more than $1.2 trillion of Chinese domestic stocks and bonds owned by foreign investors. Moreover, Chinese entities have incurred about $2.7 trillion of external debt mostly in USD and euro—including a few Chinese sovereign international bonds.

China can stop servicing many of those debts, using the same argument as Russia—that it is willing and able to pay, but is prevented from doing so by US government actions.

China can even invoke the force majeure clause if such a clause is contained in any of the external debt contracts. The clause allows parties to a contract to suspend performing the contractual obligations due to government actions which are unforeseen at the time of signing the contract. A pause in servicing China’s external debt would inflict substantial losses on Western investors—largely through investment funds and pension funds.

As a result, in terms of balance sheet exposures, China has about $3.4 trillion of identifiable international assets at risk of possible sanctions and up to $5.8 trillion of liabilities to, or assets in China of, international investors and companies largely from Western countries. China therefore has plenty of room to take retaliatory actions. A sanctions and counter sanctions war game suggests that the losses are comparably severe for both sides.

Moreover, such a situation will significantly disrupt economic exchanges—mainly trade between the two sides. Since exports account for 18.5%, or a relatively large share of China’s GDP, with about one-third of that going to the United States and European Union, their disruptions could cause a substantial decline in China’s economic activity.

On the other hand, China accounts for 18.6% of US imports—and 22.4% of EU imports—especially in manufactured goods and several critical goods, such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals to make pharmaceutical products. Consequently, disruptions in Chinese imports would cause noticeable shortages, rising prices, and discomfort for consumers and some producers in the importing countries. The macroeconomic impact for the United States may be less severe than for China.

However, the lower tolerance of American consumers for goods shortages and inflation would mean the social and political fallout of an all out economic war with China could be more significant in the United States. The economic impact on Europe would also be more substantial as the EU exports more including to China—at 17.6% of GDP compared to 11.7% for the United States.

In short, in a scenario of Western sanctions coupled with Chinese counter measures, both sides will suffer substantial damages. This could lead to a situation of economic MAD—or mutually assured destruction—reinforcing the more catastrophic nuclear MAD.

These considerations would set the parameters of the geopolitical rivalry and conflict between China and the West. This will likely intensify in the foreseeable future to encompass all areas of relationship between the two sides, but hopefully will stop short of economic or military wars!

ANTIMATTER – Retro Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, Return of The LIGHTNING BOLTS/Time Travel, AI2-3

I really enjoyed my time as a police officer and sometimes I even surprised myself in a good way. I was in CID (Detectives) and we were basically on call 24/7 unless we were on vacation. It was extremely common to be called in at night or weekends. If we weren’t working, we were paid time and a half overtime when called in.

Our policy was to fill out a vacation slip that showed the dates we would be off and the number of hours we would be using. So, if I wanted to take a single day, I’d out the from date and the to date and put in 8 hours of “V” time. You would then send that slip up to get approved. Pretty straight forward, you’d think.

An issue that came up for me, and others, was supervisors would interpret things differently…and it made a huge difference in my place.

For example, I want to take Monday thru Friday off, I would put the days that I would be off and away. So, I would put the previous Friday at the end of the day that I was leaving…and put the following Monday morning as my return. So I would have the end of Friday off all the way until the Monday of the following week as my return. So, I would burn 40 hours of vacation but be off for 9 days as I would include the weekends as my time off. Most supervisors would not notice this being done and it was common for the detectives to do. Essentially saying don’t call me between these dates and times.

I hope my explanation above makes sense. And here is where it mattered for me. I was taking a week off and put in 9 days to be off and use 40 hours of leave. Well, the Friday night l prior to my week off, a supervisor called me in for a homicide. I told him I was on vacation and I wasn’t coming in. He again told me to come in saying my vacation started Monday morning, even though I put the Friday afternoon on my slip. So, he ordered me in and I had very little say about it (at the time) and I went in.

On a homicide, it was common for us to work for several days continuous without going home. Because of my vacation time, they did cut me loose on that Monday. So, I went home and slept for a few hours and then continued my vacation. My regular overtime for that weekend, from the time I was called in to the time I went home was in the ballpark of 60 hours. I submitted my overtime slip. Our overtime slips had a spot to write in what hours we were scheduled to work…I put vacation down indicating that it was a vacation time for me and I wasn’t working norms. Hours. The supervisor kicked it back and said no, it wasn’t vacation time for me since my first vacation hour would have been Monday.

This caused me to look up the policies on it and it was somewhat vague with this but indicated our vacation time started when we were off…so when is one off? When they finish their last shift or when their vacation starts. So, this is where the interpretation part comes in. Some supervisors like this one believed it started the first day you had a V day. Others believed it started with whatever you put on that leave slip…as it’s very well possible you could leave for vacation right after leaving work.

Anyhow, I sent this up the chain of command asking for clarification on the policy. The supervisor first tried to prevent it from going up saying he answered the question but that got quashed. Ultimately it came back and was clarified. Our actual vacation time started with the day/time on the slip…and ended with the day/time on the slip. Reason this is so important is if you are ordered in on vacation time, not only do you get overtime, but the rate is double time and a half….this was something the union worked out years ago (before my time) to prevent people from being ordered in from vacation.

You remember that 60 hours straight I worked starting on Friday evening when I was called until Monday when I went home? That 60 hours was DOUBLE TIME AND A HALF. My paycheck looked like I hit the lottery or something. I was quite pleased with the outcome. The supervisor was a little upset because he was incorrect but realized that a) it’s not his money…if he orders me in, I should be compensated properly and b) if he ever wanted me to answer my phone again when I was off, he should play nice. It smoothed over and everything was cool.

The Hunt for Red Octavia

It’s from WW1.

Most people don’t know this because it has literally been painted over in history. I mean literally. This painting is called Panthéon de la Guerre.

Panthéon de la Guerre was a painting started in 1914 by a French artist showing France victorious with all her allies and those who helped the WW1 effort.

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Notice anything?

There are no Chinese in this painting. The US entry into WW1 meant the Chinese labor corps (CLC) who went to help in WW1 were quite literally painted over.

In January 1915 China stopped being neutral and despite internal troubles 96000 Chinese volunteers primarily from Shandong were shipped to Europe across Canada to help with the war effort.

Note how I wrote shipped. They did not travel to Europe they were shipped in train box cars and were not allowed to leave them to save on landing fees.

The CLC were treated pretty much like slaves in Europe and were pretty important to the war effort.

Once it WW1 was coming to a close? The Shandong Chinese were immediately dehumanised even more as sub human filth, for deportation and many were deported at gun point. Even those who died were simply thrown into mass burial pits and the French/English didn’t even consider giving them graves. Several 1000 died but there’s only a few marked graves in France for them.

Some of them remained in Europe and formed the third Chinese migration wave out of China. The hatred towards these people was stoked up so Chinese could be discriminated against and treated unfairly.

The dehumanisation was also a sticking point, as China sent labour to get Shandong province back from the Germans. Instead western powers gave Shandong to the Japanese and stabbed China in the back at the treaty of Versailles.

This kicked off the May 4th Movement and the founding of the CPC.

EDIT

There is currently NO memorial to the CLC in Europe as above barely anybody knows about it because it’s rather niche as a topic and most Europeans are hostile to China anyway.

My mom was an alcoholic. She died from Cirrhosis at the age of 43. The fucked up part is I didn’t know she had it until 2 weeks before her death.

On June 25, 1998 I woke up and walked into the livingroom where I found my mom sitting in her chair. She was so yellow and she kept vomiting black bile. I held a towel under her mouth so she wouldn’t vomit on herself. She smelled so horrible. It has been almost 21 years and I can still smell her. It was the smell of death. Her mind was gone at this point. She had no clue what was going on or where she was for that matter. I was scared to death. My 17yr old brother got scared & angry so he left(he didn’t know any better. Took me a long time to understand that). It was just me and her there. I called my aunt and told her what was going on but she didn’t know what to do. So I called my dad(parents been divorced since i was 2yrs old) but he told me that she’s probably just drunk(i knewit wasn’t that). So, I ended up having to call an ambulance and once they arrived my mom was refusing to go to the hospital. So the police got involved, asked her a few common sense questions like what year was it? Who is the President? She got them all wrong. I was begging her to go. Cops had to force her and that was the first time I got to ride in an ambulance. Once at the hospital it was just her and I in a room waiting on a doctor and I’ll never forget the look of desperation on her face when she looked at me and begged me to tell her what year it was and who the President was(she thought if she knew they would let her go home). And I’ll never forget when I had to tell her no, I’m not telling you.

That was the day I found out my mom had end stage Cirrhosis. I went home later that evening to grab some clothes and as soon as I got there I remember going straight to where she hid all of her bottles of Canadian Mist and poured them down the kitchen sink. I didn’t know at that time that she was never coming back home.

Little did I know that 7 days later my life was about to changed forever. I remember being sat down and told that my mom only had 1 to 2 days to live. I’ll never forget that feeling of not being able breath and the agonizing fear and confusion I felt at that moment. She lived exactly 2 days.

And on July 3, 1998 at 7:04 pm I stood next to my mom watched as her eyes rolled back her head and saw her take her last breath of life. I remember looking at the nurse and asking her if my mom was dead. She said yes. I was only 14 years old.

**Side Note: Just 10 years later I watched my father die from Pancreatic Cancer. He found out that he had in March of 2008 and died on May 23, 2008. I was only 24 years old. I lost my mom within a 2 week span and I lost my dad within a 2 month span. It’s so fucked up. Pancreatic Cancer is a very aggressive and vicious disease to die from. I remember getting the call from my brother. He had died before I got there. I remember my brother and I sitting next to our dead father in a Hospice bed. My brother looked at me and said I’m 27 and you’re 24, and both of our parents are dead. Talk about a hard dose of reality.

The reason that I mentioned my father’s passing is because Pancreatic Cancer is a very ugly disease and it’s an agonizing and painful death. But it has NOTHING on Cirrhosis of the Liver. End stage Cirrhosis will chew you up and spit you out. Eventually all of your organs begin to shut down. It’s such a horrible and horrific way to die. Like I said, it’s been almost 21 years since she died and let me tell you, I can still remember every single minute of every single day of the last 2 weeks before my mom’s death. EVERYTHING. I still have flashbacks.

I love my mom. And I know she loved me the best she knew how. She made sure that me and my brother never had to want for anything. This woman worked every single fucking day for 26 years for the State of Tennessee and rarely missed a day of work. But also, she made damn sure that she had her pint of Canadian Mist in her work bag. lol

I’m at peace with her death. She’s where she belongs. At peace.

But there will always be an emptiness of unanswered questions for me and my brother that will NEVER be filled. And at times it’s a hard pill to swallow. She fucked me up good with the self doubts and never truly feeling “good”enough. To this day at 35 years old, I still can’t or won’t allow anyone truly in. There’s only 2 people who are in and have fully have me and that’s my 8 and 2 year old daughter’s. No one else. And it fucking sucks.

I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years then and my Dutch boss invited me to her wedding. There was a beautiful ceremony in a romantic castle and after that we were served some tiny snacks and petit fours.

After that we took a group picture and then the wedding manager announced that those who have a fork and a knife pictogram in their wedding invitation could proceed to the dinner hall and the rest can go home and thanks for coming.

So there we were, hungry and stuck in the middle of nowhere. Until one of our colleagues called her husband to pick us up by car and bring to the nearest train station where we bought ourselves döner kebab.

I still don’t get it, why should someone treat their guests differently. If you can’t afford a wedding dinner for everyone, it’s perfectly ok with me. You can go for an intimate wedding with your family or close friends or just serve cake, I don’t care. But not treating your guests equally completely blows my mind even 20 years later.

BE A MAN.

Out of jail and into the fale

I fought in the Russo-Ukrainian war with the International Legion. I saw many upsetting sight, but the grossest one that has really stuck with me was during the battle for Klishchiivka, slightly south of Bakhmut and after the fall of Bakhmut in 2023. It was before Ukraine recaptured Klishchiivka (and they have since lost it again).

We were on an assault mission the capture some trenches in the surrounding forest (what was left of it) and the place was littered with mines. We had an EOD expert leading the way and we passed a dead Ukrainian soldier inside a body bag. The area was still too hot to extract the body so it just lay there as the battle raged.

We failed the assault mission and had to fall back. No ground was gained or lost, but the Russians knew we were there and were raining artillery down on us. As we fell back, around noon, we passed the body bag again. It had been perforated by artillery shrapnel and the July heat had slow cooked the flesh. A foul, greenish-brown goop oozed out of the bag and stunk horribly. It was leaking onto the ground a few inches from the safe trail.

As the artillery was landing, we ducked for cover and I had to duck next to the body. On the other side of the trail were two Russian soldiers who had been dead for some time. They were Inside a shell crater and had almost decomposed completely. I could see their skeletons, one with a large hole in the skull. Both has bits of dehydrated flesh clinging to the skeleton. I was laying between dead of long ago and dead of recently, waiting for my death from the artillery.

A few meters further, there was the decapitated head of a Russian laying amongst some anti-tank mines that had been piled up. The head was as decomposed as the other Russians, a testament to the longevity of battle there. I did not see a body and did not bother to look. Helmets and shattered rifles littered the trail. So much death in the tiny tree line.

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The body bag. Not a very clear image and I couldn’t find a clear shot of the Russian bodies.

Earlier In the day, as we arrived in the assault position, an M-113 was struck by a helicopter missile and burst into flames. Luckily, it was only ammunition in the back, which burned and cooked off for about 20 minutes. The driver and commander both survived. They came running across 250 meters of open field to our position with blistered skin and burned, shattered clothing. One soldier jumped into the fighting hole with me and I could see hand-sized blisters forming on his legs. He was in immense pain. Oleg was his name. He was extracted and I do not know his fate this day.

The whole day, collectively, would be my grossest experience, but the oozing body bag really got to me. I will never forget it

I’d say as little as US$1000-$2000. Cash and carry, fly to Yiwu or Guangzhou, buy goods in cash, carry them back home in suitcases or cartons. You are in business.

Forget container, you can’t afford that, you don’t need that. If you need a shipping agent, there are many billboards and advertisements in wholesale markets, once you are there, you can ask them to ship for you.

There are 100,000s of African traders in Yiwu and Guangzhou, doing exactly as I described above. Ethiopian airlines fly directly to Guangzhou, I saw African traders at the airport, buying and taking goods home to sell, exactly what Marco Polo was doing 800 years ago.

YouTubers SMASH anti-China propaganda with REALITY

There are times when celebrities accidentally photobomb. Of course, it has to go viral.

Check out:

  1. Heisenberg
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2. You have been Nick Caged!

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3. Can you spot the celebrity?

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4. The Rockkk!

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5. He is looking for the choppa.

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6. This is terrifying!

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7 Here’s a girl with no name!

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8. I never witness this kind of photobomb

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9. This has to be the greatest accidental photo ever.

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10. Benedict bombing all of them!

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This happened thirty years ago and I still find my blood pressure spiking when I think about it.

I worked at a small steel mill in Tuscaloosa, AL, called (at the time) Tuscaloosa Steel. Our Vice President, “Percy,” was a stuck-up Brit from British Steel, the company that basically owned Tuscaloosa Steel.

My maternal grandmother had a major medical issue and was in the local hospital for open heart surgery. I took that day off work so I could be at the hospital for when she went into and came out of surgery, and to be there to support my mother and grandfather, who were beside themselves with worry. My boss and all my coworkers knew where I was and why. So did my boss’ boss, Percy.

We had just started installing new software called RollCIM at the mill, and no one was familiar with it except the IT department, of which I was a member.

My group was demonstrating part of RollCIM to some of the users and ran into an issue. Now, any single one of them could have fixed it.

But. No.

Percy decides that I and only I can fix whatever the hell the problem was. So he pages me (at the time there were no cell phones; we had pagers) with a 911. I call the mill from the hospital waiting room and am told to get my ass to the mill right now because Percy is frothing at the mouth and needs me to fix something that blew up while being demoed to our users.

My grandmother was literally in surgery. We didn’t know if she was going to live or die. But I had to leave the hospital with my mother and grandfather sitting there STUNNED at the audacity of this…”man.”

I get to the mill in record time because I went about 80. I run in, and there are 4 or 5 people standing around a terminal, and Percy is fuming. He gestures at the screen. “This is unacceptable!”

I literally pressed like three keys and it cleared the error right up. I said, “Is that all you needed? Because I need to be back at the hospital immediately. My grandmother should be coming out of surgery any time now.”

None of the people to whom the product was being demoed knew he’d gotten me out of the hospital to come press three keys on the keyboard. One of my coworkers said, “I kept telling him I could fix it, but he insisted it had to be you.”

So I high-tailed it back to the hospital and got there just in time for my grandmother to come out of surgery, OK. No complications, thank goodness.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Several days later, we were having a departmental meeting where we all got into a conference room and went over incidents of the previous week and plans for the current week. At the end of the meeting, Percy turns to me with a huge grin on his face and asks, “Oh, by the way, how is your aunt?”

I directed all the hate I could at him with just a look and said, “They’re all just fine. None of them were sick. My GRANDMOTHER, on the other hand, who had open-heart-surgery, is in a lot of pain, but recovering nicely, thank you.”

You could have heard a pin drop in that room and our boss called an end to the meeting immediately.

And that is but one of several stories I could tell about this pompous ass.

Here’s a poser.

  1. Which is the biggest car market in the world, in terms of new car registrations?
  2. Which car market has the broadest retail presence by global carmakers?

Answer?

China.

Do you know why both the EU and America instituted lightning quick tariffs on Chinese EVs?

Because their ICE, hybrid and EV products are being decimated in China. Yup, “overproduction” that has spilled into China for decades are rapidly tumbling.

>30% sales reduction yoy is commonplace, and the list includes Porsche.

Even BMW, which a sales manager boasted (to me) “sells itself” and therefore, no discounts or freebies, had to immediately discount its brand new G60 i5 by 20+%, just to move the model out the door.

A 20+% discount on a brand new generation hot off the production line!

The Chinese competition is smoking hot.

The average non-mainland youtube car channel will look VERY, VERY different with Chinese cars in the mix.

At this point, mainland car channels might as well be from a different galaxy, showcasing wares that are not only cheaper, but materially superior to the competition.

2024 crystallizes the divergence between east and west, with the Chinese taking over the mantle of tech leadership.

Thank God I’m born Asian.

Welcome to the 21st century.

The Asian century.

Shorpy

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Though nearly two months have passed since I came here, Japan never fails to amaze and amuse me with a different experience each day, everyday! Among other things, my interactions with the Japanese, though few and far, have already made a lasting impact on me! I would like to share two such memorable instances that will be enshrined in my heart forever.

  1. So, I had scheduled for a parcel to be delivered to my room at 12pm. I opened the door at 11:55 and the delivery man was standing right in front of the door! When I asked him why he hadn’t knocked on my door, he said he was waiting for the clock to strike 12! What?! I had no idea someone could be that humble (and of course punctual, it’s futile to even talk about their punctuality as it is simply too amazing to be described in words).
  2. On a cold afternoon, I was at an Indian restaurant having lunch. A man seated next to my table started smoking while eating. As I am averse to the cigar smoke, I asked the waiter and sat down at the corner table, far away from this man. On realizing that his smoking had bothered me, he came up to me and apologized. Well that’s polite and I can fathom it. But when I finished my lunch and went to pay the bill, the waiter told me that the man was very sorry for the inconvenience he might have caused me and had already paid my bill. Really?! Words fail to describe what I felt then!

I get a feeling that I’ll learn more from observing how Japanese are than by listening to lectures at the university! Hats off Japan! 🙂

High Value Man REFUSES To Pay For Woman’s Food & Leaves!

Because people realize the “west” they have been told about simply doesn’t exist.

Let me explain. Before the reformation of 1978, almost nobody had been to western countries, except for politicians and scholars. The country itself is not satisfying as well. Japan, Singapore, even North Korea (under Soviet reinforcement) is better than China in many ways. This, to the Chinese people, is mind blowing. People were taught that countries like Korea used to be sovereign states of China, but China is now left behind.

It wasn’t until the beginning of this century that Chinese started to go out and explore the rest of the world. But the idea of being left behind is still in many people’s mind.

However, when Chinese finally made it to the west, they get shocked by the fact that the so called “lighthouse of democracy” (nick name for the United States) is not perfect. People get frustrated by racism, foreign nationalism and violence in the foreign nation.

It is not their fault, not at all. But still, people believe that this can’t be true.

“How can there be so much racism? I was taught that Asians have the highest income here! Why is this happening?”

“How can there be so much nationalism? I was taught that the media of the United States was never controlled by their democratic government! Why is this happening?”

“How can there be so much violence? Why do people get shot almost once a week? I thought this wouldn’t happen in a democratic society!”

Several years gone…

When they look back to the place they just come from, a country growing at an astonishing speed, they finally understood why.

They now know every country has its own pros and cons, and they now know that the country they come from isn’t that bad at all. In the contrary, it might even seem to be a better choice for them.

Chinese people are sometimes fooled by its own kind that if you go to the west, you get everything: you get money, a happy family and a nice job. In fact, this is also what many US immigrants in the early 20th century believed. “Go to America! And you’ll get everything!”

But when your own country grows from “nothing” to “something” to “something more than something”, you’ll start to wander: is the US always better than China in every aspects? Is my country really worse than the US?

Development is the key.

That’s how you get nationalism.


Edit: the point I want to make clear of is that older generation Chinese have this strange “fairytale” thought about the west. It’s not because of propaganda, but because people accept the feeling of China being a backward country and the fact that the west is indeed much more advanced. But the economic boost changed all that. Now, many Chinese regain their confidence of being one of the top countries in the world. The Germans, Japanese and Russians all experienced the change when their country rises.

PREPARE! “We Have Never Seen Anything Like This In Recorded History.”

I sure have! A particular young lad with an obnoxiously loud and very illegal aftermarket “muffler” installed on his modded Honda Civic. Both, the first and second times I pulled him over, I gave him a warning, informing him that the State law is very clear, that the installation of “mufflers” that do not dampen noise as effectively as the stock one does is prohibited.

I saw him continuing to drive around relatively often (it was hard to miss whenever he went by) but I deliberately waited about a month between the three more times I stopped him (preemptive countermeasure to any Harassment claim), and ticketed him all three times. The third ticket, however, was not for the illegal muffler, it was a Criminal Citation for driving on a suspended license: it was inactivated by the DMV for ignoring the requirement he actually pay the previous fined. Also, at that time, State law REQUIRED police to impound the vehicle of anyone caught driving on a suspended license. So I did, and never saw that car again. (No doubt it was because he couldn’t afford the impound & storage fee on top of all the tickets he got from me and probably other officers as well.)

Yes, I felt bad for him the first time I stopped him, which is why he got the warning. The second time, he told me that the replacement muffler had been shipped but hadn’t arrived yet, but had to get to work. I pointed out that he probably still had the stock muffler & strongly suggested he reinstall until the (unnecessary) new one arrived. But I let him off. I didn’t hook his car until four MONTHS later, during which time there were MANY times I saw him driving but didn’t stop him. By the end, no, I didn’t feel bad for him at all— all that happened to him he brought upon himself & he had his eyes wide open the whole time.

Man Silences Audience Full of Women..

The true story of U-118 at Hastings and the dangers of old ships.

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main qimg 05626b69d78a12313de826486a5dc58f pjlq

Aerial view of German U-118 U-Boat washed up on its way to France April 15 1919.

After World War 1 ended, the German Navy surrendered and many of its ships were interned at the Royal Navy’s chief naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands north of the Scottish mainland. However SM U-118 was surrender by the Imperial German Navy to the Allies at Harwich on 23 February 1919. U-118 was due to be transferred to France, but while on tow from Harwich to Brest, in company with UB-121 during the early hours of 15 April 1919 she broke tow in a storm , and ran aground on the beach at Hastings in Sussex at approximately 00:45, directly in front of the Queens Hotel.

Initially, there were attempts to re-float the stricken vessel. Three tractors were used to try and pull the submarine back into the sea and a French destroyer then attempted to break the ship apart using her guns, all efforts were unsuccessful, and the closeness of the submarine to the public beach and the Queens Hotel prevented the use of explosives.

U-118 had been launched on February 23, 1918, she was 267 feet long, displaced 1,200 tons and was armed with a 150mm deck gun, 14 torpedoes and 42 mines. SM U-118 had a lackluster career, sinking only two ships. She was surrendered to the Allies on February 23, 1919, exactly one year after she was launched.

The city fathers decided to make the best of this instant tourist attraction, the Admiralty put the local coast guard in charge and allowed the town clerk to charge sixpence apiece to visitors wishing to climb onto the deck of U-118. After two weeks, nearly £300 had been raised for the Mayor´s Fund for the welcome home of troops from France.

Special excursions inside the submarine were arranged for important visitors, these were led by the two coast guardsmen, but the visits were stopped after two weeks when both these gentlemen became strangely ill. Instead of getting better, they got progressively worse, until, by February of 1920, both were dead.

Their autopsies revealed abscesses in their lungs and brains, probably caused by chlorine gas leaking from the sub’s damaged batteries.

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main qimg bbc32ee82024ce3895489739d6374a91 pjlq

U-118 ashore at Hastings crowded with tourists.

The decision was made to break up U-118 and sell it for scrap. Hastings was presented with the 150mm (6-in) deck gun, but they decided to get rid of it in 1921. It is believed that portions of the sub’s keel still sit under the sands.

Putin Responds to Trump Wanting to End the War in Ukraine!

Thanks for the A2A, Liana.

My then 8 yo daughter had an one-month home stay at my cousin’s home in Denver, Colorado.

I video chatted with her daily. She told me she loved eating at Uncle Woo’s restaurant. Uncle Woo is my cousin’s husband, a second generation Chinese American who runs a Chinese restaurant in Denver. I was so grateful and relieved to hear that.

Me: ‘Great! What’s your favorite food in Uncle’s Chinese restaurant?’

She: ‘Sushi!’

Me: ‘Er… Sushi is a Japanese food… anyway I’m glad you love it. What’s your favorite topping of sushi? Tuna?’

She: ‘Tempura!’

Me: ‘Er… Tenpura on Sushi? I’ve never heard of that. Tell me more. What’s it like?’

She: ‘Uncle and Auntie deep fry big shrimps, top them on the rice roll, and dip sweet salty sauce on them. Yum yum!’

Me: ‘Wow that sounds unique. I wish I could taste them too.’

She: ‘You know what? Today Auntie taught me to make dumplings. I wrapped many dumplings. And they are flower-shaped!’

Me: ‘Impressive! I’ve never seen flower-shaped dumplings. Must be beautiful! What’s the fillings?’

She: ‘Cheese!’

Me: ‘Er… I can’t imagine what they would taste like… did you eat them?’

She: ‘Yes! Those are my No.2 favorite! We wrap them like flowers, then auntie deep fry them, they taste super creamy.’

When she came back from Denver, she brought many ‘Lucky Cookies’ as souvenirs from USA to her friends. The ‘Surprise!’ inside the cookies gave kids so much fun.

She also taught her grandma to make flower-shaped cheese-filling dumplings when we visited them in Beijing on Chinese New Year, and shared them with our neighbors.

Chinese people always say ‘Be it a black cat or a white cat, a cat that catches mice is a good cat.’

I say be it Chinese or American, be it Japanese or Italian, a food that is delicious and fun is a good food.

And salute Uncle Woo’s family, salute food lovers all over the world who constantly create new food cultures to warm our stomachs and hearts.

SCOTT RITTER JOINS ON PUTIN’S KNOCKOUT BLOW TO NATO

NOTE: This is NOT my uncle’s actual car, but very similar to the one he bought. Picture for illustration purposes only.

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main qimg f055e060296d5327c76fd340089d6519 lq

When my uncle retired, he decided to treat himself to a brand-new Corvette. He shopped for weeks, finally choosing a loaded model in a bright racing yellow.

He was so excited on delivery day. I drove him to the dealership and when we arrived, his new car was out front, facing the street but parked very close to the wall of the showroom. He didn’t care because he’d be driving his new car and I would be driving my car. The salesman rushed him through the paperwork, gave him the keys and said he had another appointment to get to. This annoyed my uncle considering the amount of money he had just spent. But he was still excited, so he hopped in and fired up the 427 engine. I told him I’d follow him to the gas station; this happened in the days when a dealership provided just enough fuel to get you to your first fill-up.

He pulled out and turned right down the boulevard. A few blocks later, he pulled into a station, then swung the Corvette around the pump, perhaps so he’d be facing the street when finished gassing up. My mouth fell open in horror as I watched him swing around. The entire passenger side of the car, the side that was against the wall at the dealership, was totally smashed. Dents, paint ripped down to the fiberglass, trim completely missing. The car was destroyed on the passenger side. I pulled over and tried to warn my uncle before he saw it but I was too late. He had gotten out with a big smile on his face, ready for his first fill-up with his brand new Corvette, only to see this total mess. We both stood there dumbfounded for a moment, but soon anger took over.

We immediately returned to the dealership and found the salesman, who was on the phone. I had to restrain my uncle from hitting this guy, he was screaming at him at calling him every name in the book. We went outside and showed the salesman the car, and he had the balls to accuse my uncle of being the one who damaged the car! By this time a small crowd had gathered around the scene, and finally the owner of the dealership came out.

The salesman admitted that he had smashed the car when he was bringing it out of the storage lot, and didn’t want to lose the sale, so he hid the damage by parking it so it wasn’t visible. The owner immediately fired the salesman, apologized to my uncle, gave him a loaner car for free while they ordered a new Corvette, then when he came to pick up the replacement car, the owner gave my uncle a check for $10,000, which was more than he paid for the car! Because of all of this, my uncle didn’t sue the dealership. That salesman’s actions were the scummiest I’ve ever come across.

She Instantly REGRETS Divorcing Her Husband When She Realizes No One Want Her with 5 Kids | The Wall

I used to date a gay cop.

If we were out to dinner, he could become visibly fixated and angry, almost trembling with rage, because some stranger across the room had dyed and shaped their hairstyle into a violet Mohawk.

This really happened, decades ago, and I am still confused.

Returning to our date, I am siting there, thinking FFS, you’re a gay cop and you cannot handle anyone who does not fall in line according to your standards. It’s just hair. It’s not anti-social. The guy has cut his hair to express an identification with counterculture, maybe. It’s different, but who cares?

Gay cops are hot.

I gave him too many passes despite this scary inclination brought forth by non-conforming people of all stripes. It was amazingly predictable and a frightening irony. We have freedom of self expression in this nation, though we may lose it soon. If Republicans want state bans on contraception FFS?

The brunt of their authoritarian rage in full plumage is difficult to ascertain.

I think I finally told him, “You’re a gay cop. Not the fashion police, you know?”

In America, we don’t have a fashion police with enforcement powers.

And for damn good reasons.

Seriously, who gives a shit? Why would anyone give a shit?

The guy with the Mohawk is not your enemy.

You need a scapegoat.

Deep in this guy’s angry soul, he desperately needed everyone to conform or it upset him, as if his insistence on compliant appearances belied the inner shame that drove him to law enforcement in the first place, not that all cops are steeped in hypocritical denial.

I do not suffer from the need to judge something or someone I do not understand who does not pose any real threat to me. It does not cross my mind. Not for a second. But there are people in this world who will judge anyone who dares to step out of line as expressed in an unorthodox hairdo.

Do you not have bigger issues on your mind?

People dye their hairdos like Easter Eggs because, I assume, it’s fun. They like it when they look in mirror. It communicates their freedom of spirit to everyone. It adds color to their lives, and what in the hell could possibly be wrong with that?

Please remove the baton of imperious piety from you know where.

And relax. It’s just hair. It can’t hurt you.

Let people be different.

It’s not that hard.

It’s also one of your fundamental responsibilities as a citizen under the present Constitution as long as it continues to exist under the new tyranny of right-wing control. Good God, you went on a tirade when Twitter evicted their trolls, suppressing what you call freedom of speech, but you’re uptight over pink hair. It drove you crazy when the courts finally shut down Alex Jones and his lie factory for good.

You can’t see the freakish contradiction in your need to police “freedom” ?!? You can’t understand that freedom of speech does not mean the right to lie?

By definition, it means you can’t police other people and control their chosen forms of self expression, until they pose a direct danger to you or others.

You don’t get that? By definition, it means other people can dye their hair as long as they so choose even if it bugs you. Jesus. Seriously. Get a life.

Not dirty money-wise, but it was infuriating on principle.

I was in a car accident, 100% the other party’s fault. The police report cited them as being at fault (failure to maintain control of the car). Their front end hit my front end, I was pointed south on a south-bound freeway, and they were pointed north (they lost control in a heavy rain).

Arbitration between the two insurance companies determined that the other party was 100% at fault. I got my deductible back, and my insurance covered the loss of the car.

My insurance did NOT cover a couple of over things. Some fishing gear was stolen (OK…”came up missing”) from my vehicle while it was at the collision center lot. I cracked a couple ribs during the accident, and couldn’t mow my very large lawn for a few weeks, and had to pay somebody to do it. A few other things. I wanted their insurance company to cover those losses. I could have asked for pain and suffering, and probably could have jacked up a lot of other expenses, but I didn’t; I just wanted them to cover a few clearly articulated losses.

The contract they sent me had a statement “I understand that this is a questionable claim….” followed by a statement that this would be the end of the matter.

I called the rep at the insurance company and told him on no uncertain terms that that the “questionable claim” statement was coming out before I signed the contract. I didn’t object to their wanting to close off indefinite demands, and was amenable to language that said the deal was done and over with once they sent me a check, but there was nothing the least bit “questionable” about the claim, and if they wanted to push the issue, I would conduct a more thorough review to my losses, and take them to court in a case that they had, for all practical purposes, already lost.

I got a revised contract with the offending language removed less than an hour later.

If she can't be corrected then she can't be directed. 
If she can't be directed then she can't be protected. 
If she can't be protected then she can't be respected. 
If she can't be respected then she can't be selected.

It is not what is Kier Starmer stance on China? It is China is watching if Kier Starmer wants to cooperate and partner with China or wants to do shit and be a US dog like his previous leaders, that is your choice. If you want to be a dog and do US bidding China will handle you based on your decision.

If you want to be a US slave or dog and do shit on China. China will return the favour and gives you double the dose! On the other hand if he is smart and wants to do what is good for UK, China will reciprocate in kind! The ball is on your court! You decide!

China is the world’s most humongous market and manufacturer, you can partner them and be prosperous and win EU market or you can be a dog and pretend you are fine with your economy tumbling negative with a 5–10% inflation. You British decide you want 3 good meals a day or have a 30 second limelight being an assistant sheriff to a dementia or degenerate.

Your choice. China will watch what he do not merely what he say! You Caucasian Anglophones thinks too much of yourself! You need China not China need you! UK market is about the size of a province in China nothing much more than that! It UK stop buying Chinese it may affect China 0.0.5% of their business but if China stop UK it cost UK 5–8% inflation! That is simply mathematical! Sunak, Liz and Boris are simply too dumb to realised and the chose a dog’s role that brings no benefit and a whole load of problem for UK!

Starmer needs to decide carefully and so does the British people!

I think that he is running for President. But, aside from that, it’s a good video.

I have been living in Japan for three months now and one thing I realized is that there is no tipping here. At all.

I asked my Japanese friend why this was so. He asked me, ‘What is tipping?’
I said, ‘When you think a service in a restaurant is proper, the person in charge gets your food on time, we leave some money for the waiter’.

And he said, ‘But aren’t the workers supposed to be efficient? Isn’t that their job?’
Me: Ah well. Umm. Hmm. Yeah you are right.

It’s considered in the Japanese society that it is one’s duty to do their job perfectly. It’s even difficult explaining them such things as why one should tip in a restaurant!

Let me add some more things here.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that they have braille everywhere. Everywhere including beer cans and washlet (Japanese hi-tech toilet) buttons.

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main qimg 4adaa273d88ef8133084ba51094fe6a4 lq

The first thing you do when coming across a “growling lion” is freeze and avert your eyes. You also do not point at it.

If a lion is not habituated to man it will most likely run. The danger arises with lions that are more used to people.

Look at the animal’s tail. When a lion is angry or feeling threatened it will sweep its tail from side to side. If it is hunting it will keep its tail stiff and twitch it from time to time. It is much more serious if it is actively hunting you. If you see stalking indications then raise your arms above your head and wave them and most importantly SHOUT YOUR HEAD OFF. If you have something in your hand then throw it at the lion. Even if the lion charges you do not run. Believe me this can be extremely intimidating. They charge at 80 km per hour and the roaring is deafening. If you have frozen and then lion is not approaching but not leaving either then start to back slowly away. If it starts to move, then freeze immediately.

My wife, Marjet, once walked into a whole pride at a concession we were running in Botswana. It was early morning during the cool season and she was walking from our home to the camp (a couple of hundred meters away). The lions had just arrived and were sunning themselves in the tall grass, so she didn’t see them till she was right on top of them. Despite the aggressive roaring and repeated charges from different lionesses she held her nerve and walked away without a scratch. Needless to say she doesn’t take any nonsense from me…

Night time encounters are another story. I was once doing problem animal control in Gache Gache in Zimbabwe, trying to bait and shoot a lion that had killed several people and the night before had almost succeeded in breaking into Chief Mangare’s hut. It was dark but moonlit and I was lying on the ground, carefully backed into a euphorbia hedge along with two game scouts and a fellow ranger. I heard a very faint noise behind me and the lion was crawl-stalking me and just 10 foot back! He had actually carefully crawled through the dense hedging to sneak up on us. He was too close for me to be able to turn and shoot. However, I turned on the torch in my hand and shone it in his face. He ran off. So, if you are walking in the bush at night (it happens in safari camps especially) and come across lions, keep your beam in their eyes and back away.

One of the biggest myths is fire. Lions are not afraid of campfires and will often walk round them and see what’s happening. However, keeping a fire between you and a lion is probably better than nothing!

Why God sent you a cat | Feline spirituality

Scrabble up ye cement dog

I bought my father’s wife an electronic scrabble game.

OMG! The best thing that I ever could do.

Now, she and I never really got along, but I thought it might be nice to get her a Christmas present, and so I got her the computer / internet version. Now, this is a game that they have been playing for years. And so, of course, she liked it.

440px Scrabble game in progress
440px Scrabble game in progress

But later, my dad told me that she also used it as a “fiddle game”; something to just mess around with when she got a few spare moments. And also, as a thing to do when my dad was too tired to play with her.

So, chalk up a good thing for me.

Now, you all must know that I have never really been that good in selecting presents for others. I wrote about trying to get presents for my maternal grandmother and how that went to shit, but really getting presents to give to others usually was just getting me no where.

But I have had two wins.

This game of scrabble with my father’s wife, and…

And.. this cement dog statue that I bought for my artistic sister. Ah. She loved it. She said that she read that Earnest Hemingway had a cement dog that was very loyal and greeted him every time he came home.

A 240 72663
A 240 72663

She would park it in her living room, watching the kitchen. Loyal and still.

And when my sister had to go away for a project, my mother watched over that cement dog. She too loved it. Said it wasn’t any work to take care of and always watched the house. It was about two feet high, and was of a greyhound.

Ah, now I don’t give presents out often, but when I do, I make sure that they are appreciated.

Today…

A few years ago, when I was newly licensed, I was leaving my cheer practice and heading to another practice right after. This was a small town and there’s only 2 lanes going into town and 2 going out, not really that big of a deal usually as the drivers are mostly respectful in keeping the passing lane clear. Well on this particular day, I’m headed into town from my practice (as mentioned) and there’s a cop and another car driving almost side by side. The speed limit posted is 60 but they’re both going 45/50 WELL BELOW the legal limits. The cop is in the passing lane and the other car is too afraid to speed up past him even though they’d be in the right. So I get behind the other car (don’t remember the make/model) and try to bide my time waiting to see who will move forward so I can just go. Cop starts to inch forward so I get behind him. As soon as he passes the other car, he gets into the right lane and I pass him (With cruise control set at 60). As soon as I pass him and get back over, he lights up, pulls me over.

He says that I was folowing him too closely and did I know what the proper distance was? I answer 1.5 car lengths (textbook answer according to our state laws). He responds “You need to be at least 15 car lengths behind me!” I said “Fifteen??” with a confused look (not the best at controling my facial expressions) and he said “Yes. Fifteen.”

I did receive a ticket but it was because I didn’t have my license on me; a simple fix-it, take my license to the police station and they’d waive it for me. When I did that a week later (wound up having to get another since the first was lost at the time), he passed me walking into the station and asked where I’d gotten the 1.5 car lengths from and I told him the same place I read that it was illegal to do 45 in a 60…..the state DMV book.

Crocs

Lemon-Lime Flank Steak

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1624553243920

Yield: 4 servings.

Ingredients

  • 12 ounces lemon-lime soda (Sprite or 7-Up)
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1/4 cup lime juice
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 jalapenos, unseeded and finely chopped
  • 1 (1 1/2 pound) flank steak
  • Vegetable cooking spray
  • Salt

Instructions

  1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a 2-quart shallow dish, stirring well; add flank steak, turning to coat.
  2. Cover and chill for 8 hours, turning meat occasionally.
  3. Remove steak from marinade, discarding marinade.
  4. Coat grill rack with cooking spray, and place on grill.
  5. Cook steak, covered with grill lid, over medium-hot coals (350 to 400 degrees F) about 7 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.
  6. Remove steak from grill, and sprinkle evenly with salt to taste.
  7. To serve, cut steak diagonally across grain into thin slices.

Mark Sleboda: Putin and China Issue DEVASTATING Warning to Blinken, Neocons and They’re Not Bluffing

When my son was born, he was a very, very special baby in our family. Starting with my great-grandfather, all the living male heirs were born 20 years apart so we referred to this phenomenon as the “20-year baby”. Well it just so happened (by accident actually) that my son was born the first week in January of the 20th year, making him the living fifth generation 20-year baby. This was an extremely important event to my grandfather and great grandfather. When my son was five months old, all of my relatives came to see the latest 20-yr baby so he was held and hugged/kissed by a dozen people. Two weeks after that visit, my grandfather’s wife (whom I considered to be my grandmother) called me crying and saying she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t call and tell me that my grandfather had been diagnosed with active tuberculosis and because the medication was so expensive and didn’t make him feel any better, he decided not to take it. Well, this meant that

1) he was highly contagious

2) he was well aware of this fact

3) he ignored the risks

4) he concealed the truth

5) he willfully exposed all of us to the disease

6) he knowingly put our health, even our lives at risk

7) he was willing to expose a 5- month old baby, most especially my son, the precious 20-yr baby.

He was so selfish and concerned with his own wishes that he was willing to put his entire family in harm’s way. I was appalled and devastated. I called him and confronted him. He refused to take responsibility for his actions. So I told him that he would never see my son again. He was very angry and said some awful, unforgivable things to me. My grandmother reported our exposure to the health department. They in turn contacted me and told me that my son and I were required to be tested every three months for the next 4 years. I also found out my grandfather was directly responsible for infecting 11 other family members, including my grandmother and two of my cousins. Luckily neither my son nor I ever tested positive. Sadly, I had no choice but to stand my ground, so neither my son nor I ever saw him again. My grandmother divorced him, and my father refused to even speak to him for risking my son’s health. My uncle took his family and moved away because two of his kids were infected by him. So, he died alone, 15 years later, a miserable, hateful old man and it was all my fault, you see. Because I deprived him of the love of his coveted 20-yr great-grandson.

BUSTED: Did the CIA withhold China info from Trump?

Jesus H. Christ.

Who Turned Off the Gaslight?

Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine. —Olivia Nuzzi, NY Magazine

Clusterfuck Nation


There’s a reason that the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes is so potent: it describes a mentally ill society that retreats into abject unreality, to avoid contending with truth. Alas, this archetypal human quandary shoves such a society towards nemesis: downfall and punishment. And that is exactly the consequence of our news media’s craven, dishonorable, degenerate behavior the past decade.

They have disordered our nation’s consensus about reality with peremptory lying about everything, in service to a political party that lies to its citizens about everything. The big question is: who or what recruited them into serving the Party of Chaos, and why did they go along?

You can explain the media’s initial repugnance to Donald Trump going back to his 2015 debut in politics. Much about him had a low-class odor, despite all the gold-plating — his origins in tawdry Queens, his career as a builder in Manhattan where the trades are mob-controlled, the Atlantic City casino debacle, bankruptcy, ditching Ivana and his mid-life playboy reputation, the tacky TV show, the increasingly mystifying hair-doo, his rough, jumbly manner of speech. Everything about him repelled the Ivy Leaguers who increasingly filled the ranks of national-level journalism.

Despite all that, Mr. Trump raised five kids successfully. The grown ones had careers and they all visibly loved him. With that and his overt masculinity, he assumed the lineaments of the archetypal Daddy, which enflamed the enormous cohort of feminists who had taken over the Democratic Party behind their avatar Hillary Clinton. And when he squeaked out an electoral victory over her in 2016, they were sure it was a cheat. The menace of Daddy in da (White) house pushed them over the edge psychologically.

Daddy was all about setting boundaries, which was the antithesis to the “progressive” (and transgressive) agenda of the Dems, and was probably the reason that his talk of “building the wall” along the Mexican border drove them nuts. It signaled patriarchal control of a whole lot of other things, too. Boundaries galore!

Now, it happened that the Democratic Party was also the favored party of the DC permanent bureaucracy, which had been growing and growing for decades and had become overtly politicized during the eight years of Barack Obama. Mr. Trump threatened to downsize this leviathan government, meaning many patronage jobs might be lost. (Boundaries would be imposed!) The warrior branch of this Deep State was the Intel community. The FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the State Dept, and elements of the military were commissioned by the Democratic Party to destroy Mr. Trump.

They used the machinery of the law to lay one trip after another on the president and effectively hog-tied him — RussiaGate, the Ukraine phone call impeachment, the George Floyd anarchy — and when those operations failed to oust him, they ran the Covid-19 caper (with enormous collateral damage to the people and their economy), which enabled rigging the 2020 election with mail-in ballots. Once Mr. Trump was squeezed out-of-office, the FBI turned the J-6 protest at the Capitol into a riot, which Nancy Pelosi then converted into an “insurrection” using the House J-6 committee. The J-6 incident, they dearly hoped, would rid them of Mr. Trump once and for all.

The news media went along with every bit of that, year after year, converting each mendacious act of the party and the bureaucracy into consumable narrative, and lying either overtly about all the ops, or just omitting to report on the dark truth behind it all. Any reality-based thread that happened to leak into public view from independent alt-news reporters was branded by CNN, The New York Times, the WashPo, and many others as “misinformation” — a newish concept produced by a cadre of language Stasi skilled at inverting the meaning of anything to bamboozle the public. It appears that the news media became so invested psychologically in its own dishonest product that it began to believe its own bullshit.

Or, at least, they wanted to pretend to believe it. One of the big problems was that absolutely everything they labeled “misinformation” or “conspiracy theory” turned out to be truthful, and that was becoming an inescapable embarrassment. And then the biggest blunder they made was going along with the Deep State’s selection of “Joe Biden” in the very sketchy Super Tuesday primary of 2020. The old grifter had next-to-zero support in all the preceding preliminaries and somehow (abracadabra !) he swept the field.

By then, the Democratic Party, and its public relations arm in the mainstream media, had descended into florid mental illness. Everything they stood for post-World War Two flipped to its opposite. Suddenly, they were against free speech. They weren’t coy about it. They just made-up some new bullshit about free speech being “hate speech.” Similarly, they were against a free press. They went along with all the misinfo / disinfo bullshit the government cooked up and supported its role in suppressing the news. They were no longer anti-war, the party-of-peace. They were now pro-segregation and pro-discrimination (white people need not apply) according to Critical Race Theory (a childishly sketchy doctrine). Most of all, they were no longer skeptical of anything that the leviathan establishment wanted to do, including abridging the liberties of American citizens.

Then there was the campaign to use the most powerful human instinct, sexuality, as a weapon to disorder the minds of American children, leading even to the mutilation of their bodies — a program that unmistakably tipped toward genuine evil, suggesting that actual psychosis lay behind the Cluster-B crypto-Marxism used to justify it.

“Joe Biden” was fine with all of that, and the news media was fine with “Joe Biden” and whoever was using him as a front. Of course, it was evident during the 2020 campaign that “Joe Biden” was not up to a job as demanding as Chief Executive of the US government — and that was even apart from the dense criminal web of influence peddling discovered around him and his family, which the news media ignominiously ignored. But now the years have gone by and there’s no hiding “Joe Biden’s” rather gravely diminished mental abilities.

Last week’s debate gave away the game. It had the effect of finally turning off the gaslight that the news media has been shining over the republic lo these many years. They can no longer pretend that this president is anything close to okay in body and mind. They can’t annul the gaslighted public’s delayed realization that they’ve been subject to a concerted program of deliberate lying for a long long time.

So now, inveterate pretenders and liars, such as Jake Tapper of CNN and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times — and many others — have to pretend that they were innocently duped into supporting all the turpitudes of the Democratic Party / Deep State axis-of-evil. It is really hard to imagine that they can successfully rehabilitate their reputations. They have done immense harm to our country. It’s hard to see how the Democratic Party might survive, too, no matter who they finally put up for election this year. Of course, there’s still plenty of time left for them to destroy the country altogether. Just keep giving American missiles to Ukraine to fire into Russia and see what happens.

Woman Demands Her Husband Make $650,000 And Gets Humbled

Surprise, Surprise!

“Joe Biden is the walking embodiment of the exhausted American Establishment. More and more people have simply lost their faith in our Ruling Class. You could scarcely have a more potent symbol of its impotence.” — Rod Dreher

Clusterfuck Nation


Just before the weekend, a political prairie fire raced across a nation buffaloed, blind-sided, and buried deeply in bullshit, and the little critters who inhabit the landscape are still running around with their fur smoldering. What a surprise that “Joe Biden,” the mentally-disabled pretend-president, fell apart in the debate spotlight for all to see, like Captain Queeg in his fateful witness chair, or William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial (1925), or the Wizard of Oz when little Toto drew the curtain back — a brutal revelation of stark truth about how things actually are.

Since his hiding-in-the-basement campaign in 2020 “Joe Biden’s” Party of Chaos has pretended that he is fit and alert for the job and now all of sudden they pretend to be shocked to see how far gone in the head he really is. The bullshit shovelers of the mainstream news media were especially rocked, not by the truth of the situation per se, but at being unmasked as the contemptible, confabulating tools that they’ve become. The New York Times wheeled around on a dime from their servile lionizing of the presidential hologram they helped create to its editorial board abjectly yelling for him to drop out and get gone. They were joined instantly by a long list of other opinion-shapers, campaign donors, political celebs, and Beltway players.

Right after the debate, First lady Dr. Jill led a cheerleading session before a roomful of partisans that went beyond cringeworthy into uncharted territory of mortification. (“You were great, Joe! You answered all the questions!”). By the time the entourage moved to a pre-planned event at a nearby Atlanta Waffle House, “JB” had gone full-on zombie. If all that was intended to be reassuring, the effect was the opposite. Someone handed the blank-faced old grifter a milkshake and they beat it out of there.

The Bidens flew off to the Hamptons Saturday to milk the showbiz cows and hedge-funders for a campaign that might not still exist. “Everyone paid in advance. . .so it could be an opportunity to encourage him to drop out,” an invited guest told a New York Post reporter. “I wanted to go and see the train wreck,” another donor said. “I’d rather choose someone from a phone book than have Biden.” That was generally the tone among the woke-gay-communist echelons all over the land — surprisingly vehement, considering that just forty-eight hours before they were all in on re-election. Some could probably see their lucrative hustles whirling around the drain, and others might fret about just how far and wide prosecutions under a Trump Attorney General might loom.

“JB” and his family circle attempted to regroup over the weekend at Camp David where first son, Hunter (“the smartest man I know,” the president often says), led the buoying-up session, perhaps mindful of the many bank accounts set up by his lawyers in the name of Biden family members (including little grandchildren) for receipt of influence-peddling revenue gathered sedulously from entities abroad during “Joe Biden’s” post-veep high-earning years. The family emerged from that meet-up triumphantly, ready to forget the one bad evening and jump back into the election game.

Next, the biggest Dem dawgs — Obama, Schumer, Pelosi — stepped up with fulsome support for “Joe Biden” continuing to steer the party’s war canoe straight over Niagara Falls on November 5th. What possesses them? Misguided love for the monster they created? Fear of being called out as traitorous liars? Desperation to preserve the gigantic racketeering operation of the party they lead, with consideration for their big cuts of the action? Or are they just determined to complete the job of wrecking our country?

And where was She-Whose-Turn-It-Is, HRC, the only possible replacement candidate with name-recognition and no ruined state hanging over her as is the case with Newsom, Pritzker, and Whitmer (California, Illinois, Michigan)?  Mrs. Clinton has so far stayed out of it, laying low, probably thinking that the party poohbahs will eventually have to come around to seeing she’s the obvious viable alternative. Since the Clinton Foundation bought and paid for the DNC some time ago, she might be able to get the nominating machinery lined up in her direction. There are myriad problems, for sure, with many state election laws that discourage switching-out a nominee who has already captured a winning share of party convention delegates — but Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and the Lawfare gang are already tasked to that set of problems now that their work is done cobbling together all those janky court cases to hamstring Mr. Trump.

We enter high summer with countless consequential things afoot. A grand new momentum is expressing itself throughout Western Civ against the Globalist insanity. Sunday, Marine LePen’s National Rally (RN) thrashed President Macron’s Renaissance Party, a shock equal to the “Joe Biden” debate fiasco here. British elections follow Thursday July 4, with PM Rishi Sunak sucking wind and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party ascending rapidly. Sunday July 7 France’s runoff election happens. A widened war threatens the Middle East as Iran and Turkey line up with Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel. Ukraine cries for a negotiated settlement with no help from our own State Department. ISIS terrorists (among many other dangerous cadres) circulate on-the-loose around the USA, ready and able to perp atrocities.

Still hanging over the “Joe Biden” crisis — and it is a crisis — is the question as to how somebody no longer capable of leading a party in an election can also be capable of leading the executive branch of the USA as Commander-in-Chief. That quandary has been shoved aside for the moment but it still lurks ominously in the background.

The Reconquest Of Masculinity

Joe Biden Catches Cold

“Biden’s entire closing statement is the political equivalent of the blue screen of death. It’s just one long frozen glitch.” — Sean Davis, the Federalist

Clusterfuck Nation


Maybe ninety-seconds into last night’s long-awaited debate spectacle, the consensus must have jelled among the woke-and-broken news media mavens that their champion, “Joe Biden,” was not quite killing it out there at the podium. CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash acted like witnesses at a ritual sacrifice. And afterward, the CNN post-mortem panel seemed genuinely shocked that months of playing pretend had skidded to such an ignominious finish.

Which raises a great many questions, starting with: why on earth did the Democratic Party and its media handmaidens persist in pretending month-after-month that “Joe Biden” was a fit candidate for another four-year term?  Last night, he didn’t appear capable of even finishing the current term. Why did they usher him so jauntily into the nomination? And what are they going to do about that now? And what were their motives for all that pretending? “Joe Biden” circulates among scores of astute officials every day. Did they all fail to notice his incapacity? Or has the whole thing been a sham and a lie all along? Was this just the culminating hoax by the Party of Hoaxes of a long string of hoaxes against the nation going back to 2015?

To the question of motives, the answer is obvious: the news networks have worked tirelessly (and with stunning dishonor) to hide their collusion with the government in gaslighting the public. More to the point, they’ve concealed the appalling truth that the CIA, DARPA, and their many intel blob subsidiaries conducted a silent coup over the USA and have been running our country’s affairs disastrously behind the “Joe Biden” façade — and that the coup actually started well before Mr. Trump’s 2016 inauguration. You know it, and they know that you know it.

More acutely, now that “Joe Biden” has been revealed as a hoax president, whole legions of public officials appear liable to criminal charges of the most serious degree: sedition, treason, mass murder, fraud, malfeasance, and in the case of the president himself, influence peddling and bribery. They must be desperate to avoid accounting for all that, losing their accrued fortunes to legal fees and going to prison (or worse). For example, outed just this week: news that then-CIA Director in 2020, Gina Haspel, knew about and participated in the infamous operation using 51 former Intel officers to cover up the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop days before the election.

They knew the laptop was real. Their colleagues over at the FBI knew it was real. They all knew it was stuffed with deal memos, legal memoranda, and emails that clearly laid out a long-running bribery operation among Biden family members and their lawyers. They knew it in 2019 when the Democratic Party moved to impeach Mr. Trump for inquiring about the Biden family’s money-grubbing activities in Ukraine — where, by the way, we may have fomented the war with Russia in part to cover up the culpability of all involved, including especially the State Department and their embassy staff in Kiev. The FBI and its bosses in the DOJ also withheld the laptop from Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers during the 2020 impeachment, though it contained massive exculpatory evidence to explain just why he made that fateful phone call to the newly elected Zelensky.

It’s obvious that the ruling blob now has to deep-six “Joe Biden.” The problem is they must induce him to renounce the nomination of his own will. The party’s nominating process is so bizarrely complex that it would be very difficult to just shove him out. Another problem is that the party had to peremptorily declare “JB” their legal nominee before the August convention in order to keep him on the ballot in Ohio with its 17 electoral votes (due to some arcane machinery in the state’s election laws).

As per above, the debate fiasco calls into serious question whether “Joe Biden” is competent to even serve out this term. He (or shadowy figures pulling strings behind him) are making profoundly hazardous decisions right now, such as last week’s missile attack that killed and wounded civilians on the beach in Crimea. Are you seeing how easily “Joe Biden” might start World War Three? All of which is to say that pressure will soon rise to use the 25th amendment to relieve him of duty, leaving you-know-who in the oval office. If Joe Biden actually has to resign as president, he also loses the ability to pardon his son, Hunter, and peremptorily his other family members who shared bribery money received from China, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

If he won’t resign, and the party can’t force him off the ticket, the blob could have no choice except to bump him off. I imagine they would get it done humanely, say late at night sometime, in bed, using the same method as for putting down an old dog who has peed on the carpet one too many times. Or, if that can’t be managed and he clings to his position, maybe the party could cobble up some new nominating rules impromptu. And then, who could they slot in from the bench?

The usual suspects are like the cast of a freak show, each one displaying one grotesque deformity after another. Gavin Newsom we understand: the party’s base of batshit-crazy women may all want to bear his child, but that limbic instinct to mate with a six-foot-three haircut-in-search-of-a-brain might not work with any other voter demographic — and Newsom has the failed state of California hanging around his neck. All Mr. Trump would have to do is broadcast the scene from a San Francisco street-cam on “X” (Twitter) 24/7.

Hillary has been stealthily flapping her leathery wings overhead for weeks as this debacle approached. She may still own the actual machinery of the Democratic Party — having purchased it through the Clinton Foundation some years back when the party was broke and needed a bailout. She could just command the nomination by screeching “Caw Caw” from the convention rostrum. Whatever happens, it will look terrible.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan? An inveterate and notorious intel blob tool, Whitmer has allowed herself to be used repeatedly by the FBI to frame and persecute conservatives in her state as well as using her state AG Dana Nessel to go after political enemies there, especially poll workers who cried fraud in the sketchiest Michigan voting districts.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Like Dreamboat Newsom in California, Mr. Pritzker is busily running Illinois (and especially Chicago) into bankruptcy and chaos. Looks aren’t everything, but if Dreamboat gives the vapors to Karens across the land, the Illinois governor will get them shrieking in terror as from the sight of King Kong on Skull Island

Who else is there? Michelle O, of course, who will be instantly branded as a catspaw for her husband seeking a fifth term — as Barack himself has averred in so many words: just hanging out in the background, managing things in his jogging suit. That would be the ultimate Banana Republic set-up for us and I don’t think the voters will go for it. It all boils down to the Party of Chaos being thrust into chaos. Can it even survive “Joe Biden?”

Then there is Mr. Trump himself. He remains the object of widespread rabid loathing, yet more and more Americans are coming to appreciate his opposition to Woke Marxist chaos and intel blobbery-gone-wild in our land. His performance last night featured his usual jumpy locutions and incomplete sentences, but in contrast to the current president, he looked neither senile nor an agent of sinister forces dedicated to bringing our country to its knees. Had Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. been present both of the others would have been badly outclassed verbally and intellectually. If Mr. Trump survives the blob’s efforts to delete him before November, I’m sure Mr. Kennedy will play a prominent role in another Trump administration. He knows exactly where the rot is and how to roust it out.

This is actually cute and funny

Hi… I am 18 years old boy at my last stage of blood cancer and I will probably die within next 5 to 6 months. I am going anonymous because my parents follow me on quora.

I was diagnosed with leukaemia in june 2015 exactly on my birthday. I have lot to tell but I can not tell anyone as I always have my parents around and they themselves are broken from inside and they would leave hope if I left hope.

I have a sister she is 23 and she takes care of all my needs. I love her very much. But I simply can not do anything for her because I am bed ridden. I get a lot of visitors from my old school and family.

My parents and my sister do their best to cheer me up and make me smile but I can not as it is very dufficult when you know you are about to die. I feel ashamed of myself as I can not move and I sometimes pee on the bed itself as I have no control over my nerves. All the doctors whom I have been shown to, say that I must do whatever I like as I have very less time left. Each and every doctor has said to leave hope and just enjoy life. I know my family cries when I am asleep or listening to songs or when I am not around. But I am helpless I just can not do anything. But yes I do appreciate that they somehow hold their tears back in front of me. My sister cheers me up as she calls her college friends at home and we play ludo and have a good time.

The point that makes me sad is that ispite of all the efforts my family makes I am unable to do anything for them espescially my sister. I am extremely attatched to her but I have no words to thank her. I wish god gave me another life…. Just one chance I would work extremely hard to make my family proud. All I dream is of getting well and working for my family.

This is it my story

Thanks for Reading…

Humble request

Please do pray for my family so that God can give them strength. 🙂 🙂

EDIT 1

Thanks to all the upvoters.

Writing gives me releif.

My sister caught me writing this answer and when she read it she set to tears and I could not hold myself and started to cry on my helplessness. She told that she loves me the most. She said that she had no problem in cleaning my dirty clothes and pushing my wheelchair and feeding me she just demands that I should stay happy forever.

I will reveal my identity if my sister this to my parents. But this totally depends on her.

Please stay tuned as I have 5 or at max 6 months left and then this would be closed

Thanks for reading

Humble request: keep praying

🙂

EDIT 2

The response is clearly amazing….

Thanks to all

I want to really clarify somethings.

1 I do not want any money my family can take care of my needs thanks for your health.

2 I do not wish to reveal my identity as I had already tried this with one of the people commenting here and it the consequences were disheartning

3 For those people who think this is a dram you are free to think so but your views really turn like these when you are nearing your end and the worse part is you know about it.

4 I write for my hearts relief and not for any kninds of financial favours from anyone.

I do tell my parents that I love them a lot but I can not share my pain because if I ever did that they would feel extremely weak to see their son losing hope hence I chose quora and anonymity.

They try to find out every possible source of miraculous recovery story they could and tell me to keep myself motivated and even I want one such thing to happen but I get very negative thought when I see people turning their faces and simply not to talk or even look at me when I am in park and again I have my sister by my me side.

I had a beautiful childhood like I and my sister were like typical brother sisters fighting for small things like for watching tv and I used to enjoy it a lot but now there is no fight and she allows me to watch anything I like and does everhything for me I tell her this almost everyday and she feels great.

I write my heart out here (as the ques suggests) and not in anyway for any favours

Thanks for praying

Keep praying

🙂

October 28

Thanks to all the upvoters… and all the prayers.

Some comments coming up like you want to give some years of your life to me. Please do not think that ever again. You have 2 functional hands, legs all 5 senses (sight, sound(ears), taste, smell and touch (skin)) intact and a good brain to think deeply. So stop thinking as your life directional was and start working. Make your family proud. Your family does everything for you. And if not for your family do something good for yourself.

I say it because When you are on your deathbed some 60–70 years from now you must not regret the fact that you wasted time and could not accomplish your targets. You do not realise how much time you have and how much can be done in that.

Now coming to some of my feelings.. (your choice read it or leave it)

I have some sort of insecurity that I would be left alone and that is not just from a day or 2 but from 3–4 weeks. I do not know why but it’s there. I have discussed this with my sister and she assures me that she would be there all the time. I mean I annoy my family members sometimes like I always want someone in front of my eyes. It sounds pathetic but it’s true.

I vomitted yesterday night it was almost all blood and something’s that I had eaten the whole day ( it’s quite normal as it happens 4 times a week). Naturally I was very depressed this morning so my sister took off from her college and kept me busy by discussing older times like how we both messed up together and how I cried when she teased me I was adopted.

I still remember that I and my sis used to hide remote in the washroom when it was time for some important cartoon (for me it was dragon ballz and for her it was suite life of Zack and Cody) and we used to have some insecurity when our parents gave one of us more attention than the other.

There are lots of things like these.

If I rewind and look into my life I realize how messi I was and my sister even then helped me she had been of constant support to me. I owe her everthing. I write this in every answer but I can’t help it I just love her.

I have realized one thing that I do not want to leave in misery. All the time I have I will enjoy and annky my sister and parents.

Thanks a lot to quora it’s great.

Thanks for reading

Keep praying

🙂

15 November 2k18

Thanks all for your overwhelming response..

I have lots of feelings to share as I had been in critical condition for almost last 15 days…

I have lost my voice because I spat blood so many times that my throat has constant piercing sensation. About a week ago I thought I would die and I wanted to tell my family everything and that is what I did.

I can not imagine how much my parents and my sister love me. They never felt bad helping me rather they wanted me to be fine. My sister is an angel. She has been with me all the time. Though I have become annoyed by my sickness and fought with her many times but she always handled me with care. Whenever I saw anyone in my room it was her in the last 15 days. She is more than God to me.

Now I get feelings like it is better to die in peace rather than suffering so much. I sometimes seem to have lost all hope and strength.

My parents are going mad to see my condition going from bad to worse but they are not ready to loose me and even I can not convince them.

There is almost no happiness left in my life. All the time I see my parents trying to convince me I would be fine and me trying to convince them to be ready for my loss. I feel so bad and blessed at the same time that I am spending the last chapter of my life with people whom I love the most but I feel myself weak when I am unable to do anything for them.. I do try to explain myself that it is not my fault but these thoughts overpower my thinking and leave me depressed most of the time.

People say to enjoy life but how do you enjoy life when you can not walk, talk, or when you are scared of eating(yes I am scared as whatever I eat I vomit with blood)!!!!! I am scared of my own face it looks so horrible with pale skin and red marks.

How do you enjoy life when you have constant killing pain in your whole body and the only way you keep yourself feeling painless is by taking strong pain killers??

I am sorry if this hurt your feelings but I have had it enough. I either want a painless death or a painless cure. I am too depressed but there is nothing I can do…

I am sorry

Keep praying

🙂

I suggest you visit China.

It reversed my preconception. I am from Norway, North Europe. A rather modern and advanced society.On my first visit to the US over 20 years ago, I was surprised at how backward and old fashioned it was. Movies had let me to believe it was the epitome of modern society. I visited several states on the East/South-East. Very backwards digitally. Terrible infrastructure. Unwalkable. Dirty. Hard to find quality restaurants outside of big cities. Dead city centres in medium sized cities.I went to China a year or two later, and the opposite struck me. It was a highly modern society. Highly digital. Fantastic high-speed infrastructure (that is even better nowadays). Super clean, modern cities. I was mainly in the Jiangsu province that time. Loved it!I suggest everyone to go and form their own opinions. I really fell in love with Suzhou, not far from Shanghai.

  1. Every person is responsible for their own happiness — not their parents, not their boss, not their spouse, not their friends, not their government, not their deity.
  2. One day we will all die, and 999 out of 1,000 people will be remembered by nobody on earth within a hundred years of that date.
  3. Practically all of the best opportunities (in business, in romance, etc) are only offered to people who already have more than they need.
  4. The idea that you will be happy after you make X amount of dollars is almost certainly an illusion.
  5. The idea that you will be happy after you meet [some amazing person] is almost certainly an illusion.
  6. For most people, death is pretty messy and uncomfortable.
  7. When you don’t possess leverage (go look up “BATNA“), people will take advantage of you, whether they mean to or not.
  8. Almost everybody is making it up as they go along. Also, many (most?) people are incompetent at their jobs.
  9. When talking about their background and accomplishments, almost everybody is continually overstating their abilities, impact, relevance, and contributions.
  10. Physical beauty decays.
  11. Compared to others, certain ethnicities and races (and genders, and sexual orientations, and so on) are just plain royally f*cked from the day they’re born. [EDIT: depending on locale & time period]
  12. Bad things constantly happen to good people. Good things constantly happen to bad people.
  13. Very few people will ever give you 100% candid, honest feedback.
  14. People are constantly making enormous life decisions (marriage, children, etc) for all of the wrong reasons.
  15. Certain people — some of whom are in positions of enormous power — just do not give a damn about other human beings.
  16. Often, the most important and consequential moments of our lives (chance encounter, fatal car accident, etc) happen completely at random and seemingly for no good reason.
  17. Your sense of habitating a fully integrated reality is an illusion, and a privilege. Take the wrong drug, suffer a head injury, or somehow trigger a latent psychotic condition like schizophrenia — and your grip on reality can be severed in an instant. Forever.

Yet, despite all that not-so-good-ness, overall life is pretty damn rad. And we’re lucky to get to participate in it.

VIETNAM NIGHTLIFE | WALKING STREET | HO CHI CITY MINH VIETNAM

“jealousy” is not the word to describe US mentality.

Dominance is a better description for USA. USA has been dominating the world since WW2. Since 1990’s, China has been rising, fast these years.

USA is hysterically hanging onto its dominance. That is all.

Look at Japan. As a country defeated by USA in WW2, Japan is 100% Amcericanised esp its political system. Also Japan is militarily controlled by USA. Japan is a US puppet with no independent strategic sovereignty.

The only thing for Japan to do was to focus on economic & technological development. In 1980’s, Japan was economically #2 in the world after USA. Its chips technology surpassed USA. Similar to today’s China.

Then what has happened to Japan? You heard it already. USA mercilessly beat Japan down, making Japan lose 10–20 years’ economic & technological advancement.

Just a month or so ago, Japan has monetary crisis & wanted to sell US debts to get cash to save its economy. US Treasury Secy Yellen then called Japan & warned Japan that what Japan did was interference of free market. … Japan was not allowed to save its exchange rate.

Why? USA wanted to bankrupt Japan (& Asian countries too). When Japanese assets become cheap, cheap & cheap, US capitalists will flood into Japan to buy up Japanese assets.

No other Asian countries went bankrupt like Japan because USA has no control of them. They all saved their economy.

Back to your question.

See, it is more to do with sick mentality to dominate than to simple jealousy.

Loyalty is the most important characteristic that a woman can provide to her man

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cQRl50Gdalo?feature=share

The China, India border issue has been an issue for the two sides since the 1950s, but the two sides have never been able to find a solution.

On India’s side, the political leadership has never been able to form a consensus on a deal, and on China’s side, there has been no urgency. So the issue has continued to simmer.

Now though, the battle lines are becoming more clear between NATO/EU/G7 on the one side, against BRICS on the other side. Russia is on the front line confronting NATO expansion in Ukraine, and is drawing support from Iran and North Korea, while India and China continue to trade with Russia, and ignoring western sanctions.

But there is a problem: India is also a member of the US-led QUAD, with the US, Australia and Japan, and whose aim is to surround and box in China. India has been playing both sides, with one foot in BRICS, and one foot in QUAD.

Obviously India under Modi wants to get a good deal for India.

From Putin’s perspective, he can no longer afford to let the China/India border issue continue because it will threaten the cohesion of BRICS and the rise of Greater Eurasia, which has the support of all the BRICS members and North Korea. Putin does not want and cannot afford to let the US exploit the China/India border issue to the US’s advantage because the US wants to prevent the rise of the Greater Eurasia economic and security alliance.

Since China and India have not been able to reach a border agreement, and Russia is a close ally of both China and India, and is a founding member of BRICS, this means that Russia has to step in and try to help the two sides reach an agreement.

My guess as to what the Russian proposal will be is:

  • Russia will appoint a representative to study the China-India border dispute; this person will likely be Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov;
  • After studying the issue; the Russian team will propose a border resolution to both China and India;
  • China and India will study the Russian proposal and propose their own amendments;
  • After incorporating the amendments, Russia will issue a solution which is binding on both India and China.

This means that both sides have no choice but to accept the solution. If there are features of the agreement which both China and India do NOT like, then this means that it is a fair agreement.

Russia will then ask India to demonstrate its full commitment to BRICS by withdrawing from the QUAD.

Indian PM Modi will go to Moscow to meet with Putin this Wednesday.

Americans CAN’T Believe What China is Doing Now!

Yes… Approximately 9 years ago I was home alone when I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I was just watching television.. not doing anything strenuous. I had a history of asthma and tried using my inhaler, which did nothing. Fortunately, I picked up the phone, dialed 911..and could only whisper I couldn’t get my breath. I couldn’t give them any information, since I couldn’t speak. I ran to my bedroom to use my nebulizer, but passed out on the bed. Luckily they traced my call, sent an ambulance immediately and transported me to the local hospital, while attempting to revive me on the way. I woke up in ICU 2 days later, after being on a ventilator for 48 hours. My heart had stopped for some unknown reason. After a two week stay, numerous tests and medications, I was feeling better. They felt I had pneumonia.. and gave me antibiotics and steroids, which did seem to make me feel better. While there, they had performed a heart echo, but no one actually told me about the results. When the echo was being done, I felt like I was going to pass out any second and I cried and complained to the technician. Finally I felt better and had begged to go home, which they finally allowed. I returned to my job in another week or so, and was trying to get back to normal. Due to the fact that I often was required to read medical records as a part of my job, I thought it would be a good idea to order a copy of the hospital record, for my own peace of mind, so that’s what I did.

After about a week of being back at work, I came home one day totally exhausted and again weak and short of breath. Immediately my husband insisted we go back to the hospital. I was admitted again with a low oxygen level and trouble breathing. A day or two before, the hospital record had been delivered and I had my husband bring it to me, in the hospital. The doctor wanted me to have an echo and I argued with them explaining I had already just had one! They argued with me and then admitted that somehow the report was missing and they did not know the result. I carefully looked through the records and found the report, showing the cardiologist. I was stunned to read that the ejection fraction (measurement of my heart’s efficiency) was only at 25%. I found out later, this was a level requiring hospice care!! They told me I needed immediate heart surgery and the cardiologist called a surgeon from a Manhattan hospital who agreed to take my case. I was transported by ambulance to Lenox Hill in NYC where I underwent an open heart surgery the next day. I had congestive heart failure….. I cried when the surgeon told me that if they couldn’t fix it, they might have to do a heart transplant!! Imagine.. Ultimately, they did complete a repair of my mitral valve leaflets, by inserting a ring over the valve to allow it to work effectively. It seems my condition had been ongoing for quite some time; My left ventricle had become seriously weakened, causing my heart to fail. Post surgery, I improved, but I continue to require medication to maintain my heart rhythm and blood pressure. The medication makes me tired, so I am much more limited in what I can do. I’ve been on disability since.. and have been unable to return to work. This all happened when I turned 50 years old. I spent my 50th birthday in the hospital.

I did not pursue a malpractice case, although I did seriously consider it. In such cases you need another doctor who would be willing to say the hospital and doctors were negligent. I did visit the EMTs at my local firehouse to thank them for saving my life. They recalled that when they found me I had turned blue from the lack of oxygen. I think they were surprised that I made it!!

At this time, I consider myself to be very, very lucky to be alive! Lesson: we have to be our own health advocates these days! Doctors can and do make mistakes. If it doesn’t seem right, keep looking for another answer!

Russia Just Revealed 2 Hypersonic Weapons & SHOCKED The World!

China has analysed the lunar soil that was collected by Chang’e-5 in 2020. (Not yet from the 2024 Chang’e-6)

There was discussion that China should first publish its result in Chinese science journals (using Chinese language). before publishing it in foreign journals.

There was US complaint that China has broken the intl standard to use English.

Who said English is the standard? God? Who said a standard/rule cannot be changed? God?

All humans are equal. All nations are equal. We coexist with different cultures incl language. USA crowns itself as god to control the world.

Want to read China’s research result? Learn Chinese language then. Or wait until China publishes it in an English journal. Or go to the moon to collect the soil yourself.

It is not the 1st time arrogant USA complained about Chinese language.

In 2021, China launched a 100% Made-in-China space station (天宫 Tiangong), somebody (I believe it was NASA chief) was maddening angry. He asked China to dismantle Tiangong because it was not written in English.

Tiangong is China’s private property. China can use its own language in its property. Though China welcomes other countries to join China’s space program, Tiangong is STILL China’s private property.

That is not the end of story.

Using a satellite from Space-X, USA tried to collide it into Tiangong. Twice, Luckily USA failed because Tiangong is equipped with detectors to prevent collision by meteorite or space garbage. China already reported this US crime to UN.

Did E Musk aplogise? No. He said China can always avoid collision. The question is not whether China can avoid it. The question is why Space-X deliberately created collision & endangered the life of the 3 Yuhangyuan (宇航员 astronaut) in Tiangong.

Let me further irritate the sick USA …

China is planning to set up a base on the moon. China may draw a map to divide the moon into regions like our road map. China may name the lunar regions in Chinese language.

Rules are made by the FIRST one who gets it. Like WTO rules were set up by the West. China thus follows WTO rules.

Since China will be the 1st one to set up a base on the moon, you learn Chinese language & then translate the Chinese map in your language.

Gregorian Chants | Immersing in the Spiritual Atmosphere Of Gregorian Chants

I discovered this. It’s something to bookmark if you want some chill music for atmosphere. Or meditation. Maybe spells. Who knows. Aside from that, you can skip this.

My ex and I were moving to Oregon from Colorado and had put our home up for sale. We got an offer within two weeks which was great as we were moving a few weeks later.

Supposedly, the buyers were moving to Colorado from Texas for the man’s job. The company was doing the down payment and then pay the balance on closing. Because of “banking issues” because of the house being in Colorado, they ended up only sending a $1,000.00 of the $30,000.00 down payment.
Our real estate agent said that was ok, that the whole sale amount would be paid at closing.

The closing was the day before we were leaving. We get to the title company’s office for the closing and the buyers show up with our real estate agent, and without the payment check.
The guy doing the closing was not happy but the real estate agent had him call the bank that the funds were coming from and he was told that there was an malfunction on the bank’s end and the transfer would take place that afternoon.

We went ahead and signed the papers and made arrangements for my mom to deposit the check in our bank account ( small town bank where everyone knew everyone else) the next day.

Yup, you guessed it, the check never showed up. Luckily the title agent was a family friend and refused to hand over the keys or file the paperwork without payment, even when the real estate agent and buyers threatened legal action.

Come to find out, it was a scam. The couple and the company he worked for, had pulled this in other states before. They would do the closing , get the keys and the title put in the new owners name. They would in turn sale the house and the original owners would be stuck with what little was paid in escrow.

We were lucky the title company refused to file the paperwork, we rented the house to some friends who then purchased it with cash a few months later.

The real estate agent lost their company and license and since it was a small community, their reputation.

The buyers left the state and the company disappeared. Technically no laws were broken so we couldn’t do anything legally against anyone.

Sheech!

Mike Williams was fond of duck hunting.

On December 16, 2000, which happened to be his 6th wedding anniversary, he went out to pursue his hobby. Promised his wife he’d be back in time for the celebration, he never returned.

Search and rescue team found his boat and shotgun the next day, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Initial reactions were that he may have drowned, but his body could not be found. Since the lake inhabited alligators, the blame was on cold-blooded animals. It was assumed that he fell off his boat and was eaten by the gators. Mike remained on the ‘missing list’ though.

Six months later his waders, torch, hunting license and safety jacket were found floating in the lake.

On his wife Denise’s request, he was declared “dead by accidental drowning.”

She married another man, Brian Winchester, in December 2005. He was Mike’s high school friend and an Insurance agent.

Thousands of letters from Mike’s mom and the case was reopened. She just didn’t feel her son had disappeared and was eaten by the gators. By then, it was clear to the investigators that alligators don’t eat humans as a whole, and they don’t even eat during winters.

So, this pointed towards some serious foul play. There was no evidence to arrest anyone, however.

Sixteen years of no evidence, the police arrested Brian Winchester in August 2016 for allegedly kidnapping Denise. He did so because she wanted to divorce him.

On Denise’s request, the judge agreed to turn down Winchester’s bail application. She said he would kill her and her daughter.

On December 19, 2017, Winchester was sentenced to 20 years in prison for armed kidnapping of Denise. The very next day, on December 20, Mike’s remains were found.

In May 2018, Denise Williams got arrested under the charge of first-degree murder. Three months later, in August, she was charged with insurance fraud worth $1.75 million.

The matter got into the trial phase, and Winchester testified against Denise for plotting the murder. He told the court he pushed Mike into the water to make it look like an accident, but it didn’t work. So, he shot him in the head and buried his body in the mud near Carr Lake.

Denise, in February 2019, was sentenced to life imprisonment for first-degree murder and an additional 30 years for conspiring the crime. There is no possibility of parole.

Winchester, though the killer, remained immune from murder conviction because he testified against Denise.


The only flaw in this crime was planting the evidence six months later. All of that was intact. No signs of gators’ tooth or blood on any of the recovered items. The torch worked absolutely fine.

And then asking to declare him dead within six months of his disappearance. Usually, it takes five years to get it done.

It took about 2600 letters to the authorities from a loving mother to find the killer(s) of her son after more than 18 years of his disappearance.

strong independent woman gets a TRAIN RAN on her and regrets it

The West is cooked! God am I glad that I don’t live there any longer.

Maybe they smelled war.

Businessmen have the most sensitive political sense. Recently, Raul Lambino, chairman of the Philippine New Energy Group, burst into tears at the 70th anniversary commemoration of China’s “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” held in Beijing. He said: ‘I Don’t Want My Country to Be a Battleground’.

Recently, Taiwanese media reported that a silent electronic war broke out between the Chinese and American militaries in the South China Sea. The two armies fought for 12 hours, and the result was obvious: PLA wins and the US military loses!

The Internet, GPS, and communication facilities in the northern Philippines were all paralyzed. Luzon Island was in a state of panic.

Electronic warfare is a precursor to bombing military targets. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia launched a large-scale electronic jamming war, causing Ukraine’s GPS positioning to drift seriously, and the effectiveness of precision-guided weapons provided by NATO dropped significantly.

Therefore, before a war breaks out, GPS signals may be lost, network connections may be disconnected, and phone calls may be unreachable in the war zone.

Perhaps the Philippines realized that the U.S. military was completely unable to provide the so-called “protection” for the Philippines, and unilaterally demanded that the U.S. military withdraw its medium-range missile system from the Philippines to avoid further angering China.

Philippines Says US Mid-Range Missile System to Be Pulled Out
A US mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines for annual joint military exercises — to the annoyance of China — will be pulled out of the country.

A series of events that have happened recently may contain the answers you want.

The old farmer only had one testicle left due to testicle cancer, and his remaining testicle had taken a hard hit from his favorite cow. The ball looked like a balloon. A very painful balloon.

After a medical investigation, and before the urologist could even say what the verdict was, the patient stated the decision he had made, after a long and deep contemplation:

“I am seventy-plus years old, and my wife an I do not share the bed anymore. We don’t need to spend extra energy nor money to save it. Just take it away, and I will be just fine.”

That’s what he would do if one of his animals had one balloon ball left — amputate the entire scrotum, and that’s that. So the lady doctor should do the same thing, with a rubber band for that matter. (He would be fine.)

My girlfriend tried to explain that he needed the testosterone in order to function as a man (hoping that he would understand this language). But the farmer refused to take it in because in his eyes, a testicle was a tool to procreate. (“So why not cut it off ?”)

It took forever to explain that without testicles he would suffer from fatigue, hot flashes, muscle loss, poor facial hair growth and what have you. That on many levels he would turn into a woman in menopause, and that lifelong hormone treatment would be necessary to counterbalance the effects.

And that he would become an extremely emotional farmer for no reason if he would ignore that very important treatment (which he would).

In the end, he gave in though — and the testicle lived.

But the dream remained.

Fun pictures

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Margarita Beef with Orange Salsa

This recipe was the winner of the 1992 National Beef Cook-Off.

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Yield: 5 to 6 servings | 1 1/2 cups salsa

Ingredients

Steak

  • 2/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
  • 1/2 cup tequila
  • 1/3 cup fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
  • 2 medium cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds well-trimmed boneless beef
  • 1 (1 inch thick) round steak

Orange Salsa

  • 2 oranges, peeled and cubes
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 2 to 3 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

Instructions

Steak

  1. Combine orange juice concentrate, tequila, lime juice, oil, ginger, garlic, salt, oregano and red pepper.
  2. Place steak in a plastic bag: add marinade, turning to coat. Close bag securely and marinate, refrigerated, for 4 hours, or up to overnight.

Orange Salsa

  1. In a nonreactive bowl, combine all ingredients. Refrigerate for at least one hour.
  2. Remove steak from marinade; discard marinade. Place steak on grill over medium coals (you should be able to hold your hand 4 inches above the coals for a count of 4 seconds).
  3. Grill for 22 to 26 minutes for medium-rare to medium doneness, turning once.
  4. Remove steak to carving board; let stand for 10 minutes.
  5. Carve steak crosswise into thin slices: Arrange on serving platter. Garnish with cilantro and lime; serve with Orange Salsa.

Circa 2010-ish, Samsung had this app in my country called samsung gift. It would give limited free vouchers (mostly for food) for people who have samsung phones

Funny thing is, not many people seem to use it, and they always deploy their free vouchers at the same time everyday. So i would standby, app open, to wait for it. No kidding, I *ALWAYS* get the vouchers without fail. We’re talking about full meals at kenny rogers, free medium pizza from pizza hut, etc.

Oh, and I didn’t stop there. They had tiers of these vouchers. like if you have their flagship phones (and tablets too) they give out voucher for fancier restos.. then another tier for mid-tier phones. and for the lower tier phones it would be like a free ice cream at dairy queen or something.

well my family uses samsung phones mainly. and I also have a few samsung tablet. long story short, each day i would have an excess of 5+ vouchers to trade in (and many of these you can take away, it’s not always limited to dine in)

suffice to say that i think for about 2+ years Samsung helped me save a lot on dining out costs. it was really fun. too bad around the time Galaxy note 8 came out (the last samsung flagship i ever bought), they slowly started to give out less and less vouchers. oh well, it was fun white it lasted!

My friend’s grandma gave birth to 10 children during her life time. Six of them grew to adults. Two of them died when they were toddlers. Another two babies were killed by drowning in a basin, as soon as they were born, by the parents, who were too poor to feed them.

My friend said ‘Grandma and grandpa had often murmured, ‘Sorry… Sorry…’ with tears, when they recalled it. They blamed themselves all their lives. They had no choice. No enough food for all the family. They killed the babies by their own hands, instead of letting them starve, to die slowly, to save the food for their elder children to survive.’

It was a situation you would face as a parent if you were born at that time, in a poor village, if you didn’t have enough sunshine or rain to harvest your crops in a certain year. In fact, at that time, it was not a rare case at all. The ones you killed were not fetuses, but actual humans who could already breathe and cry. You were no doubt a murderer. But no matter how guilt-ridden you felt murderering your newborn angels, you must move on, because you must take full responsibility to feed your other children, otherwise they wouldn’t survive either. That’s why in a time like that, the babies killed by their own parents were not considered ‘murdered’, neither legally nor morally. It was pretty much accepted by society, because people didn’t have better options.

Morals, values, cultures… all depend on our ability to survive. There is no absolute right or wrong, good or bad, virtue or sin. ‘Should we consider a fetus a living human?’ ‘Is abortion wrong?’ ‘Should we forbid eating animal meat?’ ‘Is President Lincoln a racist?’ All discussions require a context. We can’t give an absolute yes or no without considering the backgrounds and the stages of development. Morality is relative, specific, and constantly changing.

When we talk about abortion, we need to talk about the alternatives when you don’t abort. Do common people have easy access to birth control? Have we built up a single mother/father friendly social environment (employment, welfare, social pressure etc)? Do we have social support for poor families? Has our society developed to a stage that everybody is covered by a safety net? What’s the solution when a woman is in a bodily condition which makes it highly risky to give birth? What about a pregnancy caused by rape?…

There is no ‘best’ social system. We have to consider the current stage of development we are in, to balance the different interests and conflicts of different individuals and social groups, to keep on communicating and compromising, to keep on experimenting to find a relatively ‘not bad’ one. I think that’s our human’s reality.

(This is a translation of my another answer in Japanese to a similar question. Welcome to correct my English and discuss about this topic. Thank you.

Young Men Are Going To Revolt…

This is NOT what you think it is. It is a in-depth study of the nature of war, collapse and change. Very good. Really worth your time to watch.

It’s a sign of maturity

Yes. I was appointed by the court to defend a gang member for armed robbery. He thought he was super cool and wanted to take the stand. I told him no, I warned him, he insisted over my objection.

There was only one thing going in his favor. The clerk at the place robbed said the robber had blue eyes. My client had brown eyes.

I felt my client was a very very dangerous person. I was sure the prosecutor would ask him if he had color contacts. They were in his pocket. When he lied and said no, I would ask to be recused from the case as you are not allowed to knowingly let your client lie on the stand. The judge would then know he was lying and I would probably be excused as counsel, etc. The ignorant prosecutor never asked. He was found not guilty.

The judge had a fit. He excoriated everyone but me…he said I was just doing my job. Two days later my client shot and killed an 8 year old girl in a rival gang revenge attack at the girl’s birthday party. The newspaper headline was the judge’s quote that he would never sleep again until every member of that gang was six feet under.

The judge called me and advised me that I would NOT be appointed to represent the guy again (Thank God).

The police declared a vendetta on that gang. Five years later the headlines said that gang was “eradicated” from Texas.

I never took another criminal case. I became a real estate attorney and did pro bono work for battered women and men who paid child support but were denied visitation with their children.

Aromatic Chicken Curry (Vietnam)

Coconut Chicken main
Coconut Chicken main

Ingredients

  • 2 medium-size potatoes, cut into chunks
  • 4 tablespoons peanut oil
  • 8 shallots, minced
  • 4 stalks fresh lemon grass, minced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 fresh hot red chiles, minced
  • 2 tablespoons best-quality curry powder
  • 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, chopped into bite size pieces
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt or 1 teaspoon fish sauce
  • 1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
  • 1 (14 ounce) can chicken broth
  • Fresh basil leaves

Instructions

  1. Fry the potato chunks in the oil until nicely browned, then drain them on paper towels.
  2. Add the shallots, lemon grass, and all of the spices to the pan, and stir-fry for a few minutes.
  3. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, until it is opaque.
  4. Add the potatoes, salt, coconut milk and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and then simmer gently for about 30 minutes.
  5. Garnish with basil leaves before serving in bowls with rice.

Ingredients List for Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Marinade

  • 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • 1 tablespoon curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons onion powder
  • salt to taste

Curry

  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 3 large carrots
  • 1 large baking potato
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 red onion
  • 3 garlic gloves
  • 2 sticks lemongrass
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 3 cups of water
  • 1 tablespoon curry powder
  • 1 tablespoon garlic chili sauce
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk

12 Minutes of Modern Women Moral Decay

A Woman’s World

Submitted into Contest #8 in response to: Write a story about an adventure in space. view prompt

Rebecca Parker

Robert remembered the sensation of falling. He remembered the feeling of cold dread as the engine stuttered and died and his stomach dropped through the floor. He could never forget the look on his colleague’s face as the colour drained from him and his skin turned paper white.He didn’t remember plummeting through space, searing through the planet’s atmosphere, or the deafening landing. His colleague, Martin, hadn’t been knocked unconscious and had managed to pull him from the fiery wreck before the smoke and flames engulfed him. Robert was out cold. All he remembered was darkness.Blurred colours greeted him as he opened his eyes, the world spinning in and out of focus. One woman, or two, or three, was bent over him. He heard her speak, the words moving through his sluggish brain like soup. He could make no sense of them. He tried to sit up, but a shooting pain split through his head and the woman pushed him back to the ground. Martin appeared then; despite his hazy vision he recognised his co-pilot. Three Martins. Groaning, Robert closed his eyes.It might have been a few hours later when he next opened them. The dazzling sunlight had dimmed slightly, and the air was not quite so hot. His vision took a minute to clear, but when it did, there was only one Martin sitting over him. He asked him how he was feeling, felt his forehead, his throat, checked his pulse. Irritated, Robert pushed him away and forced himself into a sitting position. His head was still banging, but not with quite so much volition as before.“We went wrong,” Martin uttered in a low voice, just as Robert asked him where they were.“What do you mean?” Robert replied, rubbing his forehead with one hand as Martin handed him a glass of water. It looked like water and tasted like water, but it was purple. Robert blinked at it, confused, and then looked up at the sky. It was as if it had been painted with purple water colours.“Why isn’t the sky blue, Martin?” Robert asked. He must have still been dazed from the crash, because he was much calmer than he should have been.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We went wrong.”

“We were right on target to hit Mars.”

“This isn’t Mars.”

It was then that Robert noticed the huddle of young women standing a short distance away, grouped under a copse of trees next to a river. Lilac-coloured water cascaded from an eight-foot drop into the shimmering pool, before winding away through the trees. Robert stared at the waterfall, the women, the sky.

“Martin?” he said, his tone still strangely neutral. “Am I dreaming, or am I dead?”

“Neither,” his colleague hissed at him. “You’re on Venus.”

Robert nodded, tasting the words even though his brain couldn’t comprehend them.

“But we were on target for Mars.”

“Mars is red, Rob, not purple.”

Robert nodded again, sipping the purple drink as one of the women broke away from the group and sashayed over to them. She might have been the same one that had been crouched over him before; she had the same silvery-blonde hair and violet coloured eyes. Her dress was lilac and her feet were bare. If Robert squinted, he could see that all the women were wearing dresses of a similar colour and not one of them wore shoes.

Martin got to his feet as she approached and Robert staggered up next to him. He felt oddly light-headed but pain free.

“Do you think they want to kill us?” he asked Martin as he drained the last of the water. In response, he received only a glare.

The woman paused in front of them, looking suddenly unsure of herself.

“Tia,” she announced. “Robert and Martin, correct?” The pair nodded. She chewed her lip, her eyes straying disdainfully over their clothes. Martin was half in his spacesuit, Robert was only in a t-shirt and jeans. “But…” she said, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “Where are the rest of you?”

The two men exchanged glances. “The rest of us?” Robert repeated. “There’s only us two. We crashed.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said. “The water here helps with healing very well.” She paused, a light breeze playing with her hair. “But surely more are on their way? We have thirty women here, all waiting for you.”

Robert could feel his head begin to pound and not because of the crash-landing.

“We’ve come from Earth. Have you heard of it?”

If Tia had heard the sarcasm in his voice, she didn’t show it. Her eyes dropped to the floor, her lips twisting into a frown.

“Earth? No. I don’t know any Earth.” Her eyes narrowed then and her tone became suddenly accusatory. “You are from Mars. All men are from Mars!”

Robert stared at her. She glared defiantly back.

“Love,” he began, feeling his patience start to wear thin. “Nobody lives on Mars. The place is a rock, totally uninhabitable! We are not from Mars, we’re from Earth. Kindly tell me what planet you are from?”

“Venus.”

Robert opened his mouth to shoot back a snide reply, but Martin cut him off.

“Are there any men here?” he asked Tia.

“No,” she replied, clicking her tongue in annoyance. “All men live on Mars. There should be thirty of you arriving today for the Spring Festival, but so far we have only two and not even a decent two at that.”

She scowled at them both and turned on her heel to storm away, but Martin hastily dashed after her, apologies spilling from his mouth as Robert stood and watched, realisation beginning to dawn on him.

The sun suddenly broke out from behind a cloud and the brilliance of it dazzled him. He sat back down on the grass, his eyes straying from Martin and Tia to the group of women huddled by the river. When Martin returned, he was carrying another glass of water.

“She said this might help your head,” he said handing the drink to Robert. “Shame it can’t help your attitude.” He smirked but looked away hastily as Robert glared at him. “The boys stay here until they’re eighteen. She’s going to see if they can help us out with a ship. In the meantime, we can stay in the village.”

“She wants us to go then.”

Martin crouched down on to the grass in front of him. “This isn’t our universe, Rob. I don’t know how we’ve ended up here, but here we are. There’s no Earth in their solar system. All the men live on Mars and all the women live on Venus.” Robert found his eyes wandering back to the group of women. They were all young, in their late twenties or early thirties, and they were all beautiful. “This Spring Festival,” Martin continued. “It’s a mating festival, Rob. Thirty men come over to meet thirty women and they couple up and well… you know…”

“So what you’re saying is, we’re stuck on a rock in some other universe, who knows where, and we’re the only men? That’s what you’re saying?”

Martin grinned and hit him playfully on the shoulder. “More men are coming. When they get here, they’ll help us find a ship. We’ll get a ship, Rob, don’t worry.”

They waited for three days, but the men didn’t arrive. The women became fretful. Each day they turned up in their purple dresses with their hair and make-up done to sit by the river from sunrise to sunset and each day they went home by themselves. They weren’t interested in befriending the two astronauts. The majority of them seemed to blame the pair for the loss of their men.

It was late in the afternoon on the third day when the silver-haired Tia approached them, leading a teenage boy alongside her.

“This is Jay,” Tia said as she reached them. “Jay is seventeen and he studies solar engineering at the college. He will help you find a ship.” She smiled at them but her eyes remained troubled. “Maybe then you can return to your own planet.”

 

“And your men?” Martin asked. “Shouldn’t they be here by now?”

She turned to gaze into the sky and sighed. “Something must have gone wrong. You crash-landed in our meadow and they haven’t arrived. Maybe they crashed somewhere else? But what if there is no one there to help them?”

She patted Jay on the back and thanked him before leaving. He quickly dived into conversation with Martin, but Robert wasn’t listening, he couldn’t stop thinking about Tia.

Jay proved to be very helpful. He took them on tours around the village and surrounding areas. The village looked more like a city to Robert, with its sky-high buildings and its colleges, but it was welcoming and friendly. The women watched them in interest as they passed, and many trailed after them, like excited girls wanting autographs from their favourite pop-stars. The teenager took them to his college workshop where other young boys clubbed together to help build the pair a new ship, modelling it on what they had left of the one that had crashed. They were quick and nimble workers and it was completed in only a week. Jay told them there was a takeoff station at the bottom of the meadow where they’d crashed and they arranged to have the ship transported back there. When they arrived, a tearful Tia came rushing up to meet them.

“Something must have happened to them!” she sobbed, the tears streaking down her face. “Please, please, before you go, look for them! They could be danger!”

Robert gazed at her, at her shiny, soft hair that fell elegantly over the curve of her breasts, at the lilac dress that hugged her waist, at the tears that fell from her beautiful violet eyes.

“Of course,” he told her. “We’ll find them.”

A whole host of women gathered in the meadow to watch them leave, along with Jay and the other boys who had helped to build the ship. Martin pressed his face to the glass of the window as they rocketed away from the planet into the depths of space.

“We were on course for Mars,” he said softly, as Robert took the wheel. “How did we end up on Venus in another dimension?”

“Another universe,” Robert shot back. “We must have passed through… through a… a worm-hole or something.”

Martin gave him a sharp look. “You told me worm-holes don’t exist.”

“I must have been wrong.”

They trawled through space, searching for anything unfamiliar or unknown, anything that might have rooted an explanation as to how they travelled between universes. Robert had lost track of the days completely when he noticed something in the distance.

“Martin!” he hissed, squinting through the window of the ship. “Martin, get over here!”

His companion joined him, concern plastered over his face. “What?”

Robert didn’t answer, but merely pointed.

It was hard to tell what it was at first. It was if there was some sort of light distorting the view. It was a shimmering line, like the mist rolling in off the sea.

“We’re in the middle of space,” Martin said flatly. “We’re not going near that.”

“Yes, we are,” Robert replied, easing forward on the accelerator. “That might be just how we got here in the first place.”

Martin grappled with him for the controls but Robert was stronger and slammed the accelerator down, sending the ship careening towards the shimmering line. It widened as they approached, yawning open like a great mouth. Martin screamed as it swallowed them and they found themselves spinning and spinning and spinning through a mass of swirling, blinding colours.

When it spat them out, they both felt the engine lurch, and Martin grabbed Robert’s arm in panic.

“That’s how we crashed!” he yelled, but Robert was barely listening; he’d spotted the rocky, red planet of Mars and sent the ship spiralling straight for it.

Martin bellowed at his companion, trying to pull the ship up before they crashed, but it jarred against a mound of rocks and flipped on to its side. They piled out of it, helmets on, and sprinted away before it could burst into flame and meet the same fate as their old ship. It didn’t fortunately, but it didn’t look safe to fly either.

“Great going, Rob,” Martin grumbled, gesturing towards the heap of battered metal. “We finally make it to Mars and you go and break our transport. Again.

Robert could have shot him a snide reply, he wasn’t sure it was entirely his fault they had crashed on Venus in the first place, but he wasn’t listening. His attention had been snared by a far superior, more colourful ship that sat proudly atop a rocky outcrop. A rather dilapidated ribbon was tied around it. It might have looked smart at first, but it was dirty from red dust and the bow had come undone. He began walking towards it, his heart pounding, leaving Martin muttering to himself amidst the rocks. He thought about the lack of atmosphere, the lack of hostile environment, and began to run, panicking even though he didn’t know these men.

Martin yelled after him, suddenly noticing the ship for the first time. They both raced towards it, knowing the men would have been unprepared, knowing they would have lacked oxygen.

Robert reached the ship first and banged on the metal door, bellowing at them to let him in. Martin was quick on his heels and joined him, banging on the door until it opened.

There was a cluster of young men, all late twenties or early thirties and all beautiful. They were stood behind the air lock, frowning at the two strangers in their space suits who were waving at them from the inhospitable landscape of Mars. Wordlessly, they welcomed the astronauts on to the ship, though they seemed wary and kept their distance.

“Where are you from?” the first one said, as Robert took his helmet off.

“Earth!” Robert replied proudly, ignoring their puzzled glances to continue. “We were on our way to our Mars, when we crash-landed on your Venus.”

“What my friend is trying to say,” Martin interrupted, as the group of men muttered amongst each other in confusion, “is that we’re from a parallel universe, and we crashed in your universe. You apparently, have gotten lost in our universe, but we can guide you back.”

The muttering continued but a few smiles began to appear among the bunch.

“You crashed,” one observed.

“You can’t return in that wreck,” another said.

“Guide us back to our Venus,” the first one said, “and we will ensure you can safely return to your own planet.”

The two astronauts gladly obliged and took the controls to return the vehicle to Venus. Martin was a bit dismayed about leaving the red planet so soon, after only just arriving and without conducting any of their research, but Robert found he didn’t care that much; he longed to return to Venus, to Tia.

They landed safely the third time around and the relieved, yet tearful, silver-haired Tia came running up as the group disembarked. She weaved through the handsome young men, searching for the alien astronauts who had brought them to her. She found Robert and threw her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder.

“Thank you,” she wept, “thank you so much.”

He didn’t say anything, but hugged her close. Martin took his shoulder, telling him they had to sort a new ship and get back to their own universe, but Robert had made his mind up.

“We’ve found a planet inhabited entirely by women,” he told his friend, as Tia straightened and wiped her tears from her flushed face, “and you want to leave?!” He turned back to the beautiful woman standing in front of him, took her hand and kissed it.

“Allow me to introduce myself, properly this time,” he told her. “My name is Robert, this is Martin. We come in peace.”

Giggling, she took his hand and led them both through the meadow towards the waterfall.  The sun shone down on them through the purple sky, sparkling on the purple river. Far behind them, deep in space, the shimmering dimensional gap, the stitch in the universe that had brought them there, slowly faded to melt away completely in the unfathomable depths of space.

Nam Jim Wan
(Sweet Dipping Sauce | Thai)

This is a simple dipping sauce usually used with deep fried items such as spring rolls and stuffed chicken wings.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups water
  • 3 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 cup vinegar (preferably rice vinegar)
  • 3 tablespoons Chinese pickled plums
  • 3 tablespoons thinly sliced prik ki nu daeng (red birdseye chiles)
  • 2 tablespoons garlic, very thinly sliced
  • 2 tablespoons ginger, julienned or grated
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Boil the water, and add the pickled plums (sometimes sold as ‘salted plums’), and simmer for five minutes.
  2. Remove the plums to a food processor and puree them.
  3. Continue to boil the water, adding and dissolving the sugar, then adding the vinegar and salt. If any sugar is still undissolved, add a little more water until it dissolves.
  4. Return the plums to the mixture, and then pour over the other ingredients in a sterilized preserving jar, and keep in a cool place for at least a week before using.

Can you introduce me as Joker? | Joker [UltraHD, HDR]

Today’s China is militarily strong.

China is not afraid of USA. It of course will not be afraid of Japan.

A year or 2 ago, Taiwan asked Japan if it will help Taiwan in case of war,

Japan said they only plan up to the point of evacuation of Japanese in Taiwan. Translation: Japan’s war simulation tells Japan that it will not win China.

Neither can USA.

Some other art

 

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 0 47f8ea70 52de 4e3f 916e 849846d50409 0
Default The second coming of Jesus a powerful and aweinspiring 3 215c30b7 6cbd 4c32 a109 5c02b1abd923 0
Default The second coming of Jesus a powerful and aweinspiring 3 215c30b7 6cbd 4c32 a109 5c02b1abd923 0
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Default La joven mujer sonre con felicidad y alegra Estilo Car 2

Well, here goes, and it’s taken me 50 years to write or even speak of this event. I considered writing anonymously but that’s no way to get something off your chest.

I was with an infantry platoon in the Mekong Delta during the summer of 1969, we walked out of a woodline into an open paddy area and found several individuals dragging an unexploded 500 pound bomb across the paddy toward a wooded area. They were dressed like V/C, black trousers and white shirts, and probably about 500 yards away. This bomb would have made a devastating booby trap.

This was a so-called “free fire zone,” meaning all civilians and non-combatants had supposedly been relocated and only the enemy remained.

We opened fire and the subjects scattered into the woodline and we did not pursue them. It was getting on toward sunset and we heard crying and moaning from deep within the jungle. I, along with two other soldiers, was sent to investigate. We found a male subject laying on his back in great distress, when his shirt was removed there was a bullet hole in his upper chest/shoulder area but no exit wound. He was not bleeding, but that blood had to go somewhere, and it did, straight into his lung.

The other two guys with me argued that we should take him out and call for a dustoff (Medivac) but I was in charge and would not allow it. I said we were not going to endanger a flight crew to evacuate an enemy soldier who was going to die anyway. And besides, he might have been one of V/C who ambushed our platoon the previous week causing extensive casualties and loss of life.

So we waited as his breathing grew gradually more shallow; I kept shining my flashlight into his eyes and after about 20 minutes his pupils became dilated and non-reactive. This enemy soldier had died. Except. . .

The next morning our platoon was sleeping on dikes near the woodline and I was awakened by terrible screaming and crying from a woman and her children who had seemingly come from nowhere, there were no hooches or villages in sight. Our “enemy soldier,” whom I had watched and saw die, was in fact her 13-year old son.

At the time, and over the years, I’ve tried to rationalize my actions that evening: it was dark, V/C were all young looking, we couldn’t have saved him anyway, but the only true answer is that war had stripped away a bit of my humanity.

I saw plenty of sadness in Vietnam, but nothing was as sorrowful as watching a mother weep for her dead son.

And then I heard Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (First Time Reaction) *

Hungry Food Porn

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Sorry are we already in 2057?

This is 2024 and China just recently graduated 11.24 Million people and typically after 18 months – as many as 850,000 of these people will not have a proper advented job and after 36 months around 332,000 of them will not have a proper job

In fact after 18 months – only India with 2.265 Million unemployed graduates will beat China in 2026 as per the extrapolation

In 2023 – Chinas Factories created 1.37 Million new jobs and this year the target is 1.50 Million new factory jobs

Guess how many factory jobs Germany created in 2023?

Negative 86,800

They closed 86,800 Jobs

The previous year it was 72,000 Jobs

In all of Europe – Hungary is the only Nation that created an additional 10,740 jobs in 2023

US has lost a whopping 4 Million Factory Jobs in the last decade (2010–2020)

China has added 18.3 Million Factory Jobs in the last decade (2010–2020)

It is expected that China will add 12 Million Factory Jobs from 2020 to 2030 and 7.2 Million from 2030 to 2040

Yet they will be more and more specialized jobs and skilled jobs

Meanwhile China will see a transition to the Service Sector

Today Manufacturing commands 36% of all Jobs and Services 13% (26% is still Agriculture and 8.3% is Government Jobs and Civil Service including the Army)

Yet a decade ago it was 41.2% for Manufacturing and only 7.8% for services

By 2030–2040 – you will see only 20% Manufacturing Jobs and upto 45% Service Jobs on the Mainland


Take a look at Nations with the largest NEW factory jobs created in 2023

  • China (1.37 Million)
  • Russia (670K) [War Production included]
  • Mexico (311K)
  • Vietnam (273K)
  • India (221K)
  • Bangladesh (157K)
  • Brazil (131K)

China nearly created the same NEW factory jobs as the next 4–5 Nations combined


South Korea & Japan are far worse than China in demographics yet Japanese Workforce showed 22,000 more factory jobs than workers and Korea showed 6050

With a huge rural population – the earliest China can reach the same situation is 2057 and that’s the absolute worst case scenario

The truth is Ceteris Paribus – China is unlikely to have any major demographic work issues until around 2075–2100 AD

By then I am sure you will have enough Robots and AI to do the needed work

Balsamic Marinated Flank Steak

balsamic marinated flank steak
balsamic marinated flank steak

Ingredients

Balsamic Marinade

  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon-style mustard
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

Steak

  • 1 beef flank steak (about 1-1/2 pounds)
  • Salt amd pepper

Instructions

Balsamic Marinade

  1. Combine ingredients in small bowl. Place beef steak and marinade in food-safe plastic bag; turn steak to coat. Close bag securely and marinate in refrigerator for 6 hours or as long as overnight, turning occasionally.

Steak

  1. Remove steak from marinade; discard marinade. Place steak on grid over medium, ash-covered coals. Grill, covered, 11 to 16 minutes (over medium heat on preheated gas grill, 16 to 21 minutes) for medium rare (145 degrees F) to medium (160 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally.
  2. Season steak with salt and pepper, as desired.
  3. Carve steak crosswise into thin slices.

I will never forget the girl who ordered a Uber Comfort which is up to 4 passengers. I showed up. Granted I have an SUV and can fit 6 passengers. Well she had a group of 7. Not squeezing you all in, sorry. Order 2 rides. They didn’t want to split the group so I said I couldn’t take them. She had such a sassy attitude. With all of the sass in the world she told her friends, “Wait, this is still on my dollar, so…” and she turned to me, held out her hand rolling her eyes a little bit and said, “Can I at least have a water or something?”

My jaw dropped a little bit. Not only was I cancelling her ride because she wanted to disobey the rules and the law, but she had the nerve to give me sass and ask for water! As if I carry water, candy, snacks, etc. for all of my passengers. She was going to pay $10 for a trip home for 7 people and expected water and snacks and candy and for me to let an extra person squeeze in the back??? Nope! Not happening! I don’t carry water for passengers. I don’t carry candy. I drive people from point A to point B and provide good customer service and a good attitude, decent music, a clean nice-smelling car with air conditioning. If you want water or snacks I can take you to a gas station! But to give me sass? I was so amazed at the nerve this young lady had to ask me in such a way for a water.

So, why do people expect so much out of an Uber?

Entitlement

People expect so much for so little. They want to pay less than a taxi service, expecting private car service. Some drivers offer amenities to boost ratings or tips, or allow passengers to break the rules to not lose out on a fare. Over time, this has led people to expect more from the service. If 1/10 drivers allow it, then all of the drivers should allow it, which simply isn’t the case.

YouTube AI cult generations regarding Super Panavision 70

Gossip! False reporting! Both! I was long graduated but I saw this coming, in fact, I warned that teacher if she “didn’t shut up and stop stirring the pot with frivolous reporting and gossiping it would come back to haunt her!” She laughed in my face.

On an ego trip! Bad enough, she was a special education teacher on top of everything!

What happened that got her terminated? Well, she reported a student as “suicidal” and “displaying bi-polar behavior” and in addition she “claimed” she had found “drugs” in the student’s purse after “she claimed the student stole her stuff from her desk”!

She didn’t like this particular student because that student was very popular, plus she was cute, boys were attracted to her.

Yes, this teacher’s obsession went too far! She got that student suspended twice, and both times the mother took her to the clinic due to “drugs” and both times she came up negative. One big mistake was the student’s Uncle is a well known lawyer!

Let’s put it this way, he filed a lawsuit against the School System, against the Teacher and against the School that student was attending! They won the case hands down, and the student was transferred to another school and was doing exceptionally well there, and made it to the Principal’s List (as they call it today) as straight A student!

That “special Ed” Teacher constantly gave her F’s and D’s, wrote all kinds of notes and none were true!
That particular student knew me, and I was subpoena to testify. The School system claimed “immunity” but the Judge sided with the Lawyer, immunity can only go so far!

They won the lawsuit, the teacher was going to be terminated but she “resigned” before they could terminate her. They also imposed a “restriction” (she could not be around with anyone under the age of 21). That teacher almost lost custody of her own children (because of the testimonies from students – present and former, plus assistants/tutors who also testified).

While the Jury sided with the plaintiff, however, it was the Judge that constrained her as he was very concerned about her 2 children, the HRS (today is DCF/CPI) were required to visit twice a week until the child was of 19 years of age! He was concerned because of the mother’s mental state as he said it right there “Narcissistic Power Control”.

Because of that “restriction” the mother could not leave the county without a hearing. Once her youngest child turned 19, they sold the home and moved away quickly!

Man, oh man!

I was in this Big-Bazaar type super-market the other day.

So, I was waiting in the billing line.

The young lady before me was retaining the billed goods in trolley as slowly as possible.

I mean for an outsider, it would be like, the supermarket is conducting a patience-check limit trial with me as subject.

Finally, she was done.

Her husband or brother, as I saw, surreptitiously placed two stolen Park avenue beer shampoo bottles in that billed trolley. The lady was ignorant of it.

I think, he was her husband. He looked quite patient and unhappy.

They moved forward. Finally, mine was getting billed.

The bill-guy kept looking at her as she was leaving. I pleaded, brother please make my bill.

But he couldn’t help distraction, she too wouldn’t just get her a** out of there fast.

She was so slow and hence so near. I could hear what they were talking.

Lady (to husband) : Hey, what’s these shampoo bottles?

Man : It was a discount. Separate counter.

Lady : How much discount.

I shouted : 100%.

Lady didn’t understand. Man at once looked back, kept those bottles there, held her hands, forgot patience and got her vanished.

The excitement of billing guy got diluted. In turn, he became concentrated and in a split-second prepared my bill.

Riding on an Army UH-1 “Huey” helicopter during the Vietnam War was a unique and intense experience that left a lasting impression on those who lived through it. Here’s a description based on accounts from veterans and historical sources:

The Approach

As a soldier approached the landing zone (LZ) to board the Huey, the first sensation was often the overwhelming noise. The distinct “whop-whop” of the rotor blades could be heard from a distance, growing louder as the helicopter approached. The downwash from the rotors kicked up dust and debris, and the thick smell of aviation fuel filled the air.

Boarding

Boarding a Huey was typically hurried and chaotic, especially in a combat zone. Soldiers, often weighed down by their gear and weapons, would quickly pile in. There were no luxuries; seating was on metal benches along the sides, or sometimes directly on the floor. The doors were usually open, providing an unobstructed view outside and a rush of wind once airborne.

Takeoff

The takeoff was quick and steep. The Huey would lift off the ground with a sense of urgency, sometimes swaying slightly as it gained altitude. The open doors meant soldiers could look straight down at the rapidly shrinking landscape. The vibrations from the rotors and the engine could be felt throughout the entire airframe.

In Flight

During the

flight, the noise was deafening. Communication among passengers was nearly impossible without shouting or using hand signals. The wind whipped through the open doors, and the ride could be rough, especially in turbulent weather or when taking evasive maneuvers to avoid enemy fire. The view was both awe-inspiring and terrifying, with the dense jungle, rice paddies, and winding rivers below.

The Landing

Landing in a hot LZ (an area under potential enemy fire) was particularly intense. The approach would be fast and steep, with the helicopter descending rapidly. Pilots often performed a “combat landing,” where the Huey would descend sharply and touch down quickly to minimize the time spent vulnerable to enemy fire. The sudden deceleration and jarring contact with the ground added to the adrenaline rush.

Disembarking

Once on the ground, soldiers would rapidly disembark, sometimes under fire. The urgency was palpable as they moved out to secure the area or head to their mission objectives. The Huey would not linger; as soon as the soldiers were clear, it would lift off again, often as quickly as it had landed.

Emotional Impact

The experience of riding in a Huey was a mix of fear, excitement, and camaraderie. The constant threat of enemy fire, combined with the raw power and mechanical presence of the helicopter, left a deep impression. For many, the sound of a Huey became synonymous with both the danger and the lifeline of their time in Vietnam.

Futurama – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

In 1966, before draft lottery, I was in a body cast from a car accident and had to drop out of school going to my sophomore year. I had a Rx for Darvon and Robaxin, pain killer and muscle relaxant. I was called for the draft physical and could not bend to touch my knees. I was told I would get a good physical at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Myself and a couple of hundred other kids from Pittsburgh were herded on to a train heading South.

I was given an open Rx on Darvon and Robaxin and put into basic training. I had to sleep on a board because a sagging bunk killed my back! I was also 20:400 vision and classified “non combat” arms. I was near legally blind.

Officers in combat in Vietnam did not last long and they needed officers. I tested out well and was offered Officer Candidate School. Why not? I was non combat arms.

Upon graduation, someone, without my knowledge, put me in for a wavier to be combat arms! I ended up with the First Cavalry in Vietnam, leading a platoon in jungle combat. I was exceptionally fortunate and made it home!

Most of my men were wounded at least once. I lost some in combat.

Because I only had one year of college, I was a Lieutenant at 20 years old. I doubt that would happen today! They just needed officers for combat rolls. Looking back, that is a lot of responsibility for a kid… leading 30 other kids in combat and having to make split second decisions and they had to be right or people died!

The draft was horrible and unfair and many died in an unnecessary war because of it! I was lucky and blessed with bonus days. Thank you Lord for giving me the opportunity of a full life!

The Coming Societal Breakdown of America with #PeterTurchin

Everyone knows that America has become a plutocracy.

At the culmination of a convivial evening filled with laughter and shared stories , the moment of reckoning arrived—the presentation of the bill . As each diner reached for their wallets , one individual , let ‘s call him Ethan , exhibited a peculiar reluctance . With a sheepish grin , he stammered excuses about having forgotten his wallet and being short on cash . The table grew silent , a palpable tension hanging in the air . The weight of Ethan ‘s attempted evasion fell heavily on the shoulders of his companions , who had generously covered his expenses throughout the evening . A chorus of voices rose in protest , each expressing their disappointment and frustration . Undeterred , Ethan doubled down on his excuses , claiming he had no other means of paying . The atmosphere grew increasingly acrimonious as the group debated whether to let Ethan off the hook or hold him accountable . Finally , our server , a woman with a steely gaze and a no-nonsense demeanor , intervened . She calmly informed Ethan that if he could not pay his portion , he would have to leave his ID and return to settle the bill at a later time . Ethan ‘s bravado crumbled before her unwavering gaze . With a heavy sigh , he retrieved his ID , his face flushed with embarrassment . As he made his sheepish exit , the table erupted in a mix of laughter and relief . Ethan ‘s attempt to avoid his financial responsibility had backfired spectacularly . Not only was he forced to face the consequences of his actions , but he also lost the respect of his companions . * * Engaging sentence : * * Discover more satisfying tales of accountability in the link in my bio , where karma reigns supreme and justice is served with a side of sweet retribution .

Not today but a year ago.

I was tensed. I believe the stress had entered each of my nerves. I got to know something that was weird and unexpected. It had knocked the wind out of me.

People change I knew. But to this extent? I was unable to take it.

I felt deceived. Couldn’t sleep for the whole night. The next morning, I had to go for Covid Vaccination which I had scheduled long back. I couldn’t cancel it.

I was driving to the place which was 12 kilometres away from my home. I was lost in my own world though I was constantly convincing myself.

“Let people do what they want. If I don’t exist for them, they too don’t exist for me. I am happy with my child who gives me a goal. I don’t care about anyone now”, I kept telling this to myself while the tears were rolling down without listening to a word.

The road was straight and then, at one point, I had to turn right which I forgot. I kept on driving straight and took extra 6 kilometres. Suddenly, I realised I was completely in a new place.

With a lost mind, I asked the traffic police about the location and he told me that I had to take a U-turn to reach my destination.

I took.

However, that day I realised that some U-turns are never possible in real life. If you still try to take this U-turn, it will only lead you to miseries. So the sooner we adapt to change, the better we get.

Now, I have learnt to burn my anger in this flame.

The Matrix – 1950s Super Panavision 70

"The Matrix - 1950s Super Panavision 70 introduces a new take on the world's famous The Matrix Film. I attempted to give it that 1950s sound and feel. I hope you all enjoy."

Not Ukrainians. They were not operating the drone.

United States operated the drone out of the United States.

The command centers for the operation of the U.S. “Global Hawk” drones are primarily located at two key facilities:

1. Beale Air Force Base in California: Beale AFB is home to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, which operates the RQ-4 Global Hawk. This base plays a significant role in the command, control, and operational management of Global Hawk missions.

2. Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota: Grand Forks AFB hosts the 319th Reconnaissance Wing, which also operates and supports Global Hawk missions. This base provides operational support and command functions for the drones.

These command centers are responsible for coordinating and managing the flights, mission planning, data collection, and analysis of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Additionally, remote piloting stations can control the Global Hawks from various other locations, including forward-deployed sites and central command facilities.

And Russia knows this.

Let’s wind back and deconstruct.

An attack with U.S.-Supplied ATACMS missiles, by Ukraine, against civilians on a Beach in Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia has occurred.

Now, we find out that ATACMS could not get targeting coordinates because of Russian GPS Electronic Warfare Jamming, so targeting was apparently provided by a U.S. “Global Hawk” Drone.

It looks like United States military inside the United States targeted those Russian Civilians inside of Russia.

So the United States is actively fighting Russia.

No Ukrainians anywhere.

Russian Jamming of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) has been long underway near Crimea specifically to thwart Ukrainian attacks. The areas in red on the image above are where GPS signals CANNOT get through. So how did those ATACMS hit the target in Sevastopol?

Turns out there was a United States Air Force “Global Hawk” surveillance drone airborne, prior to – and during – the attack. It’s overlapping flight path is shown on the FlightRadar24 map below:

That “Global Hawk” drone can provide precise target coordinates, separate and distinct from GPS. Those coordinates could then be radioed to be programmed-into the HIMARS launcher, which fired the ATACMS missiles.

The evidence seems to indicate: The attack upon Russian civilians, on the beach in Sevastopol, appears to have been targeted with a United States Air Force Global Hawk drone, which relied on US Satellite data and communications to provide attack coordinates.

This appears to many people to have been an act of war by the United States, against Russian civilians.

This is NOT a trivial matter.

This is the kind of thing that starts nuclear missiles flying.

Southpark – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

The Chinese are the most industrious race on earth.

Necessity is the mother of Invention

The Chinese will find a way. The more you suppress them and the more you try to deny them the technology – they will begin to make it on their own and they will slowly do better and better.

Chips is the best example

As long as Taiwan kept supplying them the chips – The Chinese were happy. They focused on other things

The Minute Trump decided to threaten the Chinese – they decided to get their act together and start making their own chips. They will start with inferior ones but in 10 years – they will outmanufacture Taiwan at 1/3 the cost and take away the market.

And the businessmen will say – “Uigyurs???? Who gives a damn about them. My shareholders matter” and will migrate from Taiwan to China in 10 seconds.


The US may try again and again but

(a) They waited too long. China is too rich today. They have too much money.

(b) China has too many tentacles in foreign countries. Thousands of Chinese in various industries who are experts

In Space alone – China was behind India until 2010 – but today – they have their own Mapping System for their huge landmass as well as are in the position of becoming the Third country in the globe to land on Mars – having landed on the moon.

China and Russia are on the verge of building their own International Space Station having both the financial muscle and technology.


You cannot bully or intimidate or stifle Progress. Eventually Life finds a way.

US should learn this lesson hard. The more they try – they may get 10 years more but in the end China will get there and take over.

20 Things From The 1980s, We Can No Longer Do!

https://youtu.be/IVGJEB3u-wE

Don’t.

I worked for a corporation for about 15 years. Absolutely loved my work.

The thing about my job was that after your one and a half year training/supervison, you were able to choose your own work schedule, per the employee manual. You could work from home. You could work from overseas. You could work while sitting on your toilet. You could do your work from anywhere, anytime, so long as you met “production.” It was a dream position.

So, shortly after that year and a half of training, I eventually started working sometimes nights and sometimes weekends. Typically not during the day. Co-workers were a bit eccentric, off center, yet brilliant attorneys. I preferred my alone time, thank you.

I eventually took up residence in a different city. I typically had one of the highest production rates (sometimes highest) of all my fellow colleagues. All top-notch, well-educated colleagues, by the way. Loved them all.

Then, I started working at a law firm where I worked days. But I continually exceeded “production” for my initial company.

At around the 15 year mark, my two supervisors, who were very ineffectual (Peter Principle) at their positions (not even attorneys), discovered I was also working for a law firm.

I suspected they did not like me, for whatever reason. And they also did not like I had another job (not prohibited, per the employee manual).

In my last review, I received an “exceeds expectations.” A few days later, I was instructed to be in the office during “core business hours.” Core? I could never even figure out what “core” meant. Like I need to be in a hole?

Nothing in my job was of immediate import. In my position, people were not going to die or be executed, airplanes would not drop from the sky, pets would still be safe, families would remain intact, if I continued to work my own hours as I had for nearly 14 years. It was a fricking publishing job! I was not a first responder.

I tried to explain to them that the employee manual, which had not been changed, allowed me this, and also, I could not be in the office. I lived in a different city.

Ultimately, I was constructively terminated as I was unable to be in their office for “core business hours.” To the unemployment office (I had to file a claim despite having a new employer), they claimed I had quit, so that they would not need to pay unemployment in the event my other employment did not work. Surprisingly, they won. Unreal. I did not quit. I loved that job.

Fast forward to awhile later. They contacted me needing pertinent information related to my position. Information only I possessed. Rather costly information at that. And I had it for years. Noone else needed it. None of my esteemed colleagues had access to this information.

I never replied.

Turns out, and I heard this from a former colleague, they were both terminated shortly after my departure and their request for information. I cannot speculate as to the reason. But, who cares why? Karma’s a bitch.

Never, ever give a crap employer any assistance after you have been terminated. Employees are so expendable, so never give them the luxury of your experience, knowledge and expertise. Don’t even waste time replying.

However, if you do choose to reply, which I did not, charge them exorbitant fees for your services. Very exorbitant.

Good luck to you. You will also find a much better position.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – 1950s Super Panavision 70

Picture a full church of well dressed people waiting for the bride to walk up the aisle.

There is a nervous idiot, me, waiting at the front of the church for her. It was a super quick engagement and I basically asked her to marry me on our first date (very smooth, I know). She is 8 years younger than me and, no exaggeration, a movie star gorgeous blond, so far out of my league that people are mystified by how she could be remotely attracted to me.

I’m not happy on the big day, I’m scared to death that she will realize she is about to make the worst mistake of her life.

All of sudden from the back of the church I hear her crying hysterically. Crap, I knew it. I’m not even surprised. I don’t blame her and it’s not her fault, it’s mine for rushing her.

A few awkward moments minutes that felt like hours passed. Suddenly she and her Dad appeared and they start walking up the aisle toward me. Her dad convinced her that her tears were just nerves and she should go ahead and marry the unemployed guy that had big dreams but was living in his brother’s basement.

We’ve been happily married 33 years now.

[P. S. I should add that I did start and now run a successful multimillion dollar company and have tried to pay my sweet wife back by providing her with what she has described as a fairy tale life :-)]

Collective Soul – ‘Shine’ – Live At The PrintShop

China sees through the US that it cannot do without China hence it cannot play ball with China without harming itself tremendously. China do not need the US. In any way at all. US as a market is now is a mere 12% of the world market and dropping very fast. China is not keen to keep US dollars post Ukraine war. Hence if the US stop buying and selling with China, it won’t miss a heart beat.

The faster the US decouple with China the faster China can move against the US openly and effectively! Only brain dead westerners thinks China needs the US. The biggest market for Chinese goods is actually East Asia, followed by ASEAN followed by rest of Asia then Latin America and Africa, then Russia and its European friends such as Serbia and Hungary, then comes Rest of EU and then North America!

That explains why China grew 5.3% in spite of the shit that the US and Anglo cousins and EU dogs did to China! But by blocking out China it is indeed losing the rest of the world’s market! What the US is left with is a fading and now insignificant west! After a 3 generation of abusing and bully the global south they are all lining up with the BRICS to take revenge on the US!

And meanwhile the US has increased its cost so artificially high yet its efficiency so unbelievably low to the point that doing any thing on its own is impossible to sell even to Yanks themselves! For example if the apple iPhone were to be made in the USA it will have to be sold at 5000 bucks! On EV’s most brain dead Yanks do not even know the ridiculousness of Elon Musk 5.1 billion bonus request means American are going to pay for it by 5000 bucks increase in their Tesla!

If the US has any sense it needs to cement its position of being China’s right hand man but it is not humble enough nor does it have common sense. The US needs China badly, without them the US will fall into a deep recession and suffers a double digit inflation for half a century! China holds all the cards while the US is a like a hopeless screaming dog!

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy is popular all over America. It’s a staple dish on diner menus.

biscuits sausage gravy
biscuits sausage gravy

Yield: 6 servings, 2 biscuits each

Ingredients

Biscuits

  • 3 cups self-rising soft wheat flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
  • 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
  • Butter, melted

Sausage Gravy

  • 1 pound breakfast sausage (mild or hot)
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 1/4 cups milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt or seasoned salt
  • 2 teaspoons pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Instructions

Bisicuits

  1. Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly.
  2. Add buttermilk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.
  3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 4 or 5 times.
  4. Roll dough to 3/4 inch thickness; cut with a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
  5. Bake at 425 degrees F for 12 minutes or until golden.
  6. Brush tops with butter.
  7. Split biscuits open; serve with Sausage Gravy.

Sausage Gravy

  1. Brown sausage in a skillet, stirring until it crumbles.
  2. Drain, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings in skillet. Set sausage aside.
  3. Add butter to drippings; heat over low heat until butter melts.
  4. Add flour, stirring until smooth. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  5. Gradually add milk; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly.
  6. Stir in seasonings and sausage. Cook until thoroughly heated, stirring constantly.

Notes

This recipe is easily doubled.

Family Guy – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

This is one of the better ones.

China has ancient historical record since 230 AD. Some records are official. Some are not & was prepared by fishermen themselves (they are in a museum now).

On some of the islands/shoals in SCS, there were Chinese landmarks. Like these days, China put a landmark on the moon to prove China has landed on the moon.

China even named many of SCS islands/reefs.

People do not recognise Chinese historical record which, they said, it is 1-sided. Not internationally recognised. Fair enough.

Let us talk about modern-day & international record then.

During WW2, Japan occupied lots of SCS islands/reefs. After defeat, Japan must returned all SCS islands to the rightful country like China. US warships accompanied China to reclaim the SCS islands in 1947.

China went by its historical record & drew the 11-dash line. China published & announced its map to the world in Feb 1948. No country objected to it at the time. That is why we can find the 11-dash in the old maps of many countries eg USA, UK, Russia & more. Even Philippines.

The 11-dash is an international record, agree?

There was a civil war in China. CPC defeated the then ruling party KMT in 1949.

KMT was a US puppet but not CPC. … that led to US robbery of SCS islands/reefs by driving a wedge among SCS countries against China.

In 1967, USA announced there is oil/gas under SCS. Robbery officially started.

That is why there is tension in SCS from the point of robbery. Not strategic.

So much fun! This is five stars!

Before training as nurse, I was a former cop. My husband was a cop for over 30 years. His most harrowing experience occurred one Christmas Eve.

There was a horrific wreck involving a wrong way driver where a young mother and her two daughters were killed. The crash was so intense that there were were mangled pieces of body parts on the road and in the totaled and burned vehicles.

As a normal procedure, my husband and a fellow officer made the casualty call to the home of the family of the woman. The husband/father answered the door, ushered them in, and they proceeded to tell him what had happened. The heartbroken man could barely speak as he realized he had lost his wife and daughters. Then he asked, “What about my baby boy?” There was no evidence of a baby involved in the wreck.

The officers then went to the wrecker yard where the smashed vehicles had been taken. In the floorboards of the woman’s car was what had been assumed was a doll, burned black by the intense heat of the crash and resultant fire. It was the little boy’s body.

After a long night working the most exhausting, painful, mind wrenching experience of his long career, he came home just in time to play Santa to our 4 year old daughter and our own baby boy. His tears as he held his children were heartbreaking.

My family comes from a long line of military members. Many experience PTSD from horrific experiences over a 1 or 2 year or several deployments. Our career police officers suffer through years, even decades, of witnessing events that the average person will never know the horror of. They see raped children who have been torn open. They see battered wives whose eyeballs are laying on their cheeks, they see the worst of humanity yet are expected to be perfect in every way. They come straight from the funeral of a colleague who has been murdered and are expected to be cordial and patient with dirtbags who are disrespectful of any authority, who has attempted to kill them as well, and who fit the MO of the killer of their fellow officer. They are often not able to talk about it or to seek therapy for to do so could affect their careers.

My son, a military veteran, is now a career police officer. I pray for him every day. God bless our men in women in blue and keep them safe.

BLUE LIVES MATTER.

When the “parody” surpasses the original

There is indeed such a view.

The Economist has conducted surveys and research, and they believe that China’s GDP (PPP) alone is underestimated by $1.4 trillion.

I checked the relevant data. In 2021, China’s GDP (PPP) was $28.82 trillion, and the United States was $23.59 billion. China is 122% of the United States. If the Economist’s survey is correct, it means that China’s real data is $3.022 trillion, which is 128% of the United States.

China’s economic model retains a dangerous allure
Despite the country’s current struggles, autocrats elsewhere see a lot to admire

**The Economist has their own basis**

They obtained a lot of professional data from some professional institutions in the United States, which were not originally for economic services. For example, this table is a data from the United States Geological Survey, which lists China’s production and global share of key metals and manufactured products.

In addition, they also obtained data from the power industry, industrial manufactured products, shipbuilding, McDonald’s sales data, and many other data. And these non-economic data are aggregated together to analyze and count the economic scale of China and the United States in another way.

The Economist pointed out the flaws in China’s official GDP statistical method: the Chinese do not consider the service industry to be part of GDP.

For example, in the United States and Europe, many industries that do not produce “products” such as house rent, legal advice, R&D investment, child care, etc. are part of GDP, and they count GDP through expenditure.

But in China, they only count the real economy.

A company must produce cars, toys, clothing or software, food. Farmers or fishermen must produce rice and fish. They sell these things to earn income before they are included in GDP.

Small and medium-sized service industries are usually not counted. If a barbershop provides a haircut, a car wash cleans your car, or you rent your house to a young couple, these economic activities are not considered part of GDP and are almost never counted. (Unless you are a large enterprise with hundreds of shops or dozens of houses)

**”Asia Times” also conducted a similar survey**

World Bank researchers visited 16,000 stores in China alone to collect price data. The latest ICP assessment collected data in 2021, four years after the 2017 survey. The conclusion is that China’s GDP is underestimated by nearly $2 trillion.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was not satisfied with the results and downplayed them, saying “we need to interpret the entire result carefully and correctly grasp the global economic landscape and the status of each economy”, while emphasizing that China is still a “developing economy”.

“Asia Times” believes that China’s economic data has been manipulated intentionally or unintentionally. But contrary to some reports, they believe that China is deliberately suppressing the data.

“China’s PPP GDP is only 25% higher than the US? Come on guys… who are we kidding? Last year, China produced twice as much electricity, 12.6 times as much steel, and 22 times as much cement. Its shipyards account for more than 60% of world production. In 2023, China produced 30.2 million cars, almost three times the US’s 10.6 million. In fact, China’s consumer goods market is several times larger than the US in almost all aspects”

The World Bank survey believes that China’s GDP and PPP GDP are underestimated because of the incomplete transformation of China’s national accounts material product system (MPS), which does not include services by design. The World Bank may do its due diligence and find that China’s consumption of goods is several times that of the US, but its consumption of services is only a small fraction of that of the US, which is very unreasonable.

This is most evident in the Chinese auto market, where OEMs have either cut prices to rock bottom ($17,000 from $42,000 for the Hyundai Sonata) or offered cutting-edge technology at a low price ($14,000 for the BYD Q plug-in hybrid electric vehicle with 2,000 km range). Solar panel prices fell 50% in 2023 and continue to trend downward in 2024. CATL has announced plans to cut lithium-ion battery prices in half by the end of 2024.

Restaurants offer white glove service, such as hot towels, lotions by the sink, and stylish decor. Barbers offer bottled water and fruit plates. Tech companies have slashed the price of large language models (LLMs) to essentially free. The quality of service in China is hard to quantify, but it is now far superior to that in the West, and perhaps even Japan.

Are American healthcare and universities twice as good as they were in 2000? If American families had not received vastly improved health care, education, housing, and child care over the past two decades, inflation would have been systematically understated, and GDP growth would have actually been less than 1% per year (rather than 2%), equivalent to stagnation at a population growth rate of 0.8% per year. This probably explains much of the popular anger and the breakdown of American politics.

China’s material-centric GDP is probably a better measure of the economy’s relationship to living standards, especially since the UN Commission on National Accounts has apparently lost its mind and formally recommended including things like drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, and theft in GDP.

The US spends $1 trillion per year on defense (including intelligence and energy department programs) and has reduced the size of the US Navy, while China has built the world’s largest navy with the largest number of ships on a budget of $236 billion.

Likewise, analysts who lament that China accounts for 30% of the world’s manufacturing output but only 13% of household consumption are dead wrong. China actually accounts for 20-40% of global demand for almost all consumer goods, but most of the services it consumes are not included in the national accounts.

So how much is it? How big is the Chinese economy? About six months ago, it was estimated that China’s GDP would increase by 25-40% if calculated according to UNSNA.

2001: A Space Odyssey – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

Oh, yes!

Seven years ago my husband and I moved to this delightful retirement village. It has, give or take, 184 residents, most of whom are in their 80’s and 90’s, and all of whom the outside world would consider very weird indeed. They seem to live in a time warp, where everyone is kind and decent, caring for their neighbour. There’s no rubbish thrown down, no chewing gum spat onto the pavements to besmirch one’s shoes. Everyone drives at the manadatory 10 miles an hour within the village. No one gets drunk at the bar. Merry perhaps, at some celebration, but screaming and fighting is a big “no,no”. No one swears, that’s impolite in front of the ladies!

They talk about the Empire and WW2 and their roles in that war. They are proud, too proud sometimes to mention they are “not feeling too good”, as they don’t want to trouble anyone with their problems. They don’t mention it, if their children rarely bother to turn up. Nor do other, luckier ones, mention their regular weekly visits from their children. “ One doesn’t want to hurt another’s feelings, you know”!

If you want to join in all the many and varied pursuits, run mainly by the residents themselves, then you are made very welcome. If not and you prefer to stay in your little bungalow that day, that’s fine also. No one will intrude upon your privacy, unless invited to do so. A phone call, on occasion, perhaps, just to see if you’re OK.

As my 93 year old my husband said, not long before he died, “We’ve returned to the world we knew – our world. We’re so fortunate not having to cope with that world out there, which many of us simply don’t really understand”! I echo his words in my heart every day.

The Flintstones – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

Love this.

It was a combination of many things that made Ted Kaczynski so elusive.

A few of them:

  1. He was (and still is) extremely intelligent; A genius, by anyone’s measure.
  2. He was willing to go to extreme lengths to conceal his identity (not only building his bombs from scratch — often he used wood, gathered from states far from where he lived, and then hand-whittled). He always built the individual parts of each bomb from scratch, by hand, even if it took many months to construct the raw materials using antique tools, or using tools he actually made himself. He vacuumed everything. He was meticulous, and often spent more than a year to build a single bomb.
  3. He was willing to go “off the grid” and live an uncomfortable lifestyle, to outwit any investigation. This included living in remote woods, in a tiny cabin with no address, no electricity, no running water, did not own a car, no credit cards, no driver’s license. He left no signature, and only a handful of people knew he even existed. (Of course, that happened to fit in and coincide with his motive for committing these crimes… He was the ultimate “Luddite.”)
  4. He was willing to devote incredible efforts to delivering each device, taking a bus from Montana to California and paying cash, and dropping the packages off at quiet postal dropoffs, with stamps already attached (no licking, of course).
  5. He followed the press about his bombings, and was willing to change up his habits when necessary, to avoid capture. He would even travel to another state to find a grocery bag to wrap a bomb in — that is determination.
  6. He basically devoted his entire life during that period to his bombings, and to eluding capture — with no real social life, and only occasional drop-in visits to his local small town library to read the news about the manhunt to find him — a library which he walked to.

Frans and Marie

Submitted into Contest #252 in response to: Make a character’s obsession or addiction an important element of your story. view prompt

Thom With An H

The Transporter Museum, a forgotten relic, is inconveniently located on a deserted side street two turns off a dead-end alley. You might never find it, even by accident, but if you do, you’ll always remember its immaculate displays and its eccentric proprietor, Frans Messerschmitt.Every day precisely at nine, the little old man illuminated the neon sign, flipped the placard to open, and made his way behind the counter, prepared for customers who rarely came.It was already late in the day when the door opened, surprising both Frans and the visitors.“Hello, is anybody there?”The question startled Frans, interrupting his terminal boredom.“Yes. Yes, please come in,” he answered, moving forward to greet his guests. The unexpected voice belonged to a handsome lad sporting sweatpants and a football jersey, followed closely by a pretty young coed in a letterman’s jacket.“It’s almost impossible to find this place,” the boy mentioned, all the while looking at the meticulously cared-for exhibits. “Are we in time for the guided tour?”The question struck Frans as funny. It had been months since his last visitor, so the tours relied on guests, not the other way around.“Of course, my good man,” he answered, sauntering from behind the counter. “My name is Frans and I’m the owner and resident historian. I’d be glad to give you the nickel tour, and I won’t even charge you the nickel.”

 

“Fan-damn-tastic! My name is Billy, and this is Connie. We’ve really been looking forward to this. Where do we start?”

 

“I’m glad you asked,” Frans replied, beckoning the couple to follow. “You’ve lived your whole lives in a time where teleportation from one side of the world to another was the norm—in fact, there’s about to be an app for that!” Frans turned their attention towards a smartphone sitting on display. “Before the end of the year, the new ZapApp will be available, offering skin-touch technology for the first time. All you’ll need to do is enter the desired coordinates, activate the app, and, in seconds—Voila!”

 

“Wow,” Billy exclaimed, reaching for the phone.

 

“Please don’t,” Frans cautioned. “These are replicas and can be easily damaged.”

 

“I hear ya, Gramps,” Billy responded, “Oh, I’m sorry. No disrespect intended, sir.”

 

“Not at all,” Frans replied. “I’ve always wanted a nickname. I like the sound of Gramps. Now if you follow me, I’ll lead you both back in time.”

 

The next display contained a full-length mirror attached to the wall. “I’m sure you two know what this is,” Frans said, stepping aside and allowing Billy and Connie to see. “These teleportation devices are still the most commonly used today. They were part of a trend to make teleportation more accessible and less obtrusive. They were also the first devices that didn’t require an exit portal. Until the Mirror 360, you could only travel to locations with paired devices. Needless to say, it was revolutionary.”

 

“That’s just like yours,” Connie whispered to Billy, punctuating her remark with a kiss on his cheek. “What’s next, Mr. Frans?”

 

Gramps,” Frans corrected her with a chuckle. “Next we see the machine that started it all, The Marie.”

 

“I’ve heard of that,” Billy said. “Wow, it’s huge!”

 

“I know,” Frans agreed. “When the technology was new, we hadn’t yet perfected the art of miniaturization. There were no personal teleportation devices. The only people who had access were scientists, investors, and celebrities. In fact, the first transporters were more gimmicky than useful. They were incredibly expensive, required an entrance and exit port, and were so inefficient that it took a full day’s charge to send someone from one place to another. There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way since then.”

 

“What about that one?” Billy asked, pointing to a machine partially hidden by a curtain.

 

“Oh, that one,” Frans sighed. “That’s the prototype. The first teleportation device.”

 

“That’s the original?” Billy asked, moving closer to get a better look. “Is the legend true?”

 

“I’m afraid it is,” Frans replied. “The machine was the brainchild of a pair of scientists not much older than the two of you. They were the first to prove light was a particle and that we could use it as a mechanism for distance teleportation. The early tests were extremely successful. There were no issues when sending inanimate objects or small animals from one pod to another. The problem occurred when they tried transporting a human. Marie begged to be first and, after winning a game of Rochambeau, she stepped into the entrance pod and disappeared on cue. But when her partner activated the exit pod, everything went terribly wrong. Marie never fully rematerialized. Her translucent hand simply reached forward, and she mouthed the word help. Then she faded away.”

 

“Oh my God!” Connie gasped. “Did he save her?”

 

Frans turned away from the question, paused, then finally answered. “No, he didn’t. You see, molecular displacement teleportation in its infancy was like sending something through a tunnel at light speed. Once entering a pod, the subject can only exit from the paired terminal port.”

 

“That’s tragic,” Connie said, wiping away a tear.

 

“And ironic.” Frans replied.

 

“How so?”

 

“After the colossal mishap, her partner spent the better part of twenty years trying to find a way to release Marie from her tunnel. He became obsessed with correcting his mistake. His research and technological breakthroughs are directly responsible for almost every advancement in teleportation technology. That first awful outcome is why molecular transportation is so incredibly safe today. It’s why you have a Mirror 360 hanging on the wall in your home.”

 

“But Marie—what happened to her?” Connie asked.

 

“All of her partner’s research and all of his calculations never changed Marie’s fate.”

 

“She’s trapped forever?”

 

“She would be, unless he destroyed the machine and released her molecules into the atmosphere, never to be reassembled again.”

 

“What did he…”

 

“It’s almost closing time,” Frans said, interrupting Connie before she could finish the question. “Thanks for coming. You two made an old man very happy today.”

 

“This has been the best tour ever, Gramps.” Billy proclaimed. “What do I owe you?”

 

“Nothing,” Frans answered, shaking Billy’s hand. “Just promise to send your friends.”

 

“It’s a deal,” he said, leading Connie out the door. “I’m sure we’ll be back soon.”

 

“You’re always welcome.”

 

Frans watched as the couple walked away. Then, being that it was precisely five, he locked the door, changed the placard to closed, and turned off the neon sign.

 

Alone once again, Frans returned to the machine behind the curtain, flipped a few switches, and watched as Marie’s translucent figure, forever young, appeared before him.

 

“Frans, are you there?” Marie mouthed, silently.

 

“I’m here, my love. I’ll always be here.”

 

“I’m so afraid,” she responded. “Please let me go.”

 

“I can’t,” Frans replied, ashamed of his weakness.

 

Marie’s eyes grew red, but she summoned the strength to place her hand on her heart and mouth the words I love you. Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.

 

Heartbroken, Frans turned to walk upstairs, counting the minutes until he could see his love again, if only for a moment, the next day at the exact same time.

Whipping Cream Biscuits

A two-ingredient recipe for some of the best biscuits you will ever eat! If all you have is all-purpose flour, never fear; we give you instructions for making it into self-rising flour.

whipping cream biscuits
whipping cream biscuits

Bake: 10 min | Yield: 8 biscuits

Ingredients

  • 2 cups self-rising flour
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Instructions

Bisicuits

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and cream. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface; knead for 5 minutes or until no longer sticky. Roll dough to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 2 1/2 inch biscuits.
  2. Place in a large ungreased cast iron or other ovenproof skillet. Bake at 450 degrees F until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.

Notes

* If you don’t have self-rising flour, add 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt to 2 cups all-purpose flour. As a substitute for each cup of self-rising flour, place 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup.

Forgotten Restaurants From The 1970s, We Want Back!

Such memories. I forgot about these places, but once I watched the video, I sure as heck remembered them.

https://youtu.be/dZLdey9V3qo

he term “terrible” comes from the Russian word “grozny,” which is better translated as “formidable” or “awe-inspiring.”

But Ivan did some pretty terrible things too.

His father, Grand Prince Vasily III, died when Ivan was just three, and his mother, Elena Glinskaya, served as regent until her mysterious death when Ivan was eight.

It’s suspected she was poisoned, which wasn’t uncommon in the Russian court.

As he grew older, Ivan developed a dark streak.

He crowned himself the first Tsar of All Russia in 1547, aiming to centralize power and assert absolute control.

In his early reign, he showed promise, implementing legal reforms, establishing a standing army, and expanding Russian territories.

But this honeymoon period didn’t last.

Things took a dark turn with the death of his beloved wife, Anastasia Romanovna, in 1560.

Her death shattered Ivan, and he spiraled into paranoia and madness, suspecting everyone of treason.

He believed she was poisoned, which might have been true, considering the court’s track record.

Enter the Oprichnina, Ivan’s own personal reign of terror.

In 1565, he divided Russia into two parts: the Oprichnina, directly under his control, and the Zemshchina, ruled by the boyars (nobles).

The Oprichnina was essentially a state within a state, where Ivan’s secret police, the Oprichniki, roamed.

These guys were like medieval KGB, dressed in black, riding black horses, and carrying out Ivan’s brutal orders.

The Oprichniki spread terror through the land, confiscating properties, executing supposed traitors, and crushing any opposition.

One of the most infamous event was the sacking of Novgorod in 1570.

Suspecting the city of treason, Ivan ordered a brutal massacre.

Thousands were tortured and killed, and the city was left in ruins.

In a fit of rage, Ivan famously killed his own son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, in 1581.

The story goes that he struck his son with a staff during an argument, a blow that proved fatal.

I was moslested by three older boys when I was 9 or 10 years old.

It happened on three separate occasions for a total of approximately 3 hours.

I was already a quiet introverted child and this pushed me even futher into my own mind.

I suffered for years with bed wetting, nightmares, and it damaged my sexual psyche , giving me trust and intimacy issues.

I saw child psychologists for years and eventually though that my parents got to know about it.

My first suicide attempt was at the age of 12, when I dropped from a tree branch deliberately into the path of a car. The car swerved, missed me and ploughed through a wodden fence.

The driver jumped out of the car to see if I was ok, I approached the car and saw there was no-one else there, then ran away.

I still feel bad about that, not seeing if he was Ok and not facing the consequences.

There have been 6 suicide attempts since, 3 of which I have woken from in hospital, dissapointed that it was not over.

Those biys who took my childhood were all brothers, sons of the next door neighbours of my Aunt & Uncle.

When I was 17 and they were between 21 and 25 I tracked them all down- it wasnt difficult, they all lived in the same town.

I took a baseball bat to each of them one at a time all in one night, broke arms legs fingers.

None of them recognised me, not one. I pulled back my balaclava to stare them directly in the face, these monsters that took my childhood, the driving force that had defined me good or bad.

I realised later that night, drunk and broken that what for me was unforgettable was exactly that, not just forgettable but forgotten.

After that, no nightmares not a singe one, and the other issues that I had been battling with in therapy for years resolved themselves. The healing didnt happen over night, but it did begin to happen.

From being powerless, I was powerful. I can’t begin to explain how good, how alive I felt.

I will never regret that night.

99320f9ca16734d44c507c00addc7850
99320f9ca16734d44c507c00addc7850

Fun, too short, though.

This is not really a funny story, except for the karma aspect of it. I was a senior in college, taking a class called instrumental methods of analysis. It is the final chemistry class before graduation. Three hours a week of lecture, plus two, five hour labs each week. Each lab required a 15–20 page lab report and a computer program to analyze our data. Through the first 12 (of 26) lab I had a perfect score on each lab report. Then I got into an argument with the lab teacher after he a lab where we were analyzing the contents of an aspirin, caffeine and phenacetin tablet. Except the APC tablets were removed from the market and so we analyzed acetaminophen, caffeine, phenacetin tablet. The procedure should have be rewritten to account for acetaminophen’s differing absorption spectrum. But our professor was to lazy to do that, telling us to just do the lab as written and explain the bad results. Instead, I ran to the library, found a way to do the experiment properly, and asked my prof. for permission to try it. At first he said yes, but only if you can get someone else to supervise you if it runs long. I did, and got started. He wandered in at 6 and told me to clean up and go home so he could go home for supper. I reminded him of our deal and he lost his shit on me. Finally in frustration, I told him that if he wanted to give me mediocre teaching, I’d give him mediocre work, like the rest of the class. Suddenly he stopped returning our graded work. I assumed I’d get the same C as most of the class, but got a final grade of F, meaning I’d have to spend an extra year in college to retake the class. I tried to arrange retaking the class in the summer at another university. He refused to consider any other class, telling me I was just like his teenage son and we both needed to be taught a lesson. I set up a meeting with our dean in which the prof. told us that he’d fail the entire senior class before he’d pass me. I had already been accepted into a prestigious graduate program and gotten a commitment for four years of funding. I called my grad. school dean. I don’t know exactly what was said between deans, but my undergrad dean called me in and said that they had arranged for me to retake the class alongside my regular grad. classes and transfer the credit back. They also said that the prof. who failed me would not be allowed to stop this deal.

Next summer I returned to my undergrad. school and met with the dean. He asked me to describe how the lab worked at Northwestern. He listened to me describe how differently NU did the labs, focused on designing experiments, learning how lab equipment works and how to use it effectively and creatively. And most of all, instead of wasting time rewriting our text and calling it lab reports we took oral exams while discussing the lab. The dean was so impressed that he promised to force my prof. to rewrite his labs so students wouldn’t just be going through the motions and writing lab reports. I heard through the grapevine that it helped the program and forced my former prof. to do a boatload of work revamping all 26 labs. All in all a pretty horrible experience with a petty and lazy prof, that turned out well in the end because I got to leave the school better than I found it via “instant karma.”

STAR TREK ACID PARTY: PHASE II

This is odddddddddd…….

USA did try in the past. In fact, Biden also urged to start a US version of BRI to counter Chinese BRI.

They failed in the past & so far not succeed either today.

The difference between China & USA is the mentality & price. For the same price, US can only do little.

Let me use Tesla as an example. Musk opened a factory to make electric car in China. It took him 10 months (If I remember correctly) to build a factory.

When he expanded his business & went to build a factory in Germany, it took him 2 YEARS & still not operational.

Why? Too much of politics in the West incl USA & Germany.

Look at California. They wanted to build a high speed rail from dont know where to SF. It is considered short & straight. But 20 years later, only 1 small portion is working. Again politics.

Cats Being Badass: A Tribute

Little beatnik MM goes a bongoing

When I was a teenager I lived with my mom and dad (before they divorced). Times got hard and for a while we stayed in a trailer that had no electricity or hot water. We lived in a swampy forest in Mississippi, no neighbors, lots of mud and trees. My dad worked about an hour away at an airport, so he was gone most of the time, leaving me home alone with my mother. She was extremely mentally ill- in and out of institutions, she had vivid hallucinations and delusions, and the darkness didn’t help. We never got along, and I was often the subject of her abuse and frustration. One night I was sitting in the living room with her waiting for my dad to come home from work. He called to see how we were doing and to tell us that he would be bringing home food, and then asked if I was home because sometimes I would go for walks (the room was so silent I could actually hear him on the other end). Instead of telling him that, yes, I was home and I was sitting right in front of her, she told him “No, she’s not home. The back gate is open. She must have run off somewhere.” It was like some scene from a horror film- she was sitting in a dark corner and all I could see of her was the reflection of her eyes staring at me darkly. I had the immediate sense that I was in danger, and thoughts of being actually murdered by my own mother raced through my mind. I got up and walked slowly to my room, shut the door, and called my dad to tell him what had just happened. He said “She’s really dangerous. You need to lock the door and hide under your blankets until I get home. I’ll be there soon.” He got home less than an hour later. Everything turned out fine and we never mentioned it again.

That is a “Red Line”.

Direct placement is a “Red Line”, as is funding the placement, actively preparing for the placement, or making treaties involving the placement. This was all clearly specified in the Biden Xi talks in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia.

It would be a terrible move initiated by the United States and would result in horrific consequence.

This would result in the well and clearly specified consequences that China has repeatedly stated over and over again.

To the credit of the United States, the talk between President Biden and Xi Peng reiterated this stance, and additionally, the USA said that it will not do this. This was repeated by President Biden and Anthony Blinken in the “five Nos” statement repeatedly reiterated by President Biden.

However…

The United States has a reputation of lying, telling untruths, doing one thing and saying another, all the time while fomenting wars and breaking treaties. Truthfully, China welcomes the dialog, but has no illusions as to what a monster the United States has become, and what a real threat it actually is.

Now THIS TIME, if the USA (yet again) breaks it’s promises, it’s treaties, and it’s contract with China then the result will be clear… It’s already been explained to the American “leadership”. Quite clearly. Very clearly. So clear than a mentally retarded three year old can understand it.

There would be a very large and massive war between the United States and China.

Ah.

But maybe you heard that before. But you really don’t have any idea what it means. For if you are an American you think of war as being police actions in far-away distant places. Like Yemen, Syria, Cambodia, Somalia, Ukraine, Iraq, Angola, Iran, etc.

Well, this time it won’t.

Of course, everything being said so far sounds like screeching chalk on a blackboard to Americans. It makes no sense at all. America is gifted by God with Democracy (TM) and is formidable nuclear power; a shining city on a huge white hill.

That’s great Hollywood.

Makes great sound bytes.

But has zero effect on actual reality.

For starters, consider Taiwan; a province of China. Much like Texas is a state of America. China would of course, take care of this “matter”. Those of you who have zero experience in actual real China, but instead watch movies, and play first-person shooters, and read neocon journals would think that this is some kind of a fantasy.

It’s not. China is DEAD SERIOUS.

For starters, all of the placed missiles would be destroyed, with no concern for collateral damage or civilian causalities. China doesn’t give a fuck.

China would then take over Taiwan with hours. China is ready, well trained, and doesn’t give a fuck.

Though “mop up” operation might last as long as a week. Taiwan’s “soy soldiers” will not die for American democracy (TM). Of course. The idea and hope in the Pentagon is for a long drawn-out Vietnam, Afghanistan or Ukraine. Not. Going. To. Happen. China will be ruthless. Lethal. Dirty and the result will be nasty.

Spill-over? You bet-ya.

Simultaneous to this would be the destruction of ALL of the USN military presence in the Pacific. No carriers would remain. Guam would be gone. Hawaii would be in rubble as would be San Francisco. Australia want’s to join in the cluster-fuck. Good bye Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide. Anyone else wants to join in the fray? Any takers?

Which would ALONE probably trigger an American nuclear counter-response.

Then of course, you would see (again) what China has done to the pitiful attempts that the United States in trying to suppress it. Freak Geomagnetic storms will mysterious suddenly cause constellations of satellites to tumble out of orbit. There will be massive submarine accidents accidentally ramming undersea mountains. American VTOL carriers will catch fire by Navy personnel burning trash in the munitions lockers, and so on and so forth.

Even if things did not get HOT, things will be very uncomfortable for the United States and it’s proxy nations. What ever happens; hot war, or cold war, lit it be well understood that all trade would stop…

  • The few remaining American factories would stop, and close.
  • American medicines will be all gone. Fully 98% are made inside of China.
  • Shelves would be empty. All consumer goods would become a rare commodity. Including socks, shoes, pantyhose, toothbrushes, and cellphones.
  • The US dollar, already worthless, would suffer from astounding inflation.
  • No diesel. No batteries. No electricity. A war would EMP the living shit out of the USA. This is a reality, and whatever potential that the Untied States has for oil, gas, resources will need to start from scratch with a massive handicap.

Then things will get really bad. Because you all have no idea how powerful and formidable China is today.

Anyone who thinks that violating Chinese “Red Lines” is a good idea is a suicidal idiot.

The EU Is Already Begging China For Mercy

Here’s a photo from the 1990s of a man called Josef Fritzl, vacationing in Thailand without a care in the world. Fritzl was a businessman, married, father of seven, from Austria. He’d frequently travel the world. One year he’d be in Thailand. Another year he’d go to Africa. At times his friends would join him, they would drink, swim, lounge around resorts and float in the swimming pools of resorts…

Frans
Frans

Fritzl was a doting grandfather of twenty. Three of his grandchildren lived with him and his wife — his youngest daughter Elizabeth, their mother, had ran away from home and joined a cult. So Fritzl and his wife raised their grandchildren. By all means, Josef had a charmed life. What no one knew? The three grandchildren he was raising were also his own biological children… their mother Elizabeth hadn’t joined a “cult”, she lived in a dungeon Fritzl had built inside his own basement. With three other children Fritzl also fathered there by his own daughter.

Fritzl was arrested in 2008, at the age of 73. Because he had brought one of the “dungeon kids” to the hospital along with Elizabeth, his captive daughter, who then alerted authorities. Josef Fritzl remains in prison in Austria of this writing. He believes he should be freed, famously telling a judge: “I am just one man. But look inside the basements of other people… you would be surprised what you find!”

Glazed Ham with Dried Cherry Caramelized Onions

Perfect for a late lunch or dinner. This cooked, boneless ham is glazed with a mixture of honey, mustard and cider vinegar. Serve with sugar snap peas and roasted new potatoes.

spiced cherry bourbon glazed ham 98719 1
spiced cherry bourbon glazed ham 98719 1

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds cooked boneless ham
  • 4 tablespoons honey, divided use
  • 1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard
  • 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
  • 5 medium onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup dried tart cherries
  • 1/3 cup cider vinegar
  • 5 medium onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1/4 cup almonds, sliced or slivered and toasted

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Place ham on rack in shallow baking pan and roast 45 minutes to 1 hour or until a meat thermometer registers 140 degrees F, about 15 to 18 minutes per pound.
  2. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons honey, 1 teaspoon cider vinegar and mustard. Brush ham with glaze during the last 5 minutes of baking.
  3. Sauté onions over medium heat in a Dutch oven in butter for 12 to 15 minutes or until onions are just tender, stirring occasionally.
  4. Stir in dried cherries, 1/3 cup cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons honey and 1/2 teaspoon cardamom. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Stir in toasted almonds.
  5. Serve ham slices with onion mixture.
  1. Psychopaths say “um” more frequently in order to appear like a normal person.
  2. It is incredibly easy to pass a Polygraph Test if you trick yourself into thinking that everything is fine and that everything you say is the truth, no matter what.
  3. When you lie, you may shake your head. This is your body saying that it doesn’t believe you.
  4. If someone accuses you and threatens you about a wrongdoing relentlessly, you will eventually find that it is in your best interest to fess up to the crime, making you guilty of something you never did. This is a minor form of brainwashing.
  5. The closer you are in a relationship, the more you can read the other’s mind.
  6. We disregard our morals if a person of higher power takes responsibility for your actions. Essentially just obeying authority.
  7. 1/5 people in France have depression, making it the saddest country in the world.
  8. It is impossible to stay angry at a loved one. If you are able to do so for more than 3 days, then you may not love them.
  9. You never truly value a moment before it becomes a distant memory.
  10. Crying reduces stress and causes you to feel better.
  11. The people you most often think about are the ones you love or the ones who cause you pain.
  12. Music can bend and shape the way you see the world, or life in general.
  13. Your favorite songs are decided by the emotional events you attach to it.
  14. Narcissists think they’re brilliant while most have a below-average IQ.
  15. Long periods of isolation may cause you to hallucinate, but they consist of mostly auditory hallucinations.
  16. Ignorance of your feelings causes them to swell and essentially just take over your thoughts.
  17. Fast-thinkers tend to have sloppy handwriting. Thoughts are fleeting, so they must be written down almost immediately.
  18. When choosing a romantic partner, look for how they treat their inferiors or pets. That says a lot about their nature.
  19. Speaking other languages may cause someone to shift their personality as well. (I am more secluded when speaking Spanish and more confident when I speak Italian.)
  20. We care more about the death of one than the death of many. It feels more personal when one human dies, yet when multiple perish, we feel as we don’t know any of them.
  21. Some people just love to see you angry. The solution? Relax the muscles in your face and watch as theirs visibly deflates.
  22. We believe what we WANT to believe.
  23. Extensive loneliness is just as bad as smoking 15 cigars.
  24. The human brain is always searching for a problem or a flaw. Perfection is always key for many, and some just can’t let it go.
  25. The more power you gain, the more empathy you lose.

My First Week in China

My husband took me to Silver Spring to buy a 2 door Ford Explorer back in the 90s.

It was really late at night (11 pm) and we barely got the title to the car given to us before they had to close.

We were told to come by the next day after work to finish up some of the other paperwork.

When we arrived the next day, the salesman told us he had made a mistake.

He had forgotten to add taxes to the price of the car he sold us. So we owed them an additional $1000.

We were tapped out and couldn’t afford another $1000. I told him to take the car back.

The salesman lost his cool and started screaming at my husband.

He insisted we pay this extra $1000 or he would call the police on us.

My husband stood up and they went nose to nose. Hubby called his bluff and invited him to call the police. We already had the pink slip (title). There was nothing he could do about it.

The salesman turned beet red and started hurling personal insults.

We were in a private room but I’m positive the entire showroom floor heard the commotion. It was that loud.

I plastered myself against the wall, as I feared their proximity would escalate to either physical violence or a stroke.

The salesman finally stepped back, adjusted his tie and became silent.

He realized he wasn’t getting any more money from us.

He announced, “Never mind. I’ll just get it from some other customer later on.”

His callousness in thrusting his mistake onto the next unsuspecting customer took me aback.

No wonder car salesmen have such a bad reputation.

Prof. Mearsheimer REVEALS: the FATE of Humanity May Hang on the 2024 US and European Elections

In this video, Prof. John Mearsheimer discusses the results of recent European elections, public vs. elite opinion on Ukraine, the divided European Parliament, country-specific analysis of France and Germany, the importance of the US election perspectives, Biden vs. Trump foreign policy approach, Russian strategy, and internal NATO divisions. 

During the Depression, my grandfather took one of the very few jobs that paid well – because it was so hard to find someone to do it. He drove a gravel truck up the side of the mountain, every morning, to take the day’s allotment of dynamite and nitro to the quarry. It was a one lane track with a lot of curves but not enough switchbacks, so it was very steep. It was barely a road and almost not quite wide enough for the truck.

There were two trucks, and the way the system worked, every morning a truck went up the mountain, and was sent back down in the evening full of gravel. Once the day truck was at the bottom of the mountain, the night truck went up with their load of dynamite for the night shift. In the morning, it came down before the day truck went up.

One day, signals got crossed. A truck that looked like the night truck pulled into the lot, and my grandfather saw it, so he started up the mountain track. About halfway up, he heard a horn blasting and realized it was the night truck, signaling that his brakes had failed. That happened at times, and was dangerous, but usually the truck would make it to the bottom and roll to a stop. Only THIS time, my grandfather’s truck was on the road. There was nowhere to pull off or turn around … so he laid on the horn of HIS truck, to tell the other driver he was there.

He tried backing down the mountain, but that wasn’t really going to be fast enough. Realizing there was no hope for it – and not wanting to be near the truck when the impact came (and the dynamite blew) he jumped out of the truck and started running down the mountain.

He had been a track star when in college, and before the Depression hit, had been a track coach for the local college and high school, so he was in shape and known to be a fast runner.

According to the story, my (atheist) grandfather learned to pray on his way down the mountain. He loudly promised the Lord that if he was not killed that day, that he would attend church faithfully for the rest of his life. As he came off the mountain and was on flat land, he realized he had not heard the expected explosion, but was still running hard. So he changed his prayer to say he would attend church once a week for the rest of his life. Then as he got closer to town, it was to attend church for ten years. By the time he reached the church in the center of town, he “bargined down” to attending church for the rest of the year.

He was praying so loud to the Lord that everyone he passed heard his promises. Finally, he reached the church and collapsed. (Still no explosion). By some stroke of luck (or as the townspeople would say – by the Grace of God) the driver of the other truck had been able to use the gearshifts and emergency brakes and managed to stop his truck before it could ram the day truck.

Granddad reverted to being an atheist almost immediately, however my grandmother was a formidable woman. He had made his promise to the Lord in public and it was witnessed by the community. She would not allow him to back out of the promise.

So, every Sunday, for the rest of the year, as soon as services were done, my grandfather would round up the oldest sons, and they worked on the church. They replaced the roof, repaired the stairs in the back, painted the church and school, and basically did all kinds of maintenance work. Every Sunday. The last thing they did was carve new end pieces for all the pews, and installed a prayer rail so that elderly or infirm members could hold it when then knelt for communion.

After it was done, he still did not attend church, but any time something needed to be repaired, the pastor would call and remind him of his promise to the Lord.

The cost of living is unbearable in the USA. There is no reason at all why you should stay there.

This is a MUST watch video. This is really good. He talks about FAMILY and lifestyle. Loving and caring families.

This was a flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of that area, that place is entirely void of any bodies of water (or at least our flight path was). The pilot was a pretty hilarious guy.

During the safety presentation:

“In the highly likely event of a water landing during our trip over the Mojave Desert, you can use the seat cushion as a flotation device.”

“Okay, I know most of you have got your seatbelts on already, take them off again so I can feel like my safety presentation actually did something.”

“If you are traveling with a child or someone who acts like one, please secure your mask first before assisting others.”

And after that:

“Hey people in the front, would you please sit down for a moment? I’m trying to back up here.”

“The policy on this flight is no smoking indoors. We have plenty space on the two wings if you would like to smoke.”

Mediterranean Chopped Salad

Try packing this salad into a Mason jar, and take your salad to go. Add dressing immediately before eating.

Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad 3
Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad 3

TIPS

Use a mixture of red and yellow cherry tomatoes for added interest. Prepare with canned red or white kidney beans instead of the chickpeas if desired.

Substitute fresh basil for the parsley, or skip the fresh herbs and make dressing using 1 to 2 tablespoons prepared basil pesto. Dressing can be made with fresh lemon juice instead of the red wine vinegar, or with a combination of both ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups packed chopped romaine lettuce hearts
  • 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
  • 1 cup chopped cucumber
  • 1 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  • 1/4 cup pitted quartered Kalamata olives
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon each finely chopped fresh parsley and chives
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4 hard-boiled large eggs, cooled to room temperature, peeled and quartered
Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad
Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad

Instructions

  1. Combine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas and olives in large bowl. Top with feta cheese.
  2. Whisk together vinegar, parsley, chives and mustard in small bowl. Add olive oil slowly, whisking until combined.
  3. Toss salad lightly with dressing and DIVIDE evenly among 4 dinner plates. Top with eggs.

Prep: 20 min | Yield: 4 servings

Easy 12-Minute Method for Hard-Boiled Eggs: Place eggs in saucepan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Add enough cold water to cover eggs by 1 inch. Heat over high heat just to boiling. Remove from heat. Cover pan. Let eggs stand in hot water for 12 minutes for large eggs. Drain. Cool completely under cold running water or shock eggs in a bowl of ice water.

You can refrigerate unpeeled eggs for several days if not using immediately. Hard-boiled eggs are easiest to peel right after cooling.

Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad 4
Easy Mediterranean Chopped Salad 4

They have managed decline to unacceptable levels to average citizens

  1. The smarter you become, the crazier you’ll seem to “dumb” people.
  2. Nobody literally wants you to tell them the truth. Rather, we all want you to reaffirm our beliefs.
  3. Today’s saint was yesterday’s sinner.
  4. Most people spend a lifetime trying to be like someone who is trying to be like someone else.
  5. “Reality is for people who can’t face drugs and drugs are for people who can’t face reality!” —Genius Turner
  6. You know a man is really smart when you forget to notice how cheap his clothes are.
  7. “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” —Albert Einstein
  8. Your own siblings will “sell you out” if the price is right.
  9. You might as well stop caring what others think about you because they seldom do! After all, everybody is knee-deep in their own troubles.
  10. A wise person knows: if you think you can, you can; if you think you can’t, you can’t! Either way—you’re right.
  11. Being normal has become abnormal.
  12. If by chance you browse the Law Book, notice the fine print that states: Here lies one law for the rich and another for the poor!
  13. “Genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work…” —Albert Einstein
  14. Few people are wise enough to recognize when the price of money costs too much! Be wise, then.
  15. A heterosexual telling a homosexual that being gay is “wrong” is no different from someone born right-handed telling a left-handed person to write with the “right” hand.
  16. How can you ever declare to “know someone” when most of us have yet to Know Thyself?
  17. If you become too successful, your own friends will succumb to jealousy and envy.
  18. Because a billionaire is, by definition, equivalent to 1,000 millionaires—in light of world hunger—every billionaire is by definition selfish.
  19. The only thing separating the dreamer from the dream is a bridge called WORK!
  20. Last but not least: you might as well be yourself, dahling, because everyone else is already taken!

If you think that the USA is the “best” then you really need to step outside and see just how ridiculous the USA actually is.

Spending just to live. It’s the American way.

I once went to a property sellout auction, when a three ton truck came up for sale, the auctioneer wanted to start the bidding off at $5000, he couldn’t get a bid, so kept reducing the starting price by $100 at a time, still no bids so I sang out $100 dollars, he ignored me at first I sang out again so he started at $100, another bloke thought it was to cheap so he also started bidding, he gave up when it got to $1000, so I bought three a ton truck for $1000, a bit later I felt a tap on my shoulder and a chap asked me if I was the one that bought the truck I said yes I was, and he asked me if I would take $3000 for it? BLOODY OATH! so I made $2000 profit without doing a thing,

one other thing, at the same auction, the auctioneer, held up a jar of pebbles’ I recognised them as sapphires, Because I used to dig for them as a hobby, also no bid, I got it for 5 dollars, I took it with me the next time I went to the gem fields, and took them to an Indian buyer, they were only small stones but he still gave 500 dollars for them, so that was also a good profit margin, from 5 to 500, not bad at all.

This occurred while I was still married to my second husband in New Hampshire. We lived on top of a hill we called “Heck’s Hill” and for many years, ours was the only house within several miles.

A builder in town, known for his arrogance, bought a huge parcel of land behind and beside us on the right. His intention was to build a road around us, ending in a cul de sac to the right of our hill, where he would build eight homes.

Since the road would go up the left side and wind around behind our property before continuing on to the cul de sac, the builder claimed an easement for some of our property for a cut through the hill to make it level enough for his road. Otherwise, he would have to curve his road much more to go further out away from our hill for level ground and it would cost him more.

We were told by the Planning Board this would take about 150′ from the back of our property to allow for the slope. Then his road would be cut into our hill with a 25′ drop. It seemed like a lot, but we had to agree according to the Planning Board.

Our home was totally surrounded by woods, including the trees to be removed for the road. Most of the trees were old, huge, and established. Just inside the tree line on top of our hill in back, was a rock/stone wall, which went almost entirely around our home. The stone wall was only a couple of feet from our in ground pool. In the photo, you can see the concrete deck that goes around the pool and under the slide, and just outside of the deck, you see the dark rock/stone wall. You can also see the wall to the left in the photo behind the cabana and house.

“In the State of New Hampshire, it is against the law to destroy, or remove, an existing stone or rock wall as they are deemed to be historical.”

On the day the bulldozer and other machinery arrived to make the cut into our property, the bulldozer operator came to the house to let me know he would start cutting trees in an hour and if we had a pet, to make sure it was kept indoors.

When they left, curious me went out to the back of our property where they had placed orange ribbons around the trees to be bulldozed. Two of the largest trees were within a foot of the rock/stone wall and only a few feet from the pool. The dozers had already taken three trees down they weren’t approved to remove which used to be beside the white birch in the photo.

Horrified, I called the builder on his cell phone and told him that was NOT what we had agreed to when we met with the Planning Board —it was not even close. I told him, per our agreement, okayed by the Planning Board, he would have to move his road further out, because he was NOT approved to make his cut that close to the existing stone/rock wall.

(By already taking out the three wrongly marked trees, and more that were planned, it was obvious he would take part of the stone wall, too). His plans would make the 25′ cut down to his road within a foot of the rock/stone wall —we would have a 25′ drop off (a cliff) there? I had eleven grandchildren that also swam in our pool!

He said, “Plans change. The additional feet of moving the road further out would make it cost prohibitive. Get over it, lady. The road is going in where I say it’s going in.”

I told the builder we were going back in front of the Town Planning Board and let them decide. We would leave it to them to make the determination, because there was no way my husband and I would allow the builder to take even more than the 150′ easement just on his say-so.

He said the Planning Board wasn’t going to be meeting for another three weeks and he didn’t have time to take shit like this from me —he had a job to do and the equipment was already there. Then he hung up on me.

Now I was pissed. I went inside, got a rifle, loaded it, and planted myself on the rock/stone wall behind our pool and I waited with the rifle laying across my lap.

When the drivers came back, I told them to get off our property or I would shoot. They complained and I told them to go call their arrogant employer and tell him I was going to sit right where I was until the Planning Board met and I didn’t care how long it took.

I’m normally an introvert, but I said it with all the bravado I could muster. (Oh boy, I was thinking. The police will be here any minute and I’m going to be in so much trouble …)

No police ever came and when the builder called the Planning Board to complain, they put an immediate hold on the whole project. They decided to convene and review both sides of the agreement again in two days’ time.

The Planning Board heard both sides and the arrogant bully was forced to move his road further out.

Satisfying … oh yes, it was very satisfying.

The defendant was guilty. The mountain of evidence against him was the size of Everest. He was a white-collar criminal — an educated professional with a high six-figure income who apparently believed the criminal laws only applied to the “little people.”

He refused to hire a lawyer to conduct his defense, although he had been charged with a major felony, and insisted on representing himself. He expected to succeed. From what I saw of the guy, it looked like he was so accustomed to always having people kowtow to him and getting his own way, it never occurred to him that his experience in a federal courthouse might be different.

The guy adopted a defense strategy of trying to bully the judge into dismissing the case.

For more than a month, he was the most belligerent, obnoxious, uncooperative defendant imaginable. The only reason he didn’t get thrown into jail for contempt of court was because his case had been assigned to the nicest, most patient judge in the courthouse.

The defendant had also made several requests to have his case transferred to a different judge.

Although judges rarely reward obnoxious defendants by granting their motions to have the case transferred to a different judge, the nice judge decided to make an exception in this defendant’s case. She “rewarded” the defendant’s bad behavior by granting his motion and intentionally transferring the case to the toughest judge in the courthouse.

Shortly thereafter, the defendant received a lesson in some of the strategies no-nonsense judges use to deal with defendants who try to turn the courtroom into a three-ring circus. The guy sat like a statue through most of his first hearing with the tough judge and then decided to hire a lawyer.

Moral of the story: Be careful what you ask for. You may get it.

My parents did not have a good marriage. My father was cold, distant and absent. My mother was a stereotypical 90s Indian wife who served food to him and picked up after him. They didn’t communicate, didn’t understand each other. My father outbursts would often result in throwing plates across the room while my mother cleaned every bit of food off the floor without saying a word. Later, she confided in me that she was scared. She didn’t want him to cross boundaries and hit her. Keeping silence was her plea. Needless to say, I grew up with very distorted sense of marriage.

I jumped from one relationship to another all my life. When things got tough I moved to another until I met my husband. My husband is an American and grew up in Texas. We were in a long distance relationship for 4–5 years until we decided to get married. In the beginning of our relationship, I was skeptical. When I realized I had feelings for him, I did what I know best. I started to push him away but he stayed. Regardless of being in a long distance relationship I never had to second guess his feelings. He was always there, emotionally if not physically.

Once we got married, I kept waiting for the marriage to crash and burn, kept waiting for the pain to return which I’m so used to, but it never happened. He made sure of it. My husband did everything he could to make me feel comfortable in the new country. He even learnt to cook Indian food so I don’t feel home sick. Being in a new country where I knew no one, isolated and away from friends and family took a toll on me. I have been dealing with depression and severe anxiety for years but he stood by me through it all. He accepted me for who I am without trying to change anything about me. Every time we had an argument, I waited to see glimpse of my father in him but he proved me wrong each time.

I always thought that marriage makes one miserable. I once found a poem written by my father dedicated to my mother. I couldn’t believe it. I had to ask my mother several times to be sure because they were never happy, never in love, as long as I could remember. That was the perception of marriage I grew up with until this beautiful man walked in my life and changed it forever. I’m still haunted by the dysfunctional marriage my parents had but then I look at him and know everything will be okay.

Great stuff. Enjoy this one.

Something rarely noticed and thus rarely discussed

My Great Aunt Dottie was actually my Great Uncle Garrison. He was never invited to any family events and when they’d ask my Great Aunt Remi (Dottie’s sister) where “Gary” was (Dottie hated that name with a vengeance) it was always with darting eyes and hushed voices making sure the children didn’t hear, Remi would answer, “he’s dead and you damned well know it.” It wasn’t until I was in high-school and had a friend who had two dads that my mom quipped one day while she was doing the dishes “You know your Great Aunt Dottie was a man, right?” and I was dumbfounded, I loved Great Aunt Dottie, I would ride my bike over to her house all the time and have tea and cookies and the most amazing monkey meat sandwiches ever and she would teach me how to cross stitch and how to plan a fifteen course meal. It was Great Aunt Dottie that taught me how to waltz and roller skate and how to shoot a bow and arrow. I actually loved my Great Aunt Dottie more after I found out that she chose her own happiness over her family and was one of only three members of my family to attend her funeral. But looking back I wonder if I always kind of knew, she had a husky voice, an always present five o clock shadow and scratched her balls like a true man.

Why We’re Leaving The United States

Escalatory Delusions

Most men can remember back to a time on the schoolyard when two kids got into a confrontation and one of them kept promising to do something bad to the other if the other did not stop whatever it was he was doing. The threat of consequences was supposed to deter the other, but the other kid was undeterred, and the result was a fight, with the kid making the threats getting the worst of it. Bullies often come to a bad end like this as their bullying is based on threats.

If you are a member of the managerial elite, it is unlikely that you have such a memory as you were raised by women, so no school yard fights. As a result, the logic of the bully, issuing escalatory threats, makes perfect sense. After all, if you can conjure something worse than the other guy is conjuring, then you win! Therefore, success is determined by who has the greatest mastery of escalatory dominance, the alleged ability to escalate a conflict beyond that of an opponent.

This is the engine that has been driving the war in Ukraine. For close to a decade the Russians have objected to what Washington has been doing on its border in Ukraine, but Washington has responded with the promise of more of what the Russians found objectionable, rather than search for a compromise. Once the Russians crossed into Ukraine, Washington unleashed the sanctions war and promised even more punishments, including the promise of regime change.

Throughout the war, the approach from Washington has been to create some artificial red line for themselves or Russia, and then cross it in such a way as to suggest all future red lines will be crossed. Currently NATO is having a debate about launching long range missile attacks on Russia, from NATO countries or with NATO personnel, while pretending it is being done by Ukraine. This is the bully threatening the kid who refuses to back down with somet

As a kid I was friends with these 3 girls, who were sisters and one night their parents allowed me to have a sleepover at their house so when it came to bedtime the parents allowed me and one sister to sleep in their bed until the parents came up and moved us to my friend’s bed. At the time I didn’t understand why, maybe that’s how bedtime was in their house, anyway the light was on in the room so it stopped me from falling asleep, I was too soft to turn it off incase I got into trouble or it woke up my friend who clearly could sleep with the light on. Then I heard footsteps coming upstairs so I had to pretend to be asleep. The parents came into the room, one of them picked me up and put me in one of the girls beds, the other picking up their daughter and putting her next to me. The light wasn’t on in there but the hall light was on which was fine, so I thought ‘finally I can go to sleep now!’ As I was just about to head into dreamland I hear moaning and the bed squeaking coming from the parents bedroom!!!! 🤣🤣 I was 9 years old so I knew what they were doing and I had to wait till it was quiet until I finally got some sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t tell anyone what I heard or that I was awake the whole time, it would’ve been an awkward conversation to have so I tried to forget about it. 😬

hing worse than backing down.

Unreported in the West, Ukraine has been using Western supplied drones to attack early warning radar stations in southern Russia. These are part of Russia’s nuclear defense system. They play no role in the Ukraine war, but Ukraine’s handlers are having them do this as a form of escalatory dominance. The point is to signal to the Russians that the West is not afraid of nuclear war. The madness of this is obvious, but to a great degree that is the point, to seem mad.

We see a similar thing shaping up with China. Washington is going out of its way to provoke China over the issue of Taiwan. Various officials have been sent to the island for no other reason than to antagonize the Chinese. A big package of weapons has been shipped to Taiwan and Washington has increased the number of military personnel on the island. Washington regularly talks about how it is actively preparing for a war with the Chinese over the issue of Taiwan.

A great example of how the concept of escalatory dominance controls how American ruling elites deal with the world is the last trip by Anthony Blinken to China in which he went out of his way to insult the Chinese. The State Department insisted on Blinken visiting China, where he held meetings with Chinese leaders. He then went out of those meetings and threatened them with sanctions. This was done to let the Chinese know that there is no red line Washington will not cross.

This is not just a foreign policy strategy. The reason Trump is waiting to hear a guilty verdict is the regime has always assumed that if they cross enough red lines with regards to the rule of law, Trump or his supporters will fold. For going on four years, it has been ever increasing violence against both the rule of law and the customs that have controlled our politics. The point of each new escalation is to warn that there is no limit to what they will do unless you obey.

It is the unquestioned assumption in Washington that there is always some threat they can issue that is so terrifying that the other side will back down that has led them into a crisis for the regime. Half the country now thinks the courts are corrupt beyond reform thanks to the lawfare unleashed by the regime. We are remarkably close to the point where a majority of Americans think we are ruled by lawless gangsters, which even in easy times is an impossible state of affairs.

The crisis gripping the West is due, in large part, to the fact that the system now selects boys and girls with no practical knowledge. Never having had their bluff called and walking away with a bloody nose or a black eye, they just assume such a thing is impossible, so they are free to escalate their threats. It is not so much that their threats work, but that they ought to work. In the artificial reality in which these people live, the ought is the same as the is.

The Trump trial is a good bit of foreshadowing for how this widely held delusion about escalatory dominance will end. At some point, the bluff is called, and the bluffer has to either follow through or their raison d’etre evaporates. This is the story of the bully who finally has to fight and gets beaten. It is not the beating that ends his reign as a bully, but the fact that someone stood up to him. This is what is happening with the lawfare against Trump, who has called their bluff.

Unlike the schoolyard, the end of a regime that relies on escalatory dominance is not so simple and tidy. The regime now has to hope the Trump trial ends in a hung jury so they can maintain their stance. An acquittal has them looking like fools and a guilty verdict has them in a crisis far worse than Trump winning the election. Soon, the bluff will be called over Ukraine and Taiwan. Once this happens, the regime has no answer other than the unthinkable.

Pepe Escobar: Xi & Putin’s Move Pushed NATO Into CHAOS! Who Is Win?

  1. When someone hugs you, you should not be first to break it.
  2. Remove your sunglasses when you have to speak to someone.
  3. Irrespective of your closeness, do not ask your friends and room mates for their clothes, shoes and accessories. Those are ‘ personal belongings‘
  4. Do not order expensive stuff when you are sharing or the other person is paying the bill.
  5. Don’t make ola / uber driver wait for you. Time is literally money for them.
  6. If you borrow someone else’s novel/ books, do not mark anything in them. Return them in a good condition and within acceptable time.
  7. Compliment people when you notice their extra efforts in something.
  8. If any child touched you and asked(begged) for money don’t give a dirty look at them and run two steps back. Give, if you want to or say no. That’s it.
  9. Wave your hand rather than calling his or her name in a louder pitch if someone is wearing headphones.
  10. Praise publicly. Criticise privately.
  11. Be quiet when other people are asleep. That means more than not talking — not slamming doors, drawers, etc.
  12. Avoid finishing other people’s sentences and cutting them off
  13. If you get a missed call, remember to call them back. Or at least drop a message.

Pot Roast with Dilled Sour Cream Gravy

SlowCookerPotRoast 3
SlowCookerPotRoast 3

Ingredients

  • 1 (3 pound) chuck or pot roast
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon dill weed
  • 5 or 6 small potatoes
  • 5 or 6 carrots
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon dill seed
DilledPotRoastPin
DilledPotRoastPin
SlowCookerPotRoastFB1
SlowCookerPotRoastFB1
SlowCookerPotRoast
SlowCookerPotRoast

Instructions

  1. Coat roast with flour, salt and pepper.
  2. Brown in oil in skillet.
  3. Put roast in slow cooker, then add water and vinegar.
  4. Sprinkle dill weed over meat, then add potatoes, carrots, onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  5. Cook on LOW for 10 to 12 hours or on HIGH for 6 hours.
  6. To make gravy, pour off 3 tablespoons drippings, add flour and heat.
  7. Measure rest of drippings, add water to make 1 cup.
  8. Add to flour mixture and heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  9. Add 1 cup sour cream and dill seed.
  10. Heat to boiling.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard pretending to be asleep?

As a kid I was friends with these 3 girls, who were sisters and one night their parents allowed me to have a sleepover at their house so when it came to bedtime the parents allowed me and one sister to sleep in their bed until the parents came up and moved us to my friend’s bed. At the time I didn’t understand why, maybe that’s how bedtime was in their house, anyway the light was on in the room so it stopped me from falling asleep, I was too soft to turn it off incase I got into trouble or it woke up my friend who clearly could sleep with the light on. Then I heard footsteps coming upstairs so I had to pretend to be asleep. The parents came into the room, one of them picked me up and put me in one of the girls beds, the other picking up their daughter and putting her next to me. The light wasn’t on in there but the hall light was on which was fine, so I thought ‘finally I can go to sleep now!’ As I was just about to head into dreamland I hear moaning and the bed squeaking coming from the parents bedroom!!!! 🤣🤣 I was 9 years old so I knew what they were doing and I had to wait till it was quiet until I finally got some sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t tell anyone what I heard or that I was awake the whole time, it would’ve been an awkward conversation to have so I tried to forget about it. 😬

The Dating Market isn’t Looking Too Hot ….

Not a doctor or a nurse, just a friend of a couple. She is elf pale, blonde hair so light it’s almost white, pale blue eyes and nary a freckle to be seen. He is (no offense to anyone) coal black. When the baby was born she looked like she should have been wearing a sombrero with a taco in her hand singing La Cucaracha. (still, no offense intended to anyone, just setting the scene) the doctor and the nurse were both speechless. I was there, I was taking the video. The doctor was hesitant to hand the baby to my friends husband and they both thought something was wrong with the baby. The nurse went from being sweet to being a total bitch to my friend. When he left the room to go tell his family that is was a girl, the nurse made a comment to the doctor about how they never see any wholesome god-fearing families anymore. My friend lost it; it technically wasn’t even her baby, she was just a surrogate. The man in the room with her? He wasn’t even the father, just a friend that was gracious enough to be her coach. She was carrying the baby for another friend of ours and her husband.

The UnXplained: TOP 5 SHOCKING MYSTERIES OF 2023 | PART 1

I really enjoyed this video. I think that youse guys will too.

Disclaimer: I’m a Thai of Chinese descent living in a tourism hub of Chiang Mai, speak a little Mandarin and had actually been to China as well, so may I offer my humble 2 cents. I don’t want fellow Chinese quorans to be too stoked or offended by this kind of question. If my answer offends anyone, I apologize in advance. I also apologize for my fellow citizens as well. After all, our economy relies on tourism a lot, please come and visit us! At least this Thai welcome everyone to visit my country with open arms! I say this as a Thai who have traveled to almost all inhabited continents on Earth. 😊

There were lots of direct flights from China to Chiang Mai pre-Covid, even to lesser known cities like Changsha. Influenced by a 2012 Chinese blockbuster “Lost in Thailand” (泰囧) which heavily featured Chiang Mai, the city became hugely popular among Chinese visitors. Back then, Chinese tourists tended to exhibit a not-so-impressive manners. For example, in Chiang Mai University, Chinese tourists used to roamed free inside the campus and took photos of classes in session (many faculty members were really tired of this). This prompted the university to disallow tourists inside the campus, and directed them to the university’s official guided tour instead.

However, post-Covid, Chinese tourists nowadays are no longer loud and rude like before. Yes, there would still be some bad sheep in the flock, but the overall trend manner-wise went for the better. Back when China was poorer, Chinese tourists indeed had bad reputation. However, as time goes, I did notice a better trend of manners among the Chinese tourists. I dare say they are pretty much on par with Koreans and Japanese nowadays manner-wise. Nonetheless, I won’t deny that there are some racism bias towards mainlanders among a portion of our citizens (which is quite an irony because 1/6 of Thai population are of Chinese descent). Also, since China is a much larger country than Korea and Japan, there are just a lot of Chinese setting up shops (100% owned) in several touristic hubs like Bangkok, Chiang Mai, or Phuket. And as some answers also mentioned, such shops only cater to Chinese customers and Chinese tourists have higher tendencies to visit Chinese-owned shops compared to Thai ones. Thai people’s concerns on Chinese tourists is mainly about the circulation of tourism money in Chinese-owned business nowadays rather than the manners. I don’t have problems with Chinese setting up shops here, but please also spend some money and contribute to the place you are visiting too. 😊 This would greatly improve our perception towards Chinese tourists a great deal.

I would like to share my own experience as well regarding the Chinese tourist’s manner. In 2013, I went to Mongolia (part of a train trip from Mongolia to China and then onto North Korea) and met a Chinese couple in our tour group. They really shattered my prejudice of “Chinese tourists are loud and rude”. They were so kind and very well-mannered, and when my train arrived in Beijing, they offered me a treat at a Peking Duck restaurant in Haidian District and then took me (and some Westerners who were in the same group back in Mongolia) to have some “rou chuanr” with “Jia duo bao” herbal drink! I still remembered it to this day.

Again, I would like to just tell the situation as it is without putting in prejudices or biases. It would be better if we treat each culture with respect and understanding.

Professor Studied NDE’s For 30 Years; What She Discovers Is Incredible (Near Death Experiences)

As a leader in the photovoltaic industry, China dominates the industrial and supply chains, currently producing over 90% of the world’s polysilicon, 98% of solar-grade silicon wafers, over 85% of solar cells, and over 80% of photovoltaic modules. It is projected that by 2025, China’s global share in polysilicon and silicon wafer production will reach 95%, making the world highly dependent on China’s photovoltaic products.

Not only does China have massive production capacity, but its photovoltaic technology is also extremely advanced. The latest solar cells have achieved a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 33.9%, far exceeding the 5% capability of plants. Additionally, Chinese photovoltaic products are highly competitive in price, with a 99% decrease in cost over the past 20 years, currently priced at around 0.8 yuan per watt. Furthermore, Chinese photovoltaic modules have a long service life and can maintain 80% of their power generation efficiency after 25 years of use.

As China’s photovoltaic technology rapidly advances, old photovoltaic modules, although long-lasting, have lower performance and are difficult to circulate and dispose of domestically. However, in poor countries with inadequate grid coverage, such as Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, these second-hand photovoltaic panels are in high demand. In these regions, lacking basic infrastructure, the living conditions of the population are extremely poor, often without access to basic lighting or phone charging facilities. China’s used photovoltaic panels, with their low prices, can provide basic electricity to rural households, improving their quality of life and being regarded as high-tech products.

South Africa witnessed a significant increase in imports of photovoltaic panels and energy storage batteries in 2022-2023, with not only rural but also urban residents purchasing these systems to overcome unstable grid issues. Gaza has the highest density of photovoltaic panel installations globally, as the local grid has been destroyed, leaving the population reliant on photovoltaic panels for electricity.

In summary, China’s discarded second-hand photovoltaic panels, at extremely low prices, have benefited many impoverished areas around the world, providing electricity to billions of rural households without access to power, lifting them out of darkness, and enabling them to enjoy the conveniences of electricity. This reflects China’s philosophy of utilizing technology to assist and support underprivileged groups, in stark contrast to some countries that exploit and oppress the weak.

Oh this is hilarious.

The USA offered a gigantic bribe to Marcos to turn them into a missile base.

Marcos says yes allows US to build missile facilities.

Marcos asks where his money is.

US says what money?

you believed me?
you believed me?

Many Hong Kong restaurants demand money UP FRONT.

CHINA BUILDING 3nm CHIPS – biden makes failing look easy…

In college as a rookie on the SAE Baja team, I was tasked with tearing down one of our old engines and doing a simple top end rebuild. There wasn’t anything wrong with the engine, it was just a spare one and this was a way for new team members to gain familiarity with part numbers, torque specs, and other things like that. We used a brand new engine for each year’s competition car.

Upon removing the head from the 10 HP Briggs & Stratton, something odd caught my eye. There was raised material on the face of the piston partly obscured by carbon. Brushing it away revealed threads and part of hex head! This engine had somehow ingested a stray 1/4″–20 screw which became embedded into the top of the piston, and then just kept running like nothing had happened. It was potentially like that for a whole year worth of test runs and competitions, possibly even longer.

The fastener was laying there sideways but extremely fused to the piston and could not be removed without destroying it. We simply ground down the portions that were sticking up to recreate a flush surface, reinstalled everything, and called it a day. It continued to run just fine.

– – –

A couple years ago my father in law asked me to help fix up his riding lawnmower, powered by another Briggs & Stratton engine. This was a two cylinder vertical shaft of maybe 18 or 20-some horsepower, I don’t recall exactly. His complaint was that it was “a little down on power” but still cut the grass fine. It just struggled a little bit going up steep hills or cutting through extra-thick grass if he let it grow too tall, and occasionally it let out puffs of dark smoke. He mowed with it like that all summer, bagged leaves with it like that in the fall, and when it was finally done for the season I met up with him to look the thing over.

Expecting a 30-minute carb cleaning or a fouled spark plug I got to work, but found everything spotless. With no signs of any issues with the electrical components either, I moved on to a more serious investigation. Tearing into this engine began with a crankcase cover on the top. With this removed we could look down along the axis of the crankshaft to inspect for any catastrophic bottom end damage. Everything appeared fine but there was a thin metal rod in kind of a weird place tucked behind the crank counterweight. It had a few bends in the middle of it for clearance and the two ends disappeared into the oil bath and up into the block somewhere. I figured it had to be part of the governor system so I left it in place and moved on.

Removing the valve covers, I found the first head looking as it should. The second, however, revealed the culprit: a totally missing pushrod! It was just gone! That would explain the lack of power. One valve on that cylinder is never opening so it’s never accomplishing a power cycle. It’d only been running on one cylinder all year. But then the unavoidable question was, “where did the pushrod go?”

I eventually put two and two together and realized that strange governor-rod-thing was actually the missing pushrod. It had somehow gotten dislodged from its place and fell down into the crankcase. The clearance bends were not manufactured, they were suffered from the crankshaft smashing into it as it bounced around in there until everything was able to self-clearance. Despite being completely down one cylinder and choking on its own guts, this V-twin still performed so well that its shortcomings were nothing more than an inconvenience to be dealt with on the off-season.

I’d always heard Briggs built some tough ass machines but these experiences really solidified that for me.

Vintage and illustration

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US/NATO escalation to strike Russia

Wife’s Plan To Divorce Me For Wealthy Lover BACKFIRES When I Get Out Of Alimony And She Gets Dumped!

Shorpy

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All of the following munitions rely on GPS and have a problem with terminal guidance anywhere near the Russian front line, due to ubiquitous Russian GPS jamming:

  • JDAM (air launched 500 pound GPS-guided bombs — 90% of what the USAF and USN drop)
  • SDB (replacement for JDAM)
  • GLSDB (an SDB mounted on a missile that can be shot from a HIMARS)
  • M30 (90 km range rocket fired from HIMARS, deploys cluster munitions)
  • M31 (90 km range rocket fired from HIMARS, 91 kg warhead)

The problem is not confined to US products. Ukrainian-built FPV drones which do not use GPS are also getting jammed by the Russians. I spoke to a guy who is responsible for about 15% of Ukraine’s drone production, and he dismissed any talk of GPS and said it’s gone. In and around the front line, that may be true, but there are caveats.

Background: GPS relies on a network of satellites with 44.8 watt transmitters 20,000 miles up. The signal (-125 dBm) is substantially weaker than the background radio hiss that’s everywhere (-110 dBm), and uses a lot (43 dB) of something called coding gain to be detectable and usable. When GPS devices take a while to acquire the signal, what they are doing is synchronizing their internal code to the satellite’s code. Once the two are synchronized, they can hear the satellite, until then, it’s just more hiss. The process of synchronization is basically trying every possible time alignment until one works.

Before the first GPS satellite was launched in 1978, the designers already knew that GPS could be jammed [1]. Just hit the receiver with -82 dBm of radio hiss and it’ll never hear the satellite. A 1000 watt ground-based transmitter can blank out naive GPS receivers for 560 km.

And, before the first GPS satellite was launched, the designers knew of many clever ways to reduce the effect of jamming. One of them, however, is a massive hammer: controlled reception pattern arrays (CRPA). You use an array of GPS antennas and combine the signals together in a way that causes the jamming signals to cancel. So long as the jammer isn’t coming from the same direction as the GPS satellites, this works really, really well.

Here’s a CRPA from a May 2000 report [2]:

1 panel
1 panel

Arrays like this can act a bit like a bigger antenna with a diameter the size of the entire array. That’s nice, you get a bit more signal from the antenna. Cancellation works far better. Let me demonstrate.

2 graph
2 graph

Here is the result of just two omnidirectional antenna elements added together. The Y direction is dB of gain from combining the antennas. The X axis is degrees between the “null” direction and the actual direction of the signal source. You can see that at right angles (90 degrees) to the null, two antennas pick up twice as much power as just one, which is +3 dB of gain. That’s nice, we’ll take it. It’s a big fat lobe. If that’s off by 40 degrees you still get half the benefit, and the benefit isn’t amazing to start with.

But look at that deep, sharp null. If you can get it aligned to one degree, you can knock the jammer down by 35 dB. In practice, CRPAs achieve 50 dB because they very quickly and very precisely line up the phase delays from the antennas to knock out the jammer.

If the jammer against a CRPA wants to work as well as it did against a naive receiver, it’ll need 50 dB more power. dB is a logarithmic scale: That’s 10,000x as much power. So that 1000 watt jammer now needs to push 10 million watts. This is… possible… but any such thing is going to be a major installation and will get a visit from a HARM missile and thereafter many JDAMs.

Today you can buy CRPAs from a variety of manufacturers, all outside the United States. Tualcom, a Turkish company, sells 8-channel CRPAs. They’ve sold 2500 of them to Iran for use on… drones. Yep. Did you know that Turkiye is a NATO ally?

These aren’t going to be on Shaheds, or not many of them anyway, because a CRPA costs about $20k or more. (Please let me know if there are cheaper units.) That’s because there’s no commercial market for CRPAs, as the primary civil defense against GPS jamming is litigation. Even though the electronics are actually simpler than what’s in your cell phone, they are built in low volume of many discrete parts, and in the US they are built by folks like Raytheon.

I would hope that every western military jet has a CRPA, but somehow I doubt it.

The HIMARS-launched 90-km range M31s are having accuracy trouble but the HIMARS-launched 300-km range M57 ATACMS missiles are not. In both cases the missiles can probably use inertial guidance from launch to impact, since that’s less than 7 minutes. But they’ll need an accurate initial position and target position.

The accurate target position can probably be found from military maps. FYI, you probably cannot get accurate target positions from Google Maps — I used to work there, and they don’t want you doing that, and they probably fuzz the locations enough to screw up this use.

The accurate initial position and initial GPS acquisition for the missile would come from the launcher’s GPS antenna. This suggests to me that the HIMARS truck is getting jammed when too close to the Russian front line, probably anywhere within 50 km. And THAT tells me that HIMARS doesn’t have a CRPA. (Update: see below, it has an FRPA, which means fixed pattern. I don’t know the pattern, but as it doesn’t articulate the nulls won’t line up exactly with a jammer and as you can see above, they need to line up well to get good jamming.)

main qimg 5d18026abadbd730e65d839862884227
main qimg 5d18026abadbd730e65d839862884227

Neither does JDAM, apparently. And I’m guessing SDB doesn’t either, which went into production in 2005.

This is a stupid problem to have. A half-dozen ASIC engineers and $5m could fix it.

China Just Scored A KNOCK OUT Blow To The U.S. Economy And War Is Coming

Chances are near zero.

And for all of those. The reason is something that you may not know.

China is not a signatory to the START treaty. This limits deployed nuclear weapons to around 1,500 warheads. China likely has more than both Russia and the US combined. Despite what you hear in the MSM about China having only 300 warheads, that is an outright lie.

The original estimate came from the Federation of American Scientists in the 80s. In their estimate they stated that they had no idea how many nuclear weapons the Chinese had. So they decided to use electricity generation as some kind of measure.

What does electricity generation have to do with how many nuclear weapons a nation has? Nothing. The Soviets did not have that much electrical generation and yet has more nuclear weapons than the US. So they finished their study saying that China could have 3,000 or 5,000. They had no idea.

The next thing you should know is that these Senators, Congressman, and President of the US is that they spent generations gaining wealth and power. When was the last time you heard Bill Gates or any other billionaire pulled a knife and went toe to toe with another guy with a knife? Never. And you never will.

Even if the US loses a war by attacking China and the US loses 7 carrier battle groups. Do you think Bill Gates or any other billionaire would chose to vaporize their family to take revenge on one of their body guards being killed? Or even all of them? No.

And it’s even more impossible for the politicians to do so because China has more deployed nuclear weapons than the US and Russia. Starting a nuclear war would mean that the US would get at least a double dose of nukes. One from China and one from Russia.

Those selfish people that have spent decades stealing from the US tax payers are going to vaporize their families, wealth, and power for you, a peon? Don’t make me laugh.

The only time nukes would be used is if China nuked the US first or if the US thought it could get away with it without getting nuked back.

Pecos River Red Fritos Pie

dsc05716
dsc05716

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 large onion, chopped coarsely
  • 3 pounds coarsely ground beef
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 tablespoons ground hot red chile peppers
  • 2 tablespoons ground mild red chile peppers
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • Corn chips
  • Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
  • Shredded Cheddar cheese

Instructions

  1. Combine onion, ground beef, garlic, chiles and water in slow cooker.
  2. Cover. Cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.
  3. Drain.
  4. Serve over corn chips.
  5. Top with mixture of Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese.

Son’s friend stayed overnight. The next morning I’m making breakfast for everyone. Son likes poached eggs. I make them. Friend asks if I can make them like that all the time. I explain how to poach an egg. That night I get a phone call from a strange number and a man asks if I’m looking for a job. He needs a cook. In his father’s house. The father is picky about his breakfast and he heard I can poach eggs. I explain that all cooks can poach eggs. Eventually I am hired to cook 3 meals a day for his elderly parents. I have to plan menus for the week and prepare breakfast to order. Hot lunch and a dinner plate to be reheated for dinner. I wash the dishes but all other cleaning is done by the maid. Amazing kitchen. Eventually they tried to give me the old guys Cadillac because he stopped driving and they wanted to “save me using my car to drive to their house.” It was probably the best job I ever had. Not the money or the benefits. They were family. They treated me like family in the best way.

DANGER: UNSTABLE GROUND

Submitted into Contest #247 in response to: Imagine a world where exploration is forbidden, and write a story about a character who defies this rule to satisfy their innate curiosity...

This is a new addition that I am considering to my daily posts. Here I include some contemporaneous SF (short story) for the reader to enjoy. -MM
Do not ever step foot on the ground. Charlie had been told this his entire life, but it never really sunk in. He didn’t understand the deep-seated fear everyone else seemed to harbor. He thought it was incredible, a beautiful problem to be solved. Until he was laying on the floor of the lab staring at the ceiling and blinking away tears.The first time Charlie ever saw the ground consume a person he’d been twelve. What the tree-top teachers referred to as “live mummification” was a quick, disturbing process. Dirt crawling over skin to create a sort of exoskeleton. A casting of the human body, like those papier-mâché spheres they’d made in class years ago. It’d been an elderly lady that first time. The pulley system keeping her safe had malfunctioned and she’d lurched off balance. It was a code yellow bridge and wasn’t fully enclosed. The old lady stumbled to the side and was pulled right over the edge. Charlie caught only the first flash of the swarming ground on her skin before his mom had ushered him away. As the crowd around them shrieked and cried, Charlie craned his neck for a better look.He’d liked to have claimed this moment as the catalyst for his obsession, but really that had occurred years ago. It was maybe a few days after his seventh birthday, and he was crossing that old rope bridge by his house. It’s been built in a rush by early survivors trying to escape their houses for supplies. He was not supposed to be on it, but that had only made him more intent on using it.One of the rotten wood planks had splintered under his front foot and sent him toppling forward. It was only due to some notion of luck that his hips didn’t fit through the empty space and his arms had gotten tangled in the ropes. His leg hung down, exposed, ten feet off the ground. And then his new shoe, a size too big so he could grow into it, slipped off his foot. It landed on the dusty ground and tipped over sideways. Charlie’s breath caught in his chest, but nothing happened. The shiny shoe glistened under the sun. He wanted desperately to stick his finger in that restless dirt, just to see what would happen. He stayed put for way longer than was logical just in case, but the ground remained flat and lifeless. The shoe was not alive.

 

The second time he saw someone be consumed by the ground he was 18 and on the verge of declaring a major in Microbiology, specializing in the study of those tiny organisms that made the ground hungry. This time the fall had not been an accident. He’d been crossing a major intersection of bridges when a commotion piqued his curiosity. A young woman who looked barely older than him had crawled out onto the roof of a one-story house where no one would risk following. Her auburn hair floated in the wind. People crowded against the railings to watch her. A few kind souls called out things like “You don’t have to do this!” and “Things will get better!” but the girl ignored them. She stared straight ahead and stepped off the roof. For a millisecond it was as if she was walking in the air, and then she plummeted to the ground and landed with a heavy thump. Immediately the soil surged up to meet her. She didn’t make a sound as it closed over her. Charlie came back every day for two weeks to observe the hardened cocoon. Inside, he knew that the body was being decomposed, drained away. The microorganisms in the dirt would suck the nutrients from her. Then the cast would collapse in on itself and the ground would smooth over once again.

 

It wasn’t surprising that these events would have a lasting effect on him. The unexpected part was the nature of the effect. Where others would shy away and realize how dangerous the ground was, Charlie felt himself drawn to it. He wanted to understand the little beasts that terrorized his people. So, it was inevitable, really, that he’d want to see this forbidden phenomenon again.

 

The lab he was assigned to was on the upper floor of a university no longer in use. The building was old, made of even gray bricks. He had to duck through the fifth-floor window that had been fashioned into an entrance to get in. The walls were off-white, and the floors were so stable it made him feel somewhat unbalanced. His feet, used to the bridges and tree-top platforms, weren’t accustomed to the solidity. The equipment in the lab was well maintained: microscopes, autoclaves, incubators, centrifuges. He felt like a child in a room full of new toys. On one side of the room, where a balcony had once been, a ramp had been fixed that led down to the ground. The space before it was taken up by a deoxygenation chamber used briefly to asphyxiate any rogue organisms.

 

Charlie was integrated into a group that exclusively studied the microorganisms in the ground called Vitae Suffocent. Life suckers. The study was relatively new, they’d only recently worked with engineering to create a protective suit. Before then, the scientists would lean out the window with a cup fastened to a long pole and scoop up a small bit of the dirt. With the help of the suits, they had been able to set up a secure mock habitat to observe the specimens’ behavior.

 

The group was small, a handful of young students of which he was one, along with six seasoned scientists. For the first time, Charlie found himself surrounded by people who were just as interested in the ground as he was. The obsession that had set him apart from other kids in school was now reflected all around him. There was a girl who’d started at the same time as him- Tori. She was short and had thin black hair chopped short around her ears. Because they were new, they were often assigned projects to work on together. He wasn’t sure if he liked her, but it didn’t matter much.

There was an ongoing experiment that needed a fresh test subject, someone to stick a finger into the Life Sucker habitat. Charlie volunteered immediately, exhilarated by the idea of being able to touch the ground. He pictured it being magical, a borderline religious experiment. He worked himself up over it for days, so that when it was finally time he was almost bursting with excitement.

 

The scientists heading the experiment placed him in the deoxygenation chamber with the container. Around him, they gathered clipboards, pencils poised to jot down any and all details. His forefinger was swiped clean with an alcohol wipe that made the skin feel dry. Tori unlocked the circular compartment in the top of the container. Slowly, breathlessly, Charlie lowered his hand into the habitat. The tip of his finger brushed the dirt. It was soft and damp as he pressed the finger down. Charlie blinked and the soil began to stir. It tickled the pad of his finger. He watched in fascination as the hidden organisms began to climb up his skin. It was a strange sensation. The soil was cool and light, it felt more like a caress than a smothering.

 

Tori clicked the stopwatch in her hand and began to count aloud. By the time she reached seven, the organisms were up to his wrist. He withdrew his hand. The seal on the opening caught most of the dirt and held it back, to the irritation of the organisms. He held his hand away from him, not trusting it. Tori latched the contained shut quickly. Someone on the outside of the chamber switched it on. They held their breaths as the oxygen rapidly drained from the room. A loud whirring assaulted Charlie’s ears. His chest tightened. For a minute they all felt like they were suffocating, then it abruptly stopped and the doors to the lab popped open. Oxygen flooded back in. Charlie sucked in a deep breath.

 

He examined his hand. It was tingling and covered in little red blotches, but otherwise, he was fine. No damage had ever been recorded from less than ten seconds of exposure. Charlie glanced at the other set of doors over his shoulder. The ones that opened onto the ramp that led down to the ground. He longed to go through them, wanted to dig his hands in the ground and laugh as the organisms consumed him. He turned and walked back into the lab.

 

A month later he was given a protective suit and given the chance to wear it for the first time. He and Tori had been assigned to walk, outside, to a big oak tree and back. Charlie was thrilled. He stepped into the suit and pulled it up over his arms. A tech zipped him in and checked him over. The suit was a stiff layer of slick rubber designed to lack tread so the organisms wouldn’t be able to climb against gravity. The boots they were given were thick and clunky. They were tall, reaching up to his knees like a pair of extra-long rain boots. A device attached to the top of the boot sent out vibrations that they’d found would deter the organisms. The hood of the suit came up over his head and the visor was clicked into place. He saw the world through a glass partition.

 

Then they were in the chamber and the doors behind them were closing. It was midday and the sun was shining. A breeze spirited a few brown leaves past the glass. The doors to the ramp opened. Charlie stepped out first. His heart pounded in his chest. It was right there, the ground. He walked quickly down the ramp, Tori following behind him at a more reserved pace. He paused at the end of it. The dirt was disturbed, as it always was when the organisms were present. It looked almost fluffy.

 

Charlie took a deep breath and lifted one foot. He lowered it slowly to the ground, enjoying the crunch of soil underfoot. He leaned his weight forward, ready to take another step, but paused. The ground was shaking around his boot, pulsing in strange waves. It was trying to climb up his boot, he realized. He tried to pick up the foot but felt resistance. The ground clung to his boot, pulling him back down. Charlie watched, entranced. He continued to pry his foot away and eventually the dirt fell back down. He looked at Tori, whose face he could just see behind the visor. She looked equal parts disturbed and fascinated.

 

Afterward, he felt like he’d been on another planet. It was amazing, he’d been on the ground, but he couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. What had they learned during that expedition? Nothing new, nothing interesting. He wanted more. All he could think about was how slow the studies they performed were. They were no closer to understanding these organisms. They needed to study them in action. His plan fell together quickly after that.

 

Once again he fastened the protective suit on and was checked over by the other technicians. Tori was doing the same next to him. Charlie clapped a hand on her shoulder and with the scalpel hidden in his palm he sliced a tiny hole into her suit, the rubber splitting easily under a sharp blade. She turned and gave him a thumbs-up. He hid the scalpel in one of his pockets.

 

They walked through the chamber and out onto the ramp. The suit was heavy and sweaty against his skin. Through the visor, he saw the dirt-coated ground come closer and closer. The first step was always the most exciting. His foot hovered over the solid ground, casting a wavering shadow over the dirt. He placed it firmly down. The ground beneath him stirred, trying to creep up his legs but being deterred by the vibrations.

 

Slowly, the ground pulling at them with each step, they made it 50 feet away from the end of the ramp. He knew they were being watched closely from the observation windows, but at this distance, no one would really be able to tell what happened. Charlie shoved his foot hard to the side right as Tori took a step. The bottom of her boot caught on the top of his and she lost her balance. Her arms windmilled but the suit was too bulky and dragged her down.

 

She should have gotten up. The suit should have kept the microorganisms at bay. But Charlie had damaged her suit. He gazed intently down at her as the organisms poured over her and into the hole in the fabric. He bent over as if to help her, but really he just wanted to get a closer look. This near, it was mesmerizing. The dark earth swirled as though it was possessed. It rose and fell like a liquid. Tori cried out one last time before they closed over the top of her dark hair. Charlie ignored the panicked voices over his earpiece. Through his visor the majority of the event had been captured (excepting, of course, when he purposefully tripped her).

 

He’d made a huge leap in the field, no matter how tragic. The footage would help inform scientists for years to come. Except, he didn’t know (no one did) that after a feeding, the organisms laid their eggs. Hundreds of microscopic eggs stuck to his boots and were carried back into the facility. The eggs, not having to breathe oxygen yet, were not affected by the deoxygenation tank. Charlie stripped off his suit and hung it on the hook.

 

Overnight, the eggs hatched, and those tiny, deadly microorganisms scurried to hide in the dust accumulated above cabinets and at the edges of the room. Charlie was the first person at the lab that morning, still buzzing with the exhilaration of the day before, ready to study the footage and propel their lab forward. When his skin started to itch, he thought nothing of it. Until he noticed the little red dots on his forearm. Then the world tilted on its axis, and he crumpled to the floor. He’d made another major discovery that day. The skin of the microorganisms contained a deadly neurotoxin.

 

There weren’t enough creatures to make a cast over him. It was a slow death during which all he could think about was how these organisms would feed on him, suck the life out of him. After, they’d lay their eggs. And the eggs would hatch. And the organisms would spread.

 

His curiosity had doomed their entire town. He’d brought the ground to them.

Five Dollars

“Today I was picking up lunch for a doctor’s Office and as I’m standing there waiting on my order and checking emails, I hear a gentleman ask this lady, “I would like to purchase something to eat but all I have is $5.” So nosy me looks up from my phone and notices this gentleman wearing a backpack and holding a $5 bill who looks to be homeless or maybe he was dealing with a hard time but either way as he asks about a few items on the menu he shortly discovers that he may need more than $5. The lady begins to offer some suggestions to help him and the man orders and as she’s asking him what he wants to drink and as he’s thinking about it the lady says don’t worry about it because your breakfast is on me.

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main qimg cedc7470581935887619008696cb61e3

I got this picture for a couple of reasons. It would have been so easy to turn around and ask the manager to step in or for help but she didn’t she just said hey it’s on me. She could have just gave him water and took his money and went on to the next customer and again she didn’t she just did it. I’ve been in customer service for a long time. I’ve been through some of the best trainings such as Dale Carnegie and yet a girl name Karina in a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, MS in a 3-minute conversation with a customer has managed to teach me the value of humility and taking care of your customers. It’s not just the nuggets that make this place successful. It’s people like Karina.

Creating manifestations via AI art tools

January of 2016, my 14-year-old brother intentionally shot himself in the head with a .22 rifle … twice (the first time the rifle shifted and shot him in the ear, so he reset the rifle and the round entered his right temple.

I was at work when I got the news and I rushed to my mom’s house as fast I could … too fast to be honest. I couldn’t even get to the driveway for all of the deputies, fire and EMS crews. My grandfather’s truck pulled along side my car and my mom leaned forward from the passenger seat, covered in blood and tissue and said “baptist” (Baptist hospital in Winston-Salem).

Driving down the highway to Winston, I was a nervous wreck … I would catch my breath between sobs and quivering … unable to drive and yet traveling nearly 90 mph. Half way to Winston, I saw emergency lights in the rear view … the ambulance caught me quickly and had to be traveling nearly 110mph … I smiled … because I knew that he was certainly still alive.

Arriving at the hospital, there was already a family room prepared for us … I saw family members and family friends arriving … confused … scared. At this point, we didn’t know why my brother had been shot. My mom lived in a rural, heavily wooded area … there were many deer hunters in the area, and I had honestly assumed that he was accidentally shot.

We had been there for 30 minutes or so when the lead doctor came in and briefed us on the situation. He said that per evidence that was gathered by the sheriff’s department, it was concluded that he had shot himself intentionally. The amount of sorrow that those words generated soaked in the walls … the air was heavy and our faces were all saturated. I saw my grandfather break down…he had given my brother the rifle…his guilt was evident and one of the saddest things I’ve ever witnessed. I was so convinced that my mother would hyperventilate or pass out that we asked about getting her something to calm down.

This was the first hour of many restless days and sleepless nights. This was the longest hour of my life.

If there was a happy ending to this story you would be surprised … maybe even baffled. The round entered my brother’s brain and stopped nearly half way through. Over the next several days his head swelled and surgery was needed to relieve the pressure. His speech was very limited … his arms weren’t of much use … and he was deaf in his right ear. Through mumbled words and tears he apologized for what he had done.

Almost three years later he shows very little sign of ever having gone through such an ordeal. His speech is great, he has full use of his body, and his scarring is very minimal. He recently achieved his GED and he has just started his first job.

I have the honor of knowing the luckiest man alive.

China, Palestine and Africa

I had a neighbor who did the same thing, called on a few other neighbors too. She had lots of money, lawyer on retainer, and a son who was a detective on the force. I got a temporary Protection order once, which she broke almost immediately. Went back to court she said she never came over and I said “are you saying you didn’t come to talk to Terry and Carolyn last week on Tuesday? (they were neighbors from the other side of me and they rented from her, but we were grilling out on my property). She said “Well yes, but I wasn’t talking to you” Her lawyer looked at her in disbelief, threw his hands up in the air, ‘pen flying out of his hand, mind you’ and I GOT MY PERMENENT PROTECTION ORDER that year. Next yeart the cops would talk to her and then come talk to us. They started coming and saying “how you doing today, she called again…pretend we are talking to us about it, then we would talk about other stuff for awhile, like how our families were, how their families were doing, kids birthdays or milestones, ect. They go tell her we talked. They said she needed a psychological evaluation, so told me to keep track of how often she called on me (she called on me the most, I lived right next-door). One time she even called on a neighbor kid cause he dropped part of his orange peel on her sidewalk. Another time she called 3 times in 1 day ( same cop all 3 times), he told her if she called again that day SHE would be arrested for false reports. Eventually the cops told me to get a 30 day police call log, file for a protection order, AND 3 cops offered to testify on my behalf. I did get log (she called the cops a total of 43 times in 1 month’s time period) and all 3 cops testified,. The Judge even helped by asking if cops ever told me they threatened to arrest her for false report. YUP!! Got that Permanent Protection Order immediately. Her High Falutent Lawyer was so pissed. I didn’t have any lawyer either time. She stopped calling the cops so much, but still cauesed problems for everyone. Eventually, like 3 years later the family moved her to a nusing home on the locked ward for high risk for running away residents. The family told us she had been suffering from Alzheimers AND Dementia for 7 years. Like they didn’t have a clue. That was 12 years ago, cops not called other than on some renters up the block for parties, drugs, fights, ect, but not on any of us that lived here then and are still here. Good Luck, maybe the cops will get sick of being called on you.

  1. Gay people everywhere. And they’re the same as everyone else. Perhaps slightly nicer even. No one freaks out over them and they live just like everyone else. So do women. They can do stuff. And say stuff.
  2. Doors without handles or knobs. You are supposed to just push them with your body. It can be your hand. Your shoulder. Or even your butt.
  3. Revolving doors. Just. How. Am. I. Supposed. To. Jump. In. To. That. Mommy!
  4. Costco food court dispensers of straws, plastic forks, gooey green substance, and ketchup. And the wheel of psychopathically small cut up onions.
  5. Clothes sizes. What’s 3XXXLV? What’s Woman? And when it doesn’t say Woman, does mean I can’t wear it? And kid shoe sizes go from 0 to 13.5 then abruptly stop for no discernable reason and start again at 1 (!). Cuts are confusing too. Husky. Does it mean fat? What about tall? Where’s short? I give up.
  6. Camping. We work so hard to not have to sleep on the hard ground, have a hot water and electricity, cook with proper appliances, and be protected from nature.
  7. Huge. Enormous food portions. When we get our first meal in US, we look around for the four guys who are going to help us eat it.
  8. One bedroom and better yet – one bathroom for each family member. Oh god, one can never go back to sharing a bathroom after that. If two kids are sharing a bedroom, that’s held up as a pinnacle of modesty and bonding experience for siblings.
  9. Constant bombardment by aggressive commercial offers. What? You want to give me filtered water? It’s the best filter in the world? It will help my hair grow back? And if I don’t get it right now at a charming price of only $79 a month, I will die from calcium overdose?! Sign me up!
  10. Certainty. Your home will be there tomorrow. Your country will be there tomorrow. As long as you pay your taxes, you are left to your own vices. You can just pretty much do whatever the hell you want. Like build a new life and become less frenetic and more jolly.

Ready-When-You-Get-Home Pot Roast

What could be better than dinner waiting for you for a change?

1200 Pot Roast Chuck Roast SpendWithPennies 8 2
1200 Pot Roast Chuck Roast SpendWithPennies 8 2

Prep: 5 min | Cook: 8 to 10 hr | Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 (2 to 3 pound) chuck or shoulder roast
  • 2 large onions
  • 3 large bell peppers
  • 1 package beefy mushroom soup mix (dry)
  • 1 pound baby carrots

Instructions

  1. Cut the onions into quarters and separate.
  2. Seed the bell peppers and cut into 8 pieces each.
  3. Layer about half of the onions and peppers in the bottom of the slow cooker.
  4. Place the roast on top of the vegetables.
  5. Sprinkle the dry soup mix on the roast and top with the remaining onions and peppers.
  6. Add the carrots on top. ADD NO LIQUID.
  7. Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10 hours.
Pot Roast Chuck Roast SpendWithPennies 5
Pot Roast Chuck Roast SpendWithPennies 5
Perfect Pot Roast SpendWithPennies 12
Perfect Pot Roast SpendWithPennies 12

So you think you’re ready to move to America, huh?

Well, let me tell you, it’s not all apple pie and baseball.

One of the biggest shocks for me was the sheer size of everything – the food, the cars, the houses, the roads.

It’s like they say, everything is bigger in Texas, or in this case, everywhere in America.

I mean, have you seen the size of a standard American fridge?

It’s like a small room in there.

And don’t even get me started on the food portions.

You’ll be like, “Is this a joke?

Who eats this much food in one sitting?”

But what really threw me off was the whole tipping culture.

I mean, in most countries, a tip is a small token of appreciation, but in America, it’s a whole different ball game.

You’re expected to tip at least 20% in most restaurants, and if you don’t, you’re basically considered a cheapskate.

And it’s not just restaurants, it’s bars, hairdressers, even delivery guys.

It’s like, when did 15% become the new minimum?

And don’t even get me started on the whole tax situation.

You’ll be like, “Wait, I have to pay taxes on this too?”

Yeah, welcome to America, where taxes are like the unwelcome houseguest who never leaves.

But you know what really blew my mind?

The fact that in some states, you can still be fired from your job for being LGBTQ+.

Like, what year is this?

And don’t even get me started on the healthcare system.

It’s like, you’re expected to have a PhD in insurance jargon just to navigate the system.

And good luck if you’re not insured, you’re basically on your own.

It’s like, how did the richest country in the world manage to mess up something so basic?

And then there’s the whole gun culture thing.

I mean, I’m not going to get into the politics of it all, but let’s just say it’s…different.

You’ll be like, “Wait, you can just walk into a store and buy a gun?

Like, no background checks or anything?”

Yeah, it’s a thing.

And don’t even get me started on the whole “gun show” culture.

It’s like, I get it, America loves its guns, but do they really need to flaunt it so much?

It’s like, I’m trying to buy a coffee here, not attend a gun rally.

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the whole American culture shock thing.

Take it or leave it, America, it’s still a wild ride.

Trump says he would bomb Moscow and Beijing. And who’d win?

American politicians talk as if the US is on another planet or something. That the US itself cannot be bombed. They think that the US is the only country with bombs.

I’m 76. My high school and college classmates are dropping like flies. My time is coming fairly soon. I’ve had a varied and active life from stealing food from hotel corridors to survive to owning 4 successful companies and retiring at 49 to backpack the world with my kids. 35 was my best year. I was young enough to do it all and smart enough to see the traps ahead of me. One thing I wish I knew back then, not just philosophically, but at the basic level of my soul: It doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters. There is no point to all of the pain, stress, arguments, hassles, and the rest. I can buy a Lambo for cash and have my clothes custom-made, but I drive a 2,000 Toyota 4Runner with 242,000 miles on it, my pants are almost as old as my sons, I wear shoes I bought in 1999 that still have miles on them, my favorite food is spaghetti, and I tossed my smartphone six year ago. It drives my sons nuts. They want my wife to buy me a new Toyota Sequoia, a smartphone, and something other than the $9 tee shirts I get off Amazon. But I learned something years ago, long after my 30s: It doesn’t matter. None of that stuff made me happy. It gave me pleasure, but pleasure fades and the darkness falls unless you are happy at your core. I am. So, I’d have liked to know not to take life so seriously. It cost me my first marriage and bad relationships all over the place because I tried to grind my way up the “ladder of success”. And it didn’t mean a thing.

Vintage Men’s illustration

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Picture library cover
Picture library cover
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Navy boot camp, Orlando 1973. War is over.

The first days are orientation, haircuts, uniforms, making beds, etc. Then I see a guy on the top bunk, hugging his knees close up to his chest. He’s rocking back and forth, muttering, “It’s just a game. It’s just a game.”

Cheezus. The hardest thing we had to do was fold our underwear.

Number Two:

Recruit Roly Poly gets caught with his girlfriend’s photograph in his pocket, so we all do push ups. That night, a group quietly wraps him in his bunk with dental floss. In the morning, he can’t get out of bed.

At formation, a few guys pick him up, turn him upside down, and shake him up and down like a salt shaker until the photo comes out of his pocket. I still remember his name after 50 years.

Not crazy, but noteworthy:

Snaggle Tooth is from West Virgina. He joined to get his teeth fixed. His mouth is disgusting with black teeth that are eaten away into half-moon shapes. He laughs a lot.

Ol Red from Missussippi is a muscle-bound man with massive legs that make him step like he’s bow-legged. His arms are so huge they don’t touch his side. The chief yells for us to “pop tall” at attention in front of our bunks, so we all race out of the shower, slipping and sliding, and stand tall in front of our bunks. Some are wrapped in towels, some towels drop off. A few giggle at the absurdity but nobody laughs out loud.

Then out from the shower comes Ol Red from Missussippi. His standard-sized GI-issued towel barely wraps around his waist. Slowly, with dignity and a bearing that says, “ I dare you to make fun of me,” he comes around the corner, saunters up the middle of the barracks like he owns the place, walks past the chief, and takes his place at his bunk.

Now we learn something about Ol Red from Missussippi. His body is divided by a giant scar and his skin is different colors. Red, white, pink. It looks like a farm plow has sliced him completely in two, from the top of his head, through his face, down his torso, all the way to his feet. The scar is as tall as he is. Nobody makes fun of Ol Red from Missussippi.

Is This The Collapse of the Great American Empire?

I was homeless in Portland oregon for 2 months in 2006. I met this older man who was drifting and he claimed he was a teacher. He told me to read about the fall of the Roman empire. He told me that America was going to collapse.

One is 求同存异, which means to “seek common ground while respecting each other’s differences”.

The idea is that people and countries are different, and they should seek common ground, while respecting each others’ different points of view.

This is a phrase commonly used by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in press releases, especially in dealings with the US. Of course, it also conceals a dig at the US’s attitude in foreign policy, which is, as much as possible, to force other countries to accept the US POV.

Another phrase is 守株待兔, which means “standing by a tree, waiting for a rabbit (to run into the tree).

The origin of this phrase is about a farmer, who one day while working his field, saw a rabbit running into a tree and knocked itself unconscious. The farmer walked over and picked it up, and had his rabbit for dinner.

From then on, he stood by the tree, waiting for another rabbit to run into the tree, hoping that he would have another dinner.

The saying makes fun of people who think that pure luck will come to them repeatedly, and become stupid and lazy in the process.

The Optimist’s Handbook

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Your protagonist is a writer who discovers a new favorite author. How does their writing, or even their own personality, change as the protagonist falls under the writer’s influence?

Today, I am playing around with the idea of including some contemporary short science fiction with the daily posts. This will be in addition to videos, pictures, art, and historical stuff. Tell me what you all think. -MM
The moment Astrid truly accepted that her favourite book wasn’t a work of fiction was the moment she decided she had no other option than to eject herself out of the airlock.She wasn’t the first to come to this rather extreme conclusion after reading the title, but the population of Gen-Ship-Six had yet to notice the connection between the innocuous title amongst the recently deceased possessions and the series of grisly suicides that had followed it’s odyssey through readers hands.Astrid had found the book in the redistribution centre. A cold name for the room which stored the warm remainders of lives lived then extinguished, aboard a space ship where none of the passengers were alive at the journey’s commencement and none would survive thought to it’s destination.The system of redistributing possessions made sense though. Nothing novel was produced on the ship, so with each new generation the personal effects of the previous one became more and more sparse as accidents, loss and wear and tear claimed more and more of the luggage brought on-board from Earth by the 20 million original passengers, a hundred and fifty years ago.

 

Astrid had no idea who the book had belonged to before she picked it up from under a slightly chipped, ornate ramen bowl. The book was ragged and discoloured, the only way books looked nowadays. Astrid had never seen a new book, it was lucky if the titles she came across were in one piece, not defaced and managed to hold themselves together long enough for her to reach the last page.

 

‘The Optimist’s Handbook’ had felt heavy in her grip as she extracted it from the pile and turned it over to read the blurb.

 

“When the dark of night feels like the end of all things, remember the blue of the dazzling sky, the smell of keen grass in summer, the feel of a kind, warm breeze on your face.”

 

The book may as well have been written in Latin for all the comprehension those descriptions held for Astrid. Certainly she knew what grass, sky and wind were, but none of those things had ever brought her joy. The grass on Gen-Ship-Six had a faint chemical smell due to the solution that fed it and forced it to stay alive. Astrid had learned in school that grass on earth was fed by the sun that radiated itself onto the planet’s surface. A blue sky was another story. The 6D cinema in her neighbourhood allowed viewers to gaze up into the turquoise heavens, as the earth dwellers had experienced centuries previously, but the distantly visible pixels and soft hum of electricity fizzled around Astrid’s brain and she was unsure if the experience had been all together as authentic as what staring up into a real sky would be like; The Optimist’s Handbook suggested not. As for the warm breeze on her face; steadily controlled air conditioning was the closest comparison she could imagine, and this was not some kind of devine, blissful feeling, rather, a necessity to existing on the space ship without suffocating.

 

Over the following week, Astrid found herself continuously buried in the curious book, trying to imagine feelings she had never felt before, sinking further and further into despair as she attempted to accept the fact she would never understand the emotions that the author was trying to evoke.

 

“David, have you ever wondered what it’s like to smell wet soil after a dry spell?” Astrid asked her brother over a meal of artificially grown steak, beans and brocoli.

 

“Ehhh, what?” David replied absently while tapping away at his xCube.

 

“It’s called petrichor,” she continued glancing down at the book to check the word again, not really needing him to answer, or even to pay attention, she just wanted to wonder outloud. “It sounds wonderful. Earthy and deep, but also, sort of fresh and just so… alive.”

 

This time David didn’t even respond. Astrid looked at him for a few moments then went back to reading. Hungry to learn about more sensations from Earth, even though each one brought her no satisfaction and instead pushed her further and further into despondency.

 

The following morning she had read about a simple pleasure called ‘people watching.’ This one she felt was achievable. Gen-Ship-Six had cafes where she could go and sip coffee and eat bread. The Handbook had talked about a French deli, beautiful flowers growing up the visage, striped umbrellas scattered around the front entrance, casting shade onto intricate tables and chairs made of cast iron and painted pure white. The Handbook encouraged readers to take to their favourite spot, such as this one, and watch the passing characters, noticing how they interact. Laughter and love, rage and grief painting pictures between friends, family and lovers. Take in their clothes, shoes and bags, it continued, their unique features that make the world rich and romantic.

 

And so, that lunch time instead of staying in her apartment Astrid sat, coffee dispensed into a plain white cup, croissant sitting on a napkin atop a small plastic table outside her neighbourhood’s pipeline entrance, observing people getting on and off the transport system. Her excitement turned to woe in only a few minutes after she hadn’t spotted a single person who wasn’t permanently staring down at their xCube. There hadnt been so much as a glance shared between two people, let alone a word of passion or anger, or… anything. Also, no one’s clothes were particularly exciting. The Handbook didn’t have pictures so she didn’t know what exactly the author would have seen outside that French deli but she was sure it wasn’t the various hues of grey and black, shapeless tops and trousers, all made out of the same plain textured fabric, that was on offer in her current vista.

 

Sighing, she put down her coffee and flipped open her own xCube, instructing it to show her ‘French fashion through history.’ She abandoned the cafe- and her uneaten croissant- 5 minutes later, silent tears streaming down her face.

 

Just shy of a week had passed and Astrid stood at airlock 6754. She had finished The Optimist’s Handbook and stowed it away in her bookshelf the previous evening making a vague attempt to sleep, but no respite came. She had soon got up again and stared out of her window into the blackness of space surrounding her and felt a feeling she’d never really comprehended before- she was trapped. She would always be trapped, she would never leave the walls of Gen-Ship-Six. She would never feel the warmth of a burning star on her face, or smell the overwhelming perfume of a summer garden in bloom. She would never see a sublime Prada outfit on the body of a firey French woman as she slapped her lover and strode away down a cobbled street. She would never gaze out on a twinkling city at night, or feel the calm, cool breeze ruffle her hair. It was all too much, because, it wasn’t enough.

 

She reached out her hand to pull the emergency handle at the exact moment her xCube shook with a notification in her pocket. Her hand paused in its advance.

 

“Pick up Astrid, oh my stars, something wonderful has happened, pick up!”

Back in the early 1970s, my wife and I were close friends with a couple named Rose and Gary. The connection stemmed from our shared school days with my wife, and our marriages coincidentally occurred within a week of each other. Our friendship remained strong post-wedding, often visiting each other’s homes for gatherings and various activities.

Rose was a striking redhead, and I couldn’t deny that her beauty occasionally stirred thoughts beyond the boundaries of friendship. It was a year into our marriages when a pivotal moment unfolded during an unexpected encounter. While assisting Gary with laying a patio, an abrupt downpour interrupted our work, prompting a reschedule for the following day. When I returned, Gary had been called away for work, leaving me to carry on alone. It was then that Rose appeared with refreshments, clad in a revealing outfit that ignited a primal response within me.

As she settled onto a stack of slabs, an unintentional reveal of her undergarments sent a surge of desire coursing through me. Engaged in conversation, my gaze unintentionally lingered, prompting Rose to coyly inquire if I’d seen enough. Without filter, I voiced a desire for her nudity, a remark met with a sly smile as she led me indoors without hesitation. What followed was a passionate encounter, unbridled and consuming, unfettered by the weight of consequences.

Months later, as life carried on, Rose’s whispered revelation at our doorstep echoed with unexpected gravity – I was to become a father. Initially met with disbelief, the undeniable resemblance of the child to my younger self confirmed the truth. The realization dawned that I had unwittingly contributed to this new life, a silent participant in its creation.

Despite the seismic shift in our dynamic, our friendship endured, albeit marked by an unspoken understanding. The intimate connection shared that fateful day remained a singular occurrence, a memory treasured in secrecy. For Rose and Gary, their family remained complete with a single child, a testament to choices made and paths taken.

Reflecting on the journey, I find solace in the bonds forged and the unexpected twists of fate. Though the circumstances were unconventional, the love and connection shared among friends endured, transcending the complexities of human relationships. And as I watched the child grow, a silent acknowledgment lingered – a silent witness to the echoes of a moment that forever altered the course of our lives.

Smoky Beef ‘n’ Beans

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These picture-perfect fall days are my favorite. The sun is shining, there’s a cool breeze and we can start to curl up on the couch with a bowl of warm soup or stew. Chili is one of the best make-ahead meals, because it’s great for lunch or dinner and it honestly tastes better the longer it sits. This would be a good go-to recipe for any tailgate party since it’s easy to prep and hold warm in a crockpot.
I like to serve mine with corn muffins on the side for dipping. For garnishes, cheddar and onions are obviously great, but I would also recommend Greek yogurt (or sour cream), corn chips, avocado and/or pico de gallo.

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 12 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
  • 2 cans pork and beans
  • 1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 can butter beans, drained
  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions

  1. In a skillet, cook the beet and onion until meat is no longer pink; drain.
  2. Transfer to a slow cooker.
  3. Stir in the remaining ingredients.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours.

This is a problem that the United States cannot solve, because Chinese culture is vast and profound, and American politicians have always treated China with high arrogance, they can not understand China, let alone understand the Chinese.

The reasons are as follows

First, China’s history is too long, and the current situation can certainly be found by looking at the history books. The thoughts and strategies of ancient sages are enough to deal with any international disputes in the world today.

For example, <The Art of War >is just one of many ancient Chinese books, and there are countless such excellent books in China. These books deal with philosophy, strategy, culture, ideas and so on.

Second, there is a huge difference between the Chinese language and the letters language in the world. Nowadays, Chinese middle school students can easily understand the Chinese language of thousands of years ago. Americans today can no longer understand the English of 500 years ago.

Today’s game between China and the United States will certainly be recorded in the history books. When the Chinese people face new enemies in the future, they only need to look at the history of today’s game with the United States, and they will find new ways to deal with difficulties.

Third: China has always been a unified country and has been for thousands of years, unlike the United States of America. In the United States, all ethnic groups only consider their own interests, and people will not consider the United States. The United States is more like an international company, where employees of different ethnic groups form the company. If the company goes bankrupt in the future, those employees will directly leave and go to the next company.

China was divided many times in ancient times and invaded many times by enemies, but she will surely move towards unity, and China will still be the same China. In the future, if the United States is divided, it will disappear into history, like ancient Rome.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: With copper as a mirror, you can be dressed; With history as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall; With people as a mirror, you can see the gains and losses.

Five thousand years ago, we faced the same flood as the ancient Egyptians; Four thousand years ago, we forged bronze like the Babylonians; Three thousand years ago, we thought about philosophy like the ancient Greeks; Two thousand years ago, we were on the march like the Romans; A thousand years ago, we were as rich as the Arabs; And right now, we’re battling it out with the Americans.


Added:

Now the American is losing control of the world, Arab countries are slipping away from US control, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have joined forces.

France and Germany working together, the post-Marshall Plan European order would change.

Various Asian countries have also fallen out of US control, such as Singapore, Thailand and other Asian countries.

If the U.S. military cannot change this situation by force, the United States will become an island in North America in the next five years, just as Britain was in Europe.

Unfortunately, the US military is not capable of launching a medium-sized war anywhere in the world, so the United States can only procrastinate until the inevitable split, just like the movie “Civil War”.

The mastermind of all this in the world now is the mysterious Eastern empire – India

<( ̄ˇ ̄)/


Added:

If you don’t believe me, you can look up the modern history of China. The tragedy of Gaza and Palestine happened in China 100 years ago

“Marriage Is Modern Death Sentence For Men” | Pearl Davis vs James Whale

The traditional institution of marriage is facing a decline in modern society, with fewer than 50% of adults opting to tie the knot. This shift raises questions about the future of relationships and family life. 

Some argue that marriage as we know it is already dead, with the average marriage lasting only seven to eight years. 

The rising divorce rates and challenges faced by men in the family court system are also contributing to the changing attitudes towards marriage. 

This discussion around marriage and relationships has sparked debates about gender roles, feminism, and societal expectations. 

Some believe that men are facing increasing challenges in the current landscape, with issues like infidelity and lack of intimacy being brought to the forefront. Others argue that women have more freedom and choices in the dating world, leading to a shift in power dynamics within relationships. 

Pearl Davis: "Marriage is a modern death sentence for men. In the future, there will be a lot of single parents, and a lot of people without children."

Ukraine is located in Eastern Europe, and most of the weapons provided by the United States are transported to Ukraine through neighboring countries such as Poland.

Ukraine has a long border with the NATO country Poland, and weapons provided by the United States can easily enter Ukraine from Poland.

The Ukrainian army consumes 350,000 artillery shells every month, all of which are transported into Ukraine via the Polish-Ukrainian Railway.

But Taiwan is a China’s island Province, with no US allies bordering it. Under the PLA’s anti-access/area denial, US-supplied weapons simply cannot enter Taiwan.

Moreover, all ASEAN countries, including the Philippines, a vassal of the United States, support that “Taiwan is a part of China”, and the United States cannot find a transit point in Southeast Asia at all.

Once the war of unification begins, no ships will be allowed to pass through the Taiwan Strait, and PLA warships will intercept any approaching ships and aircraft within 12 nautical miles east of Taiwan Island.

Ukraine has been relying on weapons provided by the United States and the West to survive until now, but given Taiwan’s situation, how can it become Ukraine?

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main qimg 63a1683d810a4a9473be496a6f8bb460

In addition, Taiwan is also not a country at all; Taiwan is within China, the island is in Chinese waters, and the PLA’s military manoeuvres around Taiwan are military manoeuvres in China’s own waters.

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main qimg 2d57525c45cc6b71a5f7874a8022b7cd

The End Of The American Empire Is Here

I went for lower back pain. I hurt after sitting, standing or walking for even short periods of time. I had X-rays and then was sent for an MRI. I was referred to a neurosurgeon and the infectious disease department of the hospital. My PCP called me on her day off and asked if either one had contacted me. To which I told her no. She hung up and next thing I know I had appointments with both. I went to the infectious disease doctor first and ended up going to the ER to be checked in that day. I had so many tests I couldn’t believe it. And so many different people bothering me. One of the tests was a biopsy on my lower back bones. I was awake for the whole thing. The nurse shot me up with fentanyl and something else but I was awake. Sliding in and out of the CT scan and watching the needle or whatever being repositioned until they finally got it where they wanted. Then I hear a drill and I swear to god it looked like a DeWalt cordless drill. I was diagnosed with an infection of some sort in my bones. They put me on two different heavy duty antibiotics and of course it ruins the vein where the IV is. So they had to move it numerous times. They sent me home after putting a PICC line in that ended close to the heart they said I have, 😂. Six weeks later after doing my own hanging and injecting antibiotics at home. And complications with the PICC line. I had 4–5 mri’s and I have to have disc replacement. 4 1/2 months later I’m told that I’m only “ about “ 30% healed. The surgeon said I was healing slower because of the infection. He said he got it cleaned up but it was a complication that is slowing my healing time. Unfortunately, I still can’t walk, sit or stand for extended periods just like before. I’ve been unable to work since the end of September 2023. I struggle every day. I thought I might get physical therapy and maybe an antibiotic and have been going through hell. I also have a knee replacement coming up. Life sucks.

RIP Terry A. Davis.

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main qimg fa95840994c5a8b0fba69f94b2e0e234

Despite being severely schizophrenic and bipolar—to the point where his speech was often nearly incomprehensible due to the constant paranoid delusions that haunted him—he managed to create a brand new operating system, completely from scratch.

It’s called TempleOS, and it’s an original operating system, written in a programming language Davis developed himself called HolyC (yes, I’m serious). It has is own unique compiler, kernel, and GUI, and includes various applications and games—even a flight simulator—all of which were created by Davis himself.

In his psychotic episodes, Davis believed that God was communicating with him and instructing him to create an operating system as “God’s third temple”. Hence, many of the applications and games that come with TempleOS are religious in nature, for example, a program that generates seemingly random strings of text, which Davis claimed were coded messages from God, or a program that generates seemingly random music, which Davis also claimed were sent from God. There are games that recreate events from the Bible.

Now, you might take one look at this OS and its features, and dismiss it as a piece of junk. And you’d be perfectly correct in that assessment— it is a totally worthless operating system, not worth installing except as a bizarre toy to tinker with. But you have to remember: ALL of this was made by one man, in the early 2000s, whilst suffering from such debilitating delusions that legally qualified him as a disabled person.

Unfortunately, due to his inability to land a stable job, Terry Davis fell to homelessness, and a year after that, he committed suicide. He often called himself “the smartest programmer to have ever lived”, and while that is a very arrogant and presumptuous thing to say, I don’t think he’s wrong. If this is what Davis was capable of while being batshit crazy, just imagine what he would actually be capable of if he was sane.

How The American Empire Will Collapse (Shocking Insights)

Very interesting discussion.

egypt
egypt

Say no to mega farting

They can’t.

Chinese see that there are many problems with western democracies, and voices which do not fit the predominant narrative are silenced. Most recently, this has happened with the Israel/Gaza war. Chinese believe that this reveals the hypocrisy of western democracy. Now most Chinese feel that Western notions of freedom and democracy are no longer attractive, and will not solve China’s problems. Chinese have achieved more by finding their own solutions.

On his recent trip to Beijing, Putin took a list of western intelligence operatives and western non-government organizations operating in China to overthrow the Chinese government. Chinese security officials will use this information to neutralize their operations and operatives in China.

For a number of years, I worked as a wealth management advisor.

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main qimg 97881575fa6dd67a737233288657a6be lq

Financial services is the “Concierge of Money” for the Plutocrat class; we were suit-and-tie wearing mandarins of their largesse, who knew the details of our clients’ finances better than they did; it was our job to anticipate their needs before it even occurs to them.

Establishing, managing and amending clients’ investments and trusts were the obvious and most easily-described portions of the work.

Less obvious was the political and relationship-management aspects of dealing with individuals whose Crosean fortunes can bestow upon them colossal egos and entitlement mentalities; managing a massive personal fortune often means managing their dirty secrets.

General observations: Money is a personality amplifier.

If you are a poor person who hates gay people/broken-English-speaking immigrants/Republicans/whatever, your need for a paying job forces a level of decorum in your conduct, and you learn to keep quiet your most objectionable opinions so you can get along with your employers/customers.

On the other hand, If you are a poor person who has a benevolent heart and genuinely wishes to help the less fortunate, your financial constraints will limit whatever level of help you offer to very modest levels; your efforts may be invisible to most unless they are direct beneficiaries of your generosity, or know you personally.

Wealth removes those constraints.

A wealthy bigot can afford to be a raging terror to whoever he or she wishes, with almost no consequences. I’ve witnessed multimillionaires confidently drop shockingly racist/nasty remarks about gays/disabled/[insert group] in casual conversations.

We were trained to go along with it – they are the client, and their accounts are worth millions in fees over the course of their lifetime, so while we won’t join in the racist/bigoted banter, we won’t object either; we are trained to nod politely and refocus the conversation to the technical matters.

Being in the position to manage the finances of plutocrats, I’ve also been witness to financial shenanigans and the dark side of humanity, unconstrained by budget or conscience.

What have I learned?

  • A wealthy married man can incorporate separate businesses/LLCs for the sole purpose of buying property/spending money on the sly for his illicit lover(s).
  • Control of financial trusts can used as chess pieces to manipulate family members/dependents/beneficiaries to bend to the will of the owners of the capital.
  • Errant adult children of the wealthy who find themselves incapable of earning a living on their own, often find themselves in protracted legal battles with stepmothers their own age (their plutocrat fathers, having paid a fortune to rid themselves of their first wives, marry younger women who now vie for a piece of the dying man’s fortunes).
  • Entitled heirs – with no irony or self-awareness – often speak of their fathers’ fortunes and possessions as “my house,” “my boat” or “my plane.”
  • If you put over US$100,000 on the table in any casino in Las Vegas/Macau/Monaco (which you can either lose or win), an entire battalion of high-touch specialists employed by the casino materialize to cater to your every whim, so long as you gamble at their tables. They know your name, your favorite foods, your favorite entertainers (“free tickets for you and your friends sir, and we can arrange for you to meet singer/rapper/comedian/magician so-and-so backstage!”) and your favorite recreational drugs (if you’re into such things – they will be discreetly tucked away in the bathroom of the penthouse suite of the hotel/casino where you are staying).

Now that we’re done wallowing in sin and dysfunction … observations on the benevolent side:

While many wealthy philanthropists want to get credit for their contributions to charities/foundations they support (seeing their name emblazoned on their former university’s Major Donor walls, creating foundations in their names, etc.), I was surprised by the number of people who wanted to remain strictly anonymous – the only entities who were aware of their donations of these people was the IRS (for tax deduction reasons), the recipient nonprofit/foundation, and us, who facilitate/structure these large donations.

There are many who view their wealth as a blessing that they entrusted to be good stewards during their lifetime; they take their responsibility seriously to leave the capital to the next generation along with imparting their most cherished values.

Children of this second group are polite, respectful and thoughtful – they understand they occupy a rare and privileged position in society and are very careful about not lording it over others, and make sincere efforts to be worthy heirs.

As you can imagine, while the former type of client was far more interesting (and lucrative for the firm, given the complexities of the layers of financial instruments deployed), the latter was far more pleasant to interact with.

The most valuable thing I’ve learned is this: whether you are a rich dysfunctional bigot dropping N-words in my office and throwing your financial weight around while bankrolling mistresses through your shell companies, or a thoughtful philanthropist trying to quietly change the world for the better with your largesse, being wealthy is a relatively lonely existence.

The problems you encounter, while very real and very frustrating, will not elicit sympathy from 99.999% of the planet.

Like being an exceptionally beautiful woman, most of the people who approach you are only after one thing, and that perspective warps your ability to connect genuinely with others – one of the most quintessential human needs.

Almost everyone wouldn’t mind being a bit more beautiful or a bit more rich, but few can truly appreciate just how alienating it is to have either in such abundant quantity, that they become the object of desire/envy by everyone you meet.

Mysteries Beneath the Ice: The Secrets of Antarctica

One of my old Free Republic posts were mentioned in this video! LOL -MM

Millionaires are quite common, and usually don’t stand out much in public. Many millionaires will tell you that they don’t “feel rich”, largely because the value of a million dollars has changed dramatically over the past 100 years. To have the same buying power in today’s terms, $1 million in 1900 would be the equivalent of about $27 million today. This is why the bar for being considered an ultra high net worth individual is at least $30 million.

So even though there are literally millions of millionaires (+10 million in the US alone), only about 28,000 people are considered ultra high net worth. That still leaves a lot of room to live “under the radar” and be able to go out in public without attracting too much (or any) attention.

On the other hand, there are about 2,000 billionaires globally and they are fairly well known. They’ve been in the business press and often attract attention wherever they go just because of the influence they have. So look for bodyguards and additional security anytime they are in public. They may not be the obvious Hollywood depiction of bodyguards as this draws even more attention:

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main qimg d719d6c7fcf93033e0a8b24944445b2f lq

That level of security is appropriate for a public event with lots of press. Like this one:

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main qimg 9c16a1210368c499c458b74a895b0a5a lq

However a cadre of ominous looking bodyguards is inconvenient to have around if you just want to meet a friend for dinner, play a round of golf, attend a wedding, or just take your kids out to Disneyworld. It actually attracts more unwanted attention, while adopting a lower profile might allow them to easily pass unnoticed.

For smaller events and public excursions there will almost always be a small (1–3 person) security detail nearby, usually within 10–20 feet depending on the risk level of the venue, and they will likely try to blend in and be “invisible“ until needed. At a party or open event they will usually go out of their way to keep their hands free and will never be drinking alcohol, which makes them easy to spot.

Having bodyguards and/or a full time security detail is extremely expensive and not something a “mere” millionaire would spring “just to have around.”

Hope this was helpful.

Pawn Stars Expert “This is the HOLY GRAIL”

Oh yes..my own daughter accused me of abusing her children.

I was divorced with no child support. My daughter, “M” was a troublesome teenager and after high school she became resentful that I wouldn’t allow her to just hang around my house with her drug dealing boyfriend while I worked two jobs to pay the bills. She had to either go to school, get a job, or leave. She complied, but in due time, (at 21) she became pregnant and the boyfriend abandoned her. A year or so later, I have a better job with a 4 day work week and I’m starting to date.

I come home from a lunch date with a male friend and M is upstairs with my grand-daughter “T”, who’s now a toddler. M sends the T downstairs to the room where my friend and I are watching television. My friend asks for the bathroom and when he gets up to go, he bumps into a lamp, which falls over and breaks. He goes to the bathroom, while I put the T on the sofa and go for the broom to clean up the broken glass. T gets off the sofa to follow me and starts heading into the broken glass. I catch her before she gets cut (T is barefoot) and my friend comes out of the bathroom.

I’m trying to clean up the broken glass and T keeps climbing down from the sofa trying to get in the middle of the mess. I’m trying to keep T in my arms and sweep up the glass when my friend offers to help. Just as he’s taking the broom from me, T starts screaming her head off, (I guess she didn’t like being restrained, or maybe she didn’t like my friend ). M comes running down the stairs and starts accusing me of hurting the baby. My friend leaves as the inevitable argument starts. M calls the police, they respond and eventually take M and T to the hospital to be ‘checked out’. Two days later I get a call at work from CPs telling me I’ve been accused of child molestation and they need to investigate. It turns out M told the doctors at the hospital that my friend and I sexually molested T . He never touched her, I was the one holding her.

CPS worker came to my house, asked a lot of questions about my sex life, my job, my friends, my family, poked her nose in all my things and asked for my friend’s contact information. I called him and let her ask for his information. The CPS worker was very polite, said she didn’t think anything would come of it, depending on the medical report, and left. I spoke to my friend for the last time a few days later ; he told me he spoke to CPS and that he couldn’t see me anymore. Eventually, I got a letter saying the complaint was ‘unfounded’ but my name would be on the statewide registry for 10 years as “indicated” in an allegation of child abuse. M and T came home about a week later and whenever M became angry at me, she would call the police and repeat the allegation. Within a year, I moved to another town and left M to her own devices. She ended up in a homeless shelter and having another baby girl.

M repeated the allegation multiple times over the next few years as if it were a recent event. CPS investigated and found out I have minimal sporadic contact with them. I’ve got 4 of those damn letters with 4 different dates. Eventually M loses the children, I get visitation in court and CPS asks me to take them, which I can’t because I’m still single and my job involved frequent overnight travel. The kicker is I worked then, and still do, as a government inspector of programs that deal with a vulnerable population. Those allegations could have cost me my job. Luckily, my bosses knew me better than my own child.

Here we are, 13+ years after the incident. After a hellish stint in foster care where they were actually abused, the children have been adopted by a nice family that lets me call and visit them. I’ve participated in their therapy sessions, taken them on vacations, had sleepovers, helped with school projects and I haven’t missed a birthday, holiday, or school event in 8 years. M hasn’t been allowed to see her children in 10 years, while I get to be “Grandma”. Life sure can be a b***h.

English Beef Pot Pie

British Steak and Ale Pie 32
British Steak and Ale Pie 32

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Filling

  • 2 pounds beef round steak, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 2 carrots, pared and sliced
  • 3 potatoes, peeled and sliced
  • 1 large onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 (16 ounce) can whole tomatoes

Biscuit Topping

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 cup shortening
  • 1/4 cup milk
British Steak and le pie 28 c
British Steak and le pie 28 c

Instructions

Filling

  1. Place steak cubes in slow cooker.
  2. Combine flour, salt and pepper, toss with steak to coat thoroughly.
  3. Stir in remaining ingredients except Biscuit Topping and mix thoroughly.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 10 hours.
  5. One hour before serving, remove meat and vegetables from slow cooker and pour into shallow 2 1/2 quart baking dish.
  6. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Cover meat mixture with Biscuit Topping. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Biscuit Topping

  1. Mix dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add milk all at one time; stir well. Pat out on floured board; roll out to cover baking dish.

Technically PLA common soldiers are compulsory servicemen and do not get paid. However, in reality, they volunteer to join the armed forces and usually serve for two years as a private/common sailor. They receive allowance.

After serving as compulsory servicemen they can either ‘stay in the unit’ or ‘return to the society’. If they choose to stay, they would be promoted and become ‘NCO First Year’, which as a matter of fact is Corpral. NCO are technically called volunteers and receive wages.

PLA soldiers often go through much hardship which is regarded as a requirement-in China, it is convinced that reliable soldiers must be able to bear hunger, thirst, diseases, exhaustion, and any types of suffering.

They generally don’t have enough sleep but have too much training. They are not allowed to visit home or go outside of the camp while serving as compulsory servicemen and communication tools are utterly forbidden. For example, I have a friend who served in the army for two years from 2013–2015. When he ‘came out’ and we met, he kept talking about old fashioned jokes and our city was somehow alien to him.

But he never complained, he was proud of being a strong person.

Chinese PLA are not frequently engaged in conflicts and don’t have wars to fight so they keep training and sometimes focus farming or disaster relief.

As a result, where there is a PLA outpost, there is a farmland, even on the islands. And when disasters come, they reacted immediately and help people in danger, which is why they are regarded as the savior and guardian of the people.

I appreciate their service.

What Happened To Prison Guards Of Concentration Camps When It Was Liberated?

 

Walenty Lenarczyk, a prisoner at Dachau, stated that following the camp’s liberation “prisoners swarmed over the wire and grabbed the Americans and lifted them to their shoulders… other prisoners caught the SS men.

The first SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out of his way, but the courage of the prisoners mounted, they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what, but they were killed.”

Elsewhere in the camp SS men, Kapos and informers were beaten badly with fists, sticks and shovels.

There was at least one incident where US soldiers looked away as two prisoners beat a German guard to death with a shovel, and Lt. Bill Walsh witnessed one such beating.

Another soldier witnessed an inmate stomping on an SS trooper’s face until “there wasn’t much left.” When the soldier said to him, “You’ve got a lot of hate in your heart,” he simply nodded.

An American chaplain was told by three young Jewish men, who had left the camp during liberation, that they had beaten to death one of the more sadistic SS guards when they discovered him hiding in a barn, dressed as a peasant

(American soldiers watch as a Jewish concentration camp inmate beats up the Nazi guard who held him at Dachau)

Some of the Nazis were rounded up and summarily executed along with the guard dogs. Two of the most notorious prison guards had been stripped naked before the Americans arrived to prevent them from slipping away unnoticed. They, too, were cut down.”

16 SS men were shot in the coal yard (one more killed by a camp inmate), 17 at Tower B, and perhaps a few more killed by U.S. soldiers in the incident. Anywhere from a few to 25 or 50 more were killed by inmates.

What Is Dating And Sex Like In Japan?

 

Flirting in Japan

Flirting seems like a misnomer. It’s more like an absense of flirting. If you like someone in Japan, there are a couple of different ways of showing it and/or approaching them, none of which really resemble flirting in the west.

1. Nanpa (the “pickup”) First off, only guys do nanpa; in the rare case that girls do it, it’s called gyaku-nan (“reverse nanpa”), but I never heard of gyaku-nan actually happening, it always seemed like it was more of an amusing theoretical idea, rather than something girls really did.

 

Nanpa only refers to the case when you don’t know the other person at all, and you want to pick them up. Nanpa is direct. “You’re cute. What’s your name? Do you have time? Let’s go somewhere.” That is the classic script of nanpa. It can be shortened to just: “Kawaii yo. Jikan aru?” If you hear that, you’re being nanpa-ed. Of course, if you are a non-Asian foreigner, you will probably never hear that, because Japanese guys are too shy to try and nanpa a white or black woman. Most Japanese guys are too shy to nanpa at all. If you ask a Japanese if he has ever done nanpa, he’ll probably say, “ZOMG! No way! I’m too embarrassed!” since nanpa is direct, and mostly, if you are Japanese and you like someone, you embark on a series of subtle, indirect stealth manoeuvres, because liking prohibits action, especially for women, but also for men.

Why is this the case? Japanese social interaction is all about intuiting the other person’s wishes without discussing them openly, at the same time that they are intuiting your wishes without discussing them openly, so that although nothing is ever verbalised, the two of you will always exist in a compromise position of equilibrium. If you like someone, that intuitive part goes into overdrive, because you should be able to understand everything about that person without them ever telling you, and you should be able to please them without ever asking how, even more than you would with a normal person. So it’s more important than ever to be indirect. Which leads me to:

2. Negotiating through a third partyAgain, it’s not really flirting, but since flirting is showing your feelings openly–that is, pushing your feelings onto another person, which is direct and rude–it’s better to show no sign to the other person and meanwhile exploit the back channels. Sort of like in high school. So that convoluted human chain whereby: you like Hiro and you tell Junko that you think Hiro has a nice smile knowing that Junko will intuit that you want to know if Hiro likes you back, since Junko is friends with Goro who is friends with Hiro and Junko will talk to Goro and Goro will bring it up with Hiro etc etc etc etc etc etc. Once everything is confirmed, Hiro will ask you out. (The girl ask the guy out? Ahahahaha. Be serious.)
If you don’t have a third party to negotiate for you, you may be forced to use other methods, all of them so subtle that a westerner may not even notice them at all.

3. Subtle signals
– Shyness. Pronounced shyness is form of flirting, since it’s a sign of liking, especially from girls, but also from guys. She interacts with everyone else more than him, she doesn’t sit next to him, she doesn’t talk much to him, she doesn’t initiate anything with him. – Attentiveness. You make life easier for the other person without being asked to. For example, when you got to a restaurant in Japan it’s normal to share food, so flirting means not ordering what you like, but ordering what s/he likes, which you already know without asking, because you’re observant. Stuff like that.- Eye contact. It’s the opposite to the west, where you gaze deeply into someone’s eyes if you like them. Direct eye contact is a bit rude in Japan at the best of times. If you’re flirting you look down and away a lot.- Indirect compliments. I can’t think of a good example. It’s pretty rare to give direct compliments and even more rare to compliment someone’s looks. (It’s especially rare for guys to compliment girls directly.) I wish I could think of a good example! I’ll come back to this one.

Sex in Japan

It’s really different. It’s just so completely different. The first time I had sex with a Japanese guy was easily the most bamboozling experience of my entire life.
Before I launch into anything, I should say that while I lived in Japan for five years, I have had sex with only a select few people, and that was within long term relationships, so it’s not as if I have personally taken a wide sample. But I had a network of Japanese friends (mostly female) and every time I encountered a cultural difference I immediately pumped them all for information, asking my millions of questions. I make generalized statements only when something that I personally experienced was confirmed as The Norm.
The biggest difference is that sex in Japan is not a mutual sharing experience with both partners spontaneously doing whatever they feel like or enjoy whenever they feel like doing it. Sex has rules and sex has roles just as every social interaction in Japan has rules and roles. There is an active partner and a passive partner. Active means moving; passive means unmoving. In heterosexual sex, the active partner is always male, and the passive partner is always female. In gay sex you work out your roles beforehand: the seme is active, the uke is passive (for gay guys); the tachi is active, the neko is passive (for gay women). If you are familiar with seme/uke conventions from yaoi manga, you can use them as a way of relating to what I’m talking about, because those conventions are not a fictional construct, randomly decided upon by a group of yaoi mangaka. Straight people have sex like that too, in reality.

So there is an active partner and a passive partner, which causes various flow on effects. You can’t have “Whoo-hoo! Go for it!” sex because both partners are constrained by their roles. The passive partner (obviously) because she can’t move, and the active partner because he has to take care of the passive partner, instructing her on what to do and exerting himself so that she has a good time.
Japanese guys are generally more stressed out by sex than western guys and that is because they are responsible for the sex; as the active male, the sex is their burden, they have to do everything, it’s all up to them. Sex equates not only (sometimes not even primarily) with ‘fun’ or ‘pleasure’, it also equates with ‘work’ and ‘obligation’.

I also can’t emphasise enough just how passive the passive partner is. The way a woman kisses is by submissively opening her mouth, not moving her tongue unless she is cued to do so; if she’s really feminine she won’t open her mouth at all, until she’s told to. Sometimes women will move around a (very) little during sex, but mostly not at all. The slang term for a woman who lies completely still in bed is maguro (tuna). For me, with my western sensibilities and preconceptions, calling someone a ‘tuna’ in bed sounds like an insult, conjuring up images of cold dead fish, but in Japan that word has a very positive connotation. Tuna’s an expensive delicacy.

Part of what was so bamboozling the first time I had sex in Japan was that I didn’t know there was a Way of Sex, with strict gendered roles, and I just was happily doing my own thing, throwing my partner into total confusion. Seiji told me much later that dating me made him feel like he was gay, because I was active in bed, and he couldn’t connect that with anything except masculinity.
When it came to the guys I dated, even though it was completely outside their experience, they sort of (kind of) eventually adjusted their thinking and accepted the fact that I was active (because I was Foreign and Foreign Women Are Different) but the thing I could never completely change was the fixed idea they had that someone must be passive. Yes, I could be active in bed, but they had no template for how to react to that other than the female/passive/uke template. So at best we could alternate “active periods”, and though the lines between active and passive blurred a little over time, they never blurred completely. And total shutdowns still happened: thirty seconds tick past and my partner hasn’t moved at all … oh, okay, I get what’s happened.

If I’m making cross-cultural sex sound like a bit of a nightmare: yeah, it was. In this case, once I worked out what was going on, I thought all my problems could be solved by a simple conversation or two, explaining the more free-form nature of western sex, and encouraging my partner along the lines of, “You don’t have to act a certain way, you can act however you like! You can relax! Enjoy yourself! Doesn’t that sound great?” but that was also a failure to understand the Japanese psyche. It’s not liberating for a Japanese person to be told there are no rules, it’s frightening. I was inadvertently terrorizing my partner by dropping them into the middle of a scary foreign wilderness and telling them to make do without a map.

Sex and hygiene

Sex in the west can be spontaneous, but sex in Japan isn’t, or at least, not in the same way. In Japan, you can’t get in the front door and immediately start stripping each other’s clothes off in the hallway. Well, you can, and your Japanese partner will probably acquiesce because they are Japanese, but deep down they will be hideously uncomfortable and thinking, “Sex? But I’m not mentally prepared! I haven’t done my kokoro no junbi! And she hasn’t had a shower! And I haven’t had a shower! This is kind of gross!”
Shower is important. You should shower directly before and after you have sex. Before is more important than after. This makes me sound like I only ever dated people with OCD, but it’s the norm. The way I first found out about this was in conversation with my friend Natsue.

Me: I was at Seiji’s place hanging out and he randomly told me that I could use his shower if I felt like it. Don’t you think that’s weird? Natsue: *cracks up laughing* Cat, that means he wants to have sex with you! If a guy mentions having a shower, he is saying that he wants to have sex. Me: But isn’t it kind of rude to imply I needed to shower first? Like, it was a date, obviously I had showered before going over to his apartment! Natsue: Well, I suppose so… *sounding unconvinced* … but didn’t you say he lives in Yokohama?Me: What does Yokohama have to do with it?Natsue: Well, you went on the train to get there … it’s better to have another shower. If a guy had sex with me without showering first, it would make me really uncomfortable.
Sensing yet another cross-cultural disaster in the making, I began the investigation, hitting up all the usual suspects for information, including my friend Tomoko, who was dating a western guy called Andy.
Me: Sorry to bring this up suddenly, but does it weird you out that Andy sometimes initiates sex without showering first?Tomoko: YES! I’m so glad I finally have someone to talk to about this! Cat, are all westerners like this? It’s so dirty and I can’t relax! It makes me feel like we are just animals!
After I heard basically the same story from all my Japanese girlfriends, I went back to Seiji.

Me: First of all, westerners don’t always shower or have a bath before sex. However, I will try to accommodate you on this because the idea of sex without showering seemed to horrify everyone I talked to right down to their very bones. Secondly, when you suggested that I shower the other day, and I said no, I was not rejecting you. I didn’t understand that it was your Japanese signal that you wanted to have sex. If I had understood that, I would definitely have said yes. Seiji: *spits tea all over the table*Me: …this is one of those deeply unspoken Japanese things that I’m not supposed to talk about directly, isn’t it.Seiji: Yes.
Another thing that is considered rather icky and unhygienic is ejaculate. Guys are really embarrassed by it. They will be desperately scrabbling for a tissue almost before you realise they’ve come at all, since it is really bad form to get ejaculate anywhere, without cleaning it up immediately afterwards (and immediately means immediately). This is yet one more thing that men are responsible for as the ‘active’ partner. The more of a nice, polite guy they are, the more stressed out they will be about it. It’s also yet one more way that the sex is prescribed and controlled; the guy can never really let go, because even at the moment of climax, he’s already worrying about cleaning up, or trying not to make a mess in the first place.

Fun vintage pictures

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Secret Courtship
Secret Courtship
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Oh, absolutely! This is not in question.

American Exceptionalism says the Americans have the best economy, the best technology, and the best political governance. Against China, this is oh for three.

Best Economy
China has the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity, which is a better measure of how well a country is doing.

China’s economy continues to grow at around 5% while the US economy struggles to reach 3%.

China is the undisputed world’s manufacturing superpower. The USA doesn’t even come close.

China has the world’s finest infrastructure (roads, bridges, high-speed rail, airports, seaports, power grid, etc.). US infrastructure, on the other hand, is crumbling and decaying.

China’s national debt is about 77% of GDP. The US national debt is about 129% of GDP.

Best Technology
ASPI says China leads the world in 37 out of 44 critical technology fields.

China is granted more technological patents than the USA and Japan combined!

China graduates several times more STEM graduates than America does.

China has the best 5G. China has the best EVs. China has the best mobile payment system. China’s BeiDou system is superior to GPS. China’s Tiangong space station is superior to I.S.S.

Best Political Governance
According to 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗮’𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰, 79% of Chinese believe their nation is democratic while only 57% of Americans and 55% of British do.

According to the 𝗘𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰, 85% of Chinese trust their government while only 40% of Americans and 30% of British do.

According to the 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯, 76% of Chinese trust their politicians while only 29% of Americans and 20% of British do.

According to 𝗜𝗽𝘀𝗼𝘀’ 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯, 91% of Chinese are happy with their life while only 76% of Americans and 70% of British are.

According to 𝗜𝗽𝘀𝗼𝘀’ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿, 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟵, 95% of Chinese believe their country is on the right track and moving in the right direction while only 41% of Americans and 23% of British do.

US politics is a total basket case. There is deep political division. There is deep political corruption. The American people are simply not happy with their governance.

Soft Rock Ballads 70s 80s 90s

Ah this will take you back in time…

Four-Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef

Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef
Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef

LOW Setting: 10 1/2 hr | HIGH Setting: 6 1/2 hr | Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 beef shoulder roast, boneless arm chuck roast or boneless blade chuck roast (2 to 2 1/2 pounds)
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (optional)
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • Salt and pepper
Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef2
Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef2

Instructions

  1. For optional browning, heat 1 tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Brown beef roast on all sides.
  2. Place onion and garlic in 3 1/2 to 5 quart slow cooker; place roast on top.
  3. Cover and cook on LOW for 9 to 10 hours or on HIGH for 5 to 6 hours or until roast is fork-tender.
  4. Remove roast from slow cooker. Skim fat from cooking liquid, if necessary and reserve 1 cup onion mixture.
  5. Shred beef with 2 forks. Combine shredded beef and reserved onion mixture. Season with salt and pepper, as desired.
  6. Continue as directed in Recipe Variations below, as desired.
Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef3
Four Way Slow Cooker Shredded Beef3

Notes

Recipe Variations

Mexican Shredded Beef: Combine tomato or tomatillo salsa and beef mixture, as desired. Place in large microwave-safe bowl. Cover, vent and microwave until heated through, stirring occasionally. Serve in warmed flour or corn tortillas topped with pico de gallo, slice avocados, shredded cheese, chopped cilantro and/or chopped white or green onions, as desired.

BBQ Shredded Beef: Combine prepared barbecue sauce and beef mixture. Place in large microwave-safe bowl. Cover, vent and microwave until heated through, stirring occasionally. Serve on whole wheat rolls topped with creamy horseradish sauce, coleslaw, Cheddar cheese slices, chopped green bell pepper and/or canned French fried onion, as desired.

Asian Shredded Beef: Combine prepared hoison or teriyaki sauce and beef mixture. Place in large microwave-safe bowl. Cover, vent and microwave until heated through, stirring occasionally. Serve in lettuce or cabbage cups topped with shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, chopped fresh cilantro or mint, sriracha or crushed red pepper flakes and/or chopped peanuts, as desired.

Indian Shredded Beef: Combine prepared Indian cooking sauce, such as Tikka Masala or Vindaloo. Place in large microwave-safe bowl. Cover, vent and microwave until heated through, stirring occasionally. Serve in naan or pita bread topped with toasted chopped pistachios or coconut, raisins, Greek yogurt or mango chutney, chopped fresh mint or cilantro and/or sliced cucumber or green onion, as desired.

Nutrition

Per serving, using Shoulder Roast: 161 calories; 5 g fat (2 g saturated fat; 3 g monounsaturated fat); 57 mg cholesterol; 64 mg sodium; 3 g carbohydrate; 0.5 g fiber; 23 g protein; 7.2 mg niacin; 0.3 mg vitamin B6; 2.6 mcg vitamin B12; 2.8 mg iron; 26.0 mcg selenium; 5.5 mg zinc; 89.1 mg choline

Yes, rather frequently. I’m Finnish but don’t fit the bill in my area nor, apparently on airplanes.

Having said that, I vividly remember the first time I traveled alone.. I was seated next to two Finnish men in their 30s / early 40s. The men were polite enough when taking their seats, greeting me in English and asking where in our destination I was headed – I didn’t bother to correct their initial assumption of my nationality as I had noticed that most people found it embarrassing to be corrected on the matter. After the conversation ended, I pulled out a book and they switched to Finnish to speak with each other.

It was fine while they tackled the topics of sports (which ice hockey team from their hometown was the best) and politics but a little too soon for my liking, they started talking about women. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue as I’d simply turn up the volume of whatever I happened to be listening to in order to drown them out but this time around the conversation came full circle to me and the judging of what I was – Arab, jew, Mediterranean, Romani – and which of these options meant I was beneath them in their personal racial bias. I was a little disgusted by the whole conversation – I hadn’t known that Arab meant I was a bitch or that specific Mediterranean countries meant different levels of sexual promiscuity.. But since I was young, I didn’t call then out on it during the 3 hour flight. I neither stood up for myself nor corrected them; I was shocked that people actually thought these kinds of things about others merely based on their perceived nationality or race.

I made it through the flight without a word to suggest that I had understood everything they had said. When we landed in our destination, I turned to them and wished them a lovely vacation in my native tongue. The looks of horror on their faces were definitely worth seeing!

Russia’s Half-Ton Cluster Bomb RBK-500 Wiped Out Canadian & Polish Mercenaries In New York (UKRAINE)

I wanna hold your sand

It’s impossible because the Party penetrates into every level of Chinese society, with Party branches in any organization with more than 10 persons.

Any attempt by anyone to organize an overthrow of the Party is immediately reported up Party channels, and is arrested and interrogated by the security services about what they are trying to do, and who they have met and talked to. All public spaces in China are covered with surveillance cameras connected to facial recognition systems, so anyone they talk to can be recognized immediately, because all Chinese citizens carry a national identification card.

All non-Chinese who enter China have their fingerprints, voice recognition, gait recognition and facial recognition recorded when they enter the first time, and are entered into the non-Chinese database.

Because of western hostility to China now, and western intelligence agencies openly-stated desire to overthrow the Chinese government, the Chinese security services are on high alert against any attempts.

Woman or Tree? (Not the right argument)

It makes me sad to write this.

Over the past few years, my family has experienced several financial hardships; yet last year I experienced the most selfish act that I’ve ever known.

My father is a smoker (although he doesn’t like to admit this in any respect). We were living off food parcels from the Food Bank, despite my Mum working her hardest, and my Dad desperately applying for employment.

My Mum had £7 or so left in her purse. That was all that was left until her next payday four days away. That money would have provided just enough to buy food for these days (to go alongside her copious amounts of pasta and potatoes).

The day my Mum was due to go shopping, she woke up to find her purse empty. No one had any idea as to where the money had gone, and all three of us searched everywhere; we were resigned it was gone. Later that evening, I saw my Dad return from the shops and asked him where he’d been. He brushed me off and went outside in the garden; I went up to my bedroom. I’m an ashmatic, so whenever I smell cigarette smoke, I start coughing. I went downstairs to investigate…and that’s when it all came out.

You see, my Dad – so desperate for cigarettes and too embarrassed to go to the GP to ask for more patches or to call the NHS helpline for smokers – decided to steal the final £7 that we had to feed our family (myself, my Mum, my Dad, my Nan, and our dog) for four days, and took the entirety of the money for himself. I lost all respect for him that day, and am devastated that this has happened at least 4 times since.

In the end, he really enjoyed his cigarettes, we didn’t enjoy the plain pasta.

Abandoned Mall Frozen in Time | Retail Is Dying

This happened in Scotland, the UK, about five years ago.

I was in a local park and another kid was trying to rub dog shit on my son’s face.

This other child, who was about seven – a year older than my son – had a history of bullying other kids, and this was the second time he, together with another kid who was holding my son down, had tried to pin my son on the grass and smear him that day, and the second time I had to physically pull this one lad off my son, my son being distressed, crying, and calling for me.

That day, at that time, I decided enough was enough. I pulled this kid off, and pushed him backwards – with some force, but not enough to hurt him, obviously – because I was a forty year-old adult, and he was a seven-year-old child – but enough that he fell backwards onto the grass.

I wanted to make sure he wasn’t ever going to do this to my son again.

Once again, I’d like to point out, this wasn’t a child we’d just met for the first time that day. He had a history of bullying other kids, including my son, before. In the past, I’d had to intervene when he’d stolen items from other kids. Today was the day I was going to try and stop it happening to my son, because living in fear of someone isn’t much fun, even if that person is seven, and you’re six years old.

Some other parents I’d never seen before were some distance away. They saw me push the other child off mine and verbally reprimand him. I was pretty cross. On another day, maybe, I could possibly have thought of a better way of addressing things – although I’m still scratching my head on this one, to be honest.

They came over from quite a distance away, and accused me of assaulting the child. They surrounded me, and my son – who was quite distressed – and said they’d call the police, which they did. Refused to let us out the park until the police had arrived.

My son and I were then seperated, he was taken to my wife’s place of work, and I was taken to the local polis station, locked up for four hours, and charged with assaulting a minor. The charges were based on the witness statements and also, a friendly police officer told me later, because I admitted to pushing the child of my son, but not ‘assault’ as I saw it. The officer said it was one of those situations I should have said nothing.

Months later, I received a conviction for assaulting a minor.

And it was something I was very angry and confused about for a long time afterwards.

Because every time I dared explain what had happened to anyone I felt close enough to mention it to, they were always on my side.

And then, as I was coming to terms with it, I’ve noticed similar incidents happen over the years, but involving women and their children. In one instance – which I thought was a bit O.T.T. – a lady smacked another child’s hand quite severely for doing something to her son (what it was about, I don’t know). But what was different was the other parent’s reactions: they appeared to be on the side of the mother. The general consensus was whatever had occured was the fault of the offending child’s parents – something I couldn’t comment on, obviously.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I did wasn’t actually as bad as I’d convinced myself it was. I was trying to protect my son, not just for that moment, but for the future too.

It’s unfortunate that a bloke towering over another child may seem intimidating, but that’s just the way it is. It doesn’t mean we’re murdering him.

Note I also fully admit it wasn’t me on one of my better days. There may have been other ways to resolve this conflict, as a social worker usefully pointed out to me (I had to see a social worker as part of the judicial process).

I feel men often don’t have the same socially acceptable rights (note I don’t say ‘legal rights’ here) to instinctively want to be protective of our children and defend them in the same way women do.

Ultimately, strangers reactions meant the bullies won. I lost a great deal of mental health. And my son lost. We never go back to that park now.

A later edit here for clarity:

There were two couples that stopped me leaving the park. They were without children as far as I could see. The males were more aggressive than the females.

As far as I know, they were unrelated to any of the children there that day.

There were two children assaulting (my words, because that’s what they were doing) my son. The one wiping dog excrement on my son was the one I pulled off my son and pushed away. He had a history of bullying. I didn’t know much about the other kid, who was slightly older, other than I’d seen him with the first child before a few times.

If I had ever got the chance to speak to the parents of either of those kids, I would have taken it. Fact was, they were never accompanied by any parents or adults, ever. I knew they lived locally. I had spoken with the seven year old’s dad at one point, and he seemed okay to talk with. His son, in his worst behaviours, was the type of kid that would happily tell me to “fuck off” if ask where he lived. Writing more delicately than I’d like to, I wasn’t prepared to engage with that kid that day in any other way other than to stop his bullying behaviour continuing.

These decisions, once analysed, are always more complicated than they first appear. If I thought the young lad was, say, from a very unhappy home, maybe I would have treated him differently. But as far as I knew at that time, I had no reason to think this (and I still don’t).

Son Inherits Dad’s Abandoned Trailer – Realizes He Had Lied For Years

On May 23, 2023, China’s People’s Liberation Army suddenly launched its third military exercise in the Taiwan Strait region. The scale of the drill was unprecedented, involving all military branches, including air force fighter jets, naval vessels, long-range army artillery, and rocket force missiles. The exercise area encircled the island of Taiwan, being dubbed an “island-lockdown” drill, amounting to a state of quasi-war.

The direct trigger for this drill was the newly inaugurated Taiwan regional leader Lai Qingde’s remarks promoting “Taiwan independence” and overtly advocating the “two-states theory” in his inaugural address, provoking strong dissatisfaction and countermeasures from China. Unlike the previous two drills, this one came without any prior notice, giving the outside world not even one minute’s preparation time, aiming to catch Taiwan’s authorities completely off guard to achieve the strategic goal of swiftly recovering Taiwan.

Cross-strait relations are still legally in a state of war. Historically, too many wars have erupted from military exercises turning into sudden offensives. Each drill is slicing away at Taiwan’s living space, pushing the frontline forces closer. Yet Taiwan’s authorities have responded coldly, showing zero vigilance, playing right into China’s hands. If an order to recover Taiwan by force is issued mid-drill, the completely unprepared Taiwan will be powerless to resist.

However, the battlefield of such forced recovery will definitely not be limited to the Taiwan island itself. Japan has openly stated it would intervene to defend Taiwan, attempting to turn Taiwan into a new Ukraine to bog down mainland China. Therefore, China has reaffirmed the 1945 Potsdam Declaration through diplomatic channels, clearly warning Japan that if it intervenes, the fires of war will spread to Japanese territory.

China’s strategy is to avoid getting bogged down in a difficult, protracted offensive to recover Taiwan. Instead, China will shift the main battleground to Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other locations with U.S. military bases, fighting it out with the U.S. in an endurance contest there. Taiwan island itself will be swiftly recovered through a lightning operation, while other regions become the second, grueling Ukraine-like battlefield.

The secret to achieving the swift recovery of Taiwan lies in these continuous drills lulling Taiwan into a state of oblivion. At that point, Taiwan will be like a frog being boiled alive, unaware as it becomes part of reality. This is the strategic intent behind China’s persistent military pressure in the Taiwan Strait region.

No More Free Meals for Women

UK: It’s not a joke, in Britain they have been afraid of the Russian “Tobol” for several weeks, which closed the skies of London. But not only London, but also its neighbors in Europe. As a result, planes do not fly – satellites are silent. So how does this miracle work?

Tobol.

main qimg 5946be82bd2ebb054869268917462721
main qimg 5946be82bd2ebb054869268917462721

It has the ability to completely suppress satellite signals. In particular, Tobol effectively disrupts communications made through the Starlink satellite internet system. If we also take into account the panic that followed the offensive of the Russian armed forces in the Kharkiv region, the picture becomes quite remarkable…

Who’s Afraid of Tobol?

British media reports that Russia has a “secret weapon” – the latest “Tobol” electronic warfare system, which is capable of jamming a satellite signal or creating a false target on radar. So far, the military is believed to have only a few such devices, but more will soon follow, as Tobol has proven itself to be excellent.

According to reports from the British, it was already used in an airstrike, which allowed Russian troops to completely block the NATO equipment possessed by the Ukrainian armed forces. Specifically, it is claimed that with the help of Tobol, the Russians successfully jammed the signal of the American Starlink satellite system, to which Elon Musk’s company SpaceX previously provided Ukrainians with access.

The British also believe that one or more Tobol installations are/are in Kaliningrad. This explains the malfunctions of navigation devices that occur on passenger planes when flying in Polish territory.

Of course, all this is presented as “the Russians have conspired again”, because NATO spy planes and drones often fly to them from Poland and the Baltic states, and Ukrainian missiles are aimed at the cities of Crimea, which the work of jammers in Kaliningrad becomes more than justified.

Why are the British and others so afraid? First, because they do. Second, Russia is silent and does not reveal its military secrets (weird, right?). Third, jammers work, and that’s a fact.

And now to the facts. Who was stuck and how

Almost all British airlines have encountered problems flying in the Baltic Sea region. During the flight, the passenger planes lost contact with the American GPS navigation satellites and the European Galileo satellites, and the radars began to display a false image, as a result of which the pilots changed the trajectory and even dived to avoid collisions with obstacles that did not actually exist.

According to the British newspaper Sun, over the past eight months, 2.3 thousand Ryanair planes, 1.3 thousand Wizz Air planes, 82 British Airways planes, 7 Jet2 planes, 4 EasyJet planes suffered from this interference and spoofing (transmission of false data). and 7 TUI aircraft. Things turned out rather strangely with the charter airline TUI Airways Limited. They said 7 of the affected planes were operating flights without passengers. Why it was necessary to fly up to seven aircraft without people is not clear.Source 24 news

Raisi Crash: Rescuers Drop A Bombshell; Reveal Chopper’s ‘Key Device Missing Or Turned Off’

while working an Aerosmith concert, myself and another supervisor got called to talk to a few guys that had a “complaint” because they were all being rude and drunk and one of our security officers didn’t know what to do. The reason, they flashed a Badge to the security officer.

So we pull the 3 gentleman out to the vestibule so we could here them, and the other security supervisor, who also had a badge, but was a correctional captain, decided he would take the lead. As law enforcement respect other law enforcement.

We learned that the 3 of them were basically being jerks to everyone around and when the officer was sent to calm them down, however, the security officer showed up, then the 3 flashed a badge and asked to talk to a supervisor. This was after several attempts to just calm them down.

So now here we are and the other supervisor actually apologized to them for the misunderstanding and that the officer was just doing what they were told.

The next part is where the tables turned.

So as the supervisor starts to wrap things up with these 3 rude “law enforcement” a-holes, he asks very subtle, “so by the way, the officer saw a badge, what dept do you work for?”

“Corrections!” One said in a smug voice. The supervisors face just got stone. Then he asks, “oh really, what building?”

“Coraguen!” – which was the supervisors prison.
The supervisor went toe to toe with him and said “Well guess who f*ck I am?”
The one who was talking gets in his face and says “who?” With an a-hole smile.
“Your captain l!” And said his name.

oh my god the sight watching these 3 fools stumble to get in attention in front of all the other concerts goers and employees. They stood like they were in front of a drill sgt!

He starts to tell them to pick stuff up off the floor for the mess they made, and told them to get out of the concert, and he would deal with them Monday.

They ALL THANKED HIM!!! Ahahahhaha, and stumbled out drunk. Oh man we laughed about that after! The supervisor wasn’t going to do anything to them, but yeah, way to act a fool and brag about to your boss accidentally.

You know that ruined their night like they did to many others at the show!

Never know who’s around. Dont be an a*s!

The Creepiest And Most Unexplained Things That Are Shaking The Internet

You all NEED to watch this.

This isn’t the most selfish thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s something that happened quite recently and it made me realize just how little people care about what they do and how desperate we are for even the tiniest morsel of power.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, so me and my family decided to go out to the beach for the day. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day. The sun was out, the water was warm, and, to top it off, the humidity was low (living in lower Alabama, a day with low humidity is nothing short of a miracle). Anyway, we came back to our marina at about 7 or so, and we saw the most adorable family of ducks as we were walking back to our car. (Ducks are really common if you’re close to the water, as we were)

We spent about ten minutes looking at them. There were six baby ducklings and one large mother duck. They looked just like you’d imagine a duck family to look, with the little ducks following the mother duck in a single file line. I remember thinking how beautiful nature can be. How looking at the mother watch over her babies was one of the most precious things that life can offer.

Then, in the subsequent 30 seconds, I went from being in such a happy state of mind to be more pissed off than I have ever been.

We began to walk away from the ducks, as we had planned to go out to dinner later that evening, two women walked up to the little family of ducks. They were both yelling and cackling quite loudly, and had clearly had too much to drink. They saw the ducklings, and immediately started grabbing for them, yelling “Come here you stupid ducks!” They proceeded to grab one of the ducklings from the ground, angering the mother duck to a point where she was screeching and flapping her wings, desperately trying to prevent a strange person from taking her child from her. The drunk woman kicked the mother duck away, saying “Shoo! Go away!” She was throwing the little duckling up and down in her hands.

I became infuriated, and, had she not finally put the duckling back on the ground, would have intervened. The women walked away and shouted at the mother duck, “You shouldn’t do that to people! Stupid duck!”

There were a lot of emotions going through my head, but I just remember looking at the mother duck as she was watching one of her babies being picked up by the woman. She had that universal look of terror and dread that a mother has when her child is in trouble. I know that animals aren’t to be thought of as higher than humans, but I think respect for nature is something that everyone needs to have.

Edit: Wow! Thanks for the love you guys.

Edit: OMG THIS IS AMAZING THANK YOU!

Edit: I can’t thank you guys enough. 2000 upvotes!!

Epilogue: Some of you have been asking about what happened after the incident. The ducklings were thankfully unharmed and still hang out at the Marina frequently. I haven’t seen any other incidents like the one I described. Also, to those of you saying my answer was hypocritical of someone who eats meat, you are mistaken. Yes, I fish. Yes, I eat meat all the time. But I in no way whatsoever support the cruel treatment of animals. I just understand humanity’s place in the food chain and accept the order that God put on this Earth. What ruins this order are the terrible things that man does to Earth’s creatures and then tries to justify it by saying, “They’re just animals.”

Green Chile-Rice Meatballs

New Mexican Meatballs Horizontal No Product 2 1 of 1
New Mexican Meatballs Horizontal No Product 2 1 of 1

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning or 1/8 teaspoon each basil, marjoram, oregano and thyme
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 pound extra lean ground beef
  • 8 ounces ground veal or turkey
  • 1/2 cup long grain white rice
  • 1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
  • 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1/2 cup tomato juice
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 (4 ounce) can green chiles, diced

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, beat eggs with salt, herb seasoning and pepper.
  2. Add garlic, onion, beef, veal, rice and crumbs; mix well. Shape mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place meatballs in a 5 quart or larger slow cooker.
  3. In same bowl, mix tomato sauce, tomato juice, chili powder and chiles; pour over meatballs.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW until meatballs are no longer pink in center and rice is tender; cut a meatball to test (5 1/2 to 6 hours).
  5. Gently lift meatballs to a warm serving dish and keep warm.
  6. Skim and discard fat from sauce, if necessary; stir, then spoon over meatballs.

Video below shows Chinese State TV declaring today that China will reclaim Taiwan, likely in early June.

According to Chinese defense ministry sources, the Chinese army will launch an attack on Taiwan in early June. This is one week from now.

Here is video of China State television from Saturday morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ExQQBp2pQ

WARNING TO U.S.

China also publicly warned the United States to end all visits to Taiwan and adhere to the One-China policy. That failure to abide to the one-China policy is a RED LINE that will have serious consequences.

No response from the U.S. or anyone else — yet.

ONGOING MILITARY “EXERCISE”

Two days ago, the people of Taiwan awoke to find their island surrounded by China warships, as reported on this website.

This morning China has completely surrounded Taiwan in all directions. China currently has over 30 ships and 40+ fighter jets active in “training.” The map below shows the situation:

main qimg 65ca626ac49bbd4cd6bb9763c958b234
main qimg 65ca626ac49bbd4cd6bb9763c958b234

COMMENTARY

Might happen. Might not happen.

If it DOES happen, you can rest assured that… A RED LINE has been crossed. China will not attack Taiwan unless this has already has occurred.

The following are the RED LINES regarding Taiwan;

  • A formal announcement of independence
  • The USA breaking the agreement regarding the one-China policy.
  • Placement of medium range ballistic missiles in Taiwan (MRBM)
  • Placement of nuclear weapons or systems in Taiwan.

Now, the Scary…

Recent U.S. military aid to Taiwan includes the provision of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missiles.

The current Taiwan regime, announced today, announced that they will use these systems and the F-16 attack aircraft to destroy the Three Gorges dam.

Three gorges dam map 2
Three gorges dam map 2

If the Three Gorges Dam were destroyed, the consequences would be catastrophic, potentially resulting in the loss of millions of lives. The Yangtze River basin, which the dam controls, is densely populated and economically significant, home to over 400 million people. The immediate impact of the dam’s failure would involve massive flooding, with water potentially inundating major cities downstream, including Wuhan, which alone has a population of over 10 million​ (Grunge)​​ (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre)​.

In terms of potential casualties, estimates vary but generally suggest that tens of millions could be directly affected. The flooding would devastate infrastructure, agriculture, and industry, leading to secondary disasters such as disease outbreaks, shortages of food and clean water, and long-term economic disruption. Additionally, the collapse would severely impact global supply chains, given the region’s significant role in manufacturing and logistics​ (Penn State e-Education)​​ (The Prepared)​.

Overall, the destruction of the Three Gorges Dam would be one of the worst humanitarian and economic disasters in modern history, with far-reaching effects both within China and globally.

Passenger Filmed A Flying UFO , Then This Happened

I don’t know.

There’s a phenomenon in Asia of western beg packers. I saw one in Fanling of all places last week. He held up a sign begging for money…

main qimg 3dc4bfb6e0e8478f518440f1578781ce
main qimg 3dc4bfb6e0e8478f518440f1578781ce

Why do they do it?

Because apparently people in Asia are suckers and there’s enough people who give them money to make it worthwhile… instead of kicking the shit out of them.

Secondly immigration officers aren’t strict enough in many places. When I went to Russia? When I applied for a visa I had to give them 1 year of bank statements. I had to prove I had at least $150USD for each day I intended to be there for.

For some reason many countries don’t do this for some reason.

Back in the 2010s to my chagrin I met an idiot who thought he could live like a King in Hong Kong for £1 a day. I met him on the airplane as I was going to the toilet.

Similarly there was a dine and dash in Wanchai a couple years back a bunch of French tourists the most common comment was I can buy the entire restaurant for $10.

Company launches HEAD and BODY swapping lab | Redacted with Clayton Morris

“My wife who occasionally hits me”

 

I have been married for 13 years to a wife who is in most ways a wonderful partner – smart, organized, good mother to our two children, generally respectful and not overly controlling. We’ve been on wonderful trips together.

She is however, a bit high strung, and does a real hot temper, and when she gets mad about something, will occasionally punch or slap me. Now all the time, but sometimes — say, a few times a year.

I’m a lot larger than her and so I can take it (I played contact sports as a kid) but I don’t exactly like it. (The yelling isn’t great either) I’ve told her that I don’t like it — and I don’t think she’s exactly proud of it and I think she is ashamed at her temper. That said she can also be somewhat self-righteous and isn’t highly apologetic. That may be because some of the stuff she gets angry about isn’t trivial but objectively anger-inducing (say, totally forgetting about something I’d repeatedly promised to do, or relentlessly pushing for things or reopening decisions like more or longer vacations when she wants to work more). I just want to admit I’m not a perfect husband who is yelled at for no reason.

In marriage therapy I mentioned it as well but for some reason the therapist didn’t make a big deal of it, but focused more on what I am doing to make her angry. It would be a lot to throw away a long marriage over a few slaps here and there.

 

Physical violence is never acceptable in a relationship, no matter the circumstances or what you may have done to anger your wife. Her hitting you is a huge red flag that needs to be addressed head-on, not minimized or blamed on you.

You say you can “take it” because of your size, but that’s irrelevant. Abuse is abuse. How would you feel if the genders were reversed – if a husband was routinely hitting his wife when angry, even if she was bigger than him? There’s no excuse for it.

It’s good that you’ve told your wife you don’t like the hitting and that she seems somewhat ashamed. But “somewhat ashamed” and “isn’t highly apologetic” are not enough. She needs to take full responsibility, sincerely apologize, and commit to never doing it again. No excuses.

I understand you don’t want to end an otherwise good marriage over this. But by accepting her behavior, you’re enabling it to continue. What kind of message does that send to your kids about what’s acceptable in relationships?

You need to make crystal clear that it stops now, or you will take steps to protect yourself and your children. Insist that your couples therapist take this seriously and make it the top priority to address. Consider individual counseling for your wife to manage her anger in healthy ways.

You deserve to feel safe in your own home. Drawing this firm line isn’t throwing away your marriage – it’s what’s required to save it and make it truly healthy. Stay strong and don’t downplay this. It’s a big deal and it needs to stop, period.

We are Living in The Twilight Zone ….. Part 2

The Gritty Work of Self-Discovery: Why Facing Your Demons Is the Key to Authentic Living

 

Most of us are walking around with our heads so far up our own asses that we wouldn’t know our authentic selves if they bit us in the face. We’re so busy trying to be who we think we should be, who society tells us we should be, that we’ve completely lost touch with who we actually are.

 

And that, my friends, is a recipe for a miserable fucking existence.

Because when you don’t know yourself, when you’re not in touch with your own desires and values and fears and flaws, you’re basically just a puppet on a string. You’re letting other people and external circumstances dictate your life, your choices, your very sense of self.

And that’s no way to live. That’s not freedom, that’s not authenticity, that’s not fulfillment. That’s just a slow, soul-crushing march towards mediocrity and regret.

But here’s the good news. You have the power to change that shit. You have the power to take back control of your own life, your own identity, your own happiness. And it all starts with doing the fucking work to get to know yourself, warts and all.

First things first: you’ve gotta get honest with yourself. And I mean brutally, uncomfortably honest. You’ve got to be willing to shine a light on all the parts of yourself that you usually keep hidden away in the dark corners of your psyche.

That means confronting your fears, your insecurities, your shame. It means acknowledging the ways in which you’ve been hurt, and the ways in which you’ve hurt others. It means taking a long, hard look at your patterns of behavior – the ways you sabotage yourself, the defense mechanisms you use to avoid vulnerability, the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you’re capable of.

And let me tell you, this shit is not for the faint of heart. It’s going to bring up all kinds of uncomfortable emotions – anger, sadness, guilt, fear. You’re going to want to run away from it, to numb it out with booze or Netflix or whatever your drug of choice is.

But if you want to truly know yourself, if you want to build a relationship with yourself that’s based on honesty and authenticity, you’ve got to be willing to sit with that discomfort. You’ve got to learn to observe your own thoughts and feelings with curiosity and compassion, rather than judgment and avoidance.

So start by just paying attention. Notice what triggers you, what makes you feel defensive or ashamed or afraid. Notice the ways in which you talk to yourself, the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you deserve.

And then start questioning those stories. Are they really true? Are they serving you, or are they holding you back? What would happen if you let them go, if you rewrote the narrative of your own life?

This is where tools like therapy, journaling, and meditation can be really helpful. They give you a space to process all the messy, complicated stuff that comes up when you start excavating your own psyche. They help you develop a sense of self-awareness and self-compassion, a way of relating to yourself that’s grounded in curiosity and kindness rather than criticism and shame.

But the work doesn’t stop there. Because once you’ve started to peel back the layers of your own bullshit, once you’ve started to get a clearer sense of who you are and what you want, you’ve got to start living in alignment with that truth.

That means making choices that honor your values and your desires, even when they’re scary or difficult. It means setting boundaries, saying no to things that don’t serve you, and saying yes to things that light you up. It means surrounding yourself with people and experiences that nourish your soul, and letting go of the ones that drain you.

And it means being willing to fuck up, to make mistakes, to fall flat on your face and get back up again. Because growth is never a straight line, and self-awareness is a lifelong practice.

But here’s the thing. When you have the courage to do that work, when you have the balls to face your own demons and your own truth, something incredible starts to happen.

You start to develop a sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance that is truly unfuckwithable. You start to understand your own patterns and triggers and defense mechanisms, and you start to develop the tools to work with them rather than being controlled by them.

You start to get clear on what really matters to you, what lights you up, what feeds your soul. And you start to make choices and take actions that align with those values, even when it’s hard, even when it goes against the grain.

You start to cultivate a sense of inner strength and resilience that can weather any shitstorm that life throws your way. Because you know who you are, you know what you stand for, and you know that you can handle whatever comes.

And perhaps most importantly, you start to show up in the world as your true, authentic self. Not some watered-down, people-pleasing version of yourself, but the real, raw, unapologetic you.

And that, my friends, is a fucking gift. Not just to yourself, but to everyone around you. Because when you’re living in alignment with your truth, when you’re owning your shit and standing in your power, you give others permission to do the same.

You inspire them, you challenge them, you show them what’s possible when you have the courage to be who you really are.

So do the fucking work. Get to know yourself, warts and all. It won’t be easy, but it will be so, so worth it.

Because at the end of the day, the relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have. And when you invest in that relationship, when you do the hard work of showing up for yourself with honesty and courage and compassion?

Everything else falls into place. Everything else becomes possible. And that, my friends, is what this whole messy, beautiful, fucking incredible life is all about.

Comix for today

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The INSANE Downward Spiral Of the $780M PowerBall Winner

The Uncomfortable Truth About Marriage

 

(photo: Katarzyna Grabowska)

So, you’ve tied the knot. You had the big fancy wedding, posted all the obligatory honeymoon pics on Instagram, and now you’re back to normal life as a married couple. Time to just coast on marital bliss for the next 50 years, right? Wrong.

Here’s the thing no one tells you about marriage: The wedding isn’t the finish line – it’s the starting gun. All that romance and excitement leading up to the big day? That’s just the shiny packaging. The real “prize” inside is a hell of a lot of hard work.

 

Because after you say “I do,” that’s when shit gets real. You’re suddenly sharing your life, day in and day out, with another flawed human being. You’re seeing all their quirks, bad habits, and annoying tendencies in full HD detail. The fantasyland fog of new love and lust clears, leaving behind the harsh reality of dirty socks on the floor and endless squabbles over whose turn it is to do the dishes.

This is the point where a lot of people freak out, thinking they’ve made a horrible mistake. They got a defective spouse! This constant bickering and drudgery can’t be what marriage is supposed to be like, can it? Isn’t this supposed to be a lifelong romcom montage of candlelit dinners and walks on the beach?

Nope. Welcome to actual marriage, motherfucker. The sooner you accept that this is the real deal, the better off you’ll be. Because the couples that last aren’t the ones who never fight or get on each other’s nerves. They’re the ones who look at the unfiltered truth of each other, with all the warts and baggage, and decide to stick it out anyway.

They recognize that marriage isn’t some magical state of unending happiness. It’s a daily choice, and often a tough one – to love and care for your partner even when they’re being a giant pain in the ass. To have those difficult conversations and slowly, painstakingly figure out how two separate people can function as a team. To support each other’s growth while also maintaining your own identity.

None of that is easy. In fact, it can be awkward, messy, frustrating as hell. But that’s how you build a real, lasting relationship – in the trenches, not on a beach at sunset. You roll up your sleeves and put in the unsexy work of learning to really see, hear, and appreciate another person. Even when you kinda want to smother them with a pillow.

So if you’re past the honeymoon phase and wondering if you’re doing something wrong, relax. The shiny newness wearing off doesn’t mean you screwed up. It means your real marriage is beginning. Embrace the suck, keep showing up even when it’s hard, and slowly but surely you’ll build something real and resilient as hell.

Just don’t expect it to be a damn fairy tale. Happily ever after is bullshit. Loving each other even when you want to kill each other – now that’s the good stuff.

The American Dream Isn’t Dead… You Just Can’t Afford It

I got you here.

Tattoos were generally 6 digits long though this is not an absolute rule. However, most were 6 digits.

Let’s look at Auschwitz because why not Auschwitz? A total of 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz which included 1.1 million Jews.

Now if Holocaust deniers were correct that Auschwitz was just a normal camp (and they aren’t) then the Germans would have tattoo 1.1 million Jews- meaning tattoos would have to be 7 digits long. But they weren’t 7 digits, they were 6 digits. That means despite having 1.1 million Jews sent to Auschwitz the Nazis only planned to use a few hundred thousand as labor. So what was planned for the rest who did not receive tattoos?

What do you think those brand-new state-of-the-art cremation facilities were for? And why were they attached to big empty rooms with holes in the ceiling? You see my point.

On accident, you have given further evidence to support the historical fact of what happened at Auschwitz. For that I commend you.


Side note- not all Jews died at Auschwitz or concentration camps where they received tattoos. More Jews died at the “Reinhard” extermination camps of Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Majdanek where there was no tattoos. Additionally perhaps 1.5 million were just shot by the Einsatszgruppen.

Cheese Cracker Meat Loaf

This Ritz Cracker meatloaf is the most flavor-packed, delicious southern style meatloaf you’ll ever eat. With a heaping of ground beef, tasty bell peppers, buttery Ritz Crackers and a sweet chili sauce topping. This twist on a classic comfort food is a real treat that will become your whole family’s new favorite meatloaf recipe that’s even better next day! It’s a great recipe for a leftover meatloaf sandwich too!

Ritz Cracker Meatloaf
Ritz Cracker Meatloaf

This ritz cracker meatloaf recipe hinges on one special ingredient. Of course you guessed it – Ritz Crackers.

Along with the crackers – which, in place of breadcrumbs, make the most incredible juicy and tender meatloaf – I use 80% fat ground beef, which makes the loaf so tender and juicy.

You can also get away with 85% fat too. This recipe also makes for amazing leftover meatloaf sandwiches that taste incredible even on plain white bread. It’s that good. I’ll show you how to turn slices of meatloaf into a meatloaf sandwich.  More on that below.

This meatloaf is jam-packed with flavor. Oh my goodness, I promise you’ll want to eat the entire loaf yourself. We make this several times a month because it’s super easy and it’s just plain addictive! You’ll see.

How to Make Tender, Moist Meatloaf

Meatloaf critics often hold their position for one of two reasons – it’s either tough or dry. And no one wants to eat meat that’s tough or dry, and especially not meat that’s tough and dry. Yuck.

This recipe Ritz crackers in meatloaf calls for ingredients that lend themselves to tender, moist meatloaf, but even the best-written recipes are not 100% resistant to simple kitchen errors. Here are some easy tips to avoid tough and dry meatloaf:

  • Don’t skip the liquid: This seems obvious, sure, but it’s important. The liquid (milk in this case) is going to add tons of moisture and prevent your meatloaf from drying out.
  • Don’t overmix: Say it with me: do not overmix. Overmixing will toughen the meat mixture, and that’ll directly translate into tougher meatloaf. Once the ingredients are incorporated, stop mixing. Don’t worry, there’s a reminder in the recipe.
  • Don’t forget the eggs: Again, following the recipe correctly will prevent many of these common errors, but it’s worth mentioning. Eggs might not seem like the most important ingredient, but they’re vital. Not only do they bind the mixture, they provide some much-needed moisture, whose absence you’ll notice if you forego the eggs.
  • Cook it low and slow: Don’t think you can get away with increasing the heat to decrease the cook time with meatloaf. That’ll deplete your loaf of all its soft texture and mouth-watering moisture. Set your oven at the correct temperature, and don’t pull it out until it’s done.
  • Let it rest: Once your meatloaf is out of the oven, let it rest for at least 10 minutes. This will allow the moisture to spread to every part of your loaf, giving you that tender, juicy meatloaf you’re craving.

How to Know if the Meatloaf is Done

Knowing when meatloaf is done is important because every oven is a little different. Some run a bit hotter, some a bit cooler, and both affect when a dish is finished cooking.

The best temperature to cook your meatloaf should be 350 or 375 degrees F. I prefer to bake this meatloaf at 375 degrees F.

To be sure your Ritz Cracker meatloaf is finished, check the internal temperature with a meat thermometer. It should read 165 degrees Fahrenheit. FYI, a 2 lb meatloaf should take anywhere from 50-75 minutes to cook.

Loaf Pan or No Loaf Pan?

Many meatloaf recipes call for a loaf pan, but they’re not necessary. Instead of using a loaf pan, I mold the meat mixture into a loaf, and fold aluminum foil around it to keep it in place. I’m also sure to line my pan with foil for extra support.

How to Make Ritz Cracker Meatloaf

Ritz Crackers Meatloaf Ingredients

  • Ground beef: For tender, juicy meatloaf, use 80-85% fat ground beef. Using leaner meat will dry out your loaf.
  • Red and green bell peppers: The combination makes for a beautiful depth of flavor, both earthy and sweet. Make sure to finely dice them for a smoother texture.
  • Fresh minced onions: Like the peppers, having smaller onions will improve the texture of the meatloaf, making it more consistent throughout.
  • Minced garlic: Using minced garlic will aid in the texture, and give a stronger garlic flavor than crushed or chopped.
  • 2 large beaten eggs: Remember, using eggs is vital to the moisture.
  • Ritz Crackers crumbs: Ritz crackers in meatloaf make the most delicious flavorful meatloaf but you need to make sure you crush them into small breadcrumbs. See video….Place them in a plastic zip bag and hit with a mallet to crush the crackers. If you don’t have a mallet, use a rolling pin.
  • Whole milk: This is an important binding agent, and makes for very moist meatloaf.
  • Slightly dried basil: The basil, of course, will cook with the rest of the loaf, but using slightly dried basil instead of completely dried basil will give it a fresher flavor.
  • Dijon mustard: If you’re out of Dijon, use yellow mustard.
  • Worcestershire Sauce: For the perfect depth of flavor
  • Seasonings :Dried parsley, dried thyme, basil, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper.Meatloaf with Chili Sauce Ingredients
  • Sweet Chili Sauce
  • Ketchup
  • Brown sugar

Ingredients

  • 17 round cheese crackers
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons green bell pepper, minced
  • 1/4 cup chili sauce
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

How to Make Ritz Cracker Meatloaf

  1. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Sauté the peppers, onions and garlic.
  3. Make the ritz cracker crumbs: To a medium bowl, add the milk and crushed Ritz Crackers. Mix well. Let it sit for about 5 minutes.
  4. Add the ground beef, sautéed vegetables, eggs, basil, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, seasonings, and milk mixture to a large mixing bowl. Mix gently. Do not overmix.
  5. Place meat on an aluminum foil-lined sheet pan.
  6. In a small bowl, add the ketchup, sweet chili sauce, and brown sugar. Mix until combined.
  7. Spoon half of the sauce mixture over top of the meatloaf.
  8. Place your meatloaf in your preheated oven and cook for 60 to 75 minutes.
  9. Halfway through cooking, spoon the remaining sauce over top of the meatloaf. Continue cooking until the meatloaf is done.
Ritz Cracker Meatloaf 4
Ritz Cracker Meatloaf 4

Instructions

  1. Crush crackers with rolling pin or blender until crumbled.
  2. In mixing bowl, combine crumbs with onion, green pepper, chili sauce, milk, eggs, salt and pepper.
  3. Mix in ground beef. Form into a 6- or 7-inch round loaf. Place in slow cooker.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or until done.

How to Make a Leftover Meatloaf Sandwich

Ritz cracker meatloaf also makes a tasty sandwich. Ciabatta bun, French bread and hamburger buns are both fantastic options, but in my opinion the best meatloaf sandwich uses only white bread a thick slice that is. Whatever bread you choose, it’ll make a delicious sandwich.

Top your sandwich however you’d like, or keep it simple with just bread and meat. I prefer my leftover meatloaf sandwich with white bread and no toppings. It makes for the perfect quick and easy dinner or lunch!

If you are feeling a little extra go ahead top the meatloaf sandwich with  all your favorite toppings.

Here’s the best way to do it:

This is not a recipe for a cold meatloaf sandwich, it’s a hot and delicious recipe for the best meatloaf sandwich.

In a medium sized skillet over medium heat, add a thick slice of meatloaf. Add softened butter to each slice of bread. Place bread slice face down in the skillet. Top with cheese and cook until melted.

You can even turn this meatloaf into a open-faced meatloaf sandwich.

Assemble the sandwich with your favorite topping.

Meatloaf Sandwich Topping Ideas

Slice of cheese

Cooked red onions (sautéed)

Onion rings

Crisp lettuce,

Tomato

Spinach

Yes, you can still visit Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign website – Dole Kemp ‘ 96

WTF
WTF

How a great conversation is like a game of catch

As a radio host, Celeste Headlee has engaged in her fair share of discussions, and she’s thought a lot about how to bring out the best in a conversational counterpart. One thing she likes to say: A good conversation is like a game of catch. Huh? She explains.

When you play catch, you have to do an equal number of catches and throws, right? It’s not possible to play catch with somebody and throw more than you catch, for the most part. Because then you’d just be throwing baseballs at them, which is not nice. This is the exact same ratio as a healthy conversation — you’re going to catch as much as you throw. Which means, obviously, you’re going to talk 50% percent and listen 50% percent — and we don’t generally have that balance in our conversations.

There’s a great study out of Harvard in which researchers discovered that talking about yourself actually activates the same pleasure centers in your brain as sex and cocaine. That means it’s very pleasurable to us to talk about ourselves and what we like. You could walk away from a conversation like that and feel fantastic about it. But remember — talking about yourself makes you feel fantastic. So you may have just walked away from a conversation in which you talked about yourself — that was awesome! — and the other person is walking away going, “Good god, that person would not stop talking about themselves.” It’s a totally different perception, so you’ve got to remember you’re playing catch — find the balance.

How do you go beyond small talk to have a meaningful conversation with somebody?

Not every single conversation that you have is going to be in-depth and serious. And that’s okay! You should relax. Eventually, while you’re sitting there talking small talk, something’s going to pique your interest, or something’s going to catch their interest, or they’re going to say, “Wait, what did you just say?” Or, “Why is it that way?” And someone’s going to ask a question, and it’s going to lead you further into deeper subject matter. So it will happen, if there’s something there to talk about. Otherwise, be on your way — let it go.

What about that awkward silence when you don’t know what to say next?

By the time that you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. So by the time you’ve reached an awkward silence, something’s already gone wrong. But it’s not too late! Very often, an awkward silence comes because either you weren’t listening or they weren’t listening, and therefore, you guys have kind of meandered off-topic to where you’re at the opposite ends of a football field. The way to fix that is to say, “You know what, I’m sorry, I got totally distracted. Where did we start? Can you help me out here? I was just following a train of thought about Cheetos, and I got totally lost.”

What should you do when it is very clear from body language that the other person is not listening?

End it. Again with the game of catch. That’s the equivalent of me taking a ball and throwing it over my shoulder instead of to you. Why would you want to keep playing? You have to have an equal partner in a conversation. Otherwise, walk away.

You make the case that all experiences are not equal. Are you saying that empathy is not useful in a conversation? What should people do instead?

People always push back on this topic. Now, I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but I believe that most of us are motivated by empathy. You’re with your friend, and you want to say, “Oh, I do understand you, because I’ve been through something similar.”

But the truth is, you haven’t — you haven’t been through something the same. You maybe have gone through something kind of similar, but the fact of the matter is that you’re a different person from your friend — so even if it was the exact same experience, even if you both almost went down on the Titanic, the way you experienced that is completely different. And these situations are most likely totally different.

So although it feels to you like you’re reaching out and giving empathy, what’s happening is that you’re talking about yourself again.

So you shouldn’t say, “I know how you feel”?

That’s the worst. You don’t know how they feel. They’re confiding in you, and all they want you to do is listen to them and say, “Wow, that sounds awful. There’s no way for me to understand what you’re going through, but you tell me what you need.”

What do you think is stopping people from having better, more meaningful conversations?

The elephant in the room is obviously polarization, and this is true not just in the United States, but I think Brexit and the migrant crisis in Europe tell us that it’s happening all over the world. Oftentimes we’ll enter into a conversation, and somebody will say, “I’m voting for Trump in the fall.” Conversation over. You immediately say, “Nothing this person says is something I want to listen to, they have nothing to teach me,” and you end the conversation. And if the conversation does continue, you’re not actually listening to them.

That’s what is often ending conversations now. We have stopped talking to people that we disagree with. We basically want to be able to curate and edit our conversations the same way that we curate and edit our social media. If we’re talking to somebody that we don’t want to hear from, we want to unfollow them like we do on Twitter.

The problem with that is that everybody knows something that you don’t. And so if you are stopping all of those conversations and only speaking with people who have similar experiences and opinions, you’re not going to grow, ever, and you won’t change your mind or your opinion.

They used to tell us, don’t talk about religion and politics. The problem today is that everything is religion and politics.

So what’s the best approach to start a conversation that you know might end up in an argument?

First of all, a lot of conversations end in arguments these days. But when I’m sitting down with somebody, especially somebody with whom I absolutely don’t agree, I sit down and I think through, “Okay, what if they’re right?” Let’s think about what would change, and how my mind would change, if they are right and I am wrong. And as they start to tell me things, as long as they’re not completely made-up facts, I ask myself what it would mean if they’re right. And then I ask them too. I say, “Okay, let’s say you’re right. What does that mean?” And try to get inside what they’re thinking.

For instance, a lot of people ask me how to talk to Donald Trump supporters. It is a great question. But here’s the thing: there’s an anger there among people — not just people who support Trump, but people who support Bernie Sanders, or the people who voted for Britain to leave the EU. There is an anger there, and it could be fascinating and engaging and compelling to figure out where that is coming from. That’s not always going to be the case, and there are going to be conversations you have to walk away from. But if you’re going to have an argument with someone, the best way to do it is with an open mind, assuming that that person can teach you something, and that you’re not there to teach them.

What should you say if you unintentionally offend someone during a conversation?

You say, “I’m really sorry, I did not in any way, shape, or form intend to offend you. I may be inarticulate, but let me try to explain what I thought I was saying, and then you tell me what you think I’m saying, and maybe we can understand one another.” That’s it, that’s all that you say. Be honest.

Is there a quick way to help a friend to stop obsessing about a negative topic?

It’s difficult to address specific situations, since context is so important. In broad strokes, though, people often repeat themselves when they feel as though they haven’t been heard. For example, when we tell our kids something important and they don’t acknowledge that they’ve heard, we’ll keep repeating it until they say, “Okay! I got it, Mom!” The same things happen often in the workplace. So, try telling your friend that you think you understand what he or she is saying: “Let me tell you what I’m hearing and you tell me if I’m getting it wrong.” Then you can offer to brainstorm to find solutions. If he or she’s not open to that, then be honest. Say, “You’re telling me the same things over and over. I can tell you’re very upset, but we can also move forward from here.”

How can you turn a one-way conversation into a dialogue?

You can’t, really. There’s a couple of reasons for a one-way conversation. Sometimes it’s that the person is shy, and in that case, that’s totally fixable, you can draw somebody out, usually by finding out what they like, or self-deprecation is good. I usually tell a joke or a story about something I’ve done that was really stupid — and I have a wealth of those examples. But if somebody isn’t in the mood to talk, you can’t fix that.

And here’s the thing that people are always surprised that I say: it is totally okay to not have a conversation. Having a real conversation takes energy, and it takes focus, and sometimes you just don’t have that kind of energy to give. That’s totally fine — don’t have the conversation, enjoy the silence.

So if you’re feeling like you really want to have a conversation and the other person isn’t matching that energy, you just need to let them have their time, and find somebody else who is ready.

What about when people really don’t seem to want to listen, but just want to talk about themselves and their experiences?

I’ve found that it’s good to very kindly address this head-on. Say, “It’s so great to hear all that. Can I tell you a little about what I’ve been doing?” Or any version of that. Don’t assume that person is just trying to dominate the conversation. Give them the benefit of the doubt, because we all talk about ourselves too much. If you try to improve the conversation and they are resistant, then just accept that your conversations with that person will be brief and unsatisfying. Just like a game of catch, you need two participants who are willing to take turns.

How do you get others to open up as much as you are opening up?

You can’t, really. For instance, when you’re opening up, is it mostly because you’re telling them about your experiences? Are you talking a lot about yourself, and not giving them an opening to talk about themselves? Are you in any way, shape or form shutting down the conversation? In other words, does that person say, “Oh, you know, I had something similar happen to me the other day, it was really, really interesting,” and you say, “Oh, no, no, no, it wasn’t like that,” and then you go back to what it was you were talking about.

There are a million reasons why the person that you’re talking to may not be opening up. But often, it’s because you’ve shut the door in one way or another. The fact of the matter is it’s probably not them, it’s probably you.

Russia Hits CRUCIAL Logistics Hub of Ukraine Near Lviv- 100+ Foreign (NATO) Troops KILLED

Russia Hits CRUCIAL Logistics Hub of Ukraine Near Lviv- 100+ Foreign (NATO) Troops KILLED

The Russian Armed Forces have attacked the Yavorovsky training ground and logistics center in the Lviv region of Ukraine.

The strike was carried out by a hypersonic Kinzhal missile.

Kinhal Missile Stats 2 large
Kinhal Missile Stats 2 large

 The base that was attacked is one of THREE (3) major NATO centers inside Ukraine:

NATO Training Centers in Ukraine
NATO Training Centers in Ukraine

At the time of the attack, instructors from NATO countries and more than 300 military personnel were at the training ground. Preliminarily,  100+  foreigners died.  

Yavorovsky training ground is a key and crucial logistics hub of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was involved in the transfer of Western armored vehicles, air defense systems and ammunition for artillery and air defense systems. It is close to the Polish border and has been used for extensive troop deployment and training.

 The “Dagger” strike was carried out almost immediately after reports of the transfer of French military personnel to the Lviv region.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russians made another Frenchman “leave” the country:

Another Frenchman Dead Ukraine
Another Frenchman Dead Ukraine

Meanwhile, in Paris, French President Macron is now pushing for Ukraine to be allowed to use Western-supplied weapons to bomb interior Russia:

 

 

People like Macron are not going to stop escalating until Russia nukes them into oblivion.

So what if a conversation has run its course? How do you gracefully exit a conversation?

You gracefully exit by saying, “I need to go; it’s been so great to talk to you, and I’ll see you in a couple days.” Or you say, “You know what? I have too much on my mind, I’m really sorry, it’s been great to talk to you, and I’ll see you again in a couple weeks, but I’m going to head back.” Or — what happens to me, because I have adult ADD all the time — “I can’t keep my mind on this conversation, I am so sorry, it has nothing to do with you, but I’m going to go sit in my office and try to gather my thoughts.” Don’t lie. No white lies! Just be honest, and gracious and nice, not condescending, and just end the conversation.

This is an edited version of a conversation took place at TEDSummit 2017 (see below). Moderated by TED’s Janet Lee, it includes questions from Facebook and from commenters on Celeste’s TED Talk, 10 ways to have a better conversation.

Two dying kittens lay on the wet ground, calling for help, but no one heard them

 

Some things never change

Full-fledged financial panic?

I was just in Macau for a trade show, and the financial panic must be why I saw all these Mainland Chinese queueing up outside the Chanel boutique in the Four Seasons. I mean, in a financial meltdown, Chanel bags and shoes are the first thing you buy, right?

I can’t quite explain the hordes of Mainland Chinese tourists strolling around and taking photos on the Cotai Strip, though.

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main qimg ba6fece4d2a08925be37cd6c46ae4723

Great Hall at the Venetian Macau on 24th May (my photo). Everyone speaking Putonghua and indulging in full-fledged panic eating…

Maybe they decided to delay the financial panic until after their holiday?

So much wrong in one short question.

Man Dies & Learns We Have It Completely Backwards! (Unbelievable Near-Death Experience) 2024

What’s the most offensive Christmas present you’ve ever received?

From my mom. She was mad so when she came down to see my brother and me, she gave me a purse of mine I lent her and some of my middle school clothes back to me, as well as a new pair of socks and a thing of kitchen rags unwrapped. The socks were nice though – I liked them.

She then gave my brother some brand new books he wanted wrapped and a $100 dollar gift card to Amazon lol. I got her some new Sephora make-up, a pretty snow globe, and something else I can’t remember. Barely had time to just put it in her car because she drove off angry and refused to open it.

The worst part is the only other Christmas gift I got was from my brother, but it was sweet and my best one.

Also in case there was confusion we were adults (I think 22 & 20 then?) that live in a city away from her now; our apartments were just down the street from each other and neither of us had cars, – that’s why she drove up.

My mom angrily dropped off some Christmas dinner her BF of a month made for us too before she drove off to his place. Still an awesome Christmas though! Played some of the games I bought my brother, together, and we watched cartoons while we ate and I made hot cocoa. Actually it was one of my favorite Christmases or favorite I’ve probably ever had. Love him. I’m 24 now and he’s turning 23 Sunday.

This happened during boarding. I was running late and was one of the last people to board. I go to my assigned seat to find the guy in the middle seat is huge, like 400 pounds huge. I’m looking at my seat and trying to figure out how I am going to get my 250 pound body into what is in essence 1/3 of a seat. While I am looking the guy says “too bad you’re so fat, I don’t think you’re going to fit here. Maybe you should take the next flight.” Now I am normally the funny guy but this hit me wrong – before I could offer a smart ass remark the flight attendant came and she knew immediately what was going on. She told the guy that since he was really taking up two seats he should pay for two seats, but she would help out this situation and let him slide. He gave me a sickening smile and she said “I’ll get you another seat, let’s get you settled.” She promptly took me to business class and gave me the only open seat there. I did open the curtain during the flight to make sure my former seatmate saw me and when we made eye contact I gave him the biggest wave.

Pizza Porn

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When I was living in Beijing in 2010 as a foreign exchange student my dad came to visit. My dad is an avid skier and always buys North Face jackets.

He’s been skiing for over fifty years so knows his North Face jackets well.

It was winter in Beijing and pretty cold and I needed a new jacket.

I decided to take him to one of the “fake” goods markets in Beijing. This one in particular was called the Silk Market.

You bargain for everything in these markets and there were a few vendors selling “fake” North Face jackets.

I decided to try my luck and see how much I could get a North Face jacket for. After about what seemed like an hour of haggling, I finally got the salesman down to 250 rmb from his original ask of over 2000 rmb. (250 rmb is about 35 usd)

While I was bargaining, my Dad, the North Face jacket expert was inspecting their jackets.

He was amazed.

Everything from their labels to the actual tag was exactly as it was back in America.

I bought that jacket and to this day it still holds up.

Now that I’ve started manufacturing a lot in China, I’ve come to realize that large factories almost always produce more than what is ordered from bigger clients.

With the leftover goods, what do you think they do?

They sell them on local markets.

The jacket I bought that day in the Silk Market, might have come from an actual North Face manufacturer.

PLA military drills around Taiwan legitimate and necessary — FM spokesperson

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday that the joint military drills surrounding the island of Taiwan are legitimate and necessary.

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main qimg 80b20a222b822727e71ba5569d83362d

It’s completely legitimate and necessary for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to conduct joint military drills surrounding the island of Taiwan, safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, strongly punish the separatist forces seeking “Taiwan independence,” and seriously warn against interference and provocation by external forces, said spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a daily press briefing.

He said the drills are fully in line with international law and practice.

Wang said that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory. This is not only a historical fact, but also a real status quo. It will never change in the future. “Taiwan independence” leads nowhere. The Chinese people will never waver in their resolve to safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

All “Taiwan independence” separatist acts will be hit head-on by more than 1.4 billion Chinese people, and all “Taiwan independence” separatist forces will be hit hard in the face of the historical trend of China’s complete reunification, he added.

“We urge the U.S. side to stop emboldening and supporting the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. Any act that endangers China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity will be resolutely and forcefully counterattacked by China,” the spokesperson said.

In response to another query about whether China plans to conduct more “punishment” drills, Wang said each time “Taiwan independence” separatists make waves, it garners stronger effort from China and the rest of the world to defend the one-China principle.

Figurative Art

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I had to report my best friend at the time…..She had 2 children, a 2-year old and a 1-year-old. I saw it get worse and worse.

It started with her yelling at, calling them stupid, retarded, pulling them around by their hair, slapping them and eventually punching them.

She left a bruise once that literally covered half of the 2 year olds face. I saw her pick him up with both hands around his throat.

I used to go to her house daily to make sure she didn’t hurt them. I tried talking to her and couldn’t get through to her, I even tried talking to other mutual friends to try and get them to talk to her too.

The father (who didn’t live in the home) called the cops one night after she picked the 2 year old up out of the car seat and carried him to the garage by his throat. ( all because she thought he killed her goldfish) I witnessed the whole thing.

When the cops came, initially I lied for her. After they left, she kept going on and on about the goldfish and how her son was still going to be punished more for it.

I tried to leave but I was afraid she would hurt them and I then realized as an adult I was responsible and if I didn’t do some thing then I was an abuser too.

So I called the police parked in my car outside her house and spoke with the same deputy who came out earlier that night, the same deputy that I bold faced lied to. I told them the truth about what happened. They came back immediately and took the children.

I had actually called their father first and told him what I was going to do in hopes he would show up and he could take them. Maybe he didn’t think I’d really do it? Im not sure but for some reason he never showed up. But he did eventually get them from foster care and they are currently with him now.

I hear My friend since gave birth to another baby. My friend hates me and I haven’t spoken to her since that night. I really miss her and her children but I think I did the right thing.

528 Hz MIRACLE FREQUENCY • MANIFEST YOUR DEEPEST DESIRES • WHOLE BODY REGENERATION

Since Taiwan Province is part of China, virtually no country in the world would invade Taiwan. Because it means invading the People’s Republic of China. Then, on the premise that ” no external enemy can invade Taiwan “, Taiwan buys a large number of weapons that can only be used against the People’s Republic of China.

The document on the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States points out that ” both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to One China “. For four decades, it was said to be the basis of American policy toward China. This can be compared to: there is a family called China, the mainland and Taiwan islands are members of this family. They are family, therefore, their contradiction is parent-child contradiction, husband and wife contradiction, brother contradiction. But not between enemies.

But a man thousands of kilometers across the Pacific came up and told Taiwan that you have to carry guns and grenades when dealing with your family. Because your family will kill you. Perhaps an undeclassified historical archive records Taiwan’s intention not to buy weapons. But this good man thousands of kilometers away would threaten and deceive the two families in various ways in order to get one of them to buy weapons.

Only Taiwan’s elite can recognize this fact. However, some of the elite live a drunken life, they do not think about the future of Taiwan and its people. For them, even after his death. This elite is deeply tied to the national interests of the United States.

Other Taiwanese elites are worried. Their proper voice channels have been shut down. Warnings can only be issued through online media. This is why the purchase of American fighter planes is opposed by some Taiwanese.

The people of the Chinese mainland have been told for more than 70 years that Taiwan isle is our family and that we should maintain close relations with our Taiwan compatriots. But, after 2005, After Chinese mainland began popularizing the internet in both urban and rural areas (before the GFW in Mainland China blocked access to some foreign websites), Many Chinese dreams of kinship with Taiwan disappeared when people saw some Taiwanese cursing the Chinese mainland in Taiwan’s online community. They don’t understand why another family member would want to viciously attack a loved one.

Any discussion of Taiwan’s arms purchases will ultimately get around the topic of ” China’s reunification “.

My conclusion is: first, militarily, the Chinese Communist Party does not care about populism, which keeps the island from becoming scorched earth.

Secondly, in public opinion, the existence of GWF makes it impossible for the vast majority of nationalists in Mainland China to express their views on the world internet. This has kept the topic of Taiwan’s popularity at a low level.

Otherwise, if the so-called ” democracies ” rule China, only God knows the outcome. Therefore, CCP and GFW are the saviors of the Taiwanese people. It seems ridiculous, but it is.

Au Jus Beef and Noodles

crockpot mississippi beef and noodles
crockpot mississippi beef and noodles

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds stew beef meat
  • 2 (7 ounce) cans sliced mushrooms, undrained
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • 1 (1 ounce) package dry au jus gravy mix
  • Worcestershire sauce to taste
  • Salt, pepper, garlic salt to taste
  • Hot cooked noodles

Instructions

  1. Place stew meat in slow cooker.
  2. Add beef broth and mushrooms.
  3. Add seasonings to taste and sprinkle in au jus gravy mix to taste.
  4. Cover; cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours.
  5. Serve over hot cooked noodles.

Notes

Store any leftover gravy mix in a cool, dry place in an airtight container.

The Beijing Municipal Government announced a free online education and tutoring platform available to all Beijing middle school students starting in 2022. The platform’s operating hours will be Monday-Friday at 6–9PM. In addition to teaching classes, students will be able to ask questions. One-on-one tutoring will also be available with each student getting up to 30 minutes per session.

Teachers will be drawn from Beijing’s highest-ranked middle schools. Nine subjects will be covered including mathematics, physics and English.

The program’s purpose is to give equal access to all middle school students regardless of family income. Previously, this service was only provided through private companies such as New Oriental. Costs per student were up to 100,000 yuan per family, restricting it only to well-off families.

Teachers will be ranked by their students and can draw bonuses based on the score given to them by students, and the bonus caps are set at 100,000 yuan per teacher per semester. In order to prevent gaming of the system, real-name registration is required.

The costs of the service will be covered by the Beijing City Education Department, which will also manage the system.

Analysis by China’s Future (Paul Denlinger): This year the Chinese government is making multiple moves to decrease the cost of raising a child, and this is the latest move. I expect this to be a test launch; if it works well, and the initial kinks in the program are worked out, I expect it to be pushed out to other cities in China.

Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chongqing are all Tier 1 cities. Living costs are especially high in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which are just as expensive as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles in the US.

I expect the interest and demand for this program to be especially high in the Tier 2 to Tier 8 cities, because parents in those cities feel that their children do not have access to the same quality education, teachers and tutoring as parents in the Tier 1 cities. They are likely to ask that this program be launched in their cities as soon as possible, and will demand their municipal governments to offer the same progam as Beijing.

All of the programs aimed at cutting education costs have the same purpose: correcting the effects of the one-child policy, which lasted too long, until 2015, and which I have discussed in this answer:

A recent report suggests that China’s population peaked this year (2021); this means that the birthrate will fall below the population replacement rate in 2022. The Chinese government has not released the latest statistics, which suggests that the numbers are not good, and the government does not want to give them broad media coverage.

The most important feature of this policy is that it is a long-term policy. Beijing women cannot start popping out second and third children immediately, and the children will be 9–10 years old before they enter middle school.

For General Secretary Xi Jinping, this is a very tangible policy which he can use to promote his “common prosperity” policy all across China, and now, overseas.

Russian satellite is called a threat to the American spacecraft

The Russian satellite COSMOS 2576 has been identified as a spacecraft designed to destroy other satellites, specifically targeting American ones, according to representatives from the US Space Command. COSMOS 2576 was launched on May 16 from the Plesetsk launch site and is currently in the same orbital plane as the American optical reconnaissance satellite USA 314 (KH-11). Although COSMOS 2576 is currently in a lower orbit, it has the capability to increase its altitude, potentially allowing it to intercept USA 314.

 

Initially, space monitoring experts classified COSMOS 2576 as an inspection satellite, which are typically used for spying on other satellites. Russia has previously launched similar inspection satellites, such as COSMOS 2558, which targeted USA 326, and COSMOS 2542, which monitored USA 245.

 

However, the US Space Command has stated that COSMOS 2576 is not merely an inspection satellite but a fully operational anti-satellite weapon. It is presumed to have the capability to attack other satellites in low Earth orbit. American intelligence had anticipated the launch of COSMOS 2576 and has shared its assessment with allied nations.

 

The emergence of COSMOS 2576 coincides with concerns from the American side about Russia’s intentions to deploy nuclear weapons in space to destroy satellites. While such weapons have not yet been deployed, the Pentagon is taking the situation very seriously and considers it a significant threat to national security.

As a current alcoholic and someone that has heavily drunk for intermittent periods but have varied my drinking substance, I feel it would be only to be able to answer with qualifying my experiences with you.

11 years ago when I became an alcoholic, as a result of coming off a drug addiction and craving a mind-altering mood substance, alcohol felt natural. So I initially went straight to Vodka – I had quite a traumatic couple of months and it made sense. But over the course of a decade now, having had detoxes, rehab, 12 steps, hospital visits – it makes sense explaining each substance and what it did to me. Let’s be honest, they are all bad. Picking between them is like picking between the devil and the deep blue sea but these are my experiences:

Vodka – I used to drink 2 litres a day at my worst and by far this is the worst substance for me (please understand that knowing hundreds of alcoholics everyone has different experiences so I am only speaking for myself). Technically a scientist and anyone in any alcoholic profession would argue that whilst the toxicity because of the concentration is high, it is cleaner alcohol due to the process then standard drinks like beer and wine. I can say that if you drink this (and I always mixed) – it absolutely terrorises your stomach lining and throat. Killed my appetite but my weight drinking 6000 calories a day made my weight go up from 11 stone at 25 to 19 1/2 by 28. I would be sick every morning regardless and at least 3–8 times a day, impossible to drink water with a permanent headache from dehydration. My doctor said before detox I had 8 months left at my rate based on my liver tests which were 400 times abnormal. Withdrawals on the substance used to leave me unable to talk and walk, have seizures, cough blood, hallucinate, have crawling skin. Even drinking I was so drunk I could have been anywhere. Worst period of my life.

Wine – I switched to wine after 3 years of vodka and 6 months clean. I figured it was a middle ground between socially acceptable and as my partner of the same period of time likes a drink, we can be responsible. Worst hangovers ever. It’s so true that the darker the liquid the worse the hangover. If you’re an alcoholic you obviously aren’t getting the benefits that wine in moderation would give you. But the alcoholics that I know that drink wine age so much quicker then those that drink something else. They all end up flush. This lasted 3 months and I got too ill.

Beer – beer as an alcoholic is impossible to drink in large quantities. Too many bubbles. It’s the best of everything on this list but to qualify my answer, it is not possible for me to drink 30 cans of beer a day. But of beer, wine, vodka, whisky, cider, it’s easily the best for you internally. And if you can burp even better. I can’t so I would look pregnant 24/7.

Cider – cider is my current drink and the reason is that it is 4.5%, relatively clean if you buy a well-known brand and the hangovers are middle-ground. However and having stuck to this only for the last 6 years (minus a period I will explain), it is the worst for acid reflux. Every morning I wake up and my stomach is on fire with sickness every sort of 3 days. I drink about 18–20 per day but Gaviscon no longer works to protect against it. I mean it’s not ideal but a morning of 3 minutes of sickness beats the other 2 options with beer ruled out. I like to joke that at least I always get my 5 a day but drinking cider now means I am never drunk (paralytic) on this and i now never deviate from cider or beer. It is extremely high in sugar and I visit the dentist every 6 months to make sure my teeth are cleaned and checked because the acidity is so bad for them and you can’t live in the bathroom.

Whisky – terrible hangovers. There are scientific benefits in moderation.

Vodka again – having not drunk for 3 months before going on holiday in Sept 2019 – within a 2 week period of drinking cocktails on an all-inclusive and a month at home, I had hepatitis of the liver and having had an endoscopy, one of the worst experiences of my life, I was a week from death. I didn’t know that at the time but I couldn’t move. My partner had to put me in nappies, I wet myself, collapsed, dropped 30 pounds in 3 weeks. I was yellow. Thankfully I ended up hospital and having experienced DT’s, believing I was in a church and my doctor was trying to lure me to the basement to kill me, I checked out, went rehab and got clean, vowing never to touch vodka or any spirits again. And since that experience I haven’t.

My answer to you would be none of them. It has changed my life for the worst and I am so thankful I have a girl that has stuck with my for 11 years. If I could actually maintain my sobriety for a sustained period of time that allowed me to work, I would love to go in to school and educate children. Because no one educates people about long term affects and withdrawals and having lost both my father and grandad to alcoholism but having been young and not understood it, there isn’t enough education on the subject or resources. I am thankful I have a family that can afford treatment. I hope everyone could get the same.

TLDR – don’t drink. All the benefits over time go and offer you nothing. So have a cold can of pop or a cup of tea.

"Oh, yeah, oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts, then later there's running and screaming." 

-Jeff Goldblum

Shuffle walk and peculiar habits

I lived in a trailer park for 14 years.

Living in a trailer park was the smartest decision of my entire life.

Why? Because thanks to my willingness to live in a trailer park, fix up and pay off two successive trailers, I was able to gradually build up enough equity to buy a house. This was in spite of being a single income gal in a double-income world; having no available help from family**; living in a high-cost, very desirable area; and working in a career I loved but that didn’t pay well.

First I bought a $5,000 trailer that had to be moved – hence the super-cheap price. I was able to arrange a lease on some property for the next five years.

When I eventually had to move elsewhere for work, the trailer had to leave the property but I was still able to sell it for $1,000 more than I paid. I had done some upgrades and added a small porch.

I had long since paid off the trailer, so the $6,000 was all mine. If I had rented an apartment over those five years, I would have walked away with nothing.

I put that $6,000 and some savings into a down payment on a much larger and nicer trailer (960 square feet with extensive decks) on a large corner lot in a mobile home park. I lived in it for nine years while working in my new community.

I paid it off and fixed it up. When the real estate market cycled up, I sold it for $5,000 more than I had paid for it. Again, if I had rented over those nine years, I would have had nothing.

I was self-employed at the time, so I moved to a nearby community that I had already identified as having lower housing costs. From the sale of my trailer, I put a substantial 30% down payment on my first house.

I’m still living in that house.

If I had not lived in a trailer park, I would not have my house. Without my house, I would be at the mercy of what is currently a tight and very expensive rental market. I would not have my beloved pups.

I put a suite into my house so it generates some income, which is useful since my job vanished in a corporate reorganization. The rental income is a bonus support as I’m venturing back into self-employment as I near retirement.

I have a mortgage but it is low. I have more than $400,000 in equity.

I’m far from wealthy…but I’m not at risk of being homeless either.

I recommend trailer parks to everyone who has limited income/resources but needs a toehold in the housing market.

———————
**For the record, my family likes me just fine but there are some life-challenged offspring in the tribe who need help more than I do, so any extra resources go their way.

Easiest Homemade Pizza Dough

easiest homemade pizza dough
easiest homemade pizza dough

Yield: 2 medium pizza crusts or one extra large pizza crust

Ingredients

  • 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour, divided

Instructions

  1. Combine yogurt and 1 cup flour in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Mix until combined, scraping down the bowl as necessary until combined.
  2. Knead on medium high for 5 minutes.
  3. Slowly add additional flour as necessary to help dough come together. Depending on how thick your yogurt is, you may need up to an extra 1/2 cup of flour.
  4. Dust clean counter top with flour and remove dough from bowl. Knead a few turns until dough is tacky, but not sticky. Roll out and add toppings as desired.
  5. Bake in a preheated 450 degrees F oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

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I know I was.

  1. Their border police seems to consider it their mission to make you feel unwelcome. Russia was indifferent, China was surprisingly friendly.
  2. Their luggage system at the airport is primitive.
  3. The country has more obese people than I’ve ever seen.
  4. Technology seems backwards. I’ve seen coin operated public phones, video rental machines and that was just before COVID.
  5. The car focus thing is silly, walking a mile to a bar wasn’t safe because there was no sidewalk
  6. Food seems focused on quantity and everything contains sugar! I even had a pack of salt that had 3 ingredients, salt, anti clumping agent and sugar.
  7. Public bathrooms the stalls never seemed to be ceiling to floor and the doors so low that I had to avert my gaze to avoid looking over them. This makes shitting a semi-public event.

She ain’t lyin’

Some fun vintage art

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What Happened To Google Search?

This is surprisingly good.

More Magical Thinking As US Raises China Tariffs

The pizzas that were never eaten

Oh how vividly I remember this experience. The experience I am about to tell you all about was the day I decided that I will do everything in my power to change my passport to a Canadian passport as soon as possible.

This story takes place back in 2009/2010 new years period. I was a PR in Canada, having immigrated in 2007 to Canada alongside my entire family. Due to some family reasons and situations, after landing in Canada, my dad, mom and little brother went back to Dubai for a year and I was in university in Ontario. I would visit them in Dubai during the winter breaks and summer vacations. This story is about the nightmare that I faced while on my way back to Toronto from Dubai.

Back then, we would take connecting flights, usually through British airways. As many would know, connecting flights from BA are routed through London Heathrow airport, for the most part. This story begins from the time I landed in Heathrow, after completing the first leg of my journey back to Pearson airport in Toronto. As we landed, I remember the captain coming over the intercom and advising us that, apparently due to “adverse” weather, the Heathrow airport had seized all their operations, which included my flight onward to YYZ. As I sat there, my mind racing, the next announcement made informed us that they are trying to arrange for hotel accommodations for the stranded passengers, and to contact BA customer service if we needed further inspection. I remember as we were allowed inside the terminal, there must have been hundreds, if not a thousand, people all in the terminal at the same time. As I walked forward, there were signs and people all around that were directing passengers around. As I approached, they asked me which passport I hold. At that time, I was an Indian passport holder, so I told them that. The expression on the person I was speaking to was eye opening. He sniggers and says, “oh ok, go to that line there, big fella”, pointing to a line of at least 400 people and filling in fast. As I stood in this line, I noticed that most of the people who had been on my flight, who were either EU or US or Canadian citizens, were being directed to a much smaller line, and were dealt with swiftly. As I watched, another 747 unloaded its passengers, and everyone of the EU or US or Canadian passport were pushed again to the front of the que. Seeing this, I was livid. I asked one of the guys working there, and all he asked me was, “what’s your passport or nationality”. Once I said Indian, he says, stay in that line.

I now realize that this disparity in processing immigration/passengers is due to the challenges of making sure that illegals don’t enter into the country, and each country has their own relationship with other countries, but as a 19 years old kid, I was mad. I was pissed that I was in a line going back atleast half a km, while people were allowed to jump ahead. Plus, when I finally got to the front of the line, I was informed that I would be getting a hotel about an hour away from Heathrow airport, and I would have to figure out the way to get there myself. All because, to my teen mind, the people who jumped ahead got all the hotels near the airport. This was the moment I decided that I will do everything in my power to get a Canadian citizenship and get my Canadian passport.

JD Vance Did WHAT to a Couch?

God. This stuff…

This idiot, Aaron O’Neill worked at the Intel plant in Kildare, Ireland. After a night of drinking and taking drugs he didn’t want to go to work so paid his friend to ring in a bomb threat, on behalf of ISIS.

main qimg 1b7a0d6ebe90630867e45d8beec05167 lq
main qimg 1b7a0d6ebe90630867e45d8beec05167 lq

Source: The Irish Times

Aaron O’Neill (20) had been out drinking and taking tablets with his friend Colin Hammond (21) when he decided he did not want to go in the next day.

He paid his friend to make the call from a payphone outside Hammond’s home.

The resulting 999 calls shut down a motorway, disrupted air traffic control and prevented 4,000 Intel staff from going to work. Garda Eamonn McFadden said that at a “conservative estimate” the incident lost Intel 6,000 hours of production.

Mr O’Neill of Chieftains Drive, Balbriggan and Hammond of Bath Road, also in Balbriggan, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to making a false report on the Bath Road on January 13th 2015. Neither man has previous convictions.

Mr Hammond told the operator there were bombs located at Intel which would go off in 12 hours.

“You will not find them. This is a warning, we’re everywhere now,” Hammond told emergency services. When asked who was making the call, he replied: “Islamic State.”

Described by Judge Martin Nolan as “profoundly stupid”, Hammond claimed he had been paid to make the call. He was ordered to carry out 200 hours community service in lieu of a two year prison sentence when his case was dealt with in October.

He said, “to put it politely” it had been a misconceived plan and accepted that the men hadn’t envisaged the calls to have the effect they did.

“It is a very, very strange way to avoid going to work,” Judge Nolan said .

And the best part is how they got caught –

Gda McFadden said that a month after the hoax, a taxi man arrived at Balbriggan Garda station with a passenger who wouldn’t pay his fare. The passenger was Hammond and a garda at the station recognised his voice from the hoax call.

That is one very observant Garda Officer.

Man paid friend to make hoax bomb call to Intel to avoid work

Edit : I’ve included The Irish Times article at the end but I see I have been negligent in explaining actual events, mea culpa, I certainly could have explained this better – the person in question wasn’t directly employed by Intel, he was a subcontractor and directly employed by his father, so he simply couldn’t ring in sick, as I strongly suspect/believe that at the time he lived at home. He couldn’t pretend to be sick when he worked for his Dad.

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I do not tell this story to brag. It is just so different.

My parents sold their small farm and moved to El Paso with my husband when we moved there. They would have had to pay a lot of tax. We found a house with room for inlaw quarters.

I hope l get this straight. It was quite awhile ago. They had one year to reinvest to avoid taxes.

I found out about once in a lifetime non taxable gifts. So l worked a way for us to give the down payment. Using a four way split where l would give my mother x amount of money and my father x amount. They used it for their half of the down-payment. My husband would do the same. We used the same four way split to cover their half of the house payments which was jointly owned. At the end of the one year they gave us their half as a once in a lifetime gift. They used the same four way which kept it non taxable.

We were not sure of the legality of this so we went to a lawer, he read it all over and said “l used to work for the IRS, if l had audited this l could not find a problem with it. Who figured this out for you?” When told him l did he said “Lady, you found one hell of a loop hole.”

He has a great point.

Shorpy

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So one of my seniors recently got to know that I won the QPCA and she decided to congratulate me. Her bad, and I’ll tell you why.

Now, when it comes to keeping the interaction alive, I’m pretty good at it.

But sometimes, ( sometimes = always ) I miserably fail in the more important thing, that’s keeping the interaction interesting ( interesting = continuable, without occasional cringing ).

So this is what happened,

She: It’s great that you won.

Me: Thanks.

She: But you don’t seem as sassy in real life.

Me: Umm, ya.

I don’t know why and I kid you not, but this time, I decided that I’ll keep the conversation going on. So I came up with this revolutionary compliment. Compliments that can change the world.

Me: You’ve got asymmetrical eyebrows.

She: °_° Wh.. What?

Me: Yeah, I never noticed. Maybe no one ever did, but your eyebrows don’t have symmetry.

She: Uh…. Ok?

Me (By now I realized that I fucked up, but never quit is a good motto and when to never quit is never taught ): And uh… if, if you notice closely, the left eyebrow is more bent than the… the ri…

She ( By now, she is regretful that she congratulated me in the first place ): Hey, you can go, seeya!

Me: ..ght eyebrow.

Now what’s important here, is that I tried.

( And Sarhad, what’s even more important here, is that you failed )

Only if I had known that asymmetrical eyebrows are not something great to talk about, I would’ve picked up something more intriguing.

Like I always have my moo point ( cows and magnets ) to talk about.


But I’ll admit, though social interaction is not really my prowess, I’m learning and I do want to get better.

It’s a skill which is not really optional, and which everyone should possess, to a certain level.

At times, people have talked themselves out of perils ( like when Sir James Donovan negotiated the release of 10,000 prisoners in Cuba

) and then at other times I’ve been talked into paying ₹900 for something worth ₹50. Almost every business and trade is based on your ability to fool your client better.

And then, we have stockbrokers.

|SaCh|


Oh, the rating you ask?

Yeah, on a scale of 1 to 10, I think I’m a pair of ever frowning eyebrows with rainbow eyelashes. Everything symmetrical.

Half a million likes!

She is right.

I often went out with two friends, who were also my colleagues, to a pizza house. We’d order two large pizzas and split the bill. The leftover would be packed, and one friend would always take it home. We lived in the same apartment building.

The problem is, when I eat I always take my time and I like to talk. At the end of the meal, I would always have eaten only two slices and yet I had to pay an equal share of the bill. I never got to take the leftover home.

One time I mentioned this problem to the friend who also never got to take the leftover home. I told her that I had a problem with us always splitting the bill because I always eat only two slices and never got to take home the leftover. The other friend would automatically take the leftover for herself and never once offered us if we’d also like to take it home.

My friend was surprised because she thought that the other friend and I took turns to take the leftover because we lived in the same building. Then she said that she also had a problem because she never got to order the pizza that she likes.

The thing is, I don’t eat pork so I get to order my favorite chicken bbq pizza. The two friends eat pork but it’s always the other friend who got to order her favorite pork pizza, and also the one to take all the leftover.

So we came up with a solution.

The next time we went again for pizza, I told the waiter that I was ordering a small chicken bbq pizza with a glass of coke, and that I’d pay my bill separately. The friend that I’ve spoken with also ordered her favorite Hawaiian pizza, small size, with drinks and asked the water to separate her bills too. Thus, the other friend also had to order her favorite pork pizza in small size.

I enjoyed my pizza, took my time eating it, enjoyed telling stories, and at the end of the meal told the waiter that I’d like to take home my leftover.

Needless to say, the friend who always took the leftover went home that night without any bring home because she finished her small size pizza. And the friend who I had spoken with was satisfied to have finally eaten her favorite Hawaiian pizza.

Many years ago I was working as a developer on one of the largest derivatives markets in the world. Part of our teams remit was supporting the live environment and as such I had on my sun workstation a 9 window virtual desktop one for each environment. we often jumped on each other’s workstations to do things, start/stop uat processes or get prod logs.. One day unknowingly to me, my boss was using my workstation and accidentally moved our futures trading market console onto my UAT desktop and later that day asked me to recycle UAT to pick up changes he pushed. I did it without though and within 30 seconds the Head of development (CTO) comes running across the floor screaming the futures production environment had just crashed. I looked at my screen and to my horror the console I just typed my command into had a prod$ console. My boss looked and me, I looked at him and we both thought the same and it wasn’t good! Immediately a witch hunt started and it was assumed the support guys had messed up (They forgot we had access). My boss quickly told me close all the consoles and go take a really long lunch so when they get to us, you’re not here to lie!

I got back an hour latter and my boss quickly announced “They found the problem, a bug in one of the support scrips means if someone cont-c it run kill -9 -1 to clean up, no one knows who IN SUPPORT did it but it wasn’t their fault”

It made the main 6pm news business section that day although I didn’t speak a word about it to anyone until a I left a years later. We also changed the background color of all prod consoles to red after that

How to get the pill

1. People don’t have as strong intuitive sense of how much bigger 1 billion is than 1 million.

  • A million seconds is about 11 days.
  • A billion seconds is about 32 years.

2. Only 2% of people can hear their eyes move and blink.

3. The Facebook logo is blue because founder Mark Zuckerberg is red-green color blind, making blue the “richest color ” for him.

4. If you hold in your farts long enough, the gas can be re-absorbed and come out of your mouth.

5. Over 50% of pilots have admitted to falling asleep mid-flight. And of these pilots, 29% said that they had woken up to find their co-pilot asleep as well.

6. Most toilet paper sold for home use in France is pink.

7. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.

8. Bananas are berries, but strawberries are not.

9. Giraffes and humans have the same number of necklines. Actually, all mammals do.

10. Sometimes, hiding your thumb behind all your fingers is a sign of panic.

11. Broccoli is a man-made vegetable and was created by breeding different types of cabbages.

12. Try to breathe and swallow at the same time. You can’t.

A female marathoner was referred to me because her running times were increasing and she was progressively short of breath. She was also coughing up blood occasionally.

Ten years earlier she had removal of the upper 1/3 of her right lung(right upper lobe) for a benign tumor that bled often and obstructed that lobe of the lung.

To do this the surgeon must pull the remaining lower lung bronchus (intermediate) up and connect it to the trachea (wind pipe). This puts the sutured connection ring of tissues under considerable tension, tending to rip out the sutures leading to a catastrophic leak.

So the surgeon buttressed the suture line with several cotton pledgets. The surgeon obviously did a great job, she had been doing well for ten years.

When I looked into the lung (bronchoscopy) I saw a large mass of tissue I assumed was recurrent tumor completely blocking the right lung. But the pathologist found the biopsy tissue samples to be benign!

To clear the path into the lung I used laser through the bronchoscope to ablate the tissue. As I steadily removed tissue I found the suture line and then saw the many pledgets (small cotton pieces) the surgeon had used to support the suture line. I realized that obstructing tissue was a granulomatous mass the lung had generated because of the foreign body irritation from the pledgets. I steadily burned away the pledgets along with the old sutures until the area was completely clear and the airway to the lower lung was reopened.

This relieved her shortness of breath and she resumed running. A recheck 1 and 2 years later showed no recurrence of the tumor; she remained asymptomatic.

I expected to find malignancy but instead found a treatable benign condition.

20 MINUTES Of Modern Women BEGGING For A Good Man To Save Them

Guys, I’d love your feedback on this. I can’t believe my friend did this.

Last summer, my best friend was housesitting for about a week for her another friend and that friend’s wealthy family. They had a massive aquarium tank, eight feet tall with thick glass, almost as big as a room. It was only fish inside and nothing else. One night while storming, she wanted to go and swim in the tank. She absolutely loves fish and aquatic life. She got changed into some elastic shorts and a tank, turned off all the lights in the house, and with a towel walked barefoot up the small staircase that led to the top of the tank — her heart beating really fast with excitement. The top of the tank was already open, wide enough for her to easily fit through.

After she raised her arms over her head, she plunged into the water. The water was deep enough that she didn’t hit the bottom but her body went horizontal upon landing in the water. She said doing so was such a rush and that it was so warm and relaxing. While she swam underwater in the tank, lightning flashes lit up the inside. She said it was the most romantic thing she ever did, it was so quiet and peaceful underwater with the fish, and that she could feel the thunder vibrations from outside.

Woman gets reality check by dating a man that KNOWS his value…

You Stand up and fight

Last year my son was suspended. 3 boys corned him and were bullying him he kept is cool and attempted to walk away. One blocked his path.

At that point one shit stain said 2 sentences that changed my son’s life. “I’m glad your mom’s in a wheelchair. And I hope one of her seizures kills her.” See our families already known loss.

April will be 11yrs since my daughter and his sister passed away. She was 14m old.

So hearing this boy say he hoped I died was too much for my son. He turned to the leader and punched him right in the nose. To the school it didn’t matter what they had said.

The school district suspended my son cause he made it physically. So I took him out for ice cream. There comes a time when words do count and do cross the line. I support my son’s decision to finally say enough.

He knows he can’t hit someone and not have consequences.

But he also knows that there are going to be times in his life that he’s going to have to stand up for what is right. And I’ll support him when he does.

I was kicked out on Christmas eve by my mother when I was 17. That’s not even the subject of this story so you can imagine I didn’t have a good life growing up. She kicked me and my 15 year old brother out because (and this is a direct quote) “I have a life to live, and you and your brother have held me down long enough. I deserve to be happy.” She left the state with her internet boyfriend, that she knew for 3 weeks, a week later. We moved in with our aunt and her boyfriend. My aunt was like a mother to us, she helped raise us since our mother didn’t have the best taste in men. My brother and I got full time jobs and each of us gave our aunt’s boyfriend $50 a week (for rent and bills) and an extra $50 a week because all of us were saving to go to Florida to visit our grandparents and he was putting it into a savings account because my brother and I didn’t have one. My grandfather had health problems, he had heart attacks before and we all knew he didn’t have much longer to live. He was the best man I’ve ever known and he was the only male figure in my life that I could count on. My brother and I had been living at my aunt’s and her boyfriends house for about 6 months when my aunt’s boyfriend didn’t come home for 4 days. When he did finally come home, he was beyond messed up, he was slurring his words, he was falling asleep standing up, it was clear he was on something. My aunt told me and my brother later that he went on a bender with his boss. They spent 4 days smoking crack and snorting cocaine. She then told us that he spent all of the money that me and my brother had been saving to go to Florida to see our grandparents. $2400 we saved, gone in 4 days. But she said “don’t worry, we won’t charge you rent for 6 months and it will all equal out.” I heard my aunt on the phone with my grandma a week later. She told my grandma that we couldn’t come to Florida because “Stacey and her brother didn’t save any money”. My grandfather died 3 months later. It kills me that he thought my brother and I were too immature, selfish or had better things to do than to save money to see him. I wanted to tell my grandparents the truth but with my grandfathers health being what it was I didn’t want to upset him and tell him “hey your daughter lied to you, my brother and I did save the money but her drug addict boyfriend spent it all in 4 days during a bender.” This is literally one thing that my family has done to me or put me through in the 35 years I allowed them in my life. It has been 2 years since I cut the last toxic person in my family from my life and I feel so much better. The fact that I am a positive, healthy, loving wife and mother is a gift from a deity.

Black Tuesday is a 1954 American crime drama film noir directed by Hugo Fregonese and starring Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves and Jean Parker. The supporting cast features Milburn Stone, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly and Russell Johnson.

Full movie.

Film Noir.

A violent con, Vincent Canelli, escapes prison on the night of his execution. With the help of a phony newspaper reporter and Canelli’s girlfriend, Hatti, who has planned the escape, the con takes along five hostages: the prison priest, the prison doctor, one of the guards, the young reporter whose place has been taken by one of the gang, and the daughter of another guard. This young woman is kidnapped to force her father – who, unlike the guard who is taken hostage, always treats the death row inmates well – to facilitate the escape.

Pretty well done. I think you all will enjoy this one.

Ol’ Bogie was on the ball

I wrote about my days in school playing golf on a “Golf Team”. Here’s another story from those days.

There was a stray dog that lived there at the club. He was a cute little fella and he would get his exercise following the golfers around as they played their game. We all called him “bogie”.

He was a fixture at the club.

And on a couple of instances, I would hit the ball right onto the green and be inches from the hole, and I would be so happy that I had such a great shot. Only to have Bogie run up to the ball and carry it off to the woods to gnaw upon.

*ugh!*

The fun times ended when Bogie was hit by a car.

There was a highway that ran next to the Golf Course, and Bogie ran onto it one day. And that was it. Lights out.

Bogie.

Not forgotten.

Cute little guy.

Today…

The nastiest call I remember going on was a drowning.

The patient took pills and drank large amounts of alcohol beforehand. I dont know if this was a suicide attempt or if he was just partying too hard. Afterwards, he decided to go for a swim in the family pool and sank like a rock.

An engine crew had gotten there first and had pulled him out, not breathing. I was on a basic life support ambulance back then so a second ALS unit arrived after we did. We all loaded him in the ambulance.

Paramedics didn’t intubate back then. All we had was something called an esophageal obturator airway and we didn’t get a chance to use it.

I had just started doing positive pressure ventilation when this guy started to projectile vomit. Humongous, massive amounts. It looked like something out of The Exorcist, only worse.

The sheer volume was so copious that the suction machine was useless in keeping up with the torrent of gastric contents that erupted. I think he had swallowed half of the swimming pool. I finally had to turn the patient on his side and let gravity do the job.

Did I mention that it stank? Most puke stinks, but the added aroma of alcohol overwhelmed my olfactory senses. It was so bad that my eyes started to water and my throat began to tighten. I finally had to pull my T-shirt over my nose to help diminish the stench so I wouldn’t add more barf to the already growing pile.

By the time we got to the hospital, the entire floor of the ambulance was covered in at least an inch of vomit. We were all sloshing around in it like you would a flooded basement. When we flung open the double back doors of our ambulance, it cascaded out like a waterfall.

If you had told me before this that a human being could vomit that much, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Clean-up was horrific and took hours, as vomit had splashed up into the cabinets and every nook and cranny of the ambulance.

This was a lifetime ago so I don’t remember if he survived or not but I sure do remember the mess.

I was in a sports bar once with a group of coworkers when one of the men in our group got mad at some loudmouth from another table. My head was turned talking to another coworker when the hothead of the group grabbed the lemon wedge out of my iced tea and discreetly lobbed it several tables away, hitting the obnoxious patron in the shoulder. The guy started making a giant deal of it. The manager was called over but since the guy that got “lemoned” was super annoying to everyone they asked him to leave. Apparently no one had seen the guy next to me throw the lemon wedge but we could all tell it was him by how amused he was and how he seemed to know what the ruckus was when the rest of us were clueless. Anyway, the crybaby called the police and reported that he’d been “assaulted” by a large mob, which brings several police units. By the time the police showed up we had a good laugh watching them question the manager and a couple of servers who I’m sure relayed that there was only the smallest incident. Eventually, several of us were calling it a night and were in the parking lot getting ready to leave. I was behind the wheel of my car, and the “lemoned” man identified a couple of us as members of the the mob and told the police we’d all been drinking heavily. The police questioned me at length regarding the “assault”, which I truthfully stated I had not witnessed, and my fitness to drive but stopped short of doing field sobriety or other testing. I’d really only had iced tea (thankfully) and was only guilty of losing custody of my lemon wedge, which is not a crime.

Hot Cajun Pickle Chips

Hot Cajun Pickle Chips
Hot Cajun Pickle Chips

Yield: 8 pints

Ingredients

  • 1 gallon hamburger dill pickle slices
  • 5 pounds granulated sugar
  • 1 1/4 ounces garlic flakes
  • 2 ounces Tabasco sauce

Instructions

  1. Drain pickles in a colander for at least 30 minutes, pressing out the juice.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, garlic flakes and Tabasco sauce.
  3. In a wide-mouth gallon jar, tightly pack alternating layers of pickle chips and sugar mixture. Close lid tightly and set aside on counter.
  4. Every 24 hours for five days, turn the jar over.
  5. Divide into pint jars and seal.
  6. Chill before serving.

I moved into a mobile home during my college years. I got my first electric bill, it was high but I’d never lived in a mobile home before so I thought it was normal. I met a few of the neighbors and found that none of their bills was as high as mine, I was paying almost $200 a month. So I called the landlord and she had an electrician come out. He saw I had no TV, not computer, no gaming systems, no washer and dryer, nothing but an alarm clock by my bed.

I was in class until noon every day then went to work at my full time job where I got off work around 9pm. I grabbed food on the way home so I wasn’t even cooking meals. I had minimal food in the fridge too.

The electrician put a test thing on my breaker box. They found that I was only using about $35 a month in electricity. They presented the test results to the electric company and they had a crew come out and find the issue. Someone had buried an extension cord in a PVC pipe from an outdoor plug just under the skirting of the trailer and they were using a bunch of electricity. The neighboring trailer, that’s where the cord went. Under their skirting. I have no idea how it was hooked up but they were using it.

It was UNDER the skirting, out of sight. It was like a utility plug in. It was under the skirting, hidden. I had no idea it was there.

Who knows who did that and when. It had been that way a long time I guess and the trailers were always changing tenants due to leaving school. So the person who had hooked this up had likely moved away a long time ago. All I know is when they removed the cord my bill went way down.

Being the Rufus

Deputy Jeremy McLaughlan stopped a vehicle for failure to yield to the right away. During his interaction with the driver, the deputy noticed one of the occupants was a child and saw that the child was not properly restrained in the vehicle.

The deputy noticed that the driver was having a bad day but always remained polite to the deputy. The deputy asked the driver why the child was not in a booster seat. The driver told the deputy that times were tough for her, and she couldn’t afford a booster seat.

As the driver was talking to the deputy, he noticed one of the tires was low on pressure and told the driver. The driver began to cry stating that bad things had been happening to her all day.

The deputy walked back to his vehicle and called his wife and asked her bring one of their children’s booster seat to his location.

Instead of issuing the driver a ticket and putting further financial strain on her and her kids, the deputy decided that he could give the driver one of his children’s booster seats.

As the deputy walked up to the driver, the driver was expecting a ticket. Instead the deputy gave the driver a booster seat so that the child would be safely restrained in the vehicle before driving off with a warning. The driver was surprised to see that the deputy would have done such a thing and was thankful.

We get it, we have bad days also. Remember sometimes we just need an act of kindness to get through a tough day.

Job well done Deputy McLaughlan!!!

Credit: Weld County Sheriff’s Office

Shorpy

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Chicken Creole

chicken creole
chicken creole

Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 teaspoons olive oil
  • 3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1/2 medium onion, sliced (1 cup)
  • 1/2 green bell pepper, sliced
  • 1 stalk celery, sliced
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 cups canned chopped tomatoes
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Hot pepper sauce

Instructions

  1. Heat olive oil in a medium nonstick skillet over high heat. Add chicken cubes, and brown on all sides for 3 minutes.
  2. Remove to a plate, lower heat to medium high. Add onion, green pepper, celery and garlic and sauté 3 minutes.
  3. Add tomatoes, oregano, Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper and return chicken to pan. Simmer for 3 minutes.
  4. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Spoon chicken and sauce over rice and pass the hot pepper sauce.

Russia Commences Tactical NUCLEAR Weapons Exercises

Russia Commences Tactical NUCLEAR Weapons Exercises

Russia has begun tactical nuclear weapons drills in response to perceived Western threats surrounding the conflict in Ukraine.

Recently, French President Macron expressed readiness to send troops if necessary, highlighting the significance of preventing a Russian triumph for European security.

In addition, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron pledged $3.74 billion in military aid to Ukraine, affirming Ukraine’s right to use British-supplied weapons against Russia.

Russia’s current nuclear drills involve tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). These TNWs are designed for battlefield use, targeting specific enemy assets without causing widespread destruction. They are smaller, less powerful, and intended to win battles by targeting troops, airfields, submarines, or aircraft carriers.

In contrast, strategic nuclear weapons aim to win wars by crippling the enemy’s capacity to fight with immense destructive force, capable of hitting cities and military installations.

Currently, the biggest global nuclear powers are Russia and the US possessing 10,600 of the 12,100 nuclear warheads globally, followed by China, France, and Britain. As of 2024, Russia controls an estimated 1,558 TNWs. Due to the lack of transparency, it’s unwise to assume the nation’s arsenal is limited to what’s publicly disclosed.

In a tense nuclear-fueled environment, pressure may lead military forces to opt for strategic nuclear weapons over less destructive tactical ones, potentially triggering a spiral of uncontrollable escalation.

With the use of a ‘small’ tactical nuclear weapon potentially escalating into a full-scale nuclear conflict, the  ‘nuclear taboo’ would eventually be broken. This breach would effectively nullify Russia’s adherence to the No First Use policy, initiating a nuclear conflict.

However, the primary concern is the potential for a full-scale nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO countries. With NATO members possessing significant nuclear arsenals, including the US, France, and the UK, any use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine could lead to retaliatory strikes from NATO allies, escalating the situation further.

UNCONFIRMED Covert Intelligence reports that Russia’s new Defense Minister and President Putin, are under great pressure to FIRE such a weapon as a demonstration to the West that Russia is willing to use them.

Yes but it really was not a repair as I am not great with that stuff m

Yes but it really was not a repair as I am not great with that stuff myself. I was at our town library doing some work as my house was being worked on. There are plenty of small quiet spaces and with earphones you can do the odd zoom call if needed. Well I am there and get approached by a lady who said that she could not get the video part of her MS Teams to work and did I know anything about troubleshooting. Never saw her before and she was your basic soccer mom. I said I would try to help. So I go over and start trying a few things and she says she is going to run to the bathroom. I couldn’t resist checking her browsing history. Well it looks like she cleared it but did not realize that there were options as to how far back you clear it and had not selected the entire history button. You can guess….some videos in the history with “deepthroat” in the title as well as some dating sites etc. I managed to figure out that her external camera was the issue and without it her Teams video feature would work. She returned and I said I think it is ok now, she thanked me profusely and I went back to my spot. Wouldn’t you know that I start seeing her around town every once in awhile. About 6 months later I see her in a liquor store and I am buying some vermouth. She asks me if I like martinis and says that she makes a killer martini. I responded that I love them. To pay me back she asks if I want to come over Friday for a martini. I said sure. Needless to say she does make a killer martini…and also learned alot from those videos!

yself. I was at our town library doing some work as my house was being worked on. There are plenty of small quiet spaces and with earphones you can do the odd zoom call if needed. Well I am there and get approached by a lady who said that she could not get the video part of her MS Teams to work and did I know anything about troubleshooting. Never saw her before and she was your basic soccer mom. I said I would try to help. So I go over and start trying a few things and she says she is going to run to the bathroom. I couldn’t resist checking her browsing history. Well it looks like she cleared it but did not realize that there were options as to how far back you clear it and had not selected the entire history button. You can guess….some videos in the history with “deepthroat” in the title as well as some dating sites etc. I managed to figure out that her external camera was the issue and without it her Teams video feature would work. She returned and I said I think it is ok now, she thanked me profusely and I went back to my spot. Wouldn’t you know that I start seeing her around town every once in awhile. About 6 months later I see her in a liquor store and I am buying some vermouth. She asks me if I like martinis and says that she makes a killer martini. I responded that I love them. To pay me back she asks if I want to come over Friday for a martini. I said sure. Needless to say she does make a killer martini…and also learned alot from those videos!

Happened to me. I submitted my request for a leave a month ahead. The Head of HR and The Head of Department gave me an OK and signed my leave form. They also e-mailed my supervisor regarding that. Two weeks before my leave I reminded them again in an e-mail and again, they all gave an OK.

However, a few days before my leave my supervisor said that something came up and I couldn’t leave and if I did, there will be “some consequences” on my part ( those are her exact words). I was so angry that I went totally quiet and immediately tendered my resignation. Yes that was stupid but I was still young and silly!

Coincidentally, I remembered that my friend told me that the company she worked for was looking for her replacement as she was about to moved abroad following her husband overseas post (her husband was at that time a newly-appointed diplomat). So I contacted her and she arranged an interview with her boss and HR and I got the job, started the next month.

So off I went with my boyfriend , enjoying a two weeks holiday under the glorious Mediterranean sun. And when the holiday ended I checked out my e-mail and my inbox was flooded with emails from my former supervisor, summoned me to come back to my job. I ignored all of them.

Later on I found out that The Head of HR and The Head of Department were so pissed off at her because they approved my leave yet she rejected it for no reason, and most of all she rejected my leave without consulted them first. And when she was unsuccesful to get my replacement she was promptly fired.

I sent her a cake and a card thanking her , as I got a new job (with better position and a much better pay) as a result of her act.

China or USA? Who’s Better? (Americans Shocked)

i had helped a homeless person find a room in a rooming house and paid for his rent for several months. my memory is bad so i can’t remember the exact duration but i think it was over 6 months but under a year. during this time, i would buy food from costco and bring it to him. he would actually complain that he didn’t like certain foods that i would buy for him. pretty crazy, right? i asked him why he wouldn’t work and he just flat out refused to go through the hassle of trying and chose to beg instead. the landlady told me he was instigating and smoking in the house when he was told time and time again to keep to himself and not to smoke inside. she wanted to throw him out. i lived in the city but had rental property outside of the city, which is why i found him a rooming house in the city close to where we met. not wanting him to be thrown out on the street, i drove him 45 minutes out of city to my rental property to let him stay. the first day, he found a little portable safe and broke into it. i was kinda shocked. that showed me that i couldn’t trust him at my rental property and i asked him to leave. he told me that he wasn’t leaving and i had to evict him. mind blowing, right? long story short, i outsmarted him and got him gone that very day, but what a way to thank someone who went out of his way to help you.

FLASH ! ! ! U.S. PATRIOT Missile System, Captured in Ukraine by Russia — GIVEN to CHINA! ! !

US Patriot Missile System Captured in UKR Given to China
US Patriot Missile System Captured in UKR Given to China

Russia has captured yet another US PATRIOT Missile system – intact – inside Ukraine.  But since Russia has already captured enough to reverse engineer them and get all their secrets, Russia decided to

GIVE this one to . . . .  CHINA.

My best friend, who died 8 days ago. She had applied for a part-time job at the public library several years ago and was hired. She didn’t pass the physical exam because of her uncontrolled diabetes – uncontrolled because she didn’t know she was diabetic until then. She couldn’t afford insurance so she did her best to control the diabetes by changing her diet. This worked up to a point, but since she also had high blood pressure, she slowly went blind. Her family finally convinced her to move in with one of her brothers, but she have to re-home her beloved cats. When her sisters arrived to help her pack, they noticed she was saying things that didn’t quite make sense. They called an ambulance to take her to the ER where her blood pressure registered 250/175, IIRC. She didn’t understand why she was there, got progressively worse, and was admitted. It took a day or two for the staff to get a brain scan; the doctor said she’d had a catastrophic stroke. She kept pulling the feeding tube out of her nose, so they performed surgery to insert a peg line. She pulled that out. Her doctor wasn’t able to insert a new one. She was DNR, so they kept her comfortable until she died a few days later.

I fucking hate the American insurance companies’ stranglehold on our healthcare system. How can we call ourselves a “Christian” nation when we’re too selfish to take care of each other??!?

My friend is rich. Very rich.

Just a few days back, I came to know that his grandfather died. I was shocked.

His grandfather met me everyday in the gym. I still remember how I used to touch his feet and he would always say, “Son,perhaps you should touch my biceps, they are bigger than yours”. The man had a great presence. An aura.

I got a little concerned when he started to miss gym almost everyday. I asked my friend about his grandfather’s well being. He said that he’s ‘mentally unfit’.
I visited the ashram/old age house he was living now. He looked pale and didn’t blink at all. He was silent. Won’t utter a word. After 40 minutes as I was about to leave, the old man cried.
Grandfather: I have 3 sons. All of them are married and well settled. I started the family business 47 years ago. Did everything I could for my family. Little did I know that one day my Daughter-in-law would ask me to leave the house.
Me: But why would she do that?
Grandfather: She told me to shift to my other son’s house as he got better property after the division of assets. She said that they couldn’t arrange for my Caretaker when I got ill.

Couldn’t arrange? I said to myself. His grandchild drives a freakin Mercedes.

But his grandchild did look sad and worried. I can understand, I said to him. Dealing with the demise of someone close can be daunting. I still remember his reply.
Friend: You bet it is. You know how much we have to spend on his post death rituals? A freaking 5 lakh rupees.
Me: blank
Friend: Yeah. We have to hire the best caterer in the city. The best pandit. We have to book the best kriya hall. We have to invite all our business associates and colleagues. Arrange for their stay and travel arrangents. Phew! Reputation ka sawaal hai bhai.
(It’s about the reputation dude).

Yes, I’m still thinking about that old man. He must be so happy and proud of his children that they are spending so much on him. But he had to die for it.

P.S: The grandchild was no longer the ‘friend’.

Comics

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Yes, but this one didn’t win.

I was visiting a store. A lady was screaming. I looked inside. She was holding a boy by the arm. The store owner was at the back, looking in amazement at the scene.

She came out, holding the boy, her son, on the upper arm so hard that the blood was oozing out between her fingernails.

She let go, once outside. I asked the boy:

“Did she hurt you?”

“Yes, this time she really did.”

I handed over a Kleenex for him to stem the bleeding.

The mall guard was called, the police showed up…

She accused the store owner of hurting her son.

I was called as a witness.

Several months later, in court, in Canada, the judge called the case. She stood up. The judge said.

“Case dismissed, we don’t deal with people like you in this country.”

It cost her $ 7,000 for court costs. I knew her name from the case and had already found out that she was literally making millions in her American home state, suing store owners for sundry items, usually for harming her son. I guess the judge had access to the same information.

In USA, a lawyer can apparently sue on your behalf without you paying out any money. That makes it easy to sue and also make many “pay up” without spending money on a necessary defense lawyer, innocent or not.

In Canada you have to pay for your lawyer, both ways. She used the police in Canada to file a case on her behalf. That backfired, big time.

I doubt that this American lady (?) will try her game in Canada again.

It still cost the unlucky store owner $2,500 for the lawyer to take his defense statements. I felt sorry for him.

He took me for dinner as a thank-you for my statement. That cost him another $60. We had one beer each, with our food.

25 Minutes of Men Going Their Own Way

So much truth in this video.

Money

A man finds a wallet with $7000 in it.

A few days later, he reads a notice stating that a wealthy man has lost his wallet and is offering a $500 reward to anyone who returns it.

He soon locates the owner and gives him the wallet, and the rich man counts the money and says, “I see you have already taken your reward.” The poor man responds,

“What are you talking about?” The wealthy man continues, “This wallet had $7500 in it when I lost it.”

The poor man replied “I am sorry sir but when I found it up it only had $7,000”

The two men began arguing, and eventually they end up in court to sort out their differences. Both men present their case, the poor man first, then the wealthy man who concludes by saying,

“Your Honor, I trust you believe me.”

The Judge says, “Of course.” The rich man smiles, and the poor man is devastated.

Then the Judge takes the wallet out of the wealthy man’s hands and gives it to the poor man who found it.

“What are you doing?” the rich man yells angrily. The Judge responds,

“You are, of course, an honest man, and if you say that your missing wallet had $7500 in it, I’m sure it did – but if the man who found this wallet is a liar and a thief, he wouldn’t have returned it at all, which means that this wallet must belong to somebody else. If that man steps forward, he’ll get the money – otherwise, it stays with the man who found it.”

“What about my money?” the rich man asks.

“Well, we’ll just have to wait until somebody finds your wallet with the $7500 in it.

Single Mother SHOCKED No Man Wants to Raise her KID

So much truth.

Well you don’t do what I did.

My Head of Department called me into a surprise meeting with the Head of HR.

The interview started: ‘What haven’t you done?’ This was a bit of a surprise as I was up to date, so I said I didn’t know. ‘Well you haven’t done X and Y and Z’. ‘Yes I have and I gave them to my Head of Section and a meeting at which A and B were present as well’.

That went down like a lead balloon.

‘Well, your HoS states you have not done this work’. ‘Do you want me to go and get the work in question?’ ‘Well, why would she say you have not done the work when you claim you have’.

‘Probably for the same reason that she left newspaper cuttings, referring to the suicide of individuals, on my desk – ‘in the hope that you would be interested’. Or the same reason she has been making allegations against you’.

That went down like a deflated lead balloon.

This put the HR manager and the Principal in a quandary. She, as a militant feminist, had appointed my HoD and HoS to their relative positions, purely on the basis of sex. She therefore could admit to having blundered in these appointments, but narcissists do not like admitting mistakes, or she could brand me as a trouble causing incompetent. She chose the latter.

I was so incompetent I won a tribunal case of ‘unfair dismissal, and she was exposed as a liar at this hearing.

Turducken (a Chicken in a Duck in a Turkey)

Turducken is a dish consisting of a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, further stuffed into a deboned turkey. Outside of the United States and Canada, it is known as a three bird roast. Gooducken is a traditional English variant replacing turkey with goose.

turducken
turducken

Ingredients

Turducken

  • 1 (20 to 25 pound) whole turkey
  • 1 (4 to 5 pound) whole duckling
  • 1 (3 to 4 pound) whole chicken
  • Corn bread dressing
  • Sausage stuffing

Seasoning Mix

  • 3 tablespoons salt
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons paprika
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons pepper
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons dried thyme

Sausage Stuffing

  • Butter
  • 3 cups onions, diced
  • 1 1/2 cups celery, diced
  • 2 pounds spicy Italian sausage
  • 3 tablespoons paprika
  • 3 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 3 cups chicken stock
  • 2 cups toasted bread crumbs

Instructions

  1. Place the cleaned turkey, breast side down, on a flat surface. Cut through the skin along the length of the spine. Using the tip of a knife and starting from neck end, gently separate meat from rib cage on one side. Toward neck end, cut through meat to expose shoulder blade; cut meat away from and around the bone, severing bone at the joint to remove shoulder blade. Disjoint wing between second and third joints. Leave the wing bones and keep the wing attached to the meat.
  2. Continue separating meat from frame, heading toward the thighbone and being careful to keep the “oyster” (pocket of meat on back) attached to skin, rather than leaving with bone. Cut through ball-and-socket joint to release thighbone from carcass (bird will be open on one side, exposing bones left to deal with). Keep the leg attached to the meat.
  3. Repeat boning procedure on the other side of the bird. Carefully remove carcass and reserve for making stock. You should end up with a flat boneless (except for wings and legs) turkey with the skin intact in one large piece. Cover the boned turkey and set aside (or chill).
  4. Repeat the process on the duckling and chicken, but cut off the first two joints of wings, and debone both stumps of wings and leg drumsticks (cut through flesh at thinnest point and trim around these bones with a knife until they can be removed). Trim excess skin and fat from necks of birds. If it is your first time deboning a fowl, it is advisable to practice first on the chicken rather than the turkey. Both the chicken and duck will be stuffed inside the turkey and need not be kept “perfectly” intact. Make stock from the chicken carcass.
  5. Prepare Seasoning Mix and set aside.
  6. Prepare Sausage Stuffing. Melt butter in large skillet over high heat. Add onions and celery. Saute until onions are dark brown but not burned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add sausage to the skillet and cook about 5 minutes or until the meat is browned, stirring frequently. Add paprika and minced garlic and cook about 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in chicken stock and bring to simmer. Continue cooking until water evaporates and oil rises to top, about 10 minutes.
  7. Stir in toasted bread crumbs and mix well. Add more bread crumbs if mixture is too moist.
  8. Prepare a similar amount of another stuffing such as corn bread stuffing.
  9. At least 13 to 14 hours before dinner, assemble the Turducken.
  10. Spread the turkey, skin down, on flat surface, exposing as much meat as possible. Rub 3 tablespoons of seasoning mix evenly on meat. Spread sausage stuffing over the turkey in an even layer approximately 3/4 inch thick.
  11. Place duck, skin down, on top of stuffing. Season exposed duck meat with about 1 tablespoon of seasoning mix. Spread corn bread stuffing in an even layer (about 1/2 inch thick) over the duck.
  12. Arrange the chicken, skin down, evenly on top of corn bread stuffing. Season chicken meat with seasoning mix. Spread remainder of sausage and/or corn bread stuffing on top of chicken.
  13. With another person’s help, carefully lift the sides of the layered birds, folding the sides of the turkey together. Have a helper hold the bird while sewing the opening down the back of the turkey together using cotton thread. The bird may not close perfectly, and a strip of cheese cloth can be used to help close the “crack” in the back of the turkey so stuffing will not leak out when the bird is turned over.
  14. Since the Turducken has no skeleton, it must be trussed up or it may fall apart in cooking. Tie cotton string around the bird, widthwise, every inch or so along the bird’s length. Turn the bird over and place on a roasting rack inside a large roasting pan so it is oriented breast side up and looks like a “normal” turkey. Tie the legs together just above the tip bones.
  15. Heat oven to exactly 190 degrees F. Temperature control is critical since the Turducken is so massive that it has to be cooked very slowly at a low temperature. Using an oven thermometer is highly recommended.
  16. Place the bird in the center of the oven and bake until a meat thermometer inserted through to center reads 165 degrees F, about 12 to 13 hours. There will be no need to baste, but accumulated drippings will have to be removed from the pan every few hours so that the lower portion does not deep fry in the hot oil. Remove the Turducken from the oven and let cool in the pan for an hour before serving. Make gravy using your favorite recipe.
  17. To serve, cut bird in half lengthwise. Carve crosswise so each slice reveals all 3 meats and dressings.

Notes

The Turducken will need to bake for 12 or 13 hours at 190 degrees F, so begin preparation well in advance.

Credit for the creation of the turducken is uncertain, though it is generally agreed to have been popularized by Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme. The most common claimant is Hebert’s Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana, whose owners Junior and Sammy Hebert say they created it in 1985 when a local man brought his own birds to their shop and asked the brothers to create the medley.

Duke

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main qimg cd6138185c0eb9f25a476ddf24838964

One day, I was lounging in the house when I heard loud gunfire. I ran outside just in time to see my neighbors cart off Duke’s mom on the back of their flatbed truck.

After that, Duke spent almost every hour at our home. Curiosity drove me to ask my neighbor’s what his name was but all they told me was they simply called him Dog. A couple of months after that, they simply stopped feeding Duke. I started to feed him because I wasn’t going to let this baby starve.

When it came time for our neighbors to move, I asked them if I could take Duke off of their hands since it was clear they didn’t want anything to do with him. The son said yes, but the day after I asked, Duke was gone and so were they.

I contacted the son and asked if he had changed his mind and decided to take the dog with him and he grew defensive and put all the blame on me and threatened me. After explaining to him I didn’t have Duke, he hung on me calling me a liar.

In an effort to find this baby, I posted Missing Pet signs all over the local vets office within a 25 mile radius.

5 months passed before I got a phone call from the UPS man that delivered in our neighborhood. He said he saw a dog matching the description of Duke in a nearby field and he looked pretty bad. I thanked the man, hung up and drove straight to where he said he saw the dog. It was Duke. Malnourished and severely afraid of everything. However, one look at me and after hearing my voice he perked up and ran straight into my arms.

Now Duke is healthy and happy and has three other dogs and three cats to play with.Now we are a family.❤️

I worked for Price Waterhouse (a global accounting firm) at the beginning of my 20+ year career in public accounting. After a couple of years the powers that be had me teach a training class for new hires. I got good reviews so they had me teach more and more classes. I didn’t mind, I enjoyed it and it was a nice change of pace from the normal grind.

After a few years I became one of the go-to instructors for a variety of CE (continuing education) classes. CPAs have a pretty rigorous training requirements. Back then you needed 80 hours of training every two years.

Anyhow, one time the CE Coordinator called me late one afternoon and asked if I could take over for an instructor the next day who had to cancel last minute. It was summer and I wasn’t crazy busy so I said sure. The only downside was that the class was in Downtown LA. I worked out of the Orange County office so that meant I would have a shitty commute.

She told me there would be less experienced person there to help me and that she would email me the course materials. No problem.

I had to work late and then wake up early for the commute so didn’t bother looking at the course materials. At that point I had a pretty good foundation in a wide range of topics and had taught a lot of training classes so I assumed that I would be ok.

Uh, nope.

Turns out the class was for ERISA audits (401Ks) and audits of employee benefit plans. And, of course, I didn’t know that until I walked in the room and looked at the board. Despite leaving early I had caught some terrible traffic so I got to the class about 2 minutes before it started!

I remember looking at the 30 or so people in the class and seeing some older folks (meaning that they were probably senior managers, directors, or even partners). I was a manager so that meant lots of them were senior to me. Oh shit.

At that point I knew a lot about auditing but absolutely ZERO about auditing 401Ks and benefit plans.

I was not happy. I went through the intros and administrative items and then walked the class through the agenda for the day and quickly called a break. Fortunately my ‘assistant’ spent all of his time auditing 401Ks and benefit plans so I told him that he was in charge and would lead the class for the day. He wasn’t happy about it but it was the only choice we had.

When we resumed I fessed up about the situation to the class (they all had a good laugh) and then sat and listened along with everyone else for the rest of the day. The kid did a pretty good job too.

I stopped a car for a traffic violation late at night and the driver immediately got out of his car holding a gun. My first reaction was “this isn’t happening, this can’t happen to me.” I dropped behind my car door (which offers little more than psychological protection), pointed my gun at him and started screaming for him to drop his. I was still having difficulty believing this was happening.

Instead he stood there next to his car door with his gun in his hand pointed at the ground looking at me like I was crazy. I was too stressed to remember how to say “drop the gun” in Spanish. If he had raised the gun I would have shot him but what was happening did not make sense. He just stood there with his gun pointed towards the ground. I broadcast an officer needs help call screaming he’s got a gun into the microphone. There were sirens from all directions, one of our officers came the wrong way down a one way street and across the street we were on right towards the suspect intending to ram him. At that point he threw his gun down just in time and we arrested him. I was shaking and it took me some time to calm down.

Turns out he owned a restaurant in Los Angeles and was feeding some LAPD cops nightly for free. He had confided to two of them that he was carrying large amounts of money home late at night and that he was illegally carrying a gun for protection. As a psychopathic practical joke, at least one these cops had told him “if you’re ever stopped by the police get out of your car with the gun so the police will know you have it.” They were setting him up to be killed as a practical joke.

I and my supervisors knew he was telling the truth because no criminal could think up a story like that. Our detectives verified he owned the restaurant and was truthful. He was prosecuted only for the less serious charge of possession of the gun without a permit, not for the felony of exhibiting it in my presence. He got probation, no jail time.

Our Chief contacted LAPD and their internal affairs handled it – I was never told what happened to these rotten cops; hope they were fired. I’m glad I didn’t shoot him but it would have been legal if I had.

I got a verbal commendation from my Chief for being a decent person in not shooting him along with a polite lecture about my lousy officers safety tactics. There are a few bastards like this in law enforcement, but they are usually quickly weeded out.

Note 7–25-18 this was the LAPD of the 1980s and probably would be unlikely to happen now.

I owned and lived in a duplex, like a town house only 2 homes and it’s single story. My side had been empty for over a year when I bought the place. Needless to say, they were used to having full access to my yard and driveway. I’d come home from work and they’d be parked in my driveway or be having a party and grilling. At first I chucked it up to they’re used to using the space and forgot. But after 3 months and several other issues, it was a problem. There was a situation involving our dogs fighting because they opened my gate to use my hose that I’ve posted about previously. Even though the dog situation had subsided, they would still park in my driveway (he had a huge truck for construction work) or blocking my driveway so I couldn’t get out, if I was already parked. Several times I was late to school or work, or came home unable to park. Normally I would knock on their door and ask him to move it. But one night, it was 2am when I got home, he didn’t answer. I stood there banging for 20+ minutes until the neighbors came out asking what was going on. He said his friend is a tow trucker driver and legally he can’t park in, or blocking, a residential driveway. 15 minutes later the tow truck arrived and pulled his truck out of my driveway. I pulled in, parked and went inside.

*note I did verify that I had the legal right to remove his vehicle before having it towed laws may differ in different areas*

At the time, I suffered badly from insomnia. I was prescribed a sleep aid that was so strong, it was like I was in a coma. Nothing woke me up. 3 hours later at 5am, he started banging on my door. My dogs went crazy but I oblivious. Next thing I know I’m waking up to cops because they thought I was dead. I apologized and explained I was prescribed sleeping meds and that was why I didn’t answer my door. I informed cops that he had parked his truck in my driveway and I had it towed. He was PISSED, but legally there was nothing he could do about it. Cops told him the same thing, that in no circumstances could he park in my driveway. Believe it or not, I had to have his truck towed a second time because he blocked me in and I almost lost my job from being late to work. From then on, he parked his truck in his side yard.

Our HONEST Opinions About China After Going There for the First Time

Burn the matches that serve no purpose

My mother ordered a case of matches with the logo of my sister’s wedding on it. She did this as a favor to help my sister pay for her wedding.

Something like this design of matches
Something like this design of matches

Unfortunately, she accidentally ordered 10,000 cases. Thinking, obviously, that they were 10,000 matches.

And, don’t you know it, she could not part with this massive ancient fire hazard. So it sat in her basement year after year, decades after decade.

About thirty years later… when matchbooks went out of style, and smoking became the unacceptable vice in the USA, she died and was buried. Rest in peace mom.

But then, about a month later, my brother and I carted all those cases out of the basement. We stacked them high in a field and set them ablaze.

Good bye to the relics of the past.

It was long overdue.

Sometimes we tend to cling to things because we paid a lot for them, forgetting that their value was zero and was not worth any benefit to keep them around for.

Burn the matches that serve no purpose.

Today…

Veterans to Biden: US Law Says No Weapons to Nations with A-Bombs if They’ve Not Signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That Means Israel

In a letter 18 April to President Biden and top members of his administration, Veterans For Peace cited existing federal law that gives the President “…no discretion whatsoever to allow any military assistance of any form to be delivered to Israel,” based on that country’s “serial violations of the Symington-Glenn Amendments, codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2799aa.”

The letter cites a lengthy list of credible reports that Israel has possessed nuclear weapons for decades. Because Israel has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the Symington-Glenn Amendments to the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which allow no presidential discretion, goes into effect, including:

  • termination of assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act, except for humanitarian assistance or food or other agricultural commodities;
  • termination of defense sales and licensing of Munitions List exports;
  • termination of foreign military financing;
  • denial of U.S. government credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance (except for medical and humanitarian assistance and agricultural exports from the United States);
  • U.S. government opposition to any loan or financial or technical assistance from international financial institutions (IFIs);
  • prohibition of any loan or credit from U.S. banks to the foreign government (except for the purchase of food or other agricultural commodities); and
  • prohibition under the Export Administration Act of exports to that state of specific goods and technology licensed by the Commerce Department (except for food and other agricultural commodities).

The letter states, “The President may not waive the cutoff of the above aid and exports under the Glenn Amendment where there has been a nuclear weapons detonation, or the offending state has received a nuclear explosive device. Congress would have to enact new legislation authorizing the President to waive some or all of these sanctions.”

VFP National Director, Mike Ferner, said, “Israel’s possession of The Bomb and the U.S.’ refusal to take appropriate action is yet another example of how the Madmen Arsonists – the Raytheons, Boeings, General Dynamics – actually govern our country and determine policy. The law is quite simple – Does Israel have an unregulated nuclear weapons arsenal? Yes, it does. Is Israel a signatory to the NPT? No, it isn’t. So, the question to Biden is, ‘will you obey the law or the Madmen?’”

Ferner added, “This election year our members will ask their Congressional representatives, ‘Will you hold hearings to enforce existing law, or let the Madmen Arsonists continue to run our country?’”

Highlights of the letter:

  • Senator John Glenn was prompted to seek a change in the law because of a reported theft of 100 kg of highly enriched uranium from an NRC vendor in 1968, later traced to the Dimona reactor complex in Israel. (pg. 3)
  • Repeated CIA assessments and remarks of Colin Powell in 2016 that the U.S. knew Israel had at least 200 warheads at that time. (pgs. 4-9)
  • Israel prosecuted and jailed Mordecai Vanunu for his courageous whistleblowing disclosure in the 1980’s that Israel has The Bomb. (pg. 7)
  • Benjamin Netanyahu was identified by the FBI as being directly involved in an Israeli smuggling operation in the 1980’s that successfully stole 800 krytrons, a prized device used for triggers in nuclear weapons. (pg. 7)
  • The Symington-Glenn amendment has been implemented by previous administrations. (pg. 4)
  • What the President must do (pg. 10)
  • Contrary to other instances where the Biden administration is allowed to ignore aid limitations, this one may be litigable in court. (pg. 10)

Veterans For Peace members across the U.S. are telling their members of Congress to vote NO on any more weapons for Israel and hold hearings to hold the Biden administration accountable They have participated in numerous protests and acts of civil disobedience to highlight Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.

 

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”–Antonio Gramsci
.

Bailey’s Lasagna

baileys lasagna
baileys lasagna

Yield: 8 to 12 servings

Equipment

  • Lasagna pan

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 pound Italian sausage
  • 1 (67 ounce) jar Prego Traditional spaghetti sauce
  • 12 lasagna noodles
  • 14 ounces ricotta cheese
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese or other cheese of choice
  • 1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Brown ground beef and Italian sausage together until cooked through, then drain well. Combine with the spaghetti sauce. Set aside.
  3. Cook lasagna noodles until al dente, according to package directions. Drain and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Set aside.
  4. For the filling, combine ricotta cheese and eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Spread a thin layer of the spaghetti sauce over the bottom of a lasagna pan.
  6. Lay lasagna noodles lengthwise in the casserole dish.
  7. Spoon and spread spaghetti sauce over the noodles.
  8. Spoon and spread filling over the spaghetti sauce.
  9. Repeat steps 6, 7 and 8 twice.
  10. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella or cheese of choice over the top.
  11. Bake, covered and sealed with foil (DO NOT LET THE FOIL TOUCH THE CHEESE), for 30 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melted.
  12. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer to brown the cheese.
  13. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.
  14. Top each serving with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese.

Notes

Serve with garlic bread.

Refrigerate any leftovers.

.

When my daughter was twelve, we were called into the school for an emergency meeting with the principal. I was absolutely mortified as I watched the video of my daughter chasing down a younger and smaller boy on the playground, knocking him to the ground, sitting on him, and placing handcuffs on him. It had not been a game: the boy had been the target of systematic bullying by some of the kids the whole year, and my daughter had decided to join in. Small as my daughter was, she was still bigger and stronger than the boy, and the sheer determination in her and desperation in him was sickening: it was like watching a predator chase down a bunny rabbit.

The only thing that saved us from a lawsuit from the boy’s parents was that hubby and I sincerely apologized immediately and made absolutely no excuses for her actions. I believe they were expecting us to try to play the event down, or blame their son, or make some lame excuse to try to get her out of trouble, but there was simply no denying the video evidence of the assault. To this day my gut still knots up over it. That was not how we raised her to be, and thankfully that was the only time (that we know of) she acted so cruelly.

EDIT: Answers to a few common questions I’ve received.

I’ve had a lot of people asking me about the handcuffs. I’m into cosplay, and I’m constantly picking up odd things here and there. The weekend prior to this event I had found a pair of handcuffs at a thrift shop. They weren’t real peace officer type, but they were metal. She’d been playing around with them and I didn’t realize she’d taken them to school with her that day.

This happened over seven years ago. She’s almost twenty now.

The day she was suspended from school she had to go and apologize to the boy directly. While she was at home on suspension, she had to keep up with her schoolwork, she was restricted to the house (no going out with friends), was restricted from all electronics short of what she needed to do her homework (with monitored internet only for homework), and she had to help me install a hardwood floor in two rooms of our home. This was in addition to writing the apology letter.

Yes, the parents could have taken us to civil court for the emotional distress done to their son. As the parents of a minor, we would be held financially responsible for any damages. More importantly, they could have pressed charges and given my daughter a criminal record (albeit a juvenile record) for assault and possibly unlawful detention (I’m not certain of the exact terminology in the state we were living at the time). No, I do not believe that it would have been an overreaction on the other parents’ part and we were lucky that they chose to do none of those.

While there was certainly peer pressure involved, it does not relieve my daughter of responsibility. She has before and since proven resistant to peer pressure… for the most part. She’s not perfect and we don’t expect her to be, we just expect her to be accountable for her choices.

Interesting.

Without question, the USA will suffer more.

You see, China controls all the supply chains, all the manufacturing, all the logistics. The USA is heavily reliant on Chinese-manufacturing.

The USA is also heavily reliant on natural resources from China such as rare earths and mineral processing.

China’s economy will continue to chug along as it exports to Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the rest of Asia.

Without cheap imports, inflation in the USA will go through the roof.

Many years ago my wife and I went to a wedding of a relative. The church wedding was simple and fine.

The reception was at a hall and I don’t remember if there was a band or DJ. Drinks were fine. They asked everyone to sit at their tables and the announcer would call table numbers.

The buffet was served by a row of staff, so you didn’t just dig in. The main course was pre sliced Turkey. As we sat and waited for our number to be called, we watched as smiling people walked past with plates piled high with food. We were getting hungry!

Finally they call our table and the serving trays were empty! The servers were trying to scrape mashed potatoes in a failed effort to give the remaining guests on line a scoop full. And a spoonful of vegetables. The Turkey was long gone.

To add to the disappointment the bus people are clearing tables of plates still laden with food! Lots of slices of Turkey, two big scoops of potatoes all floating in gravy!

It was pretty clear that the servers had bad judgment and loaded up plates with what was no doubt double servings and simply ran out of food before the final tables were served.

We did stay until the end and ate wedding cake. We stopped At McDonalds on our way back to the hotel.

I later learned that the parents who paid for the reception were mortified and got a big chunk of cash back from the venue.

After speaking at a conference for Young Achievers a teen boy applied at my company. He sent his resume directly to me and followed up with numerous phone calls. I told him I wasn’t hiring at that time so he got his father to call and ask me to give him a chance. I was impressed with his refusal to take no for an answer, something I admire in people, so I brought him in for an interview. Normally there was a tiered interviewing process but I was going on maternity leave in two weeks so I interviewed him myself. I was impressed with everything about this boy. I explained to him that he’d have to learn fast because I would be leaving and he would have very little supervision. He was hired.

This is the part hurts-

We were in a busy season and no one was available to properly train him. At the end of the two weeks I had to fire him. Under different circumstances he would have been a model employee. I told him that I was letting him go because we didn’t have the time to train him but if he applied anywhere else, I would give him a glowing recommendation. A few weeks later I got a call from a company asking for a reference for this boy. I highly recommend him. They then asked me why I let him go if he was so great. I explained everything to them, assured them that this was in no way his fault and that I’d gladly hire him back should he ever want to return. They ended up hiring him. Years later I still find this difficult to write because of the disappointment in his face that day. I’m sure wherever he is he became successful.

This is life in Montenegro: The Country Where You Can Walk WITHOUT CLOTHES on the Beaches

Click Baity. Sure. But the content does not equate to the splash image.

The cool thing about this video is that this place looks really cool to visit.

It really does.

A powder keg just blew up in Niger’s capital Niamey as Russian troops swarmed into Airbase 101, setting up a tense face-off with the United States. Niamey’s airport is now a freakin’ barracks for both American and Russian forces after Niger’s military junta booted out US troops. Nice move, right? Sure, Russians have their own hangars and aren’t bunking with US troops, but there’s a lot of angst about what access they might have to US military gear.

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Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin claims Russian boots don’t have a free pass to American equipment, but how long before something goes boom? The US thought they had Niger’s back fighting against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, but after the coup last July, they’re getting kicked to the curb, just like Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso did with US and French troops. Guess they’re not feeling the love anymore.

So, who’s filling the void? You guessed it, China and Russia – the new BFFs for these military-ruled African nations. Without that colonial baggage, they’re smooth-talking their way in as anti-West sentiment ramps up. So, brace yourselves, folks – this scramble for Africa is on! As resource-rich Africa becomes the shiny prize, the rise of a new global order looms with the US, Russia, and China in a three-way tug-of-war. Things are about to get wild; everyone is on edge and on the lookout.

Massive relationship collapse in the West as society crumbles.

There is a farm house outside of town that I have been driving by my entire life.

It is memorable because it is simple.

A simple home with a simple garage.

One day a friend of mine says he wants to show me something really cool at the simple old farm house.

I chuckle, but it’s the summer, school’s out and so have nothing better to do.

He takes me out to the simple farmhouse and we go in to its garage.

The amiable old farmer who owns the house is standing there.

He introduces himself but all I see is a vault door that stands as tall as the garage itself that is nearly half as wide.

And inside that bank-like vault door:

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A gun collection with every gun imaginable, and sometimes two.

It looked like something out of Bass Pro Shops.

It was like the image above, but the room was even more grand if you can believe that.

This old farmer’s gun collection was worth more money than most people from our small town will amass in their entire life time.

He could see the shock on my face.

And he was just standing and smiling like he had seen this reaction a thousand times.

I knew in that moment what it feels like to be secretly rich:

You always get to have the last laugh.

If “every day” can mean “since the age of 5”…?

A good friend of mine was raised in a *Mennonite community.

He told the story about one of his younger brothers who at the age of 15 made the decision he wanted to join the Marines when he turned 18.

Every day for 3 years he started conditioning with an 80 lb. ruck sack he created.

He carried it on him at all times unless he had a chore where he couldn’t.

He ran everywhere he went in addition to a plethora of other homemade training routines he created to help prepare himself.

Mind you, all of this was done in addition to his daily manual labor performed from sun up to sun down and a life time of adhering to “orders” and a strict discipline he had to follow as a Mennonite.

When his brother turned 18 he went and signed up for the Marines just like he said.

And he completed Boot Camp just like he trained to do.

But here’s the real kicker:

When my friend talked to his brother about his experience in Boot Camp and what it was like…

His brother replied back to him with a straight face:

”I was disappointed.

I thought it was going to be harder.”

So, yes, there is a point where some can begin training and “easily” go through boot camp.

But unless you were raised in a modern day agricultural equivalent of the Spartan’s agōgē

?

Probably not.

*The order he was a part of was a no-modern technology Mennonite community e.g. My friend once attached wooden boards to the top of a rotating horse-drawn saw mill column to create a makeshift ceiling fan during the hot summer heat; he was told to take it down because it was too modern.

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main qimg 54e919b039954d6e9a11f458f693dd36 lq

Our Daily Comix

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To Die for Beef Roast

This is one of the best roasts you will ever taste. Carrots, potatoes and celery can also be added, if desired.

to die for crockpot roast
to die for crockpot roast

Ingredients

  • 1 beef roast (any kind)
  • 1 envelope Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing mix
  • 1 envelope brown gravy mix
  • 1 envelope Italian dressing mix
  • 1/2 cup warm water

Instructions

  1. Place roast in slow cooker.
  2. Mix contents of all 3 envelopes and sprinkle over roast.
  3. Pour water into the bottom of the slow cooker.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours.

Some years ago our washing machine stopped working, about 2 weeks after its 2-year warranty expired. It was a mid-range model, and with 2 toddlers in the house, we really needed a clothes washer. We managed to get an engineer (specialist in washing machines) out the next day. I already knew the timer clock was working OK, as were the inlet valves; yet when it tried to rotate the drum, absolutely nothing happened. After about 45 minutes, with the engineer running all sorts of diagnostics on the control circuit board and checking all the wiring, he sighed and told us that there was nothing to be done; the motor was burnt out and a replacement, plus the cost of fitting, made the fix uneconomical; instead, recommending buying a replacement machine.

He left, but with all the covers off the machine and with his assurance that the control board was fine, I decided to have a look myself. As a kid I’d played around a lot with model trains, and knew that their motors would sometimes fail if the brushes, or the springs holding the brushes, were out of adjustment. This machine’s motor had more armature windings than I was used to, but the familiar two brushes, in spring-loaded brass housings. The housings had a single wire plugged onto them, and they were held in place by spring clips. I popped one out and found that while the carbon brush itself still had plenty of use left in it, the spring pushing it against the commutator was short and the brush wasn’t making contact. I slid the brush out, put in a small packing piece, replaced the spring and brush and clipped it back in place.

Immediate success, worked like new. Cost? £0.00 The machine ran for another 5 years, when it failed with similar symptoms. This time there really was no life left in the brushes, but a spares shop about a 5 minute walk from home sold me a brand new pair for 14p. It ran for yet another 5 years before the controller circuit board finally blew up.

  1. Don’t be a people pleaser.
  2. Spend time with your parents and treat them well. They will not be around one day.
  3. Mind your own business.
  4. Don’t lie, cheat or be dishonest. It spoils your name in the long run.
  5. When the phone signal is down to the last bar, don’t answer the phone as the radiation will be 1000 times higher.
  6. Don’t cheat if you are in an unhappy relationship. Just leave.
  7. Use tea sachets to remove odour from gym bags.
  8. Never give up on your dreams no matter what. Try to accomplish your goals and dreams in the long run.
  9. Never take your medicine with cold water.
  10. Be empathic. An act of kindness wouldn’t ruin you.
  11. Graduate before 30.
  12. Don’t waste your time with meaningless relationships or temporary people.
  13. When people treat you like they don’t care, believe them.
  14. Participate in family gatherings, college reunions and get together with friends.
  15. Adopt a pet. I did. My six months old pup is my ultimate stress buster now.
  16. Never ‘ever’ abandon your old friends by replacing them with your new buddies.
  17. Have two servings of vegetables and fruits daily.
  18. Learn to love your flaws and imperfections along with your perks.
  19. Start your day with a glass of lukewarm water on an empty stomach.
  20. Be thankful for something daily, at least once.
  21. Stay away from toxic people. They only bring out the negativity in you and ruin your life further.
  22. Compartmentalize your ideas and thoughts. Write them down on a journal.
  23. Don’t be shy. Go out and be a social butterfly. Talk to random people.
  24. Add some slices of lemon in plain water to zest up your taste buds.
  25. Don’t let someone get comfortable with disrespecting you. Set boundaries.
  26. Crushed mint leaves or Indian basil are great herbs to remove bad mouth odour.
  27. If you don’t have enough time, spend lesser time on social networks.
  28. Never speak bad or low about yourself. Make it a point to not put yourself down even as a harmless joke.
  29. If you don’t like your job, quit it and do something else. Don’t just put up with it and force yourself to do it.
  30. Don’t waste your energy on bad feelings, negative thoughts or useless people.
  31. Travel often. Getting lost will help you to discover your identity.
  32. Be careful about personal things you share to people. The friend today could be your enemy tomorrow.
  33. Never stay in an unrequited love for a long time. Let it go and move forward.
  34. Say exactly what you feel/think. Be direct about it even if it might displease others.
  35. Forgive people and their actions. Never give it to him. Let karma finish up the job for you.
  36. Be mindful about your expenditures but not a miser. Budget spending is a start.
  37. Have a glass of buttermilk or warm milk before bedtime.
  38. If you don’t master you own time, there will be possibilities of you being unconscious slaves of those who have mastered theirs.
  39. Trust your instincts. Intuitions doesn’t lie.
  40. Be cautious about lending/borrowing a huge sum of money to your friends/relatives. It may break the tie. Just saying.
  41. Never enter the lift before others have got out of them. Don’t be a jerk. Wait and let them get out before you barge in.
  42. Have few cups of green tea in the evenings after lunch and throughout your day to aid digestion.
  43. You could forgive, let go and give them another chance…or you could chuck them aside and give yourself a better chance.
  44. Cut down on your caffeine intake. Replace your coffee cravings with something healthier.

Many years ago a friend and I stopped by a pub on our way home from a rock concert. It was Triumph. This was the early ’80s and wearing a bandana around your neck was kind of normal. Anyway we go in sit down, and didn’t even get a chance to order a beer. This group of guys just started in on me, for some reason. It was a country music bar, and I guess I was a long hair. It gets so bad that I finally stood up and said to the main culprit,what the fuck IS your problem? Remember we’re talking we’re in there 5 minutes. At that point him and his buddies grab me by the seat of my pants and the bandana around my neck and threw me out the front door head first with my head opening the door. Stunned outside I wanted to go back in and just clean house. Fortunately my friend who they threw out as well but not as roughly calm me down and made me realize that they would have probably just thrown me out again. This has been decades ago and I still have no idea what the real reason was. I know that a woman to fight over was not the issue.Overflowing 🍺 beer and testosterone I suppose. The whole incident reminded me of that Ron White story where he says he was thrown out of a bar and he doesn’t know how many there were, but he guesses it was all of them. That may have been true with me.

Putin and China Put Out Devastating Warning to the US | Col. Jacques Baud

May 2024. China has stopped “playin'”.

This was during my placement time…

I was having an interview for TCS. The panel called my name, I went in. It was a panel of 3 ladies. I was carrying a file containing my resume, marksheets, certificates.

R1- what are your hobbies ?

Me – I like sketching, playing guitar, riding my bike and collecting pens( all looking at me). If you wish, I have some sketches attached at the end of the file.

All looking through my sketches.

R2 – so, if we recruit you would you still continue sketching in your busy schedule.

Me – yes Mam I will still continue sketching, if you’re passionate about something you will manage some time for it no matter how busy you are.

R2- good.

R3- so, you say you like to collect pens. What kind of pen do you collect ?

Me – I am a pen enthusiast. I like to collect premium pens, PARKER, SHEAFFER, CROSS, WATERMAN, LAMY etc. Ball , roller ball, fountain.

R1 – that’s interesting. So, how many pen do you have ?

Me – I have around 50–60 normal range pens(Parker , Pierre Cardin) and 15–20 premium range pens (above 1k INR). And I will continue to collect while I’m here.

R2 – what will you do with so many pens when you’re gone ?

Me – (don’t know what to say , still came up with the most stupid answer ) some of those are limited editions and some are discontinued which are not available in the market at present and I know they will have a great value someday, I’ll leave them as a legacy for my children/grandchildren.

R3 – you’ll need to have a great number of children. Good luck with that. ( don’t know with what logic she came up with that )

All burst into laughter. I join in with them and start to chuckle.

R2 – okay , I’m gonna write your feedback with my sheaffer pen

Me – sorry Mam, but that’s not a sheaffer, that’s a Parker.

(Edit 3: I guess she focused on this statement to check my presence of mind and whether or not I really knew about what I said i.e. to check if I was lying about my hobby or not).

R1- you may leave now.

Me – thank you.

Next week the result for day 1 sharing was out.

Verdict : got an offer letter from TCS.

P.s these are around 5-6 year old images, didn’t have for the latest collection.

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Why So Many Countries Are Abandoning the Dollar

It’s damn obvious.

Not my dog, but my next door neighbors’ dog. Duke was a large mixed breed about 65–70 pounds, a super friendly boy who spent every day making the rounds in our neighborhood collecting treats, love, attention and objects he found in the yards or garages of those he visited. I was used to getting calls from Sharon with a list of items Duke had brought home—sometimes things I hadn’t even missed yet! About 10 years ago, my son, dil and 2 grands were staying with me and it snowed Christmas night, a rare event where I live. There was about 3–4″ inches of lovely white covering my grass the next morning so the kids had to play in it before they left to go home. My grandson came in and said he had lost his phone in the snow. We all spent at least 30 minutes looking for it and even Duke came over to see what was going on. My family left and about 30 minutes later, I received a phone call from Sharon asking if anyone was missing an iPhone. I walked next door and collected my grandson’s pristine phone-no scratches, no dents and it turned on. My son and grandson were both really happy with that news! Duke is still remembered in the neighborhood as being such a “good boy.”

When I was in 6th grade, I had a math teacher that I hated so much I’d have panic attacks on the days I had her class. Here’s a short list of what she’d do to me, keeping in mind she was told multiple times I had debilitating social anxiety and ADHD:

  1. Humiliated me when I asked for help by telling me as loud as she could “you can’t do this problem? This is the easiest one in the set, how do you not understand it?!”
  2. Called my mom in the middle of class after I handed in a test that she said I didn’t work long enough on in front of the other students, telling her I was an embarrassment
  3. Had her TA search for me while I was waiting for my dad to pick me up since I had to stay after school on certain days of the week due to my parents working late. When she found me, she yelled at me, brought me back to the math room, where, in front of (mostly older, and way more popular) students, the math teacher called my dad and yelled about how he should be making go to the after school math tutoring so I could “at least pretend to care about the material”

Thank God, THANK GOD my parents were supportive of me and told her off each time. After the final call to my dad about forcing me to get the tutoring, my dad rushed to get me and ripped her a new one about how tired my parents were of her treatment of me. But ever since then, I’ve been afraid of almost every teacher and would just be silent during my classes

Best Macaroni and Cheese

This is the tastiest, easiest and fastest macaroni and cheese you will ever eat. DO not skimp on the Colby cheese. Use as much as you can afford.

macaroni cheese2
macaroni cheese2

Ingredients

  • Macaroni (as much as needed)
  • Colby cheese (lots)

Instructions

  1. While the macaroni is cooking in salted water, dice the Colby cheese up rather small.
  2. As soon as the macaroni is cooked; drain it well. Keep it, covered, in the same pot in which it was cooked.
  3. Add the diced Colby cheese and stir it in. Cover immediately and let it sit for about five minutes so that the cheese melts.

Attribution

Recipe is from the kitchen of Kathryn Irene Jolly.

Recipe is from the family recipe collection of Linda Ann Jolly, Arizona.

African Nations Repatriate Their Gold and Foreign Reserves From the USA.

Not being well reported. Not at all in the Western “news” media.

One of the RNs in our dept had worked there for 5 plus years, was around 60 years old and very nurturing and maternal so she was well liked. Her employment predated mine and I became her immediate supervisor. After several years of working together , mostly amicably she started to undermine me, making snarky comments and decisions that didn’t include discussions with others in the dept or weren’t hers to make or sometimes even mine to make. She was resistant when I discussed this with her. I really liked and admired her and it was getting more and more challenging. My supervisor wasn’t any help. We RNs became concerned that a medication error may be made if this nurse did the med pass so we made sure that someone else did that. We double checked behind her with the order transcriptions. We found small errors and brought them to her attention. She stated that everyone makes mistakes and that she was no different. One day I found that she had written an order on the wrong chart and filed the med in that pt’s med drawer. I saw it right before the tech was going to give the med to the wrong pt. What was even worse was that the pt wasn’t on ANY meds for a condition that was in any way similar to what that med was for – that should have made her question it. So, a performance improvement plan was implemented, discussed and put in place with approval of HR and my supervisor. The nurse ignored it, did nothing and cheerfully stated there was no problem. We decided that termination was in order. She was aghast and said, “Well, I will talk to the CEO and he will not stand for this!” Termination took place, she demanded a ride to the unemployment office and HR agreed – WHAT? It was so hard, but necessary to protect pts. Anyway, I ran into her about a year later and she said she had a medical condition that was contributing to her “brain fog” and that she’d been treated. She apologized for the instances of petty behavior. We all hoped she was doing well.

OMG

Shorpy fun

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A golden dome

By Al Mayadeen Net

Almost 450 extremists from various nationalities arrive to Idlib to fight against Russian troops, after leaving Syria and passing through Turkey.

Close to 450 extremist Arab and foreign nationals have arrived in Ukraine from Idlib to fight against Russia’s forces, less than only three days after they left Syria, passing through Turkey.

Relatives of extremists that have arrived in Ukraine told Sputnik that senior fighters from terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the rebranded version of Jabhat Al-Nusra, i.e Al-Qaeda) have held a number of meetings with senior leaders in the Turkistan Islamic Party group and Ansar Al-Tawhid and Hurras al-Din groups, and agreed on allowing a number of all their fighters to enter Ukraine through Turkish soil.

The sources added that most of these foreign fighters are veterans of the Syrian war, had been causing issues in Idlib, and were given this opportunity to fight against Russia as a compromise by which they would receive a new start and with an acceptable income.

Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham also gave these fighters assurances that their families would be allowed to join them later.

Around 300 of these fighters are Syrian nationals that are originally from the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides, while the 150 others are Belgian, French, Chinese, Moroccan, Tunisian, Chechen and British nationals.

As for the financial compensation, the sources said the fighters that hail from Syria will receive around $1200-$1500, but had no knowledge what the foreign nationals were going to be paid.

Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has previously stated that 16,000 foreign mercenaries will fight for the country.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had warned Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a meeting last Friday of the growing number of foreign mercenaries  operating in Ukraine, including those coming from Albania and Croatia and namely militants and Jihadists coming from Kosovo in order to put their experience from military operations in Syria to use.

I don’t consider it a “loophole,” but rather a bit of a tech glitch.

When I was in college in the late 1980s (Dartmouth), it was towards the end of the life of pulse dialling technology. In the “old days,” telephones used to look like some variant of this:

main qimg 183b0a76af2ba7dbce3556d103cada20 lq
main qimg 183b0a76af2ba7dbce3556d103cada20 lq

When you made a call, the dial was turned for each number, and it sent out a series of electronic pulses that matched the number (for example, my grandfather had a telephone whose number was WI-1–8214 (941–8214).

In the 1970s, touch-tone dialling became the standard (I am not sure that a rotary phone would even work anymore).

Telephones swapped out the rotary for push buttons, but the switching equipment had to, for a time, accommodate both. So telephones for a while had buttons, but a switch on the base that permitted tone and pulse dialling.

At Dartmouth, where I was a student, all of the telephone lines in the dormitories were controlled by Dartmouth. In order to make long-distance telephone calls, you had to subscribe to a service called “DarTalk.” Again, not sure if this is still the case.

Anyways, what we discovered in the dorms was that, if one started the telephone on pulse, entered the 8 (for an external line), a one, the area code, and the three code prefix, then switched the phone from pulse to tone and entered the final four digits in tone mode, the switching equipment that the college used could not detect that the call was going out. Hence, the calls were free.

We could thus make long distance calls without paying.

US prepares for war against Russia and China. In Self-Defense of course.

My first full-on drunk

The Secretary of State is the world’s most powerful diplomat. His underlings at the UN wag fingers at foreign colleagues and go “do you want to be consulted, or insulted?”

And yet no Secretary of State had visited Beijing for 6, 7 years, until Antony barged in.

The Chinese did not fete him or court him. He was not accorded priority, because he wasn’t the honored state guest on a carefully coordinated state visit.

His job was to personally deliver an invitation to President Xi for him to toast and grace the greatest gathering of American capital in recent years.

This time, his job is to mirror what Janet did recently, reading off a script on the Beijing podium criticizing and threatening the host, to show the public that America still has to chops to make others listen. Delivering the message in the evil enemy’s capital fills the air with American machismo.

This isn’t diplomacy. It’s poorly fleshed out domestic politics.

Let’s save the red carpet for others on the level because Antony’s job isn’t to secure cooperation but subservience through the scourge of power.

This is really great.

Smelling like a zoo

I often comment about my experiences in world line slides.

I talk about how things were different, and how they seemed strange. I talked about how sometimes my body would be different.

Like I would have a scar or a tattoo, or some other minor change. Like socks changing into black and white checkered race flag designs instead of my normal business socks and so on and so forth.

Once, I will tell you, that I had a heightened sense of smell. I could smell the most amazing things, but my consciousness could not process all of it. Which means that to me, everything in that world-line adventure smelled like an animal zoo to me.

It was, I’ll tell you the truth, quite an interesting experience.

Good for me that the trip on that line was short lived.

Ah. Ignorance is bliss.

Today…

Blinken to China to fuss about support for Russia

With ties somewhat stabliized, the visiting envoy wants China to stop sending dual-use goods – and to leash Iran
.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing soon to raise concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base and its purchase of Iranian oil products.

Blinken’s China trip was announced after Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran ended a three-day visit in Beijing on Tuesday.

Last week, US officials briefed reporters on materials China was providing to Russia, including drone and missile technology, satellite imagery and machine tools, Reuters reported.

Blinken is also set to discuss with Chinese officials the situation in the Middle East.

On April 11, Blinken requested to have a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to talk about the Iran-Israel conflict. Wang said China strongly condemned Israel’s attack on the Iranian Embassy in Syria, which happened on April 1.

On April 12, US President Joe Biden said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later.” He underscored Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. On April 13-14, Iran unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones against Israel, which successfully intercepted most of them.

No full-blown Mideast war yet

Both Washington and Beijing called for de-escalation and a full-blown war has not yet broken out in the region.

(Indeed, if a report for which veteran American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh cites unnamed sources is correct, the attack was something of a charade, negotiated in advance, in which Iran was permitted a massive show of anger while inflicting very limited damage.)

Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives on Monday passed bipartisan legislation called the Iran-China Energy Sanctions Act by a 383-11 vote.

Jointly proposed by Democrat Josh Gottheimer and Republican Mike Lawler, the bill is aimed at making it more difficult for China to purchase Iranian petroleum and related products. It needs approval from the Senate before it can go to Biden for his signature.

“After Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel, and as its regime of terror deepens ties to China, we are reminded that they cannot be trusted,” said Gottheimer.

”We must hold Iran and its backers accountable, especially China, the number one purchaser of Iranian petroleum,” said Lawler.

The duo said the Iran-China Energy Sanctions Act, along with the SHIP Act passed last November, will kneecap Iran’s ability to export murder and instability across the Middle East region.

Also on Monday, Wang had a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Wang said China believed that Iran is fully cognizant of the situation and will avoid causing further turbulence while defending its sovereignty and dignity. He added that China will steadily advance practical cooperation in various fields with Iran to make greater progress in China-Iran relations.

A pundit responds

“The passage of the Iran-China Energy Sanctions Act by the US House is a bargaining chip that is aimed at forcing China to compromise on Iranian issues,” You Feng, a visiting lecturer at Peking University and a military commentator, says in an article published on Wednesday. “It seems that if we do not fulfill the United States’ demand of exerting influence over Iran, the act will soon take effect.”

“But obviously,” she adds, “even if Blinken will raise the matter during his upcoming visit to Beijing, China is unlikely to give up its cooperation with Russia and Iran. The reason is simple. Our cooperation with Russia and Iran is normal trade. The United States’ unreasonable demand directly hurts our interests, and this is unacceptable.”

She says China will definitely fight back if the US imposes sanctions. She says Blinken should consider Beijing’s opinions, before departing for China, instead of presenting a bunch of unreasonable demands.

Overcapacity

Last June, Blinken visited China and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping after US-China relations had been impacted by the Chinese spy balloon incident, the US chip export ban and Taiwan issues in early 2023.

Since then, more US and Chinese officials have held meetings. A face-to-face meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden in San Francisco last November also helped stabilize Sino-US relations. But the US sanctioned more Chinese firms that shipped products to Russia. It unveiled new chip export rules against China last October.

Now Washington is urging the European Union to take actions to avoid being hurt by China’s industrial overcapacity, especially in the electric vehicle (EV) sector.

During a meeting with Chinese Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised the issue of China’s overcapacity and said that Germany wants open and fair markets.

Xi asked the German side to look at the matter objectively. He said a surge in China’s clean-technology exports can help the world tackle inflation and achieve its green goals.

“The notion that China’s overcapacity harms the global market is a complete fallacy,” Li Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a regular media briefing on Wednesday. “Those who spread that narrative to justify protectionism have nothing to gain from it and will only destabilize and disrupt industrial and supply chains, hinder the world’s green transition and curb the growth of emerging sectors.”

An article published by China National Radio’s flagship radio channel called The Voice of China said that the accusation of “overcapacity” is another form of the West’s “decoupling” with China. It said US politicians want to use this campaign to gain benefit in this year’s presidential election.

Li Daokui, director of the Center for China in the World Economy (CCWE) at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, was quoted as saying in the article that all countries would subsidize their new industries during the development stage.

He said the US cannot accuse China of subsidizing its new energy sector while it is openly subsidizing its chip industry.

“A ‘super-cycle’ exists in EVs and renewable energy equipment as excess supply in certain parts of their supply chain is coupled with yet-to-materialized demand,” Chim Lee, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says in a research note on Monday. “These sectors are highly politicized globally. Lower prices can be perceived as the result of government support, but they are also key to accelerating the green transition.”

They are freaking out

One day while leaving the office at 8.30pm. The security guard looked at me with the phone in his hand in a confused state. Curious I was, I went near him and from there, the conversation started.

Me :What happened? Why are you looking so confused?

He : Sir I tried to withdraw money from our office ATM but the transaction was failed due to timed out. Then I got the message from the bank that my money was deducted from my account!

Me: Don’t worry they will refund the money within one or two days.

He : Sir, but I didn’t get any message about the refund. How will I get? Also the bank is far away from here so I cannot go immediately.

Me : Don’t worry bhiaya I too faced similar kind of problem but I got refunded within 3 days. So don’t worry.

He : Okay sir. Thank you

Then after few days I saw him running towards me and he said “Sir thank you so much, I got my money refunded”

Me : Oh great! Why are you saying thanks to me?

He : You only said about this refund. Otherwise I would have taken leave to visit bank next day. You saved my one day salary.

Me : Oh! its OK bhaiya. Happy that you got the money back.

Which I thought to be a small piece of information, after seeing his smiling face, only then I realized how big it was.

SO YES these kind of small things matters a lot to me and gives satisfaction!!

Power

WeChat, which is owned by Tencent, was launched in 2011, and its programming team gradually added new features to attract new users to switch from QQ Mobile (also owned by Tencent) to WeChat.

However, compared to Alibaba’s offerings, it was weak because it still did not have a wallet and payment function.

The Guangzhou-based 10-person team led by Alan Zhang 张小龙 worked on a programming solution to this hole in WeChat’s functionality, while the business team worked with the Chinese government to enable digital functionality by plugging into their bank accounts.

The product marketing team needed to do something big in order to really put WeChat Wallet on the map. They decided to launch around Chinese New Year 2014 so that they could leverage a traditional Chinese custom, and turn it digital. During Chinese New Year, the Chinese traditionally hand out red envelopes stuffed with cash (in new bills) to children.

The strategy was brilliantly simple: WeChat Wallet would hand out digital red envelopes. In order for the campaign to succeed, WeChat Wallet would have to connect with a minimum of two bank accounts: one person to send the money, and the other person to receive the money. Usually, the number was much higher than two because adults would have to give New Year’s money to more than one child or teenager.

The product marketing team focused on seeding a significant number of early adopters so that they could get others to connect their bank accounts so that they could receive money. In order to simplify the money amount selection process, buttons were marked in the amounts of 8, 10, 88, and 100 yuan; most of the time, people just selected a default amount to transfer.

The marketing campaign immediately went viral and was a tremendous success, and within two months, more than 100 million bank accounts were connected to WeChat Wallet. At the same time, merchants and small businesses applied for QR codes so that they could accept payment online and offline by just providing a QR code to scan.

Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, who is a strong competitor with Tencent, complimented the success of this launch, and in internal meetings, referred to it as a “digital Pearl Harbor attack” on Alibaba because it was caught completely by surprise. Coming from Tencent’s main competitor in the China market, it was a true compliment.

Within two years, Chinese society went largely cashless. Now, in China, most of the people who pay in cash are travelers from outside China. Everyone else uses either Tencent’s or Alipay’s digital wallet which they carry in their mobile phones.

The social repercussions have been huge: e-commerce and delivery services have taken off in China, and the volume and velocity of transaction is much larger than in the US.

I feel your pain fellas…

New PLA unit underscores intelligentized warfare shift

PLA-ISF aims to better integrate emerging AI, quantum and other technologies into multi-domain operational concept against the US and its allies

China has just unveiled its People’s Liberation Army-Information Support Force (PLA-ISF), a rebranding of its previous PLA-Strategic Support Force (PLA-SSF) to reflect new responsibilities and capabilities and guide the military’s technology-driven integrated combat concept, Chinese state media reports said.

In contrast to traditional PLA services such as the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force, the PLA’s strategic arms, such as the Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force and Joint Logistics Support, focus on more specialized areas critical to modern warfare.

PLA-SSF, founded in 2015, was initially tasked with developing and implementing most of the PLA’s space-based capabilities and counter-space operations. Stressing the PLA-ISF’s broader responsibilities, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that the renamed PLA-ISF will be crucial in advancing the PLA’s modernization and effectiveness in modern warfare.

Xi also stated that the PLA-ISF would be integrated into the PLA’s joint operations system, feature unique Chinese characteristics and accelerate the development of integrated combat capabilities more effectively.

China may have rebranded its PLA-SSF into the PLA-ISF in line with its evolving strategic thought and changing operational strategy.

In December 2022, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) noted that the PLA-SSF was created to centralize the PLA’s information support units. Before the creation of the PLA-SSF, each PLA service branch had its own information support units, potentially resulting in disjointed support efforts that hampered rather than helped operations.As part of the 2015 reforms establishing the PLA-SSF, China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) took over the roles of the PLA general staff and general political departments while those departments’ responsibilities for cyberwarfare, space, electronic warfare and psychological operations were transferred to the PLA-SSF.The SCMP report mentions that before the PLA-SSF’s rebranding into the PLA-ISF, it had two principal departments – the Space Systems Department, which runs intelligence and communication satellites, and the Network Systems Department, which is tasked with cyber operations, electronic warfare and signals intelligence (SIGINT).The rebranded PLA-ISF may reflect an evolution in Chinese strategic thought from “winning informationized wars” to “intelligentized warfare,” which in turn implies a broader mission set for the PLA-SSF, necessitating a name change to reflect increased responsibilities and capabilities.China’s 2015 Military Strategy describes the foundation of “winning informationized wars,” noting the application of information technology in all military operations.

It says that “preparations for military struggle” (PMS) are under the context of winning “informationized local wars,” emphasizing that information is not just vital but will play a dominant role in winning future conflicts.

Building on the premise of China’s 2015 Military Strategy, the 2019 China’s National Defense in the New Era white paper notes that technologies such as AI, quantum information, big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) mark an evolution from “informationized” to “intelligentized” warfare.

Koichiro Takagi mentions in an April 2022 War on the Rocks article that the main idea of China’s “intelligentized warfare” concept is to use AI to directly influence the will of top policymakers, military commanders and citizens.

Takagi says that “intelligence dominance” will become a new area of struggle in intelligentized warfare, emphasizing that China envisions using AI for military purposes differently than the US and its allies.

In a January 2022 article in the Security and Strategy journal, Maasaki Yatsuzuka outlines the imperatives that may have led to the rebranding of the PLA-SSF into the PLA-ISF from political and military angles.

From a political standpoint, Yatsuzuka notes that the Xi administration’s implementation of intelligentized warfare signifies a shift toward a centralized decision-making process in the PLA.

This process, he says, aims to uphold the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) control over the PLA and secure its alignment with the party’s goals and ideology.

He also mentions that the need for centralized control is emphasized by integrating military reforms with broader party policies, such as the Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) strategy.

Further, Yatsuzuka says that the PLA’s emphasis on political education and control through political commissars is becoming increasingly crucial as warfare becomes more technologically advanced and specialized.

From a military standpoint, Yatsuzuka says that to move toward intelligentized warfare, the PLA must establish integrated information systems to effectively manage the diverse aspects of modern warfare, including land, air, sea, space, cyber, cognitive and electromagnetic domains.

He mentions that effective utilization of AI and real-time data processing is crucial for future operations as it requires a robust data flow and analysis framework across various platforms and military units.

Yatsuzuka stresses the importance of a consolidated strategic directive incorporating inputs from multiple military and civilian sources to enable a united and adaptable response driven by centralized military leadership.

The rebranding of China’s PLA-SSF into PLA-ISF may also reflect the need to integrate information warfare and emerging technologies and capabilities into a multi-domain operational concept.

In October 2023, Asia Times reported on China’s Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (MDPW) concept, which utilizes AI and big data advances to identify weaknesses in the US operational system and launch precision strikes. It also tests and improves AI-driven capacities to align with China’s military doctrine.

China’s intelligent warfare strategy is expected to involve a combination of human and machine command and control systems. Humans will have limited control over autonomous weapons and the focus will be on expanding warfare to areas where humans cannot operate, such as the cognitive domain.

MDPW may be China’s answer to the US Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) system, a tech-driven plan to enhance military interoperability and AI integration across all warfare domains with allies and partners.

In practice, MDPW may seek to dismantle and destroy CJADC2’s kill chain by targeting critical information nodes such as aircraft and satellites through physical attack, targeting information networks by jamming, electronic warfare and cyberattack. It may also seek to disrupt decision-making within and between the US and its allies.

MDPW may capitalize on the fixed and centralized approach of US kill chains, which lack diversity in sharing information among different components, making them vulnerable and arguably unsuitable for a large-scale conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.

Survive

This is actually pretty cool.

So I worked with this person. She stole 80$. I was a server. There was nothing I could do and I wasn’t getting my money back and I knew it.

Months later I had found a new job. I get a call from my old place of employment. “Yes I need a cab to so and so”. I recognized the voice. I was the cab driver.

I knew it was her.

I go anyway. When I arrive there she is smiling. I said 80$ to get in this cab babe. And I just looked at her and smiled back.

”You can’t do that. I know the company. I’m calling you in. I know the owner”. I laugh and I’m like yeah I know him too. He’s the guy that hired me. But if you want in this particular cab, there’s an 80$ deposit.

Ha I’m like go right ahead but if you don’t wanna walk home in the rain there’s an 80$ up front fee.

Now this whole time I have the window cracked. And literally nothing else is unlocked.

She was so mad.

I smiled ear to ear and says hey remember fucking me out of 80 dollars? She said fuck you you’re a cabbie now and you have a duty to customer service. I said well just slip a hundo through the window.

She was absolutely livid. You can’t do this. This is an assault. I NEED A RIDE HOME…. NOW. I was like yep I need my money back honey!

But what could she do? I drove away smiling. Karma, sometimes, is a mother!

Russia Issues Economic Ultimatum, China Drops Stimulus Bombshell To Counter G7 Threats

On the morning of May 21, 2014, an Indian system admin working at HCL logged on to one of the servers of Norwegian petroleum company Statoil.

By accident, he had logged on to a production server that was giving him some warning messages. Not completely understanding the messages, he decided to reboot the server. Despite additional warnings that a reboot was inadvisable, he went along with it.

On the other side of the globe, at the Mongstad facility, the largest oil refinery in Norway, a tanker was being loaded with 50 million liters of gasoline. Enough to fill up the fuel tanks of about a million cars.

Suddenly, the operation came to a halt. Gasoline started pouring violently into the ocean. Boatloads of it.

The night shift crew monitoring the facility looked on in horror as millions of dollars worth of liquid was disappearing by the minute.

The situation could quickly turn into an environmental disaster that would wreak havoc on the local sea life.

Fortunately, the crew at the facility reacted quickly and was able to avert a major disaster by overriding the operation manually.

A few years earlier, Statoil had outsourced all maintenance of server infrastructure to India. The incident at Mongstad, as dramatic as it was, wasn’t a one-off occurence.

Several times, Statoil’s various facilities had to be evacuated because of compromised IT security and server shutdowns. The company executives now feared they could face incidents that would lead to loss of life.

It turned out that about 100 consultants in India had admin access to all of Statoil’s production servers. Yes, all of them. None of the consultants had been background-checked.

Statoil (now Equinor) is the company that forms the backbone of the Norwegian economy, one of the strongest economies in the world. The amount of damage these guys could do to the Norwegian economy and society as a whole if they wanted to was cataclysmic.

In 2017, Statoil was in the midst of a global oil crisis, with plummeting oil prices. Yet, despite the red numbers in the balance sheets and strong focus on cost-savings, the company decided to homesource IT infrastructure to Norway again, even if this came at a massive cost.

It wasn’t so much that the Indian consultants lacked the technical knowledge to manage the servers. The main problem was that they didn’t have the domain knowledge to understand what the servers were actually doing. They often didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. Communicating this across the globe through timezones and language barriers proved difficult.

The entire outsourcing experiment ended up being a massive failure, even though it was supposed to save the company billions of dollars on paper.

Men at work

It’s because the Sanctions are toothless

For instance we all heard of the ban on Xinjiang Cotton by many brands across the world

Xinjiang cotton: Western clothes brands vanish as backlash grows
Companies including H&M and Nike are targeted for showing concern over Uighur forced labour claims.

Yet it was puzzling to see that Cotton Exports from China from Xinjiang rose by 10.7% in 2023 from 2021 after being down by 4.6% in 2022

Then I saw the fine print

Imports and Sales of Xinjiang Cotton produced through Forced Labor in contravention of Human Rights after 30 June 2021 may attract Sanctions

This means any order signed until 29/6/2021 is legal and free from any sanction

And most big importers, they don’t place orders for Cotton every 2–3 months or even 6 months

They place orders for 5–10 years at a time

So most orders signed between Xinjiang Cotton producers and US Importers and European Importers that were signed before 30/6/2021 are still active and unaffected by any sanctions

These orders will likely continue to run until minimum 2026 and maximum 2031

So the Xinjiang Cotton orders will cease only from 2031

That’s a long time away

By then Biden, Trump won’t be in power and maybe the next President can repeal the order

Either way 2031 is a long way off

So despite all the noise, in reality the Sanctions won’t bite until 2031 or earliest 2026


Likewise the US have demanded that NVDIA not sell their A100 Chips to China without permission and license

So NVDIA simply modified their A100 and H100 designs, reduced density by 1/16th and sold the new GPUs as H800

China placed orders from 1 February 2023 for the next 3 years

Sanctions cannot affect existing orders per WTO regulations and Free Trade Law.

Thus China has a continuous stock of deliveries of the H800 GPU until 2026 minimum


So Sanctions won’t affect any commercial product for minimum 2–5 years because of existing contracts

Only Military Sanctions will work because delivery does take 5–10 years and most orders aren’t fully commercial so the WTO argument can’t be used

Hits them hard with reality

I worked in a call center for a highly respected financial institution, and was treated more poorly than when I worked for Subway when I was in college.

First of all, my team were required to arrive for work 15 minutes early in order to get signed in to our computers and phone systems, but were not allowed to clock in until our shift actually started.

That was the least of my issues, however. My manager was a horribly arrogant woman who only liked around five people on her 20 person team. If you weren’t one of her favorites, you were treated like something yucky she stepped in that morning.

While her favorites were allowed to put a call on hold and go to her desk to ask a question, I would be reprimanded for leaving a call on hold while seeking an answer, then reprimanded for not knowing the answer.

I got in trouble for constantly eating at my desk, which was untrue. Toward the end of my shift I might grab a snack from the vending machine, but I ate any substantial meals during lunch or designated breaks. I had coworkers who always had full meals at their desks, which they would be eating while they were on the phone with clients. I’m seriously talking bacon, eggs, pancakes, and hashbrowns……

The final straw was when I was reprimanded for not handling a call professionally. A client called in and was immediately verbally abusive. I did my best to calm him down and attempt to address his issues, but the abusive behavior progressed throughout the call. At around the five minute mark, he started telling me that I should call him “Daddy” and that he knew that I was a bad girl, among other inappropriate things. I handled the call as well as I could, but I wasn’t incredibly friendly by the end of the call.

When I got to work the next day my Manager called me into her office. It turns out that the client had called to complain about me because I had been “very rude” to him during our call. She told me that she had reviewed the call with three other Managers and could not excuse my behavior during the call. She would have to write me up.

I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. This was not a phone sex number, it was a freaking brokerage house. I asked her how I should have handled the call. Should I have called the client “Daddy?” Should I have agreed that I’d been bad and asked him to spank me? She simply said that I could have handled the call more professionally, although she didn’t offer me any coaching toward *how* I should have handled the call.

I grabbed an empty box, packed up my cubicle, and walked out. Apparently she was fired about a week later. The team that I was on was the third team that she had been moved to since she had been promoted to Manager. She had been moved due to complaints regarding harrassment and favoritism, and upper management finally realized that she actually was a terrible Manager and not worth their trouble anymore.

The dangers

Chinese firms to assemble EVs in Europe, duck tariffs

Chery plans to purchase an old Nissan plant in Barcelona and turn it into its first manufacturing site in Europe
.

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers are pushing forward their plans to building production capacity in Europe in order to evade potential tariffs that would be imposed by the European Union.

Chery Automobile President Yin Tongyue said Sunday that his company will soon purchase an old plant of Nissan’s in Barcelona, Spain, and turn it into its first manufacturing site in Europe. He said the reopening of the facility, which stopped running in 2021, can create 1,600 jobs.

He said Chery is discussing partnerships with two European brands, with one of the deals to be closed soon. Chinese media said Chery is having a discussion with Stellantis, the Italian auto conglomerate that owns Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot.

Spain’s Industry Ministry said an agreement for Chery to start production in the country will be formalized in the coming days.

Chery is still talking with the Italian government about building a factory there but there has been any update yet.

In the first quarter of this year, the number of the company’s exported cars rose 40.9% year-on-year to 253,418 units. The company is now focusing on markets in South America, the Middle East and Russia and will explore those in Spain, Italy Poland and the United Kingdom later this year.

Other key Chinese EV makers also have their manufacturing plans in Europe. Last December, the Shenzhen-based BYD said it will build a passenger car factory in Szeged, Hungary. It said the facility will be the first of its kind built by a Chinese automotive company in Europe and will have an advanced car production line.

Great Wall Motor said last year that it was mulling whether to locate its first European plant in Germany, Hungary or the Czech Republic.

SAIC Motor Corp said it was considering setting up a plant in the United Kingdom although the country has already left the European Union.

Meanwhile, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME), a Beijing-based industry group, said the 13-month investigation launched by the European Union last September against Chinese EV makers is not transparent and is in violation of global trading rules.

In a hearing with the European Commission in Brussels on April 11, CCCME Vice President Shi Yonghong, said he was concerned that the findings of the EU probe of Chinese EV imports would be distorted and unobjective.

Shi said the European Commission had departed from its principle of selecting for study the top Chinese EV makers, such as BYD, Geely and SAIC, and seemed to have purposely focused on three Chinese-owned producers to reach predetermined findings of subsidization.

He said the biased sample selection has tainted the entire investigatory process. He added that the probe was a perfect example of the EU’s double standards as it avoided taking any action against the US$400 billion of subsidies granted by the US government and also billions of euros of subsidies granted by the EU to the EV and battery sectors.

A spokesperson of the European Commission said the investigation and its findings would fully respect EU and international obligations. He said the EC will make sure this anti-subsidy investigation is thorough, fair and fact-based.

Impact of tariffs

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who finished her six-day China trip on April 9, told CNN on Sunday that the US will not take “anything off the table” in response to China’s manufacturing capacity, including the possibility of additional tariffs to stop the influx of cheap Chinese goods into the US market.

“We’re concerned about the possibility of surges in Chinese exports to our markets in areas where they have a great deal of overcapacity,” She said.

She said she has told Chinese officials that China’s overcapacity problem is a concern not only to the US, but also to other countries and regions, such as Europe and Japan, and even to emerging markets including India, Mexico and Brazil.

As the Trump administration imposed an extra 25% tariff on Chinese goods on top of the usual 2.5% tariff in 2019, Chinese EV and battery firms found it very difficult to develop their US markets.

They then turned to build factories in Mexico, which signed a free trade agreement with the US and Canada in 2018, trying to evade the extra 25% tariff. But Republican candidate Donald Trump said last month that he will impose a 100% tariff on Chinese cars that are made in Mexico if he wins the presidential election in November.

Now Chinese automakers are accelerating their plans to localize their production capacity in Europe, in case the EU imposes extra tariffs on EVs made in China later this year.

About one in five EVs sold in Europe last year were made in China, according to Transport & Environment (T&E), a Brussels-based non-profit organization. The figure is expected to grow to about 25% in 2024.

More than half of Chinese imports into Europe are still western brands, such as Tesla, Dacia and BMW, T&E says – but Chinese brands, including SAIC’s MG, Geely’s Polestar and BYD, could reach 11% of the European EV market in 2024 and 20% in 2027, up from about 7.5% last year.

“Tariffs will force carmakers to localize EV production in Europe, and that’s a good thing because we want these jobs and skills,” said Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at T&E. “But tariffs won’t shield legacy carmakers for long.”

She said a higher tariff should be accompanied by a regulatory push to increase local production of EVs, including electrification targets for company car fleets by 2039, on top of the agreed 100% clean car goal in 2035.

No dumping

After European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced a probe into unfair Chinese competition in the EV sector on September 13 last year, German Economic Minister Robert Habeck welcomed the decision.

But then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, on September 28, that he was not convinced about the need to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs. He said that, since Germany wants to sell its cars in all places in the world, it should also open its market to foreign firms.

On a visit to China on Monday, he told Chinese students in Shanghai that Germany wants open and fair auto markets. He said Chinese cars will still be in Germany and Europe at some point if there is fair competition with no dumping, overproduction or infringement of copyrights.

According to the MarkLines Data Center, German automakers sold 462,720 vehicles in China last year, up 3.8% from 2022. They accounted for about 17.8% of the Chinese markets.

Chinese brands sold 1.46 million vehicles domestically with a 56.2% market share. Japanese brands sold 382,900 vehicles in China with a 14.7% market share.

Stroganoff Soup

beef stroganoff soup 102 1
beef stroganoff soup 102 1

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ pounds stew meat
  • 6 cups beef broth(I used low sodium)
  • 4 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
  • ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning blend
  • 1 ½ teaspoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste(I use about 2 teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper)
  • ½ cup sour cream
  • 8 ounces mushroomssliced, (about 1 cup sliced mushrooms)
  • 8 ounces short noodlescooked, (egg noodles, rotini, and cellentani work great)
  • cup cold water
  • ¼ cup corn starch
beef stroganoff soup 101 2
beef stroganoff soup 101 2

Instructions

Instant Pot Instructions

  • In your instant pot, combine stew meat, beef broth, worcestershire sauce, Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Place lid on the instant pot, make sure the vent nozzle is in the non-venting position, press “pressure cook” and set timer to 1 hour.
  • Move venting nozzle to the vent position and allow to vent until the button drops down. Remove lid, and switch Instant Pot to “soup” mode. Stir together sour cream and 1 cup of broth from the Instant Pot until smooth. Stir mixture back into the pot along with the mushrooms. Whisk together cold water and corn starch in a bowl.
  • Once soup is boiling, whisk corn starch mixture into the Instant Pot until soup thickens. Stir in noodles. Taste, add salt and pepper to taste, if needed. Garnish with cracked black pepper, fresh thyme or parsley, and grated parmesan cheese and serve.

Slow Cooker Instructions

  • In your slow cooker, combine stew meat, beef broth, worcestershire sauce, Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook on high 3 hours, or low 6 hours.
  • Stir together sour cream and 1 cup of broth from the slow cooker until smooth. Stir mixture back into the pot along with the mushrooms. Whisk together cold water and corn starch in a bowl, then stir into the slow cooker.
  • Cover and cook on high for 1 hour longer. Taste, add salt and pepper to taste if needed. Add cooked noodles. Garnish with cracked black pepper, fresh thyme or parsley, and grated parmesan cheese and serve.

Notes

Flavor tip: Add a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes.
beef stroganoff soup 105
beef stroganoff soup 105
collage
collage

Should I make this in the Instant Pot or a Slow Cooker?

I’ve included instructions for making this easy Beef Stroganoff Soup in either the Instant Pot or the Slow Cooker. Both methods work great, it really just depends on your personal preference and whether you have an Instant Pot or not.

Side note: If you haven’t made the leap to getting and Instant Pot yet (*and this is not sponsored in any way!!!*) you have got to get one. You may not know this but the Instant Pot has a setting for slow cooking so it really is an all-in-one. BAM. Let whoever drew your name for Christmas know, this is what you need.

What cut of beef should I use?

My favorite meat to use for this Beef Stroganoff Soup is stew meat, because it gets so juicy and fall-apart tender in the Instant Pot on the pressure cooker setting (only takes an hour!) or after slow cooking in the crockpot all day. It’s also really budget friendly and makes this meal super affordable. Win win!

What type of noodles should I use?

Any short noodle works great! Egg noodles are really common with traditional stroganoff and taste great in this soup, my favorite though are twirly noodles as I like to call them, or Callentani. You could also use penne, ronini, or macaroni elbows!

Can I cook the noodles in the Instant Pot/Slow Cooker?

Technically, yes, you can cook them right in the Instant Pot/Slow Cooker. Personally, I prefer to cook my noodles separately for two reasons. 1) You need to add extra liquid to the recipe to account for the liquid that is absorbed by the noodles while cooking. My issue with this is that the excess dilutes the soup and makes it less flavorful. 2) It gets tricky with short noodles like these to know exactly how much cooking time they need, while making sure they don’t overcook. The whole point of a crockpot recipe in my opinion is to not have to keep a close eye on it the whole time, and to say hey this can cook for 6ish or 7ish hours. If you’ve got noodles in there though, that extra half hour or whatnot can turn your noodles to mush.

beef stroganoff soup 104
beef stroganoff soup 104

Chinese warn of Taiwan crisis from US military aid

‘Crossing red lines – just like racing cars on a cliff’s edge, where a crash is almost inevitable’

Beijing has expressed strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition after the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that will grant military aid to Taiwan and countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

The US House on April 20 passed four bills in a US$95 billion package to boost the defense ability of Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. About $60.84 billion of funding will be earmarked for Ukraine to counter Russia while $26.38 bill be used to support Israel to defend itself against Iran and its proxies.

One of the bills consists of $8.12 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific countries to “counter communist China and ensure strong deterrence in the region.”

The aid includes:

  • a $3.3 billion funding to develop submarine infrastructure, including investments in dry dock construction;
  • $2 billion in a foreign military financing program for Taiwan and other key allies and security partners in the Indo-Pacific confronting Chinese aggression; and
  • $1.9 billion to replenish defense articles and defense services provided to Taiwan and regional partners.

The remaining $920 million will be spent on strengthening US military capabilities in the region, enhancing the production and development of artillery and critical munitions and providing additional flexibility for Foreign Military Financing loans and loan guarantees.

Already, on February 8, the US Senate had passed its own $95 billion package to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and reports are that the Senate will now accept the House version and the package will soon be submitted to US President Joe Biden for approval, whereupon it will become law.

“The US insists on passing and signing a bill containing negative content related to Taiwan, seriously interfering in China’s internal affairs and seriously violating the one-China principle and the provisions of the three Sino-US joint communiques,” Chen Binhua, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said Monday. “We express strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this.”

Chen also said the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling party in Taiwan, is trying to rely on the US and use force to seek independence but such an attempt is doomed to failure.

“By providing military aid to Taiwan, the US is trying to stir up a crisis and confrontation in the Taiwan Strait and related region,” Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times in an interview. “The US will then use the chaos and conflicts it creates to make countries in East Asia and Western Pacific regions lean to its side and form an alliance.”

Li said such a move will lead to division in the Asia Pacific region, undermine the important foundation for the stability of Sino-US relations and seriously damage the existing order and security environment for shared prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

US commitment

The Taipei government and local media were cheered by the newly-approved US military aid. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen thanked the US Congress for approving it.

Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen said Monday that a peaceful and stable Taiwan Strait is important to peace and prosperity in the world.

He said Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded countries, including the US and all countries in the free democratic camp, to safeguard peace and freedom in the Indo-Pacific region and make the Taiwan Strait area more stable.

The approval of the military aid for Taiwan reaffirmed Washington’s “rock-solid” commitment to helping the island defend itself, especially when this year marks the 45th anniversary of the passage of the US-Taiwan Relations Act, said Anny Hsiao, executive director of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), a Washington-based organization of Taiwanese Americans.

She said the US should give up its “strategic ambiguity” on the China-Taiwan matter and adopt “strategic clarity.”

For several decades, Washington has remained ambiguous about whether it will provide military support to Taiwan if the island is attacked by mainland China. Last year, Biden said on several occasions that the US will support Taiwan if a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait.

‘Salami tactics’

Xie Feng, Chinese Ambassador to the US, delivered a speech on April 20 at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024.

He warned the US of the consequences of interfering with China’s internal affairs and damaging China’s interests on issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Xizang (Tibet) and the South China Sea.

”Applying salami tactics and crossing red lines on issues bearing on others’ core interests is just like racing cars on a cliff’s edge, where a crash is almost inevitable,” he said.

“The Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive issue in China-US relations. The so-called ‘Taiwan independence’ is a dead end, and the one-China principle is a red line not to be crossed,” he said.

He added that it’s natural for the US and China to have differences but it’s also important for both sides to properly manage their differences and respect each other’s core interests and major concerns.

Meanwhile, US State Secretary Antony Blinken is set to visit Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, invited by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

A senior US State Department official told the media that Blinken during his China trip will convey Washington’s deep concerns” over China’s aid for Russia’s defense industrial base.

It is expected that Blinken’s topics to be discussed with his Chinese counterparts will be Taiwan issues, Chinese industrial overcapacity and the Middle East conflicts.

The Plague

Ah yes, I love telling this story.

A little after the pandemic when stores were able to take people in again, I was working at an essential store. Well, one thing about me when it comes to work, I learn to do everything, so I can do everything. Well one day , heavy traffic in store and I’m on my toes. I’m all over the place. We are getting slammed with people and their stimulus checks lol one of the managers kept telling me to go on lunch but everytime I tried someone needed help, so there I would go . It got to a point where they were about to write me up, As I was helping two families, I had to apologize and excuse myself. Well as I’m walking out about to go to my car , my coworker stops me and says hey this guy needs help. The manager is staring at me, so I say “I’m sorry I can’t , have you tried to radio it in?”

The guy then says “what do you mean you can’t? Is it really that much work?”

I chuckled and said “no sir but I’m on the verge of getting a wri-”

Guy- “then stop wasting time and help me, all your doing is pushing a cart. I haven’t seen you work at all”

Me- “I really can’t , I’m about to get a write up if I don’t go to lunch”

Guy- “you just don’t want to work , lazy m********ker”

Me-”have a good day “ *walked out*

He walked out behind me and he still kept shouting profanity and a racial slur . I turned back around and at that moment all his stuff started falling off the flatbed(he had his flat stacked too high) and onto the gravel outside, his other cart rolling down the steep parking lot ended up getting swiped by an 18 wheeler.

It’s like the stars and planets aligned perfectly on that Sunday afternoon

Decisive: Upon $61 Billion in new U.S. Aid to Ukraine, Russia Declares It Must Now Also Take Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts

Decisive: Upon $61 Billion in new U.S. Aid to Ukraine, Russia Declares It Must Now Also Take Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts

As a direct result of the United States approving $61 Billion in new military aid to Ukraine, Russia has announced they are now required to take two additional states of Ukraine – Sumy and Kharkiv — to assure Russian national security.

The aid package from the United States includes long-range ATACMS missiles, which can be used to strike targets inside traditional Russia, so Russia needs a safety zone to protect itself from such launches.

The map below shows the two additional Oblasts (states) that Russia must now take from Ukraine to assure its security:

Sumy and Kharkov Oblasts

Sumy Kharkiv oblasts
Sumy Kharkiv oblasts

In response to the new Aid sent to Ukraine and the attacks by mercenaries on Belgorod, the Russian Army will now expand the objectives of the Special Military Operation (SMO).

The new regions, Kharkov and Sumy will be the main focus of the new Group N (north).

Russian Army - New Group "N"

Russia Army Group N North
Russia Army Group N North

Hal Turner Snap Analysis

This conflict is escalating.  U.S. meddling, and the massive amount of new US financial aid for military gear, is causing it to get worse.

Zelensky could have at least bargained to cede the Donbass for Ukraine’s neutrality but I guess more regions will now be incorporated into the Russian Federation.

When my wife walked out on me, it wasn’t the fact that she abandoned everything and everyone related to “us” that hit me the most (and obliterated “us” in the act), but what she had done in the months prior to her parting with me.

The things she never told me. The things she always vehemently denied.

She broke up with me over the phone, separated by 500 miles of land and water which would become 500 light years soon. (It’s funny how far people can end up from each other once they have been so close — as if they become repelling magnets once pulled apart.)

And only over the phone was she able to admit that she had cheated all along, and slept with him for the first time on her birthday, while I was attending a conference. To make matters worse, before sleeping with him, they had met in the very pub where the former “we” had spend our first date.

(Anyways.)

If there was anything left of “us” whatsoever, her sudden urge of getting as much money as possible from me totally destroyed it. It left me wondering who she really was — and who she had become.

Even when it turned out she was dying from late stage breast cancer more than ten years later, there was something inside me that could and would not forgive her. Even when I saw her in the flesh, with half of her already in the shadows and the rest of her trying to grab on, realizing that all was lost.

Even when I saw her empty eyes, broken and desperate, I just couldn’t.

Because for me, she had died a long time ago.

The former she, that is.

That offends me

I was homeless for about 2 years in the 2010s. it was a very shitty experience for me. i was depressed most of the time and struggling not to just end it all. it was very hard to get a job without a stable address and I got stuck doing dead end temp jobs for very little money. didn’t really have to worry about food because so many church groups came by the shelter to feed us. Plus no matter how nicely you dressed and behaved, it seemed that everyone could tell that you were homeless. and never forget the discrimination towards you by the majority of society.

In fact, It’s miserable. The boredom is ruthless. Once you’ve found something to eat, your work for the day is done. It’s the most lonely feeling you’ll ever experience. Night comes, you see people out with their friends, then you’ll see them go home, and you’re just looking for somewhere dark and safe to sleep. The only way I can describe it is being completely outside the human experience. Your old friends will stop being around you, and your new friends aren’t friends at all. You’ll become acutely aware of every little thing you used to take for granted.

I knew people who claimed to have “good” homeless experiences, but most of them were homeless by choice…why, I’ll never understand. It’s uncomfortable and oppressively lonely.

In India, the probability of following rule is inversely proportional to the status of the person in the society.

The higher you are in the social hierarchy, the lesser rules you usually follow.

  • If you see a vehicle coming on the wrong side, it most likely belongs to a top civil servant or politician.
  • You will rarely find the police officials wearing helmet or seat belt.
  • If you visit to a tourist place and you find a vehicle parked in the ‘No Parking’ Zone, it all likelihood, it must belong to a government officer.

It is a common belief in the government officers and politicians is that they are above law because the officials who are expected to enforce the law are below them.

How can a lower official dare to take action against the higher officials?

And if you even know someone in power, you can use your influence to break the law with immunity.

There is a famous saying in India, “Sainya bhaye kotval, to dar kahe ka?” (When the husband is a police officer, why should you fear?)

When the political leader and government officials who make the law and whose duty is to enforce the law themselves don’t follow the law, it is natural that the rest of citizens too follow their example.

This truth is beautifully stated in Bhagawat Gita, “Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps, and whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues”.

Unlike India, the elite in developed countries don’t get extra-constitutional privileges and protection.

Here is a picture of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, traveling in train with common people like a common person.

[1] You can never imagine such humility from any PM, CM, Minister or even an ordinary politician in India.

Top political leaders and civil servants here are like demi-gods in India who are beyond the purview of the laws applicable for the ordinary mortals of the land.

When Indians visit other countries, they know that they don’t have any such immunity from law and they are bound to suffer fine, penalty or arrest if they break the law.

Hence, they become quite law abiding in foreign land.

Only if the people who are in power in India learn to follow the rules, the rest of the Indians can be expected to follow the rules.

It is sure that this is not going to happen any time soon in India.

Footnotes

COVERT INTEL: Russia Has Moved Tactical Nuclear Missiles to their Western Border

COVERT INTEL: Russia Has Moved Tactical Nuclear Missiles to their Western Border
Russia Moves NUCLEAR Iskanders to Finland Border large
Russia Moves NUCLEAR Iskanders to Finland Border large

In response to Finland joining NATO, Russia has moved hypersonic, “Iskander” Tactical Nuclear Missiles to Karelia, Russia.

The Iskander missile has about a 500km range and can travel at about 7500km per hour.

From their location in Karelia, Russia, these new nuclear-tipped missiles can reach most of populated Finland within just a very few short minutes.

The deployment of these missiles is CONFIRMED.  The fact they are already nuclear-tipped is also CONFIRMED.

The map below shows a 500km radius from Karelia, Russia.  Note is covers almost all of Finland – at least all the major population centers, and a good portion of Estonia as well:

Iskander Range

Iskander Range Karelia Russia
Iskander Range Karelia Russia

Super Chill

French Onion Chicken

french onion chicken 104
french onion chicken 104

Sometimes a recipe needs refinement to get to the point of putting it in my recipe book, a little altering and adjustment here and there. Sometimes I test out a recipe and it comes out exactly as I’d hoped. No tweaks needed, no surprising flavors or textures, just spot-on recipe perfection.

 

And then there are times when I make a dish and with just one bite I am completely wowed and all of my expectations are exceeded. This is one of those times! I fully expected this French onion chicken would be delicious. I didn’t think for a minute I’d be fixing this for dinner three times in one week and reheating leftovers for lunch on the in-between days because it was that good.

Sometimes a home-run recipe just sneaks up on you like that.

french onion chicken 103
french onion chicken 103

Honest to goodness, this French onion chicken thing we’ve got going on here is straight-up life changing goodness. All those classic flavors of French onion soup, in a one pan skillet meal the whole family will beg you to fix again and again. And the recipe is so straight forward and simple you won’t mind one bit.

You start out by sauteing thinly sliced yellow onions in a bit of butter and beef broth til browned and very tender, just like you would with classic French onion soup. Then you move those onions over to a separate dish to keep warm while you brown the chicken in the same pan.

french onion chicken 101
french onion chicken 101

Move the onions back to the pan and add flour and beef broth to make the most delicious caramelized onion gravy EVERRRRR and then top your chicken with three kinds of Italian cheese. Bake for about 10 minutes and viola! The sauciest, tastiest 30-ish minute chicken dish you’ve ever made.

This is Fall comfort food at its finest. And I just want to point out that I even though this dish is inspired by soup, it is not a soup, unlike the past four recipes I’ve posted which are all actual real live soup. #soupbsessed #sorrynotsorry #longlivesoupseason

french onion chicken 102
french onion chicken 102

Ingredients

  • 2 medium yellow onionsthinly sliced into rings
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup + 3 tablespoons beef brothdivided
  • 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts pounded to even thickness
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon Italian blend herbs/Italian seasoning (OR ¼ teaspoon dried basil + ¼ teaspoon dried thyme + ½ teaspoon dried oregano)
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 4 slices provolone cheese
  • 4 slices swiss cheese
  • ¾ cup parmesan cheese
  • fresh thyme or parsley and cracked black pepper for topping(optional)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to bake at 400 degrees OR broil on low. In a large oven-safe skillet (see note) over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add onions and 3 tablespoons beef broth and saute onions for 3-4 minutes until translucent. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally so the onions don’t burn, for about 15 minutes longer until browned and very tender. Use tongs or a fork to transfer to a bowl and cover to keep warm.
  • While onions are cooking, prepare the chicken by drizzling with oil, then seasoning with salt and pepper (to taste) and Italian herbs. Once onions have finished cooking and are removed from the pan, cook chicken for 4-5 minutes on each side (don’t clean out the pan between the onions and chicken) until browned on both sides. (Chicken may not be fully cooked through yet, that is okay).
  • Transfer chicken to a plate and cover to keep warm and return the onions to the pan. Sprinkle flour over the onions and stir for 1 minute over medium-high heat. Add beef broth and continue to cook, stirring throughout, until mixture comes to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Return chicken to pan and spoon some of the sauce over each piece of chicken.
  • Top chicken with one slice of provolone each, then one slice of swiss, then 1/4 of the parmesan cheese. Transfer skillet to your preheated oven and cook for about 10 minutes until chicken is cooked through completely and cheeses are melted.
  • Spoon some of the onions and gravy over the top of the chicken, garnish with thyme or parsley and cracked black pepper, and serve.

Notes

If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, any other oven-safe skillet will do OR you can transfer everything to a casserole dish or baking pan for the baking portion of the recipe.

Found in a tree

not sure of my exact age maybe 11 or 12? I went to a friends house and her mom made us cookies and took us to our soccer practice and stayed the whole time, she was so involved throughout the day , selfless, and loving. I thought how lucky my friend was to have a mom who cared so much. Then I went to another friends house and noticed the same love and interaction with her mom. It baffled me. My mom was always too busy, too self involved, and too irritable to have any relationship with me that was remotely close.

First part of my life, I chalked it up to her job but she retired early at 54 and even though less than 15 minutes away she rarely see me or her grandkids. She says she’s just SO busy.

As a mom myself now, I realize how messed up my childhood was. Us Kids fending for themselves, basically running feral, emotionally starving for attention, a dad who tried (& loved us dearly, that I was certain of) but he didn’t quite have the time (worked full-time) or tools. I had a mom that I rarely saw (though I was thankful bc when our paths crossed the interaction was not good).

growing up, We walked on eggshells. Don’t upset mom. We weren’t allowed to share food with friends but that was embarrassing and rude so I gave my portions to my friends & didn’t eat to help save food so my mom wouldn’t get mad. I did so many things “so mom won’t get mad.” She was physically abusive which I thought was normal as well. It was always about her; her desires and wishes. The rest of us had no say—-even my dad. she moved us all over the country. 3 different high schools. Leaving behind friends. I thought it was all normal.

I vowed to be present & loving to my kids. I vowed to be a mom who did the little things, who listened, who took the time, who apologized if needed, who didn’t scream, yell, hit, spank, slap; who met more than their basic needs and who genuinely cares about them and is interested in them.

Destruction of the family

My husband, son and I recently attended a friend’s wedding. The bride looked beautiful, the venue was well-chosen and the little details were perfect. Everyone was having a wonderful time.

And then the speeches started.

It was a well-known fact that the groom had hounded the bride for over a year to go on their first date, and that topic featured in every speech to a greater or lesser degree. The parents of the groom had a couple embarrassing stories to tell about his childhood, but they brought it back to how happy they were for him and how he deserved such a perfect wife. The brother and sister of the bride had a few ribs about her, too, but again, they finished on a loving, positive note.

The same cannot be said for the sister of the groom.

She was already a little…toasted by the time she hit the podium, so there were portions of her speech that were a little difficult to catch. But the jist was clear: her brother was an oaf and no amount of lipstick would improve the beauty of that pig.

From humiliating stories to hurtful jabs, she just kept barreling through her obviously not proofread speech, and everyone in the room was staring at their plates in embarrassment. I kept waiting for her to sigh and start on the positives, but the sigh never came. She finished her speech with a final zinger and stepped down to a very light smattering of grateful applause.

Our table was silent. My husband, who is not my brother’s biggest fan by any means, turned to me and said, “promise me you won’t do that to Dylan”.

George Clooney called 14 of his closest friends and said “Hey, mark Sept 27th, 2013, on your calendar. Everyone’s going to come to my house for dinner.”

The 14 friends belonged to varying economic backgrounds. One of them was married to Cindy Crawford while another was riding his bicycle on his way to work at a bar in Texas airport.

When ‘The Boys’ (the group’s name) arrived at Clooney’s house, they found 14 designer suitcases placed on the table.

main qimg dd1d35b0f86308b28c5e93d3b29c1877 lq
main qimg dd1d35b0f86308b28c5e93d3b29c1877 lq

And then- Clooney said:

Listen, I want you guys to know how much you’ve meant to me and how much you mean in my life. I came to L.A; I slept on your couch. I’m so fortunate in my life to have all of you, and I couldn’t be where I am today without all of you. So, it was really important to me that while we’re still all here together, that I give back. So I want you all to open your suitcases.

There was $1 million inside every suitcase, arranged in $20 notes.

[1] Clooney continued:

I know we’ve all been through some hard times, some of you are still going through it. You don’t have to worry about your kids; you don’t have to worry about, you know, school, you don’t have to worry about paying your mortgage.

(Clooney also paid their taxes so they could pocket the entire $1 million. That’s an additional $3.5 million altogether.)

One of his friends, Rande Gerber (married to Crawford) refused to accept the gift, so Clooney made a condition – either they all accept the gift, or nobody gets it.

Gerber (who donated his share to charity) said “This is who George is. That was September 27th, 2013. Now, September 27th, 2014, he marries Amal. That’s good karma right there.”

Clooney is a legend.

In other news- “George Clooney is a piece of shit”, said his 15th closest friend.

Footnotes

Scott Ritter: NATO Just CROSSED Putin’s RED LINE! The Severity Of The Ukraine War ESCALATED

Women HATE convertibles

During college, a very good male friend and I decided to take a road-trip from Minneapolis, where we both studied, to Boston, during Spring Break.

One of our stops was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We had parked our car and were walking around the downtown area when we stood at a crosswalk and waited for the light to turn green so we could get to the other side of the street.

Once green, we began crossing (we were the only ones on the street at the time), when we see a police car drive up on our left, to the crosswalk and stop while we are crossing it.

The driver, a uniformed police officer, and the only one in the car, began yelling at us asking why are we crossing the street.

I told him that we were going to check out the restaurant across the way (I didn’t understand why he asked that and answered innocently).

He began to yell loudly that we are crossing at a red light and are behaving recklessly.

My friend and I, not wanting to be rude to an officer in uniform, simply stood there in shock and pointed at the green light that was in front of us.

The officer didn’t bother looking and kept yelling at us that perhaps we were being rude because he was in an unmarked car and we didn’t realize he is a police officer.

As mentiobed, this man was in uniform, sitting in a very noticeable police car, nothing unmarked about it.

My friend and I were standing there, in the middle of the crosswalk, not able to come up with anything to say in exchange because it was so ridiculous.

My friend began yelling back that we had a green light, and that he had the red light, but before finishing, I nudged him to stop and told the officer that we are really sorry, and kept apologizing.

The officer seemed to calm down and we continued to cross the street while the officer waited for his light to turn green.

It was truly bizarre.

My friend and I began dating shortly after that, and have now been married around 20 years, and we still laugh at that weird exchange, though we did not think it was funny at the time.

My dad was putting gas in the car.

I was standing on the opposite side of it.

I went to throw trash away at the trash can across from me.

Out of nowhere, a car came barreling off the road and into the gas station faster than any car should ever drive in that tight of a space.

I froze.

I felt the car fly past me within what may have been a foot or two feet from me, but it felt like inches …

That’s when I see an otherwise placid dad turn from human to enraged Silverback Gorilla.

He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could and started running after them.

Suddenly, the car was engulfed by multiple police cars that apparently were chasing it.

When we got back in the car, I asked him why he threw a rock at their car.

He said:

“I wanted them to come back and fight me! They almost hit my kid driving like an idiot! I was not going to let them get away with it!”

You could hear the indignation in his voice and see the fire in his eyes.

Someone messed with his little boy, and he was ready to go to war to protect him.

That little boy was me.

I never felt so safe and secure as I did in that moment with him.

My father’s act of impulsive, selfless love for his child was the most badass thing my parent has ever done.

Green Garlic Chili

070114 greenchiligarlicsauce web1title
070114 greenchiligarlicsauce web1title

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds fresh pork, cubed in small pieces or coarsely ground
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 3 cloves fresh garlic
  • Salt and white pepper to taste
  • 1 large onion
  • 6 to 8 fresh New Mexico green chiles or 2 to 4 small cans whole green chiles, chopped
  • 3 large fresh, home grown green tomatoes

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in heavy Dutch oven or stainless pot. Cook pork until it is white and braised on all sides.
  2. Remove pork from pot.
  3. Sauté whole, peeled cloves of garlic and onion in oil until onion is clear.
  4. Chop tomatoes and green chiles; add them to the onion-garlic mix. Sauté . Put pork back into the pot. Add enough water to cover and simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until pork is done and chili is thick. You may need to add more water during the cooking process. Stir to prevent sticking.
  5. Serve in flour tortillas with plenty of picante sauce.

Appreciation matters

My daughter. She was 20 and a serious smoker.

She was on her way to Florence for her junior semester abroad. We were at the departure gate at JFK, and I offered her money to quit smoking. A hundred bucks a week. Don’t tell your mother.

She said, “Dad, I’m going to be living in Italy. I can’t quit now.”

She flew off to Florence. Smoked. Fit right in.

Cut to six months later. She’s back in the states. “Hey Dad, are you still willing to pay me to quit smoking?”

“Yes. Here’s the deal. I’ll put $5000 in the bank for you every year, and if you’re still not smoking in five years, you can have the $25,000. Or you can let it ride, and we’ll go another five years, another $25,000. Don’t tell your mother.”

The backup bribe was because I was afraid she’d take the 25 Grand and go back to smoking. The “Don’t tell your mother” was partly because I didn’t think my wife would approve, and partly because bribes by their very nature are most effective when they’re shrouded in secrecy.

My daughter quit smoking on April 1, 1996. On April 1, 2001 she claimed the $25,000. She needed it to pay off her credit card habit. But it’s been 20 plus years, and she never picked up another cigarette.

Moral: Teach your children well. If they can’t learn, bribe them. It works.

Women aren’t wives today

1. Men have higher rates of death from suicide and homicides than women, with the highest risk among younger men.

2. Male emotions are different than female emotions, but just as complex and powerful.

3. Studies suggest men may have better self-control than women.

4. Men generally experience stronger gender role pressure, particularly around achievement

and ambition.

5. Men’s cortisol levels tend to increase in competitive and hierarchical situations, allowing them to react quicker to danger or pressure.

6. Male brain cells tend to be larger than female brain cells.

7. Men often talk less than women, yet make up 75% of political speeches worldwide.

8. Studies suggest that men are more susceptible to memory-loss with age.

9. Men experience greater impairment from the effects of alcohol than women.

10. Men have a stronger desire for physical stimulation than women.

From these psychological facts, we can conclude that males have unique physical, psychological, and emotional characteristics. These aspects make them who they are and can be both positive and challenging at times. Although, they can still provide us with a better understanding of the human experience.

A lot of money

Has Mao Zedong been the victim of superficial propaganda that vilified him excessively?

This question is too big. I can only show you a tiny little corner of Mao’s work.

In 1947, LIFE magazine employed a young American reporter, Jack Birns

, to Shanghai to report on China’s civil war. Shanghai, at that time, was like a heaven: this one city is far, far, richer than the rest of China. It had 4 million residents and consumed half of the total electricity generated in China. Half. And the expats were indeed having a reasonably good time in Shanghai, as photographed by Jack Birns. Here is a photo of an expat with Chinese girls.

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main qimg d7b2100bc3a79fcd0fa4515aa4a0580a lq

And not far away, here is a city sanitary worker picking up trash. Also photographed by Jack Birns.

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Yes, that was a dead child you see there. Starved to death. And here is a newspaper article on Oct. 27, 1940, reporting that the night temperature dropped to 39.9 degrees fahrenheit, which was about 4.5 degrees celsius, which resulted in 74 people frozen to death in one of the Shanghai districts. Just one of the districts. Half of China is north of Shanghai.

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main qimg 0b94091a366f9b6b4dcd954c5241c160 lq

And here is the photograph Jack Birns took, of the execution of suspected communist sympathizers. The photograph was never published, of course, because the owner of the LIFE magazine, Henry Luce, was a devoted anti-communist and did not want to show the KMT government committing atrocities.

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main qimg e8da7d08f310c2230ef8183d047f45cb lq

You think this is bad? NOOOOO, this was what heaven looked like in China in 1947, in the richest city, the one tiny spot of China that consumed half of the total electricity generation in China. On only 4 million residents. What about the other 500 million Chinese?

The head of the International Famine Relief Commission estimated that 3 – 7 million Chinese die of famine every year. The Northwest China famine, 1928-1930  Driven by starvation, people resorted to cannibalism. China’s population grew from 430 million in 1850 to 580 million in 1953. China’s Demographic Evolution 1850-1953 Reconsidered

That’s an annual population growth rate of < 0.3% a year, in an age with no contraception and everybody was having 6+ kids. (BTW, by the time Mao died in 1976, China’s population had reached 930 million, grew by 350 million in 21 years, that’s a growth rate of ~ 3%. Compare this with the previous 100 years, and you’ll get the real total death rate of the previous century in China, which would be around 15 million a year.)

You think this is bad? NOOOOO, if you go to China’s countryside, you will often see something like this

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main qimg 5decae3327f7f8b6d223952ee8979e67 pjlq

I ran across this photo on the internet. It’s a tombstone issued by the government in praise of a young girl’s good virtue. Her name was not on the tombstone, because girls didn’t have names. Her fiance died before the wedding, so her family carried her to her fiance’s house, had her stood on top of his coffin, strangled her, and put her inside the coffin, to be buried with her fiance, the man she had never seen, never met, never known in life. On the back of the tombstone are the names of the male relatives of her family and her fiance’s family, etched in stone as a perpetual sign of great virtue.

How does this compare with Afghanistan? with Pakistan? With Saudi Arabia?

This was the China that Mao took over. 80% illiterate. 35 years of average life expectancy, and GDP per capita was $52 in 1952. Historical GDP of China

And if the men got a bit of money, the first thing they’d want to do was to open his own opium den and go buy himself a 12-year-old concubine.

Mao changed all that in a most profound way, despite 21 years of the most comprehensive Western embargo. 400 categories of products, including medicine, farming, and fishing equipment, were under embargo from 1950 to 1971. Without the fertilizers, Chinese farm yield was abysmally low. Without the medicine, the Chinese was under constant threat of small pox, malaria, and the plague. U.S. Ends Ban on China Trade

This was what Mao had in his hands. He started with clearing the country of bandits and opium, trained peasants on basic healthcare, and implemented universal, compulsory education. The government has the obligation to educate, and all children, boy or girl, have the obligation to learn, period.

This is the first set of China’s currency issued in 1960, featuring the first woman tractor driver.

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main qimg 73d95001f88f5ee5b9d7b652b7dd723c lq

Today China has women astronauts,

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fighter jet pilots,

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SWAT teams,

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billionaires, China is home to two-thirds of the world’s self-made female billionaires

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main qimg 07a09795a8e542c97cee025a6fb26617 lq

construction workers,

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and Nobel Prize winners.

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Generals, admirals, politicians, CEOs, firefighters. There is literally no job in China that people think women can’t do. This is the same people that a mere 70 years ago bound women’s feet and refused to let women go outside of their homes, wouldn’t even bother giving girls their own names. Foot binding

Mao didn’t just change the country. He changed the people.

But these individual examples are not as important as the overall statistics here: China has one of the highest women labor participation rate, and one of the highest rate of education for women.

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main qimg 41d222bcafe221b4f1f6f00cbe54ecbb lq

So this is the way Mao understood Women’s Liberation: It’s not about clothes, not about sex, not about additional protection, not about some guy opening doors for ladies, but about strength – the strength of knowledge, of professional careers, of independence, of character, so that a woman can run her own life, and tell even the Pope himself to go f*ck off if she so desires. This, is Liberation.

And here is the thing about Mao: a lot of the stuff he did, nobody else has been able to do, even today, 40 years after he died. What I wrote here, is just a tiny little corner of his work. So you think you can do what Mao did easily? Well congratulations, we have just the right little problem for you to solve. Afghanistan is 100 times richer and the people healthier and more educated than China was in 1950. The country has only 30 million people, instead of 600 million. There is no embargo. Instead, there is a lot of financial aid. You want to go try your hands? NATO has been there for 15 years, what do they have to show for it? War is still going on. Opium production is at all-time high. Women walk around in tents. And little boys are still being f*cked in the arse. Bacha bazi

So go. Go there and make it into another China. Show us what you can do. Show us you can do what Mao did without the loss of a single life. Show us you can do better. Or try Iraq. Or South Sudan. Or Yemen. All of these countries are hundreds of times better than China was in 1950.

So going back to the original question, is Mao vilified excessively. I can only say this: he had done great things, and he had done quite a few things wrong. He did not do many favors to the West, but he was very straight forward and truthful about it. He didn’t lie about it. He didn’t steal. He didn’t pretend friendship. He didn’t kiss ass. Neither did he intend to harm any people or any other country. He intended to modernize China, and even more, modernize the Chinese people. He wanted to do those things that would benefit the Chinese people for the next hundreds of generations. He would have laughed at any vilification from foreigners, and thought he must be doing something right. He would not have liked the vilification from the Chinese people, but he would have ground his teeth and trudged on, if he were convinced that this was what China needed for the next 1,000 years.

PS: I want to reply to some of the comments regarding Mao’s faults. He had a lot of those too, the most glaring being a weakness for pseudoscience and sycophancy. But that’s not the question being asked here. And I doubt anybody can write a comprehensive review of Mao on Quora. It’ll be too big.

But the point I want to make is not about Mao. It’s about the fact that some aspect of “tradition” or “culture” or “religion” is harmful, and people who espouse those are just plain wrong, and most of the current crop of political leaders are pussyfooting about it, unwilling to deal with the fact that in certain places, it’s the PEOPLE themselves that need to be modernized. Any tradition or culture or religion the keep 50% of a country’s productivity off the table, or keep 50% of the brain power off the grid, can not possibly compete with other countries. Mao and the CCP were willing to deal with it and re-shape the culture to the right path. The other politicians today are willing to put up with medieval culture as long as it’s called “tradition” or “culture” or religion”, and this is going to keep the society down for the next millennium. Some things benefit the society if they live in a museum, and harm the society if they live in real life.

Wholesome Daughter

From a Canadian

Well boys, I’m required to get back to Canada very soon, and I will. But I gotta be perfectly honest with you. I have zero desire to go back — absolute zero. I want to live in China forever.

I feel like I’ve visited not another country, but another planet. Planet China. The next level of human civilization.

And the quality of life, especially in terms of social life and cultural and aesthetic surroundings? No comparison.

Now a couple of decades ago, any Westerner could’ve come to China and been regarded as a top asset. There were no standards back then, anyone foreign was good. That’s no longer the case. Today China is hyper-developed. It’s just plain superior to us. This is no tankie stuff, I can look anyone in the eye and state this as a fact. I spent two weeks in one of China’s lowest-GDP provinces, coming from what is supposed to be one of the best countries in the world. And I am honestly intimidated by all the massive wealth, almost alien technology, absolutely stunning architecture and ubiquitous beauty, and brilliant administration I’ve witnessed.

I’ve seen so many things that don’t exist in Canada, nor in any other Western country to the best of my knowledge. And I have no special skills that the central government or prestigious employers would want. I’m practically a backpacker.

But not all of China is hyper-developed. I got a warm welcome from local authorities in small cities I visited. They told me if I finish a degree and get a visa, they’d be glad to give me a job. They even said China needs me and I’d be loved here.

Equality vs. Chivalry

The perfect skillet and radio

I moved a lot as a child and went to many many schools. I did get to go to the same school, my junior and senior year. I was always the skinny new girl with kinky hair and crooked eyes. My eyes were crooked because I was blind in my right eye from birth and it just sort of wandered around in my head and did whatever it wanted. My parents had had it operated on twice to try to fix the muscles but the problem was that the eye was blind and that was that ( when I was 32 the Cleveland clinic put titanium muscles in my eye and made it look almost normal)

I was always in the new kid, the funny looking kid, but I was also the smart kid. My junior year I was placed in an honors class in English with the most disgusting teacher I have ever met. He was so loved by his students. He was certainly not loved by me. He loved to tease me about my crooked eyes. He also consistently stated to the class that nothing of any value ever came from south of the Mason Dixon line, a quote from HL Mencken, the journalist in the scopes monkey trials. The fact that I was from Ohio, which was north of the Mason Dixon line, sort of escaped him.

in addition to his constant insults, one day he slapped me in the face with a paper I wrote. Actually he slapped me three times. I pretty much think that was the most disrespectful thing that a teacher did to me. His reason for slapping me was that I had not developed my paper sufficiently. to punish me, he made me write it over and I did. It was 32 typewritten pages, and he read the entire thing to the class page by page.

However, in the end I won. One day he was standing next to my desk and he was laughing. He threw his head back and his upper plate fell out on my desk and rattled around like “chattering teeth”. and then came to rest next to my pencil, I just looked up and smiled at him. he taught the rest of the class that day holding his false teeth in his hand and trying to talk properly without them. I might’ve felt sorry for I am if it wasn’t for the fact that he thought my crooked eye was so funny. On my high school class page on Facebook, the story of the chattering teeth has been recounted many times, even by people who weren’t in the class. In my high school yearbook the valedictorian of my class wrote “to hell with HL Mencken “

 

Chili Chicken Tortilla Soup

By Rena Awada | Updated On March 26, 2024
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup

Make this Chili Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe for a warm and comforting meal all year round. It is easy to make, filling, and packed with flavor. Enjoy this filling and hearty soup any day of the week as a main or side dish.

Soups are very comforting when the weather gets colder. They are filling and easy to make when you only have an hour on hand to come up with dinner. This easy chicken tortilla soup has the bold flavors of chili and Mexican flavors all in one bowl. Made with shredded chicken breast, black beans, corn, and a handful of bold spices. Serve this Mexican chicken soup recipe as a main dish or a side dish along with the main course. For a creamy version of tortilla soup check out our Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe or you can also try our super tasty Chicken Enchilada soup. You may also like this Chicken Chili Recipe

Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 5
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 5

Recipe Summary

  • Comforting and filling: This chicken tortilla soup with bold chili flavors is packed with fiber and protein to make a comforting and filling meal.
  • Easy to make: all you need is 30 minutes to make this easy and healthy chicken soup.
  • Tasty: Packed with flavor. You will love it.

Ingredients you will need

  • Olive Oil: any other oil of choice can be used like avocado oil.
  • Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts: you may also use boneless and skinless chicken thighs.
  • Sweet Onion: or any onion you have on hand
  • Garlic Cloves minced: we do recommend using fresh garlic cloves for optimal flavor.
  • Red Chili (or to taste): this is optional if you can’t handle spice.
  • Spices: Ground Cumin, Chipotle Powder, or Chili Powder
  • Cherry Tomatoes or diced fire-roasted tomatoes: these can be purchased in cans or you can make your own at home.
  • Low Sodium Chicken Broth: you may use vegetable broth.
  • Black Beans: rinsed and drained
  • Corn: can be Fresh or frozen corn can be used
  • 2 Limes– Juiced, you may use lemons if you do not have lime.
  • Tortillas: cut into 1/4-inch strips
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • Cooking Spray

How to make chicken tortilla soup

  • Heat olive oil In a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, chili, and seasonings, and cook until onion softens about 4 minutes.
  • Add chicken breast, canned tomatoes, broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through about 20 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, heat a nonstick pan over medium heat and spray it with cooking spray.
  • Add tortilla strips in a single layer and fry until golden brown and crispy, on both sides. You might need to work in batches to not overcrowd the pan.
  • Once the chicken is cooked, remove from soup and shred it.
  • Add chicken back to the pot together with beans, corn and lime juice. Mix to combine then simmer for a couple of minutes more.
  • Serve soup hot with crispy tortilla strips on top and enjoy!
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 4
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 4

1993 Labor Day weekend my girlfriend at the time, now my wife of 30 years and I went to Lake Tahoe. On the way home at the highest point of the highway crossing the Sierras my car stopped like it had overheated. We pulled off to the side of the highway and waited for it to cool off. About 30 minutes later a California Highway Patrol officer pulled up behind us. We explained that we might have overheated and the engine had quit on us. He said that this was regular patrol area and he would come back and check on us. Well two hours later the car would not start, temperature was dropping fast outside and we just had a couple of sweatshirts and a jacket for warmth. We decided to try to take a nap until the officer returned to help us. The officer never came back to check on us. We slept in the car while coyotes and other wild animals could be heard making noises right outside the car. This was absolutely terrifying and bone chilling to say the least. At first light we realized we were parked right next to the entrance of a PG&E substation and people were arriving for work. We went down and explained to them our situation and asked if we could first use the facilities and freshen up. Then one of them helped us get in touch with the Ford dealer about 20 minutes away. They sent out a tow truck to pick us and the car up. Being it was Labor Day they were closed and only the tow trucks were there. The driver got all our information and helped us find a rental car to get back home to San Francisco. A couple of days later we got a phone call saying that we had a blown engine but the car was still under a factory warranty and we were covered by it. The service advisor also told us that the first $30 per day of the rental car was covered by the warranty. They would be replacing the engine with a brand new one and it would take two weeks to complete as they had to submit the paperwork to Detroit for fulfillment. So all in all, we spent an uncomfortable and scary night in a place we had no way of communicating with the outside world because it was in the days when only the affluent people had cellular phones. We survived the night and ended up with a new engine in the car for a nominal price.

Europe is not more civilized; it is just that for the past 500 years it has controlled the narrative because of colonialism.

Now that the economic center of the world is moving to Asia and Africa, that period is ending because Asia and Africa are the population centers of the world, with the most economic activity.

The period of European privilege is ending now.

I used to work at a tech support call center. So when the pastor down the street started experiencing problems with his computer, his wife called me to see if I could help. I was not a member of their congregation, but it was a small town and we all helped each other when we could.

His computer had been infected with a virus, and it was not difficult to delete it. But his browser was terribly slow, the home page had been changed to an adult website, and there were multiple bookmarks for po’n sites.

I updated his antivirus and ran a scan. After clearing out the malware, I fixed the browser, deleting all the adult bookmarks and keeping the ones he wanted to keep.

His wife seemed to have no idea how it happened, but it was obvious to me. He’d been looking at po’n and clicked something that infected his computer. He sat there like a deer in the headlights. He said something about clicking a link in an email he got, and that’s when all the problems started. I didn’t want to cause any problems between him and his wife, so I just warned him not to click on any links that came from people he didn’t trust.

I’ve had a couple people pay for hotel rooms for a night, and let me tell ya – it’s a godsend.

How? Well, one time, when it was storming really bad in Southern California – someone I love dearly paid three nights for a room right down the street. For the first time in a couple years I was free of my wardrobe and tent – suitcase and backpack – so I went to a movie and had a nice dinner out.

I felt human for the first time in years. A fresh hot shower rather than a bird bath, a warm comfortable room while it stormed outside. It’s little things like this that reminded me I was human – and let’s be clear – in the weeks leading up to this – I’d been pushed WELL beyond my breaking point and had literally planned on murdering this junkie on meth who kept threatening me with a knife on a random basis prior to this point, as I was sleeping with one eye opened and police were unable to do anything about it.

Most people don’t understand that being homeless is about as dehumanizing as it gets. Society has a tendency of treating violent offenders better than someone that’s broke and homeless, which in my opinion – pushing me, a peaceful man who has never been in a fight in my life – to the point of premeditated considerations of murder – has homelessness as being one of the biggest existential threats to modern society. If you’ve never been through it. You simply wouldn’t understand.

But that motel. Just for a couple nights. Made me finally swallow my pride, look at the predictable trajectory homelessness was going to take me and what it was going to turn me into…

And finally agree to accept my mom and dad’s offer for a couch to sleep on in a warm house.

Rest assured. That motel room saved someone’s life. I’m being straight up 100% honest with you there. I’d mentally prepared myself to begin taking the law into my own hands, and I was fine knowing I’d never suffer any consequences from it because the needs of homeless people and the poverty stricken, to this society and world – don’t fuckin matter.

To most, anyways. To those few who did care. That room at just the perfect time changed my life, and prevented the death of someone else who society didn’t care about anyways.

I dont like knowing that part of me exists. I scared even myself. So I don’t believe it was coincidence that room came at the perfect time for me.

Is China producing too much? US ‘overcapacity’ accusations: new tactic in economic war

Creamy Chicken Enchilada Soup

By Rena Awada | Updated On March 29, 2024

This Chicken Enchilada Soup recipe is so creamy, thick, and easy to make. Loaded with hearty shredded chicken and beans, it is a crowd-pleasing soup that’s full of your favorite Mexican flavors and very comforting and delicious.

Creamy chicken enchilada soup 7
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 7

Enchilada soup is one of the most flavorful soup recipes that is not only filling and comforting, but it is full of flavor and a crowd-pleasing soup recipe that will put a smile on everyone’s face. This soup is loaded with beans, chicken, and all the Tex-Mex flavors you love all in one delicious bowl of soup. Easy-to-make Creamy Chicken Enchilada soup is perfect for any night of the week. Especially on a busy weeknight when you need dinner ready in no time.

Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6

Reasons to love this soup

  • Best-tasting soup ever: The taste of this soup is seriously out-of-this-world good.
  • Filling: This soup will keep you full, happy, and satisfied. Perfect for lunch or as a light dinner.
  • Healthy and good for you: Packed with fiber and protein, this soup is good for you in every way.

Ingredients you will need

  • Butter or Ghee: to keep this on the healthier side, you do not have to use butter. You may use avocado oil.
  • Onion: use white sweet onions or cooking onions
  • Veggies: Celery Stalks, Carrot, Red Bell Pepper,
  • Beans: Red Kidney Beans and Black Beans
  • Seasonings: Ground Cumin, Chili Powder, Dried Oregano
  • Garlic Cloves: do use fresh garlic
  • One can of Diced fire-roasted Tomatoes
  • Tomato Paste
  • Fresh or Frozen Sweet Corn: you may use canned corn if that’s all you have and you don’t want to make a trip to the grocery store.
  • Shredded Cooked Chicken: make your own chicken or get a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. To prepare your own, check out our post on How to poach chicken breast.
  • Low-Sodium Chicken Broth– If you plan to poach your own chicken you may save the broth from that.
  • Mexican Shredded Cheese Blend for garnishing, or you may also use Monterey jack cheese
  • Salt and pepper, to your taste
  • Optional: If you prefer to add some enchilada sauce, you can. We didn’t but it certainly won’t hurt and will add some flavor to the soup.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2

HOW TO MAKE CREAMY CHICKEN ENCHILADA SOUP

This chicken enchilada soup recipe is made on the stovetop. We will also be showing you further how to make it on your crockpot, slow cooker, and instant pot. Note: Recipe calls for cooked shredded chicken. Either get a storebought rotisserie chicken and use that or cook your own at home using chicken breast (scroll down to learn how to cook the chicken for your enchilada soup).

Creamy chicken enchilada soup 7
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 7
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Creamy chicken enchilada soup
Creamy chicken enchilada soup

To make enchilada soup on your stovetop:

  • Prepare vegetables and ingredients: Set up all the ingredients and get your shredded chicken ready.
  • Cook vegetables: Add butter or oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. First, add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes. Then, stir in seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and chicken broth and bring to a boil.
  • Cook and prep soup: Lower the heat and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until veggies are very tender.
  • Blend: remove from heat and using a hand blender, blend the soup until smooth and creamy. (This is optional if you don’t want to blend you can skip this step).
  • Add beans and chicken: Place the soup back over medium heat and add in beans, corn and shredded cooked chicken. Stir to combine and boil for a couple of minutes, just to heat it all up.
  • Serve: Pour into bowls and top with your favorite toppings. Enjoy!

SOUP TOPPING Options

Endless toppings to come up with, but here are some optional toppings you can add to your creamy chicken enchilada soup are:

  1. Chopped avocado
  2. Sliced jalapeño
  3. Fresh chopped cilantro
  4. Green onions
  5. Lime wedges
  6. Crushed Tortilla Chips
  7. Sour cream or yogurt etc.
  8. Shredded Cheese
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8

How to cook chicken for enchilada soup

Cooking the chicken is quite simple. You can use any pot or a dutch oven. It would be easiest to use a rotisserie chicken but you can certainly cook your own. We recommend using skinless and boneless chicken breasts.

  • Add chicken into a pot full of water
  • We like adding some sort of herbs to give the chicken some flavor. Use half an onion and a bay leaf. sometimes we use a cinnamon stick but not for this particular recipe.
  • Allow boiling for about 15-20 minutes until you easily insert a knife or a fork through the chicken.
  • Then, drain it in a colander and let it cool off. Or you can just remove the chicken and place it on a cutting board while you save the chicken stock.
  • Finally, using your hands or forks, shred chicken.
  • If you have an Instant pot, you can simply make this Instant Pot Chicken Breast to use in this enchilada soup.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 4
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 4

How to make enchilada soup using an instant pot, crockpot or slow cooker

There are other ways to make chicken enchilada soup other than using your stovetop. Here are other ways to cook up your soup.

How to use an Instant Pot:

  • Using the saute option, add the oil or butter in the instant pot, then add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes.
  • If using raw chicken, add in with the veggies in the previous step at the bottom.
  • Add in the seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and broth.
  • Next, add in the beans, corn, and shredded cooked chicken (if using pre-cooked shredded chicken). Stir to combine.
  • Then, place the lid on the Instant Pot and seal. Using the “manual” setting, cook on high pressure for 10-12 minutes.
  • Allow the instant pot to natural release for 10 minutes or so before doing a quick release.
  • Finally, remove the lid from Instant Pot, shred the chicken (if used raw whole chicken breast), and serve with your favorite toppings.
  • Note: You may remove a portion of the soup towards the end. Blend it and then add it back into the soup. Mix and serve.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8

How to use a crock-pot or slow cooker

  • In a pan or skillet, add oil or butter over medium-high heat add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes.
  • Transfer to crockpot or slow cooker and add in the seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and broth.
  • Then, add in beans, corn, and shredded cooked chicken. Stir to combine cover and set it on High for 2 hours or low for 4 hours if using cooked chicken.
  • Note: You may add raw chicken breasts to the crockpot or slow cooker right before you add in the veggies at the very bottom and set it to cook longer. 6 hours on low and 4 hours on high. Then towards the end use a fork to shred the chicken.
  • Also Note: You may remove a portion of the soup towards the end. Blend it and then add it back into the soup. Mix and serve.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2

Fun cat pictures

From my archives

SNAG 0079
SNAG 0079
SNAG 0078
SNAG 0078
SNAG 0076
SNAG 0076

Why Pass Port bros find Foreign Women

Japan despite massive massive disadvantages in firepower, military numbers and culture has a massive chance against China. Why? This man and the general state of the leadership is far too conservative. As well as their age.

If you’ve ever played a game before like Rimworld, 7 days to die, Project Zomboid. There’s a setting called Builder. Here’s the menu on Project Zomboid.

It literally says builder: Construction, Exploration and farming focus.

So sure he’s got 3000 hours in game and all the achievements of that…But it’s a crippling overspecialisation.

Martial arts are sometimes like this.

You need close range, mid range, long range, grapple, strength and conditioning to give and take hits. Wing Chun is excellent at close range, but they never condition themselves so boxers eat them alive. The current leadership are far too conservative as such when there’s easy and obvious ways to punish those who literally want us dead? What the hell do they do?

NOTHING!

Taiwan.

It’s not recognised by the UN, it’s not part of the WTO. The poliburo could immediately stop all business with them tomorrow and there’s NOTHING they could do about it. We could literally cause a 50% collapse in the economy TOMORROW.

Yet they don’t do it.

Even my dad who is actually older than Xi did some squeezing of bollocks in his time. He was a beansprout man and his group held a total monopoly on Chinese goods in the UK and he squeezed a few bollocks with his position.

You can write about oh but it’s only a matter of time.

The USD will collapse! (though the USD doesn’t actually need to collapse it’s in such shit that a few % will make a huge difference, US military budget cuts are a real thing because of the debt).

It sounds almost like Joseph Wang, if you ever read his stuff from years ago? He literally said he allowed white Americans to beat him up and offered no resistant. To somebody like me and many others that’s a what the fuckty fuck type situation? Somebody attacks you? You’re going to give them as good as they give you.

So back to the original question?

If Japan starts to militarise again and they’re doing so right now? There’s going to be a huge aversion to fight and you don’t even need me to spell out whose going to have the aversion.

So while China is far more powerful and many of us especially us overseas types are far far more violent than any local Chinese or Japanese. It’s hampered by the fact that the leadership is playing civilisation on builder mode.

I mean at the very least you could have some big weapons tests. Even N Korean leader Kim has done some test launches.

Putin scares the living daylights out of westerners with his SARMAT tests in 2022.

Hope not

The Strategy is clear

Iran sent 158 Shaheed Drones and 27 Cruise Missiles on Israel at a cost of $ 9 Million

Israel intercepted 150+ Drones over Jordan and Syria and Lebanese and 21 Cruise Missiles at an estimated cost of $ 115 Million

6 Missiles hit the targets – An Airbase in Negev plus two military docking centres in Haifa Port

The cost ratio is 9:115 or 1:13 approximately

Iran is thus depleting Israeli (Western) missiles and AD on a large scale from reserves

Today alone around 100+ Missiles were launched by Israel

This means in 10 days, Israel would need 1000–1200 missiles forcing the West to divert stocks to Israel while Iran has low cost cheap drones and cheap missiles and decoy missiles

If the West spends more and more money and weapons on Israel further depleting their stocks

Russia gains immensely as Russia outproduces NATO by 3:1 in Missiles and 12:1 in Artillery Ammunition

And of course China

The more West is mired in the Middle East, even lesser chance of the West to take on China who can produce on war footing, more missiles in a month than Nato can produce in 2 1/2 years as per experts

Leaving Japan, Philippines to take on China who today can more than easily take them out

Same reason


If this is WWIII, the West will likely lose today

Unless it becomes Nuclear…

A friend of mine I England, mentioned one day at the pub( bar) that he could do with a cleaner as his old 1700’s mill house was getting too much for him. Next morning there was a sharp knocking on his door, he opened it and a large Middle aged lady pushed by him into the room and said, “ I’m Jean, your new cleaner, let’s have a look at this mess!” He never had a chance to say a word, just stood there dumb. “ Right , where’s the cleaning cupboard?” He pointed in the right direction. Muttering to herself she set about cleaning , “ I’ll be a long while yet you can make yourself scarce untill supper time. “ He went out back to the pub and sat at the bar in a daze as he nursed his pint of beer. He returned to his house in the evening, everything was clean and tidy, Jean was sat down in the kitchen having a cup of tea. “ Umm, how much do I owe you?” He stuttered. All she said was, “ that garden shed has to be cleared out yet!” I’ll attend to that tomorrow. I’ll be staying in the upstairs front bedroom, breakfast will be at 9 o’clock on the dot! “ With that she climbed the stairs and was gone. That was nearly 5 years ago and she is still there cleaning and cooking. He still hasn’t plucked up the courage to ask her any questions, and she has never asked for anything in return. ’ As he is a literary man I hope one day he will publish the whole story. Amazing!

REACTION- Will women WAKE UP & want the men that they rejected?

  1. If you continue to wait for the “right time”, you’ll waste your entire life and nothing will happen.
  2. You’ll lose 99% of your close friends if you start upgrading your life.
  3. You’ll be 10x happier if you forgive your parents and stop blaming them for your problems.
  4. Train yourself to let people win arguments on purpose to conserve your mental health.
  5. You become more mature when you train yourself to take nothing personally.
  6. You don’t need 100 self-help books, all you need is action & self-discipline.
  7. You can’t expect honesty from people who even lie to themselves.
  8. Most people are stuck in toxic relationships because they are afraid to be alone.
  9. The most difficult mission on earth is to focus on your dreams; The easiest task is to complain.

China don’t do daft things. Only the U.S. does. If China cannot win it won’t fight. If China seems to be up in arms. They are most likely happy that the U.S. took the bait and ate hanging themselves. It is call winning without fighting!

China can do even one NM chips if it wants but the U.S. thinks it cannot do 7 NM for at least 3 decades! It took China 3 years to do 5NM. Now the U.S. is laden with humongous compensations to its Chip firms and they lose some 80% of the market as China gets it done cheaper, faster and better.

Learn about what is going on in the world today. This is what happened when you hitch yourself to the United States.

I test drove a f350 platinum super crew, was going to trade a vehicle, I left the keys with the salesman, came back, I decided not to buy “that” truck, due to I didn’t want to own another black truck, they had no other loaded trucks in another color, so I opted to take a pass, the sales manager thought we had some imaginary deal and said the deal was done (I had signed nothing), and wouldn’t return my keys, I asked him if he was certain that he wanted to play this game, he said we have a deal. I pulled my phone out, called 911, told them who I was, where I was, I had been robbed and the assailant was still on premises. Shit happened real fast, I got my keys back, sales manager found out he can be criminally charged for theft as well as kidnapping as I couldn’t leave. Yep, I won’t be shopping there again.

Iran has launched drones against Israel which have not yet hit their targets in Israel.

While this may look like a reprisal against Israel, there is more than meets the eye. The majority of the drones will be intercepted and shot down before they reach their targets; if 10% reach their targets the Iranians will have done well.

But the intention is not to do damage to Israel. Iran, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas are fighting a war of attrition against Israel which will deplete Israel’s and the US’s munitions, using the cheapest weapons needed. The aim is to provoke Israel into committing more violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and turning more of global public opinion against the US and Israel. The Israeli economy will take a heavy hit, and the US will have to provide expensive economic support to Israel because Biden has committed to Israel’s support.

The Arabs and the Iranians have learned: Israel’s war doctrine is based on the application of overwhelming force to win a short war , which is the same as the US. But if the Arabs and Iran turn the conflict into a long war of attrition, the Arabs win.

In every long war of attrition, which includes Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and arguably Ukraine, the US has withdrawn in the end.

A short sharp war requires the application of overwhelming firepower. Overwhelming firepower requires a huge munitions supply and powerful logistics. US weapons stores have been depleted by the war in Ukraine.

The writing is on the wall…

My young son was friends with the 50-something “neighbor guy”. They were real friends. The neighbor gave him a spark plug wrench and let him take the spark plugs out of all the cars in his junk yard. He also let my son “drive” his 1950 pink Cadillac sitting on blocks in a place of honor in the junkyard. He talked to my son about serious things like how to be a good man, why you should wash your hands a lot, the importance of having a place for your tools and putting them where they belonged. My son lacked a father and this neighbor lacked any family at all.

The neighbor got cancer and was going to die. He let my son know it was nothing personal and he had done nothing wrong to deserve it. He also said he was going to have to leave forever, die and he would go to heaven. They talked a lot about whether he was afraid and what would happen when he died. He told my son he didn’t want anybody messing with his body and he wanted to be buried, not embalmed and still be intact. He wanted to go back to the earth in dignity and not be a poisoned pickle in the ground.

Unfortunately, he died just before Thanksgiving, and without a family, there was no one who felt obligated to see to his wishes. In our state, you can only be buried, without embalming, if you are buried within 3 days. The ground was frozen and it was a holiday weekend. No gravediggers could be found so the adults discussed this in the social room. After church, they concluded that man, whom we had all known and valued, would have to be embalmed. My son, who was about 6, overheard this and became outraged!

He pestered one man after another about it. He eloquently argued how sad the man would be about being a poisoned pickle in the ground. My son announced he would go dig the hole himself even if he did not get home in time for pie! He managed to guilt a dozen men, in their best clothing, to go to the graveyard and dig a grave. Also, a Catholic Priest would be doing the services for a “protestant” before anyone went home to eat a turkey.

It was technically “wrong” because he interrupted and pestered adults with great determination. One by one, he effectively MADE them do something that was outside his purview as a child. I didn’t stop him from doing it. I was more than proud of his love and care for his deceased friend.

Cold case musings

When my son was in the eighth grade, he got suspended and I had to leave work early to go get him. When I got there, I asked the principal what had happened. The principal explained that my son had beaten up three other boys and even broke one boy’s wrist. I was obviously horrified and asked my son what the fuck he was thinking. He simply told me that the boys had cornered one of his friends and were trying to make her strip for them. Being the chivalrous boy I raised him to be, he put a stop to it. I asked the principal if it was true and he dodged the question. In response to that, I told the school that if they’re going to allow sexual harassment, I didn’t want my child to attend and took him home. I told my son that I was going to take him out of public schools. He replied by telling me that he didn’t want to leave the school because of he wasn’t there then who was going to stop it from happening again.

This is when I realized my little boy had become a man. He would rather get in trouble to protect a friend than stay out of the spotlight and potentially face long term consequences.

Edit: I feel the need to point out that my son also got his ass kicked (and to be frank, “beat up” was probably the wrong term to use [a bit exaggerated] when describing what he did to those three boys). I assumed that was implied, but oh well. What can you do? The police were called and the bullies’ parents didn’t press charges as long as the girl’s parents didn’t either. The school penalized all three boys and the girl’s mother and I are very close friends now.

I left the US almost 50 years ago to live in Germany. However, I frequently visit the US to stay there months at a time.

There are things that are “convenient” about living in the US: stores that open 7 days a week, some even 24/7; outside the large cities, ample free parking, better weather in vast parts of the US (compared to Germany), ease of meeting new people, etc.

But despite the “convenience”, yes, it is hard. It is hard living in a country with too many people recklessly wielding firearms – and using them. It is hard because many people do not respect others’ boundaries. It is hard because so many people are so poorly educated (I fault the system for that – not the people). It is hard because access to higher education is so expensive. The hire-and-fire mentality in the US is horrible. The fact that corruption has so openly visible on all levels is horrifying. And even more horrifying is that such a large portion of the population doesn’t care.

Leaving the US was the best choice I ever made because of the lousy American health care system. At the time I left, I had no idea I had a rare genetic defect that would eventually destroy my lungs. But once it reared its head, it became immediately clear that to survive more than a few years, I would require a double lung transplantation. I will always be grateful to the donor (and her family) for the gift of those lungs. And I will be forever grateful to the health care system here that made it possible for me to miss two years of work (one year of which I spent in-patient) without being financially worse for the wear. Twenty-one years after the gift of those lungs, I have been in and out of hospitals, have had three different cancer diagnoses, a couple of rounds of pneumonia, and sepsis, six years of dialysis, two kidney transplantation – all while being able to continue working – and still not being financially worse for the wear. Had I remained in the US, I would likely be bankrupt and/or dead.

 

When I was three our dog, Muffin, died. Back then, you were allowed to bury your pets in your backyard. (Or perhaps our vet just didn’t care and no one else was the wiser…) It happened while we were on vacation, so my parents asked our vet to freeze him so they could bury him next to their other dog when we got back.

They made sure I saw Muffin before putting him in the ground, let me touch him one last time… warned me he would be cold… I was mature and handled it well.

Later we were visiting my aunt and uncle. My aunt came and sat next to me and told me how sad she was that my doggy had died but I should be happy that he’s in doggy heaven now.

I looked at her very seriously and shook my head. “No, Aunt Sharon. He’s defrosting in the backyard!” (I had a fine concept of death and heaven but hadn’t been taught about doggy heaven and it just didn’t make any sense!)

Russia Hits Underground Gas Reserves in Ukraine; “Mushroom Cloud” from Fierce Explosion

Russia Hits Underground Gas Reserves in Ukraine; &quot;Mushroom Cloud&quot; from Fierce Explosion

At dawn, Russia achieved the largest strategic strike in Ukraine in history, when it destroyed Ukraine’s largest underground gas storage in Bilche-Volitsko-Uher in the city of Stryjak near Ľvov.

Russia utilized Kh-47 Kinzhal supersonic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles, to strike and detonate 17 billion cubic meters of stored natural gas!

The attack came from three different sides.

Russia Hits ukraine Gas Reserve
Russia Hits ukraine Gas Reserve

The destruction of the natural gas, combined with Russia’s unwillingness to supply new gas, means that Ukraine is “done” from an energy perspective.

A total of eight MiG-31 fighters carrying Kinzhal and Kh-101 aircraft hit the gas reserve, causing a nuclear-like mushroom cloud visible from Poland, 100 km from the Ukrainian border.

The reserve tank was located at a depth of 50 meters (~150 feet) from the surface of the earth, which did not prevent Kinžal from going through the stony ground “like a knife through butter” and exploding into the tank!

In Poland, radiation measurements began after what initially appeared to be a nuclear attack there, but this has not been confirmed.

Ukraine currently has less than half of its gas reserves, and after the destruction of the reserve, it cannot even be supplied from the European market.

The attack on this underground gas reservoir was confirmed by the Ukrainian company Zdroj 24 news.

Exposition (Green Flag #1)

I sought the help of a therapist during my final months in New Zealand because I thought I had depression.

After telling him about my situation at length, he said:

“Let me summarize:

  1. you have been bullied out of your job;
  2. you have over one million dollars of debt and face repossession of your two houses and four cars;
  3. half of which because you have been pressured into buying a house for your mother in law, who has been actively sabotaging your marriage for almost ten years;
  4. your foster children you were expecting to adopt have been taken away and put back with their biological parents, teenagers imprisoned for drug offences who have now been released due to a law change;
  5. your wife wants a divorce.

And you think you have depression? You have every reason to be down! You’re healthy. Get out of here.”

And I did.

All the way to Shanghai, from where it took me three years to clean up the mess. But he was right, I never needed any anti depressants. With every dollar my bank statements began to look more balanced, I was better.

  1. If a person laughs too much, even at stupid things, he is lonely deep inside.
  2. If a person speaks less, but speaks fast, he keeps secrets.
  3. If a person sleeps a lot, he is sad.
  4. If someone can’t cry, he is weak.
  5. If someone eats in an abnormal manner, he is tense.
  6. If someone cries on little things, he is innocent & soft-hearted.
  7. If someone becomes angry over silly or petty (small) things, it means he needs love.Try to understand people more.

On the 4th of July, 16 years ago, I was at a fireworks show where parents accidentally killed their own child.

They had 6 children. One was a 6 month old baby.

They were at a fireworks show. It was really hectic. I don’t remember the exact details. A lot of people were there.

The dad had gone off on his own to buy snacks for the kids, he took the baby along.

Mom was sitting on a blanket with the rest of her kids, ready to watch the fireworks show. Someone from the show asked Mom to move her car, it was in the way. Mom left the oldest child in charge of all the younger ones on the grassy hill on their blanket. She walked over and hopped into the car.

At the same time, Dad had come back to the car after getting snacks to get a lawn chair out of the trunk. Mom and Dad didn’t see each other, Mom was already in the car. Dad set the baby carrier down on the ground behind the car, not knowing Mom was in the car ready to back up.

I’m not sure how it happened, Dad was either distracted talking to someone or busy setting snacks down. But while he wasn’t looking, Mom backed the car over the baby. It was horrible, chaotic, and devastating.

The baby was only partially backed over and survived for two days. He died after that. The pain of his parents was indescribable.

After that, an investigation ensued of the death of their child. They were found innocent, ruling that it was a horrible accident. But being investigated for the murder of their child made the death much worse and the pain last much longer.

Surprisingly, the couple did stay together. A lot of times, couples blame each other in events like that and have to separate after something so painful, or so I’ve heard.

However, they don’t celebrate the 4th of July anymore. It’s a horrible reminder of the death of their baby boy. Every year I see a post from them commemorating his death on Independence Day.

It depends on your life style.

A lot of people will say rent is the killer.

It isn’t the killer it once was. Rents are FALLING in Hong Kong and if you live in the New Territories a little bit away from an MTR station a 500sqft apartment can be had for about $7000 a month, live in the arse end of nowhere and $10000 can get you an entire 750sqft apartment.

But you trade travel time/expenses for rent.

Foodwise? You can survive easily on $100HKD a day.

Transport from arse end of nowhere to Admiralty for me is about $60HKD a day. This can be cheaper if I decide to arrive before 8am.

Utilities. Family of 4 lots of air con, lots of cooking (electric) is about $2800 a month electricity. I live mostly alone spend most of my time outside and I am also heat resistant so I spend about $700 (I do however weld a fair bit).

The problem is sanity money.

As somebody on a visa? Shenzhen is closed to you. Sanity money is doing things to get away from the nuttyness of the city and urban areas. This can be cheap as chips for instance cycling all over the territory (an older road bike can be bought for $2000). To ice skating, musical instruments etc to getting wasted.

That’s the big money sink here.

This is FRIGHTENING!

My wife was killed in an accident in Minnesota. A juvenile was driving her brand new vehicle way too fast even tho the road conditions were dry (speedometer was stuck at 1 04 when they were investigating).

The girl/insurance was found 100% at fault. Her insurance was a hefty one since she was a minor. Their insurance had the gall to keep calling me asking health questions about my wife and she was prone to seizures, blacking out suddenly, vertigo, etc. I was like WTH and told them I was going to get an attorney (this was Wednesday morning…accident was Tuesday night at 8:44PM). By 11AM I already had answered numerous calls from her ins, had to tell 4 kids their mom passed away, had to let her family in Arizona know that she passed.

At 11:45 on the morning after, I get a call from her insurance company asking if I would accept $1,000 for my pain, suffering and not go to trial. This girls insurance policy was over 500k. I told them that they are out of their effing mind…the girl that offered me chuckled and said she thought I wouldnt accept and hung up. I got a lawyer, had him let them know I wouldnt accept and we would reach a settlement.

All in all, the insurance company sat on the policy earning interest for 2 years and then on month 26, the KIDS reached a college settlement that they couldnt touch until each of them reached 18, 21, 25 (I didnt want them to get all that money right away and blow it even tho one had a sleazy partner and they blew thru the age 21 settlement in 3 days).

I think its very sleazy that they were trying to distance themselves from the accident and then trying to weasel themselves out of paying the insurance settlement. We didnt get the full settlement but it was close and I still have 2 children out of the 4 still collecting interest and checks.

This was a Nation that once refused to starve Egyptian soldiers it had encircled in 1973

Moshe Dayan once said If Israel acted like terrorist groups, it would lose the moral ground to the world

Golda Meir formed the Wrath of God team to selectively hunt down the 1972 Munich Massacre terrorists – one by one over almost 11 years at a cost of $ 42 Million rather than send a few aircraft and bomb Jordan or Lebanon for harboring those terrorists


Those days are done and dusted now

The Americans started with Agent Orange and began to justify killing Civilians

Then in 1999, Tony Blair openly claimed the West had a right to meddle in any Country’s affairs for World Peace

And thus began the growth of Evil in the West

I would say the Evil began with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair – both alleged pedophiles and both on the list of that notorious and accepted pedophile Epstein

Europe was still protected by good nationalists like Chirac and Schroeder

Then gradually the Evil spread everywhere

Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden, Scholz, Boris Johnson,Macron and Netanyahu – the list goes on and on

The Israelis are evil people today

They seem to believe that killing women and children is fully justified

That’s not a problem in itself

Yet they seem to believe Arabs and especially Palestinians are akin to animals and deserve to die

So many Israeli kids seem surprised as to why the whole world is reacting to the deaths of Palestinians

Just like in 1940, Hitler Jugend used to ask why everyone was so worried about Jewry when the Reich was doing their job for them and ridding the world of that Jewish influence


Their God once protected them because they were on the right path and the world was persecuting them

I believe the same God will abandon them or has abandoned them to the Devil long ago

They are too evil and they deserve God’s judgment

Let’s hope like Moses – a new round of plagues arise and exterminate all the evil Israelis leaving behind the Good ones who can again build up the former ‘Honor’ of their race that existed in the times of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan

SHOCKING Court Ruling in Favor of MEN! Yale Student Acquitted of Assault Sues for $110 Million

The thing is, for many men, it's not even, "guilty until proven innocent." Its, "guilty EVEN if proven innocent."

Green Chile Burros

The burro is shown “enchilada style.”

green chile burros
green chile burros

Ingredients

  • 1 small beef roast, diced
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 (4 ounce) cans diced green chiles
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 (16 ounce) can tomatoes, drained (juice reserved)
  • 1/2 teaspoon comino (cumin)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • All-purpose flour

Instructions

  1. Brown diced meat in fat in a large, heavy saucepan. Add onion, green chiles, garlic and drained tomatoes. Add enough drained tomato juice (plus water if needed) to cover. Add comino, salt and pepper. Cook, covered, until meat is very tender.
  2. Mix flour with a small amount of water to form a thin paste and add to mixture to thicken slightly.
  3. Heat a large flour tortilla on a griddle. Fill with meat mixture and fold.

Notes

Enchilada Style: Follow instructions above, then place in a shallow serving dish. Pour enchilada sauce over the top to cover, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Heat in a 425 degrees F oven until the cheese is melted.

I sometimes make a fast version of this. I use leftover pot roast, dice it up, mix it with the remaining ingredients and just simmer it until the onion is tender. Thicken it with the flour as stated in the recipe.

I have had so many wonderful moments with Jay (store manager), it’s hard to decide on which one.

I think this was hilarious, but I doubt Jay would, good thing he doesn’t read my answers.

I was working in my department, Jay and I were visiting just before he was going home. A customer walked up to my service counter. I wished I could remember what the customer said or did that had me lose my temper. It takes a lot before I lose it.

Anyway, the customer upset me and I said, “You can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine and I don’t mean a closed book.” The customer walked away. Jay looks at me and said, “You are so busted!” He walked away to talk to the customer. I stood there cussing myself out for my stupidity.

Jay returned. In the coldest tone, he said, “You back room now!!!!!” I walked back there. I knew that there was nothing I could say to save my bacon.

He stood there glaring at me, counting to ten, taking deep breaths, counting again and clenching and unclenching his fists. I was smart enough not to be a smarta$$ and ask him if I was in trouble.

He finally said, “How? How in the H E double hockey sticks did you manage to do it?!?!” I waited to find out what I managed to do. Jay sputters out, “ I went to talk to the customer to smooth things out, so corporate would not become involved. The customer told me that everything was great and if I punish you in anyway, she will call corporate on me?!!?” I looked at him and said, “Maybe because I am cuter?” He stormed off!

We are still friends to this day! I’m still cuter!

Russia to United Nations: Prepare for “Unconditional Capitulation” of Ukraine

Russia to United Nations: Prepare for &quot;Unconditional Capitulation&quot; of Ukraine

Russia just said the quiet part out loud: There must be unconditional capitulation (i.e. surrender)” by Ukraine.

Nebenzya large
Nebenzya large

During yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said:

“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelenski and his closest circle.

In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion.

Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime.

I advise you all to prepare for this in advance.”

“When I was elected as president then (in 2016), I tried to craft an independent foreign policy, not really against America. I have no quarrel with America. But the problem was our foreign policy was dovetailing theirs, and not so good with China. So I started on a neutral foreign policy. I announced to the world that I had no friends and no enemies to fight. I just want to be neutral. And I did not have to kowtow to anybody’s foreign policy, especially the Americans. […]

Most of the ASEAN countries have followed a very neutral, independent foreign policy. I would have wanted that… That is why I slowly detached myself, and, at least in foreign policy, and announced to China that we are not enemies, that we have never been, and never will be in our lifetime.

Here in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), when I was president, there was no quarrel. We can return to normalcy. I hope that we can stop the ruckus over there, because the Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and find a quarrel and eventually maybe start a war.

So I am very sure of that – America is giving the instructions to the Philippine government to ‘not be afraid because we will back you up.’ […]

I am sorry for my country. I am not the president anymore. I cannot run. But if there is a way we can reverse the situation, we might find a way inside to implode somewhere. And if God would allow it then perchance I would be able to reverse the situation. I would remove the bases.

And I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or as a launching deck for you.”

This is a custom which had its origins in China’s imperial past.

The idea was this: If a local official behaved intolerably, the people would go to the imperial capital and make an appeal to an imperial official, or in some cases, even to the emperor himself. The petitioners would lay out their case, explain the rationale for their appeal, and ask for senior official or emperor to make a judgment.

This could be very dangerous: what would happen if the senior official or emperor sided with the local official, and ordered that all the petitioners be executed? For this reason, it was considered a very risky strategy.

This petitioning method continues to the present day. When Hu Jintao was president, in some cases, local officials would go to the train and bus stations to prevent the petitioners from boarding trains. There were even a few cases where petitioners made it to Beijing, and were kidnapped by the local officials and taken back to their village! This was considered to be a serious violation of the authority of the Beijing central government.

Xi Jinping has tried to modernize this system, which is why he has strengthened the authority of the Party Discipline Committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In effect, they act as “flying magistrates” or judges who were sent out to the provinces to hunt down and remove corrupt local officials. If you follow the detective stories of Judge Dee and Judge Bao, they were flying magistrates who represented the emperor, which was why local officials all had to kneel before him.

"I listen to Jeffrey Sachs, and Michael Hudson. Great to hear about this Chinese economist who i have no access to, nor the Chinese language skill to understand even if I do. Thank you for introducing his thoughts though."

We are at yield, and soon we can expect fracture

Mark my words

All evidence indicates that China and Russia are coordinating their actions. This uptick in nuclear talk with Russia and the USA troops in Ukraine, along with the stuff going on in the Pacific. It’s all very clear. It’s coordinated.

More chatter about Scott Ritter and what that means all in front of the nuclear war backdrop. Lots of stuff going on right now.

Today is a Geo-politics heavy post.

The vectors are all disturbing.

  • USA culture is collapsed.
  • USA society is wiped out.
  • The West is now very dangerous and police are not available.
  • Warrants, and laws are ignored.
  • Nuclear war is gleefully discussed without a care in the world.
  • Crazy inflation… and it’s gonna get much worse.

I get the impression that the USA is a big bonfire right now, and the wealthy and Washington insiders are all throwing gasoline and kerosene on the fire…

Raw Truth

Have I read this wrong? Putin started a war he can’t possibly win, as China embeds deeper and deeper into the fabric of eastern Russia. He isolates his country, makes it a vassal state to China, and for what? Is the guy missing a brain?

Question: Have I read this wrong? Putin started a war he can’t possibly win, as China embeds deeper and deeper into the fabric of eastern Russia. He isolates his country, makes it a vassal state to China, and for what? Is the guy missing a brain?

Answer:

Yes, you are reading it wrong.

As of 2024, Ukraine manpower has been depleted to such a point that Russia is in a position to get a lot more than they would have gotten with a negotiation back in 2020.

He didn’t isolate his country, because the BRICs payment system, particularly via RMB can cover up to 95% of human population. At this point, kicking Russia out of SWIFT just means reducing SWIFT’s value as a payment system.

In fact, the European sanctions helped the Russian economy tremendously, this is because prior to European sanctions, Putin’s main enemies are actually the Russian Oligarchies and to a lesser extent, the pro-West Russian capitalist. The European and US sanctions crippled both, meaning a lot money Russian money is investing into Russian economy instead of going to Europe and US.

And with China, the entire point is that China didn’t take advantage with any military venture into Russia far east. So at this point, 4,209.3 kilometres out of 22,407 kilometres of Russian land border suddenly don’t require any significant security investment, which frees up significant amount of Russian attention and budget.

Right now, the main Chinese complaint against Russian border is that the border customs are too under staffed and the roads sucked, so the cross border traders have to wait for long hours there.

See, that’s the power of not playing a zero sum game and constantly trying to screw other people over.

Blueberry Puffs

Blueberry Puffs
Blueberry Puffs

Ingredients

  • 2 cups fresh or 1 bag frozen blueberries
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 12 slices bread
  • 6 eggs
  • 2 cups Half-and-Half
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Instructions

  1. Mix first 7 ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until the sauce is semi-thick. Set aside and cool to room temperature.
  2. Cut crusts from bread. Spray a 2-quart rectangular glass pan with a nonstick pan coating. Cover the bottom of pan with 6 bread slices.
  3. In separate bowl, mix eggs, Half-and-Half, vanilla extract and sugar. Pour half of this mixture over bread.
  4. Spread thickened, cooled blueberry sauce over bottom layer.
  5. Arrange the other half of the bread on top of blueberry filling.
  6. Pour remaining egg mixture over the top.
  7. Sprinkle with a dash of nutmeg.
  8. Cover and place in refrigerator overnight.
  9. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 60 minutes.
  10. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting into 6 servings or 12 servings for a buffet.
  11. Top with brown sugar and a few blueberries.

Woke Staff Go Silent as New CEO Says This in Brutal Meeting

“The beginnings of the Third World War “Nuclear war: the scenario of the end of the world? In all likelihood, it will not be a conventional war.”

We learn that President Biden has authorized Ukraine to “conduct limited attacks inside Russia with American-made weapons”. Some of the United States’ allies had already gone further. Britain, several weeks ago, allowed Ukraine to use its Storm Shadow long-range missile systems for attacks in any part of Russia, and France and Germany have recently taken the same position. We are, therefore, at a critical moment and the probability of moving from low-key conflicts to a war of uncontrollable global dimensions, including the great powers.

In an interview on March 18, President Putin warned: “It is clear to everyone that a [conflict between Russia and NATO] would mark the final step before a Third World War. I don’t think anyone wants that.” Asked by Reuters about Emmanuel Macron’s comments, who said he did not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine and the risk of a conflict with NATO, Vladimir Putin quipped: “Everything is possible in the modern world.” Emmanuel Macron, who has said he does not want an “escalation”, last week called on the West to “jump” out, warning that a Russian victory in Ukraine would pose an “existential threat” to Europe. President Putin adds that NATO military personnel were already in Ukraine. Russian troops heard communications in English and French on the battlefield, he said. “There is nothing good in all this, first and foremost for them since they are dying there and in large numbers.”1

«Will NATO member states individually or collectively go to war against Russia? This is the question of Western decision-makers. In an interview with The Economist, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the Alliance said: “The time has come for allies to reflect on whether they should lift some of the restrictions imposed on the use of weapons given to Ukraine (…) Especially now, when a lot of fighting is taking place in Kharkov, near the border, denying Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very difficult to defend it.” He pre-announced Washington’s decision to the European Allies. Speaking at the Council of the European Union, he said: “According to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defence. And the right to self-defense also includes striking legitimate military objectives inside Russia.” (…) Extending the protection of the Atlantic anti-missile shield to Ukrainian territory would mean going to war collectively against Russia. But allowing Ukraine to attack Russia with weapons supplied by NATO member states would mean their entry into an individual war against Russia. For his part, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, commented: “This gentleman [Jens Stoltenberg] is dangerous because talking about a Third World War, Western weapons capable of striking and killing inside Russia, seems to me very, very dangerous and reckless.”

Vladimir Putin, replied to journalists: “This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. Let them [the European NATO member states] remember that their territory is small and their population dense,” Senator Dmitry Rogozin, former director of Roscosmos, directly warned Washington: “We are not only on the threshold, but already on the edge, beyond which, if the enemy is not stopped in such actions, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of the nuclear powers will begin.”2

Nuclear war: the scenario of the end of the world?
In all likelihood, it will not be a conventional war; For the evil is profound; it is the temptation to perpetuate an empire without a vital prognosis for Western countries against an existential threat for Russia which will not hesitate to pulverize the West even if it is a plantar nuclear fire; This reflection from the website Notre Planète Info allows us to predict the consequences of a nuclear war: “Feared during the Cold War, total nuclear war has proved to be such a heavy threat to the very future of humanity that the major nuclear powers have refrained from using nuclear weapons on a massive scale”.3

«NATO’s expansionist policy and the revival of openly Nazi armies in Ukraine triggered a Russian special operation of demilitarization and denazification in February 2022. The United States has always kept the possibility of carrying out preventive nuclear strikes. The United States has 750 military bases in more than 80 countries. The US has already spent 230 years (out of 246 years of existence), in direct and proxy wars abroad. In addition, the Pentagon’s new national defense strategy adopted in late October 2022 crossed a new line by authorizing the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear threats. A particularly risky doctrine according to Democratic Senator Edward Markey: “The risk of nuclear war seriously threatens the survival of the human species. Unfortunately, by not ruling out being the first to use nuclear weapons, the United States is increasing the risk of an unintended nuclear escalation.” Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will retaliate against any nuclear attack with nuclear strikes. In other words, in the event of a potentially nuclear missile attack on Russia, hundreds of nuclear missiles will be launched immediately against the aggressive country, which will then be assured of total destruction.” [3]

The naivety of the West, which is banking on Russia’s misunderstanding of China
Alastair Crooke, the well-known journalist, describes the dilemma that in a way “blocks” and so much the better is the outbreak of the war of the West, NATO against Russia with the two blasters of Poland (enraged against Russia) and France of an unrecognizable paleo-Gaulian dignity: “The discourse of military escalation is fashionable in Europe, but both in the Middle East and in Ukraine, Western policy is in great difficulty. The paradox is that the Biden team – purely inadvertently – is giving birth to a “new world”. The more Western elites oppose birth — by “saving Zionism,” “saving European Ukraine,” and crushing dissidents — the more they accelerate the fall of Leviathan.”4

«The nearly 8,000-word China-Russia joint statement evokes the elementary laws of nature itself by describing the West’s usurpation of the fundamental principles of humanity, reality and order – a criticism that has engulfed the collective West mad with rage. But how and why can it be said that the West is accelerating its own dissolution? The New York Times gives a clue as to the “why”: The old “Anglo-Saxon” obsession with a defiant Russia that the West has never been able to bend to its will. Today, Russia and China signed a joint statement somewhat similar to the “limitless” friendship declared in February 2022, but which goes further. This statement describes their relationship as “superior to the political and military alliances of the Cold War era.” The friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no “forbidden” areas of cooperation. Ray McGovern, a former adviser to the US president, recounted how “when Biden took office in 2021, his advisers assured him that he could play on Russia’s fear (sic) of China – and drive a wedge between the two. This represents the ‘mother of all errors’ of judgment, for it causes the circumstances in which the Western ‘Order’ can dissolve.” “China is seeking to become the world’s most powerful economy and the world’s largest and most powerful military.” [4]

«In August 2019, when the United States withdrew from the treaty banning intermediate-range missiles in Europe, it had already deployed missiles in Romania and Poland. It is not possible to determine which missile is loaded because the tubes have lids. The time it takes for these missiles to reach Moscow would be 9 minutes from Poland and 10 minutes from Romania. (…) On May 18 in Moscow, in the wake of the last Xi-Putin summit – as M.K. Bhadrakumar notes. Western thought processes, Lavrov said, are moving dangerously toward “the contours of the formation of a European military alliance — with a nuclear component.” He deplored the fact that “they have chosen a confrontation on the battlefield: We are ready for it”. “The program to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia – militarily and otherwise – is a pure fantasy that will be resolutely countered.”[4]

The multidimensional cooperation between Russia and China scares the West
The West mistakenly thinks that it can impose its norm in the name of its rights; American and European strategists are doing everything they can to create dissension between Russia and China. Even President Biden believes in it. Alain Constant of the newspaper Le Monde, whom we have known much more professionally, writes: “In June 1997, Senator Joe Biden, returning from a trip to Moscow intended to reassure Russia about the enlargement of NATO, brushed aside the risks of Russia’s rapprochement with China. For the Biden of 1997, a Russian-Sino-Iranian rapprochement is unthinkable and is akin to political fiction. At the time, few American officials were aware of the danger. But Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former adviser, warns: “The worst-case scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, united by a common hatred of the United States.” A nightmare scenario for the West that has become reality (…) After years of rapprochement and various treaties, the three countries are now clearly aligned on a common roadmap: to put an end to Western hegemony. All this while waging a hybrid fight against the West, at once military, technological, commercial, IT and civilizational.”5

In the same vein, Alain Frachon sends this message to the West: “There is no point in entertaining irresponsible illusions in Washington, Paris or Berlin: the Sino-Russian couple is not about to divorce. Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Europe and Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing a few days later have shown it unambiguously: the two countries are united by the same ambition, that of fighting against Western “hegemony”, In the spring of 2024, Xi Jinping recalled that he was a stakeholder in the conflict raging in Europe: He is on the Russian side (…) The aim is to increase trade between their two countries in the face of a “hostile and destructive American policy” intended, according to them, to “stem” the rise of China and Russia (…) This situation requires enhanced military cooperation. China will further support the war economy that Putin is establishing in Russia. Clearly, China is maintaining the Russian war effort.”6

Inventory of the world’s nuclear forces
According to a study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute published in June 2023 (SIPRI), “in January 2023, 12,512 nuclear weapons, of which 9576 were stored in warehouses for potential use. United States (1770 units) and Russia (1674 units). Together, these two states possess about 90 percent of all nuclear weapons.”7

«Global military spending is rising amid war, escalating tensions and insecurity Global military spending has risen to a record high of $2443 billion. “States are prioritising military force, which risks fuelling the ‘action-reaction’ spiral Russia’s military spending has increased by 24% to $109 billion in 2023. Ukraine is at $64.8 billion. Ukraine has also received at least $35 billion in military aid to the United States, including $25.4 billion from the United States. Together, this aid and Ukraine’s military spending is equivalent to about 91% of Russian military spending. In 2023, the military spending of NATO’s 31 members amounts to $1341 billion, or 55% of global military spending.”8

«U.S. military spending increased by 2.3% to $916 billion in 2023, accounting for 68% of NATO’s total military spending. In 2023, most European NATO member states increased their spending. China’s increased military spending is leading to that of its neighbors. China, 2nd with 296 billion dollars. Israel’s military spending – the second largest in the region after Saudi Arabia’s – reached $27.5 billion in 2023. India is the 4th largest with $83.6 billion. Algeria’s military spending increased by 76% to $18.3 billion. Iran is the 4th largest military spender in the Middle East in 2023 with $10.3 billion.”9

The bluster of the West. Russia invincible with the RS-28 Sarmat missile
In a lucid contribution, Andrew Cockburn explains that the effects of Western propaganda hide a sad reality: “The obsession with technology has not benefited Washington. The United States produces sophisticated and expensive weapons, which Russian forces have quickly learned to neutralize. Andrew Cockburn talks about it: “American weapons have not prevented Ukraine from retreating and suffering a possible defeat. Many failures of U.S. weapons in Ukraine, including HIMARS LRMs, are related to the use of highly vulnerable guidance systems with GPS. Russia has long paid special attention to electronic warfare and excels at jamming GPS signals. “Most Western systems have proven ineffective in combat conditions” due to Russian jamming.10

In the extreme conditions, which is an existential problem for Russia, it is no longer bound by any commitment: “Russia withdrew from the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions Start-II/SNV-III, on February 23, 2023 In addition to its “conventional” continental ballistic missiles, Russia has acquired a heavy intercontinental ballistic missile called “RS-28 Sarmat” (or Satan 2 for the West), operational since the end of August 2023. It is a missile capable of striking any region on Earth with devastating and unparalleled firepower. This missile can carry up to 10 large nuclear warheads or 16 small warheads that can be aimed at a target each. They are thus much more destructive than the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. And for good reason, this 200-ton missile, 35.5 meters long and 3 m in diameter, has a total power of 8 to 12 Mt of TNT (450 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima), enough to transform a country the size of France or Great Britain into an uninhabitable desert (its destruction zone is 650,000 km²) in just 2 minutes… With a speed of 20 times that of sound (26,000 km/h), this new missile is impossible to intercept At least 50 Sarmat launch systems have been deployed on the territory of Russia since 2023. Russia finally has a “Perimeter” system, nicknamed “Dead Hand” (“Main more”) by NATO experts. This is a final retaliatory nuclear strike even if Russia is bombed by nuclear strikes and is on the verge of annihilation.”[3]

Putin’s warning is direct and explicit
Journalist M.K. Bhadrakumur said: “Putin has been explicit and direct. He made it known in advance that he would be forced to respond with a nuclear capability if the Russian state was threatened. Putin addressed the Federal Assembly in front of the crème de la crème of the Russian elite and took the whole nation into confidence by saying that the country could be pushed into a nuclear war for its own preservation. In fact, US Secretary of State Lloyd Austin said at a congressional hearing in Washington that “NATO will fight with Russia” if Ukraine is defeated. To put it plainly, Austin meant that if Ukraine loses, NATO will have to oppose Russia. It is a call for Europe to mobilise for a continental war. What French President Emmanuel Macron said: The defeat of Russia is indispensable for the security and stability of Europe.”11

The Doomsday Clock The impotence of the international community
The nuclear threat in the world is illustrated in particular by the Doomsday Clock. Created in 1947, shortly after the American atomic bombings of Japan, and has been regularly updated since then, by members of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, (BAS) based at the University of Chicago. In 2012 it indicated 11:55 p.m., only 5 minutes before the end of the world. In 2023, its hand has moved forward again to just 90 seconds. The question of nuclear war therefore remains more topical than ever. UN humanitarian officials and members of civil society discussed the humanitarian community’s response to a nuclear explosion. “The humanitarian consequences of a nuclear attack or accident would be potentially devastating and catastrophic,” warned the Director of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva.

An apocalyptic post-nuclear bombing scenario
«Within hours, 34 million people would be killed by the direct effect of nuclear explosions. Colossal and uncontrollable fires generated by the bombs would send 9 million tons of soot into the atmosphere. In less than 50 days, the entire planet would be affected by ash. For a decade, the sun’s rays would then be partially filtered. As a result, the global temperature would drop by 1.25°C in the first three years; global precipitation would decrease by 10% in the two to four years following the event; frosts would be more frequent. Agriculture would then be severely affected and therefore food resources for all of humanity. Finally, this scenario is accompanied by a generalized loss (75% at the global level – 65% in the tropics) of the stratospheric ozone layer for about 15 years.” [3]

The effects of nuclear weapons on human health
According to the specialized site: describing the dropping of an atomic bomb “The intense fireball generated at the very moment of the explosion of a nuclear weapon of this power would release heat, shock waves and radiation at the same time. The victims of thermal radiation: the temperature on earth, under the epicenter of the explosion, would reach about 7000°C and, in this area, all living beings would be pulverized. Tens of thousands of people are believed to be burned, most with horrific third-degree burns. A fireball and thermal radiation would be immediately followed by pressure waves traveling at supersonic speeds. The victims would have organ ruptures, open fractures, skull fractures and penetrating wounds. A significant number of people would lose their hearing as a result of perforated eardrums.”12

«Victims of the firestorm: It is also possible that radioactive fallout could be blown far by the wind, endangering far more people than the explosion and fires. Many of those affected would not realize they had received a life-threatening dose of radiation for several days or weeks. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of deaths attributed to bombings had reached 200,000 and 140,000 respectively in 1950. Even today, radiation-related illnesses and deaths are observed among the now elderly population of survivors of the 1945 bombings.” [12]

What should Algeria do?
«When the great make war on each other, it is the weak who die.” This quote from Jean Paul Sarre sums up the current situation. In the face of the new world that will give birth in pain, there will be collateral damage. We are close to a future place of confrontation! An atomic bomb 800 km from Algiers will impact life in Algeria, in the opposite direction. Let us remember the 13 multicolored jerboas, in addition to having ravaged and sterilized entire regions, allowed winds to disperse the atomic cloud over thousands of km in all directions!

It is truly an uncertain era in which all the settling of scores will have free rein, now that there is no United Nations capable of preserving morality and human dignity. This “War of all against all”, “Bellum omnium contra omnes” according to Hobbes, must oblige us more than ever to introspect and review our being in the world. Only force governs the world. Russia manages to resist the West thanks to the 450,000 engineers per year! and several million technicians!

Technological power should be based on science and military industry also on heavy equipment (tanks, planes, cannons) guided by computer power are the immune defenses that we need to strengthen. To do this, we must fundamentally review the training of engineers and scientists in terms of quantity and quality. The discipline of mathematics should be the apple of our eye and a special scholarship should be allowed to mathematics baccalaureates and technological disciplines, as President Boumediene did in his time. A President of whom some discover, late and in spite of themselves, the vision of the statesman who thinks in terms of the future. The next five-year term will also have to continue to bring the structuring projects to fruition: Betting on renewable energy and green hydrogen. Strengthen steel capacity, a strong link in any industrialization, particularly in the rail and military industries. The security of the country depends on it. This means that Algerians must all be vigilant together.

Conclusion
In one of his many meetings for the NO to the 1914-18 war, Jean Jaurès, the French socialist leader, understood where the ills of humanity came from. Rolling liberalism! He wrote: “Capitalism carries war within it, as the sleeping cloud carries the storm.” He will be assassinated! We live in a troubled time where anything can happen to God forbid In a famous poem from 1955, Jacques Brel, in a lucid and prophetic way, described the world of the time in the making.”
–Professor Chems Eddine Chitour

INTERVIEW: Land of the free, home of the grave

Scott Ritter on the assassination of the constitution and how three heavily-armed goons removed his passport with all of his rights. The grisly sequel follows…

 

Vintage illustration

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ETERNAL LIBRARY: THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret? view prompt

Melinda Madrigal

Long before the rise of man when the world was dark there came a great light from the sky. A great ship descended into a dark world.Inside the ship was the greatest race to ever inhabit the universe. They are called the creators. The creators were the first evolution of humanity.They called their new home Avalonia. The creators created the oceans, the trees, plants and animals. Overtime the creators created the second evolution of humanity in their image.The creators built great cities and within those great cities, a great library was built. Which housed the greatest knowledge the universe has ever known.A millennia passed since the creators arrived in Avalonia and since their first landing many generations of humans have been all with the knowledge of the creators.The creators have spread their seed and their knowledge throughout the known galaxy. Many planets bore the fruit of knowledge of the creators. Many more libraries of knowledge were created but only one remains eternal.Many more generations have passed and the generations of humans created by the creators continued to flourish until one moment in their history when everything changed.

 

The creators simply vanished leaving their creations on the many planets they call home. The humans on each planet were left with the knowledge of the creators.

 

The humans didn’t use the knowledge wisely and ultimately all the knowledge was lost including the libraries expect for the one that remains eternal.

 

Deep inside I knew the existence of humanity was part of something greater. We were put on this planet to be something more.

 

We were created by a powerful race of humans to carry on their legacy but over the course of thousands of years we lost it all.

 

I must find and figure out what we lost. It’s my destiny. I dreamed about something greater than myself. Something greater than humanity.

 

A library filled with the knowledge of the universe is somewhere out beyond the stars waiting for me to find.

 

Atria is my home the fourth planet the creators created this I know. The records of the past show it. It also shows one of the great libraries once stood on Atrian grounds but the library is no more.

 

Their maybe more libraries out beyond the stars but one bears the name eternal. That one has been lost since the first creation. I aim to find that one.

 

Beyond the stars there are more planets that house the libraries. To those planets I will go and find the one that is eternal. I don’t know what I will find but it’s a risk I must take.

 

To Aqua Terra, Azurella also known as the water planets are known creations of the creators. To Amarantha and Inter Nova are also known creations of the creators. All these planets have one thing in common. The great libraries of the creators were built there.

 

Atria, my home world was also created by the creators and too many of my people no known library was ever built on Atria but a long-ago war destroyed half of Atria and possible the library. The records are proof there was a library on Atria.

 

I have what I need. Now it’s time for me to set off on my journey. Lucky for me I have my own space ship. Just because the great library is no more and no one knows it doesn’t mean the creators knowledge was lost. Some of their knowledge was left for us.

 

The record I found suggest only four of the many planets the creators created house the great libraries. One of them has to be the one that is eternal.

 

I set off into the stars. My first stop is Aqua Terra. One of the many water planets. I fire up the FTL and in four hours I arrive at Aqua Terra.

 

I scan the planet and to my amazement there is a large structure on the southern end of the planet. The inhabitants of Aqua Terra primarily live on the northern end of the planet.

 

I land my ship safely on the water. I put my water gear on. I open the door and jump into the water. I follow the coordinates to the location of the library.

 

Not much of a library. I enter through one of the side openings. Something must be holding the water back. I beginning going up one of the hallways. I look around. I don’t see much. The books are weathered down.

 

I keep going down the long hallway until I reach a door. I open the door and enter. All the books are weathered down expect for one. This book is in good condition.

 

I pick up the book and open it. It’s not a book but a journal. I start to read the journal, Wow, this was written by one of the creators.

 

“We left our home to seed the rest of the known galaxy. I will miss my home. I will miss my library. Many more will be created. One day I will return to Avalonia.”

 

“We seeded many more planets and built many more libraries. Our creations are beautiful but something happened to us. We must leave Avalonia or all will be lost. We entrust our libraries and all our knowledge to our creations. Our eternal library, we will hide forever.”

 

Avalonia, I never heard of that planet. I leave the library and go back to my ship. I go to the next planet, another water planet. I found the same thing I found on Aqua Terra, a journal talking about Avalonia.

 

I go to the next two planets Amarantha and Inter Nova and I found the same thing, two more journals written by the creators talking about Avalonia.

 

I spread the journals out looking for clues. I examine each journal one by one and bang hidden beneath the words are numbers. I write them down. They look like coordinates.

 

These must be coordinates to Avalonia. I punch in the coordinates. There it is Avalonia. I fire up the FTL. I’m on my way to Avalonia. The creators first home, first creation and hopefully the site of the one that is eternal.

 

As my ship travels to Avalonia, I keep reading the journals of the creators. This is amazing. One of the journals written by a creator whose name is Minta talks about how the libraries were created. But what the journals don’t talk about is how we were created or why the vanished.

 

After ten hours my ship drops out of FTL. This is Avalonia. I scan the planet. My scans don’t pick up anything. I go back to the journals. I read each one. The journals talk about a large structure between a mountain and a waterfall.

 

I scan the planet again. My scans pick up something on the southern end of the planet. I go down to Avalonia. The planet is beautiful. No sign of life. I wonder why that is.

 

I see the mountain range. I fly around the mountain. I spot a waterfall. It must be in there. I land my ship. I open the door and walk out.

 

I’m speechless. I never see anything so beautiful and colorful. I scan the area with my scanner. I’m picking up something. I walk in the direction of the waterfall.

 

What’s that up ahead? I see what looks like the figure of a person. As I get near, I see the figure looking at me. My scans showed no sign of life.

 

“Hello my name is Minta creator of the library, creator of everything.” Oh My God! I’m seeing one of the creators.

 

“You have found the eternal library filled with the knowledge of the universe. You are worthy to be in the presence of those who breath life into you. Welcome my child.”

 

“The knowledge of creation is too great for our creations. We hid this knowledge because no one human is worthy of the knowledge that is held in the eternal library. Only you are worthy. Enter.”

 

I enter the library. Wow beyond wow. So much to be discovered. I walk around looking at the great works the creators did. I don’t know where to begin.

 

I take one book after another reading about everything the creators created from the first space ship to the many great cities they built, to the math and medicine they created and the history of creation.

 

I’m looking at everything the creators ever worked on. Everything they built and made including us humans. This is amazing. I continue to read it all. Thank you creators for leaving this for me, for us.

The USA is dying

Why is the Chinese style of mutilevel democracy and meritocracy to select national leaders over 25-35 years of proven records much superior to the western style democracy of selecting their national boss?

Say you have cancer.

Would you pick someone from the street to manage your treatment just because he happens to be tall, old, and gives nice speeches?

Yet that is what America has been doing for problems far more complex than cancer.

How does a rank amateur who has never spent a day in public office expect to master the task of running an entire nation from day 1?

That will be no different from picking a Mr. Random to replace Tim Cook at apple.

How do you think apple stock will fare once the appointment is confirmed, particularly if the replacement cannot explain the difference between a potato chip and a silicon chip?

Whatever you think of the Chinese, their system GUARANTEES that anyone with even a sniff at the politburo knows thoroughly what governance is all about–the stakes involved, how the various arms work, the major players, and most importantly, how to go about fulfilling their own roles.

You cannot say the same about the American system right at the very top because the cabinet is essentially parachuted in, and that can include the president.

What’s your rudest encounter with a hotel staff?

My home burnt down. And a nonprofit organization was helping me and my wife by paying for a room for us for a couple days while we found new residence..

1 hotel ..the best western.. refused to house us bc they saw nonprofit residents as poor and filthy (said they ruined rooms…like rich cant do that too)

The next one, one we ended up being placed in for 2 days called the scottish inn was owned by an Indian looking lady and family id presume. The woman acted like, and stated, she was *doing us a favor* by taking paid in full rates for a room bc it was paid by an organization (guaranteed $ in bag) she also treated us like scum of the Earth. From the second we showed up being recited a hundred rules and placed in room next to office and told to not make any noise and that our 2 kids ages 5 and 8 needed to *keep quiet completely* to not cooking any food and accused of doing soo when we brought some of our belongings we salvaged in, and 1 item was an air fryer.

Day 2 they called room around noon and told us, not even 18 hrs later, that we needed to vacate room w our stuff soo they could clean.

We did soo.. and returned to the entire room covered in news paper and the owner lady came knocking 2 seconds in.. she told me i couldnt have my own tv in room at first.. then told me no drinks can be in room (kool aid) then told me no touching tv. Keep in mind that the room was spotless, wed been up 2 days at this point and slept most this time.. our kids had slept 8 or 9 of the 14 hrs as well and were very well behaved.

We hadnt done anything at all besides drink some kool aid and flick around cable tv channels and talk amongst ourselves.

Soo Finally I burst and defended myself and exclaimed how she is treating us different because she assumes we are poor, but we are still people and it needs to stop.

I asked if we had done anything wrong. To which she replied no.. soo i said *then leave us alone.. if we do anything wrong, then tell us and we will stop…until then, plz stop treating us like scum that will ruin things, its a hotel.. we paid, leave us be..you dont cover every customers room w news paper and hover over them w rules like a prison guard do you? Soo why do that to us.. you are NOT doing us a favor, we could have found other accomodations if youd been uncomfortable. I understand your worry but we didnt do anything to be treated poorly and its making us feel opressed and uncomfortable even talking w eachother at a normal tone.. please relax and leave us be*

Horrible experience and completely demeaning.

I had to stop her when she just sat there 20 mins in my room w my kids belittling me. Hope she didnt take offence I wasnt mad , just making clear it was rude.

The USA is now completely lawless

What’s the difference between a rich man in Nigeria and in the United States?

A Rich Man In Nigeria

  1. He might have more than 7 cars. He is not paying tax or insurance on them so they are easy for him to maintain.
  2. Rather than for Nigerian Police officers to protect citizens, you see them guarding the Nigerian rich men. The middle class always employ Gate men. (security issues)
  3. The Nigerian rich men mostly send their wives to USA for child birth because of citizenship. The uncertainties in Nigeria are too many and he wants the best for his kids.
  4. The Nigeria rich man always seeks medical aid abroad.He doesn’t trust the Nigerian health care system even though we have both public and private hospitals.Nigeria President son had a bike accident ,he was transported to Germany for check up/treatment. His father (President Buhari ) almost stayed in London for a year because of health care.Yes they are rich and can afford this extravagant life.
  5. The Nigeria rich man evades tax a lot. Yes FIRS, the Nigerian version of IRS, aren’t effective.Till today, we do not even know how much Nigerian legislatives earn monthly.
  6. The Nigerian rich man might establish his own private university and send his own kids abroad for college education.

A rich man in the USA.

  1. He enjoys a business conducive environment.
  2. He enjoys access to health care
  3. He gets taxed for all his properties and liabilities.
  4. He files his taxes or risks jail.
  5. If he is an Entrepreneur, he employs workers and pays them with minimum wage. Nigeria is still battling with fixing its minimum wage to $100 monthly. The rich men in Nigeria are seriously taking advantage of the poor youths, paying them peanuts.

I hope you understand my points from another view of life.

Thanks

No One Wants to Work Anymore ….. The Debt Trend

Will WW3 involve all the G20 countries?

Hopefully yes!

You see Europeans are against war… in Europe they’re absolutely fine with devastation and killing OUTSIDE Europe.

After WW2 it was never again in Europe.

This is why the vast majority of them supported the Iraq and Afghan genocides. The people loved the 20 year mass murder of Iraqis and Afghans and most of them were happy about it.

All their governments which remember are elected and WHOLLY REPRESENTATIVE of the people as they’re democracies remember which is the PERFECT MOST REPRESENTATIVE system support killing of brown people.

This is why Europe needs to be utterly devastated along with the USA. Some of them might have the awareness and think OMG we did this for years against other countries! Are we the baddies?

most of them will be nah! They’re just insects!!!

Wanna play?

Col. Larry Wilkerson on Scott Ritter and Russia’s Devastating Warning to NATO

Everyone is convinced that the United States is in full scale collapse.

What is a historical fact that would sadden most people if they found out?

In the 1860’s, abused children were not protected under the law. So animal activists had to step in to rescue an abused child. Mary Ellen Wilson was the first child abuse case in America that initiated welfare rights for abused children.

If you beat and mistreated your furry animal, the newly formed ASPCA (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) had the right to take it away from you. In some cases, you could be imprisoned.

If you beat and neglected a living, breathing child, the law allowed it because children were considered the property of the father.

Little Mary’s story begins tragically. Her father died when she was born, forcing her penniless mother to place her in the care of Martha Score. After Mary’s mother missed a few payments, Martha Score cruelly placed Mary Wilson into the New York City Department of Charities without her mother’s consent.

[1]After her financial situation improved, Mary’s mother, Francis Wilson, returned to get her child back but Martha Score falsely informed her that her daughter had died. Distraught, Francis Wilson left and never knew the horrors her daughter faced after being adopted by Mary and Thomas McCormack.

In that era, adoption was easy and unregulated. The couple walked into the orphanage, claimed to be her legitimate parents and took Mary Wilson home with them. The purpose of adopting her was to have an indentured servant, basically an unpaid servant.

Thomas McCormack died shortly after the adoption, and Mary McCormack remarried to Francis McConnell. It was during this period where Mary Wilson experienced extreme abuse. It was common knowledge in the neighborhood that her adopted mother savagely beat her.

Mary Wilson was beaten, burned, whipped and locked in a closet for hours. She was forced to do heavy labor and to sleep on the floor. The little girl slept on a dirty mat in a closet where she was chained like a dog.

During that period, Etta Wheeler, who was a missionary working for the poor, heard of the abuse and investigated. She expected to find an abused child but was still horrified by what she saw. Mary Wilson’s frail, starved body was covered in burns and cuts.

She went to authorities to have Mary Wilson removed from the abusive household but local authorities were unwilling to help, pointing out that the law allowed for physical discipline and Mary Wilson was the property of Francis McConnell.

“She’s better off with a home than on the street!” was the common belief.

Lost on what to do next, she decided to appeal to the organization that advocated against animal cruelty. Henry Bergh, the founder of ASPCA, was eager to help and built a legal case after Etta Wheeler gathered evidence and testimony on the abuse.

During the case, this was Mary Wilson’s chilling words on what she experienced.

My father and mother are both dead. I don’t know how old I am. I have no recollection of a time when I did not live with the Connollys. Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day. She used to whip me with a twisted whip — a rawhide. The whip always left a black and blue mark on my body. I have now the black and blue marks on my head which were made by Mamma and also a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors. She struck me with the scissors and cut me; I have no recollection of ever having been kissed by any one — have never been kissed by Mamma. I have never been taken on my mamma’s lap and caressed or petted. I never dared to speak to anybody, because if I did, I would get whipped. I do not know for what I was whipped — Mamma never said anything to me when she whipped me. I do not want to go back to live with Mamma, because she beats me so. I have no recollection ever being on the street in my life.

[2]Her stepmother was found guilty of felonious assault and sentenced to one year of hard labour. Not an adequate sentence in my opinion. She should’ve gotten more for the abuse she inflicted.

Mary Wilson went on to live a happy life under the care of Etta Wheeler’s younger sister. She married and had two daughters, later adopting an orphaned girl. One of her daughters was named Etta, after the woman who rescued her.

She lived happily till her death at the age of 92. According to her children and grandchildren, she rarely discussed her early years and always possessed a kind, caring nature despite her horrific past.

After Mary Wilson’s case, laws were established against child abuse.

For the longest time in history, children and woman were considered property of their father or husband. This story goes to show how backwards society once was.

Can you believe that animals had more protection than children in history? It’s saddening.

Footnotes

[1] Mary Ellen Wilson: When Abused Children Had Fewer Rights Than Pets

[2] Mary Ellen Wilson – Wikipedia

Cool find

What happened in your office that became the stuff of legend?

I am a manager at a gourmet grocer and caterer.

One morning, my catering delivery driver comes running in the building to tell me that a trailer truck pulled in behind him as he was leaving with a catering delivery. The driver of the truck was nasty and refused to back up his truck.

This was a delivery for us from a company that we dealt with for many years. Apparently he was a new driver as we had never seen him before.

I am a 5′6″ 120 lb female and was probably about 56 years old at the time. Just saying, you’ll see.

So I went outside and asked the driver to move his truck. He refused and started swearing at me using words that would make my mother blush. He was standing in front of me with clenched fists. Very calmly, I told him I had 2 choices: I could call his boss or I could call the police. “you choose,” I said. He raised his fists and starting running towards me. I stood still with my arms crossed and then he stopped a few inches from me. “you’ll move your truck then”, I said. He turned and got back in the cab. I turned to go back in the building and there behind me was the 6′2” chef, the 6′ butcher and a 6′ driver. all big men.

How we laughed. I thought I had it under control all by myself! The guys couldn’t decide if I was a fool or brave. I thought I was brave!

I did call the drivers boss and that was the last time we saw him! We still laugh about that day several years later.

Chinese General “War is coming” Wait and You will See.

Very interesting “interview”.

The content you produce is top-tier and very valuable. High level overview of 'perceptions', 'narratives', and 'situations'. Becoming my go-to channel for Asia Pacific. Respect.

 

 

The forced closing of the China embassy in Houston seems to be a prelude to war by the USA. Will the USA land troops in Taiwan to force a war?

First it is not an embassy but a consulate. The Chinese ambassador resides in the Chinese embassy in DC, the capital city.

China has other consulates that serve different geographic regions of the US.

A prelude to war will require the severing of diplomatic relations, and the ambassador will close the embassy and return to China unmolested.

But of course, the United States is not known to be a stickler for international law so there is a nonzero possibility of unprovoked hostilities.

Unlikely but this administration has shown there are no bottomlines when it comes to the degree of outlandish and loutish they are willing to go.

Larry Johnson: Russia Is Flashing Red, the West Better Pay Attention

So worrying. This is important to view.

Can you put a soldier out of his misery?

NOTE: This information was true up until 2009 and I cannot unequivocally state that it is currently taught to medics and again, I doubt anyone would admit to others in a public forum if they had participated in the situation.

Yes, you can. Medics are taught how to but not instructed to. There is a terrible and fine line out there in “the suck” that medics, and medics alone, are asked to walk.

You don’t end a person’s life. Full stop. In the rare case that a soldier is mortally wounded (no way to maintain an airway or control bleeding and no higher medical assets within a reasonable time)… then a medic could administer an extra ampule of morphine or two. Even though the doctors and instructors teach the medics this, in the end, it’s on that one person’s shoulders. And conscience.

Is it better to leave your friend/co-worker screaming in agony until they are too weak to yell? Then watch them convulse every few minutes for a couple of hours. Then finally they stop responding to your voice or even painful stimulus.

Brain death is setting in. It takes a few minutes or a few days.

Every minute you have a seriously wounded soldier in your unit you have medics that are out of the fight. You also have a much more complicated command situation. Nobody (NOBODY) makes this decision lightly. They also never talk about it.

In the movies, there is always an EVAC helicopter with an escort available and ready to risk anything to get to the wounded. In combat, it’s not always possible. “Birds” get grounded for many reasons and MEDEVAC Strykers are delayed by the need for escort vehicles/crews and IED laden roads. In almost all cases, the wounded will live to see the operating room. In some form.

Combat wounded are intense. Gunfire is still raging in many cases. People are yelling, confusion is everywhere. The medic will be well trained but under a lot of stress. They know that they have to address breathing and bleeding in 2–3 minutes. They also need to avoid causing further injury and find any hidden wounds. While doing this they have to coordinate any available soldiers with combat lifesaver training to assist them with this or other injured. Finally, they also have to constantly keep the command apprised of the situation.

Who has X injury?

Can they return to the fight?

Do they need to be evacuated from battle or can we take them with us?

If they need to go NOW, how long do they realistically have?

Can we ground evac through the combat or do we need a bird?

While answering all of that the medic has assessed the wounded. Tried to control the bleeding and established a secure airway. Then they need to find a vein for an IV (super hard on a patient with blood loss or missing limbs). While doing this they also need to fill out the ‘9 Line’ medical evacuation form for the radio. Once this is done the medic will check the field dressings, the IV, the breathing. Record the wounds and vitals. Mark when/if morphine was given (how much, when, where administered) and done so that the surgeon can see it and blood doesn’t wash it away. Often in black sharpie on the forehead if the patient is unconscious- as awful as that sounds it works well.

So, don’t talk about the morality of this until you walk a mile (or 26) in a medic’s boots. Don’t talk about what happens until you live and work with a small team of men and women in a combat zone for over a year at a time. Infantry units are closer than most marriages/families. Your platoon SGT is dad and doc is mom. It’s a horrific moment to see one of your guys literally torn in half and dying. It’s much worse to know that due to a sandstorm there aren’t any flights that day. It’s hell on earth when you realize nobody is coming by road because of the IED you just hit. It’s unimaginable when you realize you only have 2 morphine ampules left and 3 critically wounded friends.

I didn’t have to make the hardest choice. I wouldn’t tell you if I did.

Great question. I hope someone who actually held this responsibility in combat can clear it up a little.

Update 2/1/21: I have received word from one medic who states they are no longer issued morphine, but it has been replaced with fentanyl and ketamine. I have two friends still in service who are currently issued morphine while fentanyl is on the medevac stryker, but I believe Mr. Walker regarding standard issue. Thank you to Alan Walker for the comment.

USA DEPLOYING 300K TROOPS TO EUROPE! RUSSIAS NUCLEAR LINE CROSSED, ATTACKS ON RUSSIA BEGIN

He is talking about what I have been saying. When the empire collapses, it starts locking down the country.

 

BREAKING NEWS: ISRAEL IS LAUNCHING ATTACKS UPON SOUTHERN LEBANON

Hal Turner World

 

Multiple Massive Explosions reported in Southern Lebanon as the Israeli Air Force appears to have begun Striking several Hezbollah Positions near the Border with Israel.; Strikes so Intense that Houses within the City of Kiryat Shmona are reported to be Shaking.

Drone reconnaissance activity over the Naqoura and Tyre sectors, south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon.

Says one observer:

“Israel is bombing Rafah. Israel is bombing Lebanon. Israel is bombing Syria. Bombing 3 different countries at the same time is not victim behavior. It is terrorism.”

Crossing red lines w/ Jeffrey Sachs

Very good, and he lays out a really good history of how we got here.

https://youtu.be/c-gIFpYWPuA

U.S. Surveillance Drone “FORTE-12” Has Gone “Missing” Over Black Sea

Hal Turner World

rq 4 global hawk 009 large
rq 4 global hawk 009 large

American Recon Drone “FORTE12” has apparently gone down in the Black Sea.  RUMORS say it was hit with jamming or Electronic Warfare (EW).

The intelligence drone was a Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk, flying out of an air base in Sicily. It circled at an altitude of 15.5 kilometers above the neutral waters of the Black Sea near Crimea according to the data of the website Flightradar24.

Judging by the data of the site, which allows real-time monitoring of aircraft movement, the reconnaissance drone flew out of the airfield Catania on the Italian island of Sicily. The drone gained height and proceeded through airspace of Greece and Bulgaria to the Black Sea.

According to Flightradar, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) belongs to the US Air Force and has registration number 10-2045, the call sign Forte-12.

The flight of the drone is tracked by more than five thousand users,  ranking first in the “popularity” on the FlightRadar24 website platform. According data at 11:39 Moscow time, drone tracking stopped on the site, the board stopped displaying on the map.

According to the manufacturing company, the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle is designed for reconnaissance and surveillance. It is capable of flying at high altitudes for more than 30 hours, is designed to receive images of large tracts of land with a high resolution in almost real time, is able to act in any weather and any time of day. In addition, such devices are used to support communication as repeaters.

As noted on the manufacturer’s website, Global Hawk, used by the US Air Force since 2001, “identifies potential threats, allowing commanders to gain a better understanding of their area of interest”.

This radio show called U.S. Central Command, twice, for comment. Both calls were picked up, with an almost immediate hang-up.  I then called the Pentagon Press office. That call was answered by “Quinn” and I told him I was trying to reach CENTCOM but two calls resulted in Hang-ups; that I was trying to get a comment about FORTE-12 Drone being downed in the Black Sea.  I asked him for a better contact number for CENTCOM.  He asked me to hold.  He came back a minute later saying “I am putting you through to Major Dietz.  The call rang 4x and voice mail picked up saying “You have reached a mailbox that cannot accept messages.”  

What is the scariest thing you know too much about?

The Jonestown Massacre.

 

If you think that’s trash on the ground, you would be, as the first helicopter pilots who flew over, mistaken.

These are the bodies of 918 members of the Peoples Temple who were brutally murdered by madman so high on himself and a truckload of barbiturates, I bet he still roams the location in a dream of undeserved self worship, refusing to accept that he died decades ago.

He died not the same way as the others.. Oh no that would be far too painful. You can mix as much drugs and sedatives into a vat of “Koolaid” as you want, it won’t make a difference when you throw buckets of potassium cyanide along with it. Cyanide has no mercy or morals, it stops the body from absorbing oxygen. Simple as that. It suffocates you, and I promise you it is not pleasant or “pain free” as Jim Jones promised it would be. The sedatives added would take up to 30 min to start working. Cyanide killed them in 5 min.

No my friends, Mr Jones took a bullet to the head. Probably didn’t even do it himself. He was too cowardly to drink his “potion”, nor shoot himself. Based on what his son said about him later, he knew he was a fraud. And when all failed, he refused to fail alone, and made all his followers follow him into death. Some were brainwashed, but many of them were forced.

He made the children drink first, so by the time they had gone, the parents wouldn’t have much to live for, and would want to go with their children into peace.

Jones was a sick man, and a terrible lesson for us to learn. Let us learn it well.

Those who forget the past, are condemned to repeat it.

The US Sanctioned China…You Won’t Believe How Beijing Responded!

 

Taiwan is a jurisdiction that never invade its neighbor given that it has the world most advanced military technology. How many hours can China last it comes to battle ?

You are quite deluded. Taiwan’s military is primitive compared to the militaries of China and USA.

A war between China and Taiwan, excluding the participation of USA, would last a matter of days. And Taiwan would LOSE.

All of Taiwan’s military equipment from USA are second-rate leftovers from the US military. Taiwan does not have access to F-22, F-35, and advanced US Navy ships and submarines.

Malaysian News has not done adequate research on the matter. Or, Malaysian News chooses to be wilfully ignorant. Denial is not a river in Africa.

German Chocolate Doughnuts

Surprise! There’s a yummy secret filling in these chocolate-glazed doughnuts.

German Chocolate Doughnuts
German Chocolate Doughnuts

Prep: 30 min | Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 4 cups Crisco® Pure Vegetable Oil
  • 1 cup Pillsbury™ Creamy Supreme™ Coconut Pecan Frosting
  • 1/2 cup Pillsbury™ Creamy Supreme™ Chocolate Frosting
  • 1 can Pillsbury™ Grands!™ Flaky Layers refrigerated honey butter biscuits
  • 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  • 1/4 cup flaked coconut, toasted*

Instructions

  1. In 3-quart heavy saucepan, heat oil over medium heat to 350 degrees F.
  2. Meanwhile, spoon coconut pecan frosting into decorating bag fitted with 1/2-inch wide tip. Set aside.
  3. In medium bowl, stir chocolate frosting and 1 tablespoon water until smooth. Set aside.
  4. Place paper towels under cooling rack. Separate dough into 8 biscuits; gently place 2 biscuits at a time in hot oil. Cook 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until golden brown. Using tongs, gently turn over; cook 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to cooling rack; cool 2 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix pecans and coconut.
  6. To fill doughnuts, insert decorating tip** into side of each biscuit. Squeeze about 2 tablespoons of coconut pecan frosting into center.
  7. Dip one side of each biscuit in chocolate glaze. Sprinkle with pecan mixture.
  8. Serve warm or cool.

Notes

* To toast coconut, heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread coconut in ungreased shallow pan. Bake uncovered 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown.

** If you don’t have a decorating bag and tip, use a 1 gallon plastic freezer bag. Spoon frosting into bag and cut 1/2 inch off one corner of bag. Fill doughnuts as stated.

Nutrition

Per serving: Calories 530 Calories from Fat 290 Total Fat 32g Saturated Fat 10g Trans Fat 2 1/2g Cholesterol 0mg Sodium 600mg Total Carbohydrate 55g Dietary Fiber 1g Sugars 1g Protein 4g

% Daily Value*: Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0% Calcium 0% Iron 8%

Exchanges:1 Starch; 0 Fruit; 2 1/2 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Skim Milk; 0 Low-Fat Milk; 0 Milk; 0 Vegetable; 0 Very Lean Meat; 0 Lean Meat; 0 High-Fat Meat; 6 1/2 Fat

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

What is the craziest thing that has happened to you as an entrepreneur?

Some years ago my brother and I decided to open up a cigar parlor. We wanted to open it at the newly-developed Patriot Place, home of the New England Patriots. Being a marketing manager by trade I researched and wrote a business plan for the project, learning much along the way. For example, the average retail store generates about 150 dollars of revenue per square foot: for decades, Tiffany’s generated the most at 4000 dollars per square foot til Apple came along and blew everyone out of the water at 6000 dollars per square foot.

I did traffic pattern analysis and so on. I got all kinds of rental statistics from the Patriot Place management office and wrote a plan. We got a lawyer and incorporated. We got an accountant and became an LLC. We went to a bank and got 400,000 in SBA financing. We went to the Chamber of Commerce and they hooked us up with a business team at a business college who wrote our financial plan for us for free. We went to Patriot Place sales management and they showed us a concrete box available in the mall. It was 11oo square feet. The rent was 89,000 dollars a year. We hired an architect who drew up a plot plan and did basic diagrams of the layout we wanted. We worked with the town health inspector to make sure there were no gotchas. The triumph was going to the town to apply for a liquor license. By the merest of chance a liquor license had been surrendered that day and the town clerk approved my application. All I needed was a rubber-stamp approval from the town government and the clerk told me it was a formality. It cost me 250 dollars. By comparison, a liquor license in Massachusetts sold by a business costs between 250,000 and 500,000 dollars. I was in the right place at the right time. Most of the profit in any food business is the liquor. A cigar, after taxes, might make 20 percent. Booze makes many times that. Many businesses are propped up by the booze sales alone. Everything else is just a gimmick to get customers to come in and buy booze.

Once the Plan was complete with architectural drawings, contractor lists, materials required, SBA documents, business plan, pro-forma financial documents and every other duck lined up we contacted Patriot Place management. They arranged a sit-down meeting to discuss the viability of our potential business in their mall. Meanwhile we contacted all the businesses that would be around us. Almost every single one of them said a variation of the following: “Do not do business with these people. You are getting in bed with the devil. Run away while you still have the time. Once you sign a five year contract it will be too late to run away.” But by this time we had invested over 40,000 dollars in the operation. So we went forward.

The meeting was scheduled for 2:oo PM at the Patriot Place boardroom. My brother and I put on our best suits: we made copies of the plans and had them bound. We wanted to look professional and capable. At 2:00 we showed up at the Patriot Place office. No one was around. After about fifteen minutes a guy showed up who said he represented Patriot Place rental management. He looked about 25. He was wearing cut-off shorts and flip flops, a concert T-shirt and dark Ray-Bans. He told us the conference room was not available so we would have to do the meeting at Davios restaurant. We walked to the restaurant in silence. I was hoping we would meet other officials there who were more professional. But when we got to the restaurant it was fully booked. The guy stood outside in his flip flops for a minute and then he said, “We can do the presentation here on the park bench.” I was incredulous. We were going to give a business presentation in the middle of a mall on a bench, with shoppers passing by. So I said, “Will others from the organization be joining us?” and he grinned and said, “It’s just me, baby!”. What choice did we have but to sit down and present? My tie was flapping in the wind. My brother was silent. I handed a packet to the guy and went to my Power Point summary. At first all he was interested in was our liquor license: how we got it, the miraculous story of how I was in the right place at the right time. He listened intently.

But when I started to present the guy’s cell phone rang. He picked it up. “It’s my girlfriend,” he said. And started talking. Then while he was talking he said to us, “Yeah, keep going.” There was a pit in the bottom of my stomach. It was like talking to air as I spoke while he carried on an animated conversation with his girlfriend. I finished before he did. We waited in silence for him to finish his call. When he was done all he said was, “Does this packet include everything?” I said, “Yes, the business plan, architectural diagrams, contracts, LLC legal documents, all of it.” “OK,” he said, getting up, “We’ll let you know in two weeks. By the way, it’s triple net and we take 2 percent of any revenues over 1 million dollars per year. That’s revenues, not profit. And you have to use our services for snow and trash removal, plumbing, electrical and janitorial. You’ll be billed monthly.” And he got up and left.

My brother and I sat there. It was like getting raped. Neither of us said a thing. We just looked around at the mall. “It’s like getting in bed with the Devil,” that store owner told us.

Two weeks went by. They never called us. Another week went by. They never called us. Finally I called the name on the card the man had given us. It took him awhile to remember who we were. “Oh, we’re not doing that,” he said, dismissively, “but thanks for the Plan. It was very thorough. We’ll use it as a template if we ever decide to put in a cigar store.” And he hung up. No good-bye. I stood there looking at my cellphone like an idiot. We were out 40,000 dollars and had nothing to show for it. Later we were alerted by the town that our liquor license had been denied. It had been given to Patriot Place instead.

We never went to Patriot Place again, not to shop, not to eat, not for anything. They were the devil.

 

Anti-War Activist Passport Confiscated & Pulled Off Plane By State Dept. – Scott Ritter

 

What is the craziest thing that has happened to you as an entrepreneur?

Some years ago my brother and I decided to open up a cigar parlor. We wanted to open it at the newly-developed Patriot Place, home of the New England Patriots. Being a marketing manager by trade I researched and wrote a business plan for the project, learning much along the way. For example, the average retail store generates about 150 dollars of revenue per square foot: for decades, Tiffany’s generated the most at 4000 dollars per square foot til Apple came along and blew everyone out of the water at 6000 dollars per square foot.

I did traffic pattern analysis and so on. I got all kinds of rental statistics from the Patriot Place management office and wrote a plan. We got a lawyer and incorporated. We got an accountant and became an LLC. We went to a bank and got 400,000 in SBA financing. We went to the Chamber of Commerce and they hooked us up with a business team at a business college who wrote our financial plan for us for free. We went to Patriot Place sales management and they showed us a concrete box available in the mall. It was 11oo square feet. The rent was 89,000 dollars a year. We hired an architect who drew up a plot plan and did basic diagrams of the layout we wanted. We worked with the town health inspector to make sure there were no gotchas. The triumph was going to the town to apply for a liquor license. By the merest of chance a liquor license had been surrendered that day and the town clerk approved my application. All I needed was a rubber-stamp approval from the town government and the clerk told me it was a formality. It cost me 250 dollars. By comparison, a liquor license in Massachusetts sold by a business costs between 250,000 and 500,000 dollars. I was in the right place at the right time. Most of the profit in any food business is the liquor. A cigar, after taxes, might make 20 percent. Booze makes many times that. Many businesses are propped up by the booze sales alone. Everything else is just a gimmick to get customers to come in and buy booze.

Once the Plan was complete with architectural drawings, contractor lists, materials required, SBA documents, business plan, pro-forma financial documents and every other duck lined up we contacted Patriot Place management. They arranged a sit-down meeting to discuss the viability of our potential business in their mall. Meanwhile we contacted all the businesses that would be around us. Almost every single one of them said a variation of the following: “Do not do business with these people. You are getting in bed with the devil. Run away while you still have the time. Once you sign a five year contract it will be too late to run away.” But by this time we had invested over 40,000 dollars in the operation. So we went forward.

The meeting was scheduled for 2:oo PM at the Patriot Place boardroom. My brother and I put on our best suits: we made copies of the plans and had them bound. We wanted to look professional and capable. At 2:00 we showed up at the Patriot Place office. No one was around. After about fifteen minutes a guy showed up who said he represented Patriot Place rental management. He looked about 25. He was wearing cut-off shorts and flip flops, a concert T-shirt and dark Ray-Bans. He told us the conference room was not available so we would have to do the meeting at Davios restaurant. We walked to the restaurant in silence. I was hoping we would meet other officials there who were more professional. But when we got to the restaurant it was fully booked. The guy stood outside in his flip flops for a minute and then he said, “We can do the presentation here on the park bench.” I was incredulous. We were going to give a business presentation in the middle of a mall on a bench, with shoppers passing by. So I said, “Will others from the organization be joining us?” and he grinned and said, “It’s just me, baby!”. What choice did we have but to sit down and present? My tie was flapping in the wind. My brother was silent. I handed a packet to the guy and went to my Power Point summary. At first all he was interested in was our liquor license: how we got it, the miraculous story of how I was in the right place at the right time. He listened intently.

But when I started to present the guy’s cell phone rang. He picked it up. “It’s my girlfriend,” he said. And started talking. Then while he was talking he said to us, “Yeah, keep going.” There was a pit in the bottom of my stomach. It was like talking to air as I spoke while he carried on an animated conversation with his girlfriend. I finished before he did. We waited in silence for him to finish his call. When he was done all he said was, “Does this packet include everything?” I said, “Yes, the business plan, architectural diagrams, contracts, LLC legal documents, all of it.” “OK,” he said, getting up, “We’ll let you know in two weeks. By the way, it’s triple net and we take 2 percent of any revenues over 1 million dollars per year. That’s revenues, not profit. And you have to use our services for snow and trash removal, plumbing, electrical and janitorial. You’ll be billed monthly.” And he got up and left.

My brother and I sat there. It was like getting raped. Neither of us said a thing. We just looked around at the mall. “It’s like getting in bed with the Devil,” that store owner told us.

Two weeks went by. They never called us. Another week went by. They never called us. Finally I called the name on the card the man had given us. It took him awhile to remember who we were. “Oh, we’re not doing that,” he said, dismissively, “but thanks for the Plan. It was very thorough. We’ll use it as a template if we ever decide to put in a cigar store.” And he hung up. No good-bye. I stood there looking at my cellphone like an idiot. We were out 40,000 dollars and had nothing to show for it. Later we were alerted by the town that our liquor license had been denied. It had been given to Patriot Place instead.

We never went to Patriot Place again, not to shop, not to eat, not for anything. They were the devil.

Apricot Cream Cheese French Toast

Apricot Cream Cheese French Toast
Apricot Cream Cheese French Toast

Ingredients

French Toast

  • 1 loaf French bread, cut into 8 very thick slices
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/2 cup pecans
  • Confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Apricot Sauce

  • 1 (12 ounce) jar apricot preserves
  • 1/2 cup orange juice

Instructions

French Toast

  1. Make a pocket in bread slices by slicing again, but not all the way through.
  2. Mix the cream cheese with the pecans and a couple tablespoons of the confectioners’ sugar. Stuff the pocket in the French bread with the cream cheese mixture. Dip into a mixture of whipping cream, eggs, nutmeg and vanilla extract.
  3. Grill on hot griddle, and serve with Apricot Sauce.

Apricot Sauce

  1. Mix apricot preserves with orange juice over low heat.

Douglas Macgregor: Why you should pity American Soldiers | Truth on Washington

 

 

 

Toilet Toms Van

When I was 18 I worked at a fast food place called Hardees. For those not familiar, this is the same chain as Carls Jr. If you’re not familiar with either of those, it’s basically like a McDonalds or Burger King.

My normal days off were Sunday and Monday, but I had asked for Saturday off one week because I had a date. My manager let me off, and when I left work Friday night I waved and said “See you Tuesday!” on my way out the door.

Saturday night I go on my date and everything goes fine. When I get home my roommate tells me my manager called five times wanting to know why I wasn’t at work. The store was closed by that point so I decided I would just go in the next day (Sunday) and remind her that I had the day off.

Sunday afternoon I go to the store and ask to speak to the manager. She immediately starts reading me the riot act about not coming in to work and not calling to let them know I would be there. I let her get it all out of her system, then I pointed to the schedule on the wall right outside of her office and said “I wasn’t here because you told me a week ago I could have yesterday off.”

She looked at the schedule, looked back at me, and the light popped on. “That’s right,” she said, “I remember you saying see you Tuesday when you left Friday night. I’m sorry, it totally slipped my mind.”

I was fairly pissed off, but I decided that it wasn’t worth making a big deal about. I told her not to worry about it, and again said “See you Tuesday” as I left the store.

When I got to the restaurant on Tuesday I was told to go to the manager’s office immediately. When I walked in she started off by saying “Why weren’t you here yesterday?”

I gave her a blank look, then finally responded “Because it’s my day off.”

She responded “No, I changed the schedule Sunday, and since you had Saturday off I needed you to work yesterday. Why weren’t you here?”

I must have been looking at her like she had two heads at this point.

“What time did you change the schedule on Sunday? When I was here at two o’clock we looked at the schedule together, and I was still scheduled to be off yesterday.”

“I changed it around eight o’clock Sunday night.”

“So what you’re saying is that you changed my schedule on my day off, and scheduled me to work the next day, and expected me to somehow know you had done this without telling me about it?”

That’s when she went too far. “I’m your boss, not your mother. It’s your job to keep track of your schedule, I shouldn’t have to do that for you.”

I took off my hat and my apron and replied, “You know what, you don’t actually have to do anything for me. I’m done.” I handed her the hat and apron and walked out the door, didn’t look back.

Beef Brisket Burritos

beef brisket burritos
beef brisket burritos

Ingredients

  • 18 slices beef brisket
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter
  • 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas
  • 1 cup Mexican cheese, grated
  • 1/2 onion, sliced
  • 1 jalapeño, deseeded and diced
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced
  • Cholula sauce
  • Lettuce, shredded

Instructions

  1. Warm the brisket slices.
  2. Put the oil or butter into a large skillet over medium-low heat. When oil is heated, or when butter is melted, quickly warm the flour tortillas on both sides.
  3. Place slices of brisket down the middle of the tortilla. Top with cheese, onion slices, some jalapeño, some tomato, Cholula sauce, and top with lettuce. Carefully roll the tortilla around the filling, tucking the ends to prevent any of the filling from falling out.

Yeehaww!

China sez no to buying US T-bills

main qimg 2f5303f9ee4bc77b6afa9333c5b44585
main qimg 2f5303f9ee4bc77b6afa9333c5b44585

In short the interest on US debt is $1.2 trillion and rising. Just the interest. Much of that debt is also OLD debt at lower yield and yields are rising fast.

outlook
outlook

Now of course somebody will say USD will NOT collapse it will still remain dominant etc.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t need to collapse.

Western elections for instance. You do not need to convince ALL the voters of your position only the marginals. The 1–2% at the marginals can cause an entirely different party/government to be elected… hence, why political parties always target the marginals.

Small niggles become bigger problems very quickly.

This is a harsh truth

Anyone of them can fall

I remember in 2010 when people spoke of BlackBerry being a trillion dollar valued company by 2020

It had a market value of $ 50.7 Billion at its peak

It made smartphones and had a Global share of nearly 16%

Then suddenly Apple and Google surged ahead. The Touch Screen ended the Mini QWERTY Keyboard and today BlackBerry survives on IOT patents


That’s the problem with Tech companies

A New Direction in Technology can render then null and void in six months after decades of existence

Hewlett Packard was once valued at around $ 130 Billion at its peak but today it’s around $ 27–28 Billion

That’s because nobody in 2010 expected that your super fast internet could be available on your smartphone that would render a lot of Laptops as vestigial


So let’s see

Google

They have a lot of services. A whole lot of services. Yet are they monetized?

Google makes 80% or more of its Revenue from Advertising

The entire Google infrastructure seems to be entirely oriented towards micro advertising

They have YouTube, Google Search Engine, Chrome to help them build enough customers to generate a huge advertising income

Google has a near monopoly today as far as YT and Chrome and the Search Engine are concerned and thus so far it’s advertising revenue is safe

Chance of a Fall :- Bleak in the next 5 years. Google seems safe. Unless a rival comes up in the next five years at a evolved scale either in searching or browsing or video streaming

Amazon

Amazon has AWS but the near monopoly is absent.

Google, Microsoft, Huawei, Alibaba, Oracle all compete with Amazon AWS

AWS is where the big profits are

The E Commerce generates moolah but not profits

The E Commerce is just the source for Data like Google Search Engine or Chrome

Chance of Fall :- AWS has a low tech threshold and will lose share to Huawei and Alibaba especially in the emerging economies minus India

I see their value falling in 5 years and their market cap.

Unless they step up their technological edge

Meta

Meta is guaranteed to cease to exist unless they manage to get Metaverse rolling

How many people use Facebook anymore?

Instagram helps get a lot of advertising and revenue space but Instagram is slowly being phased out by TikTok and Douyin and Live Streaming apps

Chance of a Fall :- High in the next 5 years. Very high. I doubt Meta in its present version will exist beyond 2034

Apple

Apples bulk revenues come from its products like Iphone and Ipads and other products with Iphone earning almost 70% of Apples revenue

It’s profits come from its services like Icloud etc

It also has Valuable Proprietary software

Plus it’s own Chip architecture

However that also demonstrates Apples weakness

Everything is linked to that one IPhone

If the Iphone and it’s popularity tanks then Apple will have a steep fall

I am sure Iphone will tank in China and in many countries that would sell both Chinese Phones and Apple in the coming years

I don’t see any innovation by Apple and their advantage of a Smartphone with its own Ecosystem will soon be replicated by others

Once EVs become more popular, the next player is one who can integrate his EV Mobile platform to the Smartphone and handle processing for both

Apple ain’t that player

Chance of a fall :- 50% in the next 10 years. I doubt if the company will keep a $ 3 T valuation in a decade. It may fall to maybe $ 375-400 Billion in the next decade


So according to me

Meta > Apple > Amazon > Google

Highest chance of a fall is Meta

Lowest is Google

Again unless the Tech evolution climbs to a whole new level and suddenly Google loses its key market and competitive edge

Male Standards Are Frowned Upon

Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts has an interesting piece on China’s economy today. The disfunctional nature of western capitalism- so celebrated by the Ideologist/Economists- as it disappears up into its own orifice has reached the stage at which it pleads for help from the competition. The truth about the ‘market model’ is that it only works when it has evolved into a series of mutually reinforcing monopolies controlling the state and, through it, society. That’s what the capitalists call ‘freedom’- one chance in a million of becoming a dictator.

“The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “the so-called threat of China’s industrial overcapacity” is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.”

“….(Renaud) Bertrand..: “despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”

“China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023 it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this too has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”….

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/10/chinas-unfair-overcapacity/

Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2024 15:28 utc | 12

This Is How You Deal With Pronoun Warriors

Glack and Glan

My son had just passed his driving test (aged 17) and we were thinking of getting him a new car, as we had points we could use because of our credit card, which basically meant we would get about £2,500 off. But I knew insurance cover would be costly at his age, so I rang my insurance company to get a quote before we got the car, explaining we hadn’t got it yet. The quote was good at about £900 so we went ahead and purchased the car. The process took a few weeks. When I rang to actually take out the insurance I was told the cost would be around £1,800, about double what I’d been told before. I explained about the previous estimate, but the woman was very rude, saying that was impossible and implying I was lying. I was getting very angry but the problem was, when I get angry I become tearful – it’s very frustrating as it makes me look pathetic! But then my 17 year old son steps in, takes the phone and calmly told the woman he was giving her an hour to check the phone recording from my previous conversation, and then expected her to phone back. In the meantime we looked online and found an even better price for his insurance. She did ring back, very apologetic and explained the previous assistant had left under a cloud and that the information he had given was incorrect. She could offer a price of about £1,200. I declined and told her I’d also be moving my own insurance to another company. My son had been working for a customer complaints department and knew exactly what to say to get things done. He’s very persuasive but never shouts. He once was about to be fired for taking a day off sick and then going clubbing – he was spotted at the club by someone. He told the guy about to fire him that the reason he skived off was that he was bored and if they gave him more responsibilities he wouldn’t have felt the need to abscond. They ended up promoting him! Just the sort of person you need in such situations.

The US once had a superb education system

It was based on self learning rather than rote feeding by the teacher and the system

I so much admired the US system especially when I saw how they prepared for SATS on their own through Study Groups

They had so many Projects and so many Assignments and a lot of Homework that helped students learn on their own and thus understand the fundamentals so well

Then they ruined it all

By Busing

Busing is when they force a bunch of poor kids, mainly black kids or also hispanic to join the school

They force some good teachers out and force a bunch of mediocre teachers (mostly black or hispanic now also gay or transgender)

The result

  • The Standards come crashing
  • Schools start dealing in Meth and Ecstacy and you have Gangs now with small Switchblades
  • Math standards have come down badly

Not to mention, the blatant APPEASEMENT to the black community in many places :-

  • Slavery covers a huge chunk of history with many apologies
  • Math standards have crashed
  • English standards have crashed
  • 12 Chapters once covered in Normal Physics is now covered only by AP Physics (Advanced Physics)

Chinas Education was originally entirely based on Rote Preparation like India’s with very little self learning

A Lot of predatory Tution Centres cropped up and destroyed Self preparation even more

Luckily Xi Jingping has obliterated the Private Tutorial Industry and has set steps to enhance self learning

So China is moving towards a US like self learning system with lesser reliance on Tutions

However their emphasis on Exams and their Exam oriented preparation is a problem that needs to be relaxed and changed to a Comprehension oriented approach

India has the same challenge

Let’s hope China deals with this as fast as possible and India follows suit


Bottom line is like in everything US Education Standards are declining by the day

Chinese Standards while not up to top scratch are improving by the day

Situational awareness

Warning! Maybe disturbing to read, contains some details of a horrible tragedy.

This is a very extreme case. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen frequently.

One of my uncle, my mom’s cousin, was married to a very beautiful and immature woman.

She had the temper and tantrums of a 10-year old girl. She never grew up.

She would ask or rather demand my uncle for expensive clothes, cosmetics or jewellery quite frequently.

She would not take no for an answer, if he expressed his inability to buy whatever she had asked for she would say that she will leave him right then.

Uncle would take loans to buy gifts for her.

Her tantrums got worse and she would stop eating for days, bang her head on the wall or pretend to slit her wrist in order to get what she wanted.

One night, they were packing to leave for a wedding in another city the next day when she placed a demand for an expensive diamond necklace and refused to listen to anything that my uncle had to say. She wanted a diamonds necklace with an emerald pendant to wear with her green saree at the wedding.

This time my uncle got furious and left her in their bedroom to get some fresh air outside.

He was walking in their yard when he saw smoke coming out of the bedroom window.

He rushed inside to see his wife on flames. He rushed towards the bathroom to get a bucket of water but his wife grabbed him and hugged him tightly from behind. She made sure he burns with her.

What she did next gives everyone in the family shivers to this day. She placed her burning hand on his genitals and said “This, so that you will never be able to marry again in case you survive”.

The worst part is their two daughters who were around 6 and 9 years old, saw all of of this. They rushed to call neighbors.

My uncle suffered 60 percent burns on his body and was in the hospital for almost an year. His wife died before making it to the hospital.

She died what must have been an extremely painful death for a piece of jewelry.

She made sure her husband either dies with her or remains bedridden for the rest of his life.

She scarred her daughters’ little hearts for life.

All for her whims and fancies.

Bill Gates comes from a privileged background.

His father was William Henry Gates II

, a lawyer and founding partner of a large law-firm as well as the president of the Washington State Bar association.

His mother was Mary Maxwell Gates

, a businesswoman and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington’s board of directors. She was the daughter of J. W. Maxwell, the president of the national bank.

His family was just about as privileged as it’s possible to be.

He had a multi-million dollar trust-fund to fall back on, long before starting any of his companies. It’s true that he had phenomenal success and that a huge fraction of the money he has was earned by his companies, not inherited.

But risk?

Bill Gates has never faced the slightest personal risk. It’s risk-free to drop out of Harvard and start your own software-company when you’ve got millions of dollars of cushioning to fall back on if the company goes belly-up. In his own words: “… if things [at Microsoft] hadn’t worked out, I could always go back to school. I was officially on [a] leave [of absence].”

Yes he could. If school also didn’t work out, if finding a job also didn’t work out, he’d still have the trust-fund and a more comfortable life than most of us could ever dream to have.

This isn’t specific to Bill Gates, it’s true for a large fraction of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk—they’re rich kids with safety nets

Amaretto Coffee Brownies

amaretto coffee brownies
amaretto coffee brownies

Yield: 24 bars

Ingredients

  • 1 (19.5 ounce) box Pillsbury Rich & Moist Fudge Brownie Mix
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 1 (7 ounce) jar Marshmallow Creme
  • 3 tablespoons instant amaretto-flavored coffee powder
  • 3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 13 x 9 inch pan.
  2. In large bowl, combine brownie mix and butter; mix at low speed for 45 to 60 seconds or until crumbly. Reserve 1 cup of the mixture in small bowl for topping.
  3. Add milk and eggs to remaining brownie mixture; mix until smooth.
  4. Spread batter evenly in greased pan.
  5. In food processor bowl with metal blade or in medium bowl, combine cream cheese, Marshmallow Creme and coffee powder; process until smooth.
  6. Spread evenly over brownie mixture.
  7. Add walnuts to reserved 1 cup brownie mixture; mix well.
  8. Sprinkle evenly over cream cheese mixture.
  9. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes or until edges are firm to the touch.
  10. Cool for 1 1/2 hours or until completely cooled.
  11. Cut into bars.
  12. Store in refrigerator.

Notes

High Altitude Instructions (Above 3500 Feet): Add 1/2 cup flour to dry brownie mix. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes.

Woke girl is Broke

  • Always dress neat, clean and simple.
  • Sit/stand straight and hold your chin up.
  • Sit/stand in a central position in the room.
  • Make sure you don’t look lost or bored, be energetic and keep your hands busy with something (a glass of drink, a cigar, lighter, etc…)
  • Don’t be shy; observe your surroundings.
  • Listen more than you speak, this way when you start talking everyone would immediately pay attention.
  • Speak thoughtfully and clearly, mind your tone, and back your opinions with strong evidence and statistics.
  • Be a good story teller, but keep them short and end with a punch line.
  • Be quick with jokes, sarcasm and one-liners and keep a straight face while delivering them.
  • Don’t easily get excited/frustrated during conversations.
  • Be polite and well mannered.
  • Don’t be afraid to express yourself.
  • Look them in the eye.
  • Don’t be ultra agreeable, learn to say “no” whenever you need to, this way people will find you more intimidating.

This is why

It’s been used all over the world and seems to legitimately prevent serious cases of COVID-19. If it can do that, then it is certainly not fake.

Sinovac used a tried-and-true “inactivated virus” methodology (using fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that cannot make someone sick by themselves) to develop their vaccine, and it doesn’t seems to be quite as effective as some of the Western vaccines, but it does prevent deadly cases of COVID-19. Plus, it’s easier to store and transport, which makes it an option in parts of the world where the state-of-the-art Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines cannot be logistically rolled out. My wife and I got Moderna and we are grateful to have done so. But that’s not an option in developing countries because of the storage requirements of the mRNA vaccines. The Chinese vaccine can be stored in ordinary refrigerators and has a shelf life of up to three years. The mRNA vaccines have to be kept much colder and don’t last as long.

There is nothing wrong with using a proven technology as opposed to a cutting-edge one that had never been done before. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, developed by Janssen in the Netherlands, also uses an older, proven technology—the same one used by the Russian Sputnik-V and the European Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, in fact. All three of them took an adenovirus that is harmless to humans and appended the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to it. The body recognizes the spike protein and if later infected by actual SARS-CoV-2, it will already know how to attack it.

We’re trying to stop people from dying and also trying to stop the spread of this virus so it will quit mutating. Passing out disinformation about vaccines from countries we have political differences with is not helpful. Sinovac saves lives. Sputnik-V saves lives. In the West, we may prefer other options, but the efforts of biotech scientists to create these vaccines should not be denigrated or lied on, no matter where they are from.

American Men no longer have a life worth living.

I was a high school teacher, and I was driving back to school after supper to get some work done. Not unusual–most teachers have to do extra work at night. You can get a lot of stuff done in your classroom when nobody else is around.

On my route to school, there was this little Baptist church where cops commonly parked to catch speeders. They were there that night, but I wasn’t speeding.

I eventually finished my work and headed for home. As I exited the school parking lot, some kids rounded the corner behind me going about 60 mph. They were angry I was in their way. They honked, yelled, and tailgated me for a couple blocks. I maintained my speed of 3 or 4 mph over the limit (35), then as I approached the church, I pulled carefully into a left turn lane to let them pass. They hung their heads out the window, yelled obscenities, displayed their middle fingers, and threw an empty bottle as they flew around me. The bottle missed, thankfully.

As they passed the church, here came the cops. Those flashing red and blue lights sure were pretty that night behind the kid’s car. I couldn’t resist honking as I drove by.

Democrats are waking up!

How did ancient Chinese Emperors govern China given the poor communication technology and China’s huge land mass and population?

To make matters worse, the Emperor is always living inside his palace and cut out from the people with lots of tempting distractions such as the hundreds of concubines to have fun with. How does he govern such a huge country?

First of all, ancient China had pretty good communication technology. One of the best at that time. A 3,000-year-old system, built since the Zhou dynasty, where the Chinese built a “postal office” (驛站) every 50 – 200 km along any road, and the “post-master” maintained guest houses, a team of couriers, and a stable of horses. Official letter were carried by couriers from the originator to the next “postal office”, got a change of courier and horse and went on to the next “postal office”. Express mails could get from the furthest end of China to Beijing in 5 days. Confucius once commented that “one’s reputation spreads faster than the mail (德之流行,速于置邮而传命)”, so you see, official mail system was definitely a fixture of life even in his time (~ 500 BC). In fact, the founding father of the Han Dynasty in 206 BC, Emperor Gaozu of Han, was such a post-master before he rebelled and won the civil war.

By Tang dynasty in ~ 600 AD, there were over 1600 postal offices, and the Chinese government employed over 20,000 people to deliver mails, with the “normal”, “priority”, and “express” mail classifications, and each mail had to be signed off on time and signature of the courier, with a whole set of laws to punish those who missed delivery or tempered with the content. By Yuan Dynasty ~ 1200 AD, the government employed over 300,000 horses for mail delivery. Here is well-preserved “postal office” from ancient China.

Secondly, emperors who didn’t go out of the Forbidden Palace usually occurred when the dynasty was kinda dying. In the early part of the dynasty, usually the emperor had to run around and do some real work. For example, all of Kangxi Emperor

’s sons had to wake up at 4 am everyday, and start school at 5 am. When they reached adulthood, they apprenticed at various government departments. Like son #1 and # 14 served in the department of defense, and both went out to the border to fight. Son #3 served in the department of education, son #8 served in the department of treasury, son #4, the one who was eventually selected as the next emperor, served in the department of engineering, worked on the flood control of the Yellow River, and did his rotation in the department of defense, of education and of agriculture.

Thirdly, like others have said, the emperor was just one person. Most of the times just one very ordinary person, and so of course he/she couldn’t run China. Ancient China was mostly run by the Cabinet and the bureaucracy manned by the scholar-officials, and the most important job of the emperor, was to keep the Cabinet members from politically killing each other, figuratively-speaking. On the other hand, if the emperor had some weird ideas that were opposed by the entire Cabinet, the Cabinet had the right to return the emperor’s orders un-opened, meaning that, well, the emperor’s orders actually couldn’t go out of his bedroom unless the Cabinet agreed. That’s why there were a number of emperors in China’s history who had to resort to writing secret code to their in-laws or followers, with something like “Help! I’m kinda arrested by my ministers!” Well, that sucked for everyone. Incompetent emperors should at least have the good sense to stay aloof and follow the advice of the Cabinet. If the emperor didn’t want to end up like your lovely goldfish in the pot, he had to run around do some real work and build up his own followers and credentials BEFORE he became emperor. You see, the Cabinet members usually started their careers as one of the top-three scholars in the national exams, served 30 or 40 years in various government posts, and gained enough political clout to be elected into the Cabinet by their fellow bureaucrats. Their aggregate IQ would be many times that of the emperor. However, the emperor had one advantage over his Cabinet members, which was that he represented the WHOLE COUNTRY. He existed to remind his Cabinet members that they should never run the country for their own selfish interest. They must compromise with each other for the common good. That’s why the Cabinet didn’t really want to get rid of the emperor, ’cause without him, one of the Cabinet members would surely try to kill off the rest in order to become an emperor himself.

The Cabinet in ancient China was usually composed of the following officials: the heads of the department of personnel, treasury, rites (combination of education minister and foreign minister), engineering, military, and justice. This structure was basically cloned at provincial level and then further at city level, gradually shrunk to one person who was responsible for everything at the lowest village-level. Nine levels of bureaucracy separate the lowest to the highest, and most officials spent their entire life to climb this ladder. These officials, which were staffed by those who passed the imperial examinations, were constrained by three layers of monitoring:

  1. The officials were not allowed to work within 500 miles of their hometown. This was done to reduce the official’s opportunity for corruption by doing things that benefit their own families and clans. Basically an anti-nepotism measure. Also, officials who were connected could not work in the same place or in the same department. This is still done in China today.
  2. The officials had a interim review once every 3 years, and a thorough review once every 6 years, after the review, the officials would get a new post to some place else. The official was evaluated on his KPI (key performance index), and if his KPI was good, he would get a good evaluation and maybe a good or more important posting, or even a promotion. If his KPI was bad, he would get a demotion to a worse posting. So you see, the one who really runs China, since time immemorial, is the KPI. The review was done by a team composed of the department of personnel and the incoming official to replace you, so obviously the new guy had every incentive to get a thorough understanding of what was going on, ’cause if he didn’t, and the game blew up in his face later, then it would be his fault. This system is still done in China today, except now the officials get an annual review, and get a new posting once every 5 years. The transfer of power/posting once every 5 years is still a very big deal, with the CCP acting as the old personnel department, and now the officials have to write a personal review/report once a month to the Party, instead of once a year.
  3. There was a Department of Rules, whose sole job was to make sure the moral characters of BOTH the emperor and the bureaucracy were sound. Officials from this department fanned out across the country to observe officials while they were discharging their duty. They had the right to be sitting next to the official in everything to observe. If they found out that you were not respectful to your wife, your cousin three-times-removed committed crimes and you tried to cover it up, or you submitted fake report to the Court, they would indict you to the Court, and you would be called in to answer the charges. One of the favorite pastime for the Depart of Rules was to indict the emperor for various offences – not treating government reports which criticized the emperor with respect, not treating the emperor’s mother or teachers with respect, not treating all his wives evenhandedly, earthquakes or floods for no reason but must be the emperor’s fault, … – the point was to constantly remind the emperor that he had to follow rules like everybody else. Then the emperor had to write Public Apology to the People, which would be posted to every town in the country and be read out aloud by the local officials. This is still done in China today, by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
  4. . Any citizen can write to it reporting official misconduct, and they are obligated to investigate and discipline party officials. You can basically write to them if you just walk by some official and see him wearing an expensive watch.

So you see, lack of email wasn’t a problem for China. Lack of science and technology, corruption, and inter-party fights that elevated private interest above the national interest, on the other hand, had doomed a number of dynasties in Ancient China.

I worked for a law firm in Los Angeles many years ago. One of the legal secretaries in the Corporate Department was a gem: extremely competent, quiet, with enough knowledge and experience to know what permits, licenses and other paperwork needed to be filed for each deal. Like some legal secretaries, she knew as much about corporate deals as the attorneys she worked for.

For some reason, she was terminated. (It was a very political firm, and my guess is that she was let go by someone running a power play against her boss.)

Without her, her attorneys were helpless. What paperwork had been filed with the licensing boards? Had the necessary notices been placed in the newspaper? What was the status of this, that, and the other?

She had left her desk and files in order. There was no funny business. But only after she left did they realize how much she did to ensure that their multi-million-dollar deals went through smoothly, and how much they depended on her.

So of course they called her at home. HR, the partner she worked for, the associate she worked for, the attorney heading the Corporate Department, the firm’s Managing Partner… all with questions to find out the details they needed to know to finish the deals that had been in progress when they asked her to collect her personal effects and leave immediately.

To each person who called, she politely said:

“My professional relationship with your firm was severed at your option. I have nothing more to say to you. Good-bye.”

They were outraged — OUTRAGED — that she wouldn’t help them, but there was nothing they could do. Every time an attorney would grumble to support staff about the situation, we waited until he left the room and gave each other silent thumbs up.

She became a legend.

The truth about growing up for young men

Janet Yellen represents the interests of the US government and her words are official US policy.

Xi Jinping and the senior Chinese officials she met represent official Chinese policy.

The US government seems to think that it can dictate official Chinese policy, but it cannot if it runs counter to Chinese interests.

Normally, if the US wanted something from China, it should offer something else in return in order to start serious negotiations.

Any sign of that?

I don’t see any…

This epitomizes our generation in one video

OMG!

I’m a doc of psychology who has talked to literally thousands of people, and these are 10 pieces of life advice I find that people do not take seriously enough:

  1. “Don’t Make Decisions When You’re Angry” – I’ve seen people relapse on drugs, cheat on their spouses, get into physical fights, and quit their jobs simply because they were “angry.” Don’t do it.
  2. “Be Yourself.” – So many people suffer because they feel pressure to be something they’re not. They can feel this pressure from parents, peers, co-workers, friends or even their significant others. I’ve seen women get breast implants because of this pressure, men marry women (when they are actually gay), and people going into careers they hate because it will make someone else happy. Be yourself, because being something else will make you miserable.
  3. “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.” – This is solid advice for a happy life. Choose your battles, and be able to let the little things go. Once you realize what “big things” are (cancer, financial hardship, etc.), you will wish you focused on the right things.
  4. “Know Your Worth” – When you know your worth, you don’t put up with things that devalue you…and that is *very valuable.* It will impact what you’ll put up with in relationships, in your jobs, and in life. Knowing your worth has the ability to protect you from a lot of life’s struggles – if you act consistently with it.
  5. “It’s Okay to Ask for Help.” – Yes! Do you know how many people I’ve talked to, that wished they would have gotten help earlier? It would have given them back *years* of their life…but instead they waited until they were at an absolute breaking point – losing opportunities, jobs, relationships, sometimes even their kids. Ask for help, and ask for help early.
  6. “Who You Marry is One of the Most Important Decisions You’ll Make.” – Take this one seriously. You will literally have to see this person every day of your life, you will spend more time with them than anyone else…so make it someone uplifting, supportive and wonderfully fitting to you. You will also have a financial future largely impacted by their spending habits, earning, saving ability, etc.. Man or woman, divorce can devastate you emotionally and financially.
  7. “Make Time for People You Love.” – Putting off seeing your grandmother or parents because you wanted to do other things might not seem like a big deal today…but one day it will be.
  8. “The Best Time to Start is Now” – Whether saving for your future or trying to write that novel, start today. Time gets away from us very quickly, and before you know it 20 years have passed and you didn’t do those things you wanted to do. I have seen a lot of people who hold regrets…try not to have them.
  9. “The Best Revenge is Living Well.” – So many people get stuck in grudges and anger that it messes up their own lives – especially emotionally. There is a great saying that states that “anger is something you carry for someone else’s mistakes” and it’s the truth. Leave those who have hurt you in the past, take care of your own needs, and live well. It does you no good to do otherwise.
  10. “Treat Others the Way You’d Want to be Treated.” – This is certainly advice we don’t take seriously enough. If we all treated others how we’d wish to be treated, the world would certainly be a much better place for us all.

This is some of the life advice that I’ve certainly seen…

Why Men Don’t Want Modern Women or Feminists

Norway

  • Do not drink and drive. Not even a tiny little bit. We don’t find this funny. We stick people in jail for a first offence — even if you didn’t get as far as leaving the parking-lot. People in bars might physically fight you / wrestle keys from you to prevent you from driving drunk.
  • Do not wear shoes inside private homes. (there’s exceptions from this, but as a general rule)
  • People are pretty relaxed about nudity, and both men and women will for example change on public beaches without any attempt at covering themselves up. You are however expected to look away. (no-one will care if you glance, but please don’t STARE)
  • Do not unwrap flowers prior to giving them as a gift. (Germans do this)
  • Don’t ask people what church they attend. Most attend none, and asking this is seen as intrusive, rude and downright weird.
  • Don’t assume that “socialist” is a synonym for “evil”.
  • Don’t be insulted if people don’t seem to “respect you” for being somehow distinguished. People are very informal here and being on a first-name-basis with anyone short of the King is the norm. Even the prime-minister of Norway is most often referred to by first name; “Erna” (and previously: “Jens”)

I had a 1993 Mustang 5.0 convertible, triple white and limited edition model. With certification that the was 1 of 500 the last of the produced fox bodies.

The car was immaculate, it took extremely good care of it, washed and waxed weekly, etc.

At about 26 months it got stolen.

I called the insurance; they said they had to wait 30 days to see if it would turn up — meanwhile they gave me a loaner. A Ford Aspire, the economy box of the economy boxes — my how the mighty have fallen.

Finally day 31 came and the insurance company called informing me that they were going to pay the car out in full, and that I needed to return the loaner.

They said they would be cutting me a check that day for $6,800. I told them no, that the car was clearly worth more than that. They then offered me $7,500. Again I told them no. They said that is all the car was worth; I told them that it was not a typical Mustang, it was certified by Ford as one of the last fox bodies and had collector value. They said that they would do some investigation and get back to me and I could continue to use the loaner.

About three days later the call me back saying that their best and final offer would be 10,000. Period.

Now onto the fun part, I told them that this was still not acceptable, and not two days before the car was stolen I had a quote for a trade-in on a Ford Cobra that was at $15,700 for my car.

Silence.

They guy then came back and said, fax me a copy of that document and hung up.

So I faxed the document over to them.

About a week went by, and the insurance called me back, the senior adjuster…

They told me that they had reviewed my case and would only offer me 11,000.

Okay, time to play hardball.

I said since you are refusing to pay my valid and documented value of my car, I am opting for my rights under state insurance law. (Yes during this time I looked it up.) I will not accept any cash payment, and I will opt for them to procure a replacement vehicle.

I told them they needed to find me a triple white 1993 fox body 5.0 Ford Mustang convertible with under 38k on the odometer and documented proof from Ford that this was the limited edition i.e. 1 of 500 of the last fox bodies. And that I expect them to present me with three options to choose from within the next 15 days as provided for by law.

I hung up.

Fifteen days later, they called back. They said that they would be writing me a check for $15,700 minus the 3k I still owed on the car.

I asked why they decided to change their minds. They begrudgingly admitted that they could not find any triple white Mustangs let alone a limited edition model. The closest they could come is a yellow limited edition model, but not one of the last 500 and the dealer was asking 18k for a car with 45k on the odometer.

I received the check in 24 hours.

That was the event where I stopped business from walking all over me.

Edit: Thanks for the upvotes and re-shares.

I do want to point out that should you ever be in a situation where they do want to total your car, make sure you find out your states insurance regulations.

In my state, you are entitled to either a cash value payment for your car, or a equal value replacement. This means that if I’m not happy with their cash offer I can opt for them to procure for me a same model, make with same options with similar mileage.

So make sure you know all your options before accepting that check.

Edit: After writing this in a fit of nostalgia I decided to see if I could find my old fox body for sale anywhere. I did find a few of the prior years 7up models for around 24 thousand and I did find one triple whit of my year just trashed and they were still asking 12 thousand.

This is bangin’

My friend works in HR for a Fortune 500 company. I asked him, “What is the most common phrase you hear when firing someone?”

Without missing a beat, he said it was some version of, “This was a bit unexpected.”

People get complacent and don’t realize their job is in jeopardy. They settle for half-assed work. They forget everything they do is being watched and judged, including their YouTube usage.

A mentor once told me, “It’s best to work like you are one strike from being fired and your boss is debating whether to keep you around.”

I could have learned this lesson in my first marriage. We both made assumptions about our status quo — until things slid beyond repair.

Accountability surrounds us and that’s a good thing.

With my relationships and career, I try to continually remind myself that, “All of this could go away at any moment.” It keeps me on my toes. It stops me from taking my time with older relatives for granted.

Shorpy fun

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Rainbow – Stargazer | First Time Hearing | Vocal Coach Reaction

Chinese math education values practice and discipline.

Children in China start to learn multiplication during 2nd grade and are told to practice constantly. The strong moral tradition that exists in China means that there isn’t exactly a “strict or rigid” curriculum to follow. Students are motivated by parents and others to constantly practice to improve their skills. Middle and high school students often do over 15 hrs of math a week combining class lectures and homework.

In the classroom, students are told to solve and prove problems in front of the whole class. This forces them to think deeply and have a very strong understanding of concepts from which to build new knowledge on. Teachers ask students “why” or “what if” questions to provoke this type of reasoning.

Writing in mathematical terms becomes heavily emphasized in upper levels which can lead to deductions on tests.

In the US, math education is very individual focused and people are not taught to be rigorous and to question why it works. This results in gaps in their learning that ends up hurting their learning later on, leading them to hate math. In addition, the motivation factor to do well is not present and people can slack off and do just what is necessary to get by.

I know people in high school who barely pass math and they don’t even care. There is no national high school exit exam here in the US and thus people don’t see consequences; as long as they graduate they are good.

China Claims Its ‘Super’ AD Missile Makes B-21s Obsolete

The three body problem

A British Chinese “expert” made a serious misreading of The Three Body Problem.

This expert attempts to transcend the extreme evaluation of duality in order to understand compromise in Chinese culture. This starting point is good, but the understanding of China is not enough – if it is not a deliberate distortion caused by misreading.

The first part of this book was serialized in Science Fiction World magazine in 2006, and at that time, the story already had a specific framework. Let’s review the historical environment at that time: Xi was not the President of China until many years later, and the United States had just engaged in the Gulf War. China did not even join the WTO.

It is strange to attempt to use this novel to criticize China’s current policies – people’s mentality was somewhat different from today.

To grasp the relation of Chinese sci-fi and China’s global strategy, it’s helpful to see both in terms of three dynamics. Certainly, it’s popular to understand Chinese politics in terms of binary frameworks: China vs. US; conservatives vs. reformers; optimists vs. pessimists; and socialism vs. capitalism. To get beyond this binary paradigm, we can explore three dynamics: pessoptimism, neo-socialism, and tianxia (All-under-Heaven).

“Pessoptimism” – This word only grasps the edge of Chinese culture. I do admit that Chinese people have both pessimistic and optimistic expectations for the future, but that has nothing to do with China’s rapid development – as I mentioned in the historical context of novel creation, China was facing a powerful and seemingly unbeatable United States at that time, it was widely believed on the Chinese Internet that China’s GDP might reach the level of Japan in a few decades. Few people realized at that time that the economy would develop rapidly within a few years.

In fact, the pessimistic mentality in the novel comes from: 1, a strong feudal China was shattered by the rapid rise of colonial countries; 2, the anxiety of human self destruction brought about by nuclear deterrence and the development of weapon technology; 3, comparison and reflection on the relationship between social Darwinism and equality.

The optimistic attitude in novels also comes from a long history. Any civilization can learn and resist. Organisms can avoid the devastating impact of catastrophic events through reproduction, whether small or not. After the environment is completely changed, everything will eventually perish except those can adapt. All of these stories are in history.

This expert did see that two sides of things can coexist, but unfortunately, he cannot understand what history means to the Chinese people.

Neo-socialism: This expert seems to believe that the depiction of the dystopian social environment of the Trisolarans in the novel reflects the current China.

In The Three Body Problem, Liu’s alien characters from across the galaxy are presented as scientific because they don’t have “time for or interest in art and literature; at the same time, they do not understand lies or tricks”.(10)

Unfortunately, this expert made the same mistake – he did not understand this novel together with Chinese history.

The Trisolarans have a close connection with Japan in history. Japan, as an island nation on the edge of a tectonic plate, believed that it had to invade China and colonize due to the threat of volcanoes and earthquakes on their islands, which was the source of Japanese militarism during WWII. That brings uncertainty like three suns.

Many civilizations experience a large-scale ideological shift when facing crises, leading to greater unity and a convergence of thinking patterns.

Under more extreme environmental assumptions, people have to abandon cultural development and focus on survival. In fact, this describes the state of mobilized. However, the high degree of ideological consistency, lack of personalized thinking ability, and lack of lies and tricks between people is the results of it. You can see this unified ideology during the existence of the Soviet Union, China’s Cultural Revolution, Japan’s militaristic education, etc.. It can encourage people to work in the same direction, but at the same time, it undermines long-term potential.

Liu doesn’t fear technology, unlike the authors of many dystopian sci-fi stories, because he dutifully sees technology as the answer to human questions.

It is just a state of human society, not a solution. It’s not modern China, nor the pattern of “neo-socialism”. None of these cultures is always right – the death has taken them all at the end of this novel.

Tianxia: I guess this expert did not read Liu Cixin’s short stories because there are with Russians and Serbs as the main characters.

But most Chinese sci-fi focuses on humanity as ethnically Chinese, and Chinese sci-fi as an instrument of the PRC’s soft power. In The Wandering Earth and the Three Body Problem, all of Liu’s protagonists are ethnic Chinese. Other peoples have little or no agency: they passively help China, are ignorant terrorists, or they are absent altogether. In the novella version of The Wandering Earth, the Japanese mother rebels against science, and then is sacrificed in the name of population control, while the Chinese-Japanese son is just Chinese. In the movie version, there is a mixed-race Chinese-Australian man who is made to look and sound funny, and he has to defend himself as a ‘real Chinese’ based on his paternal bloodline.(19)

That’s not about soft power. Since ancient times, we have regarded “tianxia” as the highest moral goal. This expert seem to mistakenly believe that this is just to cater to Xi – in fact, it is Xi’s government that caters to the Chinese people.

Also, you can’t expect a electric worker as Cixin Liu in a tiny Chinese town to have a good impression of British or American people before 2006, can you? At that time, your coalition had just caused a large number of disasters in the Middle East.

The facts make it difficult for your people to become a better solution.

With Xi Jinping, China’s global strategy seems to be catching up with Liu’s vision of the future: it looks to science to solve political problems, and figures engagement with the Other in zero-sum terms as an existential struggle for survival.

I don’t think any normal person would consider a “community with a shared future for mankind” as a zero sum narrative. People create their lives through work. Only those who plunder wealth will see society as zero sum, while Chinese people manufacture products.

The novel does not depict zero sum games, but rather negative sum games under the tactic of “ensuring mutual destruction”. The Trisolarans and Earthlings who implemented mutual deterrence ultimately achieved a strike and left separately, but their main forces were destroyed, while a minority of the two races survived by exploring and adapting to new rules.

As citizens of the British, which is one of the countries who encouraged Ukrainians to charge towards Russians and participate in rendering nuclear deterrence, the author should have a deep understanding of this.

When I was getting rejected by a lot of girls for marriage, my mother – like all other mothers in the world would say me, “Don’t worry, you are a Prince and we will find a Princess for you.”

My family members would also console me by saying that it’s all about destiny and our family is quite reputed and we are well settled so you will get married soon.

My reply to my mother and my family members was always this.

“Neither I’m a Prince nor I’m a greek god. And we are not Ambanis. I am very well aware of the fact that I’m about to get rejected in future.”

I embrace the fact that I look much older than my age. And that’s why I always was prepared for the rejection because no father would want to marry her daughter to someone who’s quite older than her.

I look like I’m 33–35 years old whereas I’m 26 years old.

We aren’t filthy rich either. We own decent amount of land and live a pretty average life.

Neither I have any side business nor I have a white collar job.

So, to sum it up, there’s nothing extraordinary about me or my family that people would rush to marry their daughters in our family.


What is a brutal truth about life that needs to be said?

Most probably I’m 99,56,32,408th person who is saying this.

In real life, in real world, away from the social media’s sugar coated sweet shit, your looks and your financial status matter.

It just doesn’t matter, it matters a lot.

I have transformed from an ugly looking boy to an average looking guy and that’s why I know how important looks are.

We have built our new home and have seen people’s changed perception about us, that’s why I know how important financial status is.

A teacher is more inclined towards a cute kid.

A good looking candidate is preferred over other average looking candidates with same qualifications.

Black people receive more punishments compared to white people.

And, I should not mention about all the privileges rich people get, because we all know about that.

We all know this. We just pretend that it doesn’t matter.

On social media we all are saints, unaffected by society’s opinions, expectations and pressure.

I’m not saying this because I was rejected many times. I was sure about rejection.

I have lived for 26 years on this earth and have faced, experienced and seen similar incidents and discriminations my whole life.

Looks and financial status of someone may not matter to you at this point in your life.

But, it definitely will, somewhere, sometime.

9 Things That Make Men Look Expensive & Put Together (Women Always Notice This)

I walk inside and already want to leave.

The two instructors turn to me. They have clean-shaven tattooed heads and thick, spiral-shaped piercings in their ears. On the wall hangs a photo of one of them mounting and pounding an opponent in the cage.

I’d decided to learn MMA and had found a small gym in the area. Even before coming in, I was worried about what it’d be like.

I didn’t want to be part of a macho, who-can-punch-the-hardest scene.

“Oh hello!” the woman instructor says, the same one displayed on the wall bludgeoning her adversary.

Her face lights up with a megawatt-lightbulb smile. She rushes at me, gives a lung-squeezing hug, and says, “You’re the one who called about trying a class, right?”

“Yeah…” I say, still processing the dissonance between her appearance and the supernova of affection I just received.

“Have you gone over the rules?” she goes on. “Basically, if you bring food make sure it doesn’t have any animal products–we’re vegan.”

“Sure…”

“More importantly–you know what to do if someone comes up to you in the street and asks for your wallet, right?”

“Umm…”

“Just hand it to them. Life is too precious to play the hero.”

“Dog Named Hero Saves Owner’s Life for Days, Fighting Off Cold and Coyotes and Getting Help

An Akita named ‘Hero’ saved his owner’s life last week in an incredible tale of loyalty and resilience that saw him remain by his side through two frigid Alberta nights, fend off coyotes, and eventually alert rescuers.

Winning plaudits for his name and deed the world over, a GoFundMe raised $3,000 to cover the veterinary bills of Hero by the shelter that is keeping him safe and warm while his owner recovers.

The story began with an attack: when a passerby named Curtis Dahl was walking in a field of mud and grass near the sugar factory in the town of Taber, and Hero came running up and bit his dog around the neck.

Dahl claims he tussled with Hero for ten minutes trying to get him off his dog, and needed stitches on his finger by the end of it.

Calling police and animal services with a complaint, he alerted them to Hero’s presence, but when the officers arrived and saw Hero lying down exhausted near a terraced plot of grass and weeds near the road, they suddenly heard a cry for help.

Arriving, they found a 61-year-old man on his back in a ditch, shivering and unable to move. He told police he’d been stuck there for two days while Hero protected him.

While the man was taken to a hospital, Hero was taken to Taber Lost Paws Society, an animal shelter that has a special program to look after dogs during periods of crisis or injury. As it happened, the society’s acting president Alana McPhee said they had an employee who was the injured man’s neighbor and knew that he had another Akita dog named Tora.

Reported missing two days prior, Tora eventually turned up in her owner’s yard with a disabled leg after screws and rods in her leg from a previous injury had come loose. They suspect she had been back and forth from the site where her owner fell to the home several times, or perhaps could have been fighting, though she had no bite or puncture marks.

Once informed of the full story, the man whose dog had been attacked by Hero was “understanding of the situation” and was grateful Hero’s owner was rescued. He later received compensation for the medical costs to his dog and himself via CAD$3,000 that was raised from a GoFundMe organized by the Lost Paws Society.

“(Hero) was being protective. That dog probably had not eaten for several days. He was incredibly stressed and, obviously, powerless to help his owner. He had to fight off coyotes,” McPhee said.

Men and their ability to transcend the space-time continuum.

He did a couple of things.

We adopted a German Shepherd named Rex from our local no-kill rescue organization.

He was a wonderful dog and had only been turned in because his 38 y/o owner had leukemia and there was no one to take Rex. They told us he had even had $600 worth of dog obedience training. When we got him home, one of the shelter employees called to say how happy they were that he had found a home after three months of lying in a cage because “Rex was everyone’s favorite dog.”

We could understand why. He was a very sweet dog with an amazingly calm temperament.

Except for the mailman. He really, really didn’t like the mailman and seemed to feel that we needed his protection from this daily intruder. So when the mailman showed up at our front door, Rex would bark ferociously until the mail had been delivered and the mailman was safely on his way.

The sight of the mailman walking away confirmed to him that, once again, he had done his job!

However, one day to my complete surprise, the mailman came and went with absolutely no reaction from Rex.

So I casually said to him, “Rex, what happened? The mailman came and went and you didn’t even bark.”

He stood there patiently looking at me while I talked. When I was finished, he walked calmly over to the closed front door, stood there for a moment looking at the door, and then very quietly went, “Woof.”

As in “Satisfied?”

If I hadn’t seen him do it, I never would have believed it!

Also, his favorite person in the household was my grown daughter because she was the one who walked him. When he decided it was time for a walk, he would find one of my daughter’s walking shoes, grab it in his mouth, walk over to where she was sitting and drop it in her lap!

He lived to be 12 years old and then he had a stroke which left his hind legs completely paralyzed. After he had spent a month lying helplessly on a blanket with wee-wee pads, we decided it wasn’t fair to let him keep living like that since there was no hope that he would ever get any better.

I thought about his favorite food because, unlike many dogs who are sick or dying, there was nothing wrong with his appetite.

The only thing he had ever stolen was my homemade beef jerky. It was in a Christmas tin, in a box which had been wrapped, taped and tied with a string. It was ready to mail and sitting on the dining room table. While we were out, Rex had managed to get it down from the table , untie it, get the wrapping off of it, open the tin (not easy even for humans!) and eat every piece.

So I made an entire batch of beef jerky and fed him piece after piece while he was lying there waiting to be euthanized.

A few minutes later, he passed on with a tummy full of his favorite food.

When you LIVE

A Tyranny of Geniuses

Compassionate technocracy?

If rulers’ own behavior is ethical, what difficulty will they have in governing? If their own conduct is improper, how can they demand lawfulness from their citizens? Confucius. Analects.

Matthew Archer’s recent What if we Lost our Smartest 5%? suggests that, without our scientists and engineers we would struggle even to maintain our quality of life. It also helps explain the West’s current governmental decline and China’s rise. That’s because, like most sentient beings, our smartest 5% – scientists and engineers – are repelled by our toxic political process. No wonder Western governments have failed to deliver democratic outcomes¹.

China’s top 5%, by contrast, are entirely involved in government, and thereby hangs our tale..

The smartest guys in the room

Imagine the impact on European civilization of a series of Imperial dynasties maintaining the self-same style and significance from Caesar Augustus until the First World War. Now imagine such a civilization existing on the other side of the planet unaware of Greek philosophy, the alphabet, Roman governance, Christianity, feudalism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment or democracy, but with its own, unique cultural and institutional correlates that exceeded all of them in intellectual subtlety and material success. Fernand Braudel

2500 years ago a government consultant named Confucius designed a low-maintenance, harmonious state by modeling it on the nuclear family and its natural hierarchy. The head of each little family would be responsible to the family clan head –as they still are – who is responsible to the extended clan head and so on, up to the head of the Big Family, the emperor.

The emperor’s responsibility would be to find honest, competent, selfless geniuses willing to devote their lives to serving the dynasty. The trick, he said, was finding them, “The administration of government lies in getting men of strong moral character – the kind who will only be attracted a the ruler’s own good character, which he cultivates by treading the path of duty. And treading the path of duty is cultivated by practicing compassion”. Because honesty rises with intelligence and running a kingdom is the hardest job on earth, choose officials for their moral integrity and intellectual abilities.

Alas, rulers of the day were comfortable with their chain of command and their nobles were hostile to meritocracy and Confucius, convinced that he had failed, died.

For centuries, corrupt eunuchs, scheming regents, dowager empresses, usurpers, concubines, wicked uncles and rebellious generals continued their massacres, kidnappings, taxing and warring. Confucius’ disciples persistently advocated his plan, however, until, in 188 BC, they persuaded Emperor Wen of Han to stop imprisoning parents, wives, and siblings of common criminals.

When things went awry, he wrote Letters of Public Apology, as Confucius advised. So positive was the public response that he began lowering taxes, abolishing corvée labor and giving monthly pensions to widows, orphans and retirees and, as Confucius had predicted, peace and prosperity prevailed.

Emperor Wen next began examining nobles’ suitability for office and soon, ambitious families were sending promising offspring to Confucian cram schools. A century later, thirty-thousand earnest young men were enrolled at Imperial Colleges where, as a form of meditation, they memorized the Master’s teaching on compassionate service until it permeated their feelings, thoughts, and dreams.

Getting serious

Eight centuries of increasing meritocracy passed until, in 600 AD, Emperor Yang of Sui opened imperial examinations to peasants. He instructed examiners – from whom candidates’ identities were concealed – to find men with intellectual depth and moral maturity. To emphasize the importance of morality, he said, they should execute cheaters.

Examinees answered questions on the economy, analyzed current government policies and composed original essays to demonstrate their brushwork, literacy, creativity, and knowledge of the World. The Emperor himself queried top candidates who quoted from memory case studies in governance and passages from the Analects (as they still do). Advancement by examination was class-blind (it still is) because, said Censor Wang Ji, “If selection by examination is not strict, the powerful will struggle to be foremost, and orphans and the poor will have difficulty advancing”.

By 1204 AD, of two-hundred seventy-nine senior officials whose families we know, forty-four percent had forebears in government (by 2020, it was twelve percent). Successful applicants became national celebrities, their feats memorialized in family books and their homecomings semi-hysterical:

When a scholar rides in a high carriage drawn by four horses, flag-bearers running ahead with a mounted escort bringing up the rear, people gather on both sides of the road to watch and sigh. Ordinary men and foolish women rush forward in excitement and humbly prostrate themselves in the dust stirred up by his carriage. This is a scholar’s joy. This is when his ambition is fulfilled.

Poor scholars who ascended on talent were the Emperor’s men entirely. They could neither own land, serve in their home provinces, nor have relatives in the same branch of government (prohibitions that still hold). They competed for promotion by constructing public works and, though dynasties rose and fell, there was just one official to serve eight thousand citizens, often in regions far from family and friends, under terrible conditions, regularly at the cost of their lives.

Though few in number, they sustained the most harmonious, advanced, prosperous nation on earth, and so lustrous is their record that Chinese heroes and villains –historical or fictional – were or are government officials. One such hero-official has even been deified: by democratic agreement, Governor Li Bing, who designed and constructed the Dujiangyan water diversion project in 250 BC (below), is God of Waters. His temple still stands at the site where he diverted the waters to create one of the country’s great rice bowls.

That was then, this is now

The top 20% of Chinese university graduates, the smartest two-million (out of eleven-million) youngsters, will take the guokao civil service exam this summer. The written examinations are challenging, the orals intimidating and exhausting, and applicants need a 140 IQ (enough for a PhD in theoretical physics) to get an interview, and only 27,000, 1.3% of them, will receive job offers.

The successful applicants will take vows of selfless service stricter than a Jesuit …

Bisquick Butterscotch Brownies

59247t2
59247t2

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Bisquick baking mix or Biscuit Baking Mix
  • 1 box light or dark brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter (room temperature)
  • 1 can coconut
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Mix all ingredients and bake in a 9 x 13 inch pan for 45 minutes.
  3. Cool on rack, and cut while still warm.

Rainbow – Catch the Rainbow live in Munich 1977 HD, FULL VERSION, Remastered. (2018)

This was my live-for song when I was in High school. Damn.

Never get caught muddy and covered in dog shit because you have chores to do

When I was in middle school, perhaps 9th grade of so I had many various chores around the house. One of them was to take care of the dogs. They lived in the backyard. It was a fenced in area, and they were “outside” dogs.

Every morning, my job was to pick up the “last night” empty food bowls and bring them onto the porch. That way, my mother would get them and clean them up. After that, I would go though the yard to the back alley and make my way to school, or on the weekend; to work.

One day, after I got ready for school. All dressed up with clean clothes, I went to the back and  picked up the metal doggies bowls when my bigger dog “Belle” ran up though the muddy back yard and leaped up into my chest.

Now, Belle was a Siberian Husky. Not a huge dog, but big enough, and just about knocked me down. So there I was covered in mud, and the dog was happy as could be. But I was late for school, covered in mud, and screaming at the poor dog.

All that screaming and hollering brought my neighbor a running. He was a medic during the Vietnam war. And perhaps was ready to prep me for surgery. LOL.

Long story short, the neighbor left chucking. I went to class covered in mud and dog shit. I was the butt of jokes all day, and when I came home, my parents yelled at me for being so “poorly dressed” during class. Butt of jokes at school. Berated by my parents for lack of awareness. (And I am sure that my sister did her best to make me look pathetic and stupid in their eyes; embellishing and lies for grand effect.) And thus, endith my story.

People!

Never get caught muddy and covered in dog shit because you have chores to do. Take your time. Organize yourself. And stand up for the situations that assault you.

Today…

Disturbing

I had a friend at work who kept wanting my husband and me to come over for dinner with her and her husband. Finally, I accepted her invitation although my husband wasn’t too keen about it as he had never met them and he wasn’t exactly comfortable in social situations.

When we arrived there was no smell of dinner cooking but were offered drinks to start the evening. A few minutes later some other couples arrived and they too were handed drinks. I thought it would only be the four of us but realized that more people meant my husband wouldn’t be put on the spot to talk just with my friend’s husband.

As others were chatting we noticed that everyone else was getting along pretty well and I felt good knowing this was a congenial group. Shortly after, I was chatted up by a man I did not know. “Oh good, I finally get to meet someone,” I thought. I look around and see a panicked look on my husband’s face. I excused myself from my new gentleman friend and went to my hubby’s rescue. “We have to go,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?” I said. “Don’t ask”, he said. We just have to go, NOW!” I went to my friend and told her my husband didn’t feel well and that we would have to take a raincheck for dinner.

Come to find out, dinner was not what we expected. There was to be no dinner at all. The evening was to be a wife-swapping party and we were as shocked as anyone would be!

I never mentioned a thing to my friend but neither did we accept a ‘dinner’ invitation from them again!

Funny

Well, we tried once.

When my dad was about 90, a neighbor once chewed our ear off about our dad still driving. He never went over 25 mph, he could be seen looking out over the crops rather than paying attention to the road, we needed to take his keys, for his own safety.

We had thought about this before. And Moses and I strategized, planned out exactly what to say, made a plan for Dad getting wherever he needed to go (Mo had two 20 something boys at home at the time.)

We were ready. I came home for the weekend, and Friday night, after dinner, Mo began with, “Dad, we’d like to talk about your driving.”

And that was as far as it went. Dad turned the sheer blue ice glare he had always had on both of us before replying, “No, we do not. I maintain a very safe speed, a lot safer speed than the dang fools who blow their horn and fly on around me, like the one who complained to you. (Didn’t miss a trick, that old man.) I know my own facilities, and if I should ever need to quit driving, I will tell you about it.”

Then he gave his newspaper the trademark shake that signaled disapproval, and the subject was done. Mo looked at me; I looked at him, and like the pig, cow, and sheep in The Little Red Hen, we both screamed silently , “Not I! Not I Not !!”

We had high hopes for the next year, when his license was up for renewal. When he walked out of DMV with a new one, we immediately sought out Laura, the DMV employee who we had been counting on.

“Mo, he passed the vision test with ease. . He passed the written test with a score of 90. Nothing I could do. Sorry.”

He never caused an accident. He never went further than the Food Lion in town, or the barber shop. And, when he died at almost 95, a valid VA driver’s license was in his wallet.

There are some things you just don’t mess with, folks.

It’s an American quickie

A carrier will not execute a Williamson turn (or even an Anderson Turn or Scharnow Turn). Imagine bobbing in the water and seeing 90,000 tons of steel bearing down on you as the carrier attempts to “return to the approximate point in the water where the person went over”!

As a Tactical Action Officer, I was responsible for the tactical operation and safety of the ship (not to be confused with the navigational safety of the ship, which is handled from the bridge). The immediate response of the carrier to a man overboard is handled by the bridge and engineering. Basically, as indicated in other responses, if the man overboard call is timely, they will attempt to stop the propellers, and maneuver to clear away from the man.

Under normal conditions, the carrier is accompanied by escort vessels. During flight operations, there is usually a plane guard helicopter (sometimes a plane guard destroyer). Therefore, when a man falls overboard, it is the helicopter or escort vessel that is assigned to recover the person.

In the rare event that the carrier is operating alone (transiting?), then the carrier would come to a stop, and deploy the motor whaleboats to recover the man overboard.

Been there … Done that

When we were transiting home from Japan, we sailed through the tail end of a typhoon. We were alerted that we had a man overboard. However, it was not based on a visual sighting, but from a sailor missing from his post. We came to a stop, and deployed helicopters and escort ships to search for the missing sailor. As noted in other posts, the chances of finding someone, particularly in heavy weather, is very remote. As nightfall approached, we continued the search with helicopters, but ordered the escorts to continue the transit home. After 36 hours, we discontinued the search. Although our escorts had a 24 hour headstart, we were able to kick up our transit speed (one of the benefits of being on a nuclear carrier) and catch up with them before we returned home.

We never found the sailor.

How he got his money

I 18 at the time and I suffered from social anxiety a bit (I was able to go everywhere and do everything, but felt like everybody was watching and judging me so I was extremely shy and inhibited. I overcame that with some help later, luckily).

One morning I woke up earlier than usual and decided to go to the public swimming pool. It was only 7.00 AM when I got there and as expected, there were maybe five other people swimming in that 50*15 m swimming pool, all in their seventies so I was nearly by myself. Great! I was wearing my new swimsuit, rather modestly cut, with broad striped in white and blue.

I swam for half an hour, then I decided to get out and go home. I was approaching the ladder when I noticed that the white stripes were entirely see-through when they were wet. Well, never mind, only a few grannies around, I´ll just be quick.

Then I heard something. I turned around and saw a group of 40 recruits (all men between 18 and 20) had walked in with their instructor and most of them had plenty of time to let their eyes wander around because they were waiting in a queue to jump off the 10m board.

I decided to keep swimming until they left.

(Today I would just get out anyway but as I said, I was having some trouble at the time.)

In second year high school, there was this kid who we thought he acted flamboyantly gay. He denied, vehemently, being gay, but we all assumed he was. He was mercilessly bullied for it. A different era, different attitude, culture, you name it… it’s no excuse! I stood by and let it happen. Didn’t actually bully the guy, but I did make a joke at his expense once. Made the whole class laugh. Felt good at the time, now makes me think I was a total piece of shit… anyway…

main qimg b3380ae862e586fa2d09af6bc15807e7 pjlq
main qimg b3380ae862e586fa2d09af6bc15807e7 pjlq

He transferred classes, after a few months of bullying. After that, he changed schools and completely disappeared off the radar altogether. For years, I did not see the guy or know what became of him…

Years later, I ran into him in a restaurant somewhere. He had gotten tall. Really tall. I barely recognized him, his face was completely different, too. He was now muscular. His jaw had gotten wide, he had grown a bit of stubble and he looked very, very handsome and masculine… I was in shock.

I’m not a bad-looking guy myself, nor am I short, but he towered over me and in that moment, he made me feel small. And not because of him being so tall, but because of how genuinely friendly he was, because of how he shook my hand, smiled at me and told me of his life after school, and how he did not seem to carry any resentment…

He was well-dressed, and was doing amazing in his career. He had traveled all around the world, had gotten himself into adventures everywhere. With regards to his personal life, he never volunteered any information, nor did I ask. It really didn’t matter anymore at this point. He cracked jokes, exchanging hearty banter like the best of them, he was genuinely warm and I just felt overwhelmed with guilt and sadness, in awe of what this guy who had once seemed like a helpless victim of our undeserved ridicule had become…

It was hard for me to do so, but eventually, I told him I was sorry for having bullied him. I told him again of the joke I made, he must have remembered, and I apologized. Profusely. He just, nodded.

He told me, and I’ll never forget his words:

“Comments like yours toughened me up to the world. You weren’t anywhere near the worst of them. For years I hated you all, but it pushed me into the gym, and it pushed me to be my best, and now I can face you and say to you I do not hold a single syllable against you. I would not be proud of who I am right now if not for those words you and other said to me.”

The guy we bullied for his perceived lack of masculinity? Turns out in the end, he’s the manliest of all.

Learning

This picture right here.

main qimg 1a94a6b9a3f1348b874cb0ed46d2f520 lq
main qimg 1a94a6b9a3f1348b874cb0ed46d2f520 lq

I love this picture. I took this picture of me and my fiancee Olivia in March of 2017. We were taking a walk in downtown Greensboro, and I decided I wanted to get a quick picture of us. We were so happy. She had just recently passed the bar and was about to start her first job as a lawyer. I was as proud of her as I could ever be. She had worked so hard to get to this point, and she was about to start seeing the rewards for all of her hard work.

I also hate this picture, because it is the last picture I ever took of us together. Just seven weeks after I took this picture, Olivia was driving home from work when she lost control of her car, slid off of the road and into a tree. She was killed instantly. This picture represents the last time I was happy, the last time I had the love of my life in my life.

The first year after the accident was the worst. I woke up every single day and wondered if this was going to be the day. Would this be the day that I couldn’t think of a reason to keep going? I sank deeper and deeper into depression, I put on 80 pounds, my blood pressure shot through the roof…I thought about killing myself every single day, and every day I found a reason not to do it, but in reality I was slowly killing myself anyway. I was eating myself to death, drinking myself to death…I was in a bottomless pit, and every day it got a little deeper.

That was the first year. There’s no real way of knowing if there would have been a second full year if something hadn’t changed. But then one day, shortly after I got home from work, I got a text from my niece. My niece Caty is my brother’s only child, and she is like a daughter to me. My brother passed away from leukemia 19 years ago, when she was only 4 years old, so I have been the most positive male role model in her life since then. Anyway, Caty had texted me to ask me if I would walk her down the aisle at her wedding later this year.

Suddenly I no longer needed to come up with a new reason to keep going each day, because for the first time in a year I had something to look forward to. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was disgusted with what I saw. There was no way in hell I was going to walk her down that aisle in the condition I was in. So I went to the doctor, I got on medication for my blood pressure and for my depression, I started eating a little healthier, cut out all of the drinking, and I dropped 100 pounds in a year. I feel healthier now than I have in years.

The depression is still there. The pain, the hurt, the loss, the emptiness…they are all still there. I know they will never go away. The meds help me deal with them, help me to suppress them, but they are still there under the surface. I can function now, so that’s something. So that picture up above, that represents the start of the darkest period in my life, the lowest point in my life. The picture below was taken this past March, almost exactly two years after the one up above.

There’s a lot more gray in my beard now, and a lot less hope in my eyes. I’m almost smiling in this picture, but make no mistake…this picture represents the lowest point in my life. Every single day of the last 781 days has been the lowest day of my life, because it’s been one more day without the love of my life in it.

EDIT: I was trying to reply to all of the comments, even if it was just a simple thank you. I couldn’t keep up, so I decided to reply here instead. Thank you to everyone who took a moment to comment, to give me some kind of words of hope or encouragement. Thank you to everyone who was touched in some way by this, or who cared enough to respond. Thank you to everyone who took the time not just to comment but to send me personal messages of encouragement. And if you read this, even if you didn’t comment or message me or respond in any way, I still say thank you for reading it. For a moment, just that small moment, Olivia’s name was on your mind, you saw her picture, you thought about her, and for just that moment she was remembered. That probably sounds pretty cheesy, but it means more to me than you can imagine.

Update 11/23/19: So I originally posted this answer on July 8th of this year. I added the first update on August 13th, which also happened to be my birthday. I was amazed at the sheer volume of support I received on this one. I had written many different answers where I talked about Olivia, where I shared her story. I got some very sweet and encouraging comments on all of those, and a few messages from people, but nothing like the response I got from this single post. It has been humbling, and it has been beautiful. I have tried to read every single comment and every single message, although I had to stop replying to them all a few months ago. It was just consuming too much of my time. But I want you all to know how much I appreciate every single one of you that has taken the time to reach out, taken the time to let me know that our story touched you in some way. There have also been a few negative comments, some that were even mean, and a fair bit of spam, but the vast majority has been so lovely and encouraging.

So with all of that said, I wanted to give you an update on my life. As I mentioned, I received a lot of messages from people in addition to all the comments I received. I was trying to keep up with them all for a while, trying to send some kind of reply, even if it was only a few words of thanks, but it got to be too much, although I still do read them all. But then a couple of months ago I received a message that gave me pause, and it touched me so much I had to read it a second time. This message was from someone else who had just recently lost their own fiance unexpectedly, who was struggling with the grief and the pain, and just wanted to let me know that my story was inspiring. It brought literal tears to my eyes reading this message, and I felt compelled to reply. I had no idea who this person was , if it was a man or a woman, young or old, I knew nothing other than this was a heart in pain, and I needed to let this person know that I understood, that I grieved for their loss. Maybe try to offer some words of comfort from the perspective of someone who actually understood that pain and knows what words are comforting and what words ring hollow.

I didn’t expect to hear anything back after that initial reply, but to my surprise I got another message, to which I also replied, and pretty soon we were writing each other almost every day, talking about the losses we had both experienced, with me offering words of comfort and advice. This blossomed into a lovely friendship, and we decided to connect on social media as well.

By this point we had learned a lot more about each other. My mystery writer was a beautiful young woman with a beautiful heart. I realized after a while that I was falling for her, which brought me a lot of guilt. Finally one day I went to visit Olivia’s grave, to talk to her, to tell her what I was feeling. I told her that I would always love her, that she would always be the love of my life, and that no one would ever replace her in my heart. I also told her that I needed to continue living, that I need to let this new person create her own place in my heart. I told her that she would never be replaced, but this new woman I was falling in love with would also understand that,and that I would be sharing her heart with her lost love the same way she would share my heart with Olivia. The only thing left to do now was to tell the new woman in my life how I felt.

I got really lucky y’all, because she was feeling the same things. So yeah, we are in love, we are happy, and we are making plans for the future. I will never “get over” Olivia, I will never stop hurting, stop missing her, stop wishing she was still in my life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t love again, that I can’t live again. And I hope that if anyone reads this who has gone through this type of pain, who is still going through it, I hope you take that message away with you. You can find happiness again if you open your heart to the possibility.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

5/15/21 – Final Edit: Wow, so much has happened since I wrote my last edit on this answer. Life has changed so much. The world has changed so much. But I did want to provide one last update, at least partially because I received so many comments and PMs requesting another update.

So, in my last update I told you all about how I met another kindred spirit who had gone through the same type of loss that I had, and how we connected and ultimately fell in love. What I didn’t mention at the time, however, was that we had one huge obstacle – we lived 9000 miles apart. See, I was living in Greensboro, NC at the time, and she was living in the Metro Manila region of the Philippines. This made things more difficult, but it was manageable. We spent hours on Skype every single day, talking and getting to know each other, getting closer every day.

We were both anxious to meet in person, so I bought a ticket to fly out to the Philippines and spend a few weeks with her there. There was only one problem…I was scheduled to land there on March 15th, 2020. Anyone who has been, well, awake for the last year should spot the problem there immediately. Yes, the day we were supposed to finally meet was the same day that Manila went on lock down due to the pandemic.

“It’s ok,” we both said, “this will be under control in a month or two, we’ll reschedule then.”

While we waited for everything to get back to normal, we continued to Skype every day. We would start a call after we finished work each day (she works for a company here in the US, so we actually work almost identical hours) and usually be on that call for the rest of the night. During that time I met her family digitally, and she met mine. There were weekends where we would literally have an eight hour Skype call, log off to sleep for a few hours then spend another eight hours on our next call.

Finally, in February of this year, we started looking into alternative options for where we could meet each other. Her coming to the US or me going to the Philippines were both off the table since Visa services were still suspended for both countries, but we knew that there were countries that we could both get Visas for, so we did some research, and settled on Turkey.

And thus, a little over a year after the date we were originally supposed to finally meet one another, we finally met in person at the airport in Istanbul. When I say I was nervous, that is an understatement. I mean, at this point we had known each other for a year and a half, we had helped each other through the worst pain you can imagine, we had fallen in love against all odds…and yet I was nervous. What if we were uncomfortable around each other? What if she saw me in person and realized that she didn’t like what she saw? What if it was all just so awkward? What if…then I saw her. She had arrived a couple of hours before me, and she was waiting near the baggage carousel my luggage was coming in on. As soon as I walked up to her I think we both started crying a little, I wrapped my arms around her, and I swear I never wanted to let go.

We had planned to spend two weeks in Turkey. We ended up staying five weeks instead, and even then neither one of us really wanted to leave. As soon as we were together, all of those fears, all of that nervousness, it was just washed away. Even though it was our first meeting in person, we had already spent a year and a half getting to know each other, and so we were immediately comfortable together, we knew each other so well that within moments of meeting it felt like we had been together for years. And I realized very quickly that I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.

And so on April 2nd, 2021, just five days after we arrived in Istanbul, I asked her to marry me and she said yes. I am so incredibly happy that I have this amazing, beautiful woman in my life.

There was a time when I felt completely broken. I felt – no, I knew – that I would never love again. I was at my lowest point, I was literally praying each night that I just wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I had no desire to live, felt that I had nothing left to live for. My niece snapped me out of that when she asked me to walk her down the aisle, but I still felt empty, alone. I wasn’t trying to live again, I was simply no longer actively trying to kill myself through neglect and abuse.

Now – now I want to live life, I want to enjoy life, I want to share my life with this amazing woman who understands me in ways no one else ever could, and who accepts me for who I am, flaws and all. She understands how broken I was, because she was broken as well, but somehow when we picked up all of our broken pieces and put them back together, we found that we were actually two halves of the same puzzle.

So – on to the main reason for this final update. I have been so amazed by the level of support this post has received, the number of people who have reached out to share their own stories of loss, and to tell me that my story has given them hope, or at the very least touched something in their heart. That has meant so much to me, more than any of you could possibly know. And after my last update, so many of those people wanted two things…they wanted to hear more stories about me and my new love, my Macy…and they wanted to see a picture of us together. I guess it was kind of a full circle kind of thing – this started with the picture at the lowest point in my life, now they want to see me at my new high point.

How Self Storage Thrives Off The American Dream

"NGOs that have been working in our country for 30 years were not registered anywhere.

They were not accountable to anyone.

They just opened bank accounts, took money from foreign donors and used it as they saw fit, including for personal purposes.

From now on they will be registered with the Ministry of Justice like everyone else.

They will open bank accounts. They will start to work openly. There will be no more confusion.

The question is why foreign donors against this law.

Our non-governmental organizations are deceiving them.

They spread false information, saying 'we will be persecuted, we will be arrested as agents of a foreign state'.

And the donors believed it. That is why they are asking me not to sign this law.

You have been working with foreign donors for 30 years and no one has prosecuted you for taking money. Are we going to start doing that now?

As the Head of State, I guarantee there will be no persecution.

We are not a nuclear power.

We are not going to fly into space yet.

Our state has no secrets to hide from you and your donors. All our information is in the public domain.

If you can, get billions, not millions. It will only benefit our country.

We just want to show everything openly, so that everyone is working on equal terms.

Then foreign donors will be able to see how much money has been used and for what projects. And they will not be deceived.

Before this, you deceived them by saying that you organized round tables, spent money on training, and implemented projects.

Meanwhile, the funds were used for your personal interests.

If you say it is not true, I can prove it.

Why do non-governmental organizations in developed Western countries register with the Ministry of Justice, the Tax Service, open a bank account and not do the same when they come to us?

Or are we a second-class country?

No, we are not.

We will no longer allow such dubious actions."

Excerpt from the statement by by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on his Facebook page regarding the adoption by the Kyrgyz Republic of a law on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), April 2, 2024.

Cranberry-Orange Wings

Yummy
Yummy

Yield: 8 to 12 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 to 5 pounds chicken wings
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup jellied cranberry sauce, melted
  • Dash of Tabasco sauce

Instructions

  1. Arrange chicken wings in a shallow nonreactive container.
  2. In a medium size bowl, combine orange juice, soy sauce, cranberry sauce and Tabasco sauce; mix well.
  3. Pour sauce over chicken wings.
  4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Turn wings occasionally to marinate evenly.
  5. Lift wings from marinade and place on shallow baking pan.
  6. Bake in preheated 350 degrees F oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until tender. Baste frequently with reserved marinade during baking.

Rollo RED PILLED Tim On The DECLINE Of Modern Women!

Don’t Underestimate the World’s Second-Biggest Economy

For over two decades, China’s phenomenal economic performance impressed and alarmed much of the world, including the United States, its top trading partner. But since 2019, China’s sluggish growth has led many observers to conclude that China has already peaked as an economic power.

Those who doubt that China

’s rise will continue point to the country’s weak household spending, its declining private investment, and its entrenched deflation. Sooner than overtake the United States, they argue, China would likely enter a long recession, perhaps even a lost decade.

But this dismissive view of the country underestimates the resilience of its economy. While its growth has slowed in recent years, China is likely to expand at twice the rate of the United States in the years ahead.

MISREADING THE DATA

Several misconceptions undergird the pessimism about China’s economic potential. Take the widely held misconception that the Chinese economy’s progress in converging with the size of the U.S. economy has stalled. It is true that from 2021 to 2023, China’s GDP fell from 76 percent of U.S. GDP to 67 percent. Yet it is also true that by 2023, China’s GDP was 20 percent bigger than it had been in 2019, the eve of the global pandemic, while the United States’ was only 8 percent bigger.

This apparent paradox can be explained by two factors. First, over the last few years, inflation has been lower in China than it has been in the United States. Last year, China’s nominal GDP grew by 4.6 percent, less than the 5.2 percent that its GDP grew in real terms. In contrast, because of high inflation, U.S. nominal GDP in 2023 grew by 6.3 percent, while real GDP grew by only 2.5 percent.

Moreover, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by over five percentage points since March 2022, from 0.25 percent to 5.5 percent, making dollar-denominated assets more attractive to global investors and boosting the value of the dollar relative to alternative currencies. Meanwhile, China’s central bank cut its base interest rate from 3.70 percent to 3.45 percent. The growing gap between Chinese and U.S. interest rates reversed what had been a large inflow of foreign capital into China, ultimately depressing the value of the renminbi vis-à-vis the dollar by ten percent. Converting a smaller nominal GDP to dollars at a weakened exchange rate results in a decline in the value of China’s GDP when measured in dollars relative to U.S. GDP.

But these two factors are likely to be transitory. U.S. interest rates are now declining relative to rates in China, reducing the incentive of investors to convert renminbi into dollar-denominated assets. As a result, the depreciation of the Chinese currency has begun to reverse. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that Chinese prices will pick up this year, which would boost China’s GDP measured in renminbi. Its nominal GDP measured in U.S. dollars will almost certainly resume converging toward that of the United States this year and is likely to surpass it in about a decade.

A second misconception is that household income, spending, and consumer confidence in China is weak. The data do not support this view. Last year, real per capita income rose by 6 percent, more than double the growth rate in 2022, when the country was in lockdown, and per capita consumption climbed by nine percent. If consumer confidence were weak, households would curtail consumption, building up their savings instead. But Chinese households did just the opposite last year: consumption grew more than income, which is possible only if households reduced the share of their income going to savings.

A third misconception is that price deflation has become entrenched in China, putting the country on course toward recession. Yes, consumer prices rose only 0.2 percent last year, which gave rise to the fear that households would reduce consumption in anticipation of still lower prices—thereby reducing demand and slowing growth. This has not happened because core consumer prices (meaning those for goods and services besides food and energy) actually increased by 0.7 percent.

The prices of tools and raw materials used to produce other goods did fall in 2023, reflecting global declines in the price of energy and other internationally traded commodities as well as relatively weak demand in China for some industrial goods, potentially undermining the incentive for firms to invest in expanding their productive capacity. Rather than pump money into their businesses, the thinking went, companies would use their declining profits to pay down debt. But here, too, the very opposite came to pass: Chinese corporations ramped up borrowing, both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP. And investment in manufacturing, mining, utilities, and services increased. No recession appears on the horizon.

Another misconception concerns the potential for a collapse in property investment. These fears are not entirely misplaced; they are supported by data on housing starts, the number of new buildings on which construction has begun, which in 2023 was half what it was in 2021. But one has to look at the context. In that same two-year period, real estate investment fell by only 20 percent, as developers allocated a greater share of such outlays to completing housing projects they had started in earlier years. Completions expanded to 7.8 billion square feet in 2023, eclipsing housing starts for the first time. It helped that government policy encouraged banks to lend specifically to housing projects that were almost finished; a general easing of such constraints on bank loans to property developers would have compounded the property glut.

Finally, there is the misconception that Chinese entrepreneurs are discouraged and moving their money out of the country. Undoubtedly, the government crackdown that began in late 2020 on large private companies, notably Alibaba, did not help matters. From the beginning of economic reform in 1978 through the mid-2010s, private investment in China grew more rapidly than investment by state-owned firms. By 2014, private investment composed almost 60 percent of all investment—up from virtually zero percent in 1978. As private investment is generally more productive than that of state companies, its expanding share of total investment was critical to China’s rapid growth over this period. This trend went into reverse after 2014 when Xi Jinping

, having just assumed the top leadership position, aggressively redirected resources to the state sector. The slowdown was modest at first, but by 2023, private investment accounted for only 50 percent of total investment. Xi had undermined investor confidence; entrepreneurs no longer saw the government as a dependable steward of the economy. So long as Xi is in power, runs a common argument, entrepreneurs will continue to hold back on investing in China, opting instead to funnel their wealth out of the country.

But here again, the pessimism is not supported by the data. First, almost all the decline in the private share of total investment after 2014 resulted from a correction in the property market, which is dominated by private companies. When real estate is excluded, private investment rose by almost ten percent in 2023. Although some prominent Chinese entrepreneurs have left the country, more than 30 million private companies remain and continue to invest. Moreover, the number of family businesses, which are not officially classified as companies, expanded by 23 million in 2023, reaching a total of 124 million enterprises employing about 300 million people.

REAL CHALLENGES AHEAD

Although China is beset by many problems, including those resulting from Xi’s efforts to exert greater control over the economy, exaggerating these problems serves no one. It could even lead to complacency in the face of the very real challenges that China presents to the West.

That is particularly true for the United States. China will likely continue to contribute about a third of the world’s economic growth while increasing its economic footprint, particularly in Asia. If U.S. policymakers underappreciate this, they are likely to overestimate their own ability to sustain the deepening of economic and security ties with Asian partners.

Andrew speaks his piece

I believe there are only five reasons why you can be a LOSER in life :-

  • Didn’t work or deliver your whole potential & still don’t recognize that
  • Burying your head in the sand. Not recognizing or accepting weaknesses and faults or making excuses
  • Hitting a woman no matter how grave the provocation (Male). Filing a false case of Dowry Harrassment against In Laws (Female)
  • Whitewashing the crimes of the White Man perpetrated on the world in greed for his dollars.
  • Shamelessly fawning on people who make 20 Crore to enable them to make 200 Crore a year while you make 2 Lakh a year

Nobody else is a LOSER


When I was a Student, we considered ECONOMICS to be a part of ARTS

Today the whole world acknowledges that Economics is a SCIENCE and has a lot of Math & Calculus too.

Likewise we regard Language to be a part of the Arts, however the same language is used for Ciphers and Cryptography and shows how it can be used for SCIENCE

Accountancy was once regarded different from Science but now it’s clear Accounting has a manner and method to it

Even Marketing and Sales has its own Strategy that is based and steeped in SCIENCE

My point is :-

Your brain must be steeped and honed properly

You must see manner and method in everything

Even Cooking has a lot of Science

The very fact that hot milk dissolves more sugar than cold milk is a science involving solubility of solutions

Apply logic without blindly following statements. Assume every Statement is a lie and use logic to prove it it possibly true.


You do this and that’s all you need in life for a superior brain

IIT, NITs are just alphabets in such a case

America today

Let’s say you finish work at 6 pm.

Congratulations! You’ve managed to clear that pile of work within regular hours. Today was indeed a productive day.

As you close your laptop and prepare to leave, you notice your boss still at his desk, along with most of your colleagues.

If you’ve been in Japan long enough, this sight should remind you to sit back down and unpack your bag quietly.

Do you have plans to meet your girlfriend? Text her next time.

Did you make dinner reservations? Convenience store food is enough for you.

Do you have a TV show you were looking forward to? You’ll catch the rerun online later.

Your nightlife is right here — staying at the office with everyone until the bosses leave.

This is the nightlife that matters most to you.

In the Japanese workplace, there’s a common practice of “pretend overtime.”

This includes situations where you might be there for extended hours without accomplishing much or feeling pressured to stay late just because your boss hasn’t left yet.


  • Even if you’ve completed your tasks for the day on schedule, you’re not permitted to leave until your boss says, “You can go home now.” Until your supervisor clocks out, you’re stuck at the office, even if you’re sitting there idly. You end up staying until late into the night, finding ways to pass the time, like reading manuals or making memo pads out of scrap paper.
  • You’re not allowed to leave until your boss leaves the office, and it’s essential to make sure your boss sees you reading documents or typing on your keyboard. If your boss asks, “Aren’t you leaving yet?” you respond by saying there are still a few things you need to prepare; thus, he recognizes your “presence.”
  • You don’t have much work that requires overtime. If you work efficiently, you can get it done before the end of the workday. You’re not looking to be your boss’s favorite, but you worry that people might perceive you as lacking ambition and dedication if you don’t do what others are doing. So, you end up staying in the office instead of leaving, even when you could.

In Japan, it’s common for companies to equate working overtime with dedication and hard work. The longer you stay at the office into the night, the more committed you appear.

Look, it’s time to hop onto the last train home.

Welcome to our unique nightlife culture.

Pre-birth world-line template

I usually migrated for career reasons:

  1. from Germany to Canada because I got into a university there;
  2. from Canada to the US because I got a first job offer there;
  3. from the US to France because I got a better job offer there;
  4. from France back to Germany because I got into a master’s program there;
  5. from Germany to England because I was offered a full-time lecturer position there;
  6. from England to New Zealand because I was offered a position as academic leader at a university there;
  7. from New Zealand to China and India because I was offered a position as a dean at a university there, in the employ of a French university.

That was the pinnacle of the achievable in my career. After that, feeling like I no longer needed to prove anything, I decided I’d now find a position somewhere in the comfortable middle field of my career, where I would benefit from my experience without getting too stressed out, in a reasonable country that I loved.

So I went back to England as a senior lecturer at a university, and lived and worked there happily while maintaining a holiday home in Sweden, where my Chinese wife and I went during the long summer and winter holidays.

And then Brexit came, taking away all the certainties of my position in England and all the research funding and partnerships, so the time had come again to move to secure my professional future, and I eventually found a senior lecturer position at a university in Sweden, in commuting distance of my house.

Long story shot: Dangling carrots at first, long term outlook and sympathy later were what made me migrate.

I think it’s what most people migrate for: A better life. Not that mine would have been bad where I was. But when you can get better, well… of course you go.

And of course it wasn’t only for the CV. Often, there were romantic notions attached, a sense of adventure, the thought that a new world with a different language, culture, climate, and cuisine would be inspiring to experience.

Obsolete Car Features From The Past

I sort of miss Oldsmobile.

They were always an interesting, understated brand with nice cars that seemed a bit like Buicks for people with university degrees. Especially the Toronado, I thought, was wonderful. An interesting and different sort of car, with front wheel drive at a time when not many dared, and especially not in conjunction with a big V8 engine.

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I had two Oldsmobiles myself. One of them, a 1973 Delta 88, was a real miracle of reliability and economy for its age and size.

I also lament that Pontiac is gone, having one myself. It always seemed like Chevrolet with an apache flavour to me. The Native American brand, if you will. That was cool.

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Mine is just a dressed up Caprice for the Canadian market, but it does have that vibe.

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And then, there’s Saab.

I can’t believe it’s gone. It used to be the other defining agent in the Swedish car duality game. It’s as if someone were to remove Holden or Ford from the Australian context. Such a huge vacuum has been left.

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Maybe they can come back as hydrogen hybrids some day.

Teen Opera Singer Reacts To Dio – Last In Line

Dio and I are the same age. Too bad he passed on. This is a wonderful reaction. Not too many interruptions, and genuine love.

I am going to tell my favorite Roman story here. One of those events that is just so weird it sticks with you forever. It was a brutal moment in history and one very few people have been heard of.

Background

The Romans first invaded Britain when Julius Caesar set about conquering the Island. He found that it was poor, hard to get to, and packed with warlike tribes. So after winning a few battles he appointed the local leader a “vassal” of Rome and left.

This didn’t stick and the Romans forgot about Britannia for many decades.

Then Claudius takes the throne some 80 years later. Claudius is smart, wise, and careful but the people of Rome consider him a weak idiot. So to win glory Claudius invades Britannia and adds it to the Empire as a new province.

Things do not go very smoothly though.

The locals are not very cool with their land being conquered and they resist. In addition, Britannia is far away and Rome has to make significant efforts to convince Romans to colonize Britannia.

The largest tribe, the Iceni, remain somewhat independent. When their chief dies in 60 AD he leaves his lands to the Romans and his 2 daughters. This is meant to serve as a peaceful transition into the Roman Empire with his daughter still at the head of the tribe.

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The Romans don’t see it this way though and move in on Iceni lands. They began to pillage Iceni lands, taking the men as slaves and raping the women. The chief’s daughters were also raped. When their mother, a woman named Boudica, tried to stop the Romans she was stripped naked publicly and whipped.

This horrid action would have consequences though.

Now 17 years after Rome first established itself on the island things would escalate quickly and one of the most brutal chapters in Roman history began.


My favorite part

Gaius Suetonius Paulinus is the governor of Britain. He is a man of middling skill but he is loyal and capable enough. His goal is to establish Roman control over the island

Paulinus has a plan to establish more control over Britain. There is an island off the Northern coast of Wales that has extreme religious significance to the locals. If he could control that island he could establish more control over the locals.

With a legion in tow, he sets out to conquer the Island (Anglesey).

As the Romans arrive off the shore and start moving to the beach they notice something strange. On the shore, there are people – thousands of them.

These men aren’t warriors though. They are dressed in black and reaching their hands towards the while and chanting. In between the ranks of chanting people, there are women, cloaked in black and dashing about with torches.

The sight is shocking and the Romans freeze – nobody knows what to make of it so they just stare in fear.

The women start screaming like animals and begin to charge towards the Romans.

Still the Romans are frozen at the sight.

Paulinus starts to shout insults at the men to get them moving. The legions advanced and cut the women to pieces – it is no contest.

The Romans then make it to shore and cut down the men that were chanting

After a few minutes, the beach is taken and the Romans look around. They soon notice they are not standing on a beach, they are standing on a giant funeral pyre.

A torch-wielding woman then appears and lights the pyre. The many injured druids are engulfed by the flames and cry out in agony.

The Romans now realize what happened. They had just been tricked into engaging in a religious act of human sacrifice.

This TERRIFIED THEM beyond what we can imagine.

You see, the Romans were a religious/superstitious bunch. They believed that the gods of foreigners were as real as their own. Curses, sacrifices, and deals with the gods were all totally valid things in the Roman world.

To them – this was going to have a significant impact on the world around them.

Stories started flooding in that rivers were running red for no reason and that a statue of Mars collapsed without cause.

The Romans in Britain were afraid.


The Druid gods appreciated the sacrifice because things suddenly shifted drastically in favor of the local peoples.

Boudica, the wife of the dead Iceni chief, had taken to the warpath. She gathered the local leaders and tribes and they decided to revolt and cast off the influence of Rome.

They didn’t even farm that year. They dedicated themselves entirely to preparing for war.

When they were ready they struck hard and fast.

Boudica first struck Camulodonum. As the leaders of Camulodonum noticed the approaching army the requested help from Longthroppe and Londinium (modern London).

Longthroppe took it seriously and sent their garrison but Londinium only sent 200 unarmed slaves as an insult.

When the garrison from Longthorpe arrived it was too late. The city of Camulodonum was destroyed completely. Every single person was killed. The women were raped, the men were slaughtered, and the city was looted.

It is recorded that the Roman women were hung up naked and had their removed breasts sewed to their mouths so it appeared as though they were eating them.

It was horrific. This garrison from Longthorpe thought they were dealing with a smaller revolt. To their horror, they found the entire Iceni tribe mobilized– some 75,000 warriors. The garrison was immediately overwhelmed and ran for their lives.

Paulinus now gets word what is happening. He takes his men and heads straight for Boudica.

He requests that the second legion on the island join him, but they refuse. So he requests that every retired legionary able to hold a sword join his ranks immediately.

With this his army swells to 10,000 – but he is still drastically outnumbered.

Boudica now arrives at Londinium and repeats her actions at Camulodonum.

Boudica’s plan was clear – ethnic cleansing.

Paulinus decides to try and save lives. He begins going city to city and evacuating citizens whenever possible. Boudica is in hot pursuit of his small army and the thousands of refugees are weighing him down.

Paulinus gives up. He tells the refugees to continue North and he turns to fight. He decides that dying in battle is preferable to being tortured by Boudica.


Paulinus sets himself up in the best spot he can find. Thick marshes protect his flanks and he gets his men into a sawblade formation.

Boudica’s army is at least 7 times larger than the Roman army. Many of them now have captured Roman gear as well.

She decides to charge and overwhelm them. It seems logical – crush this small army under the weight of 75,000 warriors. She takes her wagons and forms a circle around the battlefield to prevent her army and the Roman army from retreating.

Big mistake.

The Romans were the kings of this style of warfare. Their training, tactics, and heavy armor all favored prolonged head-on clashes.

Boudica’s army charges in and engages with the Romans. As usual, the Romans stab, slice, and kill from behind their big shields. Every few minutes the man at the front heads to the back while the next guy in line takes over. This keeps the men fighting fresh and allows those that just fought some time to rest.

Paulinus orders his men forward and they begin moving forward 1 step at a time.

Boudica’s forces start to get desperate. The Roman momentum is insane – they just keep coming forward and nothing Boudica does can stop them. Thousands are already dead and morale is dropping.

When a break in the battle finally happens Boudica orders a retreat.

But the wagons create choke points and the retreat turns into a mad dash for safety.

The Romans surge forward killing everything in their path. It’s a slaughter. They massacre their enemies by the thousands – pressing them against the carts and cutting them down.

Almost the entire 80,000 strong army is killed, while the Romans lose a mere 400–1000.

Boudica – totally defeated – takes poison to kill herself. The Romans now have full control over the Southern part of Britain.


The brutality of this episode is shocking even by Roman standards.

First, you have the Romans raping and enslaving an entire tribe without provocation.

Then you have a mass ritual human sacrifice accidentally committed by the Romans.

Then Boudica starts a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Then one of the largest battles in Roman history happens and 80,000 people are cut down.

I would say it is the most brutal episode of Roman history.

California Fast-Food Outlets CUT Jobs & BOOST Prices Ahead of $20/hr Minimum Wage Rollout

Logically it makes no sense.

How do poor people afford meat when grain is a luxury?

Unless one deliberately goes into the wild or lives in some secluded corner of nowhere, there are no bats and snakes aplenty.

Unless, of course, these species are being farmed for food.

Which makes no sense because snakes are slow growing and bats are difficult to raise. Besides the protein haul is miserable compared to chickens and pigs per unit of resource.

Any way you look at it, these are luxury items that only the rich can afford, because the poor will rather sell their catch rather than consume bounty.

Anyone who finds exotic food cheaper than regular tofu, please leave a comment. That will be the bargain of the century.

Does the Fox anchor even know how much a snake gallbladder costs???!!!

Note: There are families in Yunnan that can only afford rice a few times a year, and meat only once. The rest of the year consists of corn, roots, fruit and vegetables.

Different Kind

Rabies is a terminal illness, once a dog starts to show symptoms of the disease, there is no cure but to euthanize the dog, for the greater good of neighborhood. A rabies ridden dog not only suffers himself, but also poses a danger of instability and greater harm to those around him.

You cannot “reason” a rabid dog out of his illness.

Similarly you cannot reason with Israel and apologists, both Israel, majority of Israeli society and its apologists abroad, have pre-emptively convinced themselves that, whatever Israel does on Gaza, will always be justified.

No matter how many civilians, aid workers or doctors are killed, or how many hospitals are destroyed, that will always be justified in eyes of Israel’s apologists, there will always be a “khamas base” if not in Al-shifa hospital, then in 4 year old Palestinian child’s skull.

Only way to stop this genocidal state from killing more innocent souls, is NOT A CEASEFIRE, but bowing it into submission by force and sanctions

Just hours after destroying the largest hosptial in Gaza (al Shifa hospital), IDF targeted and killed European aid workers who were delivering food to Palestinians in Gaza.

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Having been through several startups over the years, I am stunned at how many executives are openly and publicly contemptuous of developers and then expect them to put in long hours. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard sayings such as, “I can lock the developers in a room, slide pizzas under the door, and in a month I’ll have a product.” Thinking of the people who create your product as second-class employees comes through, and most definitely does not motivate them.

At one company, where I was the VP of Engineering, we got a new CEO who told me to get the developers working longer hours. I asked why. He said that that’s what developers at a startup should do. I asked him for anything goal-oriented with which to motivate the team, which was already largely burned out from some heroic pre-launch efforts. Did we have a new sales prospect with a feature request, or did we have some new competitive intelligence that demanded a big push to catch up, or anything to justify again burning the midnight oil? No, the CEO just thought that’s what developers should do.

Developers aren’t idiots. They can tell the difference between a legitimate crunch time and a CEO who is merely cheap and demanding. So, it’s probably obvious where I’m going with this: Just wanting more hours for no good reason will just piss the developers off. If you do have a good reason for long hours, then the answer is to simply share the reason with the team. I’ve seen developers do amazing things to deliver to a key customer on time, or have something ready for a big trade show, or otherwise come through for the company. But it has to be something real, not just an arbitrary desire to squeeze employees for more work.

95% of the people of Taiwan are Han Chinese, and Taiwan and the Mainland of China are of the same ethnicity, and the cultural and economic ties among the people have never ceased.

MA Ying-jeou remains a supporter of maintaining the separation of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait rather than a supporter of cross-strait unification.

He cannot achieve political success if he consistently positions himself as a political figure who obstructs and delays the reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The purpose of his visit to Mainland China was expressed before he boarded the plane:

I will try my best to convey the peace-loving wishes of the Taiwan people and hope that both sides will expand bilateral exchanges and avoid war. This is a journey of peace and a journey of friendship.

It can be seen that Ma Ying-jeou’s own positioning of this trip is not a unification trip, and Ma Ying-jeou has been avoiding the word “unification”. It is hypocritical to talk about “peace” without talking about “unification”.

It is only because of the recent vicious incident in which two mainland fishermen were killed by the DPP in Kinmen, the Taiwan authorities felt the danger of war, and Ma Ying-jeou took the initiative to act as a “peacemaker”.

Of course, there are still a few days left in Ma’s visit programme, the most crucial of which is the last day of meetings with the top brass in mainland China. It is too early to speculate on Ma Ying-jeou’s inner thoughts.

If Ma Ying-jeou wants to achieve political success, this visit is his last chance!

We hope he will be bold enough to take the first step and say the word “reunification”.

Some fun pictures that I generated

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Default cute kittens at a poker table playing poker 0(1)
Default cute kittens at a poker table playing poker 0(1)
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Default cute kittens at a poker table playing poker 2(1)
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Default cute kittens at a poker table playing poker 0
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Default cute kittens at a poker table playing poker 3

My ex and I used to live on Capitol Hill in DC. Almost all the houses there are 100+ years old, so there is generally something in need of fixing at any given time. We felt it was a good thing to try and support local businesses, so whenever anything small broke, we tried to use the local hardware store to get whatever we needed to repair it. Well, something small broke and we needed a small piece of pipe to replace one under a bathroom sink. If anyone has lived on the Hill in the past, they probably know that there is only one local hardware store. It had almost criminally narrow aisles until it burned to the ground several years ago. It has since been rebuilt with a much better layout.

Off we went to the local hardware store, broken piece in hand. we were faced with bins of nearly identical looking pieces. The store was often understaffed, so we were trying to compare the pieces ourselves to find the right one. As we stood there, an employee came walking down the aisle. Rather than stop to help us (though to be fair he may have been in the middle of helping someone else at the time) or politely excusing himself as he tried to squeeze around us, he just stopped, looked at us, and sarcastically sneered “do you think you could take this party somewhere else?”

My ex had worked retail for years, and was a district manager for a home goods chain at the time. We just looked at each other, put down the pieces we were trying to match, and said “sure. We can take it to Home Depot.” And that’s what we did. We made sure to let the manager know what we were doing and why before we left.

My first Talk Box experience! Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel Like We Do” Vocal Analysis!

Bringing a young woman into your life

They need a scapegoat for all their problems, and China qualifies as scape goat for the Right, especially being (at least officially) Communist and definitely nonwhite. There is definitely more racism among the right wing, or at least they show it more. So, unfortunately, Trump used China as a scapegoat during his term, at times, but he started doing it less and less towards the end. Doing this to China was a mistake, but at least he didn’t get all belligerent about Taiwan like Biden did, and what Biden did was far more dangerous. Unlike Biden, Trump preferred dialogue to war with China, Russia, and even North Korea. He is the dove of peace compared to Herr Biden!

I believe when Trump gets elected (notice that I am saying not “if” but “when”), he will no longer use China as a scapegoat anymore, recognizing its vast economic and military power and usefulness to the US, but he will blame everything on the Neocon Neoliberal US establishment, and he will be right. The establishment fully deserves it, with inequality (and resulting socioeconomic instability) under this establishment increasing exponentially over the last 40 years (and especially the last 20 years or so, post 2007 crisis), and a war on two fronts (Ukraine and the Middle East). This almost makes even Trump look like a Socialist!

As far as not trusting the mainstream narrative about Trump (and most other things), the Trump-supporters are right. What’s more, I believe that at least half of Democrats don’t trust the mainstream narrative anymore!

By Pe.pe Esc.obar

No more shadow play. It’s now in the open. No holds barred

Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.

The money quote:

“Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.”

Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now.

Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal.

Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force.

That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.

Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow.

And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes.

Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October.

Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.

The sponsors remain the same

Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress.

The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing.

On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.

Let’s go *pop*.

To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”.

Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op.

ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them. *wink* *wink*

That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs.

It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.

The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…

… Donald Trump.

Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target.

ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same.

The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”

But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

It’s got to go till the last Ukrainian

The three exhibits above complement what the head of NATO’s military committee, Rob Bauer, previously told a security forum in Kiev: “You need more than just grenades – you need people to replace the dead and wounded. And this means mobilization.”

Translation: NATO spelling out this is a war until the last Ukrainian.

And the “leadership” in Kiev still does not get it. Former Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan: “If we win, we will pay back with Russian oil, gas, diamonds and fur. If we lose, there will be no talk of money – the West will think about how to survive.”

In parallel, puny “garden-and jungle” Borrell admitted that it would be “difficult” for the EU to find an extra 50 billion euros for Kiev if Washington pulls the plug. The cocaine-fueled sweaty sweatshirt leadership actually believes that Washington is not “helping” in the form of loans, but in the form of free gifts. And the same applies for the EU.

The Theater of the Absurd is unmatchable.

The German Liver Sausage Chancellor actually believes that proceeds from stolen Russian assets “do not belong to anyone”, so they can be used to finance extra Kiev weaponizing.

Everyone with a brain knows that using interest from “frozen”, actually stolen Russian assets to weaponize Ukraine is a dead end – unless they steal all of Russia’s assets, roughly $200 billion, mostly parked in Belgium and Switzerland: that would tank the Euro for good, and the whole EU economy for that matter.

Eurocrats better listen to Russian Central Bank major “disrupter” (American terminology) Elvira Nabiullina: The Bank of Russia will take “appropriate measures” if the EU does anything on the “frozen”/stolen Russian assets.

It goes without saying that the three exhibits above completely nullify the “La Cage aux Folles” circus promoted by the puny Petit Roi, now known across his French domains as Macronapoleon.

Virtually the whole planet, including the English-speaking Global North, had already been mocking the “exploits” of his Can Can Moulin Rouge Army.

So French, German and Polish soldiers, as part of NATO, are already in the south of Kiev. The most possible scenario is that they will stay far, far away from the frontlines – although traceable by Mr. Khinzal’s business activities.

Even before this new NATO batch arriving in the south of Kiev, Poland – which happens to serve as prime transit corridor for Kiev’s troops – had confirmed that Western troops are already on the ground.

So this is not about mercenaries anymore. France, by the way, is only 7th in terms of mercenaries on the ground, largely trailing Poland, the US and Georgia, for instance.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has all the precise records.

In a nutshell: now war has morphed from Donetsk, Avdeyevka and Belgorod to Moscow. Further on down the road, it may not just stop in Kiev. It may only stop in Lviv. Mr. 87%, enjoying massive national near-unanimity, now has the mandate to go all the way. Especially after Crocus.

There’s every possibility the terror tactics by Kiev goons will finally drive Russia to return Ukraine to its original 17th century landlocked borders: Black Sea-deprived, and with Poland, Romania, and Hungary reclaiming their former territories.

Remaining Ukrainians will start to ask serious questions about what led them to fight – literally to their death – on behalf of the US Deep State, the military complex and BlackRock.

As it stands, the Highway to Hell meat grinder is bound to reach maximum velocity.

Ten things

Pizza in a Tunnel

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Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 cups buttermilk biscuit mix or Biscuit Baking Mix
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
  • 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package sliced pepperoni, halved
  • 1 (14 ounce) jar pizza sauce
  • 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  • Cornmeal

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease and lightly dust* a 10 inch fluted tube pan or an 11 cup ring mold with cornmeal.
  2. In a large mixer bowl, combine biscuit mix, milk, eggs and butter. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until well combined. Beat on high speed for 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly.
  3. With back of spoon, spread 2/3 of the dough on the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan to within 1 1/2 inches of the top; reserve remaining dough.
  4. Layer mushroom, pepperoni, pizza sauce and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese over the dough in pan.
  5. Spread reserved dough over the top of cheese layer.
  6. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden.
  7. Let pizza stand for 10 minutes on a warm rack.
  8. Use a knife to loosen sides of pizza, turn out onto ovenproof serving plate.
  9. Top with remaining cheese.
  10. Return pizza to oven for 1 to 2 minutes to melt cheese.
  11. Serve warm.

“Study Reveals How Ancient Humans Escaped Climate Extinction 900,000 Years Ago”

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MPT 2048×600
Figure 1: (A) 65°N summer solstice insolation, (B)Atmospheric CO2 concentration, Allan Hills vertical error bars indicate 2σ spread with horizontal age uncertainty, (C) Global LR04 benthic stacked δ18O (blue), ODP1123 seawater δ18O (black). The MPT and the “typical 41 ka-world” intervals are highlighted in grey and yellow respectively.

Some 900,000 years ago, humans nearly went extinct. According to the results of a genomics study published last year, modern humanity’s ancestors were reduced to a breeding population of barely 1,300 individuals in a devastating bottleneck that brought us to the very brink of annihilation. Now, a new study has found that a mass migration of humans out of Africa occurred at the same time.

It’s a discovery that confirms the previous dating of the population decline, and suggests that the two are linked to a common denominator; an event known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, in which Earth’s climate underwent a period of utter turmoilwiping out many species. The movement of early humans into and across Europe and Asia from Africa is difficult to reconstruct. The best evidence we have consists of a sparse record of bones and mostly stone artifacts, which can be challenging to date. However, the evidence suggests that it wasn’t one event, but multiple waves of early hominids and human ancestors that packed up their lives and made long journeys into new environments.

Two recent studies have linked human migration to a population bottleneck, based on different types of analysis. A close reading of the human genome found that a population bottleneck caused a loss of genetic diversity some 900,000 years ago. A second study, published a few weeks later, studied early archaeological sites in Eurasia, and dated the bottleneck to 1.1 million years ago.

This discrepancy makes it challenging to identify the climate event that may have caused or at the very least contributed to the temporary drop in numbers, so geologists Giovanni Muttoni of the University of Milan and Dennis Kent of Columbia University embarked on an effort to narrow down the timing of the bottleneck. First, the researchers re-evaluated records of sites of early hominid habitation across Eurasia, and found a cluster of sites reliably dated to 900,000 years ago. In comparison, the dating on older sites used as evidence of a population bottleneck was more ambiguous and therefore disputable.

They compared their findings to marine sediment records, which preserve evidence of changes in the climate in the form of oxygen isotopes. Ratios of oxygen trapped in sediment layers indicate whether the climate was warmer or cooler at the time the minerals were deposited.

The genomic data and the dating of the hominid sites together suggest that the bottleneck and the migration were simultaneous. During the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, global ocean levels dropped, and Africa and Asia dried out, with large patches of aridity. Hominids living in Africa would have faced horrible conditions depriving them of food and water. Fortunately, with the falling sea level, land routes into Eurasia became available and they were able to skedaddle, according to the researchers’ model.

This is not to say, they carefully note, that hominids had not migrated previously. Rather that the population bottleneck in the ancestor of modern Homo sapiens and the migration thereof occurred at the same time as a result of the climate upheaval that was occurring some 900,000 years ago.

“We suggest that the enhanced aridity during marine isotope stage 22 that caused the spread of savanna and arid zones across much of continental Africa pushed early Homo populations in Africa to adapt or migrate to avoid extinction,” they write in their paper. “Rapid migration in response to a severe climate trigger and concomitant means to escape is what can account for the … migration out-of-Africa at 0.9 million years ago and contribute to the modern genomic evidence in modern African populations of the bottleneck.”

The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

https://www.sciencealert.com/study-reveals-how-ancient-humans-escaped-climate-extinction-900000-years-ago

Comment: I have found this stuff fascinating as far back as when I watched the National Geographic specials with Louis B. Leakey digging for bones in Olduvai Gorge. I started at RPI majoring in geology figuring that would be a good way to get into paleontology. Only later did I transfer to anthropology… and ROTC.

This story is a good example of what effect a changing climate can have on humans even when they occur on a geological time scale. Reducing our breeding population to barely 1,300 individuals and causing our ancestors to un-ass the area for parts unknown are damned drastic effects. In this case, humans certainly had no hand in influencing this particular episode of climate change. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the conditions leading to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition to what we’re seeing/not seeing today.

TTG

https://pastglobalchanges.org/publications/pages-magazines/pages-magazine/11517

They really think we’re dumb don’t they?

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Russia Announces Two New ARMIES; 14 New Divisions, 16 New Brigades

Russia Announces Two New ARMIES; 14 New Divisions, 16 New Brigades

With his re-election accomplished, Russian President Vladimir Putin is now getting serious about the harm being done to Russia by the petulant and crazed collective West.   Defense Minister Shoigu has announced the creation of two new ARMIES for Russia, including fourteen (14) New Divisions of 10,000-15,000 troops EACH, and sixteen (16) new divisions of 3,000-5,000 troops EACH.

To put these two new armies in perspective, what Russia is now creating – above and beyond its present armed forces – is larger than the armies of:

Germany, Britain (UK), France, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, Sweden COMBINED.

The big question now is whether or not Russia will resort to Conscription.

Stay tuned . . .

So true

One of the Moscow attackers, has been confirmed to be an ex-Ukrainian soldier who served in 2022

Moscow shooter suspect Rustam Azhiyev large
Moscow shooter suspect Rustam Azhiyev large

The investigation into the horrific attack at a Concert Hall in the Moscow, Russia region, has been positively identified as Rustam Azhiyev, a former UKRAINIAN SOLDIER (Image above) who served in 2022, as a shooter.

The man shown atop this story is the captured suspect and Russian law enforcement identified him and pulled up some of his history in the Ukraine Army:

Suspect Rustam Azhiyev Ukraine Army info
Suspect Rustam Azhiyev Ukraine Army info

In earlier stories about the Moscow Attack, it was reported that a White Renault automobile was caught on a dashcam, with men exiting carrying rifles, outside the concert hall which was attacked (HERE).

It was also reported earlier that the White Renault vehicle was captured and the men inside, who fled to nearby woods, were also captured (HERE).

Those men were identified as having been citizens of Tajikistan, which is shown on the map below:

Tajikistan Russia Map
Tajikistan Russia Map

Hours after the Terrorist attack near Moscow, that White Renault vehicle was captured on a road near Bryansk, Russia, which is shown on the map below:

Moscow suspects Caught Bryansk Lived Tajikistan Map
Moscow suspects Caught Bryansk Lived Tajikistan Map

Why were the suspects traveling toward UKRAINE when they are allegedly from Tajikistan?   Why does one of the suspects have ties to the UKRAINE armed forces?

The investigation is rapidly developing with evidence that it was UKRAINE that was deeply involved in this terror attack upon innocent civilians inside Russia.

Pittsburgh Is Being Destroyed. Here’s Why.

Transforming the United States into Haiti.

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Lordy! I have family living in Pittsburgh.

Terrorists Wore Body Cams! Video of them Murdering inside Russian Concert Hall

Moscow perps in concert hall
Moscow perps in concert hall

The terrorists who attacked a concert hall inside Russia, apparently wore Body Cams or “Go-Pro-Type” cameras and took video of themselves as they massacred innocent people.   I have received one such video.

In the video, one can see an UNARMED co-conspirator, wearing what appears to be rifle magazine clip-carriers (no gun seen on him) waving a shooter INTO a hallway where innocent people were hiding. Image above.

The shooter enters the doorway to that hall and begins firing.

Moscow shooter in hallway
Moscow shooter in hallway

At least six people go down under his automatic weapons fire.  Blood spray and splatter, everywhere.

As the person wearing the camera turns, another terrorist attacker is shown kneeling at the throat of another victim, who had already been shot, but was laying, wounded and dying, on the ground.   The perpetrator is seen repeatedly slicing the victims throat — at least TEN SLASHES, with blood spewing from the gaping wounds.

Then that perp and others calmly walk away:

Unarmed co conspirator waving shooter into hallway large
Unarmed co conspirator waving shooter into hallway large

This is some of the most evil, vicious, horrifying, crime video I have ever seen.   It makes me sick to my stomach.  The Barbarity.  The inhuman behavior.   It is mortifying to me.

I find myself in an ethical and moral quandary over this video.  It certainly is “news.”  Of that, there is no doubt.

Yet the video is so utterly horrifying, so outside any behavior even remotely “human,” and so hideously violent, that I find myself recoiling at the notion of putting the video out.

I then asked myself if perhaps I should put still images from the video, like the one atop this story, and that begot yet another quandary.  Would publishing such still images, cause emotional distress to the families of the victims?

I have decided still images ought not be published except for the non-gruesome images above, either.

Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.  Maybe, though, I’m just pushed too far on this one, and realizing there is nothing good that can come of publishing it.

I want you to know I have the video.   I’ve watched it.   It is frighteningly gruesome, and shows what can only be described as pure evil.

Biggest red flag

Happening Now: Russian Missiles Cross POLAND Border During Ukraine Attack

Happening Now: Russian Missiles Cross POLAND Border During Ukraine Attack

As of 11:53 PM eastern US time on Saturday night-into-Sunday, Russia is engaged in a large missile attack against Ukraine.  HOWEVER, “at least three” Russian missiles breached POLAND air space over the Village of Horodto, and POLAND has scrambled fighter jets.

The scalable map below shows the village of Horodto, Poland, on the border of Ukraine.

 

At least 7 Russian Tu-95MS bombers took off from the Olenya air field in Russia to launch long-range missiles at Ukraine.

Bombers also took off from Engels with a total now of 13 in the air.

This airfield is located just 100km from the Norway border in the far north.

MORE: 

6- Su-34 bombers are airborne

 

LARGE EXPLOSIONS IN LVIV. SECOND MISSILE VOLLEY INBOUND.

MISSILES ARE HEADED FOR KIEV!!!!

ALL of Ukraine now in Air Raid Alert:

GJZwuZIXQAA2T9n
GJZwuZIXQAA2T9n

 

Missiles Have Overflown Oserdow, Poland which is about 70km south of Horodto, Poland, previously overflown.

— Several Dozen additional Cruise Missiles have entered Ukrainian Airspace via the Chernihiv and Sumy Region.

— Multiple Russian Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles on direct course to Kyiv from the north.

 

Massive explosions in Kyiv the city is under intense bombardment right now.

MORE:

At least 19x explosions in Stryi, on the Ukrainian side of the Polish-Ukrainian border:

Jackie Chan wise words

Vintage Shorpy

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Men can only take so much.

Then they stop.

 

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is talking nonsense. Its friends on Earth are worried.

NASA
NASA

“Frankly, I’m very worried,” he says. Ever since mid-November, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending messages back to Earth that don’t make any sense. It’s as if the aging spacecraft has suffered some kind of stroke that’s interfering with its ability to speak. “It basically stopped talking to us in a coherent manner,” says Suzanne Dodd of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has been the project manager for the Voyager interstellar mission since 2010. “It’s a serious problem.”

Instead of sending messages home in binary code, Voyager 1 is now just sending back alternating 1s and 0s. Dodd’s team has tried the usual tricks to reset things — with no luck. It looks like there’s a problem with the onboard computer that takes data and packages it up to send back home. All of this computer technology is primitive compared to, say, the key fob that unlocks your car, says Dodd. “The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do,” she says. “It’s remarkable that they keep flying, and that they’ve flown for 46-plus years.”

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, have outlasted many of those who designed and built them. So to try to fix Voyager 1’s current woes, the dozen or so people on Dodd’s team have had to pore over yellowed documents and old mimeographs. “They’re doing a lot of work to try and get into the heads of the original developers and figure out why they designed something the way they did and what we could possibly try that might give us some answers to what’s going wrong with the spacecraft,” says Dodd. She says that they do have a list of possible fixes. As time goes on, they’ll likely start sending commands to Voyager 1 that are more bold and risky. “The things that we will do going forward are probably more challenging in the sense that you can’t tell exactly if it’s going to execute correctly — or if you’re going to maybe do something you didn’t want to do, inadvertently,” says Dodd.

Linda Spilker, who serves as the Voyager mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says that when she comes to work she sees “all of these circuit diagrams up on the wall with sticky notes attached. And these people are just having a great time trying to troubleshoot, you know, the 60’s and 70’s technology.” “I’m cautiously optimistic,” she says. “There’s a lot of creativity there.”

Still, this is a painstaking process that could take weeks, or even months. Voyager 1 is so distant, it takes almost a whole day for a signal to travel out there, and then a whole day for its response to return. “We’ll keep trying,” says Dodd, “and it won’t be quick.”

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1236033493/nasas-voyager-1-spacecraft-is-talking-nonsense-its-friends-on-earth-are-worried

Comment: This is one hell of an adventure for NASA coders and engineers. I envy them. Years before the launch of Voyager 1, I was introduced to computers in an after school course in the computer center of Fairfield University. I ended up writing a Star Trek navigation game in Fortran by graphing polynomial functions. I wouldn’t know where to begin to do that now. Many years later I learned how to hack MS DOS to write stupid computer tricks and write simple viruses. That was all to support a cover. I couldn’t do that today, either. Those rudimentary old skills are nothing to sneeze at. Those NASA coders are living the dream… a techno-nerd dream, but a dream nevertheless.

TTG

The logic of anti-China idiots

2
2

Smart Boy

Stuffed Pizza

1362506743810
1362506743810

Ingredients

Crust

  • 1 recipe uncooked deep-dish dough crust

Stuffing Mixture

  • 1 bunch spinach, washed, stems removed, and lightly wilted (stir-fried)
  • 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 2 ounces Canadian bacon slices, diced
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • 2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
  • 2 ounces mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 cup tomato sauce

Alternate Stuffing Mixture

  • 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
  • 1/4 pound hot Italian sausage, browned/crumbled and drained
  • 1/3 cup small pepperoni pieces
  • 1/4 cup sliced black olives
  • 1/4 cup sliced green olives
  • 1/2 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • 1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Instructions

Stuffing Mixture

  1. Combine spinach, cheese, Canadian bacon, oregano, garlic and mushrooms for stuffing mixture.

Crust

  1. Spread dough in a greased deep-dish pan and up the sides for the bottom crust (approximately 16 ounces of dough for 14 inch deep dish).
  2. Par-bake the crust for four minutes.
  3. Add stuffing mixture to bottom crust in a deep dish pan and cover with top crust (approximately 13 ounces dough).
  4. Seal the two dough edges together with fingers and trim excess.
  5. Slit the top crust to allow steam to vent during baking.
  6. Add tomato sauce topping and bake in a preheated 450 degrees F oven on lower rack or directly on the pizza stone for 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
  7. Remove from pan and cool 5 minutes on a wire rack before cutting and serving.

Oooooh yes, and definitely no.

I had done some North American travelling (flights) in late 2019, and soon after arriving home in Canada I fell ill. I was sicker than I’d ever been… but it felt like a bad cold. Very bad. I lay in bed for 4–5 days with fever, aches, congestion, cough – no medicines could ease my agony. I am not a whiner either… quite the opposite. I don’t miss work.

On the Thursday of the week (having missed Monday – Wednesday out sick) I received a call saying that the Boss wanted me in Saturday because we were moving a ton of desks around the office, on his whim. For context, I’m an Office & Facilities Manager, so this did *technically* fall under my purview, though the Boss dreamt this up earlier in the week so I hadn’t been involved.

They threatened my employment if I didn’t show up for this desk move, despite touting a ‘no limits’ policy on vacation and illness. I showed up to the office that Saturday and did my job, sicker than ever. Life went on, my cough lasted 17 weeks (SEVENTEEN WEEKS) even with a steroid inhaler, I lost 18lbs off my already lean but fit frame. Management teased me & laughed about it as I coughed all over the office and just kept saying ‘you’re so sickly’…

Pretty sure I had COVID, and bad, but this was before tests were available.

I quit in January ‘20, just before the world learned of the COVID-19 virus circulating the world. Still can’t reconcile the arrogance and lack of empathy of that management team with the A++ company they purported to be.

Huffing the de-greasing Jones

This has been heavily litigated for decades. However, we have a pretty definitive answer.

Refusal to consent to a search cannot be used as probable cause, or else the idea of consent has no value. It creates a situation where you really have no choice; you can consent, and police can perform the search, or you can refuse to consent and the police can declare that reason for them to search despite your refusal. Either way, they’re getting to search, making the ‘choice’ little more than an illusion, a farce.

Now, if they have probable cause beforehand, that’s different. I know someone who spent three nights in jail after refusing a search of a rental car. Turns out the last person had basically kept the car a few days longer than they had rented it, and the rental company had followed their standard procedure and declared it stolen. When it was returned and fees paid by the renter, they had put it back into rotation without alerting the police that the vehicle had returned, and the car showed up as stolen in a routine traffic stop. Despite having a rental contract and nothing illegal in the car, the individual was arrested until the case was dismissed when first it went before a judge.

If you can’t refuse a search without it basically having the same impact as consenting to the search, then the Fourth Amendment has no meaning whatsoever.

There are people who are interested in criticizing the existence of the CCP, and then there are people interested in providing better policies than the CCP.

The former typically end up abroad as political dissidents applying for asylum. It’s a solution that makes everyone happy. The dissident gets to bitch and moan in peace, the CCP doesn’t have to put up with people that will never be happy, the common folk get to have discussions about policy rather than stupid discussions on whether or not the CCP is evil, and the country taking them in get to generate domestic propoganda by claiming to be inclusive, democratic, a good place to live, etc, even if they are hosting a blithering idiot on taxpayer’s dime.

If you are interested in arguing over policies, it is very easy to persuade the government to give you a minor village-level position so that you can prove your mettle. Typically if you graduate from a decent university, there are programs where you can get parachuted directly to a village advisor position (of roughly equal status as the mayor). If you perform well, you will get promoted to the town level, and then small cities, etc. I graduated from Tsinghua and know quite a few people who went on such a path.

What’s interesting is that if you come from a decent university, lower level government officials will go out of their way to ask you for your opinion on local policies, even if you’re not actually a Chinese citizen and don’t have political rights. I was an engineering student operating in some of the remote parts of China, where government drinking water policy failures led to the breakdown of local water treatment systems. I was wandering around in rural Shanxi with a German exchange student, taking water samples and building temporary filters to combat local arsenic pollution in the absence of government intervention. I was curious as to why the policy was a failure, so I paid a visit to the town hall and found the mayor. The conversation went something like this:

Mayor: This is a small town, and I’ve never seen you before. And is that a foreigner behind you??? Where are you from?

Me: Yes, he’s German. We’re from Tsinghua (shows him school ID card). We’re interested in when that water treatment station on the east side of the village was built, why it fell into disuse, and what the villagers are drinking right now.

Mayor: Hey, Dog Testicles! We have some visitors and this is your job!

It turned out “Dog Testicles” was the nickname for the bureaucrat in charge of the village waterworks. The mayor pours us all a cup of tea while Mr. Dog Testicles spends an hour or so describing the construction process of the station, the funding, when it broke down, why the villagers couldn’t come up with enough money to fund its repairs and maintenance, etc. He then asked us what we think they should do.

Me: I dunno, maybe don’t ask a bunch of flat busted farmers to fund water treatment? It’s obvious they can’t pay. The local infrastructure policy was really damn stupid. We’ve been running around all over the area building filters to cover for that mistake.

Dog Testicles: Aha, so you’re the ones building filters in these villages? We found those filters on our own surveys. You kmow that selling filters without a proper license is a criminal offense, right?

Me: Yeah, but I wouldn’t be working my ass off if it weren’t for these stupid policies. You can go ahead and try to arrest me if you’d like.

Mayor: Actually, I think you have a point even though you’re breaking the law. We’ll just ask the police to… look the other direction and let you build those filters. Just make sure those villagers stop using the filters once we get the new treatment systems up and running next summer. Have you considered joining the Party and working at the village level? Lots of university students doing that nowadays. We could use people like you.

Me: I look Chinese but I’m an American citizen.

Mayor: Ah, OK. Could you and the German guy take a photo with us?

Me: Why? Have you never seen a foreigner around these parts before?

Mayor: Well, having these kinds of discussions with university students and asking them for their opinions is very helpful in our performance evaluations. It helps us get raises and promotions. Some… proof… would be useful. So a photo, please?

Basically, if you’re the motivated and well-educated vigilante type who wants to see change and you’re happy with working your ass off to see that happen, the Party is usually happy to work with you as long as you tell them what you’re doing. Very, very few people would go up against the CCP to make changes happen when they’re nice and polite and willing to talk about whether they can help you reach your goal.

The theme is cats, with pretty woman, Baroque art style

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Some Big Universities like Harvard, Stanford or Universities in the “Ivy League” have little to zero funds from China. In fact these Universities have a combined total of $ 85 Billion – $ 115 Billion of Funding from Ex Alumni, Americans and US Industries alone. Also included is the MIT or Texas A& M or Caltech etc.

However there are over 187 Colleges and Universities that are barely funded for tuition which need money badly. The Biggest Industries always run to Harvard or MIT without realizing that $ 55 Billion is not really that much of a difference from $ 52 Billion – whereas $ 100 Million up from $ 4 Million is a Huge Change.

In 2018 – China funded and invested $ 3.10 Billion in US Universities and Canadian Universities (Not top tier – The Middle tier), especially funding Laser Related works in association with Top Universities in China like Tong Ji. Over 39000 Research Associates, Professors and US Industries are involved in this Funding and unlike India – No Govt can order this funding to be cut off. You need an Government Act and if you do – there are 10000 Lawyers – American Lawyers who will find loopholes around the Act and Law.

Simple Example:-

The Federal Govt passed a law on US Banks to forbid lending to Chinese Clients based on specific criteria.

What do you think happened?

The US Bank – simply purchased a Near Bankrupt Bank in Maldives or Mauritius or Seychelles and began to route all China business through those banks.

And who suggested it?

US Lawyers in return for Millions of Dollars of PRC Money as fees.

In the end – Thats all that matters – MONEY

Answer is- The Funding simply wont be cut off. It will be re-routed in one way or another and Authorities will turn a blind eye to this re-routing because in the end – Business is Business.

When I was sixteen my step-brother had a 9mm handgun that he kept in a case in his bedroom. One day, while we had several people visiting from out of state, a friend of ours found the weapon. My step-brother and I, and my cousin, discovered this friend sitting alone in the bedroom, gun in hand. My step-brother took the gun, removed the magazine and handed it back, unaware that our friend had already chambered a round. Our friend pulled the trigger.

Firing a gun indoors, or in confined spaces, is NOT accurately portrayed in movies. The blast alone is fairly debilitating. I was standing in front of the weapon when it discharged and (effectively) went temporarily deaf and blind.

Both senses returned gradually. My ears were ringing, sounds were muted, yellow and purple specks of light distorted my vision. I was disoriented. I had watched the kid pull the trigger and it still took me a couple seconds, after my hearing and vision cleared up, to piece together what had happened. I turned around to find my cousin, who was standing directly behind me, in shock. He looked down slowly, lifted his shorts, saw the bullet hole in his leg and proceeded to freak the freak out. He screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbed his leg and ran like hell before any of us could do anything.

In the movies when someone fires a gun indoors they’re never affected by the sound, and, as I’ve learned, they absolutely would be.

In case you’re interested, my cousin was a bit of a husky kid back then. The bullet slipped around the fat, missed everything important and blew out the back of his leg. Apparently there’s a huge scar. I haven’t talked to him since then. I think he’s over us.

Carne Adovada

This is a wonderful filling for burritos or simply great served over rice with the resulting gravy. For better flavor, prepare a day ahead.

yummy
yummy

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon shortening
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 8 ounces (about 25) whole dried New Mexican red chile pods
  • 4 cups warm water
  • 2 tablespoons diced yellow onion
  • 1 tablespoon crushed chile pequin
  • 1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried Mexican oregano
  • 3 pounds thick boneless shoulder pork chops

Instructions

  1. Heat shortening in a Dutch oven, and sauté garlic until browned.
  2. Remove the seeds and stems from the chile pods. Rinse chiles in large mixing bowl and drain.
  3. Place moistened chiles on baking sheet and toast carefully in the oven for 5 minutes. They do not need to be completely dried out.
  4. Remove from the oven then let cool.
  5. Add half of the chiles into a blender, and puree with 2 cups warm water. Pour into Dutch oven with previously browned garlic and repeat with the other half of the chiles.
  6. Add the remaining ingredients to the chile (garlic salt, oregano, onion, chile pequin)and let boil on a medium-high heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce will thicken but should remain a little soupy.
  7. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
  8. Remove the fat from the pork and cut the meat into 3/4 inch cubes. Stir pork into the chile sauce and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
  9. The following day, heat oven to 300 degrees F. Use butter to coat large baking dish, so it doesn’t stick.
  10. Add the marinated carne adovada with sauce into baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 3 hours, stirring once at an hour and a half into baking. At 2 1/2 hours, remove foil (to thicken sauce).
  11. Serve hot with homemade Flour Tortillas or on Navajo Tacos.

I was working a security job for a friend one winter. Not hard work, but long cold hours outside at temps that regularly hit negative 30C. We were offered a bonus for staying the whole term. And the boss would compound the bonus of people who quit or were fired, so it was split evenly between those who stayed.

We were guarding the building that was a Soundstage, and they didn’t want prop hunters, or stalkers getting into the building. I got to meet a few “famous people” and get fed so much good food.

5 men 3 women were highered to work the site. The three women and one of the men, were dressed for fashion not warmth. And were often miserable, and often complained. And spent a lot of time inside the building we were guarding. I made some pointed hints about dressing warmly, but was rudely brushed off.

I grew up at temps like that and dressed to keep warm. Underwear, thermal layer, sweater or hoodie, insulated jeans, double layer soviet era snow-pants, a SnowGoose Snow Mantra Parka, and a pair of bear hide gauntlets.

The boss asked me why the 4 were always going into the building to warm up. Apparently he had gotten complaints that they were taking advantage of the workers inside asking for favors, hot drinks, or to play music.

And I told him “The skin tight pants, and short fashion jackets. And they won’t wear hats. Or proper mitts. Not little pink or purple cotton gloves, mitts.” I didn’t know that one of the women had been listening from behind a closed door.

I got supreme and royal hell from the 4 of them. I shouldn’t have been criticizing their choice in clothes. How they look is important to them, and how dare I tell them otherwise.

I started laughing and walked out of the room to go see my friend. The next shift there were 2 new women, and 2 new men, and they were dressed for the weather. And I got one fat bonus.

Of course not. The Americans are totally clueless.

They’ve been indoctrinated by their own government.

They’re insular and ignorant of the world outside their country.

They do not know that life can be better than what they have in America. Freedom from gun violence. Freedom from homelessness. Freedom from medical bankruptcy. Freedom from systemic racism (“I can’t breathe”). Freedom from opioid addiction. Freedom from mass incarceration. Freedom from crumbling infrastructure. Freedom from crushing debt, both national and private. Freedom from political turmoil (e.g., January 6, 2021). There is no end to America’s problems.

This is as real as it gets

The “end of the road” has been reached.

By the end of this month; May 2024, the United States interest on it’s debt will exceed it’s income. Which means that it cannot pay its debtors.

The United States is BANKRUPT.

The United States is no longer the leading global superpower. Nor, is it still a superpower at all. It is a broken nation in arrears. Oh, It still remains formidable in certain specific areas, but truthfully the nation has run it’s course, and the sunset of it’s greatness is but a memory that lingers.

Today, the nations of the world are galloping for the exits. They are looking for ways to prevent their national collapse when the BIG BLACK HOLE makes that huge sucking sound. They do not want to be dragged in with the sinking of the United States demise.

They are distancing themselves from the USD.

The USD, which since the 1960’s has been a Ponzi scheme of unimaginable proportions.

The other nations are forging new alliances, many of which are hidden and “under the table”.

The weakest are hunkering down in a survival crouch. The stronger nations are being more vocal, and those that can are giving the West “the boot” and kicking their paramilitaries out of their nations.

Alliances are being forged and long-time Geo-Political wonks are stunned by the rapidity of change and aggressive nature of the participants.

  • The UN has been shown to be nothing more than an instrument for American policy.
  • A replacement for UN, just met last week (early May 2024) with over 100 nations in participation at the 12th International Security Summit.

Oh, so much for the strong “leadership” role of the United States on the global stage. It is openly ridiculed, and despised throughout the world.

The United States as an entity includes it’s proxy nations; those slaves that are to be sacrificed on the alter of “democracy” and “freedom”.

When a Western “leader”, dressed in attire that will cost their average citizen a half a year earnings to acquire, talks about “freedom” and “democracy”, the rest of the world roll their eyes. The delusion is strong in the West. Once, the defining characteristic of Americans was it’s insular ignorance, but it is now defined by it’s harsh arrogance and sneer of contempt.

It’s over.

It is just that the collective West is unaware of it.

There is a question concerning the final “gasps of breath” of the dying behemoth; will it fade away into the deep black, or will it explode in a brief but stunning supernova? No one really knows. But I can tell you that it is a mystery that will be answered in our collective lifetimes.

So yes.

The United States as a global superpower is over.

The mail is still being delivered. The “leaders” are still throwing money around all over the world. The flag still flutters in the breeze, and people are still talking about the next election as if it will change the ultimate trajectory that the United States is rushing toward.

But what is not being said is the truth…

…those that have the means…

… are starting their self-preservation routines…

… hoarding food, batting down the hatches, and covering their asses.

All the time doing so in upmost secrecy.

The Iskander-M missile system: an equal to nuclear weapons

Text to image, playing around.

Theme is “moonrise kingdom”.

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Working for a company like that is a great opportunity to develop and push yourself to your limits professionally. But in order to enjoy money, you need to be able to spend it. And believe me, with umpteen hour work days, your most common purchases will be overpriced sandwiches, energy drinks/coffe/freshly squeezed juice and suits, and after a 16-hour day, it makes surprisingly little difference if your bed is in a tiny apartment or giant mansion. The luxury car is also of dubious utility, since your and your clients’ offices are in the center and getting there by public transport or just getting an apartment within walking distance is often preferrable to being stuck in traffic in a Tesla or BMW.

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main qimg a8560b00698b088a01e35842c91f227f lq

And you are sacrificing a lot – if you want to have a normal relationship, children… it’s tough IMO to combine that with working such long hours long-term. So for many people it’s a good opportunity in the short-mid term, but only some can do it long-term.

Anyhow, I hear the millenials are giving consulting firms hell on the work-life balance issue.

Jerome Funeral Hot Dish

Jerome is a ghost town which clings to the side of Cleopatra Hill on Mingus Mountain near Cottonwood, Arizona. It is the home of the Douglas Mining Museum. This is an interesting recipe from the days when artistic “hippies” revived this ghost town.

hot dish
hot dish

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 (28 ounce) can pork and beans
  • 1 (12 ounce) can corned beef
  • 1 large onion, diced fine
  • 1 bell pepper, diced fine

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients.
  2. Put into a 13 x 9 inch baking dish and heat for 25 to 35 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Why Everyone Sees Machine Elves When Tripping on DMT | Andrew Gallimore

In almost every way, except two.

  1. Sanitation. The Romans famously built aqueducts (many of which survive today because of the quality of engineering. They bathed and had toilets in which poo was flushed away by running water. Proper sewers carried away sewage and waste water.
  2. Medicine. In particular surgery. Gladiators were valuable property and were more often repaired rather than discarded. This expertise also contributed to the survival of soldiers and added to morale, as prompt removal from the battle and treatment meant that wounds were less often fatal. They had pain relief and anaesthesia which enabled better surgery as well as reducing the fear of the patient. If you needed such treatment you would have been generally better off with a Roman military surgeon than any mediaeval one. Operations included the removal of cataracts from the eye.

They were relatively hygienic, but had no proper theory of disease. Thus in the public baths people with diseases bathed at a different time from the general public. Unfortunately, they had the earliest bath.

We are doomed.

Take a second, shut your eyes.

You’re going to imagine a world.

In this world, you live in solitary confinement, contained in a small, metal prison.

Every day, you’re brought food and water and your cell is cleaned.

This is all you’ve ever known. Your world never changes.

Until one day, you’re moved to a new prison.

Some man in a white coat puts an IV into your arm. In front of you, there’s a lever.

You try pulling it.

You’re injected with heroin. It reaches your bloodstream almost instantly and your brain just seconds after. It’s almost blissful.

Do you press it again?

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main qimg b3d3ffdcebe978e22b20cba11bc4826e pjlq

This was the life of dozens of rats.

Did they pull the lever?

Of course they did.

Over and over again.

They’d overdose. They’d die.

Because for them, that brief high was the best thing they’d ever known.

Psychologists and politicians were in simultaneous uproar. Drugs were evil and irresistibly addictive.

Only, rats, like humans, aren’t solitary creatures.

So, what would happen if they changed the circumstances. Sure, a prisoner would give into mind-numbing drugs, but would the average person? Would a happy person?

That’s how the rat park was built.

Researchers put rats together in a comfortable setting. They threw in running wheels and wood chips and let them live a good life.

Naptime and recess

Just hanging out.

There are always some who prefer the rat race.

These rats had access to drugs, just like the first set.

The results?

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main qimg 00defc255dfcde655da748ddb8af18e1 pjlq

The dotted lines are the park rats, the complete lines are the caged ones.

And even though it would be beyond unethical to run the same experiments on humans, there’s a similar real life example.

Bruce Alexander, the man behind the experiments, explains:

The English colonial empire overran hundreds of native tribal groups in Western Canada in the 18th and 19th century.

The native people were moved off expansive tribal lands onto very small reserves, the basis of their cultures.

Their children were taken from their parents and sent off to “residential schools” to be taught the white man’s culture so they could be assimilated.

They were forbidden to speak their native languages and found themselves strangers in their own communities when they finally came home.

Before this point, Mental illness, personal betrayals, and epidemic diseases occasionally occurred in pre-colonial tribes.

Basically, native people had all the problems of their English colonizers except one.

There was so little addiction that it is very difficult to prove from written and oral histories that it existed at all.

But once the native people were colonized alcoholism became close to universal.

There were entire reserves where virtually every teenager and adult was either an alcohol or drug addict or “on the wagon”.

The drug only becomes irresistible when the opportunity for normal social existence is destroyed.

Luau Pork Teriyaki

Also known as kalua pig or Luau pork, kalua pulled pork is a staple at Hawaiian luaus. They carry on the tradition of cooking a whole pig in an underground oven filled with hot stones. The pig is generously salted and wrapped in banana leaves then lowered into the ground to smoke all day. This slow cooker method also requires all day to cook. You’ll want to plan ahead because to get that divine tenderness you’ll want the pork to cook for at least 16 hours. For more delicate juicy pork recipes try my carnitas, this Mississippi pork, or my sweet pulled pork!

kalua pork 1 3
kalua pork 1 3

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 pounds lean, boneless pork
  • 1 cup pineapple, sliced, in syrup
  • 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
  • 1/4 green onion, finely chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 garlic powder
  • 1 cup raw rice

Instructions

  1. Cut pork into slices about 1/4 inch thick.
  2. Drain pineapple, reserving all syrup.
  3. Blend syrup, teriyaki sauce, green onions, ginger and garlic powder. Pour over pork and pineapple.
  4. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
  5. Meanwhile, cook rice according to package directions and prepare grill.
  6. Remove pork from marinade and grill about 5 inches from hot coals for about 5 minutes on each side or until completely cooked.
  7. Pour pineapple and remaining marinade into large skillet. Bring to a boil.
  8. Remove from heat and serve pork with sauce and pineapple over rice.

Oh boy. I worked 12 years in wafer fabrication for an international electronics company. A fab, as it affectionately known, is a clean room. The smallest smudge of dust will kill a computer chip. To enter, we had to go through an air shower to blow any dust off us. And we had to wear a bunny suit.

A bunny suit isn’t remotely connected to Playboy. It is a lint free coverall that covers head to toe. The head is covered by kind of a cloth helmet, a surgeon’s mask over the nose and mouth, gloves, and shoes which are worn only in the fab. This suit is worn over your street clothes.

Sorry to be so lengthy but it’s important. If you have to go to the restroom, a person must exit the clean room to the changing room. Take off shoes, headcovering, gloves. coverall. Stash in locker. Put on your shoes that are worn only within the building. ( you put these on when you entered from outside, street shoes were in a little locker).

So our boss decided we were taking too much time on bathroom breaks (oh yeah, we worked 12-hr graveyard shifts, 6 to 6). Our team was about 2/3rds female and well, if you gotta go, you gotta go. Take suit off, maybe go to your big locker to get lady supplies if needed, go to restroom, return to changing room, suit up, air shower and back to work. And now we gotta go to see the boss to let him know I’ve gotta pee, real bad.

It all lasted two days. Julie went in one evening, looked at him, and said, it’s the first day of my period and bleeding like a stuck hog and I gotta change my tampon and pad. And pee.

TMI, boss?

The forever “footprint”.

Before I had a truck, I borrowed my friends truck to move to a different city. I put 2000 km on it and I thought I would do an oil change, fill up with gas, and all the fluids before I returned it to him, with a gift certificate to a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine.

I told him what I had done, and I had messed up. He was using some super expensive synthetic oil and I had just used a good grade of regular oil. I told him to drive it until he needed an oil change, and I would pay for his synthetic oil change as well. However he was worried that switching between regular oil and synthetic would cause problems, so he insisted on changing the oil that very day, so that it wasn’t driven with regular oil.

He had plans for the afternoon, and spending an hour at the quick oil change place, messed things up.

I doubt driving on regular oil would have caused a problem, but its his truck, and I messed up by thinking I was going to surprise him with something extra.

I am a very moderate drinker. Maybe two or three drinks a week.

Although I have dated and lived with a fair number of women, only one of them was a real drinker. I dated her for a few months.

This woman was a high-functioning alcoholic. She held down a management position in retail, she was never falling-down drunk, and I never saw her throw up or get in a fight.

But man, could she drink. She was a world-class darts player, and she played for drinks. She almost always won. She’d hit a bar at about 10:00, and drink steadily until closing time (1:00 AM then). I’d say that in a typical night she’d have 10 drinks or so.

And then she’d head home, go to bed, and wake up the next morning ready to do it again.

And in answer to the question about what I found most unattractive?

It was that I started drinking more as well.

In fact, I decided to break up with her one Sunday. I had bought a bottle of rum on Friday, and on Sunday night I went to make a drink and discovered that the bottle was empty — I had drunk the whole bottle in three days.

That was not good. A bottle of rum usually lasted me a few months.

And that was the end of that.

The Video That Got Andrew Tate ARRESTED

Hit the Gay wall.

This is just one comic, not a recurring strip.

I’ve seen this thing floating around for years in a variety of forms. I think it’s brilliant, but I have absolutely no idea who the original author was.

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main qimg b85713a3c3731a03798de2fc3c67de13 lq

And it really sums up what I like about being a lone coder. I get to play all the roles, sometimes even that of end user. 😉

Edit 20190908:

Looks like we have a genuine mystery on our hands. One commenter said he believed the origin was in some IBM documentation from about the time I was busy being born.

Thanks to Richard Smith for providing these two very interesting links:

I have one right now. Writing this anon in case she is on Quora, so I don’t embarrass her 🙂

She came to me when I was working as a math tutor. She was failing Algebra and desperately needed help. It soon became clear that she was not just ignorant of basic math principles, but had some kind of cognitive issue with processing mathematical concepts. Over time I figured out that she had trouble with abstract visualization. She couldn’t envision shapes or “see” how various processes fit together. She couldn’t even look at two angles and see that one was larger than the other. It was the math version of a reading disabliity, and merely explaining material to her wasn’t going to get her past it.

I spent over a month just trying to get the basics across to her. Concepts like “when you multiply a negative times a negative you get a positive” just would not stick…and without those basics, how much algebra can you do? Honestly, there were moments I really despaired, and wondered whether it would even be possible to get her to the point where she could pass the course. And I know she was bereft of an hope. despairing. To her it was utterly confusing and totally overwhelming, and I know that deep inside she had no hope it would ever be otherwise.

But she worked. Even when she didn’t believe it would do any good, she worked, harder than I have ever seen anyone work in my life. No matter how depressed she was on a given day, or how confusing the work was, she always gave it her best. There were days the math went so badly, and she felt so overwhelmed, I sensed that inside she wanted to cry. Some day she was so exhausted from school she could barely add two numbers. But she never gave up.

I have never seen anyone so determined, in my life. And when she passed Algebra (got a B, actually), it was because of that quality in her. I can’t think of any other student I’ve had who would fight what seemed like a losing battle for so long, without ever flagging.

This year she took Geometry. I was dreading it even more than she was, because by then I understood more about how her brain processed math, and the visualization skills required by Geometry just weren’t there. Geometry spoke to the very heart of her cognitive weakness. And….she just passed her SOL test, and it looks like she’ll probably pass the course. I can’t even describe to you what a monumental thing that is. And it was possible only because of her amazing attitude. She just never gives up, no matter how bad it gets.

A girl like that can do anything she puts her mind to, in life.

Totally inspiring.

Very nice.

“Allow” !?

Honey, you couldn’t pay us to join that disaster.

Australians like our freedom. We like our country schools where the fences are little things an adult could step over, if there’s even a fence at all. We like sending our kids to school and knowing nobody’s going to shoot them in the classroom. We like going shopping and knowing that nobody’s going to shoot us in the shopping centre. We like eating food and knowing no corporation has added poisons and carcinogens to it to make it more shelf-stable or more addicting.

We like being able to collect the rainwater off our own roof and not being told we’re not allowed because our own roof water doesn’t belong to us. We like being allowed to put a vegetable garden in our front yard if we so choose without a HOA walking in and telling us we can’t do that on our own land.

We like owning our own bodies. Our sex education in school is pretty good and we have good access to contraceptives, but if an unwanted pregnancy is going to ruin a student’s career or if a wanted pregnancy goes wrong and looks like it might kill the mother, we don’t have to deal with politicians trying to take away our very basic human freedom to decide how our bodies will and will not be used by others.

We like our freedom to get medical care as needed. Nobody wants cancer or diabetes, nobody wants their baby to be born premature and needing a whole lot of very specialised care just to keep them alive, but being able to get the care we need when we need it really matters to us. We don’t want our employer or an insurance corporation deciding that they don’t approve of that care or they just don’t want to pay for it and thus deciding not to let us have the care we need to stay alive.

We like our kids getting a decent education that doesn’t depend on whether the people in our neighbourhood are rich or poor, and isn’t hostage to the whims of a bunch of religious nutters. We like knowing that our teachers are paid an honest wage and they’re not spending their evenings tending bars or driving Uber just to be able to pay their bills. We like our kids getting a facts-based education that doesn’t pretend anyone’s religious mumbo-jumbo is somehow equal to actual empirical science.

We like going to restaurants and not being obliged to tip. Sure, if the server is really great or if we’ve somehow made extra work for them, it’s sweet to leave them a nice gift, but they’re not depending on tips to pay their bills because they’re already paid an honest wage by their employer.

Most Australians wouldn’t even travel to the US if you paid our airfare. As for letting that failed-state disaster take over our country? Not happening.

Be more honest

Many years ago a friend introduced me to an Architect.

He needed a job done. It was a big job, a 12 square deck, handrails 2 sets of steps.

I really didn’t need the work and only did it because of my friend.

The job meant I had to stay away from my family for two weeks.

I worked an average of 16 hours everyday in an effort to finish the job early. It was the middle of summer and extremely hot everyday.

The client also worked long hours and came home late.

The job was finished on time . I tabulated the hours and charged him at a reasonable rate.

When I gave him the bill he was indignant and refused to pay the amount.

Not only did I give him a discount on my normal hourly rate I put nothing in for profit, like he would have. He figured that because I spent 14 days building his deck, regardless of the amount of hours I spent, that I was only entitled to an 8 hour pay day.

So I explained to him that I worked at least 16 hours a day.

He said “How do I know that’? His question was very unprofessional considering I gave him his due as a fellow professional and that I am a very honest person. Now I was the one feeling indignant.

I was stunned that he could not understand the concept of what I did considering he is ‘in’ the building business. I called my friend who also tried to reason with him. It was a waste of time.

As I was packing up my tools for a split second I considered putting my electrical saw through his deck. I am glad I didn’t. I learned a valuable lesson after that day about trusting ‘professionals’

Instead of ipads

Not me, my sister. When she was eighteen-nineteen she was pretty serious with this guy. He was nice, intelligent and respectful to our mother; but the dude seemed to have below zero ambition in life. No job, no income, dropped out for reasons I never ascertained, and seemed to live by a philosophy of “if you’re not sleeping on the floor with your leather jacket as a blanket, you’re not true punk-rock.” Polar opposite of my sister.

Some family of his in Minnesota (we lived in California) offered to take them in. God knows why, but my sister was on the verge of leaving everything for a state she’d never been to, to live with people she’d never met, because of love for a guy who’d never shown any indication that he would be seeking gainful employment.

She snapped out of it at the last minute – on her own; nobody had to convince her – and broke up with him. He made the move alone. Apparently he took this really hard; and while to my knowledge he had never been much of a drinker or drug user, he started slamming heroin and she got a phone call about a year later that an overdose had claimed his life.

My sister has a good head on her shoulders. She was devastated, but I never heard her blame herself as some people might. She wished him well, but it wasn’t her responsibility to care for a grown, capable man, and she saw this. He made his choice to live in depression and self-pity. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I can sympathize without excusing. Meanwhile, my sister’s life path brought her to her husband and the two children they have together. It’s sad that her ex couldn’t get his life together and went out like that, but she definitely dodged a bullet.

Advanced Ancient Machinery Discovered in the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid | Chris Dunn

Pretty interesting.

It depends on a lot of things.

For the near overseas Chinese who live in say Malaysia probably very easily.

For those who live further away? Difficult.

The ease of your reintegration depends entirely on IF you were exposed and picked up Chinese culture when you were young. Myself? As a baby I was given to my grandparents to look after until I was about 6. I absorbed tons of Chinese culture and language. I then visited regularly and kept some of my language skills. But I still grew up in the UK mostly and through osmosis absorbed a lot of their culture and thinking.

My dad grew up here in China and left when he was 16, he’s spent more time in the Netherlands and the UK than here. He can return and fit in with his village clan.

I made a generational seaturtle return.

Here’s the thing though. Neither of us quite fit.

My dad while he was away? His home changed enormously. I remember in the mid 00s standing in the middle of a town and he stood there for a moment. He said when he was a child he used to go fishing and swimming here. The coast was now about 3 miles away.

As such we tend to stick amongst our own groupings.

My dad hangs around a lot with other overseas Chinese who left with him in the 60s. He talks with people here who’ve been here all their lives and finds he hasn’t got all that much in common with them and entirely different life experiences.

Me? Despite this being my 8th year here on a permanent basis? I can count my born here friends on one hand. I’ve got plenty of acquaintances but I’m not sure I could classify them as friends. I find it far easier to talk to and be friendly with overseas born types and that includes Indians, Nepalis and UK born Chinese but not American borns.

It might just be a HK thing, as I was far friendlier with people in the Mainland. So why not move there (again). Well I’ve dug myself a rut already and I’m stuck in it.

But as I’ve written prior, a return isn’t for me (though life wise it worked out well) it’s for those who come after me.

I see my UK nieces and nephews some do ok but they suffer the same identity crises as we did.

By Lau Siu-kai

History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.”

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main qimg 8fc8bad32bd2c10524ac5f635cd1124d

During the Cold War period after World War II, two “international orders” emerged in the world, namely the “socialist international order” led by the Soviet Union and the so-called “liberal international order” led by the United States. After the end of the Cold War, the “liberal international order” was the only international order in the world. Since then, the United States has continued to use coercion, inducement, and regime change to bring more and more countries into this dominant international order, which has led to many conflicts between the United States and other countries, particularly China and Russia. However, in the past decade or so, the “liberal international order” has increasingly become unviable and unsustainable. The reasons include the fact that more and more countries believe it is an unfair, inequitable, and unreasonable international order catering primarily to the interests of the West and that the United States itself often violates and distorts the “rules of the game” devised by itself.

From a historical perspective, the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are significant game-changing events that would bring about “tectonic changes” in the global political landscape that would, in turn, lead to the complete collapse of the “liberal international order” in different ways.

First, they verify that the United Nations, as the linchpin of the “liberal international order,” can no longer serve as an organisation for maintaining world peace and international order under the deliberate neglect, defiance, and disruption of the United States. The United Nations cannot act to avoid and end the Russo-Ukrainian war. Moreover, the United States blatantly vetoed most countries in the United Nations’ call for a ceasefire in Gaza. When the United Nations becomes an effete and ineffective international institution, the unilateral actions of the United States taken without the approval of the United Nations will increasingly lose the endorsement and goodwill of the international community, and the international order it leads will also lose legitimacy and support.

Second, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States not only condoned but even provided military and diplomatic support to Israel’s near-genocide atrocities against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, most deplorably women and children. Israel’s actions in Gaza seriously violate and make a mockery of the “liberal international order’s” proclaimed respect for human rights and freedoms and the prohibition and condemnation of genocide. The United States and its Western allies disregarded Israel’s atrocities, which is entirely contrary to their position of severely accusing and condemning Russia for committing “war crimes” in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has unmistakably and fully exposed the moral hypocrisy and double standards of the United States and the West. It has triggered intense anger and frustration in the international community and brought about the complete moral bankruptcy of the Western camp led by the United States. In other words, the “liberal international order” no longer has powerful moral moorings. Consequently, the “liberal international order” will continue to shrink as more and more countries are reluctant to imbue it with legitimacy. The United States’ global leadership position will also be seriously jeopardised.

Third, the Russo-Ukraine war proved that the “liberal international order” led by the United States is dangerously “expansionary” and “coercive” in nature, thus posing a clear and serious threat to world peace. The United States demands all countries participating in the “liberal international order” adopt Western political and economic models and values. It does not accept or tolerate the existence of other political and economic models and values. The eastward expansion of NATO promoted by the United States can be understood as a strategic plan to further expand the “liberal international order” in Europe to contain Russia and ultimately change its political and economic system in the Western direction. In a sense, the essence of the Russo-Ukrainian war can thus be understood as a “defensive” maneuver by Russia to safeguard the country’s sovereignty, security, and strategic autonomy. Since the continuous and reckless expansion of the “liberal international order” has triggered the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the scale of the Russo-Ukrainian war is likely to expand and pose a graver threat to world peace and development, other countries in the world will be increasingly dismissive of the “liberal international order.” A lot of countries are already deeply apprehensive about a devastating global war triggered by the United States’ dogged efforts at containment of China to make it a qualified member of the “liberal international order.” Global resistance to it is bound to grow day by day. Now, the United States is on the verge of failure in the Russia-Ukraine war, which is commonly seen as a “proxy war” between the United States and Russia. This will encourage and embolden more countries to resist the “liberal international order” in various ways in the days to come.

History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” The Russo-Ukraine war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have already proven that the US-led international order cannot bring peace, development, fairness, and justice to the world; instead, it is becoming increasingly an impetus for instability and even war. The balance of power in the world is shifting irreversibly away from the West with the unstoppable demise of the “liberal international order.” Admittedly, the “liberal international order” may still exist in some form, but its prominent members will be mainly confined to the United States and some of its Western allies. Inevitably, with the gradual demise of the “liberal international order,” the world will experience a period of “international disorder” and the ensuing instability and uncertainty. However, in the past period, many non-Western countries, especially China, have begun to actively and urgently explore alternatives to the “liberal international order.” The Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will undoubtedly accelerate the pace of work in this area, eventually promoting the birth of a new, fairer, equitable, and reasonable international order that is conducive to world peace and development and respects the interests and needs of all countries.

Some of them include the retro-pulp science fiction cover theme.

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Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 1(16)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 1(16)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 0(16)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 0(16)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 3(9)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 3(9)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 2(16)
Default A 1950s era pinup In the opulent 1950s golden age of i 2(16)

My boyfriend Ben and I have been dating for 4 years.

We’ve seen the best of each other, but that also meant that he’s seen the worst of me.

Dating me is like walking on eggshells; I have depression and Borderline Personality disorder, which meant that I can have intense mood swings and have severe issues with abandonment. That meant Ben dealt with me monthly, with me crying constantly about how I’m a fraud and how he’s better off without me. How people won’t miss me when I’m dead.

Every month, he holds me while I cry and rage at the world around me.

Every month, he plays the knight, and I play the monster, and we fight.

One day, after a particularly bad argument, I really don’t know what it was about, Ben and I had to physically separate ourselves and cool down in different rooms.

When we came back together, he looked…exhausted. He was just staring into space and he just quietly told me to get help.

And when I didn’t say anything, he looked at me and, word for word, said

“Vanessa, I want you to get help because I have nightmares that one day, one very bad day for you, will cause our child that we will someday have, to find mommy hanging from a noose.

I’m scared for you. Of you.”

I went into counselling afterwards.

Bailey’s Lasagna

Lasagne
Lasagna

Yield: 8 to 12 servings

Equipment

  • Lasagna pan

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 pound Italian sausage
  • 1 (67 ounce) jar Prego Traditional spaghetti sauce
  • 12 lasagna noodles
  • 14 ounces ricotta cheese
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese or other cheese of choice
  • 1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Brown ground beef and Italian sausage together until cooked through, then drain well. Combine with the spaghetti sauce. Set aside.
  3. Cook lasagna noodles until al dente, according to package directions. Drain and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Set aside.
  4. For the filling, combine ricotta cheese and eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Spread a thin layer of the spaghetti sauce over the bottom of a lasagna pan.
  6. Lay lasagna noodles lengthwise in the casserole dish.
  7. Spoon and spread spaghetti sauce over the noodles.
  8. Spoon and spread filling over the spaghetti sauce.
  9. Repeat steps 6, 7 and 8 twice.
  10. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella or cheese of choice over the top.
  11. Bake, covered and sealed with foil (DO NOT LET THE FOIL TOUCH THE CHEESE), for 30 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melted.
  12. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer to brown the cheese.
  13. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.
  14. Top each serving with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese.

Notes

Serve with garlic bread.

Refrigerate any leftovers.

Behold.

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This also works with common snacks like chips, cheetos, really any “finger food.” Likewise Hara Shidho points out that it works on salads too; eating leafy greens is precisely what chopsticks are really good at in Chinese cuisine. Chopsticks are also much better at deboning fish, with Japanese chopsticks particularly designed for the task. Quite frankly I do not understand how anyone is cleanly deboning fish with forks, especially if the fish have much tinier, irregular bones that do not conform to the spine or edge.

It is also a misnomer to believe that there are no forks, spoons, and knives in China. They just have their time and place, and no they are not imports from the West as they have been around for millennia. I suspect that for Chinese people, ease of dining is where one optimizes for the least switches of utensils while keeping hands clean; removing that latter part gives us Indian hand usage, while the West seems to not care for utensil switching (or just abuses forks to fulfill the purpose of a spoon).

Really though, just think of chopsticks as two very long fingers that are easily washable.

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Oh oh!

This happened to a new manager of mine who managed to cause havoc in our office within the first week of his employment.

My previous manager left for a better offer and the replacement didn’t arrive until 1 whole month after he left the company.

So there wasn’t anyone to train, guide or handover the duties/job scope to the new manager.

However, my previous manager, being a very smart man, created a folder with all the job scope, documents, handovers, etc. in our common (computer) server for us to handover to whoever that will take over when he/she eventually arrived.

So, when the replacement finally arrived, naturally very lost and confused, me and my colleagues did our best to guide him along and showed him the folder which my previous manager left for him.

It was one of the busiest periods of the year, so none of us were able to sit down and spoon feed all the details/information to him, as such we pretty much just left him to fiddle his computer and to do his own research.

I mean, he’s supposed to be our manager. He should have some idea of what to expect, right?

Thus, the first week went by, the tsunami was over and my colleagues and I finally got a chance to catch up on our work. The moment we switched on our computer to enter the common server, all of our jaw dropped simultaneously.

The idiot has reorganized the WHOLE SERVER!!

When we confronted him about the server, his excuse was that the server looks very messy and he want to tidy it up. Oh, and if we were to see if anything that is out of place, please help him to sort out into the correct folder.

This idiot had no idea how much damage he has caused us!

For those of you who are wondering what’s the big deal, by reorganizing the server, the idiot rendered all our shortcuts/hyperlinks useless.

Furthermore, a lot of our files & documents are named via codes/serial numbers, without the proper directory we have no idea where are all our past records/documents!!

The worst part is that the damage is irreversible as he had tampered with our backup folder as well…

We spent the next few MONTHS trying to find and sort out all our lost documents but till this day we are still unable to find about 40% of them. (the idiot still insists that he did not delete any of our files, it’s all in there, he just misplaced them…)

The idiot was eventually let go due to multiple accounts of incompetency after 1 year of service (so much screaming from my client).

There were so many stories from this idiot I’m surprised that he managed to somehow last the whole year.

Edit:

Now to verify, yes you can say i’m being harsh for calling him an idiot repeatedly.
We gave him a ton of advice but none were heeded; we tried to be patient with him but when the client openly demanded him to be fired in the meeting with your CEO on speaker phone, you know shit just got real.

And just to be clear, he was hired as a Manager, so not knowing basic computer skill or even some basic level of competency is not an excuse. He is definitely not new in this field and how he managed to secure a 5 figures salary previously is still a mystery to me.

Chinese EV and the USA

No American car buyer today can purchase a Chinese brand (Bloomberg Business 3–18–2024) electric vehicle. And no one is really sure when these EVs will arrive on US shores. But the prospect of cheap Chinese-made EVs is already causing sleepless nights in Detroit. The primary threat comes from cars such as BYD Co.’s Seagull hatchback, which features angular styling, a two-tone dashboard shaped like a seagull’s wing and six airbags. There’s even a 10-inch rotating touchscreen for its infotainment system. BYD’s company slogan, “Build Your Dreams,” is embossed on the rear of the vehicle.

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A BYD Co. Seagull electric vehicle at the Shanghai Auto Show. Photographer: Bloomberg​​​​​

The car’s most extraordinary feature, though, is its $9,698 price tag. That undercuts the average price of an American EV by more than $50,000, and is only a little more than a high-end Vespa scooter. Such aggressive pricing by BYD, which surpassed Tesla Inc. in late 2023 to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, is indicative of how Chinese auto manufacturers will likely force US makers to pivot away from mainly producing expensive second cars for the affluent and toward more reasonably priced EVs for Everyman.

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main qimg bcd06db084d5aa5de2e1535fa2e6153f

Just as the long-feared prospect of a revolutionary EV from US tech giant Apple Inc. has receded, American carmakers now face a possibly greater challenge from Asia. China, long a manufacturing hub for Western companies’ products, is hellbent on expanding its own companies’ reach around the globe. It’s already the biggest market for EVs , and it’s using that scale and manufacturing know-how to help expand sales of competitively priced Chinese models to an increasingly climate-conscious world.

For now, the Chinese onslaught is being kept at bay by stiff tariffs and moves to erect even tougher trade barriers against the US’s geopolitical adversary. Read Keith Naughton

for more on what the future might hold if BYD and others come to American shores

.

And for more on how BYD has become the world’s top-selling electric carmaker, see the Bloomberg Originals documentary: How China’s BYD Overtook Tesla

Nobody is a security threat to the U.S. The U.S. is the biggest security threat to itself. Trying to do regime change in other nations is a security threat to the U.S. Starting a colour revolution to the world U.S. a security threat to the U.S. like what Maidan is now putting the US in a step nearer to a nuclear war! If you don’t want to buy batteries from China don’t buy!

China don’t need you to buy! You wanted a cheaper and better value for money battery! If you want your people to buy at 5 times the price go right ahead!

I work out generally at 5 am when the gym first opens. There is little old lady who comes in and works out. She’s small and frail, but in great shape for her age. I’m putting her 70–80 to be honest. I used to be really impressed by her as well, one of those #goals type deals. But that all changed……..

I began to notice she owned the place, and everyone kind of let her go first because of age. No worries, mad respect still but it did come off a little odd. Now, she parks next to me most days as we wait for the gym to open. She opens her door, and SMACK, hits my car door. Huh, she just walks right in no big deal. I’m sitting in the car too. Wow, hmm I don’t know about her after all.

2 weeks later, she is pulling in and side swipes me just a hair. Backs up, and moves to another spot. Now, yes this is illegal and I could have called the police. I didn’t, I guess I’m too soft. All I had was a small scratch, on a low end car with plenty more blemishes. I let it pass.

Fast forward another month, and out the gym window I see flashing lights.

She scraped someone else so bad it left a big mark on her car too! They called the police and she got a ticket for hit and run and likely lost her license now. Moral of the story, call people out for being rude or it will only get worse.

I cry for my country.

Girls and grapes

I’m a physicist. One day I got a phone call from an undergraduate. She explained that as an assignment in a sociology course she was required to follow a scientist around for a day and document how he/she spent the day. “I’m far too busy to give you that much time,” I said.

“No—” she replied, “You won’t even notice I’m there. I’ll just watch and follow you around.” OK— it sounded a bit intriguing.

The scheduled morning she arrived in my office at 9 a.m. She sat down in a corner, and I got to work. Every now and then I looked up and caught her looking at me; she quickly looked away, and scribbled in her notebook. Suddenly I felt like a mountain gorilla being studied by Dian Fossey.

At 5 p.m she told me she was leaving. I asked her if she found anything surprising. “My god yes!” She responded. “Your day is totally different from what I expected.” I asked for details and she examined her notes.

She said, “You spent 60% of your time talking to other people! You did it on the phone, then you visited several other physicists in their offices. You had lunch with several graduate students. Even in your lab you were working with your graduate students. Several people came to your office.”

“What did you expect?” I asked her.

“I thought scientists worked alone. I thought they sat in front of computers all day, or in their labs wearing white coats and working with test tubes.”

“That’s the scientist of the movies,” I said. “Science is a very social profession. You can save weeks in the lab by a quick conversation with someone else. Two people talking are often much more than twice as effective as two people working alone.”

“I never knew that,” she said.

It’s odd that people avoid going into science because of the impression that it is for people who like to work alone. That may be true for some people, but in my experience virtually all effective scientists spend much of their time with other people. Maybe the wrong impression arises because of the high school science nerd who doesn’t yet have social skills. But social skills are essential to scientific success. Some nerds learn them only in graduate school. (And the ones who don’t often drop out of science.)

Indeed, the interaction with other people is what makes “coming to work” so much fun.

Cats can defy gravity

The Little Crappy Ships each have their own failures in design and execution. Sometimes tried and true is best – especially when building ships that need to be available (and mobile) all of the time. There is no auto club to call for a breakdown on the high seas.

Their mission evaporated as the world changed – a lightly defended coastal (litoral) ship did not end up being where the focus was needed. Their flexibilty was also limited because cost overuns in the basic ship package affected other wannabe missions – it was going to be a Swiss Army knife, but instead ended up a butter blade.

The navy threw in the towel when they started ordering more Constellation class frigates and cancelled the future LCS builds. Ironically, they were not cheap (half a billion $$$ or so) but they cost little enough by government standards to abandoned. Compare that to the Ford class carriers (about $14 billion each). The Fords had so much invested in them that throwing money and resources to solve technological issues (such as with the catapult system) was a given regardless of cost. You can fix things with time, money, and resources. There also was no readily available replacement available for the Ford carriers after years of investment in them. The end product is a great advance over it’s predecessor – which is not the story of the LCS.

So, lessons learned. Innovate but balance risks and reward, and know the mission you are trying to accomplish. Here is the LCS Independence. A face only a mother could love… … …

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Oh shit

Correction: China is NOT leaning more heavily on exports; the government’s policy has been to grow the Chinese domestic consumer market in order to lessen dependence on exports.

In 2024, the Chinese domestic consumer market is growing less slowly than the government likes because the Chinese real estate market is undergoing contraction. The Chinese government saw the real estate market as an asset bubble which needed to be pricked because it does not reflect a real productivity gain; it is just speculatory.

Since most Chinese have their savings tied up in their own home value, they now feel that they have less savings to spend, which is why the Chinese economy is entering a deflationary phase.

At the same time, the US and EU are putting pressure on Chinese exports of EVs and chips, as they try to decouple from Chinese exporters of those products.

This means that the whole world is going through a painful economic adjustment as supply chains are being decoupled in the US and EU.

The Chinese government is trying to re-adjust by increasing exports and trade with the BRICS+/Global South economies, while gradually cutting reliance on the US and EU markets.

Linda’s Picadillo (Mexican-Style Ground Beef)

picadillo
picadillo

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 red or orange bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons beef bouillon
  • 1 (4 ounce) can green chiles or 2 fresh poblano peppers, chopped
  • Spices: 1 or 2 bay leaves, salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, tomato Knorr, etc.
  • 1 can tomato sauce or Ro*Tel
  • 1 bag frozen corn (optional)
  • 1 bag frozen green beans (optional)

Instructions

  1. Sauté onions and garlic; add ground beef and cook until done. Drain fat.
  2. Add potatoes, bell pepper, water, beef buillon, green chiles or poblano peppers, spices of choice and tomato sauce or Ro*Tel. Simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender.
  3. If using, add corn and green beans 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

She Bullied A Kid For Exercising Wrong, The Internet Destroyed Her..

Israel ‘Coerces’ UN Workers – By Outright Torturing Them

Every time one thinks that the depravity of Zionist fanatics has finally reached a limit they will proudly present even worse behavior.

UNRWA report says Israel coerced some agency employees to falsely admit Hamas linksReuters, Mar 9 2024

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.

Coerced, pressured, … Maybe they had a harsh talk?

No. They outright tortured, Abu Graibh like, these UN workers. Some of them to their death:

The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.

In addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment, the UNRWA report said.

Reuters could not independently confirm the accounts of coercion of UNRWA staff and mistreatment of detainees, although the allegations of ill-treatment accord with descriptions by Palestinians freed from detention in December, February and March reported by Reuters and other news media.

Remi Brulin @RBrulin – 0:44 UTC · Mar 9, 2024“We tortured some folks” is pretty bad

“We tortured some folk so we could destroy a huge relief organization that’s indispensable in dealing with a huge humanitarian crisis that we created in the first place” is…. something else

What are civilized people supposed to do with these miscreants?

 

Posted by b at 11:13 UTC | Comments (156)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QTJ_Uk9OPZo?feature=share

This is another “didn’t say it, did it” story.

It was a couple of weeks before Christmas, about 25 years ago, and I was shopping for a gift for my wife. She loves pearls, especially baroque pearls, and even more when they’re set with a discreet diamond or two — nothing glitzy or brash. I went to the local branch of Barmakian Jewelers, a well known New England chain. I’d been there before and had spent there, over the years, a decidedly nontrivial amount, including some custom work I’d had them do. So I walked over to the Pearls and Diamonds counter with a budget figure of $600 (equivalent to just a hair over $1000 as I write this) and began eyeing the pieces through the glass counter surface.

I should probably mention here that I was at that time a software engineer and had just gotten out of work for the day, and I was dressed in jeans and a carpenter shirt (plaid flannel). No coat, this is New England and the temperature was well above freezing. As I browsed, I took note that although there was nobody at that counter at the moment, two sales associates were at the next counter, and I knew that they had seen me. Neither came over to help me. After about ten minutes of this, a man came walking over to the counter where I was, dressed in a suit and tie. Before you could say “WTF?” an associate, one of the two who had been chatting at the other counter, was there to help him. He lollygagged around, looked at a couple of pieces with the associate’s eager assistance, and finally decided he’d come back another day. He walked out without having spent a dime. The associate left the counter without even a glance in my direction, and returned to chat some more with the other associate. I figured I knew what was up, and I too walked out, taking my $600 budget elsewhere. I have never since stepped inside a Barmakian store, nor will I ever do so in the future.

Well, I think our fellow Quoran Orson Scott Card got something dreadfully wrong in his most famous work, Ender’s Game.

It was published in its novel form in 1985, and he envisioned a global computer network where people could publish anything. And it’s crucial to the plot that two very young people become massively influential by publishing, under pseudonyms, political essays with brilliant insights.

Internet, yes, fine, it was already invented and the WWW was just around the corner, but well called for seeing it as a potential game changer.

He did not anticipate that it would be used to watch memes of cats and spread flat Earth theories, and that any politically insightful youth would be totally drowned out by people trying to cure a dangerous disease by drinking bleach. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen that…

Simple.

Ask the average American to watch a Chinese blockbuster. It can be dubbed, or subtitled.

Further, ask them to pick out the cultural hooks and references in the movie.

Vanishing few will be able to do so, even Chinese diaspora who grow up speaking only English.

Take it from me. I spent a lifetime consuming Chinese media, and I am fluent in at least 3 dialects: Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin. I spent 12 years learning Chinese formally, growing up in a Chinese speaking environment.

But I struggle with the cultural references in Chinese productions, which have cultural baselines that are several steps beyond the typical Taiwan/HK production.

In other words, Wong Kar Wai and Ang Lee are above average, and not the summit, in the mainland scheme of things, as far as deep culture is concerned.

Hollywood can never make a Chinese movie that touches the tender and vulnerable side of Chinese audiences. Not in the current climate of dehumanization and “we want your money, we don’t want you”.

The Chinese are not farm animals of American oligarchs.

And even if Hollywood decides to take the Chinese market seriously, it will take years and plenty of coin to compete against the Chinese competition.

At this point (2024), Hollywood isn’t even in the game.

November 8, 2018. I know the date because of it’s significance. 4 men were at the restaurant I frequent. They had reserved a part of 8. All of them were elderly, all of them were wearing hats with “vietnam veteran” and “173rd Airborne” on them. I didn’t need to know where their 4 missing comrades were, or what memories those 4 gentlemen would be reliving 53 years later. I know of Operation Hump.

I quietly wrote on a napkin, “I’m not going to say who I am, but I want to say 3 things: THANK YOU! May your brothers rest in peace, and tonight is on me. No arguments, soldiers.”

I had my waitress deliver it after I left, leaving my credit card (at the time, I lived right down the street) to pay for whatever they want.

I was told that they were very appreciative, and said “for people like that we’d do it again.” which is very touching if you ask me.

I’ve seen those gentlemen back every year since, and a few times on various other days, but I haven’t said anything, and I never intend to. Their meals are still on me every year.

Honestly, I don’t see any big difference and I don’t feel overwhelmed by Chinese goods.

In fact, China actively substituted only two fields: cars and household equipment

Midea or Haier instead of Bosch? No big difference. Same features, same prices. Bosch is also available by the way, and the price is comparable to Chinese. So who has left?

Chery/Haval instead of Renault and Nissan? No big difference, in fact Chinese are better. More options and features for lower price. Prices are slowly normalizing, by the way. Chinese car giants open new factories in Russia.

Of course, it will take time for market to find a new balance, but at least now it is possible to get a new SUV for around 2 million rubles. Sure, it’s not 1.3 million rubles like I paid for new Nissan Qashqai in 2018, but it’s even less about 2.4 million rubles I paid for new Nissan X-Trail in 2021. And well, Chinese turned out to be have better multimedia systems than Japanese or Europeans. Surprise, surprise.

Maybe even Moskvich will some day be available at more reasonable prices. Again, it all takes time.

New car market was too expensive starting from around last April. Now slowly getting to more normal prices.

Speaking of furniture, clothing and everything else – it got substituted locally and surprisingly well. If you are not dead set to pay 500,000 rubles for Dolce Gabbana, you can buy a nice good quality Russian coat at 10,000 rubles, for example. I bought warm and nice Russian-made alaska jacket for this winter for about 13,000 rubles. Didn’t notice any difference with “original” that cost double even before all those problems.

And well, I talk to people, I listen to people and I see what people are wearing and buying. There still are few “brand-crazy” folks, but most have just got ignorant.

If those “Western brands” ever want to return, they will have a hard time doing so. Sorry guys. And no, Chinese clothes are not popular and is not supplied en masse.

No.

Both of my grandfathers did just that.

Both of their wives only worked outside of the home during WWII, before they were their wives. By the early 1950s, both of my sets of grandparents were married and starting their families. Both families ended up with four children each. Both families owned their own homes—modest homes in small towns—all on the single income of a working-class man.

One grandfather was a salesman and installer of garage doors. One was a mechanic. Both were WWII vets, so there may have been some veterans benefits to help them out. Other than that, they were on their own.

I know much more about one grandfather’s house than the other one, because the one I know about was right down the street from the house I was raised in. That grandfather died in the 80s, before I really got to know him, but his widow (my grandmother) lived in that house until she died in 2016. I visited that house many times and even helped my father build the deck on it.

I don’t know what my grandfather paid for that house, but I know that, when it was sold “as in” after my grandmother passed, just eight years ago, it sold for $63k. According to Zillow, it’s now worth close to $200k. Same house. Eight years. Triple the price. Insanity.

And it’s not just that house. My mother’s house, where she still lives, just a few doors down, is has tripled in value in the last decade.

The house my grandfather raised his kids in was (and still is) just three bedrooms, one bath, tiny kitchen, and a little over 1,200 square feet. It is 1/3 the size of the house I am currently sitting in, and I would call my house fairly modest by Chicago standards. My grandfather’s house featured a detached two-car garage which he used as a workshop, a carport, a huge yard with a vegetable garden, two old-growth pecan trees and, of all things, a small vineyard.

I didn’t realize how cool it was that my grandparents had a small vineyard growing in their back yard until I was well into my 20s and, by then, it had been mostly destroyed by neglect (my grandmother couldn’t maintain it on her own in her old age), and I lived too far away to help her with it. The last time I drove past it, last summer, it looked like the new owners hadn’t taken it down, but hadn’t fixed it, either. It’s just continuing it’s multi-decade decay.

But I’ll bet it was pretty awesome back when my grandparents were raising their children in that house.

Anyway, besides things being a lot cheaper when my grandparents were raising their children, there were also just fewer expenses. Among all eight of their combined children, only one went to college, and that was for just one semester. Each family only had one car. Each family only had one TV, and they didn’t pay for cable until the early 1990s. The airwave signals were free. Each house had a single, land line phone. None of my grandparents ever had a credit card. The only things they bought on credit were their houses and cars.

About two hours ago, I gave my son my credit card so he could by a $2.50 Gatorade from a vending machine. My grandparents would be mortified about everything in that transaction.

I understand why so many young people feel like they’re getting cheated by this economy. They are. Who is cheating them, and why, and how to fix it, are where I disagree with many of them. But yes, I do agree that they have a much, much steeper mountain to climb to get to the same summit that my grandparents (their great-grandparents’ generation) seemed to have handed to them.

They are plenty smart enough, but they make terrible pets. You see, squid are what we call pelagic critters, meaning they spend most of their time in open water, away from the sea floor or any other features. They like lots and lots of water around them.

Their primary escape mechanism is to simply jet away into the abyss at Squid Warp Speed. It is so fast you literally cannot see it.

My bride and I met on a squid study, which involved a lot of laying in the water on snorkel and hand recording everything the individual squid did. One morning we were watching our usual flotilla of Sepioteuthis (Caribbean Reef Squid) and scrawling their antics on our slates.

And then, *blink.* They were gone. All 17 squid just vanished at once. We knew what happened, of course, but not why. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Bonaire, the Caribbean island in the Dutch Antilles where the study took place, has extremely clear water. We could see easily 100 feet in all directions, but could not identify what spooked the squid. We were very sure it wasn’t us. Since we had been studying this particular school for weeks, the squid were extremely used to people by now.

Then, slowly out of the haze, a large barracuda cruised into view from the East, about 80 feet away. We could not even guess how the squid knew so quick, but they knew a big predator was moving in, and they Got Out Of Town by jetting away so fast (and far) we could not even keep track. The squid didn’t even bother shooting ink. They just disappeared.

This is why you cannot keep squid easily in captivity. They have had over 500 million years to develop this explosive escape strategy and, being prey for almost every predator in the ocean means they react to almost anything. Since invisible walls have never existed in nature, they cannot understand glass and don’t adapt to aquariums. At the slightest provocation, captive squid panic and try to blast away to safety, but they wind up slamming into the aquarium walls over and over and injuring themselves grievously.

Squid researchers have had mixed success with soft-sides inflatable pools as well as ring-shaped enclosures, but these critters do best out in open water.

On the other hand, octopuses do make excellent, if short lived, pets.

Build more of these.

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A nuclear exchange is at this point all but INEVITABLE.

What we need is to massively increase our nuclear bombs and missile systems.

Right now we have 5–600 bombs. That means we have to be selective about the cities we hit.

But with 1000 we can hit even smaller cities.

The white supremacists have literally parked a SSBN in Korea to do this.

We need a massive counter strike ability to take the white supremacists to hell with us. They can die in nuclear fires along with us.

Liberals will say but I don’t want nuclear war. Well the Nuclear Taboo is a myth.

This Chinese man was Zhang Qian.

In 139 B.C., Zhang Qian set out on a westward journey with his interpreter and an escort of about 100 men. But just as they entered the Hexi Corridor, they were bumped into by Xiongnu cavalry. After a battle, all the others were killed in battle, and only Zhang Qian and the interpreter, who did not take part in the battle, survived. Zhang Qian and his interpreter survived.

The two did not resist, and were escorted by the Huns’ cavalry from the Hexi Corridor to the King’s Court of the Xiongnu, a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. The Xiongnu Chanyu also wanted to get information about the Han Dynasty from Zhang Qian, so he actively instigated him to rebel and even arranged for a high-status Xiongnu noblewoman to marry him.

Zhang Qian had been single for almost 30 years and readily accepted the kindness of the Xiongnu Chanyu, but he still did not leak any information about the Han Dynasty. Not only that, Zhang Qian also secretly mastered a lot of information about the Huns while living in the Xiongnu’ territory.

After ten years of this kind of life, Zhang Qian managed to escape with the help of his Xiongnu wife. However, he was captured by the Hun cavalry for the second time shortly after his escape.

The second time was in 128 B.C. Zhang Qian wanted to return to Chang’an. This time he deliberately avoided the sphere of influence of the Xiongnu people, but he was really unlucky and was caught by the Xiongnu people once again. Zhang Qian had already given up hope, but to his surprise, he was rescued by the Xiongnu woman again and escaped. This time Zhang Qian took her back to Chang’an.

In 126 BC, Zhang Qian, his Hun wife, son, and translator returned to Chang’an after an absence of thirteen years.

Upon his return, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made him Marquis of Bowang for his military service.

Although Zhang Qian was promoted, his Xiongnu wife who had made great contributions to him died of illness after one year in Chang’an because she was not adapted to the environment.

I guess Zhang Qian was a handsome man and his Xiongnu wife loved him wholeheartedly and even betrayed the Xiongnu Chanyu.

I had finished scraping the bottom of my boat and decided to have a shower at the clubhouse. Scraping bottom paint must be the dirtiest job in the world (potentially dangerous to your health without proper clothing and a respirator) and I was utterly filthy. As I walked up to the clubhouse, a guy in his mid-forties, a new member it turns out, told me I was not allowed in the “club,” as “no labourers allowed”. I laughed in his face and kindly told him to fuck off. He then told me he was getting the Commodore and that I would be barred from working at this club again. I said good luck with that and again told him to fuck off. When I finished up in the shower, I went to the wardroom to meet my wife and to have a beer. This guy was in the wardroom talking to the Commodore when I came in. When he saw me he said to the Commodore that I was a disrespectful shit and that I should be blackballed from the club. The Commodore said that I might be a shit, but I was a member in good standing and it would look bad if she tried to blackball her husband.

Depends on the Products in Question

Let’s see where Japan leads and dominates over China :-

  • Refrigeration
  • Cameras & Lenses
  • Petrol Engines
  • Industrial Robots
  • Hybrid Vehicles

Japanese Exports are primarily in these industries.

Japan has the best quality products in the world in these categories

Let’s see where China leads and dominates over Japan:-

  • Shipbuilding
  • Railroads & Electrified Railway Design and manufacture
  • Infrastructure Steel & Equipment & High Machinery
  • Television LCD Panels
  • High Efficiency (> 25%) Solar Panels
  • NEV Batteries & Integrated Platforms
  • New Energy Vehicles
  • Deep Core Gas Drilling Equipment
  • Data Centers
  • Windmill & Wind Turbines

Chinese Exports are primarily in these Industries

China has the best quality products in the world in these categories


Then you have areas where both Japan and China are not yet on par with global (western standards) :-

  • Advanced Lenses (Germany)
  • Advanced Chips (US, Europe, Korea)
  • Advanced Computing (US)
  • Diesel Engines (Germany)
  • Aviation Components (Europe, US)
  • Pharmaceuticals (Switzerland, US, France)

In these areas, neither Japan nor China have the quality of their Western counterparts

These form a huge chunk of Chinas Imports and Japans imports

The West is completely fucked up

Iowa Spaghetti Sauce

When we were young, we looked forward to visiting my Aunt Anita in Muscatine, Iowa. She always had this ready for us when we arrived. We fought over the mushrooms, so over time, she added up to three times the amount of mushrooms called for!

iowa spaghetti sauce
iowa spaghetti sauce

Ingredients

  • 3 or 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 3 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1 cup finely chopped celery
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1 large can mushrooms, drained

Instructions

  1. Brown garlic in 1 tablespoon salad oil; discard garlic. Add ground meat and salt, 1/2 cup water and cook.
  2. When the meat is half done, add the onions and cook until done.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients, except the mushrooms, and cook until thick, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
  4. Add mushrooms when thick.
  5. Serve over spaghetti!

Let ‘er rip baby! Fire away! Don’t hold back.

Don’t hold anything back. The hardest letters in prison were the ones I didn’t get.

Maybe you don’t want to write to me because you’re angry. I did something stupid, got my dumb ass tossed in the cooler, and you’re livid.

There-is-no-better-time-to-write!

I’m a sitting duck! I’ve got nothing better to do than read your letter. I’ll read it again and again! Write out your rant, become my personal troll, and flame on old-school from afar. You might have six months worth of rage pent up, waiting to be unleashed on the page. Get it off your chest. Toss open the hatches and let loose whatever foul demons you’ve been harboring below deck. Let me know the full depth and breadth of your wrath.

I would much rather deal with this now through letters than during our first face to face encounter years later. We can discuss everything, get to the heart of it, and maybe even move on.

Has a loved one of mine passed on? Are you afraid that telling me will break my heart? If I go years without getting a letter from that person, that will break my heart. I’ll wonder on a daily basis why mom doesn’t write anymore. Then on that day when I’m finally released, a day meant to be full of hope and new beginnings, you finally hit me with the bad news?

No thanks. Tell me now. Toll that bell and let me grieve here in this hell hole in my own time and way.

Some of the hardest time I did was when it was clear that my girlfriend was breaking up with me. She stopped writing, stopped answering phone calls, stopped caring.

I knew what was happening, but without her black and white confirmation, it was a glacial band-aid ripping — it lasted months. A simple letter could’ve put it to a swift and final conclusion. I wouldn’t have gotten out two years later wondering, “Where is everyone?”

What subjects should you avoid? None.

Don’t waste any time worrying about my psyche. I’m a big enough boy to find my way into prison. Your letters aren’t going to push me over the edge, but maybe they’ll push us closer together.

The is the reality right now. Gen-Z. People are not meant to be living alone. Thank you “WOKE” society.

Pope Tells Ukraine: Wave the White Flag . . .

Pope Francis was asked what he would tell Ukraine President Zelensky and his response was succinct: Surrender, you’re defeated.

Of course, His Holiness put it more gracefully.  His exact words were:

"I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people, and has the courage of the white flag and negotiates. The word negotiate is a courageous word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well. you have to have the courage to negotiate."

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, president of France, is beating the war drums for NATO entry into the Ukraine-Russia conflict.  He continues to push the suicidal notion of NATO countries sending troops in to fight alongside Ukraine, despite being repeatedly warned NATO entry into that conflict would result in a “war the no one will win.”  That is to say, a nuclear war.

Macron just today began mobilizing trainloads of French Armor, including tanks, heading east for Ukraine.  Video below shows one such train:

 

 

Moreover, French troops are preparing for a high-intensity conflict against an enemy who can match them with firepower — a big change for an army that’s spent the past decades fighting counterinsurgency campaigns in places like Mali and Afghanistan.

The hostilities in Ukraine, in their third year, have brought full-scale war back to the Continent, said Colonel Axel Denis, who runs the combat training center (CENTAC) at Mailly-le-camp in eastern France.

“The world has revealed its true nature: unstable, dangerous, and not everyone is a friend. We’re gearing up for a culture of alert, of being ready at short notice,” he told POLITICO during a visit to the camp. “CENTAC is the only place [in France] where you can see what war is like.”

Conditions for the troops training at CENTAC are as close as possible to an actual battlefield. The sound, heat and light of artillery fire is reproduced, while fake mines are scattered everywhere, and radio communications can be interrupted without notice.

History shows that the last time the French went into Russia, under Napoleon Bonaparte, they lost 650,000 soldiers. Their bones were left to disintegrate in Russia.

Those who do not learn from history, seem doomed to repeat it.

One time I was working on my car. I was lying on my back under the engine but I was quite safe as I had raised the car on proper axle stands before removing the front wheels. To be even safer I had chosen to work on the engine with the car parked in the street as it was flat and horizontal. Our driveway was at an angle.

Dad was standing at the front of the car leaning under the bonnet (hood) and directing operations. It was a good time working with my dad.

One of our neighbours arrived and made a complete bodge of parking. He hit my car very slowly with his bumper. No damage to either car but the impact was enough to rock my car forward. The forward motion was enough to cause my car to roll off the axle stands. As the front wheels had been removed the whole weight of the engine descended on my chest.

Dad anticipated what would happen. As soon as the car began to move he grabbed the front bumper with one hand and my legs with the other hand. My father is not a big man. He was 5′-10″ but fairly heavily built. He lifted the front of a Ford Cortina with one hand while pulling me out from underneath with the other.

As far as I was concerned he earned another gold star when he dropped the car and dragged our neighbour from his car and slugged him on the jaw. As he fell, out cold, I will always remember Dad shouting,

“You could have killed MY SON.”

That “my son” was golden.

Jesus!

What me worry?

This is for all youse guys that used to read Mad Magazine back in the 1970’s. It was part comic, part sarcasm, and part boyhood joy. Nothing even similar to it exists today. But, back in the day, we all would read it while drinking our sodas, and munching on our Babe Ruth candy bars.

The summers were of baseball, and fishing poles. It consisted of canoes, and mason jars. It was bicycle riding, and rail road track hikes, as well as exploring old homes and factories. It consisted of wall telephones in olive green kitchens, milk boxes on the porch, and hotdogs over an open fire in the evening.

We wore bell bottom pants, polyester billow sleeve shirts with choke collars, and big decorate belt buckles. A “nickel bag” of pot was enough to put on an open album cover, and use your driver’s license to separate the stems from the seeds. We had cigarette lighters built into the cars will back seat ash trays, and “cherry bomb” mufflers.

It was a calmer time; a simpler time. A time before the world went completely MAD.

This is my tribute.

2024 02 22 20 25
2024 02 22 20 25

MAD Magazine.

What me worry?

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Screenshot 2023 09 11 at 11.41.47 AM
Screenshot 2023 09 11 at 11.41.47 AM

What is the best thing that ever happened to you since you were born?

I turned 18 and had proof. I looked 14 but it didn’t matter. 2 brothers owned a deli in my neighborhood, they took a liking to me. I made $108:00 a week and drank $150:00 worth of Lowenbrau beer back when it was made in Germany. The refrigerator where they kept the beer was out of sorts. Every beer had ice in it. It was fucken heaven.

The deli brothers slept in a back room at the store. They closed at 11.

I used to bang on the window at 2 in the morning. They were handing me cases of Lowenbrau out the door at 2 am and 4 am. I ran up a very large bill.

I was incredibly popular with the drunks I hung out with, mostly because I was always buying. One night they were robbed as they closed up. One of them reached for a gun behind the counter, the robber blew both their heads off and split.

I came upon the carnage at 1 am. I knew something wasn’t right when the door was open. I went in and saw they were dead. I walked out with 4 cases of Lowenbrau and put them in a friend’s trunk.

We sat in the nature preserve drinking till the sun came up. It was a great summer. I owed close to one thousand dollars in credit. It would have taken me years to pay it off. They were barely scratching out a living in the deli. We were all better off

Beef and Mushroom Stew
with Caraway Dumplings

Browning meat in the oven reduces the amount of fat needed for cooking. Serve with julienne parsnips and carrots.

Beef and Mushroom Stew
Beef and Mushroom Stew

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

Stew

  • 1 1/2 pounds round or blade steak
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Bouquet Garni*
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (if necessary)
  • 1/2 pound small mushrooms
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 cups beef stock
  • 1/2 cup dry red wine
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste

Dumplings

  • 1 cup soft fresh bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup melted butter
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 egg white

Instructions

Stew

  1. Cut steak into 1 1/2 inch cubes. In a bag, combine flour, pepper and salt. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat with flour mixture. Shake off excess and place meat on wire rack in flameproof casserole. Bake in 350 degrees F oven for about 25 minutes or until browned. Meanwhile, prepare Bouquet Garni.
  2. Set meat aside on platter.
  3. Place casserole over medium heat. Only if necessary add all or part of the oil. Add mushrooms, cap side down, and cook until golden, transferring to platter as they brown.
  4. Add onion and garlic; cook until onion is transparent. Add stock, wine and tomato paste; bring to a simmer, stirring and scraping bottom of casserole with wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits.
  5. Return meat to pan; add Bouquet Garni. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Meanwhile prepare dumplings.

Dumplings

  1. In a bowl, toss bread crumbs and melted butter together with a fork. Combine flour, baking powder, caraway seeds and salt. Mix lightly into crumb mixture. Beat together egg and egg white; add to crumb mixture and mix lightly (mixture will be soft) shape into 8 balls of even size.
  2. Remove Bouquet Garni and discard. While stew is simmering, add dumplings, cover and cook, without removing lid, for 18 minutes.

Notes

* Tie together with kitchen twine 1 celery stalk with leaves, 3 or 4 sprigs parsley, 1 bay leaf and small sprig of thyme.

Insanity

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XUeIr9Y0r_c?feature=share

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

LOL

I worked for a company called Pyxis that made medication dispensing systems. The first CEO of the company was a VERY smart man named Ron Taylor who said “we will NEVER be FDA regulated” – the thinking being that if we are, the weight of the FDA’s requirements for paperwork and process are just *onerous*. Which they are. Anyway, we made sure the product never delivered drugs to patients – that the Nurse or Doc that used our system was ALWAYS the final vehicle of delivery – so we didn’t need to be FDA regulated.

Years later, Pyxis is bought by Cardinal Health who then buys bunch of other med-tech companies and they have this bright young VP who says “since half of our stuff is FDA regulated, let’s make ALL of our stuff FDA regulated!!!”. All of us old-timer engineers told him it was a bad idea, we explained that we’d never release a new software revision or product again… but he didn’t listen.

Once we invited the FDA to the building to check out out, that was that. The doors were very nearly shut, he was asked to leave and the company took a HUGE hit. The FDA didn’t really want to be there, but once you invite them in – they’re in. I was there for the whole transition – not my first time seeing that – and it was pathetic. In my remaining years at that company, not a single major product initiative or update made its way out the door.

So I think that qualifies.

Truth

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jSgUJ3yMzA0?feature=share

What has an employee said that immediately caused you to fire them?

I was an assistant manager of a service station (gas ration + garage) and responsible for most of the station’s hiring, training, and firing.

We had hired a kid named “Kris,” who had managed to pass the math part of the application and seemed relatively competent to be polite and make accurate change.

One day, a long time customer of the garage came walking around the bay side of the building and waved me down. He was more my boss’s customers met than mine, but we knew each other well enough.

“Hey, Mark. I wonder if I could talk to ya for moment?” He had a fairly concerned look on his face.

Being someone who was always willing to help a customer solve an issue, I didn’t hesitate.

“Of course! Hat can I do for you?”

“Well, I , uh, I wanted to let ya know that I was talking to the kid in the store and, and he told me that I should definitely not be bringing my car here to you guys.”

I was speechless for a good five seconds, but my eyes were probably meeting my ears.

“Mr. Smith, thank you so much for letting me know. You know how hard Mr. Boss and I work to make sure all of our customers are well taken care of and I appreciate you sharing this with me.”

I walked over to the store side and asked Kris if he had actually told our customer, Mr. Smith, who had been a gas and garage customer for over 15 years, that he shouldn’t trust our shop to take care of his car.

Kris was 19, heading on up to 13, so he thought he was a “man of the world” since he had a 30+ year old sugar momma and must’ve thought that made him something extra special.

“Yeah.”

“You’re fired. I’ll have Mr. Boss down here in less than an hour to write your last check. You can wait here or come back.”

He decided to come back after standing there for a moment without saying anything.

I called up my boss and told him what had happened. He told me to write up a letter explaining why he was being fired, and that he would be there as quickly as he could to get that check together.

Kris came by and I gave him his check in an envelope with the letter. I just handed it to him. He took it and walked out. I didn’t say a word, and neither did he.

Good riddance! I was so glad we had done such a great job by our customers that one of them had no problems letting me know about that kid.

6 Lies You’re Told About The World

https://youtu.be/WbuoPzb7PcU

Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?

It was Melbourne, Victoria, 1970.

Teaching conditions and pay were not good for government teachers. The premier, Sir Henry Bolte, had thrown down the gauntlet for teachers. There was to be a strike and teachers were to gather at the steps of Parliament House while a bill to make striking illegal for teachers was to be debated.

I decided to go by public transport so I would not get stuck in town or have to pay excessive parking fees (after all, I was a lowly paid teacher). I got to the steps of Parliament House before 9 a.m. There were police shoulder to shoulder forming an impenetrable line – and the only teacher there was me.

I moved up and down, waiting for others to arrive. By about 9:15, no=one else had arrived and a senior policeman stepped down and spoke to me. “Why are you so special that there are so many of us here?” I replied that I was the only one on time and everyone else was late. By 9:30, all except two police left.

By 10, there were a few hundred other teachers there, so the two police were totally overwhelmed. But we did behave!

My moment of fame, and the local papers didn’t get a photo of me facing off to over a hundred police!

Harry Potter but in Africa 🎭(generate AI)

https://youtu.be/6qDgVazHQAQ

What quality in others makes you want to slap them?

My two friends let’s call them John (Christian American) and Fatima (Arab Muslim) are going out.

They have a passionate love story. Tattooed each other’s names on their bodies. Fought a giant backlash from her Arab family against their marriage because he is from a different religion and culture. Made deep promises to have an eternity of love and marriage together.

One day Fatima gets a message from a woman saying that she is so sorry to be the carrier of bad news but John her fiance is cheating with that woman’s sister. The message contains so many screenshots and proofs that cannot be faked and he is indeed cheating.

The texts she showed me were vomit-enducing. He would tell the other woman exactly the same things he tells her. How he only lives for her. How he can think of nothing but touching her. There were nudes exchanged between them and words of adoration.

Fatima’s world collapsed. She came to me crying and asking about what to do. I told her forget about him. What a piece of trash. Dump him this moment. My blood was truly boiling knowing all the sacrifices she made and all the promises that were broken.

Next day, I woke up to pictures of John and Fatima together uploaded online. I asked her and she said “Oh Salma he told me he was just comforting her because she was having hard times. Besides all men play around sometimes and I love him”.

I can’t decide until this moment whether I want to slap him or her…

Harry Potter but it’s a Western

https://youtu.be/yfzVKcdK2Cw

12 Amazing truths of life you should know

  1. People will always associate with you when you’re succeeding. No one wants to associate with failure.
  2. Nobody’s busier than a person who doesn’t want you.
  3. Just because you love each other doesn’t always mean you’re meant to be together.
  4. It’s okay to fuck up and make mistakes and to be scared. You don’t have to know what you’re doing all of the time.
  5. There’s nothing better than showering and putting on an oversized t-shirt and then crawling into a bed with fresh sheets.
  6. Nothing turns us on more than someone who sincerely cares about you and who directly communicates their intentions.
  7. Sometimes we get into those moods where we don’t feel like reading, you don’t feel like being on the internet, you don’t feel like watching a tv show or you don’t feel like sleeping and existing in general.
  8. There’re no final version of ours . We never stop evolving, growing/ changing, nor should we.
  9. Sometimes you’re in a mood to destroy your relationship with everyone you know.
  10. Having a baby fall asleep on your chest is one of the purest and nicest things ever.
  11. Dancing around your room to music and not giving a single fuck is one of the ultimate forms of self care.
  12. Privacy is power. What people don’t know, they can’t ruin.

History

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IYhCtvacoCQ?feature=share

What happened in a courtroom that gave the judge a belly laugh you will never forget?

This old gentleman was in court because he got a felony ticket for duck hunting with a self made shotgun round that was one grain too heavy after being weighed by the game warden. Some random obscure law. He had been returned to court a number of times while the District Attorney was trying to figure the case out. A new judge who heard the case had the biggest smile as he heard the story from the District Attorney and the very humorous old man.

The judge started chuckling then roared laughing as the man explained that he was the president of the young duck hunters boy scout something or other for the past 40 years teaching young men to hunt ducks and the Game Warden was his ex-wife’s new victim as the warden had been dumb enough to date her, and so the Game Warden was being a bit of a tool.

The judge was laughing so hard as he asked the District Attorney if it was ok to just drop this silly outdated charge so no one had to listen to the outrageous story anymore.

I had to stop the guy on his way out to exchange numbers and went out hunting with him the next week. Dinner was good.

Fun photos

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7N0frs8T4Es?feature=share

Would you fire your gun if you found your female loved one outside, in the middle of the night desperately trying to escape the grasp of 3 large unidentified men?

911 Center: Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?

David: Shots fired at 123 Mockingbird Lane, in the city.

911 Center: Is anyone hurt, is anyone in danger?

David: No more danger. Yes, my wife. She is in need of EMS, just to check her out. She has some pretty serious contusions.

911 Center: What happened?

David: She’s just scraped up pretty bad, but is safe. Three men tried to drag her into their vehicle, as she got out of her car.

911 Center: Where are those three men, now?

David: Two are laying in the street and one is hanging outside of his vehicle. A white panel van.

911 Center: I have police and EMS on the way. Where are you now?

David: I am in my house with the doors and windows locked.

911 Center: Are the three men moving?

David: I have three males suffering from various gunshot wounds, none of them are moving or breathing, that I can tell.

911 Center: I’m glad that you and your wife are okay. Stay in the house. Stay safe. The police will clear the area and then come in contact with you. Are there any other people with guns, in the area.

David: No. It’s quiet. The neighbors are all in their homes. Cars are driving around the bodies.

___________________________________

Dispatch: Break. Units, 31, 202, 103, 104 and 115. Respond to 123 Mockingbird Lane. Victim reports shots fired, 3 male suspects appear to be shot and non-responsive. Victim and his wife are in their home at the same address, and are sheltering in place. Witnesses report no other individuals in the area.

Unit 31: 31 in route. 202, put 103 at the north end of the block, 115 will position at the south end. 104, 202 and myself will clear the area.

Dispatch: Unit 31, EMS from Smiths, and Centerville paramedics are ready to roll in, once the area is clear.

Dispatch: Break, all units, step down from active shooter protocol, be on standby until 31 clears.

__________________________________
Detective Branch: Sir, at what point did you determine your wife was being attacked.

David: I heard her screaming from the street. I recognized her scream as unusual, because she only screamed like that once before.

Branch: When was that?

David: When she was approached by a stray pitbull and the baby was in the yard.

Branch: Then what did you do?

David: I grabbed my AR and ran to the front of the house.

Branch: What did you see?

David: A big guy dragging my wife by her hair, while she was kicking and screaming. The skinny guy was trying to grab her feet, but she was kicking the crap out of him.

Branch: Then what?

David: I yelled, “I have a gun! Let her go!”

Branch: What did the big guy do?

David: He tried to lift her up to shield himself with her body. The skinny guy started to reach into his waistband. I saw a gun silhouette against his white t-shirt. He wasn’t facing me, so I knew he was going to point his gun at my wife. I shot him first.

Branch: Is that why he was shot in the back?

David: Yes.

Branch: Then what?

David: I shot the skinny guy twice before he fell. One got him in the right shoulder, and the second one hit him in the middle of his back. He didn’t get up, which seemed to piss the big guy off, so while he was fighting with my wife, I ordered him to let her go!

Branch: What did he do when you told him to let your wife go?

David: He seemed to not be too sure what to do, but then I heard two gun shots come from the van. A bullet impacted on the side of the house, about 10 feet from where I was standing. The muzzle flashes were quite bright, coming from the van.

Branch: Then what?

David: So I have this low light scope, and the guy in the van was opening his door and he had a large caliber hand-gun, looked like a 45 or 44 magnum. I wasn’t about to let him out of the van with that gun, so close to my wife, so I put the crosshairs of my scope, on the driver’s head, and shot him. I saw a puff of red in his headlight beam and he didn’t move.

Branch: Why is the big guy, dead?

David: Because he looked over his shoulder and didn’t see the driver any more. He called what I am assuming is his name, and “Nick” didn’t answer. He then put his arm around my wife’s neck and he looked like he was going to choke her out or break her neck. He was big enough to do that… I didn’t have a choice.

Branch: What happened then?

David: I yelled to my wife to “run to your left!”. She used her feet and what strength she had left, to run to her left. The big guy turned to the left with her, which exposed his right side profile. I shot him in the right side of his rib cage. He went down pretty quickly.

Branch: Weren’t you afraid to hit your wife?

David: I prayed to God that I wouldn’t. But I knew that if I accidently hit her, she would forgive me. But I couldn’t forgive myself, if I didn’t hit the men who were attacking her.

Branch: Do you have anything else to add in your statement?

David: No sir.

__________________________________

31: Dispatch, this is thirty-one. Paramedic says all three subjects are DOA. Need a coroner out here, with a bio-cleanup crew. We are taping off the area and posting a patrol at the house for the night. Put 103 on it.

Dispatch: Chief wants to know if we are pulling in the vic for the DA?

31: His call. But I am not seeing it.

THE END

Footnote: I originally posted this answer back in October of last year. However, I deleted my account and all my answers after my life was threatened. (Not over this post, but another one.) So, now that that problem is solved. I am going to re-enter Quora. Hopefully, with a few more controls and a nice security system.

Modern Women Get SALTY When Men Start Ignoring Them

https://youtu.be/Pm72TzJFmsc

What is the best comeback you used on someone?

I was having a skiing class in St. Anton, Austria back in 90’s and the class took a lunch break. Eric the ski instructor was making conversation and asked how we had all come down to Austria. I told I had driven and he asked if I had found it a problem driving on the RHS in my right hand drive car (Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9 went like hell). I said no and I drove a lot abroad and he then asked which other countries drove on the left. I think I mentioned Japan, Australia and New Zealand and then a Dutch chap said South Africa. There was a moment of silence before Eric said “The British invented concentration camps”. I should have bitten my tongue but came back with “Maybe but we didn’t fit them out with Gas Chambers and Ovens” . “No just machine guns” replied Eric. The Dutch chap then said that many Dutch people wouldn’t ski in Austria as Kurt Waldheim (former secretary general of the United Nations and former member of the SS) was President of Austria. He had been voted in despite knowledge of his war efforts. They had better ski in Holland then said Eric. At which point someone suggested it might be a good idea if we changed the subject and normality resumed. As we get up from the table Eric says “Where would you like to ski this afternoon?” I couldn’t resist it so I said “How about Poland? ” At least everyone laughed, including Eric.

Trust no one

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jm-d8WMWQvA?feature=share

Who was the least qualified person to ever try to give you life advice?

Last week I had the pleasure of babysitting my friend’s 4-year-old daughter for the day.

We had a fun day: going to the library, picnicking in the park, playing on the playground and ending the day with a little bit of ice cream! (I’m allowed to spoil her).

Once we had been home for a few minutes I noticed I was getting a migraine and asked her to play quietly because my head hurt.

I then proceeded to peruse my phone as I waited for the migraine to subside.

“No, no, no,” the little girl said to me.

I glanced up and gave her a curious look.

“If your head hurts, you don’t look at the screens. You close the eyes like this and don’t do the phone or the computer,” she told me.

I obeyed and noticed that my migraine dissipated quicker than usual.


That 4-year-old was incredibly unqualified (what with her still being a toddler and all), but I’ll be darned if she didn’t have some great life advice.

She Tried To Date Women As a Man And Quickly Learned Why Men Are Opting Out of Dating | Part 2 Norah

Norah.

https://youtu.be/ajbeCpLbLhw

What is the most romantic thing someone said or did to you?

A guy asked me to be his girlfriend the night before he left to France for a 3-month internship but I rejected him because I wasn’t sure. We remained close friends after that. On the night of my birthday (he was still in France), we video-called and he sent me a link to a website. It turned out that he made a video of each of our friends saying happy birthday to me, along with my favourite songs playing on the background. At the end of the video, he said happy birthday to me with Rascal Flatts’ song My Wish.

“And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to
I hope you know somebody loves you
And wants the same things too
Yeah, this is my wish”

He is now my boyfriend of 2 years.

AI experts make predictions for 2040. I was a little surprised

https://youtu.be/g7TghURVC6Y

Have you ever sabotaged food because someone was stealing it?

My mother did. I was the youngest of six kids. We brown bagged lunches every day. We. included my father. My mom made one heck of a good lunch from leftover from the night before. She always baked and had a slice of cake or some sweet included in our lunch.

My dad was senior test director at our local Army base and was pretty high up in government service workers (GS 15 rank almost equal to a General but was a civilian). He worked with high ranking Army people.

His brown bag lunch started to go missing several times a week. My father was money tight (tight as a crabs ass and the crab is waterproof) so him having to spend money for lunch was not going over very well.

My Mother made cupcakes for dessert one day but iced two of them with, you guessed it right, ExLax. Not just your normal dose for constipation but enough for an almost immediate explosion.

It only took a few hours for my father to find out who was stealing his lunch. That Major was transferred very quickly after the incident.

Hungry Potter and the Chamber of Snacks – (Harry Potter AI)

https://youtu.be/20ph8XoP-YM

 

 

What one thing did you do that left your mother sobbing?

Not my mom but my dad. I was 12 going into 8th grade, dad and I were doing my back to school shopping at our thrift stores. I had my budget, my list, I knew exactly what to spend. When we got to the counter and after she totaled everything, she could have said this before, but the cashier said the store was under new ownership and there was a 10% purchase fee. WTH!!! I’ve never heard of that except at grocery stores (that cost plus thing). Anyway I’m over budget so I have to take off some things, the shoes I could live without, the belt I really liked, and 2 shirts. Not a lot and I could recycle a few more from last year (my used last year clothes are really showing their age so they get put in work clothes or grease rags) but we total out and leave. My dad who had been so excited early seemed really quiet. After loading this in our truck we head towards home. In my reserve pocket I pull out my ice-cream fund. Every year before or since (even this year when dad took me college clothes shopping) I keep enough for ice-cream. My dad stops at the shop and says he’s not really in the mood for ice-cream. Wait a minute this is our thing always. My dad sets in on this I should have better, he should have made more money, his little girl shouldn’t have to buy 2nd hand clothes for school. He has completely failed me as a father. Maybe I would have been better off with his brother’s family, they have money. I was shocked, appalled, I have never felt that way. I slapped him, harder than I meant to but I did. And I pulled out, as he says, my grandma voice. Listen here mister. You have never once come close to failing me not even for a moment. The love and devotion you have given me is worth more than any amount of money in the world. I don’t need better or expensive stuff. I need you holding me at night when I’m scared, telling me you believe in me when no one else does. Letting me know that beans and bread for dinner is perfect again this week. I don’t want more money or expensive, flashy stuff, I want us. I want our goofy little traditions, our silly little interactions, our weird fun times. You are the best father in the whole world because you value love over anything else. Now this is our ice-cream tradition and if you don’t want to do it then let’s just leave. We both cried alot in our truck that day, and it was the best ice-cream treat we’ve had. My dad has never brought up money again and I haven’t slapped him…well that hard again. I love you always daddy

Harry Potter but in Spain

https://youtu.be/hBht5l3vUAE

Has Donald Trump ever been caught cheating at golf?

Trump is a great golfer. The best golfer to ever occupy the White house. It’s not even close. He is very good. Yet, as in most things Trump, he is not as outstanding as he claims to be. He lies and cheats.

image 260
image 260

Trump claims to have a USGA handicap index of 2.8. This is simply not true. Is Donald Trump lying about having a three handicap?

Yes, and does he cheat too? Yes, he cheats:

Former Sports Illustrated managing editor Mark Mulvoy told the Washington Post

that: “once playing with Trump in the 1990s he realized that Trump had placed a ball just feet from the pin that he had never hit. Mulvoy called Trump out on cheating and Trump rationalized:

“Ahh, the guys I play with cheat all the time,” Mulvoy said Trump told him. “I have to cheat to keep up with them.”

Someone I know golfed with Trump at a charity event. Apparently Trump was cheating and was called out.

When asked to stop cheating, Trump responded: “I cheat on my taxes, I cheat on my wives, and I cheat at Golf. Get used to it.”

Trump then smiled broadly, and kept cheating. He didn’t win the tournament. But he didn’t stop cheating.

A recent book has come out detailing the main ways Donald Trump cheats at golf even when playing against Tiger Woods

.

image 259
image 259

1. The Invisible Dunk

“I’ve played with him a lot,” says a frequent guest in Trump’s foursomes. “This one time, I was in the fairway and he was right of the green but a little bit down the hill. He didn’t think anybody was watching, but I was. I saw him make a chipping motion from the side of the hill but no ball came up. Then he walked up the hill, stuck his hand in the hole and pulled a ball out. It must’ve been a ball he had in his hand the whole time. Then he looked up and yelled, ‘I chipped in!’”

2. The Quick Rake

This is a sneaky little move in which you hit your approach putt and then quickly walk up and rake up what’s left of it, no matter the length, before your opponents can stop you or think to holler, “Hey, wait a minute!” Trump has mastered this move. He does it sometimes before the ball has even stopped rolling. MSNBC cameras caught him doing it once to a ball that had sped five feet past the hole and was gaining speed. By the time anybody can object, the ball is already in his pocket.

3. The Ball Switch

“Whenever I’ve caddied in Trump’s group,” says Greg Puga, an elite Los Angeles amateur and caddy, who has Trump in his group plenty, “he always gets his own cart. He makes sure to hit first off every tee box and then jumps in the cart, so he’s halfway down the fairway before the other three are done driving. That way he can get up there quick and mess with his ball.

Csipetka (Pinched Noodles – Hungary)

Csipetka
Csipetka

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Instructions

  1. Mix flour and salt; add egg. Stir to make a stiff dough, sprinkling in a few drops of cold water if necessary. Knead until smooth.
  2. Let dough rest for at least 30 minutes.
  3. Flatten dough a bit at a time between floured palms (or roll 1/8 inch thick on a floured board) and pinch off pieces slightly smaller than a dime. Drop them into rapidly boiling salted water; cook until tender, about 15 minutes.
  4. Drain and rinse csipetke; stir them directly into stew or soup, if ready. Otherwise, turn them into a bowl, coat with oil, and set aside in a warm place until ready to use.

Notes

You can drop csipetke into broth or soup for extra flavor and texture, or you can serve them alongside a main course with sauce or gravy, or you can use them in place of dumplings or noodles in almost any other recipe.

Good to know

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Sm8BYyNVoZY?feature=share

 

What is the most bizarre evidence ever permitted in court?

This may have been common at the time but it will still sound pretty bizarre to American ears in 2020.

In May 1894, the federal government put four men on trial for smuggling opium into San Francisco aboard the yacht Emerald. Now, shipping, selling, and smoking opium was totally legal in America that year; there were at least twenty shops selling opium in Chinatown – and advertising in the local papers and the city directory (under “Opium Dealers”). However, everybody had to pay the $10 per pound import duty in order to do so, and as always, there were people who didn’t want to cut the government in on the profits. One of them was Ewen W. McLean, who’d been smuggling opium for almost a decade. But he and his captain, John Voss, had avoided arrest and were safely out of reach up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Louis Greenwald, George Thomas, George Wichman, and Emerald’s mate, Henry Mensing weren’t so lucky. After a couple of days of testimony, in which two members of what the newspapers called “the Emerald Ring,” flipped and gave up the four and the whole scheme, the prosecutors had a solid case and just needed to tie up a couple of legal bows.

One of these was demonstrating that the duty hadn’t been paid. Not too difficult, because the half-pound tins in which the opium was smuggled were supposed to bear a Customs stamp and none of the ones seized did. The second issue was a little trickier. The government needed to show that the opium was in fact opium and that it had come from abroad (thereby requiring payment of the duty).

There were no crime labs back then, no CSI or Quantico, so the government had a conundrum. They solved it by bringing in an opium expert, a Chinatown resident and long-time opium consumer named Mun Jin Moy, who laid out all the gear he needed to smoke some opium. At the urging of the United States Attorney, Mun broke open six cans from the seizure, withdrew some opium from each, and as the newspaper reported it, “cooked his dope over the little spirit lamp, and then, placing it on the bowl of the pipe, sucked away with apparently great enjoyment as his little eyes blinked and glistened through the wreaths of smoke.”

Undoubtedly fairly wasted at this point, but apparently still able to talk, Moy considered carefully. “’Him velly good,’” he said, and ruled that the opium had come from Victoria, being a higher quality than that from Panama.”

With that testimony “in the can,” Mun left the stand, the only person I know of who was actually paid by the government to get high in a federal courtroom. The jury evidently liked what they heard, because they convicted three of the four defendants, who got five years in San Quentin for what were essentially tax violations.

Up in Victoria, McLean ran dope to Hawaii for a few more years, then left that business and went legit, founding the Vancouver Stock Exchange and making it into “Who’s Who in Canada,” so crime evidently does pay sometimes. John Voss attempted to sail around the world in a canoe and didn’t quite make it, but he wrote a book about it (still in print) and his canoe is in the Maritime Museum of British Columbia.

But paying a drug addict to come to federal court and smoke a bunch of dope (from the government’s evidence) and testify about it? That’s pretty damn bizarre.

 

13 Truths that will hurt like hell but make you a better person

  1. Your best memories are not always real. When someone makes us feel good, we tend to color all memories of them positively and they might not be as good as you remember. Kind of like how as kids we thought our parents were super heros. This makes you a better person cause you can leave in the present and not compare your present relationships to the past.
  2. maybe you’re the problem. When in difficult relationships it’s important to consider if and how you’re the problem. Not to say that bad people don’t exist but also if you’re with them, why then are you with them? You do have a problem too
  3. Your family doesn’t love you unconditionally. Try being a pain and you’ll see this for sure. Actually the only people who love you unconditionally are people who don’t love themselves. Even your child will stop loving you and love another mother if you stop mothering them
  4. Not everyone will get to have a peaceful beautiful death. Many will die in painful ways. Enjoy a beautiful peaceful life while you can.
  5. You will likely be completely forgotten about 20–80 years after you die. Your legacy too so stop focusing on building a legacy and instead focus on giving your family a beautiful love cause that’s mostly what they’ll miss before you get forgotten. The people who knew you might never forget you but soon they’ll die too and you’ll seize to exist. Don’t believe me? Just think about it… what’s the name of your grandfather’s grandfather?
  6. Your children don’t care how successful you are. They just want and need your positive attention. If you sacrifice this for work or building a legacy, they’ll very quickly and happily squander your legacy soon as you’re gone
  7. You don’t know what you don’t know. Next time someone speaks allow yourself to listen and discover what you didn’t know
  8. very few people are thinking about you right now. Most of them are thinking about themselves and what you think of them but not really thinking about you
  9. In 10 years you’ll most likely realize you did some things wrong even the rbi gas you’re convinced that you’re doing right. As you acquire more info, you’ll realize how limited your thinking was. Don’t believe me? Just imagine how madly I love you were in that first love. You probably thought that will never change. You now realize you were wrong
  10. many people choose you because they see the value in keeping you around. As soon as you lose that value you will lose those people too

The Most Insane Week of AI News So Far This Year!

https://youtu.be/ne7_PDthIYA

How things really work

When I worked in Mebine, North Carolina (during our “van days”, “out in the wilderness”) I witnessed, first hand, all sorts of corruption that a powerful factory, and rich boss can get away with.

This was a factory that made “granola bars”. I worked in maintenance, and then as a line machine operator.

  • Using company funds he bought a “company car”. You know, to go on business trips. Except that it was an expensive custom Corvette sports car. LOL.
  • There was a 22 year old girl who was on the payroll as his open sex partner. She was one of those girls… you know the kind… attractive, blonde, voluptuous… attracted boys at 14 and was addicted to sex. She befriended me, and openly talked about her escapades with “the boss”. She would come in for a few hours each day to “help him in the office” and then leave.
  • They factory was running out of money and started to have financial problems. So we were ordered to take the huge (four story tall) storage tank and weld a fake partition at top. Then we gathered some of the molasses that it stored. We then burnt the molasses intentionally. Put it up at the top. The Boss then called the supplier and complained. They vendor came. Took a sample from the top, determined that it was burnt… and refunded the cost of the truck load to our boss.
  • The factory workers took up a collection to help us (me and the wife). The money was given to a girl to buy food for us, and we really appreciated the two bags of groceries… until we saw that all the items had “buy one get two free” stickers on everything. But the bags only contained one item. Someone clearly took one half of the food for themselves.
  • The factory made granola bars, with was nothing more than mixing peanut butter, nuts, honey, raisins, etc in a huge vat, forming them into ribbons, cutting the ribbons into pieces, and then wrapping them in foil. The thing was that almost all the ingredients were FREE from the United States government. Somehow the factory boss cut a deal where he got free “government food” that was intended for the poor, and made granola bars at a profit.
  • That being said, our “Christmas bonus” consisted of a USDA block of cheese. Promptly labeled “not for resale”.

As I get older, I see how everything in the United States was twisted, reformed, readjusted, and made so that only certain groups prospered, while others got poorer and poorer. How long can this continue?

It seems to me that the ONLY thing keeping Americans “on the plantation” are loads of drugs, social media pacification, and ignorance of the rest of the world.

If you are still trapped inside… GET OUT NOW.

Today…

As a police officer, what’s the most devastating case of child neglect you have ever seen?

The mother of an 11-year-old decided her daughter needed a whipping (She did). This is what happened that did NOT constitute a “whipping”.

Mom started out with an electrical cord pulled off a lamp. After numerous strikes, the cord got lost in the struggle. While holding the girl, mom punched her with her fists several times. Mom grabbed a wire coat hanger, straightened it and started whipping again. The end of the wire was wrapping around the girl’s body, puncturing her arms, legs, hips, sides. Then the coat hanger got pulled away in the struggle.

Mom grabbed a woman’s belt, about 1/4 inch wide and started in with it, cutting into the girl’s skin. After numerous strikes, that also got lost. The beating had moved through four rooms, into the baby’s room. Mom snatched a side slat out of the baby bed (about 1″ by 1″ by about three feet, and started using it. Somehow, the girl escaped the house, ran down the street, and was taken into a house by a neighbor who called the police. She was admitted to the hospital with cuts and bruises from her ankles to her head. She had a hematoma about the size of a baseball on her forehead that swelled her eye closed. She looked like she had gone 9 rounds with Mike Tyson.

Mom was convicted on Felony Child Abuse and served 5 years.

 

Why did the Roman Empire stop expanding?

My professor, put the answer this way, the Romans ran out of people to rob. This was Rome at its maximum extent:

image 239
image 239

This takes a massive army to maintain and that requires money. I will say something unpopular, after conquest, a standing army is a financial drain. Soldiers produced nothing but cost you a great deal and you must feed them locally.

Thus the conquests must:

  • Be worth the value in permanent productivity and taxation
  • Better hope you have a weak neighbor with low organization and social cohesion. Otherwise, you will have a lengthy oozing wound that exhausts your army and financially wrecks you with continuous war

So, to the South, Romans would be expanding into the Sahara; what was the point of that?

Expand into Northern Britain was done several times; those were financially unsustainable. North of the wall, population density was too low to sustain legions.

Along the Rhine, the Romans had expanded into Germany, on many occasions. It was a place of forests and swamps and small villages. Along the coast was one giant coastal wetland. No profit in that place, the Romans tried for years but it was just not profitable. This permanent fort was found in Thuringia, Eastern Germany:

image 238
image 238

Why was it abandoned? Finances.

Further along, was the Danube frontier. After Dacia’s gold was exhausted, it was not worth keeping it. Indeed, that frontier was open to the horse people and Germans. There was nothing to gain there. So, the Romans retreated to the Danube and stayed there.

To the east, was Persia or Parthia or whatever you want to call them. Those boys were as civilized, organized and militaristic as the Romans. From Crassus onwards, there was war, back and forth, back and forth, expansions, contractions, expansions, contractions…that war continued into the Byzantine era. Some claim, it NEVER ended.

So, where am I going with this? At some point, empires are about money and profit. If a place is not making money, it does not make sense to keep it. The game has not changed. Look at it from the perspective of Tony Soprano:

I want to know why there’s zero growth in this family’s receipts. Where’s the money?! You’re supposed to be earners. That’s why you’ve got the top-tiered positions. So I want each one of you to go out to your people on the street, crack some heads, making some earnings.

Conquest for conquest sake was not the point. Making profit was the point. Rome had run out of profitable places to conquer in their vicinity.

Have you witnessed anything noticeable happen immediately after someone dies?

One day, a year or so after my teenage daughter “broke up” with a boy whom we had gotten to know, (his mom had been diagnosed with cancer months before) I had a very strong feeling to contact him on Facebook and just ask how he had been doing.

He answered me immediately and said, my mom is dying. I told him that I knew she was sick, and that’s why I was checking on him. He said no… right now he is in the hospice room with her and her breathing has changed and he thought she was gone.

I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he didn’t want to leave her. I told him it would be OK if he sat with her as long as he wanted, and when he was done he should go get the hospice staff and they would take care of her from there .

This was being done via Facebook messenger, and we sat quietly for about 5 to 10 minutes, when he said her hand was cold and he was ready to go. I told him let me know if there was anything I could do for him, and the next time I heard from him it was regarding the funeral.

On the day of the funeral my daughter and I were preparing to go and I stopped on the way to look for a card or something I could write on to share our condolences.

While standing in the card section I became frustrated I didn’t like anything that I saw, I decided a card didn’t feel right and I just wouldn’t do it… but on the way out I passed the candy section and felt a strong sense that I should buy some Skittles.

When arriving at the funeral and passing through the line with this young man and his brothers I gave him the skittles and said, “dude I brought you a rainbow”

The funeral service was lovely, his mother knew she was dying and planned most of it herself right down to the music. As the services ended they asked us all to enjoy her favorite song as we proceed out of the church.

My heart and my spirits were lifted immediately when the song started, it was “somewhere over the rainbow”

As I pass the boys again on the way out we all hugged and I made sure they knew that that message was from their mother, I didn’t even know her, but that message was from her!

At her exact moment of passing she somehow got into my psyche so I contacted her boy and virtually held his hand as she left. Then she made sure I brought him a message of hope, directly from her.

 

Apart from the Philippines, how many enemies China have over the South China Sea Disputes?

image 246
image 246

Except for the corrupt Bongbong Marcos government, no other country in Southeast Asia wants to be an enemy of China.

Except for the Philippines, no country in Southeast Asia is willing to become “Asian version Ukraine” used as cannon fodder by the United States.

In Russo-Ukrainian war the Americans politicians give ammunition, the rich ukrainian give the food and the poor ukrainian give their children… When the war is over the Americans politicians get back the leftover ammunition, the rich ukrainian grow more food and the poor ukrainian search for the graves of their children.

Using the lives of their own citizens as expendable goods to satisfy the ambition of American politicians to weaken China? — Southeast Asian people are not that stupid.

image 247
image 247

Even the Filipino people themselves are opposed to Bongbong Marcos colluding with the United States to provoke China on the South China Sea issue.

Do you really think they don’t know the Yanks’ sinister intentions of sowing discord and inciting discord?

Recently, there was even news that the former president of the Philippines protested against Bongbong Marcos for provoking China and promoting the independence of Philippine Mindanao.

image 248
image 248

Quora has netizens from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei and other countries along the South China Sea. You could do a broad social survey of them and quickly come to the same conclusion I did.

What is the smartest comment that you have heard a child make?

When my grandson Henry was about four we were very close, and he loved to hear me singing and playing guitar so when he was staying with us he’d ask me to sing for him. We’d sit in the lounge or conservatory and he’d be so silent and focussed – the best audience anyone could wish for!

One time I sang him the David Olney song “Women “Cross the River”

The last verse is :

The women ‘cross the river, they’re as gentle as the dew upon the ground

I love to hear them laughing when it rains and makes that perfect sound

Now a soldier with a gun, and a battle to be won

He might shoot you with a bullet – you’d never even know the reason why

But the women ‘cross the river, they could kill you with their eyes.

I finished with a graceful, slow arpeggio key chord, and he was staring at me, totally “in the song”.

Then, Henry sighed and said “what IS a perfect sound?” Four years old ! I was speechless.

Harry Potter but in America

I watched this, and laughed my ass off!

https://youtu.be/RfhcotADIxM

Has someone you don’t know ever gifted you with an extreme act of kindness?

One summer my kids and I were leaving the library and getting into our vehicle when a man got out of his truck that was parked beside us and asked if the kids would like a train set.
I figured he had some little under the xmas tree set or something but he lifted a tarp in the back of his truck and showed us one one those huge sets!


He explained that he was on his way to leave it at a thrift shop but saw us and wondered if we would like it. It would save him the trip he said.


We said yes and he put it into the back of our truck.


It must have been worth a lot. I am sure he could have sold it to a collector instead. It took up most of the basement floor when we set it up. It was remote controlled and had little buildings and trees too. Lots of different sounds as well. It was older but in perfect condition.


We could never have afforded to buy anything like it.


I thanked him over and over and asked if there was anything we could do in return and he assured me no there wasn’t. Just knowing the kids would be enjoying it was enough. His kids loved it but his grandchildren were not interested in it.


My kids played with it for years. So did my husband and I.


We ended up donating it to a youth center a few years ago.


We normally did not drive a truck but that day due to temporarily being without a vehicle we had borrowed our in-laws truck otherwise we would have had no way to get it home.


What luck!

Remember these 09 things in your professional life

  1. Stay away from people who do back-bitching. If they can bad mouth someone in front of you, then how can you be sure they won’t do the same to you?
  2. Never speak your heart out at work. Learn how to be diplomatic. That’s what everyone else is doing around you.
  3. Office politics is for skill less people at work. Never involve yourself in it.
  4. Never bargain your salary by showing other job offer letters to your current employer. Even if they increase your salary, you’ll be on their radar forever.
  5. Efficiency is not equivalent to time. Stop staying late at work to prove yourself better.
  6. No matter how close you are with your colleagues, never discuss personal matters at work.
  7. You shouldn’t ask anyone’s salary, increment or anything personal.
  8. Office romance is out of equation. It will make you miserable at work. Keep a thick line between work and personal life.
  9. Work equally hard on your soft skills as they matter more than you think.

Czech Goulash

2024 02 21 06 25
2024 02 21 06 25

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup shortening
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 1/2 pounds pork or beef, cubed
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1/4 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Instructions

  1. In a cast iron Dutch oven, sauté onion in shortening. Add garlic; sauté until translucent.
  2. Add meat, onion, paprika, caraway seeds, salt and pepper. Brown well.
  3. Add 1/2 cup of the water; simmer, covered, until meat is tender, about 1 hour.
  4. Sprinkle flour over drippings in the pan; stir until brown.
  5. Add remaining water; simmer for 10 to 20 minutes.

Harry Potter but in America 2

Still… it’s so nigga.

https://youtu.be/hAXuN5wIkvA

What is the rudest thing someone has ever done when you were in their car?

My girlfriend and I went to the movies and she drove me home in her car. The route we took was very poorly lit and the lights on her dash were very dim, so it was very dark inside the car.

Along the way, I took out a packet of Dentyne gum (you know the kind whose pieces came in little blocks each with a small paper wrapping?)

I asked her if she’d like a piece and she said yes, so I tore the side of the package wrapping so she could grasp a piece without my having touched it. Then I got myself a piece and put the package back in my handbag.

About six days later, she picked me up to go for our weekend walk on the beach and as I got into the car she pointed down to the passenger floor and said huffily:

Before we leave, I’d appreciate it if you’d pick up the litter you left behind in my car last time and remember in future that my car is not your trashcan!

I looked down and saw that a piece of the paper gum wrapper on the floor. Apparently, in the dark, I’d thought I was putting the wrapper in my handbag along with the package, but the wrapper had landed on the floor instead.

I bent over and picked it up and said “I’m sorry. It was dark and I didn’t see that I’d dropped it on the floor.”

I should think so! she said in a repressive tone.

I got out of the car and went back into my apartment building and we never spoke again. I was angry and kind of disgusted that she let the offending piece of paper sit on the floor for six days just so she could scold me about it. I figured if it was so awful having this nasty piece of ‘trash’ in her car, why did she endure this horror for six whole days?

Stupidest thing ever to end a friendship.

 

Do you think that in life it is better not to look backwards?

On Christmas Eve, somewhere in the mid-’80s, my mom dropped us off at her sister’s house. When my brother and I woke up on Christmas Day, we couldn’t believe our eyes.

Santa Claus had delivered the most epically packaged gifts I had ever gazed upon.

There were twirling ribbons and fluffy bows and shiny paper. It was just so beautiful. I was jealous and envious of my cousins.

They were always on the nice list.

Thirty years later, on December 26th of last year, I went to Kmart and Walmart. I went with fifty dollars and a plan.

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image 243

I bought all the wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons that I could afford. I got 90–95 percent off of all that stuff.

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image 242

I saved it for a whole year.

I’ve done this now every year for three years.

For Christmas, we can’t afford to buy the kids all new things. We buy a lot of second-hand clothing and school supplies for them.

But when it’s time to wrap those gifts, I spend night after night tirelessly tying ribbons and making bows.

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image 241

I am in charge of ALL the wrapping. My girlfriend hates doing it, but I love it. It’s important to me and I do it for really inexpensive.

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image 240

The kids have so much fun tearing all this stuff to pieces on Christmas morning and Jess and I have so much fun watching them do it.

This kind of stuff wouldn’t be important to me today if I didn’t look back.

I think looking back on our lives is very important, even if you’re looking back at a bad memory.

The good and the bad shape who we are in this moment.

Today I’m a gift wrapping machine and that’s a good thing.

That good thing was born out of a jealous and envious brat.

I choose who I am.

10 Things not to do in your life when you feel you are matured now

  1. Don’t try to please everyone, because it is impossible to please everyone.
  2. Don’t expect the world to change according to your wishes because the world is what it is. It was always like that.
  3. Don’t try to be like anyone else because you are unique and you must learn to respect yourself.
  4. Don’t try to reform other people, because there is no need to reform anyone. People are just different from each other.
  5. Don’t make money by doing something you don’t like because loving your work is more valuable than money.
  6. Don’t be unfaithful to your spouse, because you can never regain their trust.
  7. Don’t abandon your friends when you become rich and famous because friends are priceless.
  8. Don’t waste your time networking with people for business purpose because you lose respect in your eyes when you build relationship for profit.
  9. Don’t take relationships for granted because once you lose it, you can’t repair the relationship ever.
  10. Don’t wait for the problem to happen to you before you take action because you can do a lot to prevent the problem happening in your life.

Breaking Bad but in Italy

https://youtu.be/koomzSRRNxA

What is your best parking spot revenge?

Not really a parking spot but revenge over a truck driver nonetheless… a truck driver was delivering a scissorlift and had to take it downstairs. Instead of driving the truck downstairs (parking is in the basement, and truck lifts bring the vehicles up and down), he insisted on his gears needed cooling down. And his truck had ‘broken down’ (think changing gears without the clutch). Naive as I was I believed him and let him brake down in the middle of the road for 30 minutes to make his delivery. As a result he held up half a dozen deliveries who couldnt get in or out until the truck moved. Miraculously his truck worked fine once the delivery was done.

Unfortunately I’m best friends with a guy who works for the tac, who does truck roadworthy inspections and has the power to take trucks off the road… a quiet word to him meant the trucking company had all of its trucks inspected, and given roadworthies as required. As for his own truck? As it’s already unroadworthy it was towed to the pound, and there it stays until a new transmission is replaced…

Did you ever get an order from someone who had absolutely no authority over you? What was it and what did you do?

Yeah. I used to work with a miserable old (middle-age actually) hag who thought she was in charge in our dept. One day, I saw and heard our actual supervisor give her an order to do a particular job. As soon as the boss left, the “hag” brought it to me demanding I get it done ASAP, drop what I was doing etc. Well, I just let it sit there on my table. The boss came back, asked about the project and I hears the wannabe boss say “I gave it to him, don’t know what his problem is, he hasn’t touched it” The real boss looked at her an said, “ I told YOU to do it, NOT pass it on Go to my office and wait for me” She was fired……. so, in a way I got rid of a pain in everyone’s ass and literally did nothing to do it.

That’s how it works…

She took her ex to court to get full custody of a child that she abandoned with him, plus wanted alimony on top of it. It didn’t work out as she thought.

  • Dude, seeing the quiet satisfaction on Dad’s face brings me so much joy. He went into court that day just praying this judge would actually be responsible and not turn his life upsidedown. That’s beautiful.
  • It’s wonderful to see a father actually win in a system that never seems to help the father at all.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cA3Ezy2LuvQ?feature=share

What was the kindest thing someone did for you when you were young?

I was ten years old and had walked to the shopping mall to buy a loaf of bread for my mom. I had 42c in my pocket because that what a loaf of bread cost back then. When I got the mall I forgot why I was there and so I just started walking around randomly. I walked into a candy store that was advertizing a two for a penny sale.
“gee I wish I had money,” I said to myself.
“hey there are some coins in my pocket!”
“wow – I’ve got 42 cents – that’s incredible. I can buy 84 candies!”

i then began to torture the shop assistant, “can I have two cola bottles, one sour gummy worm, two chocolate Brazil nuts, three milk bottles, one fizzy chew- no, make it two. Can I gave one of the fruit jellies, a yellow one please? And a red fruit gum – no that’s purple, I mean the other red …”

eventually I finished the grumpy shop assistant asked me for 42cents. I handed it over then …

”oh my god. I just remembered. It’s my moms money. I’m supposed to buy a loaf of bread with it. I’m really sorry, but I can’t buy the candy. can I have my money back please?”

”no way you foolish child …”

then I hear an old lady behind me say “ma’m please give him his money. I’d be happy to pay for his candy. ….”
this kind lady made a huge impact on me and, 45 years later I still recall her kindness.

Has someone ever been fired because of you?

Yes. There was some busybody gossipmonger working at a local bank. When my father passed away and I was helping my mother deal with some of the financial things— such as taking his name off of their joint accounts— the teller started asking all sorts of personal questions that were none of her business. Asking if we planned to sell the place or move. We told her we didn’t know. It happened so suddenly and we were still reeling. We started getting phone calls and people showing up at our house asking when we were going to sell and how much we wanted for the place.

Apparently the loudmouth teller had started blabbing around town that we were going to sell and gave out our phone number (which was unlisted) and our home address. One of the people mentioned that “Shirley” had told them. I went back to the bank and asked to speak with her and asked her if she had told people we were planning to sell and if she gave our info to people. She said she was just trying to be helpful. I told her we were grieving and didn’t want people calling and nosing around our property and that what she did was a serious breach of privacy. I then asked to speak to the branch manager and told him what happened and how I did not want to do business with a bank with a teller who would give out my personal details to randos without my permission and that it was causing undue stress during an already stressful time. He didn’t fire her on the spot, but he send a letter to us later informing us that she’d been terminated.

We live out in the middle of nowhere to avoid people and our place is out of the way and hard to find. Having to deal with misinformed trespassers who were snooping around our yard because some blabbermouth lied to them and gave our info out would have been stressful enough under normal circumstances, but given we’d just lost my father suddenly & unexpectedly, it was doubly stressful.

It’s like watching a snake eat its own tail; predictable and entertaining.

It’s so sad. If I were in my 20’s in the USA, I’d leave as soon as I could.

https://youtu.be/Ig1646pbQi0

If you woke up one day and you were 40, no career, no savings, no degree, no real skills and a decent amount of debt and had to make it at that age, what would you do?

At the age of 43, I found myself on the pavement with no money, no home, no job, and just the shirt on my back.

I walked into town and into a recruitment agency and took the only job they had which was badly paid, hard and unpleasant work. By being willing, I got a better job with them- still not a good job but paying better and slightly more pleasant.

At 45, I moved to Lincoln and got a better job with another agency on the back of my recent experience. By being both capable and willing, I got progressively better jobs until they offered to train me to be a trainer. I stayed as a trainer for the next ten years. My income was never as good as it had been in my youth but that was compensated by the international team I had the privilege to work with. I don’t think there was a single nationality I didn’t work with in that time. That was a very fulfilling period and the happiest time of my life.

What is one thing your kid came home and told you one day that made you want to go to school the next day and go off on the principals and teachers?

Years ago when my daughter was maybe 7, she came home from school and I could tell something was bothering her. I told her to sit down at the kitchen table and tell me what was going on. She told me she couldn’t sit, and I asked why. She told me that a teacher had whipped her. I looked at her little bottom and there were welts. I don’t remember what caused the spanking, but leaving welts like that was totally uncalled for. I called the school, asked to speak with the teacher, and when she answered, I told her that I’d be happy to meet her outside so she could try hitting someone closer to her size. I was furious, and ready to have a go at her. She refused the offer, and I called the principal and told him what she’d done, and how she’d left welts on my child. The teacher was transferred. Hopefully, she never struck another child like that again.

For those who would have done things differently, whether by suing, filing a police report or demanding the teacher be fired, you missed the first two words of my post. Years ago. Years ago, teachers were allowed to whip/paddle students. Parents spanked their kids. If a parent would have demanded the teacher be fired, they would have been laughed at, and if the parents threatened to sue, I’m sure the school would have told them to go ahead and try. Before another commenter tells me what they would have done, research what was allowed years ago.

Harry Potter in the Old Money Aesthetic

https://youtu.be/sy952in_3_A

What is the rudest thing that a customer said while you were serving them?

Sorry for going anon.

When I was 19, I worked behind the front desk of a 5-star hotel in a very affluent area of Florida. Rooms were normally between $700–1500 per night.

I checked in a guest from Washington D.C. who was very pleasant, and we had a great conversation. During our conversation, I mentioned that my family was primarily in the coastal areas of New York, and that they were all nervous about Hurricane Sandy (this is important).

3 days later, it was time for the guest to check out, but he had left his belongings in the room. The guest did not checkout until 7 PM, and logically, we had to charge him another night, since our housekeeping staff had gone home, and we would not be able to sell the room.

The guest lost it, screaming at our staff, slamming his fist on the counter, the whole show.

Then he spotted me.

With so much disdain, he snarled, “I hope that your family dies in that hurricane.” My manager immediately grabbed the back of my suit jacket, and pulled me into the back office, because he knew what was coming next. I still get angry thinking about that guest.

 

What is the most emotional picture you’ve ever seen?

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image 244

She was a brilliant Maths Teacher at Malappuram, Kerala, India. One day one of her student saw her at the railway begging for alms, but she couldn’t recognize her properly.

However when the student took a closer look, she recognized her class teacher. When the student asked her about her such a dire state, she told that after her retirement her family abandoned her and never came to know about her whereabouts so she started begging in front of the railway station.

The student broke down listening to her teacher’s story and took her home.

The student provided her Teacher with food & clothes and to secure her future contacted all those friends who were taught by their Maths teacher and took her to a better place to live her life peacefully.

So abandoned by her own family, the teacher was supported & taken care by her students whom she once taught.

This is I think the best example of Teacher-Student sacred & emotional bond and that HUMANITY is still alive.

Bitter sweet

No one could tell?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zGQND5ZZNAc?feature=share

What is the dumbest crime you can commit, the one for which you will almost certainly be caught?

OK I used to process payroll for a living. One day I got an envelope from the bank and inside was a notice that one of our checks had been flagged for fraud.

There was a copy of the check so I looked at it. Turns out this is one of our paychecks that was actually mailed out, rather than given out at work.

As usual, the check was made out like the following:

John Doe
1234 Any St
Houston, Tx 77777

This allowed the name and address to show through a window on the envelope.

Someone had stolen the check from the guy’s mailbox. They took it and put it through a typewriter and added their own name followed by “ or” above the name on the check.

So it appeared as:

Steve Smith OR
John Doe

Well… if the check had been made on a typewriter originally, that might have flown. But it was printed and the font looked nothing like a typewriter. So it was very obvious that the check had been tampered with.

What kind of idiot steals money by forging their own name on a check?

Of course, the check would never be honored by the bank, so I knew they hadn’t cashed it. Sure enough, it had been cashed at a liquor store. I called them up, and let them know they wouldn’t be getting paid for that check. They exploded on me. Told me they would be suing, etc. Sure you will…

I referred the whole thing to the police. Turns out the guy who stole the check and the guy at the liquor store who cashed the check were in cahoots. So I got two arrests for the price of one.

How he made money selling cars

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5K7zpaOLMJg?feature=share

Why did my top performing employee quit after write up?

I was “written up” at one job by a senior manager. The comments included my failure to get a particular feature working on schedule. When I told him that I had not been assigned that task, and that my (direct) manager was doing it, the senior manager said I was just making excuses. Another complaint was that I had come in weekends to work on a feature that I thought would improve the project, instead of spending that unpaid overtime working on assigned tasks.

I was livid. I didn’t quit because I had just bought a house near the company. But I basically fell apart, and my work quality dropped dramatically.

The kicker was my re-review three months later. The same senior manager complimented me on toeing the line and doing exactly the tasks I’d been ordered to do. He rescinded the warning.

So I quit on the spot. *I* knew that my work had become substandard. It was even worse being complimented for bad work than being criticized for good work. There was no way I could have stayed at the company after that.

Moral: Don’t write up *anyone* without being really certain. Talk to them, talk to their co-workers. Find out what – if anything – is going on. Find out if they’re at fault, or if they’re being managed badly. If there’s an external issue, try to help the employee resolve it, or try to make allowances for it. But never do a writeup unless you plan to fire the person, and need to start the paper trail for that.

Trucker ELECTRICUTES SMUGGLERS with New Tool to Stop Smugglers inside

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kLNk-D07yqY?feature=share

What is the most underhanded thing a co-worker did to you that they mistakenly thought went unnoticed?

It happened some time ago when I was young and naive. I had just graduated from college and still had a modicum of that idealism and youthful exuberance that made me a particularly good mark. To be honest, I thought I knew more than I actually did and this blind spot allowed the incident to unfold.

A co-worker copied my signature and bank account information from some signed HR documents before sending them through inter-office mail and then used it to forge my name on some debit card purchases. I reported it as fraud to the bank and I was able to show that I did not actually buy the items.

About two months later, she was fired when she pulled the same trick on somebody else. The new mark had an account through the same bank that I had. A vigilant analyst noticed the same website and signature patterns from my case.

I bumped into her some months later while out in a night club with friends. She was drunk and with a friend. We joked and chatted as if nothing happened. I danced with both of them for a bit and then excused myself to leave.

As we parted ways with a hug, I told her in her ear, “I know that you stole my account information. I know that’s why you were fired.” She recoiled and turned away quickly with her friend — who was quite perplexed at her sudden change in demeanor.

Good fucking riddance.

Functionality of a Vintage Overcoat

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tyn22c8_WT4?feature=share

What are some important and generalizable life lessons?

  1. Patience is the key. Crocodiles don’t go hunting. The prey comes to them.
  2. Listening is the greatest life skill. Talking and not listening is the greatest folly.
  3. If you don’t want other people to control your life avoid looking for a job no matter how high the pay.
  4. Life has its irony. In school, people who succeed are those people who excel academically. In real life, people who succeed are those people who failed in school.
  5. Don’t worry or stress yourself when you wake up each morning feeling like a failure or things are not working for you. That’s how life is designed. To feel bad when life is working for you.
  6. The school of life is strange. People who actually succeed feel like they’re total failures. And in fact, they fail multiple times until they lose count.
  7. Don’t hate anyone no matter how you feel about them. They have no idea that you hate them. You’re only hurting yourself.
  8. In this life, your life is not sealed by fate. That’s the wrong way of looking at life. Your life is really like a blank cheque for you to fill with any number you decide.
  9. We’re all born clean from debt. However, the lifestyles and paths we decide to choose puts us in all manner of debts that we will probably never recover from.
  10. Be thankful for what you have, and don’t stress yourself about what you don’t have. Life won’t give you what you don’t have until you’re grateful for what you have.

Be the Rufus

 

Jack was about to fly home from New York to London when he met Violet at the gate and became her friend. Violet, an 88-year-old former nurse, was flying home after visiting her daughter, and she had never been able to afford an expensive first-class ticket. It was a dream of hers to do that someday. When it was time to board, Jack walked with Violet onto the plane, insisted that she take his first-class seat, and then went to the very back of the plane next to the restrooms, and sat in hers.

Stewardess Leah Amy found out about the switch and reported the story (these photos are hers), saying, “Jack never said a word or asked for anything. Of all the people I’ve met on hundreds of flights, including soccer players, supermodels, and movie stars, these two have been my favorite passengers.”

Baked Eggs on Toast
(Jaja na Grzankach – Polish)

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2024 02 21 06 24

Yield: 3 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 6 slices white bread
  • Butter
  • 3 tablespoons freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
  • 6 eggs
  • Salt and freshly-ground pepper, to taste

Instructions

  1. Toast the bread and butter it on both sides. Place on a baking sheet and, using the tips of your fingers, make a small depression in each piece of toast. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and chives. Carefully drop an egg onto each piece of toast and season with salt and pepper.
  2. Bake in a preheated 400 degrees F oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until the eggs reach the desired degree of doneness.
  3. Allow 1 to 2 per person.

Brett Cooper Reacts to the New Jack Sparrow

WTF? Disney is run by idiots.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FZ9cZT1mCQU?feature=share

What has a doctor/nurse said to you that they should not have said?

Let me preface by saying this to add some context….

I have a rare immune system disorder called Common Variable Immunodeficiency, CVID for short. This means my body does not create antibodies and I have to get infusions every week to even have a chance of fighting infections. I essentially have no immune system so with that said, here goes:

a few years back (before they found the right medicine for my infusions) I was admitted to the hospital due to an infection of unknown nature. It was shutting my body down. My temp was 106 degrees farenheit. They decided to call in the emergency response team at 2 am and had me call my family. Things were getting worse and they were going to move me to ICU. While all of this was going on, a nurse on the team looked at me and said “you don’t look sick. You should be unconscious with everything going on with you”. One of the doctors on the team looked at him and said “This is a very critically ill patient. Although I’m not sure why she’s not presenting in worse condition, I am thankful that she is coherent enough to work with us so that we can understand how she feels… get your snarky ass out of this room. She doesn’t need that right now”.

Needless to say, he tucked his tail and ran. He did end up coming up to ICU and apologizing to me though. He said he didn’t mean it in a snarky way, he was just shocked that I wasn’t in worse shape. We sat and talked for awhile and he learned a thing or two about me and my rare condition.

7 Ridiculous Grounds for Divorce in Ancient China

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zwKRbkv5pnI?feature=share

America has gone full on Jerry Springer

MM, the Jerry Springer edition. LOL.

Actually it is sad, and when I peer into the future, it is absolutely worrying. Please be safe everyone.

Lots of videos today, but most are super short.

Enjoy…

Western Diplomacy is ‘Primitive’

Russians have had to dumb down their speeches at the UN so other countries can understand them, deputy representative Dmitry Polyansky has said.

Russian diplomats perceive their Western counterparts’ approach to international affairs to be “quite primitive,” Moscow’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. Moscow’s representatives are not certain what caused this, but have simplified their messaging in response, he added.

Polyansky made remarks about the quality of the Western diplomatic corps in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Monday, based on his personal experience at the UN. He expressed concern about Anglophone speakers at the forum selectively ignoring the context of particular situations for their own benefit.

”They pick an arbitrary point in time and claim nothing happened before it. They try to blame a nation for its actions regardless of prior events or the general context,” he explained.

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2024 02 13 14 46

The diplomat cited the Ukraine conflict as an example. The US and its allies have been describing Moscow’s military action against Kiev as “unprovoked” and supposedly motivated by “imperial ambitions,” and have pressured other nations to frame it in the same way. As they learn more about the conflict, however, those parties realize how much the general context and Western actions since Ukraine gained its independence matter, he added.

”This trick does not always work, but it is a trend. I don’t know if it’s some deeper trend or just something typical for some people coming from [Western] schools of diplomacy,” Polyansky said. “Having a dialogue with them is challenging because they show certain superficiality, tunnel vision, and unwillingness to seek the core causes of conflicts. No solutions can be found without [such analysis].”

The office of the Russian envoy to the UN has been simplifying its addresses due to uncertainty over how their words are understood, he said. Russian diplomats used to quote foreign and Russian classics in speeches, but are no longer using this rhetorical device as much, Polyansky said.

”Times dictate things. Our partners may now be less well-read individuals, so occasionally we want to speak in plainer terms to make sure our signal comes through,” he explained.

Reality

A New Civil War is A Very Real Prospect for the US

It has long been on the minds of doomsday preppers and fiction media creators alike – but how likely is it, really?

Let’s sketch a big country in three broad strokes:

First, its population is over 333 million. These citizens privately own about (or at least) 339 million guns. They are unique in that no other state in the world has more private guns than people. They easily outdistance, for instance, Yemen, a country with a martial culture that has gone through years of civil war and yet there are only about 53 firearms per 100 inhabitants. 

Second, polarization is unusually high and virulent: As of 2020 already, a political scientist at one of America’s most prestigious universities, found that political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years — more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany,” for instance. The result: America is special, but not in a good way. “None of the wealthy, consolidated democracies of East Asia, Oceania, or Western Europe,” a 2022 paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace pointed out, “have faced similar levels of polarization for such an extended period.”

Last year, another Carnegie Endowment paper found that even while some of the perception of polarization on specific policy questions (such as gun control or abortion) is exaggerated, that perception itself is detrimental to the country’s cohesion. Because “the people who are most involved in civic and political life hold the least accurate [here meaning: highly negative] views of the other side’s beliefs” and there is a high degree of what political scientists call affective polarization.” Put simply, all or many of those citizens, collectively hoarding so many guns that over 40% of households are armed in one way or the other, do not like or even merely respect “the other side” of the political spectrum – not at all and ever less.

Third, the country also displays a pronounced cultural preoccupation, really almost obsession, not merely with the idea of civil war as such or the specific history of its own very bloody civil war in the nineteenth century. Rather its elites and general population are fixated on a coming civil war, which, as of 2022, a whopping 43 percent considered likely in the next ten years. Debates, high-brow books, articles, and popular culture feature this fantasy prominently and persistently.

We are talking, of course, about the United States of America. While it would be easy to adduce more criteria and data points, there is no need. The above is sufficient to demonstrate that it would be shortsighted to pooh-pooh the risk of a second civil war in America, for two reasons: It is not a mere fantasy, owing its current national resonance to “hype” and the titillation of imagining a liberatingly apocalyptic future of chaos and every man and woman for themselves (and, in the US, I guess, every other gender that wishes to participate).

Smart Americans realize this as well. Barbara F. Walter, for instance, is a prominent political scientist who has worked extensively with the CIA to develop a model of civil war predictors, for any country but the US, of course. She has now come to warn that the model begins to fit America itself disturbingly well. She may have her centrist biases – the usual exaggeration of “Russian influence” included – but her core points are valid: The US is turning into an anocracy, that is, in essence, a regime that only pretends to be a democracy. (In fact, that is what it has always been, I would contend.) And there is a substantial constituency of those who feel threatened by losing their former social status and preeminence. Those happen to be phenomena strongly correlated with a risk of civil war.

Let’s also not forget that America is proving its enormous capacity for global disruption every day, even without civil war at home. While some observers may – even gleefully – hope that Americans fighting each other would finally have to let go of the rest of us, that is a very dicey bet. With an elite narcissistically obsessed with global “primacy” and “indispensability,” about 800 bases worldwide, an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads, and a nasty habit of blaming others for its own failures, a new American civil war would not exclude aggression abroad. Moreover, declining as it is, the US is still a key part of the global economy, much more so than in 1860, when its first civil war already had serious repercussions for the rest of the world.

In sum, it may attract preppers with camo baseball hats, beards, and pump guns, but don’t let that fool you: American Civil War 2.0 is a serious issue. So, what about it? What can we reasonably guess about how likely it really is and what shape it might take if it happens?

To start with the latter question, perhaps the first thing to note is that big civil wars can start small and local. That is, by the way, the real significance of the recent, open tensions over migration and border control between the state of Texas and the federal government in Washington. They did involve armed forces and much foreboding rhetoric, but, fortunately, no shots were fired. Yet those glibly dismissing the incident as mere political theater are wrong. Because, as the New York Times has noted, it was not only Texas that defied the US government. Rather, “many Republican state leaders publicly expressed defiance in terms that echoed armed conflicts.”

Indeed, the second thing to note is that, due to America’s federal structure, a new civil war would most likely begin with secession. In the fracas between Washington and Texas, 25 Republican governors openly sided with rebellious Texas. This was a perfect illustration of how one local flashpoint could quickly suck in the rest of the country by creating a logic of ultimate polarization and then secession. This logic has not yet fully unfolded. Its contours, however, have emerged clearly.

It is worth noting that many of the fiction narratives about Civil War 2.0 make the same point: Whether it is the cult graphic novel series “DMZ,” the bitterly ironic novel “American War” (it’s obvious in-joke is that it has some Americans treat other Americans the way Americans and Israelis now treat Palestinians, Iraqis, or Syrians), the small-budget yet clever movie “Bushwick,” or the big-budget “Civil War” about to hit American cinemas now: Again and again the basic premise is a scenario of secession escalating into massive domestic warfare.

Third, while the humongous pile of private firearms would certainly play a large role in a new civil war, it would be misguided to assume that such a fight would only pit gangs of private citizens, organized in militias, against official police and military forces. In reality, a dynamic of secession, once set in motion would lead to parts of the US’s manifold “siloviki” choosing their own allegiance, splitting, and starting to fight each other. If you believe that, in such a situation, the formal chains of command ultimately linking them all back to Washington would remain intact, I have a whole-and-indivisible Yugoslavia to sell you.

And, last but not least, in such a development, the war would be both severe and long. In that respect, it would resemble the first Civil War. Although, due to advanced technologies and declining inhibitions, it could be even more devastating and cruel. In Netflix’s recent and tellingly successful “Leave the World Behind,” the protagonists never learn who exactly is blowing up their country, but by the end of the movie two things seem reasonably clear: No, it’s not enemies from outside, but an inside job, and nukes are being used. That, by the way, was the premise as well of the earlier, initially unsuccessful but now cult television show “Jericho.”

How likely is such a dark future? Obviously, we do not know. But let’s note two things: We could, a priori, be looking at an America where no one is much interested in thinking about it. Yet we are seeing the opposite. If you think that means nothing, fine. Just don’t mistake your guess for a good policy or planning basis.

There are, of course, alternatives to civil war. One is peaceful de-polarization under the current anocratic conditions, which, hypothetically, can happen. The other is full-blown authoritarianism: one way to suppress the possibility of a civil war is to impose dictatorship.

But here’s the catch: A country can end up with both civil war and dictatorship. Ask the ancient Romans. Those Romans, that is, who were so much on the mind of the founders of the American Republic.

It has long been on the minds of doomsday preppers and fiction media creators alike – but how likely is it, really?

 

What are some unwritten rules of everyday life?

  1. If you are greeting four people standing in a group, at least smile at the fifth person standing along with them, whom you don’t know, so that they don’t feel disrespected.
  2. Whenever you ask someone to do something for you, even if they are ought to do it, frame it as a question to boost their self-esteem. ‘Can you please get my pen from the table?’ sounds much soothing than ‘Go, get my pen’.
  3. People in hurry, appear too irritating, but they may be anxious about something or facing an emergency, don’t bother much, just give them a way and ignore, and even if someone is just too impatient, that’s something to pity.
  4. You desperately want to interrupt someone, may be they are completely wrong, but at least let them finish a sentence, so that you don’t appear even worse than them.
  5. When you finish eating, pick the little pieces of food fallen around your plate and put them on your plate and throw them, it shows immense maturity.
  6. Don’t wait for someone, standing in front of the opposite sex wash room, because when the gate opens again and again, it can be quite embarrasing, and also people may question your integrity.
  7. When you disagree with someone, it doesn’t make them a criminal. Respect their opinion, and realise the fact that your thoughts may also be your opinion and not a fact. ‘Argue with respect.’
  8. Whenever you break a line, you become a teacher for countless innocent people, this isn’t something great to give back to the society, respect a line.
  9. Not liking to be touched is not arrogance, it’s a natural trait of most people, avoid touching people as much as possible to protect your self-esteem and respect theirs.
  10. When you shout at someone, all you are doing is wasting your energy, misusing your larynx, and showing immaturity, learn to take boldest of actions and give harshest of warnings, keeping a smile.

Italian Oven Chowder

To enjoy this hearty chowder as the Italians do, be sure to include the oysters.

Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder 4
Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder 4

What is Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder?

If you are a seafood lover – this Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder is for you!

Sometimes called an Italian “white” seafood chowder – a delicious variety of seafood and vegetables are suspended in a cream-based broth that really allows the flavors of the seafood to shine through. (You can also make a “red” seafood chowder with a tomato-based broth.)

Some Italian families serve this seafood chowder on Christmas Eve for the traditional Feast of Seven Fishes, but we love it anytime of the year – especially with fresh-caught seafood in the summer.

Why you’ll love Creamy Italian Seafood Chowder

  • It’s chock full of a variety of fresh seafood – and you can vary it depending on the catch of the day, or to suit your family’s tastes.
  • This chowder is hearty and delicious, and it makes for a very satisfying meal.
  • You can prepare it ahead of time (but be sure to read our tips below in the Frequently Asked Question to avoid overcooking the seafood if you make it ahead).

Ingredients

  • 4 slices bacon
  • 2 large carrots, sliced 1/2 inch thick
  • 2 medium parsnips, sliced 1/2 inch thick, cutting larger pieces in half
  • 2 medium onions, cut into thin wedges
  • 3 medium potatoes, chopped
  • 2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 3 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 cups frozen whole kernel corn
  • 1 pint shucked oysters with juice (optional)
  • Snipped chives or parsley (optional)

Instructions

  1. In a 4-quart Dutch oven cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings in the pan. Drain bacon on paper towels; crumble and set aside.
  2. Add carrots, parsnips, and onions to Dutch oven. Cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until brown, stirring occasionally.
  3. Add potatoes, chicken broth, garlic salt and pepper. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. (At this point the soup can be cooled, covered, and chilled in the refrigerator overnight.)
  4. In a small mixing bowl stir together melted margarine or butter and flour. Stir flour-margarine mixture, milk, and corn into chowder mixture in Dutch oven. Cook and stir over medium heat until slightly thickened. If desired, add oysters and liquid to soup; heat through.
  5. Sprinkle each serving with crumbled bacon and chives or parsley, if desired.

Key Ingredients & Substitutions

  • Salt Pork and Bacon – These two ingredients are an easy way to add delicious flavor to any soup or chowder – the rendered fat is used to sauté vegetables, so you won’t need to add other fats. While we use both salt pork and bacon, you could easily just use all of one or the other – the salt pork adds a nice salty flavor, while the bacon adds a smokey taste.
  • Seafood – Buy a total of four pounds of seafood. We made our chowder with fresh haddock, chopped fresh clams, shell-on shrimp (frozen shrimp is fine), fresh scallops, and crab meat. You can substitute any of these varieties of seafood, or use all of one or the other, just as long as the total weight equals four pounds.
  • Clam juice – Look for bottled clam juice at the supermarket – sometimes sold near the seafood counter. Other times, you can find it near the soup aisle.
  • Dairy – Heavy cream makes up the broth, along with the clam juice and a broth from the shrimp shells. Unsalted butter smooths things out and adds more flavor. You could lighten this soup up a bit with light cream or half and half – but it won’t be quite the same.
  • Tomato – Buy canned whole and peeled San Marzano tomatoes. You’ll break up the tomato pieces into the soup and reduce the juices to create a serving sauce that garnishes each portion.
  • Other Vegetables – Peeled and diced russet potatoes are the best for this seafood chowder, plus diced onion and celery, and minced garlic.
  • Herbs and spices – You’ll use a variety of herbs and spices including bay leaves, fresh basil, fresh mint, dried oregano, kosher salt, black pepper, and fresh thyme.
  • Olive Oil
  • All-Purpose Flour
  • Oyster Crackers – For serving, if desired

BRAINWASHED! Modern Women Realize The Truth

 

What is something that someone said to you during your grieving that stuck with you?

I was 27 when my husband (29) passed away unexpectedly while stationed overseas. It took 3 weeks for the army to bring his corpse back to the US and a week after the arrival his church service and funeral took place. A week after the burial, I traveled back to my country of origin for only one week. My daddy, who was extremely fond of my late husband, and who couldn’t attend the funeral due to work obligations and visa lasting procedures, had an open-hearted conversation with me. He said that all of us will die. And many of us will go unexpectedly. That there was a divine reason why all of what happened had happened and that I would need to eventually come to peace with losing him. I needed to see my story with my husband as a chapter of my book that ended. I needed to turn the page to the next chapter for my own benefit, if not, instead of having one dead in the family, they were going to have two. Because that’s who I was going to turn into. A dead living woman.

I listened to his words which made sense, but I didn’t want my life to make sense so quickly so I forgot about them until after I dragged myself into an alcohol addiction for months. And one day, I remembered his wise words and between that and the help of a close friend, I realized my daddy was right. Either I got over my husband’s passing or I was going to stay dead myself.

200 Times Wife Has a MELTDOWN After Getting Caught Cheating #2

 

How can I look young at 70-80 years old?

Aging is a natural process, but there are steps you can take to maintain a youthful appearance and overall well-being in your 70s and 80s. Here are some tips to help you look and feel young:

image 12
image 12

1. Stay Active: Regular exercise is crucial for maintaining muscle strength, flexibility, and overall health. Low-impact activities like walking, swimming, and yoga can be excellent choices.

2. Eat a Balanced Diet: A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats can support your skin, hair, and overall health.

3. Stay Hydrated: Proper hydration is essential for skin health. Drink enough water to keep your skin hydrated.

4. Protect Your Skin: Use sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays, which can cause premature aging. Moisturize your skin regularly to keep it hydrated.

5. Get Sufficient Sleep: Quality sleep is essential for overall health. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

6. Manage Stress: High-stress levels can lead to premature aging. Practice stress-reduction techniques like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga.

7. Regular Checkups: Visit your healthcare provider for regular checkups to address any health concerns promptly.

8. Stay Socially Active: Maintaining social connections can contribute to mental and emotional well-being, which can affect your overall appearance.

9. Mental Stimulation: Keep your mind active with puzzles, games, or learning new skills. It can help maintain cognitive function and a youthful spirit.

10. Good Skincare: Use skincare products suitable for your skin type and age. A good skincare routine can make a difference in maintaining healthy skin.

11. Fashion and Style: Update your wardrobe with clothing that makes you feel confident and stylish. How you dress can impact your overall look.

12. Hair Care: Consider a hairstyle that suits your face shape and is easy to maintain. Many people embrace their natural gray hair, which can be quite attractive.

13. Regular Dental Care: Don’t neglect your dental health. Regular dental checkups and good oral hygiene can help maintain a youthful appearance.

Remember that aging is a natural part of life, and it’s essential to embrace the wisdom and experiences that come with it. Looking and feeling young is about maintaining your health and self-confidence as you age.

I’m starting to cry

 

Have you ever seen a mass exodus after a respected employee quit or got fired?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I was working at this shipping company, I think it was.

The boss was one of those who would bully his subordinates. He often made several employees cry.

Anyway, we were in a meeting. It was more like a bitching session.

The boss spent the meeting screaming at everyone, calling us lazy and insisting we were the worst employees ever. He was screaming at us and I felt I had to say something.

So I did.

The boss got right in my face. I mean, like a few inches from me. He started screaming right in my face and I simply stood my ground.

The boss screamed at me to get out, that I was fired.

Then he screamed at everyone else, calling them lazy and telling everyone to get out if they didn’t like the way he was running things.

Each and every person followed me out the door. This literally meant there was no staff to get any work done.

Not surprisingly, the boss ended up getting fired.

America’s spy program exposed

 

What is the most devastating and horrible birthday you’ve ever had, and why?

I was turning 30. I had planned a party for me and my going to be 12 year old daughter. It was a Saturday. My sister and I went with our kids to Mom and Dad’s for the regular Saturday bagel routine. Dad was at his parents’ house mowing their lawn. He had called me earlier with a, “Happy Birthday Robbio, See Yah later”. I responded, “Love you Daddio”. About 45 minutes into our bagel breakfast, the phone rang and my mother answered. The color completely drained from her face. She kept repeating, “A stroke? A stroke?” It was my grandfather. My father was in the hospital. My then husband and brother-in-law raced to my mother’s side and my sister and I loaded the kids into my car and sped to our grandparents. I played the game in my head, If I get all green lights he’s fine. If I see kids playing he’s fine….etc. It was a warm September day. The windows on the car were open. As we approached the house, we could hear what only could be described as wailing. It was Grandma. I have never, ever heard such a sorrowful, painful sound. My daughter found my Dad’s smashed glasses on the lawn. My grandfather returned from the hospital, just shaking his head. He said nothing. Shortly the family showed up. My dad had died. He had a massive heart attack. The sanitation workers picking up trash had jumped off of the truck to help my grandfather apply CPR, but to no avail. He was basically dead before he hit the ground. For the next fifteen years, no one and I mean no one could say, “Happy Birthday” to me. I forbade it and if someone accidentally said it, they got schooled. I still can’t really celebrate my birthday, even though it’s been 36 years. I do have a major amount of respect for sanitation workers though.

I really understand this

 

How do you politely tell someone who often borrows things from you and doesn’t return them to stop borrowing from you?

Five days after moving into a new (to me and my wife) home our neighbor, Lee, showed up at our door to borrow my weedeater. He’d seen me using it in my backyard the day before and said he wanted to do some “cleanup” around his yard. I told him that I was sorry but I had a firm policy against loaning my tools or equipment out. I also mentioned that I’d bought the weedeater at a local home improvement store for around $75. He replied that he wouldn’t use it that often so he didn’t see the point of buying one.

End of story, right?

Not quite.

The guy pretty much avoided me after I denied his request; if I came outside while he was in his driveway or yard, he’d ignore me, or just give a cursory wave before turning away. Over time I became friendly with Mack, my neighbor across the street, and one evening we were in his backyard, staining his deck, when he said that he didn’t think I was a bad guy, at all. I asked him to explain and he told me that my next door neighbor, Lee, had told him and a couple of other neighbors that I was an asshole who didn’t want to help anyone out. Because I wouldn’t lend him my weedeater.

I told Mack that Lee struck me as being something of an opportunist and con man, and Mack admitted that Lee did have those tendencies. That convinced me that I’d been right to refuse to lend him my weedeater. He was just angry at me because I didn’t buy his BS.

Manly habits

 

Were German women friendly to American troops?

I couldn’t say how friendly German women as a whole were to American troops; (although sometimes they were very friendly indeed, I’ve often read, lol)…but I can relate a story my dad told me about an interaction he once had with a German woman towards the very end of the Third Reich.

My dad was a medic in the 3rd Armored Division. He landed on Omaha beach, fought all through France, drove through the carnage and destruction of the Falaise pocket, was in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge and was in Germany at the Battle of the Hurtgen forest. He was also at the liberation of the Nordhausen forced labor camp, where V-2 rockets were being constructed by slave labor…Poles, Jews, Czechs and Russians. My father was in the Ruhr pocket in Rhine-North Westphalia, Germany when the war ended.

It really didn’t dawn on me until much later in life what a living repository of history my dad was, and how present he had been at and for so much history. He told me many truly amazing stories, and as I was always pretty much the only one among my siblings who ever showed any interest in my dad’s WW II service, I wrote everything he told me down and have it archived on my computer. (And even as a child, I was fascinated by my father’s stories and recognized them for the real family and WW II history they were). I really wish I had tape recorded my dad telling these stories when he was still alive, and always meant to…but life and time got in the way (as it often does) and I never got around to it. Still, though…I’ve got them all down in print.

This happened shortly after the 3rd Armored had crossed into Germany proper. My dad told me;

“Often, when we moved into and occupied these towns, of course we would sometimes take a break for chow. And invariably, little French or Belgian or in this case German kids would cluster around, watching us getting ready to eat and hoping for some food. All of these children had been living in occupied or food-rationed countries for years now; they were often terribly thin and pale. And they’d gather around, smelling the cooking food and shyly watching us with big eyes.

And of course…we shared. I mean…how the heck could you eat while being watched by hungry kids? Anybody with a heart would’ve shared, and we always did.

And in this particular town, there was a little fella watching us. He had a beat-up, moth-eaten black coat on, and a little black cap on his head. Short pants and knee socks…legs like pipe cleaners…like sticks.

So I decided right then and there to make sure this little guy got fed well.

I grabbed him by the hand, took him to the head of the chow line and told the guy filling our kits, “C’mon, pal. Load this little guy up. Load ‘im up. Looks like he hasn’t had a decent meal in years.” And he hunted up an aluminum tray, and piled it high with corned-beef hash and beans and white bread. I dug a D-bar out of my pocket and also put some chewing gum on the tray, too. I knelt down and put the tray and food into the boy’s hands.

You should’ve seen this kid’s face. (Laughs). His eyes nearly popped out of his head!Danke schoen, Herr Soldaten!’’, he said to me politely and wonderingly. I found an empty packing crate in the street, led him over to some steps in front of a house, propped up the crate and helped him put the tray on it and sit down, and stuck a tin spoon in his hand. In German, I told him to help himself and eat up. Eagerly, he began to dig in.

But as the boy began to bring the first spoonful of food to his mouth…a door to a house on the other side of the street flew open, and a matronly “hausfrau“ maybe sixty years old or so came storming out of the house and across the street to us, snatched the spoon right outta the kid’s hand, grabbed the tray of food and hurled it to the ground.

“ALBERNES KIND!” (FOOLISH CHILD!), she yelled at the boy. “Do you not know, have you not heard? These American soldiers are all CHICAGO GANGSTERS!! They will kill you!! That food is poisoned!! And yet you are blockhead enough to eat of it??!!”

Viciously jerking the boy up off the stairs by his arm, she swatted his ass good and turned to march with him back to the house across the street. As the kid started bawling, I grabbed her by the arm to try to stop her and explain things to her. I spoke and understood the Deutsch pretty damned well by then, and I knew exactly what she’d said; and I was very much dismayed that she actually believed I, or we as Americans, would really try to poison her child…or grandchild, most likely. And I desperately wanted her to understand that this wasn’t the case.

And besides…I wasn’t even from Chicago! (Laughs).

So I tried to talk to her, addressing her as ‘’gnadige frau” (gracious lady) and telling her, “The food is not poisoned! Look!” And I bent over and picked up the tray, and actually scooped up a handful of hash off the ground and ate it right in front of her! Nicht giftig!, I kept repeating to her, nicht giftig!” (Not poisoned!)

Unfortunately, she was having none of it. With a glare at me and a sniff of her upturned nose, she turned away and dragged the bawling kid across the street and into the house and slammed the door behind them.

I felt bad that the little guy never got his chow, and that these people had been so ingrained to hate and distrust us by Nazi propaganda.

But not all the German people were that way. Many of them were quite friendly and distinctly glad to see us…as opposed to the Russians.”

My father told me lots of other stories, some funny, many quite tragic, which I’ll be submitting to Quora in the future. My first story of his got an overwhelming response, and I was glad so many people enjoyed it. I fancy myself a student of WW II, and it really made me pleased that so many other people find so much interest in my dad’s war tales. Thanks to everyone for your views and comments…more to come if you’re interested!

A stunning kitten

 

What is an insane coincidence that you’ve experienced?

I went to the drive up window at our pharmacy to pick up my script. It was a very blustery day. As I went to put my $20 in the drawer a gust of wind blew it out of my hand. After paying with my ATM card I pulled away and parked. Got out of the car and searched the area but no luck. My thought was I hope whoever found it needed it more than me and drove home. During the next week or so I was in and out of my car including the trunk several times.

I had a bag full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. In order to get to the Goodwill near me I had to drive to the intersection near my pharmacy, turn left, travel about half mile, turn right onto a busy highway, drive another half mile and turn left into the Goodwill parking lot, drive to the back of the store to deliver my donation. The rear parking lot backed up to a wooded area. I took the clothes out of the trunk of my car and deposited them in the bin provided.

Just as I walked to the back of my car a $20 bill blew right up to my feet. I just couldn’t believe it. The bill looked like it had been out in weather for a while. Was it my bill from the pharmacy. Was it somehow stuck to my car or trunk. But how could that be. I had driven my car quite a bit and had been in and out of my car and trunk several times during that week. In any event I was so happy because I sure needed that $20.

When Delusional Woke People Get OWNED

https://youtu.be/TNtVDYnSxh0

TO THE MOM AT THE SCHOOL DROP OFF THIS MORNING

Today I walked my son to his kindergarten class. It was cold and we were huddled together like sardines as we stood outside the door waiting for the bell to ring.

I saw you with your little boy just a few feet from us, and I looked down when I realized you were looking at us. I hoped you didn’t know who we were. I hoped you didn’t know my son was “that kid.” The one who’s not transitioning well in this school year.

I know what the kids say about my son. They go home and tell their parents my kid is bad. Sometimes he pushes and hits. Sometimes he is defiant and refuses to sit down, be quiet, or stay in line.

I know because the kids tell him what they think of him on the playground. “Mark said I’m bad today.” Or “Aiden’s dad said I can’t play with him anymore.” And my heart hurts, because I know he’s struggling in school. And we are working every angle… in school with a specialist, at home, and through classes, books and resources.

Today, you looked at me, then at my son. “You must be K,” you said to my son. And I looked up and smiled sheepishly. It was an apologetic smile. Almost a “I’m sorry you know his name” smile, because that means you’ve heard the stories.

I said to you, “Yes, this is him.”

I whispered when my son stepped away that we are aware he’s causing some trouble and we are working on it. That we take his behavior very seriously.

And then you did something I never expected. I don’t know if I was waiting for you to tell me what you heard K did to your son, or just tell me off. But instead you told me about your older son who struggled with similar problems at this age. You told me that now he’s in high school and he’s a straight A student.

Instead of tearing me down, you lifted me up. You gave me hope. And you handed me an olive branch so I know that I do have an ally during school drop off. An ally I never expected.

You didn’t have to make that connection. You could have ignored us or pretended not to know us. Or yes — you could have told me what you think of my son (you would not be the first). But you didn’t. You showed me grace and kindness and you uplifted me more than I could possibly describe in words.

I told you I would love to learn more about steps you took with your older son. I would love suggestions and guidance and that I would call you. And you know what? I will call you. Even if no suggestions or guidance is ever exchanged. I will call you because you are a friend I want to have. You are a good person.

THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO A MAN!

The biggest fucking L, a guy can take in life.

 

What is some advice that most employees are not ever likely to hear?

If you don’t ask, you don’t get!!

Supporting evidence: Having spent more than 5 years at TCS I thought employees must accept their manager’s decision, no questions asked. After I moved to Australia I took up a casual hour based contract job. I didn’t mind the pay (which was less than what my experience could get me) because I loved the team. My manager believed in giving credit where it was due and soon the top management wanted to offer a fixed term contract which meant I could take paid leaves. I was so grateful and was about to sign the contract when my manager asked, “Aren’t you going to ask for a raise?”

“But this is so nice of them and I don’t want to make it awkward. What if they think I’m being greedy?”, I asked.

My manager laughed but looked at me seriously as she said, “Ruchika, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! You know you can get more money outside and they know it too. Don’t let them get away with it. Show them you know your worth.”

I nodded and wrote an email only to please my manager. I was so surprised at the response because the higher step pay was granted to me, just like that.

After some time, the management decided to offer me an ongoing permanent position and offered me the topmost step pay in the band. I was about to sign the offer letter as my manager reminded me to ask for a raise again. “But they are already offering me the topmost level in my band and they can’t change the band for this job, so I’m not sure what they can do.”, I responded.

“They will figure out a way if they want to. I know they will because they know you’re good and wouldn’t want to lose you. However, if they can’t, the worse that’ll happen is, they’ll refuse. I can’t see what you have to lose.”

Cursing the awkward situation I was in, I wrote an email trying to sound grateful and confident at the same time. My manager approved the draft and I hit send. By the end of the day, the General Manager asked HR to add a special loading to my pay package, which meant I was earning pretty much the same as the next band without undergoing any admin headache.

The thing is the company knows their good employees and understands, like all relationships, this association needs to be beneficial to both the parties. So if there’s something that you know will help you perform better for your company… just ask!

’Cause if you don’t ask, you don’t get!!

 

What did your boss ever say in the office that caused you to resign?

Boss asked me to train a newly hired paralegal graduate to do my job in one week as she was going to be my backup while I was on vacation.

I asked him how do I train 35 years of experience in a fresh paralegal graduate? I did my best to cram the information before I left for vacation.

She was inattentive and I had grave concerns since she refused to take notes.

Upon my return, I got the blame for every mistake she made during my absence. Each attorney gave me a list of their grievances.

I defended myself and was scolded for insubordination and told my services were no longer required.

So I left, turning in my keys. 4 hours later I receive a text stating that I misunderstood our conversation and that it was not their intention to terminate me.

5 hours later, I receive another text stating that he was no longer firing me but I needed to be less reactive and more understanding of the firm needs.

I decided to help clarify the situation and informed him that my text response confirms the separation terms.

Experience comes with damage

 

Have you ever outsmarted your teacher?

Yes. Yes I have.

And if you are a teacher, you might be cranky after reading this. It does not put teenage me in a flattering light.

When I was in high school, you had to take 2 years of gym in order to graduate. May I just say, over 30 years later, the most frequent recurring nightmare I have is not having enough of the right credits to graduate high school.

This plagued me.

I hated gym. I wasn’t athletic. I was not a group anything, and was particularly awful at group sports. I’m very tall, so you’d think I’d be good at volleyball. Nope. Into the net every time.

I despised everything about gym, because I was an outsider. Outsiders are most vulnerable in gym class. I just wanted to be alone & read books & listen to Bowie records.

Plus, I hated my body. I thought I was supposed to look like Farrah Fawcett. I did not look like Farrah. I was fat, and in particular I hated my legs.

Back then, you were required to do certain things to pass gym. One of those things was called dressing out. We also had to participate in class, then take a shower & dress for our next class, all in six or seven minutes at the end.

As you can see, this was a lot of body exposure for someone who hated their body so much. Every part of it was a humiliation to me.

I have a picture of myself in a swimsuit after my senior year. Thing is, my body was fine. I’d be delighted to have that body again.

(So if you are a teenager and hate your body, stop it. You are more fabulous than you know.)

Dressing out was changing out of our school clothes & putting on our gym clothes, which was basically a polyester onesie. Navy shorts attached to a navy & white horizontally striped shirt which zipped up the front to our neck.

It was just heinous. See?

image 176
image 176

(Photo courtesy of Google images)

I just wouldn’t do it. I’d plead not feeling well & wonder why putting on this onesie & playing dodgeball could possibly advance our lives in any way. I sat on the sidelines staring at the antics of class with great disdain. And I seemed to be getting away with it.

I was not getting away with it.

One day, our gym teacher, Mrs. K, walked over to me. She had a very pleased with herself expression on her face. She was smirking.

Because kids like me were the bane of existence to teachers like her. I had a bad attitude.

Once in a while, teachers will one-up kids like me. My antennae went up. The smirk worried me.

I need to talk to you, she said.

I stood up and gazed at my foe, with her Hamill haircut and velour track suit in a particularly unflattering shade of mauve.

I have to tell you, she said, almost unable to contain her glee, that you are failing gym. There’s no way for you to pass. None. I have told you over and over you have to dress out and participate. You haven’t done either. So, she continued, delivering her coup de grace, unless you go to summer school, you will not graduate with your class.

SUMMER SCHOOL? Oh, HELL no.

I do believe I cried. She was unmoved, giving the standard line that eff-ups like me hear time and time again:

There are consequences to our actions!

It was unbearable.

I did feel ashamed. It was just so stupid and avoidable. I’d truly screwed myself this time.

Two things were certain.

  1. I was not going to summer school.
  2. I was not being left behind a year. Impossible.

So I had to put my thinking cap on & figure this mess out.

Okay. What does she want? What do teachers like her want from students? Above all else?

The answer was clear. The problem was the execution of the plan. She would be suspicious. I had to deliver this perfectly.

The next day, I showed up at gym class. I put on the wretched gym suit. I participated in calisthenics and dodgeball. I showered & dressed for class. I saw her looking at me with my peripheral vision; I did not turn my head or make eye contact.

Me & my new, improved attitude were docile. Subdued. One of the herd.

Next day, I came back. Did the same thing. Participated. Laughed along with the other students. Plays well with others, check.

I knew the fatal flaw would be to ask her to pass me. So I didn’t. Nothing happened. A week went by.

Then one day she calls my name after class. I trot up to her. I keep my eyes big and innocent. I say Yes m’am.

I’ve noticed, she starts, that you’ve been dressing out & participating for a week. Without a reward in sight.

That’s right, I think, keep going…

You have had a real change of attitude.

It’s actually worked, I think, this is just thrilling.

So, she continues, kind now; dare I say moved? If you continue to dress out every day & write a two-page report on the importance of dressing out, I will pass you.

YES

But you have to do it every day, she warns, letting me know not to test her benevolence.

Ah, bien sur, Madame. I give effusive & grateful thanks.

I walk out of there like a boss. I can barely contain my joy. No summer school. I graduate with my class.

I tell my best friend, howling with glee, about how my attitude had changed.

Unbelievable, says my friend T, with more than a little disgust.

What do teachers want most? They want to make a difference in a kid’s life. I let her think she had changed me; that she’d taught me the importance of a good attitude.

What?

Everyone left happy.

Preach it girl

 

What are most people surprised to hear about Australia?

What are most people surprised to hear about Australia?

  • the crustaceans we put on barbeques are called “prawns”, not “shrimp”.
  • I had never heard of Steve Irwin until after he become famous overseas — he was not that well-known here before he became famous overseas
  • Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee are anything but “typical Australians” — typical Australians live in cities, like Sydney and Melbourne and the other state, territory, and federal capitals
  • we rarely see dangerous animals or insects — Australia is not particularly dangerous and we have a long life expectancy
  • we don’t see many kangaroos or other native animals unless we live well outside the big cities
  • Pavlovas — you must eat one
  • Australian confectionery is very good, at least compared to American confectionery
  • Australian food (meat, vegetables, fruit) is fresh and generally of a high quality
  • most Australians live near the ocean — the interior is relatively empty (and dry, as in desert)
  • Australia does not have a lot of Mexican restaurants because we don’t live next door to Mexico — it is a long way from here
  • Australians do not like Starbucks, and do not have “Burger King” — we call it Hungry Jacks because of a court case run by a business here that already had the name “Burger King”
  • our Woolworths has no relation to American Woolworths … except our Woolworths stole the name before the American Woolworths tried to open stores here (Woolworths Group (Australia) – Wikipedia

)Australians drive on the left — like the British, Japanese, New Zealanders, Indians, and many other people in this part of the worldwe have winter in June, July, and August, and summer in December, January, and February … and no, we don’t think that is strangeit gets cold here in winter, especially because we build our houses to be cool in summer … and then freeze in winter if we don’t have heaters and woolly jumpers (sweaters).

If you only bring summer clothes to Australia you will suffer during winter months.we have Christmas in summer (December) … because Christmas is not a celebration of winter, it is a celebration set on 25 December

Australians write dates as day/month/year not month/day/yearthe Australian accent is different to the New Zealand accent — just ask a New Zealander to say “fish and chips”: if they say “fush end chups” they are from New Zealand. It is definitely different to any British accent.Australians use A4 paper, not “Letter size”; we use the metric system; our currency is the Australian dollar … and we changed all of those things in my lifetime.our temperature is in Celsius.

No, we don’t understand Fahrenheit, we have to convert it to Celsius first.we put “petrol” in our cars, not “gas” … unless your car has been converted to use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), in which case we say “LPG”, not “gas”. Petrol is not a gas, it is a liquid.

I went there and loved it

 

What new policy did a new boss try to implement that made you say “You gotta be kidding me”?

One boss asked a subordinate to review sick leave usage. The subordinate reported that 40% of all sick leave was taken in conjunction with a weekend. He took it as proof that people were abusing the sick leave system.

The boss ordered all supervisors to require a doctor’s note when someone took sick leave in conjunction with a weekend.

I did a quick analysis of his order and responded, “Monday and Friday are each one fifth of the work week, or 20% of the work week each. Together they add up to 40% of the week. If people get sick at random, they will call in evenly over the work week. You should expect to see an even distribution of 20% of sick leave taken on any given work day. The fact that only 40% call in on Monday and Friday (20% each) proves that no one is abusing sick leave.”

He rescinded the order.

Cat love

 

What is the dirtiest fine print you’ve seen in a contract?

So I was working with this Car Dealership in the States for quite a while, about 4–5 years. Made good money and we had relatively good business practices, which isn’t common in car sales anywhere, and I ended up liking it alot. Anyway, they had this page in the employee handbook that states essentially that if your fired, quit, etc before commission is paid out on the 15th of each month then they were not required to pay you your commission. And that instead of $15 an hour your paychecks were retroactively reduced to minimum wage of $7.75. So, in this dirtiest of fine prints, what it didn’t tell you is that if they fired you on the 14th, which happened ALOT, then instead of getting your commission check, you were handed a bill that you owed them. Unless you worked an impossible amount of hours, you’d never be able to break the “Draw pay” or the money they front you weekly, $600 weekly. You would have to sell an absurd amount of cars, which case your not fired no matter how much you suck, or work 100+ hours a week to cover it. It was just cruel and dirty. I watched many folk get fired on the 14th and on the 15th have a letter from accounting stating that you ower them $300-$500 due in less than 30 days. Everyone screamed it was illegal, but “You signed the agreement” was always the answer. Somebody sued them for it once, and if memory serves me right they dragged it out for about 2 years and settled on not nearly enough money to cover lawyers and court costs. Dirty fine print at its best.

Evolutionary bottleneck

 

What are some examples of kind people that have touched your heart?

In 2012 a man was traveling in a Suzuki car with 3 others in Patna. He was driving at a speed of 100 kmph on an empty highway. Soon an SUV passed them at a very high speed. The SUV was so fast that it almost got out of control and was about to hit the Suzuki.

To save the accident, the driver of Suzuki tried to move away from the passing SUV. Doing so, the Suzuki got out of control and overturned and hit the corner of the road.

image 177
image 177

(photo for illustration only)

Four people in the car were badly injured, but narrowly escaped. The SUV driver fled after the accident and there was no one else on the road. Suzuki’s driver was badly injured and he got out of the car and sat on the middle of the road, shouting “Save!”.

It was 36 degree heat and the road was scorching. The driver lay on the road thinking that he was about to die. He wanted to help the other 3 passengers, who were still inside the car and were moaning in pain.

A few minutes later a car arrived. The man who got out of the car made a video of the accident with his phone. Then he took a closeup of the driver, whose face was covered in blood. Then this person sat in his car and left from there.

A few more minutes passed and the other car stopped. A middle-class couple came out and saw the driver lying on the hot road. The couple went back to their car and came back with a sheet.

To protect the injured driver from the scorching sun, the couple shed a sheet over him and stood up. They both stood in the sun. The husband then called emergency health services and asked them to come to the scene immediately.

They both stood there giving shade to the injured driver for almost 70 minutes! So long in the sun!

After the ambulance arrived, the couple took two other passengers in their car along with the ambulance.

The couple left the hospital after the four injured were admitted to the ICU. The driver narrated this story after recovering from an injured condition for several months, but he could not meet the noble couple.

THE BRUTAL TRUTH

 

What are some lies about China I may have been told by the Western media as a US citizen?

Here are a few of the more prominent ones:

  1. China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
  2. China is committing forced labour on the Uyghurs.
  3. China is restricting democracy in Hong Kong.
  4. China is militarily aggressive towards Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
  5. China is a dictatorship.
  6. China is trapping developing countries in debt with the Belt and Road Initiative.

There are many, many more lies. They could fill a book, so it’s not appropriate to expound on all of it in a Quora answer.

Some food for thought…

  • China has fought no wars since 1979. How many wars has America fought?
  • China has legitimate maritime disputes in the South China Sea, just like USA and Canada have no fewer than five maritime disputes.
  • China does not sanction other countries, nor interfere in their politics, nor overthrow their governments. America has done all of this.
  • According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 85% of Chinese trust their government. Only 40% of Americans do, and 30% of Brits do.
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image 13
  • According to Latana’s Democracy Perception Index (which measures what people think of their political system), China is the sixth most democratic country, well ahead of Canada, UK, and USA.
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image 178
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image 179
  • The Global South gives overwhelming support to the Belt and Road Initiative. Over 150 countries participate!

Married Women Held Accountable for Late Night Encounters with Under Age Boys

 

What is the most out-of-touch thing your boss has ever done at a meeting?

At 4pm he told us to compile a report and action plan ready for tomorrow’s 830am meeting. Now to do this properly would take each of us a full day’s work. All 7 of us protested, and asked for more time. I asked when he expected us to find the time, and he told us to work on it that night at home. I openly said “sorry, that’s unreasonable. I have a 90 minute drive home, then I’ll be cooking dinner, and then helping with showers and homework. When that’s done I have about an hour before I’m ready to fall asleep. His reply? “Get your wife to make the dinner and shower the kids while you work on the report.” And then he left the room. So we all united and decided not to do it.

He went off his tree at 830am the next morning when nothing was done. I had a word to the very nice HR lady, about what he said, along with the list of people in the room who witnessed it. When he blew his gasket and wanted HR to issue warnings, she simply told him to reschedule the meeting for the following day, and let us work all day uninterrupted to prepare for it, in work time.

Women don’t have options

 

 

What happens when a customer tells a manager “I want that employee fired or I won’t come back”?

My ex worked at a Friendlies restaurant. They had that wonderful phenomena with the Sunday morning church crowd. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, ask anyone who works Sunday morning at low-end restaurants.

This one family was notorious for demanding exemplary service, running the servers ragged and not tipping. On my ex’s last day of work, they showed up and did their usual. Rather than not tipping, they left a little card that said “I’ve given your tip to Jesus!” She balled up the card, followed them out into the parking lot, threw it at the dad and said “Jesus doesn’t pay my fucking rent!”

The dad flew back into the restaurant and demanded she be fired. The manager said it was her last day, and maybe things like this wouldn’t happen if you tipped the server. It was golden.

Why a woman’s status is IRRELEVANT

What are the most interesting facts about human behavior?

  • 70% of people keep things to themselves to avoid being judged by others.
  • People between the ages of 18–33 are the most stressed in the world After the age of 48, stress level tends to reduce.
  • The most common lie said by humans is ” I’m fine”
  • Pretty people are automatically more acceptable by people. Average looking people have to do something above average to get accepted and ugly people have to do something extraordinary!
  • Always tell the truth. So when you have to tell a lie, people are more likely to believe you.
  • More you talk about a person to others, more you fall in love with that person.
  • If you announce your goals or tell someone else about them, you are less likely to accomplish them because of lack of motivation interest since you have nothing to prove.
  • A true friend who understands your troubles is far more valuable than a hundred friends who only show up for your smile.
  • We tend to behave better when we are being watched.
  • Happier is not the one who has more money, but the one who has more money than his neighbor.
  • Anger increases the desire of possession in people. People make more efforts to obtain the object that is associated with angry faces.
  • ‘Maturity’ has no connection with ‘Age’. Yes, age is just a number…you can find more maturity in a child, than a person in his 50’s. Maturity comes with ‘Empathy’.
  • Intelligent people tend to have fewer friends.
  • We want more choices, but choose better with fewer options.

$287,000 law of attraction

Hum. Why so low?

 

It’s been said within the first 45 seconds of a job interview, the interviewer already made up their mind about whether you will be called back for a 2nd interview. Why don’t they say thanks & end the interview in 5 minutes? Why pretend & waste time?

I’ll admit that when I conducted interviews — either alone or as part of a panel — there were times when I liked, or disliked, a candidate early on. That’s why I came up with a series of questions to ask and made sure to ask them all: I wanted to give the candidate an opportunity to change my mind, one way or the other.

I will say that my initial impression was right about 70% of the time but ending an interview after five minutes would be a waste of the candidate’s and, more importantly, my time. In my 50+ years in the work force, there was only one occassion when I ended an interview prematurely. When I owned a security guard company I interviewed a woman for a job as Operations Manager. When she sat down she said that she’d heard good things about my company and she really wanted the job. Then she stood up and leaned on my desk, so I could see down her blouse, and said she’d do anything to get the job. I looked at her and smiled, and she repeated, Anything.

I ended the interview at that point, after less than ten minutes, and thanked her for coming in. I told her I planned on making a decision before the weekend (she’d come in on Tuesday) and I would let her know what is was. I had my assistant call her two days later and tell her another candidate had been hired. That chick was a lawsuit waiting to happen and I wanted no part of her.

 

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

What screams “I’m going to be a difficult customer!”?

When I’ve approached a table and before I’ve even said hello I’ve been met with ‘just so you know, we are on tripadvisor’. *sigh*. I can tell straight away I’m going to get AT LEAST one complaint about food/service/drinks/the colour of the tablecloths or whatever other excuses they want to make in order to receive a discount or face a terrible review.

We have a group of women who come in twice a month. There are always between 8-10 of them. They are taken care of as well as we take care of all our other guests. The fact you leave reviews on tripadvisor is not special and you will not be treated any differently. Every time they come in they order the same lamb dish. Everytime they ALL complain about the lamb dish.

The first time I was apologetic and gave a good discount on the bill. Two weeks later it happened again I gave a discount but started to suspect something when other patrons complimented the lamb and I had watched them talking for a good 15 minutes after food was served before complaining the food was cold. The third time it happened I was pissed off. Not only were they generally rude to the staff but when they paid the bill they would make a big deal out of saying they left a little extra for the server and it has never been more than 5 pence. Luckily we are in a country where we don’t rely on tips to earn a living.

So this third time they come in; as usual they want lamb and as usual they complain about it. When it comes time to pay I take the complete bill over, no discount.

The chief moaner said that as they hadn’t enjoyed the lamb they should get some discount. I was once again reminded they were on tripadvisor. I proceeded to tell them that they had been here twice now, ordered the same thing and complained about it both times. They were choosing to come here and if the food was that bad they didn’t need to come back. They were more than welcome to leave a terrible review and in exchange we didn’t have to give them free food every other week or put up with their terrible attitude and it was a worthwhile trade.

Shockingly they didn’t argue back just paid the bill and left. Also shockingly they came back two weeks later like normal and ordered the lamb, which when asked if everything was okay with their meals it was ‘delicious’ or ‘lovely, thank you’.

They still come every fortnight and we never got a negative review on tripadvisor.

She Sells Her Soul For 50 Years Of Pleasure, But When The Devil Comes For Her, She Outwits Him

https://youtu.be/goAqksxuAKU

 

 

 

What’s a compliment you will remember till the day you die?

In 2022, I visited New York City to take a training for my job.

I set aside the day before the training started as a sightseeing day. I knew I wanted to visit Ellis Island and the 9–11 Museum, so I bought a package ticket for both through the website where I booked my flight and hotel.

On my sightseeing day, I took the subway from my hotel down to Battery Park and met my tour group there. The tour guide, who was wonderfully intelligent, knowledgeable and interesting, took us to the ferry, which took us to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

After the ferry returned, it turned out that I was the only one of the group who had also signed up to go to the 9–11 Museum. The tour guide walked me down there, saying it was only a few blocks away.

I’m 63 years old, and not in very good physical condition. The temperature was over 90 degrees, and I do not do well in the heat. So it was a long walk for me, and I had to take frequent rest breaks. The tour guide was quite patient with me, and we had a really great conversation during this walk.

At one point in the conversation, I mentioned my husband. The tour guide said to me, “Your husband must be very smart. I know this because you are very smart, and I can tell you would never put up with a guy who wasn’t as smart as you. You would have him for breakfast.”

I will never forget that complement!

P. S. FYI, my husband IS very smart.

 

Italian Wedding Soup

This Italian Wedding Soup Recipe is simply the best! Made with acini de pepe, beef and pork meatballs, carrots, celery, greens, and Parmesan cheese. This soup is SO flavorful! Serve with crusty bread and a glass of wine and enjoy!

Packed with onions and carrots, spinach and pasta and meatballs, this hearty soup is perfect for chilly winter nights. Serve a big bowl of wedding soup with crusty rolls for a satisfying meal.

Italian Wedding Soup 33 1 of 1
Italian Wedding Soup 33 1 of 1

Yield: 29 cups; about 16 (12 ounce) servings

Ingredients

Meatballs

  • 2 hamburger rolls or 4 slices white bread
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 pounds ground beef or meatloaf mix
  • 1 medium onion, grated or very finely diced
  • 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried parsley

Soup

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 medium onions, diced; about 2 cups
  • 2 cups finely diced carrots, about 3 large carrots
  • 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
  • 4 to 4 1/2 quarts (16 to 18 cups) chicken broth, homemade or purchased
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs or 3/4 teaspoon each dried oregano and dried basil
  • 10-ounce box frozen chopped spinach
  • 1 teaspoon salt, to taste
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
  • 2 2/3 cups uncooked orzo, ditalini, or other small, roundish pasta

Instructions

Meatballs

  1. Combine the bread, egg, milk, and salt, stirring until everything is well moistened. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes to soften.
  2. Add the ground meat, onion, cheese, and herbs. Mix gently until thoroughly combined.
  3. Shape tiny meatballs, (about 1 inch diameter or less). Using a level teaspoon scoop (which volume-wise is actually 2 level measuring teaspoons) makes about the right size. Place the meatballs on a parchment-lined or lightly greased cookie sheet, and refrigerate them while you prepare the soup.

Soup

  1. Get out a large pot, at least 6 quart capacity. Pour the olive oil into the bottom of the pot, and add the onions and carrots. Sauté, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, and cook for another couple of minutes.
  2. Add the broth and herbs, bring to a simmer, and cook gently for 10 minutes.
  3. Add the frozen chopped spinach, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, total; the soup will take awhile to come back to a simmer, due to the frozen spinach. Help it along by breaking it up with a fork as it cooks.
  4. Gently drop the meatballs into the soup. Simmer the soup for 30 minutes or so, then stir in the pasta, cooking until it’s al dente. For orzo, this will take about 8 minutes or so.
  5. Add salt and pepper to taste; using reduced-salt canned chicken broth, we added 1 teaspoon salt; and 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper.
  6. Serve the soup garnished with freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese.

3 WAYS SIGMA MALES GET WOMEN OBSESSED WITH THEM

Can you share a memorable experience from an arrest where something someone said made you feel either sympathetic or happy?

When I was a Probation and Parole officer I had this guy on parole and probation at the same time. He had several positive cocaine drug tests. Usually three positive tests was where they would be arrested. Larry was uniquely qualified for extra chances. I can’t remember the fourth reason, but it most have been pretty good for me to have given him the pass. Then he got his fifth positive test. As much as I liked him I felt like I had to arrest him then. So, I confronted him about the positive test, and instead of denying it like most parolees did he said, “Officer Davis, I was this woman, and she poured cocaine all over her breasts and p**sy, and said, Larry go down on all this stuff.” Then he looked at me like a five year old child would, even though he was a forty some year ago man and said, “Officer Davis, what did you expect me to do?”

I never new if that story was true or not, I’m pretty sure it is, but anyway it was such a good story that Larry got another chance and completed hi probation and parole, with a little help from me.

Older Woman Leaves Her Good Husband And Can’t COPE With The CONSEQUENCES

 

 

Have you ever found something in your food that was clearly not supposed to be there? How did you react?

This was back around the mid-90’s in So Cal. We were having dinner with serveral of my husband’s coworkers and their spouses. It was a fairly well-known Italian place, I ordered shrimp and broccoli pasta. I took a few bites, and there was a large curled up caterpillar (I later learned was a “tomato horn worm”). It was the size of the shrimp, but not quite a brilliant green like the broccoli.

I didn’t want to make a huge fuss, so I pushed food around the plate. The server came around, and noticed that my plate was still mostly full. He asked if there was something wrong, and I pointed to the caterpillar. He went kind of pale, and quickly whisked my plate off the table. My husband noticed, but with the rest of the table eating and conversing, no one else did.

The owner of the place came over and very quietly apologized, and offered me another item. I no longer had much appetite. He asked if I would like a dessert, but no, I just couldn’t. You could tell he was genuinely aghast. I didn’t make any announcement to the rest of the table, but just said I was full. They didn’t know anything until they were told that the entire table’s bill was comped.

We still laugh about that “green” shrimp. And yes, that restaurant is still in business.

My neighbor’s child had a party last night while his parents were away. When we woke up this morning one of our cars windows was shattered and there are beer cans all over our yard. Should his parents pay for my car?

Irishman here. About 25 years ago, our next door neighbour went on holidays to Spain for 2 weeks leaving their 16 year old son behind. The son had a series of parties all week and I called in to him to have words with him. When I called in, there were a group of kids there and when I was talking to him, I noticed from his eyes that I may have done better talking to the dog. He was as high as a kite and you could see and smell the drugs. I reported it the Gardai (Irish Police) who called out to him, but did nothing.

Friday of the week came and the party was beginning to grow with loads of people and loud music. I couldn’t take it any longer and my wife, kids and I went to our holiday home in Wexford for the weekend. Before we left, we informed the Gardai and some neighbours.

The following morning, we got a call to say the house next door went on fire and we had a lot of fire damage in our house. We came home to chaos.

The young lad next door moved in with some relatives nearby and they refused to ring his parents in Spain to tell them in case it would ruin their holiday.

When they came home, we spoke to them and they refused to accept any responsibility and we had to put it through our insurance. At the time, I was very naive regarding putting in an insurance claim and missed out on a lot. I should have replaced stuff where I just got them repaired and made do with a lot of other stuff. In short, I only claimed for half of what I should have and in saying that, my insurance increased for the next 5 years and affected our no claims bonus for 7 years. It cost me 10s of thousands of Punts.

The next door neighbours got their house completely gutted and rebuilt. Essentially a new house. The only thing that remained of the original house were the 4 walls, All concrete. They then moved out to a new house elsewhere.

In answer to your question: Yes they should pay and carry out a clean up. But it didn’t happen in my case.

image 180
image 180

 

Do I have the right to refuse my father’s custody time (I’m 15)?

My ex and I had 50/50 custody.

When my son was in 8th grade, he refused to get in my ex’s car when she came to pick him up. I never found out why.

We took him to counseling, she had him meet with her minister (I took him over). In all cases, he sat there for over an hour and never said a word.

Eventually, she sued me for not forcing him to go with her. Judge took testimony. Told him all the things that we had tried to find out what was going on. Judge decided to take a crack at it. Spent 15 minutes chatting with him in chambers. Judge found him personable and likeable, but when he brought up why he wanted nothing to do with his mother, my son shut down and refused to interact with him.

Judge’s decision was that my son had veto powers over any custody agreement. My son never talked with his mother again until after high school graduation. He is 25 years now, he still has a bad relationship with his mother, and I still don’t know why.

MODERN WOMEN are SCARED of Sigma Males

 

 

What was the most horrible thing said or done by your boss?

1968. Single Mom, very poor. So poor I couldn’t afford needle & thread to sew my good blouse with a torn sleeve at shoulder. Worked for GSA, government with 2 other office ladies. Main Secretary had to have major surgery; off several weeks. The other lady became ill & took extended leave also. Left me to do all the work.

I didn’t mind as all the custodial/maintenance persons told me what a great job I was doing. They all said my annual appraisal warranted an outstanding rating; meaning a bonus of $200.

My boss called me in for the appraisal and his words: “I think you deserve an excellent rating but if I give it to you, I will have to fill out a lot of paper work. Then what will you have to work for next year”.

I was crushed and dumbfounded. It was unbelievable to the others persons as well. Within a few months, I found another job. Karma stepped in. Boss called me within a month and asked me to return as the other gals were leaving.

I declined.

Have you ever seen a doctor yell at their patient?

Yes, and the patient was me.

I was 16 years old and had an appointment my mother made because I was bleeding from my rectum. I was a 16 year old who thought it was all so dumb and wasn’t this doctors appointment just stupid and why mom did you bring me here… I was vocalizing all of this and my mom was crying and I was being awful. Finally I hear, “Shut up you little bitch!”

I was stunned. My mother probably wanted to applaud the man and I don’t blame her.

That doctor found very active ulcerative colitis. I was pretty sick. Pretty dumb too. To that end he went on to become my doctor for the next 20 years or until he retired. We had a real bond because of his big mouth.

On the day of his retirement he gave me a big hug and told me that I’d come a long way from the little brat he had met at first. He told me I was his favorite patient now. Good thing he was the best doctor I ever had.

He never apologized for saying that to me, but I did apologize for acting like a little bitch. Entitled one at that. Lol. You go Dr. Cocco!

*****PS. For anyone that thinks this behavior was wrong for a doctor. Maybe. However in this case I was bleeding actively from the inside out. This doctor could tell that with no exam really. All a person in GI bleed status has to do is fart and if you are in the medical profession you know what it smells like and tastes like pretty much without a “guaiac” or test. In this case the doctor could tell that I was mega non compliant as I was 16 and you don’t die at 16. So he stunned me into submission to get me out of there and to a hospital.

My mother had a child die from a bowel that was twisted and maybe she did or did not know what was going on. This was a whole different era. She was probably afraid it was happening again. In any event I was a bitchy little entitled brat back then. Even if it wasn’t emergent she should or would have clapped. Lord knows she tried everything else.

Just so you all know the rest of it maybe you’ll get more of the big picture.

How To Make a Man Happy

Kitty on the loose

This is a story that took place in the late 1980’s, when we lived in Indiana. At that time we lived in Columbia City, Marion, Kokomo, and one or two other places that were pretty much small communities in the land of corn…

Anyways, one day we went and visited a zoo. I think that it was in Indianapolis. Though, it could have been in Fort Wayne.

So we went there and were looking at the animals.

Sad creatures.

I really couldn’t stand it. What’s the matter with people? Can’t they emote? Gosh! I was stunned that people spent a day looking at sad, sad, and depressed critters.

My heart was sore…

Anyways, we rounded a corner at the far end of the zoo, and walked into an isolated corner of the zoo, and my wife said “hey! look at the cute cat!” and she started to walk to it to pet it.

But I grabbed her arm. I told her “wait!”.

Yup.

One of bobcats, or lynx, got out and was sheltering alone in the isolated privacy of the end of the park.

Poor thing.

It was wild. And it was ready to defend itself. Ears up. Hair ready. Hind legs ready to leap. In a half-crouch.

I told my wife to stand by the entrance to the enclave, and not to let anyone in.

I then went to get a worker.

I found one, but she was too busy with something and didn’t have time for me. She was talking earnestly on the radio. But, you know, I got her attention and said…

…”one of your cats is out…”

She looked at me.

“What?” she asked.

I then pointed to the enclosure. And she walked over, and took it from there.

Sigh.

That was the last time I went to a zoo up until last year when I took my daughter to a zoo. And do you know what she said?

“I don’t want to go back to the zoo. The animals are so old and sad. “

She’s able to emote like me.

Painful.

Today…

When people say “never settle” does this mean you should never settle for people who don’t give you happiness?

I wanted to date men I wasn’t attracted to.

When asked I insisted it was because I “gave everyone a chance” and because “looks don’t matter” and because I “might find a gem.”

The truth is, I didn’t deserve the guys I liked.

I knew it. I knew it by the semi-faded acne scars on my face and the way my tummy sticks out over my jeans and the jokes I make, how when I say something other people sort of cock their heads and wonder where the hell did I get that from?

I’d spend hours on dating apps swiping yes on guys I felt I deserved and no on guys I really wanted.

Needless to say, dating didn’t go well. I found myself just really, really hoping they wouldn’t ask to kiss me at the end because I didn’t want to deal with saying no; I wanted to check my phone while they were talking even though it was rude, even though I wanted to care but I didn’t; even when I enjoyed myself I looked forward to going home alone.

I left every date wondering what a good first date should feel like. Should I feel smitten? Should my heart be racing? Is it okay to just feel content, like I could see them again except the minute I get in my car I forget what their face looks like because maybe I wasn’t really looking?

They say that if everyone around you shares the same trait, it’s not coincidence — something about you is attracting those people to you. So if every guy I dated made me shove my hands in my pocket so that he couldn’t hold them, then it wasn’t the men.

It was me.

I had the rather stunning realization that if I wanted to date men who made my heart skip a beat, then I had to… well, date those men.

But God, I was scared. Acknowledging that you find someone attractive is vulnerable. What if they thought I was too stupid, too ugly, too fat, wholly inadequate in every single way?

What if they weren’t interested in me? What did that say about me as a person — about my worth, my character?

Dating guys I didn’t like was safe because I knew I could turn them down before they did so to me, whether I realized it or not.

But dating attractive men?

Oh no. What if they don’t like me? Or worse — what if they do?

I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

Even so, I couldn’t handle another date with someone I didn’t like. Fuck “giving it a chance” — if you’re not into someone, you’re not into them. There’s no amount of well-wishing that will change it.

So I plugged my nose, closed my eyes, and dove straight into the deep end —

Without floaties.

When I saw cute boys — boys who wrote things I found intriguing, boys with good-looking faces and a physique I liked and ooh, you’re into that? That’s so cool! — I gave them a like. I reached out. I said awkward things. I bumbled. I was, as I described it to a date later, hopelessly myself.

And I started getting dates.

Some were awful (seriously, don’t compare yourself to Ted Bundy on a first date), some were marginal, and some?

Well, some taught me what a good first date is.

I don’t know about you, but for me, it is butterflies in the stomach and redness in the cheeks and flying in the door at midnight with no one to tell about how WOW WONDERFUL it was that you give the whole play-by-play to your cat, who’s just happy to see you’re willing to pet him for once.

It’s staying up late because gah, you don’t want the night to end.

See, happiness isn’t a gift. No one can give it to you and I’d say that no one can take it away. Happiness is what happens when you align what you do with what you want. It’s the serendipitous occasion of realizing that yes, this is where I want to be right now. This is what I want. You are what I want.

When people say not to settle, they’re telling you not to undershoot for fear of getting hurt.

Because you will get hurt. Any time you want something, you’ll go through fire to get there. In business you’ll lose money, in life you’ll lose health, and in love you’ll get your heart broken so many times you’ll wonder how it still pumps.

But the reward of not settling?

Is so, so, so worth it.

A credit card

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WlTlgSnEN9k?feature=share

Spareribs and Cabbage
(Zeberka Wieprzowena z Kapusta — Poland)

Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes.

IMG 4093
IMG 4093

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 4 1/2 pounds fresh pork spareribs, cut into 6 pieces
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 1 large carrot, sliced
  • 2 teaspoons instant beef bouillon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon caraway seed
  • 1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/2 cup vinegar
  • 1 small head green cabbage, cut into 6 wedges
  • Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in Dutch oven until hot. Cook pork spareribs, a few pieces at a time, over medium heat until brown on all sides, about 15 minutes; drain fat.
  2. Add onion, carrot, bouillon, salt, caraway seed, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and the bay leaf.
  3. Pour water and vinegar over pork mixture. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
  4. Add cabbage; sprinkle with pepper. Cover and simmer until cabbage is tender, about 45 minutes.
  5. Remove bay leaf.
  6. Arrange spareribs and vegetables on serving platter.
  7. Garnish with minced parsley if desired.

Talent

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ldrFLgTPULE?feature=share

What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?

I don’t know. I heard this at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 1980. Soldier humor — especially in the Infantry — tends to be a bit dark, but here goes . . .

The Company Commander called for the First Sergeant.

When he arrives the C O says:

“Top, just got word that Private Schmedlap’s mother died. Please inform him.”

“Got it, Sir.”

So the Company is assembled for the noon accountability check. Per usual, he makes a few announcements then:

“Private Schmedlap?”

“Here First Sergeant.”

“Your mom just croaked.”

Schmedlap completely falls apart and passes out. An ambulance is called and Schmedlap spends almost a week in the hospital getting back his senses.

The C O is pissed.

“Damn it, Top. The Battalion Commander is on fire about this. I’m going to send you to Tact School. Maybe they can teach you to handle things like this a bit more thoughtfully.”

So, Top spends a week at Tact School. Time passes. Then, one morning . . .

“Top”, the C O says, “Just got word that Private Schmedlap’s father died. You need to inform him and I hope to hell you do a better job this time.”

“No sweat, Sir, I got this.”

So at the noon formation, Top makes a few announcements then: “Alright, listen up. I want everyone whose father is still living to take two steps forward. Not you Schmedlap.”

Find your Next Side Hustle to Make Extra

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-AQ_Qt4SJYc?feature=share

How can you politely tell someone to give back something that belongs to you?

Just last week I faced this. I had lent my neighbour a drill and an angle grinder so he could do some renovation work on his home before moving out and renting it.

A few days before he moved out he brought back my drill but not the angle grinder. When I asked about the angle grinder he told me he had already returned it to me. Hmmm. I told him I didn’t think so but would check at home for it, which I did and at my business in case I had taken it there.

I let him know I couldn’t find it and that I was fairly sure he had not given it back. He said he would have another look for it too but he was sure he had given it back.

At this point I wrote off the angle grinder in my mind and was prepared to simply buy another. It never occurred to me that he was stealing it, as he is not like that, my thought was he had packed it up with his things or some other person had taken it. Regardless I was not having a good friendship lost over an angle grinder that might cost me $100!

In the end I told him it would turn up. No anger, no accusation, I really didn’t care for the reason above.

A few days pass and he is now at his new place and guess what he finds – the angle grinder!

My text message back to him was – I told you it would turn up.

So for you; all you can do is ask. Something like, “Hey, remember that xyz I gave you last year? Would you mind returning it as I have to clean the widgets. Would you mind dropping it back tomorrow? Or I will come by Wednesday and grab it.”

But if they don’t and they are a good friend or family member then let it go if you can at all afford to. Weigh up the friendship versus the cost of replacing it and make a decision.

Things can be replaced easily, friendships not so much.

BUT next time don’t lend them anything – that ship sailed.

Crazy shit

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d-eZf_CqhAg?feature=share

12 Golden things you learned with age

  1. Your friends no matter how close, will disappear with time.
  2. The most important relationship in this entire world is the one you have with yourself.
  3. Nobody cares about your hard work, they just look at the result.
  4. Heart break and failures are part of life.
  5. There’s no place like home.
  6. Family and money matters the most.
  7. Book is indeed a person’s best friend.
  8. Physical activity reduces stress.
  9. Wasting time in regretting and crying won’t fetch you results.
  10. Whatever you want today won’t matter to you tomorrow.
  11. Your decisions define your life, not fate.
  12. Childhood is the golden time.

White women were highly valuable slaves in many Islamic empires.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8cmbBCe0B6Y?feature=share

What did your parents say to you as a kid that still affects you today?

Things my (adoptive) father said that still affect me today:

I’m a little scared to be your dad, you know.” (This when I was a twelve-year-old child riding in the backseat with curious eyes. I hadn’t replied because communication at the time was a lot of effort for me, though my vocal cords were fine and I had been a talkative boy up to age 8.)

Nightmare? Okay. Grab a cup and I’ll make you some cocoa.” (This to a progressively older me from 12 to 15, when I woke up from nightmares of the car accident that took my parents and the drug overdose that took my sister.

Oh… oh.” (This when I finally broke through my walls and told him that I wasn’t afraid anymore. Verbally. It startled him into tears, though if you ask him today he’ll tell you he just blinked a little. That day was the first time I’d ever spoken to anyone since my sister’s death nearly 8 years prior. Of course it was my Dad.)

And last:

“He’s my son.” Or: “This is my son.”

This was the way he introduced me since the car ride to his house when I was 12. As far as he was concerned I was his boy and that was that. He didn’t care that I didn’t even look like his biological child, with flaming red hair to his jet black.

I love my birth parents and always will, but my Dad is my Dad and that’s it.

Road Rage

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u-2l3aTKHY0?feature=share

What’s something on an employee’s first day that sets off red flags?

I was working in the creative department of arguably the hottest ad agency in the world at the time. It was the 1980’s and the place was extremely casual. By that I mean some of the creatives were in full punk, there was frequently a smell of weed in the corridors, there were occasional fights, and often too much drink was consumed, not always out of office hours (not that anyone paid much attention to that, as a few people actually slept in their offices).

The management of the agency didn’t mind because some truly exceptional work was produced. The agency was booming, and if a little anarchy was the price, so be it.

We creatives needed a lot of backup. We needed secretaries to type up TV scripts and generally look after us. They were all pretty good at seeing what the mood was and going with the flow up to a point. But one new secretary came into the dept and I thought straight away “Hmmm…this is going to be interesting”.

For a start she was all twinset and pearls. Then she unpacked a load of squishy animals like a child might have in their bedroom, and arranged them on her desk. Finally she went around to each office introducing herself by her last name and shaking hands. People scratched their heads. She had come from a bank’s headquarters where everything was very correct and formal.

She lasted about three months and when she left I remember her being in tears and saying we were all completely mad. It was a shame because everyone had been nice to her. People watched their swearing around her and no one vomited in her typewriter, (which had actually happened before to someone).

Disney Lost $200 Billion After Elon Musk Called Out Bob Iger

Seriously, the CEO has a responsibility to understand his customer base. When a company fails it is because it no longer provides things that the customers want.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CVoPx6ewykk?feature=share

I got fired. My ex-boss is now asking for the whereabouts of important files. How should I respond?

I’ve had conversations with managers about this. It usually goes something like this:

Manager: “I can’t finish this project. I have no idea what Gary did with the project files.”

HR Me: “You have no idea where he put the files in the shared drive?”

“I think he kept them on his laptop.”

“You ‘think’? You weren’t tracking important project documents?”

“I even called Gary at home and you know what he did?”

“Told you to pound sand?”

“Pretty much! He didn’t want to talk to me! He just hung up!”

“Imagine that. We terminated him and marched him out immediately. You were pretty happy that day. What made you think he was going to help you at all?”

“I told him we might put him back on the re-hire list.”

“Oh you sweet summer child… so what did you want me to do about it?”

“Can’t we threaten to sue him or something? Like he stole company property?”

“Did he?”

“Well…”

“You weren’t tracking or centralizing important project files, but if it is on his work laptop, you should ask IT to look.”

“uh, they already reimaged his laptop.”

“Did you get a dump from his email account on the server?”

“A what, now?”

“Of course. Here you are asking me for HR advice and I’m sitting here suggesting ways you could have done your job. You lost company files because you didn’t act to protect them. You worked to fire someone we thought was essential to completing the project, but you didn’t want to wait. Now you look like you need a performance improvement plan for failing to secure work assets. And you want us to go threaten this guy with a costly lawsuit and an internal investigation which would likely document your incompetence. How is it that guy got fired and you’re still here?”

“…”

“I will talk to IT to see what we might have in his email attachments or if there’s a chance we can still recover something from the laptop. If we can’t, I would scour the shared drive with a content search because if you lost something, you’ll have to explain how you plan to recreate the assets you lost or you might be walking out of here with your own empty copier paper box.”

San Francisco crazy

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zOE7PDjLrgI?feature=share

What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?

It wasn’t a meeting, but the morning breakfast where many of the local small business owners would gather every day. I was sitting at the large table, doing my morning crossword, when the guy I worked for started telling the story of a particularly difficult-to-diagnose problem we had encountered. He prefaced his story with, “my dummy, here”, meaning ME ! He went on to tell the story, telling of the various things we tried in attempting our diagnosis. He made himself out to be the wunderkind, when I was the one who had actually reasoned out the problem and came up with a solution. As he was laughing at his ‘dummy’s’ ineptitude, I calmly folded my paper, picked up my check, paid and left the cafe. I went to the shop, backed my vehicle in and started loading my tools. Boss rolled in about 15 minutes later. He came in, saw what I was doing and still asked me what I was doing ! He was totally clueless as to what I was doing and why I was doing it ! I told him, “ I rolled ’em in, and I’m rolling ’em out “! He asked, “Why ?” I had to struggle to stay calm as I told that I would not work for someone who had not only insulted me in public, but had also implied that I was some sort of idiot who had to be guided by his ‘superior’ intellect. The look of confusion on his face as I pulled out of the building was indicative of his lack of respect for me. He couldn’t understand how I had been insulted. The little story he had told at the cafe never entered his mind. C’est la vie et au revoir !

Is That What You Wanted Me to Say?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lkzZKJnL2BA?feature=share

What is the perfect thing to say when someone is being rude to you?

It was 530 am and the starbucks drive-thru was already hopping. There were two lanes to order from, but only one had a lit menu. I chose that side, despite the car waiting impatiently at the microphone for the other. After placing my order, I pulled ahead towards the pickup window, where the two lines merged. The car still waiting at the darkened lane honked angrily, and a hand shot out displaying the middle finger.

I had a terrible head cold and already felt miserable anticipating my 24 hrs of trauma call ahead. When he did that I considered my options and very nearly went with my first thought— to slam on the parking break, hop out and give somebody an in-the-face lecture on manners. If he couldn’t figure out that lane was closed, how was this MY fault?? I was tired of this kind of bullshit.

But I live in Arizona. I was likely to get shot doing that.

Next I considered giving him the finger back. I leaned on the window switch, but it was locked, and that allowed me thirty seconds to reconsider.

I felt like shit.

But maybe he felt like shit, too.

Flipping him the bird would just feed into both of our foul moods.

I reached the pickup window, still stewing, and finally managed to lower the car pane. “$4.25,” a teenager named Robin chirped at me, and as I dug into my pocket for my card, wondering how a small cup of tea could possibly add up to over four dollars, the ultimate revenge for the rude driver behind me occurred to my tired brain—-

“And I’ll pay for the car in back of me,” I told Robin.

She smiled. “Pay it forward, huh?”

“Well. Something like that.” I accepted my tea and my card back, waved cheerfully into my rearview mirror, and pulled away, feeling one less thing was wrong with the world.

What is the most ignorant thing someone has said to you?

I was 54 doing a degree in education at an Ivy League university. Most of the students were in their early 20s and from wealthy backgrounds. Each student had to do a presentation on an aspect of teaching. I did mine on the impact of poverty on learning.

Several students told me quite clearly that they were not remotely interested in poverty issues.

Then one student looked at one of my handouts on my topic and said, ‘this is so gay, it’s retarded!’

I had had enough of this crap. I quietly said to the instructor that he needed to deal with this or else I would. He agreed wholeheartedly and simply reminded everyone to use respectful language. That was it. I was pissed. That was not good enough.

So I went to the Dean of Education with this. He was someone the entire university respected. He had also grown up dockside in Liverpool I later learned.

A couple of days later the Dean came to our class and delivered an hour long lecture on poverty and terms like gay and retarded and a bunch of similar terms. He talked about identity, and he talked about cases where teachers have been punched in the face for using terms like that. He went into great detail with each researched case and the results. He talked about all the ways students can sabotage a teacher’s car. He talked about a case in our own city where a teacher used terms like this and the student population took up a petition to silence her. Her classes were chaos as retaliation and she had to be moved mid-semester. Then he talked about ethics, personal and professional, and how they overlap. He went into some detail about what he would do as a principal to a new teacher who spoke in such a degrading way to, or about, students.

Then the Dean asked if anyone in the room had loved ones who were developmentally challenged or gay.

There were several. They were invited to speak about them, and they did, eloquently. It was heartwarming.

This is what the instructor ought to have done.

Coming from no money adds a dimension to perspective that is valuable and important.

 

During World War 2, why didn’t the Allies consider invading Indochina (Vietnam, Laos) instead of the Philippines which would force the Japanese military to retreat into China and allow the Chinese to have direct assistance there?

  • At that time, China, the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom were the Allies against the Axis Powers such as Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Italy. The Chinese army is part of the Allied Forces.
  • The Chinese defeated the Japanese in Indochina.
image 257
image 257

In February 1942, Japanese troops attacked Burma through Thailand. The photo shows the Japanese fighting in the jungles of Burma. The British were unable to withstand the Japanese offensive, and requested the Chinese government to send troops to Burma to rescue the British. On 8 March, the Japanese captured the Burmese capital of Yangon, sending shock waves through India.

image 256
image 256

In 1945, Chinese in Yangon hit the streets to welcome soldiers from China’s New 1st Army who had arrived to take part in a military parade celebration dedicated to the victory of the Burma Campaign.


Second expedition (Early 1943 – March 1945)

Between 1942 and 1943, many Chinese soldiers were airlifted from Chongqing to India and joined the ones who had followed the British retreat there earlier, they were trained under American advisors and became the X Force into which the New 1st Army and New 6th Army was incorporated, which was supported by American Special Forces in their field operations.

For most of 1943, the Chinese Army engaged in several conflicts with the Japanese Army while defending the construction of the Ledo Road.

In October 1943, the New First Army managed to defeat the Japanese veteran 18th Division at Hukawng Valley.

To secure the opening of the Ledo Road, the Chinese Army in India was retitled the “Northern Combat Area Command” (NCAC), and re-entered Burma in the spring of 1944.

The Chinese Army engaged and defeated the Japanese forces during various campaigns in Northern Burma and Western Yunnan and recaptured Myitkyina in August.

Allied success in these campaigns enabled the opening of the Ledo Road.

However, by the time Myitkyina was captured, Allied success in the Pacific theatre was reducing the significance of the China-Burma-India theatre.

Intending to coordinate with the X Force, Wei Lihuang’s Chinese Expeditionary Force in Yunnan, known as the Y Force, crossed the Salween River in April and launched an offensive against the Japanese Army.

Y Force was composed of two Army Groups from the National Army; 11th Army Group(Commander Song Xilian, Deputy Commander Huang Jie, Chief of Staff Cheng Gang) and 20th Army Group (Commander Huo Kuizhang, Deputy Commander Fang Tian).

By January 1945, the Y Force had captured the town of Wanting on the China-Burma border and regained control of the land route from Burma to China. The first convoy via the newly opened Ledo-Burma Road reached Kunming in February 1945

100th Monkey Theory

The video cuts off at the end, but the point is that at the 100th monkey, all the monkeys in the world learn how to clean the sweet potatoes. There is a threshold that is crossed, and ESP, PSI takes over.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/99m3lKevnvg?feature=share

As a doctor or nurse, what’s the most appalling behavior you’ve seen by a patient’s family?

My patient had just been vaginally delivered of a newborn baby who weighed something more than nine pounds. The obgyn had to cut an episiotomy to prevent a tear into the rectum.

During the repair, which took a lot more sutures than usual, the father asked the doctor to “tighten her up a bit.”

The doctor and I exchanged looks. I let her respond first, because I wanted to say things that were inappropriate for a Muslim and as an RN.

The obgyn said words along the lines of, “I’m down here repairing an injury that your wife has because she pushed like a champion when she could have given up and requested a cesarean section. She did it because she loves the baby, she did it because she loves you. I’m going to let you think about all of that.”

It’s been about 20 years, this was early in my career, and I don’t want to portray the physician as more witty than she actually was, but this is pretty close to an exact quote.

I am scared of dying. Can anyone help, and is there an afterlife?

My dad died in 1983. My mom sat and held his hand for a week until he died. He had such a look of pain on his face and my mom was very distraught that he did not have a happy death. I stayed with her for support and began calling family members to announce his passing. In the evening, before the family arrived, my mom asked me if we could be sure he was in heaven and happy. I said that Dad was very good at expressing his feelings and I was positive that he would send us a sign. We prayed and asked him to send Mom a sign so that she would accept his death with courage. Almost immediately there was a light shower that came from the west. Rain never came from the west so she thought that was a good sign. She then called my dad’s name and said “Valent, are you at peace and happy?” almost immediately the evening sun began to shine through the windows. The sun’s rays shone through the rain droplets on the windows and spread little tiny rainbows across the floors and furniture in the house.

My answer is yes, there is an afterlife. Dying is scary, more so because it might be painful. Death might be an end to physical life on earth, but faith will always help me to believe that there is something after death that is worth hoping for. Bless you, and I hope you feel comforted in all our answers to you.

Police say self-checkout aisles invented a new type of criminals

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CSsQZfsGhig?feature=share

How do I politely tell my daughter’s friend’s parents that they are taking advantage of me by having me drive their kid to school events/practices when they never reciprocate?

When my child was in grade school, a mother down the block asked me to drive her daughter to and from school every day. I said okay, because I was driving my child anyways. The only stipulation I made was that she eat breakfast before coming to our house. I was on a very strict food budget due to being an at home mom with only one paycheck. At this child’s house, both parents worked full-time and had enough money to put their children in extra activities. I couldn’t afford this for my child. I even arranged any Dr. appointments, dentist appointments, etc. fora time after I would drop this child home. This was all because the older sister had to start school earlier and couldn’t watch the younger child in the morning. After the first week of the school year, this child came every day earlier and earlier. The father would drop her off at my house on his way to work. It got to the point where I was getting up earlier than needed just to let her into our house. Did she eat breakfast at home, NO! I was feeding her every day for the rest of the year. I mentioned to her that she was to eat at home. Did she? NO! She stayed in bed until the last minute and then get into the car with her dad. Never saw dad or mom except when dropping her off. They would do the drop and go before she was even in the house. Did they talk to me at all during the year? NO! At the end of the year, the mother came over with a gift card for $25.00 to the grocery store and a decorative flowerpot. No flower even. I told her I couldn’t do it the next year at that time. The child then no longer was a friend of my child in school and taunted him constantly. When the new school year came, another mother from the block came and wanted me to drive her daughter to school so “I could save the bus money and you’re going anyways.” I told her “No, I am sorry. I am only driving my son this year so I could get things done after school if I need to.” I then became the “bad neighbor” and not talked to again. Don’t get roped into this at the beginning. Just tell the parent “Sorry, no.” No reason, no explanation, just no.

Can overweight people tell that they’re full?

I will speak for myself:

I can’t tell I’m full unless I eat so much that I experience discomfort and, even when I reach that level, it goes away within an hour or so, and I’m often hungry again.

It’s not uncommon for me to begin eating a meal, feel painfully full, and only then remember that I’d already eaten a meal a little earlier, which I’d forgotten about. This happens sometimes when they offer us food at work. My official lunch period at work is pretty late in the school day, so I usually eat my lunch during my planning period, which is earlier in the day. There have been times when I’ve eaten the lunch I brought and then, maybe an hour later, had a lunch provided for me by the school. Halfway through that lunch, I felt discomfort, and only then did I remember that I’d already eaten.

Like C. S. Friedman said in her answer, this is why single-serving portions of food, while more expensive than buying in bulk, are so popular.

If you put me in front of a family-size bag of chips, I can easily eat half of the bag before I start to feel discomfort. So we don’t get big bags of chips in my house. We get the little bags. That way I know when to stop.

It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I realized I was missing that “full” sensation that other people had. I always just assumed that everyone else had more self control when it came to their portion sizes. The idea that it wasn’t so much “self control,” but rather their mind actually signaling to them that “you’ve had enough” was foreign to me.

Meals where everyone eats from the same source (pizza, pots of soup or chili, etc.) are particularly problematic for me. When we have those for dinner, after getting my first serving, I have to make a conscious effort to avoid returning to the source for more, or I will eat until I feel discomfort, which is way beyond what I should eat. What usually happens is that I will be the last to serve myself and, as soon as I serve myself, before I even eat it, I will store the leftovers, to remind me that I’ve already had enough. Otherwise, every time I walk by it, I will have some more.

I’ve learned another trick over the years. It’s probably not the healthiest trick, but it does help keep me from overeating. If I know I’m going to be somewhere with a lot of food, if I eat candy about 20–30 minutes beforehand (to spike my blood sugar), I won’t eat as much food later. I’m sure a doctor could explain why that works, and the explanation is probably that something is wrong with me or I’m being even more unhealthy when I do that. But I know that I’m going over to a meal at someone’s house, and I don’t want to overeat there, on the way there, having a few pieces of candy will help me eat less once I get there.

Gym Owners Are Starting to BAN Cameras | Modern Women Are BAFFLED

https://youtu.be/fNTrAthUSaU

Is it rude to tell my father-in-law that he stinks? He finished his work shift and had dinner straight away without showering and reeked.

My father was a mechanic. My entire life Dad would come home sweaty, smelling of transmission fluids, mineral spirits, and all sorts of other automotive fluids.

And yes, it stunk. Bad enough that he’d tell me , “No Pumpkin, dont hug me till I can shower, I stink!”

One Friday night, I had come home from college and called him at work to meet Mom and me at the Mexican restaurant up the street from our house for dinner. He told me the shop had been really busy this week and he had worked hard to get all the cars finished before the weekend. “Pumpkin, I need a shower first, I stink.” I knew once he got home there wasnt going to be a dinner out, he’d shower and be tired. I told him I wasnt worried about that stink and no one else would be either. Because that stink is the smell of money. That stink proved my family’s business was doing well. That stink put food on our table and kept a roof over our heads. That stink put me through college. If someone was offended by that stink then I’d be more than happy to explain why my Dad stinks.

My Dad never worried again about how he smelled directly after work, and often used that line when my mom would tease him about coming in smelly… “Aww Mae come on, that’s just the smell of money!”

When someone has worked hard to earn an income to take care of their family, you keep your mouth shut if they might smell a little, because that’s the smell of money.

What’s something you did so well that it even surprised you?

In 1979, I arrived in Thailand to study Thai language and culture. I had a job waiting for me in Los Angeles, helping Thai immigrants adjust to U.S. life.

I was living with a Thai family and had brought some of my savings for expenses, but I had never NOT worked (starting at 14). When I heard that the language center where I studied Thai was looking for native speakers to teach, I shrugged and applied to work for a short time. I had no clue that I would remain in Thailand.

Teaching was one of a VERY few jobs open to foreigners.

When I explained to the director that my background was in business, not education, but that I had tutored Thai monks in the U.S., she waved my concerns away and hired me, saying that the school had a training program.

The one-week training did little to calm my nerves about being a teacher. I had adored so many teachers in my school life; how could I ever do what they did and do it well?

My first class was harrowing UNTIL I noticed that the students were just as nervous as I was. I remember thinking, “We’re in this together!”

For 7 years, I worked hard to find better, more effective ways to help my students achieve improvement. I read, I questioned, I experimented, I observed, I listened.

One of my most joyful moments was when a troublesome student thanked me for teaching him and said, “You have a teacher heart.”

Then I was promoted (unasked for) to teacher supervisor and trainer. I was stunned that I was chosen over many who had far more experience (and background).

I used my own struggles and experiences to find ways to help other new teachers.

I never stopped teaching, even when I was a supervisor. When I left that position, although I loved the work, I was delighted to devote my time to the classroom.

40+ years later, the covid situation managed to ‘retire’ me.

When I look back, I am surprised at how passionate I became about teaching and how flexible I was in response to students’ needs.

I am so grateful that life took me to where I needed to be!

p.s. No, they didn’t hold the job for me in the U.S.!

 

Have you ever walked into your house and noticed a sound that you thought was suspicious? What happened?

I recall how when I was a boy our family became very puzzled by a noise we heard in the lounge in our bungalow whenever we walked into it. The noise sounded like a little persistent rustling, tapping or clicking noise coming from the ceiling in one corner of the room. In those days we did not use the lounge very often, because with the extension of our bungalow we had another big “living room” space that had formerly been the kitchen but now contained sofas and a TV set, so we did not notice this noise for a long time. However when we finally did notice it, the noise was persistent and we were curious to see what it was. My uncle, who lived next door to us, went up a step ladder through a hatch in the hall ceiling and shone his torch into the dark roof space, and this is what he noticed in the corner of the roof space where we kept hearing this noise, and indeed was the reason for the noise. Do you know what it is ?

image 258
image 258

It is of course a wasps’ nest, not the actual nest in the roof space of our bungalow, but a very similar looking one. The rustling, tapping or clicking noise noise was the sounds of the wasps building their nest or moving around in it. It was fortunate for us at the time that my uncle was working as a pest control officer for the local council, and in those days the council would send him to destroy wasps’ nests free of charge if they were a nuisance to householders. He was soon able to destroy this one. Eventually he brought the nest down from the roof space in a box, and it was the first time I had ever seen a wasps’ nest.

We had of course noticed a number of wasps in our home at the time, especially in the kitchen, but the number was no greater than usual, because we were always visited by wasps, especially in the late summer. This was because a ditch ran past our bungalow, and wasps do like to make their nests near water because they need water to make the nest. Indeed in other years I often noticed wasps flying in and out of a location on the bank of the ditch, indicating that a nest was there. One year my uncle tried unsuccessfully to destroy one of these nests, but disturbed it and left us running away from an angry swarm of wasps. I received a sting on the hand in the process, but it was certainly not the only time I was stung by a wasp as a boy.

Harry Pothead and the Stoned Philosopher | Harry Potter Parody Part 1

This AI generated stuff is amazing.

https://youtu.be/bxHhmbQmyb0

How do I nicely tell my sister and her husband that I can’t provide them free food anymore? They come to my house on weekends and don’t leave until we eat.

Leave them there while you go out for dinner.

Then, when you see them arrive, meet them at the door with your coats on and tell them you’ll see them next time.

Then start not answering the door and pretend you’re not home.

Or, just tell your sister it’s time she brought the main dish. Then, it’s her time for 2 side dishes. Then, dessert.

Or, just tell her you want to have a private dinner with your immediate family.

Or, start showing up at her house right before you know they’d be getting dressed to come to your house.

Or just tell her it’s time for them to go home because you’ve got to get dinner ready.

Edited to add:. People, while I enjoy your comments and suggestions, I am not the original poster. I didn’t ask the question. I wouldn’t have trouble using any of my suggestions, but I would most likely use my last one.

Rather than telling me what you think I should do, or get all worked up at how snarky I am, click on the question and tell her. The OP will not see responses to comments.

Edited to repeat: Click on the QUESTION, then under it, click ANSWER. If you’re clicking Reply, you’re talking to me. Since the OP has never chimed in during this long exchange with me, I am assuming the OP isn’t getting some of these really great suggestions. While I appreciate 2.2K upvotes, maybe the OP could use a little support.

Plus, I don’t care. This isn’t my sister, nor would either of them be so rude. Tell the OP, please!

Harry Potter as a Dramatic Indian Soap Opera

So friggin’ strange.

https://youtu.be/V0fgsLXQbx4

Does working fast food suck as much as people say it does?

Yes, It kinda does. I work as a shift manager at a fast food restaurant. (I won’t mention the name, I still need the job for a little longer.)

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good days where everything goes smooth.

There are many reasons I hate working fast food.

  1. There’s never a fixed schedule. I have to find out what my hours are every Sunday. Even then, I have been called in on my only off day more than once.
  2. Absolutely no benefits. Except 1 free combo each shift worked. No paid time off, no insurance of any kind, nada!!! Just free food and a bi-monthly paycheck.
  3. It’s a very stressful job. When a car pulls up to to the menu, a sensor triggers a timer to start. When that same car pulls from the window to leave, a sensor stops that timer. Management wants each car to be timed at a maximum of 107 seconds.
  4. You haven’t seen how ugly people can behave until you have worked fast food. I have been pelted with coins, spat at, cussed at, screamed at, punched, doused with soda, and have received countless threats of assault, and a few death threats. People don’t respect fast food employees.
  5. It’s a dead end job. The most you can progress is to a shift manager. Don’t get too excited, they hand that promotion out to anyone who lasts more than a year. Yes, you’ll get an okay pay raise, but don’t expect your checks to be any bigger. The more you are paid per hour, the less hours you will be scheduled for. This is due to the labor percentage. The store computer keeps track of how much money the store is taking in hourly, and tells the GM how much of the money coming in is already spent on wages for the people who are clocked in. The higher your hourly rate, the closer you are to the first pick to be sent home early.
  6. There’s a HUGE language barrier for a lot of my coworkers. They are all from south America. They all speak different varieties of Spanish. They are really cool people, but it’s frustrating to have to pull out my phone to translate what needs to be done, or to simply communicate. Especially during a busy lunch rush.

I can’t wait to finish college. I graduate September of 2025. The moment I walk across the stage with a cap and gown, I’m putting in my two weeks.

What is the biggest scam an auto mechanic ever tried on you?

On my wife . . .

Front bumper of her car had been popped off by something trapped under it (dark, wet night: black plastic bin on tarmac). I pushed it back on, but was worried it might be damaged so suggested she get it checked. The dealer she’d bought it from sent her to their branch in the next town.

They said it’d cost £3400, including new bumper, new headlight, new wing, & re-painting several body panels including one at the back.

So she went to the Toyota dealer near one of her workplaces. Different town, different company. At first they said it’d need a new headlight, because the mounting point was broken (less than 10% of what the other lot said), but when they took the bumper off, they found the headlight assembly was OK: just the fastener broken. So they replaced it. No charge. Too small.

She saw the service manager looking at her staff parking permit for the local college. 😉 May have been thinking she might speak to colleagues. It’s a few hundred yards/metres from the workshop.

She’s been back there for other things since, so they’ve got some money from her.

What are some deep truth you must learn now or never?

  1. Stop expecting honesty from people who lie to themselves. It’s a really expensive gift, cheap people can’t afford it.
  2. Sometimes your old life has to fall apart before your new life can fall together. So, don’t hesitate to leave the past in the past.
  3. The job, the party, the relationship knowing when to leave is so important. Don’t stick with the toxic environment.
  4. Fitting in will make you miserable. Be your own uncool, weird-ass self and whoever still wants to hang around with you then, keep them close and be weird together.
  5. It’s not your job to fix insecure people. It’s your job to fix the part of you that resonated with your insecurities.
  6. At any minute, there is someone who can come along and change your life. That person is you.

Lord Of The Rings But in Jamaica – Lord of the Rastas

My goodness!

This is pretty darn CRAZY!

https://youtu.be/RWTIGk8COpU

If I’m a defendant in court, when the judge tells me, “The defendant, please rise,” if I don’t rise, what will the judge do to me?

One of my favorite responses from a judge happened at a motion hearing docket. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, and it was set on the docket with a dozen other cases for that afternoon (I had two of the other cases). The defendant’s case actually got called before mine, so I was present when this happened.

The judge entered the courtroom, and the bailiff announced, “All rise, the Honorable Bocephus Williams presiding.” Everyone except one fellow stood. The judge took the bench and called the first case, which happened to be the guy who didn’t stand. Again, he didn’t stand, just said, “Here,” when he heard his name called.

The judge then called the case again. The state, standing near a podium in the well, announced present, and the defendant, who had taken a chair at the defense counsel table, simply grunted, “Right here.”

“Next case,” the judge said. He then called the following case, my first, and I stood to announce my presence.

“Hey, my case was called.” The man interrupted from his seat.

“You failed to present yourself before the court; the matter was moved to the end of the docket.”

“But I was here … “the man began to argue. The judge struck his gavel and admonished him that he would be heard at the end of the docket.

One of the other attorneys stepped close to the fellow and whispered to him. I can only assume the substance of the conversation, but imagine it was along the lines of “Next time, stand up, and the judge will recognize you.”

The judge worked through the entire docket and, in the end, again called the original case. The defendant, being hard-headed (pronounced dumbass), remained seated. “Still here,” he said.

“Sir, you should consult local counsel and read the court rules. You have failed to maintain proper decorum. Your case is being moved off the docket, and a new date for the hearing has been set. Failure to follow the court’s rules will result in a dismissal, so ensure you are prepared next time.” The judge left the bench while the fellow tried to argue that he was there and ready to proceed.

Harry Potter but everyone is Gen Z

https://youtu.be/5X194j_sAGY

What row do you sit in in a movie theater? Why?

Always sat in the middle of the theatre in the middle of the row, dead centre of the screen. That was my favourite. Sat in those seats since I was a kid, when I went to the show with my pals, then sisters then girlfriends. Best seats in the house.

I remember when I went to see Bonnie and Clyde. Went with my sisters Lori and Tracy. The theatre was packed, only three seats left. At the very front. I got a sore neck from watching that movie. At one time I thought, “Wow, I could walk right up into Warren Beatty’s nostril!” The heads were so huge. Do you know what that scene was like when they shot up Bonnie and Clyde’s car when you seemed to be sitting 10 feet away? WOW!

Another time when I went with my sisters, I had a large drink and popcorn. My seat was still up and I sat on it to bring it down. I came crashing down in my seat squeezing my drink cup which exploded all of my legs. THAT was a very uncomfortable movie to watch, but I stayed. Lori went and got me another drink great sister that she is. She brought me a small one.

Always loved going to the movies. Don’t go much anymore. Just as good staying home and watching them on the big TV screen. My sons will take me once in awhile so we have some fun together then.

Is Marriage Actually Worth It?

https://youtu.be/vnNY6oSgZBU

Helen Beveridge’s Haluski Grange Stand Favorite

This one is a stand favorite. If you can’t wait a whole year, here is the Haluski scaled down.

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741aaa666b000a0f758c68955bc4a469

Yield: 10 to 12 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 large head cabbage, chopped and steam until tender
  • 1 pound egg noodles, cooked al la dente
  • Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

Instructions

  1. Using pot large enough to accommodate all the ingredients, melt the margarine and sauté the onion until tender.
  2. Add the cabbage and the noodles and stir to combine. Heat thoroughly.
  3. Season to taste.

Notes

Once a year only. Customers love it because ” It’s such a comfort food” Megan Schlow, New York free lance food stylist.

Harry Potter but the Matrix

These AI generated videos are next generation!

https://youtu.be/nJIyCt5-_b4

Sitrep March 2024

Here are some common things we are usually unaware of the purpose of:

  • Stickers on fruit: The stickers mark the country and producer of the fruit, but it’s the numbers that are the important aspect. If there are 4 digits and the first number is 4, then it means the fruit is sprayed with pesticides. If there are 5 digits and the first number is 9, then the fruit has grown organically, and if there are 5 digits with the first number being 8, then the fruit has been genetically modified.

main qimg ebc4289eca860e6b91f2fb5ec0f1cfce pjlq
main qimg ebc4289eca860e6b91f2fb5ec0f1cfce pjlq

  • Doughnut hole: In the past, it was difficult to get the edges and the middle of the pie equally baked. So they came up with the ingenious idea of using this shape to ensure equal baking on all sides.

main qimg 9580973ff8383ace38deea1f11ef085c pjlq
main qimg 9580973ff8383ace38deea1f11ef085c pjlq

  • The original reason for sunglasses: today it’s obviously to protect us from the sun’s rays. But the original purpose was to protect Arctic people from the dazzling rays of snow. And in 12th century China, they became particularly widespread among judges in order to hide their true feelings from witnesses.

main qimg 459359ce40c8eb025196040b4bad0864 pjlq
main qimg 459359ce40c8eb025196040b4bad0864 pjlq

  • Margins on paper: the original purpose was not for extra notes on the side. In the past mice and rats often gnawed on the paper, so in order for them not eat away the information, people started to leave spaces on the sides.

main qimg 36105bcf61ac3b9cc21b46a2c1f8c03c pjlq
main qimg 36105bcf61ac3b9cc21b46a2c1f8c03c pjlq

  • Holes in padlocks: People usually buy a new lock when their old one doesn’t work due to rain. However, the purpose of the hole is to put in oil – once done, the lock should be able to open with no difficulty.

main qimg c0171e60ab64ceca4d0f124a6880ce78 pjlq
main qimg c0171e60ab64ceca4d0f124a6880ce78 pjlq


Vince wasn’t an intellectual heavyweight. He was a deeply flawed asshat with an outsized ego and limited self restraint.

Remember the scene with The Wolf? The Wolf was there to save Vince’s idiotic neck, and yet our boy just couldn’t stand that someone else walked in and smoothly took control. When returning home with the wife of his boss, Vince was clearly working his way up to making a pass at Mia in spite of trying to talk himself out of it. If Mia hadn’t OD’d Vince would’ve discovered that his disposal wouldn’t even merit a pine box.

main qimg 32d7ef484d4693ec4434a45a772caf4b lq
main qimg 32d7ef484d4693ec4434a45a772caf4b lq

Obviously my experience isn’t from the perspective of “law enforcement”, but from being locked up with, then living and working with other felons.

Those living a “life of crime” are different from you and your neighbors only because one aspect of their life is something illegal that they got caught doing. That doesn’t mean that they live and breathe crime 24/7.

These people are fully formed and complex individuals, just like you. In many cases, you would find that the “life of crime” really boils down to just one dumb act, not a daily ritual.

The only exception to this would be the addicts I’ve met, particularly the meth users. They might start off as “unique snowflakes” but something about that drug leeches personality from them like bathwater leeches the salts from your skin. Given enough time they become shriveled husks of former humans — having more in common with one another than with anyone else.

Playing around with text-to-picture

Default masterpiece best quality coloring book line art The Ha 3
Default masterpiece best quality coloring book line art The Ha 3

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 3 c9d4c350 4d63 4e92 91d4 1c801555ac38 0

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 6 29992db0 5c7e 4caf 9efd f816614463bb 0(1)

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 0 a4cead4c 4d30 4b82 9cef c3861622f06c 0(1)

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 2 13819db4 5d1b 4a47 a4ea 6447d0b6b111 0

Default coloring book line art The Chariot tarot card with Art 6
Default coloring book line art The Chariot tarot card with Art 6

Default masterpiece best quality coloring book line art The Ha 1
Default masterpiece best quality coloring book line art The Ha 1

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 6 e02422f8 a63e 44f5 8d46 0825ee2be34b 0

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 6 fae64b5b b253 4bd1 a298 4c493df4b8f2 0

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alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 0 a4cead4c 4d30 4b82 9cef c3861622f06c 0

The Sopranos – Getting everything ready for the Executive game

This is what western economists say about the Chinese economy.

But the Chinese government and its economists don’t think that way because they look at potential market size first. In China, the leading importers and processors of minerals and raw materials are state-owned companies whose annual profits are capped at 3–5 percent annually. This means that raw material costs are lower. Chinese manufacturers are increasingly using robotics and automation so that manufacturing costs are lower. Then the Chinese yuan is kept lower against leading currencies to encourage exports.

Put it all together, and it looks to Europeans and Americans like China has impossibly low costs and is making it impossible for other competitors to compete. The problem is that China is different from Europe and the U.S. and its economy is designed to encourage manufacturing and exports.

The Chinese goal is to capture as much market as possible, and then to push costs down further through cost and efficiency improvements. This is different from western companies which start with lower prices to grab market share, but then gradually raise prices through predatory pricing.

Some truths

  1. Investing in a woman you’re not married to is a waste of energy and money.
  2. If you find someone smarter than you, work with them, don’t compete.
  3. Life is all about being intentional and proactive in our choices . The cure for a man’s depression ?? Focus on your purpose and stay busy.
  4. The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person that negotiates with themselves everyday.
  5. Stop complaining at every slight inconvenience. Do what has to be done . Be happy regardless.

My now ex wife wanted me out of the house and her life after I caught her red handed having an affair.

My relief called in sick so I had to pull a double shift, I got home and went right to bed, only to be woke up by her whaling away on me with a shoe. I picked her up and carried her out into the living room and gently tossed her on the couch, locked the bedroom door and went back to sleep.

It wasn’t long and there was a knock on the door, it was a couple cops, she had called them to report I was abusing her. They said I would have to accompany them to the station, then I looked up at them, there whole attitude shifted.

They handcuffed her and put her in the back of the squad car, one of the cops told me I should clean myself up, apparently she’d nailed me with a shoe and I had blood running down my face.

I went to sleep, she went to jail, couldn’t have worked out any better.

Mike’s 5 Most Badass Plans | Better Call Saul (Jonathan Banks)

My first car was an old beater VW Karman Ghia . It was a tank, with the engine over the rear wheels it would go through snow, that bigger vehicles couldn’t handle. It was low to the ground, one day the neighbors pigs got out, and they had a huge boar, that blocked the road. He came over and leaned against my side window, and completely blocked the view.

It didn’t have a gas gauge, instead it had a reserve fuel tank, and when you ran out, you switched over, and drove to the nearest gas station.

It wouldn’t go the highway speed limit, maybe 63 mph with the pedal to the metal.

My second car was 1974 Plymouth Duster with imitation alligator skin roof, and a sun roof. It was an OK car.

My next car was a 1976 Chrysler Cordoba with real Corinthian leather seats ( best spoken in a Ricardo Montalaban accent) it had a high performance 400 cubic inch V8 with a 4 Bbl. Jet black with every option known to mankind. Sun roof, air conditioning, power everything. Pure white on white interior, to contrast to the black paint. I have a lot of fond memories of this car.

My next car was a 1969 buick skylark convertible. My plan had been to restore it, and always have a good car to drive. I spent thousands on it, and couldn’t keep up with repairs.

My next car was a 4 wheel drive AMC Eagle. It had air suspension, so it hugged the road, but if you went off road you pushed a button and the sur shocks filled and raised the car, to get more clearance. Best fishing vehicle I ever had.

The I had a 1989 Dodge D100 that was a rebadged Mitsubishi. It had a 4 cylinder that couldn’t get out of its own way, But it was solid steel, I was rear ended and it cost $200 to paint my bumper, but the brand new Previa that hit me was totalled. I wasT boned in an intersection and I I didn’t get a scratch, but it was $5000 to fix the other vehicle. It was a 4×4 with a half inch steel skid plate under the entire vehicle. It never had a problem until my power steering hose, and brake line started leaking. I couldn’t get parts, so I got rid of it.

I bought a 1997 Cadillac Catera , awesome looking car, and the day the warranty ran out, it started costing me money. Thousands.

I bought a 1999 Jaguar XKR convertible, with one year left on the warranty. It was the best looking car I owned, I had people hop out of their vehicle at a traffic light and ride with me until the next light. It was a great car.

I bought a 2004 Nissan frontier 4×4, which I drove in the winter, and the Jag in the summer. The Nissan was just OK, nothing special.

I replaced the Nissan with another 2013 Nissan frontier 4×4, which was significantly better than the first Nissan, but still not a memorable vehicle.

I got rid of the jag in 2021.

Hassayampa Casserole

This casserole is an original and was named after the Hassayampa River that flows in Wickenburg, Arizona.

casserole recipe 9
casserole recipe 9

Ingredients

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 teaspoons chili powder
  • 3 teaspoons cumin
  • 1 (8 ounce) can enchilada sauce
  • 1 pound fresh tomatoes, diced
  • 10 ounces frozen corn, thawed
  • 1 cup sliced black olives
  • 3 large green chiles, chopped
  • 1 pound shrimp or imitation crabmeat
  • 12 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
  • 12 corn tortillas

Instructions

  1. Sauté onion in oil and add cinnamon, chili powder and cumin.
  2. Stir in enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes. Set aside 1 cup sauce.
  3. Add to remaining sauce the corn, olives, green chiles, shrimp or crabmeat and 1 cup cheese.
  4. In a 3 quart shallow casserole dish, cover bottom with some of the tortillas.
  5. Spread 1/3 of shrimp/crabmeat mixture over tortillas; repeat with 2 more layers.
  6. Top with remaining tortillas, sauce and cheese.
  7. Bake at 325 degrees F for 40 minutes.

The Sopranos – Albert Barese

As a kid I was fascinated by the figure of Che Guevara, who looked cool, died relatively young and fought for a better world.

main qimg 1b633c9301e01bf1e1a8332f844c9f84 lq
main qimg 1b633c9301e01bf1e1a8332f844c9f84 lq

Later in life, I read his biography by Jean Cormier, a French journalist/movie director who was a close friend of Che.

It tells the story of his childhood, his medical studies, his trip through South America on a motorbike, how he joined Fidel Castro’s revolution and how they disembarked in Cuba to start a guerrilla war against the Batista regime.

Both had their own regiment in the Sierra Maestra mountains, from where they would launch attacks against government forces. In Che’s regiment there was a little puppy that everybody loved, the mascot of the camp.

One day, Che and a group of soldiers left the camp to ambush a government caravan. But the little puppy had followed them and started barking. They had to shut the dog up or else they would be discovered by the government soldiers. So Che and his men formed a circle around the puppy while one of them strangled it.

I couldn’t put this image out of my mind of these heavily armed guerrilleros standing in a circle to strangle a puppy. They say innocence is the first casualty in any war.

Best Sopranos Scene – “We’re with the Vipers” -All Right Now

Has your grandmother actually had her DNA tested and analyzed?

What I have found in 25 plus years of doing genealogy, and even MORE so since DNA testing came along……people get very invested in family stories and myths. They can build their whole sense of self around them. Then DNA and family history research comes along and blows big holes in their set ideas. Things aren’t what they seem.

There were some doozies told in my family. Some by accident – sort of multigenerational “broken telephones” where things had grains of truth but went sideways in the retelling. Some were deliberate, because it made for a better story. Tales of glory beat tales of misery. Some were told to hide things family members were ashamed of (we had more than our share of those).

DNA can also yank the rug from under you since who you think is your ancestor isn’t always. I have a 78-year-old friend who always believed her father was an Italian fellow who her mother sued for child support in the early 1940’s. Turns out she’s 50% Ashkenazi Jewish without a hint of Italian – and she’s found her biological father’s family, all of whom are at a loss to tell her what the heck happened (to say they were shocked would be an understatement, lol).

Your grandmother may have been born in Italy and raised speaking Italian, but her family could have been ethnically from elsewhere. Nationality should not be confused with ethnicity.

So I have been dating this guy from eight years now. He is my family friend. My first crush,then my first love, my first boyfriend and my first everything. Me and his sister are best friends.

Even though our families knew each other for so long, my family never knew that we were dating, because we Never used to talk infront of them.We(me and him) always used to discuss about how we should convince my parents, how we should ask them and blah blah. I used to get very nervous thinking about my parents reaction. But I was confident that I will convince them and I always knew that he was the one that I want to spend my entire life with.

So one day i went out and came to home , and saw all my family sitting together and discussing seriously, they became silent after seeing me , and my brother asked me to sit beside him and asked me that, they are thinking to get me married. My heart was stumped, millions of thoughts rushed in my head and i was so shocked that i I couldn’t think of one word to say, then he mentioned about the guy that they were considering for me.

Well to my surprise he was none other than my love, the one who makes me feel butterflies even after 8years of togetherness, who just makes me happy by his mere presence. I was so happy that I wanted to jump and dance around. But I couldn’t I simply blushed and said “YES” to my parents. They still didn’t know that we are in love.

We are going to get married soon, preparations are started, IAM on the cloud nine since then. We are going to tell them about us on our wedding day.

I always thought things like this happens only in films and fairy tales. May be every love story is a fairy tale.

They do dont they?

They don’t tend to leave any country alone do they?

They always make decisions based on the people of every country in the world

They must always decide who is free and who isn’t

Any Government that toes their line is ‘Good’ and any Government that doesn’t is ‘Had

They decide human rights violations

If Israel bombs and kills 32,000 Civilians and starves an entire population to death for a single terrorist incident – that’s KOSHER

If Russia invades Ukraine to come to the assistance of 2 Million to 3 Million people who live in Donbass and have been shelled regularly and lost 14,000 lives over 8 years, chronicled in the UN – that’s horrible and thats interfering in the sovereignty of a nation

If Russia arrests 439 people for Social Media posts that’s a huge civil rights violation

If UK arrests 3237 people for Social Media Posts including 900 people just for posting the N word – that’s perfectly acceptable

They have combined killed and liquidated through their decisions – almost 30 Million people in the last 300 years belonging to different countries including :-

  • Inquisitions
  • Literally NUKING a nation
  • Holocaust of 6 Million Jews
  • Starving a million Indians without a shred of remorse
  • Enslaving 3.5 Million people and treating them like Cattle and breeding them like Cattle and Dogs
  • Colonizing and cold bloodedly robbing, slaughtering and displacing 2 Million or more Native Americans , Maoris, Aborigines and stealing their land brazenly
  • Stealing Texas openly from Mexico and now hunting down the same mexicans as Illegals
  • Invaded a Nation, killed a known 93,000 people of that nation and displaced and impoverished an estimated 330,000 people literally lying that they had nuclear weapons
  • Bombed and killed and stole the Oilfields of a Nation merely because their Leader didn’t toe the American line (Syria)
  • Funded Color Revolutions, Coup de Ats and Uprisings against legitimate Governments by their Agencies

These aren’t conspiracy theories are they?

Every one of these incidents have been firmly listed and verified and is now regarded as history

Yet they always seem to turn the tables

Saddam was a Villian though they invaded Iraq for no reason and destroyed him

Yet Zelensky is a Hero

Gadaffi was a Villian

Mao was a Villian

Putin is a villian

Xi is a Villian

Yet not one of these people have conducted a war of aggression in their lives before 2022


Why?

That’s the key question

I believe the answer lies in an Ideology that is deeply ingrained into their blood for centuries

We are the Good Guys

We are the Angels to help these Backward People develop themselves and save them from themselves and their cruel leaders

Sometimes even if people die, we have to look at the long term and be harsh

Like Gates who openly supports an organization that wants 870 Million People dead because they eat up precious food


Now these Nations, it depends on the people of these nations

China and Russia and Iran and a few other nations have obviously woken up and now see these people for what they are

Putins 87% win is an indication

That people braved a rumoured terror attack and shelling and bombing and yet voted in larger numbers is the best middle finger possible

Niger is another example

The Middle East is slowly realizing things aren’t so rosy now

Others are TOO SCARED

India for instance is too frightened of the West because India is too weak to resist sanctions plus India cannot trust China Iran and Russia fully

Not when 40% of it’s exports are destined for US and EU and most of these export orders are non crucial and can be seriously affected

Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia are also too frightened of the West. They gave been dependent too long on the West and they don’t want to leave their comfort zone.

Some are TOO SUBSERVIENT

Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Philippines are simply too enmeshed into the Western system to come out of it


However luckily the hypocrisy of the West is slowly coming out piece by piece

That too despite the fact that they control the media in every way possible.

 

A smelly experience

When I lived in Indiana, it was an experience in extremes. The Summers were roasting hot. And the Winters were frigid and cold with gusts blowing and wind chill factors in the negative double digits.

To keep warm in our mobile home, we supplemented the heater (which was kerosene) with electric space heaters. And it worked out fine.

This is… or was…

Until my one cat, Scooby (might have been another) decided to pee on the heating coils of the heater.

Of course, we didn’t know this occurred until the very moment we need to use that heater.

Ah. It was a howling cold night, with wind gusts and sub-freezing temperatures. And so we pulled out the old space heater and fired it up.

Let me tell youse guys… nothing quite stinks like well heated, year old cat urine. Lordy!

I’ll tell you what…

I turned that thing off and threw it in the snow. It was horrible. I think that the stench permeated everything and it took weeks to air out the house in that particular Winter.

A word to the wise; never heat up cat urine. You will despise the experience. Ugh!

Today…

What is an experience you had at a gas station you’ll never forget?

Having worked at gas stations off and on for decades, I have a few more than normal, but this is the one that keeps me going with “what were they thinking”.

Many years ago, the owner of the gas station that I was working evenings at volunteered one of the garage bays to Fish and Wildlife as a weigh and tag station during hunting season.

This vehicle pulls in and the driver goes up to the state biologist completely chuffed with himself. Apparently he had just bagged the biggest deer he had ever seen. I got work to do inside, so I keep on going until the biologist walks up to the counter and tells me to call the troopers, and have them send along a sergeant, cause “They are going to want to see this.”

I make the phone call, and about ten minutes later, two state police cruisers pull in. and at the exclamation of “You sorry SOB.” had to step outside to sate my curiosity. Turns out this out of state hunter had not bagged himself a record white tail deer, but a good sized Jersey cow. Almost certainly the best milker in that farmers herd.

Gentleman winds up arrested, car impounded, rifle confiscated, hunting permit revoked, fine to the state, and one hell of a payment to that farmer.

The Chinese

The PRC is nowhere sitting idle. It may not speak a language that you (or I or the West) understands well but it acting decisively.

Common Russia-China patrols in the Pacific
Military exercises with *mixed* troups

China is diplomatically much less cautious than they used to, too. But their real target audience isn’t the West, it is the rest of the world. And I think they’re winning that discussion fair and square.

Posted by: Konami | Jan 23 2024 11:51 utc | 12

Greek Spaghetti (Lemon butter)

Lemon Butter Garlic Pasta Sauce 1
Lemon Butter Garlic Pasta Sauce 1

Ingredients

  • 12 ounces spaghetti
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
  • Garlic powder or mashed garlic cloves

Why you’ll love this lemon butter garlic pasta sauce

  • It’s ready in 15 minutes. You can have a bowl of delicious garlic lemon butter pasta in your hands super fast. Just what I want to hear when I’m pressed for time!
  • It’s super versatile. This creamy lemon butter garlic pasta sauce is great on its own but also perfect with prawns, chicken or salmon.
  • It’s loaded with flavour. Lemon, butter and garlic are an amazing flavour combo just perfect for a no-frills pasta dish.

What goes into pasta al limone?

Olive oil — Use the best quality extra virgin olive oil you can for this recipe for the best flavour.

Butter — Unsalted butter is best for this garlic lemon butter pasta sauce. if you use salted butter, you may not need to add any extra seasoning.

Garlic — Feel free to add as much garlic as you like. I like to make this sauce with at least six cloves. You can either finely slice the garlic or mince it.

How to make garlic lemon butter pasta?

Cook the pasta al dente in salted water according to the instructions on the package. Reserve 1-2 cups of pasta water before draining.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pan or Dutch oven and melt the butter in it over low-medium heat.

Stir in the garlic and red chilli flakes and cook for 1-2 minutes until the garlic changes its colour, careful not to burn it.

Transfer the cooked pasta to the pan and toss well with a pair of kitchen tongs to cover it in the butter sauce. Add a splash of pasta water if it looks too thick.

Recipe notes and tips

  • To make sure the pasta water is extra starchy, cook the pasta in less water than you’d usually do. The starchier water will make the sauce creamier.
  • It’s always a good idea to grate your Parmesan or hard cheese yourself because freshly grated cheese has more flavour than bagged cheese.
  • Pasta al limone is best served immediately, and I don’t recommend reheating it.

What’s one instinctive thing you did that prevented something bad from happening?

This is something my husband did to help a young lady who was being followed after a road rage incident.

He was in the military and they were putting him through Graduate school so was in good physical shape. He was on his way to class around 1:00 and as he pulled into the parking area for the college and got out he heard someone crying and heard what sounded like someone being thrown against the chain link fence.

He ran down and saw a man throwing a young college girl hard against the fence and then would let her drop to the ground and do it again over and over while yelling at her the entire time. There was blood everywhere.

He ran to help her and grabbed and threw him to the ground. He jumped in his car and left fast. My husband memorized the tag and turned to help the girl. He yelled at another student walking by to call 911. (No cell phones then)

She was shaking, crying and in shock. He said he would stay with her until the ambulance came and asked her name and number so he could get a hold of someone for her. The ambulance was soon there and immediately took her to the hospital.

He met with the Police and after telling them everything he called the number and left a message telling which hospital she was in and what had happened and left his phone number and name if they had questions.

Later that evening a man called and thanked him for protecting his daughter. He said, “I’m her Dad and just wanted to thank you for saving my daughter today. I truly believe you saved her life. She had broken ribs, stitches in her head and a concussion but wasn’t hurt worse because you stepped in to help. You can rest assured he is in jail as we speak and by the way, I am the Superintendent of the Police. Thank you so much.”

~ You may never know whose child, sibling or mother you might be saving or who might be watching.

A few apples fell from my neighbor’s tree branch which hangs over onto my property. I picked them up and kept them. He called the police on me for “stealing food” and threatened to sue me. Will the police do anything? Does he have a case?

“A few apples fell from my neighbor’s tree branch which hangs over onto my property. I picked them up and kept them. He called the police on me for “stealing food” and threatened to sue me. Will the police do anything? Does he have a case?”

Here, no. Oh, he can sue you. Lawyers love this as it means money for them, even if they can’t win. Parasites.

But, his property was on, or over, your property line. So, if it falls naturally, it’s yours. You can TRIM the tree back, but not go over and cut it down. He can trim it so it’s not over your property, but he can’t go over and collect “his” fruit that falls or it’s trespassing.

The most we would do is explain this to him and leave.

However, when you go to court, it’s anyone’s guess. Lawyers and judges, kindred souls, tend to do whatever they want. Unless you have someone who can play the game, you might very well have to pay him for the “stolen” food, damages, and emotional pain and suffering. Heck, maybe even court costs. Criminally, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, but…

I’ll tell you, growing up, kids used to pick an apple or two to eat and it didn’t cause any problems. It was only if you picked the whole tree, or took more than you needed, that people complained. Even apple orchards didn’t freak too much. If it fell on the ground, it was “free.” In fact, some even liked for you to clean this up for them to keep wasps and other insects from feeding on them and making a mess.

Oh, and another thing, those will be some expensive apples for him. Court isn’t cheap and neither are lawyers. Were they golden apples, maybe? If so, he might be worried you’ll plant the seeds and grow your own gold apples, stealing from his market.

You know, if he claims the apples, you might be able to make him pay for the leaves and branches that fall on your property. Clean up and damages, if you get my meaning. I figure there are a lot more leaves and branches that fall than apples, and, while you’re at it, how about the damage that those apples did to your lawn when they hit it? If you didn’t pick the apples up, they could attract wasps, which could sting you, and possibly dull your mower blades or become risks, such as slipping.

Why are Americans MAD at China?! (I Know Why)

https://youtu.be/U_ddmbjCKjQ

Have you ever walked out of a doctor’s office because the doctor was being disrespectful to you?

I arrived at my doctors office 15 minutes early for a routine visit in the evening. I paid my $5.00 co-pay. The receptionist informed me that I was early. I thought that was strange since most people arrive early for doctors’ appointments. There was a couple waiting to see the only doctor on duty. The receptionist called the woman’s name so she was the patient. I am a registered nurse and the patient did not seem to be in any distress. She and her male partner went into the doctor’s office. I waited an hour. It is none of my business what the patient and the doctor talked about but talking with the same patient for an hour seemed a bit long to me even if she had cancer or some other serious chronic disease. I patiently waited for the hour.

A young male patient came in and he apologized for being late. The receptionist said it is okay and he will be seen next. He did not seem to be in any particular distress. I had been waiting for an hour. I informed the receptionist that I am leaving. She asked me if I wanted to re-schedule the appointment and I said no. I went home and I filed a complaint with the HMO. The doctor’s office had to respond to the complaint. Eventually, they sent me my $5.00 co-pay. I did not care about the co-pay. I was concerned that I was waiting for an hour and the couple was still seeing the doctor and the young man, who was late for his appointment, was going to be seen before me.

I changed primary physician offices. When I called the office of the doctor I eventually selected I asked them how their appointments go? Is a patient generally seen within 15 minutes of their appointment time? They said yes. They also said I can call before my appointment to see if they are exceptionally busy. I have never had an experience like the one I just reported ever again.

I am stupid…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mk1pmrtlVL8?feature=share

What was the most disappointing Christmas gift you saw someone get?

I get choked up telling this but I will. In 1987 I was 7 years old, my parents had divorced and my father paid my mother $20 a month for 3 kids. Now this was pretty pathetic already, but he had not paid her for 6 months. Anyhow my mother was struggling to make ends meet, we had very little food in the house and I did not know it at the time but my mum was starving so the food would last longer for us kids. Christmas day my father turns up and accuses my mother of being a drug addict (I assure you she’s not) and told her I’m not paying cash anymore or she will spend it in drugs. He gave her a Christmas card and inside was 2 gift cards for the local supermarket totalling $200, he even said “Merry Christmas” to her as this was all the owed money and then some more. My mother did not care, she would have used $200 cash for food anyhow. She took what little she had in cash and used it to buy fuel for her car, we drove to the supermarket and loaded two trollies (1987 $200 went a long way) mum even purchased Froot Loops for us kids, it was a happy day…… Well until we got to the check out. The bill came to $199.90, mum presented the 2 gift cards, they were both declined. People stared at her, and the store accused her of stealing the gift cards, they told her to leave or they would call the police. People stared at us, and my mother left so embarrassed. My younger brother was 4, he was crying as the Froot Loops were taken from his hands.

What actually happened: My deadbeat father stole the gift cards from the store, however their is no money in them despite them saying $100 on each. You see if you want to purchase the card you need to take them to the counter and pay the face value, then the card is activated and can be used in the store. A few days later my mother collapsed from starvation, we had apple trees next door at the neighbours farm, we took some for my mother, she ate apples for 5 days straight. It gets worse however, when my father was confronted by my mother a big argument broke out, my father accused my mother of lying and then refused to pay her any child support for another 4 months as he had given her $200.

Over the course of 6 years my father paid a grand total of $60 for us 3 children. In 2002 when I was 22, out of sheer coincidence, I saw my father enter a bar. I sat next to him he pretended like nothing had happened, he offered to buy my drink I told him “I don’t want anything from you” and paid for my own drink, the tension was so thick at this point. He started talking about how “that was the past and it’s okay now.” I finished my drink, opened my wallet and pulled out $60. I sat it in the bar in front of him and said “that is everything I owe you, don’t you ever f@cking contact me or my brother’s again.” Then left the bar, I honestly have no idea where he is today, and I really do not care.

EXTRA PART.

I have had a few people question about the last time I saw my father as a child, this includes my own daughter, well it was not at age 8. When I was 8 he started to hardly ever see us, he saw us once a month, then on our birthdays and Christmas, then he called us on these days. Now when you are 8–10 years old a month is a long time, so as a child I was always wondering if I had done something wrong. Yes my mother comforted me, but deep down you can not shake that “why was I not loved enough to want to see me” feeling.

By the age of 10 he had barely seen us for a year. On my 12th birthday be turned up with a fantastic cake, it had a fighter jet on it made out of icing, he remembered I liked fighter jets. He was such a loving father that day, I don’t know why, but he was. I remember him going, telling me “I will see you again real soon son,” then he left. That guilt feeling went away, I still felt I had done something to upset him, that’s why he left the first time, but I had now been punished, and forgiven. I felt my nightmare was over, I could live a life with a loving father again.

That night I went to bed and I recall my mother asking me if I had a good birthday? I told her “today has been the best day ever,” it really had. I rang dad’s phone about 2 weeks later as he had not contacted us, I was excited to talk to him, the number was disconnected, I had no address and I was 12. Mum could not contact him either, I don’t know if it was deliberately done, or if the phone was disconnected, I really don’t know. What I do know is that he knew our number and our address, but didn’t want to know us. I had a $2 coin that I would put in the pay phone near my school every afternoon while waiting for the school bus I would dial his number over and over. I had a special tiny bag I kept that coin inside, I still have this coin today. I keep it in a display, a reminder if the pain I felt every time I rang that disconnected number. About a year later the phone rang, the person who answered did not know my father, obviously the phone company had recycled the number.

My daughter has asked why I keep a normal $2 coin on display in my office. I have never told her, but I guess she knows now, you see I did not know she was on Quora, I had no idea she was following this post. Everytime I look at that coin (everyday) I am reminded of the hurt a parent can inflict on a child. My father never beat us, or did anything like this, but I think I would have preferred this as opposed to the emotional torture he gave us.

I live my daughter, she turns 15 soon (May 22nd) and I would take a bullet for her if that was ever the situation, I can’t image her putting $2 in a pay phone everyday for over a year (yes I know we have mobile phones now). I would feel bad if I slept in on her birthday, let alone didn’t turn up altogether. She has no wish to meet her grandfather and I doubt she will after reading this. She loves her grandmother, she looks up to her as a role model, and what a great role model to have. She’s a really smart person, even when she was 8, I explained to her the reason we live so comfortable is because of the sacrifices her grandmother made, she understood completely.

Who is the rudest celebrity you have met, and who would be the nicest?

With few exceptions, the biggest stars tend to be the nicest people. Why? Probably because they’ve achieved their greatest ambitions and have nothing to prove. Too, most of them had to endure a lot of rejection before finally getting their big break.

In 1990, I worked with Martin Sheen and LeBar Burton producing their voiceovers on an environmentally themed charity album entitled “Put On Your Green Shoes.” Sheen was so nice, he refused to be paid for his contribution, which caused us some problems because AFTRA insisted that he receive scale for the session. As one would expect, Burton was a true gentleman and did take after take because he wanted nothing else but to serve the project.

I wrote a song for Tim McGraw’s “All I Want” album and he proved to be one of the nicest, down-to-earth superstars I’ve ever met.

I’ve written in Quora about my disappointing encounters with certain rock stars… Kevin DuBrow, Mike Love, and Todd Rundgren, in particular, were extremely unpleasant and rude personalities.

A chance meeting with another celeb was also disillusioning. The first movie soundtrack I was involved with was the original Vanishing Point, circa 1971, starring Barry Newman. About 8 years later, I ran into Newman who, by then, had starred in the CBS series Petrocelli.

I was arriving at an LA tennis court as he was leaving. “Barry Newman! Vanishing Point!” I exclaimed, as he approached. He just scowled at me and marched past. Thinking he might be more open to giving a co-creator a hello, I said, “I did some songs in that film.”

“Yeah, sure,” he grumbled, and walked on. I certainly found that extremely rude and disrespectful. Still, I have no idea whether Newman was surly by nature or whether he was just having a bad day.

How do Europeans feel like living in an age which they can no longer colonise non-European countries?

They move from slavery to colonialism and to virtual colonialism ie. Rules Based International Order.

Rules set arbitrarily and unilaterally by white Caucasian. Anglo European stock to ensure that the rest of the world are fully submissive and subservient to them in a set of rules that favours them and it ensure that the world is theirs to take, loot, steal as they please. They enriched themselves and the coloured people toils and slaved for them.

When the rules are not suitable they simply change them. The rules are set by them, change by them, ratified by them, policed by them and judged by them! To ensure they write what is right and what is wrong they monopolised the media that says the white is right, the white is moral, the white is honourable, the white is pure!

Everything black is bad. Black magic, black cat, black out, Black Friday, black Monday black listed…The media and the European stock can demonised anyone that refused to be submissive and subservient to them. They can even kill, murder, slaughter, rape at will! To enrich the west they get the biggest muscle in the room US to be their henchmen.

They can even murder 3 million in Vietnam and Indo China. And the media say it is to prevent communism, 2 million in Korea to stop communism and 2 million in Iraq to install western value like freedom! Then 1 million in Afghanistan to protect women’s right! It is up to what sells best to the fools in the west!

So after 300 years of enslavement and colonialism and another 75 years of virtual Colonialism that is about to end. The west blames China or Russia but frankly if you are anyone of the 175 non beneficiary nations, the 87% if the world or the so called Global South, everyone wants out! And it will be history whether the beneficiary scream, shout or threaten genocide we will stop at nothing!

Europeans and go cheat on each other and steal from each other.

America

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GQQO2DChU-0?feature=share

Can you stop your neighbors from driving through your yard to park in front of their house?

My buddy had the same problem. He had addressed several times but the teenaged son continued the behavior.

He took matters into his own hands. He did not damage any property. He took come plastic valve caps and superglued a simple BB into the top. He then snugged up the valve caps so it just slightly depressed the Schrader valve, slowly releasing air from the tires. The next day all 4 tires were flat.

The neighbor had the vehicle towed to a repair shop. All 4 tires checked out as good. The vehicle was driven home, with the same caps installed by the repair facility. Next day, all 4 tires were flat. The car was then towed to repair shop again. All 4 tires check out again. That shop reused the caps again.

Finally on the third day of towing, the repair shop found the BB’s and replaced the caps. When they returned home all my buddy did is was grin at them as they drove in. His lawn never was driven over again.

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

Well, it was my co-worker, and we were both let go due to layoffs. Actually, we were let go after the ‘official’ round of layoffs were completed and we thought we were in the clear. For me, it happened just a few days after it was completed. After our weekly IT meeting, I got called into HR (thinking it was an IT issue) but got ambushed by our manager (cisco VC call from TX) who promptly explained about the firm consolidating and removing redundancies.

Due to NY state law, HR was required to give me a list of employees being let go that day (just their age, department, and title) to show there was no discrimination by age or other factors.

After I left the building, my co-worker came down to say his goodbyes, and asked about the whole procedure. Then I showed him the list that HR gave me. He then noticed the age and title and said that was his, and then the realization that his last day was today too. Sure enough, he saw a missed call on his phone from someone in HR.

He went back inside, and sure enough, about 15 minutes or so, I get a text from him saying he was let go too.

Why do more and more Hong Kong people like to shop in Shenzhen?

Others have mentioned the cost.

But for me the key consideration is the attitude of shops and customers service in Hong Kong is atrocious.

I had to buy a new phone 2 years ago and dread doing it.

You go into shops ask for something and they’ll try sell you something else when you say no thanks you get a tirade of abuse.

A bicycle company that has shut down did this. I wanted a bicycle tyre he tried to sell me 19. I wanted 23. He gave me an earful of abuse about how he knew better than me and how 19 was the way to go.

Here’s Why America is About to be Bankrupt AND Everything You’ve Worked for Means Nothing!

https://youtu.be/shWOdLQXeJo

What’s the most savage way you’ve seen someone get fired?

We hired a young man just out of high school who needed a break. Bright, motivated, smiled and nodded to everyone. We qualified his on forklift in shipping department. He was so happy his life was on track. He got his first apartment and got engaged. I was very proud of him and we chatted now and than about his future.

He was off one day. This was a couple weeks after we were told the plant would shut down in 6 to 8 months.

Our HR lady got a call from corporate telling her to fire him today. He was hired 89 days ago and if he was here 90 days they had to pay unemployment. So they called him in for some BS reason. I tried to find his number, call him and tell him to turn his phone off and don’t come in but I couldn’t get it.

He came in and went up front. Came back to his car and left. I could see him tearing up. Once again his world had been upended. I had told him before all this that qualified forklift operator opened a lot of good paying jobs if he ever left.

I felt so bad for him and contempt at the company for saving a few bucks and not caring about people.

Why is Olive Garden a bad restaurant?

If I lived in a smaller town with a diner or two around and a couple of fast food places and one Olive Garden, it would be heaven on earth. A clean place to sit down and eat with gobs of salad, a friendly waitstaff, and interesting combinations of food that I just couldn’t get anywhere else. If you told me that it wasn’t authentic Italian food I could only say, “So what?” It is a comfortable dining experience in my little town and the food tastes pretty darn decent. That Olive Garden would be a special treat for me and my family.

I live in a much larger community and there are two Olive Gardens near by as well as a plethora restaurants and cafeterias around. Once a month or so my wife and I get a take-out from Olive Garden. She always gets the lasagna (her only go to meal at Olive Garden) and I usually ask for my own concoction of a pasta with Italian Sausage with meat sauce with the gnocchi/chicken soup. She loves the lasagna and I really like what I get. We are not looking for a particular Italian experience, we are looking a particular food we appreciate.

So my suggestion is that Olive Garden is not bad at all. Is it exquisite dining? Not at all. Is it authentic Italian? Nope. But exquisite dining and true Italian are available to me when I want it. The Olive Garden is not a replacement, it is simply an additional option. Others must agree with me because these places around me are invariably crowded.

The Olive Garden is a pleasant option.

What is the biggest life lesson you have ever learnted?

Dad: What are you searching in that drawer?

Mom: I couldn’t find my saved money, I need to pay the deliveryman.

Dad: Don’t worry, you’ll find it. How much for the deliveryman?

Mom: 5 thousand rupees. I ordered some groceries and essentials for the house.

Dad paid the deliveryman and we eventually got busy with our daily work.

The next day, Mom, Dad, and I were cleaning the kitchen, when my mom shouted.

Mom: Look, I got my money, it’s in the cupboard. I was so foolish, I searched the whole house for it.

Mom looked so happy because she saved it for her friend’s birthday gift.

But the situation was something else.

Dad got out of the house to smoke a cigarette and I ran behind him.

I said “Why did you do that?’

Father asked: ‘Do what?’

I replied “I swear I have seen you taking the money out of your wallet and putting it in the cupboard.

Dad smirked and replied: “You know she was everything for me! I can’t see her getting sad over the little money she lost yesterday. Because I think we need to care for the person, we love the most!”

Dad takes out a handkerchief and starts putting off his sweat.

I said “Dad, now why are you using mom’s handkerchief? Is it a sign of your care towards Mom too?”

Dad “Nope, because it still has her fragrance”

This was something that changed my whole point of view not only towards life but also towards love too.

Hope you’ll like my answer,

Yours truly,

Ankita

Is the poor training and corruption in China’s military comparable to Russia?

It’s always interesting so see how few westerners have pattern recognition isn’t it?

What’s that?

If you haven’t noticed EVERY single country that is considered an enemy of western countries is described in exactly the same way:

  • Corrupt
  • Poor training
  • Poor weapons
  • human wave attacks.

Yet westerners fail to recognise those things.

Actually no, I changed my mind while typing this, it’s recognised but it’s merely another form of racism. So let me change the above to this

  • Corrupt – Compared to the totally non corrupt western militaries.
  • Poor training- Compared to the fantastic SUPER SOLDIER training of western countries
  • Poor weapons – Compared to the SUPER WEAPONS of western countries
  • human wave attacks. – Compared to the fantastic tactics of western countries.

This is why Ukraine has fucked the western narrative so much. They were exposed, they talk tough but in the end the talk doesn’t match.

Westerners talked how big and powerful they were.

Corruption

  • Pentagon can’;t account for 2 trillion.
  • Challenger 1 tank gets produced!
  • SA80 rifle is produced!

Yet their SUPER SOLDIER TRAINING has failed (western source)

Star Wars by Wes Anderson Trailer | The Galactic Menagerie

https://youtu.be/d-8DT5Q8kzI

I was put on furlough (mandatory unpaid time off) at my job. During this time my boss called me and asked a question. Was I wrong to tell him “I will answer that when I am back in the office and getting paid”?

You weren’t wrong, but depending on circumstances, a better approach might have been to be nice. Especially if your boss had no say in the decision to furlough you.

If the boss was the one who made this decision, and you don’t like him, then what you did was a perfectly reasonable response.

The large company I worked for, was bought out by another company, and they laid off 1200 people in our company, immediately.

I was one of the casualties, but they were nice and gave me severance plus an extra day to clean out my office, which I spent copying files over to the people left behind.

The very first day, my coworker, one of 4 from a group of 13, that survived the culling, called me asking me for help. I gave it to him, no sense making a friends life miserable. Everyday I spent 15 minutes with him. He wasn’t qualified to do my job, and he knew it, but he was just doing his best.

On the sixth work day, our partners complained that they had agreed to let our company manage the project, and paid our company outrageous money to do so, because I was managing the contract and not some unqualified guy.

I was brought back on contract, paying far more than my old salary, to manage the contract. The CEO of the new combined company had to sign off on any laid off employee, being brought back on contract, in less than a year. There was a lot of flack flying in the company over hiring me back after a week.

The deciding vote to bring me back, was the fear of my being bitter and taking revenge on the company by sabotaging the project. Once it was explained that I had copied all the data I could to the relevant people, after being laid off, and spent 15 minutes a day helping the company, it was decided that it was worth the risk, and I was contracted back. I was the only one of 1200 people brought back in the first year.

Some companies are reluctant to bring back people they view as bitter. Even if you have every right to be bitter.

What was ‘the incident’ about which everybody talked in your school/workplace?

A co-worker – he was 21 years old – and another co-worker – she was 19 years old – decided to take their morning 15 minute break in the janitor closet. An employee came with her water can to get water for her plants. She opened the door to the utility closet and dropped her can and screamed OH MY GOD. She ran and got security. The young man was in a standing position, nekked from the waist down. The young woman was kneeling, nekked from the waist up. The young man zipped up, zipped out and fled outside to smoke a badly needed cigarette. The young woman had to do more work to get decent. The guard caught her. He asked her “Where is your partner in crime?” She replied “I am sure he is outside smoking a cigarette. This is his name and this is what he looks like.” So, both criminals got caught and fired right away. The young man went home right away. The woman actually finished out her work day, her head held up high, not embarrassed or uncomfortable or anything. She caught me and two other people talking about her. She actually came up to us and stated “I don’t think you should be talking about my private life in public.” Can you believe it …..

What was the biggest risk you have ever taken that really paid off in the end?

I was making good money in NYC, but I had had enough of it. It was becoming too dangerous a place for me to raise my wonderful kids. I didn’t want them to have the same upbringing as me. I’m your typical, cynical, non-trusting, New Yorker. I wanted them to have a better outlook on life.

I managed to find a job in Vermont that payed half what I was making in NYC, but, allegedly, the cost of living was cheaper. In some ways, that was correct, but in others… well, there are things about VT that are MORE expensive than NYC. We were struggling for those first years.

Four years later and I’m making a little more than I made in my best year in NYC. My daughter thinks I Yoko-Ono’ed her bond with her friends and she’ll probably never forgive me for that, but you know what? One of her best friends (15 years old) was recently found, in broad daylight, passed out drunk in a stall in Panera Bread. So maybe moving her away from that may have been a good thing. She’ll never see it though.

My dad was freaking out when I informed him of my intentions to move. He claimed that I’d never have the opportunity that I had enjoyed in NYC. I have changed jobs 3 times since moving here, and I finally have probably the best chance to enjoy retirement from the job I have now. It’s been a blessing, mixed at times, but a blessing.

Take chances. You never know what you’re missing if you don’t.

Excelsior!

Do you have biases that you are aware of?

Yes.

And this is going to make a lot of Quorans think less of me. But I’m just being honest.

No sarcasm in this answer either.

I’m very much biased against illegal drug users. This is because of my experiences growing up with an older sister who was a drug addict. I saw what it did to her. I saw what it did to her daughter. But mostly, I saw what it did to my parents.

I don’t have any friends anymore anyway… the wife and kids take all of my time, and I’m an introvert… but, when I was younger and did have some friends, I’d cut them from my life the moment I found out they did drugs.

In my early 20s, I had some coworkers who smoked weed on a regular basis. I didn’t think too highly of them. They were mainly middle-aged men who were still doing entry-level and part-time work. Were they happy? Sure. Did I want to be like them at their age? No. I just avoided talking to them unless it was work-related.

I don’t get preachy with drug users. (It’s pointless.) I know some of the people I interact with on a regular basis here on Quora, my “Quora friends,” use drugs. I’ve seen their posts about it. The fact that we only interact via the written word in a virtual world is the only reason I don’t care about it. If this were the real world, and you were sitting in front of me now, discussing how you planned to get high this weekend, I’d politely excuse myself from the table. I don’t need that around me in the real world.

You do you, but respect that I don’t want any part of anyone who does those things.

For me, personally, I suppose it’s like someone who grew up with an alcoholic parent, and made it a point to never be around people who drink a lot. It just brings up bad memories that you don’t need in your life.

Who Is Zelensky? A Puppet—and Here’s Why

One of the reasons why he was killed.

https://youtu.be/j7NTLZDd4tc

How many real friends do you have (friend being defined as someone whom you could call to discuss a personal problem or whom you could ask to borrow a small amount of money from)?

Literally none.

It’s something that my family (well, my wife and oldest daughter) have noticed for years. They used to encourage me to make some friends, but I guess they gave up on that.

I have coworkers with whom I talk about work-related things. I have neighbors I chat with when I happen to be outside at the same time they are. I have Facebook friends who are old real-life friends from high school, none of whom I’ve seen in real life in 20 years, and will likely never see again.

And that’s it. I have my family, and a bunch of acquaintances, but no real friends.

That’s not a complaint. I’m happy this way.

The last real friend I had… someone with whom I’d hang out on the weekends… I haven’t spoken to him since 2007. We were friends and roommates in college, and I worked with him for a little while, but once we both got married, got our careers, got our houses, and had our children, we just kind of grew apart.

I’m not anti-social. I’m asocial. It’s something I don’t even think about, unless someone else points it out to me. Here it is, a Saturday night (St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Chicago, no less), and I’m answering questions on Quora in the gap time between tucking in my children and going to bed myself. I suppose that sounds sad or pathetic to people who value their social lives. Not to me, though. It sounds comfortable. I like comfortable.

RIA-Novosti publishes photo of French “mercenary” in Ukraine

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 23 JANUARY 2024

image 174
image 174

RIA-Novosti press agency published photographs taken from the Facebook account of Alexis Drion, one of the casualties of the Russian bombing of Khirkov/Kharkov on January 17.

The Russian Foreign Ministry continues to claim that the building targeted by the Russian strike was hosting “foreign mercenaries”, mainly French. On its side, the French Foreign Ministry denies just as vigorously the presence of French “mercenaries” embroiled in the conflict.

Understandably, Russia is trying to present evidence that French soldiers were in Ukraine carrying out a mission, which would constitute an act of war.

After publishing the names of 13 of the victims of the January 17 bombing, the agency dug deeper and stumbled on an Facebook account <Facebook

> created in December 2011. Though relatively inactive, an image can be spotted of the young man from 2013 in military uniform, at the age of 27. Various photos seem to link him to the Foreign Legion. In the latest pictures, we find him in Ukraine brandishing an insignia of France and the OUN, the militia of “integral nationalists”.

image 173
image 173

Alexis Drion during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris


Russian press issues list of 13 French “mercenaries” who died in Ukraine

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 22 JANUARY 2024

image 172
image 172

While the French authorities have formally declared that there were no French “mercenaries” in Ukraine, the Russian press has published a list of 13 names corresponding to some of the victims of the 17 January bombing on Kharkiv/Kharkov.

• Albert Emeric (d.o.b. 22 December 1999),
• Alexis Drion (13/06/1986),
• Béranger Guillaume Alain Minault (30/12/1978),
• Valentin Dupois Mel (02/01/1994),
• Gilles Bernard Sylvain (10 /27/1980),
• Jacques-Pierre Gabriel Evrard Philippe (29/09/1987),
• Jean-Pierre Bonneau Chris Heray (17/07/1999),
• Maris André Dubois Clément (28/09/1995),
• Marcellin Demont (05 /23/2002),
• Sébastien Claude Rémy Benard (04/04/1974),
• Thomas Jeremy Nathan Gourrier (24/02/1996),
• Charles Bertin Roussel (01/09/1996),
• Emmanuel Tanguy Kenneth Delange Grandal (26/09/1996) /1998).


Russian Duma to address French Parliament

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 19 JANUARY 2024

image 171
image 171

The Russian Duma will address the French Parliament regarding the presence of French “mercenaries” in Ukraine.

Officially, France is not engaged in military operations in Ukraine, but supports the latter by providing it with weapons. If French soldiers were involved in the fighting, the French Republic would be at war with the Russian Federation.

It would seem that the Duma is intent on disclosing the presence of French Special Forces, which are in Ukraine without authorization from the French Parliament.

Article 35 of the French Constitution stipulates stipulates as follows:


“The Government informs Parliament of its decision to have the armed forces intervene abroad, at the latest three days after the beginning of said intervention. It specifies the objectives pursued. This information may give rise to a debate which is not followed by any vote. When the duration of the intervention exceeds four months, the Government submits its extension to Parliament for authorization. It may request the National Assembly to make the final decision.”

How do you respond to an inappropriate “accidental touch” by someone at work?

In my opinion…

It was at an office BBQ with our families, it was hot, and there was a wasp.

The bosses eight or nine-year-old daughter started screaming that there was a bee in her shirt. She was wearing a spaghetti top. Everyone panicked.

The thing about me, is that a Bee sting is much like a mosquito bite, it swells up a little bit and itches. No big deal. Some people, a bee sting would kill them. If I did nothing, would she die?

I calmly asked her if I could put my hand in her shirt. She screamed “YES! YES!”

In front of her panicking dad and mom, she pulled her top open and I reached into her shirt and grabbed the Wasp. I pulled my hand out and threw it on the ground and stomped it. I looked at my palm. It had stung me, so I bit the wound and sucked, then spit. I got stung a few times every year, no big deal.

Then I realized that I had just had my hand down the front of a little girls shirt in front of thirty witnesses.

But everyone treated me like a hero, especially my boss. Go figure.

What would you do if you got fired from your job?

Heeeee! I oughta say “don’t ask,” but can’t resist.

I took over a job that had been occupied by my eminently sensible, smart, and long-suffering cousin. That last adjective — long-suffering — is the operative term. She put up with the guy’s sh!t (a euphemism, we might say) until she went off to marry a handsome and rich young rancher and live happily ever after.

Totally naive, I applied for and got her job.

What.

A.

Jerk.

The.

Guy.

Was.

The day I came in and found an incredibly NASTY note in the middle of my office floor — he was unhappy because I’d thrown out some trash — mostly ads — without shredding every sheet of paper and envelope — was the day that I took everything I was supposed to be working on, dropped it smack in the middle of the office floor, went out the door, locked it behind me, jumped in my car, drove away, and never came back.

From there the next move was to go back to graduate school. Get a job teaching freshman comp for peanuts (I was used to the “peanuts” part by then…), complete the Ph.D., get my book published, and land an academic job. A job, we might add, where the bosses more or less treated you like you were human. Well. Almost as human as they were. 😀

What do you do if you get fired from your job? CELEBRATE!!!!!

What was the shortest first date you ever had?

Met a woman in a busy local mall after chatting with her online a few times. Met her through a horrendous online dating app. Made sure lots of people around in case things headed south. Bought her lunch and we sat and ate as she just kept on and on. Saying nothing until she says I have something important to tell you. Ohhhh okay. I just got out of prison. Oh yeah? Umm what for I asked. Bank robbery in Nevada. A casino heist. Oh really? So what brought you to Florida? I met my husband as a penpal in prison and we wrote back and forth for years. Husband? Yeah he recently had a massive heart attack and died. Ummm ok? Yeah he was 25 years older then me and lives in Bonita Springs. He had a vending machine business. Ohhhh. So did you at least stash some of the stolen money away from your heist? She said that her 2 “ friends” left her behind and she got busted and they got away with several hundred thousand dollars. So you never caught up with them? Nooo, she couldn’t find them and never saw them again. Attractive well endowed blonde woman . Spent a good 1/2 hour talking . Nice girl but a bit tooo much baggage for me.

Can an employee be fired by phone, or does that have to be done in person?

An employee can be fired by phone, though I wouldn’t recommend that. California requires that you hand an employee their final check (and a few other documents) on their last day. That would be very difficult to accomplish over the phone, right. You might have an out:

  • this is an on-the-spot firing because you just learned that the employee did something so bad that you have to term them immediately. California law gives you 72 hours to get the check to them if it truly is an unplanned termination.
  • the employee agrees to something like having their check delivered to their door by courier, say within the hour. (I agreed to that when I retired. I was recorded, with my permission, waiving my right to come in and pick up my check and other documentation in person.)

My aside brings up a key point: what did you say? What did the employee say in return? An unrecorded phone call leaves you with a he said – she said. That’s not going to be a fun day if the employee decides to challenge your firing.

Some states are single party consent, meaning you can record the call without the employee’s knowledge or consent. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. You can quickly gain a bad reputation in the labor pool and with recruiters and agencies for having shady, though legal, HR practices. “You don’t want to work there! They call you first thing in the AM, fire you and sneak record everything you say.”

Not fair.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iOPUMWCeFvI?feature=share

What is the most amusing conversation that you have ever heard?

My friends and I witnessed a fantastic scene on a public bus last November.

A few stops after we got on, two young boys waddled onto the bus. They were maybe about seven or eight years old, small enough that they were practically dwarfed by their puffy winter coats and colorful backpacks.

As soon as their fathers sat down, the two kids began quietly talking to each other. Based on the things they were saying, it sounded like they were trying to recreate what they’d learned in some kind of anti-bullying assembly at school.

“If you don’t let me play with you,” one boy whispered, “that’s bullying!”

“But if you do let us play with you,” the other boy whispered back, “that’s respect!”

“If you push someone over on the playground, that’s bullying!”

“If you help someone get up after they fall, that’s respect!”

Their secretive whispering gradually evolved into enthusiastic shouting as they applied this newly learned dichotomy to scenario after scenario. After a few minutes, it became clear that they’d started to go off-script.

“If you never ever say sorry again, THAT’S BULLYING!”

“If you say sorry a hundred million billion times forever and forever until you die, THAT’S RESPECT!”

“If you go on the toilet and you forget to flush but then you go back and you see the poop and you flush it, THAT’S BULLYING!”

“No, wait, I think that’s respect.”

“That’s respect?”

“Yeah.”

“No, but I think the poop makes it bullying.”

My friends and I were sitting at the back of the bus throughout their conversation, trying our best to hold back our laughter.

What are some of the funniest “got fired” stories?

I have a friend who worked for a small firm as a graphic designer. He was the youngest and newest, and felt like he was underappreciated and under paid. Also, he thought his boss was a moron. When the business hit hard times, he saw cutbacks coming and decided to just do whatever he wanted until they let him go.

Monday morning, an hour after he was supposed to be in, he called and said he’d be out all week, and would be in Friday, then hung up before he got a response. He watched TV and played video games for four days straight, taking breaks to look for a new job.

On Friday he rolled in two hours late, not at all surprised to discover that his boss wanted to see him in his office.

“The company has needed to do some restructuring and make some tough choices. I need to inform you-”

Here it comes, freedom at last from this awful place!

“- that we’ve let everyone else in the creative department go, and you are now our lead designer. We’re ready to give you an immediate raise of 20% and creative control over all projects. Also, it looks like you’ve needed a break this week, so we’re also ready to offer you more vacation days.”

By the end of the discussion, he not only got more vacation days and the 20% raise, but also got to work from home every Friday. I guess being absent all week made his boss realize how valuable he was to the company.

Edit: There were some questions as to why my friend was the only one kept on, so I’ll elaborate. The company had two web designers, a graphic designer, and my friend, who did video directing and editing. It just so happened he was also a great designer, artist, and could do web design. Everyone in the department could do their job, but he could do everyone’s job.

Submarines Size Comparison

https://youtu.be/347zdq9d2aM

What court tactic backfired on someone?

I was a Probation officer, and I had a probationer back before the court for a probation violation hearing. There were several charges, but one charge was the guy had shown up for an urine screen, and claimed he couldn’t urinate for three hours, even though I saw him go to the restroom twice. (He said he was just testing.) Anyway, I told him to come in the next morning at eight. He showed up at eleven.

At the hearing, the attorney who was a friend of mine got feisty for some reason. After I testified that I told him to report back at eight, the defense attorney asked me, “And did he?”

I replied, “Well..”

“Yes or no answer,” he snapped.

I turned to the judge and said, “It’s not a yes or no question.” (I wanted to say that he showed up at eleven.)

The judge said, “ If the defense attorney wants a yes or no answer he’s entitled to it., Ask your question again.”

“Officer Davis did my client show up at 8:00AM as you told him to?”

“No”

He got an additional charge. I later told the judge in private, and we had a new hearing where he had two months of his eight months in jail reduced. But if I’d been a jerk his attorneys showboating would have cost him two extra months.

What sounds extremely wrong, but is actually correct?

Before freezing to death, people tend to remove their clothes.

Yes.

This is called “paradoxical undressing”, a phenomenon frequently seen in cases of lethal hypothermia. Shortly before death, the person will remove all their clothes, as if they were burning up, when in fact they are freezing.

When people feel cold, the most important thing is to ensure the function of the brain, internal organs and other major organs, so the blood vessels at the ends of the body will automatically contract to ensure adequate blood flow to the major organs.

In this state of stress for a long time, the muscles that contract the blood vessels fall into fatigue and can no longer work, and must take a calm “rest”.

The peripheral blood vessels on the surface of the body will all open, blood will quickly flow to the end of the limbs, and the long-term cold limbs will be immediately filled with warm blood, resulting in the illusion of “very hot”.
When this signal is sent back to the brain, the brain will send the wrong instructions to the body, so that people may think that it is really hot, take off all the clothes.

At this time, people who are on the verge of dying get up and struggle to undress, thinking that undressing is good.

Hard time dating

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iKpzZedCeec?feature=share

Would the military actually shoot at people trying to storm Area 51 or would they try to arrest them?

I was a reservist in the ’90s. I got put on guard duty a few times.

One night, I had to guard a building. They gave me a rubber duck weapon. (An M-16 made out of rubber. Yes, they exist.) I had to walk the perimeter of the building every hour with the “weapon.” I had to note anything out of the ordinary.

When I guarded the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), they gave me a real rifle and a full magazine. There was classified information in there that I didn’t have the clearance to see. I didn’t even know what I was guarding.

They briefed me on the use of force. Basically, you halt the person. You get their ID, detain them and call the commander of the relief. If they don’t halt, you shoot center of mass. There are no warning shots.

Yes. They will kill you if you don’t halt and follow their orders. They have orders to do so. They will follow their lawful orders. National security is no joke to them.

I was glad nobody approached me that night.

Have you ever been fired from a job or asked to resign?

I was 19 and working at a major retailer, I’d rather not mention but is definitely a conglomerate. I went on lunch break, had a drink with a coworker, and returned to post. My manager instantly smelled alcohol on my breath, idiot I was didn’t try to hide or cover the pungent odor that is Seagrams gin. Manager notified the higher ups who put me in a room and three higher ups sat at a table opposite of me. They began asking where I got the alcohol, did I drink with anyone, and saying that they saw us on cameras. I was to rat this coworker out with a written statement. I wound up writing that I drank alone like George Thurgood and not one person laughed. They decided to fire me and I happily left. I was mentally ready to leave that place. The only thing I regret is when I have to answer for it at job interviews even thought it’s been nearly 20 years.

What is the greatest way to make unwanted guests leave?

We had an 18th disco-style birthday party for our daughter at our house, with the expectation that it would wind up around 11pm. By 11:30 it was still going strong with music blaring out loud and kids dancing and drinking a little too much (beer and light drinks only allowed).

My Father-in-law was living with us at the time – an ex-Grenadier Guard and Seargent-Major. Seeing our frustration and not dealing with it adequately, to his mind at least, said he would deal with it.

At 11:50pm he walked into our large lounge, cleared to be a dance floor, switched off the music and switched on the main lights and announced.

“In 10 minutes, it will be Sunday and at 12:05 I will start a religious service. I expect anyone still here to attend”.

The place cleared by 12 midnight.

Quantum Leap: Russia-China’s Quantum Communication Test

https://youtu.be/WdQtBa8_T4Q

What was the shortest interview you’ve had that led to a job offer?

Went to a bar in Australia, saw that no-one was tending and joked with the next guy that walked in, that he needed a bartender, else I’d pour my own, he said, ok, come pour your own. I did, with a near perfect head, and he said, can you start here? now? today? sure I said, he left me there for 4 hours to run the bar. I worked there 2 years.

Went to an bar in Shanghai while travelling, the Bartender there was a Kiwi, it was an Aussie bar, after I asked for a drink he asked me, what I was doing in Shanghai, and I said, looking for a job (I was interviewing for English Teaching jobs) and he said, Well, you sound Aussie, you can work here if you can pour a beer. I started that night and worked for a half a year (ESL teaching in the day, bartender at night).

Went to a ESL School for an interview in a new country after that, walked into the wrong dept, and asked for the head of dept (as it was all I had to go on) and started the interview from my end, and half way through she realised I was in the wrong place, but then asked me how I would deal with businessmen instead of kids. I said, ‘under the suit, they’re just kids’ she hired me there instead, I stayed in that country 10 years.

You find a new job, so you give your employer two weeks’ notice. Your boss then gets angry that you are quitting and tells you not to come back in anymore. How should you respond to your boss?

Generally, when this happens, especially in a salaried position, your current employer will pay you for the final two weeks. If the employer doesn’t offer it, ask for it. It never hurts to ask. It’s just easier and safer for your employer to pay you off than to make an issue of it.

Years ago, as a recent college graduate with an accounting degree, I was an employee in good standing, working as an office supervisor, while I searched for an accounting job. When I was hired by a new company as an accountant (at a significant pay increase,) I gave my two weeks’ notice, fully intending to use the next two weeks to make the transition as easy as possible for my current team. My manager didn’t appear to be angry or resentful when I resigned, but two days later she told me that she didn’t think my mind was on my work. She instructed me to pack up my personal belongings and leave immediately. She told me the company would pay me for the remaining portion of my final two weeks.

What did I do? I packed up and left with no cross words or fanfare. Then I enjoyed an unexpected, 10-day, paid vacation on my old company, knowing I would be starting a better-paying job in my chosen field at the end of my break.

My First Time Hearing Zhou Shen – Floating Light REACTION

https://youtu.be/V1ki98LPGlY

What is the best revenge you got on a superior in your workplace?

I don’t think of it as revenge, but just standing up for myself.

I was a sergeant for a large California police department. I was working swing watch for a lieutenant that was worse than an asshole. I can work for an asshole if he is competent regarding the job, and if he is consistently an asshole. This guy was worse than an asshole in the following ways: some days he’d act like your buddy. Some days he’d say ‘Do X,Y, and Z’ and the following day he’d say “No! I said do Q,R, and W’. He would also tell me how he didn’t trust a large number of our officers. He had quite a paranoia about him. Just a miserable human being who I believe was trying to mask some serious insecurities.

One day I came into work five hours early as a favor, due to some gang murders and a trial that ws going on. I had a squad of swing watch officers assigned to me for this detail. Around 2:30pm the lieutenant came into work with his nasty mood on full display. He started complaining to me about some of the swing watch officers being lazy. I countered by saying if they were so lazy, then why did they come to work 5 hours early to work a stressful assignment? The lieutenant’s office door was open and our argument could be heard in the hallway.

I realized there was no salvaging a professional demeanor with this guy during this shift. My solution: I told him (it was the beginning of our ten hour regular shift) that I had a splitting headache and was going home. There was nothing he could do. He knew he’d get stuck doing a lot of my work. I had to train my boss to be better.

Fortunately, we had our biannual sign-up shortly thereafter, so I signed up for day watch, just to get away from this guy. Within a week of the sign-up results being posted, he was banished to an undesirable post. (Management personnel can be moved at the whim of the chief.) Worse for him, his commute went from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. There were rumors floating around the station. How bad must our captain have thought about this lieutenant to get him shipped off to Siberia?

Our captain had only been at our station for about two months when this happened. He knew me when we were both officers and he knew of my work ethic. He confided in me that when he saw that I signed up for a shift I don’t even like, that there was a BIG problem with this lieutenant. It also solidified the old saying that sergeants run the stations. Things got a lot better for the whole station once that jerk was kicked out.

What can you tell me about fighting in Afghanistan that most people don’t know?

This isn’t a very popular opinion, especially in veteran’s circles, but it is a fact and therefore, it should be said:

The casualty numbers sustained by the so-called “Resolute Support”

[1]mission in Afghanistan are so ridiculously low that it cannot even be called an armed conflict or a war.

In 2018, the United States military had the highest number of casualties from all “Resolute Support” contingents. Altogether, they lost seventeen soldiers, sailors, and Marines in Afghanistan. If you compare this to their absolute numbers (1,358,190 active military personnel) you have a casualty rate of Soldiers Killed in Action (KIA) of about 0.0012%. If you count only personnel deployed to a combat zone (around 18,000 in 2018),[2]you get around 0,09%. Not very impressive. Being a US soldier isn’t even in the TOP 25 of the most dangerous professions in the United States.[3][4]To compare this number to other modern conflicts, the German army in WWII lost around 26.6% of their soldiers in the Soviet Union, while during the Vietnam War the US lost 40,000 of their soldiers on the battlefield (KIA rate of 8%).[5]

In 2018, the German Army’s contingent in Afghanistan didn’t lose a single soldier while at the same time eight soldiers died at home in various accidents.

[6]Although it was one of the years which saw the highest number of German military personnel deployed to crisis regions, 2018 was also the year the Bundeswehr lost the smallest number of soldiers in its history: only 8 were killed. In comparison, in 1962, long before any foreign involvement, the Bundeswehr lost 166 soldiers, most of them in accidents.

Of course, every dead soldier is one too many, but the probability for a US or an Allied soldier to get killed in Afghanistan is much lower than, for example, that of a Russian or Israeli soldier dying during military training.

Next time, we hear people calling to “bring our troops home” or thanking them for their sacrifice, we should put that into perspective. This is also the reason why the “war” in Afghanistan takes so long: the price is paid by the Afghan civilian population and not by our soldiers and Marines.

All of his concerns are valid

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H8Hly7spmUk?feature=share

What is the most badass thing a private has said to a general?

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was the founder of the US Nuclear Navy and is a man clouded in legend. There are a number of stories about him, some of which most certainly are true. Others may or may not be true, but certainly do fit his rather unique style of command. As an example, and this is 100% true because I’ve seen it, and it still sits in the Naval Reactors office, during their interview, Admiral Rickover had his prospective officers sit in a simple office chair… with four inches cut from the front legs.

One story details one of The Admiral’s tours of Nuclear Power School. He decided to enter a classroom, perhaps during the lesson or during study. He entered the rear of the room where he quickly and silently suppressed the impending calls to attention.

At the front of the room, a junior sailor, maybe a Third Class Petty Officer, was working an assigned problem on the board. The Admiral approached the student and, from a short distance behind him, observed the student’s work over his shoulder.

After some time, the student got frustrated. He turned to The Admiral and stated, “Excuse me, sir. I’m trying to work this problem here,” and resumed his work. The Admiral wordlessly departed the classroom, assuredly to the dumbfounded looks of the sailor’s classmates.

As the story goes, later that day, word reached the sailor that The Admiral offered him a commission as an officer in the US Navy.

Why does everyone in the world think the US is a good nation when it is not?

No one think so!

The U.S. thinks and fooled themselves that the world thinks highly of themselves, they most certainly don’t.

Who thinks highly of America? Some very young starry eye highly naive spoilt brat kids perhaps! Or some totally ignorant bigoted white supremacist mainly older, less travelled, less educated people in America thinks America is good!

Everyone else don’t. In fact they don’t think they know US is not at all a good or honourable or caring nation to its own people and certainly very barbaric to the world!

Even most of US slave nations such as Germany, Japan or Korea don’t think so too. They may be forced to but deep inside the disdain America. British, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadian and fellow despicable former colonialists don’t too, they may suck up to the U.S. or at least they use the U.S. as a shield against others who may want to hurt them but they think little about America!

So in percentage it may be as little as 1% thinks they are good. 99% thinks they are barbaric, inhuman, inconsiderate parasite that they cannot respect but some 15% of the world fear them or at least wants their protection. So they pretend to have nice word for the US.

At what point in WWII did the German military realize the war could not be won anymore, and how did they try to act on it?

According to Rommel’s diaries, Hitler said to Rommel that the war was lost late 1943 when Rommel was appointed Inspector General. That makes sense as it was after Kursk, which in a way the Germans won (losses) but they were routed anyway because unlike USSR, Germany could not make up for their losses and this would have been clear at the highest level.

Hitler said to Rommel that from now on it was a question of creating the best possible position for negotiations.

Rommel expressed disappointment, so at this point it was only seen vy those who wanted to see.

As for reactions they were not the sane across the fronts.

Kesselring (Italy) reacted well before this by building fall-back positions planning an incremental withdrawal already early 1943.

On the Eastern front this was forbidden by Hitler which meant withdrawals were often unplanned and more costly than needed. Stalingrad is a good example, but other units, cities or regiments were ordered to fight till death as well.

Is it bad to tell your boss you’re quitting souly because of them?

Is it bad? Not at all. In fact, it is actually quite liberating.

I was hired to work as a computer support tech at a community college but the man who offered me the job resigned, unexpectedly, just days before I was scheduled to start. His replacement was on the panel that interviewed candidates and he preferred another candidate over me, so he went to his boss to have my job offer revoked. His boss refused to do it and that made him incredibly angry, so he decided to take it out on me by micromanaging my every move.

He had no experience as a manager — he’d been a systems admin at the school before being named interim IT Director — and he didn’t like working with older people. This was unfortunate because I was 58 years old at the time and the ony other support tech was 63 years old, so interim enjoyed trying to embarrass us. He called us both out in front of a room full of people for running a network line incorrectly, and we angered him by telling him to finish the job up while we went to lunch.

My coworker decided he’d had enough at that point and took that afternoon off before sending interim an email stating that he wouldn’t return. Interim tried to write me up for insubordination but his boss wouldn’t let him and that made a bad work relationship even worse. I took to working in empty classrooms and lecture halls to avoid interim, and spoke to him only when directly asked a question.

Two years after my old coworker quit I turned in my resignation — the letter simply stated that I was resigning and that my last day would be in two weeks, on a specific date. When interim — yes, after three years he was still interim IT director — showed up he walked over to my office and stood in the doorway, and asked me why I was quitting. I usually offer up a vague response like, “It’s time to move on” or “ I want to try something new” but this time I told interim that I could no longer stand to work for someone I did not like or respect. The look on his face — shock, dismay, anger — was worth having to sit and twiddle my thumbs for those last two weeks. That’s right — he pulled all the work he’d assigned me to punish me. Needless to say, my new coworker didn’t appreciate that move.

All girls thing…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ai5BsKSmAks?feature=share

What is the most insane conversation you have ever had with your parents?

I was a straight A student in high school, and in my sophomore year I was receiving brochures from college. I had some spread out on the kitchen table, and Mom and I were discussing which ones would be worth a visit during my junior year. Dad came home from work, noticed the brochures, and scoffed, “She’s not going to college; I’m not paying for her Mrs. degree like her sister!” I started to explain to him what degree I wanted, and wasn’t going to college to get married, as my sister had done. Mom cut me off, stood up and got in Dad’s face. She sternly pointed out that he HAD paid for my brother’s B.S. and M.S. and if I wanted to go to college I DAMN well was going to go! Dad and I both stared at her, our mouths agape, because Mom never contradicted Dad in front of us. (As it turned out, I earned enough scholarships and had a parttime job on campus, that I was a bargain, costing them very little out of pocket.)

Uh huh?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7vseGkTMln0?feature=share

Have you ever been invited to dinner under false pretenses?

Yes! Our neighbor, a pastor, invited us over when his wife was away. They had very old fashioned roles, she did housework, he earned money. When we arrived he asked my husband to help him install a hanging lamp. He asked me to start dinner. All he had was stuff for salad. I went home and got some steak and potatoes, cooked it while they worked. After dinner i did the dishes and he told me to take out the trash. I said “ Excuse me?”. He laughed and told me to take it out its “womens work”. So not wanting to alienate someone we had to share an property line with, i did. When my husband and i left He turned to me and said “ What the heck was that?”. I said, he took advantage of our kindness! He got free labor, a free dinner, and free maid service! We never accepted another invitation for dinner! This is the same guy who adopted an African baby so he could “ Get over being a bigot, like my father”. Cant make this stuff up!

What would you do if the school bully pulled off your shirt at school in front of everybody?

Hardly as bad as pulling a shirt off, but an episode in my Catholic high school has passed into legend.

One student I’ll call Henry was an easy target for one particular bully. He spoke strangely as a consequence of a congenital hearing defect, wore a bulky hearing aid, carried an extra forty pounds, had a bad complexion and was 100% nerd right down to the pocket protector and slide rule.

His bus arrived early. Early students had to wait in the cafeteria until home room opened. Henry would turn down his hearing aid, open a book, and write computer programs or do math problems. He would place his lunch – a sandwich in a small paper bag – on the table next to him.

His nemesis would yell in his ear “how are you this morning, Henry” while he smashed the sandwich flat. Henry had had enough. One morning he put in the bag a piece of cardboard with thumbtacks pushed through the cardboard pointing up. The bully, as usual, smashed the bag flat. He let out a howl as he pulled his hand away with a dozen punctures streaming blood.

One of the nuns heard the howl, figured out what had happened, and dragged Henry by his earlobe to the Director of Discipline, Fr. Huller. Huller was a regular guy. He had landed in the second wave at Normandy and seen a few things.

Huller listened to the nun’s version and then to Henry’s version. He asked the nun to leave so that he could speak to Henry privately. Huller could barely keep from laughing. He tried to say something several times but couldn’t get the words out. Finally, he told Henry “just don’t do that again.”

Huller then asked to see the bully who had been patched up by the school nurse. He told the bully that his impalement was punishment enough but if he smashed any more sandwiches he’d be expelled.

Granting permission

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/k9ZKRNf6tJw?feature=share

Have you ever quit a job in an unplanned manner where one day you just snapped and said “I’ve had enough of this, I’m done”?

I sure did. I was working for a company helped them open their location. They had me doing supervisor duties with the promise of soon getting that position. I was young and dumb not realizing that was a mistake. I did it for about 6 months working my tail off and never missing work and always coming in early and or staying late. When it came down to it, they said they were giving the position to a new person that was new coming in and just gave me a $.10 raise. It was a slap in the face. Thinking about all those extra duties I put in. The times they would keep calling me on the ear piece even when I was just going to go pee they called me. Then one day on my day off when I went to pick up my check, the boss said a bunch of people called off and they only had 1 station open, 1 employee there out of 6 15 minutes to open, and 2 bus loads of kids coming in. He then told me he needed me to start right away. I told him I didn’t have my uniform. He told me to grab one from the back, but those were dirty. I said ok sure. I went to the back and said good bye to everyone. They asked where I was going and I said I quit. Never done that in my life. Felt awful but it was a turning point for me to never let anyone take advantage of me again.

What bad experience had you saying “I will never buy from that company or use their service ever again”?

Bosch.

This happened about 20 years ago. We had a cheap and cheerful washing machine. It was 15 years old and had required a few repairs in the recent years; new door seal, new belt, new motor brushes etc. Problem was the the motor commutator had become scored and the brushes didn’t last too long and really the motor needed replacing. We also wanted a machine with a higher load capacity so we went shopping. We chose a high spec Bosch washing machine with a 9kg load capacity and a 3 year extended warranty i.e. to 4 years. It cost about £450 which was a fair amount at the time.

Just over 4 years later the machine was on its spin cycle. There was an enormous series of bangs, the machine threw itself around the floor and ground to a halt. A repair technician was called but found that the machine was completely destroyed. We commissioned an engineers report. This stated that the tub counterbalance had become detached. It should have had say6 studs and nuts holding it in place. A couple were missing completely and the rest had sheared off. The tub spinning at high speed had been thrown around the inside of the machine, slicing through wiring and pipes, smashing the control circuit board and even causing large dents in the steel panel at the rear.

Bosch’s attitude was unbelievable. Essentially they said that “it could not be a manufacturing fault as it would have shown up during the warranty period” and “what did you expect as it was now outside warranty”. Apparently although a cheap and cheerful machine would last 15 years with a few cheap repairs but a quality one was expected to self destruct as soon as the warranty period expired. Eventually they did consent to a small amount of compensation but left us massively out of pocket.

I’ve never bought another Bosch power tool, fridge, freezer or anything else since then

This is me

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CeywEkTZ4wM?feature=share

How do you successfully contest a traffic ticket?

I went to court, fought the ticket, exposed the lying cop, and got my charges dismissed. The judge offered his “congratulations, on an excellent defense”. I went into court prepared, righteous, and loaded for bear. I fought a handful of tickets, over the years, and won every time. They were all bogus. For a couple that I got, which were legit, I was able to get reduced fines, or even deferred adjudication.

Know the laws on the offense you’re charged with, AND the fine schedule and other possible punishments. I prepped a friend, for his seatbelt ticket defense. He was told he would be fined $250, and then he brought a printout of the state law, which called for a $66 (or thereabouts) fine. He then said he wanted to know just whose pocket the rest of that $250 was going into. The charge was dropped, and he was sent out the door. The city prosecutor, and whoever wrote the fines, hadn’t bothered to see if the numbers matched the legal amount set by the state.

At what point of time did you realize that you were working in the wrong field?

I was hired with the promise of being the #2 in the company as CIO. One hour into the first day, the CEO comes into my office and asks me to call somebody at our other office to help him with a problem. He told me that I worked for him as well since he was in charge of the department over there that ran a document scanning operation I had not been told of.

So much for only having to worry about one unqualified person telling me how to be a CIO, I now had two. I knew then I was dealing with somebody who tells someone exactly what they want to hear. It was too late, as I’d already moved the family, etc… Had to try to make it work. Developed clinical depression as a result.

I did have the honor of watching the CEO get deposed from a company he owned a majority of stock in (only way that happens is extortion or blackmail by the other shareholders), and having the new CEO grovel at my feet when I left him after a year of his abuse. Then I watched the company implode, first by closing down the scanning center (the only profit generator for the company – brilliant people), then having everybody else bail because they no longer got paid.

Great Times!

Who is your favorite actor who you have met in person?

I waited on Nicholas Cage one Sunday morning in Vegas. He, the lady he was with, and his young son were the only guests at the time. I greeted him as Mr. Cage and at the outset he seemed very nice. I informed the manager (goof) and he immediately said to ask him for a photo as “corporate”loves that. I have waited on other celebrities and I would take a bullet before doing something so gauche. Mr. Cage did take some photos with other guests as the restaurant filled. He was very polite the entire time. At the end I said “Mr. Cage I am great admirer of your work”. I mean c’mon after Moonstruck? It was totally the truth! He said, “John it was a pleasure meeting YOU”! I had to go out to the parking area as he left his credit card on the table. Did he give me a nice tip? Yes. Was it outrageous? No. All class.

The Chinese Navy Of 2024 Is Unlike Any Other Major Navies

https://youtu.be/gFkoC8Sol1A

What doesn’t impress you?

Just an hour ago, My girlfriend offered to buy me Lemon soda in one of those small roadside shops. We were regulars there.

I was thirsty so I finished my drink fast. She was halfway through her glass when a Traffic policeman approached the shop.

Him: One lemon juice please.

Shopkeeper: Sure sir, please wait for a minute.

He makes the juice and hands it over to him.

My Girlfriend starts drinking the juice very slowly. I asked her what happened.

“I’m just waiting to see what he’ll do” *points at the traffic policeman*

After he was done with the drink.

Him: Thanks. *Leaves without paying*

The shopkeeper just continues with his work.

Her: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Pretty common sight in India. Cops get freebies in a lot of roadside stalls and they don’t even think for a second that the small amount of 10–15 rupees is the shopkeeper’s hard earned money.

What doesn’t impress me?

People who abuse their power don’t impress me.

How much over the speed limit do most officers let you go before pulling you over?

In the city I used to live in photo radar was set for 13 kmph over the speed limit, about 8 mph. There are no demerits for photo radar, just the fine. Its a great cash cow, because it catches all of those who are momentarily not paying attention, as well as those who are purposely speeding. The province refuses to allow photo radar on its highways. Because they say its just a cash cow.

In the little town that I retired to, they thought they were going to get rich off of speeding tourists. They moved the speed limit signs so that it dropped from 100 to 80 to 50 kmph farther outside of town, and they bought a $125,000 photo radar, and said it would pay for itself in two months. The main tourist drag through town was a provincial highway. They sat the only town police officer at the edge of town, and ticketed away. In the very first month a guy fought his ticket, and the judge ruled that it was illegal to use photo radar on the highway. Rather than move it to other streets, where most of the offenders would be locals, they sold the photo radar for about half of what they paid for it. When it was working, they had looked into hiring a second officer to bring in more money, but once it was scrapped, all talk of a second officer was cancelled.

The fact that they wouldn’t use it on non tourist streets, moved the speed limit signs out of town, and talked about hiring a second officer, but only when they were using the radar trap, and dropped the plan as soon as they dropped the radar, pretty much tells you the intent of the radar trap.

The photo radar was still perfectly useable, except that you had to actually stop the car and write up the ticket, check licence and registration, sobriety, etc , exactly as the province required.

But, because of the time required, the town said it wasn’t economical to give tickets to people doing less than about 25 kmph ,15.5 mph, and there weren’t enough of them to make it worthwhile.

So there you have it, if its automatically sent out in the mail, the limit is 13 kmph over the speed limit, if they have to check to make sure you aren’t a mass murderer, driving a hijacked car, its almost double at 25 kmph.

Humans vs Superhumans | When Monsters Were Real and We Almost Went Extinct

https://youtu.be/juyvnVL6V7g

What is the fastest you wiped that smirk off your manager’s face?

I had a manager who was putting me on a last and final write-up (next step suspension / terminated) for something I didn’t do. I refused to sign the write-up until I talked to the director (his boss) about the situation as I hadn’t made an error. The manager replied, “It would’ve been easier if you would’ve just signed it!” He goes through the steps of bringing on another manager to witness me refusing to sign the paperwork, as was protocol for this type of situation, and I went about the rest of my shift.

What my manager didn’t know was my wife, who happened to be an auditor in the company, had made me aware of the situation before I went into work so I was able to research things before my write-up was going to be given to me. I was able to see that my manager had changed some of the data I used to complete my daily reports, which caused my paperwork error. I printed the evidence showing he caused the error and held onto it until the meeting with the director.

So I’m meeting with the director and the manager is going, “… does sub par work, careless with his reports, yada yada”. My director then asks me for my side of the story and I tell him, “The manager changed the data I use to run my daily reports”. The manager was offended and says something along the lines that I was wrong. I then show the screenshots of when the information I used was changed and who doctored it. The information was changed 30 minutes after I left work for the day by my manager making him responsible for the error. The meeting ended about two minutes later with a half-hearted apology.

Edit: So there have been a few comments on why the manager wasn’t fired for his actions of doctoring a record. The overall reason was we had just started using a new computer system a few months prior and there was still a lot of growing pains with everybody figuring it out. I don’t think the manager’s actions were malicious with the error, it was part of the learning process. I even learned better procedures to follow to prevent the error from happening again. At first it was for CYA, then it became the procedure I taught to others to guarantee accuracy of the reports.

Who did you experience that is so cheap they are disgusting?

I had this friend in college who would always eat my lunches. I didn’t really mind and it’s not because she didn’t have any money or anything it’s just that she never made lunch for herself and when she did she still thought mine were more appetizing.

I shared my meal everyday with her and I would often make more for the two of us.

One day I didn’t have time to make lunch and she didn’t bring one so I suggested that we go eat at a small bistro near the school. She ordered a big meal and everything and paid. When it was my turn I didn’t have any money because I left my wallet at home. I asked her to lend me some money and told her I would pay her back. She refused saying that it’s my fault that I was poorly organized and I should always have my wallet with me. She then told me I purposely forgot my wallet and that it was a plan for her to pay me back for all of the meals that i shared with her.

I didn’t eat lunch with her. I just left and blocked her. Never thought people could take so much but never give when needed.

WTF?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KZ_rQ3Lt8jY?feature=share

 

What are Americans offended about?

JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?”

DeGaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop.

When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ’empire building’ by George Bush.

He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of Its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, One of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?”

You could have heard a pin drop.

A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, “Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?” Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, “Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.” The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !” The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchman to show a passport to.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Is it fair that if a girl punches you, you can punch her back?

My friend punched a girl back. In fact 3 girls. He asked me to take him to court when he was prosecuted for it. The evidence was on CCTV.

When I saw the video I was shocked how they attacked him in the street first by punching him then using their stilletos. You could see the injuries just below his eye and on the top of his head.

The prosecutor said he’d used too much force when he punched them after their THIRD wave of attacks. They’d pursued him through the streets, stolen and hidden his jacket and car and house keys as well.

The reason given was that they didn’t like it when he was passing one of them in a club and said how nice she looked, and when she swore at him he’d said how unpleasant she was. They’d followed him out of the club and attacked him from behind in the street.

The prosecutor admitted that the worst of the attackers should have been in the court for assaulting him with a dangerous weapon – a stilleto in the eye causes blindness. Instead she accepted a caution and no further action was taken.

It was evident he’d been trying to escape the area and to find his jacket. He was acquitted. The case was thrown out with less than 2 minutes consideration by the magistrates.

So, yeah, if a male or female attacks you to that degree then striking back as a last resort is what you might need to do, even though it is heavily looked down upon.

What is the worse fight you have ever been in?

Do you mean the worst loss or the most aggressive win. The bloodiest fight I was ever in took place in a bar. I’m going to give them short version of this night because I don’t want to type it all out. Because of a little scuffle at a party I was at all my friends got turned around. We all went different ways. I ended up ina bar laying low wondering if cops maybe looking for me. So already pumped up from the fun at the party I wasn’t going to say away from nothing. In the bar got a beer and walk towards the pool tables. Now I’m not a big guy about average five nine and 170 poundsat 21 years of age hanging drywall for a living and trying m.m.a. 5 nights a week. I was in better shape than most men. But I my leather riding jacket no one could see i wasn’t in great shape looked like a skin nerd. My whole life people challenged me. I can’t remember the exact words that where said to me but my response was I fuck bitchs bader than you. Witch led to him thinking he needed to prove me wrong. Mind you’ve all ready been in a fight that had a lot more involved than just 2 men and ran I don’t know how far. I knew I had to win fast as I got pounding on this guy I didn’t notice his two friends jumping not knowing exactly what was happening I pulled my knife just a small lock blade. As used it on one of the guys the other ones wanted nothing to do with it. This small hole in the wall tavern didn’t have door men. But cops had been called they showed up took me to jail at first charged with assault 2 weapons enhancement. I ended up plea bargaining to a displaying a weapon with intent to harm and or intimidate. Did get a strike but got 60 months in a maximum security penitentiary. That was the worst fight I’ve ever been in.

Have you ever received a confidential email that wasn’t intended for you?

I was being given a severance package. While it was something I had negotiated and was okay with (finally), the setting was a bit strange.

I had walked into the meeting with my coat and bag and was ready to leave. The HR rep (with whom I was on good terms) and my boss were waiting for me. The rep was laughing. I asked why and he said that he’d bet my boss 20 bucks that I’d be all ready to go.

My boss objected saying “Yeah but I added that he’d have all the cards and cell phone and company stuff in an envelope too.”

I smiled and took an envelope out of my bag and slid it over to the HR rep.

At that my boss started in on his spiel but was flustered. He stopped and said “I guess you know all this. Here’s the pertinent papers. Good luck!” He handed me a few papers and envelopes and beat a hasty retreat.

Later when I got home I found a printed email that he’d sent to the president of the company explaining why they’d had to give me the package. One line stood out. “I’ve been trying to get him to quit for a year and it hasn’t worked.” In his fluster he had passed me stuff that he shouldn’t have.

Yeah. It cost ‘em.

Zhou Shen’s (周深新) new song “Floating Light” | Singer Reaction!

https://youtu.be/zKjrRNGpiYM

Do you wish you can be young again, or are you content with your age?

I just turned 43.

I had a lot more sex in my late 20’s, which was fun. My endless pursuit of it also derailed a lot of golden opportunities life handed me in a golden basket. It was like:

“Here’s a free basket of incredible things for you, Stephen!”

“Wait. What? What’s that stuff?”

“An amazing cornucopia of gifts, just for you!”

“NO!”

Why did I do this? Because I couldn’t think about anything else besides sex. Ironically, I had all that fun when I was an incredible jerk to people. (If anybody on Quora thinks I’m a jerk now, you’re not totally wrong, but be grateful you didn’t know me back when I was 27. Whew. What an asshole.)

In my early 30’s, I was consumed by weepy nostalgia and crippling loneliness. This also caused me to pass on a lot of great opportunities. Life, but especially North Carolina, handed me a lot of amazing options… and I threw those back in its face, because I was obsessed with running into the past. At 33, I was still such a baby. An egocentric little whiner.

I finally hit a pretty good stride in my late 30s. And my 40’s have been amazingly calm overall. Don’t think too much about the past, don’t have to battle hormones so much, not rich but not broke either. Haven’t been in a relationship in several years, which is dumb, but also haven’t had to deal with all that madness, which is refreshing. Things are alright, really.

Done more travel globally in the last five years than I did at any point in my late 20’s or early 30’s, because I couldn’t afford it back then. And the quality of that travel has improved. Hard to say why. (I still stay at hostels sometimes, it’s not like I travel in swanky luxury today.) But the experience just seems richer and more interesting. A more mature appreciation of things, I guess. Art seems more profound, because I know more about humanity. Humanity created art. Food tastes better. Don’t know why, it just does. I’m definitely a better cook.

At 43, I’ve obviously read more books than at any other time in my life. The cumulative effect of a lifetime of reading has an impact on you. You can sit down and read William Wordsworth or Alexander Pope and think “This guy gets it.” At 21, I would have no idea what the hell they were talking about.

YouTube and the internet seem incredibly boring. Facebook: mindnumbing. Except for maybe Google Maps, you really feel like you’ve reached the end of what the internet has to offer.

Chronic indigestion is slowly killing me, even though I don’t have any sins anymore besides a few beers a week and a cigar. I can’t even really do that anymore. Every time I eat, I have to drink some baking soda dissolved in water just to control the indigestion. It’s awful. Eat a cookie: burp. Eat a banana: burp. I’m seeing a doctor in March. This is the only thing (so far) about getting old that just absolutely sucks.

Speaking personally here, because honestly I’m at a stage of life when a lot of people go through mid-life crises and resort to hookers and vodka to make themselves feel “young” again, but I feel less angst-ridden now than I ever did at any time in the past. My early 30’s were a disaster.

The only real question I have is why more women don’t find guys who’ve dumped most of their chronic bullshit appealing, and why women keep gravitating toward dumb suckers in their 20’s and 30’s. (Oh shit, eureka, I’ve found the answer: because women do exactly the same thing men do!). I’m not as “exciting” as I used to be. Yeah, and I’m not as stupid and rude.

But do I want to jeopardize what I have just to a have a woman in it? I mean, I like women a lot. But right now, no, I’m not jeopardizing my piece of mind just for anybody. I’m holding out for someone who is sheer gold.

Greek Salad

lemon salmon greek salad 8
lemon salmon greek salad 8

Ingredients

Salad

  • 1 bunch Romaine lettuce
  • 1 small red onion
  • 1 cucumber
  • 4 Roma tomatoes
  • Kalamata olives
  • Feta cheese, crumbled

Dressing

  • 1/4 cup good olive oil
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 or 2 cloves crushed garlic
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions

  1. Whisk together dressing and let it sit while you prepare the vegetables.
  2. Wash and spin dry lettuce, tear into pieces. Slice onion, tomato and cucumber. Add olives and feta to taste.
  3. Whisk dressing before pouring on salad and toss.

Serves 4.

This goes well with focaccia bread or pita and hummus.

lemon salmon greek salad 11
lemon salmon greek salad 11

What’s the most brutal and intense hand-to-hand fight you’ve ever had?

In college a guy accused me of stealing his bike (yeah I know) came to my dorm room drunk and tried fighting me in front of the whole floor. I tried getting away by closing my door but he forced his way in. He grabbed me and dragged me outside into the hall. He pushed me into one of those fire extinguisher cabinets with the break away glass. It shattered immediately. I grabbed the extinguisher and hit him in the face knocking out his front teeth. The return swing dislocated his shoulder. The third crushed the orbital of his left eye. Everything happened in about five seconds. I needed forty stitches in my back and arm from the glass. He was over 18 but thinking like he was in high school. He got arrested for breaking and entering, assault, and battery. He was found guilty of assault and battery and witness tampering. I hadn’t stolen his bike, I’d never seen his bike, and I let the police search my dorm room all they wanted. They never found his bike.

Quarters in the ashes

One of the things about my mother was the ashtray in her car.

Yeah. I know. I know.

Many of you youngsters have no idea what an “ashtray” is, what it does, and why it is important. Let alone what one was doing in a car.

ashtray
ashtray

Well, let me tell you. It is a receptacle to hold the ashes of a cigarette in. You see, when you smoke a cigarette, the end burns. Turns to ash and dissolves. If you don’t flick the ashes away they fall over everything. So you’ve got to deposit them in a tray to get them out of the way.

Anyways, I once went to clean out her can and pulled out the ashtray. And it it was about $30 worth of change (mostly quarters) and a ton-load of ashes and one or two bubblegum wrappers. Man, oh man. They made those things DEEP! Lordy! I had no idea.

30369 gettyimages 1017146822
30369 gettyimages 1017146822

I understand that you can still order cars with this feature, but they are no longer as common, and certainly not standard like they used to be.

Who’d figure. Eh?

Live moves on. Things change.

It’s called life.

Don’t you know….

Today.

How do you deal with your husband’s family members who are always criticizing you in front of him?

Happened to me with my ex MIL. She started in on me about the mess my kitchen was in the day after I got back from a 2500 miles business trip I had been on. My ex left dirty dishes everywhere, dried food on them, spanking clean dishwasher, and laundry piled by the back door. As soon as she started, I was furious. First she wasn’t to be in my home but he let her in, second, he said nothing about the mess being his, and finally, I was exhausted and had 3 days of paperwork ahead of me. I looked at him, he looked away while she was yelling at me. I basically told her to can it, her son had created the mess while I was out making money and that I had paperwork to do to make sure I finished the job of the trip. Since she created a spoiled brat who wouldn’t clean up, she had dispensation to be in my kitchen while she did the dishes. She turned to him to back her up and the coward that he is, he told me it was my job and I said, nope, I quit, hire a maid if you won’t do it. She left and we had a blowout fight (led to divorce in a couple of month).

Three days later after getting my paperwork complete and I was scheduling my next trip away, the kitchen was still a mess. I actually packed up every dish, glass, pan, silverware, etc. that was mine and refused to cook or clean anything. I was really totally fed up. I did purchase paper plates and cups and plastic eating utensils and left him with a pretty much bare fridge. He ate at his mom’s while I was gone or at a restaurant but I had a clean kitchen.

Stand up for yourself. Tell them that if they can’t behave with decency, there is the door and until they learn some respect and manners when it comes to you, they are not welcome in your home. If you are in theirs, tell them goodbye and that you won’t be returning. Hubby can visit when he likes but you won’t be back. And by the way, you are no longer welcome in my home either.

Have you ever literally face-palmed in court?

I was prosecuting a committal hearing against a defendant for an allegation that he sexually assaulted his younger step daughter. The victim was a ‘not so polite’ 13 year old. My first question to her was, “Please tell the court your name.” Reply, “You already know that.” It was a struggle just to set up the identity of the victim. I just knew it was going to be difficult to adduce the evidence necessary for the matter to be committed to the District Court for trial from this young victim so I then asked a very broad open question and I was going to build my case from there. “Can you just remember what happed to you at your 12th birthday party?” Reply, “Get Fucked.” That was later followed by, “Can you now tell the court what your step gather did?” Reply, “Get Fucked. You know.” By then I wanted to palm face but pressed on.

Such answers are a body blow for a prosecutor as two rules apply, 1. I can not ask leading questions and 2. I can’t normally cross examine my own witness. From there on the defence lawyer started to frequently object to my ‘leading’ and ‘cross examining’ questions.

Eventually, I was able to (unconvincingly) put the barest evidence necessary to the court. When the victim was cross examined she gave numerous answers that were very detrimental to the prosecution’s case.

I then called evidence of ‘complaint’ from the victim’s older sister. She gave evidence that shortly after her sister’s 12th birthday party that the victim told her about her step father sexually assaulting her. She gave very credible and convincing evidence. She was then cross examined and was ‘not shaken’ in her evidence re the sexual assault.

There is an old saying in court that you should never ask a question when you don’t know the answer. The following supports that view.

The questioning of the older sister swung around to the credibility of the victim, her younger sister. And the defence was on a roll. “You know that your sister tells, don’ t you?” ‘Yes.’ “And she has often told you lies hasn’t she?” ‘Yes.’

I considered, having heard the victim’s evidence, that these question were reasonable and the the replies were very predictable. My case was almost totally destroyed at this stage and no court would ever committed with this standard of evidence.

It was then time for the defence lawyer to sit down but he was on fire with favourable answers now flowing freely from my witness. Then came, and my ears immediately pricked up, “You don’t believe you sister is telling the truth about your step father do you?” I was looking at the face of the defence lawyer as he was asking that question and I could almost read his mind that he was starting to regrett asking this question but it was out of his mouth before he could retract it. I thought, that’s an interesting question, I wonder how my witness will answer this question?

Then came the immediate reply, with gushing tears, screams and finger pointing to the defendant, ‘I know she is telling the truth, dad also did it to me on my 12th birthday.’

Horror was in the face of the lawyer. That was one question too many. He had nowhere to hide and it was high drama in the court room.

The female social worker who was comforting the victim then ran across the courtroom and started attacking the defendant with her handbag shouting ‘You Bastard, You Bloody Bastard.’

And the reaction of the defendant? He was wimping like a mongrel dog during the attack and not trying to defend himself to any degree. If anyone ever ‘acted guilty’ then this defendant was acting as absolutely guilty.

The first time the older sister had ever told any person about her being sexually assaulted by her step father was just then in the witness box.

The mother then rushed up to the witness box to console her older daughter and the police were trying to protect the defendant from the social worker.

Me, I just sat back in my chair with a smug smile and thought … well such thoughts were not complementary to the defence lawyer who was trying to now object to his own question as the witness was crying out to her mother, ‘Mum, Dad did it to me all the time till he started fucking her.”

It was too much for the Magistrate who stood up and adjourned the case till ‘order was restored’.

It was utter joyous pandemonium for this prosecutor.

I had two, the lawyer and his client who needed to palm face!

And yes, the defendant was committed that day for the offence and he was later charged with sexually assaulting his older step daughter.

Such high drama is exceptionally rare to see in a courtroom but that day still lives with me some 20 years later.

Greek Souvlaki with Tzaziki

Souvlaki are kabobs, usually made with beef, lamb or chicken and sometimes shrimp.

2024 01 24 10 39
2024 01 24 10 39

Yield: 6 servings; about 3 cups

Ingredients

Souvlaki

  • 2 pounds lamb shoulder or 2 pounds sirloin tip, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
  • 2 cups dry red wine
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 2 teaspoons lemon rind, long strips
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • Sweet peppers and cherry tomatoes as needed

Tzaziki

  • 2 cups plain yogurt
  • 1/2 English cucumber, peeled and grated
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Begin preparing the tzaziki a few hours before serving. The flavors need time to blend.
  2. Marinate the meat overnight to absorb the wine and garlic.
  3. Souvlaki: Place the meat in a large bowl. Pour in the wine and sprinkle minced garlic and oregano. Imbed the lemon strips among the cubes of meat and drizzle with olive oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate 12 hours or overnight. Shake or stir the mixture several times during the marinating period.
  4. About 30 minutes before serving, drain off and discard the marinade. Thread the chunks of meat onto long skewers, brushing with a little olive oil.
  5. Over medium coals, barbecue the souvlaki until it’s done the way you like it.
  6. Serve on a bed of rice and pass the tzaziki to spoon on top.
  7. Tzaziki: Line a colander or sieve with cheesecloth (or gauze) and set it over a bowl. Pour in the yogurt and allow it to drip for an hour or so.
  8. After the yogurt has drained, combine it, in a small bowl, with the cucumber and the garlic. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until just before serving.
  9. While the meat is barbecuing, drizzle the olive oil over the surface of the Tzaziki and, without stirring, sprinkle on the salt. It needs no mixing as your guests will do that when they dollop it onto their souvlaki.

The truth

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GjzmvcU7BpI?feature=share

What is the nastiest home you have been in?

When I was working as a police officer I had a call of a shoplifting with a minor, a girl of 14. At that age I was required to take her home to find an adult to release her to as she was considered “arrested on paper.”

When we got to her house she got out of the cruiser rather quickly and ran inside the home and brought out another teenager with her. I told the teen I needed to release her to an adult and as I started to go to the front door she blocked my way which seemed very odd.

I pressed on asking “is there an adult inside?” She responded that there was but that she would go in and get her. I stood about 6 feet from the open door and inhaled an odor from inside that I can only describe as truly putrid from inside that house.

I immediately began to suspect that the inside of the home was a “filth situation” and I walked around to the back to see if I was correct by looking in the windows, but almost all had closed curtains and it was dark inside the windows that I could see into.

The girl then exited the back door which again produced a rush of air that was truly disgusting. Again I attempted to gain entrance to the house but the girl stood in my way. Since I didn’t have a warrant to search the house and I couldn’t prove that it was a dangerous situation to justify a warrantless entry, I then released the girl to an adult relative who also eventually came out of the home,

Afterwards I wrote an information report to Child Protective Services relaying my suspicions that the inside of the house was filthy and a potential danger to those living inside.

A few months later I received a letter from one of the CPS investigators who had received my report. She wrote to tell me that she thought I’d want to know that they investigated the home and that it had been the worst case of child neglect and filth they had ever seen!

She said there was urine and feces everywhere from both humans and animals. She said that she was amazed that I had been able to make a determination that the house was a problem having never entered and by only using my sense of smell.

In 15 years I had been in a lot of dirty to filthy homes and somehow my sense of smell let me know that this home needed a look inside. The investigator said everyone (7 children in all) had been removed from the home, as there were no adults living there,the utilities had been shut off and the oldest child was trying desperately to keep the family together.

I felt sad that the family was split up but I knew how dangerous continuing to live in that house was going to be. This was one of the saddest cases I worked on and has always remained in my thoughts.

What is the best way to inform your boss that you are leaving your job permanently (no plan of coming back)? Also, what is the best way to resign from any job?

The best example of someone leaving their job was a former associate that I worked with. She had been through hell and back with the company. The boss had harassed her for years, causing her emotional and physical pain. She was overworked without getting much praise for it. She was blamed for every little thing. All this being said, she was no push over. She routinely stood up for herself, even putting her boss in his place several times. In all honesty, he was beyond incompetent. So there was no shortage of ways to put him in his place.

She was on the brink of quitting. What pushed her over the edge was a phone call she received while on her day off. The boss would start to berate her and blame her for the disarray the store was in. He called her lazy and good for nothing. This was the straw that broke the camels back. She walked into his office the next day and quit. She warned him that if his behavior continued, he would lose all his good workers; which he proceeded to lose. This turned out to be true because the following month, he lost two of his managers.

Fast forward to the present, the store is in worst shape and bleeding people constantly.

Gonzalo Lira has died

https://youtu.be/LZxd4tyW3Js

What’s the creepiest thing you have heard a child say?

One of my kid’s friends who came over after a bday party to play said something to me I’ll never forget.

He was around 8. When offered snacks he declined.

When offered to play toys he declined.

He wanted to go on my patio to “ watch the sky”. When I joined him he was staring intently up. He pointed to the sky and said “ You should watch out. Watch out for the triangles. They come sometimes. They look at you and you can talk to them but it’s not like we talk. “

I asked him to elaborate. Who comes? What do they look like? How do they come to you?

“ No. Not just me. Lots of people see them. And animals too. Some are nice. Some are mean. You should watch out because you might see a mean one. They come in triangles. Big triangles. With lights. I can’t see them. But if you don’t run and listen they talk. The mean ones say they own us. The nice ones say they’ll protect us. The nice ones come in circles. So watch out for triangles. “ He said all this very matter -of -fact and seemed afraid but confident in his words. He claimed to have seen one just the other day

He then went inside and I don’t remember much after that. When his mom picked him up I asked her about what he said. She looked embarrassed and said something like oh don’t mind him and his wild imagination. This was late 90s and we were temporarily in Northern Canada in a rural area for work. We left shortly after. I still to this day watch the sky a little differently.

*Edit to Clarify

  1. Forgot to mention when I asked the kid how many times this happened he said only a couple.
  2. This was not a normal part of our planet for background. This was a vast frozen tundra with small communities accessible by dogsled and helicopter. Near the Arctic Circle. I don’t believe him per se but also don’t disbelieve entirely. I hope it’s not true.

“Can you hug me too?”Seeing owner embrace another companion,the rescued stray cat longs to be loved

https://youtu.be/-8mYhq18ZXA

How tough is life after engineering if you dont get placed?

I passed out engineering in 2007. I did not get any campus placements even after scoring first class with all papers cleared in first attempt.

So I moved to Bangalore in search of job by end of 2007, and joined a course for Java. I have 50 K money with me, this is the money I got as part of my mothers share. All my aim at that time was to get into a job, before I exhaust this 50K rupes.

I paid 10 K to java institute and spent 2 months there. The training was so poor and contrary to what they promised, no companies came for campus recruitment. Every month I need to pay 2500 rupees rent in PG, and cost of food is around 100 per day. The total cost per month would be around 5500 Rs.

After 2 months, I was left with 30 K. Again I spent one more month, the balance amount came to 25K.

I couldn’t get a job in software, and my real passion is VLSI since I am commimg from ECE stream. I attended around 30 placememts both inside and outside the campus, but not a single one I am able to crack.

I went to home with 25 K money. I told my parents about my VLSI dream. But my poor parents couldn’t afford it. The fees was 50K for 6 months course, and rent + food cost 30 K till course completion.

So I need another 55K for my dream course.I have to sell the golden chain of my mother as well a gold chain my grandma given to me before her death. We sold those gold chains and arranged money for my course. I was able to make some 45 K by selling those.

So I went to Bangalore back with 70 K rupees and paid 25 K as first installment of the course. Now really I need to cut short my expense, otherwise I will run out of money. So I moved to friends house, where I pay around 2000 Rs for rent. That way I can save 500 rs per month.

My bus fare was 10 rupees one side that time, so I walk past 2 stops so that I can save 2 rupees per day. Then I will have dosa from road side shops in the morning, so that I can skip lunch. I only ate breakfast and dinner. Lunch I used to have water, and then opted for tiger biscuit.

On Saturdays and sundays, I will sleep the whole days and have one time food. This saves money. I will study the whole night on weekends. Weekends are holidays for the institute.

On monthly basis my bank balance started diminishing, and I have to save each one rupee coin I have. Now I started walking 8 kms to office and then return in the evening by bus. That way I reduced bus fare from 20 rs to 8 rs. Earlier I saved 4 rupees by walking past 2 stops, so I can go for 8 + 8.

To manage money, I brought all my B.Tech text books from native and sold it in Bangalore. I managed to bring some 20 Kg books by train. O got another 2500 Rs for that.

By 5 th month, I am left with 4 K, and don’t know what to do. I tried myself and got placed in a small company that is willing to pay me 3000 Rs per month. The company is working in the field of VLSI. I happily joined the company.

The work hours are from 9 AM and can extend up to night 10 or 11. Sometimes night shifts. Though weekend are officially OFF, but they make us work on Saturdays mandatory. But I am so happy that they give 100 Rs food reimbursement on Saturdays and 100 Rs from snacks for night shift. I made use of this opportunity happily by testing my stamina and deteriorating my physical health.

By 20 th, my purse will be left empty, and I need to survive for next 10 days. So I keep 100 rs in my wallet for bus fare for the next 10 days. I am lucky that they distribute snacks at 6 PM daily. So I will have only snacks from 20 the to 26 th, and tons of machine tea. Tiger biscuits for lunch and dinner.

I get sodexo coupons worth 350 Rs on 26 or 27th of the month. So I use sodexo coupons from 26th to 30th the for food expense.

By 1 st, I get 3000/rs stipend, in which Rs 2000 will be given as rent, and Rs 1000 would be iny purse. I need to manage food for 1000 Rs for next 20 days from 1st to 20th and bus fare as well.

Me and my mom have 2 separate accounts in SBI. Since we don’t have money to maintain AQB, I use this 3000 Rs and swing between both of these accounts to maintain a 1000 Rs AQB in bank savings account. Cumulative amount in account shall be 90K for a quarter. I manage it somehow to maintain bank account.

This went for few months and one day

I was not even left with 10 rupees for bus fare. Then I made a call to my parents and asked them for some 400 rupees, telling them that my sandals got broken and I need money. I can’t say my real situation to my parents because they will feel bad that they were not able to support me.

My weight got reduced from 80 to 65 Kg in one year gap, and every time I say my parents its due to job stress. I hide the fact that I starve of limit my food intake to save money.

All my friends were placed in tops MNCs in Bangalotr., earning some 18 to 20 K per month.

I don’t know I should say it here, there are couple of times, I searched the left overs of the food, which my friend brought as parcel. It happend 2 to 3 times.

By this one year time frame, everybody branded me as a failure and only my parents given me the fire to pursue further.

By end of 2009, I got 10 k per month, and my weight suddenly spiked from 63 Kg to 75 Kg in 2 months. Everybody got surprised, I told them I started eating junk food, that’s why. Succcesfully hidfen the fact again.

After 2011, I changed 2 companies and now its my 3 rd company. Now I get in hand around 1.8 lakhs per month and other benfits.

Persistence and hardwork never goes waste.

############

Edit:

I am really overwhelmed with happiness after seeing the comments, as I never thought my story would be an inspiration to others.

I will clear some of the questions being raised in the comments:

  1. Anonymous – Though I don’t like to go anonymous, but I have to because I have mentioned my take home salary. If I link my linkedin or Facebook profile, it would become a clear violation of company policies as I disclosed my salary in public forum. Second reason is that my friends and other know people are there in quora and online world. I am sure that some of my close friends will feel bad that I did not go to them for help in times of need.
  2. Regarding my salary, its after 10 years of work experience, I am getting the mentioned amount. May be luck also matters, that few of my colleagues resigned from the organisation, and management looked at me to lead the team. In that way, I got few extra lakhs every year. Not my hardwork alone.

3. Somebody pointed about Government job, I somehow managed to arrange Rs 500 for applying BSNL JTO 2008 examination. After a great difficulty only I was able to arrange that money for application itself.

4. Shiv Shankar Panda – Appreciate your comment. You said said the fact to the point.

5. Happy to see that Shailesh sharma , Neha Yadav, and Bhaumik Raja that my story inspire the juniors.

Thanks for all the comments.

Even the darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer”.

What was the nail in the coffin for an employee or a co-worker?

Actually wasn’t a coworker. It was me.

I landed a factory job in Michigan between my freshman and sophomore years of college at MSU. I was making $10/hr, which was great money at the time, considering minimum was $2/hr, and you could almost survive as a single guy on a minimum-wage job.

I was coming up on the end my 90-day probation when the general foreman dropped by my mill and asked me if I was going back to college, or did I want a full-time job. You know the phrase “young dumb and full of c.” I told him I wanted the job. He told me it was mine as of the next week.

The next day, the plant manager (big suit) never seen in my part — dirty part — of the plant, was in my foreman’s office when I started my shift. A little while later, I saw my grandfather walk in, and they all talked for a bit. After a while, my grandfather got up, pointed to me, shook the GM’s hand, then left.

A few minutes later, I was called to the office, and the GM said, “Sorry, Rich, we like the way you work, but Joe said I need to fire you. He said to tell you that he knows you are mad now, but you are going back to school, and he will get you canned from any job you take until you do.”

I really wasn’t mad, but I was more than a little bit frightened. My 5′6″, 120# grandfather, who had never worked anything other than plant labor (a different plant and a different company) his entire life (except for WWI army and WWII navy), called a high-and-mighty suit, and got him to go to the dirtiest part of the plant just to fire me and make me go back to college.

2023 Review: How China is Catching Up with the US in Key Tech Domains?

https://youtu.be/5KZvekBskM4

What is the best way to tell your boss that their behaviour is not acceptable without coming across as disrespectful or insubordinate?

If my boss behaves inappropriately, particularly toward me, the last thing I’m concerned about it being respectful toward him/her. While working in IT at a community college, I had a boss who attempted to embarrass a coworker and I in front of an office full of staff, students, and school visitors. He announced, loudly, that we were doing our job wrong — we were rerouting a netwok cable — and asked if he had to do it himself. The thing is, he came as we were finishing the job up and were in the process of installing the wall port at the new location. That didn’t stop me from laying my tools on a desk and telling him to go ahead and finish up, since he could do it better, while my coworker and I went to lunch. Then we walked out of the office.

My coworker was so angry and embarrassed that he never returned; he sent the douche an email the next day saying he wouldn’t be back. The douche tried to write me up for insubordination — the douche was angry and embarrassed because I’d told him to finish the job and then walked away in front of a crowd of people — but his boss had heard about what he’d done and told him to leave me alone. The douche could dish it out, but he couldn’t take it, apparently.

The douche and I had a mutual dislike for one another from my first day at the school. In fact, he tried to have my job offer revoked when he was named to replace the former IT Director on an interim basis, but his boss wouldn’t let him do that, either. It pissed me off that my coworker was collateral damage in our feud — even though my coworker told me later that he’d planned to leave before the next semester — and I went out of my way to make life miserable for the douche my last two years at that job. It wasn’t difficult because he was not well-liked — even his boss would insult him in front of the techs he was supposed to be managing.

When I turned in my resignation he asked why I was leaving and I told him I could no longer work for someone I didn’t like or respect. In retrospect, I should have been ruder.

What is something you have learned about relationships while you were single?

1. Pay attention to who you’re with when you feel your best.

2. How you are treated is more important than how much you like someone. Read it again.

3. You can leave a toxic relationship but if you don’t heal what attracted you to them, you will meet them again. The same demon, just in a different person.

4. If you get that gut feeling that something isn’t right about a person or situation, trust it.

5. Being alone is the beginning of something better with someone better.

6. You break your own heart by making somebody more important than you are to them. Never play yourself like that.

7. A boy will say: You deserve better.

but

A man will say: I will make myself better to deserve you.

Choose wisely.

8. You can feel when someone ain’t being real with you, energy never lies.

9. Sit with it.

Instead of drinking it away, smoking it away, sleeping it away, eating it away, f*cking it away, running from it.

Sit with it.

Healing happens by feeling.

10. Feeling safe in someone’s energy is a different type of intimacy. That feeling of peace and protection is really underrated.

11. Imagine a man who doesn’t stop pursuing you, even after he has you.

12. A good relationship is when two people accept each other’s past, support each other’s present, and love each other enough to encourage each other’s future. So don’t rush love. Find a partner who encourages you to grow, who won’t cling to you, who will let you go out into the world, and trust that you will come back. This is what true love is all about.


If you like my answer, drop it an upvote. Check out my profile for more relationships tipsAmy Swift


[Updates]
  • Don’t maintain relationships for the sake of it.
  • Age: 18–25, the age where you meet a lot of temporary people

 

Reports Claimed China’s Missiles Tech Could Wipe Out US Bases in Minutes

In today’s world of global power hungry giants, China emerges as a formidable force with an arsenal of thousands of missiles, capable of reshaping the dynamics of conflict. The alarming prospect of China having the ability to swiftly incapacitate U.S. bases in a war sparks intense discussions about the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific and settles one discussion of the whole debate, China has lurked in the shadows long enough and now it’s time is here.

https://youtu.be/wzMN0ql-X0A

What is the most clever way you have seen someone respond to road rage?

As a young, newly qualified police Constable I was on mobile patrol with a more experienced officer. We stopped a car because one brake light was not functioning. But the driver was enraged. He didn’t think his transgression was worth stopping him. He had an urgent appointment to meet, and he communicated this very angrily, loudly and with lots of swear words. In a normal case it would be “Yes officer, why have you stopped me?” “Your brake lights are not working properly sir.” “Oh, thanks, can I carry on?” “Yes sir, if you are careful and don’t brake suddenly. Get them fixed asap.”

In this case my colleague could see I was getting angry at all the abuse. He pulled me aside and whispered in my ear “The ruder he gets, the politer you get. But don’t forget there are a lot of other things you could check. He’ll either calm down or he’ll assault you and then we’d have a good case.”

So I became excruciatingly polite. But… “So sorry to delay you sir, but I just have to measure the depth of tread of your tyres, including the spare. And make sure your screen wash bottle has sufficient water. Would you demonstrate that your wipers are working please?” “Yes, I’m really sorry about the delay, and my colleague will probably want to see all your documents.”

In this case his road rage melted away, and when he apologised for his attitude, we let him go.

Years later I became a senior officer in charge of a large traffic police formation. I told them all the story.

What is the most insane conversation you have ever had with your parents?

My teen years were tough because my father and I didn’t get along at all. When I was younger my little sisters would look for trouble for fun. When they were caught they’d lie to my parents and say I dared them. They’d smirk while I was beaten – not spanked. When I got married at 22 I began to understand my father as a man. On Oct. 30, 1979 I was saying goodbye to him. He was leaving PA to take a job as a quality control inspector at a nuclear power plant that was being built in Oregon. I suddenly grabbed him into a tight hug and begged him not to go. He’d already signed a contract and all arrangements had been made. I said “If you go I’ll never see you again.”. His reply was “ The next time you see me I won’t be able to see you. The pay is too good to pass up and I’ve never been to the west coast.” He had a heart attack and died on April 5, 1980, one week before he was to go home. The nuclear power plant never opened. It was 40 miles from Mt. St. Helens. When the volcano erupted it caused an earthquake which cracked the foundation of the plant. Thank goodness it wasn’t in operation yet. (Dad and I both had precognition. We often knew things were going to happen before they happened. I prayed for God to take away that ability as no one ever took my warnings seriously and I couldn’t save anyone from accidents or injuries. I’d talked to Dad the day before his death. He told me he had a strong feeling he’d never see home again. I knew that back in Oct. and we were both right.

Accountability (Red Flags #4 + #5)

https://youtu.be/Aj_g5dbtJG4

What things have you accidentally overheard? Do you regret hearing them?

Went out to a bar with some friends for a birthday party for my ex girlfriend. She really messed me up when she left me, like really bad, but I was trying to be nice since she invited me so I figured I’d go out and be there for a drink or two.

So, a mutual friend who had been broken up with a few days before and was there, so as I made the rounds I talked to her and tried to do whatever I could to let her know it would be ok. I’m no therapist, but I did my best ya know? I knew what a bad breakup felt like, as I was also going through one, so I tried to help.

Anyways, after I left the table I overheard her talking to my ex at the bar about me trying to give her advice and she said, “Well nobody has ever loved him so what does he know about any of this?” And they started laughing. Don’t think they know I heard, but I grabbed my coat immediately and took a long walk home.

I don’t need people like that in my life, haven’t willingly seen either of them since.

Why won’t boomers move into more size appropriate homes and retire?

You won’t like the answer.

Enlisted in the military during Vietnam because there was no college money. Not drafted. Got out and got undergraduate and graduate degrees. Made absolutely sure I got the degrees in a field that paid off. Got a job at a company that had cut out retirement plans the previous year — so much for that myth. Did not have lifetime guaranteed employment complete with a gold watch. Worked for six companies over my career. Got married and had kids. First house was small enough to afford, 1300 square feet. It had a 17% mortgage. That’s seventeen, not seven. Paid every cent of the kids’ college educations, and they all have high-paying jobs. Told the kids to always save twenty-percent. They didn’t. They moved to Latteville and immediately rented McMansions in wealthier areas they couldn’t afford, even with their high salaries. They live hand-to-mouth, but make sure they have swimming pools and eBikes with custom paint jobs rendered by highly-regarded eBike artists. They occasionally hit me up for money. I retired 12 years before the average guy, so there’s that. I have more dough than I know what to do with, no one gave me a cent, and I’m not taking a beating from a real-estate agent to help you satisfy whatever selfish desires you may harbour. I like the house I’m in. It’s quite hard to understand why anyone would want to allocate living quarters in America the same way they did (still do) in the ex-Soviet Union. If so, you would qualify for 90 square feet. Anyway, just stay off my lawn.

What is your best “losing it moment” story?

Hi there. One of my biggest losing it moments occurred many years ago. I was still married to my now ex. We walked around the block to visit family for tea and a swim.

After dinner we all had quite a few drinks and I wanted to get the kids home. So we all said our goodbyes and proceeded to walk home. We were happily chatting on our walk, when my nephew, who wanted to stay at our place, said something smart assed to me in a joking way.

My ex whacked him up the back of his head, for disrespecting me. I wasn’t disrespected by anyone and we were all just mucking around having a laugh.

I absolutely lost my shit on him. My ex not my nephew. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, punching him in the face as I rode him down to the ground. I then sat on top of him punching him over and over for hitting our nephew.

Next minute, flashing blue lights and a tall cop is telling me to stop and get off him.

I stood up and my ex just sat there, hands on his head, saying it’s ok because he deserved it.

They let us go home and my kids have never forgotten how pissed off their little muma can get if needed.

Happily divorced now. Kids all have kids. And he’s not in the picture much anymore.

What is the one in a million coincidence you have ever had?

I don’t know about one in a million.

In the late 70s I went to Phoenix for the first time and was staying with a friend who lived there, I bought a cheap car that was a long ways away from my friends house and was following him back to his place. He took a left, the light turned yellow. I had no clue where I was and I didn’t want to lose him. The cop that pulled me over said the light was red. He looked at my New York State license and said hey, you’re from a little town about 25 miles from my little home town. I’m thinking wow, we’re practically neighbors, he won’t give me a ticket. He saw my name and asked any relation to a Vince Dano? Holy shit, no ticket THAT’S MY UNCLE! That little prick he said as he wrote me a ticket. I asked him why my uncle was a prick? He called my uncle an asshole and said he used to be his little league coach. I guess he got benched. About 6 months later I’m in Florida with a job installing lawn sprinklers. I went to my apartment for a minute with the old work truck, left it running and ran inside, heard a crash ran back out and the truck was across the street in a guy’s yard. It had crashed though his fence and wiped out some lawn sprinklers. The old guy came out and I’m apologizing saying don’t worry, I’ll fix everything. As I’m working he asked me where I was from, I told him a little town in nys and he said he’s from a little town about 25 miles away from there. He told me his name I told him mine. He asked if I was related to Vince Dano? I was kind of hesitant thinking what did my little prick uncle do to piss this guy off and now he was going to call the cops. But I said yeah, he’s my uncle. Oh my God! the man said he’s my best friend, we used to coach little league together

Star Trek: TOS Enterprise Bridge Background Ambience *8 Hours* w/ quiet conversations, calming

This is great.

https://youtu.be/vnU2qn6-hz4

Are Republicans saying the charges against Trump are not true?

Most aren’t. Most are saying one or more of these things:

  • The charges are politically motivated. (Doesn’t mean that they are true. Crimes go uncharged on a regular basis.) The charges aren’t meant to ruin his reputation or lead to convictions, but to tie up his time during the general election.
  • He is being charged for things that everyone in his position does. Not his position as president, but the charges against him for his business dealings, some of which were before his presidency. I remember hearing a real estate developer defending Trump’s supposed fudging of some real estate numbers to get more favorable terms as “standard operating procedure in the real estate business.”
  • The charges against him don’t make any difference, because no one ever voted for him for his squeaky-clean record.

I’m not a Trump supporter, but I see the logic in that last one. One saying I heard during every election, when the mud starts flying, is “Jesus isn’t on the ballot.” Every real contender for higher offices in the U.S. has a lot of skeletons in their closet. Many people don’t vote for who they want; they vote against who they don’t want.

Support for Trump is based largely on the fact that he’s not a Democrat. Support for Biden is based largely on the fact that he’s not Trump.

That’s why I’m convinced that any Republican candidate other than Trump can easily walk into the presidency if running against Biden. When three of the four pillars holding up Biden’s platform are simply “he’s not Trump,” his entire platform falls when Trump isn’t the other real contender.

What are the potential implications of Taiwan’s election results for global markets?

No implication.

A mere 30% voted for some form of independence but some kind of union with China!

70% prefers a one country 2 system with China but higher autonomy without independence! That is the result as much as you prefer to twist it. And of course all western media twist it as an independent minded candidate wins!

Win? He get a president title but it is weak minority that the 2 main party rule in the next 4 years. He cannot decide on shit let alone do shit for the west! The election result is a simply a pure disaster for Tsai Ing Wen and it ought to be recognised as such.

For China it is a decent result. And for Taiwanese people it hurts them! For western trouble makers. They twist and spin it as Taiwan wants independence! 30% result? 70% wants China. It knows it needs China!

Open letter to Chinese American high school students

Chinese Americans should look beyond the Ivy League farce and consider instead getting a real university education in China

by Han Feizi

The jig should have been up when the Varsity Blues scandal broke. Oh was it delicious. Hollywood actresses, hedge fund managers, winery owners, real estate developers and other assorted muckety-mucks sneaking their low-watt spawn into elite colleges. The fraud was so absurd you couldn’t make it up.

Rich people Photoshopping their kids playing sports, paying for medical “stupid” certifications to get “special” proctoring, hiring a Harvard grad SAT ringer able to deliver any score you want. Stanford, Yale, Cornell, Georgetown and we are not going to make USC jokes because the school has gotten a lot better in recent years.

And that Chinese girl who paid US$6.5 million to get into Stanford. Did you see her hour-long “I got into Stanford” video on YouTube? Oh the burns in the comments. If you could only read Chinese. Epic!

Of course, the joke is really on us. Because four years later, elite American universities – with additional malfeasance in the interim – continue to command the same prestige, elicit the same anxiety and demand the same obeisance.

The college counseling business is as hot as ever. Some are reportedly charging over a million dollars for white-glove service starting in the 7th grade, with a perfect record of admissions into HYPSM (if you have to ask, you can’t afford it).

And Asian Americans. Did you really think you scored a win when the Supreme Court scrapped affirmative action last year? The universities saw it coming a mile away and became test-optional well before the gavel came down. Underrepresented applicants are polishing their essays on how they’ve thrived in unsafe spaces while you are stuck with the surname Zhang.

So what can you do? You’ve already maxed out the SATs, signed up for every AP class, play the oboe, do bogus charity work and took up a ridiculous sport like fencing. At this point, it’s just one giant crap shoot.

Will the admissions officer like your essay on teaching inner-city kids at math camp (but they really taught you)? Does Yale need another oboist? Will your history teacher write a flashy enough recommendation?  

And even if you do get into HYPSM (or its sorry near peers), you will be surrounded by a sea of people who maxed out on the SATs, took every AP class, play an instrument, did bogus charity work and took up a ridiculous sport like water polo. If it is true that you learn the most from your peers, then HYPSM will likely prove less educational than high school.

If you are lucky and go to a regular high school, at least you are exposed to regular people with regular aspirations and regular opinions – deplorable as they may be. In HYPSM, you will join the tiresome Westoid elite with their anxious entitlement and risible pretensions. It’s a nauseating mélange of sanctimony, condescension, virtue signaling, victim larping and look-at-me posturing.

The only people you might learn something from are the international students who mostly keep to themselves after discovering how loud, deranged and solipsistic their American classmates are.

You will discover that student cliques mostly keep to themselves – international students with international students, blacks with blacks, Asian Americans with Asian Americans, frat boys with frat boys, sorority girls with sorority girls (okay, frat boys and sorority girls do mix). 

You will while away four years, slowly socialized into Westoid elitism with its arcane rules of self-censorship and approved aspirations, until your life path is narrowed down to finance, consulting or tech. This is made tolerable by drunken debauchery and meaningless hookups (that’s what the kids tell me anyways) that passes for a social life.    

All of this is to deliver an indoctrinated end product to Wall Street and Silicon Valley which has accomplished the miracle of hijacking both progressivism and capitalism while impoverishing the rest of America. Evidently, there are progressive non-solutions to every problem which coincidentally increase FAANG share prices. 

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know it’s all a giant farce. The system broke down decades ago. Really, what are the chances you go to a “regular” high school and expect the meritocracy to pick you from the haystack? No, your parents scrimped and saved, fought tooth and nail, to buy that house in Tenafly, New Jersey or Mountain View, California.

College admissions was your religion since birth. Sunday afternoon is for test prep classes (Saturday mornings are for Chinese school; we will get back to that). And when the time comes, your anxiety-ridden parents will fork over a pretty penny for a college counselor, if not white glove S-Class level.

If you think this isn’t farcical enough, the racket has now gone international. Longtime China resident and insightful Twitter commentator Arnaud Bertrand relays a familiar story. His ultra-wealthy Chinese friend has decided to move his family to California largely to buy his children into the American elite.

The friend plans to purchase a house in the best California school district and hire top tutors for his children, confident that it will pave the way to prestigious American universities and elite status in Western society.

Mr Bertrand explains, “Why isn’t this possible in China? Because China has invested considerable efforts – and continues to do so – to ensure that wealth couldn’t ‘game’ the education system.”

China’s schools are not funded by local property taxes. The government did away with guaranteeing school placement based on property ownership. Private schools exist but enrollment is by lottery. And famously, China, in one fell swoop, scrapped the entire for-profit tutoring industry.

Of course, explains Mr Bertrand, none of these measure are perfect. An underground tutoring industry continues to operate. The ultra-wealthy can hire household “help” with PhDs. But his wealthy friend likely reached the correct conclusion – his money has a better chance of buying his children into America’s elite than China’s.

Some of Mr Bertrand’s observations deserve to be quoted in full:

This all raises the bigger question of the reproduction of elites. In the long run, which society is more sustainable and fares better: one that does little to avoid the reproduction of elites like the US (which – contrary to the “American dream” narrative – is one of the high-income economies with the lowest rates of relative upward mobility) or one that actively fights it to enforce, to the extent possible, a meritocracy?

What my friend’s story illustrates is actually even more than this: in the US you don’t even only have a reproduction of local elites but you also have elites from other countries who come to the US because it’s easier to reproduce there!

This may all be grim reading for the anxious Chinese American high school junior. But fear not! Han Feizi does not come bearing bad news but rather with an offering of devastating logic.

Remember Saturday morning Chinese school? Where you go to socialize and misbehave? Well strap yourself down and get back up to 1,500 characters!

An arbitrage opportunity of historic proportions has opened up. Forget about HYPSM. There is nothing for you to learn there. It was already done and dusted 20 years ago. The sheeple just haven’t realized it.

Remember this acronym: TPSFZUN. That’s Tsinghua, Peking, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Fudan, Zhejiang, USTC and Nanjing. Yeah, it’s a mouthful, but it’s not like HYPSM was so obvious. And we are not talking study abroad. We are talking the full four-year degree shebang!

Vaclav Havel famously said that China’s development “has happened so quickly, we have not yet had time to be astonished.” This applies to higher education as well.

In 2004, Tsinghua was ranked 62 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2024, Tsinghua ranked 12th in the world and 1st in Asia (with arch-nemesis Peking University at 14th). Both ranked higher than the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown.

Seven of the top 10 research universities in the Nature Index are now in China – University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Nanjing University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University and Fudan University.

One of the metrics weighing down the rankings of Chinese universities is their lack of international students. And that’s where you come in! This arbitrage is just asking to be exploited. As an overseas applicant, you get the full DEI treatment. You are the underrepresented minority, the diversity admit, the token international student!

Don’t get me wrong, they don’t take just anybody. You still have to be a top student with a near 4.0 GPA and SATs over 1400. The biggest hurdle will probably be Mandarin proficiency which, depending on the school, you need either HSK4 or HSK5 to matriculate.

All things considered, however, it’s a buyer’s market allowing you to short-circuit both the soul-crushing hell of the gaokao and the humiliating dog and pony show of applying to HYPSM.

Let’s first get one jaw-dropper out of the way. It is an important consideration for many families, especially if yours stretched themselves sending you to private school. Four years of tuition as an international student at Tsinghua will set mom and dad back about $17,000 (room and board are extra). You are free to do your own calculations for HYPSM.

This is, of course, about much more than arbitraging school rankings and acceptance rates (and cheaper tuition). What you are actually getting by choosing this road is a real education. Let me explain. There are important directionality and timing elements involved.

There is a lot of truth to the cliché that modern China is a closed society with an open mind while America is an open society with a closed mind. It is relatively straightforward for a Chinese national to study in the US given the open minds of China’s youth and America’s open society. The reverse is problematic. Chinese society is far more insular and the minds of American youths are generally closed to outside input.

The Chinese American, however, is a different animal and has a window of opportunity. The width of this window depends on how seriously you took Saturday morning Chinese school. Some of you are actively discussing Genshin Impact on Weibo and can sail through HSK7. Others have more work to do.

But for most of you, there is a solid enough base to build on. The best strategy may be to stretch college out to five years with the first year in language immersion (five years of undergraduate tuition is $21,000).

To be sure, this road is not for the faint of heart. You will not be comfortably surrounded by cookie-cutter versions of yourself who maxed out on the SATs, took every AP class, play an instrument, did bogus charity work and took up a ridiculous sport like diving.

You will be surrounded by gaokao mutants whose intellect can be so blazing it’s like staring at the sun (thankfully, there are slackers as well). You might be constantly fighting a language deficiency. And through it all, you have the additional burden of going through the many stages of culture shock.

On the positive side, the liberal arts education at elite Chinese universities may surprise you. The resentment warriors in American academia are laying siege to the Western canon, poisoning every facet of the liberal arts education.

While politics has always encroached on academia in China, the boundaries are far better defined. Chinese universities may, in fact, be a healthier environment to study the Western canon given the immolating culture wars currently being waged on American campuses (see here). Nobody at Fudan cares if Hegel is dead, white or male.  

On a side note, this letter is addressed to Chinese Americans (and the diaspora in general) to knock some sense into them. It also applies, with certain caveats, to non-ethnic Chinese. It can be done, has been done and should be done more.

Anecdotally, non-ethnic Chinese Westerners who have successfully taken this road are eccentrics. These oddballs have gotten a far superior education than HYPSM could possibly provide because they would have had to shake off Western solipsism and open their minds.

All of this, in the end, represents an opportunity for a real education – to be outside your comfort zone, to be stretched, to interact with the unfamiliar. You have a short window in your youth to gain lifelong access to the closed society that is China. It cannot be done after undergrad anymore.

Decades ago, when China was short on talent, carpet-bagging Ivy League Chinese Americans flocked to Beijing and Shanghai. Nowadays, one can run a couple hundred meters down Chang’an Avenue with arms outstretched and knock over a dozen Chinese nationals with HYPSM degrees.

Don’t worry, you will never lose access to the West. That is guaranteed by your native command of English. For many of you, especially if a decent amount of Chinese was spoken at home, you have the opportunity in your university years to claim full native command of Mandarin. If you want it, it is yours for the taking. If you don’t claim it now, it will be lost in time.

I sense skepticism and hesitation. Of course, this is normal. This is not a well-worn path. There are no how-to manuals or consulting companies guiding students on this road. The street lamps have not been installed and you even wonder if this road comes to an abrupt end just outside your view.

If you are worried about future placement chances at Goldman Sachs, you should probably forget the whole enterprise. With decades of experience in investment banks, Han Feizi can say that he was always looking for the unicorn, the luminous being, the perfectly bilingual and bicultural animal.

At some point, you have to have Confucian faith that learning is its own reward. Planning for the future is a fool’s errand. To take the road less traveled, next to having children, is the ultimate expression of hope. We leave you with perhaps Lu Xun’s most famous quote:

“Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like the roads made across the earth. For actually there were no roads to begin with, but when many people pass one way a road is made.”

COMMENTS

Brilliant! I’d also encourage the same audience to consider other English-track degrees at universities in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent Malaysia, Germany, and Korea. Also thanks for summarizing the entry requirements and tuition in China. Note that not all of the TPSFZUN have a full slate of majors for international students studying exclusively in English. But especially those seeking STEM careers that will hold outsized weight back in the United States, one can tap into the unique Chinese economic leadership in engineering, AI and data mining, and environmental mechanics. A quick browse of English-taught curriculum at Tsinghua is impressive:

https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/pdf/ut2022.pdf

Great essay! As they say “its funny because its true!” Really a brilliant idea

NASA Confirms the Discovery of the Tenth Planet! It Is Larger than Pluto!

https://youtu.be/BinDeGBIj9k

Can you tell me about a time that you sued someone in civil court and won?

A little over two years ago I filed a small claims suit against a guy I made the mistake or renting a room to. He asked to have the hearing rescheduled, then rescheduled again. He asked for a third time and they said no. He was unprepared. He was asked about some documents and said he had seen them, then moments later denied ever having seen them. It didn’t go well for him. The judge issued a judgment in my favor. He stormed out, saying he was going to file an appeal.

He had three weeks to do so. He didn’t. I suspect that is because he would have been required to put up the amount of the judgment as a bond. Since he rents rooms he can pack up and move easily, and before the three week appeal period was up he’d moved again.

It took a couple of months to find him again. I sent a demand letter and got no response. I sent post judgment interrogatories (questions to try to determine what, if any assets, he had). He didn’t respond. I repeated that a couple of times. No response.

I filed for a motion to compel. The judge issued that in October. He had to respond, and the judge added a $500 penalty. He didn’t respond.

We currently have another hearing scheduled for early February for Contempt of Court. I’m not optimistic.

The legal system is set-up to protect the deadbeats of the world. I called a legal aid service but they said they couldn’t advise me because of a conflict of interest — he had contacted them for help sometime in all this. A lawyer I paid for advice said the court could issue a bench warrant and have him held for up to six months and issue another $500 fine but I don’t believe this Judge will do so.

After all this got started I learned that the guy had two small claims cases he lost in California before coming to Texas. One was for $15k and involved rent he owed to a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. He’d rented a room from this officer. The officer got deployed and the deadbeat was supposed to pay his rent payments to the bank and never did. It wasn’t until the officer started getting contacted about insufficient funds for his mortgage payments he knew something was wrong. In the other case, he’d told someone he met at a gym that he was a licensed stock broker. He eventually persuaded the person to give him $25k to invest with promise of $300k in a matter of a few months. Then he gave the victim the run around. The victim found out he wasn’t a licensed broker (required in California) and demanded his money back. He then ghosted the victim and moved. The victim filed suit and was awarded $30k with interest. He left the state.

We don’t have debtor prisons and the judge in this case isn’t likely to put him in jail over a pretty modest sum (about $1,600 now).

What was the strangest Christmas present you received in your adult years?

My mother in law was something extra.

She thought I was an extra that would eventually fade away. My wife and I have been lucky in love and lucky to stay that way. We were married thirty years when my mother in law passed.

This long happy marriage was a thorn in her heel.

One of the last Christmas’s consisted of nice envelopes from the bank with Ben Franklin’s reassuring face smiling through the old time holly and Christmas bells. There was a bit of a problem. One Benjamin was missing, but there was a present that looked like half of a basket ball that had enough tape on it to secure a team.

It had my name on it.

I carefully removed the paper so she could use it again. When the present was revealed, it was not a basket ball in need of a pump. It was a three piece set of plastic mixing bowls with blue ducks waddling around them in an unending line.

My wife was furious.

The next Christmas there was a Ben Franklin with my name on it.

Greek Sesame Bread

Greek Sesame Bread
Greek Sesame Bread

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup lukewarm water
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 5 tablespoons lukewarm milk
  • 1 envelope active dry yeast
  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Instructions

  1. Combine the water, oil, milk, and yeast in a mixing bowl and stir to dissolve the yeast. Add 1 cup of the flour and the salt and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Add the remaining flour and beat to form a stiff dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with a dish towel, and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume.
  2. Punch the dough down and form into a round loaf on a lightly-floured baking sheet.
  3. Beat the egg with the milk and brush the dough with the mixture. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, and cut a deep cross in the top of the loaf with a very sharp knife or razor blade. Cover and allow to rise until double in volume.
  4. Place a cake pan with 1 inch of water in it on the bottom shelf of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  5. Bake the loaf for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and bake an additional 15 minutes, until golden brown. Test for doneness by thumping the bottom of the loaf – it should produce a hollow sound.
  6. Cool on a rack.

Makes 1 loaf.

I am anti-gun but want to be able to defend my family should an intruder break in. What weapon is best to keep by my bedside?

I can tell you that having been an EMT, I have seen a lot of rough stuff with home break ins. Of those where the occupant did not make it out, They were all unarmed. Some tried to fight back, some didn’t. But the absolute worst cases were those where the intruder felt they had absolute control of the situation.

Of those where the occupant made it out and successfully fought off an intruder, by the time the police arrived (with us not far behind) The occupant was STILL ready to fight and kill.

with a home intruder, you are not shooing off a rodent. You are fighting off natures apex predator, humans. One thing that can get you killed faster than anything is hesitation in your purpose.

If there is someone in your house that is not supposed to be there, You can not confront them with the hopes of tying them up scooby-doo style and waiting for the cops. There is three things one can do; Kill, hide, or run.

I say “kill” and not “fight” because “fight” confuses the purpose. Your purpose when they are in the house, is to KILL. Thinking ANYTHING ELSE, can make your body do weird things, like NOT STRIKE in the place it needs to in order to kill. It is already hard enough to put a sharp object though a breast bone, Even worse if you are half-hearted about it.

It takes far less to slash a throat, stab the gut, kidney etc. Or just start stabbing quickly and repeatedly and randomly. You won’t do that if you have confused your purpose.

I want you to know, though, that this is one of the most brutal you will ever engage in and will likely cause permanent mental scars as what will result is a **LOT** of blood. This will also likely cause a divorce as it will quite possibly cause your significant other to fear the living hell out of you. No matter what you did, stab them, beat them You will have used your hands to have killed another human.

With a gun, there is a degree of separation that somehow allows humans to think there is a “not as bad” level to it. You don’t have to REALLY commit to killing, just let the bullet do it for you.

In the end, all of your options are calculated risks.

EDIT: After re-reading this, I find that My recommendation for using a knife in place of a firearm (if you just *have* to) is not clear. But you need to realize that a knife is more brutal and traumatizing to the user on average than a firearm. Obviously, this is subjective to the individual, and my only “Data” on this is the calls I have responded to over about a decade as an EMT.

Hire slow; fire fast

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qVkvVUSt4Ak?feature=share

Our local version of Costco is called PriceSmart.

Isn’t that a clever name?

A lady in front of me, at the queue to cash, decided she was cleverer than me and all the fine people employed at PriceSmart.

To shop at PriceSmart you have to be a member. You do this by purchasing a membership subscription card which allows you a year of membership. For the average Joe it’s a tad costly ($265 TT) but the savings you get shopping at PriceSmart, more than makes up for it.

I’m a very economical shopper and I tend to purchase only the bare necessities and would treat myself to something nice only once in a blue moon. This lady in front of me had a cart piled with groceries and also several treats ranging from frozen salmon burgers, Lindt, Toblerone and Mars chocolates, smoked almonds and ribs. Clearly she was not a poor lady.

When we neared the cashier she suddenly turned around to stare me in the eyes. This is the conversation that followed.

Lady: You don’t mind if I use your card right?

Me: For what?

Lady: To cash.

Me: You don’t have a card?

Lady: No. Can’t afford it.

I then stared at her pile of groceries tethering at the edge of her trolley. Her bottle of Grey Goose Vodka was almost $300TT but she ‘couldn’t afford’ a $200TT (at that time) membership.

Me: It’s only $200 for the membership and it takes just a minute.

I saw her face suddenly transform into a look of complete irritation. It was as if I was asking her for the favour.

Lady: I don’t have the money right now. I just told you. People need to help each other.

Me: Well I can’t lend you my card.

Lady: Why?

Me: Because I don’t know you.

Lady: You need to know me to help me?

At that point I remained silent. I didn’t want to call her out for attempting to use random strangers for her financial convenience. I didn’t want to argue that I spent my hard earned money on this membership and she ought to make that sacrifice also rather than gorge on her four rotisserie chickens as it was not my place to say.

Instead she went to the man in front of her, giving him a sad story of how she just lost her card and this stuff is for her mother. The guy took the bait and lent her his card. She then stared at me as if to say, ‘Got anything to say now?’

Clearly this wasn’t the first time she did this and it definitely wasn’t going to be the last.

Some people may not see the big deal of what happened there but to me she is trash: a selfish and cheap opportunist. She is a leech on PriceSmart (who generates a profit from membership fees) and on the good people around her who make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good.

Edit 24.11.21 Whoa. 5K upvotes. I always thought venting anger never got people anywhere. Was wise enough to avoid that lady’s scheme. Was not so wise as a teenager when I fell for a bootlegger’s silly scam. Click here to read all about it.

What is the best piece of advice you could give someone about life?

No matter how bad is your life now, how disgusting your life might be, how ugly you may look and how badly life is f*cking you, never ever lose hope.

Have the positive attitude towards life and get surrounded by the positive personalities.

Never ever lose hope!


Couple of months back I met my 2 engineering friends after 2 years from engineering days. We are all living in 3 different cities as of now, somehow we managed our busy schedules and we met finally.

Sharath and Sagar, my engineering close friends. Sharath is the one who introduced me to alcohol in engineering days.

  • Sharath, a son of highly influential politician son. He need not to worry about money in life. He is preparing to crack “Sub Inspector” post and he is taking coaching in Hyderabad now.
  • Sagar, a son of a farmer. He is working in apprenticeship program for an year in a manufacturing company in Chennai for a stipend of rupees 5,000 per month. He has 2 sisters and he needs to marry them off. His father is in debt. He is from lower middle class family.
  • Me?
    • I’m too from a lower middle class.

We were sitting in the outer ring road at 10 pm that night, talking random things. Then, Sharath got a call from his girlfriend, so he went aside to talk to her in private. So, me and Sagar were having a conversation in the absence of Sharath.

Me: Sharath need not worry about life and he need not to struggle in his life to make money, because his parents are already making huge money and property for him. You (pointing to Sagar) and me should work our ass off to get settled and to become rich in life.

Sagar: Sharath’s parents didn’t give him the opportunity for him to become rich. Look how lucky me and you are, because our parents gave us the opportunity to become rich. Shouldn’t we take this as a fire in our belly?

Sagar is getting a stipend of rupees of 5,000 per month from a manufacturing company in Chennai. He is still struggling to find a job. He failed in 14 interviews so far. He has 2 sisters and he needs to bear the expenses of their marriage. His father is a farmer and is in debt.

Despite having such obstacles in life, Sagar’s confidence and attitude towards life is simply appreciable.

The story of mediocre mechanical engineers!!

I would save her

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z_zaPFkqjeA?feature=share

Burning though the bucks

I want to tell you all about a little “family issue” that I have had and how I dealt with it.

When I fell in love with my wife (in China), I had to “jump though some hoops” to show my value and worth. And part of this was to buy her a house.

It’s a common thing in China, and my wife’s family expected it.

Now, there was more detailed issues and complexities involved. As Wenzhou has their own quirks. But let’s keep this simple.

I bought a house in Shenzhen when Shenzhen was just a small dirt city in the early 2000’s.

Not a big house. Not a great house. But a good real home.

Cost me all that I had, too.

Well, over the years that little house grew up in value.

I paid $40,000 for it in 2003.

In 2007 they put a subway near it. And it’s value increased to $2M.

In 2013, they built a subway UNDER it, and the value went to $10M.

Yuppur. Best thing I ever did!

But wait.

Meanwhile, her father was trying to get his business get off the ground and was burrowing money left and right. He had taken something like $24M from various investors, and was showing nothing.

Nothing.

Turns out, when a cousin went to audit his “factory”, he discovered that it was all a sham. The father was playing the futures market and burning though the money like toilet paper. The last straw was when family all put up their homes for mortgages to “keep his business going”.

It was a lie.

Everyone gathered the “emergency money” to help him “keep the business going”. But it didn’t happen.

He just inserted $10 into the “wish machine” and it ate it all, and left him with nothing.

Enter me.

Well, since I am a foreigner, and all the rest, the father and mother had this great scheme to take our home, and our savings, and also take out a mortgage off that home that was ours and then give all the money to them… “for the business”.

I about had a heart attack, and for the first time… my Chinese wife had to say NO!

She had to.

Our child’s education, life and our future would have been absolutely eviscerated.

NO FUCKING WAY!

Chaos ensued.

So she called the extended relatives. All wealthy. All owning businesses and fully knowledgeable and they all went together to sort the entire mess out. The father had set up “the factory” in a distant region. So they all boarded planes to visit the factory.

And so they arrived there at that city. And they all got in cars and drove to “the factory”.

No factory.

No building.

No employees.

Just a garage with a roll down garage door. A computer, with a chair and a modem, and a cot along the wall. Empty. Desolate. Pathetic.

The relatives were furious.

So…

They seized the father’s debts. Everyone contributed a few million each. To do so, many had to sell their homes and vehicles and stop their children’s education. He is now the pariah of the family.

Saved.

But, shunned.

We kept our house, and my wife told the father…

Here is one million. 

That is it.

Do not ask us for anything else. EVER. This is the end.

You are now out of debt, you need to get a job... any job. And stop saying that you are too good to work for someone else.

You burned though $20M in ten minutes. ENOUGH!

It was “pay off money” to get them off our back.

Do not think that MM has it easy. Family is family, and we all inherit the problems of others when we merge families.

That is my debt NOW that I will spend the rest of my life paying off.

THE REST OF MY FUCKING LIFE.

For my wife’s gambling futures father who thought that he was too good to work a “real job”. Sheech!

It’s called life.

Sheech!

Today…

As an Asian growing up in a European country, did you face any discrimination? How did you cope with it?

I was born and grew up in the UK.

Digging way back into my memories. I grew up pretty much like other children. Had english friends even went out (as much as children not teenagers can) with the daughter of a hippy… (checks online goddam she’s still banging hot in her 40s).

I remember some big and significant turning points.

In school the teacher looked at me and said what are you a p*ki or a n*gger. That’s stuck with me for 35+ years. The other event was a nose bleed, had a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop. The doctor assumed I’d been beaten up by my dad.

Children calling names was a thing, then violence in high school.

I like to think of highschool as kind of innocent as children don’t have their view of the world fully formed. How did I cope? By clapping back at them so somebody calls you a slur? You call them back a worse one. Somebody punches you? You punch them back.

My mid teen years were the roughest. In short I was beaten to an absolute pulp by 10+ twats. I remember my vision going pink and fading out as they stomped me to bits. My dad ran out of his home and literally started breaking them in half to save me. I spent quite a lot of time in hospital from that.

The group that attacked me? I apparently got the last laugh as they were all labeled cowards. Even evil has standards as fighting more than 1 on 1 was and is considered incredibly cowardly. We moved away at that point to somewhere different. My dad took me shooting and I kept a shotgun at home.

The big change was when I got my drivers license. In short the racism was avoided by simply driving everywhere. Less chance to interact with them, I had been lured into a false sense of security well into my 30s. Brexit vote came around, car was being repaired and I had a yoof try smash my head in with a brick and he tried to laugh it off as a joke. I joked back at him and smashed his head in even when he was crying and begging me to stop. I continued to pummel him. He met me at a bad time as that was when I was at the absolute strongest.

Another attack happened shortly after and after being victim blamed… I thought fuck… do I want my children to grow up in a place like this?

I started the ball rolling on leaving.

US fake moon landing.

Sugar Frosting Phenomenon.

Lunar surface has a phenomenon called sugar frosting, soil on the surface of the moon is dense, with a layer of light-colored soil on the surface and dark soil on the inside. After digging out or walking over, dark soil will be brought out, but as time goes by, There will be a fading and lighter frosting phenomenon.

You can easily see the dark path by Chinese Rover.

main qimg dcdcd847d879bc33536d82ba0493349d
main qimg dcdcd847d879bc33536d82ba0493349d

American rover…

main qimg 36108fde55be2fbae5de28a48ce61c6c
main qimg 36108fde55be2fbae5de28a48ce61c6c

Chinese rover…

main qimg f2d1e85b83ac08f497b00ee5753a0862
main qimg f2d1e85b83ac08f497b00ee5753a0862

The peculiar phenomenon of “frosting” discoloration appeared on the lunar soil once on the back of the moon and twice or three times on the front. It can be seen that it should be relatively common on the lunar surface.

However no US Apollo rover trail has indicating the same phenomenon.

The “sugar frosting” phenomenon confirmed by Chang’e experts.

So the moon soil that got dig out will be dark and it will turn bright in time.

You cannot see this in the NASA “moon landing photos”…

main qimg e0158853659385bf5e5b727d7e848d5d 1
main qimg e0158853659385bf5e5b727d7e848d5d 1
main qimg c90e05644857e2012aea27023d2393eb
main qimg c90e05644857e2012aea27023d2393eb

But the Chinese rover clearly show something different….

main qimg 061379980a15bd95fad595a30d7778d7
main qimg 061379980a15bd95fad595a30d7778d7

US moon soil look like earth soil right?

See the dark soil is a new unearthed soil. after sometime it will become brighter and undistinguishable from the surrounding.

main qimg f2d1e85b83ac08f497b00ee5753a0862 1
main qimg f2d1e85b83ac08f497b00ee5753a0862 1

When Chang’e when just landed.

Now look at the 1969 NASA moon “landing”…

main qimg e0158853659385bf5e5b727d7e848d5d
main qimg e0158853659385bf5e5b727d7e848d5d

Chang’e after a while landing. look at the surrounding of the leg, gradually become as the same as surrounding.

this phenomenon can only be known if you have landed on the moon, this phenomenon is impossible to be recreated on earth.

 

It is a REAL crisis

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ipvwu_Wpu6Y?feature=share

If the marines today can’t beat a bunch of lightly-armed goatherders in Afghanistan, how could any expect them to win against well-trained and armed German soldiers?

As I sat in my M1A1 main battle tank and watched the streets of Shir Ghazay, Helmand, Afghanistan put themselves to sleep, I wondered what exactly we were doing there.

I knew my mission. My company was assisting building Route Red to connect the Musa Quelah province with the surrounding provinces to improve the economy for the locals and win their hearts and minds and all that. But it wasn’t clear to me what the end-goal was. It was late 2011 and elections approached in the US. Operations start to slow down; can’t have a bunch of Marines die right before the election…that wouldn’t look good.

My 4 tank calls me over the radio to tell me he sees something unusual. Looks like a couple dudes who were out on a scooter man-date decided to ditch their bike and start checking out the suitability of the middle of our newly built road for…agricultural purposes, I’m sure.

I tell him to get ready to engage. We need to make sure to gain positive identification of hostile acts and/or intent before feeding people our lead sandwiches.

It occurs to me that these dudes are probably locals. They were probably bullied into digging a hole for one of the region’s bomb-experts to emplace an IED into later. Maybe they hate America, but more likely they are just trying to survive. Unfortunately for them, we are better at surviving on this particular night.

Asymmetrical warfare means your enemies don’t go toe to toe with you. It means they sneak and harass and threaten villagers. It means they work without uniforms and without abiding by the rules of armed conflict.

So this night we killed a couple guys trying to put a bomb into the middle of our humanitarian road. And the villagers probably hated us for it. Later in our deployment, we came across another road that was paralleling ours. It looked like it had about 30 years of disuse. We realized that we were building a road on top of the same spot that the Russians tried to in the 80s.

It was probably the same spot that Alexander the great tried to when he came through Afghanistan. The Afghan people simply don’t want us there. They don’t use the roads we build them and they prove to us time and again that they don’t have the will to fight for their own country and take it back from the drug-lords and the Taliban.

The last thing I’ll say is that good men died fighting in the hills and mountains of Afghanistan. 99% of the time it was due to a cowardly enemy that would not fight us, but would rather put bombs into the ground and risk killing civilians, women, and children to possibly injure one servicemember.

I’ll take a fight against your ‘real enemy’ any day.

Edit: It seems a few folks have taken issue with me calling the Taliban cowards. Some have even implied that me and my brethren were the true cowards. Everyone gets their opinion, I suppose.

The Taliban could conduct an insurgency that is honorable and respects the lives of non-combatants, but they do not do so. It would be less expedient and more dangerous for them. Being a coward means that you are unwilling to face dangerous and unpleasant things.

Lastly, if you have never stood up and faced dangerous things in your life, but are willing to call others cowards on social media platforms who have, I think that says a lot more about you than the subjects of your accusations.

Final Edit: Read this if you want to better understand frustrations of fighting in Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria The Plunging Morale of America’s Service Members. I don’t endorse or agree with all of it, but it does an excellent job conveying what it feels like to be a service member in today’s environment.

 

Is it true that China’s economy is larger than America’s when considering purchasing power parity?

Yes be logical and pragmatic. China has 1.4 billion citizens, 4 times the US. Close to a billion now can afford minimum good living, over 750 million is equivalent to U.S. middle class. Admittedly they are not so spend thrift as American’s and certainly less wasteful. Those are good Confucianism values.

China may not have your 1% super rich American way overboard wasteful and insanely rich but those are again a good thing that a tiny proportion of Chinese is not abusing the rest like in the U.S. At least 3 times of US middle class and growing in China makes China very huge and humongous. It is probably bigger than the next 10 nations biggest markets put together.

A dollar in U.S. say Washington, cannot buy even a third of the same items say a McDonald’s of 7 RMB or a dollar current exchange rate in Beijing. Hence in reality either US dollar is 3 times over value or RMB is 3 times undervalue vis-a-vis USD.

Hence in purchasing power parity or PPP China U.S. already way bigger that the USA. Probably close to twice. That is why sanctioning China don’t work. Only collaboration with China to be a good second biggest market is the best U.S. can do.

A woman’s duty to a man

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ni5vzZgSoRY?feature=share

What do you do when your child says something really disrespectful to you in front of other people?

He tried it once, and it didn’t happen a second time.

You see, it takes a hell of a lot to embarrass me. I have noticed that a lot of parents hesitate to discipline their kids in public because they don’t want to be judged by other people. I am NOT one of those parents.

I have also never spanked my kid.

About once a month I will spring a surprise outing on my son, something fun that we both enjoy, sometimes it involves food, a trip to a park or bookstore, a pre arranged playdate, stuff like that.

These started when he was about 6.

We caught the bus to this new play ground. I still don’t know what was wrong with him that day but he was acting like a jerk. Then he made some random comment and called me a dumbass.

“ WHAT did you just call me”, I asked.

“A dumbass “ he replied, with a smirk

I didn’t reply, I just rang the bell to indicate that we would be getting off at the next stop.

His jaw dropped, “ What about our outing?” He asked me.

“ By speaking in that disrespectful way you have missed out on a special outing today, we will be getting off at the next stop and walking home”

He started crying and acting out.

Like I said, I don’t embarrass easily.

As we got off the bus a little old lady who was sitting a short distance away from us caught my eye and nodded her approval, the bus driver was chuckling as we got off and said “ good on ya luv”.

Luckily we didn’t have to walk very far.

An honest liar

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9HsV0Jvqz_Q?feature=share

What is the sweetest thing you have ever seen a husband do for a wife?

Our’s is a love marriage.

Initially, My husband’s parents didn’t appprove of our relationship .

I lost my parents while I was young..

Later,upon seeing him in depression they finally gave in . So, now we are happily married for three years.

Two years passed by…
Our parents asked us now and then about KIDS… My in-laws are conservative.
As most of the Indian parents, they too feel that kids complete the family.
They suggested us to consult a doctor.

Everyone suggested indeed.

At the very sight of the hospital, my husband stopped the car to a side..
he held me by the hand and said…

Do we really need children? Look.. My first ever kid is YOU…
You complete me…I’m fine with one.. ”
he said in a dejected tone..
ALL I COULD DO WAS SMILE….. thanking the almighty for giving me the most heartful thing ever lived.

But this did not end here…
We went through the checkup

The reports are out… The doctor revealed in a dejected tone that I CANNOT CONCEIVE….(harmonal problems… Pitutary gland malfunction)
Tears floooded my eyes… That moment, I collapsed to the ground in tears.

I’m unable to see anything. Tears obscured my vision …All I remember was him carefully carrying me to the car in his hands..

We went home.. I went to our bedroom and locked the door.

I cried.. I cried..

Later in the evening my mother-in-law came to our room.

She didn’t say anything…

After fifteen minutes of complete silence she said, “ I’m sorry beta. We never knew this thing about Akansh..”

She broke down and left in tears..

I was left in an utter dismay. Later upon asking him, he said
“ I will never cause any pain to you by any means…”

I was speechless.

He lied his parents that the problem lies within him.

“What did I do to deserve him?”

He knows that I could not bear that guilt for longer. He immediately applied for a position in abroad in the same company on a two year contract and here we are… in LONDON ..away from home.. away from everything..

He feels that time heals everything..

 

What’s the best life advice that someone gave you?

This was a simple one, but it did the trick for me. Back in 2018, I was sixteen years old, and I was skipping class with a friend of mine. We were sitting in the storm drains, just chilling, talking and hiding from the teacher they planted to catch kids skipping.

We were talking about girls and how I hate myself, as an emo sixteen year old tends to do. And during this conversation, she decided that all the girls I get with aren’t up to what she decided my standards are.

And she was eating a kit Kat while we had this conversation.

She told me to know my worth or something and stop going for trash girls.

She ripped off a kit Kat column and took a bite out of it the way nobody should ever bite out a kit Kat.

image 170
image 170

Then she said

“See this? This represents the girls you’ve been going for. Absolute trash, right?”

“Yeah, don’t ever bite a kit Kat like that again.”

Then she took the decimated kit Kat column and held it up. Then she tore off a kit Kat column from the rest. This time she tore it the right way, immaculate, perfect chocolate symmetry. Then she said

“This is what you should be gunning for. Raise your standards”

And in conclusion, I miss having friends like that in my life.

Hell

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JVSdLmxqqTU?feature=share

What’s the most inappropriate thing a doctor has ever said or asked you?

This so-called doctor threatened to sterilize me. I was 15 years old and told my Mother, who pulled him off my case. Years later, when I was a nursing student, I was doing rotation through surgery, and one of the operations was upon a little 14-year-old black girl.

The name of the doctor seemed vaguely familiar, but I dismissed it, as non-essential information. The poor patient was undergoing a catastrophic procedure for any female of any age, a complete hysterectomy. I mourned for this baby’s loss and presumption she had cancer.

Upon completion of the surgery, our instructor gathered us together. Despite the mask, I could see she was fuming. In her hands, she held the containers with the specimens for the lab. “Nurses,” she ordered, “come here and look closely. What you are seeing are perfectly HEALTHY! There was no reason for Jack to gut this child except she was poor and black and he’s a despicable racist, who is hell bent on sterilizing any female he doesn’t feel is worthy of motherhood. Goddamn Bastard!”

I now remembered and as soon as I got out of scrubs told my superior of my, personal, incident with this butcher. He was eventually brought up on charges, served jail time, and lost his license permanently. Though not enough punishment to equal the crime.

Different intentions?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qoqUNJMTs_w?feature=share

What is the foulest stench you have ever encountered?

We had an older neighbor kitty-corner from us on our street. We had lived there for over 20 years.

He slowly rode bikes around and picked up the pecans that grew from our trees.

He was reclusive and very much kept to himself. We would not see him in the winter for months.

He didn’t like Halloween or little kids, so we kept ours away from him.

One day, the police came by and asked if we had seen him anytime soon.

We had not, so they decided to break open the door as his out-of-state daughter could not find him.

Since I knew him the most, I went with the police.

They broke the door open, and the most awful smell came out.

They found a suicide note. He had been dead for almost a month in the sweltering Texas heat with no AC.

We felt like very bad neighbors because we didn’t check on him, but the police said he had carefully planned it so no one would know. I will never forget that smell.

Struggles and winners

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X1HHLxdpIuA?feature=share

What are the benefits of having a physically attractive wife?

I think it’s fair to say that in terms of attractiveness, I’m punching above my weight with regards my wife. She’s very attractive, gets frequent comments from other men, turns heads, and generally impresses people.

I’m a geek. If I turn heads, it’s because I’m drunk and being too loud. Not because people want to look at me.

I often wonder how I managed to create such a situation where such an attractiveness disparity happened. I think there is something in the idea that personality counts. When I put my mind to it, I can be tremendously entertaining, and I think my wife enjoys that.

As to the benefits conferred by having an attractive wife, there are none that wouldn’t be there were she not as attractive, at least as long as you genuinely love your wife.

A few years into our marriage, my wife got cancer. As she was going through chemotherapy, all the usual things happened, weight gain (they give you a lot of steroids), hair loss etc. She didn’t look her best. If she turned heads, it was to look at the bald woman.

What difference did that make?

None. She was still tremendous. I was still incredibly lucky to be married to her. I still made her laugh because of my dumb antics. We still got served in restaurants. We still had to pay.

Then she got better. She looks stunning again. She is still tremendous. I am still incredibly lucky to be married to her. I still make her laugh because of my dumb antics. We still get served in restaurants. We still have to pay.

I love her.

 

What’s the most incompetent instance of bullying you’ve ever seen?

Freshman year of high school. I ended up in after school detention.

We were all in individual desks. Three seats to my left was the biggest douchebag I’ve ever met. He looked 20, he was privileged, an addict and was known for bullying freshmen pretty relentlessly.

He started throwing stuff at me, paper wads, pencils… whatever he could find. I didn’t acknowledge what he was doing, I just kept focused on my homework.

There was a well built black girl between us. She was obviously more hardened and a “take no BS” kind of gal. Nice, unless reasonably provoked.

So I acted as if he’s not there. Next thing I know there was a huge THUD. I looked over in time to see one of those hard cover, thick text books sliding off this girl’s head. I remember this part in slow motion. He was aiming for me, but dumbshit missed.

After lifting her head for a moment of silence she leaps up and throws a desk over to stand over him and call him out. She absolutely destroyed him. She was asking him to stand up and fight and talking about how he’s been fucking with me and being a piece of shit. This girl was seriously ready to throw down.

So douchebag cowers and gets all red in the face looking scared. That was one powerful woman he pissed off.

Edit: 9/12/2018

I was in 6th grade computer class when 9/11 happened. Teacher had the news on, lights out with no assignments other than watching the news.

I was pretty introvert and came from a different school district. So I didn’t know anyone in class and kept to myself.

For the last half of that class period, the boy behind me would kick my chair pretty hard and whisper “oops, a plane just crashed into you” amongst other silly things. Sometimes I’d look back and he’d jump as if he was going to hit me. I never said anything to this kid ever. I didn’t say anything as he continuously kicked my chair. But inside I was boiling. Not because of 9/11 and his plane crash comments. I was too young to really understand the gravity of what we were watching on the news. I was boiling from frustration and disrespect. This was the first time I had ever been messed with so relentlessly.

Now I’m not a fighter or had any brothers to wrestle and fight with. But he was shorter and skinnier. But I don’t remember planning to do what I did.

The bell rang, I immediately stood up facing him. As soon as he got up I started pushing him. I kept pushing him multiple times as hard as I could until he lost balance and fall completely over his desk onto the floor creating a huge commotion. At first he put his 3 ring binder up as if he was blocking an oncoming punch. It was very satisfying to watch him fall all over the desk. Again, I remember this part in slow motion.

They ended up putting him in a different class after I explained everything to the teacher. I never really ran into him again until 8th grade waiting for parent pick up. I didn’t say anything to him, we locked eyes, he looked like a deer in headlights. I’m pretty sure I could see his feelings, he knew he made a big mistake on 9/11. So now every time I think about that terrible day in New York, I can’t help but to remember the lamest instance of bullying I’ve experienced.

Rules for men

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/udMdYG-nuX0?feature=share

Did you ever beat up the high school bully in front of everyone?

My sister and I were the youngest, and usually the smallest and nerdiest kids in our classes, so we were more concerned with not getting beat up rather than beating up anyone else.

Actually in our small school, physical violence was pretty much unknown. I had some jerk put glue in my braid once, and another time someone slipped a toy snake into my sister’s purse, but that was usually as far as it went. The bullying in our school was mostly just verbal jokes and insults.

There was one real knucklehead that started causing trouble, and he actually got into a physical altercation with another knucklehead, but since they both were knuckleheads, nobody made a big deal of it.

However, there was one guy in our school that nobody messed with, and I think even the teachers were intimidated by him. He wasn’t a bully, didn’t cause trouble, pretty much kept to himself, and was actually very bright. But there are some people you just don’t mess with, and this guy was definitely one of those people.

His name was Fenrisúlfr, which is a variation of Fenrir, the giant wolf that killed the great god Odin during Ragnarök. Fenrir was one bad arse wolf. And to make his name even better, Fenrisúlfr, can be translated not just as wolf, but more properly, Wolf from Hell. And anyone that has the name Wolf from Hell, definitely isn’t someone to mess with.

Fenrisúlfr’s father was a member of the elite Víkingasveitin, or Viking Squad, a sort of super swat, anti terrorism team that Iceland has. The ultimate Icelandic bad arses, and definitely not people you should mess with.

Fenrisúlfr didn’t talk about his father much, but of course there were all kinds of stories and rumors about what exactly he did. In fact there were even lots of rumors about Fenrisúlfr, like he killed a polar bear with his bare hands.

Of course nobody really believed that, but if Fenrisúlfr ever did get into a fight with a polar bear, I would probably end up feeling sorry for the bear.

One day my sister and I were eating lunch alone like we usually did. Just talking quietly and not bothering anyone. However a couple of idiots at the next table decided they wanted to have some fun. So they took the mushed turnips that were served that day, put them on a spoon, and sort of catapulted them in our direction.

My sister and I learned to be observant, and I saw the idiot out of the corner of my eye. So I ducked and the mushed turnips went right by me. And hit Fenrisúlfr right in the back of his head.

The whole cafeteria suddenly got very, very quiet as Fenrisúlfr slowly got up. He first looked at us, but quickly realized that we would never do anything like that. But then he very slowly shifted his eyes to the two idiots at the next table, and I could see the two idiots freeze and turn white as Fenrisúlfr walked toward them.

Fenrisúlfr didn’t say anything but as he got to their table, grabbed their heads, knocked them together, and then pushed their faces into their mushed turnips.

Then without saying a word, Fenrisúlfr returned to his table and finished his meal.

The next day at lunch, the two idiots decided to sit as far away from us, and Fenrisúlfr, as possible. And we decided it was a good idea to sit as close to Fenrisúlfr as possible, and over the semester we became friends with him. He was actually a very nice, if scary looking guy. He even took us over his house, and we got to meet his father, who was even scarier looking than Fenrisúlfr.

So we never actually beat up the school bully, or anyone else for that matter. But when you have a friend named, The Wolf from Hell, we didn’t have to. :-))

 

What’s one instinctive thing you did that prevented something bad from happening?

February 2016. My boyfriend at the time had started to feel unwell on a Friday. By Monday he was very sick and when he went to the GP he was diagnosed with pneumonia (just one side at that point), got given antibiotics and was sent home. By Wednesday he was even sicker, not better. So I persuaded him to go back to the GP. He was always very independent but I had to help him get inside the Dr’s office. When it was his turn I insisted I went with him, and when the GP checked him she said it was now bi-lateral pneumonia and she was going to prescribe him different antibiotics. At this point I spoke up and said that I felt he needed more than that, and so she offered to refer him to A&E. He was debating it, and I was not having any of that, and said Yes please! Took him straight to the hospital.

His oxygen level on arriving was below 70% and despite him getting extra oxygen it wasn’t going up. After x-rays the doctor at A&E said it was the worst case of pneumonia he had seen in a long time in a healthy, young adult. Turned out he had swine flu, double bacterial pneumonia and in the following days he developed sepsis and was borderline in kidney failure. It was touch and go for several days, on pressurised oxygen, IV antibiotics, tamiflu, fluids and other meds, heavily monitored and I had to stay in the hospital overnight for a bit as he was calmer when I was with him, but he recovered.

Several doctors and nurses at the High Dependecy Unit told me that if we would have waited one more day in getting him to hospital the outcome would have most likely been very different.

As I have been working in healthcare for several years I have learned to trust my gut instinct, and I am so glad I did exactly that.

Medical Tourism

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/79UwalhTgeo?feature=share

What person destroyed their entire life by making one simple mistake?

I have a friend who works as a lawyer. He told me this story about one of his clients, who ruined his life with one stupid decision.

The client was a successful businessman, who owned several car dealerships in the area. He had a beautiful wife, two kids, and a mansion. He was living the American dream.

But he also had a secret. He was addicted to gambling. He would go to casinos every weekend, and bet thousands of dollars on roulette, blackjack, and poker. He was convinced that he had a system, and that he could beat the house.

He was wrong.

He started losing money, a lot of money. He maxed out his credit cards, took out loans from shady lenders, and even embezzled funds from his own business. He was in deep trouble, but he couldn’t stop.

One day, he got a call from one of his creditors. They told him that they wanted their money back, or else. They threatened to hurt him and his family if he didn’t pay up.

He panicked. He didn’t have the money. He didn’t know what to do.

He decided to make one last gamble.

He went to his office, grabbed a suitcase full of cash that he had stashed away for emergencies, and drove to the nearest casino. He walked up to the roulette table, and put all the money on black.

He was hoping for a miracle.

He watched as the wheel spun, and the ball bounced around. He prayed that it would land on black.

It didn’t.

It landed on red.

He lost everything.

He collapsed on the floor, sobbing. He realized that he had just destroyed his entire life with one simple mistake.

The casino security escorted him out. The police arrested him for fraud and embezzlement. His wife divorced him and took the kids. His business went bankrupt. His creditors sued him and seized his assets. He ended up in prison, broke and alone.

He never gambled again.

But it was too late.

He had made one mistake that cost him everything.

I want them to play together

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JW2gQ2yTiR8?feature=share

What are some sad and strange facts about relationships?

Here are some sad and strange facts about relationships:

  • The Fade Away: It’s a sad reality that sometimes, instead of openly communicating their feelings, people choose to slowly distance themselves from their partner, leading to a slow and painful breakup.
  • Mismatched Timing: Timing can be a cruel factor in relationships. You might meet someone amazing, but if you’re not at the same stage in life, it can lead to heartbreak.
  • Ghosting: In the digital age, it’s become strangely common for someone to suddenly cut off all communication without explanation, leaving the other person in a state of confusion and sadness.
  • Unrequited Love: One of the saddest aspects of relationships is when one person’s feelings are not reciprocated, and they have to grapple with the pain of unrequited love.
  • Love vs. Infatuation: It’s strange how sometimes people mistake infatuation for love, leading to intense emotions that fade as quickly as they came.
  • The Fear of Vulnerability: Many individuals struggle to open up and be vulnerable in relationships due to past traumas or fears, making it difficult to build a deep connection.
  • Staying in Unhealthy Relationships: Some people stay in toxic relationships because they fear being alone or believe they can change their partner.

When did you realize you had to cut a family member out of your life, and why?

I abandoned/disowned/renounced/rejected my mother when I was 17 years old, but only because she abandoned my siblings and I first.

My dad was diagnosed with ALS when I was five or six years old. He worked two jobs prior to that to support my mom, sister, brother, and I but he eventually reached the point where he spent much of his time in a hospital. My mom got a job, at a local dime store, and became friendly with a male coworker. During one of my dad’s hospital stays she took my siblings and I, and left town with the man.

We spent a couple of months in a two-room apartment in Philadelphia before mom realized it wasn’t the best environment for us — the man didn’t like or want kids around — so mom took us to her parents’ house. She swore she would have nothing more to do with the man but, less than a week later, she disappeared after telling her folks she was going out with a high school girlfriend.

My siblings and I were sent to live with my dad who, by this time, had lost the use of his arms and legs and was confined to a wheelchair, and was living with his mother in rural Arkansas. I spent three years watching that man die and when he was gone, my mom’s parents took us in again. My paternal grandmother was in her 70s and too old to handle three kids.

My mom’s name was never mentioned and I’d put her out of my mind until, one day, she was back. Her mom had died by then but my sister, brother and I still lived with her dad. My siblings went to live with her immediately but I wanted nothing to do with her. I had one, brief, conversation with her when she returned and she claimed her folks knew where she was, and that she’d eventually come back. I didn’t believe her and told her so.

Two years after returning she was dead from lung cancer, and I always wondered if she came back because the man she’d abandoned us for wouldn’t take care of her. I felt that he was that type of guy, selfish and cowardly. But my mom was a coward — and about 1,000 other bad words — for leaving my dad when he got sick, so she got what she deserved as far as I was concerned. I didn’t even go to her funeral.

Hang on! Why are there HIDDEN Jewish Tunnels in New York City?

https://youtu.be/9wuL8ndc_lQ

What is the most “illegal” thing you’ve done and gotten away with?

Going anonymous for my friend’s sake. This was in the US about 6 years ago when he was 17 years old.

When he was younger, he would counterfeit small denomination bills ($10s and $20s), go to shops, buy small items with the counterfeit bills, and get real change back.

Most of the time he’d dress up in a button up shirt and a pair of slacks so that he looked presentable, and put a smile on his face so that people would think he was just an honest, friendly person, even though he was scamming them. One scam in particular was at the mall just before closing. It was a pretty populated mall, and there was a jewelry store attendant standing outside the jewelry store.

He said to the attendant, “I lost a bet with my friend, and I owe him $10, but all I have is this $20 bill”. She didn’t know it was counterfeit, and she didn’t even look at it, because he was dressed nicely and smiled at her.

She walked into the jewelry store with him (plenty of surveillance cameras, mind you), and exchanged the counterfeit $20 for a real $10. My friend was $10 richer.

Another scam was pretty simple: he would order a takeout pizza, walk into the pizza place, pay for the pizza, and be about $10 – $15 richer, and get a free pizza out of it.

Never got caught. Almost once, though. Before I tell that story, here’s how he made the bills:

He’d print them out on his normal inkjet printer at home, spray them with hairspray for texture, and wrinkle them up pretty good. Voila. While the bill definitely wouldn’t pass any sort of close inspection, the smile on the face and general psychological trickery is what made the scam successful.

So, into the story of almost getting caught:

He walked into a gas station in shorts and a t-shirt (this was his first attempt at the scam, and the bill was noticeably smaller than it should’ve been). He mixed it in with another real bill, and handed it to the cashier. He forgot to smile and dress nicely. She looked at the bills, looked at him, and said “sorry, I can’t accept this, it looks like it’s fake.”

In a fake outrage, he said, “well I just got it from the bank! What should I do? Should I go back to the bank and tell them they gave me fake money?”

He and the cashier both agreed that this was the best solution, and they were both “angry” that the bank had given him counterfeit money.

How could the bank do such a thing?!

Edit

He should be $20 richer…yes or no? I mean the shop lady would give him two 10’s for the 20, otherwise she would suspect a con. Nobody trades a real 20 for one real 10.

Commented by Darrin Jones

Thank you to those who pointed out this same thing (it was a typo). It was an exchange of one $20 for two $10 bills, with the idea that he owed his friend $10, but only had the $20 bill and needed to split it into lower denominations. Good catch!

Honestly, do boys prefer girls with or without makeup?

My boyfriend is 26. Let’s call him a boy.

Boys do not have a single clue. Let me try this again: they don’t get it. Or at least he doesn’t get it. And it’s not for lack of me trying to educate him. He’s a corporate business attorney, so it’s not for lack of smarts. He just goes, “Oh, cool!” and then goes back to doing whatever he was doing.

The only thing that rattled him was contouring and extensions. He was like, “DO ALL GIRLS DO THAT” and I said, “No, I don’t because I don’t have time.” and he goes, “DO YOU HAVE EXTENSIONS” (this was after I got my hair cut into a bob..so he clearly didn’t pay attention to what extensions actually are[1]).

Boys and men are not socially conditioned to care about appearance 1/20th as much as girls and women. They care so, so much less than any girl or woman could even conceive of when it comes down to it. There are the Kanye Wests out there, and I won’t deny that, who want a well manicured woman at all hours.

But honestly, for the vast majority of men and boys the response is, “Huh? Ok!”

For the really awesome Smashbox eyeshadow limited edition palette I found on sale at Sephora the response I got was, “Your eyes look cool today.”

No comprenden←, truly.

The preference doesn’t exist for the vast majority of them because they just haven’t thought deeply about it before.

[1] You could get extensions and then get them cut to increase volume in your hair but c’mon I don’t have that kind of cash to blow. If I get extensions it’s to make my hair long.

L’Odyssée du Tartare. AI sci-fi merging styles of Méliès, Jodorowsky, & others; unedited footage

https://youtu.be/EI2HWPYFFOc

What scary gut feeling did you have that turned out to be true?

I was in the Coast Guard on my way to see my Mom and Dad. The closer I got to their home, I got a feeling I had to get to their Cottage on Lake Erie.

I got there about 11PM but couldn’t shake the feeling of needing to get to the cottage.

I originally thought it was just the need to finish painting I had started on the exterior.

At 1AM, I couldn’t settle down and apologized for having to leave.

I got there and had a fitful bit of sleep and woke up to a windy, wavy day.

At about 11AM, I heard screaming from the lake.

Grabbed my life jacket I kept in my kayak, ran to the beach and saw 3 young girls that had been knocked down by a large wave and getting pulled out by a strong rip current.

I ran into the water and got to 2 girls easily but the smaller, lighter one was dragged further out.

Just before I got to her she went under but I managed to grab her and get her head above water.

The rip current was so bad it took me a good 15 minutes to get us back to the beach a few hundred feet further down the beach, all the while being puked on with orange crush the girl had drank earlier.

I still get chills but am amazed I was directed to be there at that time so that 3 lives could be saved and possibly a 4th as another person was going to try the rescue without a live jacket, but I had motioned to him to stay on the beach.

Thus occurred August of 1993, at Morgan’s Point, Ontario Canada.

 

If a US Marine was to join the French Foreign Legion, how much easier would they find the basic training?

I was a Marine Recruiter in 1992 and I walked into the Social Security Office to get a SSN verification for one of my recruits.

The guy behind the counter tells me that he was a Force Recon Marine and I told him that I was a Recon Marine as well. We start comparing stories and he had been to Amphibious Recon School, Scout Swimmer, Scuba, Jump, Free-fall.

As it turned-out he knew quite a few people that I knew who were sort of legends in the Recon Community.

I asked him how long he had been in? He told me, “8 years.” Then I asked him,” Why did you get out if you already did two enlistments? “

He said that he got out to join the French Foreign Legion. I said, “How was that?”

He said verbatim, “It made Force [Recon] seem like Sunday School. “

He said that he had to do everything all over again Infantry, Jump, Scuba, Free fall. He told me that he he eventually made into the Parachute Commando Regiment.

*UPDATE EDIT. I remember an incident that I witnessed in Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

We were waiting in line to take field showers at the Division Service Support Group (DSSG) area when a group of Legionaries drove up in their rickety jeeps.

One of the junior guys is so excited to be getting a shower, that he hops in line with us while forgetting to take his rifle with him.

A few moments later, his Sergeant comes running-up and starts yelling at him in French. Then, he proceeds to start beating the guy. He almost beat the dude unconscious at which point a whole bunch of Marines intervened.

As a LCpl, I was pretty shocked by what I witnessed. I’m pretty sure that the rest of us Marines were stunned including several Staff NCO’s and Officers who also happened to be standing in line.

I saw a couple of FFL Officers drive-up soon after and they were yelling at the Sergeant in French and then they all get in their vehicles and drove off.

My assumption is what we witnessed wasn’t supposed to have occurred in public and that it was supposed to have taken place “behind closed doors.”

In desperation, Tinder creates a ‘VIP’ membership to crush even more men’s hopes.

https://youtu.be/BzLgyICOKmI

Have you ever quit a job and walked out without giving any notice? What caused you to leave so urgently?

Yes, yes, yesssss!!!

5 years ago I worked at a little shop called “Forever 21” When our Manager got a promotion we had a new Manager come in and take over and she was awful!! The only reason I can think of as to why she was so horrible is that she wanted to make everyone as miserable and she was. She had had two back to back pregnancies so she was dealing with a one year old and a two year old and she was constantly complaining about her life to our other managers. In General she just seemed unhappy.

One time she grabbed all of the employees closing and put us in a group and asked us for resignations because she was “sick of our sh*t” No one said anything, as no one was ready to resign, obviously. We were all broke college students who needed the job. She was the only manager that was constantly on everyone’s back. Our store was in downtown where we had to pay for our parking, as a result the store payed about a dollar more per hour than usual for that very reason, as soon as she got there she cut everyone’s pay down to regular pay, she said we didn’t deserve it.

After a few months of this abuse, all of the employees were getting sick of it so we conspired to write a letter to HR with all of the abuse we had been enduring and we were all going to sign it. Well, word got around and got back to her. She pulled all the weakest people she thought had something to with the letter and met with them, according to the other managers that were present, she screamed at them and bullied them into quitting, she said they could either put their two weeks in or she would fire them within the next week. They didn’t want to be fired so they put in their two weeks! I was fuming!

Then came my turn to meet with her. She did not yell at me or even threaten me. She said that she had heard about the letter and thought of me as a “fire starter” I looked at her and smile and said “I have no idea what you are talking about, now let me get back to work so we can get out of here on time” I think she knew the bullying wasn’t going to work with me.

Now, here is where I had enough! When she started there as the manager she had put in place a new rule where anyone who was clocking in at 10am (when the store opened) could not arrive into the store any earlier than 9:58. At this point I was going through a lot in my life and had a lot on my mind so I forgot all about this new rule. I was very used to going in early to lock my stuff up in the lockers, use the restroom and then head to clock in. When i arrived it was 9:50, I stepped into the store and I was no more than 2 steps in when I hear her yelling across the room “YOU NEED TO LEAVE NOW!! COME BACK WHEN YOUR SHFT STARTS!!!” I froze in my steps. There were other people in the store such as other Managers and the merchandise reps who had started early, they all stopped and stared at me. she repeated what she said once more and i turned around left! The whole situation was upsetting. I think I had a lot of second hand embarrassment. This is the manger I work for? This is how a “manager” represents her self and deals with her employees? how does a manger not know that the best way to address something to an employee is to pull them aside and talk to them in private not scream it across the store? How someone like her got to be a manager is beyond me, and that’s when I got to thinking.

Is this job really worth all the trouble and abuse I am suffering? NO, definitely not.

I got into my car and went home. When I got home I saw I had a voicemail on my cellphone. It was one of the other managers, I would call him one of the butt kissers for sure. He said that if I was going to quit and not show up for my shift then I should at least had the Courtesy to give them a 2 weeks notice!

F*$k them!!

We escaped the UK for China. Here’s Why.

https://youtu.be/VOT5NLYxqQQ

Have you ever had a work colleague who was disliked by most of the other staff, but you knew just how much integrity, honesty, and honour they really had?

‘Disliked’ is perhaps too strong of a word. . .

John was a former U.S. Marine, and a karate black belt, and we were colleagues at a large language center in Bangkok.

The alpha male teachers initially assumed John would blend in with them, but they were so wrong.

He was polite, friendly in his own way to them but was quickly bored by their macho bravado and sexual escapade stories. That they demeaned others (foreigners and Thais) to swell their egos did not sit well with him.

The alphas, perhaps sensing that John was a true alpha, left him alone. They said that they disliked him but never explained why. Perhaps it was insecurity?

Some of the center’s academic management cringed each time a teachers’ meeting was held, knowing that John would be there, ready to call them out about unnecessary rules, regulations and for demands made on hourly-paid teachers.

If they insisted on changing teaching methodology or administrative procedures, John’s very valid, direct questions and comments usually exposed their lack of teaching experience and empathy. He made them accountable.

If explanations were clear and reasonable, John accepted them. He wanted what was best for students and teachers.

If he was proven wrong (even by himself), he readily admitted it. He also apologized if he inadvertently upset others with direct personal comments.

He was popular with students because he was what they thought an excellent, caring teacher should be. His standards were exacting and fair, and they knew he wanted them to succeed.

Gossip was never a thing for John. He may have made negative judgments about others, but he usually kept them to himself (occasionally expressing quiet sarcasm but only to close friends).

He had a wicked, subtle, sense of humor that went over most people’s heads. He had his vices, too, but again, only his closest friends knew them.

Why were many of his colleagues uncomfortable around him?

Because he never wavered in his integrity, honor and honesty.

Captain Proton | 1920 Universe

https://youtu.be/tk6VIBmCcM0

What was the cruelest rumor you’ve heard about another kid when you were in school?

Let’s go back to my 8th grade year and there was a kid who really struggled with their mental health.

They were a class reject, she had friends but wasn’t popular. She was apart of the “gay” kids group. People used to call them fags and say that they will turn others gay.

She cut her arms, and she wanted to die everyday. So a few kids decided to start a bet. When will she kill herself.

We all knew one day she wouldn’t come to school and be dead by suicide. So we watched everyday watching her slowly suffer more and more in her own world.

She used to pass out a lot because of an eating disorder. She used to go to the bathroom after lunch and purge everything whenever anything passed her lips. She had a couple meltdowns in school and we all looked at her like she was retarded. We used to say it to her face. Small things like treating her like a child to degrade her every single day.

Then one day she didn’t come to school. Or the next, or for the rest of the year.

But she wasn’t dead.


On April 20th 2022, She left for Orange county california to a residential treatment facility, and she was gone till January 4th 2023.

That kid was me. My parents don’t know the details about how sucky my 8th grade school year was or how people used to make bets about when I was successfully gonna to kill myself. It was a struggle everyday to go to school when my mental health was slowly deteriorating everyday.

Right now, I am 2 1/2 months out of all mental health treatment. 2 months clean of self harm, and 2 months free of purging. I am happy with my life. And I love going to school everyday (I changed schools). I’m apart of the track team and I absolutely LOVE it.

I’m honestly not sure if my classmates at my old school think I’m dead or not. I’m not at their mercy. I am stronger than their words. And I will succeed in my life.

Stay Gold ponyboy Stay gold

-Eli

Edit: To be honest, I wonder how many of you at first thought I bullied a depressed autistic kid in 8th grade-

Edit: 411 upvotes?! Mom I’m famous :0

Im kidding, thank you for the support everyone.

Edit (4/20/23): Thank you so much for 1.6k upvotes. I reread the comments a lot, it gives me inspiration to keep going.

(I wanted to write a long reflection letter, however life happens and I got a concussion. So I’m not writing it as “thoroughly” as I wanted to.)

Today is April 20th 2023, exactly a year ago today, I was on a plane going to Orange County California. I went to Newport academy, which was the start of my 9 month treatment journey. It’s crazy reflecting on how much I changed in just 12 months but I am proud of myself for it. Exactly a year ago, I was basically throwing tantrums everyday and my parents had to deal with the bull crap sometimes 3 times a day. I was severely depressed, Self harm everyday, and I was miserable with life. That includes making family issues unbearable for everyone in my family.

Exactly a year ago, I said I didn’t need help. Exactly a year ago, I said I was fine, exactly a year ago I was attention seeking for everything. But reflecting now, I was in denial. I’m proud of myself where I came from.

My first day in treatment, I refused to go through the doors of Ranch House. It’s crazy to think that everyday for a month, I cried to my parents begging for them to let me go home when I was first admitted into youth care.

The last few days, I learned an important lesson. You really don’t know what everyone is going through. I learned the most outgoing, extroverted girl in my class was in 2 mental hospitals. I also learned my favorite teacher was in a mental hospital for 2 months when she was 12. I realized in that moment, “in the real world”, everyone struggles. Usually, I avoid talking about where I was for 9 months, but last week, I started to own my story. I won’t ever just “forget” what it was like to be that kid in treatment, and I shouldn’t. I do know where I need to go from now, to continue to be the best person I want to be.

The last rec therapy I did was a goals board for the new year. My goals were to get my drivers permit (I got it two months ago!). Transition into my new school (all though I might not have friends, I’m content with school), join the track team (I PRed at my last meet and now I’m triple jumping varsity distance. I also PR my pole vault and I’m allowed to start bending the pole after I get cleared from my concussion), get clean (3 months clean as of 3 days ago), stop purging (I don’t remember the last time I purged), and to continue to work on my family life.

And I did it, I’ve done all of it and I’m fucking happy for once. I’ve come a long way from where I was. I might not announce to everyone that I was in treatment, nor should I, but I’m not embarrassed by it anymore either.

I honestly don’t know where I would be without having the support system I did have in treatment. Thank you.

It’s been a wild ride this past year, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

When will we upload our consciousness to the cloud?

https://youtu.be/TqM-rhKniLE

Have you ever woken up one morning and said, “I’m done” and then walked away from your life?

It wasn’t morning, it was lunchtime out with my kids at a pub to celebrate my birthday. Both girls had left home long since. I was 68, still working and intending to continue until April 2022 in order to complete 50 years at the same job.

Older daughter hands me a card saying “Happy Birthday Grandpa.” There was a copy of an ultrasound scan showing first grandchild.

So I said without any hesitation “I’m going to quit.” I called my employers (I had 4 at the time) that afternoon and simply said I finish October 31st. They whined, begged me to stay but I was adamant and finished on the due date. Grandson was born Dec 27th. Never made a better decision in my life.

EDIT

Life continues to amaze. Daughter told us a couple of weeks ago that, to use an English expression, “there’s another one in the oven” due March/April.

EDIT New one arrived Easter Momday. Everyone except me was convinced it was a boy based on scan. However beautiful Emily Grace proved the others wrong!

 

 

Brutal Data For Young Men In The Dating Scene I Was Genuinely SHOCKED To Read This

https://youtu.be/FTp56SIVgV0

What does 9G force feel like?

Oh boy, does it hurt!!

Empirically, I, as a 220 lb man, will weigh close to a ton at 9 Gs. That alone would make it hard to sustain that pull but there are other things going on that make a 9G pull a VERY temporary state.

First for the blood. Since your G vector is down, that’s where your blood is being pulled; your feet and legs swell very quickly with all the blood rushing in. That’s a problem because you need to be able to think but the blood is being pulled away from your brain. The first thing that typically goes before you lose consciousness is your peripheral vision and so we’re taught to do some clenching moves with our legs and stomach to try and push the blood back up before G onset (our G suit also offers about 3 additional G tolerance compared to resting state). But no G clenches in the world are going to keep you going for long at 9 Gs. You’re going night night (GLOC…G induced loss of consciousness) if you don’t stop pulling fairly quickly.

G cough. These are fun. If you pull too long, some of the delicate tissue in your lungs get damaged and you’ll begin literally hacking up a lung. Doesn’t happen all the time but if you’re in a prolonged fight, be prepared.

And finally, my favorite: G measles. I only got these in the centrifuge and that was only because I was at 9 Gs for about 15 seconds (that’s a lot longer than it sounds). What happens is that some of your capillaries (mine were in my arm) burst and you get splotches on your skin from the burst capillaries. It looks like you have measles, hence the name. And they itch like crazy! And to make matters worse, they do what always happens when you have blood leaking out of the veins/arteries: they turn into bruises. After my trip through the centrifuge, my arms were all bruised up for about 4 days.

So to summarize, pulling 9 Gs feels like an elephant is standing on your chest and it very quickly begins damaging your body. Reversible damage, but damage nonetheless.

PAY ATTENTION! Something VERY strange is happening in Poland

https://youtu.be/Z36BWFnk0U0

The theme ended with projectile vomit

Yesterday, I took the family to a theme park in Southern Zhuhai. It’s the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. We paid 3500 rmb (roughly $500) for two days with hotel, and two buffet meals. (For us three.)

new header 16 9
new header 16 9

Now, you must know, everything in China is HUGE.

Not Texas huge.

“Universe” huge.

The facility included FIVE theme parks. Each with it’s own hotel, and passes to each one. Each theme park is “Disney Park” in size. So it is an ENORMOUS complex.

Just mind-mindbogglingly large.

When you buy the tickets, the ticket seller will warn you to take one day per theme. Other than that you are wasting your time.

And there is no way you can do more than that! Lordy!

Under the sea
Under the sea

We chose to concentrate on the “Penguin life park”, and the “spaceship future” park. Both were fun and cool, and my little girl enjoyed every second of the excitement.

Inside 1
Inside 1

My little girl loved it!

Animals. Excitement. Bright colors. Rides. Many playgrounds.

And the hotel room was super kid friendly.

236308
236308

We stayed at the Circus hotel, and she had her own bed that looked like a lions cage on wheels, had her own kid-sized robe and slipper. The television only played kids shows, and the commode was kid friendly with a kid style insert. The shower had a kid sized lower tier.

Well thought out.

place 2015 09 25 7 Chimelongoceankingdom
place 2015 09 25 7 Chimelongoceankingdom

The only problem was that on the last day I caught a “bug” and spent the entire day vomiting and spending time on the shitter. I had water-cannon high volume vomiting.

36 times. Thirty Six vomits!

Each time I just emptied out.

Wholly crap!

Then went home to sleep. And sleep I did. Like the dead.

But I am up now, and shaky but functional. I am taking medicines and it all seems to work. I am drinking coffee and I am able to hold it down. So that’s good. Right?

It reminds me that I am still alive and functional. Yay!

Ah. Today…

What one sentence can change a life?

“Man, I’ve another 50 years of this shit…”

That one sentence was spoken by myself, to myself, in my car, as I pulled up outside my house, February 3rd 2016.

I have suffered from depression for 35 years. I can go months, sometimes years, without an episode, but in 2013 my wife, my soul mate, my best friend, left me after 15 years, which plunged me into the worst episode of my life.

Now, whilst depression is a living hell at times, I never actually feel sorry for myself. It’s a different emotion altogether, as anyone who suffers the same will testify. But this particular day, I was feeling sorry for myself. My business had gone to the wall in the first 12 months of separation. In the second 12 months I was struggling to pay the bills. By the end of year 3 I had £2 in the bank, was in desperate arrears with my mortgage and my new business was bringing in barely £200 a week.

I pulled up outside my house at 5pm, knowing the rest of the night would, yet again, be spent sat alone, in the cold, with the constant memories of my wife and children walking around the house, ghosts of their laughter echoing around, heart and mind being tormented by all that had gone before. There was little food in the cupboard. No credit for gas on the meter and low credit for electricity on that meter.

And this was the lowest point, it was 3 years of decline to this moment. I had no way of getting out of the mess I was in. No way I could figure, anyway. For the first time, this time I felt sorry for myself and literally said out loud, “man, I’ve another 50 years of this shit.”

That was the moment everything changed. I turned the engine off and lit a rare cigarette. I continued to talk to myself in the car – partly out loud, partly in my head. The conversation (with myself) went along these lines…

“50 years… ha, great… and I’m 50 years old next year (2017). Well, hang on… if I’m 50 next year, then I am only half way through my life. If I do live to be 100 – and why not ? – then next year, my 50th birthday, is the start of part 2. Mmmm… well if that’s the case then :

1 – I don’t need to buy a house – already bought one, only 5 years off completion (if I can find a way to keep the reposession order at bay). In 5 years, I will have property worth £130,000. Fully paid up. Hey, imagine if I had that when I was 5 years old, how cool that would have been for a start in life !

2 – I don’t have to go to school for 15 years – I’ve done that, I’ve got an education, done college, done university… I’ve got a head start !

3 – I don’t have to get married and have children – I have 3 wonderful children who are doing well and I’ve had the snip, so no need to have any more… no stress and strain of raising babies. Ace !

4 – I don’t need to buy a car or learn to drive – already sorted.

5 – I don’t need to worry about making friends or being popular or liked – I have a fantastic circle of friends who love me and I love them.

6 – I don’t have to worry about my parents leaving me, I already have had the sadness of losing them.

7 – I don’t need to worry about a job. I have the potential in my new business to make a comfortable living, if and when I am mentally strong enough to fully apply myself.

… and so on and so forth…”

Now I am having this conversation with myself in my car and I can literally feel the stress, the pain, the depression leaving my body. I am getting genuinely excited at the way my mind is working. I go into the house and continue this conversation whilst making a coffee. I get a notepad and make notes of what I am saying. Every note, every little idea, is scribbled down so as not to be forgotten.

As the evening progresses, I find myself going through each room in the house, removing any trace of my wife’s existance. Every memory gets either boxed up for the children to enjoy in the future, or goes in the bin. The kitchen gets emptied – I keep 3 cups, 3 plates, 3 knives, forks etc, for me and the 2 youngest children when they visit. The rest of the clutter gets binned. The living room is re-arranged. The bedroom is rearranged. The bathroom is rearranged. This carries on through to maybe 5am…

… For the first time in 3 years, I go to bed with an exhausted smile and wake up a few hours later with that same smile. I carry on where I left off. I borrow a couple of hundred pounds off my brother to get rid of furniture and replace with cheap “get by for a while” furniture, that has no trace of my marriage attached to it. I carry on writing notes.

Well, over the next 2 -3 months, remarkable changes happen. By the end of the 3rd month, at my medical check up, I am taken off my blood pressure tablets, my BP being normal for the first time in 3 years. The following month, after slowly cutting back, I am off my anti-depressants, also for the first time in 3 years, the longest I have been there in my life. I have lost over a stone in fat. My business is taking off as I am able to focus on it and money is coming in again.

By November, 9 months on, I have cleared my debts and I have £4,000 saved. My friends tell me I have a “happy house”. That they feel the positive juju the second they come in the door. They want to know (part jokingly, and part enviously) why I now walk round with a permanent smile, like a village idiot. More than anything though, they are genuinely delighted that they have got “me” back.

But let’s go back to Part 2.

The whole trigger for this was the realisation that if I live to be 100, I am only halfway through my life. So I started adding to the notes I had already started. This time, not marking down things I didn’t have to go through, but things that I am going to do. Each page of things to do is broken down into what I need to do to get there. There are wild things that I may not be skilled enough to do, like publish a novel. I may never be as good as Jimi Hendrix on the guitar. But what is there to stop me doing the best I can do with both ? Then there are totally achievable goals, like buying a campervan and spending 3 months on the road, enjoying life and writing that novel ? Getting married again, now that my heart is mending and I am meeting lovely ladies again – why not ? Decorating and renovating the house. Expanding the business. Getting fit. Losing a bit more weight. Learning to fly a plane. Doing a new degree in something I really enjoy. So many places to visit, to enjoy, to experience.

It’s all there and it’s all ahead of me and I know it’s all down to me. But most importantly, after the 9 months that have just gone by and how my life has already changed so much, I know it’s totally achievable !

So… “man, I’ve another 50 years of this shit” is the single, most important sentence that has changed my life, hopefully forever. Because I’m proving it wrong. And life has rarely felt better.

(I have missed out a section about a girl, I’ll call her “W”, who added a lot of fuel to this fire right at the beginning. She may read this and/or some people may know her, so I shouldn’t mention her by name. But, without knowing it, she made me want to be a better person (thanks Jack Nicholson) too. We never dated, or anything like that… but she is one of the most beautiful souls I have come across. Thank you “W” for your inspiration.)

Best wishes all of you reading this. I wish you a long and happy life.

Rob.

Chicken Gyros with Dill Sauce

Chicken Gyros with Dill Sauce is a traditional Greek sandwich.

Crock Pot Chicken Gyro 6 500x375 1
Crock Pot Chicken Gyro 6 500×375 1

Ingredients

  • 1 cup plain yogurt
  • 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill
  • 2 large garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 1 teaspoon + 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
  • 4 fresh pita bread rounds, heated
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. In small bowl blend together yogurt, 2 tablespoons dill, garlic and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
  2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken with oregano, 1 teaspoon dill, salt and pepper. Sauté until browned and cooked through, about about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon oil to skillet and sauté onions until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
  3. Return chicken and any juices to skillet. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Stir until heated through, about 2 minutes.
  4. Top pita rounds with chicken mixture. Spoon dill sauce over chicken and serve. This sandwich is folded in half and eaten. Pass the extra sauce, as desired.

Doomed by decoupling

The West falls further behind

Godfree Roberts

We are decoupling from China and, a fortiori, from its technology and the 130 countries in its currency, trade and defense alliances. Highlights from 2023 suggest that we far behind and the gap is widening.

2024 01 22 09 57
2024 01 22 09 57

Economy

In 2023, China’s economy grew by $1.6 trillion, more than the rest of the world’s combined – while the USA borrowed $3 trillion to fund $300 billion GDP growth. Real wages grew 4.7% and demographics will remain healthy through 2043. 21 million tourists flew during Golden Week and spent $3 billion in Xinjiang alone. Hangzhou hosted more athletes at the Asian Games than the Olympics and domestic brands Anta and Li-Ning outsold Nike and Adidas.

Research

Young Science became the world’s #3 journal and is rapidly overtaking incumbent leaders Nature and Science. With a $228 billion corporate R&D budget, 3 million Chinese scientists applied for almost as many patents as the rest of the world combined, and utterly dominated the top 1% of most influential papers. Huawei’s R&D budget alone is larger than the US CHIPS and Science Act.

Health

Researchers there cured thalassemia, reversed autism and aging, provided Covid immunization with a dry powder aerosol, curednasopharyngeal cancer, constipation, atherosclerosis and improved Alzheimer’s memory and functionality. They grew human kidneys in pig embryos and oversaw the first live birth of chimeric monkeys

Hard Tech

Scientists created the first graphene semiconductor, while Betavolt began shipping an atomic energy battery that powers consumer devices for 99 years.

     

Huawei mastered 7nm chip production (Intel still has not), replaced WiFi with 6x faster NearLink, took Apple’s #1 spot in the world’s largest market with a phone using 90% domestic components. Chinese chip foundries bought 62% of machinery equipment domestically this year, vs. 47% last year, and produced the first integrated neuro-memristor and the first 232 layer flash memory. Researchers set a record for high-rate quantum key distribution, showed off the first ambient superionic hydride ion conductor, the first primate brain-computer interface and an integrated neuro-memristor chip that will make circuit boards obsolete.

Macro inventions included the first waterless nuclear reactor, the most powerful solid-fuel rocket, the first liquid oxygen/methane rocket (it lifted 6 tonnes into sun-synchronous orbit), the world’s only Mach 30 wind tunnel, lasers generating high-energy beams indefinitely, and the first high-orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite for 24×7 weather observation.

The country installed 80 million kW of PV and PV generated 300 billion kWh nationwide, 30% above 2022. CATL’s EV batteries get 400 km on 15 min. charge and 700 km. on a regular charge at all temperatures. In addition to installing 290,000 industrial robots – more than the rest of the world combined – it put AESA radars on $8,000 farm drones (only four countries can make them – for fighter jets). Its 800 million 5G subscribers are served by 3.2 million base stations and integrated 5G industry applications into 67 economic categories with 100,000 application cases. Tibet’s 5G service surpassed California’s.

Environment

In the wilderness that covers 42% of China’s landmass, conservationists counted 70,000 Tibetan antelopes, 3,400 Przewalski’s gazelles, 5,000 golden snub-nosed monkeys and 1200 Snow Leopards

What’s a red flag that you ignored in a significant other, only to realize it was a big deal later?

I dated a lady, who was already dating someone else. Except I didn’t know this when she asked me out. They weren’t living together, so it wasn’t something that jumped out at you.

It was only on our 4th date, that the guy got suspicious , and followed her to our restaurant, and caused a scene that I had a clue. She dumped the guy, in the restaurant, and made it seem like it was no big deal, as they were a short term casual couple.

I found out from her best friend about a month later, that they had been seeing each other regularly for a year. But I was hooked by then.

After 9 months she asked me,to ask her, to marry me. Yes, I know, confusing right?

I said I needed to think about it. Immediately, she was busy on Friday nights, but still up for Saturdays. She said it was work related.

I recognized the pattern and decided not to follow her to whatever restaurant and bar she was going to. I didn’t need to have a big fight in public. Instead I waited until the next day, and lied to her, and told her I had followed her. She said, well I guess thats it then. Why does everyone follow me?

Implying that I wouldn’t have just been the second person to follow her.

She was right, that was it. Once a cheater, always a cheater, even if they aren’t married or living together.

Wife Started Behaving Like A F**inist And Is Now Having A MELTDOWN That Her Marriage Is IMPLODING

https://youtu.be/CM8100c-xxg

How has China’s growth model based on debt-fueled investment and land sales become difficult to sustain?

It is not though!

Chinese people are prolific savers. And Chinese as you know are the most practical and pragmatic people on planet earth. They are the opposite of American people who are one of the most wasteful nation on planet earth. And worst the U.S. as a nation and your archaic political system allows wasteful and unaudited spending.

China and Chinese are just the opposite.

Chinese people save 36% of their income, the highest on earth and the US barely save at all. That is a very big difference. The U.S. cannot depend on domestic savings, China can and they do. China saved more the entire UK GDP each year! China used that to fuel the Chinese economy by building up infrastructures and invest in R&D. Hence China is now totally independent innovatively and scientifically.

I know when a person like you who ask such a question you are already fooled by your western media that China is unsustainable but the fact is just the opposite. The U.S. is mightily unsustainable and China is the lowest geared economy. And its real tangible investment are paying off well!

The U.S. infrastructure is dilapidating and you guys burnt cash like there is no tomorrow! 5 trillion in Iraq, 5 trillion in Vietnam, 3 trillion in Afghanistan. And probably 10 trillion in Ukraine by the time this shit ended. Burning cash sending armadas around the world and keeping 800 plus military bases around the world! Your investment is not getting any returns.

China build more high speed railway, solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric power stations then the rest of the world put together!

So grow up Mr. Questioner and Americans and brain dead westerners. China is great and dandy. The U.S. is without doubt collapsing before your eyes. If you open yours!

THIS AMERICAN INSULTS THE ENTIRE AFRICAN CONTINENT. IS THIS HOW A/AMERICANS FEEL ABOUT AFRICANS?

https://youtu.be/1qeRW-SbsPg

Would the Tiananmen Square Massacre have happened if China had a Second Amendment?

The problem is, there was no massacre.

Tiananmen, and the never-ending western media narrative telling outright lies for decades without giving the Chinese the opportunity to set out the facts is the primary motivation for the Great Firewall, and strict Chinese censorship.

A poor and relatively backward China would have been at constant risk of implosion had external forces been able to spread lies as propaganda to bring down the government in Beijing, using Tiananmen as the rallying point.

Unfortunately, the truth is way more mundane.

The students were persuaded to go home before first light, and most of the soldiers deployed to the square were involved in area cleaning on June 4th and 5th.

In sum, the Tiananmen PROTESTS (which lasted for months centered around June 4th) resulted in the deaths of several hundred, with an abnormally high percentage being uniformed personnel. It was at best, a sustained social disturbance.

The Chinese are not stupid, or disrespectful people. No leader will order a massacre at Tiananmen, with the portrait of Mao overlooking the square. The Long March generation had given their lives to free the people from oppression, and it would have been heresy to mow down the hope of the nation under the watchful eyes of Mao.


Dmitry Orlov: Russia and China Melding in a Shifting Geopolitical Landscape

https://youtu.be/sdkloQ5dycI

What’s the most unprofessional thing a doctor has said to you?

This happened, not to me, but to my younger sister (who’s 16 at the moment). [Too bad I wasn’t with her back then…]

Some Background Details (they’re important in the story): My sister is a beautiful, talented and intelligent girl. She got double promotion in her 6th year so now she’s the youngest in her class. For some time now (around 2–3 years… Whoa, that’s actually a lot!), she has been complaining about her vision. She says that whenever she opens her eyes, everything just constantly keeps morphing and changing forms .

We took her to 3 opthalmologists. None of them could determine the cause of her wavy vision and so they diagnosed it as psychological and referred her to a psychologist who was very well-known (and well-paid) in our area.

Let’s call the psychologist Sarah. So here goes:

(My sister comes in and sits down. Sarah regards my sister condescendingly then proceeds to give her a complacent smirk as if she had just found the answer to all the problems in the universe)

Sarah: “You’re not a very good student are you?”

5 remarks popped into my sister’s head at that very moment:

  1. WTF?!
  2. Is this the first question you ask your patient?
  3. I’m top of my class even after my double promotion.
  4. You’re not a very good doctor are you?
  5. Lady, you just ruined your reputation in less than 10 seconds.

But instead she replied with a simple “I’m moderately good.”

Sarah: “You know, it won’t do you any good to lie.”

By this point, my sister is so shocked she doesn’t even say anything.

Sarah: “Please stand outside for a moment. I’d like to speak to your mother privately.”

My sister just walks out (still unable to process such level of vanity in an adult).

Sarah: “Your daughter is quite obviously making the whole thing up about her vision. And as her parent, it is your responsibility to make sure she studies all day. She gets an F in her tests and at best a D, am I right?”

It took my mother all of her willpower to not get up and slap her full across the face. She quietly thanked the doctor and left, making sure to slam the door especially loudly on her way out.

P.S. After much more research and diagnosis in another country (Australia), it turns out my sister’s wavy vision was due to ocular migraine. It hasn’t got much better yet but baby steps lead the way. 🙂

INVESTIGATORS REVEAL JIMMY LAI MONEY TRAIL

Huge amounts of international money flowed into the bank accounts of Jimmy Lai—and large sums of cash went out to anti-China groups, a court heard yesterday.

The tabloid publisher received HK$2.945 billion in his nine bank accounts in recent years, with deposits coming from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere. The money is said to have derived “from overseas securities trading”.

But the money didn’t sit there.

Who got the cash?

Chunks of finance went out to multiple China-hostile political groups in Hong Kong, the US, and the UK, the prosecution said, providing a detailed report from financial investigators.

Jimmy Lai’s lawyer Steven Kwan Man-wai did not dispute the information.

Local recipients included the Hong Kong Democratic Party, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, the League of Social Democrats, the court was told.

A wildly critical UK group called Hong Kong Watch, whose members include Benedict Rogers and former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, received HK$202,000.

Paul Wolfowitz, former US deputy secretary of defence, was sent HK$1.76 million in payments from 2013 onwards, the court heard. Money also went to a right-wing think tank called the American Enterprise Institute.

Cash also went to a group called the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, organizers of an annual meeting to keep the “Tiananmen Square massacre” story, debunked by Julian Assange and others, alive.

The biggest individual recipient named yesterday was Cardinal Joseph Zen, a retired Hong Kong churchman who has fallen out with his colleagues, including Pope Francis, over his relentless China-bashing. The churchman received HK$3.5 million in 2017, the prosecution said.

The court heard earlier that large sums of money from Jimmy Lai’s funds (held by various entities) were paid to media companies, including the publishers of the Washington Post, the Nikkei Weekly, the UK Guardian, and media groups in India.

Jimmy Lai, 76, is on trial for sedition and collusion, offences illegal worldwide. His colleagues and associates have pleaded guilty in related hearings. The trial continues.

Baltic Sea Anomaly, Atlantis, and Underwater Alien Bases | Mysteries of the Ocean Pt 1

https://youtu.be/tgqAt6YN1jE

Why do so many couples still get married when the divorce rate is so high?

I can tell you why I took the plunge.

She was gorgeous.

I wanted to have sex.

We were both young and stupid.

Oh, and movies said we’d “live happily ever after.”

And we did, through the honeymoon. Then reality struck.

We suddenly discovered that, well, we’re very different. In just about everything.

And that caused us to clash and occasionally me to wonder, “What the hell is wrong with her?”

And my wife to wonder that about me, only way more often.

Through years of building businesses, raising kids, paying bills. And occasional sleepless nights, sickness and clashes it would have been easy to walk away.

To think, “Well, I guess it’s not meant to be.”

But we just chose not to. We chose to make it “happily ever after.” Period.

So when we didn’t have the happy part we still had the ever after part. And it was going to be a long ever after.

So we might as well put the happy part back in. And we did.

Last week my wife was gone baby sitting our grandson. I was home alone.

No, that’s never a good thing in so many ways.

She came home on Friday evening so we had a late dinner and watched a movie.

As we enjoyed a glass of wine, I thought, “Ah, life is good again. Just the way it’s meant to be.”

I turned to her and said, “I’m glad you can babysit. But I’m really glad you’re home.”

“Yeah, it feels good to be home too. Though I miss my baby,” she responded.

“I know, I’m having to compete with your new boyfriend. But I do have to say, he’s really cute.”

We laughed.

And proceeded to live happily ever after for another evening.

And later, well, never mind.

You get married for the wrong reasons. Then build a marriage for the right ones.

What path in life did you go down that, as a child, you never would have expected?

I was failing grade 8 Math and English, and barely passing Science. My parents ran into my Math teacher at a social event, turned out they had distant common friends.

She made it a point to tell them I wasn’t going to get anywhere in life. She suggested they find me a trade, I might do well as an electrician or a plumber (nothing wrong with these professions, except she used it in a derogatory way, as studying is beyond my capabilities).

Ms. Farhana was a real jerk.

I was the shiest kid around and bullied throughout my childhood. However, I was embarrassed enough by that incident that I mustered up my courage and asked the neighbour’s daughter to tutor me. She started from basic and built up from there.

I passed grade 8 Math. Barely, but I passed it.

She kept tutoring me and I did average in grade 9.

My grade 10 Math teacher had a baby. He lived in the neighbourhood so I decided to ring his doorbell to wish him well. He invited me in for cake. Zee never says no to cake. He told me I could be his best student if I just tried harder.

I knew he was giving me an empty compliment, but a part of me thought I could.

So I asked him to help me after school. He said yes.

I got lucked out with a really kick-ass, but slightly racist, grade 11 Chemistry teacher. He broke things down to just Math. I overlooked his passive aggressive micro-aggressions and had him help me. Everything made sense.

I took Finite Math in highschool. The teacher had a bit of a gambling problem, but man did he know his probabilities.

Suddenly Math was fun.

There is a goat behind one of three doors and you pick a door. I open one of the doors you didn’t pick, do you change your answer? (Hint: yes)

I made up different problems with him. I learned Texas Hold’em. We talked about probabilities of different hands.

In grade 12 Advanced Math I got almost perfect, the highest mark anyone has gotten up until that point in that school’s history.

I took Math tests for fun and did well enough at the University of Waterloo’s Descartes test that I got in with scholarship even though my overall marks weren’t that high.

I decided to major in Math (and Computer Science). I finished the first year in Dean’s list, primarily because of kicking ass in Math. I tutored Calculus, Algebra, and Combinatorics and Optimization to pay bills.

Screw you Ms. Farhana, you were wrong.

I graduated and went to work for Microsoft and then Amazon due to my strength in Math.

I decided to run for a local office and despite not knowing anyone, turned campaigning into a Math problem. I reached out to others in the office and asked them for advice. I took their advice seriously.

Heck I read a book, tracked down its author (two-time mayor of a Michigan municipality) and emailed him for advice. He replied and agreed to mentor me remotely.

I won the election.

I started a business. I sucked at it. I ran into someone at a dinner who ran an agency. I asked him for help. He agreed. Eventually we ran a campaign for Nissan.


As a child I never thought I could learn that everyone had something to teach me, outright ask them to teach me, and benefit from this skill so incredibly.

The Worst Thing Ever”

it was seriously the worst thing ever. I walked into my house and saw my mom hanging from the ceiling fan.

I can’t even put into words how messed up it was. It felt like my whole world just fell apart. I still can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like I’m stuck in some kind of freaky….

I can’t even put into words how messed up it was. It felt like my whole world just fell apart. I still can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like I’m stuck in some kind of freaky dream.

 I just wish I could go back in time and stop it from happening. But I know that’s not possible. All I can do now is try to move on and remember her in the best way I can. 

The most devastating experience of my life was witnessing my mother’s passing. The sight of her lifeless body on the floor left me feeling as though I had lost not only her, but also myself and my entire world. 

Despite my desperate desire to help her, she passed away before my eyes, leaving me feeling helpless and hopeless. 

However, as time passed, I came to the realization that I must strive to make her proud by doing my best to secure a successful future. This tragedy has left an indelible mark on my life, but I am determined to honor my mother’s memory by achieving my goals.

image 167
image 167

Related…

DESPERATE WOMAN RESCUED FROM HANGING HERSELF TO DEATH

2024 01 22 07 03
2024 01 22 07 03

Information from reliable source to YIRIMAMBO ADVOCACY GROUP UPPER WEST REGION

indicate that a woman from East District information gathered from Wa East district in the Upper West region indicate that a married woman with six children who allegedly wanted to hang herself to death is battling with problems.

It has been fetched but obvious that she can not do anything else for survival nor her mother to care for her family. It is noted that she is a sickler and her mother a stroke patience.

Despite her poor health condition, she and the husband that are taking care of the family. She is always carrying her mother here and there to help her in movement because of that she can’t do any work for money.

Notwithstanding to this, sometimes it is difficult for them to get even food to eat or clothes to wear and medicines for themselves.

Even though the father with six children, is a farmer but is not easy for him taking care of all of them, he brings only what he gets from the farm and that is all which is not always enough but they have been managing.

So she always sit idle thinking that all these problems cannot be solved and she has been saying which she has always been saying to people.
*Ending Her Life By Committing Suicide*
On the 31st July, 2019 at about 4-5:00 in the evening, a woman which is about 45years- old by name with-held with six Chlidren, from Ducie in the Wa East district of the Upper West region went out with a rope in a black 

polythene bag thinking that nobody have seen her but one of her children who was inside another room before she went out into the bush quickly went to inform some good Samaritans in the community and they also quickly traced this woman to the bush and before they got there she has already tied the rope on top of a tree trying to climb another piece of a tree before she can put her neck on the rope. Then the people who followed her as good Samaritans shouted on her and quickly rushed to save her without doing that.

So on this note we are pleading that if any member can help us with either food stuffs or clothes for these people and health support for them as well, if possible so that we will also try to help this woman with counselling and the materials support from you.

But for now she is a little bit OK with her situation.


With the intervention of yirimambo for the first place with our advice and counseling than before.

SOURCE YIRIMAMBO ADVOCACY GROUP UPPER WEST

Be the RUFUS!

We are a community.

My post on community… on Quora.

What is a Chinese Expert?

I really do not think that this creature exists.

According to the Western / American “news” media, a Chinese Expert is…

  • A person who accepts American government funding to say bad things about China.
  • Is associated, or was associated, with American mainstream media.
  • Has, in their possession, photos of the “expert” with American political personages.

According to the Chinese, a Chinese Expert is a graded, stratified tier system based on experience.

  • Top Tier

Born in China. Studied Chinese history with exemplary grades. Works on behalf of the Chinese people, and puts the people of China first. Many members of the CCP fit this role, as do many Pioneers, and an entire subculture of Chinese that support the “Chinese Dream”.

  • Old Hand

Has lived in China for a significant period of time. Understands the various societies, and cultures of China. Is married to, or was part of, a Chinese family. Works on behalf on the greater good for all, but of course, his / her Chinese family and Chinese friends come first. This person is also known as a Chinese wanna-be. And this person supports, and praises, “The Chinese Dream”.

  • Enthusiast

This person, may or many not have lived in China. But has totally embraced the Chinese culture, society and means. This includes certain individuals out of Singapore, Vietnam, and other places around the globe. Maybe they aren’t an “expert” in a classical sense, but they are certainly enthusiastic for the Chinese dream. These people are perhaps known an “fanboi.”

At best, I (personally) am considered a “China Old Hand”.

I don’t know everything, but I know enough.

What is “The Chinese Dream”?

Last weekend, my family and a few friends, went to visit an organizational youth meet in Zhuhai. This group (and there are thousands throughout China), teach independence, pride, self-confidence, and acceptance as part of “The Chinese Dream”. It was astounding.

It’s 100% voluntary. The kids pay a small membership fee.

Really. Amazing.

You will never see anything else like this anywhere. Watch how accepted and inclusive my daughter was taken in. It was like she was “absorbed by the hive”. LOL

“Resistance is futile”. -The Borg

https://youtu.be/vVcosfCqwNA

There is a great sense of belonging, and acceptance that I have NEVER experienced anywhere else.

Belonging.

B-E-L-O-N-G-I-N-G

Belonging as PART of a COMMUNITY.

No “lone wolf” bullshit.

It’s stuff like this why I LOVE LOVE LOVE China so much.

EDIT 22JAN23

1.3K views. Only 30 “thumbs up”.

I guess you all have bought into the Western propagandized lie that you can be the “lone wolf”. That you can be another “Die Hard” type; another Rambo. Another Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Maybe a “Professional career woman”… and all that.

That is a lie.

As many are waking up to the reality that humans are social creatures.

We need to be part of society. We need to belong.

Watch my little 2 minute video. (above)

Belonging is valuable.

 

What made you think, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” when someone sat next to you on an airplane?

We were on a flight to the U.S. from Thailand where we live.

In Taiwan, a disheveled man of around 30 sat down next to me, reeking of weed. After takeoff, he pulled down the tray and filled it with candy bars, nuts, fruit juice and oranges from his camouflage jacket. He turned to me and said, “You can’t trust airline food.”

But when lunch was served, he smashed his food stash under the food tray he was given and ate everything, including the garnish.

Afterwards he wanted to talk and kept pestering me with, “Hey. Hey!!”

He asked where we were from, and upon hearing “Bangkok” he began raving about ‘Thai sticks’, Thai marijuana. Then he asked my Thai husband if he would help him start importing weed to the U.S.

Husband stared at him really coldly and told the man that he was a Royal Thai police officer so “No.” The idiot’s response: “ Listen, I know all Thai cops are corrupt. We could make a load.”

Husband put headphones on and ignored him. I asked the pothead if he was out of his mind. He shrugged, laughed and said husband would change his mind, for sure.

Luckily, he made a friend elsewhere and moved.

But he wasn’t finished with us.

As we lined up for Customs, he got right behind us. As the agent checked our bags, he kept saying loudly, “They’re from Thailand. Great weed there! Oh, look! That’s a weed pipe!” (It was a replica of a silver opium pipe, a decorative item – a gift) “Listen! I still wanna import from you guys!!”

Another agent picked up his bags and escorted him to a separate office, and we never saw him again.

My MM video about pollution in China

https://youtu.be/1vpQCefbArY

Why is the United States afraid of China?

It’s entirely IDEOLOGICAL

The United States and it’s entire existence is based on the WEALTH OF NATIONS

The inherent belief that Core Capitalism is the only system to deliver maximum benefits to an economy and stability to the economy & a system of the people is the only way to deliver a system with full global peace

That the world will be fully peaceful when every nation is governed by its people AKA is a democracy built on Western ideals


This was a very correct analysis that the US followed for almost a hundred and ten years from 1880–1990

Unfortunately this ideology got corrupted post 1990 when:-

  • US Democracy slowly became more and more partisan
  • US Leaders became slowly worse and worse and essentially corrupt demagogues
  • The US capitalism model deteriorated to an Oligarchy ‘Support the top 1%’ model that is sinking the states
  • The US model became all about speculation and less about actual progress and growth

Yet today’s US leaders religiously believe this is the winning model that every nation must adopt and regards any nation that is different as a ‘Flawed Nation’


Chinas Economic Ideology unlike the USA has always changed to suit changing times

From Deeply Socialist under Mao Tse Tung where the focus was on Education and Equality and Food Production and Stability

To Gradual Mixed Economy under Deng Xiaoping & Jiang Zimin where the focus shifted to Industrialization

To a Ruthless Capitalist Mindset under Hu Jintao where the focus was growth, growth and growth

To the Common Prosperity Mindset under Xi Jingping focusing on reducing Income inequality, spreading development across all sections of the economy and a sort of hybrid model of socialism within capitalism

It is diametric opposite to the US and it’s Ruthless Capitalism Ideology

US maximizes emphasis on Speculation

China hates Speculation

US prefers to capitalize everything to the maximum

China prefers a strong sense of control on excess capitalism

US prefers coalescing smaller entities into a handful of monopolies

China prefers mushrooming of smaller entities and competition deciding which is the best


Chinas One Party System is also diametrically opposite to the Multiple faction democracy that the US endorses and the West supports

The US believes that one person for too long loses the incentive to serve the people and becomes a dictator

Yet China believes a group of able people can serve the people the best and prevent unworthy individuals from coming to power who can ruin a well established system of governance


The US has always believed that ultimately China will shed it’s different ways and join the US in their perfect model (that they don’t realize they have fully corrupted)

It’s what made Gordon Chang & Peter Zeihan such celebrities

The US has always believed that China would face a massive setback like the USSR did (Or was suckered into triggering a setback like my friend Hoàng Phan establishes in his answers)

They estimated this to happen between 2005–2008

Didnt Happen

Instead China moved from strength to strength to strength over time and successfully endured every US action against it, from the Wolf Sanctions of 2011 to the Raimondo Sanctions of 2022

The US may trigger a wave of propaganda against China but the purpose of this is to STOP THEIR OWN PEOPLE FROM QUESTIONING AS TO HOW CHINA NOT ONLY SURVIVES TODAY BUT THRIVES FOLLOWING DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY


As China moves ahead without the seeming collapse, the US are seeing their two hundred year old belief and ideology (Again which they don’t realize they have corrupted already) getting shattered by China

And slowly seeing others start to adopt a similar stance from Turkiye to Serbia to Vietnam to Singapore

The US is beginning to wonder if indeed it’s ideology was flawed and whether it’s gods and idols are false

And that terrifies them

They don’t realize that it is THEY who have completely corrupted a nice good solid system that was giving them the position of world leader and global trust for decades

It is they who have become Satanic Hegemons from Global Leaders


As for China, China is on the right track so far

They MUSTN’T MAKE THE MISTAKE THAT US DID

They mustn’t allow ideology and hegemony to corrupt them the way US was corrupted under Bush Junior, Clinton and so on

They must ensure they keep refreshing their system so that it best helps the people of China

Pepe Escobar: China Issues DEVASTATING Warning to Neocons as Putin and Xi Make History

https://youtu.be/Qozaq6KAvPs

Have you ever seen something so surprising that you were momentarily stunned? What was it?

I was on the beach late one night looking at the moon and the waves.

Out of the corner of my eye along the south end of the beach – I saw something super weird.

What is that?

I squinted, trying to figure it out – it was too far away – but it had to be really huge.

What the heck?

Well, I couldn’t sit there idly looking at the moon and listening to the surf anymore – I needed to figure out what that thing was over there on the beach.

So, I started walking… is it a car? What is that thing? How is it on the beach? Nobody in their right mind would drive a VW bug on a beach like ours… at night…

Closer and closer I walked and larger and larger it looked.

It was a leatherback sea turtle. Digging a hole in the sand.

I was utterly flabbergasted.

I didn’t make a sound, I just stood there, awestruck: feeling truly blessed in the moment to be near such a magnificent being.

I had never been so close to such a large animal in the wild before.

She was utterly oblivious to me – she was on a mission.

I stood beside her as she dug: I definitely got a sand bath that night. She flipped the sand until she was happy with her nest and began to fill it with eggs.

It took a long time.

I couldn’t stay until she was completely finished.

I’m pretty sure it took most of the rest of the night. I left around 0300 and she wasn’t done.

I’ve since swum with green turtles, who are dwarfed in comparison. But nothing has engendered that kind of awe before or since. Stunned is the right word for something which leaves your mouth hanging and your words lost.

Cheese and Honey Pie

Cheese and Honey Pie
Cheese and Honey Pie

Ingredients

Sesame Seed Pastry

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seed
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling

  • 16 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

  1. Sesame Seed Pastry: Mix all ingredients until blended; press firmly and evenly against bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate.
  2. Bake at 475 degrees F for 5 minutes.
  3. Filling: Beat cream cheese in large mixer bowl on medium speed until creamy. Add remaining ingredients; beat until light and fluffy. Pour into baked pie shell.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees F until firm, 40 to 50 minutes.
  5. Refrigerate until serving time.

Yields 10 to 12 servings.

Done with the bullshit

I had a thought today that I wanted to share with you all, this is my response to a Reddit post I saw about how corrupt and outdated representative democracy is.

I will start with what I think to be the main problems of representative democracy

  1. The elected body of legislators is not a representative sample of the population, looking at the legislature, you’d think the vast majority of the country was white male lawyers that are either Republicans or Democrats. This is very far from the truth, and many voters do not properly identify either Republican or Democrat and their interests oftentimes scope over topics from both parties. Most of the time when people vote they’re just picking the lesser of two evils, and are not in any way completely satisfied with what other party is doing.
  2. Scope of power does not match scope of accountability, legislators may pass laws that impact people that could not vote for or against them. Unless you count propositions in places like california, legislators are able to pass pretty much whatever law they want that impact sometimes tens of millions of people and are in no way accountable to the laws that they pass. The people have no say in the laws that legislators have passed. This very often leads to a corrupt system of the government being able to do whatever it wants and the people having no say in what the government does.
  3. Job security for elected officials is more dependent on fundraising than on whether the politician is acting in his or her constituents’ best interests. This blows the system wide open for large corporations and billionaires to buy off politicians that represent their best interests as opposed to the people.
  4. Lobbying undermines democracy. Lobbying is a mechanism for powerful groups to influence laws and regulations at the expense of the public interest. This results in outside influence, unfair competition and policy capture, to the detriment of effective policymaking. This effectively allows billionaires and big corporations to buy our government and politicians that act in their best interests rather than the interests of the people.
  5. The voting system and general layout of government was designed before it was possible to quickly communicate long distances, so it ignores the possibility of citizens directly participating.
  6. Mass media cannot be trusted to provide accurate information and is very often bias. Mass media often feeds lies and propaganda to the electorate and the electorate is not currently equipped to ensure a representative democracy is acting in the best interest of the people.
  7. The electoral college needs to go, it is not based on popular vote, and it is based on a winner takes all system which is easily susceptible to corruption and allows political candidates to be elected by losing the popular vote. Under the system if you want to vote for your states of losing party don’t even bother voting.
  8. There aren’t enough representatives to accurately represent the people if we’re going to keep our system of representative democracy and not throw out the entire thing. I think the amount of Representatives should be raised to 936, and the amount of Representative districts should also be increased.
  9. It’s very hard to remove corrupt politicians from power. The people should be able to impeach corrupt politicians, the system was not designed to have politicians serving for 30 or 40 years. We need term limits, I think a term limit of 6 years for senators and representatives is perfectly fair, and I think a term limit of 10 years for supreme Court justices is also perfectly fair. This would allow the government to be more in touch with what people want by constantly switching out people every couple of years.
  10. The Monopoly of power that both conservatives and liberals have over the government in their respected Republican and Democratic parties. We need more political parties to better represent the people, it is not the case that people simply think one way or the other there should be five political parties written directly into the Constitution. The government should operate in a European style model of a political coalition if it wants to get anything done, in other words political parties are forced to make concessions and are forced to work with other political parties to pass laws.

So what do I things should be done to fix things? I’ll tell you

  1. Abolish Congress and the supreme Court, and implement a system of direct democracy where every 6 months every single issue that the supreme Court and Congress would have looked at are voted on directly by the people in the form of propositions. Now I know that if we implemented elections twice a year every June and December people will be voting on about 100 different issues, and that’s fine, people’s voices need to be heard and it is a much better system of asking people what they think of certain issues rather than allowing an out-of-touch government to make these decisions for people instead.
  2. Like I said on my previous point, it needs to be a government for the people by the people. This is why representative democracy is an outdated and obsolete relic of the past. In representative democracy legislators are able to pass whatever laws they please and are not accountable to the people.
  3. We need to make lobbying illegal and if we are going to have a political coalition system the people need to be the ones electing politicians not billionaires and big corporations. Money should not be a part of politics. Making money part of politics undermines democracy
  4. Like I said before lobbying undermines democracy and it needs to be banned 🚫. Lobby groups do absolutely nothing for the government except give special interest groups political power that they shouldn’t have and allow the special interest groups to have a voice in our country and our politics and it allows them to buy politicians.
  5. We need to switch to a ranked choice voting system, as opposed to an instant runoff system. The electoral college needs to go, even if that means amending the Constitution to get rid of it.
  6. Mass media should not have a say in our government, as they cannot be trusted to provide accurate information. I think we should have a system of fake news laws that holds these mass media companies accountable for publishing bias or false information
  7. Like I said the electoral college needs to go. Even if that means amending the Constitution get rid of it. We need a ranked choice popular voting system. This would make it so everybody’s voice is heard, and it would allow new political parties to come to the table and it would break up the Monopoly of power that Republicans and Democrats have over the government.
  8. I don’t even think we should keep our system of Representative democracy, but if it needs to stay we need to double the amount of Representatives to 936. This wasn’t even my idea this was the idea of YouTuber Mathew Beat.
  9. We need term limits for politicians. Once a corrupt politician like Mitch McConnell is in power it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. And it should be up to the entire country to elect politicians not just their state. Term limits would allow new people to come to the table and new ideas to spread and it would allow for more political parties to have seats. Every political party no matter how extremist should be able to have its voice heard.
  10. We need to switch to a political coalition system. Everybody should be able to have their voice heard no matter what side of the political spectrum they sit on. There should be five major political parties and many smaller political parties even if those political parties only get 1–5% of the vote. These political parties should be: the nationalist, the conservatives, the liberals, the acella party (progressive party), and the green party. Many smaller political parties such as: the Socialist party, the fascist party, the libertarian party, etc should also get a say. If we have 936 representatives, even if the fascist party only got 2% of the vote, they would still get 19 seats. This would actually heavily benefit minority political parties and give them a lot of power. Let’s say for example that 20% of the population identifies as nationalist, and 22% of the population identify as conservative. This does not add up to 51%, it adds up to 42%, this would still require an additional 9% of the vote for the nationalist and conservatives to get anything passed and they would have to make deals with the smaller political parties to get up to 51%.

These are just my thoughts about our whole busted political system, let me know what you think

2024 Taiwan Election Reveals Shocking TRUTH About USA and China

https://youtu.be/XKiM2rVZMYg

Boyhood swords

As I grew up my bedroom was filled with all sorts of debris and things that would interest young growing boys in the 1960’s. This included scale plastic models, and figurines.

2023 12 18 16 26
2023 12 18 16 26

Wall posters. Some of which were blacklight posters on black velvet.

black light poster
black light poster

Old bottles that I collected, that seemed to decorate every nook and cranny of my bedroom.

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2023 12 18 20 15

My collection of record albums. All in a wooden egg crates.

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2023 12 18 20 19

My treasured collection of science fiction paperbacks… many of which were short story anthologies.

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2023 12 18 20 21

My Doc Savage collection.

man of bronze
man of bronze

And miscellaneous stuff, which included military surplus. Clothing… often scattered about. A painting kit. A microscope… and a mortar and pestle.

And other things of questionable utility, but things which I (as a boy) found cool and interesting. Such as my Major Matt Mason figurines…

MMM
MMM

And then there was my great grandfather’s sword. This was a cavalry sword from one of the “Polish Resistance” groups that relocated in the United States after Germany annexed Poland. It had a long hilt and was really cool. As a boy, both my brother and myself would take it out and ohhh and ahhhh about this sword.

sword
sword

My brother has it now.

It was one of those things that I muse about from time to time. Interesting trivia, from days long gone. I wonder what the sword would say if it could talk…?

I wonder.

Today…

….

What are things you shouldn’t do in life?

  1. Smoke. Seriously, I did it for 32 years. It costs a fortune in cash and even more in quality of life. There is no positive to smoking.
  2. Judge people on looks. I have friends across the “scale of looks” from gorgeous to scary and I love them all for their individual personalities. Looks are fleeting, love is not. Friends are the best asset you can have in life.
  3. Eat a crap diet. I’m overweight and just diabetic. I’ve loved pizza, chips and crisps (fries and chips for USA people) all my life but they’ve ruined my body and health.
  4. Argue with people who live in echo Chambers. I still do this and it’s utterly pointless. You cannot reason people out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
  5. Procrastinate. If you have time to do it, then do it. Everything you put off for another day builds up to a backlog. Get it done now and there is less pressure on you tomorrow. This lowers stress hugely.

What is your best “one time my dad … ” story?

My dad was a workaholic and we didn’t get to spend much time with him. One day my mother was sick and couldn’t handle my brother and I, trapped in the house with her, on a winter day, rough housing around the house. So my dad took the day off work, loaded us up in the car and started driving. I’m not sure if he planned anything or not, but we drove about 90 miles to the badlands, which were at a much lower elevation. It was December and there was no snow in the badlands. My brother and I went nuts running and playing, without winter jackets, on bare ground. He had made a stop at KFC and we had a picnic, and didn’t get home until after dark.. It was an awesome day, dad laughed and smiled a lot. My brother and I were worn out, and didn’t bother our mother when we got home.

30 years later, shortly after he had retired. I invited him to come fishing with me, and he said “You bet” and we were on our way. We had an awesome day. I bought KFC and we had a picnic.

He unexpectedly died three months later.

After he died, my mother said that in the months after our fishing trip, all his friends got sick and tired of him telling the story of going fishing with his son. He never stopped talking about it.

Obviously I have never forgotten the time he took us to play in the badlands. It was what inspired me to ask him to go fishing. Its been over 60 years since he loaded us in the car, and I still tear up thinking about it.

….

What was the moment you realized that life had passed you by?

My husband and I have been married 50 years. We did not have children, and are each other’s very best friend. Last July, he had a triple by-pass and caught a serious staph infection at the hospital.

It is the end of 2023 now and he is strapped to intravenous pumps receiving 6 weeks of antibiotics because the infection is now in his chest bones.

He can no longer go out for walks in the country with me or do much of anything. He is all bent over like an ancient person, and has no energy at all. He has been getting progressively hard of hearing for the last 2 years but refuses to get a hearing aide, (male pride or denial, I think).

The other night, we were watching a movie and I had to constantly repeat lines that the characters said to each other so he could follow the plot.

At one point in the movie, I turned to him and asked him a question about what he thought of the plot.

He nodded and said “Yes”. When I realized that he was faking and actually could not hear me, it was like I suddenly realized that he was not really there sharing the movie with me. He could no longer hear me.

I felt SO alone, and miserable.

And when I thought about who I could call, what friend I had who could provide some support, I knew I could not be disloyal and criticize him, with all his health problems which are making him semi-absent, I felt totally alone in the world.

I regret not having more of my own friends, just for myself, who do not know him. And I realized that at 74, he is probably not going to improve- it is the beginning of the downhill slide for both of us.

Up until this year, I felt like we both had many miles left- now the reality has set in.

What was the best April Fool’s prank played on you/you played on someone else?

Didn’t happen to me but my friends played this April fools on some kids from another class. We were all in 5th grade, and around that time a lot of kids were getting phones. (A lot of them were iPhones.) My two friends, let’s called them Lena and Eve. They weren’t the type to brag about what type of phone they had, or make a bit deal about it. they kind of kept a down low about if they had phones or not. Only close friends of them knew that they were phone-less.

The prank was to tell the girls in the other 5th grade, girls who had their phones and were unhappy that they couldn’t use them during lunch or recess. Lena and Eve had told them, that today our teachers (5th grade teachers) had allowed them to use their phones in class. The reason why they weren’t using them at lunch was because they were worried that the teacher who administered recess might not be okay with them using their phones. They had even made a note, in handwriting similar to the teacher’s to make it seem realistic.

At first the other girls were skeptical and thought they were lying. What really came into play was at the end of recess, Eve and Lena had been able to get one of our 5th grade teachers, to tell the girls that they were pranking. That what Eve and Lena had said was true.

It’s was really funny when the next day, Lena and Eve had told them that they didn’t have phones or that the teacher would give permission for anyone to use their phone’s in class. Looking back it was silly, but well executed, which helped fool the other girls.

(I was in on, it. They had wanted me to join in, but at the time many people knew I didn’t have a phone. And that my parents weren’t planning on getting me a phone anytime soon.)

What was the most catastrophic bet ever taken?

It doesn’t even sound real. That’s how dumb it was.

It was October 20th, 1986. The story of Aeroflot Flight 6502 began in the cockpit. An argument broke out between the co pilot and the pilot over flying skills. The captain insisted he could land a plane easy in zero visibility, without the autopilot they were using.

It then escalated into a full bet, the pilot saying he could land the plane blindfolded. The copilot accepted the bet, a bet which – if he won — would spell his own death. (Source: 32 Years Ago an Aeroflot Pilot Bet He Could Land an Airplane Blind. Leff, Gary)

The plane descended, the window covered with curtains. As multiple alarms went off, the plane continued to descend.

Then–the plane touched down on the runway at 280 km/hour.

The plane immediately flipped, burst into flames, exploding, and eventually sliding to a stand still.

70 people were killed in the accident, including the copilot.

The main pilot survived. And somehow only got a 15 year sentence, which was eventually reduced to 6. Which is equally baffling.

Human stupidity knows no bounds.

Have you ever witnessed a judge go completely ballistic and “lose it” in court?

Yes – at my divorce hearing from my second wife

(Yes, I have been married and divorced three times. Wife #1 and I divorced primarily over her gambling addiction and Wife #3 and I divorced after less than a year of marriage amicably because we realized we both had made a mistake. We have remained friends since our divorce)

I sued my second wife (we will call her “Mary” though it is not her actual name) for divorce because of infidelity. I was able to determine and prove that Mary was continuing to have sexual relations during our brief marriage with the woman who had been her lover before we had met (she eventually married her girlfriend after our divorce when Massachusetts allowed for same-sex marriages). I was able to present a witness who testified that Mary had told her that she married me as a “beard” to improve her promotion opportunities at her company.

When we were in court before the judge, the judge, a Black woman, informed us that she was granting the divorce but she was not granting Mary the life-time alimony that Mary had requested. The judge also said that not only was she not granting Mary any alimony, since Mary made substantially more money than I did, she had considered having Mary pay me alimony.

Mary lost it, yelled at the judge that she wanted to kill the judge and me because since the judge was a woman, she should have taken her side and made me pay alimony. The judge, in no uncertain and quite colorful language, threw Mary in jail for 30 days for contempt and issued court orders of protection that Mary could not come within 100 yards of either the judge or me or she would end up back in jail.

I have not seen or heard from Mary in over 25 years – good riddance.

What is the most heart-wrenching thing you have ever heard?

When he was around 5-6 years old, my brother—who is four years younger to me—had his legs suddenly go numb one night. What followed next was one of the hardest ordeals of my parents’ life. Months passed with them meeting various doctors, visiting different hospitals, knocking at the doorstep of every possible religious shrine—all the time with my kid brother in their arms, since he wasn’t able to walk on his own anymore. We were also buried under debts during this time.

There were doubts of permanent paralysis—the very mention of which was enough to break us down. From finding it immensely painful to walk, to not being able to get up on his own, and to not being able to stand at all, his problem was worsening by the day. Most surprisingly, all this while, he was as strong as, perhaps, only children can be in such difficult times.

During this period, it was not unusual for my mother to have sudden breakdowns. Once, she burst into tears while watching him playing joyfully. He wiped off her tears, and said*,

Don’t cry, mummy. See, I can stand and even run on my own!


Saying this, he tried to get up, stood on shivering legs for just about a few microseconds, and fell down—only to be safely caught in the arms of my mom, who hugged him dearly and cried some more.

This happens to be the most heart-wrenching thing that I have ever heard, but also a powerful one for the simple fact that it was a little child—my own kid brother—teaching us what life is all about—HOPE, in the direst of situations, among the most impossible questions, and during the most unimaginable tribulations.



P.S: The problem was finally diagnosed and treated correctly by one doctor who was as-if a Godsend in our life. Wrong treatment of a viral fever had left both the legs of my brother infected with the virus. Although it left him physically extremely weak for most part of his childhood, he plays pretty good Football and Cricket today. Touchwood.


*Translated into English, originally said in Hindi

P.S: A number of people have messaged me sharing instances of children of their relatives/friends facing the same medical problem, asking if I could provide the doctor’s details. It breaks my heart but as much as I would like to help, I can’t. This incident is around 20 years old. My parents happened to meet him on their visit to the Kalavati hospital, no idea about his whereabouts now.

What is the strangest way you found out a friend was wealthy?

Oh that’s easy imagine meeting a guy in college. You two barely have food to eat. You work part time with him to put together to pay the bills. Then you start complaining about student loans, and hopefully your salary is going to be enough to pay your student loans after graduation.

You go clubbing with the guy. Paid his drinks a couple times. Laugh at him for his card declining because he could not pay a 22$ drink for the cute blonde he’s flirting with at the bar.

You graduate. Stuck in an 8 hour job. Two plus hour commutes, trying to climb higher in your career. The guy you used to see every day, now you only see him once a week for drinks.

8 years goes by and on his 30th birthday he asks you to come drink with the guys but he wants to pick you up. You go outside waiting for him for 30 minutes and you can’t seem to find his Toyota Corolla, but a bmw parked suspiciously across the street. You think he’s stuck in traffic?

Then finally you hear him yelling at you from the bmw.

Oh shit? Did your fiancé let you spend the down payment you were saving for the house to get a new car?

Nope… I’m 30. My trust fund is accessible now, he says calmly while you wonder to yourself… what the hell just happened?

What is an experience you had at a car dealership you’ll never forget?

My mother had moved, and her new garage was smaller than her old, and causing her a lot of stress.

So she decided to give her car to my brother, and buy a newer smaller one.

We went to the dealership that my dad had always used, when he was still alive. We were looking at a 1 year old lease return, we took it for a test drive and my mother felt it would fit in the garage just fine.

We went into make a deal, and got a pretty reasonable deal. Mom signed the contract, and went to stand up, and almost fell over. I thought it was just from sitting too long. We went to the door, and her old car, was parked right in front of the door. She asked, where is the car, then, where are we. I drove her straight to the hospital, and they said she had a small stroke, she then had a larger one, before we left the hospital, and she never left the hospital alive.

I went back to the dealership to explain what had happened, and stop the transaction. I looked at Mom’s signature on the contract, and it was illegible.

The dealership refused to cancel the sale, and told me that they would charge storage fees, if I didn’t get the car off the lot soon.

There was a local TV show, that covered issues like this, so I emailed them, and never heard a thing back.

We ended up selling it privately for a few thousand dollars less than we had paid for it.

A week later the show called and wanted to do a piece on it, apparently, the guy had been on a vacation. I told him that it was too late.

I told everyone I knew to never use that dealership again. I have no idea if this had any effect.

What was totally acceptable in the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force 50 years ago and isn’t now?

Smoking cigarettes. I was on a ship for three years in the late ‘60s. Cigarettes sold for $1 a carton, while at sea. I worked in CIC, that dark room with all the electronic gear and plotting devices behind the bridge. The compartment was about 24 x 40. We’d normally have around eight enlisted and at least one officer on watch. During exercises like Sea and Anchor Detail, Vertical Replenishment, Gunfire Support, General Quarters, etc. there were around 30 people in the compartment. I’d guess that at least three quarters of the people smoked cigarettes. We had good air handlers and air conditioning, but there was a permanent haze from the smoke. Every position had an cylindrical ash tray mounted onto the gear.

I am told US Navy ships are non smoking now, with a small area set aside for those who still smoke. This, to me, is a major change for the good.

What is the best thing you saw someone do when they got fired from their job?

Technically I was “laid off,” not fired, after 31 years at the company. I was only working part time (10 hours/week), and was planning to retire fully in a year or two. Instead, I got laid off. They paid me almost a full year’s salary and gave me over a year of medical and other benefits. I collected unemployment for the next year and because of a legal action by my state against the bank that held my mortgage (for deceiving customers on mortgage loans), the bank had to write off my mortgage payment each month that I was unemployed (not deferred, not suspended—canceled).

So when I was told I was laid off, and the salary/benefits package I would receive, I immediately bought a bottle of wine, gave it to the head of HR, thanked him profusely, and left. That year was far and away the best one (financially) that I ever had. And to top it off, I had gotten divorced a year earlier. With all my free time and lack of financial concerns, I had time to date. I met a wonderful woman, and we have been together almost thirteen years now.

What is the most offensive thing someone has ever asked you?

We lived in Los Angeles for many years and had gorgeous offices overlooking the Santa Monica pier. There was an earthquake that damaged the building and we decided to go south . . . closer to where one of our employees lived. Yes, Long Beach. This was good for our business as we needed to be close to a Post Office and we located a couple of miles from the main PO. The little 4 office building we went into happened to be 5 minutes from the central post office and we gained an hour or two extra work time. And, it seemed the wife of the owner belonged to the Long Beach Cancer League. They invited me to join; so of course I did.

At their gala this snooty man walked up to me and touched my arm and said “oh, velour” in a disdained tone. So I matched his tone and replied “Yes. This is LONG BEACH. I reserve the velvet for New York and L.A.”

And YES, I gave him back a withering look.

When did you realize your parent was a total badass?

My mother was extremely mentally abusive and neglectful. My parents had divorced when I was 7, yet my mom was so manipulative that she was able to get shared custody of me and my 4 siblings. For the most part I spent one week with her and then one week with my dad. When we’d be at my dads house, he would try to undo what my mother had done over the week we were there. He gave us love, took us to do things, fed us home cooked meals every day.

After we got a bit older we were allowed to choose which parent we stayed with and when. I think that age was 12 at the time(when you got to make the choice by law), so my oldest sister chose to stay with my mom full time because my mom so manipulative, she would reward her for staying with her, with treats and things none of the rest of us got. My second older sister made the same decision for the same reasons, plus my step-dad favorited her and she got anything she could ever want. (he did unimaginable things to her when she started staying there but that’s a story for another time).

When I got to choose, I decided I wanted to spend exactly equal amounts of time with each parent because I wanted everything to be fair. But my mom would poison our minds against my dad, saying he did all these things he didn’t do, trying to make him look bad to everyone. So eventually I started staying with my mom more, also because of the rewards.

When I was 13, it came out what my step-dad had been doing to my sister. He was arrested immediately. My sister did a recorded phone call with the police and talked to him about it and he confirmed everything thinking it was only her on the phone. There was proof. And my mom said my sister was lying, sided with my step-dad, and never really visited us when the court said we were not allowed to go back to her house, she had to bring our stuff to us(which she never did).

After all of that BS, we were all living with my dad and things got so much better so fast. We weren’t stuck with my moms and my step-dads abuse. My dad loved us and took care of us, got us in therapy, everything.

My mom decided to follow my step-dad to a prison 7 hours away from us, leaving us all behind, right after my 14th birthday. I haven’t seen or talked to her since(and I’m 23 now).

My dad took all 5 of us, loved us, fed us, did things with us, spent time with us. He became the mom we never had and the dad he always wanted to be. Took on making meals for 5 hungry teenagers, taking us to sports, appointments, things with friends, things with him. He stepped all the way up and became one super parent, and we never felt like we were missing anything because we were finally free from my moms and step-dads abuse.

He raised us all by himself, even after most of us had chose to leave him and stay with our mom. When she abandoned us, he was there. He took care of us and he did it with grace.

I’m pretty sure that makes him QUITE bad ass.

What role do semiconductors play in China’s military capabilities, and why is the U.S. concerned about their use in China’s military?

Other than theater-wide air defense such as the S-400/S-500, the Chinese military industry is completely indigenous, down to the chips and engine oil.

Note this includes China’s space-going rockets, and its satellite constellation.

Beidou, for example, provides global positioning coverage and has a chinese-built atomic clock at its core. It is completely indigenous in design and build.

The newer Chinese aircraft from helicopters to transports to 5G stealth fighters are powered by indigenous rather than Russian engines.

In other words, China does not depend on foreign suppliers/components to fight a war, because the Chinese economy is capable of supplying almost everything. After all, China has the most complete industrial supply chain of any country.


What does Huawei have to do with China’s weapons? Very little.

What does Nvidia have to do with China’s weapons? Very little.

The American sanctions/restrictions are commercial in nature and aimed squarely at disrupting/slowing down Chinese tech. Huawei’s 90% downturn in mobile shipment helped increase Apple’s market share over the past 3–4 years, until the emergence of the Mate 60 reversed the swing.


Even in AI, Nvidia hasn’t been slapped with hard bans, because China is one of its biggest markets. If it was truly a military issue, no American chipmaker would be allowed to do business with China, so this is just a convenient excuse, not too different from how garlic has been framed as a NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE.

What is the lowest probability event you have personally witnessed?

I was working in Manhattan. I got a call from my kid’s school that he wasn’t feeling well and had to go pick him up. I had just finished developing a CD-based training program (this is early 90s, before this stuff was done online). On my way out, my assistant told me the CD master had just arrived and gave me a little plastic bag with the CD in it. I was in a hurry to leave and figured I could drop off the CD at home with my kid before returning to work.

Getting around Manhattan basically means getting into and out of yellow cabs. It’s pretty easy to find one.

image 240
image 240

Typical New York street

I catch a cab to my kid’s school. About 15 minutes later, I get dropped off. I greet my little one in the headmaster’s office and tell him we’re off to the doctor’s. As I’m waving down a taxi with my kid’s hand in mine, I realize I don’t have the CD bag. We go back into the school and it’s not there. Nobody remembered seeing me with a bag and, frankly, I didn’t remember having it in hand when I walked into the school. Oh, well, I thought, that was stupid. This was before Uber where you could call your ride to check on the back seat. This was, in fact, before cell phones. The bag and CD were gone.

I refocused on getting my kid to the doctor. Got him checked out. Got into another cab to go a nearby pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Walked home and dropped off my kid off with his nanny who was waiting there. All this time I was hopeful they would be able to reproduce the CD master, wondering how long it might take, if it might delay the project, if I should tell my boss, etc.

I wave down a cab to go back to my office. While I’m thinking about all these things I see a bag on the floor. I pick it up and pull out my CD.

My assistant sees me walking in with the bag. “How is your baby? I thought you were dropping that off at home.”

“Kid is fine. Oh, the CD, yeah…” I figured she wouldn’t believe me if it told her the truth.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea S2E22 “The Death Ship” Full Restored

https://youtu.be/DGoLBu_Hd0Q

Why are some guys so disrespectful towards good-looking girls? They treat them like an object. How do they manage to get girlfriends?

You ever meet a stunningly beautiful woman who dates asshole after asshole?

I know I have met plenty of them. I even dated a few, when I was that asshole.

When you stop and think about it, it makes absolutely no sense, right?

A really beautiful woman will have LOTS AND LOTS of options. So there must be some successful, confident and charming men who are also kind and caring, right?

It would only make sense that those kinds of guys would pursue her too, so why does she keep dating those assholes?

As I started to understand myself better, it became clear to me why that is.

Some women are wildly attracted to emotionally distant, disrespectful, scumbags.

However, they didn’t wake up one day and decide “hey, who is the worst kind of person I can be in love with?”

No, this likely started very early in their childhood where they had very poor relationships with their parents, family and loved ones.

Their mother and/or father, conscious of it or not, modeled a type of person that is emotionally distant, disrespectful, inconsistent, and sometimes loving.

It conditioned her to believe that “this is what someone who is going to take care of me looks like.”

Since every child absolutely needs love and affection, the lack of it will drive her to desperately try to win their approval and attention to get it.

She will grow up to repeat this pattern with every relationship she develops.

Every time she meets a man who is dismissive, emotionally distant, disrespectful and unloving it triggers a deep desire in her to win that man over.

Every time he does show a bit of affection, she will feel deep satisfaction, feeling like she finally won the love she could never get before.

She feels she is finally enough.

She will believe that is what it means to be “in love” with someone.

It’s like being on drugs. Every time he doesn’t care she withdraws, every time he shows some love, she feels that euphoric hit of crack.

It is all about that “high”. A man who is good to her all the time can’t give her that because there is no bottom, he is just consistent, and to her… it is just boring.

She likely wants to want a good guy, but she just doesn’t, because he cannot give her those highs and lows an inconsistent asshole can.

These women aren’t attracted to assholes because he’s more confident, charismatic, or independent.

No, No, No.

It’s because he is exactly what she needs, a drug. A drug like any other for a person who has deep trauma that cannot resolve it on their own.

Best,

Ludwig R.

What is something you have seen a child do or say that shocked you deeply, good or bad?

When my son was about 3 years old, he had a playdate with a friend’s child. We had a lot of playdates with this child. I wasn’t fond on the child nor his parents. He was a little terror and was very violent and mean. They lived on our street and would just show up at our house unexpected and uninvited. Of course, being 3 years old, my son loved having a playmate and, of course, I would allow them to stay.

One afternoon, my husband was home and they suddenly appeared. So, we sat in the livingroom watching the kids play. We had to watch them. The other child would do things destructive or injurous to my child.

The little boy was playing with a very heavy toy with a long handle. He was standing in front of his mother. Suddenly, he reared back and swung the toy as hard as he could and whacked my son in the head with it. Then, he laughed and laughed as I tried to ensure my son was not dead or unconscious! His mother just laughed and said “Hey… watch it there now.”.

My husband had his fill. He jumped up and headed toward the child and his mother. He was furious and it was obvious someone was going to get a spanking… either the child or his mother! His mother grabbed him and ran out the door as fast as she could. They never came back. Basically because the next time they showed up, my husband met them at the door and told them they weren’t welcome.

What is the strangest medical thing that has happened to you?

I was on a European trip when I fell ill with cold and shivering. The next morning I felt I had experienced food poisoning, but was able to drive back to the base site (700 Km) the next day and rest up for a day for the fight back to Canada. Arrived in Toronto 8 hours later and picked up by a friend who drove me home but commented on my appearance. I had prebooked an early family doctor appointment for the next day. Got up drove there and was told by the Dr. that I must immediately go to emergency. I explained I had to get the car home and would phone for ambulance immediately. He warned that I might never get home, but I went anyway. Ambulance arrived 15 minutes later and took me to emergency. Booked in and as I was handed back my medical card, I remember putting it in my wallet. Woke up 5 days later with tubes out out of everywhere strapped in the trauma ward. I had collapsed in emergency and essentially “died”. Fortunately I was resuscitated and put on life support. Cause was pneumonia, a complete surprise to me. During blackout no memories, no heavenly visits, nobody told me I needed to “go back”. Saved by 24/7 care and antibiotics. Pneumonia, the silent killer.

What are some psychological facts about one-sided love?

Positive facts:

  1. One-sided love – the giving love. It’s basically an unconditional love.
  2. You become a fantastic dreamer. You might not even talked to them in real, but in your imagination, what to say!!!
  3. Important one it’s not expensive. People who spend hundreds of dollars in relationships at the end fall apart.
  4. You develop loyalty, which you may use in your future relationship.
  5. You have less expectations which is good in other part of life on growing up.
  6. You ‘re protected from potential heartbreak. There is no cheating or betrayal.
  7. It makes you emotionally strong individual in the end.

Negative facts:

  1. You can’t control someone’s feelings expect yourself.
  2. It hurts when they don’t return the feeling as we do. And it hurts like hell.
  3. It is basically a unhealthy relationship practice once continued even on knowing it won’t work out.
  4. It might bring serious mental issues to you, if you don’t know when to leave it.
  5. It is war between your mind and heart, where your heart always lose mostly.

Who was the weirdest classmate that you’ve ever had?

Steve.
Steve was the weirdest classmate I’ve ever met because he was an absolute brilliant genius.

My school was predominantly ages 10-12, but we also had a Community Outreach building on the grounds which housed a school for students of all ages who were disabled.

Steve had Down Syndrome. He was in the Community Outreach classroom for all but one day per week when he joined our class.

Each week the “regular” students were given a list of 50 spelling words and expected to memorize them. Not an easy task. Each week we had the option to complete exercises which earned us “points”. By Friday, week’s end, we needed to have accumulated 50 points to pass that week’s lesson plan.

We had to design a board game, for instance, using each spelling word which might earn us 10 points towards that week’s goal. Writing a story using each word in a sentence might earn us 30 points, and so on.

We needed 50 points.

The only exercise which earned us the “Full Monty” was an oral spelling test given by the teacher while standing in front of the entire class of students as they watched on. A daunting task, to say the least.

Missing one spelling word, you’d flunk the test and lose all your points for the week and need to not only do the previous week’s exercises but the current week’s as well. It could be very easy to fall behind taking the oral exercise.

I attempted it only once. I got 49 words correct and botched the 50th! Boy did I feel stupid.

Now Steve…he was a spelling genius. And had nerves of steel!

Each and every week he’d visit our classroom and stand before our class and challenge the teacher to give him the oral spelling test. 50 words. No errors. He’d earn his 50 points in one go.

Spell “pugnacious” the teacher would intone.

Steve, the ever cool, would begin…p-u-g….NACIOUS! Pugnacious!

And so it went. One after the other. Flawlessly. 50 words. Never a mistake.
Ever. Week after week.

We always gave him a standing ovation. What an accomplishment! He became our mascot. Our hero.

Steve was never bullied on the school yard as you read about today. He had Down’s, but we all recognized something special in him.

He taught us something.

There is often genius and complicated wisdom in the most simple and elegant things in life. That I missed my 49th word is indicative of my life. Something is definitely missing. I admit it.

Yet, Steve nailed each and every spelling test flawlessly until the end of the year. Never missing one letter and never hesitating. He knew in his heart the right letters to say. Perfectly.

We gave him a party. We hugged him. He was our buddy.
We were proud of him.

Sadly, as life went on for the rest of us and as we graduated from Jr. High, then High School, moved on with our lives and out of our small community, Steve was never able to make that transition.

Life is shorter for people with Down Syndrome.

My mother sent me his obituary while I was attending classes in college. I wept as I read they had misspelled his name.

What has your child told you that caused you to call the police?

Several years ago my daughter, about 16 at the time, was talking with one of her friends online. The girl had taken some Oxycontin and started telling my daughter how her vision was going in and out, and she felt like she was going to pass out. I asked about the girl’s parents, but they were not home. By this time the girl was saying that she was scared she had taken too much. I called 911, told them what was going on and gave them her address.

Apparently the parents arrived home at the same time the police and emergency services got there. She was taken, by ambulance, to the hospital. It turned out she was fine. She told my daughter that she hadn’t really taken anything, but was just saying that to see what she would do. I don’t know if that was true or not, but my daughter no longer was friends with her. I’m sure she got into trouble with her parents, and possibly the police, either way.

Update: I told my daughter about this answer, and she told me that they took the girl to the hospital and had to pump her stomach. I just knew that the same type of thing happened several times over the years. She got into many different kinds of drugs. She finally got sober, sadly, after her brother died of a heroin overdose.

Have you ever witnessed an office prank that cost someone their job?

When I first arrived in Thailand, I noticed that women working in banks and government offices changed from their high heels to much more informal, comfy shoes that they kept under their desks.

I had never seen this in American offices. I was fascinated!

The broad range of ‘office’ shoes entertained me during the long waits. Cloth or leather flats were the norm. Most were bejeweled, or brightly colored.

My favs were those worn by a department head at the National Lottery Bureau…fuzzy, orange, Garfield house slippers.

Open-toed shoes were absent as they were considered ‘impolite’ (rubber flipflops were allowed when coming in or going out during rainy season).

I was doing part time teaching for a government university in those days, as were several other foreigners. We all taught twilight classes, leaving the campus well after the Thai professors and staff.

Only the deans had enclosed offices. Everyone else had assigned desks in a huge room.

Gene* (who had been incountry long enough to know better) decided to delve under the desks and put the ‘in office’ shoes on the owners’ desks as a prank after everyone had gone home.

For Thais, shoes are associated with the feet, the lowest part of the body. Traditional Thais take issue if feet are pointed at them or at any revered article. Putting feet on a desk or table is very disrespectful. And, of course, shoes carry germs and dirt.

The staff found no humor in what he had done. The traditionalists were furious and demanded that Gene be dismissed, even deported.

The university Dean did dismiss him but helped him get a job at another government school across town, but with a severe warning.

We never found out why he thought that would be funny.

*not his real name

Do semi-trucks ruin roads?

image 230
image 230

I won’t lie to you. Yes, my truck at 40 tons puts more wear on the road than the typical family sedan.

However. This truck pays close to $20,000 per year in road use taxes. That goes a long way toward maintaining those roads.

Something else to think about. If your roads were not built to have one of these run down, them. Just how cheap do you think the government would get when building the roads.

My guess is a very thin layer of asphalt or poorly compacted gravel. If your road was built for a 3500-pound car, it would be potholed within 2 years.

Added on April 2nd, 2022:

In light of the firestorm that this seems to have lit. I will add the following.

In many states the road use fees are diverted for other uses, so in light of the fact that road maintenance is being paid for and money also used for bike paths, mass transit projects, parks and such. Is the truck not paying enough or is the car paying too much?

Try looking at it from the opposite view. The states may have plenty of money and rather than raising the truck fees, the standard car fees should be lower.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

I did not see this myself, but from what I understand about Scotland, I believe it.

Circa 1980, a young redheaded Scottish girl transferred into a local High School. Her family had just moved to Canada from the old country.

For the first few weeks she was the ‘new and exotic’ girl. Guys paid a lot of attention to her.

One guy had a seriously jealous girlfriend who considered herself to be the tough, kickass type.

She approached the lass and told her in no uncertain terms to lay off ‘her boyfriend’, or she’d regret it.

The lass stated that she had not done anything to encourage him, and it wasn’t her fault her boyfriend was straying. Perhaps he was looking for an upgrade?

The tough girl freaked.

“That’s it! After school we’re going to fight! You’re going to get it!”

The lass sighed and calmly said (in a Scottish accent) “All right, fine. Do I bring a knife, or a gun ?”

Tough girl: “What?…”

Lass: “I’m just over from Scotland, and I don’t know your local Canadian traditions for these things. So, knife or gun?”

TG: “Seriously, what…?”

Lass: “Well?”

The tough girl and her friends backed away and gave the ‘crazy lass’ a wide berth from that point on.

What are some common mistakes that tourists make when visiting your country?

Some tourists just don’t realize how wild the National Parks can be.

The Germans were boyfriend/girlfriend + two children (ages, 34, 27, 11, 4). The flew into Los Angeles in 1996 and visited various places in southern California and Las Vegas. They were reported missing when they did not return home. Tracked by credit card usage to Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park (It was July, and the day they were at Furnace Creek, the high temperature was 124 F), a visitors log was found with a signature from the woman stating that they would be driving over Mengel Pass next. They were in a rented minivan; this is Mengel Pass:

image 231
image 231

An extensive search was launched but no sign of them was found. Then in October, a National Park Service helicopter happened to spot a minivan where no minivan should be. It was the Germans’ vehicle. Three tires were flat, ripped open by the terrain. The van wasn’t even on a road, rough as they are in the area, but had been driven down a wash. Another extensive search was launched, but then called off when no sign of the Germans themselves were found.

Fast-forward 13 years. Two hikers find the bones of two adults. Accompanying IDs reveal them as the man and the woman. Some other scattered bones were found, presumably of the children but never officially identified. They were presumably trekking cross-desert toward a military base (shown on the map in their possession) under the assumption that the base perimeter would be staffed. But spanning more than a million acres, most of the base is empty desert and would have offered no chance as salvation.

The National Parks are great, and it doesn’t take more than a modicum of common sense to enjoy them. I’ve personally coaxed rental vehicles down moderately rough roads in DVNP (but I would never try Mengel Pass in any vehicle – it’s just beyond my skill set) and I’ve hiked in the desert. But always prudently, in the right weather, and with the right equipment/supplies (water!). They’re not Disneyland, and if you’re unwise they have a variety of ways of killing you.

What would be the hardest thing(s) for an American to adjust to when moving to a Scandinavian country?

I think for an American, the hardest thing to adjust to might be the limits of a social welfare society.

I’m an American who moved to Denmark more than a decade ago and became a Danish dual citizen, so clearly I like Denmark.

But living in Scandinavia compared to living in the USA involves a lot of limits.

For example, you will probably have a much smaller living space than you are used to in the USA (unless you now live in Manhattan or the Bay Area.) If you could afford a house in the USA, you’ll probably have a smaller one in Scandinavia, or even an apartment. If you used to have an apartment of your own, you’ll probably have a room in an apartment, and at least in Copenhagen, apartments usually don’t have a bathtub. You’ll also have much less “stuff” to put in the apartment; “stuff” is expensive in Scandinavia.

The USA is a consumer society; businesses do whatever they can to please the consumer. That’s not true in Scandinavia, which is an equality-based society. While I can’t speak for Norway or Sweden, customer service is awful in Denmark. Shops really don’t care if you come back or not, and don’t count on returning something you’re dissatisfied with. In restaurants, you’ll either have to serve yourself or wait a while to be served; restaurants are chronically understaffed because wages are so high. The server won’t come back to ask if you’d like another cup of coffee or are happy with your meal. Personal services like nail salons and massage places pretty much don’t exist, or are wildly expensive.

Health care is tax-financed (not free, you will be paying for it with a big cut of every paycheck) and great for short-term, fixable things like a broken leg or a cat bite. Longer-term sicknesses, like chronic fatigue or eating disorders, get less support. Also, there are limits on which pharmaceuticals can be prescribed: many post-op patients get only a combination of Tylenol and Advil for pain, for example. If you’re reliant on one type of pharma, check to make sure its equivalent is available before you move. There are also relatively few preventative care appointments or tests; no annual physical, for example, and psychiatric counseling is limited. If you want it on an ongoing basis, you’ll probably have to pay for it yourself.

EDIT: Many commenters have pointed out that health care can vary in Denmark based on the region you live in, which is a good point. However, there are problems with providing psychiatric care nationwide, in particular where it concerns young people, as the Danish Health Authority itself acknowledges: Selv Sundhedsstyrelsen siger det: Psykisk syge behandles for ringe

(From the center-left national newspaper Poltikken.)

Socially, too, you may run into limits. Many Danes still have the friends they made in kindergarten; university is often where they meet the last of their close adult friends. Work colleagues are not “friends” and beyond their 20s rarely go out and drink beers together. People rarely chat with strangers, or offer to help strangers they see struggling with directions or big boxes or whatever. You may miss the relaxed chattiness and warmth of the USA, particularly during the long Danish winters, where the darkness can be brutal.

And then, of course, the language can be a limit. You’ll find that most people aged 10- 50 or so speak excellent English, but you’ll never really get into the culture until you speak Danish well. Besides, there are always annoying little things that are only in Danish – a voicemail menu, a hairdresser’s website – so will need to make a commitment to learning the (difficult) language if you really want to fit in.

Clearly, there are a lot of positive things about living in Scandinavia. But a lot of Americans approach moving there with the idea of “I’ll get everything I have in the USA, plus more!” That’s not necessarily the case.

More information:

Can you move to Denmark from the USA?

Miso Caramel Chicken Wings

Looking for a bold and exciting new wing recipe? Make our miso caramel chicken wings recipe with sweet and salty miso caramel-teriyaki sauce tossed with crispy air fried chicken wings!

miso caramel chicken wings
miso caramel chicken wings

Prep: 20 min | Total: 40 min | Yield: 4 servings

Equipment

  • Air Fryer

Ingredients

  • 16 chicken wing drumettes (about 2 pounds)
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 3 tablespoons white miso
  • 3 tablespoons P.F. Chang’s® Home Menu Teriyaki Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • Sliced green onion (optional)

Instructions

  1. Place chicken wings in a large bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Sprinkle cornstarch, salt and pepper over wings and toss until well coated.
  2. Heat air fryer to 350 degrees F and place wings in a single layer in air fryer basket, working in batches if needed. Cook wings until juices run clear and they are just starting to brown, 10 to 14 minutes, shaking the basket once during cooking.
  3. Increase heat to 400 degrees F. Turn wings so the skin side is facing up. Continue air frying wings, in batches if needed, until they are crispy and golden brown, 8 to 12 minutes.
  4. While wings are frying, pour sugar and water into a small, heavy-bottom saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil until sugar is caramelized and a deep amber color. Do not stir the caramelized sugar.
  5. As soon as sugar is caramelized, remove from heat and add butter. Swirl the pan lightly to melt the butter. Whisk in miso, teriyaki sauce, and red pepper flakes. Heat pan over low heat and continue whisking until sugar and miso are smooth. Keep sauce warm until wings are ready.
  6. Remove wings from air fryer to a large bowl and pour sauce over; toss to coat. Garnish your miso caramel chicken wings with green onion, if desired, and serve!

What are some things that people who live in places with brutally low temperatures know, that the rest of us don’t?

A few points to add to the other answers:

  • Everything is louder when it’s very cold outside. If you live near a major airport, when the temperature drops well below freezing, the low-flying aircraft will sound like they’re landing on your lawn.
  • Dog poop steams in the cold. So do sewer grates.
  • When you park your car, you need to pull the windshield wipers away from the windshield, lest they freeze to it once the car cools down.
  • It can get too cold to snow. There’s a “sweet spot” temperature range for snow. (About 15–35F). Lower than that, and there’s not enough moisture in the air for snow. Higher than that, and it’s slush or rain.
  • Thin water pipes in your house that run against an outside wall, like the pipes to your dishwasher or ice maker, will freeze.
  • It’s very important that your lips are dry if you want to smoke in the cold. Wet lips will freeze to anything when it’s cold outside, including cigarette butts. You will rip the skin off of your lip if you’re not careful.

Have you ever watched justice be served to a rude airline passenger?

Yes, back in 2006, I was travelling a lot for a major project, at this particular time, England. I can’t remember if it was London or Manchester, but the queue to pre-screen boarding passes was really long and slow.

About 15 – 20 people ahead of me was a couple probably early 30’s. I couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but there was obviously some tension between the person checking documents and the lady. The exchange of words continued even after their documents were checked, and the lady even came back a couple of times to give the worker more verbal abuse. By the time I was a few people away waiting to have my documents checked, the lady couldn’t leave well enough alone and kept shouting at the worker.

The worker turned to her colleague and said, I don’t have to put up with this abuse. She walked towards the couple and asked for their boarding passes again. After a few moments of discussion, the couple handed them over and the employee simply said “You are not travelling today, please follow me”. The look the man gave to woman was priceless!! About a dozen people started clapping as they walked off with heads hanging low….

The CIA Murder that Exposed MK-ULTRA | The Frank Olson Assassination

November 28th, 1953. New York City. At 2:30 AM the body hit the sidewalk.

A few seconds later, a shower of glass. The doorman of the Statler Hotel yelled to the lobby that there was a jumper. The night manager rushed out and saw him. A man, about 40 years old, lying on the pavement.

He was on his back, wearing only his underwear and blood started to pool around him. 13 stories up, a single window was open; its curtain flapping through broken glass.

The night manager knelt beside the man, whose eyes were open and was somehow still alive. He desperately tried to speak but was choking on blood and couldn’t be understood.

After a minute or two of trying to communicate, the man took a final deep breath and was gone.

Nobody knows for sure what he was trying to say before he died. But one thing is for certain, it was something about the CIA.

Why does society look down on single people?

I don’t know that society ‘looks down’ on single people, but a large chunk definitely seems to feel sorry for single people.

A friend of mine recently decided to end things with her boyfriend. She felt so relieved, as the relationship just wasn’t suiting her.

She said that all (bar one) of the friends she broke the news to said ‘Aww, I’m so sorry.’ It ticked her off. She understood it, but it still raised her hackles a bit.

‘Why are they all feeling bad for me?’ she asked. I did it, because I know I’d prefer being single to being in a relationship that was draining me.’

I learned this lesson myself when I divorced. Everyone said ‘Sorry,’ whilst cocking their heads. This despite the enormous relief I felt over escaping a pressure cooker after many years.

From that time, I vowed I’d never have that reaction when someone tells me about their break-up. My first reaction when they break the news to me is always to ask ‘And how do you feel about this?’, then take it from there, depending on how they answer.

One of the only good responses I got when sharing the news of my divorce was from a mum at my son’s school. Without missing a beat, she said ‘Well, congratulations. Unfortunately for me, my husband and I are still together.’ And her husband was standing right next to her!

All three of us burst out laughing, and it diffused the awkward situation. She totally grasped that getting divorced or being single is not the end of the world.

People act like being single is on par with being stranded on some desert island all by yourself. Like you’re Tom Hanks with only Wilson to keep you from spiralling into madness.

It can be likened somewhat to being on an island, I guess, but it’s one with superb amenities, no stresses, and a pre-approved guest list. That’s not anything to pity.

What did your boss do or say to you that made you quit your job?

I was an experienced hotel maid working at a Motel 6.

I was assigned five or six rooms. I opened the door to the first one, closed it and found the head housekeeper. I knew it would take at the very least, one or even two shifts to clean it. I made her go look at it; she didn’t want to.

Six college students had rented it for the semester. After the first month or so, they refused to let the room be cleaned. They were to do all the work. I have no idea why management would agree, but they had.

The carpet, literally in most areas, was knee deep in old pizza boxes, fast-food containers, empty pop and beer can, popcorn, chips, new and used condoms and unidentifiable debris. The room stunk and my eyes watered.

It took at least two hours before I cleared out enough trash to even start cleaning.

Spilled liquids had saturated the pillows, mattresses and box springs to such an extent that every thing had to be discarded. The shower cutain and room curtains were shredded. There was a huge pile of filthy sheets and towels with clean ones mixed in.

No one had realized the clean linens and towels went in, but dirty ones never came out.

All of the furnishings were broken, stained, burned, vandalized or all of that. Most had to be discarded or replaced; very little was repairable.

Filth coated the lower walls, the ceilings and I’m not going to discuss the bathroom.

I worked 16 hours instead of the usual six and it was still pretty bad. I left a detailed note with the night clerk and a copy taped to the housekeepers door saying what and what not I had done.

The head housekeeper showed her appreciation of all my hard (and it was hard) work the next morning by greeting me with a huge list of everything I had not done and was yelling at me about what an awful maid I was.

I didn’t have to take that abuse. I knew that two maids had called in sick. I didn’t give a single damn and quit right then and there.

Have you ever witnessed something at a wedding that made you think, “you can’t be serious…”?

I went to a Ukrainian Orthodox wedding in Canada. A good friend had converted to Orthodox for his wife.

The ceremony was amazing, the priest chasing him around the altar 3 times, hitting him with his scepter 3 times, etc. Quite a bit more entertaining than your typical wedding, but long and drawn out.

The part that blew me away, and made me say you can’t be serious, was the priest saying, and I am paraphrasing here, as I don’t remember the exact words.

“As a man must obey the will of the lord, the wife must obey the will of the husband”

I thought things like this hadn’t been said for 50 years.

But, to show how little attention people pay, I will relate two incidents.

In between the wedding and the reception, a group of us retired to a nearby bar. At the bar, I said good luck getting Mona to obey Greg, as she is the dominant one in the relationship. Everyone said, they don’t say that at weddings anymore. I asked them if they were at the same wedding I was just at, and quoted the priest.

Then later at the wedding reception, which was held in the church hall, I joked about it with my friend. He said they don’t say that anymore. He called his wife over for verification, and she agreed, and said my memory was flawed. A little later in the reception, the priest was walking by, and I cornered him, and he agreed that is what he had said.

I asked him to confirm that with the Bride and groom. He came over with me and I asked him in front of the couple. They were both stunned. They had been through the rehearsal and the wedding and never heard what they had committed to. Mona finally burst out laughing and said “Good luck with that”

Bud Helps A Virgin | Married With Children

Tiger fathers don’t attack their offspring, how do they know which cubs are theirs? Is it by the scent?

No.

image 149
image 149

They know which females populate their territories and know which they’ve bred with. It’s that simple. If they find a female w cubs that he NEVER mated with, he will kill them.

What’s interesting is sometimes these fathers actually step up and care for young. There was an instance in India where a mother tiger died (poacher i believe) while her cub was still dependent on her. The father had met her previously & had a good relationship.

Then, after her mom died she was seen with her father briefly at a water hole and then 24/7. He was hunting prey and bringing her to it. Giving her protection, basically taking over the role of her mother. This has never been documented bbefore. Totally unprecedented behavior, as fathers are usually completely dismissive and hands off. At most they come through and meet their offspring, sharing a meal the mother caught. Aka freeloading. Goes to show tigers are individuals with wide ranges of behavior and potential

What was the most chaotic experience you’ve ever seen at a restaurant?

One night some ding dong opened the drain of a deep fat fryer, dumping hot oil onto the floor of the cook’s line.

Fortunately, the fryer was turned off, because a lit deep fat fryer will ignite if there is no oil inside. This happens because the residual oil within the fryer will immediately exceed its flash point and you’ll quickly have a fire on your hands. The guy who did it was planning on cleaning the fryer, which requires it to be drained. The tank drains into a catch pan, which contains a paper filter, and a pump recirculates the filtered oil back into the fryer’s cooking tank. For some reason, the dude had the fryer’s spout aimed at the floor, not at the tank.

The perpetrator of this crime had experience cleaning the fryer, they just weren’t paying attention. As gallons of hot oil hit the floor, they ran, as did everyone else, and the fryer emptied its belly onto the kitchen floor. It was a huge hot sizzling greasy mess that took more than an hour to clean up. We didn’t have any option other than to squeegee the oil into the floor drains, then we wasted dozens of side towels drying the floor. It wasn’t until we had the mess cleaned up that everyone could finish cleaning their stations and go home. There was a lot of anger, and one case of severe embarrassment in the kitchen that night.

Couple Finds Out Their New House Comes With A Cat | The Dodo

What is the most dangerous object that you’ve seen on the road when driving?

It was a very windy day in the late 1980’s. I was driving past the Ford motor works in Halewood, Liverpool. I was on the main dual carriage way.

In front of me was a Mini and in front of that Mini was a flatbed truck carrying planks of wood.

We were heading East out of Liverpool towards Widnes. Traveling at about 60 miles per hour.

I saw a gust of wind begin to lift some of the planks of wood on the truck.

One of the planks actually had enough wind get under it that it rose off the truck, snapped it’s tethers and then launched like a caber end over end back along he carriageway. The plank end landed just in front of the Mini bent and sprang up and over the Mini, the other end of the plank then hit the road just in front of my car and did the same spring up and over my car but twisting it diverted slightly so as it fell behind my car it fell onto the pavement ( sidewalk) running along the car factory perimeter fence.. A box van behind me hit the plank and shattered it into several pieces as it broke on the roadway and kerb.

It was a near miss for what could have been a serious accident.

Were Finns treated fairly in the Russian Empire?

I’ve been drafting this answer forever.

My conclusion is that it cannot be answered because trying to judge the Russian Empire by modern standards will inevitably fail.

Take a look at this picture:

image 150
image 150

Photo source: Yle News.

Photo credit: Carl Jahn / Finnish Heritage Agency

This is a prisoner from the Finnish Grand Duchy that has been deported to a labor camp in Siberia. On foot.

He’s chained to a cart because he has tried to escape. His head has been half-shaved to brand him as a convict.

We treat prisoners quite differently these days.


Russia was never particularly enlightened, but it did, at times, have more ‘European-minded’ leaders. Finns didn’t mind them.

Alexanders I and II could be described as such.

Nicholases I and II (Nikolai) could not.

Finland was granted extensive autonomy by Russian standards. It served Russia’s own interests, but Finns didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They took it and ran with it.

Things weren’t bad at first. A stronger Finnish identity created a buffer between Russia and its archnemesis, Sweden.

Then Russia caught the nationalist bug itself and the developments in Finland were no longer compatible with where Russia was going. That’s when Russia tried to take it all away and then some.

It was too late. Finns were past the point where they’d accept being subjugated like that again, or even tolerate a so-called benevolent czar.

What was the oddest thing you’ve seen when going to people’s houses for a living?

I was selling very cheap rubbish diy home alarm systems with equally rubbish motion sensors. The company I worked for at the time had some fantastic products, this most certainly was not one of them.

They were so bad I would go to a customer’s house to replace parts with multiple spare parts because the replacement was often faulty too. Argh, I hated that product.

This one day I knocked on the door to be greeted by a very attractive young lady wearing gym clothes. She told me straight up that she was heading to the gym just as soon as her partner arrived. I was told he would arrive imminently and that is how it turned out. However before he returned home I was asked if I would like a glass of water, it was a very hot day and I said yes.

I followed her into the kitchen at her request. She went to the refrigerator and prominently displayed on her refrigerator door were nude photos of her. Several of them. I think they were professionally done and presumed she maybe was a model but I didn’t ask and didn’t even mention the photos. That was something I hadn’t seen before.

Very hot day that because I remember being so very thirsty. Must have had 4 or 5 glasses of water before I finished that job. Yes it was hot and I was thirsty.

That answers the question but that wasn’t even the weirdest part of that call out. The partner strikes up a conversion with me, while I’m working and asked me how well I knew people at my company’s head office. I told him I knew most everyone. He then asked me if I knew such and such which, believe it or not, was my boss. My boss was this guys ex-wife!

I am pretty sure I didn’t blurt out loud, “You traded up nicely!” but I do know I at least thought it very loudly!

That was a weird house call, a very weird day I will never forget.

Banned Beer Commercial – Beer Goggles

Have you ever seen a mass exodus after a respected employee quit or got fired?

This actually happened to me many years ago. I was a property manager of 80 units. My boss and I had a heated exchange and in haste he fired me on the spot. He asked me to stay until he could find a replacement. “Sorry Charlie!” I cleaned out my desk and handed him the keys, and I left the property of my own volition….

I was off-site the rest of the week. My now former boss was blowing up my phone. “Where are you?” then it was, “You are needed in the office?” I ignored his calls. He then messaged me on Facebook and said it was “with great urgency that we talk”. As it turned-out 2 members of the office staff (there were 3 all together) quit! The residents had started a petition to reinstate me – 60-plus signatures in all. He would not cave and subsequently received somewhere around 15 to 20- thirty day notices in effect terminating their leases. Additionally, some of the residents (refused to pay their rent. The community quickly became unstable and increasing hostile towards him. The morning shift manager at Tiger Mart next door to the complex – a tenant of mine, refused him service.….

He offered me my job back. I let him sweat for a day, then accepted and returned to my job. I was never so moved by an experience as I was at that job, not because my boss had given me my job back, but, rather, because the tenants did!

Does free will exist?

As far as I can tell, “free will” simply refers to a lack of self-awareness, and the inability to understand why we make the decisions we make.

And yes, that lack of self-awareness definitely exists.

People make decisions, but they are not quite sure why they made that decision.

For example, people will go into a shop, end up buying a load of useless and overpriced crap that they don’t need and didn’t intend to buy.

If they are unaware of the multitudes of manipulation techniques that are implemented by the shop to achieve that result… then they’ll call that lack of awareness about their decision making process “free will”.

Likewise, people who grow up exposed to religious propaganda, and then end up believing in the religion that they were exposed to, usually lack the self awareness to notice the whole process. And so they’ll call their belief in the propaganda they were exposed to a “choice made by free will”.

Have you ever confronted a thief?

When I was in fourth grade, one of my best friends had his new (2 week old) bike stolen from his backyard. A few days later, we were at a shopping center right near our apartment complex, and there was his bike, chained to a bike rack. We knew it was his bike, not an identical one belonging to someone else, because he had put a sticker on it, and the sticker was still there. We called the police, but the thief got there before the police did. The thief was probably about 4 years older than us, and a pretty big kid. We told him that the bike belonged to my friend, and that we wouldn’t cause any problems if he just gave it back. He insisted that his parents bought him the bike, and it just looked like my friend’s bike. While we were arguing with him, the police arrived. He again insisted that the bike was just an identical one that his parents bought him.

The police asked us if we could prove that it was his stolen bike. The thief was shocked when my friend said “Yes, as soon as I got the bike, I wrote my name and address and phone number on an index card, rolled it up, and put it in the tube of seat. If you take the seat off you’ll find that card.” The thief stood there slack-jawed. The police got a wrench and removed the seat, and sure enough, there was the index card rolled up inside. The policeman handed the bike over to my friend and drove off with the thief to go have a chat with his parents…

Family Feud: Gilligan’s Island Vs. Batman

What is the biggest shock you ever received at a doctor or hospital visit?

I have always thought that “PCP gives you super human strength” was an urban myth, until one night, during my residency.

There was a kind of smaller, skinny young guy that was restrained to the gurney. He was high on PCP and who knows what else. Drug screen had been sent but wasn’t back yet.

He was making such a fuss, in the ER, that they placed him in a small isolation room.

I’ was a resident. The attending was wrinkling up his nose as this guy is yelling all kinds of profanity and threats.

He sent me in to assess the patient.

I told him that I’m not going in there alone.

He told me that the patient is restrained.

“Nope.”

Ok. We’ll go in together.

I step over to the room and knock gently.

“Sir, this is Doctor Boehm. I’d like to come in and talk to you.”

No answer.

I try again.

No answer.

Everything, in there, has gone quiet.

The attending and I exchange glances. Then, he reaches around me and pushes the door open.

My first fleeting impression was a bloody blade, of some sort, coming at my face.

I jumped back and practically fell over the attending physician.

I yell for security, at the top of my lungs.

People come running.

The patient, I kid you not, had some how managed to get on his feet, restrained, with the gurney ON HIS BACK.

He has, some how, ripped open the sharps container. He was trying to attack, anyone with in reach, with a pair of bloody scissors that he found inside.

They finally got him restrained and sedated.

I was shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t stop thinking about how my kids could have lost their mom.

I never went anywhere near an agitated patient, without Security, again.

What have been some of the most difficult buildings to destroy in human history?

Ask any veteran of Stalingrad in WW2 and it would be Pavlov’s house. I have been there to see it after reading about the importance of this building to the battle. It will cause you goosebumps! What a story!

This guy Yakov Pavlov was a Sgt. in the Soviet army and held this position at all costs. The Wehrmacht tried and tried to destroy the building over the course of 58 days and failed. Quite possibly, if this building had fallen, then the battle would have been won by the Nazis. This would have given them access to the fuel supply that they needed and the outcome of WW2 totally changed.

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image 147

Vasily Chuikov, commanding general of the Soviet forces in Stalingrad, later joked that the Germans lost more men trying to take Pavlov’s House than they did taking Paris.

In the aftermath, captured Nazi maps used during the battle showed that EVEN THE NAZIS called the building “Pavlov’s house”!

What a hero to a heroic people.

MONEY is a PSYOP. How they keep you Working.

What can mainland Chinese, Singaporeans and Hong Kongers learn from the Taiwanese people’s achievement of democracy?

I don’t know what the Chinese Singaporeans, mainlanders and in HK learn from the Taiwanese people’s experience but I can tell you what I, a Malaysian Indian, learnt from it –

1.I would certainly not call it an achievement, since that word implies an end with bigger and better results as well as a greater general good for all the people involved in the process.

2.Democracy as it is practised in Taiwan (and quite a few other places I can think of) is the fastest way of putting the corrupt, the feeble-minded, the easily manipulated and the snake oil salesmen in power.

3.That version of “democracy” seems like the best way to surrender control of an entire region or nation to the elite oligarchy with interests in either arms or other consumer goods.

4.That version of “democracy” is, however, the best and easiest way of convincing the stupid, the brainwashed, the feeble-minded and the generally apathetic that they are enjoying “freedom” while giving up many of the actual rights willingly.

For all the reasons above, I am convinced that the Taiwanese people’s “achievement” of democracy is one of the best and most humane ways of creating, empowering and maintaining a hidden dictator class of ruling elite oligarchs.

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?

Years ago a girlfriend and I were having lunch on a patio, we had daiquiris, shrimp and fried rice.

She ate all of her fried rice, left all of her shrimp, and ordered a second daiquiri. I asked her if there was something wrong with the shrimp, and she said no, she was sure they were fine, but she was on a diet.

I had observed in the past that she loved her carbs, and would eat carbs instead of healthy things like skinless chicken breast, pork tenderloin , skipjack tuna and shrimp.

So I asked her why she was leaving the lowest calorie thing, eating the higher calorie fried rice, and ordering an even higher calorie drink.

She laughed at me and told me that everyone knew that meat/protein wasn’t healthy and had higher calories than anything else.

The shrimp had roughly half the calories of the same weight fried rice, and less than half the calories of her daiquiri.

How could you go on a diet and not know this?

I never told her how many calories were in her favorite perogies and french fries.

After Chatting With 408 Women And 25 Dates, A Viewer Confirms ONCE AGAIN Why Men Keep Walking Away

Gosh! I am so glad that I am not on the dating scene in the West. China is so refreshingly different.

What should you do if someone parallel parks right up to your bumper and you cannot safely get out of your parking space without hitting their car and you cannot contact the owner to move their car or they refuse to move their car?

My dad had a grate answer. This woman parked her BMW in our driveway whenever she went to the Beauty Parlor. She blocked is so no one could leave until she returned. My dad asked he not to park in our driveway and was ignored. One day he had enough. He went in and got the sugar boll from the table and pored about half on the ground by her gas cap and let the door to the cap open. Then he put a note on her windshield, “THIS IS A REAL SWEET CAR. I BET IT WOULD RUN ON PURE SUGAR.” and went in to watch the fun. An hour later the woman came back and found the note, looked at the ground by her gas cap and called the Police. When they arrived, they pointed out she was on private property and they could do nothing however, they advised her not to risk driving the car with contaminated gas. Have it toed to a garage the tank drained and refilled. Save some of the gas and have it tested to prove it was tampered with and sue. She did. She had to pay the tow truck, the garage to remove and clean than refill the tank after putting it back, pay the lab to test the gas only to find it was never tampered with. She never parked in the driveway again!

Copng and dealing through the harshest times

One of my youtube videos. Only 10 views.

Did you ever get an order from someone who had absolutely no authority over you? What was it and what did you do?

My husband passed away almost 5 years ago. His ex wife had been a pretty much constant source of frustration the 6 years we were together (and they were divorced). She continued to harass me the entire 6 weeks of his hospital stay. At 10:30pm while I was sitting with my husband, her texts started. She told me I better go straight home and start packing. According to her I had 72 hours to vacate our house after my husband died. There was no truth to that. She had no ownership in our home. I simply replied that my lawyers (and they also notified her divorce attorney) had assured me the clause in the final decree promised a $1000 fine and 30 days in jail for any harassment of me. I forwarded that response, along with her threatening texts, to her daughters and each of her “friends” who were harassing me. I also informed her security would throw her out of the funeral if she showed anything but respect. Her harassment pretty much stopped!

Girl Cried As The Shelter Cat Hugged Her Tightly And Wouldn’t Let Her Go

Girl Cried As The Shelter Cat Hugged Her Tightly And Wouldn’t Let Her Go. Rachel, a college student at the time, was volunteering at the shelter. She had been helping animals at the shelter for a long time and was spending her last volunteer day that day.

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?

My ex-mother-in-law had a dishwasher in her kitchen that she never used. It was several years old, but was in like-new condition. It still had the paperwork and a packet of detergent inside that had been provided with the machine.

One evening after dinner at her house, I offered to take care of the dishes and started loading them into the dishwasher.

She heard me and made a beeline for the kitchen, letting me know that in her house all the dishes were to be washed by hand.

I asked why she didn’t like her dishwasher. She was convinced that hand-washed dishes are more sanitary than machine-washed.

She agreed to run a little test. I ran hot water into the sink and asked her to wash a dish in it. She couldn’t because the water was way too hot for her hands.

“The water in your dishwasher gets hotter than this.”

My MIL was in her late-60’s at the time, but she wasn’t too old to learn new tricks. After that, she used her dishwasher regularly and was happy with the time and effort that it saved her.

Girlfriend Brings Up Open Relationship And Has MELTDOWN After Boyfriend Dumps Her Right On The Spot

Quick one. The general idea behind a woman offering an “open relationship” is for her to date and fuck who ever she wants, while the boyfriend / husband sits alone at home watching the kids, dogs and cats.

A man says … “No FUCKING way.”

Who are the people who cross the threshold of despair?

A Japanese girl, streaming live video on YouTube, was roaming in Germany. While walking there (racist) people were harassing her, but the girl did not pay much attention to them. Her innocent grin persisted on camera.

But while she was eating food in a restaurant, an older man started sitting near the girl and making faces like this:

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Like this man, another racist person also made faces to tease the girl. Eventually the girl became a little sad because a person passing by had almost dropped her camera.

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At the end of the video, a man approaches the girl and apologizes. The man tenderly states that he is ashamed of the behavior of other German people. He looks at the camera and says, “This girl is very nice, and please come to Germany.” The girl melted at seeing this and hugged the person.

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Making a foreign guest a character of such harassment goes far beyond the limits of despair.

As a teacher, what is the harshest truth a student has ever taught you?

I had a student who came into my history class and told me how she hated history, hated me, and did not want to be there. She then said I am a black lesbian, EFF YOU whitey. I looked at her the class hearing this was not sure what or how I would react. I smiled and said, so does this mean we are not going to have lunch later. She looked at me as if to say something profound but just shook her head. Silence was deafening for a few minutes. It was our first day of class, I said my job is not to make you love history but my job is to assure that you have a basic historical understanding. I will make a deal with all of you, give me three classes, if you do not like what you are hearing, seeing, reading, or learning drop the class, add another class. But I ask you keep an open mind. We have a class section called stump the prof, its your turn to ask me history classes. It has to be related to American history is the only catch.

She would ask me questions every class and they showed an understanding that I admired. She was not afraid to express herself, she was not polished, she was blunt and to the point. We watched a documentary on the Triangle Coat Factory Fire in the 1900s and said with a sadness in her voice, Prof that could have been me or any of us girls in this class. What she taught me is we all can change and become a better self. Her willingness to see these young dead women in caskets due to neglect made her realize it could have been her. She changed from a angry young woman to a stronger empathetic history lover.

Oh for the ones’ left behind

One of my youtube videos. Only 8 views.

What’s the best nickname you’ve encountered?

Nemo

My husband worked for an LTL trucking company. When he told his work stories, he began to mention a driver called “Nemo.” I didn’t think much of it until he referenced an older story that I knew was about a driver called (I forget his real name*, so let’s say) John, not Nemo.

When I asked, my husband explained that John had earned the nickname “Nemo” and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

Most of the drivers delivered to the same area every day. Familiarity improved delivery times. However, John, on the same route for almost a year, didn’t seem to learn any shortcuts.

They would frequently get calls from customers asking where their delivery was. Dispatch would then call John, asking how close he was to the delivery, and John would respond that he didn’t know because he was lost.

Dispatch would then pull up the GPS, find John’s truck, and give him directions back to the customer. The manager would ask dispatch what they had going on, and hear, “I’m finding Nemo,” so often that soon nobody called him John anymore. He will live forever in our stories as “Nemo.”

* I asked my husband what Nemo’s real name was. He doesn’t remember either! Forever Nemo….

Why is Russia going to make a huge statement with MiG-41 formidable aircraft something the U.S will dream about owning?

Riiiight… The MiG-41 was due to go into service in 2028. Notice I say ‘was’; I gather that most of the more sophisticated components are a little hard to come by now, and that money is also rather tight; Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has almost certainly delayed the MiG-41 by several years, if it hasn’t killed it stone dead. You can’t use looted washing machine circuits in a 6th-generation fighter.

Then there’s Russia’s track record on Wunderwaffen in recent years. The T-14 tank and the Su-57 spring to mind as projects that look great on paper and shiny in parades – and then somehow never quite make it to the front lines in quite the form or quite the numbers or to quite the schedule that were announced.

And the MiG-41 is still a little vague as to what it actually is and does, given that it’s supposedly only a couple of years off production. Is it 6th-generation hypersonic near-space miracle? Or is it a MiG-31 upgrade: a Foxhound with better engines? Meanwhile, Boeing has a physical flight demonstrator of its NGAD programme candidate up and running, and Project Tempest is in development here in the UK, Europe, and Japan.

And nobody – given how Russian equipment has performed in Ukraine – is going to want MiG-41s if they can have either of those, let alone ‘dream about owning’ the MiG.

There is an old Quora proverb: before you ask why, ask if.

Husband and wife interaction in China

One of my youtube videos. Only 12 people viewed it.

Mascarpone Bourbon and Rum Balls

mascarpone bourbon and rum balls
mascarpone bourbon and rum balls

Yield: about 8 dozen balls

Ingredients

Chocolate Mascarpone Bourbon Balls

  • 1 (8 ounce) container Crave Brothers Farmstead Classics® Chocolate Mascarpone cheese
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1/2 cup bourbon
  • 3 1/2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs (cookie)
  • 1 1/2 cups ground pecans
  • Optional Toppings: baking cocoa, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate wafer crumbs (cookie), confectioners’ sugar, melted dark chocolate and finely chopped pecans

Mascarpone Rum Balls

  • 1 (8 ounce) container Crave Brothers Farmstead Classics® Mascarpone cheese
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1/3 cup dark rum
  • 1/4 cup eggnog
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
  • 1 1/2 cups ground pecans
  • Optional Toppings: confectioners’ sugar, gingersnap cookie crumbs, finely chopped pecans and melted white baking chocolate

Instructions

Chocolate Mascarpone Bourbon Balls

  1. Beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar and bourbon in a large bowl until smooth. Add chocolate wafer crumbs and pecans; stir until blended. Refrigerate mascarpone mixture, uncovered, overnight.
  2. Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
  3. Store covered in the refrigerator.

Mascarpone Rum Balls

  1. Beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar, rum, eggnog and cinnamon in a large bowl until smooth. Add gingersnap cookie crumbs and pecans; stir until blended. Refrigerate mascarpone mixture, uncovered, overnight.
  2. Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
  3. Store covered in the refrigerator.

Notes

Balls coated with baking cocoa or confectioners’ sugar may need to be coated again before serving.

The balls are best served cold.

U.S. “M2” Money Supply Collapsing Faster than During Great Depression

Nation Hal Turner 17 December 2023

The supply of physical cash money in circulation inside the United States is collapsing fast than it did during the Great Depression.  The chart below, from the Federal Reserve, shows the facts:

Money Supply Collapsing Since 1930s 1
Money Supply Collapsing Since 1930s 1

It shows M2 money on a year-over-basis is contracting by the most since the 1930s.

M2 is decreasing, every time this happened in the last 150 years there has been a DEPRESSION.  Here’s a chart to prove it:

Money Supply V ersus Depression
Money Supply V ersus Depression

Mind you, the chart above is from MARCH . . . . it’s gotten worse since then!

As cash is taken out of the economy, the economy runs out of steam and stalls . . . fast.

What followed the Great Depression?

What’s going to follow this economic collapse?

If you answered “world war” you’re correct!

We’re being looted.

Over 50% of the money given to Ukraine is unaccounted for, for instance.

This is the looting stage before the country falls. All planned out.

Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?

Yes. I was driving my elderly parents to their apartment. My son was in the front seat. I was pulled over for speeding. It was one of those road that went from 45 to 25 without changing the road or the neighborhood. My parents were fighting in the backseat, my son was telling them to please be quiet. The cop said the usual, “do you know why I pulled you over” My reply was just give me the ticket I have to get these two home as they are driving me crazy. He asked me if I’d mind stepping out of the vehicle. I said no I didn’t mind. Anything to get away from them. He then just talked to me. Told me he understood how fighting elderly parents can grate on a person. He asked if I was on the way to the elderly housing which was about 2 miles down the road. I was and acknowledged it. He said just take a couple of deep breaths. I will talk to you till you feel up to being in the vehicle with them. Just do the speed limit, you are almost there. Then go to Culvers and treat yourself and your son. You both could use it. It took me about ten minutes to calm down. My parents were still fighting but I got them home and took my son and I out for ice cream as ordered. No ticket. He did not even ask for my license and registration.

What is the perfect thing to say when someone is being rude to you?

I have the perfect answer whenever anyone insults you.

“You’re right. What’s your point?”

Kills them every time.

Example: I was parked in the very first spot in front of a high school where I would be teaching night school. I had about a half hour before I needed to head in, so I was reading the news on my phone. A sixteen year old chickeeboo tried to back her car enough in front of mine to somehow claim she was parked legally. But most of her car was over the hash marks that indicted a walkway. Also, because she’d parked so tight against my front bumper, I wouldn’t be able to leave without her moving first. So I strolled up to her car and explained she was parked illegally. She could move about twenty feet ahead to the next legal space. I returned to my car to continue reading.

She didn’t move her car. She sat for a while, probably pondering her killer take down, then popped out and approached my car. She indicated I should roll down my window, which I did.

She said, “Your attitude makes you look old!”

Wow! Zinger! Total destruction… except… not.

I gazed at her calmly and said, “I am old. And you’re still parked illegally. Move your car.”

She flounced back to her car. Pondered whether she should try another killer take down. Then she moved her car.

I enjoyed a night of class knowing I could leave whenever I wanted.

Next time someone insults you, try it. It does work. I used it on my MIL until she finally stopped insulting me. And trust me, that was a miracle. She insulted everyone.

Who had the saddest life in history?

I think the little boy in this photograph takes the cake. His name? Henk Heithuis. And I am warning you ahead of time, his story is absolutely gruesome and terrifying. Heithuis was born in the Netherlands in 1935 and placed in the foster system, to be cared for by Catholic priests. Now priests had a tendency of abusing young children under their care, there have been many such cases… but Heithuis was not like most victims… he was about to go public.

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Usually, the abuse was quietly pushed aside, shrugged off, swept under the rug. It’s been that way for centuries. Victims stayed quiet out of shame and fear. Not Henk Heithuis. He decided to make a stand. For himself and for all those others he had known who were abused, molested, raped. So he went to the police, and officially accused the priests of sexual abuse. This was revolutionary, and absolutely unheard of in the 1950s!

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What Heithuis had not anticipated, is the absolute cruelty and the far-reaching power of the institution he was about to face. Since he was still legally a minor at the time of the abuse, and at the time he made his accusation, Heithuis was still a ward of the state, unable to make his own decisions, the court argued.

He insisted, however, that he was raped.

The priests then came forward and denied this. Instead, they instead, Heithuis was a homosexual boy who had “seduced the priests”, can you imagine their audacity? The young victim vehemently denied the accusations, maintained he had been raped and that he was, in fact, heterosexual — he even had a girlfriend he hoped to marry as soon as he reached the age of maturity.

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The church, however, had quite a bit of influence with the courts. They convinced them that Heithuis was, in fact, homosexual. And in the 1950s, homosexuality was still illegal in the now-so-liberal Netherlands. The treatment consisted of either years in an institution, chemical castration, or physical castration… with Heithuis, no rebuttal was allowed, no second opinion considered and no option given — he was to be castrated immediately. Which he was.

They drugged the teenaged abuse victim, drove him to a clinic down South and strapped him to a table where they surgically gelded him. After the operation they kicked him to the curb… Heithuis was broken.

Mentally.

Physically.

He abandoned his friends and his fiancée and became a sailor. He made it as far as Japan, when he broke down and, when on shore leave, found his way to the Dutch embassy. Here, he told his story to a diplomat who took pity on his fate. He even showed his scars, and explained how his hormones were now out of control, his body no longer felt like his and he was suicidal.

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“Please tell my story…” Heithuis insisted, “make notes, remember it. They may come for me. They may kill me.”

Surely it wouldn’t be so bad, his friend, Cornelius Rogge, assured him. Surely they would not have him killed. How could they? But Heithuis was sure of it. Arrangements were made with the shipping company to have him brought back home to his country.

When he returned, Heithuis, helped by his friends who knew his story, once again pressed charges. This time for forcible castration, lying about his sexuality and mental health problems as well as slandering his good name. Still a fiery chap, still refusing to surrender, he wanted justice, he wanted his good name restored.

But in 1958, shortly after pressing charges Henk Heithuis got into a car accident and died on the spot.

The police confiscated all his personal belongings and material provided to them by the deceased. All material was destroyed on the day of his death.

Cat love is so strong

Here is one of my MM youtube videos… It only has 6 views. Why?

What is the one piece of advice you would give to anyone?

Three days ago, a girl messaged me out of nowhere. After a very long time.

I knew her. We had talked before too.

But this time, I sensed something odd. The way she talked…it lacked life.

I asked her if she’s good.

“I am absolutely fine, Pravin!” she replied.

Suppressing my gut feeling, I changed the topic. We talked about each other’s professional activities and also a bit about our personal standings.

I again asked her to open up if she isn’t okay. She again convinced me she was fine.

Then at a point, my inner voice rebounded. Stronger than ever.

“Be honest, are you good?” I asked with finality.

She broke down. Till half an hour she went on elaborating what was going wrong in her life.

I patiently listened.

A person who did her best to convince me she is doing great suddenly came out as someone standing on the verge of death.

Seriousness of her mental status left me in awe. Couldn’t believe it took me three tries before she finally spoke up.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to anyone?

If you are talking to a person, and you feel he is not okay, nudge him to empty his heart to you.

Trust me, by doing this, you won’t intrude into his personal life. You won’t make him feel uncomfortable.

In fact, that’s what he wants. That’s why he is talking to you.

He doesn’t need your love. Or care. Or money. All he wants is to be heard.

Be kind. Listen to him. It only takes this little to make a huge difference.

As a police officer, who were the worst people you came across?

Originally Answered: As a police officer, who was the most truly evil human you ever encountered?

Midnight in Glasgow, two cops got behind a stolen car and gave chase.

The stolen car weaved about the road to prevent the cop car overtaking. It narrowly missed oncoming vehicles, turned without warning, crossed to the opposite carriage and twice mounted the pavement.

Inevitably, it crashed.

Head on into a parked car.

The officers extricated John, a battered, bruised and belligerent 13-year-old boy from the driver’s seat. They found the car to contain stolen goods from various break-ins.

When the cops took John home to his parents, they discovered that he had been missing for four days. His parents had not been looking for him, they hadn’t even reported him missing.

These are the worst people I came across, the parents who take no interest in the children they bring into this world. The people who don’t care about anyone, even their own offspring.

Within a few years, John found himself incarcerated in a Young Offenders Institution.

As part of a rehabilitation program, they took a group of young offenders to an outward-bound camp. Also attending the camp was a group of special-needs children. They gave each young offender the responsibility of looking after one special-needs child.

After a day spent climbing, one leader found John sitting on his bunk crying.

John spent the day with a kid with Down Syndrome.

He walked with him for miles, made him tea on a burner and shared his sandwiches.

When they got back to camp, as the sun settled behind the horizon, his kid climbed on to John’s lap, put his arms around his neck, hugged him tight and told him, “I love you.”

“No-one ever said that to me before,” John said as he sniffed back his tears.

My girlfriend is a PhD student, and her advisor is showing romantic interest in her. How can she address this without losing her 4 years of PhD work?

Given that this is a PhD student, it’s appropriate to talk theory vs. practice.

In theory, she could go to one of the following:

  1. Department chair
  2. Director of graduate studies for the department (or director of the PhD program)
  3. Human resources

In practice, since she has a great deal to lose, I would consider playing a more cautious game. I’m not recommending she do these things instead, but I would recommend considering one or more of them. I’m going to assume her advisor is a “he”, just to simplify writing.

  1. Document everything. If it’s all verbal, that’s fine; she should still note everything that’s happened, with approximate dates and a list of anyone present and/or who might have overheard.
  2. Collect evidence. Even if it’s her emailing you to complain, that shows a paper trail. Obviously, if there’s email, text, voicemail, etc., from her advisor, even if it’s ambiguous, she should collect it.
  3. Find out if the school has an ombudsman. Many schools do. This is a person who has the ability to speak confidentially about anything. Generally speaking, this person is NOT a mandatory reporter, and that shouldn’t apply if he’s simply verbally expressed romantic interest.
  4. Find an employment lawyer. This will probably cost a few hundred bucks on retainer. Yes, I know, broke grad student, but seriously, this is a potential legal nightmare.

What would I do? Obviously, I can only speak hypothetically, but I would probably do all of these things, and quickly, then I’d speak to HR as my first official act involving the school (unless the lawyer advised otherwise, but they won’t). My hope would be that all of this is entirely unnecessary and that he would respond appropriately to “no thanks”, but I think he’s already crossing a line by making romantic overtures to his own PhD student. That’s usually against university rules and always unethical.

EDIT: Saeed Doroudiani makes a good additional point: a sufficiently independent, well-run graduate student union (GSU) can help here, too. However, there are few guarantees with a GSU. With an ombudsman, there’s a guarantee of privacy, and with HR, there’s a guarantee that a policy/procedure will be followed (and that should be publicly available). You could lose control if someone in the GSU chose to share out of turn or to go public, and there are no protections for you. A well-run, independent GSU won’t do this, but there are no guarantees that this is what you have. Get some information before talking to them. At best, they can act as effective advocates, but at worst, they can undermine your (already limited) control of the situation. Thanks, Saeed!

EDIT: If you want a good laugh, look through some of the collapsed comments. There are some great ones. One person accused me of being homophobic for stating my assumption that the offending professor is a man. Another discusses strong personalities but is just a heavily coded, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Actually, on reflection, I don’t recommend reading them, but they’re amusing to me.

What are some mind-blowing facts related to technology?

This is a keyboard.

image 239
image 239

You use it to type on a computer.

What happens when you type incorrectly? You press backspace and retype it again.

This is a stenotype.

image 238
image 238

A typewriter, used by shorthand writers. Like for example, a journalist typing down a speech. He needs accuracy and speed while typing. He can’t have the politician repeat his words again and again. They have specific set of letters from the above set which have specific meaning. They type that.

image 17
image 17

(That’s a better view of the keyboard.)

What if they make a mistake? They have a key (the middle key in the original typewriter picture) for space. But where’s the backspace?

Now, modern day texting.

Her: What’s your favorite color?

Me: Ted.

Me: *Red. Stupid autocorrect.

What did I do?

I added an asterisk to correct my mistake.

How did the use of asterisk come up?

Well, it’s a practice by shorthand writers to add an asterisk beside the mistake, to indicate it’s a mistake and correct it later on. That’s how the practice of using an asterisk while texting came up.

All your life has been a lie.

You’d be thanking that asterisk right now for saving you from all those embarrassing autocorrects your phone made. 🙂

What was your “I am surrounded by idiots” moment?

I parked in a hospital parking lot, and when I came back to my vehicle, there was this young couple, early twenties having a heated discussion. She wanted him to call a taxi, and drive to a mall and buy a battery. He wanted to call a locksmith. The battery in their key fob was dead, and they couldn’t get the door open. They were getting quite mad at each other, thinking that the others solution was going to cost more and take longer.

I asked them if I could be of assistance, and they both wanted me to explain to the other why their idea sucked.

The guy suggested that maybe I could take the battery out of my fob, and put it in theirs just long enough, for them to open the doors.

I asked to see their key fob, and he handed it to me, thinking I was going to do his suggestion.

I walked to their car, put the key in the lock, and opened the door.

They both were stunned. Saying OMG, how did you do that?

They had never seen a car door opened with a key. I felt really old, and just a little smug.

Why “Nobody” Lives On Australia’s Big Island State: Tasmania

Why? Why? Why?

Heh. Heh. I want to move there!!!!

Monkey Play

When I was quite young, perhaps three years old, I went out for a walk with my father. And thus, together… hand in hand… we walked down the street in our housing complex in Bridgeport, CT. It was a nice Saturday. Blue sky. Sunny, but cool.

And as we walked down the street we came across a curious sight.

There was this old man in a blue jacket playing a wind-up musical device of some type, and a monkey on a really long leash….

organ grinder monkey
organ grinder monkey

This guy was just strolling along and the monkey was going p to people. If we gave the monkey some change, he would take it and carry it off to the guy playing the music. A simple and nice cute distraction.

My father gave me a few coins and I gave them to the monkey. He crawled up onto me, took the money, raised his tiny hat off his head and then ran to the guy with the music box, and gave it to him. And then the guys started the wind-up music all over again.

This was my once and only experience with such a troubadour. And, I had long forgotten about it.

But … when I was going through “retirement” I ended up with complete memory recall, and thus had memories regarding this singular event.

Treasure the valuable memories that you have. They might take you to places long forgotten, and seemingly trivial in importance….

Today…

How do you find out if someone is a jerk before you hire them? I want someone who isn’t too abrasive, competitive without being cutthroat, and who is able to represent the company well.

I believe it was Sir Richard Branson who did what he called the “Restaurant Test.” Part of his interview process was an “informal” interview at a restaurant. What the prospective employee didn’t know is that Sir Richard had already notified the restaurant that he was coming with a potential employee and to screw up their order, nothing major like giving meat to a vegan but if they ordered their steak medium rare, the chef would cook it well done.

Richard would then see how the other person reacted. If he was polite then it was onto the next phase of the interview, if they were rude he would finish his meal and that person would not be considered for the job

When in your life did you feel happy to be home after dealing with a lot of stress?

My wife and I agreed early on that whoever could draw the largest salary would work while the other was stay-at-home parent. Unfortunately I went to work (would have loved to be the stay at home dad.) Our deal included that after a 30 minute decompress and wash up after arriving home, our daughter was 100% my responsibility through bedtime. My wife got up in the night with her during the week, and I took the weekend shift. We tag teamed the weekend hours, but I took most of the time. My happiest memories were coming home and getting my baby to hold, feed, and change. Later it was seeing her standing at the door or front window waiting for me. She’s 50 now and remembers being swooped up and burying her face in my fur lined coat collar in the winter.

NO stress could survive the love of a dad and daughter.

Guy stuff

How would you describe your parenting style?

I’m teaching my 6-year-old son to be defiant.

And everyone thinks I’m crazy.

“Grandma said she’ll give me a gift if I let her shampoo my hair,” he tells me the other day.

I can see how torn and conflicted he looks.

My son’s a swashbuckling, bug-hunting pirate.

You’d have an easier time getting a stray cat to take a shower.

“I hear you,” I reply, making sure she’s out of earshot. “My take?” he leans in. “If she wants to give you a gift, she should just do it. No strings attached.”

He nods and we exchange conspiratorial smiles.

“You’ve got to rein in that wayward son of yours,” she tells me after a botched shower attempt.

But I won’t.

Of course, I’m always encouraging him to be kind, respectful, and thoughtful with others.

But I won’t use the stick or the carrot.

Because when he’s older and someone hands him a rifle telling him who the enemy is, I want him to do his own thinking.

Because when he’s older and someone offers him a pill and tells him he’ll have the best time of his life, I want him to question.

Because when he’s older and someone offers him a quick reward in exchange for giving up his values, I want him to stand his ground.

Am I making my life difficult as a parent?

Definitely.

Is it worth it?

Without a doubt.

Teachers: What’s the craziest excuse for late work you have ever heard?

“My homework caught on fire.”

That was the excuse I got during the last week of school when a project was due in my 7th grade reading class.

My students were told that the book we had just read, The Call of the Wild, was going to be made into a major motion picture, and they were to create a movie poster to persuade people to see the show.

The posters were to be judged by other students and staff, and the winner would be awarded a prize. The competition was intense!

Every student had a finished poster except Shane (not his real name). I wasn’t totally surprised, as Shane had been late with assignments in the past, but the excuse was pretty shocking.

“So, Shane,” I began, “when I call your dad, will he be able to verify that your project did, in fact, catch on fire?” I was ready for him to change his story, but he didn’t!

“Yes,” he replied, “and he’s really mad at me because it burned a hole in the living room carpet, so now I’m grounded.”

“Hmm, he’s good”, I thought, “validating his story with details…this should be interesting.”

Later, I called Shane’s dad, and sure enough, Shane was telling the truth! His dad explained that his son had used so much white-out on his project, that when he held a lighter to the poster board (to singe the edges and make it look old) the entire thing exploded into a fire ball, fell to the floor and burned a big hole in his living room floor.

“Wow, Shane! I was a bit skeptical, but your story checks out. I’ll give you until tomorrow to create a new poster. Your idea to make your poster look old is most impressive (as the story took place over 100 years ago) but DON’T burn the edges this time!”

The next day, Shane proudly walked into the class. I eagerly looked for a poster, figuring he’d be carrying it, but it was nowhere in sight.

“Shane, did you finish you new poster?” I asked.

“Yep, I sure did.”

“Where is it?”

“Right here.” and he gave me a crumpled ball of cardboard. “Open it up, you’re going to love it!”

I did the best I could to smooth out the wrinkled mess. Sure enough, there was a movie poster advertising The Call of the Wild.

“It looks great, but why did you wad it up into a ball?”

“To make it look old.” he said as if I should have already known.

Shane didn’t win the contest, he remained grounded 2 weeks, and that summer he had to get a job mowing lawns to pay for the damaged carpet.

I recently saw Shane at the state fair. He’s engaged and works as an auto mechanic. He remembers the poster project vividly and said everything worked out pretty well. They ended up getting the entire apartment re-carpeted for free and Shane got to keep his lawn mowing money.

Galatoire’s Crabmeat Yvonne

jacques pepin oysters rockefeller recipe 1024x694 1
jacques pepin oysters rockefeller recipe 1024×694 1

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 6 artichokes
  • 1 pound mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 cup clarified butter
  • 2 pounds backfin lump crabmeat
  • Salt and ground white pepper
  • 1/4 cup parsley, chopped fine
  • 6 lemon wedges

Instructions

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
  2. Cut stem from artichokes flush with the base and boil artichokes for 45 minutes, or until a leaf pulls off easily.
  3. Remove from pot, drain and let cool.
  4. Pull off leaves and reserve for another purpose. Remove choke and slice the bottoms. Set aside.
  5. In a large skillet sauté mushrooms in clarified butter.
  6. Add reserved artichoke bottoms and crabmeat. Heat through, stirring gently.
  7. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with parsley.
  8. Serve on toast points with a lemon wedge on the side.

Attribution

Source: Galatoire’s, New Orleans, Louisiana. Gulf Coast Cooking

What is the best thing that has ever happened to you for being nice?

We have a son.

Twenty years ago, a friend called me in a panic. She was on the backside of a bad divorce, she had a three year old daughter, and she’d just been told she couldn’t continue to live where she was. The little girl was with her father that weekend, but my friend was at a neighborhood restaurant with no money and no idea what to do next. I told her to come over, got her something to eat and settled her on the sofa because she hadn’t slept in something over 24 hours and told her that we’d figure out what to do next when she woke up. Ultimately we moved her and her daughter into our guest room.

About three weeks later, she introduced us to a young woman who was pregnant and not in a position to raise a child. (She was married. That wasn’t the issue.) Sitting at our dining room table, having just met us and not knowing much more than that we’d taken in our mutual friend, she asked my husband and me if we would adopt the baby. We’d fought infertility for a long time. We said yes. She talked to her husband, and the whole thing was agreed on by the following morning. About seven months later, I was her birth coach and had the incredible privilege of catching my own son.

He’s nineteen now. We have him because we let a friend in a tough spot move in with us.

What was the best revenge you’ve ever gotten?

Mine was in the Air Force. I had a racist for an immediate supervisor who always gave me average ratings on my performance. I didn’t realize how bad I was getting screwed until one of my counterparts (who was a total screw up) was shocked that he higher ratings than myself. A “3” is considered average (which I was getting on my reviews). This “screwup” was getting 5’s which is the highest score. I was thinking “how the HECK did he get a 5??” This dude missed time, came to work drunk, was reprimanded for fights….been to jail….etc. my record was SPOTLESS. Always the first on the job and the last to leave. Kept my uniform super clean. So I realized that I’m working twice as hard as this other dude and getting a much lower score.

This was in the 1990’s. I overheard a conversation with my racist supervisor one day about what he wanted to be when he leave the military. He stated that he wanted to be a highway patrol officer “so that he can legally hit minorities”. He always made crude jokes about Mexicans and blacks. As an African American myself I hated this dude’s guts. His leadership skills were the worst. I hated every day of working with him.

One day it was his last day of work. The shop was going to throw a going away party for this racist pig. There was an option to donate $10.00 to the potluck to participate in the party or miss out and work. I chose to work. I’m not donating a DIME to this dude’s going away party.

After he gracefully disappeared from the job I thought that would be the last I’ve heard of him. NOPE! I was wrong. Found out later that he did apply for the state highway patrol position.

The timing on this particular day couldn’t have been more perfect. Two men from the highway patrol were visiting our unit and I happened to be the ONLY person there. They asked me “who’s in charge?” Well, I’m the only airman in the shop so I was actually in charge. I asked them what’s going on? They told me that they are doing a follow up on a gentleman who applied for highway patrol who used to work at this unit. I told them I have detailed files on this person. What made this even better was the fact that one highway patrol officer was black, the other was Hispanic. I was so nervous in hopes that our main supervisor didn’t show up because he would give this guy a decent feedback. I wanted them to hear the DARK side of this scumbag.

I told them that he was a decent worker at best but here are some documents I wanted to share. Luckily I kept my old floppy disk handy with all of the stuff I wrote to the higher chain of command about this racist pos. The statements had dates and times I written down of his racist comments over the years. Too many to write in this essay. But let’s just say it was two pages worth (front and back).

The look of disgust was very apparent on their faces. One of them asked me “people like him still exist in the military?” I replied “shockingly, yes”. They asked me, “did you ever want to knock this dude the F- -K out?” (Many Times I did).

To make a long story short, months went by and I didn’t hear anything. Then one day I overheard a conversation about my former supervisor being turned down for his highway patrol job and was working at a Wal-Mart as a warehouse worker. In all honesty, I take GREAT pleasure in feeling that my sneaky swift actions were the reason.

Get outta here

I told my professor that I am a Mensan; he laughed at me. What does it mean?

I certainly wouldn’t laugh if a student of mine told me that – so have no idea why your professor did. But I wouldn’t give it much weight, either. And I’d wonder why the student told me. Would they tell me how tall they were? Or what color hair they had?

If eligibility to be in Mensa requires one to be in the top 2% (or something) of people who take IQ tests, that is a nice capability to have. But what percentage of university professors are likely to also be eligible if that’s the requirement – plus have become academically very accomplished in their field of study? I have no idea what my IQ is, it’s never been tested as far as I know – nor has it ever mattered to me. It is likely higher than some – and not nearly as high as others, both professors and students I have known in my well over half-century at a university (if you include my student years). It’s a place that tends to collect very bright articulate people.

So if a student of mine told me they were in Mensa, I’d probably ask them about it, what they did as a member of Mensa, etc., just as I would if they told me they were in an orchestra or worked for a charity or played on the soccer team or something. That is, it is information about that student and it might be interesting, but what does it change? I would expect that person’s intelligence to show in their love of learning, the questions they ask, the connections they make, etc. And all of that intellectual capability would be obvious even it they were not a member of Mensa.

What was the best “extra item” you got in your order when ordering/eating at a fast food restaurant?

I went to McDonald’s and went inside to place a to go order. While I was standing there, the manager walked up to me and handed me an empty French fry box. This was during the time that McDonald’s was doing the Monopoly game. The game piece on the fry box was already partially open. I peeled it the rest of the way back and it said it was a $2000 winner. I really needed the money for college at that point in my life. I thanked the manager profusely. She said that it had been inadvertently opened by a worker. She saw me standing there with my young daughter and thought that I looked like I could use some cheering up. Best trip to McDonald’s ever!

If ASML cannot sell to China, how did they sell a huge order in September?

It’s very complicated

It seems the Dutch Government has forbidden ASML to sell EUVs to SMIC from 1/9/23

Yet orders placed until 23:59 on 31/8/23 can be shipped and fulfilled.

So technically ASML can ship orders to SMIC upto the time the last order placed on 31/8/23 is fulfilled

That’s for 21 EUV Machines & 50 DUV Machines

In September, ASML has delivered 4 EUV Machines & 17 DUV Machines


Meanwhile there is another legal complication

SMIC has now introduced a Distributor company who can buy EUVs from ASML and simply sell them to SMIC for a 10% commission (10% is just an example)

Now the Dutch order said only SMIC was forbidden from receiving ASML EUVs so ASML has also accepted 8 more orders for EUVs from this distributor

Technically Dutch Govt cannot specifically forbid ASML from selling to China as a whole as that is a major WTO violation

So they can only blacklist importers

So China can keep bringing up new distributors and placing orders and ASML is happy because TSMC has cancelled 24 Machines recently and i am sure China offered full price for the machines


Ultimately MONEY TALKS

Once again the US is furious but again it’s all about the legalese now

SMIC is forbidden so an agency buys and sells to SMIC

The Dutch look the other way of course

ASML is delighted because they sell more machines


My guess is this new agency will be blacklisted soon and they will incorporate more laws to prevent such measures

Yet that gets China another 8 machines plus a further 24 machines which I bet China will place as they are already in process

This means SMIC technically can make 7 nm and 5 nm Chips in decent quantities at least till 2026/2027

By then they should crack some breakthrough

So China has gained TIME and the Dutch have put business ahead of stupidity

Just like NVDIA and Intel just sold products to China which were slightly off the specs in huge numbers

Economics is ultimately invincible

Bile. Pure Bile.

What is something a teacher did that impressed you?

My Calculus professor in college did this:

He was working on a HUGE problem that took up the entire white board. The students were doing their best to follow the problem in their notes and in their minds. Suddenly he stopped, turned to look at us, turned red with embarrassment and realized that he got confused and lost in the problem. A student in the front row gently guided him to finish.

Instead of brushing this off he used this as an amazing teachable moment.

Here is what he did:

  1. He asked us if we thought he was stupid. We collectively said “no.”
  2. He then said that he was not a “melon head” and neither were we.
  3. The lesson: He explained about the fight or flight syndrome and said that once he got momentarily confused, instead of going back to the place in the problem where he understood, he got nervous because he was in front of us, got into the fight or flight syndrome, produced adrenaline and got so stressed that he could no longer think. He then drew a picture on the board of a human brain, showed the reptilian part of our brain and the frontal lobes and explained that when we get too stressed we go to our reptilian brain and we need to return to our frontal lobe thinking. He gave us concrete strategies for exactly how to do this. (Breathe slowly, go back to a place where we last understood and start over). This lesson was SO impactful to me that I began to study the brain more and more and then I taught this to all of my students.

Final Thought: Even though my professor was teaching Calculus, his off-topic lesson was one of the best I ever had. He turned an embarrassing moment into an incredibly helpful life lesson.

This lesson was so important to me that I included the story as one of the chapters in my teacher support book, “Wait, Don’t Quit.”

Caught in the act

Ahhh. Sad.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wtWALCHAB04?feature=share

Have you ever found something unexpected inside of something you bought used?

I passed a great little convertible parked in front of a business with a “For Sale” sign and stopped to go look at it because I was considering a fun weekend car. It turned out the owner of the business was a past customer of mine, I had done work on his home. Two days later it was mine.

In the process of fixing every little thing and customizing it, I decided to pull out most of the interior to really clean it. Tucked in where the carpet overlapped, under the driver’s seat, was a gold ring with a small diamond. I wasn’t sure if it was real so I asked a friend at a nearby jewelry store. They confirmed it was real 18k and about ⅛ carat real diamond.

I called my friend who sold me the car. He checked with his wife and it wasn’t hers. I asked if they knew the previous owner but she had sold them the car before moving overseas and they lost track of her info. There must have been a clean title at some point because she wasn’t listed.

I doubt it was a wedding ring because it was so small, in fact the only finger it would fit was my mother in law’s pinky. She liked it so I let her keep it.

What is the bloodiest battle in Roman history?

Well, it depends on what we mean by “bloodiest”.

Battle with highest total losses: Battle of Vercellae

In 113 BC a large Germanic-Celtic coalition begins poking around Rome. They crush a Roman army and send the Romans into a panic. This army is 200,000 men strong- how can Rome compete.

Into this steps Marius, Uncle of Caesar. Marius was the most well-known general of his age and he set about reforming the Roman military with rapid speed, creating the more traditional Roman Legions we all know and love.

As this massive Army began to move for Italy Marius responded with his reformed Legions. What followed was a massive all-out clash where Roman discipline held back a far larger army. The turning point came when a commander named Sula counter-charged the Celtic cavalry and sent them fleeing into their own lines.

In all Plutarch reports 100,000 were killed, Livy reports 160,000, and Orosius reports 140,000 were killed.

Battle with highest Roman casualties: Cannae

Hannibal had invaded Italy and Rome responded by raising the largest Army in it’s history- some 90,000 men strong. The Romans used this Army to attack Hannibal, driving their strong heavy infantry forward in an effort to break Hannibal’s lines.

Hannibal had cleverly made his flanks strong and so as his center bowed inwards his flanks did not. This created a big “U” shape and the Romans found themselves being pressed from all sides. Then Hannibal’s cavalry came around the rear and surrounded the entire Roman Army. They then pressed in and killed perhaps 50,000 Romans.

My therapist refused to talk about herself. She kept saying “therapy isn’t about me, we are talking about you”. I don’t know why but it made me feel uncomfortable and a little distrustful. Is this normal?

I have to say, a number of answers to this question are appalling. What is most troubling is that many of the worst and most shaming of these responses are from supposed clinicians themselves. I am deeply bothered by this.

Is it normal, or lets say understandable, that you would feel distrustful and off about your therapist shutting down your queries about the nature of your relationship with them? Yep, sounds downright logical to me. When we feel distrustful it is because we feel unsafe in some way. You therapist refusing to engage with you around the experience of the inherent lop-sided-ness of the therapy relationship is problematic.

What you are experiencing is incredibly common, if not inevitable. I would dare say anyone who has remained in therapy for more than a few sessions with a therapist will wrestle with the freedoms and constraints afforded within a psychotherapy. For many this remains a constant felt tension throughout their therapy. It is an important aspect of therapy as exploring the tensions, dissatisfaction, unfairness, longings etc…with our therapists directly reveals our deepest needs and wants. Talking about the bounds of the therapy is the most fruitful of topics, a talented therapist would happily (if not giddily) help you to explore your distrust, or any other experience you may be having about being in therapy.

The issue isn’t whether it is right or wrong for a therapist to reveal anything about their private-selves (some do, some don’t). The issue here is that this subject has come up more than once in your therapy and you are clearly completely confused about it. Your therapist has missed a golden opportunity to open up a discussion about relationships.

It would seem according to some of these answers your therapist is not alone in completely missing the proverbial elephant, or neon sign, in the room.

He just wants peace

Have you ever met someone who sent you immediate red flags?

On my first day working at Domino’s Pizza, I was introduced to all the workers. One of the delivery drivers was a guy in his 70s whom we’ll call Morgan. He looked at me and said, “I’d ask you out, but I guess you don’t date people your grandfather’s age.” Keep in mind that I was 17 at this point; this was my first “real job.” Since I’d been homeschooled, I wasn’t well-versed in social norms, but this statement gave me the creeps. When I went home that evening, I discussed it wiith my mom, who said he was most likely teasing.

Morgan kept chatting with me, and I came to know him as a very friendly person. However, a couple of months later (I worked there from halfway through summer break until Thanksgiving, when I got a better job), I was eating a piece of leftover pizza and he grabbed my shoulders, trying to take a bite out of my pizza. I warned him not to do it again, or I’d elbow him. He talked for weeks about how “M.J. has pointy elbows,” so nobody get on her bad side.

I was never comfortable around him from that time on. He kept making comments that made me less comfortable. One day, he said, “You’re going to make a wonderful wife and mother someday.” Finally, I brought it up with my parents again. When I mentioned that he’d given me his business card so I could “use him as a professional reference,” they realized what was going on.

My dad called the manager, who was the best guy ever with six kids of his own and decided to let my dad (a tough-as-nails, Glock-carrying Italian gym rat in cowboy boots) do whatever he thought was best. I gave my dad Morgan’s schedule, and the two of them had a nice chat out in the parking lot. Morgan said about five words to me the entire rest of the time I worked there. It was glorious.

What is it like to work for a billionaire?

In a word? Surreal.

I used to work for an EXTREMELY reclusive billionaire (for further reference in the answer he will be called Greg) as a personal aide. Many things that I have seen and been a part of during my fantastic service with (for?) him are covered by legal documents that demand non disclosure from me. However, there are still some things that can be shared.

The word extremely is in all caps because only one or two pictures of him have ever been publicly published, and he has never given a personal statement. He maintained a zero social media presence, and would always grumble about the dependency of modern society on rapidly changing technology. His family and him always maintained a low profile, choosing to utilise public transport if they could (however, they had extensive means of transportation and if he felt even the slightest inkling of a threat they would use another transportation method). The children attended a private school just out of the county, however, in my country, private schools are very common, so this is not too fancy.

But, don’t for a moment underestimate the man. He had an uncanny ability to read people, pick out things others would not see at first glance and was always determined to understand and learn about the world around him. He would anonymously donate millions to organisations that furthered research into space (is this a thing? I learnt this from another personal aide). He played his cards close to the chest, and if he did not understand a theory or idea, he had no qualms of ringing the relevant party up to better understand the concept, something he did regularly with his firm which led to some talks behind his back in the firm.

He always maintained a composure of calmness through out even the most trying situations. There was a time when a client agreement between his firm and the client had fallen through, and they only had a few hours to rehash all the details. Unfortunately, he had given the lead architect of the deal a few days off earlier in the week as the client company had, at first, shown a very positive outlook on the agreement. Greg knew that the architect was out deep in the country side where he was helping with the after party of his sister’s wedding. Cell service was not great, and while the architect was informed of the situation, he was in no place to rehash a multi million dollar deal. So what was done, within a span of 1 hour, was a helicopter from a local tour agency, that always had one on standby, was chartered, sent out to the architect, brought him back and they worked on the deal. The deal eventually fell through (it was beyond saving if you asked me), and Greg felt extremely guilty for the inconvenience he caused the architect. As a form of thank you, he proceeded to pay for the sister’s wedding, and gave the architect another month off.

The billionaire I worked for always attempted to remain frugal. He never owned any form of private transport (jet, helicopter, yacht etc), had a small car collection but always donated money or reinvest it into the market. He never showed emotions, but you knew he was a caring individual. His neighbours son had been involved in an extremely gruesome accident when his car was slammed by a truck. Knowing that financing the operation and hospital stress for the son would be too much for the mother, he quietly payed for the entire operation, and set up a trust that would cover the living and medical treatment costs for that young man for the rest of his life.

Greg passed away a few years ago, which is when I stopped working. His wife asked us aides if we would like to stay on, and while several did, I left to take care of my ailing Mother. As a parting bonus, she gave the aides leaving a substantial monetary bonus that will be enough for the rest of my life if I live carefully. I haven’t heard from them in a while, but their current aides say they are still the same down-to-earth people I had known them as.

Greg was a fantastic individual. He was an avid learner, an individual who did whatever it took and, yet, still managed to keep the small things in life within his view. It gave me great pleasure to work for him, and I definitely miss him.

The Ferrari 166 S

The Ferrari 166 S was a sports racing car built by Ferrari between 1948 and 1953, an evolution of its Colombo V12-powered 125 S racer. It was adapted into a sports car for the street in the form of the 166 Inter.

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Only 12 Ferrari 166 S were produced, nine of them with cycle-fenders as the Spyder Corsa. It was soon followed by the updated and highly successful Ferrari 166 MM (Mille Miglia), of which 47 were made from 1948 to 1953. Its early victories in the Targa Florio and Mille Miglia and others in international competition made the manufacturer a serious competitor in the racing industry. Both were later replaced by the 2.3 L 195 S.

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What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked during an interview?

At the end of the interview, the hiring manager leaned back on his chair, folded his hands and grinned, “Tell me why I shouldn’t hire the guy I interviewed before you came in?”

I had to think for a moment. “Having never met or interviewed the guy, I can’t make an informed opinion.” And I thought the reason for the question was to see if I made snap decisions without any facts.

He shook his head, “Now that’s a cop out. Give me another reason.”

“Let me see his resume and give me a few minutes. Cover up his name.”

“I can’t do that, but I’ll show you his cover letter.”

He folded the paper so I couldn’t see who sent it, and moved it across the desk. I read the first sentence and said, “He makes careless mistakes. He misspelled the name of your company.”

The hiring manager’s eyes popped and said, “What?” He looked at it again, then said, “This meeting is over.”

And that was that. I never heard back and no one in HR would take my call. I don’t know if it was a fake letter he used as a test or a real one.

That was the strangest question I was ever asked.

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

Yes, I was a financial manager at a golf & country club.

I took two weeks’ vacation and when I came back there was a note taped to my computer that said, “Do Not Open.” Immediately, I knew because employees were being let go daily.

Minutes later, my desk phone rang, and the NEW GM wanted me in his office.

I was let go for no reason given other than “Don’t take it personally”.

I stayed in contact with my assistant, and she was given my job at $8 an hr. She also told me he brought in his wife, children and many other employees that he knew from a previous job at another club.

All total, 23 employees were let go and replaced!

Karma got him….he got caught stealing and he was fired!

Nagging Song

Have you ever dined at a restaurant that left you thinking ‘is this a joke’?

Some years ago, when my special needs kids were younger, we went to a nearby restaurant to practice behavior, social skills, and new experiences. They won’t learn if they aren’t exposed.

I agreed they could have anything on the menu as long as they agreed to try their choice. My older two tried something off the adult menu, but my younger one was less confident and asked to try something from the kid’s menu. I wanted this a positive experience so I said sure. He ordered the personal pizza.

I did chuckle that we came to a restaurant for him to have pizza, but we agreed. It was a great time, and everyone enjoyed. Well, I didn’t enjoy it as much when I got the bill. His personal pizza cost almost as much as a regular pie from the pizza shop. Well, we came for the experience and everyone behaved well. But next time, I had an impulse about eating out, I asked the kids if they were ok with the pizza shop, and they were. The restaurant was ok, but you could relax in the pizza shop. Ok, I learned a lesson that day.

What’s the biggest secret your mother told you that you can disclose here?

She hated the pool and resented my father for getting it.

Upon retirement, my father put an in-ground pool, complete with a deck and privacy fence, in his back yard. I’d been moved out for three years at that point, and I usually visited during the holidays, when the pool was closed. I never saw it in its full glory except in pictures. I saw a lot of pictures of my dad and sister and other people having great pool parties.

My mother was never in those pictures. She was the one taking the pictures, I assumed. But she later told me that she hated the pool. It cost half as much as the house it was attached to. It was the single biggest purchase my father ever made for himself.

He got about eight years of use from it. Then, his health got so bad that his doctors told him to quit going in it, lest he have a heart attack and drown in it. They drained the pool that winter, and it was never used again.

Then he died, and for the next six years, my mother had a giant man-made swamp in her backyard. Every time it rained, she had to pump the water out of the pool. It attracted frogs and snakes. It actually reduced the value of her home, because she lived in a poor neighborhood and no one who could afford to fix and maintain the pool would want to live in that neighborhood.

Finally, just last month, she got it filled in with dirt. It wasn’t cheap, of course, but now she can have what was there before: a garden.

Easy vs Hard

From an economic perspective, what would a “reasonable relationship” between China and the United States look like?

To the US :-

To the US, a REASONABLE RELATIONSHIP will be when :-

  • Xi Jingping retires or resigns
  • China demilitarizes and commits to the same
  • China relinquishes the One China Policy wrt Taiwan and cedes the South China Sea to US Hegemony
  • China prepares to be Number Two for the considerable future
  • China purchases and takes back US Debt to $ 1.5–1.7 Trillion

Nothing else will satisfy them

Even if China makes these confessions, some Neocons won’t be satisfied

They want a War against China and to see China broken and lose considerable power and the CPC to be ousted and a US style democracy established


For China, a REASONABLE RELATIONSHIP MEANS :-

  • Each Nation understanding that their laws are meant to be followed in each nation
  • No protectionism
  • Not using Geopolitical issues in Economic problems
  • Fair Competition and the ‘May the best man win’ philosophy
  • Win Win Partnership so that the Global Economy can gain

Of course China also has Wolf Warriors who simultaneously aim to develop their independent supply chain and to oust US influence in the Global South


In the end, the businessmen in both nations want what China wants

The leadership in China wants peace

It is the US that is divided because of its unstable politicians, between Neocons and Neo Liberals and frankly too many homosexuals and transgenders to truly gauge what a diplomatic partnership means

So today all China is doing is BUYING TIME and waiting for US to collapse under it’s own weight

What’s the strangest thing delivered to your house (that you did not order)?

About a year ago we had a strange series of UPS and FedEx deliveries. They all had our correct address but the name was something like a cartoon character.. think something like Betty Poop.

The first box was a plant stand. My wife took it back to FedEx. Two days later we got the same delivery! In the middle there were a few more deliveries.. my wife was thinking it’s a scam where someone would come by and steal the freshly delivered boxes. But the stuff we were receiving weren’t that kind of stuff you’d expect in a scam.

We have an HOA with a complete list of homeowners. There was nobody with a name even close. Last box arrives.. it’s UPS and a big box of wallpaper. I send an email to the HOA mailing list, asking if anyone else was on the receiving end of same thing.

I get an immediate call from a woman on my street about 10 houses away. She’s screaming that we are stealing her packages and she’s a decorator and we made her miss her deadline! Apparently the funky name was her new business name! She wants me to deliver it all to her immediately or she’s calling the cops!

I ask her what her address was and she recites MY address.. I tell her to go outside and look at the number on her house. And that I’m putting all her boxes out in my driveway and she should come get it!

Ten minutes later there’s a man in an SUV picking up the boxes. No apology, no admission of fault. I still wouldn’t know the woman if I saw her today!

What can we do against obesity?

Penn and Teller had this show a few years back called “Bullshit”.

They would debunk TONS of stuff. It was very educational without being skewed like some of Michael Moore’s stuff is.

One show was debunking diet myths. They went through the history of sugar vs. fat and the evils of high fructose corn syrup, etc…

But one pivotal bit was when they brought a stagehand out from behind the set. He had apparently lost a ton of weight recently. They asked him how he managed to do it.

This epic hero looked straight into the camera and said, “I stopped eating so fucking much.”

When COVID hit, I knew I wouldn’t be going out as much. So I decided to change my diet very VERY slightly. I would take smaller scoops of rice and take the smaller potato during dinner. Without doing ANYTHING else, I lost about 4 pounds in about as many months. I wasn’t even trying.

Stay away from hidden sugar. EVERYTHING in the U.S. has hidden sugar in it. Look at the ingredients. Is something ends in “ose”, it’s sugar.

Exercise helps, too, of course, but not everyone can do it. One thing everyone can do, though is:

Stop eating so fucking much.

Project Looking Glass | The Time Warriors of the 2012 Apocalypse

This is fun, but full of disinfo. Enjoy yourself.

When was the day you first realised you were getting old?

I grew up outside of a small prairie town. One of my best friends grew up about 10 miles out of town, and in my teens I used to spend a lot of time at his house with him, his siblings and his parents. They had a built in kitchen table and wrap around bench. We used to sit at that table have a beer, and play a card game called “pass the ace” or sometimes “spoons” with all of our friends, his parents and siblings.

I moved away, travelled the world, and never settled down. I was about 40, still single, and I still planned on getting married and having kids someday.

When I was back in Canada, I decided to stop in and visit his parents. I knocked on the door, which was never locked, they yelled at me to come in, and there was a tableful of people playing pass the ace, and drinking beer. There was my friends mother, his younger brother, and 5 other young people playing pass the ace. I sat down, had a beer and got dealt in. I started to get caught up on all the news. It was exactly like old times, talking, drinking beer, playing cards, with a tableful of young adults, in their late teens, and early twenties. Exactly as if I hadn’t left. Then it dawned on me, I was playing cards with my friends two sons, his sisters son and daughter, and two second cousins. I was thinking I hadn’t changed in twenty years, and suddenly I was an old man playing cards, with the next generation, and they were old enough to legally drink.

That was the day, I realized I was no longer young, lets face it, I was old. I remember 20 years before, thinking how cool his parents and their friends were, for drinking and partying at their age, and now I was that old man sitting at the table.

I not only remember the day. I remember the minute it hit.

What is the most interesting conversation you overheard in a restaurant?

I’m not sure it was the most interesting, but its stuck in my mind for years. I was in a nice lakefront restaurant, inside a city, so it wasn’t a big lake, but a small man made lake.

At the table beside me was a couple and a realtor discussing putting his house on the market.

The man appeared to be about 10 years older than his wife. They had one of 5 houses on an island in the middle of the lake, accessable only by a bridge. Very exclusive. The housing market was down. The realtor had told the man what his house was assessed at. The husband said, he knew very well, what it was assessed at, but he wouldn’t sell it for anywhere near that price.

The realtor told him it would be on the market for a long time, if he listed it that high, and might never sell. The wife started to say something, and the husband actually turned to her, and said “This is mans business, we know what we are doing, let us talk, if we want to know how to decorate a room, we’ll ask you” I saw the realtor cringe, he didn’t want to be included in that kind of conversation.

The husband then told him, that the way to market it, was to sell it as one of only five houses on an island in the city, maybe the whole province. I understood his logic, but this was not a nice man.

Listing a house is something that a realtor really wants to do. Even if they don’t sell it themselves, as long as someone buys it, they make money. But, and this is a guess, it costs money to advertise the house, put it on the MLS system, and if its unrealistically high, and it never sells then they lose money. Then he has to deal with a high maintenance client, that makes him feel like he should wash his hands, after every meeting.

In any case, the realtor said that if he wanted to list the house for more than 30 percent over market value, he would have to find a different realtor. The husband was stunned, and couldn’t believe he was being turned down. The realtor paid for the lunch and left.

I don’t know if they ever talked again. But I didn’t feel clean myself, sitting at a table next to this guy, so I didn’t blame him.

Men are not dogs

How do you call out someone that claims to have been in the SAS?

There is a sure fire way to discover if a guy actually served in the British SAS, one that I witnessed myself. Let me explain. I had a friend who was an alcoholic. There was gossip in the local pubs that he was ex SAS. No matter how drunk he would get, he would always laugh and tell you not to be so stupid if you aver broached the subject with him. So how did we find out the truth? At his funeral. A serving member of the SAS in full uniform, accompanied by a bugler (Non SAS) attended and gave a eulogy that had us all gobsmacked. Not only was my friend ex SAS, but his exploits were totally jaw dropping heroic. We were told that whenever an ex member of the SAS dies. His funeral is always attended by a serving member of the regiment. RIP Alec.

What’s the saddest “card declined” moment you’ve seen?

I was waiting in line at the dollar store, lady in front of me had an infant in her arms, and had an older boy maybe 5 who was holding his little sister’s hand who was about 3 to prevent her from running off.

She was purchasing 2 tiny packs of diapers, a few minor food items, and a 1 liter Mountain Dew. She had enough for the total, but it was spread among 3 debit cards. I don’t know if the clerk was new, or a new computer system, but the clerk was having trouble ringing it up in 3 payments like she needed.

I was off work at the time, between jobs collecting unemployment, so I was struggling also, but I could easily afford the little bit she needed, so I just stepped up, and swiped my card to cover her groceries. She tried to take the Mountain Dew out (a luxury, not necessity) but I pointed out with 3 children she needed the caffeine even though 1 was very mature, and helpful.

On my way out the door to walk home (nice day, and not far, so I walked instead of driving) I heard her attempt to stay her van, it sounded like a dead battery and when it finally started, a horrible belt squealing sound told me a belt was destroyed, or very loose.

I told her I’m a hobby mechanic, I don’t live far, and I told her I’d gladly look at it if she would like since I don’t live far, so she offered me a ride and another thank you for paying for her groceries.

When she pulled in the driveway, she was reluctant to shut the vehicle off, I told her I have a battery booster or my car to get her started if needed.

Opened the hood, and someone had replaced the alternator recently, but had forgotten to tighten the swing arm assembly that holds pressure on the belt. It took as much time to grab the tools as it did to tighten it correctly. It started right up with the battery booster, and the squealing was gone.

I pointed out the belt was looking worn out, recommended she get it replaced but it’ll last for a few months at least, and told her I would gladly put the belt on whenever she needed free of charge if she showed up with the belt.

I’ve been in her shoes raising my 4 children as a single dad, so the little money for her groceries, and about 5 minutes of my time to tighten the alternator belt was no problem at all.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

I’ve been wondering whether or not to answer this… The “wrong person” is my daughter (stepdaughter really,but I’m Daddy now and forever so that settles that) and the people doing the “picking a fight”were her ex boyfriend and his father.. I didn’t personally witness this because I was in Iraq at the time,but believe me I sure heard about it.

Daughter is tall and not a delicate flower even though she has all the requisite standard equipment to attract stares and suchlike, including a startling resemblance to Gal Gadot ,and I always emphasized to all my kids the importance of self confidence ,so she carries herself with a certain pride. She has Blackfeet blood along with Irish and Norwegian and who knows what else, girl has a temper too,what can I say..

Anyways,ex boyfriend and father spot her walking down the sidewalk one weekend night and follow her,asking her to get in and go for a cruise.. She says no,but they apparently don’t want to take no for an answer and pull ahead and stop, ex BF Gets out of the car and grabs her elbow and pulls her towards the car,she pulls away and he grabs her again, by this time she is almost in the door. I had taught my kids to avoid punching someone and use their elbows if the person was close enough, which ex BF certainly was unfortunately for his dumb ass, because Daughter proceeds to elbow him repeatedly in the face with backswing strikes on her way away from the car, dislocating ex BF‘S jaw and shattering his eye socket and breaking his nose, and naturally stopped any hostilities on his part, but ex BF’s dad was pushed by this time and ran around the car and accosted Daughter, catching a 50 yard field goal kick in his balls for his troubles..I taught my kids well.

no charges were filed..

The mindset of GEN Z

When Japan invaded China, did they also create “comfort women” like in South Korea?

During the Japanese War of Aggression Against China (1931-1945), about 200000, or even more women in China were lured and forced by the Japanese army to become “comfort women”. They suffered various unimaginable and unspeakable forms of abuse during the war, most of which were tortured to death at that time. Even if a few survivors survived by chance, they were left with scars and even lifelong disabilities.

At the comfort station, they subjected women to inhumane torture, even if they were pregnant, they still had to endure the torture of the Japanese army. Once they fell ill, they would be killed. The Japanese army did not leave a way for these women to survive, and they even set up a series of “rules and regulations” that made these captured women unable to die.

After Japan surrendered, they were afraid that their crimes would be exposed, and they brutally killed all comfort women before leaving. We cannot imagine how desperate they were at that moment. Fortunately, there are many women who have survived by chance. But for them, surviving may not be a kind of luck, because they have been living in darkness for the latter half of their lives, and their survival is evidence to prove the Japanese’s inhumanity. Because they survived with strength, we could only know about the various crimes committed by Japan.

There is a lengthy documentary in China called “Twenty Two”, that tells the story about China’s surviving “comfort women” during the Japanese invasion of China. The film was directed by Guo Ke, with 22 comfort women participating in the filming. It was released in mainland China on August 14, 2017. Unfortunately, on November 9, 2023, Li Meijin, the victim of comfort women, passed away at the age of 98. It means that all the surviving women in the documentary “Twenty Two” have passed away.

Until now, Japan has refused to admit their crimes. However, history is there, and it’s useless for them to sophistry. But even in textbooks, they briefly mentioned or directly overturned the truth about that period of history, to the extent that young Japanese people today do not understand what happened back then. They can cover up, but Chinese people will never forget that shameful past.

Alpha Dad Overcomes Childhood Hardships To Gain Wealth, Respect & A Wife That Treats Him Like A King

Damn is this good. And man do I love his grandmother. You rock!

What did you start doing differently that quickly changed your life?

When I moved to Thailand, I was incredibly lonely.

Not speaking the language, I lived for months in silence. I desperately wanted human connection. I just wanted to speak with someone.

My standard for becoming friends with someone dropped to having the ability to speak English. That’s all it took.

My new best friends became a 70 year old English man and his Thai wife. They would take me to markets on the weekends sometimes and talk with me if I ate dinner at their shop.

When I walked around the lake every day, I became friends with a 40 year old Thai man who used to work on cruise ships and could speak a decent amount of English to me.

A little 17 year old girl from Uruguay that I met at the gym became one of my good friends as well, she was studying abroad to learn Thai.

For the first time in my life, I had friends of all ages from all backgrounds.

My whole life, I’ve only been friends with people who were within a couple years of my own age. The only older men I talked to was my grandpa, I’d never called an older man a friend. I avoided high schoolers. Forty year old men and women were my parents age, I didn’t want to hang out with them.

But, let me tell you, life became so much richer as soon as I did. 70 year old men have lived a lot of life and can teach you a lot of things. 40 year old cruise ship waiters can tell you about a lot of life experiences that you’ve never had. 17 year old girls from high school can teach you about their way of life in Uruguay and supporting them can bring a lot of meaning to your life.

I think most people limit themselves to a bubble of friends who are the same age as them and in the same stage of life. I think that really limits yourself and the depth of relationships you can have.

I want to stay open to everyone for the rest of my life. It’s so much better this way.

Divorced Men

What is animal-inspired engineering?

Cockroaches have made their way into my life, against my will, and to great inconvenience. Three years ago, my girlfriend cried into the phone for me to come over, “Please…please…it is twitching on my kitchen floor.” She sounded like a hostage. We went back and forth for two minutes, with me insisting I couldn’t come to her house.

“I’m busy writing. Just get a paper towel and flush it,” I said, trying to calm her down. It didn’t work. She begged and begged until I finally said, “I’m doing this once.” And then drove 20 minutes — just to kill a roach.

After we moved into our new house together, my war with the roaches truly began. Exterminating them took significant research and numerous failed attempts. Mine is a common problem, and has made me question the value of these little critters.

We should be impressed that a creature has survived so much research and resources put into their extermination, and pesticides that are only making them stronger. A roach always finds a way and there is no “walling them out”. To the shock of NASA’s employees, one even snuck onboard Apollo 12. They’d moved mountains to decontaminate the spacecraft and ensure nothing snuck on. Employees were even in denial, swearing the roach couldn’t be there when astronauts said they’d seen one. Nevertheless, one did, and Apollo 12 took off for the moon while gaining the nickname, “The Roach Coach”.

Roaches are so nimble that researchers at Cornell University explored how just flexible they are. In a test of increasingly smaller crevices, they discovered roaches could squeeze through 3 millimeter spaces, despite their back being 12 millimeters high. Their exoskeleton is indeed hard and breakable, but exists in sections connected by soft tissue that molds and bends. And even while pressed down tight with weight on their back, they can still move fast and with little regard for gravity. When adjusting for size, they run the equivalent of a human running 200 mph. They can run when missing four legs. They can climb vertically while missing two feet. Scientists proved that roaches could withstand 900 times their own bodyweight without taking damage.

A roach is also an extreme gymnast, with a hallmark move, where it quickly flips from the edge of a table to the underside, dangling by one leg in an instant. It often leaves home owners wondering where the roach went. And so, a cockroach’s incredible athleticism, nimbleness, and durability, make it the perfect model for robotics technology, as we continue to explore new planets and depths on Earth. These new robots may even save lives.

A new era of inspiration

At John’s Hopkins University, Dr. Chen Li and Dr. Sean Gart filmed cockroaches running and then played video back in slow motion, studying how the legs and arms sync and propel it forward. They took notes, in awe, and looked at means of replicating these efficiencies with robots. A cockroach typically deals with vegetation, leaf and stick covered terrain. It is highly complex to navigate, but cockroaches do so with extreme ease and efficiency.

This matters because robotics is moving into a new phase, where robots are moving from indoor testing to outdoors, which is why the most clever animal navigators, including snakes, octopuses, and arachnids, have attracted non-hostile attention from scientists. One of the signature challenges robots face, is moving through unpredictable terrain and being durable enough for random physical impacts.

The study of cockroaches, in particular, has led to a new branch of durable and penetrating robots that can climb high objects, crash hard, and still get back up and resume climbing. Professor Robert J. Full, of UC Berkley, has spent his career researching the nature of evolution-inspired design, and even attached tiny jetpacks to the sides of roaches, to test how well they climb vertically while being randomly jetted to the side. It was easy work — for the roaches.

His lab designed a tiny cockroach inspired robot, that squeezes through cracks, and even looks a bit like a roach. It could be useful for descending through cracks in rubble to search for survivors. It stands 75 millimeters tall and can squeeze down to 35 millimeters, which is almost, but not quite as good as roaches. It also has similar pliable and molding body parts, that allow it to bend and move in extremely tight and uneven spaces. Dr. Full routinely meets with first responders at disaster sites, to learn more about their needs as he continues to innovate this robot.

The necessity of studying them

It is as the old Sun Tzu saying goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Cockroaches are a brilliant species, without actually being brilliant.

When I met with a pest control expert, his feedback wasn’t what I expected. He said, “Don’t just spray every inch of a room’s perimeter, they’ll know it’s a trap.” Then, he showed me how to put tiny drops along walls, and in the underside of cupboards and tiny cracks between furniture and sliding drawers. “Think of all the tiniest openings possible, and think like a roach — and you’ll know where to put the spray,” he said. It is this intrinsic cleverness and efficient navigating that could manifest robots of incredible caliber and utility in the coming decades.

What’s remarkable is that cockroaches don’t rely heavily on their nervous system for movement like other mammals. Even when thrown off balance, yanked around, blasted with wind, and spun like a top, their bodies auto adjust without thought. This matters for robotics because engineers are constantly programming and scripting robots to manage uneven terrain, and think about where their feet are going.

The insight from a cockroach is that, perhaps engineers shouldn’t try so hard with this programming method. They should rely on predictable mechanics, that have built-in means to traverse steep rocks and slippery surfaces. In short, make it more natural. This could impact medical technology and prosthetics, and help people who’ve had strokes or major injuries, develop more fluid gaits.

The animal kingdom is, in a sense, the only alien intelligence we deal with. Species are of ingenious design through an evolutionary arms race, and can move and adjust to their environment in ways we’d have never dreamed of. Which is evident when trying to step on a roach and you miss in the last moment, or even when you hit it, it manages to keep running. Who wouldn’t want this fortitude and evasiveness?

Perhaps what strikes me most, is that a bug with little cognitive function, has evolved to elude the smartest of all known species, and who is quite hostile to its presence. A future where nature-inspired robotics, combined with artificial intelligence, could save lives in search and rescue, improve exploration of new places and planets, and improve lives for the disabled. All thanks to our most ancient and enduring pest.

Chinese minorities

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2dUVTdyiOY?feature=share

Copeland’s of New Orleans Swamp Pie

copelands of new orleans
copelands of new orleans

Ingredients

  • 20 ounces Graham cracker crumbs
  • 6 ounces chocolate fudge
  • 1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream
  • 12 ounces sliced roasted almonds*
  • 12 ounces shredded roasted coconut*
  • 5 ounces whipped cream
  • 8 ounces butter or margarine

Instructions

  1. Mix crumbs together with butter or margarine thoroughly. Spread the mixture on sides and bottoms of a 9-inch springform pan to form a crust.
  2. Take 2 ounces of fudge and spread on top of crumbs. Place 1/4 gallon of ice cream on top of fudge. Next, spread 2 ounces of fudge over ice cream then place 4 ounces of coconut. Place remaining ice cream on coconut and follow with 2 ounces fudge, 4 ounces almonds and 4 ounces coconut as done before. Top with whipped cream and remaining almonds and coconut. Place in deep freezer for 3 to 4 hours.

Notes

Roasted Coconut and Almonds: Place coconut on a metal sheet pan and put into oven at 350 degrees F for approximately 3 1/2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Do the same for almonds but increase the time to 4 minutes.

Simpsons Predictions For 2024 Is Insane!

What is one of the kindest things another person has ever done for you?

When I was running from an abusive situation, i lived in a shelter on welfare. After my 2 month stay was up, i had to find a room to rent or they’d send me to a homeless shelter (the one i was in was for female abuse victims and their children if they have any. Since there was a high demand for rooms there, the stays were short). I ended up finding a room that was 500$ per month. On welfare as a single person with no kids, I got 709$ per month. I went to view the room and the landlord asked me why I wanted to live there. I explained the situation and he immediately said yes. I ended up moving in not even a week later. He let me live there for free with unlimited wifi and cable TV included for 8 months of my 13 month stay with him. After the 8 months I had a job and could pay the rent, but even then he said if I couldnt make the rent to let him know. Hed share his food from his fridge with me, give me cash money randomly with notes that said things like “buy whatever you want” and “have a nice day”, hed offer to give me rides to the store and job interviews, he offered to get me a bus pass (85$ for one that lasts a month), hed invite me to share BBQs with him, his wife and the other 4 tenants. He bought everyone Christmas gifts (a box of Ferrero Roche chocolates and a 50$ amazon gift card). He never asked for anything back. He became more like a friend to me than a landlord. He was amazing

Was there ever a time in your life when you almost wanted to give up?

My stepdad beat me when I was between 8 and 11. He would wait until I wasn’t looking, then sneak up behind me with a riding crop and hit me behind the knees. My mother would not come to my defense, no matter how hard I cried. I had no idea how to process this situation. I felt like my mother betrayed me and that the legal system was on her side since she got custody of us (my sister and me) when she divorced my dad. I had thoughts about suicide, but we only lived on the second floor, so jumping wasn’t an option. There were railroad tracks nearby, so I could have jumped in front of a train. Basically, it was the lowest point of my life… and I was 11. Somehow I found the strength to get past this and accepted that beatings were a thing now. I could make it through this. I had to just count on myself to deal with the pain and betrayal.

Eventually, he beat me so bad that when my dad came to pick us up for one of our weekends with him, I was bleeding from a ruptured eardrum. My dad almost lost it. He was going to kill my stepdad. I asked him to just take me to a doctor and deal with the rest of the shit later. He did. He also demanded custody. My mom accepted immediately. I knew then that I was a commodity to her. I’ve written her out of my life for the most part. We only talk on birthdays and Christmas.

My dad did his best and I think he really supported me up until I lost him to brain cancer in January 2016. He was my Yoda, my Gandalf, my friend. I miss him daily. He saved my life.

I hope I can be there as much for my kids.

Overthinking men

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

KFC – always popular for making rules and rolling it back badly. As a student in UK, I worked as a parttimer in KFC for two reasons 1) Money I get paid 2) Food I’m allowed to eat during breaks.

Staffs who work in KFC are allowed to take KFC food during lunch breaks. I know staffs who even took a bucket of chicken for lunch , but then they’re hard workers and smart workers – a pillar of support behind the enormous profit KFC makes per shift.

One fine day, the circle management decided to do some cost cutting – made a rule that staffs are allowed to take only limited food for lunch. A burger, fries and a cup of soft drink. Nothing more.

Rationing food for staffs — nobody likes it. The store manager would check how much food you take for lunch , particularly if he’s a bully , that’s annoying as hell.

Time for payback ….

We came with a plan.

If the store closes by 10 pm, we started to over cook by 9pm, pile up all the racks with cooked food.

  1. Now the “kick in the butt” is back on the store manager – it’s his head ache to sell all the cooked food before closing or else the food is reported as “unsold” in records. This means he gets questioned for poor sales, losses his incentives and what not
  2. He can’t ask us not to over cook because incase there’s customer flow and there’s food shortage – we can do nothing. That affects the rating
  3. Above all , staff food was rationed as a means of cost cutting. Now the management has learnt -” you touch my food, now deal with the loss mate, let’s see how you make profit”.

Within a week , the rule of food rationing was rolled back. The management went in knees —” take as much food you want for lunch, but please don’t overcook at closing time.

The management has learnt a hard lesson — it’s not just the store manager but the staff who knows how to run a shift with better profits.

No food chain can make profits without staff cooperation

Children who have had to clean out your parents’ house after they passed, did you find anything that completely changed how you viewed them?

This one didn’t necessarily change how I viewed my mom but it sure gave me a good (but bittersweet) laugh.

My mom was a hoarder. Her home was filled with junk from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. She just couldn’t bear to get rid of anything because she thought she might “need” it someday. The fact that she couldn’t find it if she did need it was lost on her.

Anyhoo, the day came when we had to move mom into a care home. My sister and I sat mom in a cleared corner of a couch and let her “help” by telling us “yay or nay” on keeping certain things. In the background, our team was hauling soooo much crap out into a bin without her knowing. We’d bring random boxes and let mom “sort” through them to keep her occupied. One or the other of us would sit with her and talk while the others worked. In the end, we actually kept only enough clothes and books and personal items to fit in the care home room we’d lined up for her.

During the course of the day we noticed that mom had acquired a VERY large number of nail clippers over the years. Being tiny items that you need fairly often, she was constantly leaving them here or there and losing them. The people helping would laugh and say “found another one!” every time they spotted one. In the end we found about 100 nail clippers! (We also found a mini fridge that had been buried in the back, filled with sickeningly, gaggingly, gross, rotten, mouldy food!)

Sometimes you can laugh and feel pain at the same time, I guess. It was a time of bonding for my sister and I. Mom had to give her beloved dog Spike to a friend and move away from the town that had been her home for decades. It was very painful for all of us but in a way it was also life-affirming if that makes sense.

What’s the weirdest thing you secretly do daily?

I bought a large framed picture of James Butler Hickock or Wild Bill. I loved the photo.

I hung the picture in my sunroom right beside the back door. It was like he was looking right at me and his eyes followed me everywhere I went.

I read quite a few books about this man and he led a very interesting life as a soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor.

We even visited Deadwood, South Dakota where he lived the last years of his life before being killed at a card game he was playing in 1876, the same year Custer died. We went to the saloon where he was shot and visited his grave on Mt. Moriah, and there beside him was the grave of Calamity Jane who was buried when she died in 1903.

So at first, every morning I walked out that door, I’d say, “Morning Bill,” and everytime I walked in that door at night, I’d say, “Night Bill.” All in fun.

Poor old Bill was probably lonely out there as he guarded the house. Was probably also cold at times. But those steely eyes would sure look at me. Sometimes he looked sad, sometimes amused like he had the slightest smile on his face. He probably enjoyed my pipe or cigar smoke that floated around the room while I had a few puffs. But I feel he looks forward to my good mornings and good nights, and I feel that if I forget to say those things to him, well, might not bode well. Superstitious I guess.

So every morning and every night, I talk to Bill and I think it’s okay. Weird, but okay.

Night Bill.

Roles

All the benefits and no responsibilities.

How could the American Military Industrial Complex be dismantled to save the US from getting into more and more wars and ballooning national debts?

This is a very good question indeed. Thank you.

Every American should seriously think about this. Every empire that come and gone since time in memorial, went because of over intervention, over interference and over reaching to the point that it could no longer sustain itself. And they self implode and civil war is inevitable.

The U.S. is not getting there, it is indeed there now and almost beyond redemption. Seriously, Americans must jointly and severally destroy the U.S. military industrial complex before it destroy all of you. They are the single most important reason that the US is drag into conflicts after conflicts. Due to them, your real standard of living has not grown since 1960! Your great grand parents have a better standard of living compared to you!

Please think seriously about your debts. Just 10 years ago your debt was a mere USD10 trillion today it is USD34 trillion precisely 340% increase in a decade. At the rate you are going by 2034 the U.S. debts will be USD100 trillion at least! Just paying interest alone at 5% is USD5 trillion dollars per annum.

Seriously, don’t let anyone fool you! 5 trillion is so humongous your nation will never be able to do anything else. Today you can argue that the U.S. infrastructure is lying dilapidated, your homeless has reached a million, a third of Americans are in debt and can’t afford healthcare and college education. It can only afford one and only one thing. Wage more wars! Wars enriched 0.01% of Americans! Your politicians and the deep state!

China is a million times more healthier than the U.S. that is your problem right here! China’s saving is so colossal it save a U.K GDP a year. China’s debts is USD 15 trillion and almost 100% of it is investment that grows China’s capacity! Build its state or art technology and infrastructure, graduate STEM engineers the size of the entire US STEM experts each year!

This means China grow its capacity phenomenally while the US fall back every year due to your liabilities. Let me be brutally honest, you don’t stand a chance against China! But you may save the US that still remain a nation and a strong 2nd largest economy for 50 years till India catches up! Most importantly your citizens get back its prosperity and avoid total collapse! Do it before it is too late. Get rid of the neocons, eradicate the deep state, get ride of NRA and CIA.

China cannot be stop, the best you can do is be strong and wealthy again.

Top Gun with a Cat

Enjoy this FUN short video. I hope it makes your day. I know that it did mine!

It’s about stinky dead bodies

When I was a teenager, there was a flood along the river where we lived. A large number of mobile homes that were located on the shores of the river were taken out, and destroyed. And six people were missing.

2023 11 27 17 19
2023 11 27 17 19

One day after the grand storm, I was walking alongside the tracks beside the river. I was in a remote section of the track. Perhaps two miles away from the town, and in the woods.

Eventually I came across a section that smelled really, REALLY bad. It was so foul that I got off the tracks and went to the edge of the river, where the smell was so damn intense.

I couldn’t see anything, and left. But that afternoon, I later discovered that a body was found at the exact location where I was standing looking for the body.

body
body

This is my story for today.

Boring? But, you know… true life experience.

Today…

What did you find while snooping that you wish you had never found?

When I was around 11 I was snooping around in my parents room and saw their bank passbook sitting on their dresser. I opened it up expecting to see a healthy sum of money. Instead there was less than $30 in it. I saw the weekly deposits from my dad’s work and regular withdrawals for cash.

even at that young age I realized that we were poor and what little we had got spent on us kids. I felt terrible when I thought of all the times I’d pushed my folks to spend what they had on treats for me and my sister and brother.

I stopped asking for expensive things after that.

What are the reasons more and more Chinese students abroad decide to return to China?

A year ago, filled with a longing for Western freedom and democracy, I applied to the University of Auckland, thinking that it would be great if I could stay and work or live in New Zealand after graduation.

Now, I am firmly convinced that I should return to China after my graduation because:

1.The salary here is not as high as what I can earn in China,

2.The best city here is only equivalent to a third-tier city in China. Shopping and daily life are not as convenient as in China, and the cost of living is four times higher.

3.The knowledge taught in universities here, I can learn for free on Chinese websites, and it’s richer and more advanced.

4. I participated in two research projects at the University of Auckland and found that the level of research and development here is behind that of equivalent universities in China. I realized that by studying here, I probably won’t be able to bring back advanced knowledge. Therefore, I am considering returning to a Chinese university to further my education.

5. Moreover, I can feel that the majority of people in Western countries still believe they are more developed than China. This is the general perception, and I don’t need to explain it. I’ll just return to China and quietly contribute my strength there.

6. Western culture, there seems to be a preference for those who are boastful and talkative rather than those who are low-key and pragmatic. Coincidentally, as a Chinese person, I am not good at boasting, and I prefer to fulfill my responsibilities and then rest. The Chinese workplace is more accommodating to someone with my traits.

In fact, I spent hundreds of thousands of RMB to come to New Zealand, to see the real Western world, improve my English, and then met a group of Chinese students and a few friendly foreign students, and ate food that I wasn’t quite used to for a year.

What, as a parent, could you not believe you had to explain to another parent?

I’m not a parent, but as a teacher I had to explain to a mother about bedtimes and sleep for a seven year old.

Her son was always tired and had difficulty staying awake during class. He was not working to his potential.

His mom came to discuss his poor grades. Come to find out, she was under the impression that he slept too much. So, she kept him up to midnight and had him get up at 6:00 a.m. No wonder the poor lad was always tired. I would be, too.

So, I explained to her that growing children needed at least 10 hours of sleep nightly as their bodies were growing and sleeping gave their bodies time to rest, heal, and grow.

She started having him go to bed at 8:00, especially on school nights. Within a week, he was brighter, more chipper, and the quality of his work improved immensely.

The interesting part? About a month later, he gave me a big hug and thanked me for telling his mom he needed to go to bed earlier.

What was the craziest thing a mechanic said about your car?

I took my nice little VW Beetle Diesel to a mechanic for an oil change. After they got the car on the rack, the service advisor came out “Your car has a really bad oil leak.”

Before you go farther, bear in mind: This was a diesel. This comes in important later.

I go back to the bay and take a look at the purported oil leak. The bottom half of the back of the engine was covered in fresh, amber colored oil. “Oh, you’ve got a huge oil leak. You need to pay us $200 to diagnose the problem.” I called for the shop manager.

“Your employee claims that this car has an oil leak.”

He looks under there. “Yup. Sure does.”

“You know this is a diesel.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Have you ever seen the oil drained from a diesel?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you know that if I put fresh oil in this engine and drive the car three blocks, that oil will be as black as the Ace of Spades. This supposed oil leak, which is in a place oil can’t leak out of, is fresh oil.”

“Umm…”

“Listen. Clean all the oil he sprayed on my engine off it right now so I can go somewhere honest.”

The unbreakable rule

What is something you absolutely despise about your country?

Finn here.

The climate. Finland is located between 60th and 70th North, which makes the climate absolutely miserable.

image 163
image 163

The location means the winters are long, dark and miserable – sun rising at Christmas only at 09:00 in Helsinki and setting at 15:00. The situation isn’t exactly improved by the fact that Finland is located at the occlusion zone of Ferrel cell, which means the whole Atlantic comes down from the sky each Spring and Autumn. (Oh, Autumn is really Fall – I mean, rainfall. Finnish rain is not the warm shower as the Mediterranean rains, it is hard, cold and scourging.)

Finland has the worst of both littoral and continental climate: cool summers and freezing winters. Oh, and did I mention rasputitsa? Yup, we have it too.

image 162
image 162

The cold and miserable weather and the long and dark winter has left its permanent mark on our national soul. Finns tend to be emotionally cold, dour and close-minded. Not rude nor impolite, but cold. Sorry, no jolly reggae tunes here. Hero metal, power metal, black metal and prog metal. If your playing sucks, turn on more overdrive.

Which leads to another problem. Alcohol use is commonplace. Simply to carry over the worst. Getting hammered is a method to cope with the cold, dark and miserable winter.

Which leads to another problem. Suicides tend to be common, but not as common as they used to be. Many people simply cannot stand it all and quit their living.

Atheism is in Scandinavia a far older phenomenon than science. When the soil is poor, weather hostile and everything in the climate tries to kill you, you relate to supernatural as enemies and any deities as intolerable cosmic oppressors. The divine is not seen as a provider, but oppressor – as something which attempts to make living even more miserable than it already is. This is one reason why the Scandinavians are so hostile to religion and spirituality they tend to be. Already the Hrafnkell’s saga from 10th century tells of a Viking chieftain who ditches the Viking gods and becomes godhlauss, Atheist.

I wish I had wings so I could fly to Spain for winter like the migratory birds.

I’d choose the sandwich

What is the nicest thing you have done that no one knows about?

A bit of background: My parents recently got divorced and my dad got most of the money, furniture and he got the house. My brother (10) and I (13) only see our mom every second weekend and sometimes my dad just keeps us for the weekend. I always stop by my moms After school everyday to let her dog out and clean up any messes she made (She’s 17 and black lab). I usually wait there for bit until I have to pick up my brother.

Anyways, one day, my math teacher asked me to stay behind for a few minute so to talk about an opportunity to compete in a math contest. It was country wide and was for grade ten and eleven math. I’m grade seven but he said that’s he talked to the people who were running it. They said I could try but might have some trouble with it. I really like math so I said yes.

Fast forward two weeks and I’m sitting in the cafeteria with a bunch of really tall people. They hand out the papers and say go. I finish in about half an hour and turn mine in.

About a month ago i got the results and i placed third in the country. Apparently, there was a prize and i won three hundred dollars.

Now, my mom has been struggling financially although she didn’t tell us, I figured it out. Every time I stop by her house, I put some of the money in her jar and she hasn’t but noticed. I know it’s probably not a lot but I like to think I’m helping a at least a little bit. I can’t legally work yet…

Man, the USA is fucked up.

What is the best lie you have ever told your child?

When my due date was getting very close, I told my 3 and a half year old daughter that her little brother is afraid to come out of my belly. He thinks to himself: Oh, its a big scary world out there. Who knows what is awaiting for me outside. I’m just a little baby boy. I don’t want to go out and live with big grown up people all by myself.. Who will understand me and help me when I’m outside? Oh how I wish there was a little girl out there who would be my sister, so we can grow up together…

She was deeply moved when she heard this. She put her little hand gently on my belly, and whispered to her brother with a voice filled with tenderness. Come out little brother. I am your sister M. and I will always take care of you. You don’t have to be afraid. Few days after this, her brother came, and the love and connection that the two of them have is something I, as an only child, never imagined could exist. The way they cherish one another, help, encourage and comfort along the way is truly amazing.

Are school uniforms the most effective way to eliminate social and economic differences between students?

It’s not going to eliminate the difference at all. However, it could help the less rich kids to maintain their dignity.

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image 160

This is the most common school uniform in China. It’s ugly, oversized, and appeard since my school ages, but totally affordable. It wouldn’t change the fact that some kids have a poor family background, but it could reduce the possibility of students getting isolated in schools for either being too poor or rich. Trust me that kids do that all the time, and it could be quite hurtful sometimes.

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image 161

Besides, with an ugly uniform, how one looks like purely relys on face. Dad’s mercedes or even GTR wouldn’t save it.

This is very serious what is going on

Not really Communism, though…

Can you describe a time that your company only discovered that you were irreplaceable after they fired you? How did you feel? What did they do?

I am a welder and applied to a job through a temp agency. Their ad said hiring welders from $23 to $26 an hour depending on experience. They gave me a weld test and decided to hire me at $23. I told them I want $26 because that’s what their add said. I was told that was dependent on experience. Well I have 24 years of experience and I want 26. In the end I agreed to work for 25.

On my first night it was time to clock out so I went to the time clock and clocked out. I noticed all the other welders were still there cleaning up their work areas. I shouted at them so they could hear me, “hey it’s time to go. What are you all still doing here?”

I didn’t get an answer and left. Coming in the next day I asked them about this and they said they cleaned up the shop after hours on their time. With all the workers around and the boss I told everyone, “I don’t work for free. This mess wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been here working. I won’t be cleaning the shop for free. I am loud quitting boss” as I made eye contact with the foreman, “when my shift is over I am clocking out and going home. I will have my area cleaned up before then.”

That night was the first night they did weld testing because new clients demanded all their welders were certified welders.

The next morning the temp agency called me and asked me not to go back to the job because I had been terminated for not listening.

The morning after I was called back again. I was the only person on 2nd shift who passed the weld test and many on first shift also failed.

Company representative: “Would you come back to work for us, please?”

Me: “OK but I want $28 an hour and switched to 1st shift.”

Company representative: “we can’t do that”

Me: “Good bye”

50 Bucks and a pack of cigarettes

What was the most obvious hint that someone hitting on you ever gave but you totally missed it?

In Vietnam, when we meet someone for the first time in the new (lunar) year, we usually give each other a red envelope with some lucky money – as a good wish for a bright and happy new year.

I was in 11th grade in high school. We were just back from the Lunar New Year holiday (”Tết” holiday in Vietnamese), happily exchanging red envelopes and good wishes. Coincidentally, it was also Valentine’s Day that year. But, 20 years ago, I had no idea about that, so when this boy handed me the red envelope with a chocolate bar, “Happy Valentine!”, I happily took it, “Thank you! You’re so sweet!”, and I gave him a big hug.

Before he could say anything else, I opened the chocolate bar, broke it into pieces, and… shared it with the whole class, everyone got a piece. I couldn’t explain the emotion in his eyes when he watched that happened.

Years later, every time we meet up for our class reunion, he always brings this story up and we laugh. Still can’t believe I missed that hint.

CIA

Back in the late 70’s I found myself between jobs. I had 10 years as the GM of aof a chain of convenience stores which had been sold and that ended my job! My parents lived in the Washington DC area and one of their neighbors, who I had known for many years, worked for the CIA. At a neighborhood gathering while I was visiting I mentioned to him that I was job hunting and asked if he had any connections in the CIA. After we had returned home I got a call asking if I would like to interview so I flew back up and stayed with my parents for a week.

I was instructed to report to a building in Rosslyn VA which is across the Potomac River from DC. I remember having a hard time finding the address I was given because there was no name or numbers on the building. Maybe that was my first test! In any case, the interview lasted all week. One thing that I remember was is how low key the whole process was. Mostly a series of different people asking me a lot of questions about myself. What my hobbies were, favorite foods. etc. It reminded me of shooting the breeze with a bunch of strangers at a college mixer. Not much in writing, no physicals, drug tests, etc. Not many probing questions, very relaxed. Definitely the strangest interview I’ve ever had, and this went on for 5 days.

There was one woman who was my primary contact. From the beginning to the end, she was the one who was always there at the end of an interview and introduced me to the next person. Never their last name or title, just a first name, always in the same room, never in their office. On the 5th and final day, she brought me into her office and said that they would like me to work for them as an operative. I had never heard that term before, but knew that it meant that the CIA wanted me to be a spy. Immediate visions of James Bond came to mind. Fast cars, nice clothes, A GUN…all the things that we associate with being a spy. Obviously I was very interested.

I had a bunch of questions but the two that I remember were: 1. Where would I be stationed? and 2. What did they want me to do? I was married with two young children, and I was thinking maybe they wanted me in Europe where I had spent many years as a boy. WRONG! They wanted me to operate a small grocery store in PAGO PAGO! I had never even heard of Pago Pago, let alone knew that there was a large US Navy Base there. Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from everything and everyone we know, it was out of the question.

That was the end of my spy recruitment.

LOL. All, I do mean ALL of the stores in Pago Pago are owned by Chinese nationals. No fucking shit. -MM

Chinese Rufus

Has an unknown stranger ever paid a massive bill for you? What happened?

I was a semi-freshly divorced single mom working in a chain of gas stations. It was my job to cover if someone called off and to run the money every day.

I had a reliable car only because my parents both took the time to teach me about cars including how to find a good used one and repair it when it broke.

I was enrolled in college. One class at a time is all I could squeeze in my schedule and budget.

My child was suffering under a rural southern school district. She is gifted and they had refused to set an IEP, refused to challenge her, and in fact persecuted her and myself due to our religion. We were told more than once we were going to Hell by school officials.

It was an uphill battle with them that required an attorney who volunteered his services. I couldn’t have afforded him otherwise.

Despite these difficulties, life was OK. We were surviving. We had food, shelter, and running water. My child never went to bed hungry or cold.

Then I started getting tired. Abnormally tired. I didn’t have the energy to function. My mother forced me to go to her doctor. She paid for the visit because I didn’t have insurance.

The doctor called me at work two days later and asked me to come in. I made arrangements for my child after school and I went.

He told me I was sick. Very sick. The tiredness was a symptom of this. It wasn’t just lack of proper nutrition or being over worked. This wasn’t something that could be fixed with a pill.

I started treatment the next week. I still went to work. I still took care of my child. I had to drop my class and adjust my schedule. I had to fight — and fight I did.

Then the medical bills started coming in. Uninsured and dead broke, I almost gave up. The state said I did not qualify for assistance of any kind because I made too much money.

If I had another child, I’d be at the income threshold. If I had another child, I could collect benefits like food stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance.

If the state would have straightened out the child support instead of counting it against my income, I might have been able to pay a little bit of the medical bills.

I made arrangements for my child’s care after I passed. I had a small life insurance policy that would cover my final expenses. I managed to keep fighting.

The medical bills kept coming as did the phone calls from debt collectors. The threatening letters. The calls to my work. To say it was stressful is an understatement.

Until one day they stopped. The medical bills still came but showed a zero balance. The bills that had gone into collections were paid in full.

My rabbi approached me one night after services. He told me that a member of our shul had paid everything on the caveats I finish school and don’t stop.

I begged him to tell me who but he would NOT budge. He just said, “Finish your education and don’t stop.”

Finish school and don’t stop.

I still do not know who. I’ve had my suspicions, but I keep them to myself.

I have graduated but haven’t finished my education. (That is something that is never going to be finished.)

I haven’t stopped.

Smart Cat

Downtown Grill Catfish LaFitte

This is one of my favorite ways to prepare catfish. Even those who dislike catfish love it fixed this way.

Marks Catfish Lafitte
Marks Catfish Lafitte

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground red pepper, divided (may need 2 1/2 teaspoons)
  • 4 farm-raised catfish fillets, about 1 1/2 pounds
  • Vegetable oil
  • 12 large fresh shrimp, unpeeled
  • 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 1/4 cup sweet vermouth
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup chopped green onions, divided
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  • 3 very thin cooked ham slices, cut into strips
  • Garnish: lemon wedges

Instructions

  1. Combine eggs and milk, stirring until well blended.
  2. Combine flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon red pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge fish in flour mixture; dip in milk mixture. Dredge again in flour mixture.
  3. Pour oil to a depth of 3 inches into a Dutch oven; heat to 360 degrees F. Fry fish for 5 to 6 minutes or until golden; drain on paper towels. Keep warm.
  4. Peel shrimp; devein, if desired. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add shrimp and garlic, and cook until shrimp turn pink, stirring often. Remove shrimp, reserving drippings.
  5. Stir vermouth into reserved drippings; bring to a boil, and cook 1 minute. Add whipping cream, 2 tablespoons green onions, lemon juice, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1 to 2 teaspoons red pepper; cook 12 to 15 minutes or until sauce is thickened, stirring often.
  6. Place catfish on a serving plate, and drizzle with sauce. Top with shrimp and ham; sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons green onions. Garnish, if desired.

Notes

I make the sauce first and keep it warm. I then fry the fish and finish the dish.

The Big Lie that Women Keep Believing in Modern Dating

Don’t people in China wish to live in a democratic country?

As a 31-year-old Chinese person who lived in China for 30 years and has been living in New Zealand for a year, I find that this question seems to be of particular concern to people in the Western world, while we ourselves are not so concerned about it. I have also thought about this for a long time, and I would like to give a rather serious answer.

When I was living in China, politics really didn’t have much to do with our lives. In the daily routine of a normal person, we were essentially free and democratic. Moreover, from childhood, we learned about both Chinese culture and Western culture. We were quite familiar with the Western world from our media, and we knew roughly what the world was like. After going abroad, it was also easy for us to embrace Western culture.

However, after coming to New Zealand, I found that the Western media is full of prejudice against China and North Korea, while reporting differently on East Asian countries like Japan and South Korea. In fact, I particularly want to tell many Western friends who have never been to China that it is easy for us to accept Western civilization, but your points of concern about China seem to differ from what we care about ourselves.

Historically, China has never actively pursued religion, so how could it be actively enamored with politics? As long as the party does not disturb the people, we won’t pay too much attention to it, and a political party is the least intrusive solution. China is a country that has been agriculturally based for thousands of years. Our ancestors loved the land that could grow crops, and this love has flowed into our blood. The charming land that produces enchanting crops makes us ordinary people happy. China is large enough that whether at the top or among ordinary people, everyone can find their own focus in life, everyone takes responsibility for their own duties, rather than thinking about taking advantage of others or stealing from others. This is more efficient and safe.

If the leadership does not perform well, the people will resist together, and our history has always been this way. An ordinary person can grow to be a top figure in the country, or a top figure over a piece of land. With 5,000 years of detailed recorded history, many historically high-ranking people came from common families. So, when you ask if Chinese people want to live in a democratic country, I want to say that we have always been democratic. Every Chinese person knows: “The noble and the humble have no determined lineage,” but as a culturally united nation, if we are in a high position and do not make the contributions we should, we will be shamefully recorded in history, which is as important as life itself to every Chinese person. Thus, even though we have equal opportunities to become influential figures, not everyone wants to be the most powerful because that also means taking on more responsibilities, which can be more tiring (the positions of emperor, prime minister, and general in Chinese history were high-stress jobs). So usually for us, enjoying the life of an ordinary person also seems more relaxing.

However, it seems that Western politicians do not have the same immense pressures as Chinese leaders, nor do they have the same sense of responsibility. Your leaders seem very relaxed, speaking eloquently with expressive gestures, whereas our leaders are sparing with words, and mostly very serious. How should I put it? They are also under great work pressure, as they are not only supervised by hundreds of millions of common people but also by their competitors. But from my heart, I like this Chinese style where everyone has their role and does not interfere with others.

Compared to many Western countries, China is very open. I grew up in a very ordinary family in China, reading masterpieces from all over the world from a young age, experiencing different cultures, which is why I chose to go abroad after getting married and having children. I have also read modern and ancient Chinese books, which enables me to answer this question today.

For foreign friends curious about China, if you want to understand China, you are sincerely welcome to visit, especially if your daily exposure is only to English media. Because they seem to be the most heavily brainwashed region at the moment.

How true is the statement that if China adopt electoral democracy, their politicians will be corrupt?

There is already corruption in China. I mean not USA style corruption. The USA is almost as corrupt as Ukraine.

But here’s the thing.

Corruption is actually punished in China. With the PENALTY of DEATH.

image 164
image 164

This man here? He was in the TOP ten most powerful men in China.

He took bribes. He is rotting in prison now, he was sentenced to DEATH in 2020 😀

Most westerners now are hahaha death is a soft punishment! They think that resignation is the ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT.

You remember when Jon Corzine walked off with 2 billion dollars? He went on television and said it simply evaporated.

At the same time this man

image 15
image 15

Citizens found he had better stuff than his pay grade. They reported it. He lost EVERYTHING.

BUT BUT westerners cry! We can vote them out and make them suffer.

How can you tell someone is faking intelligence?

Somewhere in my graduate school years I noticed a trend.

An undergraduate philosophy major will sound absolutely brilliant. They often speak in a jargon-dense diction, delivered at high velocity, one idea bouncing off another to produce a spiderweb of spiraling associations. The effect, rhetorically and aesthetically, is often overwhelming. Logic doesn’t really play a role because one hardly knows what they are saying. The unwitting listener feels himself outmatched, drowned and blinded by the naked light of unbridled genius.

The graduate student is a much dimmer light. He is still full of abstract phrases and obscure references, but he is someone who is starting to sound, again, like a human being — explaining things, pausing, asking questions to insure the listener is following. This is not nearly as impressive as the undergraduate, but it does have the virtue of allowing the ordinary among us to understand what is being said.

The professor sounds like your basic “dad,” albeit one with a lot to say. He can at times seem unsure of himself. He pauses to define his terms and to add qualifications to his statements. He speaks carefully. He might even speak slowly. He explains as he goes, almost apologizing for whatever obscurities he falls into. His manner of speech is, well… designed to communicate! A quite boring and not evidently bright fellow, you almost feel embarrassed for him.

In light of these observations, I was forced to conclude that there is either something terribly wrong with our educational system — since the higher people go the dumber they get — or intelligence is not quite what we sometimes think it is.

Show me your boobies

If a nuclear bomb is about to explode 2 miles away from you in 30 minutes, what is the first place you would go to?

In my van. We would drive away with the pedal to the metal. In 30 minutes, I could expect to get at least 50 kilometres away, and that ought to be far enough to be safe. Moreover, the van has a Diesel engine, so it does not need electricity to function – it will run as long as there is fuel and air.


If it was summer, I would drive to our yacht, put SCUBA gear on, and dive in the sea in the marina. There is enough oxygen to survive the blast underwater. Most radiation is absorbed in the sea, and the shock wave would not get to the water.

What was your “Aha!” moment during a toxic relationship that made you realize people never change?

I dated a girl for a few years and we lived together for the last half of the relationship. Things hadn’t been great for several months before I decided to break it off, but it was a single statement she made that convinced me it was time.

The yard was in serious need of some attention. The grass was a bit high and we hadn’t done weeding in a few weeks. So I decided to spend my day off working in the yard.

I mowed the grass and edged the walks, I weeded all the flower beds, watered and fertilized our plants, got some new plants to fill in the beds. After I was done with all that, I decided to do some cleaning. I power washed the driveway and the house. The concrete looked brand new.

I finished shortly before she got home from work. When she got in, I was in the backyard admiring my handiwork. I was proud of how the yard looked. It hadn’t looked that nice in quite a while.

When she came into the backyard, I motioned towards all my hard work with my hands as if to says “look what I did!”.

The only thing she had to say about it was “You forgot to sweep behind the chiminea.” and pointed to a small pile of leaves off in the corner of our yard. Then went inside to take a shower.

Something snapped in my brain. All the times she had criticized stupid things just to have something to criticize came flooding back. I suddenly realized the obvious pattern that had been there all along. She didn’t just do it to me either. It was just who she was to everyone. She just enjoyed criticizing people.

I knew I couldn’t live life like that. I knew that if I stuck around, she would keep doing that for the rest of our lives and it would make me miserable.

I had just spent my entire day doing yard work in the middle of June and she couldn’t find one positive thing to say about it. I left that evening and stayed with a friend. The next day, I came home and broke it off with her.

Every man on Earth

What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?

I was about 10 years old, and in bed – about 11pm. I was supposed to be asleep, but as usual, I was reading by the light of my nightlight. I heard my dad slam the front door, and my mom yell. This wasn’t normal behavior, so I went into the living room.

The police were called, and my dad told me the story. Mom and Dad were in the living room, and heard a knock at the front door. We lived out in the country, and the neighbors all knew Dad was a doctor, so Dad thought it might be a neighbor needing help. When Dad opened the door, he saw a man with a mask standing there with one hand behind his back. Our super friendly, loved everybody German Shorthair, Ringo, followed Dad to the door. As soon as she saw the man, she gave a huge bark, and lunged for the guy. Dad said that 3 things happened nearly simultaneously – 1) he grabbed Ringo’s collar, 2) the guy pointed a gun at Dad (it was in the hand behind his back), 3) the man shot the gun. Dad slammed and locked the door. Dad was unhurt.

When the police arrived, they spent a long time looking opposite the door to try to find a bullet hole. At one point, one of the officers said that maybe it was a blank. But eventually, one of the policemen noticed that the row of art books we had on the bookshelf facing the door wasn’t completely even; one of them was pushed back about an inch. He peered closely at it, and noticed something odd about the O (it might have been Michelangelo) in the title – it had a hole in the middle of the O. He opened up the book, and sure enough, the bullet was nestled in the pages.

Needless to say, there was a rule in our house after that – don’t open the door at night without asking “Who’s there” first!

Have you ever met a dangerous person and not known it at the time?

I used to own a small tavern. We had a guy who started hanging out there quite regularly. Nice guy, played darts with the other regulars, bought rounds in order , but didn’t talk much about himself or his past. But it’s a bar, so no one cares. We’ll call him John.

He was in early one night around 7pm. My staff is all away on lunch, partner wouldn’t be back til 10pm. I’m all alone. Usually not a big deal. This night, a couple of college jocks got way out of hand and started tearing the place up – breaking cue sticks and tossing around empty kegs. It’s just John, me and the college boys. I’m trying to de-escalate and get them to leave. Then, one of the big guys starts pushing me and throwing punches. I’m screwed. That is, until John steps in and beats the shit out of two guys much bigger than himself. I was completely shocked! We toss the guys out and he tells me not to call the police. He leaves shortly afterwards.

Next time I see John, I want to pick up his tab and chat. He asks me not to tell anyone or talk about it. I figure he’s ex-military and a private guy. He becomes pretty scarce. We’re looking for him, but he doesn’t come around anymore.

About a year later, we see his pic in the paper. He’s on trial for a pair of mob related murders. Turns out he might be responsible for more than a couple of these. I’m very glad he liked me.

US Ambassador threaten to shut Ghana’s economy down if Anti-Gay bill pass

Yup. The United States foreign policy at work.

What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?

I lived in northern Manitoba and southern Ontario, both in Canada, for about 25 years before I moved to southern Maryland. Snowmageddon struck in January-February of 2010. Everything was shut down for 10 days or so. Finally, I ventured out onto the roads.

My apartment complex fronted a 4 lane divided roadway, which was a designated Snow Emergency Route. The left lane was bare, the right lane was still covered with ice and slush. Both lanes were blocked where an SUV had gotten stuck then started to slide into the ditch to the right of the road. Pickup trucks, cars, other SUVs, vans, all were parked higgly jiggly and tall, brawny men were attempting to get the vehicle out.

I parked well back, walked to the crowd in my Canadian snow boots, and offered to help. They all had a good laugh, then turned away. I tapped on a man’s arm, “I grew up in Wisconsin and lived in Canada for 25 years. I know snow.”

“Hey, let the little lady here give it a try!”

I cleared them away from the car, crunched around it, repositioned the men, instructed the driver to straighten her wheels and put it into LOW gear, no gas! Told the men to push again, rocking, and told the driver to release the brakes.

The SUV popped right out of the icy ruts and kept going. Silently, the men returned to their cars and left. Too cold for crickets, I guess…

What did you notice during an interview that made you not want the job?

I was interviewing for a Canadian regional sales manager’s job for a company that sold patent medicines, made in Saudi Arabia. (Yes, I wrote the correct country name.)

After having introduced ourselves the interviewer handed me a package of papers, about ten pages thick.

“I’ll be quiet for a few minutes until you have read and signed this.”

It was the most horrible secrecy agreement you could imagine. If I break this, my grandson’s firstborn would be burned on the stake, or something along those lines.

I put it down, and politely bade my adieus.

The interviewer followed me all the way to the elevator door, trying to explain that not all was cast in stone. Some details could be negotiated.

I entered the elevator and left.

My next job was selling industrial valves, no secrecy agreement required. (I stayed there 9.5 years.)

Dead Bedrooms

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cuWLECYMWxo?feature=share

What did you see going on in the back of the school bus that shocked you?

The school arranged for a bus load of junior high students to go to a live play in the city.

This was the second bus trip in a month. The first one had gotten a little steamy on the ride back to the school in the dark. But not so bad it stopped the second one from happening.

The second trip, stopped all future bus trips, and caused a general assembly to be called. The principal and vice principal were dismissed at the end of the school year.

I didn’t have a girlfriend, and my best friends sister wanted to make out with me, but I knew that would end my friendship with my best friend. She wasn’t attractive enough to risk that.

In the back row, you could only see two guys sitting up, one in each seat. There had been girls sitting beside them when we left for the school.

What brought it to a head, was that the majority of students had hickies that were visible to their parents when they got home from the school trip.

There were a lot of phone calls leading up to the general assembly. It was amazing how many students had purple splotches, vainly trying to be covered with turtle necks, and long sleeves, and they had to sit in the front row of the general assembly, as we were told the consequences of our actions.

Do you continue to greet neighbors who never say hello first?

My mother was a nurse.

One day, she came home with a bruise on her cheek – just a small one, but it was a bruise. I asked what happened to her? She told me that a patient’s son hit her in the face because he thought she was ignoring his father – who was in pain while actually she was busy with another patient who was more critical. I asked her what happened next? She told me: “Oh, I came to that patient as soon as I finished with the one I was working on. Talked to him, comforted him and gave him some meds. Then I explained the situation to the son, and he apologized”. 7 year old me that day got angry and asked: “Why? You’re the best nurse, why didn’t you let someone else deal with that patient? His son hit you. He didn’t deserve your care!”

And my mom’s answer that day became one of the most important lessons I carry with myself through life: “Sweetie, you should never let someone’s bad action to be the reason for your own. Fixing something wrong by doing something wrong will never work. That man hit me may have been wrong, but if I hadn’t taken care of his father, I wouldn’t have been right. Moreover, it was the son who made the mistake, why should the father has to face the consequences? Your mom is the best nurse, so I do the best, right?”

So, if my neighbor never says hello to me first? That doesn’t stop me from saying hello and wishing them a good day.

I still believe that in this world full of sad/angry people, it’s much better if we’re sweet to each other, even just a littleeeeeee bit.

They know her language

Do you think the recent incident where a Chinese navy destroyer used active sonar to harass a disabled Australian frigate will threaten the pro-China government in Australia?

I strongly condemn Chinese military using sonar of mass destruction near Chinese coast which caused damage to Australian soldiers close Australian coast.

Wait… the Australians were near Chinese coast.

Oh… so you were their collecting seabed information, right?

In case of WWIII, it would be useful to intercept Chinese submarines.

International water or not, it’s definitely a hostile activity against China.

I can already make the draft about the same thing but reversed, i.e. PLAN soldiers got hurt by Australian sonar near Australian coast.


There is no “pro-China government in Australia”.

We know that already.

Stop lying.

Miao Ethnic Group

This is one of the 65 recognized ethnic groups in China.

What is the most absurd thing you’ve been charged for on a bill?

The flags for the cars at my mother-in-laws funeral.

Well, they tried.

When they were doing their consult, they went over about a million things with my wife, and her brother. Both of whom were pretty deep in grief as they had just lost their mother. This woman was more of a mother to me than my own, so I wasn’t exactly NOT grieving.

Before my wife signed on the dotted line, she asked me to look the paperwork over. I saw a HUGE line item, it was around $2000, and just listed as “flags”. I asked the wife about it, and I asked the brother-in-law. Both had no idea what it was. I asked the representative from the funeral home, and they said it was for the funeral flags for the cars. The little magnetic “flags” that say “FUNERAL” on them. They are plastic, and have a magnetic base on them and you put them on your front fenders. If you have seen a few funeral processions, I’m sure you have seen them.

So I asked why we were paying $2000 for these.

I was told we had estimated 100 people, and they charge $10 per flag, and 2 per car. so 100x2x$10=$2000.

I asked if these were required, or if they thought that literally every single person was going to be driving their own car, or, the pretty obvious question, would this get re-rated based on how many people ACTUALLY showed up and needed a flag.

I was told that no, they were not ‘required’ but that they were recommended to make it more visible, and that wouldn’t my MIL want that item? They would re-estimate based on how many cars I expected (yeah, they KNEW that the estimate of how many guests was NOT the same as how many cars there would be), but that once the order was put in, it was non-refundable, and that if we didn’t use them all, then that was just how it was. They were basically being paid to make them available.

I went back to the wife and BIL, and explained, they agreed, nope, not necessary. I told them we didn’t need this, and to remove it immediately. They acted like that was some manner of travesty, and basically implied that people would think poorly of us for it. I knew my MIL, and KNEW she would have spit her teeth out if we had wasted $2k on this. There was a lot of shade from the funeral people for this.

Strangely enough, day of, not a single person asked about the flags. We turned out headlights on, and drove in procession with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Ironically, the only vehicle with the flags was the hearse, it had them permanently attached to it. We weren’t charged for that.

The funeral industry literally preys on people at their most vulnerable. They prey on your emotions, and your fears and insecurities. They have no trouble manipulating you into paying more than is necessary, and they will pad that bill out to match any insurance you might have. Do NOT just give them the insurance information, magically, if you have $35000 in insurance, they will eat every penny of it up. We had, $0 and paid every penny out of pocket… They still tried to pad the bill at every turn.

“What is the most absurd thing you’ve been charged for on a bill?”

edit

yes, these ARE reusable, and yes, they are returned after the procession, and yes, that does make it so much worse.

Good men won’t stick around if they are unwanted

Canadian “Mercenary” Killed By Russian Army in Ukraine

World Hal Turner

The Russian Armed Forces announced today:

“Canadian Mercenary, Joshua Mayers from Alberta, Canada has been successfully liquidатеd by the Russian army in the Bakhmut direction.

Joshua abandoned his family to go fight for Ukraine in September 2023, and was liquidатеd on November 10th 2023.

Hope it was worth it all.”

Eight?

Dad finds out his daughters “body count”. His expression…

What is the most unforgettable sentence that someone said to you?

When I decided to move halfway across the Earth, from Vietnam to the U.S. to marry my (then) boyfriend, the only ‘condition’ I made my boyfriend agree to was I wanted him to move closer to his parents. My reason was that I would be in a new country, I wanted to stay close to our family. He agreed.

So, when The Teenager & I moved over, we settled down in a place within one hour drive from our parents.

Then came the first meet-up, we invited a few other family friends over. My mom & I were in the kitchen preparing food when a lady came in. She saw me, smiled, and asked my mom, “So, here is your daughter-in-law hah?” My mom smiled back at her, “No. She is my daughter in love.”

That sentence struck a harmonious chord within me and made my heart sing.

What is the one in a million coincidence you have ever had?

My wife and I were living in our first house in Oklahoma City. One day while we were both at work, the city sewer department tore down all the fences in the rear of the houses on our block to replace the sewer main. When we got home from work we were heartbroken because we had had our young dog in the backyard and now he was nowhere to be found. We searched the area for days and put up notices but to no avail.

We were starting to believe that we would never see our dog again. My wife was so upset she decided to call the city to “give them a piece of her mind” about the lack of notification on the sewer work causing us to lose our dog.

So she gets a person on the phone from the city’s Ombudsman Department. My wife explains the situation and tells the person that we loved that dog and had paid good money for him because he was a registered Irish setter. The person asks where we live and my wife gives our address. The person says “Well that’s amazing. I live about a half mile from you and there’s been an Irish setter hanging around lately.” My wife tells me the address and when I got to the person’s house, there’s our dog.

Oklahoma City is a big metropolitan area. Of all the people in the metro area my wife might have got on the phone, our dog happened to be at that person’s house.

Why can’t fast food establishments give the unsold food to the homeless people at the end of the night?

I managed a cookie shop once. It was in a college town, and was open til 11:30 pm. At the end of the night, a homeless person showed up asking for cookies. I gave him some.

the next night, he brought 3 friends. There were just enough cookies for them. The next night, I was swamped. Literally dozens showed up. I didn’t have enough cookies for all of them. The crowd became enraged. They started yelling at me, then they started throwing things at me.

i told them not to come around again, there would be no more free cookies. I had to take a cab home that night, it was unsafe for me to walk.

The next night, a few of them started following me as I walked home. They were loudly talking about how they were going to rape and kill me. I ducked into an open business and called a cab home again. I was very young, and made just over minimum wage. I couldn’t afford to take a cab every night, but I had to for weeks.

I did make arrangements with a night nurse, who worked at a local hospital. She dropped by at closing every night on her way to work, and picked up the last cookies to take to the break room.

Having had that experience, I would never give food from a restaurant to homeless people again. Many years later, I owned a bakery, but still remembered my lesson.

The UFO Incident That Shocked Ariel School: Telepathic Extraterrestrials (Re-Edit)

It’s like story time for grown-ups. I really appreciate this channel. Hecklefish is my spirit animal.”

What are you banned from? Why?

I was banned from my local Walmart because I miss scanned an item. I went to self checkout one day because I had 4 items and wanted to teach my sons how to scan items. To make the story easier to understand, I had a tshirt, set of bras, shorts and some socks. While scanning, we had accidently double scanned the bras rather than scan the shorts, honest mistake. We finish up and as we are heading out, loss protection stops me and says “My name is XXX I’m with loss prevention please come with us” I was genuinely confused, my son got scared because of how aggressive they were but we complied. While in the security room they proceeded to rummage thru my bags and asked to search my purse. Again, I complied, but they never explained why I was pulled in. They searched cameras for probabaly 20 minutes. At one point, I hear one of the workers call across the radio “We need security detail for an escort.” I started getting REALLY scared and demanded an answer. Finally, they explain I miss scanned an item, because of this I am being escorted out of the building and will not be allowed back on property, should I step foot on property I will be arrested. I was baffled! They didn’t even give me a chance to fix my honest mistake! Needless to say, again I complied, but I put in a call the corporate after leaving, they reached out to me and lifted the banned immediately, apologized, and fired the entire loss prevention team. It wasn’t the first time they had abused power!

What vulnerabilities does the U.S. face by being dependent on China for Rare Earth Elements?

Every shit that the US does on China, the Chinese can do even more, faster cheaper and more painful to the U.S.

China prefers not to but it is always ready. Chinese people has a saying. If you do it on the 1st Luna calendar. We will reciprocate on the 15th. You mentioned rare earth but this is just one out of a thousand measure. It could checkmate the US. Don’t even think about it. Every hurt on China will be returned by several fold hurt on the U.S.

What is something everyone should consider doing?

My father called me yesterday.

Dad: Hello son, how are you?

Me: I’m perfectly fine, Dad.

Dad: Did you eat?

Me: Yep.

As usual, the conversation ended in five minutes.


After I had disconnected the call, I thought – What if it was a call from my best friend, would my response have been the same?

The answer was a big no and I was unable to figure out why. This restlessness drove me to call him again.

Dad: What happened? Are you ok, son?

Me: Yes, I’m fine, Dad. Just, missing you a lot.

He was surprised at first and thought I needed money.

Soon after, I began cracking few jokes (lame ones) to which he laughed his heart out. We talked for straight 40-45 minutes, engaging in topics we had never discussed before.

Strangely enough, I felt like talking to a different person. The person whom I had spent my life with, yet knew so little about.

The blissful conversation ended with a ‛Khush Raho’ (Stay Blessed!) from his side and a wide smile from mine.


And so, I realised, not taking your dear ones for granted and making a deliberate effort to know them is something worth consider doing.

I found a really good friend in this process.

Who knows, you may find one too!

What does that word mean

In Imperial China, was there any possible situation where a commoner could meet the Emperor?

In ancient China, common people had the following ways to meet the emperor.

1. The imperial examination. The final stage of the imperial examination is the palace examination, which is personally supervised by the emperor.

2. Assassination. The emperor went out to patrol and ambushed him by the roadside. Even if the assassination fails, before being executed, the emperor will personally question you, who is behind the scenes?

3. Emperor Banquets Centenarians. This is a large-scale honoring and respecting activity for the elderly where the emperor invites centenarians to participate in the royal banquet. But the prerequisite is that you must be able to live healthily to a very old age despite the lack of medical treatment and medicine in ancient times.

4. Become a eunuch. This is not recommended because ancient castration surgery was very risky.

5. Becoming a famous prostitute. Although the emperor had many wives, he would never refuse beautiful women.

Why don’t hotels in Western countries have Chinese breakfasts for their Chinese guests when they used to have Japanese breakfasts for their Japanese guests?

When I was in Malaysia, during breakfast they served dim sum in addition to other traditional breakfast foods and it was very nice. However, Malaysia is a country with a 20% Chinese population. Back here in the West we don’t have a high percentage of Chinese people. There are some Westerners like myself who would enjoy Chinese food, but the majority of people who would eat it would be Chinese people themselves. The lack of demand means there is little incentive to supply it.

What are some of the best pranks you have pulled?

1999. I had a four-year-old Internet advertising agency with 15 employees. A global corporation was buying it.

Weeks before the sale was finalized I had an early morning doctor’s appointment and saw these cups in her bathroom marked URINE SPECIMEN.

I took a bunch of cups, got into the office before any of my employees arrived, left a cup on each person’s desk with a memo that said the buyer required a urine test from everyone in the company before the sale could be approved. A nurse would arrive at noon to test the samples.

One by one they trickled in and proceeded to go batshit. Violation of my rights. They can’t do this. My personal life is my personal life.

I commiserated, but reminded them that if I didn’t sell the company, we’d probably go belly up, and we’d all be out of a job.

Not a lick of work got done all morning. Finally, at noon we all gathered in the reception area, each of us holding a full urine specimen cup.

I spoke to the group. “Guys, I hate this as much as you do.” I looked at my cup. “And I really hate my sample. The color of this piss is terrible. I think I’ll run it through one more time.”

And then I drank it.

I didn’t have to tell them it was Peach Snapple. They knew they’d been had.

15 people. 45 man-hours (and woman-hours) wasted. Pissed away, so to speak. And I loved every second of it. Best. Prank. Ever.

Simply disgusting

What is the most disturbing message ever left on your voicemail?

“Hey guys, it’s Heather. I’m running a bit late, but I should be there in a…..”

There was absolute silence in the room.

“Message received: September 3rd at 11:55 am.”

Not a word was spoken among the three of us listening to the message and none of us could muster anything useful to say afterwards other than a very weak, “save that message”.

It was September 5th. In less than 24 hours, we would be going to Heather’s funeral. Her car had been t-boned by a large truck and she had been killed instantly.

The police report showed that the accident had happened on the 3rd. Slightly before noon.

What could be the implications of China’s major state-owned banks exchanging yuan for U.S. dollars and selling those dollars in spot currency markets?

Try to fully understand China. Unless you do you will always have imaginary Chinese action. Let me help you. To China currency is meant to help transaction and to store wealth not trade currency for currency sake.

To China and to BRICS the SWIFT and its manipulative money trading scheme is just another western conspiracy to destroy countries by a stroke of a pen. China will not and will never play a meaningless game it is stacked against. China. So

it will not internationalise RMB or the Yuan. It will not try to helped prop it currencies artificially and it wanted a real currency value that. Is sustainable trusted. Playing Russian roulette’s with its 1.4 billion people’s wealth is not what China will do.The U.S. dollar used to be able to buy 100 items to day a mere 78 years later it can buy 3 of the same item. That is not good for Americans.

In fact between 1980–2020 Real Chinese income grew 30 times and the U.S. during the same time frame not only not grow. It went back to the 1960 level. So try imagine this. American today is doing worst than their grandpa! China wants its currency to buy roughly the same 78 years later. And an average Chinese have 50 times more Yuan.

What’s the funniest reason you’ve been called in to school to collect your child?

What’s the funniest reason you’ve been called in to school to collect your child?

We were called to get our 16 yo boy. He had drunk a bottle of some alcohol during the lunch break. Then during the relaxation class, he fell asleep. When we got there around 90 minutes later, the high school was closed. We couldn’t get there any earlier as both of us worked around 70kms away.

We discovered from the cleaner he had been taken to the police station as they couldn’t depend on when we would get there.

Unfortunately, the police [ it was a small unit] had been called out to a large bushfire. So they put him in the outside exercise yard. The problem was it didn’t have a roof. When our boy saw us coming he climbed the chain wall and high-tailed it.

He slept at a mate’s place that night. The next day the high school said they were going to have him placed under care. His mum also a school principal said, “ over my dead body”.

We came and collected him. He was terrified his mum was going to hit the roof. Which she did.

We got called by the police to discuss his behaviour as they wanted to know how he had purchased the bottle. We counted with how could you lose our son when he is in your care. In the end nothing became of it and our son grew up and gained some brains.

What happens when you get no action

What are the lessons people most often learn too late in life?

As my first son learned to crawl and then walk, my wife and I played mantras to him, meditated by his side, and lit sacred sandalwood incense around him.

We co-slept and in the day he was always strapped to one of us, skin to skin.

He was breastfed exclusively for nearly a year and then given only organic, vegetarian food.

We didn’t buy him any guns or other toy weapons, only simple wooden and cloth playthings.

He was so peaceful that he radiated a tangible serenity.

Which made her happy—and me—because we wanted him to be calm, loving, and spiritual.


He’s seven years old now.

His favorite dish is a medium rare burger, he knows an embarrassing number of juicy curse words, and he’s obsessed with Nerf guns.

He likes to listen to rap music with phat bass lines, he finds talk of spirituality to be boring, and is not in the least bit interested in receiving affection.

But everyone is impressed by how determined, free-spirited, and bright he is.

And between you and me, I’m kind of happy he chose to do his own thing, to be his own being.

We love him more intensely than the blazing of the sun.


It took me a long time to realize that you can spend years and years of your life aiming for a particular outcome, just to have things turn out wildly different than you anticipated.

It took me a long time to realize that life is like a wild animal, like my son—fierce and free and beautiful, but ultimately, unpredictable, untamable, and unruly.

And I have the feeling it might take me the rest of my life to fully realize that this built-in uncertainty gives life a unique flavor that, after being acquired, tastes exquisitely delicious.

Why is it mostly old people that go to seafood-based fast food restaurants?

It could be because a lot of older people have tooth problems. An older relative, has dentures, I suggested that we go for steak, and she countered with a fish place, so she could be sure, that she wouldn’t embarrass herself having problems eating a tough steak.

The next time she was over, I had bought tenderloin steaks, and I cooked hers medium, which wasn’t as well done as she would have liked it, but was still pretty tender. Ours were medium rare.

She was upset with me, saying that she wouldn’t be able to eat the steak.

I showed her I could cut mine with my fork. She took one bite and was in love. She hadn’t had a steak she could eat in 10 years. She finished the whole steak, which she had said was too much, when she was looking at it. But once she started eating she couldn’t stop.

Every time we eat at restaurant, we have to make sure there is something on the menu that is soft for her.

So this is one possible reason.

Swarms of drones – kamikazes – attacked USS Thomas Hudner

World Hal Turner

The USS Hudner (DDG-116), an Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer of the United States Navy, was attacked by a swarm of drones this morning, while patrolling the Red Sea.  The ship sustained no damage or injuries to its crew.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported the incident after Houthis in the country of Yemen, took credit for launching the attack.

Houthis are now attacking United States Naval vessels over US Support for Israel, as the Israeli government engages in conflict with the Municipal Government HAMAS of the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis launched swarms of Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones in an unprecedented act of war.

Yemeni rebels who have become a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East, attempted to sink the U.S. vessel.

What happens when you don’t get paid in China

How many Humans existed on the entire earth 60,000 years ago?

Not much more than a few thousand, which is surprisingly small. This is based on our DNA.

Unlike our chimpanzee cousins, all humans today have virtually identical DNA. In fact, one group of chimps can have more genetic diversity than all 8 billion humans.

Our minuscule genetic diversity indicates that at some stage, around 70,000 years ago, the human population dwindled to a very low level — maybe 2,000. In fact, it looks like we came close to extinction.

It was also around this time that our ancestors began migrating out of Africa.

This suggests there were dramatic changes to our traditional environment, possibly caused by the Toba supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago, the biggest eruption in 2 million years, which left entire regions devastated by ash and climate change.

What is going on with the Republican Party? Why do they seem so unhinged?

It’s 1964. Republicans are sane and intelligent. But they just got handed one of the largest losses in modern history, with LBJ winning the largest popular vote majority since James Monroe in 1820. Desperate for votes, they start pandering to racists who are upset about the Civil Rights Act and desegregation.

It’s 1974. Republicans just had their President outed as a criminal. They need an edge to get back in power. They start pandering to evangelicals, hoping their ability to believe in things they can’t see will make them easy targets for brainwashing.

It’s 1984. Republicans are scoring big points thanks to looking like the tough guys in the Cold War. They double down on the idea of growing the defense budget.

It’s 1994. Republican economic policies are dividing conservatives and just cost them the White House. They launch a 24-hour fake news channel to keep their base uninformed.

It’s 2004. Democrats have nominated a war hero for President and he should easily defeat the Republican incumbent. It’s time to start lying about his war record. Disinformation becomes the new norm.

It’s 2014. The economy is good. The nation is safe. But the President is black. Republicans dig up the 1964 playbook and capitalize on racism in their base.

It’s 2024. Sixty years of tactics have produced Republican voters who are racist, uninformed, misinformed, brainwashed, and violent. Now these people aren’t just voters anymore. They’re in Congress.

The president of the United States

China’s New Subs and Sonars Challenge Supremacy of US Silent Hunter Fleets

18:33 GMT 21.11.2023 (Updated: 18:37 GMT 21.11.2023)

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surpassed the US Navy in total number of warships in late 2021. Technologically too, China has made major strides, including in the area of submarine construction and detection. These advances have sparked concerns from observers that America’s powerful fleets could be left dead in the water in a crisis.

The PLAN’s military and technological prowess against the US Navy in the field of submarine construction and anti-submarine warfare is progressing apace, and the “era of total US submarine dominance” over the People’s Republic of China is reaching its end.

That’s the conclusion reached by one of America’s top cited business newspapers in a piece focused on the Asian nation’s scientific and industrial advances for naval warfare. China, the paper pointed out, is gradually “narrowing” the gap between itself and the United States in the highly complex fields of submarine technology and undersea detection.

These developments not only threaten the Pentagon’s regional strategy of hemming China into its home ports, but could challenge US naval supremacy globally over the long term.

Earlier this year, for instance, research by the US Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute pointed to Chinese advances in efficient nuclear reactors, quiet-running pump-jet propulsion systems and internal quieting devices, the latter based on “imitative innovation” of Russian technology, predicting that the PLAN’s latest nuclear-powered subs will be much harder to track than before.

Additionally, analyses of satellite photos of the Huludao Shipyard in Liaoning, northeastern China taken last year showed the construction of sections of submarine hulls larger than anything US analysts have ever seen in a Chinese sub, along with what seemed to be plans to increase production capacity.

US media citing leaked US Navy intelligence already sounded the alarm about China’s impressive shipbuilding capacity this past fall, which at 23.2 million tons per year, compared with 100,000 tons per year in the US, gives the People’s Republic the ability to build warships at a rate some 200 times greater than the US in a pinch.

On top of that, the PLAN’s rapid construction of a vast network of underwater sensors in the South China Sea and other areas along the Chinese coast known as the “Underwater Great Wall”, to look out for sub, surface warship and aerial activity, means that the Pentagon will find it more difficult to place its warships, subs and aircraft in areas around the Asian nation. The Underwater Great Wall’s construction is reportedly nearing its completion, and includes a vast network of passive and active sonar sensors, plus remote controlled underwater and surface drones which can look out for enemy activity.

China is reportedly also “getting better” at finding silent-running US attack and cruise missile subs sneaking around near its home waters, combining buoy and drone-based monitoring with the use of patrol aircraft and helicopters, for example.

In addition are the PLAN’s growing number of exercises with Russia, which, it can be assumed not only increases the Chinese Navy’s ability to coordinate with its northern neighbor in the event of an emergency, but allows it to learn from the Russian Navy’s half century-plus year experience as a major global naval power rivaled only to the US.

“The implications for the US and our Pacific allies will be profound,” former US Navy officer Christopher Carlson said, pointing to the headaches the US Navy will face, and the additional resources it will need, to locate and keep track of China’s new generation of quiet-running nuclear subs.

Strategically, the outlet noted, maneuvers that the US once took for granted, like the ability to approach close China’s home shores, will now no longer be a given, with the PLAN’s nuclear-powered attack subs able to pick off approaching American warships before they could reach Taiwan in a crisis, for example.

On top of that is the Chinese sub-based ballistic missile threat to the US homeland –a threat Washington has long been used to meting out, but not experiencing itself, in relation to the Asian giant.

“Finding a boat this quiet is going to be really hard,” Carlson said of the Chinese sub threat, predicting the new Chinese boats will probably be about as quiet as the Project 971 Shchuka-B (NATO reporting name Akula, or “Shark”) class fourth generation nuclear-powered attack subs which the Soviet Union and then Russia started fielding in the 1980s and 1990s.

China’s fleet of 79 submarines includes at least 16 nuclear-powered attack and ballistic missile subs, including six Type 093 (NATO reporting name Shang class) attack subs and six Type 094 (NATO reporting name Jin) ballistic missile boats operating “near-continuous” patrols between Hainan Island and the South China Sea. But Carlson warned that the Asian nation could build up to triple the current US rate averaging 1.2 subs per year.

Costly as Aircraft Carriers, Difficult to Build

“Submarine-building is the pinnacle of technological excellence in economics and industry, and only a few countries have mastered the technologies which China has now broken into – France, Britain, the Soviet Union/Russia, and the United States,” Vasily Dandykin, a veteran Russian military analyst and retired Russian Navy Captain 1stRank, told Sputnik.

Several factors account for the US’ slowing pace when it comes to the construction of new submarines, according to the observer, starting with Washington’s decision to rest on its laurels after the end of the Cold War, to the drop in the number of high-class specialists in the field.

“The downtime” in the US’ submarine-related programs resulted from “complacency after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” when “not just America, but also Europe rested on their laurels,” according to Dandykin. “The Americans have the world’s largest military budget, which exceeds those of all other countries in the world. That means that somewhere they got carried away with such gigantic and expensive projects which did not justify their cost,” the analyst said, pointing to out of control spending on novelties like the $8 billion-per ship Zumwalt class of destroyers.

“There were a lot of such projects that sucked up a lot of money. And now it turns out that all of these experiments boil down to the fact that they’re 10 years behind Russia in the creation of a new fourth-generation strategic nuclear submarine,” made possible, according to the analyst, thanks to the backlog of revolutionary Soviet sub designs that Russian builders have been able to develop and build on.

“The ‘downtime’ that occurred had an impact in this area, not just with submarines, but the construction of the surface fleet, the entire American fleet. Here, without a doubt, China’s pace has been impressive, first and foremost in terms of the construction of large ships for the surface fleet. But I think they will push themselves and try to build up their nuclear submarine fleet as quickly as possible,” Dandykin predicted.

As far as China’s subs themselves go, Dandykin pointed out that for the moment, the majority of the PLAN’s fleet still consists of diesel-electric subs, and for them to reach the same technological level as the US, as they have already done when it comes to ships like universal landing ships and destroyers, will take time. The PLAN’s current nuclear-powered ballistic missile-launching subs belong to the second generation at best, in the retired naval officer’s estimation, and the newest efforts are aimed at the creation of third-generation vessels.

Accordingly, Dandykin believes US efforts to hype up the “Chinese threat” are “a little disingenuous,” and designed mainly to lobby for the allocation of even more resources for US sub-building efforts – a titanic effort equivalent, more or less, to the construction of an aircraft carrier in both technological and financial terms.

What does it feel like to be abroad but feel more at home than when you are back home?

Surreal. Uncanny. Deja vu. That’s how I felt as I looked down on Southeast Asia from my seat aboard an airplane. The feelings intensified the longer I was there. While my friends made me feel so very welcome, even in my time alone the feeling never left me.

I began the first leg of my long journey back home by crying into my teacup in a cafe in Changi Airport. My heart felt heavy. I was glad to go home to my daughter but if she’d been with me on the trip I’m not sure I’d have returned to the U.S. willingly.

I have said that when I die I want my ashes to be scattered in China, because America is the place of my birth but China holds my heart. There’s something about the Asian region that draws me deeply. I have no Asian background or ancestry so I can’t rationalize it. It’s just how I felt.

I was just jokin’

Have you ever seen a mass exodus after a respected employee quit or got fired?

I was fired after 11 years in a PR firm. I never clicked with the owner, and the feeling was mutual. I loved my colleagues, got along well with everyone, and consider them friends to this day.

I had just come off of a very trying time related to a proposal I was writing, had slept little, was burned out and mentioned to a colleague that I wasn’t sure I belonged there anymore.

Soon afterward, the boss took me into his office and said nobody wanted to work with me and that we had just lost a client that reduced our budget. His second in command sat through this with his head in his hands the whole time. He helped me clean out my office the next day.

There were other things going on at the firm. The owner was advancing in age and had promised a succession plan. He never delivered. One by one, after my firing, everyone quit. His firm, started in the mid-80s and one of the most prominent in the city, was done.

Two people told me that my firing was the trigger that made people start thinking about whether they wanted to be there anymore. I can’t take the credit or the blame for what happened, but the exodus was fast and devastating.

Correct attitude to have

What seemingly good celebrity is actually a jerk?

The public image of a celebrity can often be quite different from their true character. Take Ellen Degeneres, for example. On her show and in interviews, she appears to be a lovable, down-to-earth aunt-like figure. However, there have been numerous accounts from staff and crew members claiming that she is actually a nightmare to work with and a terrible person. So, which version is the truth?

Then there’s Sean Penn, who was once in a relationship with Madonna. It has been alleged that he kidnapped and raped her during the 80s. Additionally, Penn has been involved in some truly awful activities throughout his life. On the flip side, he is also the CEO of a large charity and engages in humanitarian work.

Another celebrity, Mark Wahlberg, is often seen as an extraordinary role model and a decent guy. However, it is important to note that he blinded a Vietnamese man during a fight and is a high school dropout. Please note that the mention of being a high school dropout does not imply that it automatically makes someone a terrible person, but it is worth considering when evaluating their status as a role model.

Tim Allen, known for his lovable and funny dad roles, has a dark side. Despite making people laugh out loud with his jokes, he has been described as a severe asshole who disrespects those around him. Furthermore, he was caught smuggling a kilo of cocaine in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and served time for it.

On the other hand, we have Danny Trejo, who was once involved in drug running for a cartel and had a long history of violence and addiction. However, he has transformed himself into a humble and honest man who actively tries to steer kids away from his former lifestyle. In person, he is charming and genuine.

How might rising interest rates in the US affect China’s growth potential and FDI flows?

Nothing.

Zero effect.

Slave nations like Germany and Japan wrap themselves around US and western economic orbit. And the U.S. increase interest it destroy their banks and industry. Not China. China is in its own stable orbit. Today the U.S. interest is between 3–5% and China stays under 1% or so. It do its own thing.

US banks are dropping like flies. China’s bank is loaded with Cash. Chinese citizen on average save 35% of their income in Chinese banks. The U.S. citizens meanwhile saved in average less than 4%. So every year the Chinese add another 6–7 trillion dollars into their wealth and funds.

On FDI if the west reduce other nations made up for it and China’s own investment is so humongous. FDI from west means nothing.

This cheating event did not work out well

What are the influences of food on our culture?

I grew up in the USA. In high school, the lunch period was 25 minutes. On a normal day I washed down three peanut butter sandwiches and half a dozen cookies with a quart of milk and headed to the break room.

At least my parents enforced a family sit-down dinner, though it didn’t last long either.

My eating behaviour in college and working part time jobs was not any better, though the food choices were smarter and more varied.

When I started working in sales after college, I graduated to fast food eaten in the car.

At restaurants, servers were all over me, trying to turn the table in 45 minutes or less.

For me, eating was like putting gas in my car. Get it over and move on to the rest of life.

Then I moved to Germany. It was a shock. The canteen served excellent full hot meals and everyone took their time eating, chatting (but not about work), and taking turns buying coffee for the table.

It was impossible to get out of a sit-down restaurant in under 90 minutes without pushing the staff.

Dinner at friends was a four-hour affair.

I learned to love food and the community of sharing it with others. It wasn’t uncommon for less formal outdoor restaurants to seat me with other diners. I met dozens of fascinating people in that manner.

Ten years later I moved to France and learned that the French take mealtime even more seriously than the Germans. Employers even subsidise the canteen or pay part of the meal vouchers for each worker.

I think this question might be better phrased if it asked “What are the influences of culture on food?”

While the food does vary from country to country, I have little trouble in Europe to eat exactly what I ate in the USA. That’s why I don’t think it’s the food that matters.

Instead I think it’s the value people place on taking the time to savour their meals and those they share them with.

Zelenogradsk: What does a Russian city of CATS look like?

Nov 09 2023

Anna Sorokina

They are literally everywhere: occupying benches at observation decks, sitting next to tourists at restaurant terraces, strolling along pedestrian streets and (alright, fine) allowing you to take photos of them. Let’s pay them a little visit?

2023 11 26 19 40
2023 11 26 19 40

You can definitely call the small city of Zelenogradsk (pop. 16,000) in Kaliningrad Region the “cat capital” of Russia. Everything there is dedicated to these furry animals, from souvenirs to… traffic lights!

The many cats of this city will gladly show a tourist the best photo spots (and the best lunch spots!). But, how did it come to this?

Zelenogradsk (Cranz until 1946) is an old resort city at the shore of the Baltic Sea. Cats usually like to settle in such seaside towns, closer to fishermen, fish and vacationers. But, in Zelenogradsk, they have become a real attraction of the city.

According to legend, centuries ago, cats saved the city from rodents that were destroying their food supply and spreading disease. Caring for stray cats is the locals’ way of expressing gratitude.

2023 11 26 19 41t
2023 11 26 19 41t

Cats have always been living in Zelenogradsk. But, it was only recently that the city itself became the “cat capital”. It all started with the Murarium Museum in an old 1905 water tower. Local inhabitant Irina Klochkova decided to set up an exhibition hall for her cat statuette collection in the unused tower in 2012.

Real cats also live in the museum, with ginger-furred ‘Semyon Semyonovich’ chief among them. He became the prototype for the first museum souvenirs. ‘Murarium’ gained a lot of popularity among tourists; soon after, a lot of everything “cat-themed” began to appear in the city.

2023 11 26 19 42b
2023 11 26 19 42b

As soon as you visit, you’ll immediately notice an incredible amount of cat graffiti on buildings. Souvenir stores, on every corner it seems, sell anything from keychains and magnets to shopping bags and mugs with cats on them.

The city’s central street, Kurortny Prospekt, even has mini-benches for cats, little traffic lights with flashing cats, as well as vending machines where you can buy cat food. The city administration even has the position of cat chief, a cat caretaker. Their responsibilities include feeding and taking care of cats.

And for those tourists who decide to have lunch on an open terrace of any cafe, just know you won’t be able to so in peace and quiet! The local cats will always investigate and will not be against the idea of sharing a meal with you.

By the way, there are plenty of dogs in the city, as well, but they seemingly maintain a neutrality with the cats. There are literally no fights or altercations to speak of these days.

2023 11 26 19 4g1
2023 11 26 19 4g1

Why are the Chinese not interested in Western democracy?

There are two approaches to an answer, one superficial.


I’ll begin with the superficial.

Democracy, or one man one vote, is practiced by the Chinese. They have found the process is good at selecting leaders from small groups that work or live closely together. In fact, this is how the President is selected among the Politburo, and so on.

Unfortunately, one man one vote can and has been hijacked, particularly if money and power enters the equation. There are innumerable tales of village/town leadership seizing power through the “democratic process” and terrorizing “voters” for years on end.

When groups grow too large, voting among strangers can lead to undesirable outcomes.

That’s the modern Chinese experience.


Unfortunately, “Western democracy” isn’t just voting systems. It is a system of values and beliefs built on the foundation of western prosperity. For the past 5–600 years, it has been the absolute dominance in technology that has kept the West on top. That is how the top 12% of humanity today maintain radically different standards of living from the rest of the 88.

Until the emergence of China, only willing acolytes of the “Western model” made the leap into the first world, leaving has-beens by the wayside. All of them, to a fault, adopted Western-style constitutions, governments, legislation and thoroughly reformed society, in order to qualify for membership into the “globalized world”. In return, their economies boomed, powered by export-led demand from the first world.

Along came China, which is distinctly different, especially in the post-Soviet age of “the end of history”. Unfortunately, Communist China has succeeded wildly, way beyond the imagination of the “last man”.

Herein lies the rub. Chinese leaders had enough self confidence decades ago that the Western highway to prosperity wasn’t exclusive. Today, Chinese society is increasingly convinced their leaders were right, because they are living the best times in the sum history of Chinese civilization, a realized boast that reverberates through 4 millennia and >100 generations.


Western prosperity in the 21st century is no longer the shining city on the hill, cities of the future one can only dream of being teleported back home. A Chinese tourist visiting NYC, London, Paris and Berlin will be nonplussed by the sights, and perhaps repulsed by the smell and experience. Chinese cities have the same modern hardware, and services is rapidly catching up. And Chinese cities are evolving rapid improvement in quality of life metrics, while the west is stagnating, or worse, regressing.


The Chinese will go, that’s “Western democracy”, “in God We Trust”, and “all men created equal”?

Thanks, but no thanks.

Communism has our vote, because we live and breathe its outcomes.

Ukr Hard Day: Avdeyevka Cauldron, Kherson Bridgehead Cut Off, Wilders Wins; Biden BRICS Gaza Plan

As a doctor, what’s the saddest experience you’ve had with a patient?

I once talked to an acid attack victim.

She came to the surgery OPD by mistake on a day when our Plastic Surgery OPD was closed.

She had her face covered with a dupatta. I was immediately aware that she had some disfigurement that she was trying to conceal but it was only when I saw her treatment card that I realised what the reason behind it was.

I read the entire card and slowly looked up at her. She was looking at me with one eye while she kept the rest of her face covered.

“I was asked to come after 4 weeks. Here I am.” She told me quietly.

“Yes, I see it written here, ma’m, but our plastic surgery OPDs are on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I am afraid, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Can’t you or the doctors here do anything about this?”

“We can but we are not plastic surgeons. We are not experts and we are not the best people to help you.”

“No one can help me, doctor. You know it.”

I had no answer to that.

“If there’s anything else I can do for you…” I said.

“What can you do? My life is ruined. All I do is travel between my home, the hospital and the court. The last few of weeks my life have been hell. The pain has been unbearable. I can’t even look into the mirror anymore. What do you think you CAN do? Can you get me to look like before?”, she said, her eye moist and a hint of desperation in her voice.

I was trying hard to act professional.

I wanted to say that I was sorry that this happened to her. I wanted to tell her that I felt a burning hatred for the person or persons who did this to her. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t give up because her life wasn’t over.

Yet, I didn’t say anything. Everything that came into my head began to sound empty as I was about to say it out loud. My words all seemed so woefully inadequate to offer any kind of assurance to her.

That’s why I was trying to be calm and professional. No pity, no sadness, no anger. I was just trying to do what I was there for: my job which was to try and help her.

“I’ll try to call the Plastic Surgery resident to see if he can come here and take a look at you. I can’t promise that he will but I will give him a call.”

“Thank you.” She said quietly.

Nodding, I took out my phone to call the resident.

“I shouldn’t have spoken like that to you.” She said, looking straight at me.

“It’s completely fine.” I said immediately. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel bad for me.

“No, it’s not. I know what it feels like to be spoken to like this, especially if you haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“Really, ma’m, you do not need to apologise at all. It’s okay-”

“You know, what hurts the most? Before this I was recently-”

Married? Did the husband abandon her? That was the first thought that came to my head.

“-promoted. I was a receptionist in a famous hotel. I was good at my job. People speak to us rudely all the time but I was really good at handling them. There wasn’t a single complaint against me to my manager in the one and a half years that I had the job.”

She paused, looking down at her feet.

“It’s all gone now. They won’t let me work with this…face. It doesn’t matter how well I handle our customers if they can’t handle my face.”, she said, in a voice that was so matter-of-fact that my heart felt like it was being stabbed.

This was a woman who had been serious about her job. She had been excited about her future. She had been independent. The first thing she told me about her life was that she had lost the job she had worked so hard at.

I don’t know why but this case affected me so much more than other cases. Medically, there exist even more severe cases in which acid attacks have caused complete blindness, paralysis or in the inability to eat or swallow.

I know, of course, that you can’t quantify suffering and everyone has their own battles but this one…this one made me want to stop doing my work and go cry in a corner.

I forced myself to look away and called the resident. I managed to convince him to come and examine her.

“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Please wait outside.”, I said with difficulty because I felt a lump in my throat.

“Thank you.”, she said softly and left the room.


When you throw acid on someone’s face and they survive the attack, you take from them much of what we consider “life”. You take away choices, opportunities, self-respect and throw them into a world of such suffering that they have never known before.

Many victims say that death is preferable.

I don’t think I’ll be able to argue with them.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

My grandfather was once a lightweight boxing champ. He was healthy most of his life, but like everyone, he grew old. At 90 years old, though, he still liked to go dancing. He took his girlfriend to their elder community’s weekly dance. We went to join them for dinner and just visit them a while.

While I was up getting them plates from the buffet, two scummy men came in. They had been drinking and were looking for some old people to bully – no joke. They were in their late 30s/early 40s. They stopped at my grandpa’s table and started talking about his girlfriend. My grandpa stood up and told them to leave. I looked over and saw this jerk spit on the floor and shove my 90 year old grandpa.

I saw my grandpa stumble backwards against the wall, and I dropped the food tray and started moving towards him. It felt like slow motion.

Before I could get there, I saw my grandpa push off the wall and punch the guy square in the jaw. The man landed on his butt and slid backwards nearly all the way across the room! No one could believe what we saw, especially not the two creeps. His friend went over and helped him up, and everyone watched them leave with their tails between their legs.

I finally went back and got the food for them, and we sat and talked about what happened while they ate. After a bit, the two idiots came back with the police. They pointed by grandpa out to the officers.

The police didn’t believe their story, and we all acted like we didn’t know what they were talking about.

I sure miss that wonderful, strong old man.

Is it true that an increasing number of Chinese people are preferring domestic tourism? If so, what are the reasons?

In last two decades hundreds of millions of Chinese have travelled overseas. Annually about 130 million Chinese travel outside of their country. So by now most of them may have realised that most of the rest of the world is very backward and not as advanced as they used to think.

And secondly they have their own continent sized country to travel and explore and will probably take a lifetime to explore fully. And every kind of tourist related attractions are within their own country be it tourist spots, beaches, deserts, cultural and historical sites, valleys, grasslands, snow and glaciers means in short every experience and to say the least their excellent infrastructure that makes travelling within China indeed a cakewalk.

May be that’s why.

Man’s worst fear

I tricked my Muslim coworker into eating pork (bacon) in a lasagna. How can I tell him so he sees how hilarious and innocent it is?

If a Muslim unknowingly eats pork it isn’t a terrible problem. That doesn’t mean they won’t be upset though.

Regardless of how they feel about the pork, they will probably be more upset with you. Letting them unknowingly eat pork as a joke is a dick move of the highest order. I would recommend that you never tell them, if you want to maintain the relationship you have with them. If you tell them and laugh about it, no one is going to blame them for hating you forever. Others might join their camp.

Like I said, it’s a dick move, so proceed at your own risk.

A purr-fect neighbor

If Earth got flung out of the solar system and became a rogue planet, what measures would we take to survive, whether or not those would actually succeed?

Hoo boy. This is going to be one rough ride for humanity.

If we act fast, there is a chance that our species might survive for the long term, but we’re going to have to do things quickly. As soon as the Earth starts to move away from the Sun, things are going to cool off. A lot depends on exactly the trajectory, but even with a conservative estimate, we’re facing a snowball Earth scenario within a matter of years, when the surface of the planet can no longer support liquid water. It won’t take long for everything living on the surface to die.

However, not all hope is lost. The oceans will freeze from the surface downward, and as they freeze over they will in fact insulate the deeper layers. It could take hundreds of thousands of years before the oceans freeze solid, meaning some life may still manage to hold on in the deeper parts of the oceans for millennia, particularly where there is active volcanism going on, keeping things (relatively) warm. In theory, given enough time, we might be able to construct underwater habitats in the deep oceans as a refuge for humanity.

Another option is to simply go underground. On average, the temperature increases by about 25C for every kilometer we go down into the ground. Even when the surface temperatures have plummeted to -200C (when we’ve wandered out past Pluto), we “only” have to dig down a handful of kilometers before we can bask in the relative heat from the heart of our planet.

That heat from the planet’s core is what might ultimately provide the salvation for the species. While the rest of the energy sources we have available to us are ultimately based on solar radiation and will be forfeit once we’ve drifted from the Sun, our planet’s core is powered by radioactive decay and will keep on cooking for billions of years to come. We can harness this either directly via fission reactors, or indirectly through geothermal energy sources.

So here’s the scenario we might enact to provide for the continuation of humanity.

First, we determine what capacity we have for tunneling down into the crust and excavating areas large enough to create underground settlements. Perhaps the Boring Company will be in high demand in this scenario! Governments across the world pool their resources and a number of candidate sites around the globe are selected. Access to existing geothermal energy sources might be a good starting point.

Then we start digging. Temporary “camps” are excavated at shallower depths while digging proceeds ahead for future movements. In the meantime, each of these future colonies is prepared with resources that they’ll need to survive. Deep underground, some of the challenges will be oxygen and clean water; however, with artificial sunlight and proper preparation it should be possible to grow crops even underground. We’ll probably have to say goodbye to eating meat as raising animals for food won’t be an efficient use of resources, though we might keep some animals around for the sake of having animals.

At some point there’s going to be some kind of selection process for who gets to go down and survive. This won’t be pretty. Most of us will be left on the surface to freeze to death. But once it’s done, the selected groups can descend into the bowels of the Earth and begin a new subterranean existence.

Would it succeed? It’s hard to say. They have to dig deep enough, and that presents dangers in and of itself. Colonies could be destroyed by seismic activity that collapses them. In those kinds of close quarters, a disease outbreak could prove fatal to the whole group. Issues with food supply or water supply could doom a group. There are many ways in which any underground colony could fail, and it is almost a given some of them would.

But with enough luck, persistence and hard work, some of them might make it, and over the generations adapt to this new lifestyle. Maybe they’d even thrive to the point they could send excursions back out to the surface, exploring the frozen wasteland, travelling across the ice to visit other underground colonies. Maybe even once again find ways to build ships to leave the planet and try to find someplace nicer to take the family, so to speak.

From the Bayou Crawfish Louisianne

2023 11 26 19 45
2023 11 26 19 45

Yield: 4 to 6 generous servings

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
  • 1/2 cup chopped andouille sausage
  • 3/4 cup chopped bell pepper (can mix the colors)
  • 1/2 large onion, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup whipping cream
  • 1 pound crawfish tails
  • 1 quart peanut oil
  • 4 to 6 catfish fillets (2 to 3 ounces each)
  • Egg wash (egg white, water, milk)
  • Seasoned flour
  • Seasoning to taste
  • Cajun seasoning, pepper, red pepper and garlic powder

Instructions

  1. In a small saucepan, melt butter. Add andouille, peppers, onions and Italian seasoning and sauté until tender (about 5 minutes.) Add mushrooms just before completion.
  2. Add whipping cream, and reduce the sauce over medium heat.
  3. Add crawfish, and cook for 3 minutes. Adjust seasoning.
  4. Heat oil in a large saucepan.
  5. Dredge fish in egg wash and then season with flour.
  6. Fry until golden brown on both sides.
  7. Pour crawfish mixture over catfish.
  8. Garnish with parsley and onion tops.

So very British

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y8lMSMoqbps?feature=share

What are the ways to become a high quality man?

  1. Make decisions for yourself and do not follow the opinions or actions of others.
  2. Have a clear sense of who you are and what you stand for.
  3. Spend time reflecting on your thoughts and emotions and deeply understand yourself.
  4. Be capable of taking care of yourself and do not rely on others for support.
  5. Enjoy spending time alone and find it more fulfilling than being with others.
  6. Have a few close friends or family members and do not rely on the need for an extensive social network.
  7. Enjoy exploring ideas and concepts and be comfortable contemplating complex topics.
  8. Do not seek validation from others and be comfortable relying on yourself.
  9. Have a unique perspective and approach to life and be confident going against the crowd.
  10. Do not conform to societal norms or expectations and march to the beat of your drum.

The Chinese warship sonar incident

This mature and analytical write-up by John Menadue, November 23 is very constructive and logical.

John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.

What a feast of anti-China stories we have had again from the Coalition and our media over the incident between HMAS Toowoomba and a Chinese PLA-N destroyer.

The whole issue really looks to be overblown – and seeded by some in the Sinophobia school who are worried about where Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong may be headed. The idea of “stabilisation” scares them, so they react by promoting some destabilisers.

The proposition that the Chinese warship was directed by Beijing – let alone President Xi – to initiate such “aggressive” action beggars belief. Like the ‘spy’ balloon exercise, where it seems clear enough that President Xi initially knew little about the whole thing.

Our ‘spooks’ depend on the CIA for about 90% of their overseas information and the Pentagon is building a network in our Department of Defence. I would very much doubt whether Albanese and Wong really know what ‘information’ the CIA and the Pentagon are feeding into our spooks.

The US expects that a pliant ally like Australia will do what it is told. It is concerned at recent events and prefers that we do not stabilise our relations with China. So this incident is a great opportunity for some destabilisation. And our poorly informed media tag along as always.

Given the unsurprising PLA comments the chances of misunderstanding the message or even miscommunication would have to rate high. If the PLA ship had been shadowing the RAN ship, which then decided to stop dead in the water to check for nets, would the Commander of the PLA ship not be a bit suspicious about what the RAN was up to and activate some of his intel alerts including special sonar to try to find out more? In any event presumably he would have had some of his sonar devices running while he was sailing anyway? Even if the PLA just happened on the RAN in the middle of the sea (electronically of course) would its initial reaction not be one of suspicion?

We probably will never get the real story of the actual communications between the two ships, but language problems cannot be excluded.

But Albanese and Marles (again and again) have been panicked into hasty responses for which we will pay. Marles should have tried to hose things down, but he invariably sings from the US song sheet. Albanese should stick to the line of not commenting in detail on his private conversations with world leaders. Blinken did this repeatedly over questions about the Xi-Biden talk. If necessary, the government can call in the Chinese Ambassador at Secretary level to make the point.

It is strange why Marles would want to play this up right now. The incident was not in the SCS but in Japan’s EEZ heading towards Japan. This could be in the contested area of the East China Sea, south of Okinawa.

It is also not clear what UN sanctions RAN was monitoring unless they were part of the regular monitoring of UN sanctions against North Korea. We have been doing that in the Sea of Japan further north.

These incidents should be sorted out by military to military communications and not as a stick for those who want to destabilise our improving relationship with China.

We would be more concerned if this incident occurred in waters adjacent to Australia and not in waters adjacent to China, which is already encircled by scores of US military bases. China would understandably be very sensitive about what happens in its proximity.

In any event, this incident is minor compared with the aggressive things we do that are hostile to China. RAAF P8 aircraft operating out of the Philippines drop Sonar buoys in the SCS to monitor Chinese submarines. This is not for the defence of Australia but to support the US in a possible conflict with China over Taiwan.

Our media have shown no interest in this issue. It does not fit the Western ‘China threat’ narrative that our White Man’s Media works so hard to construct and maintain, and so is ignored.”

I stuff guys with cars…

Have you ever witnessed an “I demand to see the manager” moment?

If you’ve worked retail long enough, even if you’re amazing, you have one of these.

I work retail pharmacy. I had a woman come up to the sales counter with her adult daughter, wanting to buy a large quantity of Sudafed, but within the legal limit. Both of them were planning to buy, and they happened to mention that they were buying it for the woman’s mother, both of them. This is illegal, as in my state you must purchase it for yourself or your minor child. You actually sign an electronic document stating so.

I apologize to the women and tell them I can’t complete the transaction, and explain why, that it is against state and federal law.

Immediate attitude, along the lines of “Who do you think you are, you low born classless person to tell me and my daughter, with our bleach blonde hair and snooty attitudes ‘no!’”

The mother demands to speak with the manager, who isn’t there, we just have a staff pharmacist who’s witnessed the whole thing. She tells the woman that I can complete the sale.

I stare at her for a second before asking the pharmacist if she intends to pay my legal fees to reinstate my pharmacy tech liscense, and tell the pharmacist that if she wants to process the transaction she can, but that I WILL NOT.

She demands my register login and codes, because she’s not a regular pharmacist at my store. I refuse to give them to her, as that is a fireable offense.

The customer is staring at us, red faced and ready to burst, and demands I listen to the pharmacist, then demands I page store management when I explain that the pharmacist cannot compel me to break the law.

I page store management, and my favorite assistant manager comes over and asks what’s going on. By this point, the woman is using abusive language, and exclaims “This f*ggot won’t sell me Sudafed that is for me!”

At that point the manager raises an eyebrow and tells the woman she’s going to have to move her car.

Woman asks why.

“Because our parking is for customers only. You need to leave now. Our customers know they can’t talk to people like that.”

The woman throws a shrieking fit, shoving over a display of medication… which her adult daughter stops to pick up, apologizing the whole time.

The pharmacist in question got written up by corporate for an Ethics violation, and when my Pharmacy Manager told me I should just turn my ears off and not listen to conversations at the register and do my job, he got an Ethics violation that has left him stuck as a pharmacy manager.

The woman emailed the corporate office, and I got to see the reply which was basically ‘We’re sorry you had that experience, but our stores are committed to following state and federal law’ and they attached the laws in question, highlighted.

It was nice to be vindicated and defended for once, instead of thrown under that well known bus.

Reality in the USA

US Congress unanimously approved the Patent Restriction Act. All of China’s patents are at risk of invalidation overnight. Huawei’s 20000+ patents could be deemed invalid. All countries at risk as the US can claim a national security threat. Fair?

With China’s manufacturing power and the engi eers’ abilities of learning and copying, good luck to the US.

All US patents will be nulled by China and Russia as, and the US will lose much more than Huawei would do.

This is not only on Qualcomm, TI, AMD, intel but also hit huge on the pharmaceutical companies.

China and its engineers are waiting for the bill passed and now all the knowledge would be shared without any loyalty across mankind. Nice job the US.

I just don’t beat the shit out of you…

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to an American tourist or as a tourist visiting America?

I was in a hospital, here at Rome, to visit a friend, and when I was going away I saw two American girls, one could hardly walk because she had fell and hurted badly her leg. I helped them to call someone to bring a wheel chair and they went to emergency. I went with them to help because they didn’t speak italian well. I asked why they didn’t call for an ambulance and they said they didn’t want t to spend too much money. They were worried about how much they would have to pay at the hospital too. I explained them, in Italy, the ambulance is free, and so the hospital. Even if she would have to stay there for days or weeks. No one in Italy could dare to ask a girl with a broken leg for money. Nobody could leave her without medical care even if the didn’t have money.

They couldn’t believe me . They continued asking if the hospital was going to send bills later. If they could pay later in installments.

The girls wanted to ask the administrative employee too, because they wanted to be sure. He gave them the same answer and they were very surprised.

Later the girls left the hospital, one had a cast on her leg but they had big, beautiful smiles!

Loyalty and Respect

What is the most absurd thing you’ve been charged for on a bill?

Not me, but my mother. She was visiting the US for a ski holiday in New England and had a bad fall that resulted in a broken bone. As a result, she had to spend a bit of time in a hospital. Her stay was fortunately paid for by Canadian health insurance; can’t imagine how US citizens who don’t have or can’t afford coverage manage to pay for their care.

Anyway, I was curious to see what it cost after she got home, so she showed me the detailed bill. The total was shockingly high, no surprise, but one thing caught my eye. She’d been invoiced for 3X “helically wound cellulose absorbent matrix units” at $48 each. Curious, I contacted the hospital to ask what these could be. Can you guess?

They turned out to be rolls of bog-standard toilet paper, the number she was tracked as having consumed during her stay.

Amazing.

Pretty good

What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?

Not myself but a teacher at my school.

This was a Church of England (Christian) secondary school (ages 11-18) in the late ‘80s and the dress code was quite strict. Among the many rules was one that boys weren’t allowed to have long hair.

There was this old-fashioned teacher (Mr. Barabell) who’d been teaching there for ~30 years already by that point and was well-known for being strict but fair.

Anyway, there was this one boy (Luke) who decided that he wanted to grow long hair and he wasn’t going to let a stupid school rule stop him, and so he just let it grow. Initially he started getting comments from teachers about being “scruffy” etc. but eventually the situation came to a head in Mr. Barabell’s class:

A confrontation begins with the teacher telling Luke off— “There are school standards to maintain, “ and, “Does he think that he’s special, ” and so on. Well Luke—smart alec that he was—has a pre-prepared answer ready to go:

“But sir, Jesus had long hair didn’t he?“

As this point the class is completely silent waiting for a response, but instead of answering Mr. Barabell says, “Right, everyone come with me now,” and he turns and exits the class room. We all follow, including Luke, wondering what on Earth is going on.

Eventually we reach the school swimming pool and gather around. Then Mr. Barabell turns to Luke, points to the swimming pool and says, “Walk!”.

Luke is just standing there kind of shaking his head (knowing that he’s defeated) and the whole rest of the class is cracking up.

The teacher finishes with, “When you can walk on water, you can have long hair at school.”

Game. Set. Match.

Smart Kid

Why can’t Americans get access to the Chinese electric car market?

Americans foolishly screamed and shout that they are the leader of the free world without ever questioning if it is even remotely true or not! Please don’t be angry or upset if I help you guys since I understand you can pretend to be free or even dare says you are ordained by god to spread democracy and freedom but you Americans are one of the least free country on earth.

Let me help you good American. So first I like to explain how unfree you guys are.

35% of you cannot get health care when you fall sick! The most basic of freedom is the freedom to see a doctor and get cure when you fall sick. At least 100 million Americans don’t have this basic of basics of freedom.

Next 1 million Americans are homeless and don’t have another basic of basics of freedom. The freedom to have a roof over their head.! They have to live in makeshift tents on the streets.

20% of Americans don’t have 500 dollars to their name and don’t know where their next meal is coming from! Surely everyone must have the freedom to have a hot meal to stay alive!

USA with about 4% of world population has 25% of the worlds prisoners population! Think about this my American friends, prisoners are certainly. Not free. Many of them coloured people thrown into jail for the slightest reason. How on earth can you keep a straight face to say U.S. is the leader of the free world. No one know!

In many cities in the U.S. one cannot go to certain parts of the inner city like the Queens in New York. As crimes are rampant. So normal innocent and good Americans like you have to avoid that part of America! Surely freedom means you can go to anywhere or any part of America.

Kids and parents suffers the mental turmoils daily for just going to school. Many got shot to death in schools, public places, cinemas and even in Capitol Hill! Is that freedom? Even your kids are not free to go to school without a random mass shooter lurking with military grade weapons to murder them! Is this freedom?

If you are not fortunate to have a white skin you could be necked to death in the bright daylight of even driving a good car may be be shot to death just for suspected of stealing the car! Everyday you live in fear of a white policeman! Is that freedom to live? Freedom to avoid death at the racist inclination of the white racist? Surely not.

Freedom means you can choose who you really want to be your leader. Only 30% choose Biden. Or 35% choose Trump! Why are they your president? Your system allowed 0.8% of the richest and most influential people to choose your candidates! Surely this is not political freedom. This is far from democracy. How on earth can you call yourself the “beacon of democracy” who in a sane mind can claim that?

Oh today you country stop the Americans from having access to best 5G technology, Smartphone, best EV’s, drones and others for some geopolitical nonsense! Is this freedom? Freedom to be deprived? Let me help you understand. You are deprived from buying a 10 bucks EV. And need to be charged once a week but you are not allowed to! You cannot buy your Tesla like for half the price! Just to support your too big to fail auto industry paying 100 million bonus doing shit for good Americans!

But to me EVs and Drones are just the top of the iceberg of your draconian and suicide policies that takes away the freedom of Americans like you. Think about Jullien Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden! Freedom? American is anything but free.

Man these people are monsters

What conversations have you overheard in a language they assumed you don’t know?

It was 2016 in Bruges, Belgium. I was with my parents and we had just hailed a cab that somehow turned into a ride-share with this British family.

All was well in the van until about three minutes in, when I heard the lady say: “These people look a bit funny, don’t they?”. I looked up to notice that they were talking about my family. In plain English.

I stayed silent as much as I could, as they went on discussing among themselves and chuckling over how we were so bundled up (It was in the middle of a freezing winter and I live in the freaking equator!) even though it wasn’t that cold for them, or how they couldn’t figure out where we’re from because apparently we didn’t look Chinese enough nor Middle Eastern enough for them (Answer: Neither – we’re Indonesian) and all. During the whole ride, they were mocking us.

My mother must’ve seen me giving them a death stare and asked if anything was wrong, in Indonesian. Topping it all off, they were of course chuckling at how my mom was talking really funny. I couldn’t stand it any more, so I answered my mom in English, making sure the British family heard me well:

“Yes there is a problem here. Some people actually still think that English isn’t a universal language by now, and think that it’s good fun to mock and make fun of other people just because of how they look”.

I spent the rest of the cab ride watching the blood drain from their faces. At least I was no longer the one being uncomfortable in that cab.

Lord, Jesus help us

What are some deepest lessons you should know in your young age?

  1. Feeling sad after making a decision doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision.
  2. Life is not tiring. Wanting life to be a certain way but not having the confidence to make it that way, is tiring.
  3. Self-awareness is realising that there is no opponent -you’re fighting against yourself.
  4. Sometimes saying ‘goodbye’ doesn’t mean you don’t love something, it just means you love yourself too.
  5. That lesson will repeat itself until you learn it.
  6. If you keep one hand on your past and one hand on your future you’ll never have either. To embrace tomorrow, you must let go of yesterday.
  7. The world starts and ends entirely inside your mind. No matter where you end up, no matter how rich, or successful you become, you won’t enjoy any of it if you get there at the expense of your mental health.

Chinese ethnic groups

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SC7IyLLt6PA?feature=share

What is the fastest you have ever seen your co-worker getting fired?

As a teenager, I worked in a gas station for a couple of years. A younger kid got hired who had some odd work habits. When the station owner would leave, the kid would just go sit down in the office. Meanwhile, I’d be pumping gas, changing oil, or mounting tires. I had no authority over this kid.

A few days after he was hired, I told the owner what was going on. An hour or two later the owner mentioned he was going home for an hour or two. He departed, the kid sat down in the office, while I finished doing an oil change and waited on customers at the pumps.

Ten minutes later, the boss walked out the alley where he’d parked his truck out of sight, and stood quietly in the shadows, watching me work, and the kid sitting on his butt. A few minutes later, the kid was fired. Word got around our small town pretty quickly, I don’t think this kid could find another job that summer.

I wasn’t sad to see him leave…

What is the most absurd thing you’ve been charged for on a bill?

Years ago I strained a tendon in my thumb. I went to one of those jenky quick service medical clinics to have it looked at and a person, who I assumed had some training in doctoring or nursing, prescribed me ibuprofen and put my hand in a brace.

I paid them like 50 bucks and went on my way.

A few weeks later I got a bill for the brace from a medical billing company in Texas. They assigned a cost of $750 to the brace, and only the brace, claimed to have billed my insurance for $450 and expect the rest from me. Of course, I sent them nothing, and the bills kept coming. The brace was essentially the same as one you’d buy at the drug store for about $35. It was nothing special and there was no way I was sending them any money. I tried to call them, but no one ever answered their phone.

Once my tendon healed, I put the brace in a box, along with a copy of their bill and mailed it to them. I never received anther bill afterwards.

Good advice

Why did China keep collapsing throughout history?

This is an interesting question.

Why did ancient China keep collapsing?

Or , let’s change the question.

Why did ancient China keep rebuilding?

In fact, there is no eternal empire in human history. From Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Ottoman, Russia. The lifespan of any empire established by a civilization is limited. In other words, crashes are bound to happen.

But the difference between China and other empires is that most ancient empires collapse only once. Because the collapsed empire can never be rebuilt again. But China has such a magical power that no matter how it collapses, it will always be reunified after a period of time, and then climb to the peak again.

image 14
image 14
  1. This picture shows the whole history of China. The crown represents peace and unity, and the sword represents division and war. 

So much so that the opening sentence of the famous ancient Chinese novel “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” reads: “The general trend of the world is that if it is divided for a long time, it will be united, and if it is united for a long time, it will be divided.”

Why China has such magic power, historians have many opinions.

One of the more widely recognized statements is this:

4,000 years ago, the Chinese were born on a land suitable for farming. Since the earliest civilized countries were established, they have been a typical agricultural civilization.

From the earliest recorded history of China, they have faced the threat from the north. That is the nomadic civilization galloping on the grasslands. In the early historical documents of Chinese dynasties, the invasion of nomadic civilization was recorded many times, and even the most brilliant Western Zhou Dynasty perished because of the invasion of nomadic civilization.

The ancestors of the Chinese discovered that the agricultural civilization, which is good at farming and construction, cannot compete with the nomadic civilization, which is good at riding and archery, in war. (Infantry can hardly defeat cavalry).
But as long as they are united, they will become more powerful. If 1 person can’t defeat the enemy, then 3 people; if 3 people can’t, then 10 people. Since agricultural civilization can breed more wealth and population, once China is united, the nomads are no match at all.

In 221 BC, the Qin Empire unified China for the first time, defeated the Xiongnu in war, and built the Great Wall to keep them out of the cold north. The Han Empire went a step further and formed a professional army of hundreds of thousands of people, went on an expedition to the desert, and completely defeated the Xiongnu. A unified and strong state always protects its people from harm. And when the empire crumbles and divides, China becomes weak. For example, the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period were all like this. At this time, the enemy from the north invaded, the internal war was in chaos, and the society was dark. People cannot live a normal life, and starvation and death become the norm. Every round of imperial collapse and division in Chinese history will be accompanied by wars and a significant reduction in population. The lessons of history have engraved this truth deeply in the hearts of the Chinese people—unity is justice and light, and division is evil and darkness. The Chinese yearning for unity transcends history, time, religion, and nationality.

Therefore, the ultimate political goal of every careerist who wished to seize power in ancient China was the same: to unify the country and obtain the “sky destiny”. Only in this way can we gain the support of the people.

Imagine if in Europe, every German thought the German government was evil, the British thought the British government was dark, and the French thought the French government was corrupt. These governments should all be overthrown. As for the reason, there is only one: they don’t want to unify Europe, which is not the right direction.

What a terrible and incredible power this is, but the Chinese have such power.

A beautiful lesson

AH. I want to do this with my daughter.

What are some of the best examples of “American ignorance”?

I used to date an American. At the time I lived on an estate where to get out, you had to drive under a railway bridge arch. He got annoyed with having to wait for oncoming traffic to clear and demanded to know “why the hell didn’t they build this with two lanes?” I said it was built 150 years ago for stagecoaches, before cars were even invented. Americans forget how old England is.

What are some things that look easy but are difficult?

I asked a cycle rickshaw driver in India if I could have a turn. “This’ll be as easy as riding a bicycle,” I thought.

Technically, that’s exactly what it is. Only that you’re pulling someone else’s weight as well. Or even that of several people.

His face had all those deep grooves from the harsh sun beating down on him all day. His arms and legs were as thin as twigs. His ribcage bulged through a sweat-drenched tanktop.

I was less than half his age and enjoyed the kind of nutrition he could only dream of.

“You’re a tourist,” he protested.

But I insisted and he sat on the vinyl seat in the back.

I mounted the driver’s seat brimming with confidence and pressed down on the pedal.

It didn’t even budge.

I stood up and pushed down with all my might.

The rickshaw squeaked forward a couple inches.

By this point, the driver was laughing hysterically.

I conceded defeat, we changed positions, and he sailed down the street with an ease I could not even begin to fathom.

And while he was no industry-disrupting maverick, he was solving a real problem—helping people get from A to B.

My view of manual laborers was forever changed.

I learned that technique always trumps strength.

And that every honest line of work deserves our utmost respect.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: America is declining RAPIDLY

https://youtu.be/0gjzpZMFVsE

MM talks reptilian

There’s a lot of people chatting about “reptilians”. My (MM) opinion is that (as far as the Earth is concerned), our environment is not conducive and supportive of a human-sized intelligent reptilian extraterrestrial. The size betrays the need for large amounts of oxygen and that impacts the brains size and cavity.

Reptilians can exist, mind you, but not as intelligent beings. Not around our star, and within our present environment.

I had the opportunity to inquire to the Domain Commander about this issue on a chat that I had while riding the public bus. (Yup, welcome to MM land.)

  • There ARE extraterrestrials that have a reptilian form, and they are intelligent.
  • They however, are unable to operate within this solar system effectively.
  • Thus, any extraterrestrial beings that operate within our Earth environment take on other “forms”. Not reptilian.

That being said, one should not discount the reports that reptilians and shape-changing beings are common in the earth environment. They are not. What is instead being reported is a cloaked image that presents a reptilian image directly keyed to satiate the observer.

The primeval state is insectoid. Not reptilian, however, many human observers would find a projection of a large insect far too disturbing for purposes of contact, thus a reptilian image is preferred.

Better to see a human-sized lizard, than a giraffe sized preying mantis. Don’t you know.

Today…

Have you ever accepted a ride as a hitchhiker?

Back when I was in college (early ‘70s) everyone hitchhiked. I would hitchhike alone or with friends almost every other weekend in upstate New York (yes, I’m a guy). Our trips were always taken on part of the NYS Thruway, and there were unwritten rules that hitchhikers followed. There were usually three, four or more hitchhikers just before the toll booths, each person or group would be spread out 20 or so feet apart. We would all have signs for where we wanted to go, usually the city/town/exit we wanted to get dropped off. The person/group that was closest to the toll booths had priority for being picked up, if you were just getting to the thruway entrance, you took the spot farthest away. As people got picked up, your place in the queue got better.

My friend and I actually started a small business. We got large pieces of white oaktag (two feet wide) and created stencils that we would spray paint with dayglow orange paint. We would sell them to people who were going to hitchhike, they were always the best signs of anybody looking for a ride, they loved them. We also made copies of tips and rules (we would always be amazed at stupid ways people dressed to be standing outside, sometimes in the snow/rain for hours). I’d say we got a ride 95% of the time, we never had any problems.

Ai dod symposium notes and signs

https://odysee.com/@psinergy:f/trim.C62FD469-784D-4FAA-8DE8-9993576614F4:5

What did someone say/do that made you close down your account and go to another bank?

Bank of America: “We don’t have $1000 in cash.”

Followed by, it’s the weekend and so on and on.

The topper though was: “You will have to wait until Monday.”

Er, no I don’t.

I paraded in front of that branch with a sign stating the facts – this branch did not have $1000 on hand – causing quite the queue to form….of demanding account holders.

Presto. $1000 cash appeared, with no delivery that I observed, nothing.

“Get me a cashier’s check for the rest.”

What are some biggest behaviors of a confident person?

  1. They dare to give toxic people the silent treatment.
  2. They don’t judge people without knowing their side of the story.
  3. They’re not like “He will like me”, but “I’ll be fine if they don’t”.
  4. They listen to understand, not to reply.
  5. They normalize saying no.
  6. They don’t break eye contact too much.
  7. They don’t frequently check their social media “Likes”.
  8. They look to praise, not praised.
  9. They are too positive to be doubtful,
    too optimistic to be fearful,
    too determined to be defeated.
  10. They know everyone have flaws and nobody is perfect.
  11. They are better at ignoring insecurities.
  12. They know what their triggers are.
  13. They don’t just have purpose, they live it.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

Dude, age 37, sexist as hell, has a theory that only very few women are smart. Very few. He could maybe count them on one hand.

He, on the other hand, is the love child of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein high on NZT.

We are at a party, all PhD students, the women’s section seriously looked down on by this Dude. He of course has to start an intellectual fight over something one of the girls is majoring in. He dies to prove that she has grey spots in her logic/theory. Girl is super chill, Dude makes very little sense actually. He is mostly arrogant. Finally he names a study written by a female author, says Girl should only talk with such confidence if she is as smart as that woman. Yeah, the author lady is one of the few super intelligent “females” he would be able to accept as a partner in all terms.

Girl laughs and pulls out her laptop to show Dude how the study is actually her own article. She wrote it. She is the super intelligent author lady.

Laugh rumbles for minutes, Dude leaves a contrail behind in his rush to get out, trying to act hurt.

What was your most embarrassing moment in front of your boss?

I once locked my boss in his own office.

I was 19 and doing my internship in a midsize Pune based CA firm. My boss and I were working until around 8:30 p.m. Other employees had already left.

My Boss: Vikas, we should leave now, it’s 8:30 p.m.

In an attempt to impress my boss, with how dedicated and hard working I am, I said “Sir, you leave. I will finish drafting that partnership deed and then go.”

My Boss: Are you sure? It can take 2 hours.

Me: No problem, Sir. I’ll finish it this evening and set the copy on your desk before leaving.

My Boss: OK. Lock the office carefully.

Here is the catch, I had already drafted that deed, and it was ready to be printed out. I went to my desk, waited few minutes, ensured boss had left his cabin, then took printouts, neatly placed it on my boss’s table. Switch off lights and locked the office. Went down the cafeteria downstairs and started having my food.

But I forgot, there’s a balcony adjacent to my boss’s cabin. He was actually in the balcony talking on a phone, while I locked him in his own office.

But that’s only half part of embarrassment story.

My boss realised I’ve locked him in, saw the partnership deed print outs on his desk, he understood the entire matter (he was a smart and jolly person in 30s, who has gone through that same phase of internship).

He called me : Vikas, where are you? what are you doing?

Me: Sir I am in office, typing that partnership deed.

Boss : There’s no need to type that deed. I’m in my cabin now, holding the printout of that same partnership deed.

Me:……………!

Boss : So please come to the office, unlock the door, let me go home!

If he had scolded me, then okay. But he never said a word about my oversmartness.

I can’t explain the level of embarrassment..

What is the best thing that has ever happened to you for being nice?

It was a second date, and we went to an Indian restaurant. The waiter made a mistake with our order, and instead of causing a scene I was apparently completely sympathetic and understanding.

I say “apparently” because I don’t actually remember this at all, since being nice to waiters is my default mode, but my date really noticed. It seems that almost everyone else she’d dated would put on some kind of show in order to show how assertive and macho they were, no matter that it involved humiliating someone for a mistake anyone could have made – and she said that that was the precise point when she thought that I might have long-term relationship potential.

Fifteenth wedding anniversary this month. Moral: be nice to waiters.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

A major bank takes on the wrong guy…

My father was a very distinguished British judge and widely recognised as one of the finest legal minds of his generation.

Whenever he bought a car, he set up a savings account to pay for the eventual replacement. The account was with a major international banking group.

When the time came to replace his car, he discovered that this type of account had been mothballed, and no interest had been paid for years. He’d overlooked the notification small print amongst the endless stream of marketing bumf from the bank.

His initial complaint was rejected. So my father wrote directly to the Chair of the Board, pointing out that this policy discriminated against the bank’s most vulnerable customers, with an incisively argued opinion that the policy was illegal under EC consumer law.

Not long afterwards he received a personal letter from the Chair. After apologising profusely, he assured my father that the policy would be changed, and that many thousands of customers of discontinued accounts would have their interest paid in full plus additional compensation. This will have cost them many millions.

It’s not often that a single customer complaint changes the policy of a major corporation. Their lawyers must have checked my father’s reputation and realised that they were on a legal hiding to nothing.

They tangled with the wrong guy!

Copeland’s of New Orleans Bananas Foster

New Orleans Bananas Foster
New Orleans Bananas Foster

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) whole butter
  • 4 whole bananas, peeled and cut into fourths
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup light cream or Half-and-Half
  • 1 ounce banana liqueur
  • 1 ounce rum

Instructions

  1. Place half of the butter in a heavy gauge skillet over medium heat and melt. Add the sugar and cream. Cook for approximately 2 minutes until the sugar is dissolved.
  2. Add cut bananas and the cinnamon to the skillet and stir to coat.
  3. Remove the skillet from the flame. Add the rum and the banana liqueur.
  4. Swirl to incorporate and place the skillet back on the flame. (**Be careful because the alcohol may ignite when you place it back on the flame.)
  5. Add the remaining butter and swirl to incorporate.
  6. Serve over your favorite ice cream, pound cake, or biscuits.

As a cop what was the most interesting arrest you ever made?

Not me, but my dad arrested a mafia hit man once.

They had a warrant for the guy related to money laundering and racketeering, but they knew he was a hit man too. They were going to hit his house early one morning. The bust crew staged around the corner, and my dad said he would cruise by the house to check for any unforeseen circumstances, and verify the street address. My dad pulled up in an unmarked suberban, and stopped briefly in front of the guys house. At that moment, hit man dude walks out in his bath robe to get the morning newspaper. My dad (in plain clothes) said “excuse me, can I ask you a quick question?” Dude said sure. He walked up to my dads window. My dad says aren’t you so-and-so? Guy says yes i am. Dad flashed his badge and says sir, i got a warrant for your arrest. Dude looks around, then said really? Dad says yes sir, put your hands on my hood please. And handcuffed him right there in his bathrobe. Then called the bust crew and told them “well, i got him. He is in custody “.

Dude was actually super cool. Said he was gonna need a few minutes to explain this to his wife because she had no idea about this part of his life. They gave him that courtesy

What makes Biden give up decoupling with China?

Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?

When I was younger I had been babysitting for my nephew but they had recently moved to a new apartment in a part of the city I didn’t know. My parents had drawn a map to get me there, but I ended up not quite getting the same route back. It was gone 2am and I emerged onto a little roundabout from a different road than expected so I went around twice to get my bearings. And of course a cop car just happened to see it and pulled me over.

They asked me why, I told the truth and showed them the paper map. They asked me if I’d anything alcoholic to drink and again I truthfully said no. I don’t blame him for not believing me, given the time, a Saturday night and the situation so I took the breathalyser. I knew it would come back totally negative so I wasn’t worried. So of course it did, and they let me go. But before they left, the officer looked at me and very honestly and earnestly thanked me for my polite, respectful, courteous and cooperative attitude.

Apparently they don’t get pleasant, polite attitudes from the people they encounter very often and it was nice for them.

What is the most absurd thing you’ve been charged for on a bill?

Not too long ago, I was “de-marketized” by my former bank, Royal Bank of Canada, for accepting too many payments from companies I work for from PayPal.

from the Financial Times

This is one of Canada’s Big 5 banks, and I had been banking with them for well over 30 years. I had actually spoken to their security department about this as they wanted to confirm that all of my transactions were legal and not something out of fraud or whatever, which I didn’t mind being audited on as all of my work was legal, just not paid through the usual ways.

The bank’s security had cleared me, but they were then overruled by some other department in their head office, and suddenly I get a letter saying I was being “de-marketized” which involves having ALL of my accounts, investments, retirement funds and so on be shut down and be forced to move to another bank. There was no way to appeal, no way to complain and no act I could do to stop this. So having exhausted almost all of the avenues of redress (there’s still the Federal banking ombudsman), I had to scramble to get all of my accounts out to another bank.

Now normally I would say, “good riddance” as I’ve found that the service at my new bank far superior than what I’ve encountered with RBC. RBC put me through essentially bureaucratic hell for a month as I had to fill out this form and that form…. but now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with all this.

Well, when I had moved my investment accounts (my retirement funds) out to another bank, they had the gall to charge me $150 for the priviledge to MOVE THE MONEY OUT despite them FORCING ME OUT. And worse, if I hadn’t screamed absolute murder to the highest mountains, they tried to RETURN MY RETIREMENT SAVINGS STRAIGHT TO ME AS CASH. To do this would AUTOMATICALLY incur an instant 25–30% INCOME TAX CUT OFF THE FUNDS, which would have been in the THOUSANDS of dollars! If it wasn’t for my new bank instructing me EXACTLY what I needed to do to avoid incurring the loss and telling them I was absolutely ready to put this whole mess on LOCAL NEWS, they wouldn’t have “suddenly” discover that there was a way for me to transfer the money without the tax implications.

So in the end, I still only got hit by the $150 transfer fee, but this was absolutely absurb as I never would have been hit with this if they didn’t force me out in the FIRST PLACE.

High Alert! China Is Now Launching Their ‘Submarine Killer’ To Counter US Nuclear Submarine

China commands one of the best naval powers in the world. With modern naval vessels, advanced naval technology with no rival, a majestic naval infrastructure and the largest commanding navy in the world, the PLA Navy is by no means playing around. A recent development has come into light which reveals China’s plans of developing a next generation naval demolisher that will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

Index to the video…

Chapters

  • 00:00 – Intro
  • 01:02 – The Submarine Killer
  • 03:16 – A Practical Innovation
  • 05:40 – A US vs China Comparison

In your time in the military, have you ever met a high ranking officer and were unaware of their rank?

My husband was the 82nd paratrooper with the tweaked shoulder, I was the new wife hip deep in a Ford Pinto doing an oil change and tune-up at the Hobby Shop on post. He was an E-5 Sergeant, we didn’t have money for someone else to work on our cars, so “we” were working on the Pinto of Many Colors (think primer on all four fenders in four different colors — not me, I swear!) This particular Pinto we’d paid $186 for because the little old lady who sold it to us took $14 off because we’d have to register it — 94,000 miles later, I figured we got our money’s worth. But it did require maintenance.

Hubby was handing me tools one-handed. I asked for an extension for a stubborn spark plug and he went to “check it out” which you could do at the post Hobby Shop.

Someone from the next bay handed me the tool and said, “Try this one.”

I took it and said, “Thank-you, kindly.”

There was some inconsequential chit-chat, and I said, “You sound like home.”

He was from home, less than an hour from home anyway, La Follette, TN.

That was it, a short conversation with a soldier, a good ole Southern boy in a white T-shirt tucked into belted jeans. He was a little older than everyone else in the bay, but oil needed changing, right?

Hubby gave me big eyes and said, “Thank-you, SIR.”

It was the GENERAL Carl Stiner, his many boss’ boss, head of the 82nd at the time.

The Pinto started right up and ran like a top. Hubby’s shoulder healed. And the general went on to great things with Special Operations Group and to co-write a book with Tom Clancy. But I think of him changing his own oil in a tucked-in T-shirt at the Hobby Shop.

Strangest things on camera

WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?

A man was skydiving one bright sunny day. He pulled the string to open his main parachute – but nothing happened – the parachute did not open! So he pulled the string to open his reserve chute – but that didn’t open either!!

‘Oh no’, the man thought to himself. ‘The way things are going, my car probably won’t start either when I try to drive home!!!’

What was your “I am surrounded by idiots” moment?

This is a favorite story of mine. If you watch my show the original creature features on YouTube, You will note that I wear an eye patch. I have been blind in one eye for almost 60 years And I have made a point of wearing an eye patch in all of my ID photos because it makes it easier for people to know it’s me. Having a damaged eye is a hard thing to fake. So I went down to the DMV to renew my license and they said I had to take an eye test remember I am wearing an eye patch. They first told me to cover my left eye and read the chart, the eye with an eye patch. I told them that it would not affect anything as I don’t have an eye and I am in fact wearing an eye patch but they said I could be faking it so I had to cover my left eye and read the chart. That was not the stupid part. They then told me I had to cover my right eye, The only eye that can see and read the chart. I again told them that I was blind in my left eye and was in fact wearing an eye patch over my left eye which i’d be willing to remove so that they could see the lack of a left eye. They pointed out that despite being qualified to be at the DMV or Possibly because of it, They were not qualified to look at my eye and tell that it was blind and that I still had to cover my eye and read the chart. Again they pointed out that I could be faking it, There could be a hole in the eye patch that I’m seeing through. I said let’s just write down that I saw nothing and they said they couldn’t believe me until I covered my eye and then told them I saw nothing. I asked them what would be the advantage to me to lie on my DMV eye Test that I was blind. They couldn’t tell me but required that I covered my only good eye and try to read the chart. I covered the eye said I couldn’t see anything and they proceeded to give me my new driver’s license. I desperately want to work at the DMV as I don’t believe I am stupid enough to possibly ever be fired.

What’s a rule that you live by that most people don’t?

You can’t be mad about what you didn’t say.

My roommate is fuming.

“We all printed off our copies of the speech and she had hers on her computer! I can’t even believe that. I was so pissed.”

“Did you tell her to print it?” I ask.

“Well, no,” she admits. “But I think it’s fairly obvious—”

“If it’s so obvious, you’d think she’d’ve done it,” I observe.

“She was probably just being lazy.”

“Or she didn’t have the same expectations as you. If you wanted her to do something, you should’ve told her. You can’t really be mad about something you never said.”

Many people think it’s valid to get upset about assumptions.

But if you want something done, say it. If you don’t like something, say it. If you need something, say it.

Don’t assume that others see what you see.

It never hurts to discuss things.

And it never hurts to say what you’re thinking.

Communication.

It rocks, yo.

NDE REVEALS: The REASON We CHOSE To Incarnate During This DIFFICULT Time!

Has a child ever done something that really surprised you?

My best friends 5 year old son stayed with me for a week (my friend and her husband went on holiday). I was pregnant at that time.

One evening after bringing him back home from the park, i was panting walking home. As soon as he got home, he disappeared into the bathroom.

I could hear running water, but didn’t think much of it. I thought he was washing his hands (and he takes long).

While he was doing his thing, I went to the kitchen to warm up dinner, I saw him pull a chair to the bathroom. Obviously this wasn’t normal. I followed him to the bathroom, but he asked me not to come in for two minutes.

When he finally opened the door, he’s filled the bathtub with hot water, added soap for bubbles, cologne for smell (he probably didn’t realize that soap had smell too). And he’d kept the chair just outside the bath tub so I could sit and soak my feet in hot water.

He said that’s what dad did when his mum was expecting his sibling. It takes away all the pain he said!

Obviously the sweetest thing a child has done

Wife Says She “Wasted Her 20s Raising Kids” So She Wants An Open Marriage…I Said I Want A Divorce

Isn’t “crumpet” just the British term for what Americans call an “English muffin”?

So you know how in the Lord of the Rings books, orcs are corrupted, debased creatures made by foul darkness in mockery of elves?

That’s kind of what English muffins are to crumpets.

If you’ve only had English muffins but never has your mouth known the blessing of a crumpet, you might think they are in some way kin, without realizing how the English muffin is a fel and evil mockery of a crumpet. To taste a crumpet after a lifetime of English muffins is to know true bliss, as if you’ve had your first hint of a brighter world, a breakfast delicacy buttered by the loins of Aphrodite herself.

How do you respond when your boss says, “I need this done by Monday”?

Not my boss, it was an important client. A client we couldn’t afford to lose.

A desperate call came in Friday morning. An American investor wanted an English translation of their just released 68-page German annual report for Monday.

I knew it was a huge problem, but I stayed calm as I ran the word count to see how bad it was.

Doing the rough math, I told him we needed to find at least 3 additional financial translators (plus yours truly) who might be willing to work a 32-hour weekend on short notice. I would call him back as soon as I had news.

Now this was back in 1998, long before Google Translate and DeepL.

I sent an email out to 11 translators and got on the phone to follow the mail.

After 8 calls I had my 3 translators, but there was a catch. The least expensive one was asking for 240 marks (120 EUR) per hour. The most expensive wanted 400 marks (200 EUR).

That was outrageous, but as they all pointed out to me, only outrageous people ask suppliers to change their weekend plans on Friday morning and tell their loved ones they are working a 16-hour Saturday and Sunday.

Normally this job would have been quoted just under 8,000 marks with a one week delivery time, but to complete over the weekend it would cost 45,000.

I called back the client and told him we could deliver for Monday at a price of 45,000… or we could deliver a week later for 8,000. I asked him to talk it over with his investor and get back to me asap.

The return call came pretty quickly. Monday in a week would be just fine.

The moral of the story is, be nice, but be firm. Set a price for losing your weekend. It can be extra money, extra days off or maybe even a promotion.

Then let the boss decide whether it’s worth it. Your weekend belongs to you, but you can always sell it if the price is right.

Whatever you do, don’t sell yourself short.

What’s something your husband did to you that you will never forget?

It was on our honeymoon and I knew then I made a mistake by marrying him. We argued a lot. He was angry with me because I couldn’t read a map. I COULD read a map just fine, it was the map that wasn’t clear as to which way to go. I gave him the map and he couldn’t figure it out either. 15 years go by, our two daughters were 10 and 13 and starting with the mouthy disrespect, but only towards me. The girls and I got into a verbal confrontation about respecting me, right in front of him. He gathered both girls to hug them and told them I was “tetched” or in other words crazy and they didn’t have to listen to me! So instead of backing me up he just made it worse. It was all downhill from there. Time goes by. Every single night, just like his parents, come home from work, eat, shower, watch TV and go to bed. Repeat until death. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Rarely go to a movie or anything else. NEVER go anywhere on vacation. I could not live like that so I decided to start my own business, which did pretty well. Went by myself on simple vacations since he didn’t want to go. So after 32 years wasted with this man, he decides to cheat with my businesses book keeper who was my best friend. I should have listened to my instict, left him to figure out his own map and walked out while on our honeymoon.

Psychologist Explains WHY Women Have To EARN Affection

“Women treat men like men treat their jobs. Men treat women like women treat money”.

And…

people want what they want. Not, what wants them.”

What happened when selling a house that made you not sell to the prospective buyer?

I had an offer and counter offer then agreed to sell. I signed the papers and gave them to his realtor. The realtor said he would take them to the buyer tomorrow. It would have closed in a couple weeks. I was on a tight deadline to sell, it was 1994 and tax law gave me two years to sell and time was up soon. Later that same day another realtor brought me an offer that was VA preapproved and could close that week. Since the first buyer hadn’t signed yet I was able to recind my agreement to sell and accept the new one. His realtor cost him a house

What’s the most enjoyable thing you’ve ever said to a manager as you’ve quit your job?

“You haven’t passed the trial period”, I said to the manager.

I was having this interview for a job I really wanted. The interview went well, but the employers explained that since they couldn’t tell from an interview how I would do in practice, there would be a trial period of three months. I was happy with that; if I didn’t pass the trial period, at least I’d gain experience.

So I began my trial period, but already in the first week I didn’t like the atmosphere in that place. The manager who was so nice during my interview, turned out to be loud, on the verge of being a bully. He was walking in the place like a dictator and people would go quiet every time he was around them. I’m prone to anxieties and I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. Yes, I needed the money and I loved what I was doing, but it didn’t do good to my soul.

I was taking my time deciding though, but then one day he was shouting at one employee so badly (and in front of others), that I made up my mind. It was nearly the end of my trial period, and at the end of that day I went to his office and asked to talk. He said, “Please come in, I was actually planning to talk to you after the weekend, we’ll sign a contract next week.” I said, “Thank you but I won’t be staying, I can’t stand the atmosphere in your place.” He said, “What? why? don’t take it like that, we are busy, it’s nothing personal, and you have definitely passed the trial period.” I said, “Yes, but you haven’t passed the trial period!”

Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?

I was 17. 2 cops pulled me over and checked me and my car out. They found a pair of pliers on the back floorboard. They were looking at me all suspicious like. I was shaking. One of them said “We’ve got you now”. I managed to say “For what?” They looked at each other and then one said “Cattle rustling” I said “But we’re in the middle of the city”. They started laughing. Turns out there’s an old Texas law dating back to the 1800s that forbids anyone from carrying wire cutters. We all got a laugh and they let me go.

What are some psychological facts that people don’t know?

  1. Haters don’t really hate you , in fact they hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.
  2. Make sure to listen carefully to how a person speaks about other people to you. This is how they speak about you to other people.
  3. We only need two close friends in which we can trust . Having too many friends linked to depression and stress.
  4. Those who don’t socialize much ain’t actually anti — social , they just have no tolerance for drama and fake people.
  5. Stop telling your problems to others, 20% don’t care & the other 80% are glad you have them.
  6. Eating chocolate while studying helps the brain to retain new information and it is linked to higher test scores.
  7. Being nice to someone you dislike doesn’t mean that you are fake , it generally means you are matured enough to tolerate that individual.
  8. The reason why it’s hard to get someone out of your mind is because they are thinking about you as well.
  9. People who understand sarcasm well are often good at reading people minds.
  10. If your mind wanders often , there’s 85% chance , that you are subconsciously unhappy with your life.
  11. The way parents talk to their children’s become their inner voice.
  12. Writing your negative thoughts and tossing them in trash can improve your mood. ( I tried it and it really works:)
  13. Meditation can change the brain structure in just 8 weeks . It also increases grey matter in parts of the brain associated with learning.

Men will not go where they are unwanted.

My Uncle Eugine told me this story about being the only man in the retirement home. All the “old gals” were bringing him food and doting over him…

What are some psychological facts that people don’t know?

Some of the psychological facts, which I am sure most of the people would not be knowing

  • Any friendship that exceeds the 7 year mark… Is more likely to last an entire lifetime.
  • When cleaning your room, start with making your bed. It will make everything around it look out of place and it will motivate you to clean!
  • 92% people type things into ”Google” to see if they spelled them correctly.
  • If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. ~Albert Einstein
  • Whenever you’re curious about something write it down. This way, whenever you’re bored you’ll have an entire list of things to learn about.
  • After 3 to 4 months of having a crush on someone, you either fall in love with that person or become interested in someone new.
  • 85% of people have experienced a dream so real that they were not sure if it happened in real life or not.
  • Never judge someone without knowing the whole story. You may think you understand, but you don’t.
  • At a restaurant? Wash your hands after ordering. The menu is generally the dirtiest thing you can touch !
  • Coca-Cola only sold 25 gallons syrup the first year but kept going. Never give up !
  • ‘Dysania’ is the state of finding it hard to get off the bed in the morning.
  • A study has found that friends-with-benefits relationships are just as sexually satisfying as marital relationships.
  • Kissing and cuddling can increase your lifespan.
  • Having sex only 3 times a week, has proven to make you look 5-7 years younger.
  • Shy people tend to have great observational skills, making it easier to recognize the core of a problem then solving it.
  • The “Pinky Promise” originally meant that the person who breaks the promise must cut off their pinky finger.
  • Last and quite weird – In 1895 there were only 2 cars in the entire state of Ohio yet they still ended up crashing into each other.

Being a Worker Drone as a lifestyle

What’s the “meanest” thing you’ve done for your child that you know he/she will thank you later for?

I came to USA married and our daughter arrived 5 years later.

I decided to teach her Portuguese since it is our mother tongue.

When my daughter was 7 years old, she did not want to speak Portuguese anymore. One day, coming from school, she began telling me some situation that happened at school in English. I told her: “Please, tell me in Portuguese.” My English is excellent, but the reason that I wanted her speaking in Portuguese was because of her future, it is a plus when you can acquire a language as a child.

She got upset and told me she did not want to tell me anything anymore. I told her to go to her room and come back when she was ready to speak. It took her a few minutes, but her reasoning was valid: “Mom, everything happened in English”. But she told me the story in Portuguese, with some American words.

A decade passed, she is in nursing school where she learned Spanish. Since both languages have Latin roots, it was not very difficult to learn it.

Today she is a nurse. Almost every week she comes home telling me how impressed her foreign patients are with her Portuguese. The hospital administration asked her to do some tests for her to become their official translator.

Here and there she thanks me for not giving up on teaching her Portuguese. It has opened many doors to her.

Sharing knowledge

What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?

I was getting fired. I knew it for sure.

They took all the power tools off of my service truck.

Told me I had to go see Bob Laublaub (not his real name) at the shop.

Yup…They’re firing me.

So I go into Mike’s…Ermmm Bob’s office. He has a termination slip and a check he is filling out by hand, my payoff. He says, “We are letting you go, it’s a clean layoff”. True to his word it was a clean ROF (reduction of force). I sign it, he already has. As soon as I sign it I am no longer his employee, so I ask him, “Why”? He states “We had a complaint from a customer that you were spending too much time in your truck smoking cigarettes”.

“Ohh,” I replied and handed him his copy of the termination form.

“I quit smoking three years ago”.

What is the most unreasonable request/demand that you’ve seen on an invitation to a wedding or event?

Thank you for the A2A, Wesley!

When one of my best friends from high school got married, she asked me to be a bridesmaid. I was pretty honored, and said yes. Then she told me I had to order a dress in a size 16. I was a size 2 at the time.

Her reasoning: she was portly, as were her bridesmaids, and if I was up there in a gown that showed how slim I was, I wouldn’t “match” the bridal party.

The dress was very low cut, and the only straps a loop of fabric on each side, like this, in lieu of sleeves. The skirt was much fuller.

What was I supposed to do, walk down the aisle holding my arms over my head, dragging two pounds of fabric? How would I walk with all the fabric tangling between my legs?

I rescinded my acceptance.

Do you agree with Donald Trump’s comment that “we owe trillions of dollars to China”?

The amount of U.S. treasury notes held by foreign countries is well known.

China’s current holding of U.S. treasury instruments is, roughly, $859 Billion (U.S. of course). That’s less than one trillion.

And the U.S. treasury owes that much money to China because China loaned the United States that much money (although there’s probably some interest in there). The United States isn’t going to turn down perfectly good money just because the Chinese have it. For one thing, if the U.S. government refused to sell U.S. debt instruments to countries for U.S. dollars, those countries would probably trade them on the open market for Euros or something and drive down the value of the dollar. Then the Europeans who sold Euros would be investing the money in U.S. treasury notes anyway.

Porch Pirate

Why do Chinese authorities care about immoral content on the livestreaming industry?

They are intelligent and play the long game. They’ve watched the effects that immoral contents have had on other countries for the past few decades and they’ve decided they do not want a similar fate for the youth of China. I commend them.

Which historical figures died the best?

Meet the woman who killed the President of France with a blowjob:

Marguerite Steinheil was a woman who lived a very interesting life. She was a socialite whom became famous for her many affairs with very prominent French men at the turn of the century, she became embroiled in international political scandals and once attempted to frame her manservant for the brutal murders of her husband and mother, a crime for which she was heavily implicated but never convicted.

However, it is for her relationship with Félix Faure, 7th President of France, that she became infamous.

Steinheil was introduced to Faure at a social event and quickly became his mistress. She would often visit his office at the Élysée Palace and disappear with him into his private chambers. One day, having visited the Palace, Steinheil rung urgently for the servants, who entered to find Steinheil adjusting her clothing and Faure having a seizure on the sofa. Within a few hours he was dead.

The story that came out was that Steinheil had been performing oral sex on Faure when he suffered a fatal stroke.

It’s tragic, but undeniably a pretty awesome and quintessentially ‘French’ way to go. The Presidents legacy lived on through a ship named for him, which ironically went down a few years later.

America today

As a doctor, what is the most unusual way a patient has thanked you for taking care of them?

When I was an ENT resident, I had a patient named Alvin who had been treated multiple times for an oral cancer. What happened on a visit after a biopsy stays with me today. At that time I wrote an article about it. Kind of a long answer to your question,, but I think worthwhile:

Alvin lay on the gurney, oblivious to the huff of the respirator forcing oxygen into his lungs. Pulling the surgical mask from my face, I reached for his pulse and checked his pupillary reflexes, matching the physical input against the digital readouts on the recovery room monitor. Everything looked good except that Alvin was going to live.

Alvin, a master woodworker, had cancer. At least, he’d had it before. Four years ago a small sore on the floor of his mouth proved positive for squamous cell carcinoma. Chemotherapy, radiation and three mutilating surgeries over as many years battered the disease to a standstill.

Throughout his ordeal, Alvin was indomitable. His face disfigured by the loss of half of his lower jaw, skin burned leathery by radiation, he saw no reason to complain let alone despair. Although he couldn’t smile, he never failed to joke with the nurses and talk about the mountain cabin where he planned to retire.

When Alvin presented for his checkup, there was another lump. My heart sank. He’d had all the drug and x-ray treatments his body could tolerate. Another surgery was out of the question.

“I don’t know about this, Alvin,” I said. “I think we’d better biopsy it.”

With a voice made raspy by his treatments, he said, “Sure, Doc. No problem.”

A week after the biopsy, Alvin bounced into my office after a wave and a wink to the receptionist.

He plunked himself in front of my desk, eyes still bright but unaccompanied by the usual deep laugh lines. He unshouldered a Woodworker’s Supply tote bag and set it beside the chair. “So what’s up, Doc?” he said.

The damning pathology report lay on my desk like a sheet of lead. My voice broke on his name. I took a sip of water and pulled myself together.

“It’s not good, Alvin. The cancer’s back. I don’t think we can stop it this time.”

Alvin nodded and leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. Leaning forward, he rummaged in his bag, extracting a package about the size of a cigar box brightly-wrapped in silver paper. He placed it on the desk and pushed it across to me.

“I know, Doc, and I knew you’d feel real bad about it. I thought this might cheer you up a little. Made it myself.”

Speechless, I carefully unwrapped a wooden box with an intricate inlay of a bird on the lid and scrolls of a yellow wood encircling the periphery.

“Not bad, eh?” he said. “Now the box is amboyna burl from Southeast Asia. One of the most exotic burls around. Chinese emperors used to hoard it like gold. Now they use it to make the dashboards on those high-end Mercedes. Just a delight to feel it in your hands, isn’t it? Like butter.”

He reached across to outline the yellow scrollwork inlaid on the sides. “Now that’s East Indian satinwood,” he said excitedly. “India and Sri Lanka. Tightest grain you ever saw. Hold it up to the light and it looks like it’s embedded with diamonds.”

I ran my hand over the polished surface, turning it to catch the light, catching some of Alvin’s enthusiasm for the natural beauty of the wood and marveling at the craftsmanship.

“The bird,” he said, “is my poor attempt at a phoenix. Lots of different woods in it for the colors: bloodwood for the fire, granadillo for most of the body, plum for the wings, some ebony for the talons. Whaddaya think?”

I stared slack-jawed at the man who’d just received a death sentence. “Alvin,” I managed, “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Knew you’d like it,” he said, his voice smiling for him. “Thanks for being my doc. We gave it a good run didn’t we?”

Her Lover Will Not Cheat Again After His Revenge

OMG! LOL.

Sad, though. Fiction? I have no clue.

Probably. Fiction.

But a fun story never the less.

Who was the man with the most exceptional trading skills ever existed?

Kyle McDonald, a guy (26 years old at the time of the events) who in 2006 managed to trade his way from a single red paperclip to a house.

It happened in Kipling Saskatchewan, Canada. In July 2005, Kyle posted an ad on Craigslist: “My name is Kyle, I’m an unemployed 26-year-old Canadian, I want a house in exchange, starting the trade by offering the red paperclip on my desk.” The idea came from a popular Canadian children’s game called “Bigger and Better,” which involves trading an object for something bigger or better until you get what you want. It took 14 trades and one year, but he finally succeeded.

The first to respond, two days after the initial blog post, were Rhawnie and Corinna: via email, they offered a wooden fish-shaped pen. Kyle went to Vancouver and met them, completed the trade, then posted their photo on his blog. And so, he waited for another trade. In Seattle, the pen was traded for a ceramic doorknob made by a lady named Annie. The doorknob turned into a barbecue, then a gas-powered generator (September 24). Within weeks, the internet buzz about young McDonald’s idea reached the media, and CNN and BBC competed for his interviews. The electric generator was traded for a beer keg, a snowmobile, a trip for two to Yak, British Columbia (February 2006), until he got a van and a record contract with Metal Works (February 22, 2006).

Later, he could trade the contract for a year’s free stay in a house in Phoenix. Kyle accepted, updated his blog, and started again. But renting wasn’t enough for him; he wanted his own house. Then came the real turning point in Kyle’s already lucky story: metal rocker Alice Cooper offered an afternoon in his company in exchange for the year’s rent. Leslie, an employee of Alice Cooper’s restaurant in Phoenix, lived in the apartment rent-free for twelve months. After closing the deal, Kyle had many offers to choose from, and he made the only trade that seemed like a loss: the afternoon with Alice Cooper went to Mark Herrmann of Kentucky, for a KISS band glowing orb. His popularity helped in the search, and in February, director Corbin Bernsen offered a role in his next movie in exchange for the KISS orb. At this point, the town of Kipling stepped forward, offering McDonald a recently renovated house in exchange for his role in Bernsen’s film.

It was July 5, 2006, a year had passed.

Kyle had made it, and on the lawn of his little house with red windows, there’s a large red metal paperclip.

What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?

I live in the wilderness. One night, just after dark, I get a knock at the door. Other than a few neighbors who would have phoned. I live miles into the woods, and nobody knocks on the door after dark.

I go to the door and there’s an older man and a woman, in pretty rough clothes, the man is holding a pretty beaten up rifle.

He claims that they went scouting elk in the morning, left their car, and went on foot, and got lost. The rifle was just for protection from Grizzlies. He was going to show his girlfriend a valley of elk, that would blow her away.

I hated to break it to him, that there had been no elk in that valley since the wolves moved in.

Elk season didn’t start for another week, he had planned on poaching. But here was a couple in their late sixties that had been walking for 8 hours, so guest rules were in place.

So I offered them a drink. He wanted a ride to his car.

I explained that it was a 40 mile drive, half of it on rough roads. Even though his car was only 10 miles as the crow flys away.

So we hopped in my truck, I took his gun, before we got in the truck. Though, with my hands on the steering wheel, he could have taken it while I was driving. But it was a good faith gesture.

It took close to an hour to get them to their car. I waited until they got it started, and they drove out ahead of me.

Of course, they were flat busted, and I wouldn’t even ask for gas money, because they didn’t look like they had a penny.

What is the biggest scam an auto mechanic ever tried on you?

Went to a local mechanic to get some tires replaced on my vehicle my current set was bald and I was traveling from North Carolina to Florida.

After the tires were changed everything seemed fine until I got above 60 miles an hour at which point there was a severe rattling/wobbling coming from the rear end.

After the Florida trip I took my car back to them they told me I needed a new rear axle. Never had that kind of problem before so I took it to the dealership I bought it from. They examined the car and asked me why I had roughly 6 extra ounces of weight on my passenger rear tire on the back side of the rim. I said I don’t know please remove it they did problem was solved. The dealership didn’t charge me anything.

Upon returning home I went to the scam artists and said I am going to do everything I can and tell everybody I can not to use their services and why. Even went so far as to keep the weight strip in my car to show people.

We live in a very small town and word travels fast they we’re shuttered never to open again 6 months later.

Commander’s Palace Sour Cream Pecan Coffee Cake

2023 11 23 19 46
2023 11 23 19 46

Ingredients

Cake

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) softened unsalted butter
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 1/2 cups sour cream

Pecan Filling

  • 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter well a 10 inch Bundt pan and dust with flour, shaking out the excess.

Cake

  1. In a bowl with an electric mixer beat the butter until smooth.
  2. Add the sugar, a little at a time, and beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy.
  3. Beat in the vanilla extract and the eggs, one at a time.
  4. Into a bowl sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture, beating slowly until just combined.
  6. Fold in the sour cream.

Pecan Filling

  1. In a bowl combine filling ingredients. Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan, sprinkle the top with the pecan filling, gently pressing filling into batter, going completely around the cake until all remaining nut mixture is used. Add remaining batter to pan and smooth top.
  2. Bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. If necessary, loosely cover top of cake with piece of aluminum foil to prevent overbrowning.
  3. Let cool on a rack in the pan for 5 minutes.
  4. Invert onto the rack and let cool completely.

Why I fear leaving America going to Africa

What is the worst restaurant incident you have seen?

A corporate party in a 4 star restaurant a guest was talking full advantage of the open bar, and when told he would not be served he grabbed at the bartender.

The bartender was a former Michigan state police officer and he grabbed the man’s hand and was punched in the side of the face.

An all call went out for help as every bus boy, prep and chef poured into this party and restrained the drunken patron.

As they attempted to evict him he dropped to the ground. The two chefs, large, strong and burly, fell with him. They lay there on the steps holding his arms when the police came through the door yelling at us.

“LET HIM GO!” the officer commanded. And so they did.

This drunk idiot screamed, shook off the chefs, blew past me and attacked the cop!

I’ve never seen a baton wielded in such a dramatic fashion. From his side it smoothly went up and across that man’s head with a this and a “uhg” he dropped like a rock.

The dining room didn’t react at all. We all went back to work.

The romantic gender

Why are things made in China inexpensive? Is it because of the cheap labor or the cheap plastic?

Go figure!

Your U.S. CEO earns 100 times that of Chinese CEO! Your Employees earn 5 times Chinese worker but Chinese workers work twice as hard. Your employees expect 10 times more benefits yet product half the Chinese worker productivity.

Your ports and infrastructure is dilapidated China’s infrastructure is state of the art latest technology. You turn our bill shit artist and Chinese workers are well educated, willing to learn and highly driven.

Every shit you do China will do it better, do it faster and do it way cheaper than you. So go figure why everything China do is get done at a fraction of your cost! It is not nuclear science!

Judging by money output

Which is the most powerful country today?

CHINA, in every respect, I know every yank will say the USA but I don’t think so, not anymore, mainly because of their debt, and growing daily, yes, the US have a very powerful navy, but SO WHAT? Ships can be sunk, and sunk quickly, missiles are the thing these days, and China is way ahead with their hypersonic missiles, double the speed of US ones. According to all reports. Also, they run rings around the US in speed and cost of manufacturing. Which also puts China in front.

Have you ever stumbled across a valuable rare find at a garage/yard sale or a secondhand store and knew you were getting too good of a deal? If you bought it, did you feel guilty and tell the other party what you found was worth at some point?

An elderly neighbor died. He was a mechanic before he retired and had a large set of tools. His widow held a garage sale to get rid of his things, and she had a large rolling tool chest, filled with the tools of his trade, marked at $25. I took her aside and told her “Withdraw that from the sale. It is marked way low. I will sell it for you.” She demurred, but I talked her into it.

Three phone calls later I had it sold for $1500 to another mechanic I knew. I also managed to sell the rest of his tools at a good price over the next few weeks, including a few I bought myself at fair market price.

Sleeping at night is worth more to me than getting a good deal at a yard sale.

Why are there so many shelters for abused women in America, but almost no shelters for abused men?

Because (many) human beings think in terms of archetypes, not individuals, and the archetype of the abuse survivor is not a man.

I recently (last year) had a conversation about this with a therapist who works with abuse survivors. She was quite blunt and up-front about it. She said (paraphrasing) “A man can have video of a woman hitting him, and many people will still insist he can’t be an abuse victim.”

Liberals often make this about politics. A lot of liberals will point to toxic ideas about masculinity common in conservative circles (men are stronger than women, women can’t be a threat to men, women are kind and nurturing while men are aggressive and warlike) and say “therein lies the problem.”

While there is some truth to that—-some people do discount the idea men can be abuse survivors because they hold traditional gender-essentialist ideas about men and women—liberals have their own dirty closets when it comes to this issue as well.

A lot of liberals will say “believe survivors” when what they actually mean is “believe women,” and “believe women” when what they actually mean is “believe cis white women.” (Trans women? Women of color? They have a very different experience when they talk about being abused. I personally know a woman who says “believe women” who silenced a woman of color when she came forward about abuse.)

So, why does this happen?

Because people think in archetypes.

This isn’t actually about left or right, and it isn’t even about abuse. Step back for a moment. What’s the first thing, the very first thing, that pops into your head when you visualize a welfare recipient?

For a great many Americans, the prototypical welfare recipient is an inner-city black single mother.

Would it surprise you to know there are more white people than black people who receive welfare in the United States?[1]

This is an archetype: a quick mental image of the exemplar of a group. Many Americans think the exemplar of the group “welfare recipients” is “inner city black single mother.” Many Americans think the exemplar of the group “abuse victim” is “cis white woman.”

People make judgments based on archetypes, not individuals. People who make public policy decisions think in terms of archetypes, not individuals. When the archetype of “abuse victim” is “white women,” you build shelters around…white women.

And the thing is, even people who will tell you “oh, yeah, I know anyone can be a victim” don’t act like that’s true, not really. Liberals will point out hypocrisy in conservatives and conservatives will point out the same hypocrisy in liberals, but this is a “humans think in terms of groups” problem, not a left/right problem.

The very same conservative who will say “those social justice warriors always go on about how men are bad and women are perfect” also think that a real man, a strong alpha man, is not a weak pathetic pussy who would ever be hurt by a woman.

The very same liberals who will say “those knuckle-dragging conservative Neanderthals always sneer at beta males weak enough to let themselves get pushed around by a woman” also think that in any patriarchal society abuse is always a phenomenon perpetuated by men against women.

They both have the same archetype. They have it for different reasons, but ultimately they have the same archetype.

tl;dr: Because sexism.

Footnotes

[1]

Americans Are Mistaken About Who Gets Welfare

What’s an unpopular opinion you have about relationships?

My husband and I have a very “boring” relationship. We don’t fight, we don’t “just pick up our backpacks and go for a vacation”, and we don’t indulge in “let’s do something crazy” moments. For (up to now) over twelve years together (including get-to-know-each-other, relationship, and marriage), we haven’t done anything “just because”. Anything we do, we have a plan for it.

The love my husband has for me is not the kind of love that the teenage me once dreamed about (I always dreamed that someone would love me like Gatsby loved Daisy). His love is not a love that burns like lava, seething with passion. His love is like the essence of life, filtered through time and crystalizes into a steady, solid, giant rock that I can lean on. His love is so tangible that I feel I could see it and touch it.

And I believe it’s the best kind of love one could ever ask for.

We often dream about someone that willing to die for love, willing to die for us, and we are willing to die for them. Yet, I’ve come to understand that we don’t need an eventful relationship to feel fulfilled. It’s far more enriching to have someone that we are willing to live for, to build a life together.

Bubble Gas Tank

When I was in college, I went to visit my father in Erie, Pennsylvania. I rode my motorcycle to visit him, and parked it outside. I didn’t get along with his wife (my step-mother) and went inside.

On that day, my step-mother was visited by her older brother. He brought his two sons. They were slightly younger that myself, being in High School.

Now, while I was inside with my father, those two kids poured bubble liquid into my motorcycle gas tank. Laughed about it. And of course, the action truly busted up my motorcycle.

Sigh.

Anyways… the entire family claimed that “I deserved it” as I didn’t have a lock on my gas tank. Not even remotely true, but I had to grit and take it.

Went without a motorcycle for about a month, while my bike was fixed.

It sucked, but those little snits were able to get away with it.

I swallowed and took it.

Sometimes due to situations, you take the hits.

You walk away.

It does not mean that you are weak. It’s just a pothole that you must endure. You learn from it.

I did.

Todays…

What are some of the ugly truths about divorce?

My future ex-wife didn’t like Navy life. She met a fellow at work who was a year or two younger, was decent looking, had a new Corvette and a line of shit as long as your arm. She asked me to move out while she “got her head screwed on straight”. A week later, she filed for divorce, and moved in with Mr. Wonderful. “We don’t have anything in common, and you don’t have anything I want”, she said. (Oh, OK). In California it takes 6 months for a no-fault divorce, but both parties must have a financial settlement on the table in order to proceed to “final”. She dragged her heels all the way, saying “no, no, no” to every settlement I put forward, but finally we hammered it out after 8+ months. About 4 months later, she called. “Let’s be friends. We have so much in common.” (Mr. Wonderful wasn’t so wonderful any longer).

I said, “We tried that for 10 years. I didn’t like the way things worked out”.

Strange “Coincidence?” Hong Kong Flu Re-Emerges from 1968 — in far eastern Russia

World Hal Turner 07 November 2023

2023 11 10 18 03
2023 11 10 18 03

The first case of Hong Kong Flu since the 1968-69 “pandemic” has emerged in the Sakhalin Region of far eastern Russia.

1968 flu pandemic, also called Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968 or Hong Kong flu of 1968, global outbreak of influenza that originated in China in July 1968 and lasted until 1969–70.

The outbreak was the third influenza pandemic to occur in the 20th century; it followed the 1957 flu pandemic and the influenza pandemic of 1918–19. The 1968 flu pandemic resulted in an estimated one million to four million deaths, far fewer than the 1918–19 pandemic, which caused between 25 million and 50 million deaths.

The 1968 pandemic was initiated by the emergence of a virus known as influenza A subtype H3N2. It is suspected that this virus evolved from the strain of influenza that caused the 1957 pandemic. 

Although the 1968 flu outbreak was associated with comparatively few deaths worldwide, the virus was highly contagious, a factor that facilitated its rapid global dissemination. Indeed, within two weeks of its emergence in July in Hong Kong, some 500,000 cases of illness had been reported, and the virus proceeded to spread swiftly throughout Southeast Asia.

Within several months it had reached the Panama Canal Zone and the United States, where it had been taken overseas by soldiers returning to California from Vietnam.

By the end of December the virus had spread throughout the United States and had reached the United Kingdom and countries in western Europe. 

Australia, Japan, and multiple countries in Africa, eastern Europe, and Central and South America were also affected. The pandemic occurred in two waves, and in most places the second wave caused a greater number of deaths than the first wave.

The 1968 flu pandemic caused illness of varying degrees of severity in different populations. For example, whereas illness was diffuse and affected only small numbers of people in Japan, it was widespread and deadly in the United States.

Infection caused upper respiratory symptoms typical of influenza and produced symptoms of chills, fever, and muscle pain and weakness. These symptoms usually persisted for between four and six days.

The highest levels of mortality were associated with the most susceptible groups, namely infants and the elderly. Although a vaccine was developed against the virus, it became available only after the pandemic had peaked in many countries. 

The H3N2 virus that caused the 1968 pandemic is still in circulation today and is considered to be a strain of seasonal influenza. In the 1990s a closely related H3N2 virus was isolated from pigs. Scientists suspect that the human H3N2 virus jumped to pigs; infected animals may show symptoms of swine flu.

Russia now reports The first case of Hong Kong flu was recorded in the Sakhalin region, according to the website of the regional Rospotrebnadzor

According to the department, the virus is characterized by rapid and sharp development of infection, which lasts a long time and often requires symptomatic treatment. The infection affects the mucous membrane of the nasal cavity and oropharynx, causing inflammatory processes.‌‌

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

Yes. I know a guy who is an accountant. Imagine the geekiest-looking accountant that you have ever seen in your life. Coke bottle glasses, nerdy clothing, white as a sheet. He and his wife were walking down a street in Hollywood, just two nerds out for a stroll. Perfect targets for any street hoodlum. Sure enough some two-bit street thug stepped out in front of the two with a cocky self-assured grin and a knife in his hand, and he ordered them to give him all their money.

Quick as a flash, the accountant grabbed the guy’s wrist which held the knife, gave it a turn, and literally flipped the guy over, breaking his arm in the process. While the guy lay there screaming , the accountant looked down and asked the guy if he wanted some more. The guy just kept screaming, so the accountant let him go and walked on with his wife.

Okay. The backstory on this accountant was that he grew up on a Midwestern pig farm with five older brothers. From the time he was 8 years old he had to carry 50 lb buckets of feed every morning before school. After school he had to work the farm until it was time to go in, do his homework and go to bed. His older brothers were mean. When they weren’t fighting with each other, or getting beaten up by their dad, they were picking on this guy. As a result of his upbringing this guy developed skeletal muscle strength which is hardly ever seen these days. Not only that, he learned to fight guys that were just as tough as he was and who were all bigger.

I have seen this guy working on his own house knocking down walls with a sledgehammer held in one hand. I’ve even seen him lift the front of one car off the bumper of another during a minor fender-bender. To say this guy was strong was an understatement.

He managed to conduct his life in a very civilized manner. He was a great musician and a very talented writer as well, but I have seen more than one guy step out of line around him, and watch The Farm Boy come out. When that happened it usually didn’t take more than a look for everyone to start behaving better.

Men’s most powerful tool

Damn!

What did a family member say or do that you don’t talk to them anymore?

I was 18 and my girlfriend had committed suicide. I went to my dad and told him what happened. At this point my stepmother and I were at odds, always fighting and never getting along. This had been going on for years. My dad knew this and told her to lay off. The moment my dad left for work, she comes in my room and says that I deserved what happened and that it was my fault she killed herself. I was shocked. I packed my bags and left the same day. I had had enough. I called my dad and told him what happened and that I was leaving.

I haven’t spoken to her since and I don’t want to.

Boudin

Boudin is one of the most famous Cajun recipes. This excellent version has no liver. This is a great dish to make and it freezes well. Many people cut the casing off the boudin before eating it. This dish is a good one to learn because once you have mastered its preparation you can use almost anything in the place of the pork. Some of the most popular are chicken, shrimp, crabmeat and crayfish. Bread is a traditional but not as good replacement for the rice.

boudin2
boudin2

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds lean pork, minced
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
  • 1 green or red bell pepper
  • 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon thyme
  • 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 cups water (approximately)
  • 3 cups rice, cooked
  • 20 inch long sausage casings

Instructions

  1. Put pork into a pot along with the onions, bell pepper, parsley, garlic and seasonings. Add just enough water to meet the level of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
  2. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the cooked rice. Adjust seasonings if necessary.
  3. Tie the 4 sausage casings at one end and stuff them with the mixture. Twist each 20-inch length into three equal lengths. Tie open end.
  4. The boudin can be cooked covered in a little water, grilled or pan fried in a little butter.
  5. Cut the sausages and serve 2 to each person.

What do you do if the boss tells you, “Don’t come to me with problems, come with solutions”? Is it time to start looking for a new job?

Yes, and no.

I had a manager who said exactly this this to me. He dismissed all my solutions out of hand, as they might cost money. This was a guy who a. stuck me in an office where I couldn’t work, as it wasn’t safe for me to be alone in a building with mental health clients, without an emergency alarm. He refused to install an alarm and so I had to go to work every day for a year with no work to do. Less than a week’s salary would have paid for an alarm. B. He rented and paid for the complete outfitting of an office for the family therapists, with a cctv and so on, despite them telling him it wasn’t suitable. The office reminded unused, the equipment was stolen and replaced TWICE, and they never moved in, in the end -as it just wasn’t suitable.

Come to me with solutions, was complete and utter bullshit from beginning to end.

The only reason I stayed, was it was a permanent and pensionable job, and I was a skint single parent.

We were overjoyed when he retired. I was still so angry with him years later as he’d made my life a misery for so long that I couldn’t attend his funeral. And if you’re Irish, you’ll realise what a big huge bloody deal that is.

What is the most clever life hack you’ve learned?

  • Golden spending rule: If you can’t afford two of it, you can’t afford it.
  • When you’re thinking about buying something you don’t necessarily need, imagine the item in one hand and the cash in the other. Which one would you take?
  • If you have trouble choosing, flip a coin. While you’re waiting to get the result, your mind automatically starts to wish for what it wants. Then you can choose easily.
  • Honey does not go bad; if it has gone solid it has just crystallized and can become liquid again with just a little heat.
  • If you put something down temporarily, say out loud “I’ve put the screwdriver by the microwave” or whatever.
  • Read the three and four star reviews for the most reliable information on Amazon items.
  • When moving house, always set up your bedroom/ make the bed first so when you’re exhausted and just had enough you can fall into bed. Nothing worse than being exhausted and having to make the bed before getting into it
  • If there’s a jar or container you can’t open, run the lid under hot water for about 30sec. Dry it so you can get a good grip, then open. It really works.
  • Secretaries, tech support, and janitors are the true power in an office. Make friends with them and you’ll be able to get anything you need!
  • When a friend is upset, ask him one simple question before saying anything else: “Do you want to talk about it or do you want to distract from it? ”
  • It is important to know when to stop arguing with people, and simply let them be wrong.
  • If someone offers you something you want, take it. Don’t decline every kind of offer out of politeness.

Bingo truths

The male and female struggle in the United States (West) is REAL.

When was a time someone tried to contradict you about an area in which you are an expert?

Many years ago I was visiting one particular North Sea Oil Production Platform as a consultant employed by a specialist contractor. On arrival onboard the platform all the people from the helicopter, who were not regular crew, were directed to heli administration and informed we could not leave without watching a safety briefing video. Some six or seven of us settled down while the helicopter clerk loaded the video player and pressed play.

I was hot and tiered from the early check-in and the long flight. I dozed off after about ten minutes watching the video. I must have been asleep for about five minutes before the clerk noticed. He practically slapped me awake and proceeded to scream in my face. He accused me of being stupid and having a death wish, which was justified, but then began to scream insults and to question my parentage which was far too much.

When he eventually asked if I considered it beneath my dignity to absorb information designed to save my life and did I regard myself above listening to the video that I lost my temper. I stood up without saying a word and marched to the front of the room. I stood next to the video screen and quietly asked him to look at the screen himself.

I will never forget the expression on that man’s face as it dawned on him that it was me appearing on the screen giving the safety briefing. He looked from my face on the video screen to my face standing next to the screen and back to the video just as if he was watching a tennis match. He turned bright red and stuttered an apology.

When I sat down to watch the rest of the briefing he sat at the rear of the room and chewed his finger nails worrying if his job was safe. When the video finished and everyone else had left the room I let him know that he had been correct in chastising me but to tone down his language if anything similar happened in the future.

The War Is Lost – Zelenski Will Leave – The White House Has Failed

What a difference a year makes …


biggerbigger

Time’s big new story is quite revealing:

‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the FightTime – Oct. 30, 2023

That offensive has proceeded at an excruciating pace and with enormous losses, making it ever more difficult for Zelensky to convince partners that victory is around the corner. With the outbreak of war in Israel, even keeping the world’s attention on Ukraine has become a major challenge.

 Quoting a soldier on the front of the counter-offensive, the Economist agrees:

“Left Handed”, an infantryman fighting at the front between Robotyne and Verbove, says Ukrainian losses have increased to alarming levels, in part due to the work of drones. The plains of Zaporizhia have turned their back on life, he says. “It’s hellish. Corpses, the smell of corpses, death, blood and fear. Not a whiff of life, just the stench of death.” Those in units such as his own had more chance of dying than surviving. “Seventy-thirty. Some don’t even see their first battle.”

Still, Zelenski is urging them on:

But his convictions haven’t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace.

On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. “He deludes himself,” one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

Zelensky’s stubbornness, some of his aides say, has hurt their team’s efforts to come up with a new strategy, a new message. As they have debated the future of the war, one issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians. Judging by recent surveys, most Ukrainians would reject such a move, especially if it entailed the loss of any occupied territory.

The war is lost. They know it. But they are unwilling to give up.

Zelenski’s people put the blame everywhere but on the those who have caused the mess. It was the ‘victory’ messaging by Zelenski and his crew that has led the public into utter complacency.

As Strana headlines (machine translation):

Ukraine is losing the war with the Russian Federation due to the inadequate perception of the situation by society — commander of the Armed Forces of UkraineStrana.news – Oct. 30, 2023

Strategically, Ukraine is losing the war because of the inadequate perception of the situation by society.

This opinion was expressed by the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmitry Kukharchuk in an interview with Channel Five.

He claims that at the beginning of the war, all Ukrainians were ready to defend the country, there were many volunteers. But after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, the situation changed.

“Immediately after that, I noticed that there were theses in the media that we are fighting with homeless people, that the Russian army does not know how to fight, that in principle victory will be in a week or two, a maximum of a month. That first in the spring, then in the summer, then in the autumn, then in the winter, without specifying which winter, we will go to the Crimea. That the victory is basically victorious. So people were put in a warm bathroom. We have broken down the vision of reality. But it didn’t happen in Russia. They began to realize that the war was not going to be easy for them. They realized that they would have to fight for a long time, ” Kukharchuk believes.

He also says that the Russians are “getting stronger” every day, and if Ukraine really fought the “degenerates”, it would have defeated them long ago.

“That’s why we’re losing. They have these processes going on, and their public readiness is much higher than that of our society. And when they talk about a nuclear bomb, a war of all against all, for some reason it seems to me that they are ready for these processes, ” the battalion commander added.

Napoleon, Hitler and several other folks who had sought war with Russia, had to learn to never underestimate the depth of its resources. Now NATO, the U.S. and its European proxies, are learning that lesson.

Zelenski still hasn’t. He won’t concede:

The cold will also make military advances more difficult, locking down the front lines at least until the spring. But Zelensky has refused to accept that. “Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” he says. Before the winter sets in, his aides warned me to expect major changes in their military strategy and a major shake-up in the President’s team. At least one minister would need to be fired, along with a senior general in charge of the counteroffensive, they said, to ensure accountability for Ukraine’s slow progress at the front. “We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.”

When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?”

In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”

Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has refused to release official counts of dead and wounded. But according to U.S. and European estimates, the toll has long surpassed 100,000 on each side of the war. It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years. “They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” says the close aide to Zelensky. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”

The Ukraine’s old problems, foremost corruption, persist:

Amid all the pressure to root out corruption, I assumed, perhaps naively, that officials in Ukraine would think twice before taking a bribe or pocketing state funds. But when I made this point to a top presidential adviser in early October, he asked me to turn off my audio recorder so he could speak more freely. “Simon, you’re mistaken,” he says. “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.”

Knowing that the ship is sinking, this its probably what I would do too. Bring anything available onto my personal life raft and prepare for cutting its lines to the mother ship.

The Time piece is a signal. It announces the end of Zelenski’s regime. I am sure that the National Security Council, as well as the State Department, is feverishly looking for an alternative – and for a face saving way to install it.

Someone seems to protect and promote Alexey Arestovich for exactly that purpose (machine translation):

After leaving the Presidential Office with a scandal in January 2023, Arestovich, although he began to criticize the actions of the authorities, nevertheless did it carefully until recently.

But right now, he’s just slamming the ruling team.

Arestovich focuses on two things: the military decisions of the country’s leadership and its domestic policy.

The second version: Arestovich enlisted the support of Americans who want to see more political diversity in Ukraine and are not interested in Zelensky’s monopolization of power.

In favor of this version, they also use the fact mentioned above that the tightening of the rhetoric of the ex-adviser to the president’s Office began after his trip to the United States. Also in this regard, they recall his interview with Gordon in early October, where he says that if the West decides to end the war without reaching the borders of 1991 and Zelensky resists this, then the president of Ukraine will be “changed” in the elections.

“It is possible that Arestovich is supported by a certain part of the Western elites, who care about the breadth of opinions in Ukraine. They say that the country can speak not only with Zelensky’s voice, but there are also different critical opinions, ” political analyst Ruslan Bortnik comments to Strana.

In its grand strategy the White House had sought to pivot to Asia. But the U.S. is – first in Ukraine, in a completely unnecessary conflict the U.S. itself has caused, and, with Gaza in flames, again in the Middle East.

In a recent talk in Australia John Mearsheimer takes a deep dive into this dilemma (video). He doesn’t foresee a good outcome.

Posted by b on October 31, 2023 at 8:12 UTC | Permalink

I’m exercising my Rights

What event was the equivalent of a bomb being dropped on your relationship?

I was hesitant to write this as it is somewhat personal but it might be therapeutic, I’ve already shared so much and I suppose I can without naming anyone:

I went on my partner’s laptop and stumbled across a strange message on her Facebook browser that made me scrunch my eyes —strange.

It was pictures of my partner with another family I didn’t know.

She was holding a guy’s toddler, standing (closely) next to him, and his parents behind them, and she had no wedding ring. Behind them was the Disney Castle.

The direct message was from a woman (his sister) that said “___ told me not to post these on Facebook because things were complicated.”

That was the moment—my eyes widened and I realized something was amiss. “… things were complicated?!?!?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture. That part fucked me up.

Many of you are in relationships. Just imagine the person you love, that you might be sitting next to right now, suddenly appearing in a picture at a theme park (like the above) with another family, “with” someone else. Nobody in that picture you recognize. And everyone appearing to be very familiar with each other.

It would mind fuck you pretty hard, too.

And the more I dug into it, the worse it got.

It was a full-blown affair.

It caused an avalanche on the relationship.

You feel this rush of fury at having been lied to. You are disgusted with the person. You suddenly see all the pieces to the puzzle coming together in your mind, the nights “out with the girls” and “crashing at a friend’s house,” and all the strange subtle behaviors you’d been blind to.

“How could I have not known?”

After discovering the cheating, the sequence of events probably mirrored the same pattern others have experienced.

You confront the person.

They deny, deny, deny.

Finally, they fess up after you wave the obvious evidence in their face.

Then there is this rush of apologies, they are so sorry, they never meant to hurt you, they really want to be with you, the other person isn’t the one, please forgive them, pleasepleaseplease.

As she says this, more evidence and damage seems to rain down behind her. It gets worse with each apology.

From there, it gets ugly fast. The fan is set to max speed. And shit is thrown upwards.

It’s a terrible situation. Because here you have this person that you deeply love. That you have a lot of history with. That you have a shared identity with. And come to truly think of as an ally; a better half.

But now – you have to face a dark, undeniable reality that cannot be ignored, that things aren’t what they once were, and this person isn’t the person you thought they were.

It is the deep, painful cut of betrayal that takes years to heal.

Everything that came before this event gets called into question.

“Were they lying then?”

“What else were they lying about?”

“How did it start?”

“Does this person really love me like they said they did? Then how could they do all of this?”

In my case, things couldn’t be reconciled. It went far beyond the realm of repair.

It was a terrible, messy breakup but ultimately it was the right thing. Even though I’ve now come to fully forgive this person, she isn’t someone I could ever trust or be with again.

It sucks, though.

You never think you will be “that person” who gets had in some relationship, who gets run around on and completely duped.

It’s a terrible, hurtful experience and I hope none of you go through it.

What was the funniest thing that happened to you in college?

I had an exam on English when I was in college, around 19 years old. The night before I had helped my sister prepare for her in-class essay with the same teacher in English. My sister had problems with the course, and I excelled so my teacher suggested I help her.

Anyways, in the middle of my exam my teacher walks up, and without thinking, says “Thank you for last night” and walks away. Everybody in the class looked up at me. It was the middle of an exam, so I couldn’t explain so I just sort of turned around to my friends, gave them the look – look and went back to the test.

Authority and Leadership

As a part of the judicial system, what is the hardest you have ever laughed in court?

I was in traffic court as a witness in another matter. The judge was hearing a case where a 14 year old was driving a motorcycle without a license because he was too young. He was accompanied by his mother. She was small but loud, and the 14 year old was big (looked 18). Throughout the morning she had been nagging him about one thing or another—wasting my time, lazy good for nothing, etc. The young boy was quiet and appeared contrite.

When their time came, the mom again reminded the boy to be quiet and not say a word.

The clerk read the case. The judge looked at her notes and pronounced judgment. “Case dismissed with 60 days suspended sentence on the condition that the defendant does not ride the motorcycle until he turns 16 and gets a license.” This was the least the judge could do.

The mother erupted with anger. “60 days suspended sentence. Are you crazy. He has to go to school. He has to do chores.” Clearly, she did not understand what suspended sentence meant.

The judge then stated. “Are you finished? I could make it contingent on selling the motorcycle.”

Mom: “That’s crazy. You’re nuts.”

The judge: “Suspended sentence contingent on selling the motorcycle and you (indicating to the mom) get to spend the night in jail for contempt of court.”

The boy, who hadn’t said a word all morning. “Thank you, your honor.”

The entire court erupted in laughter.

The level of disappointment

Were you ever treated poorly when you wanted to purchase an expensive item until they found out you were rich?

Not treated poorly but rather taught not too.

As a teen way back in 1979 I went to work for Neumann Marcus in Dallas. It was still owned by the Marcus family and known worldwide for its service and exclusivity.

our trainer stressed treating everyone, no matter how they looked or were dressed, with the same respectful diligent service. He gave the following example of his personal experience, I don’t know if it was true but it makes the point.

It was a rainy day in downtown Dallas and the store was not busy. He was working in epicure, I don’t know about now but back then they had the most amazing food and specialty kitchen wares. A man in shorts, a wrinkly shirt, baseball hat and unshaven wanders in. His thought was “looked what came in to avoid the rain”.

The man was looking at a very expensive grill and asking questions. He politely answered them but eventually wanted to get rid of him. He asked the man if he had a Neimans card. He said no so he suggested he go over to the Credit dept and they could give him on on the spot.

The man left. When he returned he said “I’d like 2 of these. One sent to my house in LA, one to my house in Malibu.” My trainer was pleasantly surprised. Surprise turned to shock and embarrassment when the man handed him his new Neimans card and he saw the name. “Of course Mr. Sinatra. I will take care of everything.”

Winners and Losers

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UMjYwXFBd80?feature=share

What are the cleverest scams you have come across?

The phone rings. My elderly uncle picks up. A young woman is on the line.

“Grandpa?” asks the young woman.

Being a grandfather of 20 children, Uncle answers, “Yes,” then he thinks of who the caller may be.

“Is this Beth?” he asks.

The young woman quickly admits that she is Beth, and then she starts crying,

“I am in Florida with my friends. We get in trouble and I am in jail. Can you send me money for bail?”

My uncle is alarmed. Why is Beth in Florida? What has she done? Before he can ask her a question, the young woman says, “Please don’t tell my parents. They will kill me.” She cries even harder now.

My aunt enters the room to find her husband frantically scrambling for his credit card. She gets suspicious and asks him what is going on.

“Beth is in jail in Florida. We need to send her money,” he explains to her.

My aunt rolls her eyes and grabs the phone from him,

“This is grandma. We are not sending money. Please rot in jail. Bye.”

The cleverness is not the scam itself, but the ability of the scammer to improvise. They prey on vulnerable elderly and toy with the few items they cherish in their twilight years – family, health, and savings. I have a feeling the caller could have swayed the conversation in whatever way was most effective once she identified my uncle as an easy target.

Boudin Blanc with Muenster Cheese

2023 11 08 11 24
2023 11 08 11 24

Yield: 24 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds boneless pork butt, cut in 1/4 inch dice
  • 1 pound mixed boneless chicken, cut into 1/4 inch dice
  • 1 pound pork fat back, cut into 1/4 inch dice
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 pound Wisconsin muenster cheese, cut into 1/4 inch dice
  • Kosher salt to taste

Instructions

  1. Grind meats and fat through meat grinder using plate with small (1/8 inch) openings.
  2. Place ground mixture in large bowl of standing mixer and add all ingredients except cheese and salt. Mix with paddle attachment. Fold cheese into the farce.
  3. Case sausages in pork hank, twisting to form 4-ounce links.
  4. Dry for 1 hour in walk-in cooler.
  5. To poach, bring 4 to 5 gallons of water to a boil. When boiling, turn off heat.
  6. Add sausage and cover with lid. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes or until sausages reach interior temperature of 145 degrees F.
  7. Cool sausages on sheet pan lined with kitchen towels.
  8. Store in refrigerator up to 5 days.

Notes

To reheat: Grill, broil or bake sausage until hot. The sausages can be made into patties and sautéed until cooked through.

The chef serves sausage with Spaghetti Squash “Choucroute” and whole grain mustard.

The MOCKERY of the Western Male…

Cultural Programming at it’s worst.

Chinese Doctors

The doctor(s) keep telling me that high blood pressure is not a problem. They say “you cannot die from high blood pressure“. And this, of course, is the Chinese stance on the matter. That blood pressure is dynamic, and not static, that it goes up and it goes down. And that you want to manage your lifestyle to keep it in a relatively low state, but not to get upset if it raises up high.

Meanwhile the Western advice for what my current blood pressure seems to be is…

2023 11 20 20 40
2023 11 20 20 40

Which is quite different from the Eastern belief.

When I entered the hospital emergency room, my blood pressure was 214. The Western medical advice and warnings are…

2023 11 20 20 42
2023 11 20 20 42

I think that it was prudent that I went to the emergency room, no matter what the doctors say. And I most certainly did not want to endure a stroke or a heart attack.

You all, please be careful and safe.

Today…

In the military, have you ever seen a superior officer berate a junior officer for giving enlisted unnecessary grief?

In 1973 while a specialist (E4) in the 82d Airborne Division, I had to draw a travel pay advance to go TDY (temporary duty) for 179 days.

This was well before direct deposit or electronic payments.

We actually got paperwork processed then went to a teller’s window who dispersed cash.

When I arrived at the division finance center the waiting area was full to overflowing.

As I found a place along the wall to stand a soldier near me said, “You’ll be here a while. ”

He pointed to another soldier and said he had been there two days in a row before that day attempting to get an advance to go home on emergency leave.

Several other soldiers confirmed what he said. They too kept returning and waited their turn until time for the center to close, then they returned to their barracks and came back the next day.

After an hour or so with only a couple of troops called to the desk to be processed (by now it was late morning) a full Colonel arrived and signed the waiting list at the front.

As he took a place along the wall one of the soldiers told him he would have a long wait. Someone else told him about the guy who needed to go on emergency leave.

After about 30 minutes, the colonel went to the clerk at the sign in desk and asked to speak to his boss.

The clerk went to the back office area and returned with a senior NCO, E6 or E7 as I recall. The sergeant asked the colonel how he could help him.

The colonel replied, “I asked to see this clerk’s boss, the person in charge here.” The Sergeant said, “I’m his boss.”

The colonel then said “I want to see the OIC (Officer In Charge) out here, right now.”

He was very polite and spoke in a slightly lower volume than if in a normal conversation, however when he approached the sign in desk all conversation in the room ceased and we could hear what he had to say.

Full Colonels, O-6s, don’t like to be kept waiting.

The Sergeant (staff sergeant or sergeant first class) went to the office area and returned from a small separate office with a junior officer, a captain if I recall correctly.

Very respectfully the finance officer asked the colonel how he could help him.

The colonel said he was going on TDY and needed his advanced travel pay. The finance officer said, “Yes sir we’ll get you taken care of right away.”

The colonel then said “I need to leave tonight.”

“Yes sir, no problem.” was the reply. The colonel said “

All these men that were signed in before me are ahead of me. They will get their money before my advance gets processed. Are we clear on that, Captain?”

A very red-faced, obviously shaken junior officer, now sweating bullets, assured him everyone in the waiting area would be processed that day.

It was amazing how quickly paperwork was processed after that.

The guy waiting for emergency leave was called back almost immediately and the rest of us were taken care of very expeditiously in the order in which we signed in.

The colonel was looking out for men who weren’t directly in his chain of command but he made sure everyone was taken care of appropriately.

He could have “pulled rank” and left with his money in just a few minutes.

He could have made one phone call to division headquarters and had the officer and the NCOIC replaced, but a low key, on the spot correction resolved the immediate issue.

I’m sure the situation was discussed with both the OIC and NCOIC privately and in much greater detail later.

That was an experience I learned from and never forgot as I rose through the enlisted, warrant officer and commissioned officer ranks during my 24 years of service.

Chili Louisiana-Style

2023 11 10 15 09
2023 11 10 15 09

Yield: about 3 quarts

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 1 pound ground hot sausage
  • 2 medium onions, diced
  • 1 green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 whole clove garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 1 (15 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
  • 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 3 (15 ounce) cans New Orleans style kidney beans, drained
  • Louisiana hot sauce, to taste (optional)

Instructions

  1. Combine first four ingredients and brown in a large frying pan. Drain all excess fat.
  2. In a large slow cooker, combine all the remaining ingredients. Add the cooked meat mixture. Cook on LOW overnight.
  3. Remove garlic clove before serving.

When men have NOTHING left to lose. The masculinity crisis pushed too far.

Men being treated like second-rate citizens in the modern day is nothing new, but what happens when they end up being pushed to the very edge? Men were not designed to lie down and be taken advantage of. Eventually, all men rise up against oppression and take their final stand. This is a frightening world we’ve created.

https://youtu.be/aOnsLtmIPb8

On a plane, is it rude to ask someone to move to another seat so you can sit with your friends or family?

Literally this just happened to me a few days ago. I live in Virginia (USA) and I was flying to Athens, Greece. We booked the trip on a Saturday and left three days later, very last minute. Because it was an overnight flight and more than 9 hours we purchased the tickets in business class so we could recline to sleep. I like to read before sleeping so I purposefully selected (on Saturday) the window seat so I could lean up again the wall and look out the window while reading. As soon as I got onboard and got to my seat (hadn’t even sat down yet!) the woman in the aisle asked me switch with her husband who was seated on the middle row on the aisle. I said “No thank you, I’m good with where I booked”. I was polite but firm. Later during the flight she asked when I had booked and I said three days ago and she said that they had booked months before. What actually irritated me was that MONTHS went by where she (they) could have adjusted their seats to be together. Why then does it become MY problem to give up what I paid for. So yes, I find it exceedingly rude to ask someone to give up their seat.

P.S. Athens, Mykonos and Santorini were fabulous and I can’t wait to go back!

Why does the West vehemently back Israel?

They don’t

Get your facts straight

The West has a history of Anti Semitism that would make your blood run cold

I don’t mean just Uncle Heini

Jews have been deported enmasse from 8 European Countries from the 12th century to the 20th in their thousands, forced to live in Ghettos, speaking a slavish language Yiddish for the most part

Guess where they were treated better than in Europe?

Yep.

The Middle East , the Muslims

The Jews had their best time under the Ottoman Empire and with the Arabs. Both sides minding their own business

And once again who ruined it?

Yep

The West – in the form of the United Kingdom


This is Klaus Barbie – a Psycopathic Anti semite who sent many jews to their death in camps during WWII

He was the butcher of LYONS

Yep that’s France

Frenchmen, Poles, Czech and Ukrainians watched and silently endorsed the slaughter of Jews and making them soap , a term that our friend Jean-Marie Valheur takes such strong offense against

Auschwitz, Riga, Sachenhausen – they aren’t in Moscow or Beijing or Delhi or Tehran

They are in Europe


This gutter dreg who took orders from Himmler or his men and who had jewish blood on his hands

He got a standing ovation in Canada

Standing Ovation!!!!


So dont ever say the West backs Israel

The West wants a guard dog in the Middle East just like you want a Foreman in prison, in case the inmates get violent

The West believe the Middle East is their playground and to keep things in order, fund organizations and terror groups and keep organizing small and large scale chaos

Israel does what it’s told

As simple as that


The West will never see Israel as part of it’s Anglo Saxon heritage

Not even Eastern Europe whose idiots think they are a part of the grand alliance of the West

They aren’t

The West is US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Italy and Scandinavia

Every one else from Spaniards to Slavs to Greeks to Jews to Balts to Chinese to Indians to Malays to Serbs are expendable and will be dropped like hot potatoes if it suits the West

How powerful is the Triad? Does the triad engage in a gunfight with the Chinese police?

The Triads? They’ve long since become regular business men.

The last triad gunfights were in the UK around 1997 vs the Vietnamese gangs. The Vietnamese gangs had guns the Chinese triads didn’t.

The last gunfights in Asia were Yip Kai Foon. He had a type56 Chinese AK and rarely got into gunfights. He eventually did get into a gunfight with police and was hit in the spine and captured shortly after.

What is the fastest anyone has been fired from a job?

I got fired during my interview.

I had already been given the job. Been told my start date and salary. The owner was my brother in laws father.

I had sat and chatted with him one evening having just left the army. He told me the job was mine. But he had already arranged the interviews so told me he had to go through with them but inserted me into the interview process.

I mean this job couldn’t of been more nailed on. Ever.

Anyway. I was so blasé about it. I went into the interview not even thinking it was an interview and chatted away to him. Next thing I’m laughing and joking with him about my time in the army. About the crazy funny antics we got up to. Like skidding tanks. Trying to spin the tracks on tanks in the mud. Breaking so hard to see how much you could nose down.. how I run my colnel of the road snaking down the road in a tank. I thought I was hilarious. I thought he thought I was hilarious

This was for a job as an articulated truck driver.

I even walked out pleased with how it went. Absolutely clueless

Needless to say. I got a call next day saying I didn’t get the job.

The most ridiculous part of this story is that the penny didn’t drop for years for me. I just assumed he had only given me an interview to keep the family happy. That I was never going to get the job and was annoyed he’d wasted my time.

It was only 20 odd years later I had that awful.cringe moment. Like. Oh god! No! Did i actually go into an interview for a driving job. Bragging about how irresponsible a driver I could be. Yes. I did.

A need to rewrite marriage laws

The latest generation is simply not getting married, and will result in this…

Do the Chinese know how much worse a war with the United States would be for their country than for the Americans?

Terry, you have everything upside down.

China and the Chinese do not have to be reminded of the horror of wars. They have the century of humiliation that reduced their entire country to destitution and hundred of million dead. It is this existential awareness that is in fact going overdrive to ensure this never ever happen again.

On the other hand, the U.S. has never been touched by war because of geography – not WWI, not WWII. This is why after WWII it is only the U.S. and our industrial base coming out totally unscathed that allowed for our hegemony.

We’re the clueless.

And today, it is the U.S. who must be reminded that we have a peer military power. China has the capability to kick our ass if we try an offensive run at them and can accommodate in kind with a nuclear MAD. So, how is it that they will suffer more in case of war with us?

Have you ever gone for a date without knowing it was a date?

I went to a late afternoon house party at a neighbor who lived a block over from my house.

The host was wealthy. She had a beautifully designed Tuscan, two-storied house, with art of various styles and sizes adorning the walls throughout.

Although I was younger than most by decades, everyone was very welcoming to young buck Sean.

Everyone had brought a dish of food and they had some music playing.

My intention was to just stay for an hour, make the rounds, introduce myself to some neighbors and get to know them as it was rare to see a lot of these people that I shared close proximity with.

(For the record, I wasn’t a freeloader – I’d made brownies that I’d brought with me as well.)

There’s a crowd of us on the back porch talking. I’m in a circle with the host, her daughter, and 4 other people.

So out of the blue, the host says, “We’ll just let you two talk for a bit.”

And everyone evaporates into the house and here I am stuck on this back porch with her daughter.

It felt like I blinked and the world disappeared and I was locked in a closet with a stranger.

“So Sean – do you like it here in Tampa?”

You’ve got to be kidding me. This is a setup…..

She was pretty and friendly enough.

However she was not my type and I was not psychologically/emotionally prepared to be on a date that moment. My ex and I had broken up 2 days before this.

I got through it. We spoke and I stayed long enough so as not to be rude and/or hurt her feelings. Then I went home, curled up in a ball and sucked my thumb.

But hey – at least the experience made for an OK Quora answer.

My pain for your pleasure.

Did he handle this situation properly?

Making a day better

Yesterday, we had a horrible customer at the restaurant, he yelled at the bartender because we didn’t have club soda. The bartender explained we don’t have club soda because we don’t have liquor (just beer and wine) and therefore we don’t have a soda gun behind the bar. He didn’t like that.

Then he asked for a cheese that we don’t have, even after she read him the cheeses we did have – twice. She explained we don’t have that cheese. Then he LOST it and started yelling at her as if she was hoarding the world’s supply of this cheese for herself. Ridiculous.

He eventually left in a big huff and every other person within earshot of his temper tantrum was thankful.

Even after he left we still had a black cloud over us. Admittedly, we let this man and his behavior affect our day.

That is until an older gentleman and his adult son came into the restaurant and changed our whole mood. They are relatively new regulars (started coming in a month or so ago). The son has Down Syndrome and his father takes care of him throughout the day.

The father is very talkative, but his son (Peter) never spoke to us – he was always happy to eat his sandwich and bop along to the music (he really likes Grateful Dead songs).

As they were getting ready to leave, the father waved us over. We got to the table and Peter looked up at us and said…

“I’m happy here, I see you give out hugs, can I have a hug?”

We happily raised our hands to start the hug and he quickly pulled us in and gave us the strongest bear hug we’ve ever received in our life. He lifted us off the ground – anyone that has ever met us face-to-face will attest, that is no easy task.

Thank you Peter, with one (just shy of unbearably strong) hug, you made our entire day better (and gave us a free back (alignment) You’re an awesome man.

What are your thoughts on the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Regardless of the military outcome of the war in Gaza, America, and Israel are already big losers. In a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor in Gaza, a staggering 120 countries voted in favor. Only 12 other states backed America and Israel. Massive protests are erupting in major cities around the world, from Sydney, London, Paris, New York to Washington, and across much of the Muslim world. Israel has the audacity to question UN’s legitimacy after it passed the unfavorable resolution and doubled down by demanding an apology from Secretary-General Guterres and his resignation for condemning Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in Gaza.

The biggest losers are, sadly, the Palestinian people. Consider these sobering facts. Fully 85% of Hamas fighters are orphans who grew up in hate, many as young as 12 who stand shorter than the rifles they carry. Thousands of children are buried alive in the rubble, and thousands of expectant mothers are denied medical care because hospitals are either bombed, overstretched, or critically short of essential supplies. It is a humanitarian disaster on a scale unseen since the last world war. Israel keeps killing while the whole world watches—in its own shameful Holocaust against the poor Palestinians.

Brushing aside the UN resolution, Netanyahu seems constitutionally incapable of compromise. Turkey calls him a war criminal and is crouching to strike, as is Iran. The 6th full-scale Israeli-Arab war looms.

When Hamas killed and captured Israeli civilians, they were crucified by Western politicians and pundits. But as Netanyahu made good his threat to reduce Gaza to rubble in a frenzy of murderous bombing that took the lives of aid workers, journalists, women, and children, world opinion swiftly shifted. Four European minnows plus eight tiny Pacific Island states like Fiji opposed the resolution, as their support can affordably be bought. Even traditional staunch Israeli and American allies voted to abstain.

The root cause of the conflict is Israel’s 50-year-long brutal suppression of Palestinians, who subsist as stateless people in their own country. In World War II, Jewish people won universal sympathy as the oppressed. Now, they have mutated into brutal oppressors themselves. Netanyahu has Nazified the Israeli military.

In a fatal strategic miscalculation, the US rushed warships to the combustible region, ostensibly to deter Iran from entering the conflict. But Biden is sending a wrong and strong signal that emboldens the bloodthirsty Netanyahu to carry out his Gaza massacre. America has failed to put Bibi on a leash and he is spilling oceans of blood.

This conflict has reshuffled the geopolitical deck, with Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon already engaging Israel sporadically. Heavy hitters like Turkey and Iran are crouching and poised to pounce. Russia, too, is entering the equation, airlifting supplies to Gaza and threatening all-out war if its planes are fired upon. The war in Ukraine is becoming a side-show, with NATO support possibly waning or wavering. China is seen as a potential credible mediator. America, by contrast, stands discredited as a meddler, aiding and abetting Israel’s unjust war against a downtrodden people. It is fast losing its halo as the world’s self-appointed policeman.

If the war widens, America and Israel will be fighting on multiple fronts. I see no long-term winners, even if Israel wipes Hamas off the map. Genocidal oppression breeds its own revenge and lethal vicious circle. That is why Netanyahu, the butcher of Gaza, is a danger to Israel’s legitimate existence. China is walking taller among nations. That explains the mild thaw in US-China relations during the Chinese foreign minister’s recent visit to Washington. Both Blinken and Biden notably toned down their anti-China rhetoric. With two wars raging, America reluctantly seeks dialogue to restore bilateral relations to a normal footing.

Wars are notoriously unpredictable. Who will emerge on the right side of history? No one knows. But one thing is certain: injustice is inherently unstable. Regardless of military muscle, with shifting allegiances on a crowded planet, world opinion matters.

Has someone ever been fired because of you?

Absolutely and I would do it again!

I was in line at a market and there was just one person ahead of me. The assistant manager was at the register and just as the person in front of me left, the regular cashier returned from her break.

Instead of simply walking away and letting her take care of me, he turned to her and began yelling at her because she was 3 minutes late coming back from her break! “How dare you take up my time, I am way more important than you and I could fire you for this!!” he screamed, as I was standing there waiting to pay for my groceries and leave.

The poor girl was incredibly embarrassed and turned to me to apologize and I lost it!

I looked him square in the eye and said “How dare you dress down a staff member in public! I manage a staff of 60 and would NEVER yell at my staff in front of anyone because it is incredibly unprofessional and embarrassing for every person standing in this line! Where is the manager?” I asked and proceeded to hunt him down.

I spent 10 minutes dressing down the manager in his office and told him that I would take it to the corporate level if that man was not promptly fired for his actions.

I found out later that he had been harassing this poor girl for weeks and no one had gone to the manager about it out of fear of retribution. I never again saw that assistant manger and later heard that he was fired on the spot after I left. The staff was so much nicer and happier without him there and I received a personal letter of apology from the manager that thanked me for letting him know what had happened that day.

BTW, I have done this 3 other times at different places and had the same outcome at all of them. I am not looking for someone to be fired when I walk in the door, but I know what it feels like to have a boss that thinks it’s okay to terrorize his staff and I refuse to allow it to happen in front of me ever again.

No one has the right to go after a staff member in front of customers. It is unprofessional and makes those in charge look like they are power hungry bullies who out of control.

Someone has to be the champion of those who are too afraid to speak because they are so afraid to lose their job, and being the loudmouth that I am, I am happy to step up!

A tiny tiny house

What is the cheapest thing you’ve seen a mega-rich person do?

I am a pediatric dentist. I had a patient who was autistic and had ADHD (male, 5 years) with a huge swelling on his cheek because of an infected tooth. Generally, 5 years old understand and sit on the chair, but because of his problems, he just wouldn’t sit and made a mayhem in the clinic. My assistant then restrained the child and we drained the pus.

Now, the mother started to cry when the payment part came. She told us she was separated from her husband and he wasn’t paying support. Because of the special child, she couldn’t even work, so please make it free.

Thankfully, my assistant knew her. She and her husband had two apartments worth 7 cr each in Mumbai and were in the middle of a deal worth another couple crores. My assistant was with the broker who had initiated the deal, so he knew for sure. But the lady wouldn’t budge. At the end, she paid 50 percent and left, and didn’t turn up for the next appointment.

Fast forward a month, the kid had swelling and pain again, because of the incomplete treatment. She pleaded to come, and promised to pay. But this time, because of the pain, the kid didn’t allow me to even have a look. He was feverish and in a bad condition.

So I told the parents (dad had also come) that the kid would need a treatment under general anesthesia in a proper hospital. We explained everything, they nodded with great interest, then asked for the cost. It was going to cost more than a lakh.

The dad straightaway asked me to slash my charges completely. Because, anyway I was earning from rest of the patients and didn’t really need the money. Then he asked for the cheapest hospital possible. I told him I don’t go to charitable places because of questionable hygiene, and lack of ICU. I don’t compromise with the safety. He then argued for an hour over the charges. I refused to budge. I have done numerous free cases, but I wasn’t going to do charity here. He then asked me to wait for two months as he had enquired about an insurance plan, and the wait period was two months. And give the kid medicines to stop the pain.

I was aghast. I told him the kid needed treatment now. All his teeth were in a bad shape. And medicines wouldn’t help after a while, and it wasn’t his decision to make. The medicines also have numerous side effects, if given unmonitored.

Then he started to blame me for the charges. I politely told him to go to a govt hospital where he would be treated for free. He declined, because they had a really long waiting list, just to be seen.

Lastly, he told me to go ahead, but that if his kid had any problem post treatment, he would see me in the court.

I folded my hands, and asked him to leave. Anyway I didn’t want to treat after such a long argument. And no one wants to work under threats.

He got furious and stormed out. We heaved a sigh of relief.

He kept calling for the next few days, bargaining. Even told me he would refer me ultra rich patients if I treated his boy for free.

No thanks, I said. I am happy with my patients who trust me.

So, a super rich man and his wife(at least for me) declining urgent healthcare for his kid to save money and insulting the doctor is the cheapest and most despicable person for me.

Cooter (Turtle) Stew

2023 11 10 15 14
2023 11 10 15 14

Ingredients

  • 2 to 3 pounds cooter*
  • 2 quarts water
  • 4 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 large onions, peeled and chopped
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 10 peeled, seeded tomatoes or 2 large cans tomatoes
  • 1 small can tomato paste
  • 3/4 cup chopped celery
  • 1 cup green spring onion tops
  • 1 pinch each paprika and cayenne
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 1 1/4 cups good sherry (not cooking sherry)
  • 1 tablespoon molasses or brown sugar
  • 6 to 8 hardboiled eggs, chopped
  • 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • Seasoned salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup crumbled bacon

* Substitute dark-meat chicken, catfish, veal, or all three.

Instructions

  1. Cover meat with water and parboil on medium heat for 20 minutes.
  2. Set aside to cool and then trim to small chunks. Skim fat from broth and set aside.
  3. Heat oil to just short of smoking. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 15-20 minutes to make a dark roux.
  4. Add big onions, garlic, tomatoes and tomato paste.
  5. Add 4 cups of reserved broth and meat and cook 30 minutes on medium-high.
  6. Add celery, spring onions, seasonings, bay leaves, sherry and molasses or brown sugar and cook 30 minutes. Add water to thin stew, if needed.
  7. Add chopped eggs and cook for 1 1/2 hours.
  8. Add potatoes and cook 20 to 30 minutes longer, until potatoes are tender.
  9. Taste and add seasoned salt and pepper.
  10. Sprinkle bacon over top. Remove bay leaves.
  11. Serve in large bowls with a salad on the side and hot bread, preferably corn bread made in a black iron skillet.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Big Cup of coffee

What is the best moment you witnessed in which somebody proved they weren’t “all talk”?

I watched an elderly man in San Francisco, on the tough corner of Eddy and Hyde streets, being threatened by a thuggish stranger on the street, and being told “I’ll kick your ass.”

The old man laughed, and said quietly, “No, you won’t.”

The thug made a quick move and the old man flinched. The thug laughed and said, “Scared?” The old man said, “Yes. And it’s not healthy to scare me.”

Suddenly the thug was on his back on the sidewalk and the old man was sitting on his chest and beating him across the face, still talking quietly, saying “You better not mess with strangers. I could easily kill you, but I won’t. But you’ll have enough pain so that you’ll remember this for a long [BAM] long [BAM] time.” [BAM]

The old man got up, dusted himself off, picked up his dropped belongings, and left the thug laying bleeding and dazed on the street.

The “Urban Alchemy” private security people across the street, stationed in the area as part of the city government’s last desperate attempt to maintain civil order in the anarchic “Tenderloin” district, didn’t even have time to react. It was over that quick.

I was in awe. My jaw literally dropped. I was walking ten feet behind them, I heard and saw everything. I’m pretty old myself, and I’m no stranger to street confrontations. I’ve never seen any such situation where the outcome was like that. Not ever.

And I’ve never envied one of the participants so much in my entire life.

Why was salt so valuable in ancient times and even used as a currency, when all you have to do to get it is let sea water evaporate in the sun?

It’s not that easy.

Yes, if you can get sea water to evaporate, you get salt. However, you need to get a lot of sea water to evaporate to get an appreciable amount of salt out of it. For that you need a lot of flat land by the seashore. It needs to be at or very close to sea level so that you can let the water roll in before you close off your salt pans. And you need a lot of warm, dry, sunny weather to evaporate the sea water and leave the salt behind. Land behind the sea shore rises too quickly? Can’t make salt. Too much rain? Can’t make salt. Storms driving large waves that wash over into the salt pans? Can’t make salt. Too cold or humid so evaporation is slow? Can’t make (meaningful amounts of) salt.

So it turns out that there are actually very few places where it’s actually feasible to make salt by evaporating sea water. So few that those very, very few places which can historically grew rich by doing it and salt mining could remain a viable competitor. Venice, for example, occupied a shallow lagoon backed up by marshes. The sheltered lagoon protected the marshes from large storm surges, the marshes weren’t too elevated to convert into salt pans, and the Mediterranean has a warm, sunny climate. Consequently, it first became wealthy in the salt trade. But you simply couldn’t do that around places like Genoa or Bruges, which had the wrong geography and/or the wrong climate. Sure, you can get salt out of sea water, but it’s a lot harder to do on an industrial scale with historical technology.

The lack of a father….

Gaza nightmare

Some disturbing stuff going down right now. The idiots in Washington DC are Hell-bent on war, and all of us are feeling like we are trapped in some kind of cage lashed to the back of a speeding car driven by a madman.

The West has gone completely koo-koo.

No shit.

In case you all haven’t noticed, I am not “reporting” or commenting on the insanity of the Middle East. It’s all a cluster fuck that I want no part of.

Today…

What is the smartest thing you have seen a lawyer do in court?

How about the Judge?

A long time ago, I owned one of the first Honda Accords. I had bought it new in 1977, and around 1984, the engine had a very bad oil burning problem. I was pulled over by a Metro Toronto Police constable, who gave me the choice of a ticket for “excessive smoking” or a visit to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment testing centre.

I chose the test, filled the engine with 50 w oil and while there was no smoke, the rest of the needles went fully to the right. Busted.

I was given a chance for a repeat, but knowing I would fail that one also, I put the car on the driveway, pulled the plates and used a borrowed vehicle. About a month after the missed test, a summons came in the mail to appear at the Provincial court one morning in the not too distant future.

I showed up early, and approached the clerk to find out where I should be and when. They never tell you that on the summons, just to appear. While talking the the clerk, a man walked up and was dealing with another of the clerks. I asked the clerk I was talking to “what the fine would be” if convicted. She didn’t know, and man beside me became interested in the matter. I had no idea who he was, but we kind of looked at the summons and neither of us could see anything about a fine. There was a little conversation; I assumed he was a lawyer, and we had a friendly chat. Court was starting shortly, and the fellow left, so I also went inside, told the bailiff I was there – important to do so, otherwise they might not call you for hours – and sat down.

At the stroke of 10:00 am, someone says “all rise” and in walks the Judge, the fellow I was talking to at the desk. Before the proceedings began, the Judge asked me if I had received an answer from the clerk. I told him that I had not, and then the proceedings began.

The Crown (prosecutor) presents the charge, an environmental offence, which he obviously felt was on par with burning down a forest or killing baby seals. Looking very smug, he sat down.

I am called forth, and I told the Judge that yes, the car had failed, but it was off the road and here are the license plates in my hand proving that it was no longer driving or polluting.

The Judge then asked the Crown what the minimum fine was for such an offence. The Crown responded that “the Ministry has a range up to $5000 for such an offence and the usual fine is this case would be $100.”

The Judge asked again about the minimum fine and the Crown repeated his same line. The Judge then asked “so there is no minimum fine?”

The Crown sheepishly answered “No sir” and the Judge turned to me and asked “the car is off the road?” and I responded affirmatively, at which point he said the charges were dropped as the intent of the law was to keep polluting vehicles off the road and obviously this had happened. Case dismissed!

I can’t say for sure, but there was a bit of smile from my new friend on the bench as I walked out of the court.

The smartest lawyer in the room was the Judge.

What are the best socializing tips that are not said but everyone should practice?

I couldn’t unsee it.

We’d just celebrated a diversity milestone as part of our quarterly meeting. It was one of those corporate cheerleading events where I stood in the back resisting the painful urge to roll my eyes.

“We are far more than a team of coworkers,” the CEO said, gesturing wide with his arms to the crowd, “We are a family.”

He was such a phony. The summit concluded and I went to the lunchroom. Right as I walked in, I stopped in the doorway and noticed something obvious that I hadn’t noticed before this diversity meeting.

All the white people were at their tables. All the black employees sat at another set of tables. Three Asian ladies sat at another. It was like we were living in the 1950s. And it wasn’t confined to this office. I still see this trend so often when I walk through malls, or along the sidewalk.

A similar phenomenon was observed on the set of Planet Of The Apes in 1968. The director noticed that during lunch, the people dressed as gorillas sat with other gorillas, chimps with chimps, and humans with humans. He described feeling a chill in the air and wondered if we were already in a dystopian sci-fi future. It even happened on the set of Babylon 5. People self-segregated according to their alien skin color.

This trend has long predated echo chambers, and it’s detrimental to your growth.

image 116
image 116

The closed network problem

The trend is called homophily, where we magnetize towards clusters of people similar to us. Race isn’t the only sorting mechanism. People sort by social class, age, political ideology, and even the type of music they listen to. And the unfortunate result is that we often live in a “closed network”. We sort ourselves into increasingly tight homogeneous groups.

A closed network forms in these four steps and I suspect you’ll be able to think of a few examples as you read this (I certainly did):

image 74
image 74

Putting all moral platitudes aside, social diversity has great predictive qualities for your career and life.

Count on one hand your closest friends. I’d bet that for many of you — they are pretty similar to you across a few demographic touchpoints. It’s no fault to you. This happens naturally, but you can disrupt this habit.

By mixing up your friend group, you are exposed to ideas different than your own and stretch your thinking. Your professional network also becomes much more potent, which is especially important: Within 10 years of graduation, a majority of people won’t work in the area they majored in.

Beware of gatekeeping your network

My ex’s family was deeply conservative — which is fine on its own. People are entitled to their beliefs. But this was often a barrier to who could spend time with them.

They were constantly sizing people up and figuring out their political opinions to determine if they were friend-material. Many people do this without realizing it. These parents were just explicit about it and they had a very small town syndrome (cliquey behavior, when you forget there is an entire world outside of your own).

This introduces the other pesky problem. It’s not all that easy to make friends — especially as we get older. So what next? There are a few solutions.

A route out of Cloneville

I moved 15 times before I turned 18. I lived in California, DC, Florida, Virginia Beach, North Carolina — and every new batch of people was so different than the next. I went to an all white, deeply conservative private school in 9th grade, a liberal high school in Coronado. I was one of the only white kids at an inner city middle school in DC. It wasn’t always easy.

Every summer, I waited for the talk. My mom or dad would come to my bedroom and tell me we were moving and how I was going to love this new school and place. Early on, I realized implicitly, “OK. I need to learn to make new friends.”

I was a new 5th grader at Linkhorn Elementary. We had a substitute teacher who happened to be gorgeous. She was passing out quiz papers. Before she passed out each quiz, she did that thing where she licked her finger to grip the paper.

After she handed me my quiz, I looked across the table at a classmate Joe and say, “Hey Joe! Pssst.”

He turned to me and I pretended to lick my finger and put it down to my thigh and made a hissing sound, like bacon hitting the frying pan. It was a corny joke — but it made Joe laugh and we were instantly friends. And from there, I learned that humor was one quick path to win anyone over.

Often, it’s less about how funny a joke is — and more about the energy it establishes. It signals, “I want to play.” Think about how a dog plants his chest down to the ground while keeping his hind legs standing to get another dog to play with him. This is the human equivalent.

It says, “I like you. Let’s have fun.”

“What if I’m not that funny?”

An even better solution that is painfully overlooked is to smile. Researchers have proven that smiles motivate people to interact with you. They are seen as a “prosocial invitation”. Stand upright and give them a quick, natural smile right when you spot them. It signals you are excited to see them.

After getting to know so many types of people, I’ve realized most people just want to be accepted as a complicated human being. And if you are just nice to them, and seem happy to see them and talk to them — you’ve nearly won the battle already.

When you go to your lunchroom, consider sitting with a new group of people. Don’t be afraid to talk to someone who looks different than you.

There’s a concept called contact hypothesis whereby tension between groups is reduced when they are brought together and interact. It promotes trust and reduces stereotyping. It reminds two different people that they’re both human beings. But the only way to make different types of friends is to actually spend time with people who are different from you.

One of my close friends couldn’t be more different from me. His political views and background are a full 180. But we are both fully candid about our opinions and thoughts, and know we can do so without fear of judgement or being disliked. Sure, he says crazy stuff sometimes but that’s fine. He’s still my friend. He’s taught me a few things about the world and changed a few of my opinions, and I’d like to think the reverse is true.

My hope, is that in a world that is so divided, more people from different walks of life can share the same path. They’d expand their own perspectives. They’d have more love and understanding, and more career opportunities.

And it would save us from being fenced in with our own. Closed networks beget closed minds.

Quite an intriguing visual.

image 115
image 115
  • Brazil was inches away from recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital not very long ago, mind you.
  • Surprising split in South America nonetheless, you’d imagine they’d have a uniform stance like they had for Ukraine.
  • A sea of yellow in Asia with only the usual suspects in blue but hey there’s someone new this time!
  • India’s position sits perfectly with our new found friends and within our domestic political landscape but ought to disappoint the fellow global southerners. But tbf, it is not to be construed as a paradigm shift in our policy, our Ministry of External Affairs clarified our two state stance on Palestine only yesterday, rather bad memories getting rekindled.
  • Nepal lost about a dozen citizens to Hamas’ attack. Poor folks go under the radar and didn’t even get sufficient coverage.
  • Irans sphere of influence, man, from Caspian Sea to Red Sea. Bush what have you done?
  • This is a map from TRT— Türkiye’s state run broadcaster. Interesting that they construe Erdogan’s position as call for de-escalation.
  • Sudan’s case is the perfect microcosm of the viability of normalisation deals that Israel is pursuing. You try so hard and get so far, and then a coup happens.
  • Morocco, UAE understandable, but Saudi and Pakistan? Who would have thought? Not me. Only 2% of Saudis are in favour of normalisation, I wonder if that matters at all. And 2% would be too high a number for Pakistanis.
  • Those who follow Bangladesh’s politics ought to find Bangladesh’s silence intriguing, if not outright discombobulating, especially with Hasina up for election soon and US breathing down her neck (yeah, not making this up, US is the biggest threat to Hasina’s re-election).
  • I don’t get Mexico’s neutrality, they don’t even recognise Palestine.
  • I don’t get New Zealand’s contrarian take either. What gives? I imagined if anyone from the West was going to have a contrarian take it would be Norway. The right is on the rise in Norway, left rules New Zealand, perhaps that explains?
  • Ghana coming all out to condemn Hamas? With a similar religious demography split like India, I wonder if there’s domestic political considerations involved.
  • Foreign policy really is domestic politics with its hat on.
  • Given that Indonesia’s support will be construed differently then Iran’s support, Venezuela joins the “axis of evil”. But in all fairness they joined the club previously after Ukraine invasion.
  • DPRK has been silent?
  • What explains the silence of that many African countries? None of our business paradigm?

Putin tells it like it is…

Fudge Cobbler

chocolate cobbler 2 pn
chocolate cobbler 2 pn

Yield: about 9 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 (1 ounce) square unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Vanilla ice cream (garnish)

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch square baking dish.
  2. Melt the chocolate and the butter in a saucepan over very low heat. Stir often. Remove from the heat.
  3. Stir in the sugar, flour, vanilla extract and eggs.
  4. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.
  5. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes.
  6. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

Everyone in the office was paid on an hourly basis and it was each person’s responsibility to keep track of how many hours they worked each day on a paper time sheet. At the end of each week each employee turned in their time sheet to their supervisor who would sign them and then give the to HR so everyone can get paid for the hours they worked. In practice, everyone showed up each day, did their work, wrote down”8 hours” on their time sheet and went home. Everyone was happy.

Then along came a new guy in management who stated that nobody was actually keeping track of their hours and just writing down what HR wanted to see. This meant that the company was losing money and productivity from people not working a full day but being paid for it. So he instituted a new digital time sheet system where each person had to log their times in and out on their computers and the system would track how many hours each of us worked.

What the company discovered was that everyone tended to come into work 10–15 minutes early, hardly ever took a full hour for lunch and often stayed 10–15 minutes late to get their work done. Thanks to the new time sheet system every employee was now getting paid for all that overtime they had been working but not tracking. This affected the company because it was added payroll expense that wasn’t budgeted. So management put out a new rule that nobody would be allowed to work any overtime without written permission from their supervisor and HR. So everyone was very diligent to log in and out exactly in time.

Except now productivity had fallen because nobody was working those extra minutes each day, which multiplied over all staff added up to an extra 60 hours per week of work. The company ended up needing to hire two more people to make up that productivity.

After Huawei released Kirin 9000S, Biden revised the bill: banning China from owning high-end chips.

So China cannot make their own, if they do, they will violate American law.

Malaysia’s switch to a dual 5G network will allow for more effective participation by China’s Huawei – PM Anwar

Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Wednesday the country’s switch to a dual 5G network will allow for more effective participation by China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.

Malaysia in May had said it would allow a second 5G network to operate from next year, following concerns over a monopoly held by a single state-run network.

The European Union and the U.S. had warned Malaysia of risks to national security and foreign investment amid efforts by Huawei to bid for a role in its telecoms infrastructure.

Anwar on Wednesday acknowledged concerns from some countries over the “security and capacity” of technology stemming from China, but said the decision to allow a second 5G network was made so that Malaysia could benefit from different technologies.

“We in Malaysia… and I believe rightly, decided that while we get the best from the West, we also should benefit the best from the East,” he told an event hosted by Huawei in Kuala Lumpur.

“After extensive discussion… we made the decision to allow for a dual network, and thus the decision for more effective participation by Huawei.”

Malaysia had in 2021 unveiled a plan for a state-owned agency, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), to own the full 5G spectrum, with various carriers using the infrastructure to provide mobile services, but the plan had come under industry criticism over pricing and competition.

State-run DNB partnered with Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson to roll out Malaysia’s 5G network. It is unclear how Malaysia’s plan for a second network would affect DNB’s agreement with Ericsson or other mobile operators.

WHAT THESE FILIPINAS CAN OFFER TO THEIR PASSPORT BROS!

Three chicks talking.

How do expats view other expats in China?

I really don’t like most western expats in China.

They are generally ignorant about China and Chinese, and conversations about China are very shallow and full of misconceptions. It is not worth my time to correct those misperceptions, and there is no reward for doing it.

Chinese are much fun and interesting, and even if they have silly ideas, they are often entertaining. Most importantly, they know the local restaurants and dishes, and can introduce me to some dish I have never had before. Unlike for most westerners, dining out is a social event, not just filling the tummy.

What was a gift that made you speechless?

I was age 14 in the early 1960s and living with a family who had one child around my age. On my 14th birthday, my mother said I needed to pay room and board. I decided to pay for a room in other homes where there was no violence. My rapidly increasing scoliosis was becoming a problem. I had three jobs to pay room and board — (1) feeding and washing people in a nursing home and doing laundry), (2) babysitting at the country club 1.5 miles away, and (3) stocking shelves in a dry goods store. I made $29.00 a week. My room and board was $28.00 a week. I went to high school about three days a week.

I was happy with this family. The father was Welsh and sang Welsh songs every Friday night as he walked home from the Legion. The mother was one of the cafeteria ladies at the high school. They were good to me.

Then one day, the father came home with an envelope and pulled out a Beatles ticket and handed it to his daughter.

And then he handed another ticket to me.

TO ME!

It cost $15.00. I told him it would take me years to pay him back. If I didn’t buy shampoo, pads, or deodorant, it would take me 15 months to repay him. The father disregarded this idea with a flick of his hand and a Welsh phrase I didn’t understand.

The father drove us the 80 miles to the venue, let us off and circled the building during the performance and was right there when it was finished. Not only that, but the man put up with us singing Beatles songs all the way home. We were not good singers.

Even now, decades later (and I am a retired person), whenever I do something nice for someone, I think, ‘this is for you, John Cooper, this one is for you.’

I carry such lightweight debts with me.

Pepe Escobar: China Has DEFEATED the Neocon Agenda as US War Fails Before It Starts

I don’t expect Xi or Putin to meet with Biden. He doesn’t make the decisions.

This is really, really, REALLY good.

Do you think Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips in large volume despite the US claims that Huawei may violate trade restrictions?

LOL, this is China.

If they know how to do something, they automatically know how to do it at scale.

This is a country that builds entire new cities at one go. They produce 600,000 engineers per year. They make four out of every five solar panels in the world. They can build a 57-storey skyscraper in 19 days, and as we saw during the covid-19 pandemic, a brand new hospital in 10 days. They are the world’s biggest factory.

If they know how to make one Huawei Mate 60, they already know how to make 100 million Huawei Mate 60s.

China does not know how to think SMALL. It is unnatural and weird for them to think on a small scale. China has cities with populations larger than countries such as Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, even Australia. Thinking big is China’s default mentality.

New round of US sanctions started against Huawei! U.S. tech war enters stage 2.0!

In this episode, we dive into the latest updates on the potential second round of sanctions by the United States on Huawei. Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, unveiled its new smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, sparking intrigue amidst ongoing U.S.-China tech tensions.

These cutting-edge smartphones, powered by 7-nanometer chips from China’s SMIC, bring 5G connectivity to the forefront.

The implications of this move are significant, causing a reevaluation of the technology blockade against Huawei and even calls for a complete halt to technology exports. We also explore China’s efforts to boost its self-sufficiency in chip production and navigate U.S. export restrictions.

https://youtu.be/CI-ZOcv2CaI

What sort of sexism do most women face in the workplace?

I generally like my employer.

But the worst part of my job is that I occasionally have to be the “male voice”.

One of my female colleagues will refer a call to me to tell a caller about some iron clad policy we have that we can never, ever overlook.

I am on the same pay level as all of them. I am not the manager. I often work in a different department. I am, however, the only one of this fairly large group of people that is male.

I tell them the iron clad policy. They shut up. End of story.

Part of the problem is that the engineering profession is still about 80% male, and so is the applicant base. They are not used to being told “no” by someone who isn’t male. It’s not like it’s just immigrants either.

Here’s the irony. The second highest ranking staff member, and the person two steps above me, is a woman. She’s had to put up with it too.

But I will tell you about my ex-colleague, boss and PEO president. She left her position as my boss to take on a five year position at the university she was hired by to get female enrollment in the engineering program up to 40%. It took her one year and she shot past the 40% goal to boot. Then she went to another university and did the same thing.

China’s LATEST Hypersonic Drone Can Destroy US F35 Stealth Fighter in Seconds

China’s hypersonic program has emerged as one of the biggest and heavily advanced sectors of the nation. In this remarkable sector, the PLA boasts having a drone in its arsenal which is capable of reaching hypersonic speeds and destroying world renowned stealth fighters that have dominated the aerial warfare sector for years. Today’s episode is covering China’s hypersonic drone and how it can be used to destroy US Stealth fighters.

Why is Quora full of Westerners who praise China?

Many of the westerners have been to China, like it, and see a lot of criticism of China in the western media which is based on planted information and is basically untrue, in order to drive western public opinion against China.

These westerners try to compensate for this distorted view by praising China. Their intention is to restore balance in how China is viewed.

Unfortunately, the western view of China has become so distorted that it is impossible to have a balanced view of China: either it is completely bad, or it is good.

A balanced view of China would say that there are many good things about China, and there are some bad things as well.

China is just like the US: it is just another country and society, each facing its own set of challenges.

What is the most satisfying thing you have done to someone who blocked your driveway?

I live in Northern Maine. My property borders a state park/forest. The state forest has a parking lot you need to pay to park in the lot although the park/forest is free to enter. Alot of people will park along the main road and walk into the park. my property is on a side road that is beside the park the park entrance is 2 mile up the main road from my road.

Some park/forest visitors have taken to pulling down my road and parking on my property and hiking across my property to enter the park. they block driveways and the road with poor parking abilities. Some pull into driveways.

My property is a farm I have many driveways used by tractors and equipment to enter the feilds for feeding livestock and tending crops. All driveways are gated (keep livestock in feilds and out of crops)

One group of annoying tourists pulled up in 3 vehicles (2 rvs and a 12–15 passenger van) All had New York plates. they pulled in blocking the access to the feilds and began hiking across my feilds. I caught up to them and informed them that they would be towed if they did not move the vehicles. The leader of the group told me to f-off while giving a one finger salute. I watched as they walked away across the feild. once they entered the park/forest I went to my equipment barn got my large green and yellow tractor hooked up a slurry spreader tank and drove over to the slurry bin and filled the tank. ( Slurry is cow manure that is mixed with water to make it able to spray) I adjusted the spray bar and drove over near the area and sprayed liquified manure (did not spay any on the vehicles) just near the road along the fence a nice heavy thick layer then sprayed more along the area they entered the forest. Since it was 85 degrees outside the smell would bake in the sun to keep it fresh I placed a water tank and sprayer/ sprinkler nearby and set the timers to run for 5 minutes every hour. After 4 hours I called and had the vehicles towed.

They returned and found me spraying slurry in my feilds as they walked across the feilds the slurry is sticking to the shoes (most wearing sandles or flip flops – Nothing like the feeling of liquid poop between the toes) They find the vehicles gone and ask me where they are. I tell them where the inpound lot is and inform them that as they exit onto the main road they should stop and read the large SIGN that says private road. I called the police who informed them that they could walk to impound as it was 20–30 minute walk down the road.

I would imagine that they found out that the oder of sun baked slurry permeates into things. (they left the widows open on the vehicles) and with what was on the shoes it must have been an interesting ride back to New York.

Josep Borell, EU foreign policy chief, accuses China of treating Europe as a US puppet. How can this perception on the part of the Chinese be changed?

The problem with the EU is Josep the Chief Diplomat’s words do not represent the cohesive attitude, or indeed, policy decisions of the EU towards China. EU member states hold even more divergent and polarizing attitudes.

The fact of the matter is, the G7 does not have a China seat, but the EU gets its own seat, on top of individual EU members. The currencies of these nations power the global financial market, while the yuan issued by the world’s No. 2 economy is an afterthought in BIS reports.

Senior figures in the EU have repeatedly made rude and damaging attacks on China and Chinese interests, including the core issue of Greater China sovereignty. Entities and individuals have been sanctioned, just like their American counterparts, whose actions they mirrored.

Nord Stream is a key European infrastructure that cost billions to build. After it was bombed, the lack of condemnation for an act of war is curious, to say the least. Government findings were blocked from release, while there remains a shocking lack of blowback and demand for accountability in the press.

The EU-CHINA CAI, which is tilted in Europe’s favor, is also dead in the water, after 10 years of painstaking negotiation securing an agreement in principle. EU leaders are complaining about lack of market access in China, when it is self-inflicted.

There is also the issue of the EC, with Ursula completely at odds with Josep’s conciliatory, if shaky, diplomacy. She was given the cold shoulder on a recent visit to Beijing as Emmanuel’s invited partner. The message was clear. She wasn’t the guest invited by the Chinese state.

Who represents the EU? Who has the authoritative voice that can be trusted? How has the EU demonstrated long-term policy independence from the US?

Wang Yi, and before him, Yang Jiechi, have had regular hours-long closed door conversations with Jake, the National Security Advisor. Jake is 46, and not even elected, but he has access to top Chinese leadership that the EU can only dream of, because he is the personal envoy of Joe.

Do we really have to spell out who calls the shots in NATO, which is tied at the umbilical with the EU power structure?

As the Cantonese say, 画公仔唔使画出肠。

Israel Conflict Just Became Scarier And Weird!

Yes. Too odd. For certain.

How does culture influence human behavior?

During a 10-hour flight, she was heading from Seoul, Korea, to San Francisco, USA. This mother distributed more than 200 passengers on the plane a plastic bag for each one. The bag contains candy, chewing gum and earplugs as a kind of advance apology for using them in the event that her 4-month-old baby screamed during the flight.

The bag also contained a message containing (hello, I am Jan Woo. I am 4 months old and today I’m traveling America with my mom and grandmother for my aunt’s outfit. I’m a little nervous and scared. This is my first flight in my life. It’s normal for me to cry or cause some disturbance. I’ll try to stay calm, but I can’t promise you. Please use it if my voice gets too loud.. Enjoy your trip. Thank you)

A culture of respecting the freedom of others…

Is China still a communist country? Can we say that the rivalry between the US and China is the ideology conflict?

Not at all.

Communism and Marxism is hardly an issue to the U.S. with Vietnam that the U.S. is courting shamelessly and Saudi Arabia a Islamic Monarchy hardly liberal democracy but does it bother Uncle Sam for the last half a century?

For me it is as simple as China cannot be made submissive and subservient to the U.S. that is all to it. And worst China is simply a lot lot more efficient and effective than the U.S. can ever be! In fact China has a better human rights record than the U.S. anyway! That perturb the US to no end.

But what is worst for the U.S. Is 150–175 nations out of the world’s 195 nation prefers Chinese and China way and none in the global south wants anything to do with Uncle Sam. They find them obnoxious and despicable. To me this is not due to China at all but due to the shit U.S. did to the world since 1945.

I know Americans who are mostly highly naive and hugely made ignorant to think the U.S. media or government is well liked by the world. But in truth it couldn’t be further than the truth!

Abusing nations has consequences, bullying nations turned them off, arbitrary sanctions puts nations off, they will hedge, they will stop letting you fxxk them! It does not matter what your media lies and your propaganda says. The world is no fool!

Just figure this. US the biggest murdering nation telling China in Alaska about human rights! Is totally laughable and utterly ridiculous! Chinese officials told Blinken save the advise for your dogs and slave vassal nations!

The “American Dream” is actual Slavery (It’s all a Lie)

Harsh truth about the United States. Soak it in.

What’s the dumbest thing your boss has gotten mad at you for?

I was an admin assistant at a department at my local university. I was just about to clock off and make my way home in a wild windstorm that eventually knocked down 20,000 trees across the city when for some reason I decided to check one of the grad student offices and discovered that the skylight had blown off, exposing multiple desks and computers, some of them running data, to the elements. I called the relevant campus department and was told that restoring electricity and clearing roads and whatnot took priority, and they likely wouldn’t get to replacing the skylight (which I’d located, but lacked the strength and roof access to lug it up myself) until the next day at the earliest. So I cracked open the earthquake kit and rigged, using tarps and duct tape, a patch, then moved, ever so carefully so as not to accidentally disconnect the computers, all six desks away from the skylight shaft, in case my patch failed.

This all took about four hours past my usual knock-off time. Everyone was really glad I’d taken the time and initiative to do it, but my supervisor refused even to consider giving me time off in lieu for those four hours because she hadn’t pre-approved them, never mind that, in those pre-cell days, I’d had no way of reaching her. So I appealed to the department head, who overrode her. She was livid, and thereafter made my life so miserable that I leapt at the first decent opportunity to leave.

If universal healthcare is actually cheaper than our current system and covers everybody. Why not just do it?

I’m a retired US citizen who moved to Uruguay in 2015 after spending my entire working career in “Corporate America”.

It’s entertaining to read discussions about the possibility of implementing Universal Healthcare in the United States.

It will NEVER happen. It’s 1000% impossible. The reason? Health insurance companies.

The concept of Universal Healthcare does not involve insurance companies. There is no need for a bloated middleman.

There are 563,366 Health & Medical Insurance Employees in the US, costing approximately $50 billion annually.

These companies would have to be closed, freeing up all this cash for actual medical care, instead of bloat.

The main problems with the US Healthcare system are listed below. None of these problems exist with Universal Healthcare.

  • Greedy Health insurance companies run by highly-paid executives.
  • High-paid pharmaceutical & insurance company lobbyists.
  • Greedy congressmen who take millions of dollars in bribes annually.
  • Expensive TV commercials pushing expensive drugs.
  • Doctors who earn outrageous salaries to pay for outrageously expensive college educations with insane education loans.
  • Outrageous malpractice lawsuit settlements, requiring doctors to carry outrageous liability insurance.
  • People with no medical knowledge make decisions about whether a patient can have a medical procedure, overruling the attending physician.

Now, with the outsourcing of call centers, people with no medical knowledge in Jamaica, India, and Pakistan make those decisions.

Here are some typical costs in Uruguay:

  • Office visit: US $8.00
  • ER visit: US $ 10.00
  • House call: US $12.00.
  • Electrolyte blood analysis: US $7.11.
  • Cerebral CT Scan: US $23.29

If you call an ambulance, it arrives with a full-fledged MD, not an EMT.

Before I turned 70 years of age, I paid around US $55 per month for health coverage.

Now I pay around US $70 per month. For that, I get totally free hospital stays and all costs are free, including hospital stay, surgery, medications, doctor care, and nursing care. When you check out, regardless of what was done or how long you were hospitalized, you pay nothing.

The monthly cost for my cancer medication is around US $2.50. The same medication in the US is around $500.00.

Here are the main reasons everything is so cheap:

No claims to file

No EOB

No Deductible

No Out-of-Pocket

No Coinsurance

No Allowed amount

No Benefit period

No Preauthorization

Sincerely, A Tax Payer

“It sucks being poor…”

Can China manufacture semiconductor chips and create a rival to Intel, Apple, TSMC, and NVIDIA?

It’s been proven China can with Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro.

Chinese companies can rival the giant U.S. tech companies like Intel, Apple and Nvidia but what takes time is building up the ecosystem to make this possible. Thousands of companies make up the support system that manufactures and supports the tools and machines for the manufacturing processes of semiconductors.

The most critical of these companies are in the design (specifically EDA tools) and packaging (chiplets) processes, as well as the lithography machines for the making of the chip itself. There are now Chinese companies with the leading edge (or close to) technologies to rival industry leaders.

Just as critical is the consolidating of resources and capabilities to have the companies to ensure adequate supply of legacy chips. These are actually the more important players because they make up 90% of demand.

U.S. sanctions have forced China to come up with its own self-siufficient semiconductor indiustry.

If the average Chinese person supports 1 party rule and the average American supports democracy, how can we determine who is correct?

Chinese don’t necessarily support single party rule; they support a strong central government to maintain order.

Whether it is single party or not is secondary.

In today’s China, it is led by a single party, but it is much more than any western political party because it has 100M members who meet monthly to discuss local, provincial and central government issues, and how to solve them.

Do the Republican and Democratic parties ask their members to meet monthly to discuss how to solve social issues? I think not.

My point is not that one system is better than another, but they are very different, and talking about the ruling party in China being the same as the political parties in the US is silly and ridiculous, because China developed according to its historical conditions, and the US developed according to its historical conditions.

As Everyone’s Lοοking At Ιsrael, Something Τruly Unbelievable Has Begun Ιn America

Very interesting.

He’s saying that (it’s official) World War III is on-line.

https://youtu.be/DA3aRJrAyOo

Why is it NOT a good idea for an American White woman to marry a Middle Eastern Muslim man?

I did it. I regretted it.

People are imbued with cultural and religious ideas they don’t even recognize and simply take for granted.

I, an American, was imbued with the idea “I am my husband’s equal. In marriage we will have the same freedoms and similar expectations of each other. I would never shout at him for wearing shorts, so of course he will not do that to me. I don’t consider cooking his job, so I am sure he won’t consider it my job. I would always discuss a big purchase with him – and naturally he will give me the same respect.”

That sense of equality and “Don’t treat your spouse in a way you don’t want to be treated yourself” was my cultural norm.

I found that my husband had absolutely no cultural or religious norm of equality. He absolutely was willing to treat me in ways he would hate to be treated himself. He did not think a woman deserved what a man deserves.

He found it absolutely normal to expect control over me, and be resentful thst I didn’t make his life as comfortable as he believed a man’s life should be. He was constantly looking at the very unequal marriages of his (Muslim Arab) friends and resenting me for not being a submissive woman who cooked and cleaned and expected nothing but money from him.

My husband and I are in the same profession. I worked longer hours than him. I was also the one who was sometimes pregnant or recovering from childbirth.

But he could not appreciate me. He had a cultural and religious idea in his head : a man should come home from work and be catered to. Clean house, good food, obedient wife who wears certain clothes and lets her husband forbid her from certain activities or friends that do not please him. The man should be comfortable, should be served, should have things his way. (It is similar to the relationship between a dog owner and his dog. They love each other – but the owner does not think the dog should share in decisions or come and go as it pleases. A dog is expected to be happy being owned and trained and played with.)

My husband started off claiming he would love me forever.

It did not last.

But his cultural ideas of what a man is owed and how a wife must serve — those ideas will last in him forever.

What is wrong with American politicians’ fascination with Huawei?

Let’s answer this question using 5 Low IQ positions that the US politicians are taking –

Low IQ action 1 – Raimondo threatens Huawei before her China trip. She is simply arrogant and lacks intelligence. Who in the right mind threatens someone’s kid before visiting their home?

Low IQ action 2 – It is simply embarrassing to see a country using full state resources to bring down a private company. You brought an army to a fist fight and didn’t knock your much smaller opponent out!

Low IQ action 3 – The Western chips companies are making large profits selling products to China. And you stopped the sales and force your biggest customer to make their own?

Low IQ action 4 – You give billions of dollars of subsidies to your own chip companies to build factories. But you stop the demand from your top customer. So where are US companies gonna sell their excess chips to?

Low IQ action 5 – You take away Huawei’s access to Google and they went to develop their own operating system to threaten Google’s and Microsoft’s future dominance. You like shooting your own foot?

Irish Girl Watches MISTER ROGERS For The First Time

Oh nostalgia tv, except I don’t know who Mister Rogers is. I’ve always heard the name Mister Rogers as a reference in American tv and films but this Irish Girl had no idea who that was. Join me on a very emotional journey as I watch Fred Rogers first through last tv appearance, see him sing “I like you just as you are” and “ it’s a wonderful day in the neighbourhood” Mister Rogers Neighbourhood. Couldn’t we all do with some nice insight from a Fred Rogers right now.

What was your experience like when you realized that life outside of the United States was better than inside it?

I was in the US Army stationed in Germany for 3 and half years… Just turned 18. During this time I never took leave and went back. Travelled all over Europe! In Germany, I drunk my first beer, had my first kiss, and my first Girlfriend, was amazed by the people, the culture, the infrastructure, the cuisine, almost everything. I even took German courses and was proficient at least with speaking German. Anyway the day came, when i was being discharged ( I never really liked the army, andjoined for the Gi Bill) Back in the rural midwest, working at Walmart while going to community collage, I realized how much I missed Germany, the lifestyle, the urban vibe and so many things ( missed having a GF too, in the US I wasnt rich enough or cool enough to date anyone, in Germany this was never a thing at all, about money and all that. I decided if I was going to have a dull dead end life with no future, why not go back to Germany? At least have an adventure of some kind, i could always come back to the US.. 7 months after I ETSed ( left the army) I got a passport, got a cheap one way ticket and reconnected with some German civilians I knew.. I ended up staying in germany, has been 30 plus years now. I remember when the plane landed and I was disembarking, and set foot on the ground, I felt like,, this is it..the place you are meant to be.

Will the US dollar lose its global power in the next 5 years?

Yes it absolutely will.

I takes longer than that but slowly and surely it will.there is not even a speck of doubt. Tell me which nation wants to save in U.S. dollar reserve if can be confiscated away from you at the whims or fancies of the U.S? Do you want to keep your savings in a bank using a currency that the US can take it all away anytime it wants?

No one do, no want does, no one will ever want to. The fact that the US and the west can even phantom that by stealing gold from Venezuela and US dollar reserves from Russia is an acceptable behaviour tell how little the west thinks of the rest of the world.

Every nation on earth, even the US allies are figuring how to hedge against the US dollar. Direct Currency swap arrangement is very popular and it must have have grown several fold in the last year alone! Some agree on a basket of currencies, Others revert back to barter.

JEFFREY SACHS ON A HISTORIC DEBT

Israel Attacks Damascus Airport as IRAN Foreign Minister Plane Coming-in; Plane Forced to Divert

World Hal Turner 12 October 2023

The Israeli Air Force fired missiles at Damascus Airport and Aleppo Airport this morning, just before a plane carrying the Iran Foreign Minister was approaching Damascus for an official state visit.  The Iran Minister’s plane was forced to divert from the area to avoid conflict.

Attacking Syria was an illegal act of aggression by Israel.   Conducting that attack while a Diplomat was approaching for a state visit is arguably an Act of War.

Damascus Airport is now damaged and closed. Aleppo Airport is also reported to be damaged and closed.

The Iran Foreign Minister plane appears to be returning to Iran.

Syrian Defense Ministry: “At approximately 1:50 pm this afternoon, the Israeli enemy simultaneously carried out an air aggression with bursts of missiles, targeting the international airports of Aleppo and Damascus, which led to damage to the airports’ landing strips and them being out of service.

This aggression is a desperate attempt by the criminal Israeli enemy to divert attention from the crimes it is committing in Gaza, and the great losses it is suffering at the hands of the Palestinian resistance.” 

( HT Remark: Nothing like escalating the already bad situation with Gaza into an international incident with a foreign Diplomat.   Unschooled, these Israelis.  Totally devoid of class.)

How does the cost of Whoosh, Indonesia’s first high-speed railway, compare to other high-speed railway projects around the world?

According to our Singapore media reports, the cost of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail is approximately US$7.3 billion. We tentatively believe that this number is real.

So this figure exceeds the budget given by China when bidding for the project eight years ago by US$1.2 billion. The project completion time was delayed by 4 years than originally planned.

This doesn’t seem like a good number.

But compared to current plans in other countries around the world to build high-speed rail, these are two very good figures.

1. Cost per kilometer

Even calculated based on all costs after overruns (including land costs), the cost per kilometer of Indonesia’s high-speed rail is only US$58 million. The high-speed rail in the United Kingdom is US$300 million per kilometer, and the high-speed rail in California is US$200 million per kilometer.

India’s high-speed rail was originally planned to cost US$35 million per kilometer. However, it has not actually been completed yet. Only ten kilometers have been built. The cost has been doubled and the final cost cannot be estimated. Due to serious delays in construction, some experts predict that there is a high probability that the cost per kilometer will exceed US$80 million when completed.

2. Time spent

The Indian high-speed railway started construction one year earlier than the Indonesian high-speed railway and is scheduled to open in 2023. According to media reports some time ago, only 10 kilometers have been built so far.
The completion date has been changed to 2028, but many experts believe that the actual completion time may be after 2032.

The first phase of the British high-speed railway is planned to build 160 kilometers. Construction will start in 2020 and is scheduled to be completed in 2029. It has now been changed to 2033. The real completion date cannot be determined.

Therefore, although the Indonesian high-speed railway experienced a 16% cost overrun and a 4-year construction delay.
But this is mainly due to the virus problem over the past 3 years.

Judging from similar large-scale projects around the world, Indonesians have reached the top level in terms of project time and budget control.

I believe that for many years to come, no country will be able to surpass Indonesia’s level.

This is due to the efficient work of the Indonesian government, the unity and support of the Indonesian people, and the technology and efficiency of the Chinese. Their achievements deserve congratulations.

Star Trek – Fire On the Forcefield

America Can’t Stop China’s Rise — Foreign Policy

There’s little doubt that the American government has decided to slow China’s economic rise, most notably in the fields of technological development. To be sure, the Biden administration denies that these are its goals. Janet Yellen said on April 20, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership. The United States remains the most dynamic and prosperous economy in the world. We have no reason to fear healthy economic competition with any country.” And Jake Sullivan said on April 27, “Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance. We are simply ensuring that U.S. and allied technology is not used against us.”

Yet, in its deeds, the Biden administration has shown that its vision extends beyond those modest goals. It has not reversed the trade tariffs Donald Trump imposed in 2018 on China, even though presidential candidate Joe Biden criticized them in July 2019, saying: “President Trump may think he’s being tough on China. All that he’s delivered as a consequence of that is American farmers, manufacturers and consumers losing and paying more.” Instead, the Biden administration has tried to increase the pressure on China by banning the export of chips, semiconductor equipment, and selected software. It has also persuaded its allies, like the Netherlands and Japan, to follow suit. More recently, on Aug. 9, the Biden administration issued an executive order prohibiting American investments in China involving “sensitive technologies and products in the semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence sectors” which “pose a particularly acute national security threat because of their potential to significantly advance the military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities” of China.

All these actions confirm that the American government is trying to stop China’s growth. Yet, the big question is whether America can succeed in this campaign—and the answer is probably not. Fortunately, it is not too late for the United States to reorient its China policy toward an approach that would better serve Americans—and the rest of the world.


America’s decision to slow China’s technological development is akin to the folly revealed by the old cliché: closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Modern China has shown many times that China’s technological development can’t be halted.

Since the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, several efforts have been made to limit China’s access to or stop its development in various critical technologies, including nuclear weapons, space, satellite communication, GPS, semiconductors, supercomputers, and artificial intelligence. The United States has also tried to curb China’s market dominance in 5G, commercial drones, and electric vehicles (EVs). Throughout history, unilateral or extraterritorial enforcement efforts to curtail China’s technological rise have failed and, in the current context, are creating irreparable damage to long-standing U.S. geopolitical partnerships. In 1993 the Clinton administration tried to restrict China’s access to satellite technology. Today, China has some 540 satellites in space and is launching a competitor to Starlink.

The same principle played out with GPS. When America restricted China’s access to its geospatial data system in 1999, China simply built its own parallel BeiDou Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) system in one of the first waves of major technological decoupling. In some measures, BeiDou is today better than GPS. It is the largest GNSS in the world, with 45 satellites to GPS’s 31, and is thus able to provide more signals in most global capitals. It is supported by 120 ground stations, resulting in greater accuracy, and has more advanced signal features, such as two-way messaging. Other nations have also previously tried and failed to block China’s technical rise. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR withheld nuclear weapons technology from China, China launched its own “Manhattan Project” in the early 1960s and succeeded in testing its first nuclear weapon by 1964. Russian nuclear leverage over China ended that day.

Many of the measures taken by the Biden administration against China were also executed without factoring in China’s capacity to retaliate. While China does not physically construct many truly irreplaceable components of the American technology stack, they are keenly aware of the importance of their raw materials inputs (rare earths) and demand (revenue generation) in fueling the American innovation ecosystem and are now using them as leverage. In the current tit-for-tat dynamic, China will start squeezing these two critical ends of the value chain in response to American technology and capital export restrictions. China’s July ban of the gallium and germanium exports was merely an opening shot across the bow to remind America (and its aligned allies) of China’s dominance in the rare earths and critical metals space. The country has a near monopoly in the processing of magnesium, bismuth, tungsten, graphite, silicon, vanadium, fluorspar, tellurium, indium, antimony, barite, zinc, and tin. China also dominates in midstream processing for materials essential to most of America’s current and future technology aspirations such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, which are critical for the rapidly developing EV industry globally.

While America and other neutral countries have mineral reserves of many of these materials, it would be naïve to believe that one can simply flip a switch on mining and production. It will take at least three to five years just to build the requisite extraction and processing infrastructure. This is to say nothing for recruiting and training skilled labor, or receiving requisite operational and environmental permits for such activities. Both could prove impossible. The processing of rare earths is a highly toxic and environmentally destructive endeavor. It’s unlikely such approvals will be granted. If Arizona is struggling to find qualified workers for its TSMC fabrication facility, and to address domestic union opposition to importing foreign skilled labor, it’s unlikely that America can develop similar capabilities for material processing. Along the way, China gets to play kingmaker in how it doles out access to its processed materials, likely restricting supply to American technology and defense giants. The failure to factor in China’s retaliatory capacities indicates that the United States doesn’t have a well-thought-out and comprehensive approach to dealing with China.


American measures to deprive China access to the most advanced chips could even damage America’s large chip-making companies more than it hurts China. China is the largest consumer of semiconductors in the world. Over the past ten years, China has been importing massive amounts of chips from American companies. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, China-based firms imported $70.5 billion worth of semiconductors from American firms in 2019, representing approximately 37 percent of these companies’ global sales. Some American companies, like Qorvo, Texas Instruments, and Broadcom, derive about half of their revenues from China. 60 percent of Qualcomm’s revenues, a quarter of Intel’s revenues, and a fifth of Nvidia’s sales are from the Chinese market. It’s no wonder that the CEOs of these three companies recently went to Washington to warn that U.S. industry leadership could be harmed by the export controls. American firms will also be hurt by retaliatory actions from China, such as China’s May ban on chips from US-based Micron Technology. China accounts for over 25 percent of Micron’s sales.

The massive revenue surpluses generated by these sales to China were ploughed into R&D efforts which, in turn, kept American chip companies ahead of the game. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that if the United States were to ban semiconductor sales to China completely, U.S. companies would lose $83 billion in annual revenues and would have to cut 124,000 jobs. They would also have to cut their annual R&D budgets by at least $12 billion, and their capital spending by $13 billion. This would make it even more difficult for them to remain competitive on the global scale in the long run. American semiconductor firms are painfully aware that U.S. actions against China in the chips arena will harm their interests more than Chinese interests. The U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association released a statement on July 17, saying that Washington’s repeated steps “to impose overly broad, ambiguous, and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the U.S. semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China,” and called on the Biden administration not to implement further restrictions without more extensive engagement with semiconductor industry representatives and experts.

The Chips Act cannot subsidize the American semiconductor industry indefinitely, and there is no other global demand base to replace China. Other chip producing nations will inevitably break ranks and sell to China (as they have historically) and the American actions will be for naught. And, in banning the export of chips and other core inputs to China, America handed China its war plan years ahead of the battle. China is being goaded into building self-sufficiency far earlier than they would have otherwise. Prior to the ZTE and Huawei components bans, China was content to continue purchasing American chips and focusing on the front-end hardware. Peter Wennink, the CEO of ASML, stated that China is already leading in key applications and demand for semiconductors. Wennink wrote, “The roll-out of the telecommunication infrastructure, battery technology, that’s the sweet spot of mid-critical and mature semiconductors, and that’s where China without any exception is leading.”


Germany Just Warned Europe On “China’s Counterstrike Move” | Silent EV War Explodes

Simple, like the UK with Brexit, Germany should leave the EU. This will solve the problem, as Germany will then be able to distance itself from investigations implemented by the EU parliament.

What is the most dangerous thing you have done and why?

I used to be a Tower Climber.

Installing antennas and transmission lines on cellular towers.. Day in and day out we would climb 150, 200, 300feet and stay up there literally all day – often 10–12 hours.

Those heights were the norm, but I also did 400ft a couple of times, and then 500ft once.

And I did it because I needed a job and this paid really well. Plus I was a brand new divorcee and just starting over, so at the time working this tough, dangerous job with other guys was a very good thing for me. I made close friends, we partied and had fun, we laughed a lot, and it was just what the doctor ordered.

The end of Evergrande.

Bloomberg News has reported that billionaire founder and chairman Hui Ka Yan was taken away by police earlier this month and put under so-called residential surveillance , a type of police action that falls short of formal detention or arrest.

The surveillance doesn’t necessarily mean that Hui will be charged with a crime, and the exact circumstances of his situation remain unclear. But it’s not looking good: Evergrande has halted trading and confirmed in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing that authorities have told the company that Hui has been subjected to “mandatory measures,” due to “suspicion of illegal crimes.

The latest twist in an ongoing saga for the world’s most indebted developer has left creditors confused and concerned about what’s to become of their investments. The fate of the developer’s restructuring plans are now at risk, and the chances of a full-on liquidation have increased.

There’s a long list of victims: the hundreds of thousands of homeowners who bought into some 706 residential projects that are still being built; people who bought into Evergrande’s wealth management products, worth 40 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) a few years ago; global investors who collectively own at least $30 billion of offshore debt; suppliers and banks who are among those owed some 2.39 trillion yuan in liabilities. The company is facing more than 2,000 lawsuits, too.

I remember a time when Evergrande was still able to overcome its detractors. When a shortsellertargeted it for alleged financial mismanagement back in 2012, a Hong Kong tribunal provided vindication by saying the report was misleading and false.

But so much has changed since then: Evergrande has become a harbinger of the nation’s real estate meltdown. Its fate seemed to be sealed back in 2020, when a liquidity scare fueled by its massive debt load triggered aggressive regulatory tightening. Compounded by pandemic-related woes, the company defaulted the following year.

What happens after Evergrande? As we know, this property crisis is far from over. China’s property developers face a liquidity shortfall worth some 19 trillion yuan, or 15% of GDP, that could morph into a solvency crunch by year-end, Bloomberg analysts estimate.

Property downturns are always painful. In China, that’s especially the case because of the outsized role that the sector plays in the economy: As much as 70% of household wealthis tied to the industry.

The government has responded by relaxing property buying rules, since it doesn’t want the current distress among developers to trigger financial contagion — nor does it want to see social unrest.

Dragging out the Evergrande saga, though, has wreaked havoc among homebuyers, construction workers, suppliers and investors. And as the government has shown no intention of bailing out developers, the only certainty we’re left with is the idea that this pain is far from finished.

Asian point of view

Have you ever tried to fire someone and it backfired?

This happened to my ex.

My ex was the CFO of one of the largest private construction companies in the world. His main role was to make sure the company stayed profitable. Simple really.

The owners’ son, who recently graduated from college and was having trouble finding gainful employment, (seems nobody would hire him to get stoned) was parachuted into my ex’s job. My ex was quickly let go.

He didn’t mind too much. Even though a little disappointed, he still was paid out fairly and started his own firm with the severance money.

A tender came up for a new skyscraper in London. My ex’s former company put in its bid and came in ahead of everyone else by millions. Turned out months into construction that the new CFO had forgotten to add the cost of electrical wiring into the cost of construction. A mistake that sent his family bankrupt.

Luckily there was one new firm with the creditor’s backing, experience and ability to jump in immediately. My ex hired a lot of the now redundant employees and bought a large chunk of his old company’s heavy equipment at a huge discount in a mortgagee sale.

The lesson here is to never kill the golden goose!

Elderly shelter cat had weeks to live. So this woman adopted him.

This woman is a saint! What she does for these cats is beyond compassion!

Capitalist and socialist modernisation

The Sixteenth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) took place from 25 to 27 September 2023 in Fuzhou, China, co-organised by Fujian Normal University. The theme of the forum was Chinese modernisaton and the prospects of world modernisation. Although unable to attend in person, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was invited to submit a video presentation.

Carlos’s presentation, entitled Capitalist and socialist modernisation, takes up a number of questions: What is modernisation? Is modernisation desirable? How has modernisation been achieved in the West? What is China’s modernisation plan? What are the unique characteristics of Chinese modernisation? How does socialist modernisation differ from capitalist modernisation? What effect does China’s modernisation on the global journey towards development and socialism?

The video and the text of Carlos’s presentation are available below.

What is modernisation, and is it necessary?

Modernisation is a somewhat nebulous concept. It means different things to different societies at different times. By definition, its parameters are constantly changing.

In the broadest sense, it means adapting to the latest, most advanced ideas and techniques for meeting humanity’s material and cultural needs.

In sociology, there is more or less an equals sign between modernisation and industrialisation, and is generally held to begin with Britain’s Industrial Revolution. We can think of it essentially as the transition from ‘developing country’ status to ‘developed country’ status; from a predominantly rural society to a predominantly urban society; from a technologically backward society to a technologically advanced society.

Is this desirable? Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, but most people consider modernisation to be desirable, because it enables higher living standards for the masses of the people.

With modernised industry, production techniques, communication methods, transport systems, energy systems and healthcare strategies, there exists the possibility of providing a healthy, meaningful and dignified life to all, such that each individual has reliable access to a healthy diet, to decent housing, to clothing, to education, to healthcare, to a vibrant cultural, social and intellectual life, and to fulfilling work. In short, modernisation makes it possible to attend to people’s basic human rights.

The fruits of modernisation have thus far been divided extremely unequally: the process of industrialisation in North America, Europe and Japan has created previously unimaginable wealth for a few, but this has been accompanied by desperate poverty and alienation for significant numbers. However, modernisation creates a material basis for common prosperity, far beyond what a pre-modern economy can offer.

Specifically in the case of China, the government has set a goal of “basically realising socialist modernisation by 2035”, and has defined some parameters for this:

  • Reaching a per-capita GDP on a par with that of the mid-level developed countries such as Spain or the Czech Republic
  • Joining the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries in the realm of science and technology
  • Becoming a global leader in education, public health, culture and sport
  • Substantially growing the middle-income group as a proportion of the population
  • Guaranteeing equitable access to basic public services
  • Ensuring modern standards of living in rural areas
  • Steadily lowering greenhouse gas emissions and protecting biodiversity, so as to restore a healthy balance between humans and the natural environment

If achieved, these aims will constitute a significant – indeed world-historic – improvement in the living standards of the Chinese people, and will blaze a trail for other developing countries.

How did the West modernise?

But is China doing anything new? After all, it won’t be the first country to achieve modernisation.

In mainstream modernisation theory in the West, the dominant narrative is that the countries of Western Europe, North America and Japan achieved their advances via a combination of good governance, liberal democracy, free-market economics, scientific genius, geographical serendipity and a dash of entrepreneurial spirit.

Historical investigation reveals a considerably different story.

The most important precursors of the West’s modernisation are colonialism, slavery and genocide. The conquest of the Americas, the settlement of Australia, the transatlantic slave trade, the colonisation of India, the rape of Africa, the Opium Wars, the theft of Hong Kong, and more. The profits of colonialism and the slave trade were essential for propelling the West’s industrialisation, as was so eloquently uncovered in Eric Williams’ classic 1944 work, Capitalism and Slavery.

As Karl Marx famously wrote in Volume 1 of Capital: “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.”

Such is the ugly truth of European modernisation. And the story is not so different in the United States. Many of the so-called founding fathers of that country were slave-owners, and they established a slave-owners’ society. They went to war against the indigenous peoples and against Mexico in order to expand their territory.

In the 20th century, having established their domination over the Americas, they constructed a neocolonial global system that is still in place to a significant degree, imposing American hegemony on the world.

A network of 800 foreign military bases. NATO. An enormous nuclear arsenal. Genocidal wars waged on Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Systems of economic coercion and unilateral sanctions.

Proxy wars, coups, regime change projects, destabilisation.

This is the global system of violence that has facilitated and accompanied North American modernisation.

Japan’s rapid rise was facilitated first by its brutal expansionist project in East Asia, particularly Korea and China, and then through adaptation to and integration with the US-led imperialist system, the much-vaunted ‘rules-based international order’.

South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan Province constitute the small handful of non-imperialist territories that have been able to achieve modernisation, but these are special cases. Their shared proximity to China and the DPRK is no coincidence; they have been inducted into the imperialist club by the US, to play a dual role as regional policemen and living advertisements for capitalism on the frontline of its confrontation with socialism. Both roles rely on at least a certain degree of prosperity for a section of the population.

There is no shortage of countries of the Global South which have attempted to apply the “liberal democracy plus free market capitalism” formula, but none have been successful in modernising. Indeed the West’s prescriptions for (and interference in) developing countries have largely led to chaos and disaster.

The contrast between the West’s success in modernising and the Global South’s failure has fed into a largely unspoken but widespread and pernicious racism: an assumption that white people are somehow inherently more advanced than everyone else.

This supremacism is allowed to fester, because in addition to dividing working class and oppressed communities, it provides convenient cover for the reality that capitalist modernisation is built on the foundations of colonialism, imperialism and hegemonism.

As Kwame Nkrumah commented, “in the era of neocolonialism, under-development is still attributed not to exploitation but to inferiority, and racial undertones remain closely interwoven with the class struggle.”

How is China modernising?

China’s journey towards modernisation starts in 1949 with the founding of the People’s Republic, the early construction of socialist industry, land reform and the extirpation of feudalism and the landowning class, and the provision of at least basic levels of education and healthcare services to the whole population.

In 1963, Premier Zhou Enlai, supported by Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, first raised the question of the Four Modernisations: of agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. Despite a complex political environment this goal was revived in the early 1970s, and, with the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, China accelerated its pursuit of those goals, and ushered in an era of rapid development of the productive forces and improvement in the people’s living standards.

China’s journey of modernisation has evolved again in recent years with the pursuit of the second centenary goal: of building a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by 2049.

China is on a fast track to becoming an advanced, developed country, and this process stands in stark contrast to the West’s modernisation process:

First, China’s modernisation is built on the efforts of the Chinese people rather than on war, colonialism and slavery.

Second, its fruits are to be shared by everybody, not dominated by the wealthy. As General Secretary Xi Jinping said in his work report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s modernisation is “the modernisation of common prosperity for all.”

Even today, not everyone in the West is able to enjoy the fruits of modernisation. Consider for example the US, where tens of millions lack access to healthcare; where over half a million people are homeless; where life expectancy for African Americans is six years less than for their white counterparts; where – according to the US Department of Education – over half of adults read below a sixth-grade level.

Third, China’s modernisation is becoming a green modernisation, fuelled by clean energy, careful not to destroy the planet that sustains us. Again quoting Xi Jinping’s work report, “it is the modernisation of harmony between humanity and nature.”

Capitalist modernisation has had a disastrous impact on the environment. With 4 percent of the global population, the US alone is responsible for 25 percent of historic greenhouse gas emissions. The simple fact is that humanity literally cannot afford for China’s modernisation to follow this pattern.

Socialist modernisation will become the ‘new normal’

The West’s modernisation path is not open to the countries of the Global South, and it wouldn’t be desirable even if it were. Today, the road of capitalist modernisation is closed, so how is China able to modernise?

China does not have an empire, formal or informal, but it does have a particular advantage of being a socialist state, a “people’s democratic dictatorship based on the alliance of workers and peasants”, to use Mao Zedong’s expression. Such a state can use its power to direct economic activity towards the goals of the social classes it represents.

Thus the specificities of China’s modernisation – the commitment to common prosperity, to ending poverty and underdevelopment, to preventing climate collapse and to peaceful development – are a function of China’s political system, its revolutionary history, and the leadership of the CPC.

At a meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016, Xi Jinping made this point very succinctly: “Our greatest strength lies in our socialist system, which enables us to pool resources in a major mission. This is the key to our success.”

Or as Deng Xiaoping famously commented in 1984: “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of the productive forces than under the capitalist system.”

In a world still largely dominated by capitalism – and an intellectual world still dominated by bourgeois ideology – it’s easy to forget this system’s fundamental and irreconcilable contradictions, which Marx identified with such clarity and profundity 150 years ago; contradictions which lead inexorably to inefficiency, stagnation and crisis. A political economy directed at the production of exchange values rather than use values can never result in common prosperity.

In China, the capitalist class is not the ruling class and is therefore not able to direct the country’s resources according to its own prerogatives. At the top level, resources are allocated by the state, in accordance with long-term planning carried out by, and in the interests of, the people.

This is what is enabling a new type of modernisation, which is blazing a trail for socialist and developing countries the world over.

The fruits of this process are being shared with the world, via mechanisms such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, which are creating a path for the countries of the Global South to break out of underdevelopment, even where they lack China’s resources and political advantages.

As such, China’s evolving modernisation has great historic significance, and offers valuable lessons for the world. It is an embodiment of historical materialism in the current era: capitalism has long since exhausted its ability to fundamentally drive human progress, and therefore the future lies with socialism.

What were the most ‘badass’ moments of history?

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Galvarino was a legendary warrior of the Mapuche people who rebelled against the Spanish Conquers who had invaded their land.

The Mapuche people were natives of the Araucana region of Chile who fought against the Spanish conquest of South America. The Arauco War was the bloodiest and longest-running battle in the history of the New World.

In what became known as the Battle of Lagunillias, Galvarino led his people in a fight against the Spanish invaders who were trying to force them into servitude.

During the battle, Galvarino and his men were captured by the Spanish. As punishment for defying the Spanish, Galvarino had both his hands amputated at the wrists and sent him home as a message to the other Mapuche tribes.

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He returned home defeated and severely wounded. He showed the war council his wounds and begged them to let him lead an army against their oppressors. For his bravery, he was named commander of a squadron of men in a fight against Governor Mendoza.

With long Sharp knives fastened to his mutilated stumps, he led his army into battle against Governor Mendoza and his men. The Brutal battle lasted for an hour, with Galvarino striking and killing Mendoza’s number two in command with his modified stumps.

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Although Galvarino and his men fought a brave battle, they were soon overwhelmed and captured. All the remaining captured warriors including Galvarino, were executed on the orders of Governor Mendoza.

Has Huawei successfully challenged the dominance of American tech giants and truly democratized the tech industry?

Huawei has established the third truly COMMERCIAL Asian Tech Ecosystem from China and the eighth in Asia after Toyota, Nikon, Canon ,Samsung , BYD, Trina and Xinyi

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The Huawei Ecosystem now has

  • The Chip
  • The OS
  • The 5G Modem
  • The GPU
  • The Networks

Yet Huawei Ecosystem is fragile because SMIC the manufacturer of the 7 nm Node depends on Advanced DUV equipment from ASML

Now SMIC has stockpiled massive orders from ASML and that will keep SMIC going till maybe 2026

However that’s still dependence, a lot of dependence on the West

So i would say HUAWEI has made a start

Meanwhile people forget the REAL WINNERS of the three companies that have established it’s own dominant ecosystem on which the West is entirely dependent on :-

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BYD

BYD has:-

  • The Chip – The Mature 28nm Chip that only China can today manufacture cost effectively and in huge volumes
  • The Software
  • The Satellite Navigation System
  • The Battery
  • The Dynamic Unit

It’s completely and entirely Independent from Western Technology

Trina and Xinyi who have :-

  • The Intelligent Chip
  • The Micrograde Wafer Panel (That to this day no nation can produce except France but at 87% higher cost)
  • The Carbide micro layering etching equipment (Chinas equivalent of the EUV Lithography Machine)
  • The Silicon extraction process into Mono, Poly Crystalline Silicon with infusions

Yes Huawei deserves all the admiration for its clawback and fighting

Yet BYD, Trina and Xinyi actually get Proprietary License Fees from the West which is unique for a Nation that to thia day didn’t kowtow to the West unlike Japan, Israel and South Korea


Huawei to win, needs SMIC to become another BYD or Xinyi or Trina

If SMIC can achieve that, then China truly begins the challenge to the established Semiconductor industry

Lego just hit a climate BRICK wall

Lego says that it cannot make bricks from recycled material. They tried and they simply cannot do it without increasing carbon emissions. That’s a refreshing admission. Most companies take on “green initiatives” anyway, even if they prove to make the problem worse. In a similar vein, the CEO of Lufthansa admitted that“going green” would require the airline to use up HALF of Germany’s electricity. So not green at all then. Meanwhile, Ford says that it will pause construction of a $3.5 billion plant to build EV batteries in Michigan. They aren’t saying why. It just goes to show: It ain’t easy being green.

Is the Belt and Road Initiative losing steam?

You’ve probably heard of China’s ambitious plan to connect the world with its Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI for short. It’s a massive project that involves building roads, railways, ports, pipelines, and other infrastructure across Asia, Africa, Europe, and beyond. China says it’s a win-win situation for everyone, a way to boost trade, development, and cooperation among more than 140 countries that have signed up for it.

But not everyone is buying it. Some critics in the West say that the BRI is a trap, a scheme, or a tool for China to expand its power and influence at the expense of other countries. They say that the BRI is saddling poor countries with unsustainable debt, damaging the environment and human rights, and undermining the international order. They also say that the BRI is losing steam due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the backlash from some host countries, and the changing global dynamics.

So what’s the real story? Well, if you listen to what China has to say on its official websites, you’ll get a very different picture. According to them, the BRI is not losing steam at all. In fact, it’s gaining momentum and achieving positive results in various aspects.

First of all, they say that the BRI has shown strong resilience and vitality amid the COVID-19 pandemic. China has actively cooperated with other BRI partners to fight against the virus, provide medical supplies and vaccines, share prevention and treatment experiences, and support economic recovery. The BRI has also contributed to the global efforts to build a community of health for all.

Secondly, they say that the BRI has promoted high-quality development and green cooperation. China has adhered to the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, and has followed the international rules and standards in implementing BRI projects. China has also attached great importance to environmental protection, social responsibility, and debt sustainability, and has encouraged green investment and financing under the BRI framework.

Thirdly, they say that the BRI has enhanced mutual trust and friendship among different countries and peoples. The BRI has fostered dialogue and exchange among different civilizations, cultures, and religions, and has supported education, culture, tourism, sports, media, and other fields of people-to-people cooperation. The BRI has also created opportunities for poverty alleviation, job creation, livelihood improvement, and social development for millions of people in the participating countries.

So there you have it. The BRI is not losing steam but rather advancing steadily and fruitfully. The BRI is not a solo show by China but a chorus by all participants. The BRI is not a challenge or threat to anyone but a benefit and opportunity for everyone. The BRI is not a zero-sum game but a win-win cooperation for common development. That’s what China wants you to believe. And if you don’t believe it, well, too bad for you. Because China is not going to stop or change its course anytime soon. It’s going to keep pushing forward with its vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Why Australia’s Housing Crisis Is a Warning for the World

My goodness!

What is something that needs to be said that nobody wants to hear?

Trump supporters have a point.

They weren’t misled by Russian trolls. They weren’t ignorant. They weren’t racist or sexist or xenophobic or homophobic. They were mad… they felt left behind and ignored by the media and the federal government… and they had a point.

They were left behind, and ignored.

For many of them, the America their parents and grandparents grew up in was a lot better. And no, that’s not because other groups were oppressed. It was because the economy was better for working-class people back then.

If your grandparents raised a large family on a single income, while the media and politicians cared about what your grandparents cared about, and now, 50 years later, you and your wife can’t get by on your dual incomes, and the media and politicians spend more time talking about transgender bathroom usage than the fact that families like yours are falling further behind each year… then yes, you have a point, and Make America Great Again makes sense.

Blueberry Grunt

2023 10 14 11 57
2023 10 14 11 57

Ingredients

  • 4 cups fresh blueberries
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons grated orange peel
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup milk

Instructions

  1. In a skillet, combine blueberries, sugar and water; bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
  2. In a bowl, combine the next 6 ingredients; stir in milk just until moistened (dough will be stiff).
  3. Drop by tablespoonsful over blueberries.
  4. Cover and cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until dumplings are puffed and test done.
  5. Serve warm.

Should secondary sanctions be imposed on China and Russia for their complicity with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Myanmar?

All terrorism in the world is linked to the United States! It is no longer a secret that the United States Government supports terrorism in South-East Asia!

US-backed Terrorism Targets Vietnam & Myanmar in Wider War on China

  • Two terrorist attacks this month (June 2023) in Southeast Asia have been carried out by groups backed by the United States government and its allies for decades;
  • This includes a singer murdered in Myanmar and a series of armed attacks carried out on police stations in Vietnam killing 9 including several civilians;
  • British state media, the BBC, and US government-funded media platform Radio Free Asia have attempted to spin and even justify this terrorism as part of a much wider pattern promoting and defending terrorism as a means to counter China’s rise and punish nations working closely with China;
  • The opposition in Myanmar has openly been backed by the US and UK for decades – fighting to reinstall Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy back into power;
  • In Vietnam, the ethnic Montagnards had fought alongside US invaders in the Vietnam War, and since then have worked closely with the US through the National Endowment for Democracy toward separatism;
  • Much of this context is omitted from Western state-media accounts of the terrorism;
  • Both Myanmar and Vietnam’s current governments have close relations with China. Vietnam, while depicted in the Western media as “anti-China,” has worked with China to build infrastructure within its borders and access Chinese rail projects to bring their products all the way to Europe;

Why Companies That Go Woke Go Broke

I saw the title and I instantly clicked to watch, really wanted to see a documentary about all these companies that went woke, then broke!

What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?

Well one fairly amazing thing happened in Penang. I (white Australian) was speaking to my friend (Asian Australian) in English.

An American tourist interrupted us and asked “excuse me, do you speak English?” We were both quite shocked and I said “a little.” I don’t know if she really couldn’t understand Australian English and didn’t realise what language I was speaking.

She said “Can you direct me to XYZ hotel?”

Now ordinarily two Aussies, neither of whom have ever been to Malaysia and speak no Malay wouldn’t be the best choice. But I pointed to the building we were standing in front of and said “walk about 10 yards that way.”

She was WAY out of her depth and her next international holiday should probably be to Hawaii.

However, I did the opposite in Austria. I speak no German, but if I look at a menu and plan out my sentence I can pretend to. So I asked in perfect German “Could I please have 2 hot chocolates; one with whipped cream and one with rum thanks.” She answered with something as simple as “that will be 8 euros” and I looked at her blankly and said in English “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German.” She laughed and did the transaction in English. She said I fooled her.

Pretty much the same thing in Poland, back in the days before Schengen membership. Apparently I needed a visa. So they berated me in Polish for a while, and I said I didn’t speak Polish. They went to the lingua franca of Eastern Europe and said “something something Russky.” I replied with what I’m told is an excellent accent “nye poni mayu po Russkiy.”

Here’s a guy in Lithuania, driving an Estonian-registered car, saying in perfect Russian in response to a question IN Russian “I don’t understand Russian.” I’m sure they weren’t thrilled and may not have believed me but I looked blankly at the rest of their diatribe. So eventually they wrote down my name, pointed me to Vilnius and said “visa.”’

Why is Urumqi, Xinjiang cleaner, safer, civilized, and developed than New Delhi?

Almost every Chinese City beats Indian Cities hollow in terms of Cleanliness, Safety and Development

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There are Primarily three reasons for this :-

A. One Party Meritocracy & Funds

In China, fund allocation for Cities and their overall Urban development is based on the Urban Development Index (UDI) plus between 15% upto 46% of the revenue generated by a City is used by the Local Government of that Province and the Administration of that City to develop the place

There is no political rivalries or party based discrimination between Fund Allocation and Revenue sharing

It’s all about How much the City develops and how well maintained the City is

In India, funding is a nightmare because the State themselves have no claim over the money they generate as revenue. Everything is handed over to the Centre which then decides how much each State should get and then the State decides how much each City should get

China has 20 times the provincial autonomy than an Indian State


B. Continuous Development to prevent overcrowding

India keeps on dumping on the same city again and again for year after year. Thus every such city attracts migrants like flies and that leads to overcrowding of the worst order

China keeps developing and expanding new Cities regularly

Chengdu, Chongqing etc were small towns a decade or so ago that are now bustling cities, brimming with Prosperity

Urumqi was once a town , now it’s classified as a Tier 3 City

Thus if you notice Shanghai and Beijing both lost 4% and 5.6% of the population due to migration between 2013–2023 whereas Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad netted between 7.6% and 12% SURPLUS population by migration between 2008–2023


C. Chinas Housing Policy

Everyone living with a proper Job in a City in China MUST have housing

This is a law from the time of Chairman Mao and when it’s a Chairman Mao law, it’s enforcement is very strict

Public Housing is thus available for every single resident of the city including the poorest of them

Only Shanghai and Beijing has slums today , which existed before the 1998 law and thus can’t be torn down

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If you have a legitimate job in CQ City, you get a Public Apartment of 39–52 Square Meters with indoor plumbing, heating, air conditioning and gas and electricity and drinking water for a mere 78 RMB / month

Of course many Chinese become prosperous enough to rent much nicer places and sub lease their public homes for which they pay rent of 78 RMB/ month for 400–500 RMB / month

During Covid 19, many such people were discovered and fined very heavily (30, 000 RMB plus 60 months rent or 100 Days in Prison)


A Fourth reason is the fact that Migration into Cities is heavily controlled

You just can’t come to a City that easily without housing or a job unless you are a tourist there

In India it’s the opposite

You can flood into cities and sleep on the roads and everywhere else and even defecate

It’s like a Zoo

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So it’s the Chinese System

They may have their flaws but by God they have excellent City maintenance and keep themselves very clean

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Their Air Quality improvement in a mere decade is something every nation takes notes on


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Primarily another reason is the Chinese are proud of their country and love their country

Not the bogus love that Indians show which translates into defending India for all it’s weaknesses, glorifying mediocrities as superheroes, forcing people to stand up for the National Anthem etcetera

The genuine love that ensures they actively take pride in their development and their cities

When stray cats see this man, they compete with each other to get a place on his lap.

This is fun.

No longer human

On a somber note, the Israeli destruction on Palestine is a (text book) genocidal event. This is just as disturbing to me as the complete killing off of all the males in Ukraine.

There is something truly evil about the oligarchy that rules the West.

Their “heads aren’t screwed on tight”. They are unhinged and behaving in complete disregard for their fellow humans.

No care towards humanity.

Which means that they have evolved into something NOT HUMAN.

I shake my head in sadness.

As Everyone’s Lοοking At Ιsrael, Something Τruly Unbelievable Has Begun Ιn America

https://youtu.be/DA3aRJrAyOo

What is the craziest thing you’ve found in an old coat pocket?

The identity of a MURDERER!

I bought a used coat from a yard sale and months later, when it turned cold, I put the jacket on and noticed a hand written note in the left pocket. It had listed things to buy at Ace Hardware.

It said Lye, ropes, tape and a small shovel.

Next to the list was the actual receipt showing the stores name, what was bought and exactly when.

I thought it seemed suspicious so I took it to the local police and they ran the info I had against an unsolved murder case.

After pulling the archived video from Ace Hardware, it was clear who the man was and after interrogating him and his fake alibi, he broke down and admitted that he was the one who picked up a 22 year old hitchhiker and raped and murdered her.

He forgot about the note and receipt in his left pocket.

He was also left handed. Had he not written it himself, it would not have proved anything, but it matched the handwriting analysis.

He also had no idea his wife sold the old jacket in a yard sale months earlier. That simple task on her part, cost him his life and he sits on death row today.

You just never know what you’re gonna get for three dollars at a yard sale.

A strategic nightmare sneaks into Washington’s political agenda: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Oct 14, 2023 12:38 AM

This is horrifying. -MM
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2a989a23 cfb0 46b3 80df fe98ad456b23

A simultaneous war with China and Russia is a strategic nightmare that sober American strategists such as Henry Kissinger have been warning the US to avoid at all costs, and it is also a topic that some US media outlets have become more and more fond of talking about in recent years. At least from the publicly available information, Washington has never previously addressed it as a formal political agenda, supposedly aware of its seriousness and the terrible risks it carries. But the publication of a report by a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel titled America’s Strategic Posture crossed this “red line” on October 12.

The central point of the 145-page report is that the US must expand its military power, particularly its “nuclear weapons modernization program,” in order to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with China and Russia. Notably, the report diverges completely from the current US national security strategy of winning one conflict while deterring another, and from the Biden administration’s current nuclear policy. It is not a fantasy among the American public, but a serious strategic assessment and recommendation in the service of policymaking.

The 12-member panel that wrote the report was hand-picked by the US Congress from major think tanks and retired defense, security officials and former lawmakers. This report makes us feel that a “strategic nightmare” is sneaking into the US political agenda, but has not drawn due concern and vigilance in Washington, and to a large extent, the American elite group represented by the panel is actively working to make this nightmare come true.

A look at the specific recommendations of this report will send shivers down the spine of those who retain any basic rationality. The report recommends that the US deploy more warheads, and produce more bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear weapons and so on. It also calls on the US to deploy warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and to consider adding road-mobile ICBMs to its arsenal, establishing a third shipyard that can build nuclear-powered ships, etc.

What depths of insanity is the US sinking to? The US’ military spending accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s total defense expenditures, and it has been growing dramatically for several years, with military spending in 2023 reaching $813.3 billion, more than the GDP of most countries, but even that is not enough for these politicians. Such a report full of geopolitical fanaticism and war imagery, whether or not it actually ends up as a “guide” for Washington’s decision-making, is dangerous and needs to be resisted and opposed by all peace-loving countries.

According to some American media, the report ignores the consequences of a nuclear arms race. In fact, the report doesn’t seem to consider this at all and doesn’t suggest any measures other than nuclear expansion to address this issue. In other words, it is a reckless approach. Both China and Russia are nuclear powers, and everyone knows that provoking a confrontation between nuclear powers is a crazy idea. Even promoting a nuclear arms race under the banner of “deterrence” is a disastrous step backward in history. Washington’s political elites, who lived through the Cold War, cannot be unaware of this. However, the fact that such an absurd and off-key report is being presented in all seriousness by the US Congress is both surreal and unsurprising. It is in line with the distorted political atmosphere in Washington today.

The motives behind this exaggeration of threats and creating a warlike atmosphere are highly suspicious. The recent outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict caused a sharp increase in US defense industry stocks, while American defense industry companies have also been the biggest beneficiaries of the long-standing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The military-industrial complex, like a geopolitical monstrosity, parasitically clings to American society, manipulating its every move, pushing Washington step by step to introduce and even prepare for ideas that were once considered “impossible.”

The prosperity of the American military-industrial complex is built upon blood and corpses, and carries a primal guilt. Serving the interests of the American military-industrial complex is unethical.

The reality is that such rhetoric is becoming increasingly politically acceptable in today’s Washington. The idea of “preparing for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China,” once a fringe fantasy, has gradually made its way into Washington’s agenda, which is deeply unsettling.

If Washington were to adopt even a small portion of the recommendations in this report, the harm and threats it could pose to world peace would be immeasurable and would ultimately backfire on the US itself.

There is an old Chinese saying: “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” This is something that is worth Washington’s careful consideration.

Have you ever bought a car that didn’t run and found that it was an easy fix?

In 1980 my boss had left the company and had planned to sell his very nice 1970 Buick LeSabre for $500. One Monday I came into my office and the keys to the Buick were on my desk with a note saying that the automatic transmission was bad and that it would cost more than the car was worth and that I could have it for $25 since that is all the wrecking yard would give him.

I picked up the car one evening and was able to make it part way home before the “transmission” problem occurred.

Fortunately, I was near the company parking lot where I left the car. The next morning, in daylight, with the help of my brother-in-law, we discovered that the “transmission problem” was actually the air conditioning compressor intermittently locking up and putting a severe drag on the engine.

Since it was fall in southern California, we just cut off the single belt that drove the AC compressor and the car ran great. Months later, a neighbor was putting a Chevy V8 into a Toyota pickup and gave me the AC compressor, which we installed on the Buick. And the AC worked perfectly.

I told my boss how we fixed the “transmission” problem and offered him $500 for the Buick.

He declined and said I should keep the car for $25.

I told him I didn’t want my wife driving a $25 car, so he agreed to $250.

That summer I decided to install an aftermarket cruise control unit on the Buick and while routing wires under the dash, I noticed a small spring, not unlike the ones in ball point pens, was broken in an AC/heater duct. I replaced that spring (cost was less than $1) and noticed that the AC was coming out of the dash vents where previously it was just coming from the floor.

When I next saw my former boss, he said that he had taken the Buick to the dealership to complain about the AC/heat not coming from the dash vents, and they told him that to fix the problem they would have to remove the dash and it would cost more than the car was worth.

I put an additional 100K miles on that car and only recall replacing the brakes and a distributor, in addition to routine maintenance. In 1992, as I was moving to Texas from NJ, a co-worker asked if I would sell him the car, which I did.

As an aside, my former boss went to work for a company that made high power gas lasers, costing at that time about $25,000.

At my next company, I needed one of those lasers. I happened to mention to my former boss at a conference that I hoped to buy one of those lasers, but didn’t have the budget.

A few weeks later, a high power gas laser unexpectedly arrived on the shipping dock!

I called my former boss and he said if and when I get the budget, let him know and he will replace the “loaner” laser with a new one. Probably a year or so later, I did find the money and paid for the “loaner” laser.

My former boss’s company also made an even higher power laser for $50,000. I later wondered if I had given him $500 for the car if he would have shipped a $50K “loaner.”

I would ask him, but he passed away, way too young, years ago.

Rest in peace, Dean…

Life in URUGUAY! – South America’s Richest and Safest Country

As an Uruguayan I want to make a comment. First, great video, mostly accurate expect for a couple of details.

When you show the ‘gauchos” those look more like people on horses from Bolivia or Peru, or even maybe somewhere in northern Argentina or Chile. Because, first of all, in Uruguay, the gaucho’s “poncho” is usually made of plain dark colors, and most important, we do not have mountains, like the ones you show. About population “skin” color, let me make some remarks.

The original population in Uruguay is around 90% of European descent, and when I say European I mean, from all over Europe, including countries like: Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Russian, Denmark, etc. Not only Southern Europe. So there are a lot of fair skin color people including blonde, blue eyes.

But what has been happening in the last decade is that there’s a large immigration wave, such as from the Caribbean countries, as well as from the rest of Latin America.

So, the demographic is changing rapidly because Uruguayan’s population as you established is very small, so the culture is also changing, including the food and even the language…

https://youtu.be/sTP44M2vQzk

How heavily does Apple depend on China, and what would happen if China decided to seek revenge for the Huawei ban by kicking Apple out of their market and supply chain?

2500 Foreigners have been invited to the Hangzhou Asian Games in China

Ordinary Foreigners

From US, Canada, Europe and Japan and South Korea

Fully paid for, Business Class Tickets, Five Star Pampering

All China asks them to do is to cover the Games on their Social Media (TikTok mainly or YT or Instagram)

The result is despite the Western Media almost entirely ignoring the Asian Games, a whopping 673 Million people worldwide are watching the events

This is China’s Strategy to counter thr Western Media

Not launching their own MSM and insanely and making accusations

Instead , they bring ORDINARY PEOPLE and treating them to what China looks like and spreading the message

A Popular Teenager goes home and says “Man do you know China is so different from what we hear in our TV channels”

Slowly this gains traction

It’s a long term plan targeting the 19–24 year olds today and gradually influencing the Younger Generation

The key reason is INFLUENCE

The 12–36 year old US Generation doesn’t view China as an enemy but as a neutral country or as a mutually beneficial country

Yet 36–65 year old Americans, the MSM influenced generation see almost 75% of them view China as an enemy

China is slowly influencing the younger generation and in a way that US simply cannot comprehend

Long term, slow and PATIENTLY

Every year you have 20,000 Vloggers invited to China and cover China positively

They influence around 60 Million -150 Million people

Tourvashu is one of these

He influences 2 Million Indians

Most are 16–20 year olds

More likely to watch Tourvashu than Palki Or Gravitas or Arnab

Slowly the Younger Indians will be influenced and say “Yaar Tune Chaayina ka wo Video dekha. Mast tha”


So you wonder why Apple is not banned. In China?

Same reason

It’s not the Chinese way

These Brash, Useless and Economically unsound tactics are not something the Chinese do

China will encourage Apple, use it as a gold standard to develop their own industry, and undercut the iphone eventually

Take the Chinese High Speed Rail

In 2005, Chinese imported exclusively their Boring Machines (Germany, Switzerland), Engines (Japan, Spain), Software (UK, Singapore, US) and Electronics (Japan, S Korea)

Today nearly 90% of their High Speed Rail Supplies are COMPLETELY MADE IN CHINA with same or better quality

They have decimated TBM markets in Germany with export shares plummeting from 69% in 2000 to 11% in 2023

Took them 17–18 years


That’s how China works

These loser protectionism bans don’t work for China

They COMPETE and UNDERCUT and enhance quality with competition

The Trump Ban begun in 2019

So the key is to see if China will beat the Apple and undercut the company by 2036–2037

I am willing to guarantee that they will

It’s what they do

Kind of their Mantra


Banning is what Losers do

Competing and beating with Economics is what Winners do

What is the smallest thing a person ever did for you that impacted your life?

When I was a young boy I used to get teased a lot in school and I didn’t have many friends. I was a fat kid and often got called a “fat slob”, “pig”, and “smelly or “stinky”. I took a bath at least once a week, more in the summer, and tried to keep clean so I knew I was just getting teased because I was fat. When I was eleven my best friend’s mom drove us home from baseball practice one day. Out of the blue she turned to me in the back seat and said, “Andy, you smell and you need to bathe more often.” She did not say it in a mean way but in a stern businesslike manner. My best friend was horrified and said nothing.

When I got home I immediately took a shower and wondered about what was going on. Obviously, I’d been sweaty from practice but she must have known that. As I thought it over, it also dawned on me that my skinny little sister often got teased as “smelly” too. I’d always assumed she got it from association with me, not because she smelled. So I told my mom what happened and asked her to tell me honestly if I smelled. She said, “no” and started to get a little upset about my best friend’s mom saying that to me.

I went to play outside and saw one of my classmates across the street. We had an on-again/off-again friendship up to that point. I guess we were what you might call “frenemies” today but at this point in time, we were more on the friendly side. I decided to get his opinion believing he wouldn’t hold back. In fact, he had teased me before about being smelly. So I asked him straight-up, “Do I smell?” He answered very matter-of-factly, “yes”. “My sister too?” “Yes, her too,” he replied. Then I asked him what we smelled like. He then told me that this had actually been a subject of discussion among his family who did not want me or my sister in their house because of our smell. He said his parents said we smelled like “old books”. Immediately, this brought to mind the set of Encyclopedia Britannicas I had in my bedroom closet. I immediately went home to check them out. Not only were they covered in mold but vast sections of my closet and room had mold. In fact, I found it throughout our home. But it didn’t smell to me. I was used to it. We all were. We lived in the woods surrounded by soggy tree pools so our home was often damp. We had no AC nor did we need it. This was back in 1972 before the internet and all the scares about the dangers of mold.

I told my mother what I’d learned and was able to convince her this was what was causing my sister and me to smell and probably her too. We cleaned everything with bleach, aired out the house, and bought dehumidifiers. From then on I showered every day. My friends all told me I no longer smelled. That following summer I also worked my ass off to get physically fit. I don’t know how many more years I might have suffered but for this very simple and brutally honest admonition from my friend’s mother. To this day, my best friend of 58 years still tells me how embarrassed he was that his now-deceased mother said that to me. And I always remind him she did me one of the greatest favors of my life.

Flip Flop Cherry Cobbler

CHERRY COBBLER 05 28 2028115 1
CHERRY COBBLER 05 28 2028115 1

Yield: 6 to 8 generous portions

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 8 cups cherry pie filling
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Instructions

  1. Coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
  2. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture alternating with the milk; mix until well combined.
  4. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.
  5. Top with filling and sprinkle with sugar. Cover and freeze.
  6. To bake: Thaw completely in refrigerator.
  7. Bake at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes or until browned.

Mighty China Remove All Iran Sanctions Placed By U.S and E.U

In this eye-opening video, we explore the shifting dynamics of power and influence between Iran, the United States, and China. With the U.S. imposing stringent sanctions on Iran, China steps in to form a strategic alliance, challenging the global power balance. Learn more about the economic, political, and strategic implications of this trilateral relationship and how it could shape the future of global geopolitics.

What was one experience in your life that hardened you as a person?

Going anonymous because it is a part of my life that not even my closest friends are aware of.

This is from the time when I was 12 years old. My mom had a problem where her breast would develop lumps which would have to be removed surgically. This problem started before I was born and she would undergo these procedures every couple of years. We lived in a small town with limited access to advanced medical facilities, but the doctors always told us that the lumps were not malignant.

When I was 12, this one lump was growing very big. My dad (who is a doctor himself) decided to take her to Delhi to get some tests done. I have two elder sisters and we (me, my sister and my parents) live with my grandparents.

So, my parents were away in Delhi and my grand mother would spend the day on the phone talking to relatives, spreading rumors that my mom actually had cancer and saying that we three are a burden on them and that they just want my parents to come and get us off their head.


My sisters, who were older and more mature, would mostly stay in their room, but I, by nature liked to be outside with my mom and in her absence, my granny. Hearing these things used to hurt me, but I wouldn’t tell my sisters since I knew they’d be hurt even more.

I started taking up house-work with my granny (though we had help by my granny used to crib that we 3 were a burden)-cooking half meals, helping with washing clothes. All this I did without my sisters’ knowledge (or they’d never have let me do it).

This was a time when mobiles didn’t exist in India and fixed line phones were the only means of communication. News from my parents used to reach us with a lag. We just kept praying that our mom comes back safely.

After tests at AIIMS (top hospital in India), our parents returned awaiting results and my granny immediately left for my aunt (her daughter’s) place citing she needed “rest”.

Results came in-the growth didn’t seem malignant but needed a fairly complicated medical procedure in Chandigarh. These were times when my dad was under a lot of financial pressure (though my grandparents were well-off and my dad was the only son). My dad requested my granny over call that they need to leave immediately and that though he had applied for their life savings-their FDs to be broken, but if it doesn’t happen on time, if my grandparents could lend money till the FD money could reach home.

Unbelievably, my granny just didn’t come home! She made my aunt call in saying she would stay longer at her place and that my parents can leave for the surgery! I still remember my dad almost crying, not sure if he would be able to arrange money on time to save his wife (the tumour had grown visibly big). By God’s grace, the FDs broke a day before they had to leave and they left us alone, at the trust of the neighbours who were more helpful than my grandparents!

It was a long, painful time when my mother received treatment-a surgery which lasted 9 hours, where doctors almost gave up hope, where she was on ventilator support for days. All this while, I kept hearing from my granny’s conversations as she invited friends over, that it was certainly cancer, that such complicated surgeries could only be for cancer. It kept on making the 12-year old me scared as I knew cancer is something bad, it is something that can take away my mom.

We first got a chance to speak to our mom after 35 days when she managed to call from a hotel after her discharge. Those 35 days had been a struggle beyond my imagination for my parents (which they told me much later when I was around 20). With just my dad for company-he had managed everything from sleeping on hospital floors to washing my mom’s clothes.

My mom has recovered fully and still prays everyday for the doctors who cured her.

My dad still hates my grand parents, and I don’t feel any love for them wither.

My grand dad passed away a few years ago and we still live with my granny because my mom still thinks its our duty.

But, the pain is still there, the fear that the 12-year old felt is still there ,the betrayal is still feels fresh when I see my granny.

I grew up in those 2 months, chopped off my hair because I had long hair and my granny wouldn’t help manage them.

I hardened, realized I only have my parents and my sisters who will stand by me, and I will stand by them till I die.

I realised the world is cruel, looking at my relatives’ behaviour in that period.

The child in me died.

Why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?

“Dad, when will you retire?” I asked him one day.

“Hector, I retired before you were born,” he laughed.

Confused, I asked again, “Be honest, Dad, I mean, when will you stop working?”

His response was simple, “Working? What’s work? I don’t know what work is.”

“OK, Dad, forget about it,” I said as I assumed he wasn’t willing to talk about this.

“Hector,” he said, “what you know as my job is not work for me. I enjoy architecture so much that I could do this 24/7. This is who I am. Architecture is my life.”

So, to answer your question, why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?

My father lived to be 91 and worked until his body gave up on him. He was a passionate architect who found joy in his work. That’s what kept him active and full of joy every day. His passion for architecture was infectious, and it taught me this valuable lesson about work as a lifestyle.

So, if you ask me about retirement or work-life balance, I’d say it’s better to find what you love and make it a part of your life. When you find that, you’ll stop working and start living. We achieve a balance not by separating work from life but by integrating what you love into your lifestyle.

Today, this is how I see it: It’s not about working less; it’s about loving more what you do.

That’s the secret to a fulfilling life. As my father always said, “The day you find what you love is when you will stop working.”

Heavy Rain forced Mother Cat to Carry her kitten in Streets, but No One Opened the Door for Them!

In the pouring rain, we spotted a soaked cat seeking shelter. Feeling sorry for her, we followed as she led us to her hidden kitten in the woods. We gently petted the mama cat, who had braved the relentless rain. The tiny, wet kitten needed our care, so we wrapped him in a warm blanket. Back at our home, where rescued cat families and foster cats live together happily, we ensured both mother and baby were dry and well-groomed. A vet visit ensured mama cat’s health, and we even gave the kitten a bath, revealing his adorable charm. The heartwarming reunion between mother and kitten was filled with playfulness and bonding, showing the strength of family ties.

https://youtu.be/-xzP2TMSoMQ

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

Here’s one example, regarding myself: I was working as a bouncer at a bar in Erie, Pa one night and some guy, about 24 years old or so was making quite a bit of trouble, harassing customers, pushing some, bullying others, etc.

He was somewhat high, but not drunk, and it seemed he was there just to harass and embarrass/humiliate some who were there with a date. He was pretty big, about 225 pounds and about 6 feet and acting like a real bully. When I was told about some guy doing these things ( He wasn’t near my door, but farther inside ), I went in to see what was up.

When I got there he was harassing some poor kid who was clearly scared and was with his girlfriend. As I approached, a few people pointed at this guy and said, “get him out if here, he’s an asshole.” .

I got up to him and very nicely told him to leave the kid alone and that he’d have to leave because he was causing too much trouble.

He looked at me, stood up as high as he could (I hate when they do that, like it matters), and said, “Who’s going to make me?” I said, simply, “me.”

He told me to get lost or he’d beat the shit out of me.

I said, “Well, let’s go outside and see who comes back in, and, if it’s you, you can stay.” He smiled, said,”I’m gonna enjoy this” and said, “let’s go” and we walked outside. By that time, everyone, including the other bouncer at my door knew what was going to happen.

The other bouncer, Tommy Williams, just stood at the door and smiled while we walked outside. Well, when we got out about 15 feet from the door, the moron suddenly turned and tried to hit me with a roundhouse kick which I not only blocked, but grabbed his leg and picked him up by the leg and threw him to the ground, saying, ”I don’t think karate is going to help you here.”

He jumped up and said, “how about this, asshole? and then tried a double leg takedown, as, apparently, at some time he was a wrestler. I actually laughed and said, “oh, you want to wrestle, huh?” and then as I countered his sad attempt, the other bouncer, who had heard everything, shouted out: “Wrestle? well you picked the right guy, he’s the National wrestling Champion……”

I just said, “You picked the wrong guy you moron,” and, as my friend, Tommy later said to me, I literally swept the parking lot with him.

I never saw him after two of his friends ended up taking either home or to the hospital.

He was a bully.

He got to feel like those he had bullied before.

I was NOT kind to him.

No regrets, but I bet he was kinda surprised when he heard the other bouncer tell him who I was, and he had no escape, as even as he said over and over, “I quit, I give up.”

I told him that it wasn’t up to him, It was my call and I wasn’t done yet.

That is a scary thing to realize, that you can’t quit, that it’s up to the guy beating the crap out of you. But I believe it has led others like that guy to never bully anyone again. Jeff

Have you ever met a dangerous person and not known it at the time?

Sat in a bar in South Pattaya one Sunday afternoon in 1991 I noticed a fairly fit looking bloke dressed only in flip flops and shorts. He suddenly ordered everyone a drink then turned to me and said “I see my friend that you are interested in my tattoos.” I wasn’t that interested but I wasn’t going to argue and let him tell me. One he’d got for some work in the Philippines – the other some thing in the Mekong Delta. A mahout then came by with a large elephant which the man went across to look at saying they’d always fascinated him. So I asked him where he came from – American Samoa he replied. And what did he do? He worked “for the government”.

He then stepped back and ordered another drink for everyone in the bar. I thanked him and he turned and said “Let’s eat and drink for tomorrow we may be dead”. He then looked me in the eye with the coldest eyes I’d ever seen and said “ You know it is very easy. I pick up the gun, I pull the trigger and they are gone.” It was evident he wasn’t bullshitting.

That evening I saw the bar owner – who comes from Texas – and mentioned this guy. “Oh yes that’s so and so – he’s a US Navy SEAL. Bad news when he’s drunk.”

Guess I can be thankful I met him whilst he was sober!

Atheist Overdoses; Shown Soul’s Process Of Pre-Life Planning (NDE)

Her story is powerful. All of her words should have been heard and none bleeped out….

What are your thoughts on the owner of Home Depot saying,” The rise of socialism is making people too lazy, fat, and stupid to work”?

If you are offended by profanity, best skip this response.

I, too, am in the top 1% of wealth holders in this country, albeit, on lowest rung, yet minimum wage at my small Inn is higher than it is at this billionaire cunt’s company. I have no problem finding employees. This piece of shit motherfucker sits on his yacht sipping pina coladas while his employees need a second job to just pay the bills to live their day to day lives.

This asshole supports the Republican Party with massive amounts of money, and as a wealthy person, I can tell you a thing or two about how tax laws work in this country. For those of you who make less than $250k a year but still vote Republican, your economic misery is your own fault. The Democratic Party has LOTS of problems, but one problem they don’t have is trying to make life better for the average person and if you stopped watching your choice of right wing media, you’d soon realize that. It’s people like this cunt who are destroying America and contributing NOTHING to it.

What did this prick do? He built a fucking store, massively exploited his workforce by grabbing all the loot for himself and then whining when ordinary people have had enough and don’t want to work for anymore. Fuck him, and his fellow cunt billionaires.

How do you know you are rich?

When I was doing my B Tech, there was a Professor Talukedar who used to teach us ‘Mechanics’.

His lectures used to be very interesting since he had an interesting way to teach and explain the concepts.

One day, in the class, he asked the following questions,

  1. What is ZERO.
  2. What is INFINITY.
  3. Can ZERO and INFINITY be same.

We all thought that we knew the answers and we replied as following,

  1. ZERO means nothing
  2. INFINITY means a number greater than any countable number
  3. ZERO and INFINITY are opposite and they can never be same

He countered us by first talking about infinity and asked, ‘How can there be any number which is greater than any countable number?’

We had no answers.

He then explained the concept of infinity in a very interesting way, which I remember even after more than 35 years.

He said that imagine that there is an illiterate shepherd who can count only upto 20.

Now, if the number of sheep he has less than 20 and you ask him how many sheep he has, he can tell you the precise number (like 3, 5 14 etc.). However, if the number is more than 20, he is likely to say “TOO MANY”.

He then explained that in science infinity means ‘too many’ (and not uncountable) and in the same way zero means ‘too few’ (and not nothing)

As an example, he said that if we take the diameter of the Earth as compared to distance between Earth and Sun, the diameter of earth can be said to zero since it is too small.

However, when we compare the same diameter of earth with the size of a grain, diameter of earth can be said to be infinite.

Hence, he concluded that the same thing can be ZERO and INFINITE at the same time, depending on the context, or your matrix of comparison.


The relationship between richness and poverty is similar to the relationship between infinity and zero.

It all depends on the scale of comparison with your wants.

  • If your income is more than your wants, you are rich.
  • If your wants are more than your income, you are poor.

I consider myself rich because my wants are far lesser than my income.

I have become rich not so much by acquiring lots of money, but by progressively reducing my wants.

If you can reduce your wants, you too can become rich at this very moment.

Ep 9. We just moved to Bulgaria! How is it going?

From the UK to Bulgaria.

Have you ever caught your spouse cheating on you in your own home? How did you deal with it?

I came home very sick with flu one day, went up to my bedroom, my husband was in my bed with the mail lady. I told them both to get the fuck out of my house. He argued that he needed sleep cuz he worked overnights. He needed his clothes and stuff. I told him all his clothes would be alongside the garage by Monday. It’s where the garbage is kept. Take a shirt and stuff he needed for tonight and get lost. Take a shower at her house or work. I packed up his stuff in garbage bags along with the topper to our wedding cake, some mementos from our honeymoon, I was being passive aggressive I agree, but how dare he sleep with her in our bed, in our home. We had a 2 year old and a 6 mos old. He was just wrong. He showed up a month later crying to me that she had broken up with him. I told him too bad, I didn’t feel bad for him in the least. I got the house( and mortgage) in the divorce. It was ok cuz I wanted the kids to stay in their home and school and I made more money, the root cause of the problem. He felt inadequate cuz I was a senior manager and he was doing maintenance work. This was no issue for me, just for him.

What caused you to fall out of love with your past lover?

When I first got married, we would be passionate everywhere, if you know what I mean, bed, floor, couch, where ever. We would do things for each other. And we enjoyed each other’s company. She was from Japan I am white american.

I learned to speak Japanese and we lived in Japan a few years and life was good. We had kids together, but over the years things grew cold between us.

They say that people change and you grow apart. I don’t think either of us changed. I doubt that most people change. What I suspected happened was that I would base my love on how much she loved me and visa versa. If she did something nice for me, I would do something nice for her. Or if I did something nice for her, she would do something nice for me.

That all sounds fine and dandy, but I think in practice, it doesn’t work. When I do something nice for her, I expect something of equal niceness in return. However, often is the case that you don’t perceive what is done in return is as valuable as what you gave him or her. So the next time you do something, you feel less inclined to do something as nice. And so the love kind of fizzles.

You basically stop caring because you perceive your partner as not caring. And chances are your partner feels the same way about you. Neither person has changed. They are both the same person, but the love isn’t there anymore. They let it spiral into nothingness.

That is what my wife and I did. After 20 some odd years of marriage, there was nothing. I really had no desire to do anything for my wife, because she wasn’t going to do anything for me. We didn’t hate each other. We helped each other when needed, but that is about all.

I was unhappy with the marriage. I either wanted out or I wanted it fixed. But after 20 years of marriage, I knew that she wasn’t going to try and fix the marriage. I knew that she thought I would not change so why should she have to do anything special and if I did change, it would only be temporary and things would go back to how they were, so why even try. I knew this would be her mind set.

So I had 3 options. Divorce, stay in the lifeless, sexless marriage, or take a chance and do something about it.

I thought perhaps divorce would be the better way. Start anew. She had given up on me and didn’t care.

But I decided to give it a try anyway. I completely revamped my approach. I decided that I would try for one year to fix this. I would not require her to do anything. I would just do these things on my own. If these things wooed her back then she would be back on her own terms and not mine.

So I did the following.

  1. I committed to get into shape… better diet, exercise
  2. I committed to do something special for her everyday regardless of whether we were getting along or not.
  3. I committed to do at least an additional 30 minutes of house work every day.
  4. I committed to pay her a sincere compliment at least once per day.
  5. I committed not to fight with her and to only have calm arguments with her.
  6. I decided to fix her dinner and breakfast as often as possible.
  7. In essence I decided to love her every day.

As I thought, I got essentially no response from her day after day. I mean she would sometimes say thank you, but that was about it. After about four months she started to change. I kept at it. She continued to change. Ok.. she didn’t change. She was the same person, but she saw that I was trying. She saw that she was important to me. She saw that I wasn’t giving up. She wanted to be loved.

She started doing things for me again. We started talking a lot more and doing a lot more together. We started dating again and going on trips. It was almost like we were newly weds again, but with less passion, but it felt great. Sometimes I would just hold her in my arms for 30 minutes.

Love can be revived. It is not easy. True love takes work. Making the decision above to love her regardless was the second best decision of my life. The first of course was to marry her. Our marriage is not perfect, but I look forward to seeing her every day. She is an awesome woman. She is basically the same person I married. We just let our love die. We were lazy lovers. She asked me one day what got into me and I talked with her about my plan. I think it was a pretty good plan and so did she. And yes, we are still married, but much more happily now.

I knew our love couldn’t be one sided, but I also knew it needed to start somewhere and why not me. Ask yourself, why not you? Do you want the love back? what kind of sacrifice are you willing to make to have the love back? If I had decided that she needed to do something while I was doing something, then we would have been right back to where we started. You can’t base your actions on what the other is doing in return. You need to commit to love regardless of what is done in return. That is the sacrifice and that is where real love will begin.

Edit.

I can’t believe how many people have read and liked this. Someone mentioned the 40 day challenge. I found out about that several months after I started on this path. There is a movie out there along these same lines called fireproof that is worth a watch.

For me things didn’t change around in 40 days. It took quite a bit longer. But you have to ask yourself is divorce really the better way out? Yes, sometimes it is. But infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of life as we know it.

I look back on these events and they seem like a distant memory, the hurt and pain. like a forgotten dream. But it really wasn’t that long ago. I am a better person because of it. She has become a better person as well and we are definitely a better couple.

6 REASONS WHY AMERICANS ARE OBESE. WHAT IS CAUSING THE RISING OBESITY IN THE USA?

It’s no secret that obesity in America has been an ongoing issue and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

In fact, according to Harvard University; about 2 in every 3 adults or 69 percent of the population in the US are overweight while1 in 3 adults are obese or 39 percent.

It has to make you wonder how the most powerful and advanced nation in the world can be so obese especially when compared to countries in Europe and Asia, it’s not like we don’t have the means as a nation for healthier lifestyle and better-quality food.

Or maybe Americans are meant to be obese, and they want us to stay that way? Sounds controversial right, well in this video we will expose 8 reasons why Americans are so obese compared to other countries.

Why is Burma so poor?

Our country born with troubles since its independence.

Have you ever heard about the Burma Campaign in World War 2? It is quite thorough and one of the most destructive campaigns largely forgotten by Western Powers and historians. The entire infrastructure of the country was destroyed during the course of the war. By the end of the war, the country was totally in rubbles and a massive number of firearms were widespread even in the village level which was left behind by warring powers. The situation was ripe for armed insurgencies.

The country was never been administered as a whole before British arrival. The region out of central Myanmar was usually administered by local petty chiefs with vassal-high king relationship which never need any direct contact between different cultures (except a few tributary missions and merchants). There is no large-scale internal trade and the transportation was also difficult. Different cultures and ethnic groups suddenly came into contact under British rule. As usual, the British exploited the situation by creating a divide & conquer strategy by favouring ethnic minorities over the Burmese majority. This led to extreme Burmese nationalism.

Due to economic disaster in the 1930s and later devastating war, the country is under very hard economic conditions which was a natural breeding ground for communism. The Burmese Communist Party which never believed in British plan for independence already went rebellion even before independence.

Then, the world’s longest-running civil war began.

In the 1950s and 60s, the civil war lost momentum and Burma came under the spotlight of international relations due to its leading role in third world nations, one of the founders of the non-aligned movement. The country was also the only real democratic nation in Southeast Asia with regular elections. The country largely recovered from the war at the beginning of the 1960s and hopes ran high. A federal system was proposed by the ethnic leaders and the government agreed.

All out of sudden, the coup came. At first, people weren’t serious as they already seen a short 2 years long military rule which stabilized the country and the coup ended with the mostly free and fair elections. By the time they realized that the military is no longer intended to give up the power this time, the civil war gained intensity and all the things we achieved in the last 10 years were gone.

The military junta slowly transformed themselves into businessmen by laying hands on the country’s economy entirely. The Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) ran by the military alone control nearly 40–50% of the country’s economy directly or indirectly. With the lack of a proper banking system, the ordinary people have no access to much-needed capital for investments. Small and Medium scale businesses have no chance to grow unless the monopoly of military elites and their relatives were removed.

My daughter hit her younger brother in the groin so he slapped her across the face. I confiscated all his devices and grounded him for a month. Was that a good enough punishment or not?

So he responds in self-defense and you teach him that if the attacker is female he’s supposed to just sit there writhing in pain getting injured? And she got off scott-free?

What’s next? She stabs him and he gets tossed in a closet and fed gruel and water? Because you might as well.

If you knew she attacked first, you should have punished HER. You discipline all parties that have transgressed, not just the ones who have a penis. Having a vagina doesn’t magically bestow immunity on a person.

If you confiscated all his devices, you should have confiscated hers as well. For his month of grounding, she should have received two.

There’s a big difference between a slap in the face (which stings but quickly dissapates) and kicking someone in the jewelies (which could cause irreparable damage).

No. You’re punishment wasn’t good enough. You half-assed it due to sexist reasoning. Go back and discipline your daughter as well.

Who Wants To Be A WARMONGER?!

Inspired by the war hawks that run the West, it’s the game show that always ends badly!

What is the kindest act you have ever witnessed?

Even though this was a relatively small thing, it affected me profoundly.

On my lunch break from work, I went to a fast food place. A homeless man came in. He was absolutely filthy, with long, greasy hair and dirty hands, dressed in raggedy clothes with a piece of blanket wrapped around him. He smelled bad. He didn’t seem able to talk and he went from table to table, sort of chittering at people, like a rat. People were pretty horrified and either gave him a quarter or just ignored him.

There was one table with 4 Mexican day laborers. These are guys who often are in the U.S. “illegally” and who hang around outside home improvement stores, hoping to pick up jobs. They don’t make much money and sometimes people cheat them, knowing the laborers can’t go to the authorities. A lot of these men may live in one house so they can save money and send it back to their families in Mexico.

When this homeless man came up to their table, they asked him, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Then they gave him all of their food, packing it up for him so he could carry it away. Then they didn’t go and buy more food themselves (they probably couldn’t afford it), but simply cleared the table and walked out. They knew what it was to suffer, and they very likely would suffer a bit from their generosity. But that didn’t stop them; and they were the best example of kindness I have ever seen. It was over 30 years ago, and it still affects me.

What is an insane coincidence that you’ve experienced?

The night my daughter died in a double hit-and-run in Colorado, a stranger stopped to help her and was witness to the second car that hit her, ending her life. He had been trying to help her though; he called for an ambulance and although it was ultimately unsuccessful, every effort was made to save her life. That stranger is a hero as far as I’m concerned.

The man who tried to help was very traumatized by what he had witnessed and had to change jobs so that he no longer had to daily pass by the place where my daughter died as he went to and from work. Unrelated to the accident, he and his wife got rid of their landline when they moved. I wanted very much to thank him but although I had tried every way I knew, his job had changed, he no longer had a telephone I could call 411 for and he no longer lived in the same place. I finally decided that simply being grateful would have to be enough, even if I couldn’t tell him myself.

Two years later, I’m sitting at the dinner table in a hostel in London and strike up a conversation with a guy also having dinner there. He was from the same area as me. He remembered my daughter’s death not just from it being in the news, but because the husband of one of his co-workers had stopped and tried to help the young lady.

OMG.

To make a long story short, he put me in touch with his co-worker and I was able to email her and express my thanks and gratitude for her husband’s efforts that night. She emailed me back and said that although her husband was desperately sorry he couldn’t save her, he was grateful that she didn’t have to die alone. He is a hero in my eyes and I’m so glad I got to let him know how grateful our family is. May he and his loved ones be abundantly blessed.

China Reveals HUGE Sanctions On US Tech Giants Due A STAGGERING Unpaid $1 Trillion

The direct consequences for the implicated U.S. tech companies are potentially disastrous. China is a significant market for many of these entities, and the sanctions could drastically affect their revenue, stock prices, and global operations. Companies like Apple, which rely on China for both sales and a vast portion of their supply chain, could see significant disruptions. The same goes for firms like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, which have invested billions in capturing the Chinese market and establishing a supply chain nexus.

Furthermore, these sanctions could also impact hundreds of smaller U.S. tech firms and startups that might not be direct targets but could suffer collateral damage due to the intertwined nature of the tech ecosystem. This isn’t just a bilateral U.S.-China issue; the sanctions have ramifications for the global tech industry. Supply chains across the world are intricately linked, and disruptions in China could lead to ripple effects impacting tech manufacturing globally. Countries and businesses that rely on these tech giants for critical infrastructure, software, and hardware might find themselves caught in the crossfire.

The European Union, India, Japan, and South Korea, among others, will be closely watching the developments. Any prolonged conflict could force these nations to recalibrate their tech dependencies and alliances. On the diplomatic front, this escalation further strains an already tense U.S.-China relationship. The last few years have witnessed a hardening of stances on both sides, with trade wars, tech bans, and territorial disputes. This new development might just push the diplomatic ties to a new low.

As the news of China’s unprecedented sanctions reverberated across the globe, key stakeholders began weighing in, highlighting the vast complexities of the issue. Major international business councils, traditionally silent on political matters, expressed deep concern over the possible long-term disruptions to global trade. Wall Street responded predictably, with significant declines in tech stock prices. Investor sentiments seem to mirror the broader fears. If China and the U.S., two of the world’s largest economies, can’t resolve their differences amicably, what hope is there for the stability of the global economic order?

Moreover, experts in international relations also sounded the alarm. The escalation of this magnitude in the U.S.-China tech conflict marks a deviation from conventional trade disagreements. The integration of geopolitics with business is not new, but the scale of this rift indicates a deep-seated power struggle reflecting ambitions, fears, and strategies beyond mere economic interests.

One of the most pressing concerns for the sanctioned tech companies and the international community is the verification of China’s claim. How is this enormous one trillion dollars figure reached without transparent documentation and a clear breakdown? Suspicions linger over the validity of such a vast sum. The call for a neutral third-party audit has gained traction in various quarters. International bodies like the World Trade Organization could potentially mediate, ensuring that claims and counterclaims are examined impartially.

While the U.S. government has not yet announced any countermeasures, there’s widespread speculation about potential retaliation. Would the U.S. respond with equivalent sanctions on Chinese tech companies? Could there be a broader economic response that targets other sectors of the Chinese economy? Such a move would undoubtedly lead to further escalation, intensifying the trade war and potentially causing harm to global economic stability.

https://youtu.be/0HdX5XhiMMQ

Date Pudding Cobbler

Date Pudding Cobbler
Date Pudding Cobbler

Yield: 9 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed, divided
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon cold butter
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 3/4 cup chopped dates
  • 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 cup water
  • Whipped cream, for garnish
  • Ground cinnamon, for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar and baking powder.
  2. Cut in butter until crumbly.
  3. Gradually add the milk, dates and walnuts.
  4. In saucepan, combine water and remaining brown sugar; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; add the date mixture and mix well.
  5. Transfer to a greased 8 inch square baking pan.
  6. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
  7. If desired, top each serving with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

What are the cleverest scams you have come across?

As an immigrant, one thing that always spooks me is paperwork and all related things to immigration process.

One day, I was outside working on my garden, when I came back inside, there were four missed calls. Just like a habit, I copied and pasted the phone number to Google search, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Corpus Christi Border Patrol Station popped up.

I started panicking. Why? Why they called me?!?? So, when the phone number appeared again a few minutes after that, I picked it up.

A woman on the phone let me know that there was someone used my identity to cross the border, tried to traffic drugs into the country. She told me that this could happen because I traveled outside of the country recently (which was correct). I was nervous. Then the woman proceeded to tell me she ‘would help me to verify and straighten things up’. Then she asked me my full name, DoB and Social Number.

At this point, I started smelling B.S. I told her, wasn’t it an identity thief case? Shouldn’t she have those information already? She got furious and told me, she was ‘trying to help’ and I needed to ‘cooperate’ or else I would ‘end up in jail’.

I decided to cut off the call, told her I would contact my lawyer and said goodbye then hung up.

I did some searching, then I decided to call back the phone number. It went to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Corpus Christi Border Patrol Station for real. I talked to an officer. He told me I was right hanging up the call and told me scammers nowadays gets really aggressive. They can hi-jack the phone number line like that, so the Caller ID looks like it’s legitimate from government offices. He also told me: If the government wants anything from you, they will send snail mails, they don’t call.

It was a very interesting experience.

Star Trek – Parallel Universe

Groovy living

2023 10 05 10 19
2023 10 05 10 19

In the middle 1970’s I visited my fathers’ second cousin in Youngstown, Ohio. He had two daughters my age. And we stayed with them. Those girls were tall, blonde and nice. I’ll bet that they became amazing when they filled out and became grown women. I’ll tell you what.

They lived in a nice suburb, and it was decked out in mod 1970’s style. Silver and velvet wall paper, lots and lots of shag carpeting. A nice avocado green kitchen with wood trim, and they even had a downstairs cellar pool table. I was stunned. They were so groovy!

Times change. I know. Today, I want to dedicate some photos to the 1970’s era. Those of you that know… KNOW.

What is the craziest thing you’ve seen in a private school?

A little boy was beating on a little girl at a private school where I was working as a regular substitute teacher. None of the regular teachers were doing anything, so I went over and separated them. I was called into the office and told that touching children at their school was forbidden. I explained the situation, and they said it didn’t matter why, we were not to do it. Their ATTORNEYS had made it clear to them that no adult was to touch a child for any reason in their school building or on their property. Period. I went home and searched news services for anything that might have caused attorneys to insist that little boys be allowed to beat on little girls while teachers looked on. Yeh, there was quite a scandal, I couldn’t believe I’d never heard about it. I went into the office the next day first thing, and explained to the principal why standing by and letting that small child be physically terrorized was just as bad as what the attorneys were trying to prevent. He wouldn’t hear it. I walked out and never went back.

Peppered Beef Puffs

Beef Curry Puffs 16 768x512 1
Beef Curry Puffs 16 768×512 1

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

Steak

  • 2 pounds minced steak
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup packaged dry breadcrumbs
  • 6 shallots
  • Salt, pepper
  • (2 ounces butter
  • 1 pound packet puff pastry
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon water

Mushroom Sauce

  • 3 ounces butter
  • 8 ounces button mushrooms
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup dry red wine
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 2 beef stock cubes
  • 1/2 teaspoon basil
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • Salt, pepper

Instructions

Steak

  1. Put meat, eggs, breadcrumbs, finely chopped shallots, salt and pepper into bowl; mix well.
  2. Divide meat into 6 equal portions. Shape into small loaves, pressing in lightly.
  3. Heat butter in frying pan, cook loaves on all sides until golden brown, remove from pan, cool.
  4. Cut pastry into 6 equal portions, roll out each portion to 9 x 5 inches rectangle.
  5. Put cold meatloaf into center of each pastry strip, brush edges of pastry with egg yolk mixture.
  6. Bake in hot oven for 10 minutes or until golden, reduce heat to moderate, cook further 15 minutes.
  7. Serve sauce separately.

Mushroom Sauce

  1. Heat butter in pan.
  2. Add finely sliced mushrooms, sauté until mushrooms are tender.
  3. Add flour, stir until combined; cook for 1 minute.
  4. Remove pan from heat, add wine, water and crumbled stock cubes.
  5. Return pan to heat, stir until sauce boils and thickens; season with salt and pepper.
  6. Add basil and tomato paste, mix well.
  7. Simmer sauce uncovered for 5 minutes.

What is the biggest culture in China?

The culture of the Han people is the biggest culture in China.

Han Chinese constitute approximately 92% of the population of China and 95% of Taiwan; 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, and about 17% of the global population – making them the world’s largest ethnic group, numbering over 1.3 billion people.

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image 8
  • Malaysian Chinese children wearing Hanfu, to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in Kuala Lumpur; Sept. 24, 2023

Mandarin is the primary language of the Han people, and hence the official language of China, and with such a vast majority of the population identifying themselves as Han, you can find their influence at nearly every corner of China.

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image 45

The written history of the Han people dates back to 1,000 B.C., which is one of the longest unbroken written histories in the world aside from Jewish people. The ancestral homelands of the Han, where they live in the highest concentration, are along the middle and lower parts of the Yellow River Basin, the Yangtze River basin, and the Pearl River.

With an agricultural and urban culture, it is not until recent years that you would find the Han people in mountainous or desert regions. Despite being such a large group, the Han people still share a common culture of celebrating traditional cuisine, clothing, and customs, which have been passed down from its ancient history.

  • All other ethnic groups – 56 officially recognized – in China outside of the Han’s are considered to be minority groups, and the largest minority in China is the Zhuang people, whose population today is around 18 million. They are mostly located in Southern China, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
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image 44
  • Young girls from the Zhuang ethnic group
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image 7
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image 43
  • Han Chinese commemorating the 2,574th anniversary at the birthplace of Confucius in Qufu, eastern Shandong Province, China.

Chinese people tend to honour tradition, but they also embrace many parts of Western popular culture. Thanks in part to the enduring influence of Confucianism, Chinese customs include a strong sense of family, a deep respect for hierarchy, a reverence for education and an appreciation for harmony over conflict.

Why do so many people suddenly think it’s acceptable to continue to live with their parents into adulthood?

You used to be able to work 40 hours and rent a HOUSE.

When I first started going to college a huge 4 bedroom house that allowed pets was 1250 a month. Now its 1400 for a decent 1 bedroom apartment. A really shitty two bedroom is available for 1400 but no pets.

Just 8 years ago when I first turned 18 and moved out — you paid first and last or first and deposit to move in.

Now you have to pay first, last, full month as deposit, plus extra for the pets. If I had 5000 to move somewhere I’d be buying a house.

Two people working 45 hours plus weekend side gigs dont even make enough to clear the 1600 monthly rent necessary for our barely adequate housing for myself and our daughter. I have a Masters in administration. I didnt pick something shitty, I chose to ignore passions and get a useful degree. Every year that goes by — the decent jobs now only schedule you 31 hours, because at 32 they’re required to pay benefits. Now, if you’ve been there 5 years but you’re sick for a week, they still fire you. Because now companies dont care. They don’t know your name. They have 15 people lined up for your job.

Rent should be 30% of your income. Now? Its 85%. We pay for our food with our side gig money. We need a car for work but we share one. We have never had credit cards, because we could never even fathom spending money we dont have? So our credit, while not horrible, isnt good. We dont have enough credit nor enough savings to even consider buying a house, which are all absolutely overwhelmingly expensive even out an hour out of town. I got up to working 80+ hours a week before finally I couldn’t anymore and it was costing me raising my daughter. We never took vacations, only my daughter and dogs have insurance because it was too expensive for us adults. We cooked our own meals, we used our left overs, I meal planned for a month at a time. We had very few special occasions for treats, and I sought out all free and cheap kids fun stuff. Crafts and socializing. But then rent got higher. And higher. And I couldn’t work any more. My partner already worked an 8-6 5 days a week. I worked two jobs, 31 hours at my degreed office job. Another 45 at any restaurant that needed help.

There is NO reason two people working for above minimum wage 40+ hours a week shouldn’t be capable of buying a home. Renting shouldn’t cost all of our money. We should be allowed to have pets.

Like what the fuck.

It didnt become “suddenly acceptable “ it became UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY.

Bedazzled Elliot has a TINY problem

Scene from the movie Bedazzled where a huge basketball star discovers he has a small penis.

Have you ever talked a mugger out of robbing you?

Back in the late ’60s, my father, a self-employed plumber, was working in a house in a Brooklyn neighborhood that wasn’t a very good one.

My dad had no problems working in the poorer neighborhoods. He was especially compassionate about larger families in smaller homes with one bathroom.

One day, while working in a house, he found he needed some tools from his car. Some guy came up from behind him and held a knife to his neck.

Gimme the money,” he told dad.

He rummaged through dad’s pockets.

That’s not the money,” dad said calmly, “those are parts for my plumbing clients. My money is in my other pocket.”

As dad went to get his money, the lady of the house came running out.

Please, mister, don’t hurt the plumber! He has to fix our toilet!” she pleaded.

You a plumber?” The mugger asked.

Yes,” my father answered.

My toilet’s been broken in my apartment for weeks,” the mugger added. “The landlord won’t fix it. My kids all gotta use the neighbor’s.”

My dad said quietly, “Let me finish here and I’ll come to your house and see if I can fix yours.”

The mugger removed the knife and stepped back.

You’d do that—for me?”

For you and your family,” my dad said.

Dad wrote down the address and promised he’d be there soon. The mugger walked away.

The lady of the house wanted to call the police. Dad said no, not to worry. He fixed their single toilet, and, sure enough, drove to the mugger’s apartment. Dad saw a bunch of children and no working toilet. Dad fixed the problem.

The mugger shook dad’s hand and started to cry. He hugged dad and apologized over and over for trying to rob him. My dad hugged him back.

He told the mugger, “Son, if you want to really help your family, don’t keep robbing people. If you go to jail, who will help them? Try to get a job. I know it’s hard.”

My dad came home that night and told us this story over dinner. My brother and I thought our dad was losing his mind. I started to cry thinking my father was in danger.

He could have hurt you, Daddy!”

My dad pulled me to his side. “No baby, that man wasn’t looking to hurt people. He just wanted money for his family.”

How can you tell?” I asked.

When he put the knife to my neck, the blade wasn’t sharp. It didn’t leave a cut. He couldn’t have cut butter with it. He was looking for help.”

My father was just like that. He was the sort who would pick up hitch hikers and swear he was going their way—even if it was really out of his way. I saw him stop a few times in the pouring rain to help people—someone changing a tire or needed a jump start for their battery. One man wanted to give dad money for helping, and dad, always with a smile, would say no.

I miss my dad.

Bedazzled – Rich

Fun clip.

The Politico reports that the infrastructure bill sends a message to China who had been outpacing the United States on infrastructure. Will this legislation put the United States on more of a competitive pace with China to may surpass them?

BEIJING: The infrastructure bill touted by the Biden administration is not as wonderful as the Democrat Party claims it to be.

The US$1 trillion bill will lead the US federal government into deeper sovereign debt while creating new infrastructure projects that will take decades to complete if approved.

The government boondoggle will not free up funding immediately for the construction of new highways, bridges and railroad lines, since that requires contractors winning approvals from local, state and federal governments while they must obtain

hundreds of inspectors’ permits and support from local community activists.

Building a bridge in the United States is not a simple process even if Washington provides ample funding for it.

I had witnessed the complexities of government-back infrastructure when I lived in Dallas from 2007 to 2010 and I was assigned to cover the Dallas County Commissioners’ Court public hearing every Tuesday morning for the Dallas Blog.

You would often hear amazing ideas to construct major projects in Dallas County but then they got political. Even extending the highway a few extra miles required much public debates, while the landowners directly impacted sought big payouts from government agencies.

But that was just the beginning. Contractors made bids to compete for the project and if they lost out they hired protestors to attend the Dallas County Commissioners’ Court to give speeches claiming the new project would become an environmental hazard or harm local communities.

If Dallas County Commissioners voted in favor of the highway extension, they required an environmental impact report that took years to complete.

Most construction projects from the moment they are approved to the time contractors start building took seven to nine years.

I recall one time after two decades of waiting for approvals; contractors for a toll road extension in North Dallas were blocked from construction when an elected official at the Dallas County Commissioners’ Court announced he would block it since the leading construction firm failed to meet racial hiring quotas on the management side.

But upon closer review, I learned from County officials that the elected official allegedly was upset the contractor never gave him a donation for his re-election campaign.

I mention this tale to explain why the US will continue to struggle in playing catch up with China in regards to infrastructure. Beijing is way ahead and Washington will not be able to start construction on new projects for another few years at the earliest.

You can review the Politico article with the link HERE.

As reported by Politico:

But a review of proposed spending in Beijing’s latest annual budget and five-year plan indicate that the U.S. faces an enormous challenge merely in keeping up. Here’s a number that is illustrative of the gap:

China poured more cement from 2011-2013 than the U.S. did in the entire 20th century.

Numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics show that China spent about $8 trillion on infrastructure investment in 2020.

The U.S. spent $146 billion in federal money over the same period.

A comparison of 2018 infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP by 48 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries ranked China first at 5.57 percent compared to 0.52 percent for the U.S.”

In recent years, China has constructed some of the world’s finest infrastructure projects. They had built very long sea bridges, road tunnels and highways reaching to many parts of the country.

The building in China will keep going and the US will fall further and further behind.

Star Trek – Throw The Switch

Biden said that America will go to war if China invades Taiwan. If China does invade, and the US declares war on China, will the US military reintroduce the Draft?

It is impossible for Biden to have made such a statement

Impossible!!!

That’s because the US officially follows the ONE CHINA POLICY

This means China can never invade Taiwan because they are the same country

It’s like India invading Punjab tomorrow


So all US can do is to provide weapons to Taiwan and claim to help them defend themselves citing human rights and aggression

It will be like a Civil War & extension of the 1931–1949 Chinese Civil War


US in fact not fight against China at all

They will give an excuse of Chinese aggression and get ASEAN to turn against Taiwan and get the entire South China Sea nations to join a Military Alliance with the United States by SACRIFICING TAIWAN

That is the game plan of the US termed Operation Majullah coined by Pompeo in 2018

  • To provoke China into an invasion of Taiwan by 2023 (Assuming Trump won the election in 2020, so now 2025–2027)
  • To convince a terrified Philippines & Vietnam into joining US in a Military alliance and allowing NATO to expand to South East Asia
  • Persuading ASEAN to join NATO and finish the encircled shield against China and recommence a trade war with full cooperation of the ASEAN to hopefully break the CPC and it’s hold on China

Of course Trumps defeat has set back Operation Majullah badly because this operation assumed Russia would be close to the US under Trump (Assuming he won 2020)

Yet now Russia is firmly with China so that opens up a long trade route

Plus the world had COVID so US is economically much weaker

Plus the Ukraine war has draines the West of it’s influence and strengthened China and Russia and the BRICS

So it’s a different world now and Operation Majullah would be redundant now

“THIS IS IT! Most people have No idea what is Happening in Maui, Oprah & the Rock

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Oprah Winfrey face backlash for asking fans to donate to Maui fund instead of contributing more themselves The family of a woman who died trying to flee a wildfire on Maui is suing the county, the state and one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, alleging they neglected to maintain their fire-prone property.

https://youtu.be/NFT2EW9B9hw

What shocked you when you opened someone’s safe deposit box at the bank?

In the early 80’s I was Operations Officer (in charge of all non-lending, non-trust functions) of the headquarters branch of a large, state-wide bank. 80 odd branch employees on the first three floors, senior management of the region and holding company on floors 7–11.

This bank had grown and evolved from a family owned institution, and a solid chunk of the shares were still held by family members, and a number of the Directors and senior managers were related. A former President and Chairman had recently died, and his son, a Senior Vice President in charge of Commercial Lending, was his estate’s Personal Representative, but had not yet filed and received Letters of Administration. In addition, the owner keys could not be located, so it would need to be drilled.

Under our state’s laws, a safe deposit box can be opened, an inventory of contents made, and certain time-sensitive items can be removed, such as a will or life insurance policy. As a large office with a disproportionate ratio of older customers, this was something we saw with some frequency. It required the bank’s Safe Deposit Custodian (a non-officer employee), an officer, and a locksmith. Unlike normal box access, the bank representatives had to be present, go to a private room in the Safe Deposit area with the estate representative, make the inventory and insure only authorized items were removed, and then re-secure the box contents pending further legal proceedings.

Not this time. Me, the Custodian, the Senior Vice President son, the Corporate General Counsel, and a stenographer from the holding company cluster around the locksmith, who had the door open in about 30 seconds. We took the rather large size box upstairs to a Corporate conference room and opened it.

It contained this somewhat crusty old gentleman’s most precious and important documents – 40 years or so of birthday cards, Christmas cards, letters and notes to and from his wife, children and grandchildren, school papers and projects, refrigerator drawings, and family pictures. Not a single will, stock certificate, or business paper.

There was not a dry eye in the room.

5 Scary Truths about The Digital Nomad Life

This NEEDS to be said.

Can China destroy the American Navy fleet if they get into Chinese waters?

China can destroy any fleet anywhere in the world. Not only an American one. Not only near and around China, but anywhere.

The idea that China has the ability, technology, capability and wherewithal to destroy a complete fleet of military grade vessels is well known, well established and incorporated in contemporaneous Pentagon planning scenarios.

Just because China CAN, does not mean that it WILL.

After all, the United States can eliminate hunger, and homelessness overnight simply by funneling a fraction of the USA budget dedicated to Ukraine towards the needs of American citizens. But, of course that’s NEVER going to happen.

Questions like these used to raise my ire; get me infuriated by the ignorance of those questioning the obvious, and a general fury at that the troll and ‘bot attacks that invariably follow. But now, given the utter hopelessness of the Untied States on the global stage, I just shrug my shoulders and feel pity.

It’s like this question:

Can the United States drop a nuclear weapon on Beijing?

Well. Yes it can.

But it won’t.

Or this question:

Can the United States assassinate Alexander Putin?

Well, it can.

But it won’t.

Or this question:

Can I force my spouse to eat dog shit?

Well, you can.

But you won’t.

In all the cases above, a hypothetical fantasy is generated. But the scenario will never occur where the test of validity were to be realized.

Why?

Because other factors come into play.

So, let’s go back to the question at hand.

Can China wipe out any American fleet that sails near China?

Well, it is obvious. Of course it can.

Will it do so.

No. Other factors come into play.

I know that there are ‘bots, teenagers, drunken misfits, and trolls that want to argue this point, but China is not stupid. It will maximize the damage through retaliatory measures it deems suitable, given the situation and scenarios that manifested.

My PERSONAL opinion is that if China sinks one fleet, it will sink them all.

The reason is simple; economies of scale.

And that’s not all, folks.

Not by a long shot.

Sorry to say.

So, let’s just keep our personal fantasies, and delusions to ourselves. Just because you own a shotgun, doesn’t mean that you intend to go Postal, perform a “suicide by cop” or have a Columbine mass shooting with it. Seriously. Those are just fantasies. Nothing more.

China is currently working with the United States on a wide range of issues, and as the provocations by the neocon arm of the American government subsides, so with the over all prosperity of the (remaining) American middle class increase.

It’s a win-win for everyone!

Why are so many smart and diligent people successful in school but fail in real life?

Here’s “School-Smart” vs “Street-Smart” in a LEGO analogy:

School is like getting a very complex LEGO set:

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image 56

The goal: “We expect you to put this Lego together,. We will show you how to do it! Follow the instructions and you will succeed!”

So, we go from first grade through to sixth grade.

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image 55

In each grade, we get a set of instructions to follow:

For example, this is first grade:

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image 54

Attention!

If we fail to meet the required standards, we WON’T be able to move forward. If we DO meet the standards, we will be allowed to move to the next level — each level stacks upon the other, growing in complexity.

If we complete elementary, we move on to middle school, and then to high school:

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image 53

Once we successfully finish high school, we move on to college. We continue “stacking” up ALL the sets of instructions, meeting the standards.

If we don’t do it EXACTLY as expected, we will fail!

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image 52

Finally, the day comes …

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image 51

We celebrate …

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image 50

CONGRATULATIONS! We all get a “certificate” that proves we are capable of following very complex instructions.

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image 49

Then, we face the real world …

The real world is also like Lego, but with NO INSTRUCTIONS!

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image 48

We feel confused and overwhelmed. “What should I do?” we ask ourselves.

We urgently need someone to tell us what to do (boss). After all, we were all trained to FOLLOW instructions, indoctrinated, not really educated.

What’s the difference?

Indoctrination teaches us WHAT to think, not HOW to think!


So, to answer your question, why are so many smart and diligent people successful in school but fail in real life?

Being “school-smart” is radically different than being “street-smart.”

Do you want to be “street-smart?”

Consider this: We are now in an age where computers, algorithms and robots, are unbeatable at FOLLOWING instructions. If our value to the world is being good at following instructions, we then do NOT stand a chance at succeeding in today’s new economic environment.

Who will win?

“Street-Smart” in the new economy means we have extraordinary creative skills, meaning that we can innovate and think “outside the box.”

Creativity CANNOT be automated!

Computers, robots and algorithms CANNOT compete with us in creativity. Well, at least not yet …

Schools MUST stop “standardizing” us. We are all different and that’s where success comes from, from our unique abilities and strengths that make us stand out in this competitive world.

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image 47

We now live in a very different world. Our educational system was built and perfected to serve the Industrial Age. The Industrial Age was all about competing with efficiencies. Following instructions with excellence increased productivity. Today that work belongs to machines, not to us.

Today the world belongs to CREATORS!

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image 46

There are NO instructions ahead of us! The way we solved things yesterday is now outdated. Change is only accelerating.

The sooner we understand this, the better chance we all have at succeeding in this world of exponential change.

THE REAL REASONS WE LEFT THE UNITED STATES (and why we can’t move back)

We left the United States for several reasons, but only one prevents us from ever moving back. Are we upset about it? NO! Our only regret is not leaving SOONER!

Why is America the best place to live?

Absolutely not the best to live in, I would say it’s the worst developed country to live in.

Life for most people is about work, just running a hamster wheel hoping not to slip or you will be climbing out a hole. I remember life being a rat race just staying afloat and never catching a break. I imagine wealthy people don’t experience this but when 80% of the country are living paycheck to paycheck, obviously that’s not a good sign.

Food prices are triple sometimes four times more expensive than what I have paid in Western Europe for the same goods. Yet our minimum wage is significantly lower, so when 1 hours minimum wage barely covers a couple items of groceries, imagine how those families are feeling the sting for housing, water, utilities. Many 1 bedroom apartments cost more than an entire 1 month minimum wage.

You will prioritize work over family, because there is little choice in the matter.

So little choice because a social safety net is not available to help you, I’ve exhausted this option to death on hard times and it just wasn’t there. All I got was a lot of wasted time and disappointment.

Healthcare, higher education, child care is exhorbitant, they will drain your disposable income, along with the high costs of basic things that Americans believe they are getting a great deal for, for example in UK you get higher speed internet for a fraction of the price an American pays, I have cable with lots of channels, WiFi, and landline for £40 a month, my mom has the same with less channels for over $169 a month (that was 2014 prices).

The worst part of living in the US is the limited choices for people at the bottom, social mobility is low. There is this illusion you can make your life anything you want, this is available to the well connected and rich but it’s sold off as something all Americans can achieve through hard work and it’s not obtainable.

Another issue is just existing in the US is a price. If I don’t want to be homeless and totally ostracized by society, I have to pay a price…just the act of existing means I must pay for health care at the very least. If you happen to fall on difficult times, the fines, fees, interest, just pile up and it consumes you. I compare it to someone piling rocks on your chest and sternum to your lungs collapse. The thought of trying to maintain a bare minimum life style while problems are karate chopping you from all angles is exhausting.

In the 2.5 years I lived in the UK, at my very worst I have never felt this level of despair and hopelessness. If I allow myself to slightly remember my past in the US, the whole thought conjures up loads of anxiety, and resentment.

The USA is NOT Letting Citizens Renounce

What you didn’t mention and should have mentioned is that the US is one of only 4 countries in the world who taxes their citizens no matter where they live or where they make their income. So the obvious reason the US is rejecting renunciation of US citizenship is to keep wealthy international businessman from escaping this always/everywhere tax system.

What is the most incredible thing you’ve seen someone work out in their head?

My father and I were just chatting and he offhandedly said he wasn’t an educated man. I said “Not formally but you’ve had a great practical education.” He said “What do you mean?” Dad had left school after the 8th grade but had worked for a company that provided the equipment to move water, pumps and pipelines and such for many years. I asked “If you have a pipe 18” in diameter under a pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, how many gallons of water a minute are you moving?” He looked at me a moment, stared off into space for another moment and then gave me a number. I smiled and said “See? I’d have to dig out my textbooks and calculator to get an answer and you just did that in your head! Serious practical education!” I think he was pleased at my expression of respect.

How will the USA react when BRICS will control 80% of the world’s petrol production with new members?

G7 is in denial. According to them BRICS is a “gang that can’t shoot straight” due to the fact that “all members have their own individual interests”.

They even fail to realize what this sort of criticism says about their “rules based order” where everybody is supposed to jump or run on command, regardless of own interests, and they have a nerve to call it freedom and democracy.

Giant lights flame: and check out Taiwan team’s arrival

Wow! Just WOW!

How do you respond to people who say money is everything?

When my wife was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, I found out the worth of money.

It allowed me to buy time with my wife. She was given an 18 month prognosis by her Gynocological Oncologist. (Don’t be ashamed if you didn’t know that was a medical specialty, I didn’t either in April of 2016 when we met Dr. Steven Andrews. Now, his name goes to any woman who might need it.) She and I resolved to fight her cancer for two reasons:

  1. To have as much quality time as possible.
  2. For whatever her fight could teach her team for the NEXT woman.

We knew there were limits to what insurance would pay. I accepted them, she wasn’t so sanguine. There were a couple of times she begged me not to go on because of what we were spending. I firmly said NO.

In the end, due to the medical miracles Dr. Andrews and his team pulled out of their collective asses on a regular basis, Andrea’s 18 months became over 4 years. I held her hand when she took her last breath, kissed her cooling forehead, and called the home Hospice nurse to pronounce her death officially.

The cost? 85% of our retirement savings. I will be living most of the rest of my life on Social Security. The worth? As the MasterCard commercials say: PRICELESS. She and I made memories together in many different ways, many of them during the time we weren’t supposed to get. Yes, hers are gone, but mine remain, and that is worth everything to me. I knowingly spent the money to keep her beside me as long as she was willing to fight.

And Dr. Andrews may be a step closer to saving another lady later. I know he’ll give many more extra time with their loved ones.

I bought time, and it was worth incalculablely more than the money I spent.

In Malaysia, I noticed all the newly built buildings, public transportation, and park are not properly maintained after a few years. Everything looks run down. Is this a norm here or lack of funds?

I’m sure you are aware, but I don’t live in Malaysia. I’ve only had the privilege of visiting thus far. While in Kuala Lumpur, which I assume qualifies as a large city, I was very taken with the architecture. In my opinion, it was like a mosaic of old and new. Colonial and modern. Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Some bright and colorful like the Chinese temples, others somber and stately like the buildings from colonial days, others bright and shiny like the Merdeka building and the Petronas towers.

I can’t deny that some streets could do with some cleaning and anti-littering campaigns. But I also don’t expect perfection from a developing country and I certainly shouldn’t complain when I am a guest in the country and treated with such kindness from hotel staff and Grab drivers, to dear friends I cherish. Without fail I was made to feel welcome. Who am I to judge?

If you are bothered by messy streets then I have a few suggestions. First, you could organize meetings to mobilize people in the area to have a community beautification day where any able bodies who are willing could pick up trash, sweep the streets, and make minor repairs to building fronts. Secondly, you could print and pass out pamphlets highlighting the importance of a clean community environment for the sake of disease prevention. Third, petition the government for funds to revitalize and gentrify the area and to pay more people for trash collection. In my state the cities employ people for the purpose of landscaping and garbage disposal. I’m not sure how that works in Malaysia though.

If none of that helps then move. Seriously. If you are unhappy and uncomfortable there’s no reason to stay. And the people around you likely don’t appreciate the complaints without action.

Is the EU’s Global Gateway project aimed at competing with China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

Let me tell you the biggest thing that the EU’s Global Gateway project has accomplished in the past nine months.

It organised a party. One party.

It wasn’t even a real party. It was an online party.

Despite being an online party, it cost $400,000.

Next, guess how many people showed up for the party.

Six. Only SIX.

Well, that means the virtual party cost about $66,667 per attendee.

Does this inspire you with confidence about how skilfully the EU will manage its budget around the Global Gateway? Do you even feel sure that the EU will actually build any infrastructure in the real world – as opposed to imaginary party venues in the Metaverse?

At the moment, it is meaningless to speak of the EU Global Gateway competing with China’s BRI. They are just not doing the same sorts of things. China is building mega-sized ports, bridges, highways and railways. The EU is holding online parties for six pax.

Zelensky at the UN, kicking and screaming

The Duran. Very interesting.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

I didn’t actually witness it, but, saw the aftermath. My youngest daughter was a bit reserved and quiet. She had a lot of friends, though and they nicknamed her “Chipper”.

One day I got a call from the Dean of Girls at her junior high school asking if I could come in. When I got there the first thing I saw was two hall lockers (the tall upright ones) with the doors caved in.

The Dean told me that some of the boys had been getting grabby.

“Chipper” was talking with some friends in the hall when a passing boy grabbed her breast. She never said a word, she grabbed him by the throat and proceeded to try to throw him through a locker twice.

The Dean said, when she got there, the boy was crumpled on the floor with my daughter standing over him daring him to get up.

I said: “I’m proud of her. But, I’m willing to pay for the damages.”

The Dean smiled and told me the boy’s parents were on the way and they were going to pay for the damages.

When I picked my daughter up to ride home. I said: “You made a bit of a mess”. She said: “He had it coming.”

I said: “You’re right. How about we stop for ice cream?”

As a Christian man, back in my Asian church, I never struggled with lust for women because I’m not really attracted to Asian women but at my new church with a lot of different ethnicities, I’m really struggling with lust for women. What should I do?

Become a Muslim and marry four of them and have children with each of them.

China Foreign Related Military tech.

When China had no navy or air force, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps would dare to cross Yalu River in North Korea. After China has an air force, the United States only dares to sit across the 17 degrees north latitude. After China’s naval and air rocket forces are formed, we don’t have any more problems dealing with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is currently developing a hypersonic missile to increase its presence in Japan and South Korea. The question is, aren’t fixedly deployed missile bases vulnerable to missile bombings? When the island and the mainland China fire missiles at each other, which one suffers more? As a result, the Air Force basically has no chance in the Western Pacific. Warships can still run away, but aircraft are really useless. Guam was immediately taken care of by first wave of Dongfeng 26.

local wars require detailed analysis. If it is a protracted all-out war, the United States will be exhausted. No matter how profitable the financial industry is, a real fight still depends on how many tons of steel are produced.The Chinese and American militaries are the only militaries in the world that have completed information transformation and have begun to move towards intelligent and unmanned armies. The problem with the U.S. military is that it wants to integrate the entire U.S. military into a digital command system. As a result, various practical factors and historical problems have made it bloated and complicated. The Chinese military is relatively late due to its military reform, confidentiality system and informatization changes. The outside world has always been blind to the internal situation of the military and has only a partial understanding. Although more and more new equipment and new technologies are being exposed, the People’s Liberation Army itself is becoming more and more mysterious.

Taking the 1998 flood fight and the 1998 earthquake fight as examples, we can intuitively understand the PLA’s combat readiness and mobilization status and shortcomings. With the improvement of the country’s comprehensive strength, the military no longer needs to be on the front line all the time. After all, the COVID-19 epidemic is just a glimpse, and it is more of a big test for politics and society. China is the only industrialized country in the world with all industrial categories, and it continues to invest in upgrading industrial capabilities. The marginal costs brought about by large-scale production are reduced, and a large number of engineering talents continue to promote technological progress and efficiency innovation while solving one problem after another. We can regard the COVID-19 epidemic as a global biological and chemical war waged by USA. China has not only demonstrated unparalleled industrial advantages and political mobilization advantages, but also exposed some problems. As the “lighthouse of the world”, the United States wanted to show off, but its butt was exposed. The war has extended from a battle of blood and fire to a comprehensive contest of technology, political system, population quality, industrial system, culture and public opinion. The boundaries between the military and civilians are gradually blurring. War is no longer the exclusive preserve of military personnel. Everyone is colliding in the whirlpool of the emergency times. We firmly believe that in the end, it is people who determine the victory of a war .

(1) Army confrontation in local wars

Assuming that armies of US and China engage in one on one decisive battle. When we read the report of US patriot performance is really rubbish. On our hand we have these weapon.

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PHL-191, a long-range guided rocket, can be equipped with 370mm guided rockets and 760mm tactical missiles.

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The Huolong 280A tactical missile has a double-cone warhead, commonly known as a water-floating bomb. The existing air defense system cannot effectively intercept it. You think rockets are fired at each other, but they are actually derailed missiles bullying the “patriots”

Strategic Bureau Chief created top ten ranking of weapon each country, US weapon rank first in all category except rocket launcher, no matter how the US try to deceive US, we know truth.

In other words, if it is an army duel alone, it will be on a battlefield of 100-500 kilometers. The U.S. Army can only be bombed unilaterally.

(2) Air Force comparison

In terms of overall combat strength, air power has always been the core of the US offensive. Even as the navy most favored by Congress, the core of offense is still aircraft carrier-based aircraft.After equipping the complete J-20 and J-16 series with WS15, the Chinese Air Force is the only one capable of fighting against the U.S. Air Force. At this stage, the Chinese Air Force is only transforming from homeland defense to peripheral offense. Relying on military bases deployed around the world, the U.S. Air Force can achieve global strikes. The United States dismantled the F22 production line and concentrated on producing the F35. Today, after the J-20 was put into service in batches, it is a stupid move. But there were no problems at the time. The original design intention of the F22 was to hunt the Su-27 on the battlefield in Eastern Europe. However, as an air superiority fighter, the F22 does not have ground bombing capabilities. The mission of the U.S. Air Force is to seize air superiority and then blow up all obstacles in front of it. The Army is responsible for cleaning up the battlefield. Just like the Gulf War. This is will need an in depth analysis after this article, i will write about air battle between J-20 and F-35. I will also write a comprehensive J-20 reception anything related to J-20 after this article.

(3) Navy comparison

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To be honest before 055 destroyed entered service, the chinese navy has no chance of winning a navy combat.

The 055 changed everything, or to be more precise, it was the YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile carried by the 055.

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With a range of thousands of kilometers, the 055 destroyer is no longer the escort of the aircraft carrier, but the firepower center of the fleet. Instead, carrier-based aircraft only need to focus on driving away enemy fighters and cruise missiles. The 112-unit vertical launch system of the 055 itself was originally designed for air defense and anti-submarine warfare. When the electromagnetic catapult aircraft carrier and the J-35 enter service and become combat effective, the PLA naval fleet will form a dual-core attack queue. At that time, nuclear power was no longer enough. conventional ballistic missile The United States has been researching stealth anti-ship missiles over the years, but the cost of developing them is too high, and the U.S. Navy has never been equipped with them. Ten years ago, there were no surface ships that could threaten the Navy. As a result, they have been making do with subsonic anti-ship missile. To put it bluntly, except for strategic nuclear submarines that launch nuclear warheads. Submarines have always been a hobby of second-rate navies. Only in a silent ambush in a fixed water area is there a chance of winning. Once targeted by a destroyer or anti-submarine aircraft, it can only be passively beaten. Therefore, the role of German submarines in World War II was not to confront the British and American navies head-on, but to intercept merchant ships.

Now the Fujian ship is about to undergo sea trials. If the Ford aircraft carrier has not solved the reliability problem of the electromagnetic ejection and arresting device after the Fujian ship is put into service and has achieved combat effectiveness, it will be really a reverse event, we will have the upperhand.

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Academician Ma Weiming. Academician Ma recently issued a document that our country needs to build a new type of warship, a nuclear-powered all-purpose ship that integrates electromagnetic guns, laser weapons, microwave weapons, all-electric propulsion systems, and comprehensive management systems, and is also equipped with two electromagnetic ejection tracks to launch unmanned ships. Man-machine. Of course, this kind of warship is indispensable for its electronic warfare system.

(4) Mainland coastline versus islands and aircraft carrier battle groups

Put aside the Grand Theater Chess. The most likely local war between China and the United States is in the Western Pacific, that is, around taiwan island. In the ten years from 2010 to 2020, the equipment of China’s navy and air force has made a complete leap forward. And many people who don’t care about current affairs still have their mindset of the last century.

With the Rocket Force’s hypersonic missiles, the Air Force’s fifth-generation electronic warfare aircraft and long-range supersonic anti-ship missiles, the Navy’s aircraft carriers and 055 large-scale drive and the sea-based hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile Eagle 21, and combat support long-range early warning radar space-based reconnaissance With the launch of satellites, the area within 1,000 kilometers of China’s coastline has become an absolute military restricted area. 1,000 to 4,000 kilometers is China’s advantageous area for firepower projection. The decisive factor is the range of the ballistic missile.

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Dongfeng 17 not only glides in the atmosphere to avoid all existing anti-missile systems, but more importantly, it is low cost.

Dongfeng 17 uses the propeller of Dongfeng 16 to glide through the atmosphere to reach a range close to that of Dongfeng 21 , so the manufacturing cost is low. In recent years, China has made breakthroughs in the integrated molding technology of solid rocket motor fuel, which no longer requires manual carving and decoration of gunpowder pillars. Production costs have been significantly reduced, and the result is that ballistic missiles have become the price of cabbage, and Dongfeng 17 has begun to serve in large quantities. Unfortunately, Dongfeng 31 and Dongfeng 41 are too big, so they can only rely on manual modification of the gunpowder pillars.If the production cost of intercontinental ballistic missiles is reduced much in the future and waverider warheads and scramjet engines can be used, the picture will be so beautiful.When the Dongfeng missiles of the Rocket Force and the YJ-21 of the Navy and Air Force can effectively destroy the aircraft carrier fleet, the only one problem left is positioning.The simplest way to locate an aircraft carrier is to send a ship to follow it. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s strategy to deal with the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet was to use destroyer tracking and anti-ship missile saturation attacks.

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Of course, during wartime, the aircraft carrier fleet spreads out and starts attacking hundreds of kilometers away, so tracking is only a last resort.Therefore, there are shore-based long-range early warning radars , space-based reconnaissance satellite patrols, underwater submarine patrols with unmanned underwater vehicles, large-scale early warning aircraft in the air, stealth unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, and even electromagnetic signal reconnaissance. Ballistic missiles themselves can also serve as reconnaissance vehicles. In short, use all means to locate the enemy’s coordinates. Similarly, the farther away from the coastline, the fewer means of reconnaissance, and the more difficult it is for the aircraft carrier to accurately locate it. It’s just that the aircraft carrier loses its threat to land when it is far away from the coastline. And China’s aircraft carrier fleet has broken away from the barriers of the land air force and rocket force, and the danger has also greatly increased.Aircraft carriers at sea can still operate, but air force bases, naval ports and missile launch sites on land can only be named one by one as long as they are within the missile range.

(5) Hypersonic ballistic missiles

In the 1990s, China is fully engaged in research on ballistic missiles under tremendous pressure of the superiority of US airforce and US navy. At last, the double-cone Dongfeng 21D with air rudder was built, making it a reality for ballistic missiles to maneuver against surface ships at the end. Then the Dongfeng 26 was further developed to cover Guam. Then the epoch-making Eagle Strike 21 was developed, which allowed surface ships and aircraft to carry ballistic anti-ship missiles, completely changing the rules of war.

There are currently three technical paths for hypersonic ballistic missiles. Biconical warheads, waverider warheads and scramjets. The double-cone warhead can significantly increase the range and terminal maneuverability of the missile when it re-enters the atmosphere. In the 1980s, the United States used biconical warheads in Pershing medium-range ballistic missiles, but they were not water-floating warheads. They were retired after the United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty limiting intermediate-range ballistic missiles. North Korea and the Houthis have also tested biconical warheads.

Although it is not a hypersonic ballistic missile, it can achieve terminal limited orbit changes, which greatly increases the difficulty of interception by anti-missile systems. Currently, only China and Russia have biconical hypersonic ballistic missiles in active service. Russia currently only has one “Dagger”. On the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, russia conducted targeted clearing and attacks on the “Patriot” air defense system.

It is obvious that Russia does not have much equipment and can only use it sparingly. The hypersonic ballistic missile that the United States is closest to successfully testing is also a biconical warhead. Yes, the United States has no active hypersonic ballistic missiles. That’s why he is so passive. Asfor the waverider warhead in active service, only China’s Dongfeng 17 is publicly available. According to public information, Dongfeng 17 does not fly out of the atmosphere after launch, but begins to glide laterally at the edge of the atmosphere, with a maximum speed of Mach 10 and an attack speed of Mach 5 at the end. The special thing about Dongfeng 17 is that it avoids the detection and attack range of the current mid-course anti-missile system, and its ultra-high mobility makes the terminal anti-missile system completely unable to intercept.

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What is inconsistent with Qian Xuesen’s trajectory is that the Dongfeng 17 does not fly out of the atmosphere. It also has a vector nozzle that can maneuver laterally. Even if a missile launch is detected during the boost phase, the impact point cannot be predicted and it is even more difficult to track when maneuvering without thrust. As for rocket scramjet engines, China, the United States and Russia are all in the research stage. Traditional rocket engines come with their own fuel and oxidizer. The ramjet engine introduces compressed air into the rocket engine combustion chamber to save fuel. The problem is that the engine first requires rocket combustion to accelerate to supersonic speed and then start the sub-burn or super-burn engine. The best performance range of sub-fuel engines is around Mach 3, and the best performance range of scram engines is around Mach 5. Therefore, the best combination is the engine composite design rocket plus sub-burning and super-burning, three forms. Or accelerate the aircraft to supersonic speed and release the sub-fuel and super-fuel engine. July last year, China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University completed a multi-modal test of a ramjet engine.

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Now you know why USA sanction NPU and hack NPU website.

(6) industrial competition under total war.

If we reach the stage of total war, the logic of war will shift industrial potential into industrial military. United states has completely failed on this.

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The U.S. Congress has been requiring the U.S. Navy to speed up the manufacture of new surface ships and purchase at least three of the latest model “Arleigh Burke” class destroyers every year. However, the U.S. Navy still submitted the purchase of two ships in the budget list for fiscal year 2024. Planning Check.

McCord, the U.S. military’s top budget official, said that’s because U.S. shipyards are barely able to build two destroyers a year, let alone three. In 2022, the United States will actually have only one Burke-class destroyer in service. China has 3 055 destroyers and 4 052D destroyers in service. The reason behind it is actually very simple.

In 2022, the total tonnage of U.S. shipbuilding will be 600,000 tons, including approximately 100,000 tons of new warship tonnage. 2022, China’s total shipbuilding tonnage will be 40 million tons, accounting for 55% of the world’s total tonnage. In 2022, nine large warships with a capacity of 150,000 tons will be commissioned. The world’s total crude steel output in 2022 will be 1.8785 billion tons, of which China’s output will be 1.013 billion tons, accounting for nearly 54%. The United States is the fourth largest steel producer in the world, with a crude steel output of slightly more than 80 million tons, and the EU alone is less than 220 million tons. In 2022, India’s crude steel output will be 125.1 million tons. in 2022, China’s power generation capacity will be 8,534.25 billion kilowatt hours (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), a year-on-year increase of 9.7%; the United States’ power generation capacity will be 4,115.54 billion kilowatt hours, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%.China’s railway mileage will be 155,000 kilometers in 2022, including 42,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. In 1916, the operating mileage of railways in the United States reached its peak, reaching 410,000 kilometers. Now, there are only more than 220,000 kilometers of railway mileage left in the United States. In 2021, the total railway freight volume in China was 4,773.72 million tons, and the total railway freight volume in the United States was 12.026 million tons. It is clear that the total mileage of American railways is longer, but the freight capacity is hundreds of times different. On the one hand, there is a gap in demand for industrial raw materials such as coal, iron ore. On the one hand, American railways are in disrepair, and their transportation efficiency cannot be improved. There were 868 rail freight derailments in the United States in 2021.

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The weakening of basic industrial strength has hindered the progress of military industry. In the field of hypersonic ballistic missiles, which the United States is eager to catch up with, test launches of biconical missiles often fail. It is normal for weapons tests to fail. What is abnormal is the reason for the failure, such as launcher failure or rocket engine starting failure. Just like the Ford aircraft carrier, the electromagnetic ejection failure is understandable, after all, it is a new technology. It makes no sense that the weapon lifts frequently malfunction. After the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is not surprising that the United States turned to South Korea to produce 155mm artillery shells. In a total war, the first wave consumes active weapons, equipment and personnel. The rest depends on the reproduction capacity of weapons and the ability to mobilize personnel. Today, only the aviation industry can retain the face of American industry. The reason why we skipped the air force earlier is that in the Western Pacific, the air force must rely on the flight runways of air force bases on islands. As soon as the war started, the Rocket Force focused on taking care of them. they have room to take off. The only place that can allow the U.S. Air Force to exert its full strength is the United States itself.

F35 Production Line

Although the Boeing 737 max has brought shame to the United States, Boeing factories have repeatedly reported that workers’ quality has deteriorated due to marijuana use. Before the epidemic, Boeing produced more than 800 passenger planes per year. Lockheed Martin’s F35 production is also above 150 aircraft per year.

For comparison, China delivered its first passenger aircraft C919 last year, and plans to have a production capacity of 150 aircraft in five years. The J-20 production capacity is estimated to be 30-50 aircraft. Where are the limitations? Training of production line and industrial workers. Taken together, in local wars, China has an absolute advantage in East Asia. China’s ocean-going offensive capabilities are improving, but the United States still has the advantage on blue ocean war. It is only a matter of time before China’s industrial strength is finally transformed into military strength in a full-scale war.

Therefore, the United States has been fanning the flames around China and constantly provoking, but it does not want to enter the war by itself. It is best to replicate the situation in Ukraine, with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia resisting harm from the front, and the United States standing behind and selling arms. Once China puts on a desperate posture, the US military will retreat on its own. In a total war, China will win the final victory, but it will only be a miserable victory. The United States has been standing still for 20 years. Even if China’s military technology keeps up, there is still a huge gap in weapons inventory.

The United States wants China to enter the conflict in 2025, stimulate the return of financial capital to the United States, and take over the supply of U.S. debt. China wants to delay it until 2030, or at least until 2027, and is ready to defeat others without a fight.

China is actually the only country in the world today that is preparing for a world war.

The whole industrial category system manufacturing is not to brag, but to always be prepared to fight against the entire world in an isolated and helpless situation. It is no exaggeration to say that even in the event of a full-scale nuclear war, China can rely on strategic reserves to recover quickly. China’s history is too long and its imprint is too deep.

(7) Informatization

As the pioneer of the Internet revolution, the US military is undoubtedly the leader in military informatization. The Gulf War shocked the whole world. Traditional armies were powerless to fight back against armies empowered by information technology . What is informatization?

Basically, soldiers are networked together and commanded in a unified way. US the only army back then who have this ability because at that time china Without an information-based society, there would be no information-based military. Just like there is no industrialized society without an industrialized army. Because of the core position of the military, although advanced systems and advanced technological weapons will be the first to be used in the military, without a responsive social environment, the military will also be dragged down by social realities and become a castle in the air. For example, the Chinese army has established a modern army by learning from the German-Russian military system and through its own exploration.

However, the confrontation with the world’s largest industrial country on the Korean battlefield completely exposed China’s weakness in industrial strength and lack of professional military logistics support. On the ChangJin Lake battlefield, the volunteer soldiers who were short of ammunition, food, and clothing relied on their tactical proficiency and revolutionary will tempered by blood and fire to cut off the retreat of the US Cavalry Division at all costs.

After blowing up the Watergate Bridge three times, the U.S. military air-dropped steel beam components urgently customized in Japan to the battlefield. After engineers urgently installed them with engineering equipment, the main force of the U.S. military retreated smoothly.

Thirty years later, after arduous industrial construction, China has initially established a basic heavy industry system. In 1979, the People’s Liberation Army, which had been lacking training for a long time, faced the Vietnamese army. The quality and command of its individual soldiers were significantly different from those in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and they were even inferior to the enemy. But the military-industrial system established showed great progress.

That is, the density of artillery fire exceeds that of the US military at that time. our army is not a volunteer army. In the subsequent two-mountain battle, the major military regions will conduct fire mainly with artillery firing. After the reform and opening up, China transformed from a planned economic system to a market economy, and the society transformed from an agricultural society to a modern industrial society. We thought we catch up.

So when the trend of informatization was revealed in front of the Chinese military, how anxious it was at that time. We experienced hundreds of years of suffering when we were left behind in the industrialization era. Will we continue to fall behind in the information age? Back to the basic concept, what is informatization? The definition given by data scientist Shannon: “Information is something used to eliminate random uncertainty.” Definition of information war: It is a full-scale war carried out under the premise of network digitization and the extensive use of information technology and information weapons and equipment. The specific battlefield performance is-destroy upon discovery.

For example, in a war simulation game, our teammates and enemy units can directly communicate with each other and cooperate with each other in real time on the small map without any barriers. It is extremely difficult to achieve on the actual battlefield. Indian air defense systems shot down their own rescue helicopters, and Iranian air defenses shot down civilian airliners. Identification of friend or foe is still a big problem today. Fortunately, China has caught up with the information age. Although we now criticize Lenovo, NetEase, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, etc., at that historical stage, these companies were undoubtedly the promoters of China’s information society. Huawei, BOE, Changxin, SMIC, BYD, DJI, MiHoYo, etc. The only possible Information war happened is when a war between USA and China broke out. Because only China and the United States have complete information industries in the world today. The United States uses Internet social tools to cause destruction around the world, while China builds walls and engages in Internet social governance. Other countries have no choice but to surrender the Internet and let the situation go unchecked. During the war disconnecting the Internet means completely losing the possibility of victory. China has benefited from an unprecedented wave of industrialization in the new century, and computers and mobile phones have begun to spread on a large scale. After 2010, society began to enter the mobile Internet era again. People realize that the so-called informatization is the “Internet of Everything”, the ultimate integration of the Internet and the Internet of Things. The popularization of sensors, mobile terminals and communication technologies has generated massive amounts of data, and big data applications have been born in order to process these data. Big data processing has promoted the progress of artificial intelligence (AI algorithm). In the past, the United States bullied small countries, but it actually did not reflect the power of informatization. The Russia-Ukraine war is also known as the “poor man’s version of information war.” First, the Ukrainian army used the US “Starlink satellite” to access NATO’s reconnaissance system. After the reconnaissance satellite long-range early warning aircraft discovered the Russian target, it sent the message to the frontline commander of the Ukrainian army team. The Ukrainian army team decided on its own to ambush the target. There is also the fact that the Russian military uses mobile phones to access the Ukrainian telecommunications network for communication, which is simply a living target. In the early days of the war, a large part of the casualty rate among Russian officers was related to miscomunication. The reason is not complicated. There is no digital communication equipment between Russian military tanks – this is not a problem due to lack of money but because without any concept of information technology. However, Russia is still good at learning war in war. Immediately carry out targeted electromagnetic interference. “Starlink” communications and electronic reconnaissance are greatly reduced. On the one hand, it reflects Russia’s profound accumulation of electronic technology, and on the other hand, it also illustrates Russia’s lack of war awareness – what has it been doing so long ago. A person who is fond of fighting but not good at preparation will only gain his progress after suffering losses.

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“Murmansk-BN” integrated electronic warfare system. As the main combat equipment of the Russian army’s electronic warfare, this system can perform strong electromagnetic suppression on targets within 20 frequencies within 5,000 kilometers.

Russia and Ukraine use a large number of drones for battlefield reconnaissance and calibration, plus a large number of artillery pieces left by the Soviet Union. The cannon has the same barrel, but its power has been increased by several levels. Because of the massive smuggling of a certain civilian four-copter drone from a large Eastern country, Russia densely arranged a large number of frontline observation points in front. How dense is it? The drones on both sides can collide with each other. The battlefield that was originally filled with the fog of war became transparent. On the one hand, the whole world was watching the war live broadcast. On the one hand, any tank concentration and assault on either side will inevitably lead to a salvo of artillery fire from the by opposite side.

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Last year, the Russian T72 crossed the river and was set on fire by artillery.

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This year, the Leopard 2 tanks and Bradley armored vehicles assisted by NATO were attacked by the Ukrainian army without air defense. They were greeted by Russian mines, artillery, Lancet cruise missiles, and armed helicopters in turn.

The mine-protected vehicles assisted by NATO can only protect against roadside bombs, and can only be penetrated by the Russian army’s large number of mines.

Now the Russian army has even played tricks, using cheap shuttles to attach mines, grenades, and RPG warheads to carry out suicide attacks in VR.

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The thousands of FPV quad-rotor drones purchased by the Russian army cost about 1,000 per unit, and it is cheaper to procure parts and assemble them from Shenzhen Huaqiangbei.

Comparing it to the Russian military’s own Lancet cruise missile, which costs US$100,000, it seems like it costs nothing.

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The tanks and bayonets that military fans imagine, and the T80 vs. Leopard 2, cannot be realized on a battlefield where they are immediately destroyed upon discovery. The reason why Russia and Ukraine are called the poor people’s information war. For a big country, this kind of random flying of four-axis drones should not occur on the battlefield. Whether it’s electromagnetic suppression, laser irradiation, or anti-aircraft artillery. For China, even if its drones collide, it can still drown the opponent with its terrifying production capacity.

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The Land Shield 3000 close-in defense gun is a modification of the 1130 close-in defense gun on a warship to an armored vehicle, with 11 Gatling tubes and 12,000 rounds per minute. Can intercept missiles up to Mach 4.

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Although the US military does not pay attention to the army’s air defense system, you cannot say that it does not exist.

Ground-based electronic warfare systems are as dazzling to the Air Force’s electronic warfare aircraft as search lights in the night sky, waiting for them with an anti-radiation missile. Russia and Ukraine have been fighting fiercely for a year, and the air force has completely become a cheerleader. The Russian air force has the advantage but did not destroy the Ukrainian army’s air base and air defense system in the first time. It probably has no money. It has never gained control of the air, and the Russian Ka-52 only launched the “Vortex” anti-tank missile at the ultimate range of 10 kilometers when fighting the Leopard 2. The Russian military’s annual military expenditure of 80 billion US dollars is probably a lot of propaganda. There is also a question mark on where the US$50 billion in US aid to Ukraine was spent. Is it really written off? No way? Why are their firepower are so low?

One thing that can be mentioned is that the United States is the pioneer of the information-based military. A large number of digital combat systems and joint combat systems have been developed. Basically, each military service has one set, and the theater joint command has another set. Later, in order to solve the problem of too many vertical layers, insufficient horizontal interconnection, and poor ability to identify friend or foe, the US Global Command and Control System (GCCS) was developed.

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Found the problem? Although it looks very cool, the US military has always wanted to develop a system, which is a center to command thousands of troops. Under the system with American characteristics, the sea, air, and ground forces compete for military spending. Unified command is inherently troublesome. On the battlefield in Iraq, there were situations where the presidential envoy, theater headquarters and military commanders were competing for command. Who would listen at this time? The final result may be that everyone listens to no one, and everyone goes their own way. Anyone who has been exposed to the project code knows that no matter how simple a system is at the beginning, it will be iterated over time, functions will be improved and hardware will be updated. In the end, it will pile up into a “hill of shit”. Imagine that when you sit in the position of the President of the United States and issue instructions to the nuclear base, you may need to broadcast signals. To issue orders to the Seventh Fleet Anti-Submarine Group – the Japanese Navy, a fax machine is required, and to issue orders to the Air Force’s F22 and F35 requires separate arrangements. Because the data links of different production years are incompatible, what about upgrading the F22? It couldn’t be done, because after the suspension of production, Lockheed Martin directly dismantled the production line to save costs. Where is the contradiction? The original design of the American command system is for an order to go directly to the soldiers. The soldiers do not need to think, they can just obey the orders. But an army is made up of individuals. Soldiers, officers, military services, theater commanders, the Department of Defense, and the White House all have their own agendas. A $1,000 coffee pot, tens of thousands of dollars of warship toilets, $6 million of Italian goats, and trillions of dollars of bad debts are expectable.

(8) Intelligent and unmanned – the battlefield heading into the future

While information warfare is still being hotly debated, military changes in the new era of intelligence and unmanned warfare have arrived.

The predator swarm drones in the “Wandering Earth 2” are smarter and more maneuverable than in reality.

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Question: In the movie, when the J-20 and Su-57 take off at the same time, why do the drones chase the Su-57?

中国无人机“蜂群”作战系统亮相 !无人机密密麻麻对地精准察打_哔哩哔哩_bilibili近期,中国电科集团电科院开展了陆空协同固定翼无人机“蜂群”系统的相关试验试飞工作,验证了陆上发射和空中投放固定翼无人机“蜂群”开展对地察打、精确打击等各项任务能力。(海客新闻)

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14i4y1j7jg/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=fae9e83d4aec1b716a9461884314dfa9

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浙大Science Robotics封面 全自主微型飞行机器人集群_哔哩哔哩_bilibiliScience Robotics 2022年5月封面 论文标题:Swarm of Micro Flying Robots in the Wild https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abm5954https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qv4y1K7Y6/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=fae9e83d4aec1b716a9461884314dfa9

The two-seat version of the J-20 has begun to be developed, and together with the unmanned wingman, it constitutes the development direction of the new era.

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无人机、排爆机器人、机器狗、无人车……_哔哩哔哩_bilibili无人机、排爆机器人、机器狗、无人车……_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qT41137om/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=fae9e83d4aec1b716a9461884314dfa9

UAV reconnaissance, guiding fire strikes; blasting minefields, EOD robots quickly clear minefields; commandos launch attacks, UAVs cooperate with fixed-point blasting; in addition, robot dogs go out to conduct reconnaissance, and no one Vehicles accompany the support… A combined brigade of the Army’s 80th Group Army conducted an all-element combined battalion real-force confrontation exercise. Multiple types of unmanned equipment were unveiled, and human-vehicle collaborative training was carried out.

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Combined with the recent Ukrainian battlefield, the Ukrainian counterattack was tortured by landmines before it reached the Russian defense line. But for Zelensky, mobilizing troops may not be worth as much as unmanned vehicles. However, new smart landmines will be more widely used in the future, including automatic reconnaissance and friend-or-foe identification, automatic leaping overhead attacks, and one landmine can control hundreds of square meters of battlefield. Anti-smart landmines have become a new topic.

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At the 2022 Zhuhai Air Show, the VT5U foreign trade light tank on display carries an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and console for unmanned driving, greatly improving battlefield awareness and reducing casualties.

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At the Abu Dhabi International Defense Exhibition, “China Military Industry” exhibited the “Sky Shield” anti-drone system. On the basis of the original laser killing method, it adds killing methods such as high-power electromagnetic suppression and combination of projectiles and artillery, making it closer to actual combat.

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U.S. Marine Corps – Logistics robot dog, material handling robot dog, robot mule, robot cow. It can carry more than 180 kilograms of weapons or other equipment for about 32 kilometers. Like a well-trained military dog, its structural design is highly flexible and can accompany soldiers in harsh terrains, including woods, rocky beaches, etc.

We found that the United States was the first to apply drones on the battlefield. A superstar on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.

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RQ-4 Global Hawk, which was put into service in 2000, is active in military hotspots around the world. The cost is US$4000-120 million. It was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2019 and will retire in 2022. Off-topic: Japan spent 61.3 billion yen to purchase three Global Hawks in 2014, with maintenance costs of 263.7 billion in the next 20 years. As a result, production delivery will only begin in 2020.

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The MQ-1 Predator, an integrated surveillance and combat drone, is both famous and infamous. It first flew in 1994 and has participated in all U.S. foreign wars starting from Kosovo. Counter-terrorism and indiscriminate killing of civilians have become its labels.

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MQ-9 “Reaper” drone

What is strange is that among the drones that have been active around the world in recent years, there is a lack of U.S.-made drones. Chinese Wing Loong and Rainbow series drones active in the Middle East and Africa. In the Naka conflict , the Turkish TB-2 equipped by Azerbaijan stole the show. The Iranian “Witness-136” suicide drone purchased by the Russian army that bombed Kiev, Ukraine, also made a splash. As the world’s largest arms trafficker, the United States’ absence is really inappropriate. So, whose fault is this? Answer: The enemy is on Capitol Hill. The U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to ban the export of large drones. When the AVIC Wing Loong drones and China Aerospace’s Rainbow drones were dumped in the Middle East, they were not receptive. In order to satisfy the contradiction between the growing needs of gold customers for foreign military intervention and our country’s love of peace, we simply exported the production lines to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Let me tell you a little story. The tall drones were originally flown by retired pilots. Without it, because the airflow in near-earth space is complex and requires manual control by experienced pilots. Nowadays, highly automated civil aviation aircraft require the full participation of two captains during takeoff and landing, just for the sake of safety. The problem is that airplanes in third world countries are all bought on a case-by-case basis, and the pilots are all spoiled. Where do so many retired pilots come from? The customer is the king. Change it. Added autopilot function, one-click takeoff and landing, automatic cruise, simplified operation process, one handle joystick can solve the drone flight control. Just one standard – to satisfy customers with all fool-proof operations. Later the customer made another request. The flight was too short. And firepower was not enough. Changed is made, increased body size and fuel capacity, and added attachment points.

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Rainbow 6 UAV

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Wing Long 2 UAV

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The Nigerian military used Wing Loong 2 drones to conduct air strikes against terrorists. Drones allow some small countries to do an offensive air force.

Later, the customer made another request. Turkey’s TB-2 is too annoying. It’s not satisfying to bump into each other without shooting. It needs to be shot down. To meet the requirements, air-to-air missiles are installed to specifically counter UAVs. Through constant upgrading and improvement, Pterosaur and Rainbow formed a huge family pedigree. Wing Loong UAVs have begun to be sold back to the domestic civilian market. In 2021, communications were interrupted in some areas of Henan due to floods. Wing Loong drones took off from the Guizhou base and arrived in the disaster area to provide 5 hours of mobile communication services, and sent back radar in real time to scan the damage in the disaster area. While waiting for U.S. arms dealers to obtain export licenses, the world has changed. Wing Loong 2 sells for $5 million. Because Turkey’s TB-2 has weak industrial strength and its technology is not as good as that of Chinese companies, and the price is more expensive. India purchased 31 MQ-93s for US$113 million each. Even the domestically purchased MQ-9 is priced at as high as $30 million. If combined with the industrial production capacity mentioned earlier, it is actually not surprising. The cost is too high and the price is too expensive. As a result, there are less and less equipment, and the purchase price cannot go down. Regarding the performance of modern warfare, I recommend the annual update video produced by the owner of Bili bili station up. It should be noted that the tactical arrangements in the video are demonstrations by military fans based on public data and are not real military tactical details. For example, the J-16D’s decoy deception, and the two-seat J-20’s A-shooting and B-guided missiles with unmanned wingmen. In order to arrange for all of our country’s equipment in active service and under development to leave the country, we deliberately strengthened the enemy’s military quality and armament capabilities, and also thoughtfully supported the opponent’s space-based reconnaissance intelligence of Uncle Sam. For example, in order to intercept low-altitude penetrating cruise missiles, the J-8 was allowed to take up its duties as an interceptor aircraft.

【第三次世界大战】第三集完整版!展示现代战争的多种打法,几十款国产武器同时亮相_单机游戏热门视频制作平台:虚幻5引擎,DCS,ARMA3,3DMAX 若想学习此类短片如何制作,可购买我主页中的课程~ 三战系列微电影制作目的为传播国内军事文化,提醒人们居安思危,关注国防力量发展,绝非鼓吹战争

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gX4y1v7ud/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=fae9e83d4aec1b716a9461884314dfa9

(9) Industrialization
The United States, which attracts talents from all over the world, still has a strong innovation capability. However, under the influence of decades of deindustrialization in the financial industry, the United States has lost its production capacity. Industrialization is not just about factory workers and engineers, but also a whole social system that revolves around industry.
Including unified market, education and training, financial services, government policies, etc.
When the relationship is good, American companies design and sell and capture most of the profits, while Chinese companies are responsible for production and make hard money. But after the United States regarded China as an opponent, the world gradually turned into two parallel production systems. However, if there is no technological generation gap in military equipment, only players that can expand production at low cost will have the last laugh. In a sense, quantity is quality. Defeating more with less and relying on technology to make a comeback can certainly win a lot of glory and leave a name in history. But the real masters rely on operations to accumulate strength, and then rely on size to get through.
So what’s important?
Scale, scale, scale.
Han Xin ordered troops, the more the better.
Hiding new technologies will only lead to others taking advantage of them.
What is industrialization?
Machine production machines and standardized assembly line production and improvement processes.
When encountering problems, propose solutions, improve and then provide feedback, and continue to optimize.
Achieve technological leaps and improve productivity through continuous iterative improvements.
What advantages do industrialization, the entire industry chain, and system engineering capabilities bring?
Give a few examples.
An example, the balancing car was invented by an American company.
But it has always been a toy for the rich. The unit price is 8,000 US dollars, and the annual sales volume has been stable at 30,000.
After being acquired by a Chinese company, the price of the new generation product dropped to 14,500 yuan.
Later, it cooperated with Xiaomi to develop and sell products priced at 1,999.
Nowadays, Taobao sells a variety of balancing scooters ranging from 300 to 3,000.

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Relying on its low-cost advantage, China’s bulletproof vests occupy 70% of the world’s market share. Because body armor is for civilian use in China, you can buy it casually on Taobao. American and Russian soldiers often privately purchase Chinese-made bulletproof inserts to put into their body armor. You’ll know how good something is after you’ve been shot a few times on the battlefield.

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On the Syrian battlefield, heavy mortar shells modified with gas tanks imported from China have an impressive range, their accuracy also impressive. there is no problem in destroying a three-story building with one shot.

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Rockets produced by the Palestinian Hamas organization.

Laiyang Steel Pipe Factory: Although this is a seamless steel pipe, what I export is indeed a water pipe.

After China converted the Varyag into the Liaoning ship, a lot of media asserted that the Chinese aircraft carrier would not be able to form combat effectiveness in a short time. Because only the United States and Russia can build the crown jewel of industry , the arresting cable , aircraft carriers that cannot take off and land carrier-based aircraft are just large flat plates. Then the Liaoning ship realized the take-off and landing of carrier-based aircraft after two months of service. Many years later, people discovered that the arresting cables for China’s aircraft carriers were supplied by Hebei Ju li Rigging Group, a private enterprise. Four months after the military tender, Ju li took out samples and passed the acceptance test.

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After the military opened the tender, Ju Li raised his hand cautiously: That. The parameters seem to be similar to a product I exported to the United States.

More famous is DJI’s quadcopter drone. Before DJI, there were some aerial photography drones in the United States. The cheap ones cost more than 300,000 yuan, and the expensive ones cost several million. Only the film industry dares to use this thing. The French company Parrot launched the consumer-grade AR.Drone quadcopter toy in 2010. It has 720P aerial photography function and is compact, lightweight and highly entertaining.

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In early 2012, DJI launched the Phantom all-in-one computer. It has certain wind resistance, positioning and carrying capabilities. DJI has always emphasized that its products are flying cameras. The price is several thousand yuan.

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in 2015, the American star startup 3D Robotics launched the solo drone to challenge DJI’s status. The solo drone comes with autopilot capabilities and sells for $1,700. However, problems such as unstable flight caused by the GPS system connection affected sales. 100,000 units were produced and only 22,000 units were sold. A few months later DJI launched the Phantom 3, with the professional version priced at US$1,300, and a few months later the price was reduced to US$1,000.

In 2016, 3D Robotics exited hardware production.

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Solo drone

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Phantom 3 DJI

Although DJI has always emphasized that it is a private company. But in the Middle East, pterosaurs and rainbows are used by governments to eliminate terrorists at targeted locations. Terrorists have also learned to use DJI Phantoms strapped with grenades to “air-strike” government troops. On the Ukrainian battlefield, DJI drones have become “Internet celebrities”. Russia and Ukraine both use it.

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Picture above translated as follow

Russian Embassy in China

General Baruyevsky, former Chief of the General Staff of Russia: Ordinary commercial quad-rotor drones made in China are incompatible with traditional drones. The application of artillery and rocket launchers brought about a real revolution in technology, which actually completely solved the old problems in artillery reconnaissance, target designation.

√ When the drone continues to hover over the target area for adjustment, the artillery can use conventional ammunition, with accuracy and efficiency comparable to precision-guided munitions, while the number of ammunition and artillery required to kill is greatly reduced.

√ The Mavic quadcopter drone manufactured by the Chinese company DJI has in principle become a true symbol of modern warfare.

Russia Embassy : 5 stars review from the costumer.

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DJI tweet translation :

All DJI products are designed for civilian purposes, serving people’s production and life, and are committed to benefiting society and making life better. DJI’s products are not suitable and do not meet the needs of military applications. We do not have applications technology in the military field.

DJI: I’m not, I don’t have it, don’t talk nonsense

When the Ukrainian counterattack was overwhelmed by landmines, frontline soldiers discovered new uses for DJI drones.

A few hours after sunset, due to the difference in heat dissipation between metal and soil, there will be an obvious color difference under the camera of the drone carrying an infrared sensor, which can identify large-charge mines on the ground.

I don’t know, will Russia and Ukraine be drooling over when they see this model?

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DJI T50 agricultural drone, 50kg load capacity | coaxial twin rotors | front and rear phased array radars | two sets of binocular vision | high-definition FPV | integrated aerial survey, flight and defense.

DJI, you still said you don’t know military technology?

Well, drones, phased array radars. Something feels wrong. Why are civilian drones equipped with phased array radars? Because it’s cheap.

(10) Sky Eye – Active Phased Array Radar

The Ministry of Commerce and Customs has recently implemented export controls on gallium and germanium rare metals and compounds. Exports after August 1 need to be declared. Gallium and germanium are both core raw materials for semiconductors. Among them, gallium production accounts for more than 90% of the world’s total production.

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Is it because China has abundant reserves or has mastered core technology? neither. Because gallium is a rare metal, there is no abundant mine. It can only be obtained from the companion products of bauxite. The average gallium content in bauxite is 50 parts per million. So the production of gallium requires an entire alumina production line.

The largest downstream demand for alumina is electrolytic aluminum. It is well known that electrolytic aluminum is a large consumer of electricity. Cheap electricity is needed. In 2022, China will produce 40 million tons of aluminum, accounting for 60% of the world’s total production. It is this 40 million tons aluminum industry that produces 400 tons of gallium.

Gallium has an important compound, gallium nitride What we come into contact with most every day is gallium nitride fast charging. It has properties such as wide direct band gap, strong atomic bonds, high thermal conductivity, good chemical stability (almost not corroded by any acid) and strong radiation resistance. The GaN material series has low heat generation rate and high breakdown electric field, and is an important material for the development of high-temperature and high-power electronic devices and high-frequency microwave devices.

Therefore, gallium nitride also has a very wide range of application scenarios in the field of military equipment. The most typical phased array radar. Radar is the clairvoyance and ear of the modern military. In an information-based battlefield where discovery means destruction, the performance of radar directly determines whether the enemy fires first or a sitting duck. We know that radar is a device for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves. Early radar can detect the direction, distance and height of obstacles and other information by emitting electromagnetic waves and receiving echoes reflected by obstacles. However, the positioning effect for high-speed moving objects is very poor. Later , pulse Doppler radar was created based on the Doppler effect (the received frequency of waves becomes higher when the wave source moves toward the observer , and the received frequency becomes lower when the wave source moves away from the observer), which can accurately locate moving objects. Later, based on the interference of waves, phased array radar was invented. Phased array radar is a combination of Doppler radars.

The most intuitive way to experience the power of phased arrays is in the science fiction movie “The Wandering Earth 2”, in which nuclear warheads are arranged through phased arrays to concentrate the energy of the nuclear bomb explosion wave at one point.

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The difference between passive phased array radar and active phased array radar is that passive phased array radar has only one central receiver/transmitter. In active phased array radar, each radiation component has an independent transmitter and receiver. One is a cyclops and the other is an insect with compound eyes. Because of the huge gap in performance, passive phased array radar is just a transition before the development of active phased array radar. Because of the independent transceiver characteristics of phased array radar subunits, the beam direction can be quickly changed through phase difference, and the mechanical scanning of traditional radar has been changed to electronic scanning. You can also group any unit independently to perform multi-beam scanning. It has strong anti-jamming and multi-target reconnaissance capabilities. Phased array radar also has disadvantages, that is, high power and high heat generation.

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The phased array radar is a big house from the beginning, and a considerable part of the equipment is used for heat dissipation. Can only be used as missile and aircraft early warning

After the phased array radar is installed on the destroyer, it will become the famous “Aegis” air defense destroyer. In 2007, when China’s KJ-2000 was put into service, it was said to be a generation ahead of the American early warning aircraft because it installed a huge phased array radar on the aircraft. The powerful attack capabilities of the American F22 “Raptor” fighter jet are also related to the pioneering use of active phased array radar. It turns out that the huge radar can be installed in the radome of a fighter jet because of the use of gallium arsenide. Gallium nitride is an important raw material for the next generation of active phased array radar.

At the 2018 Zhuhai Air Show, Chinese military industrial enterprises launched an air-cooled active phased array radar for fighter jets. Later, it was directly installed on the “Fierce Dragon” Block III fighter jet jointly developed by China and Pakistan. As we know earlier, active phased array radars have high power and heat, so fighter jets are usually equipped with a liquid cooling system in their radome. Some simply use onboard fuel to dissipate heat for electronic components. Therefore, generally heavy fighter aircraft have space to install source phased array radars. But the Xiaolong is a light fighter and a cheap version. Is there something wrong? Remember the properties of gallium nitride mentioned earlier? High thermal conductivity. As long as the power supply and cooling requirements for the replacement of gallium nitride radar can be met, the detection range of active phased array radars on several types of fighter jets has the opportunity to be doubled.

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Above picture is phased array radar multi target tracking high speed military radar is sold online casually in china the price 1 million yuan.

So it’s not surprising that DJI drones are equipped with phased array radars.

Hence the monster below.

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20 tons AEGIS Unmanned warship. Each ship is equipped with 8 vertical launch missiles and 2 torpedoes.

The Iranian Navy has considered launching suicide attacks on U.S. warships using missile speedboats. If dozens of these small boats, which cost tens of millions of dollars, surrounded warships worth billions of dollars, or were equipped with towed sonar and spread out to hunt submarines in the vast sea area, the picture would be too beautiful.

Is it easy to get a job in China?

Any job?

Pretty easy. The government puts a lot of effort ensuring that if you are sincere about getting employed, there will be a job for you.

But a good job?

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No. It is very hard.

There are also people who start working straight from high school, or perhaps they go to trade schools instead of the standard university route.

Unfortunately, the competition is just as fierce.

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And just for reference, do you know what this graph from China: Number of university graduates | Statista

means?

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It means China needed to create 7.585 million new jobs in 2019.

Remember that China is changing rapidly. The people who are retiring from low-end manufacturing or agriculture aren’t doing the same jobs as the 20 year olds in hi-tech and STEM fields.

Competition is fierce.

Ranch Round Steak

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2077caab3c77906b7b00eea380916c17

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 (3 pound) round steak
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons dry mustard
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

  1. Cut steak into serving size pieces; trim away excess fat and pound to tenderize.
  2. Combine flour, dry mustard, salt and pepper; use to coat meat. Reserve remaining flour mixture.
  3. In skillet, brown meat, half at a time, on both sides in hot shortening. Push meat to one side; stir in reserved flour mixture.
  4. Combine water and Worcestershire sauce; stir into skillet mixture. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour or until meat is tender.
  5. Remove meat to platter.
  6. Skim excess fat from gravy. Drizzle gravy over meat and serve.

What Elon Musk just did in Ukraine could change EVERYTHING

Could Elon Musk end the war in Ukraine with this one move? Democrats are calling for an investigation into how Starlink is used in the warzone. Redacted Correspondent Dan Cohen dives deep into the details.

A full Scottish kilt ensemble

When I was a young boy, perhaps in first grade, my father had a business trip up into New Foundland. And there, he did some work and (apparently) attended a local festival.

When he came back, he had a special gift for me.

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It was a full Scottish kilt ensemble.

And I, well I wore it with pride, and being the photo buff that he was, took a zillion pictures of me wearing the outfit.

I don’t know what ever happened to the outfit, or the pictures, but I do remember that time, and how I felt being parading about in Bridgeport Conn wearing that kilt.

My dad was kind of silly. But he was cool in a strange way. And this little event is one of my best memories.

Today…

What would happen if the United States were to change its stance on recognizing Taiwanese sovereignty?

The U.S. have a right to adopt or adapt any any stance it wants. Or behaves as obnoxiously and despicably as ot wants too! But China will act swiftly in its own path forward to protect and defend and its own territories including Taiwan. And the world’s 99% will be behind China solidly. The Taiwan issue is totally and absolutely none of US or anybody’s business except the Chinese people and the Chinese authorities. Get that through your think skull once and for all.

You can talk as much shit, or stir as much shit as you want but touching an inch of Taiwan and we all go to war fully and comprehensively till the world as we know it will be change forever. If that is what you want. Let that be absolutely clear even a single U.S. marine parachute into Taiwan and China will without a doubt take drastic and immediate action.

No go back to asking shit like this and waste all your time. If you want. China don’t gives a shit about U.S. stupidly and waste fully sailing 10 thousand miles blowing a billion gallons of fuel to aimlessly flex your muscles a million times. We don’t mind if you to go hang yourself if that is what you want. You can have a million discussion in Washington for all we care but the business of Taiwan is decided in Beijing.

FLASH TRAFFIC: GERMAN ARMY TANK CREW CAUGHT OPERATING TANK IN UKRAINE, ATTACKING RUSSIAN ARMY

World Hal Turner 23 September 2023

German supplied Leopard Tank With German Army Crew Zaporozhye Started WW3 2 large
German supplied Leopard Tank With German Army Crew Zaporozhye Started WW3 2 large
FLASH TRAFFIC: GERMAN ARMY TANK CREW CAUGHT OPERATING TANK IN UKRAINE, ATTACKING RUSSIAN ARMY

This is FLASH TRAFFIC: It appears World War 3 has officially begun.  Saturday morning the Russian Army engaged a German-supplied Leopard Tank operating for the Ukraine army in Zaporozhye.  The Russians hit the tank with an anti-tank guided missile. The tank blew up.  The tank crew evacuated and were captured.  The crew identified themselves as ACTIVE DUTY GERMAN ARMY TROOPS.

Thus, the actual Army of Germany has now been caught waging actual war against Russia inside official Russian territory, Zaporozhye.   The image above is the actual tank involved in the actual incident this morning, 23 September 2023.

Hal Turner Remark: It appears, on its face, NATO has just started World War 3; using the active-duty German Army to attack Russians.

More as I get it . . . .

UPDATE 10:14 AM EDT —

Details are emerging.  It is now CONFIRMED a Russian Army reconnaissance team destroyed a German-supplied Leopard tank of the Ukrainian military but manned with a crew comprised of Bunderswehr soldiers.   The Bunderswehr is the actual active duty Army of Germany.

This took place in Zaporozhye this morning.

A member of the actual Russian Recon team directly and personally involved in the incident has stated the following: “When we curbed another offensive and ATGM-ed [destroyed with an anti-tank guided missile] the Leopard, we moved out to the burned vehicle hoping to seize the ‘tongue.’ Then we saw that the crew’s driver-mechanic was severely injured and the others were dead. Once he awoke, the mechanic started yelling ‘nicht schießen‘ [“do not shoot” in German],” the head of the reconnaissance team said.

“The mechanic repeatedly stated that he was not a mercenary but a Bundeswehr serviceman, and that he and the rest of the crew were members of the same unit of the German army,” the Russian fighter said, adding that while receiving medical aid, the German soldier named his brigade and its dislocation site.

 The tank’s driver died from wounds minutes after he was found despite efforts to save him.

Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers

2023 09 25 15 22
2023 09 25 15 22

Ingredients

  • 1 pound thinly sliced sirloin steak (or deli roast beef)
  • 8 slices provolone cheese
  • 4 large green bell peppers
  • 1 medium sweet onion
  • 1 pound white mushrooms
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • Kosher or sea salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

  1. Slice a thin piece off each pepper lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds.
  2. Slice onions and mushrooms. Sauté over medium heat with butter, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Sauté until onions and mushroom are nice and caramelized, about 25 to 30 minutes.
  3. Salt and pepper the steak and sauté in a little olive oil until just not pink, about 5 minutes.
  4. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
  5. Add steak to the onion/mushroom mixture and stir to combine.
  6. Line the inside of each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese.
  7. Fill each pepper with meat mixture until they are overflowing.
  8. Top each pepper with another slice of provolone cheese.
  9. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown.

What is the most satisfying thing you’ve seen happen when someone rudely cut ahead of a long line?

Back 20 years ago my 8 year old son and I went to the bank. When we walked in the only customer was a lady filling in forms at the bench. We walked up to where the lines started, identified by some silver poles with plastic chains showing the flow of foot traffic. We waited while the teller finished doing her task.

As we waited a few people came into the bank and lined up behind us. The lady at the bench then walked over and pushed in front of us stating that she was in the bank first but had to fill in some forms. I commented that she should take her place at the back, and again she said she was in the bank first. My son looked up at me, knowing that her behavior was rude but he had a glint in his eye. I should have known better.

Silently, without anyone noticing, including me, he picked up the end of the plastic chain from the top of a metal pole and hooked it into her handbag.

As she stepped forward in her self importance her snagged handbag then pulled 4 or 5 poles onto the tiled floor with such a loud clatter. As she spun around to see what had happened she pulled another 2 poles over.

We slipped past, went to the teller and on our way out saw that she had been passed by most of the line and was still picking up her paper, pens and other things that had spilled from her handbag.

On my next trip to the bank the teller told me that was the funniest thing she had ever seen and presented me with a savings book for my son with $20. Each teller donated $5 because no one liked that lady.

One day it will be you.

Twice this week, I have watched an elderly individual, fade into the busy life in which we all live. One man just needed Panadol for his wife but the shop assistant simply said it’s in ‘6’.

But he struggled to navigate the supermarket and as I watched him go in the wrong direction, I left all my groceries and took him where he needed to go.

Today, I watched an elderly man struggle in the heat, who had obviously had a fall with a huge scrape and blood on his leg. He walked past people in the cafe, while he slowly made his way to his car. Not one person stopped. Or looked.

Or acknowledged him. I took him to his car and checked he was ok. He told me he had a fall and wasn’t sure how the air con worked in his car so he just didn’t use it. I sat with him, until his air con kicked in and heard him talk about the old frail body that he is in, that fails him now, every single day.

When you see an elderly person walking down the street, searching in the supermarket or struggling to their car, take a minute out of your busy schedule and ask them if they need a hand. Think about your grand parents and your parents and how pissed you would be if someone didn’t stop to help them. But more, think of them as you.

Once upon a time they were you. They were busy, they had work, they had children, they were able…. Today, they are just in an older body that is not going as fast as it used to and this busy life is confusing. They deserve our utmost respect and consideration.

One day it will be you, it will be us. I wish more people gave a sh*t about them and acknowledged them for their admirable existence and geez I hope someday, not that far away, someone does it for me.

Full-Time RV Life: The Quitting Has Just Begun – Why Many Have & Will Come Off The Road

Notice these trends that are going on in the United States.

Chinese complain about the US becoming increasingly anti-China over the past 10 years, but hasn’t the PRC always spoken of the US as its chief enemy since 1949 (except for a brief period in the late 70s)? How do patriotic Chinese reconcile this?

Chinese people are consistent with Japanese people, only one enemy is japanese imperialism and chinese national scum. – Mao zedong, 1941.5.15 (This was at a time when Japanese imperialism was invading China)

Likewise. Chinese people are consistent with US people, only one enemy is US imperialism and chinese national scum.

The Chinese national scum includes Taiwan independence elements, Hong Kong independence elements and overseas dissidents funded by the US government. not elaborated here.


The point is: who represents US in the world? Is it the US people, or is it US imperialism?

  1. No other country in the world has invaded the United States. Even if Bin Laden had created 9/11, it was not an act from the military of any country.
  2. It’s not US politicians or capitalist who die on the battlefield, it’s you! idiot! In war the politicians give ammunition, the rich give the food and the poor give their children… When the war is over the politicians get back the leftover ammunition, the rich grow more food and the poor search for the graves of their children.
  3. The US people need to pay more in taxes and lives for the war of aggression waged by the US government. Obviously, the U.S. government has launched a war of aggression against all countries in the world, which goes against the interests of the US people.

Do you think it is in the interests of the US people for the US government to go around the world invading?

It is not in the interest of the US people, nor is it in the interest of the Chinese people, who are simply generating profits for the capitalists of the US military industrial complex.

Because US is a capitalist country, capital controls US politics.

The US has more than 240 years of history, only 16 years without war.

So, Does the US government represent the interests of the US people, or the interests of US imperialism?

Do you represent the interests of the US people, or the interests of US imperialism?


Biden did not tell the US citizens that he wanted to invade China, only “to defend Taiwan”.

So, I ask, how does the US plan on doing that? with some sort of video game competition?

I mean, in order to “defend Taiwan”, you have to have military troops pertorming military actions, aka combat inside of China.

And that’s because Taiwan is in China.

So currently America has soldiers in Taiwan, which is either illegal, or at the very least gray area because that’s part of China.

And the government of China doesn’t approve of that and hasn’t allowed it.

So that’s the current status.

If US start performing military action, that’s an effort to militarily conquer at least China or push them back inside of China.

That‘s called an invasion.’

Sorry, everybody, if you don’t agree with this definition, but that’s what it is.

So US is yet again confirming that it will invade China if China attempts to continue its reunification by using military action.

So this is a very, very dangerous game that US are playing.

George Carlin – It’s A BIG Club & You Ain’t In It!

Classic.

What’s the funniest reason you’ve been called in to school to collect your child?

Lots of bullying stories. Here is mine. My son (autism spectrum, language disabilities) had a chum who happened to be a boy-crazy girl. Dating wasn’t his thing, but she was pretty smart and he liked her and they looked out for each other.

Another boy in the class was a little behind on his social skills, and was doing some low-end bullying of her. Calling out to her “Hey— coat rack!” or similarly stupid things. She was annoyed, but it wasn’t quite so bad that teachers noticed or disciplined him.

Anyway, we got a phone call from school that my son finally lost his temper and pushed this kid against the wall, telling him to knock it off and never do it again. It was pretty clear that regulations about bullying required us to be told of his inappropriate response, so they were following the rule but they weren’t too concerned.

When I told the program director of his previous school about this, he high-fived me. It never would have happened when my son was overwhelmed with sensory overload, so it was a real sign of progress.

China Destroyed US Sanctions Whole Car Industry in Big Trouble

Historic times!

Patrick Lawrence: The Real Threat From China: They’re Better at Capitalism Than We Are

The Biden regime’s robotic procession to Beijing proceeds apace. Following Antony Blinken’s fruitless visit in mid–June, we have paid Janet Yellen’s airfare for another fruitless visit, and following Yellen it was the same for John Kerry. This week it is Gina Raimondo’s turn. The secretary of state, the Treasury secretary, the chief climate envoy, and the commerce secretary: What is the point of this parade?

I cannot but wonder whether these officials are dispatched across the Pacific in descending order of competence. Raimondo, who previously flopped as governor of Rhode Island—except for her plan to cut civil service pensions, an unfortunate success—is mediocrity made flesh. The Chinese must be wondering, with chagrin or amusement or both, who the Biden regime will next send their way.

The assignment in all these cases is the same: It comes down to “two seemingly contradictory responsibilities,” as The New York Times’s Ana Swanson put it in a curtain-raiser last week. She described “a mandate to strengthen U.S. business relations with Beijing while also imposing some of the toughest Chinese trade restrictions in years.”

This is succinct, although we can live without the “seemingly.” Proposing to conduct routine business while sabotaging China’s competitive position in advanced technologies is prima facie a ridiculous idea. But The Times must have its “seemingly,” because it is imperative we pretend the Biden regime thinks sensibly and means well in its relations with the People’s Republic.

Blinken got nothing done, Yellen got nothing done, Kerry got nothing done, and in Raimondo’s case it is hopeless. The final item on her itinerary is a visit to Disneyland in Shanghai, and you have to credit the secretary’s scheduler for the parting reference to dreams and fantasy. An English friend observes that we Americans are doing a lot of blinkin’ and yellin’ across the Pacific these days. Fair enough, but I think it is more of the former than the latter for the time being. This administration simply has no idea what a sound China policy would look like.

What is this all about? For a long time now I have concluded that Biden’s foreign policy people match the definition of insanity commonly but mistakenly attributed to Einstein. These people seem to be doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different outcome. But with Raimondo’s visit to Beijing this week I have to revise this assessment. Those running Biden’s national security policies are unimaginative ideologues petrified of diverging from the neoliberal catechism, yes, but they are not insane. I start to see in their dealings with Beijing a diabolical design to which the Chinese are very right to object.

The Biden administration’s China strategy comes down to parrying, in a word. All the pointless talk is intended to obscure a concerted effort to undermine China’s economy because we cannot compete with it in various strategic sectors, while—part two—buying time to move maximum U.S. military hardware as close to the mainland as possible under the program the Defense Department named a few years ago the Pacific Defense Initiative, the PDI.

At the horizon, we are likely to see Washington’s trans–Pacific military ambitions trump longstanding trade and investment relationships. This is what “decoupling” and now “delinking” are all about. They are warnings to the corporate and financial sectors that their interests, which came first in the decades after the Dengist reforms of the 1980s, will no longer take precedence as the new Cold War Biden constantly denies provoking destroys relations with the mainland.

Two years ago Raimondo gave an interview to CNBC

, the financial news network, that more or less announced the Biden regime’s intention to subvert key sectors of China’s economy. She was about to address something called the U.S.–E.U. Trade and Technology Council and told her interlocutor, “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe.”

It is useful once in a while to have dumbheads such as Raimondo in high positions, because, without meaning to do so, they can tell you so much more than you are supposed to know. Slowing down China’s impressive advances in high-technology sectors was precisely Washington’s intent by the time Raimondo spoke. The Commerce Department under her direction has since imposed a wide variety of restrictions on U.S. exports to China of semiconductor chips, software systems, and the machinery used to produce both. As Ana Swanson reports, Raimondo is likely to pile on more of these as soon as she returns from Beijing.

The Biden regime dresses up this profoundly undignified conduct as “narrowly targeted” to technologies that could be of use to the Chinese military. Jake Sullivan set the tone for all of these visitors to Beijing in a speech at the Brookings Institution last April. “We are imposing necessary restrictions on specific technology exports,” he explained, “while seeking to avoid an outright technological blockade…. The administration intends to maintain a substantial trade relationship with China.”

This is what Raimondo and all of those who preceded her to China say when explaining their intent: Washington’s sole concern as Raimondo imposes her regime of restrictions is national security, and all else can proceed rosily. It is hard to think of a flimsier dodge. By this standard, she would have to restrict sales of Juicy Fruit gum to the Chinese. What the Biden administration is doing comes down to securitizing the economic relationship. If you have ever doubted that the United States is a failing imperium unwilling to accept 21st century realities, I offer this as proof of the proposition.

The Chinese know this and have said so many times. I no longer think Blinken, Yellen, et al. have any thought of persuading them otherwise on these journeys. That only looks like their intent. Their true purpose is in the way of theatrical, and Americans are their true audience: They must make sure we do not understand Gina Raimondo’s efforts to punch the Chinese well below their belts for what they are: an uncompetitive nation’s attempts to hold back a rising economic power.

I found that speech Sullivan delivered last spring

interesting for what he left out as much as for what was in it. There was not a single mention of the U.S. military buildup at the western end of the Pacific.

Talk about elephants in the living room. The Pentagon is developing the Australian–British–U.S. alliance known as AUKUS, there is the Quad group, comprising the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan, there are these recently and assiduously fortified alliances with Seoul, Tokyo, Manila, and Canberra, and none of this, we hear again and again, has anything to do with surrounding China or providing for the movement of U.S. military capabilities westward toward the mainland. This is only “seemingly” the case, as The Times would put it.

It is the same as with Raimondo’s projects on the technology side: Neither the Chinese nor anyone else in Asia believes these silly explanations, and no one expects them to do so. Beijing knows very well there is a point to all these apparently pointless visits U.S. officials insist on making. The Biden regime is buying time as it remilitarizes the western end of the Pacific. The only people who are supposed to understand otherwise are Americans. We are not supposed to watch as Washington provokes and prosecutes Cold War II before our eyes. We are supposed to watch as American officials—reasonable, constructive, well-intended—make all efforts to talk to the Chinese in the face of their stubborn reluctance to cooperate.

This is my revised take on the Blinken–Yellen–Kerry–Raimondo cavalcade across the Pacific. These people are not clods. They are purposefully malicious and, it should go without saying, are making the world even more dangerous than it already is.

There are two things to think about here. One, the Biden regime’s efforts to obscure what it is up to at the other end of the Pacific is a straight reprise of the first Cold War, which now resides in all but the most important history books as the responsibility of the Soviets. We have a responsibility to render and defend an accurate record so that this does not happen again.

Two, there is this administration’s immense betrayal of Americans as it aggresses in the Pacific, along with the numerous lost opportunities of which American are deprived. You will find in that Jake Sullivan speech grand and plentiful references to the revival of the American middle class, bipartisan unity, and other such elevated thoughts. Read the speech and then ask: What is this nation’s leadership doing in the cause of a competitive America?

Are we redoubling efforts to educate our people or are we, diabolically, shutting down access—see the University of West Virginia—to liberal arts education? What are we doing to produce the doctors and scientists we need to find our way in the 21st century? What are we doing to bring the dispossessed into the economy, address drug addiction, and all our other debilitating social ills? What are we doing—seriously doing, I mean—to repair and build out the infrastructure we need? Nothing or not enough are my answers.

The Chinese challenge could and should be understood as a chance to reinvent America by way of a Great Mobilization, cap “G,” cap “M,” of New Deal magnitude. There is, of course, no more than lip service to any such idea. We are instead sacrificing this historic opportunity to the military-industrial complex, the greed of corporations, and the ambitions of political leaders who lack all principle or any thought for the commonweal.

Maybe you think, as I do, that none of the Biden officials flying off to Beijing is serious about the true work to be done in our relations with China, or is competent to do it. We must consider, bitterly, that they are perfectly representative of our circumstances as defined by a leadership that is more or less across the board unserious and incompetent to meet the great challenges of our time—China merely one among many.

Biden’s adviser meets China foreign minister in bid to ease tensions

Its working now – thanks to Huawei chip.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has held “candid” talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta this weekend, as the world’s two largest economies seek to stabilize troubled relations over trade and militarization of the Pacific.

During the two days of talks on Saturday and Sunday, Wang brought up the issue of Taiwan – a self-governing, democratic island that China claims as its own territory – as a “red line that cannot be crossed in Sino-US relations”. The US has vowed to defend Taiwan against possible Chinese aggression.

“The United States noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said the White House in a statement, adding that the two officials “committed to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level engagement”.

A Chinese government statement on the Malta meeting largely echoed the US version, saying “the two sides conducted candid, substantive and constructive strategic communication”.

China has accused the US of weaponizing tech and trade issues under the guise of national security while Washington has warned Beijing against its military ambitions in Taiwan and the Pacific. The US has forged security alliances in the Pacific to counter growing Chinese influence.

Sullivan’s meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level discussions between US and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting of US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Sullivan last met Wang in the Austrian capital Vienna in May.

Why I Gave up on the American Dream

Huawei is full of surprises

Huawei has made an interesting discovery about the Kirin 9000s processor after a recent software update. Previously, this processor was thought to have an 8-core architecture, but it turns out it actually has 12 cores. This revelation has attracted significant attention, as it brings a substantial boost in processing power and performance for devices using this chip. It’s always exciting when technology surprises us with hidden capabilities, and this discovery could have a positive impact on the performance

of devices powered by the Kirin 9000s processor.

Huawei has released HarmonyOS 4.0.0.116 for its Mate 60 series and Mate X5 smartphones. These devices are powered by the Kirin

9000s chipset, which is a new processor developed by Huawei. This update brings the latest features and improvements to these smartphones, enhancing their performance and user experience. It’s always a good sign when manufacturers continue to support their devices with software updates, ensuring that users can enjoy the latest innovations and enhancements.

There seems to be a discrepancy in the reported core count of the Kirin 9000s chipset in the Huawei Mate 60 series. Initially, phone information apps and Geekbench indicated that the chip had an 8-core architecture. However, after a recent software update, these sources are now reporting that the Mate 60 is running a 12-core chip. This is indeed an interesting development, and it could indicate that Huawei has unlocked additional cores in the chipset

through a software update, potentially improving its performance. It’s a noteworthy change, and users may experience enhanced performance as a result of this update.

in the meanwhile … see Huawei new Cloud Service

I gave up on the American Dream|And you should too

Have your parents tried to reach you out after cutting contact with them?

My mother did. I moved out at 18 because of physical abuse (beatings). I didn’t talk to her for about 10 years. She called me one day and asked if she could see me. I said no. She started crying and begged me to see her. I agreed. We met and talked for awhile. She told me how sorry she was for the way she treated me growing up. She apologized and begged my forgiveness. She told me of the abuse she went thought from both her parents. Like burning her tongue with a red hot knife for lying. And the beatings that left her bloody. By the time the evening was over, we were both crying and hugging. After that we had a more loving relationship until she passed away.

What’s the most offensive thing you’ve heard when someone assumed you didn’t understand their language?

Years ago, pre-Covid, I went on holiday to Hong Kong with my mother and aunt. I was a teenager at that time, so most of the time, I was roped in to become my mother and aunt’s ‘pack mule’ when we weren’t sightseeing, and they were shopping like no tomorrow.

So one time, we passed by a shop that was selling jewellery and my aunt wanted to take a look. One of the shop attendants take one look at us and spoke to her colleague in Cantonese.

Now, I live in Singapore, and me, my aunt and my mother are all Singaporean Chinese. As such, we are bilingual and Cantonese happened to be one of the languages we can speak and understand.

Essentially, the shop attendant is telling her colleague to not serve us or just show us the cheapest items they got as ‘we can’t afford it anyway’.

Oh geez, I wish phones have the video function at that time, as the dressing down my aunt and mother gave to that shop attendant is GOLD! Not to mention her very impressive imitation of a fish out of the water!

6 Major Culture Shocks After Returning to the US From Europe

Do you agree with Eric Xu Zhijun that China’s semiconductor manufacturing technology will continue to be in catch-up mode for a long time because of US export controls?

The world knows better. China will absolutely take over the entire chip making process, production, business and industry. The U.S. can make some chips for its military equipment. At 1000 times the cost of a Chinese equivalent to fool themselves that they are in charge if that is what they want. That is their right.

But there is no way China will stop till they make their own stuffs. And they will get it done faster, better and cheaper. They always do. The U.S. export control will end the U.S. involvement in 99.9% of chip business losing them trillions of dollars over time. It is too bad. It is not what China wants it is what China is forced into it by the U.S. excesses and U.S. obnoxious and despicable behaviour.

Which childish things you still do?

I grew up in a poor family from a small, poor village in Vietnam.

I don’t know why, but to me when I was a small kid, a globe being displayed on the top shelf of a glass cabinet in the living room was the symbol of wealth. A family had that thing, they were rich – that was my silly logic. I liked the globe a lot, but I knew I couldn’t ask my parents for one – because we’re poor.

In my neighborhood, there was a decent family. The husband was a math teacher. He liked me, because every time when I had a tough math homework, I would bring it to him, asked for his guidance, listened and tried to solve it. I also played chess with him. I liked him, because, well, he was nice but also because he had a globe.

One day, after finishing a chess match with the math teacher, I stood there in front of their cabinet, looked up to the globe with my widening eyes. I guessed that he noticed it. He opened the cabinet, took the globe down, then he showed me and asked, “Do you know which country is The land of the Rising sun? Do you know why they said The empire on which the sun never sets?”. I shook my head. Then he told me stories about countries, and the world. All of my dreams were condensed into two things: traveling the world and owning a globe.

I grew up. My dream about traveling around the world is still an on-going dream. But I do own a globe now. A very traditional old school style globe. I don’t display it in a cabinet. I have it on my dining table.

Every day, during dinner, we play a game called Where am I now?. Each of us will take turn to pick a country, then others will ask questions, ‘Are you in Asia?’; ‘You border the ocean?’;… and try to guess which country is it.

Why I Left the USA (Again)

The consumerism here in the USA is ridiculous. And people’s self worth is all determined by what they buy and their social media reels. So sick of it.

What is the sleaziest, dirtiest trick an auto insurance company tried to pull on you? Did they succeed?

In mt early 20’s I had a cute little expensive sports car that I had worked multiple jobs to afford. Some idiot rear ended me and did a lot of damage to it and it should probably have been totalled. Insurance adjuster comes to my house, reeking of alcohol, and decides it can be saved.

Trying to take advantage of my youth & sex, he tells me that he can help me out by referring me to his buddy’s shop to get all the work done. RED flag #1 And that I needn’t worry about getting ripped off. RED flag #2. And that his friend would gladly send a flat bed to my house that afternoon, free of charge, to pick it up. RED flag #3. He gives me his friend’s business card

He then proceeds to hand me a pre-written “letter” from my insurance company, that he has personally signed, that authorizes any & all work to be done. RED flag #4. I read it and realize that nowhere in the paperwork does it state that I have to use his friend. Actually, it is an authorization for me to go anywhere.

I sign it, get my copy and quickly usher him out, implying that I need to call his friend and get this in the works. He leaves smiling. I call my buddy who owns a high end exotic & sports car repair shop and read him the letter. He confirms what I thought and arranges to have a flat bed sent ASAP.

My buddy does the accident repairs, plus a few other custom things that I wanted done. Ends up costing 40% more that a brand new version of my car. Pissed off insurance company contacts me to find out how this all went down. I explained about the adjuster being drunk, pushing his friend’s business, the pre-written letter he showed up with etc.

Ends up the adjuster was getting kick backs from his “friend” and gets fired. Plus the insurance company sued him & won a judgement requiring him to pay the full cost of my car’s repair. And I got my car back in better shape than when I bought it.

As a Canadian, would you like to switch your healthcare system to one like America?

I was in Michigan with a bunch of Canadian students on a SERVE trip. Our host, the pastor of a church, complained that when he retired all he would have was “‘Obama Care, like the health insurance you Canadians hate so much.”

I said,”Whaaaaat?”

He insisted we Canadians hate our health care system with its delays and problems. He ‘knew this fact’ from TV and articles he’d read.

I told him, “There’s not a single politician I’ve heard of in Canada who would publicly say he would get rid of our health care and replace it with an American system. Not one. He or she would never be re-elected.”

“Whaaat?” he asked me. “How about heart attack victims who never got treated in time and died? I read about a guy…”

“You have to start reading Canadian newspapers and watching Canadian news channels. We love our health care system. Sure, there are delays, but usually serious cases are treated quickly and families are not bankrupt when they have a medical emergency. You can thank Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather…”

“Who?”

“Tommy Douglas, grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland, the actor. First Canadian leader to initiate universal health care in his Province.”

“His what?”

Finding True America: Why Americans have left the U.S.

Should Putin be made aware that his future lies with the West and not China? Does he not see this?

Putin cares about the security of Russia preserving the Russian motherland and it’s glory

He cares about RUSSIA and he will choose his future based on what is best for Russia

Putin has no ideology

He is a crisp man of logic and reasoning


Here is why he won’t trust the West again:-

  • They are LIARS – They promised no eastward expansion of NATO, They made promises with Minsk 2 – eventually they lie and lie and lie some more.
  • They are steeped in Ideology – They are insane. The leaders are. They are steeped in ideology equivalent to Hitlers. They have caused death and devastation of millions of people in the name of human rights and freedom.
  • They HATE RUSSIA – The West hates Russia. It’s as simple as that. They want Russia balkanized. They want Russia broken up and swindled of all it’s resources by the Evil Coalition of the West

Putin may do business with the West in the future but he will never trust them or come on their side

Now let’s see the track record of the West :-

  • They nuked Japan and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people
  • They destroyed Vietnam, a war where they had no direct causation
  • They destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and Syria all for some demented ideology and flooded the world with migrants plus Al Qaeda plus ISIS

They haven’t helped a single country fruitfully towards Independence and Strength

They throttled Japan single handedly in the Plaza accords


China is where the USSR should have been and that rankles Putin

Yet he is enough of a realist to understand that China is a giant and the only major economic bulwark to the USA today

So it’s a mutually beneficial partnership

China has no interests in Europe and Russia has little interest in the South China Sea

They have territorial peace now

Russia has the Military Capabilities and the Energy Resources & Raw Materials and China has the High Intellect People and the Manufacturing and the Economy

Together these two nations form a strong bulwark against Western Sanctions & Bullying & Restrictions

They have the largest pliable land area on earth now and they can route bulk of their energy and trade by land and entirely bypass blockades

Plus China has never let down it’s friends at crucial times nor caused color revolution in any of it’s friendly countries nor interfered with any such country

It’s always been TRADE, TRADE and TRADE


It’s why Putin and Xi are teaming up

It’s the only way to form a bulkwark against Western Hegemony

Get Iran into the picture and maybe Saudi Arabia and that would be a very powerful alliance

Ranch Steak

2023 09 25 15 24
2023 09 25 15 24

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 1/2 to 2 pounds round steak
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup beef broth
  • 1 tablespoon Ranch dressing mix
  • 1/2 cup sour cream

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in large heavy, nonstick skillet.
  2. Fry onions until limp. Remove from pan and set aside.
  3. Cut meat into serving size pieces. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Dust lightly with flour and beat it into meat with edge of a saucer. Brown on both sides, adding more oil if needed.
  4. Return onion to pan with meat. Add beef broth, cover and simmer for 50 to 60 minutes or until meat is very, very tender, adding a little more broth if needed.
  5. Combine Ranch dressing mix and sour cream. Remove meat to platter.
  6. Stir sour cream mixture into meat juices. Heat through until bubbly. Pour over meat and serve.

It’s Happening. Americans FINALLY Leaving The US!

What is the reason for the belief that there is no middle class in China, despite the country having billions of citizens and having one of the largest economies in the world?

This is not true. Since poverty was wiped out in 2020, 800 million Chinese entered into the middle class, that’s 2.5 times US entire population. Half of rural population moved to cities for better education and healthcare. China has 4 times the US population, but less homelessness. Wealth is concentrated in 1% of population in the US, trillionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, and the middle class is shrinking, many without healthcare. “Middle class” as defined by 96% literacy rate in China, people with basic needs of food and shelter, healthcare and old age benefits.

Russia Retaliates for Sevastopol; Hits Kremenchug Airport Where Missiles were launched

World Hal Turner 23 September 2023

Kremenchug airport large
Kremenchug airport large

Just days ago, Ukraine fired either French-supplied “SCALP” or British-supplied “Storm-Shadow” missiles at the Russian Black Sea Fleet HEadquearters in Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia, killing what we are now told was 34 high-ranking Russian officers.  Now, Russia has retaliated.

The Kremenchug Airport, launch site for the cruise missile attack upon Sevastopol, has been hit by a significant Russian missile barrage.

NO AIR-RAID WARNING WAS SOUNDED PRIOR TO THE ATTACK, with locals suggesting Russia utilized low-observable, KH-50 cruise missiles for the retaliation attack.

Both SCALP and STORM SHADOW missiles, which were stored at the Kremenchug airport, along with the Ukrainian SU-24M/MR bomber aircraft which fired those missiles, have been destroyed.

A substantial number of fire-fighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the airport.  We are told there are “significant casualties among pilots, ground crews and even NATO personnel, including Polish troops, who were involved in coordinating the operations and maintaining the missiles.

What do McDonald’s workers do on the overnight shift when there are no orders or customers?

After my first year at university, I ended up working for McDonald’s, where I made a number of friends and several lovers, and even met my first wife.

I generally worked the night shift. The night shift is quite a lot different from day shift: the average age of the workers is slightly higher (at least when I was there, this was decades ago), and the workload is different.

During night shift:

  • We spent a huge amount of time cleaning. We deep-cleaned the lobby, dismantled and cleaned the shake machine, and deep-cleaned cooking trays and food prep utensils. (We didn’t have an industrial dishwasher, this all happened by hand.)
  • We cleaned the grills, a rather tedious process involving lots of scraping with a dedicated tool that was basically an aluminum handle with a stainless steel blade bolted to the end, another tool with a wire mesh pad on the end, and a special cleaning solvent that would take the hair out of your nose.
  • We changed deep-fryer oil.
  • We received the supply truck.
  • We snuck off to make out in the walk-in freezer. Yes, I’m serious. I had several rather delightful makeout sessions with a lovely woman whose name I sadly no longer remember.
  • We played with the helium tanks that the cDonald’s kept on hand for birthday parties. I will never forget working the back drive-through booth one evening when my friend Henry filled a garbage bag with helium, walked into the booth, and pushed it out the window. We all just kind of stood there watching it float away…including the customers in the drive-through lane.
  • We played practical jokes on day shift, like stacking the trays the hamburger buns were delivered in all the way to the ceiling, so you actually had to take the entire stack outside to remove the top tray.
  • At closing, we’d disassemble and clean the various bits of equipment before we locked up. Then we’d go across the street to the 24-hour Perkin’s, which back then was called Perkin’s Bar and Grill (this was before they re-branded as “Perkin’s Family Restaurants”). We called the place “Perkin’s Brawl and Grill” because it would usually be the scene of at least one or two knock-down-drag-out bar fights a month.

Head Shakers

One of the “head shakers” about China is the ever-present music of Kenny G on elevators, in supermarkets, in malls, and in restaurants. I do like slow easy jazz, and back in the 1980’s. But I, like most Americans, have moved WAYYYY past all that.

We moved past mullets. We moved past Miami Vice. We moved on from large curly hair, and pastels. We moved on from Windows DOS.

But, you know, China never experienced those things, and have no idea how out of date all this is. And us expats, really, have no heart to admonish our friends in China to stop being so retro. We, well, we just let it all ride.

Just like no one ever says “What’s uppppppppppp!” any longer.

Or, “Where’s the beef?”

Or, Max Headroom.

Todays…

At what point should America issue an arrest warrant for China’s Xi Jinping à la Manuel Noriega?

First it's the unchecked flooding of Chinese Fentanyl into America. Next, mercenary bounties get placed on British residents. 

First of all, Fentanyl is used for treating severe pain especially for cancer patients and is deem a medicine product which many countries import mainly from China. Likewise it is your own country laws and regulations to prevent abuse instead of blaming China or Mexico or another other countries. If illegal Fentanyl managed to slip into your country, blame your border guards and custom officer for not doing the job or your judges for not imposing severe penalties.

Just like a simple soap for washing and bathing and you decided to abuse it by eating them as food and then you blame China other then yourself.

I suggest in that case better that your country be pure communist like Mao time where China totally shut off from the world where no exports and no imports can take place.

Would that scenerio be a better option for your country . That covers all your citizens from visiting any countries so that they will not be arrested or detained or even your organs been harvested for scientific research.

The moral of my answer is don’t blame others, other than yourself if you decided your own will to do stupid things.

Why are the people of the PRC hypocrites that they say they don’t want their nuclear arsenal to be increased and yet they increased from 300 to 400 nuclear arsenal?

Here’s the fun thing.

We don’t actually need them. This is from the US military college. A war with China will wipe 3600 US soldiers out or 50,000 a week. That means ONE brigade a day.

main qimg 9edc4a61f5c9274ffb1048a611b9d6aa
main qimg 9edc4a61f5c9274ffb1048a611b9d6aa

Kiwifruit Teriyaki

kiwi marinade
kiwi marinade

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 4 kiwifruit
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • Soy sauce
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root or 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 to 2 pound (1 inch thick) boneless round steak

Instructions

  1. Pare and puree 2 kiwifruit. Combine with wine, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and oil in large baking dish.
  2. Add steak and marinate for 1/2 hour. Marinating for more than 1 hour may over-tenderize it.
  3. Remove steak from marinade, and broil to desired degree of doneness.
  4. Slice steak and arrange on serving platter.
  5. Pare and slice remaining kiwi; garnish platter with slices.

Have you ever refused an inheritance? Why?

Yes. My brother died last September without signing his will (they had it filled out but he didn’t sign it).

I have helped his widow out with cleaning the house.

Because he was intestate, I’m technically entitled to 25% of his inheritance under my state law as our parents are dead, but he was married (75/25 split by law).

He literally told me he wanted everything to go to his wife, who I would consider my sister now.

I’m not screwing a 60 year old lady out of her house.

Yeah, as a working class guy, I could REALLY use 100k+ dollars if I fought it, but I will absolutely NOT destroy his dream of his wife having a nice little home.

Them home cooked meals, talk and sharing memories a couple times every few months are worth more to me than money.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I love him and her too much to go by “the law”.

Signing that form for her lawyer was about the easiest moral choice I’ve ever had to take.

CN bans ASML products,Lays off 86 million employees; Photolithography machine turned into scrap metal

For china to make a competitive smartphone to Apple with old generation technology is truly remarkable, I know why U.S and Europe is scared of china…they are simply better in technology.

Is democracy inevitable in the long term? Will countries like China and Russia ever become democracies?

Depends on your definition of Democracy

Let’s start with Russia

Russia IS a democracy. Merely because they keep electing Putin and the UR Party all the time or because the election rules favor the ruling party doesn’t disturb the definition

Ultimately Putin IS elected by the people of Russia

The Government under Putin has helped Russia rise from a torn apart and destroyed country in 1991 to a very strong, united force in 2023

So the People are happy and the People vote for the Government and President

That’s Democracy to me

If the US don’t like it, they can go f*** themselves


Next China

Chinese society is 5000 years old

The Chinese mindset is entirely based on the premise that EVERY CHINESE has a role to play in Society and if every Chinese plays their role properly, China will flourish

Under the Emperors, this role was defined by birth and family

Under today’s CPC, this role is defined by ABILITY, ABILITY and more ABILITY

That very mindset is completely against Democracy which claims everyone from a Pauper to a Beggar to a Technology Geek to a Clerk to a Oil Baron have the same rights in choosing a Government

The result is before you

India and China became Independent in 1947 and 1949 – at the same time virtually

Yet China is advanced in EVERY SINGLE FACET over India

China stands before the US as such a feared opponent that the US spends every waking moment on trying to countering China with propaganda and lies and failing

Proof that the CPC did more for China than any Democracy in the history of the modern world

Why would they need this US loser version of democracy


The Chinese version of Governance:-

  • The Worthy keep voting in the Grassroots
  • The Unworthy do what they are told to do
  • Only Ability and Merit matters
  • One Party, different opinions
  • Gays, Transgenders put in their proper place which is a ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell environment’

That alone is enough for China to grow

They don’t need the horrors of becoming a Cesspit democracy

Oh SH*T, What Russia and China are doing will change everything, and the west wants WAR

What Russia, China and North Korea are doing will change everything. The massive economic expansion is pushing the West to do some very desperate things. This week Russia and North Korea signed remarkable new trade agreements. It came on the same week as China and Russia launched a new cross border energy hub. Do you see what’s happening?

URGENT: RUSSIA **HALTS** ALL EXPORT OF GASOLINE AND DIESEL FUEL

World Hal Turner

This morning, Thursday, September 21, Russia announced they are “temporarily” halting the export of all Gasoline and Diesel Fuel. 

Russia is the world’s single biggest seaborne exporter of diesel-type fuel.

Their decision will have an immediate impact on fuel costs and availability.   Expect skyrocketing prices, especially for Diesel, and subsequent skyrocketing prices on EVERY product that moves by truck.

It is not known at this hour, exactly how long this “temporary” halt will last.

Confession of the Day

There’s always someone who ended up in a worse situation with a bigger loss. Every time I hear those stories, it makes me feel a little better that it “could have been worse.” Hope this helps someone realize how bad it can get before you ultimately end in the same place, with the same loss, and the same need for help. It’s also therapeutic to write it down, I’ve found.

In 2012 I had $20k to my name. Turned that into $100k in 5 years buying American Airlines and chip stocks. Took most of the $100k and bought a house to run as an Airbnb. Made about $100k off that in 2 years and sold it when they banned airbnbs. Bought my own house and sold it a year later for another $100k profit. Invested that $300k in the market around the Covid drop and ended 2020 with about $600k. Then I started with options. The ability to make huge gains so quickly was so intoxicating and addictive. $20k in a day. $50k. $100k. I was crushing it and starting to dream of my new rich life. I broke the $1mil threshold and ended the day with $1.1m.

The next day the market sucked and I knew it. But I had such an itch I made a play anyway. I was down $250k by noon because I broke all my own rules just to avoid “taking a loss.” I finally accepted the loss but tried to chase it by jumping to the other side. That cost me an additional $100k loss. Within 2 days I made it back to within spitting distance of being a millionaire once again, but spoiler alert, I’d never see that number again.

Down $200k, another $300k. I finally had to go to my dad for a bailout. He refueled me and I lost it all again within a month. Another bailout, another loss. I was so depressed and suicidal at this point. It was like a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. I will forgo buying a drink with a meal because I don’t want to spend the extra $3 but I had no problem loosing $600k in a single day if it meant I could get the dopamine rush.

Then comes the shame of having to admit what happened. The relapses. The broken future. The never ending despair.

I made right moves far more times than wrong but my losses were always much larger than my gains because I couldn’t accept a loss and didn’t want to further risk a gain. In the end, the money didn’t actually mean anything and it was never about the money (not really anyway) it was always about the high of submitting the order and watching the dollars come or go.

In the end, if it wasn’t for anti depressants and my daughter, I wouldn’t be here today. Looking back it’s impossible to imagine how something could have completely high jacked my brain in such a way but it really did.

There is recovery. There is help. It does work. I only wish it didn’t take losing $2mil before I realized it and finally sought help and treatment.

Don’t make my mistake if waiting and find help now. Also, give the “unhappy millionaire” episode of Happiness Lab podcast a listen, changed my life.

Giving up the American Dream is hard.

giving up the American Dream is Hard. I made a few videos: why I gave up the American Dream, the real cost of the American dream and how to ditch the American Dream. Folks have resonated with it, hated it and everything in between.

But let’s be honest, it’s hard to give up the American dream, especially as a Black woman.

Hustle Culture is not for Black women, but the pursuit of the American dream is tied directly to it.

Let’s talk about grieving the American Dream. content included: giving up the American Dream, I gave up the American Dream, Giving up the American Dream is hard, Hustle Culture is not for Black women, Healing for Black women, I gave up Black excellence, hustle culture is toxic, the real price of the American Dream, Black Women deserve good things, Black woman wage gap, I gave up the American Dream, why I gave up on the American Dream, grieving the American Dream, Black women and the American Dream,

What has been your most stunning find at a thrift shop?

I work as a manager in a Charity Shop/thrift Store and I look having a good search through donations for that special item!

One day, I had some items donated and a handbag. In that handbag in a secret pocket was a Genuine Cartier watch.

I was in absolute awe and was so excited!! Thing is, I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to sell it without the donors consent. (I knew it was genuine as it’s myself who deals with all the name branded luxury items)

I chased the lady through town and told her what I’d found. She broke down in tears telling me they were her late mums things and the watch was lost for many years. Her mum had dementia and her father was only just starting to clear through her things.

So anyway, she asked me to stay with her whilst she rang her father to tell him the news (he also cried which started me off crying!)

After the ordeal of the day I genuinely felt pretty chuffed with myself. I could’ve easily sold it online for a 3figure sum – but something just didn’t feel right.

A few days later that same gentleman came in and thanked me personally. He told me he’d brought it his wife for an anniversary present. I asked how it came to being in an everyday handbag and he explained that she went to get it cleaned (it was boxed) but her dementia was in it’s early stages and was eventually forgotten about. The kind gentleman had a funeral collection in the Charities name and even made a £200 donation to me personally, which I put to the charity.

So yea, that’s my amazing find

Oprah has no idea there’s a Cost of Living Crisis

Why everything feels so expensive right now.

The basic price of commodities has tripled in my experience from 2019. The same 1 bedroom apartment I rented in Dallas for 700 dollars in 2017 is 1400 dollars in 2023. The house that would cost 180k in suburban DFW just 5 years ago costs 400k. The cost of home and car insurance is over the roof. All this in Dallas which is still very cheap compared to many other big cities in the USA.”

Beijing says it uncovered US National Security Agency operatives behind cyberattack on Chinese university


Article HERE
Second Date’ software used in Northwestern Polytechnical University attack is potent cyber espionage tool developed by US agency, says state media
After global tracing, Chinese team reportedly found ‘thousands of network devices’ across the country still infected by the spyware and its derivatives

China says it has identified US National Security Agency operatives while investigating a recent cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University, as its top spying and anti-espionage agency vowed on Thursday to root out all “digital spies”.
The revelation came just three days after Beijing revealed more details about John Shing-wan Leung, a Hong Kong permanent resident and US citizen the Chinese Ministry of State Security said posed as a philanthropist while snooping for information. He was jailed for life for espionage in May, two years after his arrest in China.

State-run CCTV said on Thursday that China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre, with help from Chinese antivirus company 360 Total Security, had discovered the identity of the National Security Agency (NSA) operative or operatives – the broadcaster did not specify how many or name them – after it extracted “multiple samples” of a spyware called “Second Date”.

It said the spyware was used in the cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shaanxi province.

Stop stealing’: China condemns US over Trojan horse cyberattacks on state-funded university
The report said technical analysis showed that Second Date was a cyber-espionage weapon developed by the NSA to sniff out and hijack network traffic and insert malicious codes.

Quoting senior engineer at the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre Du Zhenhua, it said software was a potent cyberespionage tool that enabled attackers to take control of target network devices and the data traffic flowing through them, and use them as a “forward base” for the next stage of attacks. It could run on various operating systems and was compatible with multiple architectures.

Du was quoted as saying the spyware was usually used in conjunction with various network device vulnerability attack tools from the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). The TAO, now renamed Computer Network Operations, is a cyberwarfare intelligence-gathering unit.

China’s foreign ministry says the international community should be highly vigilant about CIA activities as a new report alleges a years-long global cyberattack campaign. Photo: AFP
The report said that after global tracing, the Chinese team found “thousands of network devices” across the country were still infected by the spyware and its derivatives. It said they also found springboard servers remotely controlled by the NSA in Germany, Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan.

Those pesky Chinese…!

INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Sep 20 2023 20:39 utc | 31

Back in China | Our First Impressions…

Can you describe the creepiest person you have ever met?

I had an abusive boyfriend. He was great at first, of course. As soon as he was confident of me, he stalked me, tried to run me off the road many times, pointed a gun at my head a few times, cut my phone lines, beat me, fired a gun into my floor pretending to commit suicide (he would never have done that, he only wanted to scare me), destroyed my things, and more. He was military (so was I) and I had no protection. I was able to get him out of my apartment with the help of his best friend and because he was put in a mental hospital for a few weeks. But I never got a break until I was discharged (honorably), moved across the country to a large city, and changed my name. An ex-husband kindly let me take his name, a common one. The abuser knew my friends and family. A false friend who secretly hated me (I didn’t know) kept telling him how to find me and encouraged others to do the same. People thought it was romantic that he carried such a torch for me. I thought he would appear at my door any day and kill me. He stalked me for 13 more years until I persuaded his commanding office to make him stop. I can’t imagine after all those years that this worked, but it did. Perhaps it was because he didn’t deny what he did and the commanding officer threatened his career and his pension. I never heard from him again. In those 13 years, things had changed somewhat.

I went to law school and made it my mission for many years to protect other women who were treated this badly and sometimes worse by abusers. I got them protection orders and divorces. I got their abusers out of their homes and sometimes in jail. It was very satisfying work. I’m retired now and happy to be so. I feel I did my bit.

Dedollarization Accelerating Within BRICS, Across Globe

It will be amazing if BRICS can come up with some gold-backed trading currency. The dedollarization is happening fast. Over the last 20 years, you see the share of global payments in the dollar has gone down at a steady rate.

This is getting even faster now. At the same time, to “truly dedollarize,” several aspects should be taken into account, he added.

“The harder part” in efforts to replace the dollar lies in the reserve aspect of the currency, the Netley Group president noted. For instance, the United States’ big advantage at the moment is the breadth of its bond market, Goddard explained. “One of the ways, I think, BRICS could develop something to compete with that would be the technology to actually link the BRICS bond markets,” the entrepreneur added.

Combining these two things — a stable trade currency and a strong joint bond market — could create the potential to eventually displace the dollar, Goddard also stated. This process could be even sped up with the enlargement of BRICS, increasing the depth of these economic ties, he concluded.

Why did Israel allow a terrorist and thuggish nation like China to take over the Haifa port?

I live in Haifa, Israel, the location of that port.

A few decades ago we decided to build tunnels to connect the north, the south, and the middle of Haifa. We hired a Chinese company from Shanghai with experience in tunnel building to do the work. It was a massive project and took a few years, during which the Chinese workers lived here. The Chinese company did an excellent job. These tunnels have reduced traffic congestion in Haifa.

The Chinese company we chose to run the new Haifa port has a lot of experience in that kind of work.

In both cases, we chose based on objective criteria, not on politics.

Btw, many Chinese students study at the Technion here, and Chinese tourists visit.

European Union’s decision to launch an anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles, will it make the Chinese EV industry become another Huawei?

The Claim is :-

China offers subsidies to their EVs in battery making and other areas, heavy subsidies in taxes and waivers to ensure that EVs are produced at a final cost that is 20% cheaper

This makes Chinese EVs deliver lower cost at better quality than many European EVs

Second complaint is that most of the world pays a premium for Chinese EV batteries but BYD and other players pay 45% lower costs for the same battery due to the fact that the batteries are made in China

This is alleged as unfair competition

They want either the batteries at lower costs or a 20% mark up on Chinese EVs that eliminates the subsidy effect

It’s Classic Protectionism 101

Soviet Style rather than Adam Smith


China didn’t do this

When Volkswagens and Citroens and Mercedes Benz and Toyota and Mitsubishi dominated the vehicle markets of China a decade or so ago:-

China didn’t impose extra tariffs on them nor make it unfair for them to import custom made parts by imposing 60–260% tariffs

China told BYD and SAIC and Great Wall to either make similar quality cars or go out of business because the customer needs the best

Thus these companies formed partnerships and purchased technology and leased technology and made a living with limited market share

Yet this competition helped them prepare a lead in EVs and dominate today

However the West isn’t prepared to do the same thing and ask Renault and Chevy and Volkswagen to COMPETE or go out of business

They want to protect their companies

Like US , Germany, France

They talked of free trade when their products were much superior and Asian nations imposed protectionism

Today when they are being left behind, they scream and yell and whine about tariffs and duties


China has many weapons here

China sells 61.5% of the EV Batteries in the world and 86% of EV Batteries today are made by Chinese players with only Tesla having it’s own supply chain and making it’s own battery for it’s own cars

If you want EVs – you need the Chinese Battery, Electric System and Motors and Chargers

The Chinese make the world’s best and most cost efficient products

Even Tesla battery technology is inferior to CATL and it’s latest batteries

It’s only in Autonomous driving that Tesla has an edge

So frankly China for the next 15 years at least can simply ban the export of batteries or impose a 80% tariff on EV exports and ensure European and US EVs simply can’t compete with ICEs

It throttles the EU green initiative

China loses the EU market but critically ensures Russia & Saudi gains a major leverage as EU and US become more dependent on Oil

That is one card

The Bigger card is

China can play it’s own protectionism

China has a huge market for European Cars with Eight Brands having their largest market in China

That’s 157,000 Jobs

China could simply ban the imports tomorrow and that would finish these companies revenue and share wise

Like the Iphone

Intel & Qualcomm openly said if China forced them to choose between the Chinese market and the Commerce Department restrictions, they would have to choose China for the sake of their US stockholders

If China banned Qualcomm entirely today and said “Okay. We will live with inferior phones but you B******* won’t sell or get a fifty cent piece from us”

Qualcomm would be brutally mauled

The Entire smartphone industry will be brutally mauled

The Entire Semiconductor industry will be brutally mauled

The Chinese are VERY PATIENT PEOPLE and they will play their cards very slowly

They thrive on competing

If China simply decides to close its markets to Foreigners except it’s Russian and Global South friends who will sell it all the Energy and Food it wants

Then most of the Tech firms will be brutally mauled

It was predicted that if Apple was banned entirely from China – $ 1.02 Trillion of it’s market share would never come back

The Total hit on the entire industry could touch $ 7–12 Trillion

Who will take up the slack?

India is expected to touch 40% of Chinas present market in 17–21 years (2040–2044)

Nobody else can take up even 3% of this slack


So China has a lot of Brahmastras to use


There will be no more Huaweis

Huawei was a blow

Nobody expected the West to be so brutally lawless and act like a mafia state , like a land with zero laws

Today China is ready

Every US attack has a party from China including the biggest Brahmastra

  • CUT OFF ACCESS TO PHARMA APIs & Cut off all components needed for Medical Equipment
  • Devalue US Debt by suddenly pegging an exchange rate of 2 Yuan to 1 USD. China will lose 17 Trillion Yuan and after the peg is removed the rate could reach 10–11 but US will lose 160 Trillion Yuan ($ 25 Trillion) , 8 times worse than the 2008 Crisis

APPLE Shocked! Huawei’s Secret Weapons: NearLink Explained

Amazing technology. Zero coverage in Western “news”.

Chinese wisdom: Wang Yi urges nations to help avert cold war

INTRODUCTION

Human behavior falls into durable patterns of action and reaction/response. Taking China-U.S. bilateral relations as an illustration, one almost always finds that China is forever responding, and that the United States is non-stop plotting, agitating and acting in annoying or irritating ways, resulting in China’s patterned response of rebuttal.

For example, in picking a fight with China, the United States will accuse China of “spying” and/or soliciting a prominent politician to accuse and confront China on “ideological” grounds, making it difficult for China to defend.

How do you defend an ideological choice?

As ideology is value-laden, it was adopted to change a sick Chinese society for the better, by bringing in fresh or foreign ideas that are believed to work.

For China, socialism with Chinese characteristics is designed to address its chronic social inequality and alleviate abject poverty. China’s adoption of a socialist ideology is observably bearing fruitful results, lifting millions of its people out of poverty, and building railways in foreign countries.

But, for the U.S. hardcore irrational antagonists such as Mike Pompeo, China is “on the wrong side of history”. What else then can these self-styled enemies of China do but to use and recycle the “spying” game of accusations, hoping to see their cooked-up situation comes to fruition.

In the following article taken from an English-language newspaper dated Thursday, July 30, 2020, the incidents that happened at the beginning of the Trump era were nearly the same as that is happening in the United Kingdom, which has officially announced that a parliamentary researcher has been lately accused of “spying” for the CCP.

For fear of missing its juicy details, let us go over this article.

Entered Wang Yi Who Called on All Countries to Resist “Unreasonable Acts” and to Help Prevent…

FM Wang Yi called on all countries to “resist” the United States’ “blatant and unreasonable acts”, and to help prevent the world’s two greatest powers from descending into what he called a new cold war.

In a phone call with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday, Wang said China would take “firm and rational responses” amid the intensifying rivalry with the US, but also stressed that Beijing would strive to maintain stable relations with Washington.

It was the fourth time in less than a fortnight that Wang, who is also a state councilor, has named the US in conversations with foreign official, following calls with his Russian, Vietnamese and German counterparts.

Before that, veiled attacks against Washington might have been made in talks with foreign governments without naming it.

The change in rhetoric and the increased frequency of verbal aggression by both sides has meant a rapid deterioration of China-US relations, and an imperative for Beijing to ensure other nations do not side with Washington.

“Tolerating a bully [such as Pompeo] will not keep you safe. It will only let the bully get bolder and act worse. All countries should act to resist any unilateral or hegemonic act and safeguard world peace and development.” Wang was quoted as saying in a Chinese foreign ministry statement.

Wang said the current decline in China-US relations was caused by a certain political faction in the US, driven by the need to lift campaign prospects and maintain unipolar hegemony.

During the phone call to Le Drian, Wang called for “vigilance against US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent remarks instigating renewed ideological confrontation and leading the world to a new cold war”.

In a speech last week, Pompeo called for China’s own citizens to join an international effort to “change the behavior” of the ruling Communist Party.

“We believe that all countries will make the right and wise decisions, instead of being held hostage by a small number of American politicians,” Wang said.

“All countries will make concerted efforts to prevent the world from being dragged into a new cold war of conflict and confrontation,” he said.

But Wong said the interests of the two countries were deeply integrated – and that Beijing stood “ready to maintain the stability of China-US relations through equal communication and exchanges with the US side”.

“We will never allow a few anti-China elements to overturn decades of successful exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.S., nor will we allow ideological prejudice to undermine the future development of China-US relations.”

Ties between the world’s most powerful nations have plunged to the lowest point in decades as they clash over trade, technology and geopolitical clout.

In their latest brawl last week, the US ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston –over spying claims. China retaliated – by ordering the US mission in Chengdu to shut down.

The foreign ministry rolled out a 10-point rebuttal yesterday against American accusations over the closure of the Houston consulate, denying that it was a hub for China’s spying efforts or that it was used as a base for its “fox hunt” operations to induce the return of Chinese fugitives. (Source: SCMP)

CONCLUSION

Readers may find it amazing after reading the above newspaper article on U.S. accusation of Chinese spying, and China’s retaliatory response. Amazed because the narrative over alleged Chinese spying is the same, except this time it is the UK that is the accuser. This pattern persists, and tensions go up.

The ultimate reality, though, is that “U.S. trade is still chained to sources in China.” Research demonstrates the difficulty of severing the countries’ economic ties. According to NYT.

In the end, it is U.S. pragmatism and Chinese rationality that prevails, settling the “spy” squabbling.

Ties may temporarily go sour; bilateral efforts will be made, and trade activities between the U.S. and China will resume. Wang Yi’s rationality is right and wise.

The latest visits by high-profile U.S. secretaries starting with Anthony Blinken, Janet Yellen and Gina Raimondi wrapped up the futile spying game – testifying to the law that damaging business ties lead to revenue loss.

Will the US actions against China over chips really set the Chinese tech sector back 100 years?

Only 100 years?! You bet, will be at least 1,000 years, or maybe, better back to the Stone Age!

And then, you might find one day, your country would have to import chips from China, and the products you use would be embedded with Chinese chips. LOL

The whole Western world, especially the nuclear powers, even later the Soviet Union, had blocked nuclear technology from entering into China back in the 1950s and 1960s. Then what?

The first Chinese nuclear test was conducted at Lop Nur on October 16, 1964. Then in less than 32 months, China detonated its first hydrogen bomb on June 14, 1967. Now, China’s nuclear arsenal is the world’s third largest, and China has, more importantly, also developed its nuclear technology for peaceful use, boasting the second largest number of nuclear power units in operation or under construction in the world.

China was officially barred from visiting the International Space Station (ISS) by the United States in 2011. Then what?

China is nearing its completion of the construction of its own space station -Tiangong, with many visits there already done by Chinese astronauts, three of them are right now flying over us in the station. With the ISS retiring sometime in 2030, China’s Tiangong will be the only space station in the world.

China has been under the tough blockade of Western military techonologies, especially high-end, advanced ones. Then what?

China has successfully tested several times of its hypersonic missiles, among the first nations who have achieved success in this most advanced weapon development.

Also, China has finished its third air-craft carrier, with a fully indigenous design, featuring a CATOBAR system and electromagnetic catapults, one of the most advanced in the world.

And China has its J-20, a twinjet all-weather stealth fighter aircraft with precision strike capability. The Y-20, a large military transport aircraft, the first cargo aircraft to use 3D printing technology to speed up its development and to lower its manufacturing cost.

Similar cases also include the tunnel boring machines, giant cranes, giant excavators, deep-sea drilling machines……You name it. Then what?

China has self developed all of them, not only meeting its own market needs, but also exporting them at a much more affordable price than their Western competitors. What’s more ironic is, some of them have been exported even to those countries who had previously blocked their techonologies into China!

So, in the short term, yes, China is sufferting from the heavy blow from the US, but in the long run, the US and its allies would not only lose the lion’s share of chip market here in China, but will have also to face a strong competitor in semi-conductors, or chips, or something alternative which have similar functions, in the not-too-far-away future, maybe in their own market, and also in the global market.

But during the process, the US would have dried up its influence as a banner-holder of liberal market economy, its credibility as the rule-setter who betrays its own rules, its reliability to its allies since all of them would have to suffer along with the US, and hence, its soft power in leading the world.

Nothing much to gain, but a lot to lose, yet, the US is determined to ride on the self-devastating road. The faster it runs, the quicker the fall of its hegemony.

Japanese-Style Sirloin

japanese style sirloin
japanese style sirloin

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 pound Certified Angus Beef ® boneless sirloin steak, cut into 1/4 inch strips
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons sake or dry sherry
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 8 scallions, cut diagonally into 1 1/2 inch pieces
  • 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
  • 8 ounces Napa cabbage, chopped
  • 4 ounces bean sprouts
  • 1 cup cooked short grain rice
  • 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

  1. Combine soy sauce, sugar and sake in a small bowl. Set aside.
  2. Heat wok or electric frying pan to medium heat.
  3. Heat oil, add steak strips and stir until beef is browned (about 3-5 minutes).
  4. Push beef to one side. On the other side, add scallions and peppers and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes.
  5. Add cabbage and sprouts, combining all ingredients in the pan. Stir-fry about 1 minute.
  6. Sprinkle soy mixture over meat and vegetables. Cook for 1 minute.
  7. Serve over warm rice and garnish with sesame seeds.

Why People are Leaving Canada, Top 5 Reasons Why People Leave

I left Canada about 1.5 years ago to travel the world and here are some of the top reasons why I left. I give a lot of my own personal anecdotes as someone who has lived in canada for over 20 years. This video represents my personal opinion about living in canada and why I prefer to live in Asia or other countries.

The main reasons. why people are leaving

1. High living costs creates a low standard of living, especially in Vancouver and Toronto.

2. Lack of infrustructure for transportation which means you need to have a car in order to get around

3. Brain drain and lack of opportunities because most talent go to the states

4. Lack of medical healthcare because most people can’t find a family doctor or are finding it difficult to find one

5. Not much social life /activities for young people, most stores close at 6pm

https://youtu.be/2vXjQHNfiW8

China, the next war

On China, the US is again lying itself into the next war. The US says “The [Defense] Department remains committed to abiding by the well-established one China policy of the United States” and “this Administration opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side of the Strait. We have not supported Taiwan independence, we do not support it now.”

But actually the US is supporting the Taiwan independence from China, while Taiwan is calling its independent government the “Republic of China” which is a violation of the “one China” claim. The US also admits that the principle reason for this attention to China’s internal matters is to sustain the anti-China barriers in the off-shore China region: “Taiwan is located at a critical node within the First Island Chain in the Indo-Pacific region.” More detailed information on the coming anti-China next war is recent testimony in the House Armed Services Committee here and here.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Sep 20 2023 15:14 utc | 7

Is India acting as a spoiler in the BRICS on behalf of the West?

A spoiler must possess some power to manipulate but this India clearly does not have.

India can do nothing within BRICS with China around (that’s why they didn’t even dare to join RCEP). Modi was left sitting in the corner of their meeting hall.and as quiet as a church mouse during the last BRICS summit because he had no allies to support him on anything. BRICS proceeded accordingly to invite those countries that Xi had pursued.

An interesting thing happened between then and the Modi show at the G20 with new BRICS members Saudi Arabia and the UAE getting into the act. And of course Xi completely abstaining from even attending. Expectations are of course that the G7 countries, headed by Biden, would be there to cheerlead to elevate Modi’s ego as their way of wooing him to their side.

As the saying goes, give the guy enough rope and he’ll be sure to do it to himself!

And true to form, Modi came out with a true masterpiece that had behind him the G7 countries – U.S., E.U., Germany, France and Italy – applauding him on. and the Western MSM hyping up Modi as the new major player to contest China’s BRI plans. This is the G7’s main challenge to China and to be implemented unti its GPII initiative!!

But this plan could not have been possible without the push of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Of course, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have grand plans for themselves – mostly to transition and establish their economy as a major global force after their days of oil dominance is over.

But look at the curious first part of the IMEC journey that has the starting route going through the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which essentially is an alternative route to bypass the Suez Canal.

And then of all places, this very expensive trans-Arabian rail line ends up in Isreal!!!!!

Now, who are the Arabs in their right mind would set up the crown jewel of their economic infrastructure to land in the hands of their arch nemesis to be held hostage anyttime any conflict should arise?

So, you have Modi hoisting himself as a challenger to Xi’s BRI.and also coincidentally, there will be after this G20 a third BRI Meeting in Beijing in October 2023!

The big question is: What are Saudi Arablia and the UAE’s real plans? Are they with the IMEC or are they part of the BRI still and be officially inducted as new BRICS member in 2024?

Have you ever tried to eat at a restaurant, which happened to be a mafia front, but you didn’t know it was a mafia front, and everyone inside just stared at you when you walked in, because nobody actually eats there?

A friend of mine told the story of going to visit his childhood home in Brooklyn. He had hired a car for the day to go all around the old neighborhood so he wouldn’t have to rely on taxis. On the way to visit his mother’s grave at the cemetery, he spotted a flower shop and thought it might be nice to bring flowers.

He went inside, and found a couple of men playing cards, They didn’t seem to notice him. He cleared his throat to get their attention.

“A customer!” one declared, as if in shock.

My friend said he had grown up in the neighborhood, and he chatted with the proprietor a bit about how things have changed over the years.

“Why don’t you sit down and have an espresso with us?” he asked.

“I can’t, I have a driver outside!”

“Well, invite him in, too!”

After he politely refused, they made a beautiful bouquet for him, fairly quickly. He was impressed with the work.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

The florist looked hurt. “It’s for your mother! How could I possibly charge you?”

After a little back and forth, it was clear that they weren’t going to accept payment. He thanked them for their generosity and left.

It dawned on him that this place probably wasn’t a flower shop. But they did make him a nice arrangement.

Something TERRIBLE Just Happened in Maui, Oprah & The Rock

James sues Hawaii for First Amendment violations over ban on public photography in Lahaina “This isn’t merely about the freedom to take photos; it’s about the freedom of the press and the right to hold our leaders accontable.

What are your thoughts on China surpassing the USA

Well, China has surpassed the United States in so many ways, that this question is a tad out of date. China is quite a formidable and powerful force right now. Depending on the measurements used, you can easily map out the dates when the mantel of power was transferred.

  • Economic = around 2013.
  • Military = around 1950.
  • Educational = around 1995.
  • Social = around 2005.
  • Manufacturing = around 1990.
  • Technological = in process.

So what are my thoughts about this?

I really don’t think that China is trying to surpass anyone. And certainly isn’t trying to better the USA. I just think that China is doing what it needs to do to serve it’s people. It’s 1.4 billion people, don’t you know. And they need to be satiated, satisfied, and happy.

China is doing that.

All these sanctions, political posturing, and the general madness out the United States (and it actually is a DSM-4 state of crazy-town) is only accelerating and necessitating China to become absolutely independent of the leashes and chains that the United States controls.

Soon, and I do mean SOON, whatever vestiges of American “greatness” will be eclipsed by a rather harsh reality.

Oh, and it PAINS me to speak of it.

But today, the United States is a lie, on top of a lie, that is covered up by lies, and the only good thing about it is that the lies are so obvious that everyone KNOWS that the lies are simply BULLSHIT.

Today, the USA is a third-rated, banana-republic, ruled by psychopathic morons.

And when history books are written about this has-been nation, it will refer to it as a over-glorified “strip mall” masquerading as transsexual brothel built upon an open sewer.

This is common knowledge in “fly over country”.

Those “Rich Men North of Richmond” really gutted the country, and are now stealing everything they can lay their hands on as they flee the cesspool that they created.

When did China surpass the United States?

Oh, sometime back in 1776. It’s been downhill ever since.

Neocons turn on Joe Biden

Calling Biden a president is like calling Harris a vice president.

Stressed out PP

When I lived in Shenzhen (ripe out of the ‘States) we had a little dog. We called him ShaoPi, or “PP” for short. He was a good little Bishion breed. He was a mini version, and so didn’t live as long as a normal breed would of.

Anyways, we also had his son; “Super”. Which was a mixed breed. Bishion and Bomei. And he was absolutely one heck of a handsome dog.

One thing, though. He hated my guts.

I mean it. He HATED me; with a searing level of disgust and malice. Including biting me, and forcing me to get rabies vaccinations. Ugh!

I was an “outsider” and he “owned” my wife and her ex-boyfriend. And to exert his displeasure on me, he would make messes all over the place, bark non-stop and generally did everything he could to try to chase me away.

Well, that was causing our PP to get super stressed out. And he was a good dog, always trying to straighten out this wayward son. But it was to no avail. Eventually, both dogs were super stressed out, and start a non-stop peeing contest in the house. I mean, they were urinating over everything.

Everything.

And so we would take PP out with us and we did out chores and made our rounds, and it helped some. But, you know, he was so stressed out that he still continued to pee everywhere and over everything.

We knew that there was a problem. But we didn’t know what to do.

Then one day, while riding on an elevator there was a really cute 20-something girl all “decked out” wearing nice clothes and makeup going out (probably) on a date. We were also going out. PP was at our feet, and we were making arrangements for an evening dinner.

She was checking out her phone while adjusting her makeup, and sure as shit…

…PP urinated all over her high heels, and her nylons and her dress.

She screamed out so loudly that PP jumped back as if electrified….

That week we found a home for “Super”, and that was another trial, I’ll tell you what. But the moral of this little story is when people, or loved ones are stressed out…

…do something about it, before things get out of hand!

Todays…

Shi Jiangiao

This is Shi Jiangiao, a Chinese assassin who lived during the Warlord Era (1916-1928) in China.

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main qimg eb07899e1f58eb5278ddfabcdd38fccc

Shi came from a family of humble beginnings as her grandfather was a simple farmer and tofu seller. However, that all changed when her father and uncle became decorated soldiers, rising through the ranks in the Chinese military. This helped raise the social status of her family.

In 1925, when Shi was only 19 years old, her father was leading a brigade of soldiers to capture Guzhen, Shandong, when he became surrounded by a warlord by the name of Sun Chuanfang. Sun decapitated her father and had his head mounted on a pike and put on display at a local train station.

Two years later, Sun was disposed of by the Kuomintang (aka Chinese Nationalist Party) who wanted to reunify China, which had become fragmented after the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing. Sun peacefully retired from his life as a warlord and founded a Buddhist society.

Meanwhile, Shi spent her 20s tracking down Sun who had disappeared without a trace. In 1935, ten years after her father’s death, Shi managed to track Sun down in Tianjin, a major port city close to Beijing. (If you recall, Tianjin was the city that had that major explosion in 2015.)

Shi entered the Buddhist temple and found Sun kneeling in front of the altar. She approached him from behind and shot him several times with a pistol. She did not attempt to flee the scene of the crime but began distributing pamphlets explaining her actions.

Her case drew significant coverage and reached the Nanjing Supreme Court. In the eyes of the law, she was guilty. However, Confucian morality stipulates that one must avenge their parents. Ultimately, the Nationalist government decided to pardon her on the grounds that the assassination was justified because it was an act of filial piety. It also helped her case that the man she had assassinated was guilty of trafficking opium, suppressing strikes by factory workers in Shanghai, and collaborating with the Japanese.

What did someone say to you that instantly made you realize their life was in danger?

While I was working as a Hospice Nurse one of my patients had a great grand daughter that visited often. One day she came in and could hardly walk.

She wouldn’t look at me.

I made an excuse to get close to her.

Her eye was almost closed shut and her face was black and blue.

I ask her who beat her but she was too scared to talk.

I didn’t wait.

I immediately called 911 just as her boyfriend came in and was going to pull her out of the room.

Security came and the boy tried to hit them.

It took 3 police and a taser to get him in their police car.

The poor girl had [1] broken ribs, [2] a ruptured spleen, [3] collapsed left lung and [4] she had a miscarriage the next day.

We made good friends regardless of the age difference and her family is so nice.

I thank God that I didn’t look away and could help her.

I had to be a witness at his trial and he got 40 years for attempted murder and spousal abuse.

Exposing Philippines!

Take a little vacation and look at how the “Global South” looks like. This is the Philippines.

Green Chile Steaks

51595f96cbb0a4af99317b453abce66d
51595f96cbb0a4af99317b453abce66d

Ingredients

  • 1/2 pound lean ground beef
  • 1/2 teaspoon Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon Lawry’s Garlic Powder with Parsley
  • 1 fresh green chile, seeded and minced*
  • 3 tablespoons chopped scallion

Instructions

  1. In medium bowl, thoroughly combine all ingredients.
  2. Form into 2 oval steak patties or 4 hamburger patties.
  3. Cook in skillet, broiler or on grill until done.
green
green

What accidentally rude things do Americans do while traveling even without realizing it?

Saying “Give me this/that” instead of asking for it.

I was once in a bar in Turkey, watching football (as in kicking a ball with the foot) with some other foreigners, German & Danish IIRC, drinking beer, & nibbling cacik & bread.

A group of American men walked in (I think from the nearby air base). They knew the barman’s name. They asked if the back room was free, & on being told yes, headed for it & commanded the barman to bring them beers – all done by shouting across the bar in English. He smiled to their faces & scowled at their backs. Then he noticed two of us looking at him & looked embarrassed.

A little while later we needed more beer, & it was my turn, so I went to the bar & asked (in Turkish – as we’d all done) for more beer e.g. “beş bira, lütfen”. He still seemed embarrassed, & said something like (IIRC) “You’re OK. You say lütfen” (Turkish for please). In his terms, the Americans were extremely rude. They probably had no idea. We, on the other hand, were at least trying to be polite. We knew how to ask for a beer (or a few), & how to say please & thank you, & understood that was customary.

I expect the Americans would have been very surprised to know that they were constantly being rude to locals.

They’re FINALLY Been Arrested in MAUI,The Rock & Oprah

Thank you for speaking on our Maui brothers and sisters. Thank you James Okeefe also. This is unacceptable as well as unbelievable!!

https://youtu.be/cXv1Cb93OGA

Confession of the Day

I started self directed investing in 2012 with $20k. My first big success was betting on American Airlines after they filed bankruptcy before the merger with US Airlines. It was a 5x return in less than two years. I took that money and bought a house to Airbnb and ended up with about $250k.

I reinvested into the market and made my way all the way up to about $600k during the Covid spurt. Then I began to fuck with options. The first few wins were big for me, $5k, $10k, $20k, etc. then I really started betting big and hit returns over $100k in a single day. I couldn’t stop. The dopamine rush was too good.

The ups were euphoric and the downs sent my mind and body into a total whirlwind of intense emotion. It was the sickest drug. I couldn’t get enough. Nothing else matter other than becoming as rich as possible. And then I finally crossed the $1m threshold…. For only one day.

The next day I the market looked like shit but I was so hard up for my next fix I played anyway. Down $100k – eh it’ll come back, I can’t lose. Down $200k – if Itake the hit now that means I’m a loser, no way. Down $250k – ok I was wrong, time to switch sides and redeem myself. Down $330k – fuck fuck fuck!!! Don’t worry, I’II get it back next week…. And I did. $980k. Nice, almost back to $1m.

And then down. And down. And down.

All of it. Gone. 9 years of building $20k into $1m. Because the high was never high enough and the low was never enough to stop me. I went through deep depression, lots of suicidal thoughts, and darkness I didn’t think I’d come out of. A year of therapy, books, podcasts, support, and I’m doing better. Relapsed once and lost another $90k in a single day, just because I couldn’t lose.

We’re a dopamine nation now. This forum says it all. Gambling at your fingertips and the ever looming reminder that some people actually win and get super rich. At least for a little while. But the highs are never high enough and it never ends. Check yourselves before it’s too late. Day trading can be a real gambling addiction and you really can lose it all no matter how good you are.

I hope this helps save even just one person.

Is there Any Hope for this Once Great City?

Who do you fear the most in your country?

As ridiculous as it sounds, roving bands of young fellas off the estates, typically aged between 10 and 16.

I know some Americans will probably read this and think I’m a right pussy for being scared of a load of kids, but you don’t know man! You weren’t there!

See, the thing is with these kids, be they scallies, chavs, neds, roadmen, townies or whatever you call them in your region, is that typically they appear in large groups, they have little to lose and so don’t care about doing the stupidest shit possible, and they are not afraid to hound you and make your life a misery if you challenge them.

Sure, one on one, I wouldn’t be particularly scared about a 14 year old scal (although they increasingly carry knives and machetes and shit), but the point is that you rarely do encounter them one on one.

And let’s say, there’s a load of them camped outside your nan’s house chucking stones at her windows and you think, “Fuck that, I’ll go chase them off,” what is likely to happen is that they’ll start posturing around you and throwing stones at your head or they might fuck off, but then they’ll find out where you live (if you live nearby) and they’ll start wrecking your house and you might even find your house firebombed. It might sound extreme, but it does happen.

The police are ineffective as they have no respect for the police and, anyway, they’re minors so cannot properly be held accountable unless they do something really bad. And anyway, being tough on crime only goes so far. A more holistic long-term approach to the issue is required, but sadly no government has the vision or appetite to really commit to such policies.

So, essentially, you are powerless to do anything meaningful against them because you will only exacerbate the situation. These kids have the capability to make your life hell. They can make going to the local shops a genuinely nerve-wracking experience, particularly for the elderly and those with disabilities. They can really ruin the atmosphere of otherwise solid working class communities.

And that’s the thing too, it is the working class communities where they live and hang out that suffer the real brunt of their aimless destructive behaviour. You can be somewhat insulated against them if you live away from them or even just on a road they don’t frequent, but if you are forced by circumstance to live where they congregate, then your life can be pretty miserable if you get on their bad side.

And yeah, I’m scared of them. I’m less scared of some actual high up gang leader than I am these kids because at least with the real gang members they’re not interested in you unless you give them a reason to be, whereas, like I said, these kids have nothing to lose and might target you simply because they can and they think it’s funny.

It’s the one thing I really don’t miss about living in more working class areas, which can otherwise be much more friendly and interesting places to live

US efforts to strangle China & reassert hegemony – Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

“Emerging nations fight wars at their borders, declining nations fight wars far away.” ~Chris Hedges

What is the rudest thing anyone has ever done to you in your own house?

My mother-in-law was visiting us in Canada from her home in South Africa. There she had two house servants and a garden “boy” who did all the work. She sat smoking her cigarettes and “supervised”. Staying in my home where I had two children under age 6, a lot of my mornings were spent in child care, household chores, meal planning and all of the hundred other jobs of the Canadian housewife. One morning my mother-in-law sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee I had made and smoking her cigarette (which I had objected to from day one) and told me that I needed to change my routine to do my household chores after everyone had gone to bed so that her day was not “spoiled” by me having to do chores on “her” time.

What legitimate reasons does the US have for prioritizing military goals over economic ones in countering China’s influence in the developing world?

Let’s see

Is there the slighest chance that China will invade USA or any NATO country?

Absolutely not.

The US is impregnable with Canada and Mexico as buffers and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as it’s maritime buffers

There is a nuclear deterrent as well

So why else is US prioritizing it’s Military Goals

The Answer is IT HAS TO KEEP FEEDING IT’S MILITARY INDUSTRIES

Critical issues


The US has to keep paying money to keep it’s Defence Industries rich and profitable so that their shares are profitable and so that the Corrupt Senators, Congressmen and Lobbyists get rich

It’s a vicious cycle

Guess how many Senators have more than 30% of their investments in Defense Stocks?

61 – SIXTY ONE

35 Republicans and 26 Democrats

Guess how many Senators have more than 30% of their investments in Tech stocks?

67 – SIXTY SEVEN

38 Democrats and 28 Republicans and 1 Independent leaning to Democrat

Congressmen?

209 – 108 Democrats and 101 Republicans

Of these 51 have more than $ 5 Million worth of stocks

Lloyd Austin has earned $ 4.3 Million after leaving the Pentagon just by sitting on the boards of various Defense Contractors

He doesn’t have 50 grams of brains in that massive skull of his


So the Military Industry in US is like a shark that has to keep swimming

They always need an enemy to keep selling weapons to

They HATE PEACE because any peace means less potential to sell weapons

First it was the Cold War – Weapons sale

Next it was fighting Communism – Weapons Sale

Next it was fighting Saddam & Milosevic – Weapons Sale

Next it was fighting Terror – Weapons Sale

Now it’s fighting Russia and China – Weapons Sales

Tomorrow they may decide India is the enemy and wage a war on India and sell weapons or decide it’s Japan Or even Aliens


Their Military Goals have led to the worst disasters on earth

  • Vietnam
  • Cambodia
  • Laos
  • Afghanistan
  • Iraq
  • Libya
  • Syria
  • Ukraine
  • Taiwan (Next)

They have single handedly led to their deaths more men than Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS and Saddam Hussein and Gadaffi COMBINED

They have destroyed countries with their bombs and Agent Orange


Today their Target is China and Russia

They don’t have the balls for a direct fight because a MAD means the evil politicians will also die and they don’t want that

So these proxy wars will be their way of milking and flattening the military defense industries


Basically they are part of a corrupt hellhole with many idiots even today proudly saying how the US Dollar is backed by the US Army

They will be destroyed one day as history is proof of

One day they will collapse when their own people begin to rebel and fight this evil system

Until then these a**holes will keep harrassing everyone and lying to the whole world


I refer only to around 300,000 Evil Americans in US and another 2 Million more brainwashed evil corrupt minions

The other 336.7 Million Americans are very decent and nice people

Eliminate these 2.3 Million a**holes and the US will be back to the Pre Eisenhower era. A Nice Country with genuine morals

OH. MY. GOSH.🤯😟 MUST SEE: Can Americans answer ANYTHING correctly!?

I fully support the movement to require a civics test before voting or even just knowing the difference between a STATE and a COUNTRY would be a start.

Dog-fight between France & Germany. But drag China along. What is the dog-fight about?

Chinese electric cars surprised the world in the 2023 car exhibition.

France started the dog fight. It called for EU investigation if China has subsidized its electric car industry. EU chief took France’s case.

EU Commerce Chamber in China right away told EU that there is no electric car subsidy by Chinese government. What makes China successful in electric car is because China has lots of scientists who work hard to improve their car tech so as to compete in the world, said the Chamber.

German business-people also opposed the EU investigation. Saying it will force China’s to react & counter EU’s unreasonable action. It will harm German economy.

It is a dog fight between France & Germany.

France’s car sales in China accounts for less than 1%. Germany, more than 17%. No need to explain further, right?

France can afford to lose its <1% to weaken Germany’s >17%.

If Germany wants to, Germany can counter target France’s luxury products eg cosmetics & fashion that sell well in China.

Despite objection from German business people, German politicians agreed to EU investigation. … really, politicians do not care about the welfare of the country & its people. They only care about votes ie personal interest.

Has German government subsidized electric car industry? Many times. From internet.

What is more irony is that: when USA subsidized its electric cars under the disguise of Inflation Reduction Act, EU protested & warned USA that EU will also subsidize its electric car industry. Today Germany is subsiding its electric cars industry based on … false accusation as testified by EU Commerce Chamber.

Is it true that Chinese people seemed not to get offended and are too weak to fight back when abused racially because interracial fighting is something very shameful in their cultures?

Chinese do not like direct confrontation. Confrontation is seen as a sign of stupidity. Two thousand years ago, the founder of the Han dynasty summed it up: 吾寧鬥智不鬥力: I prefer to fight with my wits, not by power. From a very weak start, he thrashed 項羽 Hsiang/Xiang Yü, his main rival, whose army was much more powerful.

Fighting is for children and inferior people. Look at it this way: a four year old can strike out in anger, but is incapable of coming up with a better plan.

Chinese always prefer to use strategy rather than brute force. 難忍能忍大丈夫: a powerful cultural standard is that a real hero is someone who can say, “My head is bloody but unbowed.”

This is strength, not weakness, and does not mean that Chinese will not fight back. Look what happened to the mighty Japanese warlords when they attacked China. The Chinese in general avoided direct confrontation, drew the Japanese in, and overcame them. China has stood off some of the most powerful armies in the world. Even though the Mongols eventually conquered China, it took them decades and weakened them so much they were unable to conquer Viet Nam (of course there are other factors, such as VN fighting prowess, but this is an essential factor.) In China, the Mongols were close to their home but suffered great losses at Chinese hands. Compare that to the European powers, where the “flower of chivalry” was butchered in short order on their home territory by Mongols far, far from their home base.

I do not know how much the person asking the question knows about China, but I would guess that most people have heard of China’s long tradition of martial arts. Chinese will fight, but consider it uncivilized, immature, beneath an adult’s dignity.

We left America for Police putting guns to our heads. Part 1-2

This channel is to bring the awareness to the world of the beautiful continent of Africa. My intentions are to show the development, people, property and investment opportunities. All the adventures and opportunities that is for people to take advantage of. Also showing how America is not necessarily the perfect place for people to live.

ASMR: What it is, what it stands for and how it works

What is ASMR? How does ASMR work?

What does ASMR stand for?

Are you “ASMR sensitive”? Do you get ASMR tingles?

Is this the first time you’ve heard of ASMR which stands for “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response”?

It might not mean what you think it means.

Millions of people experience ASMR “tingles” when exposed to certain stimuli.

Triggers like hair brushing, whispering, finger tapping, clicking, chewing and caring role-playing send shivers down some people’s spine.

These same ASMR triggers are actually “misophonic” triggers for others; meaning these sounds cause negative responses.

For example: nails on a chalkboard will drive some people nuts but others aren’t affected.

The Why Files answers these questions and raises a few more. The science behind behind ASMR is still new but research is underway.

Though ASMR is a relatively new phenomenon, the online ASMR community is vibrant and growing rapidly.

Are you ASMR sensitive?

What are your triggers?

Who is the most evil person you have ever met?

I once had a therapist for four years. He spent every session of that 4 years grooming me. Yes grooming me as if I were a child and he were the predator – except I was an adult and never knew what was happening until it was too late. If I questioned anything about the ethics of something he did or said – he always twisted up an answer that made enough sense in my mind that I would disregard. It was a disgusting abuse of power. He was extremely subtle about his approach and he nearly destroyed me as a human before it was all finished. Looking back years later I can see how correlated he was in what he did and I am sure he had many victims besides myself. At one point he even talked of “getting rid of my husband”. (I never told me husband this part of everything)

In the end he chose the wrong victim. I had to rise above the fear and confusion. I did. I had to be careful to make sure to keep all of my complaints and even my lawyer was a secret till the moment that he was piled with so much legal shit and my states’ board and Human Resources was all brought out at once. I did this intentionally so there was no way he could get out of the situation or harm me without someone knowing who did it to me. And so what he was doing was made known without ANY space for “reasonable doubt”.

I’ve taken a lot of time to heal and am still now in the process of forgiving him, forgiving myself, and moving forward to be as healthy as I can be. Sometimes I wish he’s a trash guy now… except the get paid too much. But he’s the most evil person I have ever met.

It’s unfortunate that what he did to me isn’t a criminal offense in my state as it is in many states. I plan to make this change through whatever legal route I need to take and make a difference so nobody else ever has to go through what I did. That man should be in prison. He’s a rapist and a cunning one at that. A sick sick human.

Syrian conflict.

When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011 , Western-backed rebels launched a full-scale attack on the Syrian government, and an extremely bloody color revolution began.

We Chinese often say that we experienced 14 years of hard resistance against Japan during World War II. Warning the war in Syria is not over yet! The United States also steals oil, food, and cultural relics in Syria…

No one expected that at the opening of the Asian Games in Hangzhou , China would make a move that would completely change the world.

On September 21, the Syrian president and his wife arrived in Hangzhou, China, and then arrived in the capital Beijing on September 24, visiting two places in a row.

Below is a picture of the Syrian president and his wife arriving in Hangzhou and Beijing. My heart moved at this moment.

Perhaps the whole world did not expect that Syria, which has long been completely blocked in the West, has received the most respectful reception in China. We do not belittle Syria just because it is a small country in war.

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Put yourself in my shoes, if you were a Syrian , how would you feel when you saw this scene? What is the characteristic of a great country? This is the It! China has deservedly become a true morale beacon of human civilization. The picture below is really shocking.

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During their visit to Hangzhou, the Syrian president and his wife visited Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou . During the visit, a female tourist could not help but touch Asma, the Syrian lady, because she was so beautiful. The female tourist said to Asma, “You are so beautiful.” Unexpectedly, Asma replied: “You have a beautiful country.” From the look of the video, the female tourist seems to be an older person, but even so, I don’t think it’s good to touch her face, since she is the president’s wife after all. However, this reply from the wife of the Syrian President suddenly sublimated the matter. Yes, we have a beautiful country, and for the Syrian people, this is their biggest dream. Syria was once a beautiful country. There is an old saying that goes like this: “If there is a paradise on earth, Damascus must be in it. If paradise is in the sky, Damascus will be as famous as it.” Asma, the wife of the Syrian President, is known as the Desert Rose . She is a very beautiful and gentle person, but behind this beauty, there is an extraordinary experience, which can even be said to be legendary.

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Asma was born in London, England, to Syrian parents. Her family conditions are very good. In 1996, Asma graduated from King’s College London with a BA in Computer Science and French Literature . After graduation, she started working at Deutsche Bank Group as an economic analyst in the hedge fund management department. In 1998, Asma joined JPMorgan Chase & Co. in investment banking. She was also preparing to pursue an MBA at Harvard University, but moved to Syria after meeting her husband, Bashar , while on vacation with her family. I can be said to be an absolute intellectual and business elite. Her husband Assad is the second son and is not the successor that the family focuses on training. The family focuses on training his eldest brother. As a result, his eldest brother died unexpectedly in a car accident in 1994.

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Assad himself is relatively flat. His early dream was to be a doctor and he had little interest in politics. He himself has been studying medicine in the UK. After meeting Asma, we hit it off and became even less interested in politics. However, the eldest brother, who had been trained by the family and was supposed to take on the succession, unexpectedly passed away. Assad could only return to his country to take charge of the overall situation. At this moment, the gears of fate began to turn. The Assads would never have imagined that they would be pushed to a turning point in human history by chance.

The general background of the outbreak of the Syrian civil war is that the United States instigated the ” Arab Spring ” throughout the Middle East . Don’t read the name and think that is a good thing like it’s name “spring”. In fact, it is a large-scale national subversion. According to Egyptian statistics afterwards, the Arab Spring caused more than 1 million deaths in the Middle East and damage to infrastructure worth 1 trillion. It started with the collapse of the political situation in Tunisia , followed by the complete collapse of the situation in Egypt, Libya , Yemen, and Bahrain…

That is, in 2011, Gaddafi’s regime came to an end. He himself was caught in the north of the country. He was tortured, then executed on the same day, and finally his body was exposed in a market… After trouble occurred in the above countries, it was Syria’s turn. This was the background of the early outbreak of the Syrian civil war. At that time, no country believed that Syria could survive. The United States in 2011 was not the sick cat it is now. It was the peak moment of the US imperialist regime. Hanging Saddam , destroying Gaddafi while laughing… Moreover, at that time, the United States had almost no opponents in the world.

Let’s talk about China and Russia back then . At that time, Russia was still dreaming of integrating into the West. It had already joined the G7 and became a small G8. At that time, China did not have a falling out with the United States and was still busy doing business and making money. Except for Iran, an absolutely anti-American country, almost no one in the world supports Syria. However, China and Russia still helped Syria during the UN vote. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United Nations Security Council has held seven votes on the Syrian issue. Due to opposition from China and Russia, all seven votes have been vetoed.

That was only the beginning… After all, if you look other than Syria, no country in the Middle East can withstand this combination of punches from the United States. At that time, Russia was not realized being duped and China was not strong enough. In the first four years, the only way for Syria to survive was to hold on by itself. After all, if the Syrian regime collapses at the first sign, it will be useless for outsiders to help. But no one expected that the Assads would refuse to surrender! I swear that I will never surrender to USA. Assad said that this is not a matter of the Syrian civil war, or that once our regime fails, the entire country will be carved up by foreign countries, and the Syrian people will have no future. From a current perspective, Assad’s judgment back then was very accurate. Just think about today’s Libya and today’s Iraq . Since the civil war, the economy has not recovered yet, and the country is still in a state of fragmentation. It was very smart to be able to make this prediction in 2011. We can recall that in 2011, support of the US was rampant on the Internet in china. The point is USA really fooled many people into believing that the United States was good. The United States in 2011 was still at the peak of its empire, and its influenced was indeed much stronger than it is now. At least in those days, American women were still women, and men were still men… When the Syrian civil war was at its most dangerous, the rebels fought directly near the capital. Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, has been occupied by Syrian rebels for six years. It is only a stone’s throw away from the capital. At this time, it is a great test for the Assad’s resilience.

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After all, the fate of Saddam and Gaddafi lies ahead if Syria government lost. If they do not flee for their lives, once the rebels enter the city, their entire family will definitely be killed. But Assad insists on one thing. No matter how crazy the “expendable” supported by the Americans are around me, I will not surrender. I will live and die with my motherland! I believe that many people at that time advised Assad to save the country and choose to surrender. But Assad has an attitude, I will not surrender! I don’t care how strong the opponent’s is, but this is our own motherland, if we the Syrian people don’t resist, won’t we just perished? However hopeless we must fight! This scene suddenly reminded me of our people during the Anti-Japanese War. “Yes, no matter whether we can win against the Japanese or not, this battle must be fought. If we don’t defend our own motherland, who will we defend?” “And if we don’t fight, how do we know we won’t win? Those who say surrender is a way to save the country, better die as quickly as possible!” As a result, with the help of Russia and Iran, it was actually recovered!

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Although these external help are important, I think the most important thing is the persistence of the local people. Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian situation was in September 2015. The war in Syria broke out in 2011. If Assad himself could not hold on in the first four years, it would be useless even if reinforcements came. What is touching is that in the Battle of Aleppo , the Syrian army, after repeated bloody battles, was about to completely regain the lost territory… However, Western countries have appealed for an armistice at the United Nations, and they are talking about providing humanitarian relief. What it actually means is that you stop fighting and give me some time. I will re-arm the rebels so that I can kill you after.

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It was immediately vetoed by China and Russia. Don’t stop, keep firing, shoot with all your might! Just beat up the drowned dog. Our veto vote greatly helped Syria and won them a lot of space at the level of international public opinion. On the New Year of that year, China became the guardian symbol of the Syrian people. In the New Year of 2016, Aleppo, Syria, was liberated. The five-star red flag was raised on the Syrian land, and countless Syrian people grateful to our country’s flag.

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“Thank you, China, thousands of miles away. “

If you look at the first half of Assad’s life, you will feel like a young college student, a refined intellectual who did not have a strong desire for power and just wanted to spend a comfortable life with his beautiful wife. It was the wave of history that pushed him to the critical point of life and death in Syria, but he actually withstood the test of history, which no one expected. The United States not only funded the Syrian rebels, but also created the Devil Isis organization. What the Isis organization has done can be said to be insane. If I were to tell what they did, I’m afraid this article wouldn’t even pass the censorship. In short, it’s extremely anti-human and more Nazi than the Nazis… During the process of regaining the territory, the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor encountered a siege by the “Isis Organization” for more than three years! No one knows what kind of will the Syrian people relied on to survive and win again…

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In the end, this city, under the leadership of the legendary Syrian general Issam Zarushidine, and the 104th Brigade, finally changed the tide of war after four-year defense, which can be called the Syrian version of battle of Leningrad, and the situation in Syria began to fundamentally change. reverse! To be honest, I feel that the Syrian Civil War is very similar to our country’s Anti-Japanese War, both of which are won by persistence . During the Anti-Japanese War, there were some bastards who were promoted as liberal masters by domestic intellectuals. His so-called literary character was just like a piece of shit…

Hu Shi (bastard liberal master) once said: “We should have the determination of a strong man to cut off his own limb, make the highest sacrifice of abandoning the three eastern provinces, seek the preservation of remaining territories and administrative integrity, and seek a peace relations between China and Japan…”

During the Anti-Japanese War, our country was too poor and weak. To be honest, the key to reversal in World War II lay in Stalingrad and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . Stalingrad laid the foundation for a complete Soviet counterattack, and the German army was defeated decisively . The attack on Pearl Harbor meant that the United States could no longer stay aloof and had to personally attack Japan. So for our country, it really means victory in the “anti-Japanese war”, and we “carried” it by force ! The whole process was extremely arduous. But this definitely does not mean that our resistance is meaningless. Before the war started, the Japanese army said that China would be conquered in three months. If there was really no resistance and we would be wiped out in three months, then the situation in World War II would be impossible to reverse! Because once the Japanese army obtains China’s vast territory and resources, it will not be so easy for the United States to attack Japan, and the US military may not even go to war personally. The same is true for Syria and Assad. They have endured it for 12 years, during which they have defeated countless opponents… Now think about it, among those Western politicians who originally called for Assad to step down, how many of them are still on stage?

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At the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games, one of the most touching details was that when the Syrian athletes first entered the venue, they were very nervous and reserved , because after all, Syria has been blackmailed by all Western countries on the international stage. Now, what the world sees every day is the fake news about Syria. They don’t know whether they will be welcomed after entering the venue. After all, they are just a small country in war…

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But what none of them expected was that the Chinese audience gave out a roar of welcome for twice make a wave a tsunami.

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Then the Syrian athletes became more and more relaxed and began to wave the national flag vigorously. The Syrian president and his wife stood on the stage with peace of mind and smiles, watching the scene below.

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This scene seems to say: “We the Syrian people are still exist in this world!” This visit by the Syrian President to China is not simple. Syria has been sanctioned by all Western countries. Many airspaces are inaccessible and many places are very dangerous for them.

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Being able to bring the President of Syria to China is in itself a manifestation of the strength of a great power. We need to have sufficient aviation endurance and at the same time have enough friendly land neighbors so that you can have the transportation capacity and airspace to welcome distinguished guests.

Currently Syria’s cultural relics have been placed in China for more than three years. This is also a high degree of trust in our country. After all, the US military is still stealing things in Syria. The whole of Syria has not ended the war. Syria can only put the cultural relics in a place that he thinks is safest. country, that is China. At the same time, this time the Syrian President visited Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, which sent a positive signal, because after all, Syria is a “Middle East religious” country. As a “Middle East religious” country, they often do not go to places of other religions, but this time the Syrian president personally visited Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou. This also expresses to the world that Syria is an extremely tolerant country and is not as extreme as Western society has smeared it to be. As a Chinese, I sincerely hope that the war in Syria will end soon. The visit of the Syrian President to China made me deeply moved. Back then, our athlete Liu Changchun , as the only Chinese athlete, represented China in the Los Angeles Olympics . It was precisely because we were caught in the “Rain” that year that we always want to hold an “Umbrella” for others… .. The difference is that our country faced an extremely brutal world back then. Now Syria is living in a rising new global order.

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Liu Cixin once wrote a sentence in his novel The Three-Body Problem: “I hope that one day, the bright sunshine can shine into the dark forest.”

Today China is that beam of light to fight unipolar world order!

In today’s China, we are the deserved to be called as beacon of multipolar world order!

May China’s multipolar world ray shine upon the victim of bullies on the entire earth and human civilization.

I came across a video in which their president praised China and said this during an interview:”China is great but humble”. At that moment, I suddenly felt very touched. This was the most accurate, heartfelt, and profound compliment.

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1.8K views

What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever said in a foreign language by accident?

I am very allergic to penis.”

When I was learning English, I had terrible pronunciation. Combined with the fact that I had just lost my front tooth (I was 7 at the time), it was very difficult for me to pronounce “t”, “th”, and “s” sounds.

The story starts with my mom taking me out for lunch. I wanted Kung Pao chicken, which is a delicious, succulent dish made up of spicy stir-fried chicken, peanuts and vegetables. The problem was, I was allergic to peanuts.

Excited to show off my English speaking abilities to my mother, I proudly waved over the server and asked, “Does this dish have pee-nits in it?”

Confused, the server repeated, “Penis?”

Delighted that he understood what I was saying, I nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Penis. I am very… allergic. To penis.”

“We typically remove the penis from the chicken before we cook it, so that’s not an issue. Unless you were referring to you being a lesbian. In that case, let me assure you that our restaurant is very LGBT friendly.”

“So no penis?”

“Uh, sure. No penis.”

At this point, my mother interjected the conversation. Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, she said, “She means peanuts. Alex is allergic to peanuts.”

The chicken was eventually ordered, and luckily contained neither peanuts nor penis.

In what significant way has American culture shifted?

The Balkanization of pop culture, entertainment, and news outlets.

There is no single screen that families gather ’round in the evenings to watch together. Everyone in the family now has their own screen, with which they can watch whatever they wish to watch, without worrying about if anyone else in their house also wants to watch it.

There is no single television series that dominates the ratings on a regular basis. Currently, the single most-watched non-sports television series is “Yellowstone,” which gets around ten million viewers per episode. So… barely 3% of the adult population in America watches the single-most-watched television series these days.

There is no more “must see TV.” This includes most sports finals, too. Ratings for things like the NBA finals peaked in 1998 and now aren’t even half of what they were back then. Only the Super Bowl has seen an increase in ratings since the 1990s. If not for that one four-hour event every year, there wouldn’t be a single time when more then 40% of American adults were all tuned into the same thing.

Any form of entertainment that finds a substantial audience across demographic lines is rare these days. With the exception of the NFL, seeing a large, diverse group of American adults enjoying the same event or even enjoying the same music is rarer now than it was in the past.

There is no single news outlet that most Americans consider trustworthy and rely on for their news. There is no modern-day Walter Cronkite. Sure, many Americans trust their particular news sources. The problem is that there are so many news sources, and they all cater to their particular audience’s interests, that there isn’t a single news narrative upon which most American adults can agree. The current events you know about as an American adult, and the facts of those current events, are largely determined by which media outlet you get your news from.

In any crowd of American adults, the chances of finding even two of them who partake in the same entertainment options is low. The “pop” in “pop culture” used to stand for “popular.” Now it’s just “popular, relative to the thousands of other options people have to entertain themselves these days.”

We’re not really living in a pop culture melting pot anymore. It’s more of a miles-long pop culture charcuterie board, where everyone takes exactly what they want, with no need to worry about what others are taking. There’s no peer pressure to “fit in” with what the popular crowd is doing. There is no real “popular” crowd anymore. Just relative popularity, in a culture of unlimited choices.

Passport Bros Love TWO Countries

This video showcases how passport bros and other of men can live an amazing life outside of The West and away from modern women. Feminism has gone too far in America which is driving men to seek more traditional lives in countries like Thailand and the Philippines.

We compare the crazy woke women to the masculine movement.

We encourage the manosphere, redpill and MGTOW community to self improve, work hard and live your best happy life. We also enjoy a bit of modern woman fail, cringe and hitting the wall along the way.

Is it possible to have a bias without being aware of it?

Corporates in US now have Blind Hiring

No Voice, No Name, No Direct Interviews – the Candidate is vetted first and then the name is deleted and replaced with a Number like 287. Then the Interview is completely in generic voice which means man or woman the voice of candidate is generically modified by software so you wont now if its a man or woman.

The Numbers are then selected or chosen and only then is it known who the Candidate is

The reason is to avoid Civil Rights Lawsuits on Workplace Discrimination and Equal Opportunities.

Likewise in Promotions too – An outside agency is hired to evaluate the employees and they do so using Blind Techniques and output monitoring programs.


This is because EVERYONE HAS BIAS

If you sit on an interview panel and see a Beautiful Girl and an Average Looking Girl – you will either develop bias to the beautiful girl or a grudge against the beautiful girl in favor of the average looking girl.

If you had a bad interaction with a Nepali person , then you may bear negative bias against a Nepali who comes for an interview even though he may be from Manipur or Mizoram.

My wife is one of the most liberal persons in the world and always talks about secularism etc. Yet when one of the houses in our Colony was to be sold to Muslims, She was among the neighbors who persuaded the owners not to sell. She could not explain it. She had a subconscious bias.

Another example is me. Having seen so much bungling done by Mr Modi – even if he does something good now – I develop bias and start looking for the negative aspects only. This is why before answering – i always consult with the Bank community and only if others feel similarly do i know i am on the right track.

During the Cauvery Riots – Tamilians develop Kannada Bias and vice versa. So in an interview if a Tamil employee appears and the Authority is a Kannadiga – then you could have a subconscious bias.

Its Human. Only Machines and Robots can be unbiased. We can develop subconscious bias all the time.

Tractor-Trailer Carrying NUCLEAR WARHEADS on-the-move-North Dakota

Nation Hal Turner

A Tractor trailer carrying nuclear warheads was caught on video Saturday afternoon in North Dakota.  The truck was being escorted by local police, Military Police, armed Military troops, and protected overhead by helicopter gunships.

Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota is the most well-known nuclear missile base in that area of the country.  All the missiles in that base are already armed.  So why the additional warheads?

Under Barack Obama, the US nuclear arsenal was made much smaller.   Missiles that had previously carried TEN (10) Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRVs) were reduced to only one warhead.  Perhaps the US is re-installing multiple warheads on our existing missiles?

Why would they be doing that unless they are expecting an actual nuclear war?

Hal Turner Personal Remarks

And expect one they should, given the meddling the US is doing in Ukraine, and the harshest economic sanctions ever imposed, against Russia, are all adding up to the US being hit by Russia.

Of course, the American people remain blissfully unaware that their government has us all on the threshold of actual nuclear war.  They’re unaware because the “mass-media” has utterly failed to do its job of reporting actual news.  The mass-media seem more interested in the severely mentally-ill who think men can be women and vice-versa.

Do you have a favourite joke from a homeless person who asked for money?

I was sitting on a bench outside my business smoking a cigarette. I had been there since 8 AM and it was already 9 PM, and I was just waiting for a few people to leave.

A homeless man, riding a bicycle with an attached cart in the back, stopped near me. I expected him to ask for a cigarette, but instead he said, “I’ve got a lighter in each of my hands. One works and one doesn’t. If you pick the lighter that doesn’t work, I win a cigarette. If you pick the lighter that works, you win the lighter.” I thought that both lighters were probably non functional but I decided to play along.

I picked his left hand and he handed me the lighter. I tried it a couple times, but it didn’t work. I handed him a cigarette and he lit it with the lighter in his right hand.

We sat and smoked, and I asked him how he pulled off that trick. He told me that he was an amateur magician and he used some kind of slight of hand to do his trick. I was working at a recovery house, and we had a party coming up on Saturday. I asked him if he wanted a job doing magic tricks as a wandering performer in the room. A little negotiation and he was hired for a two hour gig for 200 dollars.

Saturday came, and he had shaved, cleaned up, and dressed casually but well for the performance. He did card tricks, coin tricks, and other kinds of sleight of hand for the 2 hours and then some.

One of the people who was attending the party owned a coffee shop, and he ended hiring the guy to perform in the coffee shop on weekends and some week nights.

His funny way of tricking people for cigarettes turned into a gig and then a job. He performed a trick on me that changed his life.

(Sopranos) Christopher Moltisanti || Soldier On [for Reece]

Sopranos was the only show that came so close to capturing what life is really like, and what it’s all about. Never seen a show cover complex themes and problems like this in such a captivating, real way (and even funny often).

Why are most engineers not rich?

I’m an engineer and I’m rich.

Most engineers, like most Americans, spend everything they make. Then they run up credit card debt. Then they borrow $100k each to send their brood of children to liberal arts colleges for degrees that don’t make them employable. If they’re lucky, when they retire, they can sell the family home and live modestly on that and social security.

Why am I rich? I saved at least 10% of every paycheck since I was 24, and invested in no-load stock mutual funds, mostly as IRAs. My family lived modestly, but well. I didn’t buy bitcoin, didn’t day-trade, didn’t hit a lucky startup. Later in life, I gave my savings to a reputable stock manager, but I’m only doing a little better than if I’d stuck with mutual funds. I bought a house and paid down the mortgage when I had unspent income, three times. Have I been lucky in investments? Hell no. It took me a few years to learn to steer clear of retail stock brokers’ siren songs, for instance.

My investment strategy goes like this:

  • Spend less than you earn.
  • Invest unspent income in no-load stock-index mutual funds and ride the long-term upward bias of the stock market.

It’s really that simple.

A real coup

I think Huawei executed a ruthless, cold-blooded coup on Apple. It successfully kept Apple in the dark, getting complacent with its delusional domination of the Chinese market, so much that it thought it could maintain its grip by introducing the next model with not much more than a new metal case and USB connector. Then a week before Apple’s new release, with no time left to make any last-minute changes (no matter how much FoxConn can turn on a dime), Huawei dropped the bombshell. Classic!

What if you had a gay son?

Actually, I might have a gay son now.

There he is, sleeping in his green room, in his little bed.

Here are things I know about him:

  • He is the most talkative toddler on this earth. He literally does not shut up. Ever.
  • He loves to play with his sister’s dolls. He feeds them, carries them around, and puts them gently to sleep.
  • He is also obsessed with handy-man tools. He walks around with his drill, chain-saw and hammer, and repairs things that are then irreversibly un-repairable ever again. After this, he is utterly proud of himself.
  • He is compassionate. When his sister cries, he will drop his toys and run to hug her. Yesterday he used his shirt to wipe her tears, while telling her: Don’t cry, don’t cry…
  • He loves to dance, and when ever he can get himself an audience, off he goes..
  • He snores like a grandpa, and giggles in his sleep.
  • He wakes up in a great mood, proclaiming: “I woke up!” and every day he fills our home with love, music, laughter and dance.

These are some of the things I know about him, but let me tell you one thing that I don’t know:

I do not know if my little son is gay. And I don’t give a damn.

Is this the beginning of the end of China’s economic dominance?

It is the beginning I would say

China had an enormous trade surplus for nearly one and a half decades plus enormous savings by its people

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image 134

Here

Chinas problem is that the three years of lockdown meant the expenses were much lesser and thus people have huge savings and thus very low inflation

This is why China is issuing more and more debt instruments, to push that savings and prevent a glut of money

It’s why China is so keen on pushing up Consumption

It’s why when everyone is raising rates, China is slashing them

Because China has a lot of money in the banks and wants to discourage saving and encourage spending

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image 133

This is the US, the total opposite

Expenses are higher than wages, Savings are at an all time low compared to the SUPERB TRUMP ERA pattern (Call him all the names but that man ran a good economy until Covid)

Thus people don’t have money in the US

Savings have been depleted and so now US Fed encourages savings by raising the rates

Same with other nations including Bharat

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As you can see, Economy is doing beautifully under Modi until 2017 when Demo happens and Wages crash and expenses rise

Again by 2018, there is a recovery but by 2019 the savings are depleted by rising expenses

Two years of lockdowns mean savings crash but expenses rise due to the opening up policies and finally today you are NECK TO NECK

Better than the US


So today China has too much money

US and India and EU and UK have too little to no money

The best solution would be China lending to UK, EU and US by buying more Debt

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They said it was a WIN WIN

China has too much money and if they don’t spend it, it will lead to a glut and a deflation

US have no money and keep printing and piling inflation

However China said NOTHING DOING

They don’t trust the West anymore and believe the West may renege on their debt

After what they did to Russia


If only China and India were closer, China would have lent to India and invested heavily

Best to get 6% from India than 2.5% in China with great difficulty


My guess is China will spend huge money on Technology investments and hope it yields a big change

Meanwhile China has a huge economic dominance today.

They can cut a cheque of $ 300 Billion without printing money

The entire EU and UK and US combined can’t do the same


Post 1950

US was also flush with money while UK and Europe were broke

Thus US lent the money and invested in Europe and UK and grew their money enormously

They then invested this into Military Industry and sadly it mutated beyond recognition

China has a BRI luckily

FIRST DAY in Beijing, China – America warns NOT to visit CHINA but I Did

This is John Eisenman.

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main qimg c0cfd14689a0f3abb6a3cc4c68cf7818

He lost his daughter to sexual trafficking.

She was sold for $1,000 in Seattle Washington.

He did what a father should do and researched, investigated and found out about her abduction.

He RESCUED her HIMSELF.

He found out the person who sold her into trafficking was her 19 year old boyfriend.

He met up with him, abducted him, bludgeoned and stabbed him to death in Nov, 2020.

The authorities found him [dead AF boyfriend] in Oct 2021 in the trunk of the car he abandoned.

John Eisenman sits in prison knowing his daughter is safe and growing up after he has already lived 60 years of his life.

I bet you, he rests easy.

Live your life to the fullest. Do your absolute best to make sure your children have the opportunity to do the same no matter what the sacrifice.

What is the rudest thing you have ever done that you are glad you went through with?

My brother called me to let me know our dad was in the ER and it didn’t look good for his survival. I drove like a bat out of hell the 120 miles to get there. In the ER waiting room sat my brother & his wife, who knew nothing and had not been given any info or updates on our dad in over 2.5 hours.

I went up to the admitting desk to ask for an update and was told to sit down…that the clerk at the desk was busy and couldn’t deal with me. Unacceptable response so I just marched into the actual ER room to find my dad. Brother and SIL followed.

Found my dad and he is basically gray with no one attending him. The attending comes up to me and starts screaming at me. I asked him what was wrong with my dad, (who has a heart problem and has a pacemaker). The Dr responds in a horrible accent and terrible English that my dad has vertigo. It took several tries to figure out what he was saying and even the nurses were having a problem understanding him.

I lost it and didn’t care if I got arrested or not. I loudly proceed to tell the Dr that my dad is gray, not green, indicating heart problem & that my dad had his last heart surgery at this hospital 1 year prior. That I want a heart monitor on my dad ASAP.

The smug Dr asked me where I my medical degree. I smiled and again, loudly said that I didn’t have one but that I had a law degree. That I hoped he enjoyed his sojourn in the US because by the time I’m done suing him, deportation will look like a good option.

He quickly put on a heart monitor on my dad and it showed my dad was having a heart attack as they attached it. Luckily, they were able to treat him and he lived many years after that.

3 things:

  1. This was at a top nationally ranked hospital
  2. I filed a complaint with the BoD and the Dr was let go due to his repeated negligence.
  3. I was bluffing — I don’t have a law degree!

Why don’t doctors put dying patients under a medically induced coma to suppress the pain? Why can’t the patient and/or family members opt to do that so that the person will not have to be conscious while they die?

The day my mother-in-law died they called and told us that she was not going to live through the day that her whole system was shutting down and she didn’t have more than a few hours.

My wife and I went to the hospital she was conscious and complained because they had the bed in a head lower position. She complained that it was uncomfortable and asked to have it moved to a sitting position, the nurse said that they couldn’t do that because it would shorten her life.

We insisted and they moved it so she was more comfortable.

While we sat there they kept coming in and drawing blood, etc. Finally, when they rolled in a portable x-ray machine, my wife stood up and threw them out.

Eventually, she got to the point where she wasn’t conscious any more and in the evening she finally passed.

I still believe that they were trying to bill everything they could get on her bill before she died, why take ex-rays of someone they already told us was dying?

Fortunately, when my wife died of cancer she died at home in hospice and not in a hospital. She died peacefully in her sleep, with no hassles.

Why Do We Have to PAY Others Just to LIVE?!?! IT’S INSANITY!

We are out here on this Earth and surrounded with everything we need to live amazing lives. So why have we created, and continue to tolerate, a system that makes us work our whole lives earning money so we can pay for the privilege of living?

What are your opinions about the sanction against Huawei?

The explanation given to me by a Dumbo on Quora was that Huawei which used US Technology and US Patents, did not follow US rules and did business with countries sanctioned by the US

This despite the WTO ruling on 8/7/1998 clearly citing that

Trade restrictions on Technology and it’s free and fair use shall be determined by the commercial aspects and by the political ones

This was wrt Iraq

So the sanction on Huawei was illegal

Plain and simple

So the US essentially claim that because they control the technology, they can use it to demand obedience from the entire world

That because they control the dollar they can demand obedience from the entire world

They are immune from WTO appeals and rulings

So if the US is against you, you have no where to present your case

If the US is against you, you either comply or die

That’s the RULES BASED ORDER

Tell me i am wrong

Tell me of one example where the US sanctioned a nation and reversed it when the Nation without any change in its Government Or Leader Or Policies, appealed to a higher authority

It has NEVER happened ever

Under the same Rules based order, Saudi Arabia cannot decide to refuse to sell Oil to a paying customer but the EU can decide to cap the price of oil and force the whole world to comply


I wouldn’t have had a problem if Huawei had been taken to court and fined billions of dollars for patent violation

That’s Commerce and Trade and Business

However merely because you sell stuff to Iran, just because you use US technology, you can be sanctioned and cut off from Chips on a mere order from a US President is terrifying


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Xi, Putin, Assad may all be many things but today they are the ONLY PEOPLE preventing us all from becoming slaves of the United States of America

Its why I support them wholeheartedly

As long as they are strong, there will always be two camps, and the US better be on its best behaviour or it will lose friends to the other side


I believe Huawei was the beginning

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When Meng Wanzhou was arrested for baseless charges that were never established for 3 years on the whims of a 70 year old syphilitic promiscuous orange man with half his brains eaten out by some STD or another

It was the moment when one realized that the United States was growing not only too big for their britches but capable of becoming something that would put Nazi Germany to shame

Plus these evil men would justify it saying “We are the good guys”


Huawei paid a heavy price for trusting the US

Yet they also ensured that every other Chinese company was now on its guard when dealing with the US

Plus other companies too

Today ISRO is tolerated because it’s so much below NASA

The day it starts climbing higher, you will see sudden references to Kashmir and Genocide and sanctions will begin

Unless India learns from Huawei like China did, Russia did and Iran did

Hawaiian Steak

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85635394094818e496b535193d9d941d

Ingredients

  • Individual steaks, 1/2 inch thick or less
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • Pineapple slices
  • 1 large can mushrooms

Instructions

  1. Punch both sides of each steak well with a fork, then marinate for 24 to 36 hours in a marinade made by combining soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and sugar.
  2. Simmer steaks on a low fire for 10 minutes in the marinade.
  3. Remove them and place steaks in a 350 degree F oven for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on thickness of meat. Three minutes before removing steaks, place a pineapple slice on each.
  4. To make gravy, slowly sauté a large can of mushrooms in butter. While doing so, boil down the sauce used for the marinade to make a gravy.
  5. Combine mushrooms and reduced marinade sauce.
  6. Serve individual steaks with the pineapple on top, over which has been poured a generous amount of gravy.

Have you ever come into contact with a deranged lunatic who made you fear for your life?

Yes, I nearly died.

This is a bizarre survival tale that includes jaguars, politics, cactus, assassination threats, near-death, and yes… a deranged lunatic. Oddly enough, even though I’m a dedicated liberal, this mad-man was a far-far-left liberal himself.

It was the mid-2000’s, and I was actively engaged in all sorts of wildlife research for a variety of government agencies and civilian groups. One of my projects was with a great organization called the Sky Island Alliance, in Tucson, AZ. (Read about them here, if you’d like: What are “Sky Islands”, and do they exist? ) This particular project involved looking for signs and tracks of jaguars that were reportedly crossing over the border from Mexico and setting up shop in the mountains of southern Arizona, in order to have data to set up protected areas for this extinct-in-America Big Cat.

One day, I received a call from a graduate student from a University in Colorado, who was looking for a research assistant for his project. The project consisted of living out in the wilderness and setting up camera-traps throughout the mountains, trying to get photos of the elusive cats, and learn more about their habits. Since I had a very good reputation among the environmental research community, I was recommended for the job by a professor at a local university. So I interviewed with the guy over lunch, we seemed to bond, and I got the job. I spent the next couple weeks putting in a lot of extra time at the Tucson Zoo, observing their two beautiful black jaguar sisters, Nikita & Simone, up close and personal. I would help with the feeding, collect scat and urine samples and do a lot of watching, reading and interacting. [1]

Eventually, it was time to head out toward the Mexican border and set up in the cabin. No electricity or running water. Right in the middle of the smuggling route from Mexico. Surrounded by the wildest remote mountains around. I was looking forward to a great adventure and a chance to get some good science accomplished. Emil and I got started with our automatic cameras. The challenge was to make continuous hikes into the mountains, replacing batteries and exchanging film in the many dispersed camera traps. It was some treacherous hiking. We were getting along fine. On the second day, we got a surprise… Emil’s dad decided to come from Colorado and join in.

He was a surly old guy from the Rocky Mountains. He probably wasn’t as old as he looked, because he was extremely “weathered”, leathery and wiry, with deep creases in his face; a constant suspicious squint. Grey stubble grew from almost right under his eyes, down to his chin. Not an ounce of fat on his stringy hard muscles. When you said something to him, he’d jerk his face left or right like a chicken, to look at you sideways, always seeming to be about to say an accusatory “Wha’ju say!?”, and perhaps bite your head off. He happened to look incredibly similar to this actor, Roberts Blossom. [2]

He wasn’t very trusting and he took an immediate dislike to me for some reason. I think he wanted to be the assistant, and have me leave. There was some weird father/son dynamic going on between them, and I got the impression Emil had grown up with beatings being a normal part of life.

Emil’s and my relationship suddenly subdued and the atmosphere changed.

These were the days of the George W. Bush administration. Emil’s dad turned out to be an extreme far-left liberal. The most far-left I’d ever come into contact with. I was also a liberal… but a moderate. I wasn’t a fan of Bush, but I was pushing through it, waiting for the next election. On that second night, we sat down to dinner. Tin plates of beans and bacon, with some tin cups of coffee. Emil’s dad sat across from me at the small wooden table. I tried to talk to him, and it immediately turned to politics. I nodded my head at all he was saying about the damned republicans and “that asshole Bush”. He spat out a long list of complaints. It wasn’t long before he said something about killing him if he had the chance. Oddly… I was of the mind that we shouldn’t be thinking of killing our president, whoever it may be. I said something to that effect.

Dad growled, “You mean you wouldn’t kill him?” He looked straight into my eyes, like a maniac.

I half-laughed out a response of, “Look, I don’t like him, but I’m not going to say we should assassinate the President”.

He glowered through me. His hands were in fists on the table, one of them holding a fork. I felt a pressure tank across from me, building up steam. His lips were pursed, breathing hard through his nose, staring at me. Suddenly he exploded up in a jerk, flipped his plate of beans toward me and about leaped on top of me, ranting about what the president was doing to destroy the country! He bent over and got in my face. I stood up quick and said, “Back the fuck off!”

Emil finally got involved and said something. I was fuming. I looked at them both, then left the cabin to go chill out outside in the night air. This suddenly took a weird turn.

Eventually we all went to bed, as we had to get up very early. In the morning, we had breakfast in silence, then all headed out in the pickup, toward the beginning of the trail. The whole way, he was insulting me in every way possible; from my knife being too big; “Only green-horns and pussies think they need a big knife,” to my hair, “Why don’t you get a haircut and look like a real man.” Beyond all belief, I kept my cool and waited for Emil to reign in his crazy old man. Emil wouldn’t look at me, and stayed silent. The old man hadn’t been with us on our last outing, and we had used a comfortable pace to make our rounds. But this time dad took the lead. It turned out that not only was he half jack-ass… he was also half mountain goat. He set off at a crazy unnecessary pace, clearly meaning to break me, or leave me behind. I was in average shape, but I had a trick knee from an old parachuting accident I’d had while I was an Army Paratrooper. So I needed to watch my step. As we sprinted up and down the mountains, eventually the worst happened and my knee blew out as I was racing down a steep slope of forest. I yelled out. They kept going. Eventually I stumbled down to the rocky dry river bed at the bottom, where they were waiting.

I explained I had a bad knee from the Army. “How many jumps you got?” he scowled. I told him 26.

He says, “My buddy has over a thousand and he never had no bad knees.” At this point, I was vulnerable, and I really needed to restrain myself for my own safety. He pointed up a steep rocky slope and said he was heading out. I told them I couldn’t make it. He derided me some more and told me to wait while they continued. I had no choice. I agreed. They left me with most of the heavy batteries and set off. “3 or 4 hours,” they said. I waited, surrounded by dry boulders.

There was no shade in that valley. I had to get out of the sun. The nearest shade was 150′ straight up a cliff, where I saw a tree. I made the choice to climb after about 2 hours. I got up and started hobbling toward the cliff of rocks, dirt and some dry grass. Now came my biggest misfortune. All the extra batteries they piled into my backpack made it extremely heavy. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that my pack was on top of my camel-back, which held all my water. It was fine when my pack was light, but all the batteries were pressing down on my water bladder, and at some point during my climb, the pressure popped the end off the drinking tube. I didn’t notice as all my water squirted out and left me empty, until 30 minutes later, I reached the top. I pulled out the tube for a well-deserved drink, and… nothing. “Damn it!”

The tree wasn’t as full as I wished and only gave a smattering of shade. Better than nothing. It was about 118 degrees F. After a total of 5 hours had passed since they left, I was getting desperate. As I sat on that cliff side, I saw a barrel cactus not far away. I stumbled over. Ya hear that they have water in them. So, I gave it a shot. Luckily, I had my big knife with me and was able cut off the top. No puddle of water. Just an off-white mash of cactus innards. It was moist. It would have to do. I don’t recommend this method. It had a bitter tannin taste to it, as I scooped out a chunk and sucked on it. Horrible! Again… better than nothing, but not much better. 7 hours passed and I was dehydrated and starting to get hazy vision and a crazy headache. I considered starting a signal fire. But I worried about it getting out of control and consuming me. 8 hours.

Finally, I saw them down in the valley of rocks. I yelled out. Again and again. At last they answered. “Come on down!” I heard. Clearly I had to go down. But I was only thinking of water. I scrambled down the cliff again, knowing that in just a few minutes, I could drink. At last… “Water” I croaked.

You don’t have any water?” he says. I wasn’t up for a discussion to explain, I just needed a fast drink. I shook my head.

Again, I asked for water. “We don’t have any water.”

What the hell? I see them both with canteens. Emil started to give me his canteen. The old bastard again yelled out, “I said we don’t have no water” and he shot a look at his son. Emil backed down silently. I couldn’t believe this! I reached out and tried to grab a canteen and the bastard got up and started walking away, saying, “There’s water at the truck.” I was dumbfounded. I started following them, listening to the water sloshing in their canteens just feet away. I was going a bit mad from the sound.. and from the entire situation. But I barely had the strength to be mad. I did my best at keeping up but fell further and further behind. I tried calling out. They stopped one time for me to catch up and as soon as I did, again they took off. At last, I could go no further. Five minutes later they came back, with the old bastard bitching at Emil. Emil gave me water. One drink, and then that evil bastard yelled out, “That’s enough! We need it!” Emil put away the water. They started to take off again.. my knee was throbbing and I could hardly walk. I set short range goals of just making it to the next boulder. One after another. My vision made everything wavy. And finally Emil grew a pair and defied his old man, and put an arm around me and helped me the rest of the way… another mile. He mumbled an, “I’m sorry” quietly.

The truck was ahead of us. 100 yards more. I willed myself to keep going. Then… we were there. A 5 gallon jug of water that had been heating in the sun was brought down. It was hot enough to brew tea, but I drank. And drank. Near-boiling water. It was good.

It was a quiet ride back. I packed up my gear and got in my car and drove off, back to civilization. All I keep thinking about was that water sloshing ahead of me, out of reach, and hearing him insist “We don’t got no water” while I was looking right at it. All this, because I didn’t agree that President Bush should be assassinated.

It’s quite clear that he would have left me to die out there and concocted some story of me wandering off and getting lost, if it wasn’t for the intervention of his minimally-less corrupt son.

Months later, Emil got indicted for illegally trapping our jaguar in a noose, causing stress in the poor cat, which eventually led to the death of the only jaguar in the United States at the time. Here’s the picture he took of the tortured, snared cat. [3]

It was a whole big deal with scandal and blame spread all over. It became a Federal case. After being indicted, he lied to investigators and blamed his assistant for putting lure around the trap without his direction. This wasn’t true and eventually came out. This assistant was the person who took my place! In the end, he was banned from practicing any more research, anywhere. You may be interested in reading about the debacle here: emil mccain prosecuted over jaguar

Conspicuously absent from the indictment, was one old, evil, bastard goat, that I damn well know had a hand in the unethical activities that led to the jaguar’s death, due to over-bearing parental pressure. And he certainly had a hand in convincing his son to lie about the circumstances afterwards. I have no doubt. It was, after all, the government against his son. The government that he wanted to take out with a bullet. I know that lunatic bastard helped kill our jaguar, and let his son take all of the fall. Not that his son didn’t deserve it as well. I’ve no proof. But I know it. He damn near killed me.

Damn near. But not quite.

What is the most famous crime case that’s unsolved in the United States?

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John Holmes was a legend during the golden age of porn. He played the famous Johnny Wadd, a fictional detective in a series of porn films. At the time, he was most famous for having a 13-inch penis, although this was never proven. He also claimed to have sex with over 14,000 women. This is also disputed, but he did star in over 500 movies.

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As his porn career was taking off in the early 70s, so was his drug use. At his height, he was earning 3,000 dollars a day from his films, which was mostly spent on freebasing cocaine. His habit greatly affected his ability to maintain an erection, and by the end of the 70s, he was selling drugs and prostituting himself for drugs to both men and women.

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image 127

By the early 80s, Holmes was heavily involved in criminality. He was a close associate of drug dealer and nightclub owner Eddie Nash and was also close to the notorious “Wonderland Gang,” a group of heroin-addicted cocaine dealers, that ruled the drugs trade in Los Angela’s.

Holmes had confided with some members of the Wonderland Gang about a stash of drugs and money being kept at Eddie Nash’s house. Holmes had fallen out of favour with the Wonderland Gang after taking more than his fair share of drugs. So he helped them by setting up the home invasion and robbery of Eddie Nash.

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Eddie Nash suspected Holmes was involved in the robbery. He admitted to his part in the robbery after Nash threatened to kill his family. In the early hours of July 1st 1981, a gang of Nash’s enforcers along with Holmes entered the Rowhouse located on Wonderland Avenue, where five members of the Wonderland gang were sleeping. All but one of the gang members were beaten to death, and the fifth barley surviving the brutal attack.

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A handprint belonging to Holmes was found above the headboard of one of the slain gang members, putting Holmes at the scene during the attack. Eddie Nash was the prime suspect for the crime along with Holmes who took more of an active role. Holmes was charged with personally committing all four murders but was acquitted due to lack of evidence after a three-week trial. The trail was a landmark case, where it was the first trial in history to introduced video as evidence. The Wonderland murders remain unsolved to this day.

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By 1986, Holmes was diagnosed as HIV positive, and it was around this time he landed a lucrative deal to star in two adult films with “Paradise Visuals.” He went on to have unprotected sex with his co-stars while not revealing his diagnosis.

He died from Aids related complications on March 13th 1988, at the age of 43.

i gave up on the american dream | regularism

I feel you girl! I’m 34 renting a room in a house, I hardly own anything anymore. I let go of the illusion of how life is “supposed to be”. We are free this way, living simply! It’s all a state of mind starting with gratitude for what you have.”

The case of the light-fingered PC thief

As my life crumbled apart, back in 2005-6, I tried all sorts of measures to stop my “retirement” from MAJ.

But, at that time, I didn’t know the entire picture. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought that I was just “having some problems”.

Nope my entire life was crumbling away before my eyes.

Still I tried to do something about it.

I made arrangements in China, and tried to make various arrangements in the Philippines as well. I was tricked, abused, and basically thwarted at every turn. So many swindles. So many scams. So many selfish pricks. So many liars, tricksters, and generally selfish narcissists.

In hindsight, my Fate Forecasting was Black-on-Black, overlaid with black. It was triple negatives; or to use the parlance of Fate Forecasting and Bazi, it was very inauspicious, on top of very inauspicious.

It was one bad thing after the other, and my life fell apart in complete stages of collapse.

(Which, by the way, you are now starting to watch the entire United States government go through.)

Anyways, I was stuck in the Hong Kong airport,and spent about ten days there after being swindled in a number of places… by numerous people… and left alone to ROT.

While I was waiting there, my resources started to dry up and I was living off airport coffee, and hope. I slept on the hard metal chairs. Used the bathroom, and took sponge baths in the sinks.

And sure as shit, I eventually had to go to the bathroom and pee up a storm, so I put my backpack (with my laptop computer) in it, on my back and stood at a urinal peeing away…

…and some jackass gets really close behind me, but I must have been pissing three liters out, …

…he stood there right behind me, so close. Sheech.

Anyways, soon he left. I still kept a peeing.

I’m not kidding. I must have needed to pee out three liters. It just kept draining.

Then I exited the bathroom, and settled down, and low and behold, my laptop was stolen!

That asshole plucked it skillfully and silently from my backpack while I peed. Sheech!

Yeah. It really sucked, and I was flabbergasted. Shocked, and upset. I didn’t know if I were to laugh or cry.

It was profoundly a disaster, on top of a fiasco, surrounded by trouble at every turn.

I relate this little story to make a few points of interest.

  • When things are going to shit; they will go to shit no matter what you do.
  • The only thing that you can do is to reduce the damage, hedge against it, and be extra cautious.
  • It was a new computer, but has all my passwords, codes and critical communication methodology. I placed way too much on electronic means of record keeping, and communication.
  • After this event, I made it back home, computer-less, of course, and then was seized and set into the “system” to endure my “retirement”.

So to keep things simple.

Let’s distill the lessons here.

  • Friends are valuable. Never dare try to do things alone; and on your own. Work as part of a team with your most trusted friends.
  • Fates must be endured. These are gravitational / planetary alignments that you cannot modify. The only thing you can do is “nothing” on very inauspicious times.
  • Hope is critical. No matter how bad and hopeless things are, it is always temporary. Eventually it WILL change. Just hang on.
  • It will end. Sure it will, and an equal period of greatness will occur. You simply must endure the bad first. Consider the “bad events” to be your entry ticket to the life you desire.

Todays…

Nice Picture

2023 09 26 16 51a
2023 09 26 16 51a

Do you think Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips in large volume despite the US claims that Huawei may violate trade restrictions?

LOL, this is China.

If they know how to do something, they automatically know how to do it at scale.

This is a country that builds entire new cities at one go. They produce 600,000 engineers per year. They make four out of every five solar panels in the world. They can build a 57-storey skyscraper in 19 days, and as we saw during the covid-19 pandemic, a brand new hospital in 10 days. They are the world’s biggest factory.

If they know how to make one Huawei Mate 60, they already know how to make 100 million Huawei Mate 60s.

China does not know how to think SMALL. It is unnatural and weird for them to think on a small scale. China has cities with populations larger than countries such as Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, even Australia. Thinking big is China’s default mentality.

Barbecued London Broil

london broil
london broil

Ingredients

  • 1 (1 1/2 or 2 pound) flank steak
  • 1 tablespoon sherry or any dry red wine
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Score meat on all sides.
  2. Mix together remaining ingredients. Put on meat and let stand 1 1/2 to 2 hours, then place meat in broiler pan about 4 inches from heat. Broil for about 10 minutes or a little longer on each side. Ten minutes is for medium rare.
  3. To serve, cut diagonally across the grain into very thin slices.

What were the worst two minutes of your life?

Watching my wife die.

My wife’s had cancer for the last seven years. It was well-controlled. She was on maintenance chemo to prevent it from coming back.

All was going fine—she always felt sick a few days after chemo—but she was generally doing well. She had good quality of life and wasn’t really limited in any way except she had doctor’s appointments and scans nearly every week.

After a routine PET scan… Well, to make a long story short, they found cancer in her brain. It wasn’t “brain cancer”, it was the same cancer (inflammatory breast cancer) that had made its way to her brain. It was already fairly extensive by the time they found it, but they were confident they could take care of the lesions through radiation.

The day after her penultimate treatment, she complained that it hurt to breathe. I took her to the hospital and after giving her some pain meds, they admitted her. She was still having pain breathing, so the doctor thought they’d give her something to help her sleep so she could get some rest. And maybe in the meantime, they could figure out why she was experiencing painful breathing; it hurt to breath in and out.

While they were checking her out to prep her for some sleep, she flatlined. About a dozen people sprang into action. Some were specialists, some were support, but all were fighting to bring her back. I stood in the corner out of the way watching in horror as the hoard of medical professionals tried to bring my wife back.

About a million thoughts flooded my mind. Was I really watching my wife die? Was she really gone for good? I just hoped they could get her back.

The doctor pulled me out into the hallway. She asked what I wanted them to do.

I said, “I’m not a doctor, but I want you to do whatever’s reasonable!” She said okay, and they tried shocking her back. Every time, they got no pulse in response. They tried at least three or four times when it was clear she was gone. I gave the signal they could stop.

That was two weeks ago. I’m still trying to process it. It wasn’t like she was on a slow or steep decline. Everything pointed to her recovering.

But she’s gone. My kids are doing a good job helping keep my spirits up, but they’re devastated too. They’re all adults now, but they very nearly worshipped her, as did I.

Girls Standing In The Middle of Tokyo to Sell Themselves.. Japan Has A Serious Developing Problem.

Thank you for posting this. Japan is a complex society, with many ancient traditions, some of which are clashing with modernity even today after 150 years of intense exposure to (and copying of) the West. As with many things, prostitution there has uniquely Japanese characteristics and doesn’t necessarily involve physical intimacy, though such certainly exists. Anyway, these sad stories of girls from the countryside being exploited in the big city are all too common not just in Asia but in the West as well.

https://youtu.be/yo3IUSfTiMY

Our 18-year-old daughter enlisted in the Marines without discussing with me or my husband. What should we do now?

Every few weeks, bake 100 chocolate chip cookies, wrap them in wax paper, put them in a large Tupperware container, and mail them to her in Boot Camp.

Whatever you do, NEVER send packaged cookies from the supermarket! If you do this, her Drill Sergeants will hold them up for everyone to see at Mail Call and mock her mercilessly, saying, “This means yer parents do not love you!” Seen that happen in Army Basic Training a few times.

Homemade cookies the sergeants hand out to everyone and she will be the most popular and well liked Boot for the next half hour.

Why were the Japanese so merciless to Chinese people during World War II?

It happened, but not only to China.

Japan has historically been a very xenophobic and racist culture. Once you’ve convinced yourself your enemy are subhumans not even worthy to live, and you’re a dick, you go nuts.

The interesting contrast between the German and Japanese atrocities is that the German stuff was much more hidden. People have the impression that the holocaust was openly known to everyone, but the Germans took great pains to tell the population that they were shipping undesirables off to newly conquered territory to the east, to live seperately from Germans.

Whereas the the Japanese, their atrocities were rarely hidden. Entire military units would make a contest out of beheading prisoners. They’d round up women and children into a tall building and set it on fire and watch them jump from the roof in desperation. Their newspapers would cover these incidents and it would be celebrated back home.

Not to downplay the evil of the Germans at all, but the Japanese never get their due – I consider them to be as evil or more than the Germans, but you almost never hear about it, whereas you’ve heard about the holocaust at least 100,000 times in your life.

In addition to that, the official policy in Japan is dangerously close to the equivelant of holocaust denialism, whereas at least the Germans are thoroughly ashamed and sorry for what they did.

The American Dream is a Scam

Long comment. -MM

I think this subject matter is 100% correct and I agree with you on it and I also think that its a major part of the reason why America steadily has been becoming more toxic of a place over time.

I think its the perfect storm of capitalisms worst traits being compiled on and exacerbated by the people that are winning at capitalism.

What I’m saying is, in the course of the last 80 years at least our capitalist society has become more and more structurally corrupt.

Because the only people with any real power over how these systems are built and the people that they screw over vise versa, the people that it benefits.

Are the people who have the power and the success to influence it.

This is done with lobbying and both political parties USE lobbyists to this day which is essentially legal corruption for the political system to thrive on.

How it works is this, If im the owner of Apple or something like that and I value things like gun control or mandator vaccines and a community based culture , Im gonna give the politician that most closely values what I value and ima give him multi millions of dollars to run his campaign for election.

THEN I ask this person for political favors and to represent ME a little more than anyone else BECAUSE im handing them a multi million dollar check to run for whatever.

America has done this for a very long time and its one of the reasons way our election cycles are meaningless.

The elite class literally have more valuable voters than you do lol. Its NOT an even playing field. I think red or blue doesnt matter because the problem is both parites are dog shit.

Both parties got some good they wanna do and the bad shit they do is there too.

With republicans its the positive of them understanding personal freedom and things like guns remaining protected rights. but negatively speaking the republican party Is just as tone deaf and stupid about stuff like corporate greed and how bad that is, as the democrats are tone deaf to the importance of gun rights and being able to have the scary shit they wanna be able to dictate HOWEVER democrats do understand corporate greed and greedy elite cocksuckers who are siphoning the people of this country of their time and labor value. It sickens me that republicans will support selfish people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who are prime examples of people who do ALL THE SHIT that’s killing society over time.

This idea that they “earned” this when the money the get is being farmed off the backs of 20k employees.

We live in a country where we got the worlds largest GDP and the most ready to fight population of people ready to defend our country if someone wants to try us. and we got people like Jeff Bezos living in massive excessiveness while FAMILIES of people cant afford insulin or food or housing without government assistance programs and hand outs.

I mean its really no wonder why drugs are such an issue in the modern world, and people are doing shit all the time like walking into a place and killing your fucking children because theyre fucking sick.

This country BREEDS sickness. The hormone changing foods we eat. The garbage media we consume way to much of.

The sheltered life we have in dependency to the system being the norm and self sufficiency being a less sought after thing. People need to understand what freedom is. Sometimes it sucks.

But its way more liberating than this shallow illusionary world we created for ourselves. It dont even make sense to go out here and farm money like we do with our jobs, killing our bodies and our backs to MAINTAIN a life style when that money your working for is being PRINTED off a press by the trillions in our government. Its MAKE BELIEVE.

There is no backing to the value of our currency other than what we say its worth. Its just a catalyst to make way for modern slavery.

The type of slavery where the average slave doesn’t even see the shackles attached to them or they see it as a necessary inconvenience rather than what it is. Its a scam. Its a rigged game built to siphon the actual value of your life way from you. Money is nothing.

The value comes from skill and time.

The reason they created curency like money is because with this extra step in between, you can figure out ways to siphon it down without people knowing. I These companies use every dirty trick in the book to maximize profits.

Oh our employees want better pay, well just make everything we sell twice as expensive as to not take any cut to our current lifestyle.

This is why I was pushing back against minimum wage being increased to 15 an hour. Because this DOES NOTHING. People could do more with their money back when they made 1.35 an hour at minimum wage. The wage isn’t the problem its the scope of how much these companies WANT out of what they put in to a product or service. Its the fact that per hour of your time, you make less than half of what the same money could afford back when the world had a better capitalist balance going on before every motherfucker was exploiting every facet of every thing for maximum profits.

The average American doesn’t understand this concept of how they are stealing from you, while making it look like their giving you more when they aren’t.

The ONLY way to fix the issues is if these rich greedy cocksuckers decide one day that they are tired of being super duper rich and excessive, which has no chance of happening.

The people who hold the heys to the cookie jar are gonna dip into the most for themselves when nobody is looking.

That’s just human nature.

I do think that if people don’t mentally evolve enough to realize this entire system wand cultre we have is bogus and we dont need it at all to have everything we got, and keep working just like we have.

The only difference is, instead of working for selfish reason and necessity, people would work for others and out of wanting to serve the human race. Like if EVERYTHING was free..

I think people would still work. The only difference would be people wouldn’t settle for a job because they NEED money to eat, they’ll do shit they find more meaningful to them to do. It would actually probably IMPROVE the quality of work being done IF we just made it to where we operated as a community.

You like building houses ok, go build some hosues for people.

You know tech?

Okay go build tech or set it up for people. You know farming and food? Okay teach people how to be self sufficient and help them get set up. Society CAN function perfectly WITHOUT this idea of being in competition with each other and having more than the next guy.

That’s all that capitalism really is, its the idea of fuck the community I live in so I can get ahead of all of them and earn my status in society. And I don’t think capitalism is even the problem.

I think its just people. People are the ones who infest something and start corrupting it to be beneficial to themselves.

It doesn’t matter what system we call ourselves because people will always find a way to reach the top rungs of society in any society and they will begin to manipulate how society is from then on built, and they will most likely create it in a way where its unfairly exploiting one class of people sop another class can have more than they honestly need or deserve.

Communism wouldn’t fix it because that system is just as exploitable and manipulatable as capitalism and any other system controlled by human beings. I hope this all makes some sort of sense. people really need to fully wake up and we do need to throw this system overboard as a whole and we need to start restructuring society in a way where its beneficial to the human race equally.

Nice Picture

2023 09 26 16 51
2023 09 26 16 51

What is a true personal story that people have a hard time believing?

I was representing the USA in an international table tennis (ping pong) tournament in Osaka, Japan. The night before, I wandered over to the tournament site to check it out. When there, I noticed a guy wearing a Chinese team jacket. They were and still are the best in the world. Being somewhat cocky, I went over and asked him if he would like to hit some. He did and we eventually played a best-of-three match. I was playing well and managed to eke out a win.

Back with my teammates I modestly mentioned that I had beaten a Chinese player. To my astonishment some skepticism was expressed. Being fed up, the next day I suggested to the most skeptical teammate that we stroll over to where the Chinese team was camped out. I didn’t see the player from last night, so I started talking to one of the other Chinese players. Finally I casually mentioned that I had won a match with one of his teammates. “Which one?” he asked.

“Well I… Oh there he is, walking over now.”

“Ah yes”, he said, “That’s Mr. Chen. He’s our cook.”

Have you ever lost any respect for someone instantly?

I had worked at the car dealership for a year when they decided to shift me from sales to service. It wasn’t what I wanted, but at least I still had a job.

The Saturday before my job changed, the service manager grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into his office. He then filled me in on his philosophy…

“I can’t stand having women working for me”, he said. “They have menstrual periods. They’re nothing but bitches for 3 weeks out of the month. They can’t make rational decisions. You can’t trust them.”

I just sat there, silently. He’d apparently decided that I would be replacing a woman who I had great respect for. She’d helped dozens of my customers, and they loved her. Nobody ever had a bad word to say about her.

I was floored at his attitude. He could think what he wanted, but by opening his mouth, he became a liability to the company. I have no idea why he felt the need to ”share” that with me.

Months later, I had to testify against him in an unlawful termination lawsuit brought about by that female employee. I don’t know what it cost the company, but I hope it was worth it to them.

My mother raised me by herself until I was about 5 years old, and I have nothing but respect for hard working women in the workplace.

With his unsolicited diatribe against women, he instantly lost my respect.

How to Leave the USA in Five Steps

I think this guy is a puke. However, his information is pretty good. Hold your nose and watch. -MM

Why does the West feel so intimidated by Russia when Russia has shown by its poor performance on the battlefield and its looking for outside help that it is not a proper threat?

Poor Performance?

Aw give it up for heavens sake

The Western MSM have been forced to acknowledge that Russia has had a massive win against Ukraine and NATO by ensuring the 115 day long counter offensive with :-

  • 14 Fresh Brigades – 56,000 NATO Trained troops
  • 4 Fresh Divisions – 120,000 Ukrainian Reservists trained over 6 months in Ukraine from June to December 2022
  • 116 NATO Tanks
  • 440 Armored Vehicles
  • 540 Soviet Era Tanks (T 62, T 72)
  • 1.7 Million Artillery Shells 155 mm

Has been ground to dust

Literally

Only ONE BRIGADE the 71 UK Yeger is still left untouched

The Ukrainians have 258 out of 656 Tanks left

They have 190 out of 440 Armored Vehicles left

They have barely 200,000 Artillery shells left

They have lost in the last 115 days, around 44000 Men and another 27000 men have been seriously wounded and disabled for minimum one year from fighting

And what have they gained?

Exactly 152 Square Kilometers that too, territory still under Russian Offensive


That’s why the West are worried

That Russia of their imagination is a different Russia from this Vigorous fighting force

Apple Reacts to Huawei Challenge in China

Unconfirmed reports that Apple is reacting by:

  1. Apple corporate has decided that the newest Apple products would be supplied to China before the US market;
  2. Price war to keep China users from switching (back) to Huawei mobile phones.

Obviously Apple sees a major Huawei challenge with the Mate 60 Pro and upcoming products, and sees that this market is key to Apple’s future, even if it has to sacrifice profits.

What is something Westerners don’t know about Africans?

In many African countries, money changers effortlessly swap bundles of cash by the roadside, operating under the implicit but rock-solid assumption that they won’t be robbed. And we walk out of banks with wads of cash, sometimes on a tiny nylon or envelope. Such security measures are largely unnecessary.

Lawyers and signed agreements may be the norm elsewhere, but in many parts of Africa, your word is more valuable than gold. Break it, and you’ve essentially declared social bankruptcy. A broken promise doesn’t just tarnish your immediate reputation; it haunts you for life, impacting your relationships and prospects. I, for one, have family members I wouldn’t lend a penny to, much less enter a business deal with. All because they failed to uphold their word when it mattered.

In most Western cities, shoplifting is a perennial problem, and law enforcement often turns a blind eye. Not here. Young people aren’t emboldened by societal indifference. On the contrary, the idea of swiping even a candy bar sends shivers down their spines. In our world, retribution is swift and comes from the community itself. Misbehavior is universally scorned.

Kids don’t engage in senseless acts like random street attacks, burning of shops, or joyriding in someone else’s car. It’s not just the fear of punishment that deters them. Rather, it’s a collective societal understanding that these actions are fundamentally wrong. Our young people may admire your shiny sports car, but they’d rather beg you for money than dream of damaging or stealing it.

Respect is in our DNA. Children back-talking their parents happens rarely and is frowned upon. We quickly give up our seats to older people and pregnant women without being asked. Titles like Sir, Ma’am, Daddy, and Aunty aren’t just terms of address; they’re badges of honor for the wisdom that comes with age. We greet older people by bowing or semi-kneeling. Communities act as a self-regulating mechanism, making certain transgressions practically unthinkable.

Violent acts like public shootings of innocent people remain alien to us, not because we’re oblivious to the global mental health crisis, but because the fabric of our communities simply doesn’t allow such chaos to unfold.

While discussions around the treatment of women in Africa often lean toward the negative, there’s another side to the coin. Any man who dared to raise a hand against a woman in the presence of people would swiftly face communal justice even before the police arrived. Spectators don’t stand back to dial emergency numbers, we make the fight ours.

The Magic isn’t necessarily in governmental laws or policing. It’s in the unwritten code of conduct, the communal upbringing that checks our moral compasses and teaches us to respect one another.

U.S Hold Top Secret Talks With China in Malta! U.S Beg China

September 22, 2023

American plans are turning to shit, quickly. Actions must be taken. Can China bend a little to help out the Biden Administration?

It would be wonderful should the United States regain some measure of sanity again! Then we in the rest of the world may be able to breathe again without the thought of forever war and death intruding in our dreams only to become nightmares.”

What is the most eerie declassified CIA document you have seen or heard about?

A US Marine group had killed Sixty Afghans

So a group of angry Afghans pretended to be PRO US and requested a few marines to help them and abducted them

They proceeded to skin the marines alive literally and chop them into pieces and cook them

They then wanted to feed this to the other marines

However there was a road block and the truck was abandoned and the men saw the huge container that was full of some flesh

They soon DNA tested and found it was human remains , cooked meat of their comrades

The remaining Marines were so frightened that they were relieved immediately to stateside and took treatment for mental shock


This was related to a Congressional Committee in the late Obama era when the issue was declassified to justify keeping Guantanamo


The Taliban and the Islamic fundamentalists are the only mortals who can defeat the USA and bring them to their knees

Russia has missiles, China has missiles

No use

The Fundamentalists have a nice 14 year old boy who befriends a majors son, becomes a close friend and them calmly plunges a dagger into the kids heart and smiles as he waits for deliverance

Invincible!!

Sad but true

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED to the USA! (REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK)

I’m an American ex-pat who has been living overseas for 35 years. I try to fly to the States at least every other year (with the exception of the Corona-lockdown years), and I always get the reverse culture shock. I think what shocks me most is the huge increase in homelessness and drug addiction, as well as the political polarization. Back in the 80s, you could discuss politics with others, even if you didn’t agree, and in the end you stayed friends.”

22 things. Yuppur.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

When I was about fourteen years old I was walking home, at about 8 PM, through a local park in The Bronx when three boys from the gang that came from an adjacent neighborhood appeared. It was about dusk. I knew I was in trouble. As things were getting tense for me, Ronnie appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Ronnie and I attended the same public school from grades K to 6. In 2nd grade the teacher had me sit next to Ronnie. The seats were arranged in three rows of two. Each pair were adjacent. Ronnie was a slow learner. I taught him to read that year. We became friends…only in that class as we didn’t live “near” each other and didn’t have much in common. In those days, near was within 2 city blocks. For seventh grade I was sent to another school and I hadn’t seen Ronnie for two years.

Ronnie was short but he had bulked up a bit and had taken up boxing. I had lost track of him. As he stood next to me facing the three boys, it became clear as what was going to happen as Ronnie took a step closer to the other boys and slightly in front of me. They all took a step back. And then walked away.

Ronnie and I said the mandatory “Good to see yous”, walked a couple of hundred feet together and said. “see ya.”*

*A couple of years later I heard that Ronnie had become a Golden Gloves boxer and had done OK.

Bacon-Wrapped Filet Steaks
Topped with Roasted Garlic Butter

fm148
fm148

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 12 large garlic cloves, peeled
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
  • Kosher salt
  • 3 1/2 teaspoons chopped chives
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
  • 4 (6 to 7 ounce) filet steaks, about 1 inch thick
  • 4 very thin slices of lean bacon
  • 6 inch wooden skewers or toothpicks, soaked in water for 10 minutes and patted dry

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Place peeled garlic and olive oil in 1-cup, ovenproof ramekin, soufflé dish or custard cup. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil and place in oven. Roast on center rack until garlic is golden and very tender and soft when pierced with knife, about 30 minutes (start checking cloves after 20 minutes and then every 5 minutes until done).
  3. With slotted spoon, remove garlic from bowl and reserve oil. Place garlic, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the reserved oil, butter and 1/8 teaspoon salt in food processor or blender and process, pulsing machine on and off for 30 seconds or less until garlic is coarsely chopped and blended with butter and oil. Transfer garlic butter to small bowl and stir in 2 teaspoons of the chives. (Garlic butter can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature 30 minutes before ready to use.)
  4. When ready to cook steaks, oil a grill rack and prepare grill.
  5. In small bowl, stir together 1 teaspoon kosher salt, coarsely ground black pepper and thyme. Rub both sides of each filet with some of this seasoning. Then wrap each steak around its sides with 1 slice of bacon. Skewer bacon in place with wooden skewer or with 2 to 3 wooden picks.
  6. Grill steaks until lightly charred on the outside and until bacon is cooked, about 5 minutes per side for medium-rare.
  7. When done, remove steaks from fire and place on warm serving plate. Remove toothpicks.
  8. Top each steak with 1 generous pat of roasted garlic butter and sprinkle with some of remaining chives. Butter will start to melt and season the steaks.
  9. Serve immediately.

The United States is fucked

2023 09 26 15 5a7
2023 09 26 15 5a7

White Cross and Beer

During my senior year in High School, I was blossoming into a fine young man. I was a cultural icon of the time. I wore a “choke collar” around my neck, puffy sleeved and colorful nylon shirt, a big colorful belt buckle, and bell bottom jeans.

I had longish hair to my shoulders. Parted in the middle up top. It was light brown in color. Oh those were the days…

2023 09 21 08 56
2023 09 21 08 56

I cruised around in my GTO (that I affectionately referred to as “the goat”) and alternated between Senior year in High school and my work life.

2023 09 21 08 58
2023 09 21 08 58

Evenings were spent “hanging out”, going to “keggers” in the “bony dumps” (old abandoned strip mined areas) and popping “white crosses” (tiny white amphetamine pills used for weight reduction. We used to take four at a time.) and drinking beer (Miller in Pony bottles).

The “white cross” pills were tiny, tiny white wafers with a cross on one side. We popped them and got “the rush”, and then buzzed, we smoked the marijuana, and drank the beer while we cruised the roads though the countryside.

2023 09 21 08 59
2023 09 21 08 59

Typically, we kept the trunk filled with ice, and the beer would be placed in the trunk to keep them cool. You would be amazed how long the ice would last, too. Easily into the middle of the next day.

Then we would fill up the trunk with more ice for the night’s activities.

Two dollars would fill up the gas tank.

I lived in the countryside. My city cousins spent far more time in bars and clubs, but that wasn’t really possible for me at the time. It wasn’t until I was older, that I started to frequent clubs and bars, and that type of lifestyle.

This falls well into my “room theory” of life. You live in one room, and then enter another room, and you life becomes a long series of rooms. Each one different from the rest. This “room” was my “Senior Year in High School prior to College” room. And come September, I entered my “Freshman year in college” room. New friends. New lifestyle. New place, and new everything.

What “room” are you in now, and what does your next “room” gonna look like?

Dazed and Confused (1993) | *First Time Watching* | Movie Reaction

They never watched this? LOL.

This is fun.

I went to get an inspection and failed. They still charged me $20. Is that legal?

There was a case in Prince Edward Island about 15 years ago where a lady was being sued because part of her house was on her neighbour’s property.

So she hired a surveyor – who told her her house was partly on her neighbour’s property.

So she didn’t pay him. The surveyor sued. He won. The court noted that when you hire an expert, you pay for their expertise and their informed opinion, not for the result you want.

But let me tell you something else. There was a mall in Northern Ontario. Three engineers over a period of thirty years were hired to investigate water leaks. They all said the water leaks were the result of the waterproofing being done improperly but the structure of the building was fine. A month after the third engineer pronounced the building “structurally sound”, part of it collapsed catastrophically, killing two people. The inquiry noted that the engineer had equipment to ultrasonically examine the steel beams, but didn’t use it. The forensic engineers hired after the collapse noted the steel connection that failed was 89% corroded (meaning the connection was 10 times stronger than it needed to be, but still failed). I’m assuming that’s the kind of inspection you were looking for.

America Finally Did It, The Fuse Has Been Lit!

I’m American and I’m disgusted with the corporate control of our domestic and foreign policies.

China is decoupling. America got their wish.

What was the most moving ‘random act of kindness’ that you’ve ever witnessed?

I will share with you one of the most moving acts of compassion I’ve witnessed.

When my youngest son, Luke, was 10 years old, he played football on a local rec-league team. One evening his team played against one of the big rival teams from a neighboring town. I was surprised at how many people were at this game. After all, these were young children playing.

At a crucial time in the game, my son got the football and was running for a touchdown. He zigged and zagged, dodging and evading players on the opposing team. His teammates did a remarkable job blocking, as well. Finally, there was only one opponent between my son and a touchdown, and one of Luke’s teammates (Mario) made a hard block, knocking the opposing player to the ground.

There was now nothing between the goal and my son, who ran all out, then, slowed, stopped, turned around, ran back to the boy writhing on the ground, and took a knee.

The crowd went wild. Spectators on my son’s team hurled horrific insults at my young son. People I had known for years said the most hateful things, glaring at my son, threatening him, shooting daggers at me.

I ran down onto the field to be with Luke. As I ran down the bleachers, people said hateful things to me about my son.

When I arrived at Lukes’ side, before I could ask if he was okay, Luke looked up at me and said, “Dad, I had to do it. I had to come back.”

Okay,” I said.

Luke continued, “Mario hit that kid hard. Real hard. When he hit him, I heard a bone snap. I heard it! I knew he was hurt bad, and I knew if I scored, it would take more time for anyone to notice him, and he would be hurting in all that time.”

I nodded my head. I could barely see at this point, my eyes welling with tears, proud of my son.

Luke continued, “And I remembered that you always teach us that being a good sport is about more than winning, so I stopped and came back.”

He looked at me, his eyes wondering how I would react. I had never been prouder of him. I hugged him and told him how proud I was.

Luke was correct — the boy suffered a broken leg. He had to go to hospital.

This is one of the finest acts of compassion I ever witnessed. And a valuable lesson for me.

The Sopranos || This Thing of Ours

Pretty good.

Isn’t it scary that China has the world by the balls economically? China, a country that half the human race has issues with but NO ONE wants to decouple from? Isn’t it insane the kind of power China has?

Why scary?

Have they threatened anyone? The way I see it US and the former colonials are scary! They come to South China Sea from as far away as 10 thousand miles away to pick a fight with China. I did not hear or see China travelling to English Channel or Florida coast to threaten the U.S.! Did you? Last I check And it is NATO wanting to expand to Asia not CCP expanding to Europe or North America!

So who is scary? To us you are scary. It wasn’t that long ago that the British force fed 100 million Chinese to get addicted to Opium and burn down the imperial palace in Beijing and stole Hong Kong for 156 years! And unsatisfied it cohort with the evil US to pay hoodlums an unemployed to pretend to protest for CNN as props. The U.S. and UK orchestrated a protest! The west is scary not China. You guys are spoiling for a fight. China just wants to do business?

What is so scary about a society wanting to do well for its people. Did they asked the world to be like them and adopt their Socialism with Chinese characteristics. They did not. They went further! The says that every nation should adopt what they see as best for them.

They think that Chinese political system may not be suitable for any nation. And that it is not exportable. The U.S. murdered 3 million to stop communism. The U.S. also murdered another 3 million in Iraq to bring democracy to them. And another 2 million to stop Talibanism in Afghanistan! Don’t you think US behaviour is more scary! I thinks so. And so does 87% of the world.

Where do you get “half” the world? You dream it up? You simply follow some lies from the media? No more than 5% of the world disagree with China. 87% disagree with the U.S. outright!

You know what us scary. You! Yes if there are 5% of the world thinking like you. So wrong, so ignorant and so naive. That is very scary!

Rosemary Rolls

rosemary dinner rolls4 srgb
rosemary dinner rolls4 srgb

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup salted butter
  • 2 cups self-rising flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary (or 2 teaspoons dried rosemary)
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Melt 1/2 teaspoon butter in each cup of a 12-count muffin tin.
  3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, milk, mayonnaise, sour cream, rosemary and pepper; stir to mix well.
  4. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling half full.
  5. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Yield: 1 dozen

The Sopranos | 𝑺𝑶𝑳𝑫𝑰𝑬𝑹𝑺

This is short, but GREAT.

What is the one in a million coincidence you have ever had?

My husband and his first wife went from Chicago to New York for a long weekend.

As they waited to cross a busy street, they heard two businessmen behind them discuss how they were going to get the better of someone they were doing a deal with—in St. Louis.

Their ears pricked up because his first wife was from St. Louis originally.

As they walked along the next street, they were able to hear and identify enough details to realize that these two men were going to trick her uncle by not disclosing certain information.

When they got to the hotel, his wife called her uncle—who verified that indeed he was in the middle of doing a deal with these two guys in New York!

So no deal happened then!

What are the chances?

China Warns US on Its Ridiculous Plan to Make 150 Nations Leave Belt and Road Initiative!

On the 9th of June 2021, USA introduced a bill, which passed by 68 votes to 32, known officially as the “US Innovation and Competition Act”. In Washington it is colloquially known simply as the “anti-China bill”. Part of USA’s Anti-China bill, USA has allocated over $300 Million every year, for 3 years, to media trash China.

I just WISH USA would stop their warmongering ways, and join China in uniting the World.

https://youtu.be/YB2xgSWY6F8

What is the smallest thing a person ever did for you that impacted your life?

I was struggling for over a year looking for steady work. I finally landed a job unloading trailers at UPS. Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t pay very well.

Growing up, I hung out with some guys whose parents had money. This instilled a sense of undeserved entitlement and pretentiousness in me. Looking down on people who worked these, “sh*t jobs.”

Anyways, I had been down on my luck for a bit in more aspects than one, and one day after a long evening of working my tail off I went to a local McDonald’s (McDonald’s employees being one of those jobs/people I’d mocked). After pulling into the drive-thru I checked my bank account. $3.47. I was so, so hungry. I ordered a few things off of the dollar menu, and proceeded to pull up to the window. Thinking I kept the order minimal, I assumed I had enough. The lady there ran one card, declined. Now, somewhat frantic, I pulled my credit card out. Declined. I, embarrassed as all get out, asked the lady if she could take some things off of my order for me. She paused and looked at me for a moment. I don’t know if she could hear the despair in my voice or saw it in my body language, but she looked around before dropping those items back in the bag with a little extra and handed it right back to me. She wished me a good rest of my evening with a quiet smile.

I told her she didn’t have to do that, but she happily insisted. I thanked her as I pulled away from the window. I pulled out of the parking lot, and immediately broke down crying. An uncontrollable sobbing that I’d never felt before. After all of these years of frowning upon people like this lady, she was the one to help me when I just needed something to eat.

McDonald’s lady, wherever you may be, your small act of kindness changed my life.

Thank you.

The Sopranos || That’s Life

This is also pretty darn good. Don’t you know.

Top currency economist points to accelerated pace of de-dollarization

The global shift away from the US dollar has increased tenfold since February 2022 compared to the previous 15 years, Stephen Jen, the CEO of Eurizon SLJ Capital Limited, told Die Welt on Thursday.

According to the former International Monetary Fund and Morgan Stanley economist, the majority of analysts are missing the trend because they evaluate the nominal value of central banks’ dollar holdings on the basis of data released by the IMF.

“However, if we take into account changes in the value of the dollar, then, according to our calculations, we’ll see that the dollar share in foreign reserves has lost about 11% since 2016,” Jen explained.

He argued that Washington’s decision to freeze Russia’s dollar reserves after the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraen had been the decisive event.

This has fueled fear and anxiety in Beijing, but also in other emerging countries,” he said, adding that holding reserves in US dollars had been always considered absolutely safe until the drastic move.

Jen explained that the BRICS countries had been increasingly focused on alternatives to the greenback.

According to the economist, since the BRICS group of emerging economies – which presently comprises Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, but is due to add six new members next year – the economic power of the union has multiplied. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia will officially join the group in January 2024.

James Gandolfini’s Best Scene from The Sopranos

The range of emotions showcased here is amazing; anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, contempt, and lil’ compassion, all within three minutes. A master class for any actor.

Chinese Innovation Foils U.S. Tech War — Clifford A. Kiracofe

Washington calculated that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.

China’s rapid advances in technology will inevitably foil the United States-led Western technology war against China. Huawei unveiled its stunning new high tech Mate60 cell phone and timed the announcement with the visit of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Sending a message?

The Donald Trump administration launched an intensive trade war and a tech war against China. President Joe Biden continued Trump’s policies and ratcheted them up to a new level. Rather than engage in mutually beneficial trade relations and scientific and technological cooperation, Washington openly admits it seeks to contain and suppress China’s economic growth and development.

Playing this zero-sum game is a dead end for the United States. China is very well equipped in the pursuit of technological innovation. Fundamental to China’s tech progress is the human factor. For example, it is no secret that China every year produces far more STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) students than does the U.S.

Tech war is economic war

Export controls and restrictions on technology development are nothing new in international commerce. During its colonial period, the North American colonies faced an array of trade restrictions and technology restrictions imposed by the British Empire. These were designed to prevent the colonies from becoming rivals to British manufactures. They also were a factor leading to the American Revolution and War of Independence.

In World War I, the United Kingdom enacted a “Trading with the Enemy Act” which created an export control regime deigned to deny Germany war related imports. After the U.S. entered the war, Congress passed its own Trading with the Enemy Act modeled on the British legislation. These wartime legislative measures were applied again during World War II.

After World War II, export controls on a multilateral basis were created by the West to restrict various exports to the Soviet Union and Communist bloc. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was created at the beginning of the Cold War. The U.S. thus coordinates, in turn, with NATO allies, Australia, and Japan to restrict the export of sensitive technologies to designated countries.

So the Western use of export controls for the purposes of economic warfare is nothing new. But the revival of this mechanism intensively directed specifically against China is a key feature of the U.S.-led New Cold War. The technological encirclement and blockade of China, however, is not sustainable.

Washington miscalculates

Washington calculates that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.

Logically, because China’s population is four times larger than that of the United States, there would at some point be a larger pool of STEM trained specialists in China than in the U.S. This is so because of the continuous upgrading of higher education in China and the massive commitment to research and development.

Several years ago, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. released a study on the STEM issue. The university’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology reported that in 2000 the U.S. issued twice as many doctorates in STEM field as did China. But in 2007, China began outpacing U.S. universities. The report assessed that by 2025 China would produce twice as many STEM Ph.D. graduates.

Because the U.S. cannot compete with its own population base, Washington seeks to import specialists in STEM fields from India as one stop gap measure.

But Chinese innovation is very dynamic and advanced with great future potential. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that China would develop the necessary technology for state-of-the-art semiconductors. This national objective combines the growing pool of high-tech specialists with a large pool of skilled labor together with billions of yuan for investment.

It was not difficult to foresee that China, through innovation and targeted investment, would be able over time to produce the machines and industrial processes to fabricate advanced state-of-the-art semiconductors. This applies to Chinese semiconductor design capability as well.

Why did the Washington miscalculate?

An inter-agency task force on the Chinese semiconductor issue would have concluded that the attempt to block and limit Chinese advances is not sustainable and thus would fail.

Some critics of the administration point to the lack of competence in President Biden’s foreign policy team. They say that Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are just not up to their jobs.

Be that as it may, it is possible that racial prejudice affects Washington’s assessments. There was a time after World War II when it was common to look down on “cheap” Japanese goods. But Japanese success in electronics and auto manufacture by the 1980s showed another story.

Anyone from the U.S., a tourist or an official who visits China’s National Museum in Beijing will see exhibits displaying many centuries of Chinese skill and innovation not only in art, such as ceramics and bronze, but also in inventions and technology. China’s history of science and technology goes back millennia.

What does the Huawei Mate60 portend?

Clearly, the advanced smartphone is a perception changer at a minimum. No doubt, it will be seen as a game changer as well. Other high-tech breakthroughs are in the news.

It is now reported that the Chinese firm SMIC has a 7 nanometer (nm) N+2 process semiconductor project that is produced entirely in China with no access to Western equipment and technologies. All of the core components in China’s EUV lithography machines are said to be ready and that the prototype is being tested.

On the day that the new Mate60 phone was announced it was sold out in one minute online. Huawei boosted production to 15-17 million units and beginning September 10 Chinese can purchase the smartphone in Huawei’s offline stores. The phone has a satellite capability.

As Chinese firms develop independent semiconductor design and fabrication capacity, U.S. firms inevitably will lose out on this vast export market. It seems logical that the more intense the anti-China trade and tech wars become the more Chinese consumers will turn to homegrown products other than those from the U.S.

The U.S. lifted a stone only to hit its own feet.

The U.S. politicians must come to their senses and adopt a China policy of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and mutual benefit. Washington’s belligerent and destabilizing foreign policy disrupts the international community, increases tensions, and can lead to a war which will harm the U.S. side in the end.

The Special Cat Looked Sadly Around At the People Passing by His Cage

Life was idyllic for Pinat until the inevitable struck. His beloved owner passed away, leaving the poor cat alone and vulnerable.

Have you ever had a neighbor who believed they had free reign of your property?

I had a cherry tree in my back yard. I was really looking forward to them. I got home from work and there were 6 or more kids in the tree, stuffing my cherries into all sorts of containers. I yelled and they all took off. It wasn’t possible to get to the remaining cherries. Some of them left containers in my yard. A mom showed up and yelled at me for not giving her back her Tupperware.

Why is Huawei able to get a large number of chips to release new mobile phone products like Mate 60?

SMIC has been making 7nm custom GPUs for the past 2–3 years, mostly for crypto customers who couldn’t get in the TSMC queue.

This filled real market demand that other players didn’t, or couldn’t.

SMIC used this opportunity to refine its process, on the quiet.

Huawei, in the meantime, found willing partners to share talent and resources, in a concerted effort to save the high-tech industry on the mainland from American destruction through the threat of sanction.

How did Huawei et. al. find the tools necessary for chip design, especially the GPU? What black magic did Huawei use to improve the transistor geometry? How did they penetrate the Qualcomm 5g patent wall? I don’t know. Neither does my friend in TSMC. It’s a separate ecosystem now, and quite independent.

The fog of war has descended, but the outcome point to solidarity across the ranks, with competitors working together like they are part of a conglomerate.

The Chinese are capable of cooperation on unheard of scale, because of long history.

The Mate 60 Pro is merely a first step, lacking polish and maturity. What’s coming though, will be a deluge.

American reacts to: america – What they don’t show you

Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to america – What they don’t show you…

China demands Ukraen explain ‘low intellectual potential’ slur

President Zelensky’s top aide has suggested that Beijing and New Delhi are unable to analyze the consequences of their moves China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

Beijing has demanded clarification from Kiev after Mikhail Podoliak, a top aide to Ukraenion President Vladimir Zelensky, suggested that authorities in China and India weren’t smart enough to figure out what the actual national interests of their countries were.

Podoliak characterized the two Asian countries as having “low intellectual potential,” in an interview with channel Vlast vs Vaschenko published Tuesday on YouTube. Speaking about the increasing cooperation of Beijing and New Delhi with Moscow amid the conflict in Ukraen, he claimed that China and India “don’t analyze the consequences of the steps they make.”

The aide accused China, India and also Türkiye of “earning money” on the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The Chinese authorities believe that doing so is in their country’s national interests, but Beijing is better off distancing itself from Russia as it’s “an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he said.

India has remained silent on this so far.

What do physicians’ spouses know that the average person typically does not?

A few things.

(Physician’s Spouse here)

1.) No matter how calm and focused a doctor sounds when delivering bad news, they take that shit home with them.

Now a neurologist has to deliver a lot of shit news. Pretty much, if you end up in my wife’s office, something out of the ordinary has gone wrong. Migraines are the least of her worries. She’s dealing with MS, Dementia, Strokes, Epilepsy, Gullien Barre, Neuropathy, Parkinson’s, Brain Tumors, and the mother fucker of all mother fuckers, ALS.

The last one is the worst for her. Because she knows. Almost right away, and can’t say anything. Because a lot of things mimic the symptoms of ALS on the surface, so the process of diagnosing it is not so much to look for ALS symptoms but to systematically rule everything else that it MIGHT be out. Which takes weeks. And weeks. During which the whole time, she knows. But she hopes. And hopes that one of these tests will show another culprit. You know. Like cancer. Yes. It’s a case where she would celebrate finding cancer. At least they can do something about that.

Can you imagine opening up the files of a brain scan and praying you’ll see tumors?

By the time she’s done and can deliver the worst of all hunks of shit news, it’s been weeks of anguish for her. And when she comes home, it’s time to let all the little petty shit from my day go, because it’s NOTHING.

2.) Care and feeding of your physician is essential to maintaining your physician’s health.

Seriously. How my wife managed to get to work before I arrived on scene to make coffee in the morning, I’ll never know. A doctor’s work is never done, once they get home, it’s time to catch up on charting, and if they have a complicated specialty like my wife (neurologist) those charts are extremely complicated.

You know though? It’s important work, so if I can help just a bit by taking care of dinner? Or cranking out coffee strong enough to wake a triceratops fossil? I’m good with that.

3.) It’s friggin EXPENSIVE being a doctor.

What most people know about being a doctor is that doctors make a lot of money.

Yeah. She has no complaints there (it’s probably not as much as you think, but it’s a damn good living)

But Board Certifications, Continuing Medical Education, Malpractice Insurance, about a Quarter Million in Student Loan debt from 10 years of school, this association fees, that one, fee, fee, fee, fee, fee, it’s no wonder the first thing I learned from my wife was “looking for a doctor? Find the cheapest rattiest set of scrubs, there they are!”

4.) They get into it to practice medicine and usually love that, but generally, find themselves buried in a ton of other crap

I mentioned charts. Not the half of it, although for pure volume of work and time spent, it’s just lovely.

They didn’t mind so much when they were marking up paper charts as they were examining you. Now it all has to be done in an Electronic Medical Records system, and there is apparently no such thing as a halfway decent EMR.

Want to see a doctor fly into a violent volcanic rage? Ask them how they feel about their EMR.

Then there’s just the pile of administrative shit. Especially if you’re running the practice which thank God mine doesn’t have to worry about. But there is always a shitton to do that has not a damn thing to do with healing.

I’m keeping count of the number of times mine laments for the carefree days of being a Starbucks barista.

5.) In my experience, they’re usually just genuinely good people.

Now, I’m biased, I admit it. And I suppose I only meet genuinely good-people doctors because I’m married to one who wouldn’t give someone who wasn’t a minute of her time.

And yes, there are some genuine pieces of shit in the profession, just like any other.

But the vast majority of the dozens of doctors I’ve met as a result of being married to one are just good solid people who usually get into the profession to make a real difference in people’s lives, and out of a genuine desire to do good.

I like doctors. Especially mine.

Cats vs snakes

Learn something fun.

Does Japan really want to fight China overall? It seems EVERYTHING that Japan is doing is meant to piss of ALL of it’s neighbors, namely and especially China. Does Japan simply want a final battle between itself and China?

As a citizen of PR China who knows a thing or two about history, I must say that I understand why they do that.

Because Republic of China was and is totally a coward.


Because of the good relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and USSR, during Cairo Conference, the US proposed to give the authority of Ryukyu (Okinawa) to China, also part of Japan’s authority, and invited China to garrison in Japan.

Chiang rejected it.

He rejected the proposal from the US to take over Ryukyu and part of Japan, because he wanted to be humble, and he was a mean character when massacring Chinese.


Above is the photo of surrender ceremony of Chinese war zone. Take a guess about who is the winning side.

The answer is the one on the left, eventhough he looked more humble.

On the left it’s He Yingqin, first degree admiral and 2nd place in Republic of China militray.

On the right it’s Asasaburo Kobayashi, Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant general.

They are not even at an equal level. From Japan side, it should be Yasuji Okamura, the commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II, handed in the Instrument of Surrender.

In the negotiation conferece of surrender ceremony, ROC sent a lieutenant general, and Japan sent a major general. Not in equal position too.

According to Yasuji Okamura’s memoir:

About the ceremony decoration, ROC side initially wanted to have a round table, to avoid being aggressive. It was because of the US intervention, ROC eventually choose long table.

It was agreed when handing in the Instrument of Surrender, Asasaburo Kobayashi was supposed to salute to He Yingqin for 3 times, and He Yingqin didn’t salute back. This idea was probably from the US “suggestions”. However, when Asasaburo Kobayashi saluted for the 3rd time, General He stood up as a return to the salute.

It was not the same when the US and USSR accepting surrender from Germany and Japan. They both ordered Germany and Japan to redo everything they are not satisfied, until everything’s fine. After all, it was a world war, and they were the winners.

Whereas in China, He Yingqin had to lean forward and stretch his arms all the way to the cernter line of the table, which makes him handing in the paper to Japanese.


Everything Chiang did is to tell Japan that “we don’t want to you misunderstood us, and we are not aggressive at all”.

From Japan side, in their opinion, it was the US which defeated Japan, and China is of course just a weakass shit which survived only because the glory of the US.

I don’t blame Japanese for this. As a matter of fact, they do have reasons to think so.

After all, PR China never kicked Japan’s ass since 1949.

I blame Chiang Kai-Shek.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) ‘Confirmation’ & Admiral Husband E. Kimmel’s famous historical quote

I’ve seen this film so many times as a kid, because it’s really really good. But I always follow it up with the other one, Midway. I joined the US Navy, 89-93, I think these films helped inspire me to sign up. I actually got the USS Lexington AVT-16 as my first ship, I can not describe the chills and feelings I had when I first stepped on board the Lady Lex. I was a little choked up and teary eyed with pride. I had the pleasure of working in nearly every department of that ship for two years, Deck 1st div -Supply Captains Country -Engineering E div – and Air V2. The flight deck crash of October 89 was my first sea cruise. After decommissioning the Lex, the Navy sent me to the USS Normandy CG-60 and straight into war. True story. I got my US Navy Adventure for sure. I only got out to save a doomed marriage.”

https://youtu.be/lfTSR1DJaAY

What has your child told you that caused you to call the police?

I have 13 kids, I have always wanted a big family. I adopted one from China, she is deaf and the sweetest 5 year old ever. We adopted her when she was 3. We get a few racist remarks because we are black and she is Chinese, they think she needs a Chinese family to have a good life. She is happy with us, so nope!

She can’t talk because she is completely deaf and no hearing ads or a cochlear implant will help, she will be deaf forever, unless there is something invented in the future that helps. She is able to say mama because she reads our lips and tries to copy the shape our lips make and make sound, that’s the only word she can say.

She came home from school one day, since she can read lips really good, she is in a hearing school, but in a special class for deaf people or hard of hearing people.

She told her siblings who then told us, that her teacher told her she was “sick” in sign language, Because she is from china. In sign language, you can’t name a virus unless you finger spell it, my daughter is only 5 so it’s hard for her to put words together by spelling it out.

Her teacher was telling her that she brought Covid into this world and that she was sick with it because it started out in China. She was only 2 when Covid started, she didn’t even fully understand about Covid.

The teacher believed every Chinese person had Covid, no matter how old or young. Since my daughter had “Covid” She wasn’t allowed to go to lunch that day and eat, she wasn’t allowed to learn with the class, and she wasn’t allowed to go outside and play. When they were learning, she was sitting in a chair far away with a mask on. I didn’t call the police, but I called the school and got her fired and she might be going to court for a hate crime.

Watch Before it’s Deleted,This is my 3rd Attempt, Oprah & The Rock on Maui

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Oprah Winfrey face backlash for asking fans to donate to Maui fund instead of contributing more themselves The family of a woman who died trying to flee a wildfire on Maui is suing the county, the state and one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, alleging they neglected to maintain their fire-prone property.

Is it true that snipers are the most feared soldiers on the battlefield?

No. The guy with a rifle is not the scariest. That distinction belongs to the guy with a much more dangerous piece of equipment:

The humble radio. This is the guy that could pull down everything from a single mortar round up to and including a bombing run by a fully loaded B-52 to naval missiles to armored cavalry reinforcements. He can tell this support exactly where, what spot at what height in what position, needs a proper lesson in violence. He can tell artillery which direction to adjust their fire, he can warn pilots of infantry with MANPADS, he is the man in control of the tactical battlefield.

There is no weapon more frightening than a radio.

Why do people disappear in China?

You have an ankle bracelet that monitors everyone and their movements?

How do you know people disappear?

Anyone you know who disappeared?

A Relative, Friend, Cousin, Girlfriend?


Even the Foreign Minister of China

He didn’t disappear. The Chinese openly said he was no longer minister.

The Defense Minister who apparently disappeared

Turns out he was in secret meetings with the Venezuelans and North Koreans and later in a Military facility taking treatment


People disappear in other places too

  • They commit crimes and flee
  • They are kidnapped and killed
  • They are murdered and bodies dumped
  • They fall sick and want recuperation from public life

In India or US, because the Public elects you, you have a public responsibility to inform them about your absence

In China, you only inform the party. Same as if you take medical leave from TCS, you don’t publish it on Twitter


1027 Men disappeared in the US and the West and remained missing for an average of 4 1/2 years

They were incarcerated against their will in Guantanamo and tortured and harrassed

No justification to this day


Its harder to disappear in China than it is in India or US

Your digital footprint is so strong and your records are almost everywhere and you have thousands of cameras recording all around you

What you need to know about PHARMACIES in THAILAND before you visit!

Thailand passed most western countries years ago when it comes to medicine, medical aid, medical treatment and certainly when it comes to quick access to medical professionals and advanced imaging systems. In fact, even in many countries in Latin America, a MRI scan is a walk-in compared to canada where it can take 6 months. Thailand in general is AMAZING!

What is the strangest way you’ve made money?

I sometimes buy frozen food online, and the food always arrives in a large styrofoam shipping container.

The first time I got one, I didn’t know what to do with the box after I unpacked the food. I like to recycle all my cardboard boxes and plastic containers, but none of the facilities in my area would take styrofoam.

The styrofoam cooler was thick and sturdy, and it seemed a shame to throw it out after one use. So I chucked it into my garage. Every time I got another cooler, I put it in the garage.

A few years ago, my husband and I were moving, and I was cleaning out the garage. By then, I had amassed over a dozen of these styrofoam boxes. They were stacked up in three stacks, collectively about 4 to 5 feet wide and over 4 feet high. We had to get rid of these boxes before we could move.

I tried to find the containers a home. I looked online for a place within driving distance that would recycle styrofoam. No luck.

As a last ditch effort, I contacted the stores where I purchased my food asking if I could ship them back. They had no use for used shipping coolers.

I resigned myself to the fact that we would have to throw them out. As my husband and I were getting ready to take the boxes to the dump, I suddenly had an epiphany. I ran to the computer and did a search.

Yes! As I thought, there were people on eBay who would pay money for a used styrofoam cooler. I wouldn’t have to throw them away and they would get a second life.

So I listed all the coolers on eBay, and over several weeks, they all sold.

The strangest way I’ve made money was selling my trash on eBay.

Now every time I buy frozen food online, I immediately list the box for sale on eBay after I unpack the food. I get between $7 to $15 per box, plus the cost of shipping to the buyer. It’s not much, but it’s a nice little coupon towards my frozen food purchase.

TSMC lays off 60% of its U.S. factories,Workers demand a doubling of wages;Mate 60 pro

TSMC lays off 60% of its U.S. factories, Workers demand a doubling of wages;

Huawei orders completely lost.

A couple had come to the upscale restaurant, but the woman started screaming at the waitress, wanting her to be fired.

Does the customer always have the right? Does going to a restaurant give you the right to humiliate the people who work there? I hope not!

This is the story of a girl who worked as a waitress in a restaurant! The story was told by her, let’s listen:

“I was lucky to find a job at an upscale restaurant!

Even though I don’t hear very well with my left ear, and not at all with my right ear, I was given a chance to work here. I wear a hearing aid, so I can hear almost everything that is said to me very clearly.

But one day, an elderly couple came to have dinner.

Me: I’m glad you chose our restaurant! Are you ready to order? Wife: Call the manager, NOW!

Me: One moment. Maybe I can help you myself? Wife: No!

So, I had to go and call the manager.

Manager: Good evening! How can I assist you?

Wife: Why do your employees wear headphones? Are they listening to music? We pay a lot of money here, and believe me, we deserve perfect service! This is not acceptable!

Everyone in the restaurant froze.

Manager: Our waitstaff knows they are not allowed to wear headphones.

But if you notice anyone breaking this rule, please let me know. I guarantee that person will be fired!

Wife: Please. It’s her!

The woman pointed at me.

Manager: I’m sorry. Her behavior is beyond any limit. Wife: I agree!

Manager: I was talking about you! Your behavior is inappropriate! The waitress is wearing a hearing aid.

I kindly ask you to leave this restaurant and never come back!

The woman’s husband did not support her at all. The enraged woman left the restaurant in a fit of anger.

I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who defended me! Thank you!”

The US can’t even produce 7nm chips itself, but Huawei has made it on sales such as Mate 60 Pro. Why has the US chip manufacturing technologies behind China Huawei and what can the US do now?

Several errors in this question :

US phone and chip companies like Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm don’t produce chips. They design the chips but outsource it to TSMC, Intel and Samsung to manufacture them. Fabless chip designers have been the in-thing for some decades already, popularised first by companies like Broadcom in the 90s.

Same for Huawei – they design it via subsidiary HiSilicon but don’t produce the chips themselves. They outsource it to TSMC and SMIC in particular. TSMC has been banned by the US Commerce from supporting Huawei and other Chinese companies.

Can the USA companies produce the chips themselves today? The answer is YES. It takes time to develop the volume manufacturing expertise all over again. It is a very complex business and it takes guts to put in the money to invest in R&D resources, mainly PhD-type technical talents and capital intensive wafer fabrication facilities and processing machines, packaging and test equipments. Unless you have deep pockets, this is not the business for everyone.

A high-end wafer fab today requires some $12B upfront capital investment. It also requires a whole long list of vertically integrated suppliers locally to support the wafer fab industry – only Asia has it as the cost is low. At the same time, you must have a flexible and disciplined team of technical personnel and production workers who can work 24/7 round the clock to make the business viable. One mistake out of 1000s of process steps can cause a total disruption to production schedules, customer order delivery slips and production scraps. Automation has its own challenges. Manufacturing yields can be impacted from batch to batch due to workmanship and process variations. Honestly, it is not a business for the faint-hearted investors and demanding customers who expect perfection.

USA has the science but not the art of high volume cost competitive manufacturing anymore. To think that the Biden Administration can bring back wafer fabrication industry back home even with the help of Samsung, Intel and TSMC, is a pipe dream. It will fail badly, very badly. Tens or hundreds of billions of dollars will be flushed down the drain when they realised they can’t make it work. Trust me, failure will be the end outcome and it is already full of production delays and major make or break problems between the investors and the government.

M*A*S*H Winchester looses his temper with a bureaucrat over abandoned baby

Unlike Frank, Charles wasn’t a bad person. He had a shield of arrogance, but he was a superior surgeon and a good-hearted individual. At worst, he was used to being removed from the suffering of the world, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about it. See the Christmas episode where he recounts a family tradition of giving candy and toys to the poor, but realizes that the value of the candy would provide a month’s worth of staple foods for starving orphans.

What has someone said to you that made your jaw drop?

While at Treasure island in 1962, waiting to be seperated from active duty, in the Navy,i had a lot of free time to see San Francisco. I was and still am, a fan of jazz, so I ended up at a jazz club ( Jazz Workshop, Blackhawk, I don’t recall which one) mid afternoon one day. The bar was open, so I took a stool at the bar next to a well dressed guy. At his feet was a horn case. I ordered a beer and raised my glass to the stranger next to me, to which he responded with a raised glass and a few words.

We talked a little about what I was doing, why I was in San Francisco, where I called home, just a little chit-chat. He mentioned that he was a musician and said something about sitting in for the performances later on. We never did introduce ourselves, we just started talking.He finished his drink, picked up his horn case and bid me goodbye. The bartender asked if was ready for another beer and asked me how I came to know Miles. I replied by saying “Miles who?” Davis, he replied. You have been talking with him since you came in. I carried his Kind of Blue album with me all the years I spent aboard ship and never put his face and name together. Yup, jaw dropped, but as it turned out, it was best that I did not recognize him. We were just a couple strangers having a beer. I still play that LP today.Damn, that was 60 years ago and still fresh in my mind.

“We have alien bodies and the DNA to prove it” Mexican Congress | Redacted with Clayton Morris

You want alien bodies? Here they are. Ufologist Jaime Massaun rolled out two coffins holding “non-human” bodies in front of Mexico’s congress yesterday. He says these bodies are 1,000 years old and were fossilized in a mine. He also presented DNA evidence showing these bodies are not human.

Is China so backwards that they don’t use and know about credit cards?

The world is not as you might believe it to be.

Imagine a world where there are two ways to conduct commerce. One half of the world chooses one method, and the other half chooses another.

In the West, led by the United States, is a commerce system based on an extraction of wealth.

People work, and they labor. The government take a part of that labor in the form of taxes, fees, clauses, penalties, and regulations. Under that layer is another layer. These are the banking transfer fees, the interest and debt schedules and all the associated rules that one must abide by to use that system. Beneath that system, is a system of organizations. Where to use that organization or society, fees are extracted, prices are managed, and profits are massaged. Beneath that system is a system of businesses, that have their own fees, charges, and profit schedules, and then beneath that is the worker.

For a worker to labor and make money, all of the systems of wealth extraction gets paid first. What ever is left, goes to the worker. Who is then taxes on it, and uses it for his and her own purposes.

In the East, led by China, is a commerce system based on ownership.

If a person earns money though labor, that money is converted electronically into a value, and the mass amount of that value is accessible to the worker. No government, person, entity, organization can siphon income away from that value. It is against the law.

Now that is the “quick and dirty” overview. Both systems, have very, very complex subsystems of control and monitoring. Both systems have those that get rich and those that get poor. Both systems are independent of each other, and collaboration between the two systems is possible with “guardrails”.

But what about the question?

Why doesn’t China use “credit cards”?

Credit cards is a Western fabrication and means of wealth extraction. A person is not using money they earned. They are borrowing money from a bank and renting the use of it from the bank.

China uses a system of ownership. A person earns money, and it goes into a bank. Then the Chinese person uses a QR, and biometic scan to extract the money to buy something with it.

That being said, there are areas of overlap between the Western system and the Eastern system of commerce. For instance, you can get loans and mortgages inside of China, just like you can in the United States. The big difference is that the vast bulk of transactions differ substantially between the East and the West.

  • West = Wealth Extraction.
  • East = Ownership.

Geo-political manifestations

And it is the FUNDAMENTAL differences in systems why the rest of the world (such as Africa, for example) is turning towards China instead of working “with” the United States on massive Geopolitical ventures.

  • China. Africa sees results from China. They see dams, hospitals, road and rail. they see ports, and real tangible aid. The African nations OWN these properties, and these systems. They are tangible. They can be seen. They can be touched. they can be felt.
  • United States. Africa hears a lot of “flowery words” from the United States. Promises of this and that, and military weapons, and military bases. But no roads. No hospitals. No trains. No ports. An occasional plane-load of “greenbacks” that are delivered to the wealthy in a nations, but that is about it. Those African nations so entangled in agreements with the United States enter into debt with them. It’s all nice numbers on spreadsheets, and documents with many impressive signatures, but for the average person “on the street” there isn’t any change in lifestyle.

Meanwhile the entirety of the Global South, via the BRI, are investing in a “basket of currencies” one based on tangible commodities; hard physical items that can be touched, felt and measured.

While the West, led by the United States, are forcing a system of debt upon their allies and “friends”.

Let’s perform a sanity check.

If this description, one where the West and the East differ in means of fundamental commerce and economic theory, then it should manifest in a myriad of ways. Let’s look at home ownership.

Wealth Extraction…

  • United States home ownership (full) = 34% [HERE]
  • UK Home ownership (full) = 30% [HERE]
  • Australian Home ownership (full) = 41% – 50% [HERE]
  • Canadian Home ownership (full) = 43% [HERE]

Ownership…

  • China home ownership (full) = 90% [HERE]
  • Singapore home ownership (full) = 89.3% [HERE]

Obviously, the nation that functions via wealth extraction will have the bulk of it’s citizenry in debt. While the nation that functions on an ownership basis would have the bulk of it’s citizenry invested in self ownership of properties.

Southern Biscuits

Southern Biscuits
Southern Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons Crisco
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 tablespoon Crisco (for frying pan)

Instructions

  1. Mix dry ingredients together.
  2. Blend in the Crisco until the mixture is coarse and grainy.
  3. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork. Do not over-mix.
  4. Put out onto a floured board and knead just a few times. Pat out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter or glass. Flour the cutter. Do not handle the dough too much or it will get tough.
  5. Using a heavy cast iron frying pan, place 1 tablespoon of Crisco in the pan and put the frying pan in the oven for about 7 minutes.
  6. Remove the pan from the oven and place the biscuits in the pan. Turn each once in the oil and bake the biscuits at 500 degrees F for 10 minutes, or until light brown.

Kitten Abandoned In The Rain, Cold, Shrinking for Protect Herself – No one heeded his plea for help

Spam tales

During the time after I was released from the Navy, my wife and I were on our “in between time”, our “great adventure. This was a very pitiful time. We were extraordinarily poor, living in a van and searching for work.

There was an event during this time that I want to relate.

We had collected something like sixty cents, and used it to buy a can of spam and a loaf of discount old bread. It is amazing what you can find if you check all the payphones, the creeks, and the various cracks in sidewalks.

So we ended up buying some FOOD!

And with these two items, we hiked quite a distance to the nearest park that had grills. It took us about an hour and a half to get there.

And we went to the end of the park, where no one was there. It was empty. And so we collected wood, and lit a fire in the metal grill.

There, we proceeded to grill our spam, and make sandwiches.

Sure as shit…

…one hundred empty picnic tables…

…and a guy and a girl and their big humongous German Shepard dog, went to the table directly next to us and just watched us glaring. Obviously wanting us to have sympathy for them , and give them some of our food.

No fucking way!

We (ourselves) hadn’t eaten in two weeks. This was our food.

NOT NOT NOT going to give it to some well-fed strangers and their fucking gigantic dog.

We turned our backs to them, and scarfed up all the sandwiches for ourselves. One entire loaf, ten or so sandwiches. Six for me, four for my wife.

Not a crumb was left over.

And when they saw us eat it all; so that there was nothing left, they got up and left… just like that. No need to stick around.

Assholes.

Experience hardens you. And at that time, I was in no mood for moochers.

We live life on our own terms. You should as well.

Today…

Why is Huawei’s new smartphone generating so much buzz?

Can I help the roughly 5% of world’s population of the conservative, older, less read less travelled, more hubris older xenophobic racist Caucasians, many are here in QUORA understand what this news is creating such a huge buzz.

You see the neocon whom you see as god, says to all of you that China will be dead if U.S. prevented China from getting 14 nanometer chips and 5G chips. So a sick Biden buy this shit too! He and these sick neocons thought China will need a generation to make these chips themselves. So they thought that China is fxxked!

They picked Huawei to fxxked China up! In a mere 3 years China has not only make Huawei Mate 60 lunched without fanfare, a full 5G, a full satellite ready, wakkie -talkie ready phone using 7 nanometer Chinese chips and killing off a bunch of U.S. technologies that tried and failed to convinced the sick administration that CHINA could get it done in 5 years at most. They are right, all of them did not foresee China needed just 3 years!

Those who open up Huawei mate 60 are totally shocking to see China successfully overcome the U.S. chip bans 10 years ahead! And for good measure. 100 million Chinese booked with deposit this phone that can work under water! one or two US companies that potentially lost everything is totally shocked. And its stock hammered in the market seeing China replacing their product easily!

Old Southern Date Cake

This is a vintage recipe which is well over 100 years old.

article 0 0F6729C500000578 503 1024x631 large 1
article 0 0F6729C500000578 503 1024×631 large 1

Ingredients

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 packages seeded dates
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1 quart (4 cups) pecans
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 275 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan.
  2. Combine ingredients except pecans and vanilla extract; mix well.
  3. Add pecans and vanilla extract.
  4. Bake for 1 hour.

Lahaina (part 1)

From an obscure portion of you-tube. Worth your time to watch.

How is China dealing with its rapidly decreasing and ageing population?

To deal with the challenges of an ageing and decreasing population, Beijing in 2021 announced that couples can have up to three children. The policy shift followed a major change in 2016, when Beijing ended the decades-old one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children.

Many local governments have issued cash incentives and other preferential policies. Couples in Shenzhen who have a third child will be eligible for a cash allowance of 19,000 yuan (US$2,800) until the child turns three years old. Jinan, a city in Shandong province, is offering childcare subsidies and increasing parental leave. In July 2021, Panzhihua in Sichuan province became the first city in China to offer subsidies to help families raise more children – a monthly allowance of 500 yuan per second or third child up to the age of three.

Many of China’s migrant workers will no longer have to travel back to their hometowns to get married under new rules. In 2023, the State Council, China’s cabinet, approved a regulation allowing people from 21 provinces and municipalities – mostly in eastern and central China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang – to register their marriage where their residence permits were issued. Previously, a prospective bride and groom had to return to the city or country of their hukou, or household registration, to register for marriage.

China in 2022 confirmed that it would delay retirement ages – 60 for men, 55 for female office workers, and 50 for female blue-collar workers – from 2025.

In Sichuan province, unmarried individuals will now be allowed to register the birth of their children, whereas previously only married women were legally permitted to do so.

China’s family-planning agency says it will “intervene” when unmarried women and teenagers seek abortions, and will promote traditional values to encourage people to have more children.

Why is Elon Musk threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League for accusing him of being anti-Semitic?

Well, Mr. Musk may be a fine engineer, and perhaps even a fine businessman, but I’m not really in a good position to judge that.

He is, however, not a lawyer, nor does he know much about the law.

In this case, the ADL monitors lots of social media to see how effectively they monitor anti-Semitic content on their platform. This sort of content clearly violates the terms of service of any legitimate social media site (so, anything apart from 4chan) and is actively illegal in many countries where companies can be fined for not policing it (most notably Germany, where it’s illegal to post Holocaust denial material).

ADL publicizes its results and noted that anti-Semitic content on Twitter/X has risen sharply since Mr. Musk bought the platform and started changing the way it moderated content. For example, they would note that someone would post content that was clearly out of bounds by Twitter/X’s own standards, the person would be “banned”, then the ban would soon be lifted and the content restored.

Mr. Musk is right that claiming someone is anti-Semitic is defamatory. Whether the ADL did that is arguable, but they never did so explicitly, they just implied Twitter/X didn’t seem to care about such content on its platform.

Mr. Musk has also been losing advertising revenue, and he is right that organizations like ADL have a lot of clout when it comes to the decisions advertisers make about which platform to use.

But there are massive holes in Mr. Musk’s case. First, even if what the ADL did was defamatory, they’re most likely protected by justification (what they posted was true), fair comment (on newsworthy subjects, you’re allowed to point out obvious conclusions from data, even if it stretches things a bit), and the public figure malice requirement (when you’re famous, like Musk and Twitter/X, and engage in political discussion, the burden goes beyond “falsity” to “the person who published the defamatory content knew it was false or was reckless about its accuracy).

Also, there’s the question of damages. Blaming ADL for the loss of all the advertising revenue is a stretch. Moreover one of the key rules in defamation is that since it’s about your character, you actually have to have one to defame. If your name is mud, someone piling on bad statements about you doesn’t actually damage your reputation if you don’t have one.

Musk is treading on dangerous ground because most U.S. jurisdictions now have what are called “Anti-SLAPP” provisions – “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation”. In a nutshell, if you sue someone who is making a valid criticism in order to try to get them to stop, the suit can be dismissed at an early stage and you’re on the hook for the costs of defending and dismissing the lawsuit in full. This proposed suit would be a perfect example. The JDL has loads of arguable defences and it’s clear that their criticism was in the public interest.

Who died the “Manliest” death in history?

Marshal Ney was one of the 18 Marshals of Napoleon. He was specially known for his extraordinary Courage, sometimes bordering on foolhardiness. .

During Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, his divison was cut off from the main army by the Russian forces. He angrily rejected all offers to surrender, and led a forced marched at night in a heavy fog over the Dnieper River, over heavy enemy fire and finally managed to rejoin with the main army . It is said that he was the last to leave the Russian soil. For his actions Napoleon called him “the bravest of the brave!“.

After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, he was charged for treason.

On 7 December 1815 , he was brought in front of a firing squad.

He refused to wear a blindfold and was allowed the right to give the order to fire, reportedly saying:

Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her … Soldiers, fire!

Butch gives Tony the OK on Phil

Butch DeConcini and Albie Cianfalone arrange a sit down with Tony and Paulie, where they express their dissatisfaction with Phil’s leadership and agree to a ceasefire of the war. Butchie says he will not reveal the location of Phil, but then says “You do what you got to do.”

How bad is going to be the impact of China’s move to ban the Apple iPhone impact Apple shares?

Not such a great impact

The move to ban Apple Iphone for Government Officials is a drop in the bucket

We are talking maybe 800,000 Phones tops

Already most Govt Officials don’t buy the Iphone without any orders as a default

That’s not the problem

The problem is that the Mainlanders are ANGRY as hell with the West

In fact they are angry at the CPC for apparently welcoming Yellen and Raimondo and Blinken in the first place at all

The Mate 60 is likely to affect between 15–20% of Iphones market

It is said that 131 Million Orders have been placed for the Mate 60 which means at least 40 Million Orders are from those who would have purchased an Iphone 15 on September 12th

No way they will spend 16000 Yuan on 2 phones, so they definitely won’t be buying the Iphone 15

A Combination of Hype, Quality and Nationalism has led to Huawei taking a huge number of orders and Apple potentially losing out on a number of them

Apple has a $ 80 Billion market in China and a 20% Hit is $ 16 Billion

That’s a lot of money

Qualcomm also has a problem

Roughly 220 Million Units were ordered in 2023 but in 2024 it’s expected that Qualcomm would lose orders to Huawei/Partner by local players

That’s $ 180 times (40 -60 Million) = $ 7.2 Billion – $ 11 Billion

Add to this the fact that Mediatek is fast rising it’s market share in China, that’s another estimated 9–13 Million Units or $ 1.62 – $ 2.35 Billion (Mediatek is Taiwanese)

So on the whole that’s a blow of $ 13 -14 Billion for the US Semiconductor Industry in revenue

No Nation on earth can compensate that loss of revenue


So China isn’t planning to ban the Iphone, just the Iphone for officials

The key is Iphone will face a wave of anger, nationalism and a comparable proud made in China product

That will cause it many problems in China


Samsung, Nike, Carrefour, Sony, Nikon, Fujitsu all lost their market share not due to bans or regulations but because of COMPETITION

Iphone had no competition for 3 years due to Huawei and it’s throttling leaving it as King of the High Level Market

Today Huawei is back with a vengeance and fuelled by 3 years of sullen anger of the Chinese against the West and a wave of patriotism, it has made a HUGE SPLASH

That’s all this is

Pure Market Competition

The Sopranos – Silvio Calls Out Tony

Members of the Soprano family are unhappy with Tony because he hasn’t handed his cousin over to the Lupertazzi family, potentially putting everyone at risk. Tony is running out of options and in this scene Silvio calls out Tony on his ego.

What is the simplest military tactic in history?

  1. Create a barrier between you and the enemy. It could be a palisade, a ditch, even stones stacked up across the length of the field will do.
  2. Get a bunch of archers to cover this barrier from a distance.

Voila! You got yourself an obstacle. You can slow the enemy advance or free up a good number of your men to elsewhere, or perhaps, create a ruse that this particular patch is important to you (with all that hauling & digging, something’s gotta give) when it’s not. You’re only held by your own imagination.

A tactic as old as time & the bedrock of taking up defences to this day.

FLASH: U.S. Moving Combat Jets to Romania – “in addition to others committed to NATO”

World Hal Turner

The United States is moving Combat Aircraft to Romania — but not for NATO. 

What does THAT translate to, in your mind?  US v. Russia directly? Word of this came from US Ambassador to Romania, Kathleen Kavalec.

“The United States plans to station American combat aircraft in Romania in addition to those performing NATO air policing duties” said the Ambassador.

Notice she said “Combat” aircraft.   Not refueling tankers or cargo planes . . . . no . . . .  she explicitly said combat aircraft.

Did all of us somehow miss a vote in Congress about some minor  little detail like direct US war against Russia?

Why should adults be legally forced to wear seatbelts? Absolutely require anyone under 18 to wear one. But shouldn’t adults have the freedom to be stupid?

Maybe you should come to work with me, I work for a rural ambulance service that responds primarily to one of the busiest and most dangerous stretches of interstate hghway in the US…just a couple weeks ago, we were paged to an accident on the interstate…single vehicle rollover, the victims were a 4 year old boy and his father. The boy was properly restrained in a properly installed car seat…His father wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle as it rolled several times before he was thrown over 25 yards. He landed on his head in the middle of the road…it was actually extremely interesting that he wasn’t killed instantly, considering how much of his actual brain matter was spattered across the asphalt. His heart stopped and he died in the helicopter halfway to the nearest hospital. This wasn’t my first call like this, after nearly 10 years in EMS (and Fire), the smell of human brains doesn’t bother me anymore. Fresh human brain smells like corn chips and mushrooms to me.

My patient was the little boy, and though he’s still in the hospital with a broken back, several broken ribs, compound fractures of both arms, and a skull fracture. He’s recovering well, and should be able to live a pretty normal life. But he’ll be leading it as an orphan because his deceased father wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Not only is the little boy traumatized by the experience, the call also bothered every first responder…we kept him going until the helicopter team arrived by breathing for him via an endotracheal tube (he was intubated) with a bag valve mask and supplemental oxygen while the LUCAS II machine performed chest compressions. Not to mention quite a lot of drugs that were delivered to his body/blood stream by Intraosseous infusion [IO]…instead of giving meds and fluids through a vein like an IV, a small hole is drilled in the upper arm/humerus or the leg, just below the knee. The medications and fluids are pushed into the bone marrow because his blood pressure was too low and he was too critical to take the time to get an IV going to attempt to save him. It was working well, he actually regained just enough mental function to start fighting the tube. However, every time we’d pause the LUCAS to check his heart rhythm, he’d basically die again. He was lucid enough to understand what was happening and I’ll never forget the way his free arm scrabbled at the machine to get away from the chest compressions. Pediatric patients, whether it’s a severe illness or injury, are some of the roughest for many of us (especially those who have children).

Because this man didn’t wear his seat belt, his young son was severely injured and orphaned…and I can’t forget the noises he made, or how hard it was to scrub his blood and brains out of my uniform. Or the screams of absolute terror and pain of my young patient when I had to splint his arms and get an IV going for fluids and pain control. In EMS, if a child can scream and cry, it’s actually a good thing because it means they’re conscious and able to breathe/move enough air so they can scream. Quiet pediatric patients are the scary ones.

I survived a pretty severe rollover myself when I was in college, my seat belt literally saved my life. Any unrestrained passenger basically becomes a projectile in the event of a serious crash, injuring or even killing others in the vehicle if/before being ejected from the vehicle.

So yeah, you can elect not to wear your seat belt, but it’s a pretty good indication of what your mindset is regarding them. If you could prevent the death of yourself, passengers, and other people involved in the accident by simply wearing your goddamn seatbelt why wouldn’t you? “Stupidity” doesn’t just impact the person making the “stupid” decision. It’s one of the easiest and quickest things you can do to protect yourself and the people around you, why wouldn’t you give enough of a shit to take such a basic step?

This photo is from the accident (we take photos at all motor vehicle accidents for our reports), I have several others that are HIPPA-compliant but much worse that I won’t post here. It was enough that me and my crew were there in person and sharing them feels exploitative.

Just wear the goddamn seat belt, okay?

Area 51 Airline? | JANET: The Secret Government Airline That Doesn’t Exist

JANET AIRLINES. Heard of Janet Airlines? No?

Good. That’s exactly what the US government wants. One of the government’s biggest secrets is hiding in plain sight.

In Las Vegas. Janet is the top-secret government airline that doesn’t exist.

Next time you’re in Vegas, visit one of the big casinos next to McCarran Airport.

I’m talking about Luxor, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay.

When you get there, look East at the airport.

All day long, but especially early in the morning and late in the evening; you’ll see mysterious planes taking off and landing.

You can’t miss them. They’re big.

They’re Boeing 737s. They have no markings. No logos.

They’re plain white with a single red stripe. This is Janet Airlines. Janet is a top-secret, air-force owned commuter airline. For civilians. But the destination Janet goes to the most – I’m talking a few times a day- is… Area 51.

Meanwhile in Denmark

Denmark: A17-year-old gi! managed to escape being raped by fighting off her attacker as he ripped olf her dothing. The teenager was attacked around 10p.m. by a man described as “dark skinned” in central Senderborg, Denmark.

The attacker struck her, threw her to the ground and began forcibly removing her. Using a canister of pepper spray, the 17-year-old was able to fight him off ‘and escape the attack.

The police: “It’s illegal to possess and use pepper spray, so she will likely be charged for that,”

Irony being what it is, the girl only began carrying pepper spray because the local police have failed to curtail a wave of sexual attacks by asylum seekers and refugees. Now police say she will be charged with a crime for defending herself.

It is the end of human intelligence.

Brakekleen, WD40 BANNED in Canada

They should limit how many times per year that politicians can fly and see how fast they throw it out.

Huawei introduced the new 5G phone with a 7 nm chip semiconductor made in China. Are Taiwan, South Korea, and the USA doomed?

Well, in the smartphone arena, there is really only one foreign brand left in China.

Yes, Apple.

LG is gone.

HTC is gone.

Samsung is irrelevant.

Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, Pixel, Sony and a host of has-beens or bit-players are all irrelevant.

It’s Chinese brands, and Apple, with 3 ecosystems, Hongmeng, iOS and Android.

No prizes for guessing how the balance will evolve, given the clear and present risk of disruptive sanctions forcing Google to pull Android licensing from other Chinese vendors.

In Africa, Transsion outsells Samsung, and Chinese brands as a whole dominate market share. Transsion, based in Shenzhen, has a sizable global share of >10%. It is the hidden champion no one has heard of.

The Chinese EV makers recently made waves in the Munich car show, with several media outlets trumpeting them as the “star of the show”. The Chinese overtook Japan as the No. 1 car exporting nation this year, and next year promises more growth.

Fancy Toyota defending its position in a sunset industry? I thought it impossible but the speed of the Chinese transition and the scale plus depth of the EV supply chain they have built is putting lots of doubt in my mind. Not to mention the dearth in AI/ML/big data/UI advances among Japanese automakers.


It isn’t all doom and gloom.

Let’s take a cursory look at Hyundai’s EV strategy. The Ioniq series is a clear step up from the typical Hyundai ICE offering, with premium materials, interiors, paintwork and fit and finish typically not found in the price segment. It is positioned as a bang for the buck premium series, almost luxury, but affordable.

Why?

Because the Chinese are making the mass market EV impossible to compete on cost alone. Besides, volume production necessary for economies of scale are impossible without Chinese partners. Hyundai wisely decided to cede market space and move up the segment instead. Fewer but better, or like my friend puts it, becoming “German”. Hyundai is quietly positioning itself as the Korean BMW or Audi EV.

The Japanese have been slower in response. I am increasingly pessimistic about their chances. What happened to Honda and Mazda’s mainland operations in the past few years portend seismic shifts ahead. EVs are not like ICE cars, because there are critical materials and technologies upstream that China controls.

This time, the patent walls and enabling tools/tech favor China, too.


What happens when the Koreans, Taiwanese, and Japanese can’t make a killing through export-driven demand for their mass market goods?

They will have to move upmarket, selling less for hopefully, more, much like Sony’s repositioning and reorganization. Those that cannot adjust to the speed of the Chinese transition will be crushed.


There we have it.

The days of Samsung and Toyota hitting home runs from economy to premium is coming to an end. They will have to specialize and move upmarket, or bleed red competing with the Chinese.

We’re in for interesting times.

Very interesting times.

This is the real trade war, with abiding consequences.

Family Guy – Best Of Making Fun Of Disney

Family guy loves making fun of Disney and it never EVER! gets old.

Why is the U-2 still in service while the SR-71 is not?

One of the main reasons for the retirement of the SR-71 was its high cost and complexity. The SR-71 was very expensive to operate and maintain, requiring a large amount of support personnel, equipment, and fuel. It could not take off with a full load of fuel, so it had to be refueled in the air several times during a mission. It had to use a special type of fuel and a toxic chemical to ignite its engines. Also, the SR-71 leaked fuel on the ground, as its tanks only sealed up when the aircraft reached high speeds and temperatures.

Another reason for the retirement of the SR-71 was the advancement of other technologies that made it less relevant and useful. The SR-71 was designed to fly fast and high to avoid enemy detection and interception. However, with the improvement of radar, missile, and satellite systems, it became more vulnerable and less effective. It also had limited capabilities in terms of data collection and transmission, as it relied on film cameras and radio signals.

On the other hand, the U-2 has remained in service because it has some advantages over the SR-71. The U-2 is cheaper and simpler to operate and maintain, requiring less support personnel, equipment, and fuel. It can take off and land with a full load of fuel, reducing the need for aerial refueling. Also, U-2 uses conventional fuel and engines, making it easier to handle and store.

The U-2 adapted to new technologies that made it more relevant and useful. It has been upgraded and modified over the years to incorporate new sensors, cameras, radars, antennas, and computers. The U-2 can collect and transmit various types of data in real-time, such as imagery, signals, electronic, and geospatial intelligence. Also, it can perform multiple types of missions at once, such as surveillance, reconnaissance, communication relay, research, and testing.

So depending on these factors and others, the U-2 has remained in service while the SR-71 has been retired. The U-2 has proven to be more cost-effective, reliable, versatile, and adaptable than the SR-71. However, this does not mean that the SR-71 was not a remarkable aircraft in its own right. The SR-71 was a groundbreaking achievement in aviation history that pushed the limits of speed, altitude, and stealth.

Oliver Anthony- Rich Men North of Richmond (Remix Mashup ft Kyle B/ Conquering Giants & NZTrillion)

Another great mashup.

How scary is America?

Life is unpredictable and the consequences of the unpredictability are more dire.

You can lose everything you worked for in a flash, and left to your own devices without help from the government.

Just recently a 3 year old child, who fell down a escalator and died as he wiggled out of his mother’s arms, she was charged in his death…yep all over an tragic accident, because in America there are no accidents everything is your fault and you will be punished accordingly.

My cousins home was shot up she was hit 3 times, as was the neighbors son. All because she lived next door to a drug dealer she was struck in her chest, side and back. The 14 year old his arm, all over nothing. Those medical bills and her about to lose her home, we’ll that’s all on her.

600k Medical bankruptcies a year, how scary is that?

Losing a quite few young people I know not just to the opioid epidemic, but treatable things like pneumonia.

My aunt a stage 3 cancer patient was almost a car jacking victim, they didn’t care about her frail condition or turban on her head she eventually sped away when they held a gun to her head.

My moms car was stolen at Christmas eve in front of my grandparents house, that was a great Christmas because my Grandparents were holding some of the gifts and my parents were bringing them home to put under the tree.

My car stolen with the help of a Baltimore city cop.

In the Maryland and DC area there is a couple girls missing a day due to a sex trafficking ring.

My son had been barricaded in an apartment building because of a hostage situation.

My neighbors best friend went missing, all they found was her leg from the thigh down, they still consider her a “missing person” because they claim she can still be alive…so they have never bothered to check the area for other body parts.

My cousins best friend was killed and dismembered by her boyfriend.

My neighbor a couple blocks over bludgeoned his father to death.

The boy a few houses down shot himself in the head at 13.

My neighbor with the missing friend had a mentally ill mother who killed herself Easter morning by running her car into a wall on the beltway.

A lady next door for my friend was killed by police who was in a high speed pursuit with no lights and sirens, all over a guy going 20 miles over the speed limit.

I found the body of one of our favorite customers, with my work mates. He was living in his car, about to lose his legs and afraid of jail time for back child support so he wrote a bunch of letters and shot himself in the head.

Car accidents, I’ve known several people to die tragically in a car accident including my daughters friend, and my sons best friends father. A man my sister used to baby sit for, my childhood school mate, my neighbors behind my mom lost her husband this way. I’m probably missing a few.

I had a man pull a gun on me while walking to work and forced me to get in his car, I ran down the street he followed me. I was in a very public area so I took my chances.

My cousin was grabbed by a man coming out of school she fought her way out and ran, eventually they caught him and let him go he ended up murdering his wife and her sister a couple years later.

I know a elderly woman raped by a care worker. 50 years her junior.

Many Americans won’t have these experiences, because you have to buy your way out of areas where people wallow in tragedy, and misfortunes. If I were rich I could buy my way into a first class lifestyle where my kids would be oblivious to the underworld…but for many of us this is what we see all the time.

The Philadelphia Experiment – The truth about invisibility, teleportation and time travel

This is fun. Do not get too caught up in the narrative. You all know my story. Do not get sidetracked.

Which developed country would you not want to live in?

The United States

The Decline of the place is terrible and both my sons who once wanted Citizenship have left the country permanently

The reasons are different

For my younger son, the startup he worked on was sold and he cashed his stock options from the acquisition firm because he didn’t want to sign the Non Compete Clause. He wanted to work more on his research and China gave him the budget

For my elder son, it was a deterioration of the place, it’s gender horror, the focus on gays and transgender teachers and sex education including homosexuality

The Schooling suddenly says no GPA in the early years because that’s unhealthy

Arizona was better but the problem was the locals start getting angry that you have a mortgage and a car and all those things while they could be laid off

Plus everyone has a DAMN GUN

Kids have guns

So it was either Gays or Guns

So the minute a choice came, he decided to leave US but sadly to the equally decadent Europe instead of the more vibrant Dubai where Investment Bankers can thrive

I still have relatives there but they are all living paycheck by paycheck and unable to save despite averaging $ 80–85 thousand a year

Plus the Healthcare has become horrible now

Especially post Covid


To think I planned a green card or citizenship to this place a few years ago…!!!!!

Fat Dom Gets Whacked By Silvio And Carlo – The Sopranos HD

Just get out of here, Tony…

Will many Apple iPhone users in China switch to using the Huawei Mate 60 Pro after its successful August 2023 launch?

Based on a survey of the orders so far, around 33% of people who own an Iphone 14 have placed orders for the Mate 60 Pro

That’s pretty big

Others prefer waiting for the Iphone 15 which will be launched a few weeks later

The National Pride on the Mate 60 is unbelievable.

Unless the Iphone 15 is leagues above the Mate 60, my guess is a lot of Chinese will go for the Mate 60 if they can afford the 6999 RMB price tag

Why did Chinese chip stocks rally following Huawei’s launch of the Mate 60 Pro phone?

Do you know the semiconductor sanctions that Huawei has suffered in the past three years? It’s a pity that we can’t buy this mobile phone here in the USA. It is the first mobile phone in the world that directly supports satellite phones. This will definitely be an industrial product that will be recorded in history. 

This means that in the past three years, all companies around the world have not been allowed to sell 5G-related semiconductors to Huawei as long as these semiconductors contain American technology.

All companies around the world are not allowed to help Huawei produce semiconductors, as long as your production process contains American technology.

You know, semiconductor is a global division of labor industry. The technology in this industry has always been global cooperation, and there is no semiconductor production and design company in any country that does not contain American technology.

Such sanctions can directly shock companies like Apple and Samsung. They originally thought Huawei would also collapse.

But Mate60 was released. After 3 years, they released a new 5G mobile phone again. This is not just as simple as a mobile phone.

This is a huge technical chain that requires the participation of hundreds of companies with different specialties.

In the past, this required the mutual cooperation of multiple countries, and no country could do it alone.

But now the Chinese have done it. Maybe not top notch, but they really did it.

This means that Chinese companies can make advanced semiconductors (maybe not state-of-the-art) without relying on American technology.

This is a historic event in the global semiconductor industry. It means that China’s semiconductor industry chain has made a comprehensive breakthrough.

Note that I used the word industry chain.

To manufacture a slice of advanced semiconductors requires the participation of many companies and industries. From EDA software, to the cultivation of silicon wafers, chip and framework design, high-purity chemicals, laser devices, lithography machines, etching machines, packaging equipment, and testing technologies.

Chinese people often use the term “shooting oneself in the foot”. Now I can fully understand the meaning of this sentence. Under the pressure of the Americans, the Chinese took three years to complete the independence of the entire semiconductor industry chain. They have gone from 0 to 1, or even from 0 to 10, and the remaining 90 points are just a matter of time.

It can be predicted that ten years later, China’s semiconductor industry will crush its peers around the world through its own scale and cost advantages. No one can sanction them because they do it all themselves, from sand to chips.

U.S. TRANSFERS IT’S MILITARY IN FEAR OF NIGER AFRICANS

This is from Africa. Pay attention to what is NOT being reported in the West.

As an American, I am grateful to hear the truth on the ground. Great program.”

Have you, as a manager, ever stood up for your worker against a customer?

Yeah far too often.

As I mention in the company I run you would always get customers who would cheekily try and get a discount. You would also get customers who would try and wear you down.

Some of them wouldn’t take no for an answer…

Some of them thought by insulting you screaming obscenities at you they would get you to yield.

I heard it a few times and hopped off my chair went downstairs and simply told them to fuck off and that I didn’t want their business.

They’d often well I’ll go somewhere else and never come back smug response to me.

Unfortunately for them I carried a number of ultra rare parts that hadn’t been made anymore.

Banana Pudding

banana pudding
banana pudding

Ingredients

  • 1 box vanilla wafers
  • 3 bananas
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 eggs, separated
  • 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. In a casserole dish pour about 3/4 of the vanilla wafers. Slice the bananas over that. Set aside.
  2. Mix the cornstarch into the sugar and place in a large saucepan. Add milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.
  3. Beat the egg yolks with a fork and add about 4 tablespoons hot milk/sugar mixture into the yolks, stirring until well blended (this prevents chunks of cooked egg yolk). Pour the yolk mixture into the saucepan and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture begins to thicken.
  4. Add vanilla extract and butter or margarine.
  5. Pour the pudding mixture over the bananas and wafers.
  6. To make meringue, beat the two egg whites until stiff. Add 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Spread over the pudding.
  7. Brown slightly in 350 degree F oven.

In light of Huawei’s stunning breakthrough, how long do you think it will take China to win the chip war?

How do you define a win?

America losing its bird’s eye view?

Already happened. Huawei and China have created a completely separate ecosystem of parts, software, and system of systems integration that is completely dark to American corporations and government. It doesn’t use GPS, American sat comms, google services, micron memory, Taiwanese foundries, Korean OLEDs, Japanese cameras and any number of technologies vulnerable to American sanction. Even Swift transactions have been taken care of.

Yes, the chipmaking node remains a formidable moat, but the rest of the ecosystem which is out of reach for even supranational organizations such as ASEAN, UNASUR, and perhaps even the EU are all in place, firmly in the grasp of a third world China, GDP per capita ~12,000 dollars, with a more poorly educated adult population than India.

I count that as a solid Chinese win, on relative terms.

In absolute terms, China is already shaking up the semiconductor sector. America’s belligerence has given the opportunity for China to openly subsidize the industry massively. It is the single largest consumer of chips, befitting its status as the largest global manufacturer. The seismic shift is in the clarion call for self-sufficiency, and if this keeps up, there will be a glut of chips ex-china, while foreign players in the domestic market will have their margins squeezed by local competition. The Chinese will use every trick in the book to grab market share, until sanction becomes a meaningless tool.

The victims of this bloodbath isn’t just American tech, but also the Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese who are all intimately entwined in the East Asian electronics industrial chain. Taiex, in particular, has >50% of its market capitalization in chipmaking (TSMC alone is >30%), and with the Chinese clearly signaling the end of the sunshine era of ECFA, Taiwan will have to readjust massively. I won’t be surprised if all 3 fall into trade deficit with China in the coming decade, with china exporting cost of living inflation.

A comprehensive Chinese win will be denied by pro-western media until China makes the final breakthrough of having clear node leadership and mature designs (especially in the GPU) that are superior to the best America offers. Unlike tobacco, America can’t pull a Philip Morris here because tech products can be tested and torn down, ad infinitum. Huawei and China still lacks mature options in the toolmaking segment, the enablers, so to speak, of chipmaking. The hole will take some years to fill so I’ll still go for a 10 year timeline, backdated to 2019, when Donald the Orange lobbed the first cluster bombs at Huawei.

Huawei and China have been ahead of schedule so far. I’ve heard interesting rumors so far about 2024, while the Mate 60 pro is probably the super phone from Huawei with a 5G modem that the grapevine was whispering about as early as late 2021.

I don’t think China will disappoint.

要打交道就坦荡荡地打交道。

要打压奉陪到底。

JOBLESS YOUTH BROKE DOWN! 😭 | Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North Of Richmond” | Reaction

Bless you girls.

Pay attention to the MOOD in the West today.

Extraterrestrial mummies in Mexico

There is something that has been bugging me / pestering me, over the last few days. And that is the Mr. Titor saga.

I covered this time machine / dimensional vehicle elsewhere on MM.

But sure, his dates were wildly wrong, but what I want to discuss something that bugs me to no end.

When he described what 2035 looks like, Lordy… I mean it sure sounds like what the United States is shaping up to become. From the home-made videos and demise of major TV shows. To the lack of retail and big retail stores. To the emphasis on more natural and “real” music a.k.a. Oliver Anthony… it is all too strong and makes me wonder.

Certainly his ideas about world war 3 in 2008 or so were wildly off. Wrong as in catastrophically wrong. They described a world more akin to 1995, than what the world looks like today.

However…

It is his description of his vehicle, and his predictions of the future that were spot on.

His vehicle ran world-line slides. A crude method compared to what I was involved in with MAJestic.

And anything can happen.

And what he described… world war 3, destruction of the USA and China, and all the rest seems like it is not going to occur today. If anything, it is a balkanization of the planet into quarters, and alliances accordingly.

But the social trends are bench-marked. They seem to be occurring.

I am reading this as a lateral slide event.

  • Social and societal changes are unchanged. They are common and associated with human trend-lines.
  • Geo-political events, and national trends are very different.

You see, in all of my MAJ slides, the societal trend lines seemed to be rather constant. With some very minor changes. But the major changes were Geo-Political in nature. The factors that moved herd / mass migration events seemed to be wildly divergent.

As such, then, on this template; on this world-line base start point, we have a different frame of reference, and the United States has just gotten weaker, while China has gotten stronger…

Quite different from the John Titor narrative.

…and thus the great nuclear war was delayed with some very different outcomes manifesting.

That is what I have been thinking about.

Very different outcomes.

From what John Titor narrated to the US public in 2000.

No wonder Domain is in China now.

The trend lines are reaching some very dangerous cross-roads, and the switching of templates are limiting the destruction while all the evil / malevolent are trapped within certain geographical regions.

Very interesting.

Don’t you know.

Today.

Is it safe to say that China is pretty much public enemy#1?

Of course. China is the cause of all of the USA’s problems.

See how the white cops keep killing black people in the USA – this surely is China’s doing.

Observe the mass shootings that plague the whole of the USA – at schools, malls, supermarkets, churches, pubs, cinemas, workplaces – this too must be China’s doing.

Did you know that the USA’s literacy rate has plunged t0 78%? (Developed countries usually have a literacy rate between 95 to 100%). China must have caused this.

Look at the ever-increasing number of homeless people living in tents in the streets of the USA. We know that this is China’s fault.

US engineers say that many of the bridges and roads and other public infrastructure in the USA are “crumbling”. Why didn’t China take steps to stop this?

In the USA, even the water pipes are leaking lead into the supply of drinking water at public schools, poisoning the children. China must be blamed!

Look at how Americans hate each other! Even families stop talking to each other, because some are Democrats and some are Republicans. Once again, China is guilty.

The average life expectancy in the USA keeps dropping! Americans keep dying at a younger age. Becauae they are more and more obese these days and; their healthcare system is too expensive. Surely China had something to do with this.

Women in the USA even have problems getting birth control and abortions! The infant mortality rate AND the maternal mortality rate in the USA have fallen to the levels typically found in developing countries. Let’s blame China for this too.

But not to worry. The USA still has more gender pronouns than China. So the USA will prevail.

Southern Style Smothered Ham

ham
ham

Ingredients

  • 2 slices ham, cut 1/2-inch thick (uncooked)
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 2 cups sliced pared apples
  • 12 whole cloves
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup water

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Place 1 slice ham in shallow baking pan; spread half the mustard on ham.
  3. Top with onions and apples; cover with second slice of ham.
  4. Rub remaining mustard onto meat; place cloves in fat portion of ham.
  5. Mix sugar and water together; boil 5 minutes.
  6. Pour syrup over ham.
  7. Bake for 1 hour, basting with sugar and water syrup 2 or 3 times.

The Sopranos – Breaking Balls Goes Too Far

Joking around goes too far between Eugene Pontecorvo and Paulie Jr at the esplanade construction site.

Mexico Congress reveals 1,000-year-old ‘alien corpses’

Ufologist Jaime Maussan stated that scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico used radiocarbon dating to obtain DNA evidence from specimens found in Peru

Written by  Annesha Barua –September 13th 2023 04:05 PM

Mexico, September 13: During a public hearing in the Mexico Congress, two alleged ‘alien corpses’ were unveiled, along with videos displaying UFOs and unidentified phenomena. The small mummified specimens, believed to be 1,000 years old and found in diatom mines in Cusco, Peru, were showcased in windowed boxes.

Ufologist Jaime Maussan, testifying under oath, stated that the specimens were not part of Earth’s evolution. DNA evidence and X-rays were presented during the hearing, revealing unusual characteristics such as unknown DNA and rare metal implants, including Osmium. Ryan Graves, a former US Navy pilot, was also present.

2023 09 14 17 0r4
2023 09 14 17 0r4

Unusual DNA and rare implants

Jaime Maussan, a journalist and ufologist, explained that the specimens had been studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where radiocarbon dating was used to determine their age. Comparing the DNA from the specimens to other samples, researchers found that over 30% of the DNA was “unknown.” X-rays of the bodies were displayed during the hearing, revealing the presence of “eggs” in one of the bodies and implants made of rare metals, including Osmium.

Ryan graves in attendance

Ryan Graves, the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace and a former US Navy pilot, was present at the hearing. He had previously testified under oath to the US Congress about the national security threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

2023 09 14 17 04
2023 09 14 17 04

Credibility and skepticism

While the hearing took place in the Mexico Congress, it’s important to note that Jaime Maussan has been associated with ‘fake’ claims of ‘aliens’ in the past. In 2017, he was involved in the analysis of alleged mummies discovered in Peru, which were later debunked (by whom?) as the mummified remains of human children.

If the US dumps chips in the Chinese market at very low prices, how will the Chinese government react?

image 57
image 57
image 58
image 58
image 59
image 59
image 60
image 60

Unlike the White House, the China government does not interfere with the corporate behaviour of civilian companies.

The issue is essentially that as a solidly run mobile phone manufacturer you have to choose a stable supply chain.

Before the United States launched chip sanctions against China, the United States had been dumping chips into the Chinese market!

  • In Q1 2021, MediaTek accounted for 37% of the smartphone SoC market in China and Qualcomm 29%. The total of the two is 66%.
  • In Q2 2021, MediaTek accounted for 40% of China’s smartphone SoC market and Qualcomm 31%. Total 71% for both.
  • In Q3 2021, MediaTek accounted for 43% of the smartphone SoC market in China, Qualcomm 32%. Total 75% for both.
  • In Q4 2021, MediaTek accounted for 38% of the smartphone SoC market in China, Qualcomm 30%. Total 68% for both.
  • In Q1 2022, MediaTek accounted for 41% of the smartphone SoC market in China, Qualcomm 34%. Total 75% for both.
  • In Q2 2022, MediaTek accounted for 42% of the smartphone SoC market in China, Qualcomm 36%. Total 78% for both.

Now, the U.S. chip has been unable to return to the former dumping state.

image 61
image 61

Replacing a mobile phone chip is not an easy task; its software and hardware must match. Moreover, Chinese mobile phone makers have already found a new domestic chip supplier.

Business partnerships are like marriages. Once a marriage loses trust, it can never be the same again. Because there is no guarantee that you will not have a second betrayal?

It’s like if you divorced your ex-wife and regretted it so much that you wanted to remarry, but your ex-wife has already remarried, and you still want your ex-wife to divorce her current husband? Even the most arrogant person would not be so delusional.

image 62
image 62

Once you exit the Chinese market and lose market share, it is almost impossible to come back. Unless American chips are given away for free, but can chipmakers do that at 0 cost?

Developing market share costs money.

If you lose market share, you lose market share. No one’s always there for you.

What screams “I’m upper class”?

When I did a year at an English university I shared a house with girl who was from what the Brits call old money.

She dressed fashionably but never wore anything with logos. And she noticed right away that Im the same and never wear clothing with logos. She was polite to everyone from the bin man to the university cleaning staff and even if guys tried to talk to us she didn’t let them crash and burn but made it clear she was not interested in a polite way without soundy bitchy.

She always introduced me right away to her friends before getting into a conversation with them and when I had friends come over from Norway she always introduced herself using her full name which always sounded odd to me but I noticed her friends and family did the same.

She was not a girly girl either. She visited me in Norway and when my grandfather caught a salmon she grabbed the club and killed it without flinching which is very unlike 99.99 percent of British girls.

She was very observant of everything around her and used disarming charm to get people to help her with anything she needed. And I noticed it was the same with a lot of her friends from similar backgrounds.

My dads a Brit and joked to me he could smell her class the first time he visited us, I said don’t be rude and he just pointed at her wax cotton jacket hanging in the hall and said, I can smell the old money from here.

What brutal firing strategy is often used by companies?

My favorite was the trader who called his mistress on his trading phone. Big things with multiple lines of which each and every one is recorded for compliance reasons, in case a trade is contested or whatnot.

But the management wanted to get rid of him (and his rather large compensation package) so they asked him to the HR office.

  • Management: we want you to resign
  • The guy: no way, we’re in France, if you want me to go, you’ll have to pay a hefty severance package.
  • Management: <presses “play” />
  • Management: (after the record finishes) We already have a delivery guy in the lobby, if you don’t sign your wife will have the record in thirty minutes. Your choice.

The guy quickly calculated that the divorce settlement would be worth more than the severance package and resigned on the spot. The delivery guy was paid, and the delivery cancelled.

That is brutal. Almost maffia like.

Edit: I must add that it was completely illegal of course, but as they kept the record, he was not going to go to the police… the place was fun we also had a guy who was so well known for sexual harassment or worse that he had a clause in his contract to deduct any settlement with his trainees and employees from his bonus.

Edit 2 : In the same company but another country, I also witnessed a fantastic boot up the arse: the top management was thinking about replacing a MD. Just about 5 people were aware of the plan, but it leaked. So, five emails with different plans were sent. Old spy stuff. One came out.

The tantrum was spectacular and the guy was carried out by security. The head of compliance was spilling the beans. He got a good yelling and was kicked out of the building without ceremony, all in half an hour.

Did you survive a gun fight? How did it go?

Yes.

Routine traffic stop.

Stolen car with cold plates.

Driver had been drinking but unbeknownst to me, he’d walked away from our County jail farm two days earlier and committed an armed robbery earlier in the evening.

The driver pulled a Colt .357 Magnum on me.

After a few exciting minutes we exchanged gunfire at a distance of about 15 yards.

I was in an open field, he had the cover of his vehicle.

Fortunately, while I came *very* close, we missed each other.

He was captured the next morning and, eventually was sentenced to fifteen years in San Quentin.

I had nightmares for several years but they eventually went away.

Secret Hidden Tunnels found 300′ below Maui, Hawaii

Always up for a adventure We take off into the depths of Maui in search of secret passageways. Hidden in the cane fields there is gate ways into the unknown.

NATO Commences Snap “Northern Coast Exercise” in Baltic Sea

World Hal Turner

Today, Saturday September 9, 2023, NATO began a snap military exercise named “Northern Coast” in the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg, Russia.

the “exercise” involves about 30 ships and more than 3,000 NATO member-country service members.  It will, for the first time, practice how to respond to a Russian assault in the region, Germany’s navy chief said on Friday.

“We are sending a clear message of vigilance to Russia: Not on our watch,” Vice-Admiral Jan Christian Kaack told reporters in Berlin. “Credible deterrence must include the ability to attack.

Troops from all NATO countries on the Baltic Sea, plus soon-to-be member Sweden and non-Baltic allies the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, will train side by side. They will practice amphibious operations and strikes from sea to land.

It is Russia they will be practicing to attack.  Even the name of the exercise, “Northern Coast” is a  direct reference to St. Petersburg, Russia, as seen on the map below:

The U.S. navy will send the Mesa Verde into the drills, Kaack said, a ship of more than 200 meters (656 ft) length, designed to transport and land some 800 marines in an amphibious assault.

 Securing the sea routes through the Baltic Sea is another focus of the exercise that will take place off the coasts of Latvia and Estonia.

“Finland and the Baltic states depend to almost 100% on the maritime supply routes through the Baltic Sea,” Kaack noted.

“Should the Suwalki Gap be blocked – and this can be done easily as there are only two roads and one railroad line – then we are left with the sea routes only, and that’s where we will then have to make our way through.”

 The Suwalki Gap, a narrow land corridor of some 65 kilometers (40 miles), is the only connection linking the Baltic states to Poland and NATO’s main territory in Europe.

It will be the first exercise of this size that the German navy, the biggest navy on the Baltic Sea according to Kaack, will command from its new maritime headquarters in Rostock which just reached operational readiness.

Germany aims to provide the facility to NATO as a regional maritime headquarters, capable of leading the alliance’s operations in the Baltic Sea in case of a conflict.

It is vital to remember that just one mis-step by NATO during this so-called “exercise” will trigger a massive Russian defensive engagement to protect St. Petersburg.  

You’ll never believe what Biden just said!

NO one is prepared for what’s coming in this economy and they are trying to hide it. The Biden administration says inflation is coming down, jobs are being created, and Bidenomics is working! That sounds like a lot of spin. In fact the data shows us something devastating is on the horizon.

As a landlord, have you ever decreased the rent for someone because you really liked them?

Yes I did. Not necessary because I liked them as in say friends but because they were real people in a tough position. I reduced their rent by $500 a month for two years. They finally got on their feet, overcame a health challenge and began building their own home. When they finally had a roof on the place they moved their son’s small camper into the garage and lived there until the house was complete. I routinely saw this older couple at a local restaurant so we kept in touch.


Amazimgly they sent a check every month after they moved out. It took almost five years but they insisted on repaying my lost income. We had dinner together the month they had completed making the rent payments. I surprised the couple with a savings bond for approximately 60% of what they had repaid. I insisted they set the bond aside for retirement. The woman was ecstatic hugging me over and over, her husband was all tears, saying “this never happens in real life, never!” I get a Christmas card every year.

What was a red flag that made you stop talking to a person immediately?

Like many people today, I was using a dating site to meet new people. I met one guy who seemed nice, we had mutual interests, and we emailed a bit back and forth before deciding to meet for coffee. We chose a very small boutique coffee shop in a mutually convenient location. Then we chose a date and time.

“Give me your cell phone number,” he messaged me.

Oh, no, hardly anyone gets that. And certainly not a guy I’ve never met. I don’t want to be changing my phone number for anybody, and it’s not that hard to find someone from a cell phone number either.

“What for?” I replied.

“In case one of us misses the other when we’re supposed to meet,” he replied.

Well, that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. We had chosen a very small place, and both of us had a lot of pictures on our profiles, there was really no chance of one of us sitting there and not seeing the other, or recognizing the other.

“You can message me here on the app if you need to,” I replied.

He told me he wanted my cell phone number, that there was no reason why he couldn’t have it. There was no need for him to have this. Him messaging me on the dating app would send a text to my cell phone just the same as if he had texted me directly. Surely any man today understands that women have to take precautions. Right? The dating site itself had pages of advice on how to stay safe.

So I gently said I doubted we would not recognize each other, or not see each other, and I preferred to use the app for now, but I looked forward to meeting him in person.

He went ballistic.

He messaged me over and over, progressing to caps, demanding that I give him my cell phone number as a condition of meeting. WHAT DID I THINK HE WAS? The messages got longer and more abusive and I sat there reading them, not responding. After I had seen enough of them, I deleted them, and blocked him on the app.

You know, if you draw a boundary, especially if it’s a reasonable one, and someone doesn’t respect it, it will never get better. Back off immediately.

The Sopranos – Uncle Philly’s reign as the King of New York begins

What is something in your life that you no longer give a damn because of your age and it gets worse as you get older?

Being social.

I think my social life peaked around age 18. I had a core group of four good friends my senior year of high school. I’d always try to make sure I hung out with at least one of them each weekend. I felt like a weekend without spending time with a friend was somehow “wasted.” I never went to parties or anything like that (wasn’t invited), but I at least drove around with Chris or went over to Bo’s house or chilled with Brandi or Ed at their places.

I only made one really good friend in college (well, besides my wife). He and I were roommates for awhile, so “hanging out” with him wasn’t especially difficult.

Time went on. I got married and had kids and my career took up a lot of my time. I haven’t spoken to that old college roommate of mine in about 14 years now. For awhile there, in my late 20s and early 30s, I still tried to find something “social” to do from time to time. But it got more difficult as the years went on.

And now, in my early 40s, I don’t give a damn about being social.

I have plenty of opportunities to be social. My church is always planning social events. So is the school where I work. Most of those social events are fundraisers, but still… I can go there and talk to people I kind of know from church or work, and feel like I’m “being social.”

I do go to them sometimes. I usually last less than an hour before I just want to leave. When I actually socialize at those events—actually talk to people—it feels more like a chore than something enjoyable.

When I was in high school, the thought that I’d have nothing to do but sit in my room alone and read or play video games or spend time online on a weekend evening horrified me. What kind of loser did such things on Friday and Saturday evenings?

Now? I’m writing this on a Friday evening, and I can think of nothing I’d rather be doing right now than sitting in my recliner, as I am now, alone in this room, taking a break from reading the book I’m reading to key out a few thoughts on Quora.

I would be perfectly happy if I never had to socialize again. If, God forbid, I end up alone in my retirement years, I think I’d be happy with it. One of my grandfathers lived alone for almost 15 years before passing away. He would go months with no human contact, besides exchanging pleasantries with the cashier at the grocery store. When I was younger, I thought he must have been really sad and lonely, living like that. Now that I’m older, I think that he was probably very content, living like that.

Remy: Rich Men North of Richmond (Federal Employee Version)

This is creative and hilarious!

“it takes one person to do my job, so we have two” Absolutely perfect, this sums up the government better than any Wikipedia page could.

What personal habits of Westerners are most repugnant to Chinese people?

1. In Taiwan, I talked about taking a shower with some friends. They found it so strange that I preferred to shower in the morning rather than in the evening. I told them that showering in the morning is quite common in America. They found it very disgusting because I would go to bed with all the day’s dirt on my body. They were actually right about that, showering at night sometimes makes more sense.

2. Another thing that some people made fun of me in Taiwan was my tendency to wear long-sleeved shirts with shorts, more or less like the style below:

I understand it was hot in Taiwan, but it was just a style that I sometimes wear and they thought it was really weird, not really gross, but still something they thought was weird (although one girl told me my fashion sense was weird/ disgusting) .

3. One thing I was told was disgusting was the tendency for us westerners to eat too much dessert. In China, desserts are usually not very sweet fruit or ice cream, they don’t like incredibly sweet and sugary things. One of my favorite things to eat is cheesecake, so I naturally gave Cheesecake to some Chinese friends (usually in the US because it’s so hard to find in China). In the photo below it looks delicious doesn’t it?

Well, my Chinese friends hated it, they said it was too thick, creamy and gross. One of them told me he wanted to throw up. I was like, “Fine, I’ll eat it all myself then.”

Douglas Macgregor: DURING RETRATING, UNITS WERE MASSACRED

Thank you Colonel Macgregor for being honest.

https://youtu.be/j4m9MFcj8Nk

What are the benefits of a one party system? Why does China have a one party system?

Do you know that Democracy was in fact a NO PARTY SYSTEM?

In Athens:-You had an assembly of people who chose their speakers among men who were 20+ years old based on their appeal and ability and their speaking style

In short an Assembly of People, qualified by estate or property or wealth who selected people based on ability or speaking style aka MERIT

No Parties, Agenda, Propaganda

Zilch

Remind you of something?

China – An Assembly of Qualified People based on Ability and chosen by their peers from the grassroots or chosen by tough examinations

They choose their leaders based again on ability and merit

Sure they have one party and call it a party but the name is long redundant


China is thus the closest to the original Athenian Democracy


Benefits:-

  • Consistent Policies over several decades
  • Controlled Consensus
  • Country above everything else since there is lesser vying for Power

Drawbacks:-

  • Chance of becoming Rigidly Bureaucratic and Stubborn
  • Chances of running away with rule without opposition

What is something your neighbor did that you couldn’t believe?

I inherited two dogs when my daughter passed away. I realized after a few months that a fence would make my life with the dogs so much easier. I was out looking for the property markers and my neighbour came over and asked if I was thinking of building a fence? I said I would like too but no one was returning my calls. He had a friend who did fences as a side job. Anyway, long story short, friend came, took the job, neighbour helped him so it was less cost for me and the fence was completed by the end of the next week. The friend also threw in two beautiful flower boxes made from the same wood as the fence. The dogs are so much more content and I have privacy. These two men likely have no idea how they have made my life so much easier. I am so thankful.

Will US troops come to defend Taiwan if China invades it? If so, at what point will they intervene?

They telling everyone they will bomb Russia if Russians dare attacking Ukraine in 2020.

Think about it.

1.China’s military size is three times bigger than Russia, more advanced in technology.

Chinese Navy vs Russian Navy.

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image 63

2.China’s reserved military population is 260 million.

3.China produce all, even including the USA’s own bullets.

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image 64

4.The first day, Russians took 40k㎡ of Ukraine’s land,and entire size of Taiwan is only 30k㎡.

5.Taiwanese speak standard Chinese.

6.American rich guy is still investing into both China Mainland and Taiwan.

7.China Mainland is still doing business with Taiwan.

8.the technology chips war between US and China, is actully between Taiwan Chinese vs Mainland Chinese, because the world chips industry was ruling by enthunic Chinese people(maybe add some Korean), it’s actully, a civil war.

Attempted Coup Against Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré Thwarted

Here is your latest African news. Attempted Coup in Burkina Faso Against Interim President Ibrahim Traoré Thwarted.

What is the most important thing someone has ever done for you?

When I was 15, I started a new school on the opposite coast of where I grew up.

At my old school I was unpopular and bullied harshly, so I was very shy and socially awkward with very low self esteem. The first week of school, I sat by my locker alone eating lunch, terrified of social interaction.

One day, up walked the most bubbly, outgoing, beautiful “popular” girl with maybe 6 other girls following her. She asked “Why are you eating lunch alone?! Wth? Come sit with us!!”

No one had ever done that for me. Then a few days later I casually mentioned it was my 16th birthday that weekend and she said “What?! We need to celebrate!!” and she organized a birthday dinner at a local restaurant.

She and her group of friends brought me pink balloons and gifts, I had a very memorable 16th birthday that I’ll never forget.

I literally had only known them for a week.

Then one day soon after, she saw that I rode my bike (3miles) to school everyday (due to my single mom’s work schedule and not being able to drive me – there was no bus at this school), and again, she said “Wth?! Why are you riding your bike to school?! That’s dangerous with all the traffic!!

My mom and I will pick you up at home and give you a ride!”

They drove me to and from school the entire year and we always did fun outings in the way home.

Experiencing their kindness at a hard time in my life was probably one of the most profoundly positive things I’ve experienced in my 43 years.

She remains my best friend until this day and is an amazing mom of 3.

Definitely the most important friendship of my life.

Jesse shows the cartel how it’s done

Is Elon Musk considered a rags-to-riches billionaire?

No, he was never in rags.

He was a child of well-off professionals, who built a phenomenal fortune in his own right.

It’s unclear exactly how well-off he was growing up. I suspect his family’s wealth has been exaggerated, both by his detractors, and by his father, who has been know to brag about how much money he made, but it’s clear that the Musk family was never poor.

On the other hand, there’s very little indication that Musk relied on his family, either for investment or business connections, in starting any of his companies. Insofar as a billionaire can be “self-made”, Musk has built his own business empire.

But his upbringing and education and whatnot come from being part of a family that was at least reasonably well-off.

After having significantly increased your income, do you feel happier than you were before?

Indeed.

When I first entered the gaming industry, I earned around 30K to 40K a year. And I lived in one of the most expensive cities in the world, San Francisco. The hostel I lived in cost me 700 dollars per month for rent. I have to be very careful with food. At the time, my weekly food budget was 40 dollars. I work from 10 am to 8 or 9 pm in the evening.

Then things started to get better. By 2019, I was making about the industry average for a mid-level producer. Both of my parents are dead, and I don’t have family and children, so I have some disposable income—no more “40 dollar food budget”. I think my weekly grocery cost me about 60–70 dollars, and I often dine out during weekends. Being able to buy a box of Kyoho grapes for 14 dollars feels very good.

But I think more than anything, the money gave me a sense of security, and it allowed me to pursue my many interests. Both had a tremendous positive impact on my mental health and quality of life in general.

I’ve made the decision very early on in my life that I do not want to get married or have children. While I’m happy with my life choices, I’m also very aware of the risks of choosing this lifestyle. After all, plenty of people feel the need to remind me that when I’m old, I’ll be sad and alone, and nobody will visit me at the hospital or senior care facility.

I mean, are you sure your kids will visit you when you’re old and sick? You know, the kids you abused and traumatized for 20 years? The kids who couldn’t wait to get away from you? I’ve read many articles written by medical professionals. They had made consistent observations that in a senior care facility, those with children are often mean-spirited and friendless, and their children never visit, while those who are single actually know how to make friends and are liked by everyone. Do you even know how to make friends based on shared interests that fall outside “childcare, PTA, soccer practice, family”? Not to mention, do you have children just so you get to have free nannies and ATM machines when you’re old and frail? I feel bad for your kids.

I digress. Still, being single and a social recluse, I need to be better prepared for my retirement financially. A long-term care nursing home in the US currently costs about 5,000 to 8,000 dollars per month, and if you want one with a better facility and nicer staff, the cost can easily ramp up to over 10K. And Medicare does not cover long-term nursing home costs.

Since I don’t have children to leech on, I must prepare for my retirement when I can still make money. I’ve set up some investment accounts like mutual funds and bought some annuities and US treasury bonds, on top of maxing out my 401K and Roth IRA every year. I’m glad I have some extra cash I could put away for my retirement. It definitely reduced a lot of anxiety.

And I have money to spend on hobbies and travel. I don’t care about luxury goods. Most of my clothing is from Uniqlo and Muji. Most of my furniture is from IKEA. As I grew older, I found myself caring less and less about such things. I found 3 holes in my T-shirt the other day due to wear and tear, God only knows how long I’ve been wearing T-shirts with holes on them, LOL. But who cares? I certainly do not.

I spend a lot of money on personal interests. I spend money on Wacom tablets and Macs.

I’m particularly happy with my current setup.

I really like my craft studio. I need to use it more, LOL.

I also spend a lot of money on video games and game consoles. And I recently picked up the expensive hobby of Lego.

I spend money on crafts materials and courses. I mean, why do I buy this thing for 15 dollars when I can buy all the tools and materials and make it myself (poorly) for 95 dollars? That’s my motto now. DYI is NOT cheap.

On top of all that, now that my work is a bit less chaotic and less stressful, I finally have the brain power and energy to focus more on my writing. I had spent money on editors and programs such as Scrivener and Plottr to help me write.

None of these are possible without money.

Money does not buy you happiness, that’s for sure. But money can buy you security, peace of mind, and freedom to pursue your interests. While I’m acutely aware that, like many Americans, I’m one major illness/major accident away from bankruptcy. I’m much happier now than 10 years ago when I lived in a hostel and worked 60 hours per week.


I’ve since receive the same type of comments every time I talk about being single.

Me: I don’t want to have children.

Comment: Fuck you! You’ll die sad and lonely! Having children is the best thing ever! You aren’t a real man/woman without having children!

… Every. Single. Time.

Like, you people have no imagination.

Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond [REACTION)

How Putin and Kim Throw Down a Challenge to US Hegemony

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image 25

© Sputnik / Michael Metsel/POOL

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea Chairman Kim Jong Un held extensive talks on Wednesday. Dr. Kiyul Chung explained to Sputnik why the meeting of Putin and Kim is nothing short of historic.

The Russian and North Korean leaders met on September 13 at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian space port in the Amur region.

“Now today’s historic 2023 DPRK-Russia Summit at Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia first and foremost highlights one of the most significant geopolitical and geostrategic importances,” Dr. Kiyul Chung, editor-in-chief at the 4th Media and a retired professor of Tsinghua University, told Sputnik. “The 2023 Summit itself powerfully culminates, defines, embodies, and witnesses the arrival of the anti-imperialist and self-determined multipolar world of the 21st century.”

Per Dr. Chung, the idea to hold the meeting at Russia’s spaceport symbolizes the two nations’ future collaboration in the field of space exploration and other high-end technologies despite pressure from the West.

“Both DPRK and Russia are facing all sorts of threats from the already-collapsed ‘five century-long West-dominated unipolar power’. One of the threats they’ve had forcibly imposed is the very existence of both of their nations,” the scholar continued.

To the Stars: Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un Meet at Vostochny CosmodromeOn September 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed North Korean State Council Chairman Kim Jong-un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The North Korean leader payed an official visit to Russia on September 12-13, holding talks with top Russian officials.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/1113340697.html

Russia and North Korea: Strategic Longterm Cooperation

Vladimir Putin noted that his meeting with Kim Jong Un is taking place “at a special time”: just recently, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) celebrated 75 years since its creation. For his part, Kim thanked Putin for the invitation to visit Russia, stressing that relations with Moscow is Pyongyang’s “priority”

. The North Korean leader called his trip to Russia a demonstration of the importance of strategic ties.

“Comrade Putin and I just discussed in depth the military-political situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe and came to a satisfactory consensus on further strengthening strategic and tactical cooperation, supporting solidarity in the struggle for the protection of the sovereign right of security, for creating guarantees of lasting peace in the region, and throughout the world,” Kim stated during an official dinner held in his honor later in the day.

During the meeting, Kim reiterated his support for Moscow’s special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, stressing that “the DPRK will always stand with Russia in the fight against imperialism,” a clear reference to NATO’s proxy war in Eastern Europe. The DPRK chairman pointed out that he and his Russian counterpart will build “stable, future-oriented and long-term relations” between Moscow and Pyongyang.

All-Weather Friends: Why Are North Korea-Russia Ties Strong Against All Odds?North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pays a high level meeting to Russia amid the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) hosted by the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok. When did Russia-North Korea relations start and how have they evolved through decades?

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230912/all-weather-friends-why-are-north-korea-russia-ties-strong-against-all-odds-1113317356.html

The two countries have a long record of cooperation which originates in the early years of the Cold War era. Together, the Soviet and North Korean military protected DPRK independence and sovereignty against US intervention in the course of the Korean War (1950-1953). When the hostilities were over, the USSR helped Pyongyang restore the nation’s economy.

Presently, the DPRK is interested in the opportunity to cooperate with Russia in the field of aviation, transport and infrastructure, as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. In addition, the sides discussed cooperation in the field of joint space exploration, Putin said, hinting that Russia-North Korea military-technical collaboration is also on the table.

Per Dr. Chung, “the Kim-Putin summit first and foremost apparently intends to nullify, pacify, or ruin whatever attempts the US-led suicidal nuclear war games, specifically both in Korean Peninsula and Ukraine.”

Furthermore, the summit is openly challenging the West’s illegal sanctions, according to the scholar.

“Today’s summit in Russia is the defiant denunciation, disregard, and complete rejection of illegal economic sanctions regimes of all sorts the US-led unipolar imperial powers have unilaterally wielded for decades. By the way, the latter Russia is one of the latest and by far ‘the most far-reaching’ cases. According to the most recent news reports about the US/West-led UN sanctions against DPRK, Russia apparently intends to dismantle the [sanctions] regime by strengthening both nations’ economic cooperation at all levels,” Chung said.

North Korea's 'Visible Show of Support': Key Takeaways From Putin-Kim TalksVladimir Putin has met Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome to discuss a number of pressing issues, including those related to bilateral cooperation, as well as regional and global security.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/north-koreas-visible-show-of-support-key-takeaways-from-putin-kim-talks-1113347691.html

Western Media Up in Arms About Kim-Putin Meeting

The Kim-Putin meeting has stolen Western mainstream press headlines: the media has expressed unease over the summit of two leaders whose countries are under severe Western sanctions. American and British journalists particularly cited their respective government’s discontent with an alleged arms deal supposedly discussed by the Russian and North Korean leaders.

The American press also quoted US administration officials expressing fears that Pyongyang could receive technology that could advance North Korea’s satellite

and nuclear-powered submarine capabilities.How Russia and North Korea Could Benefit From Joint Space ExplorationRussia and North Korea could develop cutting-edge satellite technology, the Space Research Institute's Nathan Eismont told Sputnik, commenting on the DPRK leader's high-level state visit to Russia.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/how-russia-and-north-korea-could-benefit-from-joint-space-exploration-1113349741.html

Russia and the DPRK are cooperating for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries, and not against anyone; bilateral relations should not be a matter of concern for third countries, Peskov summarized on Wednesday.

“All other issues concern only our two countries, two sovereign countries, and should not be a subject of concern to third states. For our cooperation is carried out for the benefit of the peoples of our two countries, but not against anyone,” the Kremlin spokesman stressed.

The summit of Russian and North Korean leaders has demonstrated that the US’ dominance is fading, while a new multi-polar world, free of Washington’s diktat, is taking shape, according to Dr. Chung.

The scholar noted that the seeds of what is happening today were sown back in 2000, when President Putin met with Kim’s predecessor, Chairman Kim Jong Il. In July 2000, the first summit in the history of Russian-Korean relations (after the collapse of the USSR) took place and a Joint Declaration was signed.

“In that historic declaration, there is one item I’d like to highlight,” Dr. Chung said. “It’s about the number 1 Clause of that Declaration. There is a most important and historic language, expression, or declaration which was worded as in the following: ‘The DPRK and the Russian Federation …. [are] creating a multipolar world and building a new, fair, and rational international order based upon the principles of equality, mutual respect, and friendly cooperation’.”

“Today’s Kim-Putin Summit in Russia which can be interpreted as an assessment is kind of a recommitment as a rededication, reevaluation, and revelation of that historic 2000 Summit in Korea which I argue laid the most significant historic foundations of the anti-imperialist and self-determined multipolar world in the 21st century, 23 years ago for the sake of the future of the whole humanity,” the scholar concluded.

Russia and North Korea to Cooperate in Space, Military, Stand Together Against 'Imperialism'Russian President Vladimir Putin will sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Russia's Far East later on Wednesday to discuss a range of issues of mutual interest.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/live-updates-russias-president-putin-arrives-at-vostochny-spaceport-1113328717.html

How Putin and Kim Throw Down a Challenge to US HegemonyRussian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea Chairman Kim Jong Un held extensive talks on Wednesday. Dr. Kiyul Chung explained to Sputnik why the meeting of Putin and Kim is nothing short of historic.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/how-putin-and-kim-throw-down-a-challenge-to-us-hegemony-1113353161.html

Is Australia good for travelling?

Imagine this – In a pub 200km from the nearest town, an Aussie in his 60s told me this story over a pint:

He left school at 15 and decided to train it up to Darwin for a few weeks. To experience real Crocodile Dundee territory.

After 3 weeks he was at the train station waiting for his train home.

While waiting he got chatting to another guy who was on his way to work as a chef at some remote town. Whoop Whoop probably, but location doesn’t matter. The guy said they’d been looking for staff, so if he wanted to earn a few bucks he could join.

He called his Mum back in Perth and said he’d got a job and would give it a few weeks.

Skip to the day I met him. That had been his life – travelling around Australia, working here and there, and collecting amazing stories (we talked for a while).

What a life he’d had.

The beauty of travelling Australia is it’s easy, and you’ll see and experience things only Australia can offer.

Imagine waking up on pure white sands, next to a crystal clear ocean, on a beach many miles from any pollution – even light pollution – and taking a morning swim with a school of 20+ dolphins.

That was one of many experiences I had travelling most of Australia, for many months, without a care in the world.

I bought a 4×4 in Perth which became my home, with a makeshift bed in the back, solar panel, and bare necessities.

Months later when I was done travelling and went back to “normal life”, I made a profit on the car. Enough to cover the whole trip, all the fuel, and all the food.

I saw the incredible blue waters of Esperance, experienced the Nullarbor, Adelaide Hills, Great Ocean Road, Ned Kelly Country, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, dived the Great Barrier Reef, saw whales off Hervey Bay, snorkeled at Exmouth, took a tinny boat around swamp lands of Kakadu within arms reach of crocs, went up mountains, through rivers, over salt lakes, and saw the incredible red dirt of northern WA, bumped into the Australian prime minister (Julia Gillard), and English comedic legend Ben Elton. Oh, and met and dated an Australian movie actress.

And more.

Nothing hard about it. I just got out there, did it.

Then I read answers from people on Quora saying it’s hard to travel Australia because it’s so far away.

It’s a flight away.

And those answers get hundreds of upvotes, by people who will never experience the amazing things I experienced travelling such an incredible country.

Can Russia and China make HIMARS and How soon?

What exactly is the HIMARS?

It is a system that fires Rockets

That’s it

A System that has a Launcher and that has a guidance system that helps launch Rockets or Missiles on the Enemy positions.

The Rockets could be ATACMS Or Precision Strike Missiles or mostly ordinary guided Rockets

The Chinese and Russians both have similar systems

image 71
image 71

China has the PCL 191 system that has a longer range of almost 357 Miles and has even Laser guided Rockets in its latest version

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image 70

Russia has its own Tornado systems that are comparable to HIMARS including the latest Tornado S which has a larger range and a 1 meter tested accuracg

It’s what China has along the Indian Border

Yet the Russians don’t use their Counter Battery System in this SMO

Many believe this reveals a lot of Russian Weakness. They are WRONG.

The Reason is simple : COST EFFECTIVENESS

This is a War where the biggest obstacle is fortifications of concrete and steel every step of the way

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image 68

Every few miles you have fortifications where you have ammunition and soldiers with artillery guns

These fortifications are spread over 8–20 Kms and you don’t know where the Soldiers are Or where the Artillery Gun is

So what are your options?

Precision Rockets?

Nopes.

At $ 125000 a Rocket, you may blow off at least 20–25 rockets and spend a whopping $ 3.5–4 Million before hitting the target and even then there is a chance you miss and run into an artillery ambush when you advance

That would be at least 2000 Rockets and a price tag of $ 320 Million for Severodonetsk alone

So instead Russia use the cheaper artillery shells with no guidance and entirely range, range and range

Russia has at least 3 Million Shells available for each phase.

Instead of 25 Rockets, they use 10,000 Shells and pulverize the entire position and the Ukrops either lose their artillery gun and flee or die.

They advance and use flamethrowers and that’s a higher guarantee of death

Crude yet Cost Effective

At a price of $ 500,000 for a single fortification, that’s 1/8 the cost of using Guided Rockets like Himars

That’s around 800,000 Shells and $ 40 Million for Severodonetsk

Much more cost effective isn’t it?


That’s the problem today.

Everyone thinks Russia uses crude shells and artillery because they don’t have guided rockets or counter battery

The actual reason is Ukraine is using WWI style warfare with fortifications and trenches

Russia has to go crude to remain cost effective and yet maintain an advance pace

It’s so old fashioned it’s downright brilliant

Old Warfare at lowest cost , maximum deaths of enemy and minimum loss of own men

Who cares if the glamour is absent right??

Attempted Coup on Ibrahim Traore Fails. Who is Behind this?

What did you assume was exaggerated until you experienced it?

Originally Answered: What have you assumed was exaggerated until you experienced it yourself?

A freegan in Singapore told me he collected 1 ton of items every month when he goes dumpster diving. I couldn’t believe it. But when I saw him collect 30+ kg of stuff every day, I believed him.

30+ kg x 30 days = 900+ kg (almost 1 ton)

When I started doing the same, I believed him even more.

This is 20kg of clothes retrieved from the dumpsters in a single hour.

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image 72

When he told me that he collects so much fruits that he felt like crying because he didn’t know what to do with them, I thought he was exaggerating.

Then this happened to me last night:

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image 73

Man, what do I do with 82 oranges??

What did your father do to your mother that you will never forget?

My mother and the man she’d left my father for, had taken my brother and I out somewhere and had run out of petrol, stranded on the side of the road.

This was the 80’s and in South Africa, options were limited. They called my Dad who came to our aid with a 2 litre bottle filled with fuel.

Enough to get to the closest garage (gas station). He followed us there and paid in full. My soon to be stepfather was drunk and belligerent, swearing at instead of thanking him but Dad was the perfect gentleman as always.

I was barely 5 but will never forget that afternoon and always fill up on half a tank. My dad never, ever had a bad word to say about my Mom, (who referred to him as A**hole), always answering any questions about their divorce (she’d cheated with several men) by saying all that mattered was my brother and I.

When my mom was blacklisted after her third husband embezzled and stole everything from her, my Dad, who’d stopped working due to illness, scraped together enough cash to buy her a second hand car.

When I was an adult I asked him why he’d done all these things, his response was that the best revenge is to be the bigger person but I think he just did what he believed was best for his children and by default their mother.

He simply loved his kids. I miss him.

Southern Style Barbecued Chicken

2023 09 14 20 12
2023 09 14 20 12

Ingredients

  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • Dash Tabasco sauce
  • 2 to 2 1/2 pound chicken pieces
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Combine ketchup, honey, lemon juice and Tabasco sauce. Brush on chicken during last 5 to 10 minutes of grilling time.
  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Rescued cat gets final wish in life

Heart warming.

The End.

Daddy Issues

When I was living with my father (for a spell) we would go to “garage sales” on Sundays. These events were listed in the newspaper, and was a great excuse to go out, take a drive around town and look at other people’s junk.

It was often fun to haggle over an old nick-nack or curiosity.

Some interesting things were often found, at dirt cheap prices. Many unique things and items. Nothing really valuable, though. But it was darn fun to do.

Today’s story involves one such adventure on a lazy Sunday.

We once went to an estate sale. Nice big old house. Lots of rooms with all sorts of stuff. The old man died, and his son was selling off everything.

Lots of clutter. Mountains of puzzles in their original boxes. Piles of old pots and pans. The usual run of odd ball things. Some new televisions and some very old radios and cameras.

I well remember the fancy antique dining table with boxes of office supplies. There were boxes of ink pens. Never used. All dried up and useless. Some electronic calculators from the early 1970s or so. A slide rule. A few magnifying glasses, and lots and lots of rusty paperclips and tacks.

Clutter and junk was everywhere. Apparently this older man lived alone for the bulk of his final days. No wife. Maybe she died or he had a divorce. I didn’t ask.

In the kitchen was a wall calendar dating to six years earlier. There was a dead plant in a small flowerpot on the window. And the sink faucet has rust stains near the drain.

There was an ungodly amount of glassware in a antique glass display case. Some were real crystal. Some looked like wedding presents of glass from the 1950’s, while others were short drinking glasses with Flintstone’s characters on them.

There were a number of ash trays at various locations in the house, and one large glass ashtray that stood alone on it’s own pedestal. The rooms had the aura of a grand-parent’s residence.

One of the bedrooms was nearly impassable with boxes and boxes of books. But most of the titles did not interest me at all.

The stairs had full boxes at every step, and junk of all sorts and sizes everywhere. I saw a half-completed model of a wooden boat, a guitar missing a string, a bunch of rusty old steel tools, and lots of baby jars filled with metal screws, washers and pennies.

An old Honda motorcycle sat in the clutter filled garage / basement. It must have dated from the late 1960s. Long forgotten. An old red-plaid shit draped over the tank and seat. It’s wheels were all flat, and the rubber useless.

The laundry room consisted of piles of dirty clothes and a few boxes of detergent and cleaning supplies with the box marked “$1”.

When I went to the bedroom of the old man, where he actually died, I saw his bed, and a nice cozy chair by the window. You can tell from the chair that his beloved cat slept on it. It was worn down into the shape of a cat and covered with cat fur. It must have been doing so for many years.

In the corner of the best room was a plastic litter box with some fossilized feces, and a cat mat with a dry water bowl, and a long stale half-eaten bowl of kitty krunchies.

So we asked about the cat, and the son told us that the cat was fine. He was old, though. 16 year old kitty. (Is it even possible?) And was put up for adoption at the local shelter.

Really?

REALLY!

Sad story. Chances of adoption were very small. Sigh.

If you are getting old, make SOLID arrangements for your loved ones, and do not trust promises from family. “I’ll take care of him…don’t worry.”

I have experienced the let-downs as an estate executor. Make the requests in writing AND set in place a guardian (paid) that will guarantee that the wishes are performed as you request. Put in place clear “guardrails” so that others will not cause discord and trouble.

Do not underestimate the greed, and sloth of relatives.

It will surprise you.

A message from Dad

2023 08 31 18 34
2023 08 31 18 34

Have you ever quit a job and walked out without giving any notice? What caused you to leave so urgently?

Yes I did. My husband was transferred many times before he retired. I was an accountant, so I would usually go to a temp agency and work a couple of jobs until one came along I liked.

I went for a short interview for temp to perm in the Milwaukee area. The manager interviewed me in the conference room and asked me if I would object to straightening up the conference room on Friday afternoons. I thought it was a bit odd since they had lower level positions, but it wasn’t far from my house so I said sure.

Friday comes along and people start leaving around 3:00 p.m. The girl who was training me comes by and says she is going to show me what I needed to clean on Friday’s. I was a bit puzzled, thinking I didn’t need to be shown how to pick up a conference room. She then takes me to a janitor closet, pulls out a vacuum, mops, bathroom cleaners, etc. She tells me I’m to clean all the bathrooms, empty the trash, vacuum all the offices, including mine and the conference room. I told her I thought there was a mistake and she said, no all the new woman employees did this job until a new one came along. Then she left. I tried to call the man who hired me, but he didn’t answer. I actually started to vacuum a couple of offices, but I was getting madder and madder.

I looked in the bathrooms and said to myself “oh hell no” . Apparently they were only cleaned on Fridays. Mind you I have on a suit, nylons and high heels. I tried calling the manager again and when there was no answer, I picked up my things and walked out. I went straight to the temporary agency. She was on the phone with him, because one of the employees called her and said I left all the cleaning material out and walked out the door. This was an agency for professional people. I told her my story. Had we had cell phones then I would have taken lots of pictures. She called him back with me sitting there and asked him if they had indeed asked me to spend the last two hours of the day cleaning bathrooms, etc. He said all the other WOMAN had done it, it was like an initiation thing. She asked him if men had to do this. He said no. She said so you expect my highly qualified client to do janitorial work in a suit? He said, well I don’t want that woman to come back, she just walked off leaving the office uncleaned and the supplies out, send me someone new. The agency lady told him, I didn’t plan on coming back and to please lose her number, she was not sending qualified accountants out there to clean his office.

This was in the early 90’s. In retrospect, I should have gone after them for discrimination, but just let it go. That was the one time I walked off a job!

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

I was Marketing Director for a major, easily recognized company that manufactured female oriented products. Our President was in over his head, as evidenced by our declining market share and revenue. I was hired to help turn things around given my successful track record at other companies. However, the President couldn’t handle any outside suggestion or strategy unless it was his so I was constantly reprimanded for doing my job.

One day, my timid, suck-up boss sends me an email about a report she needs me to do ASAP. I scoll thru the entire email and at the end, I see it originated with a request from the President. Basically he wanted my boss to assign the report to me and once she had it to fire me. The email also contained some very derogatory & crude & inappropriate comments about my appearance.

I forwarded the entire email to my personal email account, HR and members of the Board. In exchange for me not pursuing legal action or sharing the incident with my press contacts (would have killed any credibility in the female marketplace), I received my bonus, 6 months severance including paying my health insurance, & a strong positive reference letter. I had a new position in 6 weeks.

The President was let go after about 2 months and it took him over 1 year to find a new position at a less prestigious company and lessor salary.

I read somewhere that French people are required to take paid vacations. Isn’t this taking away individuals’ right to work if they choose?

Paid vacations are compulsory because French trade unions are not stupid. They know that if they leave in up to the individual to choose whether to take vacations or not, the employers will use that to subtlely, or not so subtlely, force workers to work and not take vacations.

Paid vacations being compulsory is a line in the sand and a right that has been won. Talk of the “right” to be a workoholic sounds like insanity. The only people wanting such a “right” would be exploitative employers who would use the workoholic as leverage against everyone else.

Rights do not exist in a vacuum, they are created and exercised in real-world social context. İn the real world, which is not the world of liberal individualist fantasy, the defence of rights must almost always be a collective effort.

*TEARS* Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home| REACTION

Reaction video. If you tire of the American angst, then don’t watch it. But I will continue to put up visions of what it was like in France before the powdered wig wealthy got beheaded.

2023 08 26 06 58
2023 08 26 06 58

In business, has your boss ever tried to fire you, only to be fired by their boss instead?

Once upon a time, my department was merged into another. My old manager was a great boss. The new one was a horrible boss. I knew he was sexually harassing the women in the company, but had no direct proof until I was working for him. I gathered evidence over a few months, then one day I emailed all of it to his boss, claiming my rights under their confidential reporting policy and stating my fear of retribution. His boss thanked me and told me that he’d get back with me. Nothing happened…yet.

About 3 weeks later, it was time for my quarterly review. We were IT pros who normally worked out of the office at client sites. My client reviews were like “walks on water, talks with God”. My first review with the new manager was the first I ever had in my life where I “did not meet expectations”. I knew he was lying and I had proof, but I didn’t do anything yet.

The next quarter, the client was still totally satisfied with me. I guess saving them roughly $10 million in the first 9 months of my contract was considered a good thing. But, my manager’s review was “Needs improvement to meet expectations” – one grade level down from “Did not meet expectations”. Another lie, and more proof.

The next quarter, I was put on a 90 day “Improvement plan” with termination at the end if I did not fully meet expectations, and I had still more proof because I had copies of every single client review that they had ever turned in. By that time I had another job lined up, so I printed off everything I had, not only on his sexual misconduct, but his falsified performance reports, and his boss’s failure to do anything about the sexual harassment report. I not only had proof of my boss’s gross misconduct and lies, but also his boss had violated the “confidential reporting policy” by telling my boss about my report of his wrongdoing.

I took all of it to HR, along with my resignation letter, effective immediately. The next day I started at my new job. Two weeks later, after much investigation and interviews of the women who had been harassed, my boss and his boss were terminated with cause. Neither got severance and neither was eligible for unemployment insurance.

Karma is a bitch.

Edit: I should have said how I document the sexual harassment. I kept a journal with me. People were used to seeing me pull it out at random times and write in it for a minute or two when I had an idea on how to automate something or improve a process.

Every time I overheard or saw harassment going on, out came my journal. Date, time, place, woman’s name, what she was doing at the time he approached her, what he did, and the conversation on both sides as accurately as I could. Later one of the women told me that it was the detail in the copied journal pages that sunk him because all of the women verified each instance was accurate, and my record was less than 25% of what had gone on.

So, ladies, if you are in this situation, start recording the events. Do it on paper. There’s a reason attorneys use paper. It’s harder to fake evidence when it’s written with different pens and the handwriting is subtly different at different times.

A story of discovery

In 1836, the directors of the Bank of England received an anonymous letter, in which the author claimed to have direct access to the gold in the bank.

The directors assumed this to be a joke and simply ignored it.

However, sometime later, they received another letter, in which the enigmatic author offered to meet them at an hour of their choosing inside the main gold vault.

According to the bank’s website, the directors were intrigued but considered it impossible for someone to break into the vault without their knowledge.

Nevertheless, they agreed to the meeting and gathered together one evening, inside the vault as agreed.

To their great surprise, at the appointed time, a noise was heard beneath the floorboards, and a man popped up underneath their feet.

He was a sewer worker who had been working on repairs close to the Bank of England site at Threadneedle Street.

During his routine inspection, he had discovered an old drain that led directly underneath the gold vault inside the bank itself.

After a quick stock take, they realized that the sewer worker had not taken anything from the vault, despite having multiple opportunities to do so.

As a reward for his honesty, the directors gifted him £800, a sum that equates to £80,000 in today’s money.

African Coup: Soldiers Seize Power in OPEC Member Gabon

Just now.

Changes are happening hard and fast.

I cut down my neighbor’s tree while they were on holidays because leaves and branches fall onto my property. When he returned from holidays, he called the police and threatened to sue me. Does he have a case? Will the police do anything?

I have another story that will stop you dead on your tracks.

Here it is.

Deep in the beautiful wooded distant enclave of a famous city in America, there are estates of rich people that boast priceless trees. One day, one of these rich barons of this serene nature paradise, got bored and toyed with the idea it would be nice to have a distant view of the beautiful city skyline. Problem was his neighbor’s priceless mature trees were in the way of where he wanted this view to be.

As the desire grew in his heart, he decided to act on it. He hired a wood cutting service and pointed them in the direction of the trees he wanted taken out.

On the 3rd day, (as is usually the case) his actions came to light because he had cleared quite a sizable chunk of the woods and the neighbor noticed the gap. The neighbor raced over there in his off-road truck and what he discovered nearly gave him a heart attack. About 15 of his precious priceless trees littered the ground.

Long story short, the city and the courts served the tree murderer with all kinds of injunctions and the city went to town fining him for every tree he had taken out. He had to pay daily fines as long as the trees were not replaced, fully rehabilitated and the old ones not removed.

Meanwhile, the victim baron’s lawyers were preparing for a civil suit and things were not looking so good for the “tk” who by now was in dire straights and visions of the city skyline were being replaced by a windowless basement in a friend’s farmhouse way back in the Midwest.

The last time I heard it looked like it was going to be a long 3 years with the city doing the tree replacement because they had to locate the right kind of trees, clear the ground, dig up stumps and finally plant the trees, truss them up and after two or three years decide whether the process was a success for all trees concerned. If not the fines would continue daily, eish!!!

Tree killer, I mean “tk”, had to mortgage his property and get into debt to meet the costs of his impulsive ill informed act of messing with someone else’s trees. Trees have more value than you can imagine. And I say that as a supporter of the Arbor Foundation. We love trees and we will come after you if you remove them without permit.

Stay away from trees, they will fall on your wallet.

Whitney Webb Part 1: How Government Steals From Us, Bombshell Epstein Book & Bitcoin For Sovereignty

Yeah. They are powerful.

What’s something you’ll never be accustomed to in the military?

In the US Navy at sea, you will never get accustomed to the General Quarters (GQ) alarm going off when you least expect it in the middle of the night, calling the entire crew to man their battle stations. You go from exhausted and dead asleep in your bunk after working a typical 14 hour day while underway, to immediately energized and moving at full speed. The loud, insistent clanging could wake a graveyard. You have to jump out of your rack, throw on a uniform (you can fasten buttons and laces later), and run through passageways and up/down ladders with minimal night time red lighting to get to your designated station. If the ship happens to be rolling and pitching in heavy seas, the difficulty level is magnified, as are the chances of getting bumps, cuts, bruises, or even (rarely) more serious injuries.

Once at your station, you must complete dressing, don any required protective gear, and get your equipment ready to respond to any possible attack (e.g., guns, torpedoes, missiles, radars, sonar, comm gear, electronic jammers, damage control equipment, engine rooms, auxiliary spaces, aft steering, magazine hoists, signal bridge, lookout posts, medical stations, galley, etc.). The ship is then buttoned up (hatches, scuttles, watertight doors, and ventilation are secured shut to prevent the spread of fires or flooding from areas that may suffer battle damage), and all stations report to the bridge when they are manned and ready. The whole evolution is timed, as seconds can count when responding to an incoming threat. If the CO is not pleased with how quickly his/her ship was made ready for action, you can expect more frequent GQ drills, which can happen at any hour of the day or night, and are almost always performed with no prior warning.

Who has been the luckiest person you know?

This man was an alcoholic, he was homeless, he lived on the streets, he had lost everything, he had been homeless for more than 7 years.

Laszlo Andraschek, made a decision that many would say was foolish, spending the last of the money he had to eat on a gas station lottery ticket.

He chose 6 numbers, the cashier reminded him that there were 7, so he randomly chose the last number.

Surprisingly, he ended up winning 2.5 million dollars, something that changed his life forever. The surprising thing about this is that Laszlo donated a good sum of money to a shelter that he and his wife were surviving for a long time.

They also invested part of their newly acquired fortune in two foundations that look after addicted people.

I think he was lucky not only to win the lottery, but also to be mature enough to be able to be generous after suffering for so long.

Oliver Anthony Does It AGAIN! His New Song ‘I Want To Go Home’ Is Climbing The Charts – Here’s Why

This is a Republican vs. Democrat video on this song. Sigh.

However, what she does bring up is the “hit piece” Oliver Anthony, and seriously… someone was PAID to write the piece. No one in their right mind would say (seriously) what the UK Independent wrote…

Reaction video. If you tire of the American angst, then don’t watch it. But I will continue to put up visions of what it was like in France before the powdered wig wealthy got beheaded.

Do people who buy expensive cars like Ferraris usually know how to drive them properly or maintain them well?

No, they don’t. Most don’t realize there are three milestones with exotic car ownership that require maintenance; on condition, based on miles driven, and calendar based maintenance. They always forget about the last and think if they didn’t drive their car all that much, what could it possibly need?

This is how exotic brands deny warranty claims, especially when you want to extend the warranty and a service interval is missed. If you own an exotic, carefully check the maintenance requirements and follow it to the letter. On a Lamborghini, the engine comes out for a lot of things. Ask me how I know.

As for how to drive them properly, the answer is no. The overwhelming majority of accidents with exotics are new owners and borrowed cars. I can only guess but they make up about 90% of all exotic accidents. The “Let’s see what this baby can do!” mentality is what does it, especially when they don’t know the subtleties of the car. A Lamborghini gives you little warning when it decides it wants to kill you. It’s your job to keep it from happening. Think of it like a domesticated wild animal that you have to constantly watch.

Tucker Carlson: HOT WAR With Russia Is Coming, Gabon COUP OUSTS French Puppet President

This is pretty good. Long. But good.

I mean REALLY GOOD.

It’s difficult for me and my family to see this happening, I am married to a Russian I have two Russian born step kids now grown up, with friends in Russia as well. The people in Russia are good people and most Americans just don’t understand they are ignorant of that country and it’s culture and history.”

https://youtu.be/uYG6RwvJ2LA

During the Vietnam war why did you join the US Navy instead of the Army

During my junior year at UC Irvine, I was a participant in the first drawing. My number turned out to be “16”.

I said to a buddy, “Well, I’ve got one more year on my student deferment. Hopefully I’ll get a better number in next year’s lottery.”

The buddy gazed at me in pity and said: “You’re an idiot. 16 is the number you’ve got FOREVER.”

He was right, of course. And I started searching for alternatives to the Army.

For me, the choice was simple.

I figured out in 1968 that the Vietnam conflict was headed in a slow slog to nowhere. (It wasn’t particularly difficult to figure. The optimistic military press releases coming out of Saigon never matched the body counts or nightly battle footage shown on television. So I stopped believing the announcements about the light gleaming at the end of the ever-lengthening tunnel.)

I was a university student, hunkered down behind my student deferment like a jillion other privileged young males, but that deferment would soon be ending. And I knew I wasn’t a conscientious objector, and wasn’t going to lie about it. But I was also disinclined to wait to get drafted and spend twelve months in the Mekong Delta.

So one bright June day in 1970, I drove to a nearby Naval Reserve Center where a grizzled, gray-haired CPO with about twenty hash-marks on his sleeve signed me up for a six-year hitch (four years in the active reserves and two years on active duty.)

I spent my active duty doing paperwork on big gray ships and in a large, yellow building in San Diego. The reserve duty was done on a World War II destroyer based in Long Beach, California. I was never in or near Vietnam (orders to the Gulf of Tonkin got cancelled), so my original mission of steering clear of Southeast Asia was accomplished.

U.S Beg China As Chinese Economy Can Make or Break Global Economy!

https://youtu.be/qjE4rLw0DIE

Where does the US Navy keep mothballed ships?

The Navy has several reserve fleets, also known as ghost fleets, where mothballed ships are kept. Some of the largest and most well-known reserve fleets are:

  • The Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in California, near San Francisco. This fleet holds dozens of ships, mostly from the Cold War era, such as cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and auxiliary vessels. Some of these ships are slated for disposal, while others are on donation hold for possible use as museum ships or artificial reefs.
  • The James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia, near Newport News. This fleet holds over 100 ships, mostly from World War II and the Korean War, such as battleships, aircraft carriers, landing ships, and cargo ships. Some of these ships are also on donation hold or awaiting disposal.
  • The Beaumont Reserve Fleet in Texas, near Port Arthur. This fleet holds over 50 ships, mostly amphibious assault and support vessels, such as landing craft, tank landing ships, dock landing ships, and transport dock ships. Some of these ships are still in active service or ready reserve status.

Other smaller reserve fleets are located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Bremerton, Washington; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Mobile, Alabama. The Navy also has a separate reserve fleet for nuclear-powered ships and related support vessels, which are stored at designated locations such as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington and Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia.

Gabon Coup Latest: Billions In Raw Cash Found In Ali Bongo Son Apartment!

Quick recap. Niger has said no to a pro-West puppet government and had a coup. The puppet government was thrown out and the USA and France had a fit! So they organized a block of neighboring African states all run by their puppets to invade Niger.

It didn’t happen.

Instead Wagner troops from Russia, and other pro-African nations fortified and protected Niger from invasion.

So then Gabon started to be reinforced by French and American troops to better support an invasion. And then the Gabon military staged a coup and ousted their puppet “leader”.

After taking over. This is what they found.

What are some shocking death bed confessions you’ve heard?

I know of my great-uncle’s deathbed confession only second-hand, through my grandmother. There is some background here, so bear with me as I lay all the pieces into place.

My grandmother and her brother were born in pre-revolutionary Odessa and grew up in a poor and crime-ridden Jewish neighborhood immortalized later in the works of Isaac Babel. Like most boys coming of age in that time and place, my great-uncle began running with a gang around the age of ten. Although he had not been involved in anything major prior to the outbreak of World War II, like most of his friends, was growing up very tough, both physically and psychologically, as you would expect of children reared in a ghetto controlled by gangsters.

The Revolution had removed the legal restrictions that had been imposed on Jews under the old regime, and my great-uncle and his peers were able to leave the ghetto and their rough-and-tumble past behind them, received good educations and got respectable jobs. In the late 1940’s, he and my grandmother, along with a bunch of other young people they had known back in Odessa, moved to a the Moscow area, where they settled down into unremarkable middle-class Soviet lives.

The incident that was the subject of my great-uncle’s deathbed confession took place in the early 1970’s, when he was in his early sixties. He and a number of acquaintances he knew from his youth in Odessa were then living in a suburb of Moscow, which could be reached by an elektrichka, a rickety suburban commuter train.

Like a lot of Russian cities, Moscow and its surrounding areas were arranged in roughly concentric circles, with suburban districts separated by “green belts” — heavily wooded areas interspersed with bogs. These green belts were not parks; there were no hiking or biking trails, no camping areas. These were strips of true, impenetrable wilderness, a setup unimaginable in the capitalist West, where the pressures of the real estate market at the very least put nature on a leash, if not obliterate it altogether. If you were to ride a Moscow commuter train of an evening in that era, you’d see the lights and bustle of the city flash briefly by the window, and then the train would plunge into darkness, flying through a forbidding primordial forest. Then suddenly another town would appear, with a brightly lit platform, where the train would pause briefly — then it would start moving again and plunge into uninhabited wilderness once more. And so forth and so on, until it reached its terminus.

One evening, my great-uncle and two of his friends attended some sort of event in center Moscow and ended up taking a late commuter train back home — probably the last train of the evening, which departed the Leningrad Station close to midnight. This was never an advisable thing to do: late-night elektrichkas were empty and eerie, and bad things were known to happen to hapless tipsy passengers who rode one that late into the evening.

This was one of those times.

The three friends stepped into a virtually empty car and settled in — three pudgy, soft-spoken middle-aged men in bulky felt coats, flat caps and glasses. An engineer, a doctor and an accountant. One of them spoke with a heavy lisp. If you saw them then, these guys looked like your stereotypical, timid, limp-wristed, well-nourished middle-aged college dads, and you never would have guessed they had grown up as skull-cracking hooligans in one of the toughest urban areas in pre-War Soviet Union.

There was one other passenger in the car — a mean-looking drunk who began glowering at them and flicking a pen knife in his hand as soon as the train left the station. A couple of suburban stops in, he began to harangue my great-uncle and his two friends.

“Jews!” he hissed, “Fucking Jews! I know you’re Jews! Hitler didn’t finish the job! Stalin didn’t finish the job! You’re like cockroaches, impossible to kill! Your hooked noses! Greedy Jews! Filthy Jews! I’ll kill you and your Jew broads too! I’ll rape your children! Burn all the Jews!”

And so forth and so on.

As the train departed another station and entered one of the “green belts”, the three pudgy middle aged men exchanged knowing looks. Then the one with the lisp said loudly:

“Guyth? I am going into the vethtibule to thmoke a thigarette, okay?”

He then rose and walked over to the vestibule. The drunk with the pen knife followed him. As he opened the door to the vestibule, the other two men also rose and followed in. Once the three friends cornered the drunk in the tiny vestibule, they set upon him, disarmed him and kicked him to death, stomping on his head to disfigure him as much as possible. Then they opened the window and forced his body out of the train. It rolled down the embankment and disappeared in the nightly wilderness. The man’s ID was disposed of separately. One of the three friends, though not my great-uncle, kept the pen knife as a souvenir.

And then there was nothing. No cop ever came to question any of them. And because this was the Soviet Union, there was nothing on the news. None of the three ever mentioned the incident.

This my great-uncle told his sister as he lay dying in a hospital about fifteen years later. Having confessed, he looked away from her and began to mumble to himself. Those green belts are perfect places to dump bodies, you know (he said). Very convenient. Folks are doing it, it’s an open secret. No one ever goes there. You don’t even need to dig a hole, the animals will get to the corpse long before the “garbages” ever do. You can even roll a body into a bog. There are lots of bogs. Maybe that jackass we murdered also rolled into a bog, we gave him a good momentum. And once they sink into bogs, those bodies will stay there for thousands of years. Perhaps some day, future archeologists will dig them up. Lots of material for those turgid doctoral dissertations, hehehe! Were these bog men priests? War captives? Slaves? Chieftains? Why were they put in those bogs? Was it part of some religious ritual? Did ancient Muscovites practice a religion that called for human sacrifices? No professor, no, no. The ancients were just as cynical and practical are you modern people are.

Those men in those bogs aren’t ritual sacrifices, they’re just some assholes who had it coming. No man is there that did not deserve it. And the bogs are good places to dump the trash you never want to see again.

OLIVER ANTHONY- RICH MEN NORTH OF RICHMOND REACTION

You all getting tired of these reactions?

This is HISTORIC.

Big changes coming together, and there WILL be Government / Oligarchic backlash. Wait for it.

Reaction video. If you tire of the American angst, then don’t watch it. But I will continue to put up visions of what it was like in France before the powdered wig wealthy got beheaded.

Has a celebrity ever served as a defense witness in a criminal case?

An incredible story happened in the USA in the 2000s.

A man has been arrested in Los Angeles for murder. However, he swore that he was innocent (well known) and that he could not have committed this crime because he was attending a baseball game at the time.

Unfortunately, he had no proof of what he was saying. On the other hand, eyewitnesses claimed to have seen him at the scene of the crime. The case seemed heard and the suspect promised to life in prison.

However, from the depths of his cell, while awaiting trial, the defendant recalled that he had seen a camera crew filming something in the stadium on the day of the baseball game. He then asked his lawyer to try to find this team and try to see if there were any images in which we could see him.

It was a desperate attempt.

The lawyer did some research and quickly discovered that the crew from the series “Curb your enthusiasm” had actually filmed in the stadium that day. A request was made to the producer and star of the series, the comic Larry David (co-creator of Seinfeld) to be able to access the rushes filmed that day.

Larry David immediately agreed and made available to the lawyer the hours of video they had shot in the stadium.

And after a long and careful examination of these tapes… he found a plan on which the accused could be seen and recognized indisputably!

The latter was released on the spot, thus escaping life imprisonment…

AMERICA TERRIFIED of CHINA!

While the United States and it’s allies circle China with military bases to contain China, Russia is building military bases in Nicaragua and Niger is stopping an American LNG pipeline to Europe. North Korea is testing ICBM’s and Japan, South Korea and America are in talks to strengthen their security ties in the region. Could it be that the United States knows it is out manned, out gunned and losing it’s grasp on it’s world domination goals. Watch the video for the whole story.

Do you know why the grandparents in your family had such a hard life?

My grandparents lived in a dugout in Oklahoma. That is where you dig a hole in the ground, and it becomes your home.

They attended church and taught Sunday School each week.

During their 61-year marriage, they produced a huge extended family.


My grandfather’s ancestors came from Buckinghamshire, England. My grandmother’s kin came from Cornwall. As America expanded westward, their families expanded westward.

My ancestors (on both sides) lived on the frontier. They were constantly trying to grow more food. The goal was not to get rich — the goal was to survive another winter.

In constant dollars, Americans are 3,000% richer today than in 1800.


In the 1930s, my grandparents paid for magazine subscriptions (Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, Saturday Evening Post) by giving the traveling salesman a chicken. He carried a burlap sack.

My grandmother sewed dresses from feed sacks and flour sacks. Potato sack dresses were less popular. That’s because the word “Potato” was printed on them.

The dress below would have been too cheeky for my straightlaced grandparents.


There was no stigma attached to sack dresses. No one had any money.

Farm income in Oklahoma declined -35% during the 1920s. There were two reasons:

  • End of World War I reduced agricultural demand
  • Argentina and Australia became major crop exporters

The Great Depression of the 1930s was just a continuation of those same hard conditions. When the stock market crashed in 1929, Okie farmers barely noticed.

For Christmas presents, my aunts and uncles received one piece of fruit and one piece of hard candy.


My mother rode a horse named Shorty. That horse took her to and from school beginning age 6.

When the creek was up, Shorty would plunge ahead whether she was ready or not. Shorty knew the route and wanted to reach his destination.

One day after school, she got on Shorty and they started for home. A boy who attended the same school threw a rock and hit the horse on his haunches.

Shorty took off like a rocket. As a first-grader, she barely hung on — clinging to his mane. The teacher saw the whole episode through the window.

Mr. Rock Thrower could still recall his spanking at the 50-year reunion.


There were only two “dating services” back then: church and the pie auction.

Girls looking for a husband would bake their best pie. On a designated Saturday night, everyone in the county would converge at the auction. It was a big social event for all ages.

Young men would bid on pies. Bidding was fast and furious for every pie. In effect, bidders were buying a first date. Sometimes a last date.

Shy men and women were especially fond of the auction. Each year, marriages and new families could be traced back to pie.


The U.S. government offered money to my grandparents to stop growing row crops. My grandfather rejected the idea outright. He told his neighbors:

“No one should accept free money from the government, and that includes a poor man like me.

Politicians can call it whatever they like. But it is Socialism. Socialism is wrong.”


My mother worked as a cook to pay her way through the University of Oklahoma. She studied mathematics. Mom received no money from home. My grandparents simply had no money to send.

When she graduated, she was hired by the OSS. They did intelligence work. She said their nickname was Oh So Social.

She worked in temporary buildings on the Washington mall. As soon as the war was over, she returned to Oklahoma.

It was exciting working with spies. But she wanted to be a wife and mother.


Audie Murphy wrote In his autobiography:

“We were poor cotton sharecroppers. My family always lived hand to mouth. When I joined the Army, I was amazed they let me eat as much as I wanted.”

All my uncles served in the military. So did I.

In the 1960s, my Uncle Ken completed his tour. When he left the Service, he was invited to New York City to interview. The job was flying helicopters between Manhattan and the Hamptons.

My grandfather told him: You do what you want, son. I truly want you to be happy.

But Yankees live differently than we do.

If you go to New York City, there is a good chance you will be back in 6 months.

My uncle lasted one night.


There are more people in one high-rise building than all of Cimarron County, Oklahoma. You can look from horizon to horizon and not see another human being.

That feeling of vastness — unlimited space — never leaves you.


On the other hand, city folks like the “energy” of a metropolis. To each his own.

My grandfather said:

Each person is uniquely created by God. Each person has a unique purpose.


Some coastal Americans would not visit the Great Plains if you paid them in gold.

Woody Allen directed The Front. In that movie, a character from New York says:

He moved to Kansas. Or maybe it was Oklahoma. Doesn’t matter.

Any normal person would go nuts in a place like that.


In the 1960s, I helped my grandfather milk at 5 AM and 5 PM. Cats lined up early.


One time, all my cousins and I were swimming in the creek.

My grandfather suddenly raced into the water. He pinned a water moccasin with a branch, then killed it with his bare hands. We were shocked. He was always such a gentle man.


Around my grandparents’ farm house and hay barn, there were chickens everywhere. This gave my grandmother “egg money” for incidentals.

On Saturday afternoons, we hauled water from town back to the farm. It cost 50 cents for 1,000 gallons.

On Saturday nights, my cousins and I would attend stock car races, a baseball game, or the rodeo. There was no television unless the wind was blowing due west from Oklahoma City.

In some Oklahoma counties, people drove an hour each way to reach a movie theater.


Funerals in Oklahoma can be very practical. The funeral director will find strapping young men and say:

You, you, and you … please give us a hand with the casket.


In winter, my grandfather and I would break ice in numerous locations. Cattle and hogs need water each day. With livestock, there are no days off.

Our reward was a huge farm breakfast including homemade biscuits and gravy.

After breakfast, we listened to a radio program called Tradio. People would call in to buy or sell various items. These ranged from knick-knacks to wheat combines. My grandfather never bought or sold anything. But he could recognize the voices of his neighbors on the radio.


I helped Grandpa change a tractor tire when I was 15 and he was 73. It was 102 degrees that day.

I spilled icy lemonade all over my work shirt. He kidded me and could not stop laughing.


My grandfather told us: Do not stick your nose in other people’s business.

That was wise advice. But in the early 1970s, western Oklahoma had party line telephones. There were 8 households on each line.

When someone made a call, 7 other people could potentially listen in. That was great fun for teenaged girls — but less fun for other people.

One time, I called my cousin: “I need to buy a load of 32% feed.”

He said: “Pick me up. I’ll give you a hand.”

An unknown voice chimed in: “Atwoods is having a clearance sale on 28% feed.” <click>


When my oldest uncle returned from the military, he used the GI Bill to attend Oklahoma State University. Then, he went to medical school at OU.

After graduation, he headed back to western Oklahoma. He was the only country doctor for miles around.

He used his “doctor money” to build a huge cattle operation. He often treated patients while wearing ranch clothes and dusty cowboy boots. No patient ever objected. After all, he was the only physician in town.

On the other hand, pharmaceutical salesmen stared in disbelief when they first met him. My uncle would say a few words of medical mumbo jumbo. That seemed to relax them.


My uncle built a dirt landing strip on his ranch with his tractor. He used his airplane to find lost cattle.

One day, we were watching him land his plane. He was so low he clipped the barbed wire fence. There was no damage to the plane except scraped paint. My cousin and I were sent to fix the fence.

I said: “Good thing he lands on his own property. If he landed his plane at the airport, the FAA might suspend his license.”

My cousin replied: “What license? He traded some cattle for that plane and just took off.”


In some parts of the USA, energy companies are vilified. That does not happen in Oklahoma and Texas.

Oklahomans follow the oil patch like Bostonians follow the Red Sox.

In 1977, a natural gas driller proposed drilling four wells on my grandparents’ property. Oklahoma (unlike Texas) has pooling of mineral rights. We already knew drilling was getting close.

Those four wells were planned for 11,500 feet. At that time, these were the deepest wells in the Anadarko Basin.

One of their daughters (my aunt) worked for Mosbacher Oil in Houston. She advised them to ask for a bigger override in exchange for no signing bonus.

Negotiations with the driller were always friendly. Discussions took place at the breakfast table over coffee.

My family understood that dry holes would mean zero money and torn up pastures. On the other hand, a gusher would mean lots of money.


As it turned out, all four wells became big producers.

My grandparents became wealthy within 6 months. But they never spent a dime on themselves.

Grandma said: I always wanted to travel, but never had the money. Now I have the money, but I am too tired to go.


My parents and grandparents lived through the Dust Bowl. Their mindset was:

Never whine. Never complain.

Put a smile on your face and get to work.


My grandparents married in 1920 and always felt blessed.

They thanked God each day.

This hits HOME | Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home – REACTION

Reaction video. If you tire of the American angst, then don’t watch it. But I will continue to put up visions of what it was like in France before the powdered wig wealthy got beheaded.

2023 08 26 07 02
2023 08 26 07 02

China makes breakthrough in controllable nuclear fusion technology for new-generation ‘artificial sun’

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2023 08 31 18 49 1

China made a breakthrough in controllable nuclear fusion technology on Saturday.

Huanliu-3 (HL-3), the country’s new-generation “artificial sun,” realized high-confinement mode operation with a plasma current of one million amperes for the first time, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

The breakthrough puts the operational level of China’s magnetic confinement nuclear fusion device at the forefront of the world, marking an important milestone in the country’s development of nuclear fusion energy.

The Huanliu-3 (HL-3), independently developed by China, is a large-scale research facility for controllable nuclear fusion.

The high-confinement mode, or H-mode, is an advanced mode of operation in magnetic confinement fusion devices, which can improve the economical efficiency of a fusion reactor.

Thus, the H-mode has been chosen as the standard operation mode for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is under construction.

The ITER is a nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject funded and run by seven member parties: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

2023 08 31 18 49e
2023 08 31 18 49e

A computer-generated image of China’s self-developed Huanliu-3 (HL-3) nuclear fusion reactor, the country’s new-generation “artificial sun.” /CMG

The conditions for realizing nuclear fusion reactions are extremely harsh. In a vacuum environment, the plasma temperature must reach more than 100 million degrees Celsius. As long as the conditions are not met, the reactions will not occur. Therefore, the nuclear fusion reactor is safe and controllable.

As a cutting-edge technology, controllable nuclear fusion is considered one of the most important methods to ultimately address energy-related issues.

It serves as a significant part in China’s “three-step” technological roadmap of “thermal neutron reactor, fast reactor, controllable nuclear fusion reactor” for nuclear energy development.

According to China’s long-term development goals set for the nuclear energy industry, the application of nuclear fusion energy is hoped to be realized by the middle of this century.

This Is So Bad – San Francisco’s Largest Mall Will Be Replaced By a Stadium

What idiots are running SF today?

Big Serge On The Summer Campaign In Ukraine

Big Serge has a long read about the state of the war in Ukraine which I recommend to read. It is a nice recap of the whole war and the ballyhooed counter-offensive:

Escaping Attrition: Ukraine Rolls the Dice
The Zaporizhia Summer Blockbuster

After concluding that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has evidently failed, he dares a look into the future:

So, whence goes the war from here? Well, the obvious question to ask is whether we believe Ukraine will ever have a more potent assault package than the one they started the summer with. The answer clearly seems to be no. It was like pulling teeth to scrape together these understrength brigades – the idea that, following on a defeat in the Battle of Zaporizhia, NATO will somehow put together a more powerful package seems like a stretch. More to the point, we have American officials saying fairly explicitly that this was the best mechanized package Ukraine was going to get.

It does not seem controversial to say that this was Ukraine’s best shot at some sort of genuine operational victory, which at this point seems to be slowly trickling away into modest but materially costly tactical advances. The ultimate implication of this is that Ukraine is unable to escape a war of industrial attrition, which is precisely the sort of war that it cannot win, due to all the asymmetries that we mentioned earlier.

In particular, however, Ukraine cannot win a positional-attritional war because of its own maximalist definition of “winning.” Since Kiev has insisted that it will not give up until it returns its 1991 borders, an inability to dislodge Russian forces poses a particularly nasty problem – Kiev will either need to admit defeat and acknowledge Russian control over the annexed areas, or it will continue to fight obstinately until it is a failed state with nothing left in the tank.

Trapped in a bat fight, with attempts to unlock the front with maneuver coming to naught, what Ukraine needs most is a much bigger bat. The alternative is a totalizing strategic disaster.

Pushed by the U.S. the Ukrainian leadership seems to have decided to go for the alternative.

Also a good read is:

The Case for Negotiating with RussiaThe New Yorker

Not that Biden will go for it, but it is important that such pieces are now coming up.

Posted by b at 11:56 UTC | Comments (216)

Episode 66 — Singin’ the truth about America (Oliver Anthony)

In his phenomenal and poignant song about the working man in America and the slide of a once great country into semi-tyranny by the rich rats “North of Richmond,” Oliver Anthony hits a patriotic nerve among tens of millions of Americans, who are just f**king FED UP with the Swamp’s politicians and their Leftist voters, and the outright theft of our paychecks and freedoms!

Reaction video. If you tire of the American angst, then don’t watch it. But I will continue to put up visions of what it was like in France before the powdered wig wealthy got beheaded.

Very expensive fails

Did Huawei deliberately launch the Mate 60 Pro phone with 5G Kirin 9000s chipset while US Commerce Secretary Raimondo was visiting China in August 2023 as a deliberate slap in the face to the US?

That’s at best, speculative.

Huawei had scheduled a launch event in September, 12th, if my memory serves me correctly. People were expecting the Mate 60 Pro in two weeks, with the usual media blitz typical of a flagship launch. Curiously, Apple’s iPhone 15 launch is scheduled for the 13th, Beijing Time.

This prelaunch sale landed in vmall, Huawei’s webstore as an announcement celebrating the sale of the Mate series exceeding 100 million.

image
image

No graphics, no specs, just short descriptions of the colors available, the satellite calling feature, the improved durability of the case and glass, the upgrade to the camera’s action, portrait and macro shot capability, the return of Ai-powered hands free gestures and mobile payment, as well as the Pangu large language AI model.

With that, several million sets of the 12/512 GB model sold out within the hour. At 7k per pop, that’s revenue in multiples of 7 billion RMB, in just 1 hour.

Reviews are aplenty, with customers receiving their purchases on the day or the next. There are drop tests, screen tests, satellite calling demos, smart mobile payment demos, gesture demos, pangu demos, camera tests, charging tests, teardowns… all within the first 24–48 hours.

All for a phone that hasn’t been officially launched, and caught everyone, even the influencers who review tech for a living, by surprise.

I won’t engage in conspiracy and say this was Huawei’s attempt at black humor, but beyond the impressive phone, the logistic efficiency demonstrated in getting the goods to consumers is shocking, and Huawei’s guerilla marketing success is testament to the groundswell of support and goodwill in the domestic market. Huawei (华为), after all, means “Created by the Chinese”, a symbol of pride for the Chinese nation.

Discounting Huawei’s motivation for jumping the gun, the Mate 60 Pro’s prelaunch injected tremendous chatter into the news cycle surrounding Gina’s visit. Its success is the perfect response to the Commerce department’s attempt at targeting a corporation for take down.

As for Gina, she is one confused girl. She says in Beijing she is ready to collaborate with China on AI, but turns around and insists matters of national security are non-negotiable.

“I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”

We are better off ignoring the rhetoric and focusing on her department’s policies.

Gina no longer has a bird’s eye view of Huawei’s activities, because it has been forced to create a sandboxed and independent supply chain free from American sanction through the abuse of IP privileges. Whoever inherits the hot seat will have to deal with the fog of war invited by America, for America.

GloFo had no choice but to abandon its $70 billion factory in China because of the US decision!

In this video, we dissect the dramatic withdrawal of a major U.S. chip powerhouse from the Chinese market, the stunning shutdown of a colossal $70 billion factory, and its subsequent acquisition by a Chinese tech giant.

🇺🇸 The U.S. chip bill, a game-changing move signed into law by President Biden, has ignited what experts now call the “chip war.” This showdown is reshaping the Sino-U.S. technological landscape, marking the second round of high-stakes rivalry between these global titans.

💥 The ripple effects of the Biden administration’s restrictions on American corporate investments in China have sent shockwaves through the industry. American chip companies are grappling with the potential loss of substantial financial support from the Chinese market. China, holding a commanding 65% share of nearly $600 billion in global semiconductor purchases, wields tremendous influence over the industry’s future.

https://youtu.be/y3G_ROk4fJ8

What would Xi Jinping do if he took over Taiwan, and millions of mainland Chinese suddenly wanted to move there?

After the liberation of Taiwan, there will be no more millions of mainland Chinese going to Taiwan.

Taiwan’s per capita income is not as good as that of Hong Kong, Macau, or even Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hongkong

There are few business opportunities and few employment opportunities. As Taiwan’s industries are dominated by OEMs with low wages, young Taiwanese are reluctant to take up these jobs. Most of these jobs are done by foreign labourers from Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia who come to Taiwan.

Young Taiwanese are travelling out of Taiwan in search of job opportunities, mostly to Japan, Australia and mainland China.

And, they’re both China’s islands, but Taiwan’s scenery isn’t even as good as Hainan’s, let alone the other islands in Southeast Asia. There are not even decent tropical beaches. The west coast of Taiwan is mudflats, and the east coast is gravel. Therefore, few tourists go to Taiwan for vacation.

Hainan Province, China

The scenery of Alishan and Sun Moon Lake is just average. In terms of scenic beauty, it is not as beautiful as Huangshan, Lijiang, Jiuzhaigou, Zhangjiajie and other world natural heritage sites.

Zhangjiajie, Hunan, the setting for the film “Avatar”.

This is Sun Moon Lake, Alishan. To be honest, the scenery is pretty average! Many of the reservoirs in mainland China are no less scenic than Sun Moon Lake in Alishan.

In mainland China, there are plateau lakes, alpine lakes, forest lakes, basin lakes, frigid ice lakes, steppe lakes, underground lakes in caves, desert oasis lakes, Gobi lakes, park lakes, reservoir lakes, Tianshan lakes, Kunlun lakes, Qinling lakes, Shangri-La lakes, southwestern lakes, southern lakes, northwestern lakes, and so on. Tibetan Plateau lakes are densely packed how to describe? Even the seven deserts have starry lakes …… mainly because Taiwan is too small.

The infrastructure is outdated, and there are metal houses next to the 101 building.

Many mainland Chinese who have travelled to Taiwan Province feel that they have been deceived by the advertisements of travel agents. When you hear people bragging about how beautiful Taiwan is, you will be deeply disappointed when you are actually on the ground.

Of course, it is not that Taiwan is not beautiful, but Taiwan is too small, too common, not as vast as the mainland, for mainland Chinese who have seen too many beautiful scenery, Taiwan lacks the scenery that “shocked” them.

Because Taiwan is not attractive as a place to live, few mainland Chinese will voluntarily move to Taiwan.


In December 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan with millions of mainland soldiers, Officials and wealthy businessmen. Except for the KMT officials and wealthy businessmen who are greedy for life and fear of death, most of the soldiers came to Taiwan from their hometowns out of necessity. They are coerced, not self-selected.

But the CPC is not the KMT. the CPC is the victor of the Chinese civil war and does not need to lead the Chinese people to flee to Taiwan.

Chiang Kai-shek brought millions of soldiers to flee to Taiwan, photo credit: New Taiwan Peace Foundation


However, the PLA will undoubtedly station troops in Taiwan Province. Taiwan Province falls under the jurisdiction of the PLA’s Eastern Theatre, and potentially 100,000 PLA soldiers will be stationed in Taiwan.

PLA soldiers come from all over China and rotate regularly, just like the PLA garrison in Hong Kong.

The PLA Hong Kong Garrison has 6,000-12,000 PLA soldiers. Taiwan is larger in area and has a larger population than Hong Kong. Moreover, Taiwan is very strategically located. the PLA will definitely have more troops stationed in Taiwan than in Hong Kong.

Filipina Give Hot Comments About Western Women Demands in a Relationship.

Tired of the reaction videos? Then this is for you.

Email attacks and snowbound kitties

As I write this, the latest typhoon is making landfall. In this case, it is typhoon Saola. ZH and GZ self-defense forces are on alert, and for the population it is “all hands on deck” in readiness. It is a “Super Typhoon” of level 17. Could be brutal. (Of course, by the time you all read this, the event will be long over.) We are braced, and all of our activities are in postponement mode.

I found out why all the emails to laobangbh@163.com never reached me.

It seems that I was a victim of numerous “saturation attacks” where thousands of emails spam my inbox. The objective of these kinds of attacks is to render your email system inert and useless, as most email accounts have a limit on how many emails can exist.

I have been trying to erase the emails. The 163 software only allow batches of 10 to 20 emails at a time (page by page). I have 73,652 pages of attack emails interspersed with an occasional email of value.

I figure that it will take me half a year to clean out the mails if I devote about 20 minutes a day to erase the emails manually. I am thinking about contacting the 163 server for assistance, but my Chinese is shit in specialized situations such as this, and I am not VIP on this account. Ugh!

Back in the 1990s my wife and I had some friends that we used to “hang out” with. We would drink beer and play video games or watch a movie or two. They also had a cat.

It was one frigid Winter night in January while we were inside, and their cat was in heat. It was driving “Misty” our friend, bonkers. But outside was a howling blizzard, and the temperature was -20F, hardly healthy, and quite dangerous. But, I well remember, while the cat was standing at the door howling… she opened the door and let her out saying “go out and have fun, you slut”, and then slammed it shut.

I don’t know what happened to the kitty. Knowing cats, it probably found some kind of shelter. But, still…

For me, I greatly lament what happened. Why didn’t I stop her?

Well, it happened too quickly. It occurred and was over long before I could react.

And there, somewhere in the swirling snow, and darkness, the kitty went to follow her instincts. Right or wrong.

We all have to be more aware of the things going on around us. More mindful. More careful and more compassionate.

Todays…

The results of the BRICS summit are great, isolation as a weapon of the USA has been defeated forever — Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

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2023 08 25 21 34

“It is not BRICS that threatens the United States of America, it is the state of the USA, its liberal economy, the neoliberal model. I think that the expansion of BRICS will not be some kind of cold shower for the USA, Great Britain and the EU. I think it is too soft and too light a term. It will become a new reality for everyone, and it will be a demonstration of this new reality that they hide and do not show on American channels,” she said.

WOW!! OLIVER ANTHONY I WANT TO GO HOME (EMOTIONAL)

2023 08 25 12 20
2023 08 25 12 20

What exactly changes when a country joins BRICS? Other than being invited to the meetings does BRICS membership have any advantages for countries which join?

BRICS has very few advantages to countries that aren’t a direct threat to the WEST and are thus ignored by the WEST

2023 09 01 18 49
2023 09 01 18 49

It’s why Indonesia wasn’t very keen to join BRICS

It enjoys a relatively nice and non aligned foreign policy and isn’t a threat to any one and enjoys business with China and the West equally

Thus no advantages in joining BRICS and a lot of disadvantages including joining a group consisting two nations bitterly opposed to US Hegemony

2023 09 01 18 49e
2023 09 01 18 49e

Same reason why Nigeria is unlikely to join BRICS

Nigeria is already a member of the BRI and has very good trade relationships with China but also has a good relationship with the West who doesn’t really care much about Nigeria because today it’s irrelevant

So it’s joining BRICS is irrelevant


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2023 09 01 18 5f0

Today the only nations that can have huge advantages in joining BRICS are those nations which are :-

  • Directly in the sight of the Western Nations and are at risk of being caught out by sudden cut off from access to the West and it’s financial systems like RUSSIA, SAUDI ARABIA, CHINA and IRAN
  • Have Non Democratic Stable Rule that is deemed as Dictatorship by the West who will meddle for subservience – Saudi Arabia, Iran, China etc
  • Have experienced the high handedness of the West and realize the safety in joining an Alliance that offers an alternate route to avoid chaos and disaster that could arise from a western retaliation – UAE, IRAN, SAUDI ARABIA, RUSSIA
  • Want to have a foot in two camps to avoid being completely dependent on either side – BRAZIL, INDIA
  • Have been so badly destroyed by the Western Financial System despite having lots of resources that they HAVE to join an alternate alliance for some stability and development – CUBA, VENEZUELA, ARGENTINA

BRICS is a protection from the West in case the West decides to pull a Russia again

Thus it’s not for 90% of the nations of the world

Algeria, Myanmar, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Turkey are other countries who would have tremendous advantages


This rises a question

Does India have any advantages?

Yes

A Foot in both camps

India is a member of QUAD and SCO

India is a member of BRICS and G20

It offers options and high leverage

However I don’t see a future for India in BRICS+ for very long

It’s basically becoming a “Anti Western Group” and India and Brazil and South Africa will find fewer common ground items than China, Russia, Saudi and Iran

Au Jus Beef and Noodles

OIPv
OIPv

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds stew beef meat
  • 2 (7 ounce) cans sliced mushrooms, undrained
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • 1 (1 ounce) package dry au jus gravy mix
  • Worcestershire sauce to taste
  • Salt, pepper, garlic salt to taste
  • Hot cooked noodles

Instructions

  1. Place stew meat in slow cooker.
  2. Add beef broth and mushrooms.
  3. Add seasonings to taste and sprinkle in au jus gravy mix to taste.
  4. Cover; cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours.
  5. Serve over hot cooked noodles.

Notes

Store any leftover gravy mix in a cool, dry place in an airtight container.

What was it like to live in pre-1949 Shanghai?

My mother lived and worked in Shanghai from 1945 – 1949. She kept a diary during the time she was there. You can read about it here: An interesting diary

My mother came from a privileged family in late Qing and Republican China; she grew up in a famous hutong home in Beijing, and her father was the controller of the Peking – Hankow Railway when it was built, owned and managed by the French following the Boxer Rebellion. She went to missionary schools and spoke English from an early age.

She lived and worked in Shanghai after the Allies, including the Republic of China (the People’s Republic did not yet exist) defeated Japan. She worked with the United Nations Refugee Relief Association (UNRRA) office in Shanghai.

The thing to remember about Shanghai is that it was, until 1942, a foreign treaty port, which was organized into something called the Shanghai International Settlement. After 1942, the Unequal Treaties which made the treaty port system possible was abolished, and it became part of the Republic of China.

The interesting thing about the Shanghai of that time is that a horse-racing track occupied the city center, which was called the 跑馬汀。If you go to Shanghai now, it is called People’s Square. The racetrack was abolished by the Communists after 1949.

The two best-known universities in Shanghai were St. John’s for men, and St. Mary’s for women. These were founded by the British, and were Anglican.

This may surprise you, but there actually were Chinese who had grown up and lived in Shanghai who were so westernized that they DID NOT SPEAK CHINESE, but only English. My mother had several cousins who were like this. They did not fare well under the Communists after 1949.

I have not had the time to go through all of my mother’s diaries, but I read one entry where she mentioned going dancing one evening at a nightclub called Argentina.

Sometimes I think about tracking down where that nightclub once stood.

Reacting to Oliver Anthony – “Rich Men North of Richmond” | Wilson Brothers

2023 08 25 12 25
2023 08 25 12 25

Why are Asians under the illusion that eating with chopsticks is difficult or even some kind of art form that’s hard to learn for foreigners?

It’s not difficult to use chopsticks at all.
And it certainly isn’t an art form.
Using chopsticks is just the most efficient, most practical way for many Asians (not all Asians, of course) to consume our meals.

My niece started using chopsticks when she was about 3 years old.
She might not have held them the “proper” way, but as long as she could eat with them, it was all good.
She was a 3-year-old kid – expectations were quite low.

How hard can using chopsticks be if a 3-year-old can do it?
Come on now.

What is the example of nature being so cruel?

There is a place called Jigokudani Hot Spring in Japan, where there is a kind of “Snow Monkey”. Every winter, snow and snow. It is very cold, and the temperature will drop to about 30 °C.

Fortunately, there are many hot springs in that place. Hot springs can reach about 40 degrees, so the monkeys there learned how to soak in hot springs. The view of a group of monkeys leisurely taking a leisurely dip in the hot springs is very good to many people. Therefore, this place has gained fame as a special tourist destination.

Some people may feel very warm looking at these photos, but they are like both sides of a coin. Tourists only see the warm side.

In fact, not all monkeys can take hot springs. There is a strict hierarchy among monkeys. Only high-grade monkeys can take hot springs, and low-grade monkeys cannot take hot springs no matter how cold they are. They cannot tolerate the cold, but once in the water, they will be bitten and expelled by high-level monkeys, so they can only shiver in the air and snow.

There is a temperature difference of about 70 degrees inside and outside the hot spring. Sometimes that’s the difference between life and death. Moreover, this system is “hereditary”. Low-grade monkey-producing monkeys are also not eligible to take hot springs. In other words, some monkeys naturally belong to the vulnerable group, which is unfair.

NATO CROSSES RUSSIA’S RED LINE | SCOTT RITTER ON CHINA’S WARNING TO BIDEN | PUTIN VISITS XI + MORE!

Russia is not stupid, neither they will not forget. They will retaliate.

What are the best examples of a good luck and a bad luck occurring simultaneously?

Sotria Kritsornis was standing waiting for the bus to take her to school. The snow was coming down hard, and she was stood in the cold for an hour. As she stood waiting, a car pulled up beside her and rolled down his window. “I’ve come down Rainer Avenue, and that’s a long way, and there’s no bus in sight. Would you like a Ride?”

22-year-old Sotria didn’t feel anything off with the man. He was polite and charming, and they were the same age. Everything seemed relaxed as the guy driving began talking about school. When she suddenly realised he was going in the wrong direction, the man’s demeanour changed.

He suddenly began shouting at her, “Why did you take this ride? Why did you even think about getting in this car? You’re never going to make it to school.”

Sotria knew there and then that her life was in extreme danger. She thought about jumping from the moving car, but when she went for the door handle, it was gone. She sat in the car terrified as he continued to scream at her. There was no doubt in her mind that she was in the presence of evil, and it was only a matter of when.

Suddenly the man’s demeanour changed again, he almost seemed disappointed. Sotria had just gotten a haircut and was wearing a hat since it was snowing out. The man driving seemed distracted by her hat and suddenly asked her to take it off.

She was reluctant and when she did take it off the man was surprised. She suddenly realised the man must have been watching her before she got the haircut. He continued to drive for about an hour, before stopping outside her school.

He shoved her out of the car and onto the ground with some force before turning to Sotria and telling her she was lucky.

About a year later, Sotria was at home watching telly. A news report flashed across the screen and her blood ran cold. A picture of a man and his “Volkswagen Bug” appeared on the telly. A man who went by the name Ted Bundy was being charged with multiple murders and it was to her shock she realised she almost became one of his victims.

Why do Chinese people take photos before eating?

Because unlike normal porn, you can share food porn with anyone, even your aunt.

Food photos are among the most popular posts on Chinese social media.

We can tell others about this or that dish – where you can find it, what it tastes like, whether it comes with an interesting backstory, we can recommend this or that food establishment to others, share recipes with others, be inspired so that we can try out some cool new tricks with our own cooking, etc.

In my experience, few people dislike food porn.
Those who do tend to view food more as “fuel” rather than something to enjoy and delight the senses.

I’m more than happy to share food porn with others.

Here is a picture of some 喜洲粑粑 (Xǐzhōu bābā).

Xizhou is the name of a lakeside village just outside Dali’s old town in China’s Yunnan province.
Baba is the local slang for bread.

Baba is a type of thick, round, heavy bread that comes plain or with various fillings – and the fillings can be either sweet or savory.

A savory filling could be pork mince + spring onion + spiced salt.
A sweet filling could be brown sugar + rose petal jam + red bean.

It is a popular street food and makes for great breakfast nosh.

So, when people say stuff like “Oh, Chinese don’t eat bread you know!”, take that claim well salted.

main qimg 0326409f7fb1befa9b59d1a011ef14bb
main qimg 0326409f7fb1befa9b59d1a011ef14bb

THIS IS OLIVER ANTHONY’S BEST SONG YET! “I Want To Go Home” REACTION

2023 08 25 12 18
2023 08 25 12 18

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

I get a LOT of mileage out of this story.

It happened in 2002.

My friend Lisa was in her early 40s, and had congestive heart failure. She was a trooper despite her physical struggles. She grew up in a ‘tough’ city environment, and had the attitude to boot. She was typically a bit high strung, but on this afternoon she was the most mellow I had ever seen her.

Her daughter was at my house playing with my daughter. Lisa came to pick her up after she had stopped at the drugstore to pick up her monthly supply of heart and related medications. Her meds filled a small paper bag. Mellow Lisa proceeded to tell me what went down at the drugstore 10 minutes earlier.

Lisa legally parked her car in the handicapped spot just outside the store’s door. She joked with the pharmacists inside, telling them that if it weren’t for her they’d be out of a job (LOL). She left the store and proceeded, medicine bag in hand, to her car in the handicapped parking space.

A woman was loitering in and out of the store most of the day. When Lisa left, she was hanging around not far from Lisa’s car. As Lisa went to unlock her car door, the woman jumped Lisa and attempted to steal her purse and medications.

Lisa went ape-shit on her ass and flattened her. Lisa ended up sitting on top of the woman and smacking her in the face, much like little Ralphie did to Scut Farcus on ‘A Christmas Story’. She screamed at the woman while giving her the smackdown, “You think you can come here from the city and mug people? Well I’m from the city, too! You picked the WRONG BITCH to fuck with!”.

Just then, a police officer showed up. He happened to be an acquaintance of Lisa’s. He kept saying, “Lisa get off her…I got this!!”. He finally pulled Lisa off the mugger and sent her on her way as he arrested the mugger.

It was ten minutes later that Lisa showed up at my house, mellow as could be. I told her she should buy herself a punching bag for daily use since she felt so much better! She said, “Wow, I haven’t felt this relaxed in a LONG time!”.

I was pretty impressed. A heart patient requiring a handicapped parking space takes out her would-be mugger! Gotta love it!

Sadly, Lisa passed away in 2008 when her big old heart finally gave out. I never knew a more hilarious woman in my life.

I miss you girl!

BEATBOXER REACTS! I Oliver Anthony-Rich Men North of Richmond

2023 08 25 12 27
2023 08 25 12 27

Nuclear submarine with intercontinental ballistic missiles, new aircraft carrier, destroyers and frigates – China to invest $1.4 trillion in military modernization with a focus on the navy

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Here’s What We Know

The situation around Taiwan and the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea are forcing the PRC to invest in defence capabilities. From 2024 to 2028, the authorities intend to spend a crazy $1.4 trillion to modernise the People’s Liberation Army. The average annual growth rate will be 6.6 per cent.

The defence strategy emphasises the formation of a dominant navy. To achieve this, China plans to implement several forward-looking programmes. In particular, to acquire a fourth aircraft carrier, as well as destroyers of the Type 055 class and frigates of the Type 054A class.

China also wants to commission a Type 096-class nuclear-powered submarine armed with ballistic missiles. The submarine will receive JL-3 intercontinental ballistic missiles with a launch range of up to 9,000 kilometres, capable of carrying three nuclear warheads.

US policy slowing down China’s economy w/ Jeffrey Sachs

A very, very good discussion.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

About 8 years ago, my dad, aged about 70 at the time, is driving my son aged about 4, and myself into a nearby town. We are driving through the outskirts, in a 40 zone and slowing down as we are about to enter a 30 zone. A hundred yards up ahead are about 6 ‘youths’…aged late teens, possibly up to 20 yrs, all messing about on mountain bikes…doing wheelies and doing skids into the middle of the road. Dad slows down and they move a little to one side, still farting about. One loses control and the bike shoots over and skids in front of my dad’s car, the rider coming off and sliding over the bonnet (hood) of the car, and up the windscreen before sliding off the other side.

Dad hurtles out of the car, closely followed by me, expecting to see some mangled mess of a teen on the floor. Luckily he was fine, getting up, dusting himself off. We’d barely let out a breath of relief when he turns onto my dad – yelling abuse at him, calling him a ****ed up retard…old ****er etc etc. Then his mates drop their bikes to the floor and start advancing on my dad…’come on old man, ready to be ****ed up?’…

Now my dad, back in his day was pretty good at karate….something he did weekly for about 15 years. He is also a very fit man – from that generation of wily, hands-on men who just get on and do things…..breaking up concrete with a pickaxe or sledgehammer – knocking down walls, building walls and so on. So these 6 or so youths start to circle in on dad, I step back a bit to lock the car doors…the first lad, the one who’d slid over dad’s bonnet makes a lunge for my dad, fist punching out towards his face. Dad grabs his wrist, yanks it down and before I could say a single word, has got this kid on his knees, on the road, arm bent back, hand folded back in a somewhat unnatural position. The kid is screaming…’let me go!! Get off!! You’re breaking my hand!!! Get off!!!’

Still holding him by one hand, dad makes a small step towards the other boys….drops the kid’s hand and takes up a karate pose. The kids just turn tail and run…the other boy gets up and legs it after them. Dad just giggles in delight and with an almighty yell….hurtles down the road after them, yelling like a maniac. If the boys were running 5 seconds ago, now they are really running like Usain Bolt with an axe is chasing them, and I am doubled up laughing. Eventually, I pick up the boy’s bikes and lean them against a garden hedge and wait for dad to saunter back having run a hundred yards or so after them.

We still laugh about it – I’m not sure what those boys thought they were going to do to my father, but they really didn’t see that coming. They definitely picked on the wrong person :)))

Beef Burgundy

beef bourguignon 3 1048x1572 1
beef bourguignon 3 1048×1572 1

Ingredients

  • 2 slices bacon, chopped
  • 2 pounds sirloin tip or round steak, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon marjoram
  • 1/4 teaspoon thyme
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 beef bouillon cube, crushed
  • 1 cup Burgundy wine
  • 1/4 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch (optional)

Instructions

  1. In large skillet, cook bacon several minutes. Remove bacon and set aside.
  2. Coat beef with flour and brown on all sides in bacon mixture.
  3. Combine steak, bacon drippings, cooked bacon, seasonings, bouillon, and Burgundy in slow cooker.
  4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or until meat is tender.
  5. Turn control to HIGH. Add mushrooms; cook on HIGH for 15 minutes.
  6. To thicken sauce, if desired, add cornstarch (dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water) with mushrooms.

I was fired by my employer today. They wouldn’t let me collect any personal belongings from my desk except my wallet, my keys and my own personal phone. Can they do this and if so how long are they allowed to keep my things?

I had an employer try that crap with me once (kind of)—only I was given a heads up from a dear friend that I was being RIFed, so I had already cleared out my entire office. I had even locked myself out of a system I administered prior to my RIF meeting. When they were going through the separation checklist and told me I could only take with me what I had with me at the time, I said, “Okay, no problem.” When they asked me about scheduling a time to retrieve the rest of my stuff (I’d worked there almost 20 years, so there WAS a lot of stuff), I told them I didn’t have anything else to retrieve. They were shocked. When they had someone quickly verify that my office was indeed cleaned out, they started insisting that I review with them what I had already taken, reveal to them who tipped me off, etc. I simply handed them my pre-prepared ziplock with my ID, proximity badge, building keys, and wiped work iPhone, and left. They insisted that I walk out a particular door. I walked out the door closest to where I was parked that day (with them threatening me the whole time). They were LIVID and could barely see straight. My confidante still works there! It’s hilarious and extremely satisfying.

Scott Ritter clip on what the Pentagon Generals told the White House.

Stop the provocations with China. In any conflict with China, the USA will lose, and lose badly.

Clip segment pre-set at the position in the long video.

Why did Russia provide asylum to Edward Snowden? Are they going to use him against the US of A?

2023 09 01 18 59
2023 09 01 18 59

Russia legally can’t extradite Snowden, because there is no bilateral extradition agreement between Russia and the USA. America doesn’t extradite our criminals either. Also, Snowden is not a criminal from the Russian legal point of view.

Because his American passport was annulled, Russia was unable to send Snowden to any other country without some kind of special arrangement. So, the choice was between forcing Snowden to stay in the international airport in Moscow indefinitely, or providing him with asylum. After some deliberation, Putin chose the latter.

Snowden actually wanted asylum in Hong Kong (China) or South America, but nobody was really willing to take him in. It made sense for Russia to show its ability to challenge America without getting bombed, but it was not an easy decision for Putin. Because Snowden wasn’t a Russian agent or asset, and Russia had no obligation to protect him. Also, Putin’s opinion about Snowden is rather low. He doesn’t condone his actions. And Snowden doesn’t like Putin either. He openly says that in his interviews.

Russia can’t use Snowden because his access to secrets is long gone. We have IT experts of his caliber of our own, and nobody will trust him with access to our secrets and security networks. Really, he is a burden. But a relatively light one.

Snowden doesn’t work with Russian security services because he wants to return to America at some point. This is technically possible, as long as he stays just a whistleblower and not a traitor. Because the CIA and its ilk have some access to Russian state secrets, they would know when and if he would start cooperating with the FSB and its ilk.

What was the worst thing your parents ever did to you?

This one is easy, sadly. My “mother” called CPS on me last year. Just because I wasn’t talking to her. My world was turned upside down with one phonecall.

One day a sheriff came to my house. I was surprised because I’m not one to get into trouble or piss anyone off. He said he was there to check on mine and my children’s welfare. I was confused. He said my mother had called and said I hadn’t talked to her in over a year, my husband was abusive and holding me captive, and I was doing heroin and meth. I looked at him and said, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” He assured me it was for real. I told him I spoke to her about 2 months ago, there’s no ball and chain behind me, and I damn sure ain’t doing heroin or meth. He actually laughed. I told him she’s got issues and I don’t want nothing to do with her. He said, “well you look healthy, you’re not locked in a cellar, and your kids are at school where they should be so I’ll be on my way.” I thanked him for his time and off he went. I was steaming pissed that day. I wondered what is wrong with that woman. Now I really won’t talk to her.

The next day, during the afternoon before the kids got home from school, there was a knock on the door. I open the door and there is a sheriff and social worker. Dumbfounded, I ask if I can help them. They tell me someone has made a report to CPS and they’re there to investigate. I was floored to say the least. So we sit down and the social worker begins to interrogate me. She then begins to list the allegations. She tells me I’m supposedly mentally ill, doing heroin and meth, being manipulated and abused by my husband, my children run around unsupervised, the kids aren’t adequately cared for, etc. I broke down and sobbed in disbelief. I asked who made this report and was told it was “anonymous”. I knew by the heroin and meth and husband abusing me bit exactly who it was. The show had just begun.

Another sheriff arrives shortly after. They ask if they can search my home. I said “for what”, and was told if I didn’t consent they would take my kids away. Reluctantly, I said “fine I have nothing to hide.” As the sheriff’s are upstairs searching I’m still being interrogated downstairs by the social worker. My husband arrived and was very upset about the situation, naturally. He’s even more angry seeing me a mess in tears having to be asked appalling questions. Next thing you know, there’s a knock at the door. Lo and behold it’s another sheriff. He waltzes in and I ask what the hell he’s here for. The sheriff’s come downstairs with an empty box that my husband had under our bed from a gun he purchased. They asked where the gun was and he replied it was in the car. They asked to see it and he refused. He’s not a felon and it’s registered and completely legal. That seemed to piss them off but they had no grounds to take it or see it.

So here we are. Sitting in the living room with the social worker and sheriff while another one is in the kitchen and one in the dining room. Why, I couldn’t even tell you. The sheriff had a brown paper bag and said there was some “evidence” in it. He pulled out some pill bottles. He asked me what they were for. I told him I suffer from depression and anxiety. I also take something for an opiate addiction. I’m in recovery and take a preventable medicine. Well, they thought they got me there. Mentally unstable and a drug addict. Perfect ammunition to use against me. They looked at me as though I was despicable. Scum. I could feel the judgement through my bones. The social worker asked my husband and I to accompany her to the kitchen.

That’s when she pulls out the drug tests. She asked if we were willing to take a voluntary drug test. We said absolutely. He went first, then I went. There we were in our home with 3 sheriff’s and a CPS worker peeing in a cup to prove ourselves not to be drug addicts. I felt completely violated. The tests took a few minutes to come out but they were negative. Almost disappointed, she let us see them and told us they were clean. I felt validated, but still so angry. My kids come home from school and ask what’s going on. I didn’t even know what to say. I just told them to get a snack and go to their room and I’d be with them shortly. The social worker said we could wrap up for now, but she’d be in touch. I kindly led them out. My husband and I just looked at each other and didn’t even say a word. We were both too upset to even talk. Every aspect of our privacy and humanity had been stripped of us. Then we had to explain to the kids what was going on. After that we had to clean our home because when the sheriff’s went through our belongings they had just thrown things about and had no respect for our things.

The next day the kids informed me after school that a social worker had come to visit them to ask them questions about mom and dad. They were scared and upset. I told them it would be okay. As long as they told the truth everything would be fine. We’ve got nothing to hide. The social worker paid me a few more visits. Each time I was cooperative and willing to do whatever was needed. Anything to get them to go away and stay away. Turns out my mother had called the principal at school asking him questions about my kids. “Were they stinky, dirty, did they look well fed”, things like that. Then someone who claimed to be an uncle called and did the same. The principal got so uncomfortable he called the social worker and told her he was being harassed and didn’t want to deal with it. She finally said without saying in certain words it was my mother who filed the report. She admitted that the situation was very unusual. She paid me a last visit to let me know that not one claim could be substantiated. She apologized for the intrusion. She told me the case was closed and she would report back to my mother that all is well.

Only after having our house ripped apart, taking drug tests, having my children interrogated at school, calling my psychiatrist, pharmacy, family and friends were we deemed fit enough parents. I can’t begin to tell you what this situation has done to me. You’re probably wondering if I confronted my mother. I sent her a text message after all was said and done and asked her if she had any idea what she had done. I asked what she was thinking. I know what she did. To not only me, but her grandkids. Well, she had nothing to say about it. So I left it there. If she ever comes to her senses and wants to explain herself and apologize profusely I will give her a chance. But never will I go out of my way to have any kind of relations with her. As far as the kids, they want nothing to do with her. That is their choice. I told them they are free to talk to her and see her if they wish they should not suffer anymore. They said they would rather not. So be it.

That is the cruelest thing a parent has done to me. I could give more stories believe me, but I think I’ve said enough for now.

I wasn’t able to save the kitten

On the 3rd of July, a few years back, I visited an animal shelter. And there in the back room was a little Maine coon kitten that was trying to get my attention. So I went up to it and we bonded strongly. I wanted it right then and there.

But the chick at the front desk was busy with a customer and closing up and told us to come back on the 5th of July (as tomorrow was a holiday). So I said “good bye” to the kitty and promised that I would come back for it.

I kept looking back over my shoulder and the kitty was imploring me “don’t leave. You are my last hope”.

And then on the 5th of July I came early, ready to get the kitty. I waited in the parking lost one hour early and just sat there listening to music.

Eventually they “opened up”.

And it was too late. They put the kitty down the day before.

I was too late.

When an opportunity occurs DO NOT TRUST IN SOMEONE ELSE, stand your ground and take action.

I should have just got the kitty then and there, and told them that I would come back in a day or two to do the paperwork.

Todays…

“This is what love looks like.”

“When I asked my 11-year-old son to help me unload dirt from our small pickup into his mother’s new garden boxes, his reaction was typical.

“Ummmm… I’m busy right now,” He said.

He was playing Roblock on the family laptop, wearing sweat pants and an old T-shirt, lounging on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.

“No you’re not,” I said.

There was a fight, moaning, excuses… the usual.

Moments later, we were next to a wheelbarrow shoveling dirt. He looked at me with flat eyes, his hood up, shoulders slumped, and said, “Why do we have to do this?”

I thought for a moment, because I’ll admit, it was a valid question. Neither of us were all that into flowers or vegetables, or any of the things that would be grown in those garden boxes. But my wife, Mel, loves gardening.

I thought, and he waited, and finally I said, “When you love someone, you serve them.”

I went on, telling him that I want him to grow up to be the kind of man who serves his family, friends, and community.

“This” I said while gesturing to the dirt, and the garden boxes I built the weekend before, and the wheelbarrow and shovel, and the first of many truckloads of dirt we would unload over the next few weeks, “Is what love looks like.”

He didn’t like my answer. I could see it in the way he reluctantly picked his shovel back up.

We finished unloading the dirt. The next day, while I was at work, and the kids and Mel had the day off because it was between terms, Mel sent me this picture. Mel picked up another load of dirt and before she had a chance to unload it, Tristan voluntarily started working. When she asked him “why,” he shrugged and said, “Because I love you.”

I’d never been prouder of my son.”

TEES

After the accident, she was left on the side of the road, no one stopped the car to help her!

An Englishman, taking a road trip through the US, notices he’s low on fuel, and pulls into the first gas station he sees.

An Englishman, taking a road trip through the US, notices he’s low on fuel, pulls into the first gas station he sees. The attendant walks out and approaches the car.

“How can I help you, sir?”

And in a posh voice, the man says, “I’m low on petrol; please top off the tank.”

With an odd look, the guy begins to fill ’er up.

The Englishman then says, “Also, while I’m here could you open the bonnet and check the oil?”

Now looking slightly peeved but still saying nothing, the serviceman does as requested.

“Oh, yes,” says the Brit, “It appears my windscreen needs a good cleaning. Would you mind terribly-”

Unable to hold his tongue any more the attendant angrily snaps, “Alright, that’s enough! It’s not Petrol, it’s gasoline! It’s not a bonnet, it’s a hood! And it’s not a windscreen, it’s a windshield! We invented cars, so you call them by their American names!”

And with that wonderful, charming, stiff-upper-lip UK wit, the Englishman calmly replies, “Well yes, my friend, you may have invented the automobile, but we invented the language!”

How Elites Will Create a New Class of Slaves | Whitney Webb | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Journalist Whitney Webb has worked to uncover some of the most dangerous stories of our lifetime, and she joins Glenn to reveal just how eye-opening it’s been. Her new two-volume book, “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” examines Epstein’s elaborate network of corruption and power, from Bill Clinton to Ghislaine Maxwell and many more. Her research into transhumanism has given her a terrifying perspective on the World Economic Forum and tech elites, including Elon Musk. And she tells Glenn the dark truth about Biden’s push for electric vehicles that she noticed while living in Chile.

What did you read on the internet that you did not like?

Few days ago, a very significant incident made headlines. Jacinda Ardern resigned as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. She strongly performed the role of PM for 5 years. Her reason for the resignation was simple – “I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.”

Jacinda Ardern:

I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility – the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I am human, politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it’s time. And for me, it’s time.”

However, amidst all this, BBC came up with a very se*ist headline and an article to share the news with the world. It read, “Jacinda Ardern resigns: Can women really have it all?”

Saddened to see such a reductive, se*ist and inaccurate headline from the BBC World. This is so regressive and misogynist…The 1950s came by and picked up their headline.

This is absurd misogyny from BBC. Boris Johnson was ousted in a whirlwind of scandal & failure but BBC humanized him for the pain he felt. 🤔.

Jacinda Ardern gracefully led New Zealand through historic upheavals & leaves on her terms but BBC repeatedly dismisses her as a failure & quitter. 🤦‍♂️

An embarrassing day for the media. What a disrespectful way to celebrate a refreshingly phenomenal leader like Jacinda Arden.

Big Po “Rich Men North of Richmond” (Remix)

What are some advanced and modern military innovations that have failed?

I’m not sure if I would say it failed. But it was a very awesome piece of gear that for various reasons (namely budget, and politics) was cancelled. Full disclaimer: at one point I worked with the company that made this, and have seen and held parts of this system.

main qimg 1d8f532a0336e98fa0d47c42807825bf lq 1
main qimg 1d8f532a0336e98fa0d47c42807825bf lq 1

The Xm-25 CDTE. It shoots programmable 25mm grenades.

Imagine a typical firefight scenario. Both sides end up behind cover, trying to deal with each other. Perhaps a heavy machine gun is mounted up in a window behind sandbags, etc. Maneuvering around and neutralizing the threat is dangerous and time consuming. But what if you had a grenade rifle that could precisely detonate a round just over their heads? Then you could aim just above the MG nest, pop of a shot, and those unlucky bastards would be no more. Firefight over in a minute. No need to call in artillery or air support!

The way this works is that scope has a rangefinder and a computer, and it can program the round to explode at the lazed distance, or before or after that distance in (I think) 1–3m increments. So, in the above example, you laze the sandbags or the side of the building, set the burst just after that distance, and fire. It’s very clever engineering to fit all that capability onto an electronics coin inside a 25mm casing. Unlike traditional grenade launchers, this one shoots a much flatter trajectory; and the range is 600–700m instead of 300ish. The Army was always pushing for more and more range.

When field tested, it apparently developed quite a reputation amongst insurgents, who would sometimes flee when they realized the US squad had one with them. I only heard glowing praise about the 2010 field tests. Being able to neutralize cover with a weapon like this is literally game-changing.

However, the project was ultimately cancelled in 2018. The ‘official’ reason always cites a particular misfire in 2013, although internal sources indicated it was more of a political fight over competing budget priorities. The misfire was only the propellant and not the charge itself. resulting in minimal injury; and, try as ATK did, they could not figure out what this particular soldier did to cause it. (Read: he almost certainly fucked up and did something he wasn’t supposed to, like a double feed.) This is the only incident of a misfire.

I think the other headwind is that current US squad tactics and organization don’t really have a good way to incorporate a system like this. Who wants to carry around a 14lb weapon and give up his rifle? They were patrolling around afghanistan, not taking Berlin. It is, however, a very outstanding little system. If I recall one particular conversation correctly, I believe the round can even punch through some wooden doors and explode on the other side. How’s that for breaching?

There were also problems with HK, who made the frame of the rifle itself, being a poor partner and failing to deliver on time. (This also angered program managers.)

The good news is that fitting this tech onto a 25mm grenade is the hard part. I can promise you that the same technology will find its way into a 40mm grenade system at some point. Imagine being able to lay precision, long range airbursts across a battlefield with one of these:

main qimg 08bb26a9819550940bbafc986d7beea0 lq
main qimg 08bb26a9819550940bbafc986d7beea0 lq

Automatic grenade sniper rifle, anyone?

Men Are Refusing To Help Women and They are Panicking They don’t Know Why

https://youtu.be/qXWc6IxxfUs

Greek Style Skillet Supper

For a taste of Greece, this one-dish complete meal is sure to be a hit. Feta cheese accents the authentic flavor.

c348c1de3ce051299623d2cbf7d8e409
c348c1de3ce051299623d2cbf7d8e409

Prep: 5 min | Cook: 25 min | Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 2 teaspoons McCormick® Oregano Leaves
  • 1 teaspoon McCormick® Cinnamon, Ground
  • 1/2 teaspoon McCormick® Garlic Powder
  • 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can reduced sodium beef broth
  • 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 1/2 cups uncooked penne pasta
  • 1 1/2 cups frozen leaf spinach, thawed
  • 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese, divided

Instructions

  1. Cook ground beef and onion in large skillet on medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink, stirring occasionally. Drain fat. Add oregano, cinnamon and garlic powder; mix well.
  2. Stir in broth, tomatoes and tomato paste. Bring to boil. Stir in pasta. Reduce heat to medium; cover and cook 10 minutes or until pasta is nearly tender.
  3. Stir in spinach and 1/2 cup of the feta cheese. Cover. Cook 5 minutes longer or until pasta is tender.
  4. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup feta cheese. Cover. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Western Nations BANNED from Joining BRICS if they Apply “Sanctions”

World Hal Turner 25 August 2023

Western countries do not have a chance of joining the BRICS group of emerging economies as long as they pursue hostile policies against Moscow, says the Russian deputy foreign minister.

Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that the “most important criterion” for membership was the “non-application by a potential BRICS participant of illegal sanctions against any member of the association.”

“All the countries who have been invited to join BRICS undoubtedly meet this requirement. 

As for Westerners, all of them as a group and each individual [Western] member pursue exactly the opposite line and thus inviting anyone from that group to join BRICS or even attend its events is out of the question. This is absolutely ruled out. And we will continue pursuing this course.”

If any Western state finds BRICS membership an attractive idea, and refrains from the sanctions policy against any BRICS member and applies to join, such an application will be considered.

“There is no other way.”

According to Taiwanese media reports on August 2nd, TSMC stated that the production delay at its Arizona factory was due to a lack of skilled American labor, and they have dispatched personnel from Taiwan to support the construction of the factory. However, labor union leaders in Arizona criticized TSMC, stating that it was using this as an excuse to introduce “low-wage foreign labor.”

https://youtu.be/GG5O-xmThFs

What has an employee said that immediately caused you to fire them?

Jerome (not real name) was a new worker with a big mouth. He was 28 years old at the time, quite older than most of the guys he worked with like myself yet he acted, at best, like a spoilt 15 year old.

He was always talking. He always had an opinion about something. He always had to question even the most simple orders and instructions. He believed himself to be the most intelligent person to ever walk the floor of the warehouse and always spoke at length of all the flaws he saw in our system and what he would do to fix the business if he were in charge.

Our job was simple: a retail store wants products that we have, we go out with our grocery carts, pallet jacks, forklifts etc, get the products and have them packaged and ready for delivery in the morning.

Not Jerome.

Jerome’s job was to distact you from what you were doing to talk shit about the company and how the money wasn’t worth it. He would quote some nonexisting OSHA law that the company wasn’t complying with and how he could sue the company if he wanted to. He would discuss his harebrained, get rich quick schemes that he never had to guts to actually attempt. He bragged about his family in the US waiting for him and how he didn’t need to work himself like a slave for chump change like we did.

At any given day he probably put out 20% of the output of the average worker. He was on a six month probationary period of which it would be decided whether he would be contracted as a permanent worker, given extended probation or let go. No one expected him to be permanently hired. Everyone basically tried to tolerate him for the six month probationary period as best as they could.

However he started taking his shenanigans to the next level.

He started making the (typically secluded) shampoos lane in the back warehouse his secret hideout. The lane was quiet, had no cameras and far away from our superiors’ field of vision. He decided to set up a makeshift man-cave behind a pallet of Tresemmé 2 in 1 Shampoo and Conditioner. There he would smoke, talk shit with the rare, harmless worker who came by for shampoos and he would watch rap music videos on his cell phone.

At the month’s end all warehouse workers were allowed to take from the damaged products. We had our own system of fairness whereby we rotated each worker to get a chance to get first pick among the damages.

Jerome couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the system. During the third month of his employ it was observed that practically all of the best damaged goods had gone missing. A co-worker and myself smelt a rat in Jerome and we went to his man cave while he was on lunch and saw the damages were there hidden in boxes.

We reported it to the supervisor who came and saw it. He held an emergency meeting and asked for the person who put those damaged goods in the back to come forward. Everyone eyed Jerome angrily but he remained silent. The supervisor reported the matter to the manager who reported it to the company owner and she immediately put a stop to the free damages giveaway.

Now the anger towards Jerome had turned into a bloodlust. However the more angry everyone got the more lazy and defiant Jerome became. He was smart enough to abandon his man-cave after his attempted theft but he still spent more than half his working day loitering and talking shit.

Every year the company paid for the company staff to have a party, usually at a classy sports bar or a nightclub. We all looked forward to it including Jerome who discussed at length his intention to get drunk off of free premium drinks and score with one of the pretty head office girls. However, one fateful afternoon the owner of the store had an impromptu meeting with everyone in the warehouse.

She explained that the company decided to change the format of the staff party. She explained that it was expensive and inefficient having this party every year when too many employees ran up a bill drinking premium drinks all night and then not being able to come to work the following day. She gave the disappointing news that this time the party would be held at 12pm — 7pm the upcoming Sunday.

Jerome released a snorting laugh while she spoke. Everyone in the warehouse went dead silent. No one had ever dared interrupt the owner, far less mock her.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘Is there something amusing?’

‘Nobody ever heard of a party 12 o clock in the afternoon,’ Jerome said in his spoilt 15 year old voice.

‘I’ve been to many parties 12 o clock in the afternoon’ she replied.

‘Yeah, birthday parties for kids’ Jerome said smugly and looked about for someone to laugh but found only silence.

The owner asked Jerome his name and how long he worked in the warehouse. Afterwards she continued her talk uninterrupted but after the meeting was dismissed she, the manager and Jerome went into an office for a talk. Some minutes later Jerome was seen leaving the compound, he was terminated from the job.

Sad thing for Jerome was the owner apparently thought over what he said about the party and changed her mind about it. We were allowed to have our traditional, late into the night, party albeit minus the free premium drinks.

We had a great time dancing the night away and toasting Jerome whose big mouth finally done some good for a change.

MY SOUL!!! | Oliver Anthony – “I WANT TO GO HOME” | Reaction

2023 08 26 08 26
2023 08 26 08 26

What bad experience had you saying “I will never buy from that company or use their service ever again”?

Nissan. I bought a brand new Nissan Truck with a supercharger. The supercharger crapped out at 12,000 miles. They had to fix it because it was under warranty. The mechanic at the dealer told me they were all failing due to a manufacturer’s defect which was widely known in the company. I drove the truck a couple more years and the supercharger crapped out again, this time just about 200 miles beyond the end of the warranty. At about the same time, my son’s identical Nissan truck also lost its supercharger at 18,000 miles. I wound up talking to a factory representative. I asked him if they would split the $1,800 bill since it was a factory defect. He said no because Nissan just couldn’t afford to pay for all those repairs.

I later bought a Toyota truck which lost a head gasket. Toyota fixed it for free outside of the warranty period. They said that their engineering and design philosophy was that a head gasket should last at least 200,000 miles.

I have made a point to tell this story at least 100 times over the years. I know I have talked at least 20 people out of buying a Nissan.

What is the weirdest canine species?

In terms of uniqueness, it’s hard to find a canine species that rivals the short-eared dog. Genetically, it is very distinct from other living members of the canid family, and indeed in many ways it is more like a cat than a dog!

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main qimg 652937cca60a6da81536f998d6861a86 1

It is found only within the dense and dark jungles of the Amazon Basin in South America. Such densely forested habitats are unusual for canines, other than the bush dog, which I’ll mention later. What’s more, it is an extremely shy and reclusive creature, leading a solitary nocturnal lifestyle. All of the characteristics above are more typical of felines, interestingly.

Where the short-eared dog differs from your average cat is its affinity for water. As vast swathes of its Amazonian habitat are swampy or regularly flooded, it is well-adapted for a semi-aquatic world. Its feet are webbed, with membranes of skin stretching between the toes, which makes it an excellent swimmer. Much of its diet is actually represented by fish, crabs, frogs and the like. The dog makes short work of these slippery customers with its impressive set of cuspid teeth (another rather cat-like feature).

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main qimg 55d9ffacb1413422b8ed6023e94b79ec

As canid species go, the short-eared dog takes an exceptionally long time to reach sexual maturity. They cannot reproduce until the age of three, something we discovered relatively recently. Before it was known that it’s a bit of a late bloomer, one expert jokingly suggested it should be renamed the “small-balled dog”!

When they eventually do achieve sexual maturity, males get to work in the hopes of attracting a female (uniquely, the females are much bigger than the males!). They spray a strong-smelling musk secreted by the tail glands, and produce mating calls all through the night. These vocalisations are bizarre and haunting, sounding like those of owls!

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main qimg 4290a3b41bbb5df7b9b2b79d59c6a00a

During the day, they take shelter, usually dwelling inside burrows and tunnels dug by giant armadillos, after they’ve been vacated by the original owner. Short-eared dogs’ nocturnal lifestyle, in addition to their impenetrable habitat and shy evasive nature, means that they are still shrouded in mystery. They are rarely photographed in the wild – indeed, all the pictures above are of an individual called Oso, who was raised by humans since puppyhood (hence the collar). He’s taught us much of what we know about the species.

As such, we still have much more to learn about short-eared dogs. I, for one, am very curious to know more about how they interact with the only other wild canine species found in the Amazon Rainforest – the bush dog. This comically short and stubby little pupper lives in packs of up to twelve individuals, which specialise in hunting giant rodents such as capybaras and pacas. I’m sure the two species cross paths at times – what a fascinating interaction that would be.

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main qimg 553d64ecc8ed67d60c3fd1fed09a1d40

I eagerly await all the new short-eared dog discoveries that are sure to be ahead! In the meantime, this has been everything you need to know about this underappreciated and handsome creature. I hope you liked the answer, thank you for reading! And have an amazing day.

I failed out of college.

Not MM, mind you. -MM

I ended the 2nd semester of my freshman year with a 0.9 GPA.

You read that right: a 0.9 GPA

When the school year ended, my parents drove four hours to campus to help clean out my dorm room and take me home.

During the ride home I remember staring out the car window in complete silence the entire four hours.

I was devastated. I had no idea what I was going to do.

My parents were upset.

They were disappointed.

They didn’t have anything to say.

Neither did I.

Their disappointment was nothing compared to the numbness I felt. I was far more disappointed in myself than they ever could be. It was completely my fault and I knew it.

I struggled all through high school, so it was no surprise I struggled the way I did when I started college.

I was terrible at taking tests. I had such a difficult time studying. I have no idea why. It was something I lived with that I cannot explain.

In grade school I had special tutors to help with my test-taking anxiety. I can’t say it helped much.

As I finished my final year of high school, I did not know if I would get in to college. I only applied to one college.

I was accepted to attend the only college I applied to.

And now I failed out of the only college I applied to.

I struggled all through Freshman year of college until it got to a point where I felt I had no chance of success. My grades were terrible. So, I did not show up for any of my final exams. There was no way I could study well enough to get passing grades on my finals.

I gave up.

During the four hour drive home, I became painfully aware that I could have done better. I didn’t bother searching for an excuse to justify the horrible mistake I made.

I had to figure out a Plan B.

Not even a week passed after moving back home with my parents before I started piecing together a plan.

Even though I ‘failed’ as far as the university was concerned, I knew I was not a failure. I certainly did not feel like one.

I dug myself into a very deep hole and I knew it was up to me to pull myself out.

I had to figure out how to approach life differently. I wasn’t doing it right. And it felt horrible.

I knew I had to try again.

The problem was, since my GPA was so poor, I got suspended from attending that college.

I called the admissions office and asked how I could come back to earn my degree. They told me I needed to go to a community college for a year and earn a 3.0 GPA, then I could reapply to be accepted back.

My entire experience of life changed from that point on. I was never the same again.

All of a sudden I had a goal to accomplish. I never set ambitious goals for myself prior to that moment. I was social and active and participated in sports, but I was mostly just showing up. I never associated much of a purpose or goal with anything I was doing.

I now had a goal, fueled by an intense desire to accomplish that goal.

I did what the admissions office told me to do. I got a job. I took courses at the community college. I accomplished the GPA they required.

A year after failing, I reapplied and was admitted back in to the same college so I could finish my degree.

By the time I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree, I was getting grades that earned me a spot on the Dean’s List several semesters in a row.

Why was failing out of college the best mistake I ever made?

  • This mistake was a wake-up call that helped me discover what I am capable of.
  • I experienced what it feels like to recover from a major failure.
  • I shifted my mindset to one that is fueled with purpose.
  • I discovered the power of setting ambitious goals that are created from my own desire to accomplish those goals.
  • And most importantly: I remember feeling as though my entire life was over during that silent four hour drive home with my parents. The reality was, this failure ended up being a mere bump in the road. It was quite a rough bump at the time but it did not ruin me. I learned that our failures do not define who we are.

I Want To Go Home ( REACTION ) Something SPECIAL is Happening Here…

2023 08 26 11 32
2023 08 26 11 32

How does it feel to be secretly rich?

Originally Answered: What does it feel like to be secretly rich?

Around strangers, it’s easy. Around friends and neighbors, its work.

Most people in the United States have at least one of my products in their home, and would instantly recognize the company, but they wouldn’t know me. There’s never a random “hey, aren’t you the CEO of…” on the street, or checking into a hotel, so that part is fairly easy.

On the flip side, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping things on the down low among friends. I personally bring home about $4 million a year, but I’m not really into displays of wealth – not because I’m actively hiding anything, I just think most of that stuff is kind of tacky and isn’t interesting.

Our house isn’t over the top. It’s larger than average, but we also have three kids so that’s expected. It does sit on 60 acres, but we tell people only five of those acres are ours. We have a couple of cars (her primary, my primary, a truck, and a couple of classics in the garage) but all are American made and none newer than five years old. Both of the classics are actually pretty rare cars which would fetch over $100k a piece if I ever sold them, but since I’m also known for being kind of a gear head and did a lot of work on it myself, everyone just assumes they were once junkers I brought back from the dead or aren’t all original parts.

This part is pretty easy since there visibly aren’t too many cues that would tip someone off. Everything was paid for with cash, including the house, but realistically outside of the land value, someone making $150k-200k could afford all of the same stuff if they financed/mortgaged it.

The main difficulty is trying to relate and being careful what I say. Most of our friends are in that $150–200k range, but they’re in debt up to their eyeballs to maintain their lifestyles. They’re driving new leased Mercedes and BMW’s and probably think they’re doing better than I am financially – which is fine by me.

Its just little things I have to watch out for. A buddy invited me to bring one of the classics to a car show he was going to once, but I declined and said it acting up and I needed to work on it. I left the hood up for a week in case he came over. Really I just didn’t want the attention – someone there would have recognized it for what it was. Occasionally when someone notices how much land surrounds my house, I’ll say something like I hope the owner never decides to build on it. Before we take a family trip, I will mention that I’m saving up for it a couple months prior, when really we could just go. I also own property in other states that no one knows about – one of them is a place along a river in Tennessee and a few of us are going down there next month to witness the eclipse. They think it’s just a place I rented for the weekend.

Honestly, I don’t like the deception – these are good friends, but seeing how they all are with their money and how they regard it, I don’t want them to know the truth. I hear about all of their money problems and how they talk about other people who are better off than they are, and there’s a lot of disdain and jealously there. it’s just not worth the hassle. The problem is I think most of the people I’ve met in my own income bracket and higher are pretentious douchebags, so I don’t really want to hang out with them either.

My life doesn’t revolve around money, and that isn’t the case for most of the people I’ve met with an income over $1 million, so I don’t really relate to them. I would rather vacation to a rustic cabin in the woods than some flashy five star resort.

Chili-Stuffed Potato Skins

OzzzIP
OzzzIP

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 4 large baking potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 small yellow onion, diced
  • 1 tablespoon minced jarred jalapeno peppers
  • 1 pound lean ground beef
  • 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
  • 1 (14 ounce) can refried beans
  • Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 2/3 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1/2 cup milk

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. Wash and dry the potatoes, then pierce each several times with a fork. Microwave on HIGH for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until cooked through. Timing varies by microwave.
  3. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the olive oil, garlic, onion and jalapenos. Sauté until the onion just begins to get tender, about 5 minutes.
  4. Add the ground beef and sauté until browned, about another 5 minutes.
  5. Add the crushed tomatoes and refried beans, then mix well and reduce heat to low. Bring to a simmer, season with salt and pepper, then cover and reduce heat to just keep warm.
  6. Carefully cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, then use a spoon to scoop out the insides and place them in a large bowl. Leave about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of potato all around the skin. Arrange the potato skins on a baking sheet. Set aside.
  7. To the bowl of potatoes, add 1 cup of the Cheddar cheese, the ricotta and milk. Mix well, then season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
  8. Fill the potato skins almost to overflowing with the meat-and-bean mixture. Carefully spoon a bit of the potato-and-cheese mixture over the meat. Sprinkle each with some of the remaining Cheddar.
  9. Bake until the cheese melts and the mashed-potato topping just begins to brown, about 12 to 15 minutes.

Jordan Peterson Tells the TRUTH about ALIENATED Young Men – (Better Audio Quality)

This is STUNNINGLY great!

2023 08 26 11 58
2023 08 26 11 58

It’s Official: “BRICS” Adds Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and UAE; Will Control 80% of Global Oil

World Hal Turner 24 August 2023

brics 2024 nEW mEMBERS large
brics 2024 nEW mEMBERS large

It’s Official: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  will become full members of BRICS on January 1st 2024.  All totaled, BRICS nations will control eighty percent (80%) of Global Oil and Gas production.The map below lays out what the newly enlarged BRICS will look like:

BRICS 2024 Control 80 Percent Worlds Oil
BRICS 2024 Control 80 Percent Worlds Oil

Cutting right to the chase, it should be stated that “The-Powers-That-Be (TPTB) cannot survive this without World War 3.”   

If the current globalist cabal stands back and does nothing as this new Commerce Alliance comes to life, then on January 1, 2024, they may wake up to find that no one in any of the countries shown above, will accept the U.S. Dollar or the EURO as payment for trade in goods and services anymore, because both the Dollar and the EURO are backed by nothing.

They may find that no one around the world is willing to sell oil in US Dollars anymore, and could demand that we convert OUR currency to some other currency to buy oil.

The way the Biden Regime has curtailed our own oil and gas production, we would see shortages and price increases the likes of which has never been seen before.

Since we in the United States do not manufacture much of anything here anymore – because CORPORATE IMBECILES shipped all our manufacturing jobs overseas– we could see our ability to buy things for import-severely curtailed as well.

Let’s not forget Economic Sanctions.   It was the excessive and arbitrary use of economic sanctions by the US, which spurred countries around the world to seek out – and now CREATE — some other means for settling international trade because they got tired of the US imposing Sanctions and forbidding the use of the US Dollar by countries under sanction.

Now that BRICS is creating its own Gold-Backed currency for settlement of international trade debts, the US won’t have any clout anymore because it won’t be able to sanction pretty much anybody.   The US Government will be toothless on economic sanctions . . . but the rest of the world will not.

What if the rest of the world decides it is “Pay Back Time” for the US?   What if THEY impose economic Sanctions upon us??????  The new BRICS organization and its coming currency could make that a reality.

All these facts make clear that the Powers-That-Be simply cannot allow this BRICS to go any further or TPTB will lose their grip on controlling the world.  Some of TPTB are such ego-maniacs, they would rather burn the entire world to the ground rather than lose control over it.

Thus, it seems logical to me, that World War 3 is coming before the end of this year.  Perhaps a lot sooner than that.

What is the best thing a teacher did for you that you still remember?

Too many things to name here, certainly. But I’ll narrow it down just to 2.


In Middle school, I got sick. Started falling all the time, couldn’t smile, could barely keep my eyes open and double-vision exhausted me trying to see the board and read, hands couldn’t write long, got brain fog and couldn’t remember anything etc. I was in and out of the hospital… diagnosed with anything from ‘imminent death’ to ‘attention seeking’. I missed A LOT of school.

After I was finally diagnosed a couple of years later, I was definitely in danger of failing. Had a thymectomy, which at that time required cracking open my sternum, and definitely couldn’t go back to school for awhile, but was feeling mentally better on my new meds.

Mrs. Howard, who had been my homeroom teacher the prior year, came to my house to bring me school work and tutor me, and administer me quizzes, so I wouldn’t get too far behind. I ended up passing my classes and was able to proceed to high school with the rest of my classmates.


We were poor. Like wringer washer and rotary dial phone (in the 90s) poor.

I wanted to take Home Ec and Shop, but we couldn’t afford the class fees. I ended up taking a couple of design courses. Web Design and Drafting. My hands still got weak pretty easily, and I was left handed (the drafting machines on the desks were only for right-handed people), so I got to use AutoCAD most of the time.

I ended up in Drafting classes for 3 1/2 years, and competed in regional and state for VICA (vocational industrial clubs of America) and the IDEA (Illinois Drafting Educators Association).

Turns out? Those classes and competitions had fees, too. My instructor, Pete Tucker, paid my fees. He also wrote me a glowing recommendation later for college.

When I was 19, I interviewed for my first drafting internship, and that 3 month internship lasted 13 1/2 years. I became a cad manager, then programmer, then solutions architect for facilities software, and had a side career as a technical editor and author, teaching others how to use AutoCAD and similar programs.

A few years ago, I looked him up on Facebook and thanked him for giving me an entry into a career that lifted me out of poverty, provided me with insurance coverage for my disability (fun fact, if you managed to live 5 years without treatment, you got to lie and say you didn’t have a pre-existing condition) and allowed me to raise my kids with everything I’d never had (both of them can use AutoCAD, too 😉 ).

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main qimg 9d81def631e060b32cb573b479671080

COUNTRY GOSPEL! Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home | REACTION Video

What’s the worst parenting advice you’ve received?

Our first child was not toilet trainable. We took her to doctor after doctor from age 3 to 6, eventually carrying an x-ray made by the local radiologist. Everyone agreed that poor parenting skills were the problem, though some added that our lovely daughter, who had a BM only when standing or lying down, really enjoyed tormenting us.

One of the last doctors said, “If she were my kid, I’d lock her in the bathroom until she did it on the toilet!”

A few weeks later, a surgeon hundreds of miles from home held up that x-ray and said, “She has a birth defect.” Her lower intestine was positioned in a way that made a BM impossible unless her body was absolutely straight, NOT sitting on a toilet. Surgery fixed that. Thank you, Dr. Hardy Hendren, and RIP.

Jason Aldean – Try That In A Small Town (Official Music Video)

I would have never even heard of this song if people hadn’t been upset about it.

Strange English phrases on t-shirts in China: where do they come from?

Some of them are a clever twist based on an underlying Chinese phrase.

For example, on the T-shirt, the Chinese characters read:

已读不回

Literal translation would be “Have Read, Not Replied”.

The context here is that this is a common behavior on instant messaging apps – the receiver (of the instant message) has left the sender (of the instant message) on Read or Seen: they’ve read/seen the instant message, but haven’t replied.

This is a common course of action for some girls who start getting a lot of instant messages from guys trying to woo them but to whom they feel no affection for.

Rather than outright telling her pursuer that his romantic overtures are unwelcome, she leaves him on read/seen and doesn’t reply his messages.

In this way, she hopes that he gets the hint and finally stops sending all those silly little messages.

She’s “seen” all his instant messages but never bothered replying any of them.

So, this girl, she is a “Seenderella”.

It’s a clever twist on Cinderella.

Clever and funny.

Well, to me anyway 😀
I am easily amused 😀

If you only saw “Seenderella” on the T-shirt, you might be going “Huh?”

But with the Chinese characters right there next to it, if you know how to read Chinese, the twist becomes immediately obvious.

Grammy Member Reacts to Oliver Anthony’s I want to go home

Hitting too close to home.

Final Report

In January 1969, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency released Volume 1 of its “Final Report” on a field test involving the “Demonstrated Destruction of Nuclear Weapons.” The field test’s purpose, the publication’s abstract states, was to “develop and test inspection procedures to monitor the demonstrated destruction of nuclear weapons.” In addition, a goal of the test was to determine the extent to which the “proposed method of demonstrating destruction” would expose classified weapon information. The test included 40 actual nukes and 32 fake weapons.

As a result of the test, it was concluded that the proposed destruction techniques could, indeed, reveal classified information about the weapons’ design. However, by masking some of the weapons’ features and limiting inspectors’ visual examinations of the weapons, such disclosures could be prevented.

The inspectors’ poor ability to distinguish between bona fide and fake nukes might also conceal classified information, as could “evasion schemes,” suggesting that less U-235 was being used than was actually the case. The field tests suggested that, overall, the inspection procedures were reasonably secure but resulted in several recommendations for the conduct of such inspections.

Breaking Bad 2 – Official Trailer

This looks like its gonna be… confusing.

Japan has started to release the contaminated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima disaster into the Pacific ocean. Would you stop consuming fish and seafood caught in the areas surrounding Japan, Alaska, the Pacific Ocean, Korea, and China?

I would definitely recommend you stop consuming any type of seafood imported from Japan, and be cautious towards seafood from Alaska, the Canadian west, South Korea, the Pacific islands, and eastern China.

Two reasons:

  1. The United States has been buying less Japanese seafood
    “Listen to a man’s words but observe his deeds”, as the Chinese idiom goes. While the US has shown public support at the government level for Japan’s discharge of radioactive wastewater[1] , in the first six months of 2023 alone, they have actually drastically reduced the amount of surimi (fish paste), scallops and sake imported from Japan[2], amounting to up to 8.3 billion Yen. This was before Japan officially admitted they were releasing the wastewater by the way.

    It would be interesting to see whether the Americans, post 24 Aug, would put their money where their mouth is, and start importing more Japanese aquacultural and agricultural products than ever before, perhaps as a show of solidarity with fellow neoliberal democracies.

    The more likely scenario, however, is that the US would cite concerns with radiation pollution but ban Chinese seafood instead. Feel free to check back in a few months.
  2. Even the Japanese themselves won’t eat their own seafood
    The release of the tainted radioactive water began only a couple of days ago, but already there are reports all over Japan that local consumers are steering clear of not just Fukushima seafood, but all kinds of local seafood [3]. Even people in Japan know better than to trust their government and Tokyo Electric – a company so ruthless and dishonest [4], it turned an INES level 3 incident into a level 7, same level as Chernobyl, and is now solely in charge of monitoring its own wastewater discharge.

    Imagine that, a nuclear power company that caused the disaster to begin with, is now put wholly in charge of the discharge operation, and every statistic the company reports is treated as gospel truth by the local government. We have truly reached peak cyberpunk, ladies and gentlemen.

    Moreover, the Japanese fishing industry has been protesting the government’s decision to release the tainted water for years [5]. Such an irresponsible move, as they have rightly predicted, would effectively destroy the prestigious brand and reputation of Japanese seafood, and is likely to affect other Japanese products such as agricultural products in the near future.

Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home Fiddle player REACTS WITH FIDDLE!!

What do real WW2 Nazis think about Holocaust deniers?

Oskar Groning was what nobody wants to be, a guard at Auschwitz. His primary job was sorting and valuables new arrivals turned over. A big source of income for the Third Reich was the valuables prisoners handed over.

When the war ended Oskar wasn’t brought up on charges. He was captured before the war ended, did some time in a British POW camp, and when the war ended he went home to his wife.

Upon seeing his wife again she asked about his experiences and he said “Girl, do both of us a favour: don’t ask” and she left it there. One day a while later someone made an offhand joke that Oskar could actually be a killer given his time at Auschwitz. He banged on the table and demanded that nobody ever mention Auschwitz again or he would leave.

Oskar wanted to put what he had done behind him. He was a devout Nazi, an Auschwitz camp guard no less, and he wanted this to remain a secret.

Oskar got a job at a glass factory and worked his way up into a management role. He worked there for decades and lived a very normal life. Oskar collected stamps and was even a judge.


In 1985 Oskar met a Holocaust denier and was given a pamphlet on Holocaust denial. Shocked that such a thing exists, Oskar came forward to dispute it. He made multiple statements and gave a full account of what he had seen.

I saw everything. The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. I was there.

I would like you to believe me. I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria. I saw the open fires. I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened, because I was there

(letters/calls) From people who tried to prove that what I had seen with my own eyes, what I had experienced in Auschwitz was a big, big mistake, a big hallucination on my part because it hadn’t happened.”

Now Oskar was put on trial for this and found guilty. It mattered little as he died a few years later at the age of 93.

But this shows you what Nazis think about Holocaust deniers- they think deniers are idiots.

What screams “I’m upper class”?

I’m a school bus driver. I drove students in a VERY nice school district. If you were looking for kids to be the illustration of white privilege, these were the ones. (These were kids who got hoverboards from the tooth fairy.) Every single morning and afternoon, these kids, with much more expensive clothes than I have, would thank me for driving them. When parents would meet the kids at the bus, they would tell the kids “make sure you say thank you.” These people weren’t upper class simply from money, but from having habits and attitudes to make them better people in life. Behavior problems were rare.

PEPE ESCOBAR AND MICHAEL HUDSON JOIN ON BRICS PLUS SIX, UKRAINE, AND THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD ECONOMY!

2023 08 26 08 57
2023 08 26 08 57

How can intelligence help?

As Flaviane Carvalho was finishing her shift, a family of four was sitting in her section.

She immediately noticed that something was “off” about their behavior.

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main qimg 83a416535a93b8eeb261c759f3ec420a lq

As the mother of a teenager, Flaviane’s eyes were drawn to the 11-year-old boy who was sitting hunched over at the table.

His eyes were downcast and his family wouldn’t let him eat or drink.

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main qimg 5cc45c70524815b3eb955dea70aceec4 pjlq

Flaviane asked if everything was okay with the food and they said that the child would eat at home.

Warning signs ringing in her head, Flaviane took a closer look.

Under the boy’s hood, hat and face mask, there were deep bruises, cuts and scratches.

Thinking quickly, Flaviane wrote a simple note and held it behind the child’s parents so they couldn’t see.

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main qimg 77db2cd715b2f37800bcf3d4af92e185 lq

At first, the boy just nodded, but Flaviane quickly added another message: “Need help?”

A small nod told her all she needed to know.

“I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw that boy. I just knew something wasn’t right!

He was scared and so was I.”

Flaviane told her boss what was going on and then called 911.

When the police arrived, they told Flaviane that she probably saved at least one life that night.

“This could have been a homicide situation if she hadn’t intervened,” said Orlando, Orlando Rolon Police Chief .

“The lesson here for all of us is to recognize when we see something that isn’t right to act on it…. It saved a child’s life. ”

It turns out that the boy was being horribly abused at home by his stepfather, Timothy Wilson II.

He was covered in bruises from head to toe and was about 10 pounds underweight because he was often deprived of food as punishment.

His parents were arrested and charged with multiple counts of aggravated child abuse and child neglect.

Rage as a tool

Rage is an emotion, and as such it can be useful or dangerous. It’s up to us to figure out how to use it adequately. Many people would use other techniques to funnel their rage so that it wasn’t destructive.

Some would run, lift weights, or apply themselves in sports.

Others would internalize it, drink, brawl, or jut be an asshole.

Still others funnel that rage into music.

Those of us who are from the United States, or from the Domain, or have survived a broken marriage, a bad boss, or a corrupt government have all experienced real cold rage. I know I have. And I do my best to control it, least my “incredible hulk” comes out.

This post is going to be a tad different.

And it isn’t for everyone. What this post contains is some pretty harsh rock-n-roll music that has often served me (personally) in releasing and dealing with rage.

As such, it’s a bid dangerous and a tad toxic if you are not ready for it.

If you are not ready, then just skip this article and wait for a calmer and gentler post tomorrow. But if you are ready, or willing, or adventuresome, then have some fun…

BUT DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU

Here we go…

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The Crespi Ancient Artifact Collection of Cuenca Ecuador

This is a nice mystery that has turned the archeological world on it’s side. It’s a great read and I really hope that you all enjoy what is presented here. Translated from an old scan. Correct, and edited to fit this venue. I doubt that you will be able to find a complete recounting of this story elsewhere in the Western Internet today.

Father Carlo Crespi, who comes from Milan, has lived in the small town of Cuenca, Ecuador, for more than 50 years. He was a priest of the Church of Maria Auxiliadora.

Crespi was accepted by the local indians as a real friend.

They (the local indians) used to bring him presents from their hiding places.

Over a period of time the father had so many precious objects stored in his house and the church that one day he received permission from the Vatican to open a museum to display them.

This museum (in the Salesian School at Cuenca) grew and grew Until in 1960 it was one of the biggest museums in Ecuador, and Crespi was recognized as an archaeological authority.

But he has always been a rather embarrassing servant of his church, for he
asserts vehemently that he can prove that there was a direct connection between the Old World (Babylon) and the New World (pre-Inca civilizations); and that goes right against prevailing opinion.

Complicating matters, on 20th July 1962 there was an act of arson and the father’s museum was burnt down.

What Father Crespi managed to salvage from the damaged museum was housed in two long narrow rooms, which were in a terrible muddle.

Brass, copper, sheet-metal, zinc, tin and stone and wooden objects and in the midst of them all pure gold, sheet-gold, silver and sheet -silver.

Eric Van Danken in His book Gold of The Gods says of this Treasure “Let the Vatican grail guardian Father Crespi of Cuenca be the key witness to the pre-
Christian origin of the metal treasures. He said “‘Every’ thing that the Indians brought me from the tunnels dates to before Christ. “Most of the symbols and pre-historic representations are older than the Flood.’”


“Father Crespi has partially stacked his metal plaques by motifs, for example those with pictures of pyramids.

I took a close look at more than 40 objects.

All the pyramid engravings have four things in common: a sun, but more frequently several suns, is depicted above the pyramid; snakes are always flying
next to or over the pyramid; animals of various kinds are always present….

“Professor Miloslav Stingi is the leading South American scholar in the Iron Curtain countries; he graduated in the ancient civilizations of America. today he is a member of the Academy of Sciences at Prague and author of archaeological and ethnological books. In versunkenen Mayasta~dten (1971), for example, is highly acclaimed. Professor Stingl, who was a guest in my house, saw the photographs I had taken at Cuenca. ‘If these pictures are genuine, and everything indicates that they are, because no one makes forgeries in gold, at any rate not on such a large scale, this is the biggest archaeological sensation since the discovery of Troy. Years ago I myself supported the view that the Incas had no writing in the alphabetical sense of the word. And now I am faced with Inca writing. To be able to give a precise scientific verdict I should have to subject each plaque to a detailed and lengthy examination, and compare each one with material already available. For the moment I can only say that I am dumbfounded. The sun was often part of the scenery in known Inca engravings, but man was never equated with the sun, as I see time and again in these photographs. There are  representations of men with sun's rays round their heads and there are men depicted with star points coming from them. The symbol of holy power has  always been the head. But in these pictures the head is simultaneously sun or star. That points to new direct connections.’”

J Golden Barton in 1998 tells of a visit see Father Crespi with Dr. Paul Chessman from BYU and others in the late 1970’s. He writes (ref. 2):  High in the Andes mountains of Ecuador lies beautiful Cuenca, a peaceful city with red Spanish tile roofs and worn cobble stone streets. Townspeople go about their daily business happily trading with each other and the native Indians who populate the hills and valleys surrounding the village. The Indians speak the tongue of their Quechua" ancestors, who watched the sun rise over the Amazon hundreds of years before. With weathered and rosy cheeks they radiate a simplicity of harmony with the rugged mountains where they have worked time out of mind. The men of the tribe wear a single long braid of hair down their back underneath a Panamanian hat. Men, women and children are dressed in the same black and brown earth-tone cloth, edged with bright colored trim. Each shuffle along the paths long known by their forefathers, carrying them back and forth from village to village. Not many tourists travel this way and the service is unrushed but thorough.

“A few blocks from the center of the village stands a Catholic "College of Salesino." Young men and women from prosperous families attend this secondary school, its classrooms facing a clay and terrazzo tiled courtyard. Entering through a side door, we found ourselves in a small open-air enclosure facing stately, hand-carved wooden gates. A friendly young man bid us enter through old wooden doors and ushered us into a private chamber. A few moments later, a bearded, monkish-looking man with twinkling eyes and a benign smile arrived and embraced Dr. Cheeseman. Although an octogenarian, he appeared in lively good health, despite his quaking robes which betrayed a shaky hand. We had heard that he was senile, but his personal behavior only radiated complete mental iompetence. So this was Father Carlos Crespi, Ecuador's unlikely focus of a unique archaeological controversy that continues to baffle everyone
who has heard about it.

“He led us into an inner court of the school yard, where old Spanish wooden doors faced inward, and the oft-scrubbed floors gleamed with sunlight bouncing off the polished terrazzo. We were unprepared for what was to come. Father Crespi took a large key from a ring that hung from a braided belt around his robe, then moved to an obscure wooden door and turned the lock. Together with a single helper, he disappeared into the dark room. Both soon reappeared with a large piece of metal that had been molded and hammered into a long sheet. It looked like it might be made of gold. The sheet was inscribed with a curious artwork beyond identification.

“Next, they dragged something from the darkness too large to be carried, and only with strenuous exertions were they able to lean it against the stucco wall. It stands twenty-two inches high and about seven inches wide its weight must have been prodigious. I reached my hand to touch the object and noticed it featured a dark covering, as if it had been painted. At first, I supposed it must have been made of lead, because it was soft and almost pliable. Then the nails of my fingers bit into the body of the figure through the paint and the gleam from the tell-tale scratch left no doubt that it was made of pure gold.
Our cameras began to click, and in the excitement Father Crespi talked excitedly, hardly stopping to breathe. He was our enthusiastic instructor, showing us each new piece as though it had just been brought to the light of day for the first time.

What other wonders did his black vault contain, we wondered? The old man's nimble fingers joined the ends of two barren electric wires and the chamber was instantly revealed in the radiance of an incandescent globe. The gleam of gold, silver, and bronze everywhere added to the brightness of its interior. Shelves of dusty, worn ceramics, starry-eyed idols posturing in hideous stances or strange proportions. Stacked from floor to ceiling were hundreds of large cardboard pieces on which were wired metal bracelets, earrings, nose rings, and necklaces, some untarnished by time. Hide-scrapers, tools, implements of war, spears, axes, clubs, of wood, metal and stone were stacked everywhere. Father Crespi's mysterious room seemed overburdened with the treasures of an unknown antiquity. It literally over-flowed with bizarre artifacts, many wrought in precious metals. Most intriguing were the innumerable plates of bronze, brass and gold. Many bore strange inscriptions and hieroglyphic symbols. Others were replete with the engravings of incongruous animals--elephants, snakes, jaguars, wild beasts of every kind. The images of horse-drawn chariots were clearly etched into metal, calling to mind Juan Moricz's description of "a Roman chariot" in his underground chamber.

“We photographed a plate inscribed with representations of what appeared to be Egypt's step-pyramid. Still more plates contained artwork with what looked like Assyrian or Babylonian symbols. We grew dizzy with the gleaming opulence and historical anomaly all around us. Newell Parkin, a banker from Bountiful, Utah, Dr. Paul Cheeseman, Wayne Hamby, an undergraduate student from Brigham Young University, D. Craig Anderson, a Utah State University Research Associate, who acted as our interpreter, and I spent the afternoon amid these otherworldly splendors. In all my travels throughout the world, my visit to the Crespi Collection was to be their crowning experience.
“We asked Father Crespi how he came by such marvelous things. He said he headed the local parish for over fifty years after studying at Italy's University In Milan, where the subject of archaeology had caught his interest. Following graduation, he became a priest and was assigned to Ecuador's beautiful city of Cuenca to work among the Indians. In time, he came to love them. Moreover, in South America he had opportunity to further his archaeological interests. To his great surprise and delight, the religious celebrations over which he presided brought a host of Indians bearing gifts to the kindly man who
performed baptisms and marriages and was their friend in trouble. Aware of Father Crespi's enthusiasm for archaeology, the grateful Indians brought him ancient objects long hidden in the jungle. Soon, his collection steadily increased until, after fifty years, it filled many rooms.
“A museum was constructed to house these remarkable gifts, but a few years before our visit it was seriously damaged by an arsonist's fire. Father Crespi managed to salvage three full rooms of the relics, one
of relatively obscure and unimportant tributes, another filled with items of curious antiquity, but the last was a treasury of gold artifacts. Residing high among the Andes mountains in an obscure village, the old
man had no interest in fame or fortune. Few travelers knew of his collection and even fewer scientists. He was a private person with a big heart and a deep interest in the past.
‘Where and how do the Indians find these incredible things.,’ we wondered.
‘Oh, they just get them from the caves and subterranean chambers in the jungles,’ he answered in an offhand manner. 'There are over 200 kilo-meters of tunnels starting here in Cuenca. They run from the mountains down to the eastern lowlands near the Amazon." Wayne Hamby, an assistant to Cheeseman, spent a few more days with Father Crespi to catalogue and photograph the entire collection. His results went into the files of Dr. Cheeseman, who died after his retirement from the faculty of Brigham Young University.

“Two years following our visit to the kindly priest, I returned to Cuenca with Ben Holbrook, our two young sons, and a pair of Ecuadoran LDS missionaries acting as interpreters. We were greeted by a young priest, who informed us that Carlos Crespi had passed away in January 1980, and his collection was no longer available for public view. In spite of my efforts to convince him that we had traveled a long distance to view the relics, he stubbornly refused to allow us to see the treasures. He insisted that the room with the artifacts could not be shown on orders from the Vatican. To my knowledge, no one from the outside world has seen the treasure since the death of the old Padre. “. Mr. Barton heard rumors that much of the treasure had been shipped to Rome to the Vatican.

Richard Wingate a Florida based explorer and writer visited Father Crespi four times during the mid to late 1970’s and photographed the extensive artifact collection. He says this concerning his visits:

“IN A DUSTY, cramped shed on the side porch of the Church of Maria Auxiliadora in Cuenca, Ecuador, lies the most valuable archaeological treasure on earth. 

More than one million dollars worth of dazzling gold is cached here, and much silver, yet the hard money value of this forgotten hoard is not its
principal worth. There are ancient artifacts identified as Assyrian, Egyptian, Chinese, and African so perfect in workmanship and beauty that any museum director would regard them as first-class acquisitions.


Since this treasure is the strangest collection of ancient archaeological objects in existence, its value lies in the historical questions it poses, and demands answers to.

Yet it is unknown to historians and deliberately neglected in the journals of orthodox archaeology….

‘Ah,’ the priest said, ‘enough flattery, then, let’s take a look.’ Without ceremony, he forced a key into an ancient, rusty padlock and opened the rickety door to his museum.

He touched two bare wires together and a watery yellow light went on.

Father Crespi was smiling like a man with a very remarkable secret.


I was skeptical of the reports I had heard about this place, but now that cautious attitude gave’ way to unabashed astonishment.

Stacked against the far wall were golden mummy cases in the quasi-Egyptian
style with a black, baked-enamel finish.

A dozen complete sets of gleaming, golden ceremonial armor, beaten-gold Chaldean-style helmets, and golden inscribed plaques were piled haphazardly on the floor.

These dazzling memoirs of lost times were scattered among an array of beautifully carved Pacific Oceanic and African-styled wooden statues, shields of a rich, red copper, pottery, canes, sheets, and rolls of silver-colored metal, and strange, unidentifiable gears, pipes, and wheels which might have been parts to long-lost technological systems.

Rolls of intricately figured sheet metal stood haphazardly piled around the shed.

The priest explained that it had been torn off the interior walls of long abandoned, vine-choked buildings in the inaccessible eastern jungle.

The Indian artifact hunters bring this wallpaper in three different metals: gold, a
metallurgically unique, untarnished silver, and an unknown alloy with the appearance of shiny aluminum.


Every square inch of the peculiar sheet metal is decorated with intricate designs, some of them depicting long-forgotten ceremonial occasions and some of them humorous and cartoon like.

The rolls come in heights that vary, for the most part, from eight to twelve feet, and they are often fifteen to thirty feet long.

These lengths are composed of many individual four-foot sheets which have been artfully riveted together.

He showed me a dozen bronze plaques. Seemingly, they were among his favorite acquisitions.

The illustrations borne by the plaques made me catch my breath.

Images of Egyptian princesses and Assyrian gods stared at me with a severity undiminished by the passage of centuries.

One of the plaques bore the image of a Caucasian man writing linear script with a quill pen. 

Linear script?

A quill pen?

Needless to say, the Andes Indians did not have a written language when the Spanish arrived, let alone a tool for writing.

There were reportedly fifty-six solid gold plaques originally, but after a disastrous arson in 1962, which local political fanatics claimed credit for, Father
Crespi had molds made by a local casket maker and the best dozen of his precious plaques were duplicated in coffin-handle bronze.

The original gold plaques lie safe today in a bank vault.

“Father Crespi granted me permission to take photographs. Since most museums jealously guard their treasures from photographers, the priest’s open generosity won me over.

Lack of space inside the shed forced me to set up my tripod and camera in the sunlit outer courtyard.

The priest himself brought his treasures out for me to record on film.


Hours passed, and the usual, afternoon equatorial winter rain began.

The Father was growing tired. We quit for the day.

I had exposed over ten rolls of film, taken more than three hundred pictures, and covered only a tiny percentage of the seventy thousand artifacts which filled the museum’s three rooms to their ceilings.


“As it turned out, I made not one but three additional visits to Father Crespi in Cuenca, exposed over three thousand frames, and I still have captured only 2 percent of the collection on film.

Between my second and third trips, the Padre’s treasure hunters apparently hit upon a fresh cache in the jungle caves.

So many new pieces arrived during this period that I was forced to climb over heaps of newly unearthed objects in order to get to certain items that I particularly wanted to photograph.

I found myself in the classic one- step-forward, two-steps-back situation, for new articles were arriving more rapidly than I could take pictures of the old!


“One of the reasons for my continued efforts was my apprehension for Carlo Crespi’s advanced age.

He was born on April 29, 1891, and when he dies, the integrity of the collection is by no means assured.

It might be saved and protected by benevolent church authorities, but an auction to private dealers seems just as likely.

If the priceless museum is somehow disbursed before modern techniques of dating and evaluation can be applied to its artifacts, a great chance for the reevaluation of the history of the Western hemisphere will have been missed.

“In spite of the plethora of startling material in his museum, Father Crespi regrets that he missed acquiring most of the ‘treasure unearthed in the jungle, including most of the best articles, because he simply couldn’t match prices with other bidders.


Maintaining the jungle museum has proven a difficult adventure for the Father in other ways as well.

The collection weathered an arson fire in 1962 which melted many objects, burned others, and substantially diminished its value.

Another fire occurred in 1974.

There have also been instances of outright theft.


A few archaeologists who have heard of the collection are prone to an understandable condescension, because the shedful of artifacts poses a violent offense to the procedural r~es of their fraternity.

The articles in the trove have been discovered in sloppy, unsupervised, surreptitious digs by wholly untrained J ivaro Indian diggers.

Crespi is not even an accredited museum curator.

Although not an uneducated man~he holds a master’s degree in anthropology from a Milan, Italy, university.

The priest has no formal archaeological training, and the time he gives to his immense collection is stolen from a heavy schedule of parish duties, as I saw on my visits.

Crespi, furthermore, occasionally expresses a salty indifference to the judgment of the accepted experts.

The classification system of his museum is best described as chaotic.

It does not make highly publicized acquisitions at blue ribbon auctions, for the Father wouldn’t have the money, even if he had the need.

Nor does it have advanced dating machinery, assistant curators, guards, guides, set hours, or any of the other appurtenances of the respectable, contemporary museum.

And yet the affection in which the Padre is held by his Shuara (Jivaro) collectors, has made it possible for him to accumulate the most significant single assemblage of South American artifacts anywhere.

“Carlo Crespi was raised in the prosperous northern Italian -city of Milan, where, after a youth spent with a comfortably wealthy family, he decided to join the Salesian Fathers. More than fifty-five years ago this missionary order sent Father Crespi to South America.

Ever since that voyage, Father Crespi has lived a life of voluntary poverty, sleeping on the floors of native huts with only a single blanket, and carelessly
eating poor but lovingly offered food.

He has cared for the people, listened to their stories of fabulous deep-jungle temples, explored the treasure-filled Tayos caves, and stubbornly provided a museum for the strange artifacts of the country…

When Father Crespi and his Indian diggers tell of the places where they find their
artifacts, they described giant pyramids, immense, deserted cities, fantastic sacred tunnels, and caves.

The cities, they say, still shine with a mysterious, cool bluish light when the sun goes down.

The tunnels are reportedly large enough to drive a locomotive through.

They have cut-stone entrances and walls which, by native account, are as smooth as glass.

And it is these tunnels, at least according to the Indian explorers, that hold the bulk of the material being offered to the Maria Auxiliadora museum and to other collectors.

It is a fantastic tale, but when one sees the evidence, the thousands of gold treasured trinkets, the story of a vast tunnel system become nearly plausible.


“Although legend tells of this tunnel network honeycombing all of Ecuador and Peru, the only part of it that has, to my knowledge, been documented, is located in the very dangerous Jivaro country, between the Santiago and Morona rivers, near Tayos.

Unfortunately, this area is decidedly out of bounds for the foreign adventurer.

The local Indians have killed at least four inquisitive outsiders in the last two years.

Yet the tunnels of the Shuara tribes (Jivaro) have been photographed.

A naturalized Ecuadorian named Juan Moricz took several rolls of high-quality pictures, verified in this way the accounts the natives have been giving
Crespi, and subsequently lay legal claim to the entire tunnel network.

His grandiose claim was denied by the courts, but his photographs cannot be.

<Portion unrecoverable>

...less than the bullion value of the precious metal.” (p. 139)

The “heavy mineral crust enamel coating” of many artifacts indicates that they were “buried under searing volcanic heat.” (p. 139)
Concerning sophisticated artifacts, like the Phoenician calendars, the golden Middle Eastern helmets, the golden armor, and the golden plaques: these “would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars and perhaps millions on the private market; to suggest that a sophisticated forger unloaded them on the priest for a low price is to deny the greed that motivates forgery!” (p. 140)
Concerning a cast steel shield: “Steel casting is beyond the metallurgical capacity of present day Tayos Indians.” (p. 143)
(B) Fakes
Regarding fakes (which Crespi knowingly purchases in his casual, humanitarian style, at the same time chiding the seller): “The modern solder and hacksaw marks give them away.” (p. 136)
(C) Hybrid real-fakes
Far from creating fakes in order to reap high profits, some of the Indian diggers in Ecuador have cut up and reshaped genuinely ancient and priceless materials in order to get any kind of price at all for it. We have mentioned earlier the ebony column...carved with the Ecuadorian
national seal and decorated with gold cut from a sheet of mysterious ancient wallpaper.” (p. 139)
Picture (p. 36)—“Obviously genuine copper ‘radiators’ were redecorated by Indian discoverers.”
Picture (p. 39)—“Heavy brass ‘bass viol’ a real-fake soldered together from original thick wall sheeting.” The brass sheet metal is genuine and very old, but the instrument was crafted by modern forgers. One can see where existing designs on the brass sheets were cut through in the
manufacture of the article.
Picture (p. 142)—“Genuine silver wrapped gold trimmed elephant. Yet decorated with modern brass thumb tacks.”
Picture (p. 146)—“Bottom of tin can. Clumsily fire blackened to simulate real volcanic mineral patina on genuine objects. The carbon on this olive oil can be rubbed off on a sheet of paper. The black patina on most of Crespi’s material is enameled to the metal.”
In summary: “The genuine green porphyry patina on many of the articles,...the enormous
quantities of cheaply bought gold articles, the metallurgical uniqueness of some of the artifacts (such as the platinum nose cone and the radiators), the Mid-eastern artistic motifs, and the abundance of art ides for which little or no market exists (such as the air pipes and the
‘wallpaper’) pose difficult questions for those who carelessly write the collection off as a hoax.”
(p. 140)
References
1. Eric Van Daniken Gold of The Gods (1973)
2. J. Golden Barton The Lost Gold of Ancient Ecuador, Ancient American Vol. 4 Number 25, 1998
3. Richard Wingate Lost Outpost of Atlantis 1980 Everest House Publishing Company
4. Wayne Hamby Voices From The Dust 1977 Osmond Publishing Company

Summary

I hope that you enjoyed this little glimpse in the statist-overturning world of the good Father.

How to get around paywalls on internet news sites.

This is a very quick and short article. But it is my hope that the benefit that it provides to the MM readership makes up for it’s brevity.

Many traditional news websites expect you to face a barrage of annoying ads AND give up precious coin to pass through a paywall. They have various ways of doing this, though most have adopted an enormous screen filling dialog box that you must respond to in order to read their “news”.

While each such site may have a unique workaround, there are three simple ones that usually always work. They are;

  • Clear your browser history
  • Disable JavaScript
  • (or) Open the link in a private browsing tab.

Here we can talk about the easiest and most effective way to do so. You simply open the link in a “private browsing tab”. Here, We look at the different ways of doing this depending on the browser that you use…

Open the link in a private tab

For the last one, the added bonus is that Google, Big Brother, ad cookie traps, etc., etc., etc., can’t track you. Well, supposedly they can’t. I have learned in my long life, that anything is possible. Never say “never”.

Either follow the menu options at the top of your browser, or do the following:

CHROME

Incognito: Ctrl + Shift + N

Internet Explorer

In Private Browsing: Ctrl + Shift + P

FIREFOX

Private Window: Ctrl + Shift + P

BRAVE

Private Tab: Ctrl + Shift + P

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my Happiness Index.

Life & Happiness

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Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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So folks, how’s World War III working out for ya? Not what you expected is it?

That’s the way it is. The world is in the middle of World War III.

Of course, this is NOT public knowledge. This is something that only the American “leadership”, and international leaders have any idea about.

Not the rabble.

Not people like you.

And let me be blunt. The United States owns the media, and all communication traffic over the internet. They don’t want any one getting near the truth. So if you all want to know what the truth is, look at what they are hiding. Look at what they are omitting. Look at what they are “glossing over”. Look at what they are ignoring.

What won’t they dare talk about?

What is right there, in your face, and yet it is omitted from all public discourse?

Yes. John Bolton -rabid anti-China neocon was put in charge of the Bio-Weapons office in Washington DC and launched a long and concentrated series of bio-weapons attacks against China. Mike Pompeo referred to it as a “live exercise”, and it was coordinated with other efforts in Hong Kong, Taiwan, XinJiang, and throughout the South East Asian environs.

But, the USA was unprepared for the blow-back.

Coronavirus is a bio-weapon that was patented nearly twenty years ago by the State Department, and they “threw caution to the wind” when they carpet bombed China with eight bio-weapons targeting food and livestock, and three new and “novel” never-before-seen viruses against the Chinese people.

Not expecting that China knew what was going on all the time.

Ah. That’s a total of eleven (x11) new and “novel” viruses that hit China “out of the blue” at the same precise moment when Trump decided to conduct a “hybrid war” against China.

But I covered all this elsewhere.

In fact, I even draped the overview on the main index for a spell…

All three bio-Weapons (used against China) are in America now

So America got everything all “fired up” and started the same old playbook. But once they realized that a traditional war was not in the “cards”, they decided to “soften up” China with some bio-weapons. But it didn’t work out as planned. Never the less, the plan is still a “go go go”, and everyone is following the timetable, no matter how insane it appears.

Well,,, let’s review for a second.

I have long argued that the USA under the Trump administration used three bio-weapons targeting Chinese civilians in 2020. The first, the COVID-19B hit on CNY, and supposedly the American population was inoculated from it by the COVID-19A strain.

I have further argued that all the bio-weapons would boomerang back to the United States either intentionally or inadvertently. You simply cannot isolate an infected area well.

And that is what we are seeing today.

Attack One. Brain Seizure Virus. While Americans were (supposedly) inoculated from the lethal “B 1.1.7 strain” of COVID-19 by the flu-like “A strain”, apparently the lethal strain has NOW hit America. I’ve tons and tons of movies knowing what it was like when it hit China.

See the movies HERE Chinese COVID-19 B Videos.

Videos of the COVID-19 Biological Attack events within China

Of course they were all banned by Trump by Executive Order, so Americans and their allies never saw any of them. Thus the sheeple bought into the lies that the COVID was just a slight cold.

This realization, that the lethal “B strain” is now all over America, is forcing the authorities to scramble for the mRNA vaccine. Which is designed as a multi-purpose solution that can be expanded with other “boosters” when new Bio-weapons events unfold. Read about it HERE.

Attack Two. Death by Vomiting Virus. The second bio-weapon to hit China occurred in July 2020 in Beijing. It was a tick borne virus, (Dabieshan tick virus and SFTSV) and should alert anyone because not only does Beijing not have ticks, but the nearest tick infested region is half a nation away. Roughly the distance between Florida and Maine.

As soon as the CIA assets turned over the vials to the PLA, Donald Trump was whisked off to a secure military base, and America went to Defcon One.

The Donald Trump evacuation to a secure military base happened at the same time that SADS-CoV was discovered in China.

The virus causes a disease called “Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome” (SFTS). Essentially your internal organs start to hemorrhage you vomit them out violently until you die.  The STFS virus is transmitted to humans, and is thought to be fatal in 1 to 3 out of every 10 infections. The people die a long, drawn out and painful death.

Trump launched this virus against China when it was obvious that [1] China controlled COVID-19B, and that [2] Hong Kong was secure, and [3] the NGO (CIA agents) were escorted out of China.

Well it seems that the American “news media” is readying the American population for some blow back.

One year later, it appears that Los Angeles is expecting the second bio-weapon that hit China; the Death by violent-vomiting bio-weapon.  Hitting Los Angles this Summer. Just peachy. And you know, this is a “new virus” of a completely different bio-weapon family. The COVID vaccine won’t protect anyone. Read about it HERE. So local California authorities are taking the necessary precautions for this event.

Attack Three. Death by Diarrhea Virus. The third bio-weapon, the Swine G4 virus is now hitting America. It’s the “spiteful” virus that causes death by diarrhea unless immediate treatment is provided.

Yeah, the infected shit themselves to death and shit out their entire organs though internal hemorrhaging. Just peachy. And you know, this is a “new virus” of a completely different bio-weapon family. The COVID vaccine won’t protect anyone.  Trump launched it against China after his eight battle carrier flotilla sailed home in defeat in 2020.

The final result of the enormous military armada sent to the South China Sea by Trump in 2020, and why no one is talking about the aftermath of it.

Read about it HERE.

Remember boys and girls, real secrets are SECRET. And this is what is going on today. It’s World War III by bio-weapons.

My god, is that TRUE? 
We never see any of that on our mainstream media.

And that was the Covid-variant unleashed upon China in October-November 2019?

That is absolutely horrific and sadistically cruel.

It speaks not merely of cold-calculation, but a frothing, bottomless hatred. A demented, boundless desire to cause harm.

If it was deliberate, somebody has to pay, there has to be justice, and retribution.

-Anonymous[793] • Disclaimer said.

But all that is just an appetizer for what’s to come…

So that’s it, you might think.

The uninformed are waiting until “herd immunity” is attained against the “global pandemic” and then everything will return back to normal. Right? Isn’t that the impression that everyone has, eh?

Well it isn’t.

America is so thick-headed and run by idiots that they are just following the “marching orders” laid down years ago. And given the absolutely unexpected (by American elites) turn of events, that the actions being taken by America (by following out of date and obsolete orders) just makes America look like it’s being run by idiots.

"Not even North Korea is this nuts" 

- North Korean defector..

You cannot help but think that.

I think that the United States is so stuffed up with imbeciles inside Washington, the military, the government, and the media that both Russia and China are toying with them like a cat toys with a mouse…

America, as it is being run today, is helpless. And it shows.

Yeah.

It’s like this.

And I am not the only person to think so.

Consider this… fine article by Mr. E. A. ( I will provide a link to his site once I get it, and place it here.)

New article–NBC Reporter Give Putin the Third Degree.

I read both the transcript from the Kremlin as well as watched the whole spectacle on RT, it’s also on the Russian Insider YT channel, if you want to subject yourself to it.
 
NBC Reporter Gives Putin the Third Degree. (He left out the most important question—Mr. Putin, do you still beat your wife?)

On June 11th, President Putin met with NBC journalist, Keir Simmons. 

 
Below, you can see the questions that he asked.
.
Simmons started off expressing his appreciation for the first meeting after almost three years, and without pausing for Putin to acknowledge the greeting, immediately launched into this litany of accusations posing as questions.
.
What was so striking—if you’ll pardon the pun—was the accusatory assumption of guilt, implicit in the questions. It’s as if some presumed guilty serial killer (whoops, sorry, President Putin) was finally brought to the police station to be confronted with numerous allegations…….but no evidence.
.
Putin’s ability to keep his composure was pretty remarkable. It seemed as if he was in a ring, and letting his opponent throw multiple punches which he parried. Simmons assumed that he was in charge of the interview:
.
Keir Simmons: It’s just that there’s a limited amount of time, Mr President. Unless we can have more time, I’d be very happy to have to keep going for another 30 minutes.
.
Vladimir Putin: I determine the time here, so don’t worry about time.”
The upstart Pulitzer Prize aspirant needed to be reminded who’s boss.

Reprising the Ugly American

 
It seems that since the 1958 release of this novel, the USA has still not learned its lesson:
.
What is the theme of the Ugly American?
.
Racism and Cultural Insensitivity. Despite living and working in another country, most members of the American Foreign Service hold racist views and lack awareness of the cultures they live amongst.
 
After patiently listening to a series of accusatory, “Guilty until proven innocent” questions, the topic turned to interference in Russia’s affairs, and accusations of Russia interfering in US affairs.
.
Simmons objected to Russia’s laws restricting the ability of foreigners’ activity in Russia. Putin noted that it is the USA itself that wrote such a law decades ago.  
.
Putin summed it up by saying:
 
 
We have a saying: ”Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly.“ It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, ”Why don’t you look at yourselves?“ You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us.
 

Yet Another Instance of US Cognitive Dissonance and Psychological Projection.

 
President Putin gave a speech at the UN a few years back pointing out US destructive policies, and asked, “Can’t you see what you have done?”  The tone of the interview was yet another example of the inability of the US media and presumably Washington Consensus complex, to see its own crimes, while assuming its own innocence—Cognitive Dissonance, while blaming others for what it does and has been doing—Psychological Projection.
 
This begs the question, what is going on here? Is this merely a psychological lapse?
.
Or is it something more contrived and cynical?
 
Accuse the victim of that for which you are guilty
 

Why Did Putin Agree to this Interview?

 
We of course can’t know, however, to this observer, it looks like he just gave NBC more editable fodder to feed the Western audiences.
.
The best example is this edited snippet.
.
Keir Simmons: … Mr President. Do you worry that your opposition to NATO has actually strengthened it? For six years, NATO has spent more on defense.
.
Vladimir Putin: Some defense. During the USSR era, Gorbachev, who is still, thank God, with us, got a promise, a verbal promise that there would be no NATO expansion to the east. Where is that…
.
Keir Simmons: Where is that…
.
Vladimir Putin: …promise? Two ways of expansion.
.
Keir Simmons: Where is that written down? Where is that promise written down?
.
Vladimir Putin: Right, right. Well done. Correct. You’ve got a point. Got you good.
.
Well, congratulations. Of course, everything should be sealed and written on paper. But what was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders, and all of this before saying that we are the ones who have been acting aggressively?
.
Why? On what basis? Did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the US or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from Eastern Europe. Leaving them just on empty land. Our people there, military personnel for decades lived there in what was not normal conditions, including their children.
.
We went to tremendous expenses. And what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure next to our borders. And now, you are saying that we are threatening somebody. We’re conducting war games on a regular basis, including sometimes surprise military exercises. Why should it worry the NATO partners? I just don’t understand that.
.
Keir Simmons: Will you commit now not to send any further Russian troops into Ukrainian sovereign territory?
.
Vladimir Putin: Look, did we say that we were planning to send our armed formations anywhere? We were conducting war games in our territory. How can this not be clear? I’m saying it again because I want your audience to hear it, your listeners to hear it both on the screens of their televisions and on the internet.
.
We conducted military exercises in our territory. Imagine if we sent our troops into direct proximity to your borders. What would have been your response? We didn’t do that. We did it in our territory. You conducted war games in Alaska. God bless you. But you had crossed an ocean, brought thousands of personnel, thousands of units of military equipment close to our borders, and yet you believe that we are acting aggressively and somehow you’re not acting aggressively. Just look at that. The pot calling the kettle black.
 
So how was it edited?
 
Putin: Gorbachev, who is still, thank God, with us, got a promise, a verbal promise that there would be no NATO expansion to the east. Where is that…
.
Keir Simmons: Where is that…
.
Vladimir Putin: …promise? Two ways of expansion.
.
Keir Simmons: Where is that written down? Where is that promise written down?
.
Vladimir Putin: Right, right. Well done. Correct. You’ve got a point. Got you good. Well, congratulations.
 
In other words, it was perfectly fine to renege on repeated verbal promises.
So why did Putin accede to this interview? Good question.
 
Here is the list of questions, taken from the Kremlin transcript.
 
  1. Russia is preparing, perhaps within months, to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system, enabling Tehran to track military targets. Is that true?
  2. President Biden has defined his first trip to Europe as quote, ”about rallying the world’s democracies.“ He views you as a leader of autocrats, who is determined to undermine the liberal democratic order. Is that true?
  3. President Biden asked you to meet with him. He didn’t make any preconditions. Were you surprised?
  4. Will you go into the summit agreeing to begin more arms control talks immediately after the summit?
  5. President Biden wants predictability and stability. Is that what you want?But he would say that you have caused a lot of instability and unpredictability.
  6. You once described President Trump as a bright person, talented. How would you describe President Biden?
  7. President Biden said one time when you met, you were inches away from each other, close to each other. And he said to you, ”I’m looking into your eyes, and I can’t see a soul.“ And you said, ”We understand each other.“ Do you remember that exchange?
  8. President Biden is saying he told you to your face, ”You don’t have a soul.“ (Laughter.)
  9. Would you have felt that was an inappropriate thing to say?
  10. What do you think of the Black Lives Matter movement?
  11. there is now a weight of evidence, a long list of alleged state-sponsored cyberattacks. Let me give you five.
  12. The US intelligence community says Russia
  13. interfered with the 2016 election.
  14. Election security officials said Russia tried to interfere with the 2020 election.
  15. Cybersecurity researchers said government hackers targeted COVID vaccine researchers, hacking for COVID vaccines.
  16. In April, the Treasury Department said the SolarWinds attack was the world’s worst, including nine federal agencies.
  17. And just before your summit, Microsoft says it has discovered another attack with targets including organizations that have criticised you, Mr Putin. Mr President, are you waging a cyber war against America?
  18. Russian-speaking criminals is the allegation, are targeting the American way of life: food, gas, water, hospitals, transport. Why would you let Russian-speaking criminals disrupt your diplomacy? Wouldn’t you want to know who’s responsible?
  19. You don’t ask for a truce unless you’re fighting in a [cyberspace] war.
  20. Russia is fighting on that[cyberspace] battlefield. Correct? That if you can come to an agreement over hacking and election interference, then you’ll call off the hacking and the election interference if America agrees not to comment on your elections and your political opponents?
  21. What should Americans worry about? What might happen next if there’s no agreement on cyber? Do you fear that American intelligence is deep inside Russian systems and has the ability to do you a lot of damage in cyber?
  22. he’ll [Biden]raise the issue of Alexei Navalny, targeted for assassination, now in a Russian jail. Mr President, why are you so threatened by opposition?
  23. In America, we call what you’re doing now ”whataboutism.“ ”What about this? What about that?“ It’s a way of not answering the question. Let me ask you a direct question.
  24. Can I just ask you a direct question? Did you order Alexei Navalny’s assassination?
  25. Mr President, are you a killer?
  26. Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead. Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by polonium. Sergei Magnitsky, allegedly beaten and died in prison. Boris Nemtsov, shot moments from the Kremlin, moments from here. Mikhail Lesin died of blunt trauma in Washington, DC. Are all of these a coincidence, Mr President?
  27. Did you have prior knowledge that a commercial airliner would be forced to land in Belarus and that a journalist would be arrested?
  28. You appear to have approved of it judging by your meeting with President Lukashenko soon afterwards. In the case of neighbouring Ukraine earlier this year, the European Union said you had more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. Was that an attempt to get Washington’s attention?
  29. Mr President. Do you worry that your opposition to NATO has actually strengthened it? For six years, NATO has spent more on defence.
  30. Where is that written down? Where is that promise [that Nato would not expand outside of Germany written down?]
  31. Will you commit now not to send any further Russian troops into Ukrainian sovereign territory?
  32. The Biden administration has said that at your summit they will bring up the case of two US prisoners in Russia, Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed. They are two former Marines. Trevor Reed is suffering from COVID in prison. Why don’t you release them ahead of the summit? Wouldn’t that show goodwill?
  33. And on the prisoner swap question, is that something that you would consider? Are you looking to negotiate? You’re meeting with the President.
  34. Just to be clear so we hear it from you, which Russian prisoners in the US would you be hoping to bring back to Russia by name?
  35. ust quickly before I move on, on the subject of prisons, again with Alexei Navalny, will you commit that you will personally ensure that Alexei Navalny will leave prison alive?
  36. You complain so much about NATO to your west. Why do you never complain about China’s militarisation to your east?
  37. What do you think of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?
  38. There is the accusation of a million Uyghurs in so-called concentration camps. Is that your message to the Muslim communities in the former Soviet Union? You don’t think anything wrong is happening there?
  39. It’s just a question of whether you are prepared to criticise China. China, for example, abstained on Crimea at the Security Council. China’s biggest banks have not contravened American sanctions against Russia. Do you think you get 100% support from China?
  40. Why are you splitting off from the US space programme and moving forward with China?
  41. If the People’s Liberation Army made a move on Taiwan how would Russia respond to that?
  42. You’re threatening to close that crossing in July at the Security Council. Why would you do that, knowing that it will cause the death of refugees?
  43. Mr President, you extended the Constitution so that you could be President of Russia until 2036. Do you worry that the longer you are in power and without any sign of someone to replace you, the more instability there may be when you finally do choose to leave office?

Meanwhile, while Russia is telling the USA to fuck off, so is China.

Why can America send troops and bombers to the border of Russia, and the border of China and expect that no one will shoot them down? Why does the Pentagon believe that they are somehow immune from a military combat event? Why does the USA assume that Russia and China won’t start behaving the same way that America has been behaving all these decades?

Maybe we are starting to see efforts that are telling the neocon “war hawks” in Washington DC, to SHUT THE FUCK UP, or go ahead and start a war. They are not going to play your fucking games any longer. And the morons in Washington DC are taking the bait. They are like moronic children playing with dynamite.

Hal Turner says that it is because…

Of course, the American alt-Right, and mainstream media won’t dare mention this. Probably right now there are meetings with professional diversity officers and LGBT advisors discussing how to manipulate the news feeds to calm the situation down. After they take internal polls, and get direction, will they come up with a new narrative that will support an aggressive China and Russia.

But that’s not all.

China just been flying 28 fighter planes in loops and circles all around Taiwan. You won’t find this news in America. I know, I looked.

Maybe tomorrow.

But right now it’s been all over the Chinese media for the last three days. America only displays news to box Americans into believing an approved narrative.

These actions and activities are all so new, and so unexpected, that the Pentagon and the CIA / NSA really hasn’t a clue as to how to spin them.

You can download the video HERE.

It seems like they want to provoke America to come out to play. So yeah, what else the fuck does it look like. Will America take the bait?

Curious Bullshit

But America is still playing the same old games. It is still pushing the same tired narratives.

What constitutes “news” from the United States is just getting crazier and crazier. Check out these two outlandish stores about China that I found on Drudge today;

China is using it’s water scarcity problem against it’s people

It's from the fierce neocon publication the National Review. But these people are so deluded. I don't even know where to begin. 

[1] There is no water scarcity problem in China in any form, shape or configuration anywhere. And secondly, [2] China IS the Chinese people. There just isn't a "ruling class" like you have in the West.

The point is that those who are in this "echo chamber" believe this nonsense. No wonder they seem to be like a moronic idiot monster thrashing about to us "normal's".

I mentioned this article to my Chinese friends inside of China and they actually laughed. Laughed! That is just how deluded, out of touch with reality, and insane these people are.

Western companies are leaving Hong Kong in droves over the laws related to NGO color revolutions

It's all a pile of bull manure. Not true in the least. But what do you expect from the neocon publication Wall street Journal. Again. Those in the echo chambers believe this nonsense. 

Not even remotely true.

That is the essence of propaganda: pick some big lies, repeat them endlessly, and accuse anybody who is willing to contradict them with consorting with the enemy.

Anybody who dares to challenge the propaganda narrative is automatically either a “Kremlin bot”, a “fifty center” or “Xi Peng stooge.”

This is, of course, a convenient dodge. When all sorts of things are going wrong, from lost wars to stolen elections to stolen retirements to stolen futures of one’s children to weapons systems that don’t work, it is easiest to find a single scapegoat.

For such a huge set of problems, the scapegoat has to be a very large one, and Russia and China just both happens to be the right size.

Jim Kunstler: 

I think what is really going on, what's sort of behind the insanity of this, is the very strange and mysterious collapse of the intellectual class in America.

Now, you’ve got a class of people in the media and academia, highly educated people, the permanent bureaucracy in the government who now believe in crazy things and are proposing dangerous things and seem to have just completely lost it.

It does demonstrate something about the madness of crowds.

Some things, in a way, are beyond the rational reach of analysis. You know, you're just in kind of unchartered territory of group herd emotion whether it's wildebeests or lemmings or people on the upper east side of Manhattan setting their hair on fire.

I think the real question you have to ask is what happens to a society when the thinking class can't think anymore? To me, that's the most dangerous thing. And the mendacity they are showing is amazing. 

Preparation for war

The United States made it perfectly clear what excuses that it would use for Congress to authorize a formal war declaration against China. These were all laid out in the March 2021 Anchorage, Alaska meeting.

And since that date, the world pretty much understands that when the “negotiation party” told China “We don’t want a war.” that it is now official. The USA will conduct a war against China.

And the “negotiations” are only a mere formality.

Both Russia and China are aware of what is going on.

And America is playing and following a script that was established years ago, based on [1] faulty data, [2] incorrect and false Intel, [3] corrupted perceptions and [4] moronic leadership. And they STILL haven’t deviated from that script.

As time moves forward, both China and Russia tick off the predictable check list of American actions, and one after the other each box is checked off, and the predictable actions take place.

Meanwhile, China and Russia maneuvers forces, political assets, Geo-political situations to their advantage. Always guarded to see if the American leadership will deviate form the old stale plan. But it doesn’t. Which might be a really pleasant surprise.

I would well imagine that maybe the USA is much smarter than this, and allowing Russia and China to be lulled into a state of comfortable deception. But I am not so sure that this is actually the case. Noting the neocon war hawks in Washington DC, they are very two-dimensional actors with little hard practical experience and shows linear thinking clouded by emotional distortion.

We, you and I, sit on the sidelines and watch all this take place.

It truly seems like the United States is being run by morons that are just following instructions from other morons who all don’t have a clue as to what the issues are, the stakes actually are, and are absolutely deluded by some kind of mental illness of their superiority when there is no actual advantage in any way, shape or form.

It’s pretty messed up.

To me, it seems that America is sleepwalking toward what it thinks will be a nice standard “boilerplate” “distant” war. From with [1] the military-industrial complex can profit from, [2] the government can use as an excuse to suppress American revolting elements, and [3] from which it can buy some time to rebuild key technologies, infrastructure and economic advantage.

But it is delusional.

Fundamentally it has no advantage. And digging a deep hole in beach sand will only result in more digging. Nothing will actually be accomplished.

And Russia and China consider this activity dangerous, and are positioning themselves to provide a “killing blow” if need be to “an insane and rabid dog”. And to me it seems like Russia and China are quite aware of this and are like a cat toying with a mouse that it caught.

Us outsiders who see the whole picture outside of the American propaganda machine can see this most clearly and we are both bemused and horrified at the same time.

It’s good that Americans are kept in the dark.

Can you just imagine the horror and  internal strife if Americans found out the true extent of the American government’s actions, plans and desires.

Conclusions

Just because the world is fucked, doesn’t mean that you need be too.

No one really even understands who is coming up with all of these lunatic ideas, such as ...

“we have to stop the Chinese by doing an earth-shattering world war because we disagree with the way they are managing their Islamic terror threat and also we have a map that indicates they are violating Vietnamese fishing rights.”

-UNZ

My cats have taught me a lot over the years. One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned has become a major platform of my life. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to relearn this most fundamental lesson.

“Life is hard. Then you nap.”


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Google is functionally the American CIA internationally, and the NSA domestically.

Google has taken on the role of the former East German Secret police, known as the Stasi . They have been implementing these cold war policies with the full blessings of the United States government, and it’s going to get far, far worse.

Head's up! I am using a ton load of dated references in this post. I do so out of necessity. 

It's this Republican said this, and that Democrat did that.

It's all bullshit.

Both political parties are playing a game. Don't fall for the details of the game. Pay attention to the tools that they are using to manipulate you.

Google.

Do not get upset by the dated references to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and all the rest. I used what was available to me. Keep in mind that the political figures are PUPPETS. When reading this article pay attention to how Google is used as a tool to manipulate you.

Google is no longer “just” a simple indexing medium for the Internet.  It has grown in popularity, and has leveraged its finances to the extent of hiring brilliant people. As such, the United States, under President Obama has collaborated with it to greatly expand the NSA and surveillance capabilities of the government.

Google controls what you read and view on the Internet.

That is fine, if you have a very simplistic view of the world.  As most humans do.  It is our nature as herd animals.

“An under-the-radar startup funded by billionaire Eric Schmidt has become a major technology vendor for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, underscoring the bonds between Silicon Valley and Democratic politics.

The Groundwork, according to Democratic campaign operatives and technologists, is part of efforts by Schmidt—the executive chairman of Google parent-company Alphabet—to ensure that Clinton has the engineering talent needed to win the election. And it is one of a series of quiet investments by Schmidt that recognize how modern political campaigns are run, with data analytics and digital outreach as vital ingredients that allow candidates to find, court, and turn out critical voter blocs.

There is also another gap in play: The shrinking distance between Google and the Democratic Party. Former Google executive Stephanie Hannon is the Clinton campaign’s chief technology officer, and a host of ex-Googlers are currently employed as high-ranking technical staff at the Obama White House. Schmidt, for his part, is one of the most powerful donors in the Democratic Party—and his influence does not stem only from his wealth, estimated by Forbes at more than $10 billion.

According to campaign finance disclosures, Clinton’s campaign is the Groundwork’s only political client. Its employees are mostly back-end software developers with experience at blue-chip tech firms like Netflix, Dreamhost, and Google.”

 – From the article; Meet “Groundwork” – Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Stealth Startup Working to Make Hillary Clinton President

Google is not an investigative website like others. It is the most popular search tool used in the United States.  The reader must recognize that, as such, it is absolutely controlled by the political machinery originating out of Washington, DC. 

Thus, using Google to search to non-biased information is impossible.  (A commentator suggested you do a google image search on “white couple” – he said the results would make your blood boil. He was right.)

All the searches are explicitly tailored towards a progressive-narrative that originates out of the United States government.  (Just like Facebook.)  This is fine for those whom only want a censored dialog presented to them.

However, that bodes poorly for the more open-minded and adventuresome in this world.

Google Integrated with the United States Government

There is a very good reason why China refuses to permit Google to operate inside China.  They simply do not want the Internet habits of their citizens to be monitored and tracked.  And who can blame them?

“Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad, But it has. Schmidt's tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of U.S. power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive megacorporation.”

-Julian Assange wrote in his book.

Assange became concerned about former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s ties with the State Department in 2009 when Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of state. He has claimed that Schmidt, who is a chairman at the company, has worked with the Clintons for years, as Donald Trump accused Google of political bias saying that it suppresses negative news about Clinton. 

Speaking by video link to an anniversary news conference in Berlin earlier this week, he said the leaks include ‘significant material’ on war, arms, oil, internet giant Google, the U.S. election and mass surveillance.  (2016) WikiLeaks hoped ‘to be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks,’ Assange said.

Google tracks your location always

Google is facing new scrutiny in the wake of revelations that it stores users’ location data even when “Location History” is turned off.

Once caught, Google used to quietly change it’s illegal activities. Now it simply doesn’t give a damn.

Google quietly edited its description of the practice on its own website—while continuing said practice—to clarify that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

As a result of the previously unknown practice, which was first exposed by the Associated Press, Google has now been sued by a man in San Diego. Simultaneously, activists in Washington, DC are urging the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether the company is in breach of its 2011 consent decree with the agency.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court last Friday in San Francisco, attorneys representing a man named Napoleon Patacsil argued that Google is violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the state’s constitutional right to privacy.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status, and it would include both an “Android Class” and “iPhone Class” for the potential millions of people in the United States with such phones who turned off their Location History and nonetheless had it recorded by Google. It will likely take months or longer for the judge to determine whether there is a sufficient class.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Huawei was banned in the United States was because they did not preload Google spyware.

Also on August 17, attorneys from the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote in a sternly worded three-page letter to the FTC that Google’s practices are in clear violation of the 2011 settlement with the agency.

In that settlement, Google agreed that it would not misrepresent anything related to

"(1) the purposes for which it collects and uses covered information, and (2) the extent to which consumers may exercise control over the collection, use, or disclosure of covered information."

Until the Associated Press story on August 13, Google’s policy simply stated:

"You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored."

This turns out to not be true.

Google did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Alphabet Inc.’s cloud-based Google Photos service

Every time you use Google or a Google-related product, such as their browser, etc., to upload a photo or use your camera to take a photo, or your computer to take a photo, Google keeps the image.  Not only that, but they have created a database of images where facial recognition is used to link photos with geolocation data (as well as device data) and provide a photographic record of a given person.

So, if your friend uses Google Chrome to upload a harmless dessert picture up to (say for example) Tumblr, and a blurry image of you in the background is in the picture…congratulations!  You are now part of the United States government data base, and they know where you were, and what you looked like at that time.

This  software is functionally similar to the Facebook software known as Deepface.

Beware

In an interview, Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies, advises against having any association with Google. He warns of their dangerous practices and comments that they have declared war on anyone who is not a progressive socialist. They expect everyone to cower away in silence. Their expectations are that their consumers be placid and as non-threatening as possible.

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The Google World infographic created by Overdrive Interactive is a visual representation of Google's projects, services, technologies, and companies acquired by Google. View the Google World or download it as a PDF with live links to over 200 assets.
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How is this legal?
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How is this not a monopoly?
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Why it is permitted to exist int his form?
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The Google World infographic created by Overdrive Interactive is a visual representation of Google’s projects, services, technologies, and companies acquired by Google. View the Google World or download it as a PDF with live links to over 200 assets.
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Zach worked as a senior software engineer at both Google and YouTube for over eight years.

He has, and shares, his inside knowledge of his experiences and knowledge. He is convinced that Google and other software giants in silicon-valley possess a global monopoly. A monopoly that is both dangerous and evil. He also states that Google is not a reliable source of information any longer.

We should all heed his advice.

Google’s monopoly over search is mandated simply because of a continued reassurance that it is an unbiased search platform. Yet that is absolutely not true. Google is actively suppressing and censoring information. It is impossible to censor something and be unbiased at the same time.

Manipulation for political objectives

“…If you retained direct links, it was still there depending on the source, but Google wouldn't find it all of a sudden.  I started choosing what to read by searching with three or four engines and picking what Google seemed to be not finding but everyone else did.  Now, however that doesn't work, a lot of non-Google engines use Google, and the ones that don't have been biased corrupted also.”

-Orange Coffee

The absolute partisan support for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 general election should be enough to satisfy even the most ignorant reader of this manuscript.  Google censored, lied, rewrote articles, modified search results, altered hash tags, and blanked out everything deemed a threat to their preferred nominee.

I get it.  Not everyone reads the same kind of news, or is exposed to the same kinds of things as other people are.  It is ok. 

If the reader wants to think that Google is an unbiased tool, believe it.  I don’t really care. 

There was a time in my life when I actually believed that Santa Claus really existed.  There also was a time when I believed that I needed to pay taxes to repair the roads.  It’s crazy!  As I lived in Pennsylvania at the time. 

It was (maybe is) one of the most corrupt states where the DOT funds are routinely stolen from.  OK. 

Here’s some links for some of the more interested parties;

The entire company, all their money, all their employees and all their efforts were single focused on one objective; the [1] control of the election process (for the election of a puppet figurehead), and [2] a continuance of control over people that represents the desires of the oligarchy inside the United States

Well, the company is getting some negative repercussions from their activity.  Go here.

Zach Vorheis has some things to say.

It’s pretty much well known, but the Untied States is owned by a handful of oligarchs. They utilize companies and manipulate the people in order to have them do their bidding. Thus, the point of sharing this information is that the largest mechanism for obtaining information in the world is terribly compromised.

Google is manipulating search results to influence our behavior. At the same time, denying this is happening.

The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal published a a very thorough investigation covering these same points. As well as explaining the consequences of this behavior.

Disclosure of evil intent on Project Veritas

Zach Vorhies released about 950 pages of internal Google documents. These documents provide a comprehensive picture of what’s going on at the upper management within Google.

You can find all of those documents on the Project Veritas website.

They illustrate that Google has become corrupt, evil, political in nature and aligned with wealthy oligarchs who intend to use the platform to manipulate great masses of people. In order words, to use Google much the same way that “Over-seers” used to control plantation slaves.

What Happened to ‘Don’t Be Evil’?

Zach comments…

“Everything started out with Google really great,” Vorhies says.

“They had this mission statement of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. They also had this idea of ‘Don’t be evil.’ It was built right into their initial public offering (IPO) statements.

I thought at the time, ‘This is great. This is exactly the kind of company that the world needs. We need to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible. We need to let the algorithms decide what goes to the top and let the users decide what’s most useful for them and then make sure that other people are able to find that information.’

Google stayed true to those principles all the way up until 2016, until Donald Trump won the election.

For some reason, they decided they were going to throw all these mission statements away and go after the president of the United States, censor the internet and distort the news so that people’s searches could be redirected towards anti-presidential sentiment.

This eventually morphed into not just censorship of the president, but censorship of information related to health …

I realized [that] if this was allowed to continue, then this agenda of Big Pharma would be able to become … ‘the truth’ …

Once I found out that Google was censoring a lot of information, I started looking at the information it was censoring with a new degree of ‘They wouldn’t be censoring it unless it was true,’ sort of thing.

It’s a strange heuristic to use to figure out what’s true in the world, but you’ve just got to figure out what they’re censoring. You kind of understand that they’re censoring it because it’s not Big Tech-friendly. It’s not friendly to the established players.

Some ‘Fake News’ Isn’t so Fake After All

Shortly after Trump won the presidential election, you started hearing more and more about the scourge of “fake news.” Google, like Facebook and others, decided they had to protect users from fake news. The problem is, who determines what’s fake and what’s not?

Exactly. 

As Jordan Peterson said  in regards to hate speech: "Who is going to regulate it? Who is going  to define it? 

I know the answer to that - the last people in the world you would want to." 

Using Google’s internal search engine, Vorhies set out to determine what Google’s definition of fake news was.

He found several examples in a presentation.

However, in it were actual, verifiable real news events.

“I went, ‘Wait a minute. Is this about fake news or is this about controlling the narrative for like political purposes?'” Vorhies says.

He began collecting these documents because he knew they were explosive enough that Google would remove them if word ever got out about them.

In his continued search for real news presented as fake, he started unearthing other disturbing projects.

The main project responsible for Google censorship is a thing called ‘Machine Learning Fairness’ (ML Fairness).

As you imagine, they’re not going to call their censorship regime something bad. They’re going to call it something like ‘fairness.’

So, if you’re against that, you’re against fairness.

It’s a euphemism. I discovered there was this umbrella project, ‘ML Fairness,’ and there were these sub-components like ‘Project Purple Rain,’ which is a 24-hour response team that is monitoring the internet.

How Machine Learning Fairness Twists Perception of Reality

Just what is ML Fairness and how does it work? Vorhies explains:

Let’s say that this circle right here represents the entire spectrum of all possible artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. ML Fairness is a small part of that type of AI. It’s a relatively new type of AI. What machine learning does is it simulates brain neurons and how they fire.

If you remember how a brain neuron fires, it takes in as input signals from other neurons and then mixes those signals together and decides whether it wants to fire or not, based on the signals that it receives.

Well, these artificial neurons do something similar. They have a collection of inputs, depending on the internal rule set. It will fire depending on the inputs it gets … And then that output is used as input for further downstream processing.

If you have this collection of millions of simulated neurons … you can start to create very complex behavior that’s able to solve problems, like chess or the game Go …

It can classify hate speech. That’s the part that’s interesting to me — how this thing could be used to classify information across the internet.

ML Fairness is a type of AI that takes information on the internet, classifies it and then ranks it. And then the Google engine will figure out whether the information is fair or not. And if it is ‘fair,’ it goes to the top. If it’s not fair, then it gets pushed to the bottom. That’s what ML Fairness is in a nutshell.

What this manipulation ultimately ends up doing is presenting a twisted and false view of the world. What you’re seeing in your search results is what the AI algorithm decided is most fair — not what’s actually happening in the real world.

This is how you now end up getting automated search suggestions such as “men can have periods” and “men can have babies,” even though these are biological impossibilities. However, the algorithm deems the idea that only women can menstruate and bear children as “unfair” and basically “sexist,” and thus it’s pushing these ridiculous search suggestions to the top.

This obnoxious discrepancy is clear when using search terms like “men can …” The manipulation of reality will not be as transparent when using health or political search words, when you cannot be absolutely sure, ahead of time, about what the absolute truth is.

Did Google Conspire to Commit Treason?

Vorhies saw these changes starting to take place in early 2017.

Shortly afterwards, Google announced it was going to start assigning an “authoritativeness score” to all news content.

“I was able to see this ranking on internal documents. High rankings were given to outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

“These outlets, in my opinion, have been producing propaganda,” Vorhies says. “They led to us into war with Iraq with the weapons of mass destruction hoax. They’ve lied to us [about] Vietnam. They have a history of supporting every war and military encouragement around the world that has [led to] the destruction of millions of lives.”

In June 2017, chief executive officer of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, announced that this was how they were going to filter news content across the YouTube platforms.

As Vorhies expected, this led to a clamp down on anything that goes against the mainstream narrative.

“Around that time, I had the fortune of catching [another] seditious activity by Google. What I caught them doing was deleting words out of the translation dictionary from Arabic to English, in order to make a Trump tweet sound crazy.2,3

President Trump had recently come back from a visit to Saudi Arabia when, on May 31, 2017, he tweeted: “Despite the negative constant press, covfefe.” Originally, people were able to translate “covfefe” to “We will stand up.” Taken together, you could see President Trump’s tweet basically said, “Despite the negative constant press, we will stand up.”

“People got really excited about that,” Vorhies says. “Well, The New York Times decided that they were going to write an entire article saying, ‘Actually, this word is nonsense. And everyone who thinks there’s a decode is just wrong.’

The same day that this article came out, I believe it was June 1, 2017, a senior executive person at Google … of one of the AI divisions, wrote up a design document saying, ‘We translated this world from Arabic to English.

But according to The New York Times, that’s not right. That’s actually nonsense, so let’s get rid of the word.’

And so, they got rid of the word.

The team that was responsible for getting rid of this word called themselves the ‘Derrida Team.’ Why is that significant? Because there was a French philosopher by the name of Jacques Derrida, who advocated for the destruction of Western culture through the manipulation and censorship of language.

What a coincidence that this team responsible for censoring words would have the same name as this very significant philosopher who is considered the father of post-modernism.

About six days later, I saw the newspapers were making a push for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove a sitting president from office due to mental incapacitation. One of the reasons that they cited was how Trump was tweeting nonsense.

Now, wait a minute, that was made nonsense by this manipulation of the dictionary! I realized these people have gone too far. There’s obviously a collusion here. I have to bring this to attention no matter what.

This isn’t because I’m necessarily a Trump supporter — I didn’t vote for him — this is simply because they can’t be doing this to a sitting president of the United States. That just can’t happen. It’s treason.

If this is going to happen, then I’ve got to let the public [and] law enforcement know about it. Because if I don’t, then I’m part of a conspiracy of silence … It was at that point that I decided I could no longer sit in silence. I took my cache of documents and I started to prepare for a disclosure event.”

Comment: Finally, an explanation for the infamous covfefe tweet'! It's insane that this word was actually a translation, yet it was used to paint Trump as insane. And the fact that, up until this insider document dump, 

NO ONE KNEW THIS.

YouTube Censorship Has Had Lethal Consequences

In 2018, the real-world ramifications of censorship hit home when an Iranian YouTube creator who had recently been demonetized marched into YouTube headquarters and opened fire on employees and then shot herself.

 "Her name was Nasim [Najafi Aghdam]. She had a video that went viral in Iran ... She was creating really bizarre videos that were just — I don't know — I watched them and I actually strangely loved them. I couldn't stop watching them. They were so weird. 

She decided that she was going to quit her job and become a full-time content creator, like millions of others ... YouTube was the platform to do that. Everyone was getting a lot of subscribers and were trying to generate money, get monetized on the platform ...

They would get a cut of the ads that were running when people interact with the ads or view them ... What YouTube did is they made a blanket ban. Anyone under 10,000 subscribers got censored. By censorship, I mean demonetized. They lost all of the funding that they could get for their videos. They can still post videos, they just couldn't get any money [from Google Ads] for it.

And so, this person had just lost her job. She felt she was being oppressed by YouTube. She drove all the way from San Diego, came to the YouTube headquarters on 901 Cherry Avenue ... came into the lunch area patio, took out a handgun and started firing ...

She shot a couple of people. Ran out of ammo, reloaded and shot some more and then [shot] herself in the chest and [bled] to death ... Obviously, this person was mentally deranged but, also, she was triggered by Google's censorship. Now I've got this very personal story about how censorship has affected my safety.

You would think that maybe YouTube would [rethink] its censorship, but no. They didn't ... Every day I would come into work and I would think, 'You know, with this increase in censorship, is someone going to come in with a gun?'"

Google Attempts to Destroy Vorhies by ‘Lawfare’

Vorhies resigned from Google June 28, 2019, and was immediately put under investigation, as the company had logs showing the many documents he’d been searching for and reading through.

Vorhies tells the story of what happened next:

"When I went to Project Veritas, I went under anonymity. We only released two pages of the 950 that they had [been given]. My hope was that Google would leave me alone ... But they decided they weren't going to do that. 

They decided they were going to attempt to financially destroy me by engaging in lawfare, which is warfare via the legal system.

Within a few weeks of me disclosing ML Fairness to Project Veritas, they sent me threatening letters, demanding access to all my data outside of work ...

I wrote them back a letter admitting I had retained files, telling them I had given them to law enforcement ... The NDA, the nondisclosure agreement I signed is nonenforceable in cases where the company is committing criminal activity. Sedition is criminal activity, which means that the NDA is null and void.

I can submit evidence of Google's criminal activity to the government and to the media when the company is engaging in unlawful activity. That's what I did. Also, I signed the NDA in good faith, believing that Google's word of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful and 'Don't be evil,' were truthful statements ...

I met an attorney who was representing Kevin Cernekee, another Google engineer who attempted to blow the whistle in the most legitimate way possible, which was to notify the Federal Labor Relations Authority in California. Kevin gave these papers to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Google responded by ambushing him with HR, seizing his laptop, seeing all the documents that he had downloaded, and then firing him and creating a legal theory that he had hacked into Google to get documents so that he could reconstruct Google's legal strategy and maybe even sell it.

They applied criminal charges against him. They made him defend himself in court for his collection of evidence that he had sent to the NLRB. He's [spent] $100,000 dollars of his own money defending himself from Google, so I knew what was in store for me.

[Cernekee's] lawyer was like, 'Yeah. This is the first step in a very painful process that's going to drive on for years. They're going to make it very expensive. Their goal is to destroy you.' Well, in that case, I'm not going to fight in the legal law. I'm going to fight in the court of public opinion.

I decided at that point to come out to Project Veritas and disclose who I was so that I could get eyes [on me], and I said, 'If Google's going to take me down, then I'm going to leverage that so that everyone else can see what they do and what they're really about. And then we can make Google's censorship program part of the national discussion.'

I disclosed everything. I released it to the public, all 950 pages ... August 17, 2019 ... [I've] tried to become a cultural force so that we can hold Google to account of what they're doing, because their censorship is wrong.

It's wrong for America. It's anti-American. Their election meddling is something that needs to be looked at, needs to be watched, because they've meddled with the elections in the past. They're meddling in the elections now.

They were able to deactivate Tulsi Gabbard's ad account directly following the Democratic debates.

They've meddled in the Ireland elections.

They've meddled in the Brazil elections.

We know this because there was a Supreme Court ruling that released the evidence showing they had a secret agreement with one of the politicians to generate dirt and boost it up on the current president of Brazil."

How Autofill Can Shift Political Opinion

Vorhies goes on to explain and describe how Google tools such as autofill search recommendations can be used to sway public opinion on political (and other topics), which can have significant political consequences.

Autofill is what happens when you start typing a search query into a search engine and algorithms kick in to offer suggestions to complete your search. We’ve been led to believe that whatever the autofill recommendations are is what most people are in fact searching for — Google has stated that the suggestions given are generated by a collection of user data — but that’s not true, at least not anymore.

“This story about the autofill first got disclosed by Dr. Robert Epstein, who is a Harvard-trained psychologist and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today,” Vorhies explains.

“What he said was that Google had flipped a bunch of votes for Hillary using this autosuggest feature. I’ve investigated this claim.

I’ve verified it to be true …

It turns out that a lot of the popular searches were being suppressed.

For example, you typed in ‘Clinton body count.’ It’s a popular search term. This brings up all the people who have died in the decades that were associated with Hillary Clinton.

Well, this search result has been deleted off the search suggestion. What’s happened instead is that a bunch of negative search terms have been inserted that went against the current president of the United States, Donald Trump.

So, when you’re typing in search queries for Trump, it’s autocompleting and suggesting, ‘Do you mean that he’s a liar? That he’s a crook?’ … And then you do the same for Hillary Clinton and it has all these positive terms … They were doing this on the political stuff.

The most significant thing about this feature is the fact that you don’t expect to have this part of your online experience to be hatched for political reasons. You think that this is legitimately what other people are searching for.

As a result, you don’t have your filters on. Your brain puts on these filters when it starts to evaluate politically charged information. When you read a newspaper article, you may be thinking to yourself, ‘This may be true, this may not.’ You’re skeptical.

But when you’re typing into a search, you don’t think that because you don’t think that’s rigged, so whatever bias is inherent in that search result slips through and goes directly into your subconscious. This is what Epstein was explaining.”

The Search Engine Manipulation Effect

Epstein developed a “black box test” (a method of software testing) to measure just how influential a tool like autofill can be. Remarkably, his test demonstrated that “Google’s ‘autocomplete’ search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split”5,6 — all without anyone being aware of the manipulation.

Similarly, when Epstein looked at the power of search engine manipulation to shift preferences and perceptions, he found that:7

"(1) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (2) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (3) such rankings can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation."

The good news is, there are ways to lower this manipulation effect, but to do so, people have to be aware that biased ranking is taking place. In his 2017 paper, “Suppressing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect,” Epstein writes:8

“A recent series of experiments demonstrated that introducing ranking bias to election-related search engine results can have a strong and undetectable influence on the preferences of undecided voters.

This phenomenon, called the search engine manipulation effect (SEME), exerts influence largely through order effects that are enhanced in a digital context.

We present data from three new experiments involving 3,600 subjects in 39 countries in which we replicate SEME and test design interventions for suppressing the effect. In the replication, voting preferences shifted by 39.0%, a number almost identical to the shift found in a previously published experiment (37.1%).

Alerting users to the ranking bias reduced the shift to 22.1%, and more detailed alerts reduced it to 13.8%. Users’ browsing behaviors were also significantly altered by the alerts, with more clicks and time going to lower-ranked search results.

Although bias alerts were effective in suppressing SEME, we found that SEME could be completely eliminated only by alternating search results — in effect, with an equal-time rule.

We propose a browser extension capable of deploying bias alerts in real-time and speculate that SEME might be impacting a wide range of decision-making, not just voting, in which case search engines might need to be strictly regulated.”

As pointed out by Vorhies,

"We've got to watch out for Google, because ... they're going to try to rig the 2020 elections." 

Based on Epstein’s results, Google certainly appears to have the power to do so. The only way to prevent it may be an information campaign that exposes this hidden agenda, thereby helping to suppress this search engine manipulation effect.

“Autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms,” spokeswoman Kara Berman said in a statement sent to The Daily Caller News  Foundation. “Our systems are periodically updated to improve Search, and our users’ search activity varies, so the terms that appear in Autocomplete may change over time. Additionally, our systems automatically filter a small set of offensive or inappropriate content from autocomplete predictions.”

-Google formal statement

This all should be quite understandable because, after all, there have been more than 250 people who have transitioned from Google to government or vice versa during the Obama administration.

At least two dozen among the group have taken jobs in key posts in government or Google in that span. These individuals include Mikey Dickerson, Robert Manhini, Nicole Wong, Jannine Versi, Michele Weslander, Sameer Bhalotra, Julie Brill, Will Hudson, Michelle Lee, Matthew Bye, Joshua Wright and Renata Hesse.

Former Google employees occupy several key slots in the federal government. These include:

  • Megan Smith, vice president new business development at Google 2003-12, vice president of Google 2012-14, chief technology officer at the Office of Science and Technology Policy 2014-present.
  • Alexander Macgillivray, deputy general counsel at Google 2003-09, general counsel at Twitter 2009-13, deputy chief technology officer at OSTP 2014-present.
  • Nicole Wong, vice president and deputy general counsel at Google from 2004-11 and deputy chief technology officer at OSTP 2013-14.
  • Jannine Versi, product marketing manager in Middle East and North Africa for Google 2010-2012, White House National Economic Council 2013-14, chief of staff International Trade Administration at U.S. Department of Commerce 2014-present.
  • Michelle Lee, deputy general counsel at Google 2003-12, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2012-present.
  • Mikey Dickerson, site reliability manager at Google 2006-13, administrator U.S. Digital Service 2014-present. Dickerson also assisted with election day monitoring and modeling with Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and helped repair the broken HealthCare.gov website.

At least 18 former Google employees work or have worked for the U.S. Digital Service and its General Services Administration sidekick, 18F. USDS operates under the Executive Office of the President, consulting on big federal information technology projects.

Search Results for Roger Ailes

The former Chairman and CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, died in May 2017. He was arguably one of the most consequential individuals in media and politics in the last century, and he leaves behind a loving wife and son. He also leaves behind a cadre of loyal former employees who love and respect him.

However if you run a Google search on him, you’ll find that the top results consist almost entirely of articles from several liberal publications savaging his reputation as a person. The search results, both on mobile and desktop platforms, begin with entries that are strikingly cruel and meanspirited. This behavior raise new questions about Google’s objectivity. (As if there WERE questions to be raised.)

The top results on “Roger Ailes” include [1] a piece by leftist activist Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone declaring Ailes “one of the worst Americans ever,” [2] an article by NBC’s Joy Reid on Time stating that Ailes “built a kingdom on exploited bias,” and [3] a Bret Stephens op-ed in the New York Times, that calls him “the man who wrecked conservatism.” [4] An op-ed on The Guardian by Arwa Mahdawi condemning Ailes for helping to “create this nightmare world” shows up alongside the other articles savaging him, way above obituaries or any neutral pieces about the man.

Regardless the opinion anyone might hold about Roger Ailes, the only thing certain is that Google’s search algorithm is deeply biased. In fact, it is biased in favor of publications who oppose his role as a leader in the conservative movement.

Control of Search Results

Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor.

The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives.  It does so without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Indeed, Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed. (A practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. ) Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.

When Google’s employees or algorithms decide to block our access to information about a news item, political candidate or business, things can happen.  Control information, and you control thoughts.  Opinions and votes can shift, reputations can be ruined and businesses can crash and burn. (Because online censorship is entirely unregulated at the moment, victims have little or no recourse when they have been harmed.) Eventually, authorities will almost certainly have to step in, just as they did when credit bureaus were regulated in 1970. The alternative would be to allow a large corporation to wield an especially destructive kind of power that should be exercised with great restraint and should belong only to the public: the power to shame or exclude.

If Google were just another mom-and-pop shop with a sign saying “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” that would be one thing. But as the golden gateway to all knowledge, Google has rapidly become an essential in people’s lives – nearly as essential as air or water. We don’t let public utilities make arbitrary and secretive decisions about denying people services; we shouldn’t let Google do so either.

The autocomplete blacklist.

This is a list of words and phrases that are excluded from the autocomplete feature in Google’s search bar. The search bar instantly suggests multiple search options when you type words such as “democracy” or “watermelon,” but it freezes when you type profanities, and, at times, it has frozen when people typed words like “torrent,” “bisexual” and “penis.” At this writing, it’s freezing when I type “clitoris.” The autocomplete blacklist can also be used to protect or discredit political candidates. As recently reported, at the moment autocomplete shows you “Ted” (for former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz) when you type “lying,” but it will not show you “Hillary” when you type “crooked” – not even, on my computer, anyway, when you type “crooked hill.” (The nicknames for Clinton and Cruz coined by Donald Trump, of course.) If you add the “a,” so you’ve got “crooked hilla,” you get the very odd suggestion “crooked Hillary Bernie.” When you type “crooked” on Bing, “crooked Hillary” pops up instantly. Google’s list of forbidden terms varies by region and individual.

The Google Maps blacklist.

This list is a little more creepy, and if you are concerned about your privacy, it might be a good list to be on. The cameras of Google Earth and Google Maps have photographed your home for all to see. If you don’t like that, “just move,” Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt said. Google also maintains a list of properties it either blacks out or blurs out in its images. Some are probably military installations, some the residences of wealthy people, and some – well, who knows? See elsewhere in this manuscript for more details on this subject.

The Google account blacklist.

A couple of years ago, Google consolidated a number of its products – Gmail, Google Docs, Google+, YouTube, Google Wallet and others – so you can access all of them through your one Google account.

If you somehow violate Google’s vague and intimidating terms of service agreement, you will join the ever-growing list of people who are shut out of their accounts. 

Which means you’ll lose access to all of these interconnected products. Because virtually no one has ever read this lengthy, legalistic agreement, however, people are shocked when they’re shut out, in part because Google reserves the right to “stop providing Services to you … at any time.”

And because Google, one of the largest and richest companies in the world, has no customer service department, getting reinstated can be difficult. (Given, however, that all of these services gather personal information about you to sell to advertisers, losing one’s Google account has been judged by some to be a blessing in disguise.)

The Google News blacklist.

If a librarian were caught trashing all the liberal newspapers before people could read them, he or she might get in a heap o’ trouble.

What happens when most of the librarians in the world have been replaced by a single company?

Google is now the largest news aggregator in the world, tracking tens of thousands of news sources in more than thirty languages and recently adding thousands of small, local news sources to its inventory. It also selectively bans news sources as it pleases.

In 2006, Google was accused of excluding conservative news sources that generated stories critical of Islam, and the company has also been accused of banning individual columnists and competing companies from its news feed. In December 2014, facing a new law in Spain that would have charged Google for scraping content from Spanish news sources (which, after all, have to pay to prepare their news), Google suddenly withdrew its news service from Spain, which led to an immediate drop in traffic to Spanish new stories. That drop in traffic is the problem: When a large aggregator bans you from its service, fewer people find your news stories, which means opinions will shift away from those you support. Selective blacklisting of news sources is a powerful way of promoting a political, religious or moral agenda, with no one the wiser.

The Google AdWords blacklist.

Now things get creepier. More than 70 percent of Google’s $80 billion in annual revenue comes from its AdWords advertising service, which it implemented in 2000 by infringing on a similar system already patented by Overture Services. The way it works is simple:

Businesses worldwide bid on the right to use certain keywords in short text ads that link to their websites (those text ads are the AdWords); when people click on the links, those businesses pay Google.

These ads appear on Google.com and other Google websites and are also interwoven into the content of more than a million non-Google websites – Google’s “Display Network.”

The problem here is that if a Google executive decides your business or industry doesn’t meet its moral standards, it bans you from AdWords; these days, with Google’s reach so large, that can quickly put you out of business. In 2011, Google blacklisted an Irish political group that defended sex workers but which did not provide them; after a protest, the company eventually backed down.

In May 2016, Google blacklisted an entire industry – companies providing high-interest “payday” loans. As always, the company billed this dramatic move as an exercise in social responsibility, failing to note that it is a major investor in LendUp.com, which is in the same industry; if Google fails to blacklist LendUp (it’s too early to tell), the industry ban might turn out to have been more of an anticompetitive move than one of conscience. That kind of hypocrisy has turned up before in AdWords activities.

Whereas Google takes a moral stand, for example, in banning ads from companies promising quick weight loss, in 2011, Google forfeited a whopping $500 million to the U.S. Justice Department for having knowingly allowed Canadian drug companies to sell drugs illegally in the U.S. for years through the AdWords system, and several state attorneys general believe that Google has continued to engage in similar practices since 2011; investigations are ongoing.

Privacy

Privacy is a pretty big issue with me.  The entire concept of monitoring former W(U)-SAP members of MAJestic and other “black operations projects” requires that the agents no longer have any kind of privacy.

Well, I suppose that I could write reams of pages on this subject, but I won’t.  If the reader is not aware of how important privacy is, then let it lie at that.  I for one, tend to leave my cell phone at home hen I go out so that I know that if someone wants to talk to me or reach me, they will do so when I want them to, not when they want to.  It’s my little wall of privacy that I have since erected.

Sigh. Another day, another reminder that companies don’t really have to abide by promises to not share your personal information. They have a big “but” in their contracts.

In 2016, millions of Sports Authority customers began receiving notices that their e-mail addresses and other data were about to be transferred to competitor Dick’s Sporting Goods. The transfer is legal because Sports Authority declared bankruptcy and sold off its spare parts this summer. Dick’s, smartly and legally, bought the customer information.

According to the L.A. Times, a treasure trove of 25 million e-mails and some other data cost Dick’s $15 million. So you might not think your data is valuable, but someone sure does.

But you probably didn’t know that. In fact, when Sports Authority asked for your email, you may have been told, “We won’t share it” by an employee or a web page. Consumers are often told that. It’s a lie, unless it includes the “but,” which is often casually omitted or otherwise missed by consumers.

The Google AdSense blacklist.

If your website has been approved by AdWords, you are eligible to sign up for Google AdSense, a system in which Google places ads for various products and services on your website. When people click on those ads, Google pays you. If you are good at driving traffic to your website, you can make millions of dollars a year running AdSense ads – all without having any products or services of your own. Meanwhile, Google makes a net profit by charging the companies behind the ads for bringing them customers; this accounts for about 18 percent of Google’s income.

Here, too, there is scandal:

In April 2014, in two posts on PasteBin.com, someone claiming to be a former Google employee working in their AdSense department alleged the department engaged in a regular practice of dumping AdSense customers just before Google was scheduled to pay them. To this day, no one knows whether the person behind the posts was legit, but one thing is clear: Since that time, real lawsuits filed by real companies have, according to WebProNews, been “piling up” against Google, alleging the companies were unaccountably dumped at the last minute by AdSense just before large payments were due, in some cases payments as high as $500,000.

The search engine blacklist.

Google’s ubiquitous search engine has indeed become the gateway to virtually all information, handling 90 percent of search in most countries. It dominates search because its index is so large: Google indexes more than 45 billion web pages; its next-biggest competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, indexes a mere 14 billion, which helps to explain the poor quality of Bing’s search results.

Google’s dominance in search is why businesses large and small live in constant “fear of Google,” as Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Axel Springer, the largest publishing conglomerate in Europe, put it in an open letter to Eric Schmidt in 2014.

According to Dopfner, when Google made one of its frequent adjustments to its search algorithm, one of his company’s subsidiaries dropped dramatically in the search rankings and lost 70 percent of its traffic within a few days.

Even worse than the vagaries of the adjustments, however, are the dire consequences that follow when Google employees somehow conclude you have violated their “guidelines”:

You either get banished to the rarely visited Netherlands of search pages beyond the first page (90 percent of all clicks go to links on that first page) or completely removed from the index.

In 2011, Google took a “manual action” of a “corrective” nature against retailer J.C. Penney – punishment for Penney’s alleged use of a legal SEO technique called “link building” that many companies employ to try to boost their rankings in Google’s search results. Penney was demoted 60 positions or more in the rankings.

Search ranking manipulations of this sort don’t just ruin businesses; they also affect people’s opinions, attitudes, beliefs and behavior, as my research on the Search Engine Manipulation Effect has demonstrated.

Fortunately, definitive information about Google’s punishment programs is likely to turn up over the next year or two thanks to legal challenges the company is facing. In 2014, a Florida company called e-Ventures Worldwide filed a lawsuit against Google for “completely removing almost every website” associated with the company from its search rankings.

When the company’s lawyers tried to get internal documents relevant to Google’s actions though typical litigation discovery procedures, Google refused to comply.

In July 2015, a judge ruled that Google had to honor e-Ventures’ discovery requests, and that case is now moving forward. More significantly, in April 2016, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the attorney general of Mississippi – supported in his efforts by the attorneys general of 40 other states – has the right to proceed with broad discovery requests in his own investigations into Google’s secretive and often arbitrary practices.

This brings me, at last, to the biggest and potentially most dangerous of Google’s blacklists – which Google’s calls its “quarantine” list.

The American quarantine list.

Google maintains a quarantine list for every nation that it services. The entities that go on that list are determined by the government of the host nation, and Google itself.

To get a sense of the scale of this list, I find it helpful to think about an old movie – the classic 1951 film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” which starred a huge metal robot named Gort. He had laser-weapon eyes, zapped terrified humans into oblivion and had the power to destroy the world.

Klaatu, Gort’s alien master, was trying to deliver an important message to earthlings, but they kept shooting him before he could. Finally, to get the world’s attention, Klaatu demonstrated the enormous power of the alien races he represented by shutting down – at noon New York time – all of the electricity on earth for exactly 30 minutes.

The earth stood still.

Substitute “ogle” for “rt,” and you get “Google,” which is every bit as powerful as Gort but with a much better public relations department – so good, in fact, that you are probably unaware that on Jan. 31, 2009, Google blocked access to virtually the entire internet. And, as if not to be outdone by a 1951 science fiction move, it did so for 40 minutes.

Impossible, you say. Why would do-no-evil Google do such an apocalyptic thing, and, for that matter, how, technically, could a single company block access to more than 100 million websites?

The answer has to do with the dark and murky world of website blacklists – ever-changing lists of websites that contain malicious software that might infect or damage people’s computers.

There are many such lists – even tools, such as blacklistalert.org, that scan multiple blacklists to see if your IP address is on any of them.

Some lists are kind of mickey-mouse – repositories where people submit the names or IP addresses of suspect sites.

Others, usually maintained by security companies that help protect other companies, are more high-tech, relying on “crawlers” – computer programs that continuously comb the internet.

But the best and longest list of suspect websites is Google’s, launched in May 2007.

Because Google is crawling the web more extensively than anyone else, it is also in the best position to find malicious websites.

In 2012, Google acknowledged that each and every day it adds about 9,500 new websites to its American quarantine list and displays malware warnings on the answers it gives to between 12 and 14 million search queries. It won’t reveal the exact number of websites on the list, but it is certainly in the millions on any given day.

In 2011, Google blocked an entire subdomain, co.cc, which alone contained 11 million websites, justifying its action by claiming that most of the websites in that domain appeared to be “spammy.”

According to Matt Cutts, still the leader of Google’s web spam team, the company “reserves the right” to take such action when it deems it necessary. (The right? Who gave Google that right?)

And that’s nothing: According to The Guardian, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009, at 2:40 pm GMT, Google blocked the entire internet for those impressive 40 minutes, supposedly, said the company, because of “human error” by its employees. It would have been 6:40 am in Mountain View, California, where Google is headquartered.

Was this time chosen because it is one of the few hours of the week when all of the world’s stock markets are closed? Could this have been another of the many pranks for which Google employees are so famous? In 2008, Google invited the public to submit applications to join the “first permanent human colony on Mars.” Sorry, Marsophiles; it was just a prank.

When Google’s search engine shows you a search result for a site it has quarantined, you see warnings such as, “The site ahead contains malware” or “This site may harm your computer” on the search result.

That’s useful information if that website actually contains malware, either because the website was set up by bad guys or because a legitimate site was infected with malware by hackers.

But Google’s crawlers often make mistakes, blacklisting websites that have merely been “hijacked,” which means the website itself isn’t dangerous but merely that accessing it through the search engine will forward you to a malicious site.

For instance, the website, http://drrobertepstein.com, was hijacked in this way in early 2012. Accessing the website directly wasn’t dangerous, but trying to access it through the Google search engine forwarded users to a malicious website in Nigeria.

When this happens, Google not only warns you about the infected website on its search engine (which makes sense), it also blocks you from accessing the website directly through multiple browsers – even non-Google browsers. (Hmm. Now that’s odd. I’ll get back to that point shortly.)

The mistakes are just one problem.

The bigger problem is that even though it takes only a fraction of a second for a crawler to list you, after your site has been cleaned up Google’s crawlers sometimes take days or even weeks to delist you – long enough to threaten the existence of some businesses.

This is quite bizarre considering how rapidly automated online systems operate these days. Within seconds after you pay for a plane ticket online, your seat is booked, your credit card is charged, your receipt is displayed and a confirmation email shows up in your inbox – a complex series of events involving multiple computers controlled by at least three or four separate companies.

However, when you inform Google’s automated blacklist system that your website is now clean, you are simply advised to check back occasionally to see if any action has been taken.

To get delisted after your website has been repaired, you either have to struggle with the company’s online Webmaster tools, which are far from friendly, or you have to hire a security expert to do so – typically for a fee ranging between $1,000 and $10,000.

No expert, however, can speed up the mysterious delisting process; the best he or she can do is set it in motion.

So far, all I’ve told you is that Google’s crawlers scan the internet, sometimes find what appear to be suspect websites and put those websites on a quarantine list.

That information is then conveyed to users through the search engine. So far so good, except of course for the mistakes and the delisting problem; one might even say that Google is performing a public service, which is how some people who are familiar with the quarantine list defend it.

But I also mentioned that Google somehow blocks people from accessing websites directly through multiple browsers.

How on earth could it do that? How could Google block you when you are trying to access a website using Safari, an Apple product, or Firefox, a browser maintained by Mozilla, the self-proclaimed “nonprofit defender of the free and open internet”?

The key here is browsers. No browser maker wants to send you to a malicious website, and because Google has the best blacklist, major browsers such as Safari and Firefox – and Chrome, of course, Google’s own browser, as well as browsers that load through Android, Google’s mobile operating system – check Google’s quarantine list before they send you to a website. (In November 2014, Mozilla announced it will no longer list Google as its default search engine, but it also disclosed that it will continue to rely on Google’s quarantine list to screen users’ search requests.)

If the site has been quarantined by Google, you see one of those big, scary images that say things like “Get me out of here!” or “Reported attack site!”

At this point, given the default security settings on most browsers, most people will find it impossible to visit the site – but who would want to? If the site is not on Google’s quarantine list, you are sent on your way.

OK, that explains how Google blocks you even when you’re using a non-Google browser, but why do they block you? In other words, how does blocking you feed the ravenous advertising machine – the sine qua non of Google’s existence?

Have you figured it out yet? The scam is as simple as it is brilliant: When a browser queries Google’s quarantine list, it has just shared information with Google.

With Chrome and Android, you are always giving up information to Google, but you are also doing so even if you are using non-Google browsers.

That is where the money is – more information about search activity kindly provided by competing browser companies. How much information is shared will depend on the particular deal the browser company has with Google. In a maximum information deal, Google will learn the identity of the user; in a minimum information deal, Google will still learn which websites people want to visit – valuable data when one is in the business of ranking websites. Google can also charge fees for access to its quarantine list, of course, but that’s not where the real gold is.

Chrome, Android, Firefox and Safari currently carry about 92 percent of all browser traffic in the U.S. – 74 percent worldwide – and these numbers are increasing. As of this writing, that means Google is regularly collecting information through its quarantine list from more than 2.5 billion people. Given the recent pact between Microsoft and Google, in coming months we might learn that Microsoft – both to save money and to improve its services – has also started using Google’s quarantine list in place of its own much smaller list; this would further increase the volume of information Google is receiving.

To put this another way, Google has grown, and is still growing, on the backs of some of its competitors, with end users oblivious to Google’s antics – as usual.

It is yet another example of what I have called “Google’s Dance” – the remarkable way in which Google puts a false and friendly public face on activities that serve only one purpose for the company: increasing profit.

On the surface, Google’s quarantine list is yet another way Google helps us, free of charge, breeze through our day safe and well-informed.

Beneath the surface, that list is yet another way Google accumulates more information about us to sell to advertisers.

You may disagree, but in my view Google’s blacklisting practices put the company into the role of thuggish internet cop – a role that was never authorized by any government, nonprofit organization or industry association.

It is as if the biggest bully in town suddenly put on a badge and started patrolling, shuttering businesses as it pleased, while also secretly peeping into windows, taking photos and selling them to the highest bidder.

Consider: Heading into the holiday season in late 2013, an online handbag business suffered a 50 percent drop in business because of blacklisting.

In 2009, it took an eco-friendly pest control company 60 days to leap the hurdles required to remove Google’s warnings, long enough to nearly go broke. And sometimes the blacklisting process appears to be personal: In May 2013, the highly opinionated PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak wondered “When Did Google Become the Internet Police?” after both his website and podcast site were blacklisted. He also ran into the delisting problem:

"It's funny, how the site can be blacklisted in a millisecond by an analysis but I have to wait forever to get cleared by the same analysis doing the same scan. Why is that?"

- John Dvorak

Could Google really be arrogant enough to mess with a prominent journalist? According to CNN, in 2005 Google “blacklisted all CNET reporters for a year after the popular technology news website published personal information about one of Google’s founders” – Eric Schmidt – “in a story about growing privacy concerns.” The company declined to comment on CNN’s story.

Google’s mysterious and self-serving practice of blacklisting is one of many reasons Google should be regulated, just as phone companies and credit bureaus are. The E.U.’s recent antitrust actions against Google, the  leaked FTC staff report about Google’s biased search rankings, President Obama’s call for regulating internet service providers – all have merit, but they overlook another danger.

No one company, which is accountable to its shareholders but not to the general public, should have the power to instantly put another company out of business or block access to any website in the world.

How frequently Google acts irresponsibly is beside the point; it has the ability to do so, which means that in a matter of seconds any of Google’s 37,000 employees with the right passwords or skills could laser a business or political candidate into oblivion or even freeze much of the world’s economy.

Some degree of censorship and blacklisting is probably necessary; I am not disputing that. But the suppression of information on the internet needs to be managed by, or at least subject to the regulations of, responsible public officials, with every aspect of their operations transparent to all.

Other related issues

No one actually likes this kind of censorship.  However, countries will permit it to occur as long as it furthers their political agenda and aims.  Yet, the moment that a company self-censors in defiance of a given governmental requirement, expect great and rapid retribution.

Google suffered a major regulatory blow on Tuesday 27JUN17, when the EU’s antitrust regulator fined Alphabet’s Google a record €2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) fine for “abusing its dominance in search” and favoring its own comparison-shopping service in search results: a decision with far-reaching implications for both the tech sector and already strained transatlantic relations. The EU further ordered the search giant to apply the same methods to rivals as its own when displaying their services in search results.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said Google “denied other companies the chance to compete” and left consumers without “genuine choice.”

“Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals. Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors. What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”

Is any reader surprised?

Recording all Sounds around a Google Product

Google maintains a record of everything you have said around it (and products aligned with the Google enterprises) for years, and you can listen to the huge archives that if recorded of you yourself.  The company quietly records many of the conversations that people have around its products.

The feature works as a way of letting people search with their voice, and storing those recordings presumably lets Google improve its language recognition tools as well as the results that it gives to people.  It is considered a “value added” feature, but I for one consider it highly annoying and problematic.

The new portal was introduced in June 2015 and so has been active ever since that date.  Therefore, Google now has a very full record of (assumingly non-catagorized)  things you have said, which you assumed have been in private.

Google justifies this collection as a kind of audio diary.

The easiest way to stop Google recording everything is to turn off the virtual assistant and never to use voice search. But that solution also gets at the central problem of much privacy and data use today – doing so cuts off one of the most useful things about having an Android phone.

More here;

Google tracks offline shopping

Google is tracking billions of credit card transaction records to prove that its online ads are prompting people to make purchases – even when they happen offline in brick-and-mortar stores, the company said Tuesday, 23MAY17.  The advance allows Google to determine how many sales have been generated by digital ad campaigns, a goal that industry insiders have long described as “the holy grail” of online advertising. 

To power its multi-billion dollar advertising juggernaut, Google already analyzes users’ web browsing, search history and geographic locations, using data from popular Google-owned apps like YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and the Google Play store. All that information is tied to the real identities of users when they log into Google’s services.

The credit card data enables the tech giant to connect these digital trails to real-world purchase records in a far more extensive way than was possible before. Privacy advocates said few people understand that their purchases are being analyzed in this way and could feel uneasy, despite assurances from Google that it has taken steps to protect the personal information of its users.

Of course the company said it took pains to protect user privacy, it declined to detail how the system works or what companies are analyzing credit and debit card records on Google’s behalf. Google, which saw $79 billion in revenues in 2016, said it would not handle the records directly but that its undisclosed partner companies had access to 70 percent of credit and debit card transactions in the United States.

“What’s really fascinating to me is that as the companies become increasingly intrusive in terms of their data collection, they also become more secretive,” 

-Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Google for years has been mining location data from Google Maps in an effort to prove that knowledge of people’s physical locations could “close the loop” between physical and digital worlds. Users can block this by adjusting the settings on smartphones, but few do so, say privacy experts.

This location tracking ability has allowed Google to send reports to retailers telling them, for example, whether people who saw an ad for a lawn mower later visited or passed by a Home Depot. The location-tracking program has grown since it was first launched with only a handful of retailers: Home Depot, Express, Nissan, and Sephora have participated.

“Google — and also Facebook — believe that in order to get digital dollars from advertisers who are still primarily spending on TV, they need to prove that digital works, these companies have to invest in finding the identity of the consumer at the moment when that shopper is at the cash register”

- Amit Jain, chief executive of Bridg, a digital advertising startup that matches online to offline behavior. 

Google executives say they are using complex, patent-pending mathematical formulas to protect the privacy of consumers when they match a Google user with a shopper who makes a purchase in a brick-and-mortar store.

The mathematical formulas convert people’s names and other purchase information, including the time stamp, location, and the amount of the purchase, into anonymous strings of numbers.

The formulas make it impossible for Google to know the identity of the real-world shoppers, and for the retailers to know the identities of Google’s users, said company executives, who called the process “double-blind” encryption.

Consider “double-blind” encryption

The tech giant declined to describe its mathematical formulas in anything more than broad terms, citing a pending patent.

Dischler said the work was based on a 2011 research paper by three MIT scientists, which was funded by Google and Citigroup. The company would not say how merchants had obtained consent from consumers to pass along their credit card information.

Google said it requires its partners to use only personal data that they have the “rights” to use, but it would not say whether that meant the consumers had consented.

Paul Stephens from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group based in San Diego, said only a few pieces of data can allow a marketer to identify an individual, and he expressed skepticism that Google’s system for guarding the identities of users will stand up to the efforts of hackers, who in the past have successfully stripped away privacy protections created by other companies after data breaches.

“What we have learned is that it’s extremely difficult to anonymize data, if you care about your privacy, you definitely need to be concerned.”

Such data providers have been the targets of cybercriminals in the past. In 2015, a hack of data broker Experian exposed the personal information of 15 million people.

Google Tracks you even when off

Those of you that are not using Chinese Huawei or ShaoMi phones had best pay attention to any phones pre-loaded with Google Apps.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Google is actually tracking you even when you switch your device settings to Location History “off”. 

As journalist Mark Ames comments in response to a new Associated Press story exposing Google’s ability to track people at all times even when they explicitly tell Google not to via iPhone and Android settings, “The Pentagon invented the internet to be the perfect global surveillance/counterinsurgency machine. Surveillance is baked into the internet’s DNA.”

In but the latest in a continuing saga of big tech tracking and surveillance stories which should serve to convince us all we are living in the beginning phases of a Minority Report style tracking and pansophical “pre-crime” system, it’s now confirmed that the world’s most powerful tech company and search tool will always find a way to keep your location data.

The Associated Press sought the help of Princeton researchers to prove that while Google is clear and upfront about giving App users the ability to turn off or “pause” Location History on their devices, there are other hidden means through which it retains the data.

According to the AP report:

Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking.

For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are. And some searches that have nothing to do with location, like “chocolate chip cookies,” or “kids science kits,” pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude — accurate to the square foot — and save it to your Google account.

The issue directly affects around two billion people using Google’s Android operating software and iPhone users relying on Google maps or a simple search.

Among the computer science researchers at Princeton conducting the tests is Jonathan Mayer, who told the AP, “If you’re going to allow users to turn off something called ‘Location History,’ then all the places where you maintain location history should be turned off,” and added, “That seems like a pretty straightforward position to have.”

Google, for its part, is defending the software and privacy tracking settings, saying the company has been perfectly clear and has not violated privacy ethics. 

“There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people’s experience, including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services,” a Google statement to the AP reads. “We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.”

According to the AP, there is a way to prevent Google from storing the various location marker and metadata collection possibilities, but it’s somewhat hidden and painstaking.

Google’s own description on how to do this as a result of the AP inquiry is as follows:

To stop Google from saving these location markers, the company says, users can turn off another setting, one that does not specifically reference location information. Called “Web and App Activity” and enabled by default, that setting stores a variety of information from Google apps and websites to your Google account.

When paused, it will prevent activity on any device from being saved to your account. But leaving “Web & App Activity” on and turning “Location History” off only prevents Google from adding your movements to the “timeline,” its visualization of your daily travels. It does not stop Google’s collection of other location markers.

You can delete these location markers by hand, but it’s a painstaking process since you have to select them individually, unless you want to delete all of your stored activity.

Of course, the more constant location data obviously means more advertising profits and further revenue possibilities for Google and its clients, so we fully expect future hidden tracking loopholes to possibly come to light. 

This story about Google surveillance only surprising if you haven't read @yashalevine's Surveillance Valley. The Pentagon invented the internet to be the perfect global surveillance/counterinsurgency machine. Surveillance is baked into the internet's DNA https://t.co/31QcyeYVM5
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 13, 2018

Beginning in 2014, Google has utilized user location histories to allow advertisers to track the effectiveness of online ads at driving foot traffic. With the continued possibility of real-time tracking to generate billions of dollars, it should come as no surprise that Google would seek to make it as difficult (or perhaps impossible?) as it can for users to ensure they aren’t tracked.

As for the government, we can only imagine the creative surveillance “fun” Washington’s 16+ intelligence agencies are having with such a powerful tool right now. 

Google Owns KeyHole

Some of the revelations the former CIA anti-terrorism counter intelligence officer revealed CIA whistleblower, Kevin Shipp.included that

“Google Earth was set up through the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and InQtel.” 

Indeed he is correct, the CIA and NGA owned the company Google acquired, Keyhole Inc., paying an undisclosed sum for the company to turn its tech into what we now know as Google Earth. Another curious investor in Keyhole Inc. was none other than the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel run by the CIA according to a press release at the time.

Google is the CIA.

Shipp also disclosed that the agency known as the Joint Special Ops Command (JSOC) is the “president’s secret army” which he can use for secret assassinations, overturning governments and things the American people don’t know about.

FBI warrantless searches violate the Fourth Amendment with national security letters, which Shipp noted enables them to walk into your employer’s office and demand all your financial records and if he or she says anything about them being there they can put your supervisor in jail or drop a case against themselves using the “State’s Secret Privilege law.”

What this means is that Google is connected to and linked into the United States covert investigative agencies.

In the shocking, explosive presentation, Shipp went on to express that there are “over 10,000 secret sites in the U.S.” that formed after 9/11. There are “1,291 secret government agencies, 1,931 large private corporations and over 4,800,000 Americans that he knows of who have a secrecy clearance, and 854,000 who have Top Secret clearance, explaining they signed their lives away bound by an agreement.

He also detailed how Congress is owned by the Military Industrial Complex through the Congressional Armed Services Committee (48 senior members of Congress) giving those members money in return for a vote on the spending bill for the military and intelligence budget.

He even touched on what he called the “secret intelligence industrial complex,” which he called the center of the shadow government including the CIA, NSA, NRO, and NGA.

Shipp further stated that around the “secret intelligence industrial complex” you have the big five conglomerate of intelligence contractors, [1] Leidos Holdings, [2] CSRA, [3] CACI, [4] SAIC, and [5] Booz Allen Hamilton. He noted that the work they do is “top secret and unreported.”

Censoring gmail

Gmail users are claiming that Google is filtering emails from Donald Trump’s campaign into their spam boxes.

There have been previous reports, denied by Google, that the search engine was manipulating search autocomplete results in favor of Hillary Clinton. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has previously said, “Google is directly engaged with Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

In 2015, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly funded a startup, “The Groundwork,” with the objective of helping Hillary Clinton get elected.

Fact Checking

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

George Orwell, 1984

Google is a latecomer to the plethora of Internet “fact check” sites.  The announcement that Google would integrate a “fact check” system into their search engine occurred in 2016.  I am sad to say that its creation was not the result of a “need” or the creation of a “value added” attribute to the search engine.  No.  It was the result of the political climate during the contentious election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

At that time, American disgust with the American media was at an all-time high.  They had lost all credibility with the media, as the overwhelming support of the Democrat candidate by the media was absolute and unabashed.  As such, the media through polling had discovered a number of disturbing trends, one of which was that they had lost their edge in credibility.  People were turning to “fringe” and “alternative media”, as well as social media for their news (and here).  This included not only the media but every established internet organization, including fact check websites. And HERE.

Time will tell how unbiased the fact checking by Google will be.  However, it is well known that they have strong political ties to the Democrat party, and substantial communication with the United States Government.

Google to influence elections

Google Was "Working To Get Hillary Clinton Elected" With "Silent Donation" According To Leaked Internal Email

Tucker Carlson just blew the cover off the 2016 election influence charade, after he read an internal email on Monday night’s show from a senior Google employee who admitted to using company resources to make a “silent donation” to a liberal group that was creating ads and donating funds to bus Latinos to voting stations during the 2016 election in key swing states, in an effort to help Hillary Clinton win. 

The email was sent by the former head of Google’s multicultural marketing department, Eliana Mario, on November 9, 2016. 

“That email was subsequently forwarded by two Google VP’s to more staff members throughout the company,” says Carlson, adding “In her email, Mario touts Google’s multi-faceted efforts to boost Hispanic turnout in the election. She noticed that Latino voters did record-breaking numbers, especially in states like Florida, Nevada and Arizona – the last of which she describes as “a key state for us.” She brags that the company used its power to ensure that millions of people saw certain hashtags and social media impressions, with the goal of influencing their behavior during the election.”

Elsewhere in the email Mario says “Google supported partners like Voto Latino to pay for rides to the polls in key states.” 

She describes this assistance as a “silent donation” 

Mario then says that Google helped Voto Latino create ad campaigns to promote those rides. Now officially Voto Latino is a non-partisan entity, but that is a sham. Voto Latino is vocally partisan. Recently the group declared that Hispanics – ALL Hispanics are in President Trump’s “crosshairs.” They said they plan to respond to this by registering another million additional Hispanic voters in the next Presidential cycle.

It was, in effect, an in-kind contribution to the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.

In the end, Google was disappointed. As Mario herself conceded “ultimately after all was said and done, the Latino community did come out to vote, and completely surprised us. We never anticipated that 29% of Latinos would vote for Trump. No one did. -Tucker Carlson

So it looks like @Google executives have been caught red-handed trying to throw the election to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Maybe that's why they refused to appear before Congress last week?https://t.co/1YELagt8hH

— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) September 11, 2018

This, of course, isn’t the first evidence of Google doing all they could to help Hillary win the election. In an April 15, 2014 email from Google’s then-Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt found in the WikiLeaked Podesta emails, titled “Notes for a 2016 Democratic Campaign,” Schmidt tells Cheryl Mills that

"I have put together my thoughts on the campaign ideas and I have scheduled some meetings in the next few weeks for veterans of the campaign to tell me how to make these ideas better.  This is simply a draft but do let me know if this is a helpful process for you all." 
Google head Eric Schmidt's secret strategic plan for the US election #PodestaEmails https://t.co/LskJODXyXn More: https://t.co/ZUfh7WDAT5 pic.twitter.com/llq5G9kp5V
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 31, 2016

While there are numerous curious nuances in the plan, presented below in its entirety, the one section that caught our – and Wikileaks’ attention – is the following which implicitly suggests Google planned the creation of a voter tracking database, using smart phones:

Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them.  In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter. A dynamic volunteer can easily speak with a voter and, with their email or other digital handle, get the voter videos and other answers to areas they care about (“the benefits of ACA to you” etc.)

As a reminder, in late October of 2016 it was revealed that just days prior to the April 15, 2014 email, Schmidt had sent another email in which he expressed his eagerness to “fund” the campaign efforts and wants to be a “head outside advisor.” In the email from John Podesta to Robby Mook we learned that:

I met with Eric Schmidt tonight. As David reported, he's ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc. He was more deferential on structure than I expected. Wasn't pushing to run through one of his existing firms. Clearly wants to be head outside advisor, but didn't seem like he wanted to push others out. Clearly wants to get going. He's still in DC tomorrow and would like to meet with you if you are in DC in the afternoon. I think it's worth doing. You around? If you are, and want to meet with him, maybe the four of us can get on to the project.

Another email from February 2015 suggested that the Google Chairman remained active in its collaboration with the Clinton campaign: John Podesta wrote that Eric Schmidt met with HR “about the business he proposes to do with the campaign. He says he’s met with HRC” and adds that “FYI. They are donating the Google plane for the Africa trip”

Meanwhile, according to a Breitbart report by Allum Bokhari, “By inserting negative search suggestions under the name of a candidate, search engines like Google can shift the opinions of undecided voters by up to 43.4 percent, according to new research by a team at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and reported exclusively by Breitbart News.” 

The lead author of the study, Dr. Robert Epstein, has previously conducted research into what he calls the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). This research showed that the manipulation of results pages in search engines can shift the voting preferences of undecideds by anywhere between 20 and 80 percent, depending on the demographic.

His latest research looks at how search engines can affect voters by suggesting negative or positive search terms when a political candidate’s name is entered into the search bar. Dr. Epstein’s research found that when negative search terms are suggested for a candidate, it can have a dramatic effect on voter opinion. 

-Breitbart

So, despite Google’s best efforts to help Clinton win the election, it simply wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile, Google has yet to answer why their search results for the word “Idiot” are vastly different from DuckDuckGo.

Google as a Workplace Nightmare

Apparently, Google has a reputation as a fantastic place to work.  They offer many “perks”, which in everyway seems to make the rest of corporate America look like evil slave plantations.  It’s pretty “in your face” regarding this. Why “everyone knows” that Google is a great place to work.  Why, there is even a Hollywood movie about this…

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles on this.  Here are just afew of the top hits;

Ah, the usual suspects. Huffington Post, Slate, Inc., Forbes, Business Insider… With a pedigree like that, you must either conclude that one of two things is going on.  Either [1] they truly are a fantastic company to work for, or [2] they have invested heavily on a major propaganda campaign.

Oh and having all that money (where do they get all their billions of dollars? They do not host advertisements, so SOMEONE must be paying them) they have made propaganda films about how great Google is…

“The Internship” 2013 by Director Shawn Levy.  Two salesmen whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital age find their way into a coveted internship at Google, where they must compete with a group of young, tech-savvy geniuses for a shot at employment.

Google might be a tool of the corporate elite, but they provide a great working environment for their employees.  At least that is the impression that everyone seems to have. 

Is this an accurate impression?

Well, in industy, companies always want to put on a “good face”.  They want to have a good, clean and positive image.  They invest money into their logo, and website.  They produce marketing campaigns, and present television commercials to put everything in a favorable light (Remember the Sunbeam-Oster commercials in the 1990’s during the Al Dunlop years while he was gutting the workforce?).

Albert John Dunlap (born July 26, 1937) is a disgraced former corporate executive. He was best known as a turnaround specialist and professional downsizer, although it was later discovered that his reputed turnarounds were elaborate frauds. 

The ruthless methods he employed to streamline failing companies, most notably Scott Paper, won him the nicknames "Chainsaw Al" and "Rambo in Pinstripes".

However, his career was effectively ended after he engineered a massive accounting scandal at Sunbeam Products, now Sunbeam-Oster, that ultimately cost that company its independence.

He is barred from serving as an officer of a publicly traded corporation.

His widespread layoffs and accounting frauds have put him on several lists of worst CEOs. I should know, I had the unfortunate experience to work under him.

They do everything in their power to produce a positive image.  For image is everything.

It’s often very difficult to determine when a company is actually telling the truth or is trying to hide a harsh reality. I actually do not know what the story is with Google.  However, what I do know is that there is one metric that guarantees whether or not a company has a positive work environment for their employees. That metric is “workforce retention”. Happy employees stay at a company. Unhappy employees leave.

So how does Google stack up?

Company

Work length at software companies (Years)

Facebook

2.02 years

Google

1.90 years

Oracle

1.89 years

Apple

1.85 years

Amazon

1.84 years

Twitter

1.83 years

Microsoft

1.81 years

Airbnb

1.64 years

Snap Inc.

1.62 years

Uber

1.23 years

This is how long (on average) employees stay in those companies. Note, that NONE of the values for the work lengths are in 6 month increments. Typically, in the rest of the world, if not in the industry, people work contracts for durations of 6 months, one or upto two years.  This table does not show that at all.  It shows that people are leaving in an unstructured, and unplanned manner.

This is suggestive of rapid terminations, or individual departures. Since the data was compiled during the “recession” of the Obama Administration, it is rather unlikely that the workers would voluntarily leave during an economic downturn.  You simply don’t leave a job unless you have another one lined up, or you physically cannot stand working at that position any longer.

With a turnover like this, I’m impressed that they still manage to deliver a high-quality product. Here’s a telling quote from LinkedIN;

“It's understandable that most people use those companies as a springboard to get higher salaries and less stressful environment elsewhere, but as a hiring manager, I would cry if on my team the retention was like this.”

Indeed.

So WHY the investment that “Google is a great company to work for?”

I argue that if they are so very good at manipulating public opinion for to ohers (the NSA, the CIA, the political machinery) then why not do some things for themselves. And that is exactly what they did.

Conclusions

Yeah, I’m using a shit-load of ancient references that have fallen into the political dust. You, the reader should not be concerned. I used what I could find. And unfortunately most seems to be political in nature. Republicans said this, democrats said that. Blah, blah, blah.

The truth is that both political parties are playing a back and forth game against you. They keep the American people divided up and in constant fight against each other. Don’t fall for that game. Both are tools of the oligarchy.

Never forget that. They are puppets. They are actors. They are lies. They are entertainment.

Pay attention to how they use the systems currently in place. Google.

If you haven’t divorced Google, and blocked it completely from your browser, then DO IT NOW. This is only the “tip of the iceberg” and it’s a lot worse than anyone knows.


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Law 14 from The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Pose as a friend, work as a spy (Full Text)

Sounds bad, eh?

Well…

Well, it is, at least it is not something that I myself would want to do. But that is just me. But I can tell you all something that is important; there are many crafty, clever, and evil people who follow this rule to the letter.

I can include an ex-business partner who only wanted to get into my wife’s pants (or skirt), a couple of work colleagues who would perform run-arounds to disparage me in their pursuit for career growth, and a couple of family members that have an unsavory two-faced attitude about life.

So to best prepare you for these individuals, you must understand how they think and how their Modus Operandi works.

Thus this article…

LAW 14

POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY

JUDGMENT

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

Joseph Duveen was undoubtedly the greatest art dealer of his time—from 1904 to 1940 he almost single-handedly monopolized America’s millionaire art-collecting market. But one prize plum eluded him: the industrialist Andrew Mellon. Before he died, Duveen was determined to make Mellon a client.

Duveen’s friends said this was an impossible dream.

Mellon was a stiff, taciturn man.

The stories he had heard about the congenial, talkative  Duveen rubbed him the wrong way—he had made it clear he had no desire to meet the man.

Yet Duveen told his doubting friends, “Not only will Mellon buy from me but he will buy only from me.”

For several years he tracked his prey, learning the man’s habits, tastes, phobias.

To do this, he secretly put several of Mellon’s staff on his own payroll, worming valuable information out of them.

By the time he moved into action, he knew Mellon about as well as Mellon’s wife did.

In 1921 Mellon was visiting London, and staying in a palatial suite on the third floor of Claridge’s Hotel.

Duveen booked himself into the suite just below Mellon’s, on the second floor.

He had arranged for his valet to befriend Mellon’s valet, and on the fateful day he had chosen to make his move, Mellon’s valet told Duveen’s valet, who told Duveen, that he had just helped Mellon on with his overcoat, and that the industrialist was making his way down the corridor to ring for the lift.

Duveen’s valet hurriedly helped Duveen with his own overcoat.

Seconds later, Duveen entered the lift, and lo and behold, there was Mellon.

“How do you do, Mr. Mellon?” said Duveen, introducing himself. “I am on my way to the National Gallery to look at some pictures.”

How uncanny—that was precisely where Mellon was headed.

And so Duveen was able to accompany his prey to the one location that would ensure his success.

He knew Mellon’s taste inside and out, and while the two men wandered through the museum, he dazzled the magnate with his knowledge.

Once again quite uncannily, they seemed to have remarkably similar tastes.

Mellon was pleasantly surprised: This was not the Duveen he had expected.

The man was charming and agreeable, and clearly had exquisite taste.

When they returned to New York, Mellon visited Duveen’s exclusive gallery and fell in love with the collection.

Everything, surprisingly enough, seemed to be precisely the kind of work he wanted to collect.

For the rest of his life he was Duveen’s best and most generous client.

Interpretation

A man as ambitious and competitive as Joseph Duveen left nothing to chance.

What’s the point of winging it, of just hoping you may be able to charm this or that client?

It’s like shooting ducks blindfolded.

Arm yourself with a little knowledge and your aim improves.

Mellon was the most spectacular of Duveen’s catches, but he spied on many a millionaire.

By secretly putting members of his clients’ household staffs on his own payroll, he would gain constant access to valuable information about their masters’ comings and goings, changes in taste, and other such tidbits of information that would put him a step ahead.

A rival of Duveen’s who wanted to make Henry Frick a client noticed that whenever he visited this wealthy New Yorker, Duveen was there before him, as if he had a sixth sense.

To other dealers Duveen seemed to be everywhere, and to know everything before they did.

His powers discouraged and disheartened them, until many simply gave up going after the wealthy clients who could make a dealer rich.

Such is the power of artful spying: It makes you seem all-powerful, clairvoyant.

Your knowledge of your mark can also make you seem charming, so well can you anticipate his desires.

No one sees the source of your power, and what they cannot see they cannot fight.

Rulers see through spies, as cows through smell, Brahmins through scriptures and the rest of the people through their normal eyes. 

Kautilya, Indian philosopher third century B. C.

KEYS TO POWER

In the realm of power, your goal is a degree of control over future events. Part of the problem you face, then, is that people won’t tell you all their thoughts, emotions, and plans.

Controlling what they say, they often keep the most critical parts of their character hidden—their weaknesses, ulterior motives, obsessions.

The result is that you cannot predict their moves, and are constantly in the dark.

The trick is to find a way to probe them, to find out their secrets and hidden intentions, without letting them know what you are up to.

This is not as difficult as you might think.

A friendly front will let you secretly gather information on friends and enemies alike.

Let others consult the horoscope, or read tarot cards: You have more concrete means of seeing into the future.

The most common way of spying is to use other people, as Duveen did. The method is simple, powerful, but risky: You will certainly gather information, but you have little control over the people who are doing the work.

Perhaps they will ineptly reveal your spying, or even secretly turn against you.

It is far better to be the spy yourself, to pose as a friend while secretly gathering information.

The French politician Talleyrand was one of the greatest practitioners of this art.

He had an uncanny ability to worm secrets out of people in polite conversation.

A contemporary of his, Baron de Vitrolles, wrote,

“Wit and grace marked his conversation. He possessed the art of concealing his thoughts or his malice beneath a transparent veil of insinuations, words that imply something more than they express. Only when necessary did he inject his own personality.” 

The key here is Talleyrand’s ability to suppress himself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.

Throughout Talleyrand’s life, people said he was a superb conversationalist—yet he actually said very little.

He never talked about his own ideas; he got others to reveal theirs.

He would organize friendly games of charades for foreign diplomats, social gatherings where, however, he would carefully weigh their words, cajole confidences out of them, and gather information invaluable to his work as France’s foreign minister.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) he did his spying in other ways: He would blurt out what seemed to be a secret (actually something he had made up), then watch his listeners’ reactions.

He might tell a gathering of diplomats, for instance, that a reliable source had revealed to him that the czar of Russia was planning to arrest his top general for treason.

By watching the diplomats’ reactions to this made-up story, he would know which ones were most excited by the weakening of the Russian army—perhaps their governments had designs on Russia?

As Baron von Stetten said, “Monsieur Talleyrand fires a pistol into the air to see who will jump out the window.”

If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself. Again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look as though you did not believe him. The opposition on your part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860

During social gatherings and innocuous encounters, pay attention.

This is when people’s guards are down.

By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things.

The brilliance of the maneuver is that they will mistake your interest in them for friendship, so that you not only learn, you make allies.

Nevertheless, you should practice this tactic with caution and care.

If people begin to suspect you are worming secrets out of them under the cover of conversation, they will strictly avoid you.

Emphasize friendly chatter, not valuable information.

Your search for gems of information cannot be too obvious, or your probing questions will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about the information you hope to find.

A trick to try in spying comes from La Rochefoucauld, who wrote,

“Sincerity is found in very few men, and is often the cleverest of ruses— one is sincere in order to draw out the confidence and secrets of the other.” 

By pretending to bare your heart to another person, in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets.

Give them a false confession and they will give you a real one.

Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who suggested vehemently contradicting people you’re in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words.

In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.

Another method of indirect spying is to test people, to lay little traps that make them reveal things about themselves.

Chosroes II, a notoriously clever seventh-century king of the Persians, had many ways of seeing through his subjects without raising suspicion.

If he noticed, for instance, that two of his courtiers had become particularly friendly, he would call one of them aside and say he had information that the other was a traitor, and would soon be killed.

The king would tell the courtier he trusted him more than anyone, and that he must keep this information secret.

Then he would watch the two men carefully.

If he saw that the second courtier had not changed in his behavior toward the king, he would conclude that the first courtier had kept the secret, and he would quickly promote the man, later taking him aside to confess,

“I meant to kill your friend because of certain information that had reached me, but, when I investigated the matter, I found it was untrue.” 

If, on the other hand, the second courtier started to avoid the king, acting aloof and tense, Chosroes would know that the secret had been revealed.

He would ban the second courtier from his court, letting him know that the whole business had only been a test, but that even though the man had done nothing wrong, he could no longer trust him.

The first courtier, however, had revealed a secret, and him Chosroes would ban from his entire kingdom.

It may seem an odd form of spying that reveals not empirical information but a person’s character.

Often, however, it is the best way of solving problems before they arise.

By tempting people into certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, their honesty, and so on.

And this kind of knowledge is often the most valuable of all: Armed with it, you can predict their actions in the future.

Image:

The Third Eye of the Spy. In the land of

the two-eyed, the third eye gives you the omniscience

of a god. You see further than others, and you see deeper into them. Nobody is

safe from the eye but you.

Authority:

Now, the reason a brilliant sovereign and a wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is their foreknowledge of the enemy situation. This “foreknowledge” cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor by astrologic calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation—from spies. 

(Sun-tzu, The Art of War, fourth century B.C.)

REVERSAL

Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be prepared for them to spy on you.

One of the most potent weapons in the battle for information, then, is giving out false information.

As Winston Churchill said,

“Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” 

You must surround yourself with such a bodyguard, so that your truth cannot be penetrated.

By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.

In 1944 the Nazis’ rocket-bomb attacks on London suddenly escalated.

Over two thousand V-1 flying bombs fell on the city, killing more than five thousand people and wounding many more.

Somehow, however, the Germans consistently missed their targets.

Bombs that were intended for Tower Bridge, or Piccadilly, would fall well short of the city, landing in the less populated suburbs.

This was because, in fixing their targets, the Germans relied on secret agents they had planted in England.

They did not know that these agents had been discovered, and that in their place, English-controlled agents were feeding them subtly deceptive information.

The bombs would hit farther and farther from their targets every time they fell.

By the end of the campaign they were landing on cows in the country.

By feeding people wrong information, then, you gain a potent advantage.

While spying gives you a third eye, disinformation puts out one of your enemy’s eyes.

A cyclops, he always misses his target.

Conclusion

Do not be a fake friend. What ever advantage that it might provide to you, will be offset by an equal degradation in your other relationships.

Don’t do it.

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The dangers of using Kindle and other electronic media instead of physical books on paper

Have you noticed how the internet is a “white board”? All articles either get scrubbed or drop down in search engine listings to a point where they are impossible to access. If not outright blocked, and then newer articles take their pace with revised narratives.

This is true throughout all electronic media. Everything changes, and the old is erased, and the new takes it’s place.

In the old days, empires used to chisel off the faces of previous rulers statues, and chisel away their names. These actions would leave long lasting scars that remained for all to see. Maybe people couldn’t remember what the old ruler looked like or their names, but at least they knew that there was a time when the nations was ruled by someone else.

Now, we don’t even have that luxury.

Here's a great article. Reprinted as found. All credit to the author. Edited to fit this venue.

Paper Books Can’t Be Shut Off from Afar

“The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine,” Doctorow said. 

Published on Jun 30, 2019 12:00PM EDT by Maria Bustillos

Private ownership—in particular the private ownership of books, software, music and other cultural information—is the linchpin of a free society.

Having many copies of works of art, music and literature distributed widely (e.g., many copies of the same book among many private owners, or many copies of the same audio files, torrents or blockchain ledger entries on many private computers) protects a culture against corruption and censorship.

Decentralization strategies like these help to preserve press freedom, and individual freedom.

The widespread private ownership of cultural artifacts guarantees civil liberties, and draws people into their culture immanently, persistently, giving it life and power.

Cory Doctorow’s comment on Friday at BoingBoing regarding private ownership of books is well worth reading; he wrote it because Microsoft is shutting down its e-books service, and all the DRM books people bought from them will thus vanish into thin air.

Microsoft will provide refunds to those affected, but that isn’t remotely the point.

The point is that all their users’ books are to be shut off with a single poof! on Microsoft’s say-so.

That is a button that nobody, no corporation and no government agency, should be ever permitted to have.

“The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine,” Doctorow said.

At this very moment, governments are forbidding millions of people, Chinese people, Cubans, Belarusians and Egyptians and Hungarians and many, many others all over this world, from reading whatever they want.

So if there is to be a fear of the increasing adoption of e-books such as those offered by Microsoft, and to a far greater degree, Amazon, that’s by far the scariest thing about it.

Because if you were to keep all your books in a remotely controlled place, some villain really could come along one day and pretty much flip the switch and take them all away — and not just yours but everyone’s, all at once.

What if we had some species of Trump deciding to take action against the despicable, dangerous pointy-heads he is forever railing against?

Boom!

Nothing left to read but The Art of the Deal.

I don’t intend on shutting up about this ever, and I’m sure Doctorow won’t either, bless him.


In 2010, techno-utopianism was in full swing, with e.g. Nick Negroponte going around saying that physical books would be mass-produced for only maybe another five years (yeah, sorry guy).

His reasoning seems to have had something to do with the fact that books are hard to send to Africa.

Anyway my husband gave me a Kindle for my birthday that year, and I loved it a lot.

Thousands and thousands of books fit on this pretty, if potentially sinister, little machine.

I’d just go over to Project Gutenberg and vacuum stuff up every which way, because I have no literary discernment whatsoever and will gladly spend the afternoon reading Agatha Christie or really, literally almost anything.

Project Gutenberg is now up to more than 59,500 free e-books, all out of copyright and so classics, mostly.

And no need to feel the least bit guilty as you might even at a thrift shop, where whatever you buy, it’s going to take up room on bookshelves that you know you don’t have; these books took up no extra room at all.

I bet you will be surprised to hear when Project Gutenberg first started. 1971 (!) is the true answer, and could they ever destroy every Final Jeopardy contestant with that one, I bet.

Its founder, Michael Hart, was a most unusual and interesting man. The ultimate anti-corporatist. Like Yoda, Mr. Hart doesn’t appear to have possessed much glamour or power on the outside, but he was brimming with these and other virtues on the inside.

He didn’t care two pins about money, wouldn’t take a salary for years and years, and acquired the few bits of stuff he seemed to need at garage sales.

In the 1970s, nobody knew that computers would eventually be used for the mass storage of culture.

It hadn’t occurred to anyone yet that the computer would be useful for anything aside from just computation. It was so shockingly, incredibly good at that! There was such a lot of computation that needed doing, so computation was first in line.

Now it is clear as day that whoever controls computer storage will effectively control the media commons.

There are a lot of champions in this fight, but Michael Hart saw it all coming about half a century ago and started typing his fool head off, dozens and dozens of whole books, long before OCR was a gleam in a programmer’s eye.

Hart did more to secure the future of the public domain than anyone else in the world, I believe.

Project Gutenberg’s widely distributed books cannot be taken away—and when they’re downloaded and stored on private devices and media, it’s like insurance for Western Civ.

My first few times on Project Gutenberg I downloaded a lot of rare early Wodehouse (highly recommended: The Swoop! or, How Clarence Saved England) and also a lot of Thackeray, Gibbon, pretty much all of Mrs. Gaskell and, just by accident, Émile Gaboriau’s La Vie Infernale — the fruitiest, most marvelous 19th-c. French melodrama (in two parts: The Count’s Millions and Baron Trigault’s Vengeance. I just love those.) Plus Shakespeare and the King James Bible and that sort of stuff.

I am no fan of Amazon, and even back then I resisted spending money there, but I did buy an e-book copy of Infinite Jest, which is far and away my favorite modern novel.

A few days later, I was having a little dispute with my husband over whether or not Wallace misuses the word “ilk” in that book, which with the Kindle’s search feature took about twenty seconds to settle (A: not really; the solecism appears just once, in the quoted speech of Madame Psychosis.)

It’s all thrillingly searchable, and browsable, plus once you get a book on your Kindle (or Nook, or equiv.) you can highlight things and also make your own notes.

By now scholars, researchers, historians and journalists will want both a searchable ebook copy and a paper copy, I would think, of anything they’re really interested in.

I also learned that having an e-reader meant that one might quite easily wind up buying more books than before, if anything, because the getting of books was on one’s mind more.

So all that is the upside of owning e-books.

But my Fahrenheit-451-paranoia was fanned into a giant flaming ball of fear-napalm when I looked into the personal ownership of the files and books on my own Kindle.

And things have only gotten a lot worse since then.

Almost exactly ten years ago, you may remember, Amazon came stealthily along and deleted e-copies of 1984 (no seriously, they did) and Animal Farm from people’s Kindles — copies they’d already paid for and downloaded — because it turned out that there was a rights problem with the e-publisher.

Jeff Bezos wound up apologizing all over himself and taking it all back and promising never to do that ever again, but the fact remains that Amazon has some kind of access to your Kindle files and can literally remove them, if they feel like it, which is downright creepy, and if it were your computer you would not like it one little bit.

Having learned this, I went along and had a closer look at the then-current Kindle License Agreement.

There was some simply petrifying stuff on there.

For starters, then as now, you don’t “own” Kindle books, you’re basically renting them. (“Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.”)

Amazon’s current terms of use now specify explicitly that they can look over your shoulder while you read. Check this out!

Information Provided to Amazon. The Kindle Application will provide Amazon with information about use of your Kindle Application and its interaction with Kindle Content and the Service (such as last page read, content archiving, available memory, up-time, log files, and signal strength).

They can change the software on you whenever they like, or just shut it down completely, without so much as a by your leave:

Changes to Service; Amendments. We may change, suspend, or discontinue the Service, in whole or in part, including adding or removing Subscription Content from a Service, at any time without notice.

That is how a totalitarian state might go about confiscating books, if they wanted to. There is nothing in this agreement to stop Amazon from modifying the Kindle software to make it impossible for you to read any of your own files on the device.

Such a step is not forbidden to Amazon by this agreement; they are under no apparent obligation to protect any data you might be storing. That’s not to say that there aren’t laws, at least in some states, that might allow you to sue for damages; I don’t know. I’m just saying, this agreement doesn’t require Amazon to protect your data.

A bad government could just grab the controls from them and have at it.

Changes to Service; Amendments.We may change, suspend, or discontinue the Service, in whole or in part, including adding or removing Subscription Content from a Service, at any time without notice. We may amend any of this Agreement’s terms at our sole discretion by posting the revised terms on the Amazon.com website.

Or they might decide to shut just your account down:

Termination. Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. In case of such termination, you must cease all use of the Service, and Amazon may immediately revoke your access to the Service without refund of any fees.

Keep in mind these are your books that you bought or collected.

Can you imagine a bookseller or publisher asserting rights over the contents of your bookshelves in your house? That’s basically what we’re talking about, here.

After reading all this back in 2010, I rang the (excellent, and very polite) Kindle customer service up to learn more, especially about privacy issues.

One thing I wanted to know was exactly how much access Amazon had to my private, personal Kindle files (such as .txt and .pdf files that I’d made myself.) But after being bumped up through a couple of layers of supervisors, I didn’t get very clear answers.

For instance, on the question of Amazon’s remote access to my personal stuff. “We don’t have access to your files,” I was first told. But can you see my personal files? And if you wanted to delete my personal files, as was done with the Orwell books, could you do it?

“We don’t do that.”

Eight or nine years down the road, we can be pretty sure that if a tech behemoth suddenly feels like doing something horrible, they just will do it.

And to rub this fact in your faces, let me reproduce this article from BoingBoing. All credit to the author, reproduced as found.

Microsoft is about to shut off its ebook DRM servers: “The books will stop working”

 

“The books will stop working”: That’s the substance of the reminder that Microsoft sent to customers for their ebook store, reminding them that, as announced in April, the company is getting out of the ebook business because it wasn’t profitable enough for them, and when they do, they’re going to shut off their DRM servers, which will make the books stop working.

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, I gave an influential, widely cited talk at Microsoft Research where I predicted this exact outcome. I don’t feel good about the fact that I got it right. This is a fucking travesty.

As Rob Donoghue tweeted, “I keep saying it and it sounds worse each time…There will be refunds, and reasonable voice says to me it’s just business, but the book voice wants to burn it all down. I’m kind of with the book voice on this one.”

Me too. Here’s what I wrote back in April, when Microsoft announced the shutdown.

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them.

The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

Conclusion

If you want to make sure that your literature, books and documents won’t be edited remotely, or erased without your permission, then please use paper books. If you have a lot of files on your electronics and you want to keep them, you can disable your Wifi.

If you want to guarantee that they will not be tampered with, then you can do this through a hardware change (not rely on the software itself).

Anything that is electronic, that can connect to the internet, can be changed by others. This is most especially true in the United States. You might find that Herman Melville‘s book Moby Dick  might be changed from…

Call me Ishmael.

to…

You'all can refer to me a Youlanda, Queen of booty...

Don’t laugh.

This is what is ahead in the future.

Do you want more?

I have more in my Happiness Index under my Computer and Internet Index here…

Life & Happiness

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Articles & Links

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Some notes on night time bumping with new friends in China, hotels and QR codes

Well, this post is to be an elaboration on a few specific MM comments. The poster wanted some clarification on what is going on regarding [1] hotels (in China, obviously) and [2] “new friends” that you might make on your adventures inside of China, and I of course, was more than willing to help him out.

But before I begin, let me clarify a few things.

First Off, China has changed.

China is not the way it was ten years ago, or even later. The days of  going to a salon with wall to wall girls that can give you some manly pleasures are few and far-between today. Even in the remote communities. It’s all kind of dying off.

So your experience from ten years ago or longer are actually (sad to say) not really going to be replicated. Those days are over.

I do not see them returning.

The same goes with the ladies that walk the streets, and hang out on the corners. You used to see them everywhere and on certain streets. You can still go to those streets, but things are much more discreet these days. You need to know what you are doing, and have a local friend to help you navigate the local geography.

It’s all about change.

And change is good. Well, in this case it’s good.

Part of the reasons behind these changes it are due to laws, part of it is due to society, and part of it is due to technology.

Laws

China has implemented some harsh laws regarding morality. The Chinese government wishes to maintain a traditional culture, and thus many venues related to vice are discouraged. Prostitution has always existed, and still exists, but it is no longer so blatant and open as it used to be.

Raw, Western style, quick flings are a dying breed. Instead, they have been replaced with talented and beautiful courtesans. These are mighty women. Some youngish (in their 20's) and some older. All strong, capable and beautiful.

Not to mention... profit oriented.

Society

China is very prosperous. 

The Western "news" has been so God-Damn awful that no one outside of China realizes just how well off the Chinese are. They are not only far richer than their American equals, but they own multiple homes, have savings, and are generally far happier. 

A walk through any Chinese parking lot will produce a vast number of Mercedes, BMW's, Porches, and high-end local vehicles. Not to mention the occasional Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Bentley.

What this means is that even the poorest Chinese person is doing quite well. The need to go prostitute yourself out of drug addiction, poverty or some kind of forced-slavery is no longer on the table. People who prostitute themselves in China do so for additional money, or to improve their lives. Not out of necessity.

Technology

QR code in the skies of Shenzhen. All done by laser-mounted and LED mounted drones flying via 5G and AI.

Sure there are dating APPs, and payment APPS and QR codes and all sorts of technology that makes business transactions very easy, and free. 

Unlike the USA where every single thing you do comes with a fee, in China it's free. You want to transfer some money electronically, scan the QR. No cost. It's free. Try doing that in America. America is the land with a million tiny, tiny hands in your wallet taking very small bites out of everything that you do, so that at the end of the day your wallet is empty.

Not in China.

So it's much easier to network electronically, make your connections and associations and make some "new friends" in the process. Everyone has a smart phone, and unlike America where you need to pay a weeks salary for one, here in China they are cheap and easy to get. Everyone has them. Everyone uses them.

And if you want to make a few spare yuan on the side, it's ridiculously easy to meet new people, and make new friends.

China is far, far, FAR more advanced than anyone in the West has any idea about. All those electronics, and technologies that come from Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Korea are all developed and made inside of China.

That’s the reality.

And that is partially why the US government is so horrified about “China’s rise”. As if it just happened “over night”. It didn’t.

And don’t even get me started on the idea that America is going to invest 2 trillion dollars on infrastructure to catch up with China…

Catch up…

The second point…

I think that the world has become a very harsh place.

Some places like the Middle East, and America are very difficult places to live. People feel under all sorts of pressure and need a release. They want some fun, and some pleasure.

And while I like to talk about the sexual activity that may or may not be associated with this, I strongly believe that the companionship of some new friends, some good food, and great conversation is really … REALLY… very much in need today.

Seriously, the best conversationalists are women.

I am sorry guys. That’s a fact. And they can chat up a storm, and they are interesting to boot! Add to that the fact that they can read EQ and emote to you on a very deep and significant level. It’s calming to me, and seriously I need to relax before I am ready to perform any kind of sexual activity. I’m not a 16 year old boy. I need intellectual stimulation to relax.

The old days of being “ready to go” in a second and leap into bed are long, long gone. Those days are like a very distant memory to me.

Now from my point of view, as a older man, I need to have more stimulation aside from what you would just get sexually. I need to have some good food. Some great wine. And some great conversation with a woman that spends the time to look great and who is willing to chat up and have some fun with me. Other older men in the MM audience know what I am talking about.

For you’se other guys that don’t know, and don’t understand, you WILL find out.

Just popping a Viagra, or a Cialis just won’t cut it.

It’s no longer about getting “it up”, and “staying hard”. It’s also about wanting to have sex, being interested, and staying interested, and having the energy and stamina to engage in some physical romping.

Your little-MM won’t budge an inch unless you are relaxed and interested in your partner and what they have to say.

That’s just the way it is.

Believe me or not. I don’t care.

For me, you just aren’t gonna get that with a run-of-the-mill street walker. Instead, You get that (what you need) from friends, and from other people who are upwardly mobile looking to chat up with successful and interesting men.

Interesting men. People who can discuss things on a wide selection of topics, and who have some money to spend, and like to play around a little bit. And that’s … well… you all like MM don’t you?

Ok. Enough of that disclaimer.

I think you all know what I am trying to say. Stop thinking that everything is a black and white cartoon. It isn’t. the world is colorful, and the needs of humans are varied and complex. Our best experiences come from understanding and embracing this fact.

Drink some wine. Chat up on a subject that you love to talk about. Be a little goofy, or silly. Don’t be afraid to say things. Joke some, drink some and eat some delicious food. have a great time, and then… relaxed, and engaged, you can take your time alone with your new friends. At a nice, leisurely pace.

It’s a win – win.

The Comment

I think this comment was written on 19APR21.

Concerning “ding dong” girls.

IMO best to just go into the bar. My first experience was in a Zhuhai hotel. (Took ferry straight from Hong Kong airport). The bar folks will call somone to come talk to you if there is no one there.

However, found out the hard way that first Chinese trip that you need to be careful about the pebble trick (I believe that is what happened: someone put a stone in the door so it never fully closed and while showering someone came in and exchanged my real RMB with counterfeit RMB). First the taxi guy told me I had fake RMB (didn’t believe him since I had it exchanged in the bank the previous day) but accepted they were fake when I went for an incredible foot and back massage the next night.

Also, learned the scary way in Shanghai to never go to KTVs that are not connected to the hotels you are staying in, unless you are with a local.

If one had a “ding dong” girl (first time I heard the term), how does one pay them if currency is no longer exchanged? Or do you still need cash for stuff like that?

And this is my response, and note that I elaborated upon it substantially…

Payment

You pay the girls using QR scans via Ali-pay, WeChat, or in E-yuan.

The most common way to move money around to friends or make purchases within China is through QR code. Everyone has one, and depending on your situation, you might have a couple all directing to different backs or purposes that you have arranged beforehand. You can read about it HERE.

Sometimes you can use some paper currency. They are useful. No one is going to reject a couple of thousand RMB if you hand it to them.

But in general, you use e-pay. You just generate your personal QR to your bank account. It’s amazingly easy.

If she (or he) is reluctant to give you a QR to scan, you can easily pass the money to here electronically. (BTW, It’s never happened.) I know that there is a KTV club in Louhu, Shenzhen that has a nice troop of young attractive men (in white) that service the ladies. They have a QR code printed on a cloth that is sewn into their jacket. They just flop out the cloth QR and the lady (or guy) scans the code and everyone is good to go.

Male hosts tend to provide services to the ladies in fine, clean (and often white) attire.

It doesn’t sound very classy, but it is. It’s all in the presentation. You know, for a man who is providing services to a lady, the actions and the behaviors are all very scripted and precise. It’s not crude at all, but rather very refined, polite, and calming.

In general, the most common way of transferring money is through the exchange of wechat names, and then you can either do a direct transfer, or send a few red envelopes to her. As in the picture at the top of this article.

Sending a “red envelope” full of money to a friend is very easy using WeChat.

If that doesn’t work, then you can do a direct surface to surface transfer of cash.You use a direct transfer APP and put your two phones physically together and the transfer goes directly without using Wifi.

Finally, if she is associated with the hotel, you can tack her fees to your hotel bill, and the gal at the register will hand her cash or transfer via QR.

Most of the bars with the bar-girls available via ferry from HK to Shekou no longer exist. The entire area has been built up by overseas Chinese investors and is now one large sprawling mall with Western prices. Yikes!

As far as Zhuhai is concerned, the major hotels that were involved in the KTV girls pretty much were closed. The hotel in front of my home was busted in 2013 for having 600 KTV girls. It was a night of many sorrows, I can well imagine.

Vice raids on Chinese hotels that host KTV girls and boys occur all over China. Since 2013 the police has put a major clamp-down on these establishments and most have ended up operating in a stealth mode ever since.

Ding Dong girls are the girls on the colorful business cards that you see shoved under your hotel doors, or on the street. Usually if you see a trail of cards on the sidewalk, they are a trail of “bread crumbs” that you follow to a hotel lobby.

You can tell that “X” marks the spot with a bunch of cards lying on the cement in front of the lobby door.

So you look down, see all these business sized colorful cards with pictures of cute girls and then you look in the front lobby. There when you go in, you’ll see from three to seven girls all sitting around in the lobby looking bored and playing with their phones.

You can, of course, go up to them and chat.

But more commonly is that you turn on your wechat “scan for local members” and see if any of the girls near you are broadcasting.This feature will alert you to all the local people near you with a wechat on.  Which should be a couple thousand. But if you only look at those that are the closest to you, you will be fine. You should be able to pick out the girls really easily.

For instance, if you are in a lobby, the girls will be from 1 to 10 meters away. So you look over the closest girls and try to associate the girl with the wechat picture. The smartest girls will put their picture so that you can recognize them directly.

Chances are, that they are available. so you find the gal that you want, and you connect, and send her a message. The wechat function allows you to chat and translate at the same time. So you just say hi. Ask the amount, and the desired services,  and then you two can go up to the hotel and have some fun.

It’s super convenient.

Now the “shake” feature is something different. You can easily connect with someone. You both click on the shake feature , and then both phones will connect. It’s useful when you don’t have a local Wifi and you don’t want to use data. You just shake and broadcast.

I tend not to use it very much.

But it can get you to meet some interesting people…

About the “fun”

Well, I assume that most MM readers are adults, eh?

Fun means many things to many people. When I was a younger fellow, I would immediately get down to “business”. Get my rocks off and they see the lady out the door. But, you know, that’s a long, long time ago.

A long time ago.

Like Brian Ferry long time ago. “Both Ends Burning” long time ago.

So you see guys, as you get older, your testosterone drops dramatically, You just don’t have the interest in sex like you used to have when you are younger.

Now, the thing is that it’s not only the singular need to have enough blood pressure in the nether regions so you can pop up a nice erection, but rather it is the entire system.

It’s like a car that’s getting old…

Worn out car. This is what happens to hard-drivers when they get old.

When you get old, you are like a high-performance car that needs some really, really good tender loving and care.

You run out of gas…

…and out of oil,

…and out of windshield washer fluid,

…and out of brake fluid,

…and out of steering wheel fluid,

…and a loss of air pressure in the tires…

Yikes!

And along with that comes with the entire effort to “get it up” to engage in sexual activity.

Actually as bad as it sounds, it’s no big deal. We all (really) don’t care that much about it. The truth of the matter is that by the time you are in your mid-60’s you know how the world works and discover that your fears about relationships and sex are just nonsense.

And when you don’t have that testosterone screaming in your ear all day and night, you can take your time and savor what is in front of you. Things are not so urgent, and driven any longer.

Truth.

You no longer gobble down a hamburger and wash it down with a coke. Instead, you take the time to find a nice local restaurant, and call a friend to join you. You pick out the meal carefully, and you savor the smells, the environment, and the companionship. You appreciate things more. You are no longer in such a frantic rush to “obtain”, or to “get” what ever it is that you are being driven towards.

As you get older, you start to savor what is placed before you. And you start enjoying life.

What is going on…

There are three primary components to a male sex rive & ability. They are…

  • Ability to have (and maintain) an erection. [Blood pressure]
  • Interest and desire
  • Ability to make the milky goodness and release.

Of course, this is never spoken about. The closest you ever come to this kind of discussion is on a Viagra commercial. But it’s a real issue and you all should be made aware of it.

Guys, because after all, we all encounter these situations. One way or the other, and…

Women, to understand what is going on with the men in your life, you need to best understand a little bit about their biology.

Now…

I really don’t want to have this entire article degrade into a biologically based topic, but I do want to though out some quick notes that people can nod in agreements with or go “pshaw! You dat crazy!”.

[1] Ability to have (and maintain) an erection. [Blood pressure]

This is easy, more or less, to take care of. There are medicines (today) such as viagra, levitra and cialis. that can take care of this issue. The thing is about this is that you must be careful with drinking alcohol when you mix drugs. And when you are older, and you are taking other medicines for heart issues, blood pressure issues, and other issues, mixing medicines can come with consequences.

The thing is, and it's an important thing, just being hard and strong means nothing unless your other two issues are taken cared for.

[2] Interest and desire

The ability to have interest and desire is also complex. Much of that comes from Testosterone. and men tend to lose it as they get older. Which can be a real problem. You can end up having a lot of sex, but can never release. It can be a little frustrating. Don't you know.

Now there are natural ways to increase your production of this very important hormone. Good healthy food, and moderate exercise will work wonders. You can also take one of the different kinds of testosterone medications that are available.

Heck! You can even get some of the testosterone injection tablets that they inject into cattle (to make them big) and suck on it for a few minutes to improve your dose. (They are little white pills that look like  tip of a ball point pen, on shaped like a miniature barrel.) But like all medications, if you do that without compensation in other areas, you might cause other problems. Try to strive for balance.

[3] Ability to make the milky goodness and release.

And thus, with the two above systems working well, and you are interested and relaxed with your partner, you would be able to ejaculate. And this (of course) starts up and fires up those wonderful endorphins that make us all feel good and healthy. 

And the more times you do this a day (with a partner) the younger you become. Not just in mental attitude, but also in physical health.

Which leads me to…

Exercise

Never the less, having sex is a great way to get exercise, and we need exercise. If you don’t get your needed exercise you can be prone to illnesses, and those illnesses can actually kill you. So exercise is an important part of your daily regimen. So we engage in healthy pleasureful exercise every opportunity we get.

Did you know that men who have daily or sex often (during) a week  tend to live, act, and look ten times younger? Its true!

So every opportunity I get, I try to engage in sex… you know… for health reasons. It’s important for me (personally) and for my family. It’s a need that all men must take regardless of your age.

Now if you don’t believe me, that’s fine too. But I am going to stick with my theories. Thank you very much.

The need for fun & companionship

All this being said, even if you have near-zero levels of testosterone, and a low interest in sex, you do want and need to have companionship. And if you are out and about, on the road, working like crazy, far away from home you do get lonely.

It might be nice eating in a restaurant a few times a week, but it gets really old, really fast if you are forced to do it every single day.

Business Road Warrior.

The life of a “road warrior” is not all that it is cracked up to be. And so when you are out with your friend and are out and about,  it’s a real pleasure to have some close physical contact with an attractive member of the opposite sex who you want talk to and who is interesting.

And really…

Seriously…

Why be lonely when you could share it with other nice and interesting people. Not just women, of course, but men. And dogs. And cats. Is that fight, fight, fight for the “big money” worth taking away from some companionship, pleasures and fun?

I say NO!

Hotels

Now, we’ve talked about all sorts of things, but let’s get down to talking about hotels. And Lordy, I have seen my fair share. I have been in every kind of hotel imaginable inside China. From five star castles to one star flop-houses, to rural three-star “business” hotels, to Bordello Hotels. I’ve been to them all.

It’s always an adventure.

They are not the clones of hotels that you see in the USA. Whether it is a Marriott, Hilton or Hotel-6. Each hotel inside of China has it’s own very unique and interesting branding. It’s all a real pleasure.

Like before, this all began with a comment…

In reply to congjing yu.

Your integrity shows by not trying to dispel reality.

The criticism of public washrooms must include a caveat about Hotel rooms and their showers.

Spent over a hundred days in China over 20+ trips to China in early 2010’s. Being SuperElite on Air Canada had me upgraded on almost ever flight to First Class while paying almost always under USD$1,000 return. So I am smart cheap and have experiences in Chinese hotels. And was fortunate to hit 6 of 7 continents before 50 and hope to step on 7th before I die.

Chinese hotels are the BOMB! Spacious and Clean and everyone with King-sized beds. Now there are filthy hotels I am sure, but I always paid between USD$50-USD$100/night. Each room would have cost more than USD$300 in Western Europe, USD$250 in NYC, and over USD$150 everywhere else in Canada and the U.S. 

The Showers were the best in the World. All showers had room for 2 and many for 3. Rain showers with incredible shower heads were included in almost all rooms. Some had water jets from the sides. Funny things is that half were glass so you could see the rest of the room while showering (something I have never experienced outside China – maybe available in rest of southeast Asia, but I have not traveled there)! There was a shower curtain (shower privacy blind) on the side facing the room, so if you had a visitor in your room and didn’t want them to see you, you could pull down.

I suggest anyone wanting to see what I am raving about just watch a few of the many Chinese quarantine videos out there.

MM, question: You showed us your kit that you use to go on overnight stays. You included a toothbrush and toiletries. Have Chinese hotels gone the Rest of the World way and no longer provide these? 

Every hotel room I was in had complimentary combs, tooth brushes, and plenty of everything else. Many even had complimentary condoms.

-TorontoSamIAm

Great info on the hotels, I think that I am going to write an article on this subject int he future. Thanks for the alert!

Actually, I am so used to the Hotels inside of China that I have forgotten just how shoddy the ones in the United States are.

You are absolutely correct, and they all are nice. Or course, you were a foreigner so you probably stayed at the four and five star hotels, and of course they are the shit! I’ll tell you what, but you must know that I am used to sleeping all over the place in China, from five star hotels to one star hotels. So I have a pretty decent idea of what it is all about.

Most showers are glass. When I mean most, I mean 99.9999% are. I have NEVER seen a shower curtain in my life here. Most are very open, spacious and have these very nice shower heads. Most of the shower accessories are made in FoShan, and coincidentally, I happen to know most of the factory bosses for this particular line of products. And yeah… all over the world… they are all made in China.

Foshan is in the center of the Guangdong province. It is near the major city of Guangzhou.

As far as the kit goes, each hotel is different.

Most do have toiletries. They do, as well as complementary items for your use and a few free bottles of water, a tea kettle, and free tea. Also normal are disposable slippers, bathrobes, and condom access. Also normal is a gas mask (in a red box) in case there is a fire in the hotel.

Emergency fire-mask that can be found in all of the hotels inside of China.

What is not normal is ice. The only time where I have seen an ice machine is in the five star western hotels. Never in the local hotels.

Also a shaving kit tends to be hit or miss. I would say around 40% of the hotels don’t have them. Also missing is hand creme or lotion. This seems to be very common in the United States, but absolutely absent in China.

Now that all being said, on occasion, I have run into instances where there isn’t a toothbrush. It does happen, you know. So what I tend to do is pick up a spare brush or two and throw it in my kit just in case. I haven’t needed them for a while, but it’s better safe than sorry.

In the smaller cities, you can also get a lot of “ding dong” girl cars slid under your door. They tend to look good on the cards, but the real deal is rather hit or miss.

Ding Dong Cards

These are the cards that you find lying everywhere. They have a half-life and tend to expire, so if you find a fresh card around then you can probably pick it up if you want to meet someone new.

And…

While I am at it…

Let’s take a look at some of the advertisements that you can find inside the men’s bathrooms all over China. The following is a stamp that I think ended up being stamped everywhere in China. They must have used a couple tankers of red ink to advertise all this…

Manly advertisements.

Anyways…

This is pretty much how it is inside of China.

If you are at a Western hotel that caters to travelers from the West the beds will be extra soft, they will have complementary coffee packets, some hand lotion, and English-fluent staff. The rest of China will, however, have harder beds. Complementary tea bags, and instructions in Chinese.

It’s all good.

A final note…

We are not machines.

And the illusions that the media, and that the “news” provide to us tend to be lies. The gals in the pictures that you see might be all that perfect, and alluring and wonderful, but you know what?

It’s when their real personality comes out that I really get interested in them. It’s when I see what they are like. It’s when I see that behind that nice perfect appearance that they have “heart”, passion, and uniqueness.

It’s the PERSONALITY that makes my jizzle sizzle!

Do you want more?

I have more posts along these lines in my China KTV Index here…

Business KTV's

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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Buildup to a Second American Civil War; to overthrow the Elites that control America

We have all seen this coming. Admit it.

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” 

— Ayn Rand

Rule by brute force.

That’s about as good a description as you’ll find for the sorry state of our nation.

SWAT teams crashing through doors. Militarized police shooting unarmed citizens. Traffic cops tasering old men and pregnant women for not complying fast enough with an order. Resource officers shackling children for acting like children. Homeowners finding their homes under siege by police out to confiscate lawfully-owned guns. Drivers having their cash seized under the pretext that they might have done something wrong.

The list of abuses being perpetrated against the American people by their government is growing rapidly.

We are approaching critical mass.

The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

In effect, you will disappear.

American Citizens are just “things” that the elites use

Our freedoms are already being made to disappear.

We have seen this come to pass under past presidents with their use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements.

President Biden’s long list of executive orders, executive actions, proclamations and directives is just more of the same: rule by fiat.

Now the Biden Administration is setting its sights on gun control.

Mark my words: gun control legislation, especially in the form of red flag gun laws, which allow the police to remove guns from people “suspected” of being threats, will become yet another means by which to subvert the Constitution and sabotage the rights of the people.

In Radley Balko's study of police raids of the homes of civilians for the CATO Institute, he described the mayhem currently taking place at the hands of federal and state governments in the United States in the name of law enforcement:

"Americans have long maintained that a man's home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

"These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects."

- from the Executive Summary of a research paper titled,
Overkill: he Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America
by Radley Balko, CATO Institute.

But you have already heard this spiel…

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

These “red flag” laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by which to seize guns from individuals.  They are an excuse. The excuse sounds so reasonable. People who are viewed as a danger to themselves or others, have their guns removed. Yes, this is yet another Trojan Horse, a stealth maneuver by the police state to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

Nineteen states and Washington DC have red flag laws on their books.

That number is growing.

As The Washington Post reports, these laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Sound familiar?

Someone in the neighborhood doesn’t like you…

… they claim that you are a witch…

…or you are a communist…

…or a child sex offender…

…or are a danger to yourself.

In the midst of what feels like an epidemic of mass shootings (the statistics suggest otherwise), these gun confiscation laws—extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws—may appease the fears of those who believe that fewer guns in the hands of the general populace will make our society safer.

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way.

It’s just an excuse

SWAT team raids "The Garden of Eden" The beast is gaining more and more unbridled power to lash out as he did this week at "The Garden of Eden" - a small organic farm in Texas reported by a RT News. This is but one of many raids that take place on a daily basis throughout the U.S. In this case they held 6 adults at gunpoint and handcuffed them for 10 hours saying they were looking for marijuana. Throughout the day the police conducted their search, destroying parts of the farm in the process. However, the property owner Shelley Smith told the media, "They came here under the guise that we were doing a drug trafficking, marijuana growing operation. They destroyed everything.”

The residents believe the raid was only an excuse to allow them to change the farm's "unconventional appearance." Code enforcement cops came along with the SWAT team and Smith said that they had been issued a number of code violations recently including, “grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house and generally unclean premises,” The cops found no drugs or criminal activity but arrested one of the members of the group for an unpaid parking ticket.

-Axis of logic
America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Anything—knives, vehicles, planes, pressure cookers—can become a weapon when wielded with deadly intentions.

With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats… to “stop dangerous people before they act.”

While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

Any excuse serves a tyrant

It took place in August, 2005 when a SWAT team killed an innocent man in his home while his wife and 4 year old son hid in a bedroom closet in Sunrise Florida. After killing the man, the police claimed they knocked on his door and announced they were police. But according to neighbors who watched the scene unfold from their window, the police in black masks did not identify themselves before smashing down his door and using a flash grenade expecting to find drugs and guns. The neighbors said that if the police had yelled, "POLICE!" - they would have heard it. The police claimed that 23 year old Anthony Diotaiuto (a two-time Iraq war veteran) fled from his bed into another room and "armed himself." Radley Balko (quoted above) reported that the police initially claimed that he fled to the bedroom for a handgun and pointed the gun at them. Later, the story changed with a spokesperson for the police saying that the "found the weapon next to his body" after they killed him.

Diotaiuto returned from his night shift at one of the two jobs he had to provide for his family. According to his friends, he had a shotgun and handgun which he kept for protection with a valid concealed weapons permit. Balko surmised that he rose from a deep sleep, disoriented by the crashing of his door and flash grenade and ran terrified into another room. After they killed him, the police claimed that they found 2 ounces of marijuana, some plastic baggies and a scale. But by the time the case went to a jury trial, that amount of marijuana was determined to be 16 grams, a little more than half an ounce. The Broward County medical examiner reported 10 bullet wounds in his head, chest, torso, and limbs.

-Axis of Logic
America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

We’ve been down this road before.

Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution ...

(namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign),

...you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

Let that sink in a moment.

You are a threat by your very existence

Radley Balko’s White Paper, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America:

Balko said that botched raids such as this one are not 'isolated incidents.' Other examples of SWAT teams misused are the hundreds of raids conducted each year at a wrong address. Often the people targeted are completely innocent, unlike in the Diotaiuto tragedy. Further, the 'no-knock' and 'quick-knock' raids often rely on anonymous tips and 'dubious informants to obtain the search warrants.'
The raids are intended to terrify. The police generally break down the doors with a battering ram or blow them off with explosives. Sometimes police use a flash bang grenade. Once inside, police force the occupants to lie prone, generally at gunpoint...

Balko wrote in Overkill, 'The idea of sending battalions of men dressed, trained, and armed like soldiers to do civilian police work should give us great discomfort'.”
America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Now consider the ramifications of giving police that kind of authority: to preemptively raid homes in order to neutralize a potential threat.

It’s a powder keg waiting for a lit match.

Duncan Lemp

Under these red flag laws, what happened to Duncan Lemp—who was gunned down in his bedroom during an early morning, no-knock SWAT team raid on his family’s home—could very well happen to more people.

At 4:30 a.m. on March 12, 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that had most of the country under a partial lockdown and sheltering at home, a masked SWAT team—deployed to execute a “high risk” search warrant for unauthorized firearms—stormed the suburban house where 21-year-old Duncan, a software engineer and Second Amendment advocate, lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother.

The entire household, including Lemp and his girlfriend, was reportedly asleep when the SWAT team directed flash bang grenades and gunfire through Lemp’s bedroom window.

Lemp was killed and his girlfriend injured.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, had a criminal record.

No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, was considered an “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, at least not according to the search warrant.

So what was so urgent that militarized police felt compelled to employ battlefield tactics in the pre-dawn hours of a day when most people are asleep in bed, not to mention stuck at home as part of a nationwide lockdown?

According to police, they were tipped off that Lemp was in possession of “firearms.”

Thus, rather than approaching the house by the front door at a reasonable hour in order to investigate this complaint—which is what the Fourth Amendment requires—police instead strapped on their guns, loaded up their flash bang grenades and acted like battle-crazed warriors.

In May, 2010 Joseph Weekley, a Detroit cop shot and killed Aiyana Stanley Jones, a seven-year-old girl when they raided a home during the early morning hours as she lay sleeping on a sofa in her home on Lillibridge Street in Detroit. Aiyana was shot in the head and neck. Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee said the heavily armed "Special Response Team" was executing a "no-knock" search warrant for a homicide suspect and they threw a flash grenade through an unopened window around 12:45 a.m. before charging in with guns drawn but they got the wrong house. It may have never gained international attention except that it was recorded by a reality TV crew, which was filming an episode of “The First 48,” a program like "Cops" and other racist TV shows that feed off the misery of victims in praise of the work of US police.

In June, 2013 Weekley went on trial for involuntary manslaughter with a possible sentence of 15 years in prison. The cop claimed that he had "physical contact" with the little girl's grandmother, Mertilla Jones, after entering the home. On June 18, the trial ended in a hung jury and he is now to be retried. In the trial, Grandmother Mertilla testified,
"I saw the light leave out of her eyes, and blood gushed out of her mouth. I knew she was dead.” After the first trial, Mertilla stated, "He admitted he shot and killed her. He's a dirty cop because he said I touched him. I never touched that man. ... I was never anywhere near Joseph Weekley. He's a lying [expletive] cop."

The Military patrol America today

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

This is what you get when you live inside a Military Empire.

This is the blowback from all that military weaponry flowing to domestic police departments.

This is what happens when you use SWAT teams to carry out routine search warrants.

Red Flag Laws

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

This is what happens when you adopt red flag gun laws, which Maryland did in 2018, painting anyone who might be in possession of a gun—legal or otherwise—as a threat that must be neutralized.

Therein lies the danger of these red flag laws, specifically, and pre-crime laws such as these generally where the burden of proof is reversed and you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.

Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

The American Police State

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.

All you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates)…

…surf the internet,

…communicate using a cell phone,

…limp or stutter

…drive a car,

…stay at a hotel,

…attend a political rally,

…express yourself on social media

…appear mentally ill,

…serve in the military

…disagree with a law enforcement official

…call in sick to work,

…purchase materials at a hardware store,

…take flying or boating lessons,

…appear suspicious,

…appear confused or nervous,

…fidget or whistle or smell bad,

…be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane),

…stare at a police officer,

…question government authority,

…appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom,

…or …

….generally live in the United States.

Government Watch Lists

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.

You will be tracked wherever you go.

You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the private sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

To that noxious mix, add in a proposal introduced under the Trump Administration and being considered by Biden for a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) that will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

It’s a Nightmare America

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Connect the dots.

Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.

To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones that will soon blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.

Hopefully you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata. Finally, add in the local police agencies and SWAT teams that are being “gifted” military-grade weaponry and equipment designed for the battlefield and trained in the tactics of war.

It all adds up to a terrifying package of brute force coupled with invasive technology and totalitarian tactics.

This brings me back to those red flag gun laws.

It’s the nail in the American Coffin

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

In the short term, these gun confiscation laws may serve to temporarily delay or discourage those wishing to inflict violence on others, but it will not resolve whatever madness or hate or instability therein that causes someone to pull a trigger or launch a bomb or unleash violence on another.

Indeed, those same individuals sick enough to walk into an elementary school or a movie theater and open fire using a gun can and do wreak just as much havoc with homemade bombs made out of pressure cookers and a handful of knives.

Nor will these laws save us from government-instigated and directed violence at the hands of the militarized police state or the blowback from the war-drenched, violence-imbued, profit-driven military industrial complex, both of which remain largely overlooked and underestimated pieces of the discussion on gun violence in America.

No matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes. In this way, even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.

The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

And what is next…
.
Well, it’s when the elites declare that they are a class that is up and above that of the American citizenry.
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The following article is reprinted as found with limited editing to fit in this venue, and all credit to the original author. by Baruch Pletner,PhD,MBA
 

The Hi-Tech Traditionalist: A Revolution In Reverse: The Uprising Of The American Elites Against The American People

The great Bolshevik revolutions of the last century in Russia, in China, and in Cuba all followed a familiar pattern: a group of young, energetic, endlessly corruptible, but not yet corrupt outsiders take on, in the name of the people, a tired corrupt establishment.

A civil war ensues in which the people side with the revolutionaries because they (mistakenly) think that things can never be worse.

Revolutionaries win, slaughter the establishment elites, and proceed to rob and enslave the people in even more outrageous fashion.

In May, 2008, a SWAT team raided a home in Norwalk, Connecticut after a prostitute called the police telling them that the home contained drugs and weapons. She gave the police a false name and after the killing no weapons were found but the police killed Gonzalo Guizan and dragged the home owner, Ronald Terebesi out in handcuffs. In February, 2013 taxpayers from 5 Fairfield County towns were ordered to pay $3,500,000.00 resulting from the raid on the residence in Norwalk that left Guizan dead, Terebesi traumatized and heavy damage done to his house. Reporter Jonathan Turley expressed his view of the $3.5 million settlement:
"Now, Easton First Selectman Thomas Herrmann insists that the settlement does not reflect any negligence by his officers or those of the other towns: 'While the defendants, police departments and officers from Darien, Easton, Trumbull, Monroe and Wilton maintain they were not responsible for the unfortunate death of Mr. Guizan, the insurers for the defendants, who will bear the full cost of the settlement, believed that it was best to resolve the matter rather than incur further attorneys’ fees, which were anticipated to be significant. The defendants concurred, further believing it was important to facilitate the Guizan family being relieved of the combined burden of litigation.'
"That seems a rather belated concern for the Guizan family since you first launched a virtual military assault on a drug allegation, then killed the unarmed Guizan, and then fought their claim for damages until you had little practical alternative but to settle."
The only thing the police found were two smoking pipes and a tin with a minuscule amount of drugs. Jonathan Turley described the raid and this part of his original story has since been redacted,
"One would have thought this was the alleged bin Laden raid, as it looked like a military operation in a war zone. Heavily armed police and SWAT teams raided a home owned by Ronald Terebesi based on a tip from a local stripper that she had a “dispute” with Terebesi. This sounds pretty harmless so far, but SWAT team members dressed in armor bore down on this home with flash grenades, snipers surrounding the house, and a virtual tank supplied to this police department after the cover up of 9/11 by DHS.
"When all was said and done, one man, Gonzalo Guizan, was killed and Terebesi was dragged from his home. Both of these men were unarmed, and had done nothing to warrant this raid, and in fact were cowering in a corner when the spray of bullets were fired."

Soon enough the old guard revolutionaries become every bit as corrupt as the ones they have replaced if not more so and the cycle repeats itself. 

In America, the situation is rather farcically backwards.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

In America, the corrupt establishment elites have decided to stage a Bolshevik coup against the American people rather than the other way around.

A Tsar fully in command of his own kingdom staging a coup against his own people is a bizarre development to say the least, and yet, here we are in 2021 America.

Like always, there are reasons.

First and foremost among them is the sheer scope of the nepotism and corruption of the American elites in business, government, technology, and the intelligence services.

This scope has very likely far exceeded anything previously known in human history.

Had the dimensions of the robbery perpetrated by the American ruling classes against the American people become widely known earlier, America could well have experienced a more typical revolution, one by the people against the elites. 

Well aware of the possibility if not probability of such an outcome, the people who run America put in place a plan to make it all but impossible.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

The plan involved the gradually escalating erosion of the limits on government powers put in place by the Constitution with a parallel erosion in the God-given rights guaranteed every American by the same document.

This was a fully bipartisan effort, put in place immediately after president Reagan departed office.

It is sufficient to observe the exponential increase in government versus private sector employment in America from 1988 to 2019 to fully grasp this point.

Stopping immigration from countries that have (or at least used to have) a tradition of personal freedom and limited government while throwing open the spigots for immigration from countries that have neither was the second part of the same plan.

The destruction of family values and Christianity in America was the third.

On the whole, the plan was a spectacular success.

Americans proved easy targets for propaganda on pro-gay rights and every other kind of moral depravity and have learned to bite their tongues and bow low whenever they heard the phrase: “diversity is our strength”.

White Americans learned to internalize guilt for something they had no control over – the very color of their skin.

Americans allowed themselves to become squeezed out of well-paying jobs by the elites-induced trifecta of low and high-skilled immigration and automation, with nary a whisper in protest.

All was going well for the elites until they had a panic attack, a freakout of unheard of proportions when a non-establishment person, Donald Trump managed to get himself elected president. 

The problem for the elites inherent in Trump’s election was simple: they have not done much, if anything, to cover the tracks of their massive robbery of the American people.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

That meant that when Trump assumed office even their best efforts would likely not be good enough to stop him from perceiving at least a glimpse of the true scale of their crimes. 

There is a certain irony in the fact that being criminals themselves, the American establishment has found, in Trump, the one true nemesis.

For he is a New York developer who cut his teeth dealing with the New York building trades, which are, of course, a criminal element in and of themselves. 

Trying to pin on Trump their own sins of sexual corruption, nepotism, embezzlement, etc. has not been a well-thought out strategy on the part of the American power elites.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

This is simply because it enabled him to begin educating the American public as to the breathtaking scope of their own criminality.

And that pretty much explains what happened during the election of 2020;  a coup d’etat against the American people, the American Constitution, and the American Republic itself.

Since the elites still very much permeate every hall of power in America, this is a one-off deal in which the rulers of a country set out to violently overthrow the very political structure of the country they are ruling, but, as they say, it is what it is.

The cover may be different, but the playbook is the same, so we are already being exposed to the oldies but goodies of…

  • escalating agitprop (weaponized lies and propaganda),
  • suppression of unwanted elements (cancel culture),
  • and paid snitching (whistleblowing).

Now we are entering into a new phase, that of secret trials with a predetermined outcome. 

Apparently congressional Democrats are going to hold impeachment hearings (read Bolshevik tribunal) at a secret location with no rights whatsoever being afforded to the accused.

America is a military empire, it’s police are military soldiers.

Unfortunately for all of us, however, the scope of their criminal acts is such that they cannot contemplate any due process without committing political and even non-political suicide. 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said federal government programs that armed police “with the weapons and tactics of war” had led forces across the United States to become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized.

“The use of hyper-aggressive tools and tactics results in tragedy for civilians and police officers, escalates the risk of needless violence, destroys property and undermines individual liberties,” the ACLU said in a report.

It said police forces set up special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units initially to face emergencies such as hostage situations and active-shooter scenarios.

But after studying more than 800 SWAT deployments conducted by 20 law enforcement agencies between 2011-2012, it said the specialized teams had moved away from that original role and were increasingly used to search people’s homes for drugs.

It said the raids were often violent, involving 20 or more officers armed with assault rifles and stun grenades, breaking down doors and windows, and screaming at occupants to get on the floor. It said children were present on numerous occasions.

The ACLU said the militarization of policing was also evident in police training that it said encouraged officers to adopt a “warrior” mentality – something it said was reinforced by the use of equipment such as battering rams, flashbang grenades, and armored personnel carriers.

It said the shift in culture was partly driven by U.S. Supreme Court rulings that gave police increased authority to force their way into homes, often in narcotics probes.

All things are on the table right now, including things that now sound crazy like setting up a parallel Supreme Court having declared the Constitution illegitimate because it was written by white males some of whom supported slavery and ratified without African American and other minority votes. 

Needless to say, such actions may well precipitate an armed conflict we know of as civil war, but that would not be an unexpected outcome for the elites.

We know now that the American intelligence services all work for the elites and not for the people.

They will fight on their side in the coming war. What we don’t know is to what degree the armed forces have been infiltrated, especially the mid-level officer corps. 

The outcomes of such cataclysms are never possible to predict, but we know what we know.

American ruling classes have long since betrayed her and her people to make themselves fabulously, generationally rich and powerful.

They could have cut a power-sharing deal with the American people as represented by president Trump; his hand has always been open to them.

They didn’t take him up on it.

Massive anger is building up in America now and the battle lines are drawn: either the American republic overthrows her own criminal elites or they overthrow her.

Which shall it be? To quote the Commander in Chief of the forces of light: “we’ll see what happens.”

The MM Opinion

Nothing is going to happen domestically. People are getting ready, ready, ready but there isn’t any “trigger” that will enable the unleashing of holy terror internally.

If something is going to happen, then it will happen externally.

Which brings up all these “waltzes” and “dances” that the Biden administration is involved in regarding other nations. It’s very blatant and “in your face”. Here’s my terms, you lowly Chink.. you lowly scum Russki… you evil Iranian… accept them or we will squelch you like the vermin you are.

Is it intentional? Or is the leadership complete morons? It’s difficult to tell these days. So I must ask…

What is the end game?

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The real way the United States Constitution works and it’s not pretty. We are watching the collapse in real time.

 

i don't know that the usa has any type of long range strategy... and i don't think they care who dies, or what mess they make of other places on the planet either... it seems the usa is intent on serving the god of mammon only.. this certainly works for wall st and the military industrial complex... i really don't think concern for the welfare of other nations, or the planet for that matter, are any considerations washington gives at this point... and to have the same brand of neo cons in bidens gov't as the previous bunch, is not a positive sign either.. it is hard to appreciate the constant hate towards russia these people have.. i find it impossible to understand in fact..

Posted by: james | Apr 9 2021 17:00 utc | 1

It’s a nice day out. And maybe too nice to complain about the mess the United States is today. But that’s life, don’t you know. Human constructions, nations and people, come and go. But the weather, society, the birds and the bees continue oblivious to whatever the United States does.

Too nice a day to worry about the collapse of whatever the heck it is. But it’s happening whether we want to watch or not. Meanwhile it’s not only the “rank and file” citizenry; the “Joe Sixpack” in the “flyover states” discussing this, but also the “elites” in the posh enclaves inside the elite residential areas of the North east. And they so banter about…

Here we have a couple of elites chatting about what’s going on.

While (initially) laws might say that everyone is equal, what actually happens is that certain types of people (psychopaths) tend to gobble up all the “power” over time. Thus resulting in a society of “elites” who rule over the nation.

These elites are talking.

I found it interesting, not only for the way that they are approaching the current situation; all, but also for what they know, and what they are oblivious to. As people used to say in the hills “He might be smart, but he has shit for brains”…

These people talk about life inside of the Washington DC “beltway”, and the various “alphabet” agencies while they live in their nice plush estates, inside their gated communities. You cannot blame them. They are not oblivious to what is going on in America, and in the rest of the world on the international scene, instead, they view it from a set of “eyeglasses” that is alien to the rest of us. thus their discourse, and bantering about has value and is valuable to us.

It’s worth taking the time to absorb…

Here's a pretty good read about what America is, and who the "leaders" are. It came from Culture News, and I edited to fit this venue. the author wrote long expansive paragraph-long run-on sentences that was difficult to read. But aside from that, and my own artistic flourishes in this particular article, the content remains intact. It's a good read. All credit to the author.

Please note that I interjected quotes and comments from the “Joe Six-pack” audience at the start of each section, just to keep everyone grounded. They are in dialog boxes.

The Codevilla Tapes

The historian of American statecraft and spycraft and conservative political philosopher Angelo Codevilla talks about the ruling elite, Jonathan Pollard, and the rise of the techno-surveillance state—and the consequent demise of the American Empire.

By David Samuels

No one runs America.

That’s the terror and the beauty of American life in a nutshell.

It is the answer to the secret of how 300 million people from many different places can live together between two oceans, sharing a future-oriented outlook that methodically obliterates any ties to the past.

All prior lived experience is transformed into science fiction…

…or else into self-serving evidence of …

…the present-day moral, intellectual, and technological superiority of the brave imagineers…

…those who are fortunate enough to live here, in the “Now”, while all who came before them are cursed.

It’s out of control

Yes it is.

Thanks for pointing out the planning of US aggression. One hopes this is all brinksmanship on all sides. 

If the plan is to take Crimea, then the USA has completely lost its mind and is hellbent on extinction rather than face collapse of 'the greatest country in the history of the world.'

It's understandable that those wanting to see the USA get its ears boxed are frustrated by Putin/Russia's strategy of repeatedly 'turning the other cheek.'

Rather than weakness, we can see now how Russia has consolidated its alliances, developed advanced weaponry, and consistently worked within International Law and not the Rules Based International Order of Might Makes Right.

The United States and its equally bankrupt allies/vassals face a three-front battlefield - Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Obviously the supply chain is a problem.

So, dear friends, the question is: How batshit crazy are the folks pulling the strings?

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 9 2021 17:21 utc | 7

No one can or does control such fantasy-driven machinery…

… which seems incapable of operating in any other way than it does, i.e., in a space with no beginning and no end…

… but trending always toward utopia perfection.

Learning to accept imperfection and failure may be an emotionally healthy way for adults to negotiate the terrors and absurdities of human existence, but it is not the highway to the perfectibility of man or woman-kind.

Because the large-scale explanations that Americans offer each other about how their country works, or doesn’t work, arise from working backwards from the expectation of some future storybook perfection…

…Americans tend to be either childishly conspiratorial or cartoonishly stupid…

…because those are the types of explanation that tend to win out…

…once you stipulate an ever-more-perfect-and-glorious future…

…as the inevitable outcome of whatever snake oil it is that you are pitching to the suckers.

The Snake Oil Addiction

To my mind, the most chilling sentence uttered in this whole affair was by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He said "that any attempts to start a new military conflict in Ukraine’s war-torn east could end up destroying Ukraine".

Lavrov never speaks like this and the Russians do not bluff.

Zelensky signed a decree recently stating Ukraine's intent to take back the Donbass AND Crimea! This means if Ukraine attacks, Russia WILL intervene and destroy Ukraine as we know it. I think it means Russian tanks will roll on Kiev to stop this war forever.

Moves like recalling the US Ambassador are very ominous and usually prelude all out war between nations. Combined with Lavrov's warning, Russia is giving all possible signals it is ready for war with Ukraine AND the US.

Posted by: Mar man | Apr 9 2021 18:03 utc | 13

In today’s America, these explanations come in the form of shallow and sweeping identitarian polemics (“white people” or “globalists” run “everything”)…

… indecipherable academese backed by graphed coefficients (people are motivated by “rational self-interest,” as calculated by academics)…

… or as appeals to a glorified and abstracted historical past (“the Founding Fathers,” “the melting pot”)…

…whose promises of future perfection may have seemed real enough to past generations, but must now grow ever more distant with every new iteration of Moore’s law.

Who is in control?

Martyanov is correct in the sense that the USA can only claim to be "universal" (empire) as long as it keeps the European Peninsula in its hold.

psychohistorian @ 4 states that the USA would still be the world empire even if it loses Europe because it has the financial system. But this financial system, including the dollar standard, would mean jack shit without Eurasia. The Americans would lose, by definition of the term, the petrodollar if it were to lose Eurasia, plus most of the world trade. The USD would have nothing to back it up as the world standard fiat currency; at most it would still be a strong, well-respected fiat currency (a la Swiss Franc, Pound Sterling, Euro, Yen and now the Renminbi) which would probably still be the currency used in Latin America and the Pacific region - but the power to enforce economic sanctions the USA has today would be instantly over.

Without its great foothold in the European Peninsula, the USA would certainly lose any serious claim to be a world empire. Maybe if it somehow would be able to keep the Middle East (through Israel and Saudi Arabia) - but that would probably be a Justinian version of the American Empire, not the Good Ol' American Empire of the times of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

If it were to lose the European Peninsula, the USA would just have Japan, South Korea, Australia and other Western Pacific islands as its last serious footholds in Eurasia. It would be what I called here sometimes a "Byzantine" USA - essentially a Western Empire, with some footholds in the Western Pacific, memories of a glorious long gone past. It would not mean the end of the American Empire by any stretch of the imagination (the true end of the American Empire can only be achieved by internal conflicts/contradictions, not external), but it would certainly mean the beginning of another era (a much less glorious one) of its history, for sure.

Posted by: vk | Apr 9 2021 18:19 utc | 15

Which is not to say that America isn’t governed by an elite class, just like China, or Japan, or France is—only that the ability of that class to actually rule anything is even more constrained by the native culture.

The idea that an advanced technologically driven capitalist or socialist society of several hundred million people can be run by something other than an elite is silly or scary…

…the most obvious present-day alternative being a society run by ever-advancing forms of AI, which will no doubt have only the best interests of their flesh-and-blood creators at heart.

Yet it is possible to accept all of this, and to posit that the reason that the American ruling class seems so indisputably impotent and unmoored in the present…

…is that there is no such thing as America anymore.

In place of the America that is described in history books…

…, where Henry Clay forged his compromises, and Walt Whitman wrote poetry, and Herman Melville contemplated the whale, and Ida Tarbell did her muckraking, and Thomas Alva Edison invented movies and the light bulb, and so forth…

… has arisen something new and vast and yet distinctly un-American.

That for lack of a better term is often called the American Empire.

Which in turn calls to mind the division of Roman history (and the Roman character) into two parts: the Republican, and the Imperial.

The American Empire

I guess the Russians made clear they mean business:

"What happened and how this could be, that mighty Ukraine and her US handlers suddenly want to prioritize "political and diplomatic way". Well, here is some snippet of suddenly a much more peaceful mindset with a bit of explanation of this sudden (not really) change:

The United States on Thursday said it was discussing Russia’s military build-up near the Ukrainian border with Nato allies as fresh reports showed Russia deploying ballistic missiles to the area. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that Washington was “increasingly concerned” about what has been described as Russia’s largest military manoeuvres in the area since the break-out of hostilities in eastern Ukraine in 2014. “Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed this week alone. These are all deeply concerning signs,” Ms Psaki told reporters on Thursday."

And suddenly the Ukrainians become angels of peace: ""Liberation" of Donbass by power means will lead to mass loss of life among civilians and military personnel--this is unacceptable for Kiev, stated the Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Ruslan Khomchak. "Being dedicated to universal human values and norms of humanitarian law (I am under the table trying to get up....), our state places the life of its citizens on the first place (I tried to get up, fell again...)",

https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/04/another-day-another-tune.html
One could just as well say "tail between their legs" running...

Posted by: Peter | Apr 9 2021 18:30 utc | 18

While containing the ghosts of the American past, the American Empire is clearly a very different kind of entity than the American Republic was…

…starting with the fact that the vast majority of its inhabitants aren’t Americans.

Ancient American ideas about individual rights and liberties, the pursuit of happiness, and so forth, may still be inspiring to mainland American citizens or not…

… but they are foreign to the peoples that Americans conquered.

To those people, America is an empire, or the shadow of an empire, under which seemingly endless wars are fought…

… a symbol of their own continuing powerlessness and cultural failure.

Meanwhile, at home, the American ruling elites prattle on endlessly about their deeply held ideals…

….of whatever that must be applied to Hondurans today…

…and Kurds tomorrow…

…in fits of frantic-seeming generosity in between courses of farm-to-table fare.

Once the class bond has been firmly established, everyone can relax and exchange notes about their kids…

… who are off being credentialed at the same “meritocratic” but now hugely more expensive private schools that their parents attended…

… whose social purpose is no longer to teach basic math or a common history….

…but to indoctrinate teenagers in the cultish mumbo-jumbo that serves as a kind of in-group glue that binds ruling class initiates (she/he/they/ze) together…

…and usefully distinguishes them from townies during summer vacations by the seashore.

America is run by a class of people

A quick consideration on the MIC question.

It is patent that the USA, at this stage of its development, depends almost entirely on its defense industry - which is backed up and insulated from the law of capitalism by the State - on keeping its technological prowess.

We already know that, as the world's financial superpower, the USA is destined to deindustrialize (because that's the price of keeping the USD as the standard fiat currency without incurring the danger of hyperinflation). As it deindustrializes, another part of the world must industrialize - in this case, Asia (China in particular). That's the conditio sine qua non for the financial hegemony to exist without quickly self-destructing, i.e. another part of the world has to industrialize, you can't have a financial superpower without an industrial superpower, as the commodities are what back up money (as Marx once said, the use value is the Träger des Tauschwerts, the surface over which the house of cards can be erected).

By exclusion, the USA can only keep its status as the financial superpower as long as it keeps absolute control over the Seven Seas (most of trade still happens through the sea), which means a strong defense industry must be kept at the behest of the financial sector (Wall Street). The Defense industry is, therefore, the exception to the rule - alongside the electronics-communications system (which gives material form to the financial system, to the USD and the stock market) - over which the USA cannot escape. If it can keep recycling USDs through multi-billionaire defense contracts with other countries, the better, as it gives another life extension to the USD. This is what happen in the famous Petrodollar scheme, where Saudi Arabia denominates its oil in USDs by buying American T-bonds, but also American military weapons and systems, which keeps Saudi Arabia sovereign and intact to keep its oil reserves denominated in USDs, in a virtuous cycle.

That's why arms sales are so important to the USA: it keeps, at the same time, its domination of the Seven Seas and therefore of world trade thus keeping its financial system the dominant one, and decelerate its inevitable deindustrialization process.

Posted by: vk | Apr 9 2021 18:43 utc | 19

The understanding of America as an empire is as foreign to most Americans as is the idea that the specific country that they live in is run by a class of people who may number themselves among the elect but weren’t in fact elected by anyone.

Under whatever professional job titles…

… the people who populate the institutions that exercise direct power over nearly all aspects of American life from birth to death are bureaucrats…

…university bureaucrats,

…corporate bureaucrats,

…local, state and federal bureaucrats,

…law enforcement bureaucrats,

…health bureaucrats,

…knowledge bureaucrats,

… spy agency bureaucrats.

At each layer of specific institutional authority, bureaucrats coordinate their understandings and practices…

…with bureaucrats in parallel institutions through lawyers.

They do so in language that is designed to be impenetrable, or nearly so, by outsiders.

Their authority is pervasive, undemocratic, and increasingly not susceptible in practice to legal checks and balances.

All those people together comprise a class.

For themselves, and only for themselves.

I’ve never commented before. I’m in South Africa, with family members in Palestine and family members who’ve lived through WWII. 

I truly hope that Russia has a strategy to make the US Mainland (I also have many American friends I dearly love) carry some of the consequences of anglozionist adventures abroad.

The world is imploding/exploding under the weight of Western hegemony.

None of the people I love (including my dearest family and friends or myself) will probably survive consequences a conflagration of this type could unleash. But what option is there to responding to ongoing geopolitical abuse by the US-ZIO-EU? How sad! Five billion years of evolution and this is what it comes to?

Posted by: Xerxes | Apr 9 2021 20:49 utc | 29

Another thing that residents of the broad North American expanse between Canada and Mexico have noticed is…

…that the programs and remedies that this class has promoted, both at home and abroad…

… have greatly enriched and empowered a small number of people, namely themselves.

While the broader American population continues to decline in wealth, health, and education.

Meanwhile, the American Empire that the ruling elite administers is collapsing.

The popularity of such observations on both the left and the right is what accounts for the rise of Donald Trump, on one hand, and of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the other hand…

… among an electorate that has not been historically distinguished by its embrace of radicalism.

Add those voter bases together, and perhaps 75% of Americans would seem to agree that their country, however you think of it, is in big trouble.

And that the fault lies with the country’s self-infatuated and apparently not-so-brilliant elite.

Why Empires Fall

Xerxes, Russia (or any other country) is unlikely to “make the US Mainland carry some of the consequences of anglozionist adventures abroad”. This could only happen in a “post-war/Nurenburg” type scenario, once the US has already been defeated. What they will do, and have been doing, is to separate from the US monetary system, work together with other resistance countries, and let the US isolate itself and fade as a result of this.

Fortunately the US empire has been weakening, and other countries developing and strengthening and working together under an ostensibly fairer paradigm. The worm has been turning against the empire. This is something to be happy and hopeful about.

Posted by: Featherless | Apr 9 2021 21:18 utc | 33

Every student of history has their own theory about how and why empires fall.

My theory is this:

The wealth of any empire flows disproportionately to the capital, where it nourishes the growth, wealth, and power of the ruling elite.

As the elite grows richer and more powerful, the gulf between the rulers and the ruled widens…

… until the beliefs and manners of the elite bear little connection to those of their countrymen…

… whom they increasingly think of as their clients or subjects.

That distance creates resentment and friction.

In response to which the elite takes measures to protect itself.

The more wealth and power the elite controls, the more insulation it must purchase.

Disastrous mistakes are hailed as victories or are made to appear to have no consequences at all.

This is done in order to protect the aura of collective infallibility that protects ruling class power and privilege.

What happens next…

the US sociopaths want to do in Europe much the same as what they did in Iraq - but using different means/proxies:

Create a situation of much chaos in a chosen country, as a relatively modern state dissolves, and use that as a pretext both to inject themselves even more into that region's affairs, and also to spread the 'contagion' of 'chaos' to other surrounding states..... where the US sociopaths who run the Empire will try (again) for regime changes in the surrounding nations (from Serbia to Georgia to the other Black Sea states) and beyond.

that the puppet Zelensky has been off to Qatar and next Turkey is a sure sign that these mindless people in the US national security state are going to try once again using the psychopathic jihadists as one of their means to inject instability, terror and chaos into the region.

on top of all that, as many commentators have already pointed out, as soon as Russia intervenes in a big way (if it does go that route), the Nord-Stream project is over with, Germany is without its gas and gas hub plans - plus there's now no gas/oil going to Europe via the Ukraine.

So two birds with one stone: northern/central Europe is then even more dependent on the US for energy, as well as 'protection' from the big bad bear.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Apr 9 2021 21:54 utc | 44

What happens next is pretty much inevitable in every time and place…

…Spain, France, Great Britain, Moghul India, you name it…

… Freed from the laws of gravity, the elite turns from the hard work of correct strategizing and wise policymaking…

…to the much less time-consuming and much more pleasant work of perpetuating its own privileges forever.

In the course of which endeavor the ruling elite is revealed to be a bunch of idiots and perverts who spend their time prancing around half naked while setting the territories they rule on fire.

The few remaining decent and competent people flee this revolting spectacle, while the elite compounds its mistakes in an orgy of failure.

The empire then collapses.

Sanity Check

Interesting to see the sudden back-peddling by the Kiev mouthpieces. I see a few different things going on here. First, and the biggest, is that I have come to believe that Russia (and China) has finally had enough, what with the constant pinpricks of the Trump years and now the absolute vitriol and diplomacy-killing antics of O'Biden, and have decided that everything else has been tried, the only way the US will listen is if it gets its nose bloodied, and bloodied good. Too many years of no consequences. So with this in mind, I believe Russia (and perhaps China) are actually looking for a good opportunity to inflict pain.

Posted by: J Swift | Apr 9 2021 22:51 utc | 50

In the hopes of confirming or disproving my theory, I recently traveled out to a vineyard in Plymouth, Northern California. There I found Angelo Codevilla.

He, who along with Michael Walzer of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the few American political philosophers who combines a deep sense of the Western moral and philosophical traditions with a hard-nosed sense of how the American political system actually works.

While I am naturally more inclined toward Walzer-ism, I thought it would be fair minded to give Codevilla a hearing, despite the fact that he identifies as a conservative Catholic rather than as a liberal Northeastern Jew.

As a sometime student of intelligence work, I will also admit to being an attentive reader of Codevilla’s book Informing Statecraft.

Which together with Norman Mailer’s novel Harlot’s Ghost offers a fair guide to the karmic evolution of the U.S. intelligence community.

Codevilla’s former boss in the U.S. Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had this to say about his protégé’s book:

Woodrow Wilson once spoke of the demands that would be made on Presidents in the age to come; demands of a kind that could only be met by “wise and prudent athletes, a small class.” Such is Angelo Codevilla; one of the small class of intelligence analysts who has actually been there. Read him; although I plead: Do not invariably agree!

What follows is an edited record of our conversation, which began when I arrived at the Codevilla vineyard in the evening and then continued the next morning, after the Codevillas invited me to spend the night at their house and then served me a delicious breakfast.

***

The Ruling Elite

David Samuels: In 2010, you wrote an article, which then became a book, in which you predicted the rise of someone like Donald Trump as well as the political chaos and stripping away of institutional authority that we’ve lived through since. Did you think your prediction would come true so quickly?

Angelo Codevilla: I didn’t predict anything. I described a situation which had already come into existence. Namely, that the United States has developed a ruling class that sees itself as distinct from the raw masses of the rest of America. That the distinction that they saw, and which had come to exist, between these classes, comprised tastes and habits as well as ideas. Above all, that it had to do with the relative attachment, or lack thereof, of each of these classes to government.

David Samuels: One of the things that struck me about your original piece was your portrait of the American elite as a single class that seamlessly spans both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Angelo Codevilla: Of course, yes. Not in exactly the same way, though; what I said was that the Democrats were the senior partners in the ruling class. The Republicans are the junior partners.

The reason being that the American ruling class was built by or under the Democratic Party. First, under Woodrow Wilson and then later under Franklin Roosevelt. It was a ruling class that prized above all its intellectual superiority over the ruled. And that saw itself as the natural carriers of scientific knowledge, as the class that was naturally best able to run society and was therefore entitled to run society.

The Republican members of the ruling class aspire to that sort of intellectual status or reputation. And they have shared a taste of this ruling class. But they are not part of the same party, and as such, are constantly trying to get closer to the senior partners. As the junior members of the ruling class, they are not nearly as tied to government as the Democrats are. And therefore, their elite prerogatives are not safe.

David Samuels:  As a young person moving through American elite institutions, I was always struck by the marginal status of those other people you mention, Republicans. Clearly, they were not as bright as me and my friends were, which is why they were marginal, even if they had an easier path to some kind of dubious status as pseudo-intellectuals in their second- or third-rate party organs. That hardly mattered, though. The New York Times was the important newspaper, and it was a liberal newspaper. The New Yorker was an important magazine, and so it was a liberal magazine. Right-wing types might look instead to the Conservative Review of Books, published out of Mobile, Alabama, or the Jesuit review of something or another. But nobody was quaking in their boots about how such places might review your work. All the cultural capital was on the Democratic side of the ledger.

Angelo Codevilla: What a marvelous recitation of ruling class prejudice.

Of course, you would not have judged them to be nearly as intelligent as you folks were. And you probably didn’t imagine that others would think you less intelligent.

David Samuels: Let them rant and rave about their conspiracy theories and whatnot. They didn’t matter.

Angelo Codevilla: Well, they didn’t matter. Because of the power that you wielded, because of the institutions that you controlled.

Now let me give you an alternative. In France, with which you tell me you are acquainted, you have meritocracy in government and institutions. Meritocracy ensured by competitive exams. I, and a bunch of nonliberal democrats as myself, would be absolutely delighted if institutions like The New York Times, The Atlantic, were to open their pages to people who bested others in competitive exams. But of course, they’re not thinking at all of doing that. As a matter of fact, the institutions of liberal America have been moving away from competitive exams as fast as they know how.

In living memory, and I’m an example of that, it was for a time possible for nonliberal Democrats to get into the American foreign service, and if they did as I did, and scored number one in their class, they would have their choice of assignments. But now, you have all sorts of new criteria for admission into the foreign service, which have supposedly ensured greater diversity. In fact, what they had done was to eliminate the possibility that the joint might be invaded by lesser beings of superior intelligence.

David Samuels: There is a curious mélange of dispensations under which people are escorted into the grand ballroom of the good and the great, right? Category one were with high test scores. Then there were the children of people who had gone to these institutions in previous generations, whose parents have money and might be named Cabot or Lowell. Then there were the admissions categories that cover you in the opposite direction—4.8% African Americans plus at least one white person who grew up without shoes in the mountains of West Virginia. These covering cases were useful because they could be trumpeted as proof of how far and wide the net was cast. All of which went to show that the most meritorious people were all gathered together in this place, and were therefore fit to rule everyone else.

Angelo Codevilla: Merit as defined by what?

David Samuels: I have no idea.

Angelo Codevilla Merit as defined by the capacity to be attractive to those at the top of the heap. In other words what you have is rightly called not meritocracy, but co-option.

Now it is one of the fundamental truths of our co-option that it results in a negative selection of elites. That each group selects people who are just a smacking below themselves, so that generation after generation, the quality of those at the top deteriorates.

David Samuels: Are you suggesting that the all-white Christian male elites, who largely inherited their status from their parents, were more deserving of their elevated status than their more diverse counterparts, like the people who ran American foreign policy under President Barack Obama?

Angelo Codevilla: I don’t know that the statesmen of the 1920s and ’30s were any more meritorious than the folks under Barack Obama, because they themselves were not selected by any meritocratic criteria, as you suggest. However, I do know, having taught college for many years, that the amount of work that was done by college students 50 years ago or more was considerably greater than the amount of work that is done by college graduates today.

David Samuels: As a graduate of two elite American universities, I am entirely willing to grant that point.

Angelo Codevilla: Them that don’t work so much don’t learn so much, usually.

David Samuels:  There is something funny to me about your description of these people as the “elite” or a “ruling class,” though. I picture grand country homes like in the Masterpiece Theatre production of Brideshead Revisited. But if you look at your American elite, you find earnest bureaucratic types living in collegiate apartments with Ikea furniture.

Angelo Codevilla No. Not Ikea furniture.

David Samuels:  You’re talking about a class of people who are academics or lawyer-bureaucrats living on federal government and NGO salaries.

Angelo Codevilla They have far more money than people who don’t have similar government attachments. The fact is that proximity to government power has meant, and does mean, more money and greater possibility.

David Samuels: I think about the tech oligarchs who park their multibillion-dollar fortunes offshore.

Angelo Codevilla: I would dispute that.

David Samuels: Really?  How many tens of billions of dollars has Apple parked offshore? How much money do Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and Mark Zuckerberg pay in taxes?

Angelo Codevilla: Apple and Bill Gates have secured their money, not so much by relocating, but by having become the biggest lobbyists in the country. That is the source of their financial security.

The point of the ruling class is precisely the confusion of public and private power. This is, in fact, this is becoming in fact a corporate state. Which by the way was pioneered by one of my former countrymen by the name of Benito.

David Samuels: So, when you’re talking about the ruling class, you’re positing a continuum between the Silicon Valley oligarchs with their hundred-billion-dollar fortunes and these public employee and NGO types.

Angelo Codevilla: I am indeed. That is the meaning of the word party. The Democratic Party is in fact composed of the very people that you are talking about.

Parties are by nature coalitions, each part of which benefits from the other. But they share certain things in common. One of them is contempt for Americans who are outside of their ranks.

David Samuels: You call those contemptible people the “country party.”

Angelo Codevilla: Precisely. Here, I’m borrowing an 18th-century British term.

David Samuels: I thought it was a good term because it brings to mind country music.

Angelo CodevillaThat too. Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri? Do you even know what it is?

David Samuels: I gather it’s neither Aspen nor Hollywood.

Angelo Codevilla: Branson, Missouri, is an entertainment center, larger in every way than Hollywood. It is located in Branson, Missouri, in the Ozarks. It is one of the homes of country music stars and starlets. It’s a huge complex of every kind of family entertainment, from bass fishing to theater, music, museums, anything you can imagine. Now the fact that you have never heard of it typifies the limitations of the ruling class.

David Samuels: My oligarchical snobbery.

Angelo CodevillaNo, no, no. You haven’t even risen to that.

David Samuels: I’m a piker. I bet $5 on the trifecta at the dog track.

Angelo Codevilla: It typifies the limitations of the ruling class mind, not even to understand that over which you are lording it.

David Samuels: So, what role do the poor and disadvantaged people of America play in your scheme? As I’m sure you understand, the reason we members of the elite class accumulate so much money and power is to be good allies for those who are less fortunate than we are. At least that’s what they teach my children in these schools that cost $35,000 a year.

Angelo Codevilla: You certainly do teach them that. It is a youthful pretense. It is a pretense to which the Roman patricians did not stoop.

David Samuels: But eventually they did, right? Constantine got them. The nobles all made public displays of their Christian charity.

Angelo Codevilla: No, no, go back. The Roman patricians call these unfortunates clients. Their relationship with their clients is precisely your relationship with the unfortunate and the poor. They are your pawns, the people whose votes you take.

David Samuels: So, when I express my sincere concern about transgender rights, you would presumably accuse me of manufacturing a new category of clients—and at the same time, a new class of bigots for me to self-righteously oppose.

Angelo CodevillaYou are not manufacturing a class, or rather you are exploiting that class’ weakness to turn that class into clients.

Most of all, what you are giving them—which really in a sense they crave more than anything else—is a sense of grievance against the rest of America. Grievance is the handle by which you push these pawns into your cultural wars.

David Samuels: What an ungenerous way to describe my noble instinct to help the less fortunate. Do the less fortunate truly have nothing to be aggrieved about, here in America?

Angelo Codevilla: Whatever they have to be aggrieved about, that grievance serves your instrumental purpose. Their grievance is your happiness. If they didn’t have a grievance, you’d try to manufacture it. Their having a grievance is an occasion for you to, to sharpen it, to scratch it, and to make it more relevant to them than it otherwise would be.

David Samuels: So, what exactly does the authority of the beneficent class I am supposedly part of, and which you seem to abhor, rest upon? There is the inherent rightness of my views, of course, which is proven by science—

Angelo Codevilla: Well, no. It is founded upon your will to power.

David Samuels: But look at all the wonderful benefits we elitists have to offer, like Davos in the wintertime. Why shiver out in the cold, Angelo?

Angelo Codevilla: Let me crib my response to you. Verily, verily I say unto thee, they have their reward. Do people in your class know where that comes from?

David Samuels: I’m a Jew, so I get a mulligan on quotations from the New Testament.

Angelo CodevillaI read the first part of the Bible as well as the second, so you ought to read the second as well as the first.

David Samuels: So people have insisted to the Jews throughout our history.

Now tell me: How does your eccentric description of the American elites square with what we know to be the American democratic system? Congress makes the laws. The president of the United States is in charge of the executive functions of government. And then there’s the Supreme Court, which makes sure everything’s constitutionally kosher.

What you are describing is a kind of semiconspiratorial extraconstitutional elite superstructure whose actions do not accord with American civics textbooks or what I read in the newspaper.

Angelo Codevilla: Thank you! Right over the plate.

You are describing, and the textbooks describe, what used to be the American system of government, which has not existed since the late 1930s. The last attempt to revive that system, to make it rise up out of the overlay of administrative agencies that the New Deal built, was the Supreme Court of Schechter Poultry vs. the United States, 1935, the essence of which decision was to say that a legislative power cannot be delegated. Were that maxim to be enforced, the FAA, the FCC, and on and on, all of these agencies would cease to exist because they are, quite literally, unconstitutional. Now the Supreme Court has held them to be constitutional under the fiction that they are in fact merely filling in the interstices of laws. However, your average law passed by Congress these days consists almost exclusively of grants to these agencies to do whatever it is they wish.

Which is why, when Nancy Pelosi said of Obamacare that we would only know what it contained after it was passed, she was entirely correct. She was describing the way the American government works, which is in fact, to use your words, a vast conspiracy between the best lawyers on the outside and the best lawyers on the inside of government. They call each other, both on the inside and the outside, stakeholders. And the rest of us are what, scumbags?

David Samuels: Deplorables.

Angelo Codevilla: Deplorables, yes. But we’re not stakeholders, we who are neither regulators nor regulated entities, but rather ordinary people. We are not parties to this covenant.

There’s a lecture given by James Wilson, the signer of the Declaration of Independence and the head of the first American law school, about the difference between American law and law everywhere else in the Western world. Elsewhere, law came from power. In America, positive law will be valid only if it was in accordance with the laws of nature and nature’s god.

David Samuels: But that’s not the basis of the revolt of the deplorables, or the country party, as you call it.

Angelo Codevilla: The basis of the revolt is simple. We realize that you hate us and therefore we hate you back. And we will take anybody, not that we found this man who fits our description, because Donald Trump didn’t fit anybody’s description of what they wanted. But we will take anybody who’ll take a swing at you.

Which is why I originally wrote at the back of that essay, that this revolution would be for the better or the worse. Because of the urgency that the country class felt. For getting out of all of this.

David Samuels: You seem to have had a marvelous life, though.

Angelo Codevilla: Fraught with all manner of difficulties. I had several job offers just as I was finishing my comps, and then I got drafted. By the time I came out of the service, there were no jobs to be had. And so first I worked at a jerkwater college in Pennsylvania. Too awful for words, I got out of there, but I couldn’t find anything else. So I did the only thing that I could do, which is to pass exams. I got into the foreign service. And then from there to the Hill and then to Stanford to the Hoover Institution and then to Boston. While I was on the Hill, I also taught ancient and modern political thought in Georgetown.

I probably would have done better for myself and my family if I stayed in the foreign service. Or, in the depths of my depression I got admitted to Berkeley Law school. But hey, you’re right. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

David Samuels: You got to write. You got to think. You got to see the kinds of things that were going to feed your writing.

Angelo Codevilla: I got to teach a lot of students, several of them are teaching right now. And they’re doing good work. Books, we’ll see. I don’t think I’m going to write another book because the last one I wrote, hell of a good book, didn’t sell very much. But who knows. If I get some time off of the vineyard here, and I don’t get too many irrigation systems going wrong or things like that, I’ll write some more.

***

The Rise of the Surveillance State

David Samuels: You have some real knowledge of how the American intelligence community thinks and operates, from your days as a staffer working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Angelo Codevilla:  Senate staffer in control of the intelligence budget. My senator was the chairman of the Budget Subcommittee of the Intelligence Committee. Which means that the budgets came through him and therefore through me. And back then we had markups and we could punish those who were not forthright with us, and we did.

David Samuels: How do you understand the seemingly unchecked growth of this globe-spanning American surveillance apparatus, and how do you understand the danger of that apparatus being turned to domestic political purposes?

Angelo Codevilla:  There’s always danger inherent in secrecy. And you know secrecy of course is central to intelligence operations. Secrecy most often is used not for the good of the operation, but to safeguard the reputations of those who are running the operations.

The agencies, like all bureaucracies, have always tried to aggrandize themselves, build their reputations, in order to make and spend more money. Get more high-ranking positions. Get more post-retirement positions for their people in the industries that support them. They’ve done exactly what bureaucrats in other agencies have done, neither more nor less.

But the business they’re in, which involves surveillance, is uniquely dangerous, because surveillance is inherently a political weapon. Inherently so. And there is never any lack of appetite for increasing the power of surveillance, and for increasing the reach of surveillance.

Fortunately, especially in my time on the Hill, we had pretty good resistance against bureaucratic attempts to increase the reach of government surveillance over the rest of the country.

Then along came 9/11, and congressmen, senators, who didn’t know any better, were rather easily persuaded, and for that matter Presidents—George W. Bush being exhibit number one—were very easily persuaded, that giving the agencies something close to carte blanche for electronic surveillance would help to keep the country safe. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 2008 to accommodate the practices which had evolved extralegally under George Bush, which essentially allowed the agencies to wiretap at will, so long as they claimed that this was for foreign intelligence purposes. In this regard, they claimed that what they were doing was within the spirit, if not the letter, of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which stated that any warrantless collection of electronic intelligence, bugging and other means of collection in finding intelligence, could capture the communications of U.S. persons, only incidentally in the course of capturing the communications of foreign targets.

The 2008 amendments legalized this practice, and added the capacity of the agencies to compel communications companies to help upstream collection of emails etcetera, which would then be recorded. The act, rather the amendment, contains an even longer list of apparent restrictions on how these intercepts of Americans may be used. But these restrictions are basically for show because, essentially, once the foreign intelligence surveillance court authorized a particular operation the practical means of judicial review of what has happened, of how it is being carried out, are so complicated as to be unworkable. And besides, what the hell do judges know about the substance of these things?

Therefore, to get to the point of your question, this increased power and lax attitude conserving it posed a temptation to use these tools for the convenience of the administration in power, which was made much more likely by the increasing identification of the senior ranks of the intelligence community with your ruling class. To the point that these people, being ordinary sentient human beings, believe what the people at the top of their class are saying about the opposition.

David Samuels: We are good, and they are bad.

Angelo Codevilla:  We are good and these opponents of ours, which mean to take over our positions, are bad people, they are dangerous to the country, and therefore why not look for every possible means of keeping them out of office?

David Samuels: You were directly involved in the drafting of the original FISA law in 1978.

Angelo Codevilla:  That’s correct.

David Samuels: In the aftermath of the Church Committee revelations, yes?

Angelo Codevilla:  Right. Now you use that term “the Church Committee” in the context that it was something that was antagonistic to the intelligence business. It was not. The Church Committee was a joint operation between, let’s call it “the left” inside the intelligence community, specifically the CIA, and their friends on the Hill. The result of it was that the left component of that bureaucracy has control of the CIA now.

The drafting of FISA was a cooperative enterprise between the Democratic majority, at that point, of Congress, the staffers being all Church Committee staffers, every one of them. And the ACLU. What I’m calling the establishment left. They were the drafters.

But the impetus of the drafting came from the FBI, primarily, and secondarily from the CIA, the NSA. The reason for their pressure was that the left had sued individual members of the FBI for having wiretapped them during the Vietnam War, in their communications with North Vietnam, communist Czechoslovakia, the KGB, and so on. Now they didn’t like that, and they wanted to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again.

So the point of FISA from the standpoint of the left was to keep that from happening again. The point of FISA from the standpoint of the FBI etcetera was never to be in a position to be sued again.

David Samuels: Right. A judge signed it. So now it’s legal.

Angelo Codevilla:  Right. What the FBI etcetera demanded was preauthorization. We will not do any wiretapping unless it is preauthorized. Unless we are ipso facto clean.

Now the objections to FISA were primarily of a constitutional kind, mainly that wiretapping for national security was an inherent part of presidential power. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. And that was a true objection.

I however made a different objection, although I agreed with the constitutional objection. I said that pre-authorization, pre-clearance of wiretapping, would be an unendurable temptation for people in the agencies to do whatever the hell they wanted. They would be exempt from the prudence that the fear of being sued would impose.

My objection caught the eye of the American Bar Association at the time, which organized a debate on that subject at the University of Chicago Law School, with me on one side, and a local law professor by the name of Antonin Scalia on the other.

Scalia took the position that the danger, which I described, which he found real, was minor compared to the need to get the agencies doing their job vigorously. We see how the future turned out.

I must note that Scalia is a southern Italian. And I am a northerner.

David Samuels: When you saw the Snowden revelations about Stellar Wind and these other collection programs which then were retroactively legalized—what was your response?

Angelo Codevilla:  “What else is new?”

David Samuels: Along with the impetus of 9/11, do you feel that the technology itself fundamentally—

Angelo Codevilla:  Sure. Technology itself increased the possibilities. And it would have taken real self-restraint for people to say, “No. We could do this, but we won’t.”

David Samuels: We fear the future threat to the constitutional order.

Angelo Codevilla:  We ought not to have such powers.

David Samuels: Please remove me from temptation, said no one, ever.

Angelo Codevilla:  Well as a matter of fact, Christians do “lead us not into temptation” all the time.

David Samuels: You do say “lead us not into temptation,” but I am not aware of the Christian prayer that says “please take away the chocolate cake while I’m in the middle of eating it.”

Angelo Codevilla:  Well, St. Augustine said exactly that, you know, “Lord make me pure, but not yet.”

***

Are Assange and Snowden heroes or villains?

David Samuels: I was an early and avid supporter of Julian Assange, who is now the devil for both the Democratic and Republican elite factions and appears to have vanished into a dark hole. But I have always defended him, because I felt that at the heart of his project, and no one else’s project, was a fundamental insight into how information was controlled and moves in the modern surveillance state, and how to confront it using the actual tools that are now in play.

When people said, that’s not journalism, I have always looked at them and said, “Yeah, it is. Or at least, it’s more like journalism than most of what passes now for journalism. It is a method for making public the fundaments of how the country is actually being governed.” I don’t know how you’re supposed to have a democratic society without that kind of transparency into the bureaucracies that spy on us and lie about it—and have turned a supine press into these pathetic hand puppets.

If you look at the universe of government bureaucrats and contractors and all the rest, there are now well more than a million Americans with some form of top secret or higher security clearance. Now I can accept that something is properly a secret if only five people know it, or if 40 people know it, or even 400 people. But there is no such thing as a secret that is shared by 1 million people. That is an anti-democratic exercise of power by a bureaucracy.

Angelo Codevilla: I agree with everything you said, up until the time you got to numbers. Because military operations involve a lot of people. Some intelligence operations are essentially military operations which put people’s lives at risk. The line must be drawn where the military is involved.

However, every word you said concerning Julian Assange, I agree with. Every last word.

David Samuels: Did you understand Edward Snowden to be a knowing Russian agent? As someone who was used and manipulated by the Russians?

Angelo Codevilla:  I do not know. What is fairly clear is that Snowden entered government service with the idea of doing something like what he did, which certainly removes him from the category of whistleblower. He is certainly no innocent.

But regardless of his motivation, I am glad that he existed. And I’m glad that he did what he did.

The United States does not suffer, and has never suffered, from a lack of knowledge about the rest of the world on the basis of which to make foreign and defense policy. OK? And that is a fundamental fact. And because of that, all the fancy arguments that you must sacrifice this and that for the sake of intelligence, I think are false.

David Samuels: One of the minor scandals that startled me in the late Obama/early Trump interregnum was the unmasking scandal, which struck me as much more significant than people seemed willing to credit at the time. I mean, the fact that someone leaked an intercept to David Ignatius may be a crime, but it was hardly news to me. I mean, people leak stuff all the time. That’s how Washington works.

What struck me as much more significant was the defense that “oh, actually most of these unmasking requests came from Samantha Power, in her job as U.N. ambassador.” And then it turned out it wasn’t her sitting at her desk all day long unmasking hundreds of names of U.S. citizens. It was someone she deputized in her office. She didn’t even know about these requests, or most of them, or so she claimed.

It was news to me that ordinary low-level bureaucrats and political appointees now sit at their desks all day reading raw intercepts targeting American civilians, collected under the pretext of gathering foreign intelligence. A 26-year-old assistant can sit there all day long reading your email, based on the three-hop rule. I don’t think that’s what—

Angelo Codevilla:  What the authors of the FISA had in mind.

David Samuels: Authors of FISA, authors of the U.S. Constitution, you can pick your authors. Yet that has became normative reality, right?

Angelo Codevilla:  Look. Most people who have a title in Washington don’t do their work. There’s always the chief assistant to the assistant chief, they’re the ones who do the work. And so yeah, they get deputized.

David Samuels:  So now we have this surveillance apparatus that Snowden, James Risen, and others have detailed, which provides daytime reading material for bored 26-year-old assistants, which means that material can easily be repurposed for—

Angelo Codevilla:  Any purpose under the sun.

David Samuels: That is a very powerful weapon for this bureaucracy to have.

Angelo Codevilla:  That’s the point.

***

When Jeff Bezos Has Dinner With the CIA

David Samuels:   The guys working in the White House whether under Obama or Trump aren’t writing the code for their surveillance systems. Neither are the nice people at the CIA. They’re all writing checks to Silicon Valley.

I saw the other day that Jeff Bezos, who’s one of the most dedicated champions of democracy and the free press in America, the guy who says that democracy dies in darkness, I saw that his company, Amazon, provides all the data storage for the CIA. Now as a reporter and as a citizen, that makes me confident—

Angelo Codevilla:   Ha, ha.

David Samuels:   —that Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, The Washington Post, is reporting without fear or favor every day on Jeff Bezos and all these CIA and DoD contracts with Amazon, because they have such a strong incentive to make sure that everything’s on the up and up. And by the way, Amazon is definitely not listening in on your private conversations through the listening devices—in the form of digital assistants like Alexa, Echo speakers, and doorbells with spy cameras in them—that it is installing by the millions in American homes.

Angelo Codevilla:   May I give you a quick answer to your larger question?

David Samuels:   Yes.

Angelo Codevilla:   It depends on who goes to dinner with whom. That’s how Washington works.

David Samuels:   That can’t be your answer, so let’s take it from the top. There is a company called Amazon, which now has monopolistic position A, in the field of books and all printed material distributed in America, and B, in a whole host of other industries ranging from diapers to blow-up pool toys. It looks like a classic monopoly trust. You have Google, which has a near-monopoly over the search function, the leading portal to most information on the internet, and holds a monopoly on search advertising. You have Facebook, which controls 78% of entries onto the internet now through their platform. So, you have these three monopolistic companies, right, one of which also owns the only major newspaper in Washington, D.C., and which control the movement of information throughout the entire society.

Now, another arm of Silicon Valley controls storage and access to the information that the government agencies gather on the society. And all of the money earned from both these pursuits flows back to these people, who are richer than any class of people in America since the robber barons. They got so rich by sucking out the life’s blood from five dozen different industries that employ people and destroying the 20th-century press, which played a key role in maintaining our democracy.

Now I look at that, and I say the power is out there. You look at it and you say no, my lad. It’s about who has dinner with who in Washington.

Angelo Codevilla:   Oh no, no, no. You misunderstand me. The ruling class transcends Washington. Part of it is in Silicon Valley, it’s in every major university town in America. It’s in Sacramento. And then you ask, what is it that ties it together?

David Samuels:   Right, the poor associate professor of gender studies with his or her little espresso machine.

Angelo Codevilla:   The poor associate professor of gender studies, number one is not so poor. Number two, she gets her living from the same partisan connection that Jeff Bezos does. She is part of the same party as Jeff Bezos, who has God knows how many billions.

David Samuels:   A large fortune.

Angelo Codevilla:   But his power as you have pointed out substantially consists of his connection with government. Although I must say one thing contrary to an absolutist view of the ruling class. That the four major trusts that you mentioned are in large part—have in large part grown naturally, organically. They’re securing themselves by government power. But the government did not force anybody to shop with Amazon.

David Samuels:   Ah! As a matter of fact, Google and Facebook secured their monopolies and their ability to commit massive and ongoing copyright violations thanks to a little-known provision of the Communications Decency Act, which was passed by Congress in 1996 in response to a series of moral panics that engulfed America at around that time. Those included the McMartin nursery school witchcraft case

Angelo Codevilla:   Oh ho ho ho ho. I remember that.

David Samuels:   There was a generalized hysteria about pedophiles running nursery schools and satanic rituals involving small children. And this became part of a hysteria so significant that Congress had to pass a law. And the law specifically targeted this phenomenon which was almost entirely imaginary, even if in a few specific instances it might have also been real, as is always the case. Except for the Jews baking matzo with the blood of Christian children, of course. We didn’t actually do that.

Angelo Codevilla:   You didn’t?

David Samuels:   No. Matzo tastes bad enough as it is.

So the Communications Decency Act was set up to prevent pedophiles from sharing pictures of child sexual abuse over the newfangled internet. In response to which, two farsighted members of congress, Ron Wyden and Christopher Cox, who fancied themselves experts on the digital frontier, wrote into the Communications Decency Act a section stating that internet providers shall not be considered to be publishers and that if you provide internet service or platforms or hosting you are not subject to any of the liabilities that traditionally attach to publishing information.

Now, all of a sudden, thanks to the wisdom of the U.S. Congress, two classes of publishers were created. One class, traditional publishers, had to spend a lot of money on fact checkers, editors, lawyers, and other people because they could be held legally responsible for the information that they published in their newspapers. Another class of publishers, internet publishers, like Google at the time and Facebook as it emerged, were free from all of these potential torts. So Facebook or Google could put up any damn thing they wanted—

Angelo Codevilla:   Yeah, except the fact that Google and Facebook supposedly exercise no control.

David Samuels:   That’s clearly a lie, especially now. They are obviously not the telephone company.

Angelo Codevilla:   Very interesting. At which point, one can challenge that exemption.

David Samuels:   Except it’s now too late. They ate the 20th-century American press.

Angelo Codevilla:   Let me give you the tiniest, tiniest glimmer from the margins, the very, very remote margins, of all of this, so you can understand my perspective. Q: There is a dream that unites progressives and bureaucrats and wealthy technologists. And where does that dream come from?

A: It’s a dream peculiar to this class. Other classes have been united by different dreams.

Q: Is it a substitute for religion?
A: Yes.

When I started working for the Senate, some folks at the agency figured out that I wasn’t a run-of-the-mill staffer. So I was visited by one of the old boys who took me up to the director’s office—the director wasn’t there at the time. He took me up via the director’s elevator, he had a key. And showed me all around and was very, very clubby with me. Then they took me to his house, which is overlooking the Potomac, with these large wolfhounds sitting about. And essentially, he said the equivalent of “all this could be yours.”

David Samuels:   My son, if you play the game.

Angelo Codevilla:   If you play the game. I said to myself, “Hmmmm, what did the Lord say to all this?”

But it really is a matter of who has dinner with whom. I have worked in Washington long enough to know that people would sell their souls for invitations to be at certain tables. To be allowed to speak with this person or that. In the end, it’s all social.

And how do you become social? You express the same thoughts, you have the same tastes. You vacation in the same places. You love the same loves, you hate the same hates.

David Samuels:   This is a very Italianate explanation.

Angelo Codevilla:   No, it’s not. You have the wrong idea about Italy. I’m from Northern Italy. I believe this is a hardheaded explanation of a soft but powerful reality.

David Samuels:   These are all people who are connected to the power of government.

Angelo Codevilla:   Either physically, i.e. economically, or emotionally—power. The dream of sharing power. The gender studies professor not only gets her money eventually from government, but she dreams of being part of a world-transforming enterprise.

David Samuels:   Here, I agree with you. There is a dream that unites progressives and bureaucrats and wealthy technologists. And where does that dream come from?

Angelo Codevilla:   It’s a dream peculiar to this class. Other classes have been united by different dreams.

David Samuels:   Is it a substitute for religion?

Angelo Codevilla:   Yes.

David Samuels:   Is that its primary emotional charge?

Angelo Codevilla:   Well, I don’t know about primary. Look, the primary element is, as we Christians were taught, pride. That is the sin of sins. There is nothing that moves human beings quite so much as the desire to be on top of other human beings.

David Samuels:   It’s interesting. I’m a Jew. But there are things that are lacking in our tradition, just as there are things that are very well developed in our tradition. You know, decent food can be lacking in our traditions.

Angelo Codevilla:   However, not in Italy.

David Samuels:   Oh, my God. The Jewish food in Italy is fantastic.

Angelo Codevilla:   The Jewish food in Italy is fabulous.

David Samuels:   I see that more as a reflection on Italy than the Jews.

***

Henry Kissinger Meets the Demon Emperor

David Samuels:   Judaism as it has existed for the last 2,000 years is an exilic tradition. The religion took the place of both the rituals in the Temple and the state itself. It was all ritualized. So for a 2,000-year-old tradition that’s remarkably elaborated and rich and subtle in so many areas, you have remarkably little discussion of political power—including the sins related to power, the proper ways to exercise power, all that was outside the experience of these people because they were politically powerless. Religion took the place of statecraft.

Israel hasn’t necessarily helped. Why do Jews want political power? To keep themselves from being exterminated. Why does a Jewish state want a strong army? Because if you don’t have one, people are going to wipe you out. In the Middle East, that’s a pretty ironclad rule. These are not very subtle or complicated ideas.

Angelo Codevilla:   But there are plenty of Jews in Europe who are very well acquainted with the theory and practice of exercising power.

David Samuels:   Of course, but—

Angelo Codevilla:   But these Jews were not real Jews. I mean, they were not religious Jews. They happened to be Jewish but they were primarily socialists or whatever.

David Samuels:   Or Henry Kissinger.

Angelo Codevilla:   What a fraud.

David Samuels:   He is an egomaniac and he is highly manipulative and he is a flatterer and a courtier. But Henry Kissinger sure ain’t dumb.

Angelo Codevilla:   Oh no. He’s very smart. Very smart.

David Samuels:   And one has the sense, that if he had really spent the time working on a biography of Metternich, that it would have been fantastic, too.

Angelo Codevilla:   Yes! Look, the man never had time to be a scholar. He was taken up immediately into the world of conferences and power. And he navigated it masterfully.

David Samuels:   Plus, he had the emotional capacity to get down on his knees and pray to Jesus with Richard Nixon after five whiskeys. And you look at Trump and you’re like, that’s what’s needed here too. Right?

Angelo Codevilla:   What would Kissinger do with Trump? Who knows. This man Trump is something else.

David Samuels:   I have a name for Trump: The demon emperor. Because I feel like he’s like a figure that you’d find in some Chinese chronicle, right? There was a time of terrible chaos, social disintegration, and then a Mongol invasion. They breeched the Great Wall and did this and that. And in those moments, the Demon Emperor would arise and take power. He had the head of a pig and the body of man, and he was known for his vile excesses and the terrible rampages that he’d go on, and his desecrations of ancient scrolls. Everyone bemoaned him.

But there was a certain virtue, at times, in certain moments, to having the demon emperor around. Yes, he raped 150 virgins in surrounding villages and all their families were very upset and there’s no reason he should have done that, and he defiles the very ground he stands on, and indeed, no one of noble birth would consent to marry his daughter. At the same time, he defeated the Mongols.

So, the real question isn’t whether Trump is vile, but rather what has he actually done, aside from being vile?

Angelo Codevilla:   Putting a parenthesis in the conversation, talking about Chinese epics. Are you familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

David Samuels:   No.

Angelo Codevilla:   You should be. This is a book that describes the tradition between—or rather I should say the end of the Han Dynasty around 200 A.D. The book was written over maybe 200 years. And it is partly prose, partly poetry. And it’s considered one of the great classics of Chinese literature. The Chinese government a couple years ago did a—condensed it into 95, 45-minute TV episodes. Beautifully acted, with gorgeous costume. With English translations that read something between Shakespeare and Thucydides.

Captivating.

I started watching it, I couldn’t stop. I mean my poor wife was left alone. And it conveyed as deep an insight into Chinese character as I’ve ever seen. To get Westerners to empathize with Chinese characters takes some doing. And you can download it, it’s free. The Chinese government has made sure you can download it for free.

***

The Progressive High Church Mass

David Samuels:    Where does the ethos of a class come from?

Angelo Codevilla:    Here I speak with the prejudices of an academician. Because the ethos of the academy changed, evolved. And what drove the change was the growing contempt of professors for our civilization. And you Jews ought not to feel that you are any less the enemy of these people than we Christians.

I should say the defining feature of the ruling class is a certain attitude. And that attitude developed in the academy, and that attitude became uniform throughout the country because of the uniform academy. The uniformity of the academy transformed itself into the uniformity of the ruling class.

David Samuels:    Because that was the institution that credentialed the otherwise uncultured American masses?

Angelo Codevilla:    It credentialed the mind and the habits. The habits of the heart. It credentialed the habits of the heart. The habits of conversation. The habits of work. The habits of logic. The habits period.

Can you imagine a bright kid coming in contact with that kind of intellectual fraud? The smartest ones will say, “hey, I don’t want to be part of this.” He’ll do something else. He won’t be taken in. Which means that this class will continue to degrade itself.

David Samuels:    Just as it would be wrong to understate the importance of who has dinner with whom in Washington, it would be wrong to understate the extent to which the class you dislike is moved by an idea: The rational scientific functioning of the bureaucratic state. That’s their God. I may find this attachment emotionally bizarre, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

Angelo Codevilla:    You’re saying the same thing in two different ways. Why is it that they have dinner together? It is that they believe that they share something terribly important. And that is precisely what they believe to be their stewardship of all things good.

Once upon a time, thus moved, they believed that they were holier than thou. Now they simply believe that they’re trendier than thou. In other words, they share the most valuable thing, which is not devotion to God but devotion to their own corporate mission. Their own corporate status. Status and mission. Status being the priests of the salvific religion of science and progress.

David Samuels:    Yeah, that’s right. There is a monkish sense of devotion.

Angelo Codevilla:    You’re going far too far with using the word “monkish.”

David Samuels:    They exist! These people exist.

Angelo Codevilla:    Oh no, no, no. They exist but they’re very few.

I taught in Boston for many years. And believe it or not, I put my kids in the highest-ranking schools in Boston, and I had to go to a parent meetings and school celebrations. And these were, in fact, secular masses. With, including, believe it or not, the breaking of bread.

Bread! Simple bread, passing it around. There’s a kind of faux simplicity. You have fake Puritans too.

David Samuels:    Now the idea of the worship of the corporate bureaucratic state, right? You have a religion that is capable of attracting, if not the adherence of the majority of the country, then maybe 40% of them.

Angelo Codevilla:    No, no, no, no, no. Not 40%. This is an elite attraction. Which attracts people who naturally, very naturally, want to rise above others.

Again, as a kind of professor, I came across hundreds of young people who very naturally ask the question, how can I rise in life?

David Samuels:    That is my job. I am young, I am supposed to rise.

Angelo Codevilla:    I am supposed to rise in my life, how can I do that? And I in good conscience explain to them that the paths are there and the ladders are being provided. And they will take you to these places. You will, however, have to adapt yourself to the mindset of these folks.

Now, if you insist on being independent minded, don’t bother. But if you do insist on being independent minded, also realize that these ladders will not be available to you.

A lot of kids will come and tell me how much they enjoy my classes and how much they like the ancients, the way I taught the ancients. And I said to them: “Look. There is no future for you in following the likes of me. I cannot give you the kinds of internships and prospects for employment and writing that others can.”

David Samuels:    But they also were successful it seems to me, in inculcating parts of their faith in what you would describe as their client base. Right?

Angelo Codevilla:    No, no, no, no, no. Clients, certainly not.

David Samuels:    They win elections in some places.

Angelo Codevilla:    Sure, they win elections. Not through faith but through pure clientelism. And don’t forget, especially nowadays, more and more nowadays, by fostering hate, by fostering resentment against others. If you are on our side, you’re on the side of the good. But more important than that, on the other side are people who hate you.

This is especially true with regard to blacks. They want to put you back in chains! What utter nonsense.

David Samuels:    Jews are subjected to the same kinds of disciplinary activity. Don’t you understand that the right wingers are all secret neo-Nazis who are planning to pack you off to the gas chambers? I’m an FDR-type liberal, but I find those attempts to trigger some fearful reflex to be incredibly demeaning and offensive.

Angelo Codevilla:    People believe mistakenly that Jews are especially smart. American Jews have proven to be dumb, politically. What is political stupidity? Political stupidity means not knowing which side your bread is buttered on.

Jews have taken to believing the leftist propaganda that the Christians are somehow their enemies. Where in fact, there is no group that is friendlier to Jews in America.

The more Christian you are, the more let us say pro-Jewish we tend to be. And why? Well for this very simple reason. That if you read the Bible, you don’t grow up rooting for the Philistines.

David Samuels:    American Jews come primarily from Poland and from Russia, where the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches often played a very nasty political role and also preached a pretty harsh supersessionist doctrine. They were not friendly to Jews. Now that’s very different from American Protestantism, and also American Catholicism.

Angelo Codevilla:    The Christian faith has always been an outgrowth of Judaism. That’s not contention, that is a fact.

David Samuels:    Any group that has a scar, you can press on the scar and profit.

Angelo Codevilla:    Well, yeah. But Jews are supposed to be smart.

David Samuels:    It’s embarrassing to be the object of this kind of primitive manipulation. And both sides do it. You know how they really talk about you, you know what they say behind your back. They’re gonna make your kids bow down to Jesus! Now vote for me.

Angelo Codevilla:    Working on the Hill, I would see these Jewish lobbyists breaking their heads against the left. Whereas if they’d gone to conservatives, they would have been greeted with open arms and gotten exactly what they wanted.

***

The Cruxification of Jonathan Pollard

David Samuels:    You were working on the Hill when Jonathan Pollard was thrown in jail for life to cover up the crimes of Aldrich Ames and others.

Angelo Codevilla:    Oh, that’s a really big subject.

David Samuels:    Would you say that the treatment of Pollard happened independently of the fact that he was a Jew?

Angelo Codevilla:   Oh heavens, no. No, no, no. Since you’re asking this question to me, you obviously have read that I did what I could to champion his release. Having nothing to do with the fact that he was a Jew, and everything with the obvious falsehood of the accusations on the basis of which he was sentenced.

David Samuels:    Right.

Angelo Codevilla:   He certainly committed espionage. And rightly merited prison for a couple of years. Instead he got a life sentence. Which ended up to be 30-something years. Why? Certainly not on the basis of the indictment. I mean, he was accused and pleaded guilty to precisely what he did.

What I know, which a lot of other people did not know, is that given his clearances, he could not possibly have done the things on the basis of which he was sentenced. It was simply impossible for him to do that. And every time I pointed that out to people in intelligence, they would make an argument which was untenable. Mainly that the revelation of facts in reports is tantamount or can easily lead to the revelation of sources and methods.

Nonsense! The compartmentation of American intelligence is premised precisely on the notion that this is not possible. Or extremely difficult. And although it is theoretically possible, one would have to show precisely how it did happen. And nobody even tried to do that.

Furthermore, Pollard was sentenced on the basis of a memorandum, which is yet secret. For our judicial system, to sentence anyone on the basis of any secret proceeding is about as un-American as anything yet.

David Samuels:    Have you read that memorandum?

Angelo Codevilla:   Hell no!

David Samuels:    Did anyone ever offer you a summary of its contents?

Angelo Codevilla:   Well, sure! But it had been only in the most general terms, to which I would say, oh? Show me how that’s possible.

You know, if somebody says, well and by the way, the snowballs in hell were not melting. I’d say, what? How is that happening?

David Samuels:    How do you understand his treatment?

Angelo Codevilla:   Oh horrible, horrible.

David Samuels:    No, I’m asking why.

Angelo Codevilla:   Why? Well, OK. The CIA has all kinds of social-political prejudices. The first thing I learned that I did not expect to learn when I went to my job on the Hill was just how controlled and defined by certain social norms the CIA is. That it is a kind of club that secures itself through co-option. And that co-option involves the furtherance of a whole bunch of prejudices.

So, the straightforward political prejudices are, in no particular order: liberalism, prejudice in favor of the Arabs. You probably are not aware of the corporate prejudices that existed in the favor of the Soviet Union. And they were very, very powerful at CIA, as opposed to DIA or NSA.

To give you an example of these political, pro-Arab prejudices and how they work, when specifically relevant to the Pollard case: When Israel bombed Iraq, the CIA came to us and they formed this committee, and railed at the Israelis for having spoiled this wonderful relationship we had with this wonderful man, Saddam Hussein. I remember at the time sitting next to Pat Moynihan who gave me the elbow and chuckle.

I would say that the majority, by far, of the intelligence committee, laughed at—this is Bobby Ray Inman. And they were cheering on Israel. Hey, bomb more!

But CIA was coming to notify us that in fact they were cutting off the flow of certain intelligence to Israel. And they were doing so in great anger. Now these items of intelligence which were being cut off were precisely the items of intelligence that Jonathan Pollard supplied to them.

David Samuels:    They were hurt!

Angelo Codevilla:   They were hurt! They were hurt and they took it out on Pollard. How far did this attitude which I just described blend over into anti-Semitism? I don’t know.

David Samuels:    Right.

Angelo Codevilla:   But if I were a Jew, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me to think that it did. And even though I’m not, I sure would have my suspicions.

So that’s the essence of my attitude, attitude and subsequent involvement, such as it was, in the Pollard case. I mean I saw number one, that the reason for the CIA’s anger was wrong. And in fact, the United States had every reason to cheer what the Israelis did. And most Americans did, as a matter of fact. And later on, the subsequent administration thanked the Israelis for having done precisely what they did.

So the CIA was wrong in that regard. And they were doubly wrong in convincing that imbecile, Caspar Weinberger, to write that un-American memorandum. And that judge should be damned by his profession for having paid attention to it. You don’t sentence people on the basis of a secret memorandum. You just don’t do that in America.

David Samuels:    The basis for his sentencing is still classified. So who can say for sure if his sentence was unjust.

Angelo Codevilla:   Well, no. We can say. It doesn’t matter that it’s classified, because it alleges something that couldn’t possibly have happened. You can classify it, but that doesn’t make it any truer or any likelier to be true. In fact, it makes it less likely to be so.

***

Secrecy and the Rule of Law

David Samuels: Now this opens up the last subject that I wanted to talk about at some length. Which is, what happens when secret intelligence becomes the basis for actions within the domestic sphere. This seems to me like a gathering storm cloud over this country and the freedoms that most of us still believe are ours.

Angelo Codevilla:   Right, quite so. Two things happen. The first bad, the second worse.

The first is that policy or action made on the basis of information that is not generally available tends to be bad policy. Secret policy doesn’t get the kind of scrutiny that ordinary policy does. And the people who make it do not themselves feel the necessity to be as careful at all that they do as they otherwise would be. So you get sloppy policymaking. You get people riding hobby horses. Not thinking through what they’re doing. And you end up with unintended consequences.

The second is that policymaking on the basis of information not generally available allows one to cut out one’s opponent, allows one to make policy partisan. More partisan than it would otherwise be.

David Samuels:    Would you say that the Iraq War was an example of that?

Angelo Codevilla:   Yes, in the following way. And we’re talking of course about two Iraq wars and then the criticism applies to both in a different way.

The first Iraq War, that is the original invasion of Iraq, happened because the president was under entirely reasonable pressure to do something serious, something definitive, about terrorism. And he concluded in his heart of hearts that overthrowing the regime would have been most vocal in its advocacy of anti-Americanism, and anti-American terrorism, would eliminate one of the major sources of terrorism, and also send a healthy message to other regimes that were in their own ways fostering terrorism.

But, when the subject was moving about inside the highest levels of government, great resistance was encountered to this. And the Bush administration found itself searching for a rationale for that invasion that would minimize opposition from within the government and the ruling class in general. And they sent up a whole bunch of trial balloons in that regard, and the trial balloon that got the least resistance was the trope about the weapons of mass destruction. About which the evidence was always terribly sketchy. But they found that to be the most bureaucratically tenable explanation, and so they went ahead with it. That was a mistake made intramurally, which compromised the eventual support of the larger population.

So much for the first Iraq War. The second one, being the occupation, that was decided in an even less transparent manner. We know that there was intense lobbying on the part of CIA and State for the occupation. And lobbying by the Saudis for that same course. How all that interacted and how George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice and friends soldiered all of that out and came to that particular decision, we still do not know. And they ain’t about to tell us.

And so, we ended up with an occupation which would ostensibly be for the purpose of democratization, but which number one, shied away from democracy because everyone involved realized that democracy meant that the Shia ruled. So as a fact, the day-to-day effort of the occupation, the one that cost so many American lives, had nothing to do with democratization. It had everything to do with preserving a role for the Sunnis.

The U.S. government never fought that war with the intention of crushing the Sunni opposition. They never fought that war with the intention of crushing the people who were shooting at Americans. And then ended up, in fact giving up on that war and paying those very people, in what was otherwise known as the Surge.

A whole bunch of idiots, Fox News conservatives count the Surge, the so-called Surge, as a great success. Great success in what?

Again here, this is as good an example as you will find of the wages of making policy in a nontransparent manner.

David Samuels:    There was one quote, I forget who it came from, but it came out of an interaction of one of the reasonably high-up war planners in the Defense Department and a journalist for, I think it was, The Atlantic. And the quote was that power creates its own reality. So it doesn’t matter what we say, because even if it’s not true now, by the time we’re finished we will make it true. And therefore there is no real difference between statements that are true or false, as long as we make them.

Do you have the sense that a similar attempt to manufacture reality was at play in what at this point are the still-unknown interactions between the CIA, the FBI, and the Obama White House with regard to the surveillance of Donald Trump’s associates, and the attempt to suggest some vast Putin-Trump conspiracy to game American elections, and whatnot?

Angelo Codevilla:   I don’t think that it went that far. Or I should say, I don’t think the people involved thought about it that deeply.

David Samuels:    I would agree.

Angelo Codevilla:   I think what you had was a small pooling of resources to tweak the news cycle with regard to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, which then turned into something very major.

David Samuels:    After the election.

Angelo Codevilla:   After the election. It was, like Watergate, a minor attempt to gain marginal advantage. Which then, unintended by the people involved at the time, became something very big, which escaped everyone’s control.

I believe that there are a whole bunch of people in Washington right now who are quaking in their boots because the House Intelligence Committee has shaken loose some of the documents involved. Because in the long run there are no secrets in Washington. And one can then wonder about the quality of the people who imagined that the things they did could remain secret.

It really was a marvel. The idea was that if we all say it together long enough and we shout it loud so nothing else can be heard, then it will become the effective truth, Machiavelli’s verita effettuale. But I mean, there is a limit to this. I have some close personal friends who are more on the left, and I said to them: OK. Where’s the evidence? Who did what when to whom? Where are the quids and where are the quos? What’s going on here? And all they could say is, “Well, the investigation is going on.”

What is not clear is just how much of the reality will come into the public’s consciousness.

David Samuels:    Whose fault is this?

Angelo Codevilla:   The fault here is not of Democrats on the left. The fault here is of Donald Trump and his friends who have refused to enforce the most basic laws here. The most obvious one is Section 798, (18 U.S. Code), the simple comment statute. Now anybody in the intelligence business knows that this is the live wire of security law. It is a strict liability statute. It states that any revelation, regardless of circumstance or intent, any revelation period, of anything having to do with U.S. communications intelligence is punishable by the 10 and 10. Ten years in the slammer, and $10,000 fine. Per count.

Now the folks who went to The Washington Post and The New York Times in November and December of 2016 and peddled this story of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Trump and the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, these people ipso facto violated §798.

Considering these matters are highly classified, and that the number of the people involved is necessarily very small, identifying them is child’s play. But no effort to do that has been made.

David Samuels:    But doesn’t that failure in turn point to what is, to some extent, the root of this entire drama, which is that Donald Trump seems unfamiliar with and temperamentally at odds with the executive function that he has now assumed?

Angelo Codevilla:   That’s certainly true. But you have to go beyond Donald Trump, to Republican power holders in general. These people far more than Donald Trump would be inclined to forbear for the sake of comity with the ruling class. And what kind of comity are we talking about? We’re talking about social comity. Because if you follow the law in this case, you end up putting former directors of CIA, FBI etcetera behind bars. They, and a whole bunch of their subordinates. Maybe a dozen people here would end up behind bars.

David Samuels:    We’ve come to accept that certain classes of people are in fact above the law.

Angelo Codevilla:   We have come to accept that.

The election of 2016 was precisely about whether anyone in America is above the law. The reason why so many people did not vote for Hillary Clinton is the feeling that she and her ilk were above the law, were acting as if they were above the law, which happened to be entirely true. Now the fact that the Trump administration is acting according to the same premise, i.e., that some people are above the law, is evidence that the revolution that the voters wanted in 2016 has only just begun.

***

Conclusion

It’s interesting to read the opinions of others. Especial if they come from the Washington “beltway”. It’s almost like they are a completely different “animal” than what the rest of us are. I suppose it goes along with my belief that the super elite have evolved into something other than what the rest of us are. They are another creature entirely. It’s not that they are clueless. For they indeed have intelligence. I just wonder if they have scruples and understanding. That’s all.

But that’s just me.

One thing is for certain, they think that they are better than you and I. They are driving the United States into a massive war that does not have an exit. It’s crazy, it’s dangerous, and while they might be intelligent, they sure are out of touch with man’s humanity.

And his humility.

That frightens me.

But they seem oblivious to it all. It’s like people coloring a coloring-book with crayons inside a large RV that is being driven by a drunk madman. These fools haven’t a clue as to what dangers are being toyed with. Sheech!

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The Gateway technique to isolate your consciousness for independent travel through space and time. An introduction.

This post serves as an introduction to “Hemi-Sync” or the “Gateway Process”. It is a system that permits the isolation of consciousness from the reality that it inhabits. There have been a flood of articles regarding this process because the CIA declassified it’s use when it was involved in “Remote Viewing” activities. Yet all of the theories, and articles put forth still come associated with the “baggage” of an imperfect understanding of the true and real nature of the universe. Here, we are going to present the techniques alongside the way the universe actually operates.

This post was originally posted on VICE. It was edited to fit this venue and all credit to the author. Note that my comments on the post are highlighted and italicized. Written by Thobey Campion on February 16, 2021, at 11:33pm. The original post is from VICE.

Dear MM reader; don't get too caught up on the CIA, and other things that seem outer-worldly and fantastical. Keep yourself grounded and keep in mind that we are consciousness that inhabits a body within a reality that is constantly changing through our thoughts.

How to Escape the Confines of Time and Space According to the CIA

In the 80s, the spy agency investigated the “Gateway Experience” technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime.

Thobey Campion writes...

She turned to me the other morning and said, “You heard of The Gateway?” It didn’t register in the moment. She continued, “It’s blowing up on TikTok.”

Later on, she elaborated: it was not in fact the ill-fated 90s computer hardware company folks were freaking out about. No, they’ve gone further back in time, to find a true treasure of functional media. 

The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience. The “Gateway Experience” is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to control one’s consciousness.

As such it can ultimately be used to escape the restrictions of time and space.

The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time. This included the theory and applications of remote viewing.

"Remote Viewing"  is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified and are available to view

This is a comprehensive excavation of The Gateway Process report.

The first section provides a timeline of the key historical developments that led to the CIA’s investigation and subsequent experimentations.

The second section is a review of The Gateway Process report. It opens with a wall of theoretical context, on the other side of which lies enough understanding to begin to grasp the principles underlying the Gateway Experience training.

The last section outlines the Gateway technique itself and the steps that go into achieving spacetime transcendence. 

The Timeline

1950s – Robert Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive, begins producing evidence that specific sound patterns have identifiable effects on human capabilities. These include alertness, sleepiness, and expanded states of consciousness.

1956 – Monroe forms an R&D division inside his radio program production corporation RAM Enterprises. The goal is to study sound’s effect on human consciousness. He was obsessed with “Sleep-Learning,” or hypnopedia, which exposes sleepers to sound recordings to boost memory of previously learned information.Advertisement

1958 – While experimenting with Sleep-Learning, Monroe discovers an unusual phenomenon. He describes it as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by bright light. It allegedly happens nine times over the proceeding six weeks, and culminates in an out-of-body experience (OBE).

1962 – RAM Enterprises moves to Virginia, and renames itself Monroe Industries. It becomes active in radio station ownership, cable television, and later in the production and sale of audio cassettes. These cassettes contain applied learnings from the corporate research program, which is renamed The Monroe Institute.

1971 – Monroe publishes Journeys Out of the Body, a book that is credited with popularizing the term “out-of-body experience.”

Journeys Out of the Body, Books by Robert Monroe.
Journeys Out of the Body,

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1972 – A classified report circulates in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. It claims that the Soviet Union is pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis for espionage purposes.

1975 – Monroe registers the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronized. Monroe dubs the state “Hemi-Sync” (hemispheric synchronization), and claims it could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness.

1978 to 1984 – Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle contributes to 450 remote viewing missions under Project Stargate. He is known as “Remote View No. 1”. This is kind of a whole other story.

June 9th, 1983 – The CIA report “Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process” is produced. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind.

1989 – Remote viewer Angela Dellafiora Ford helps track down a former customs agent who has gone on the run. She pinpoints his location as “Lowell, Wyoming”. U.S. Customs apprehend him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.

2003 – The CIA approves declassification of the Gateway Process report.

2017 – The CIA declassifies 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Stargate.

The Report

CIA screengrab.

Personnel

The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, hereon referred to simply as Wayne. There isn’t a tremendous amount of information available on the man, nor any photographs.

In 1983, Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work.

Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable American-Israeli scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.

A scientific approach

From the outset of the report, Wayne states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:

  • A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process. 
  • Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
  • Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
  • Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation). 

Methodological frames of reference

Before diving into the Gateway Experience, Wayne develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies.

He’s basically saying, there’s no way you’re going to get through The Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.

1) He begins with hypnosis.

The language is extremely dense, but the basic gist is as follows: 

..the left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. 

The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. 

Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data directly, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. 

There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. 

Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. 

Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.

2) Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation.

He distinguishes it from hypnotism. 

Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. 

The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. 

He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. 

Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 - 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. 

He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)

3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices.

Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. 

With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. 

A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. 

When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.  
E2-E4 records.

The Gateway mechanics

With that, Wayne takes a first stab at the Gateway process.

He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”

What distinguishes the Gateway process from hypnosis, TM, and biofeedback, is that it requires achieving  a state of consciousness in which the electrical brain patterns of both hemispheres are equal in amplitude and frequency.

This is called Hemi-Sync.

Hemi-Sync

Lamentably, and perhaps conveniently, we cannot as humans achieve this state on our own.

The audio techniques developed by Bob Monroe and his Institute (which comprise a series of  tapes), claim to induce and sustain Hemi-Sync.

Here, the document shifts to the usage of quotes and other reports to describe the powers of Hemi-Sync. Wayne employs  the analogy of a lamp versus a laser.

Left to its own devices the human mind expends energy like a lamp, in a chaotic and incoherent way, achieving lots of diffusion but relatively little depth. 

Under Hemi-Sync though, the mind produces a “disciplined stream of light.” 

So, once the frequency and amplitude of the brain are rendered coherent it can then synchronize with the rarified energy levels of the universe. 

With this connection intact, the brain begins to receive symbols and display astonishing flashes of holistic intuition. 

The Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a Frequency Following Response (FFR).

It works like this: an external frequency emulating a recognized one will cause the brain to mimic it.

So if a subject hears a frequency at the Theta level, it will shift from its resting Beta level. To achieve these unnatural levels, Hemi-Sync puts a single frequency in the left ear and a contrasting frequency in the right.

The brain then experiences the Delta frequency, also known as the beat frequency.

It’s more familiarly referred to these days as binaural music.

With the FFR and beat frequency phenomena firmly in place, The Gateway Process introduces a series of frequencies at marginally audible, subliminal levels. With the left brain relaxed and the body in a virtual sleep state, the conditions are ideal to promote brainwave outputs of higher and higher amplitude and frequency.

Alongside subliminal suggestions from Bob Monroe (naturally), the subject can then alter their consciousness. 

Illustration of FFR.
FFR

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The Gateway system only works when the audio, which is introduced through headphones, is accompanied by a physical quietude comparable to other forms of meditation.

This increases the subject’s internal resonance to the body’s sound frequencies, for example the heart.

This eliminates the “bifurcation echo”, in which the heartbeat moves up and down the body seven times a second.

By placing the body in a sleep-like state, The Gateway Tapes, like meditation, lessen the force and frequency of the heartbeat pushing blood into the aorta.

The result is a rhythmic sine wave that in turn amplifies the sound volume of the heart three times. This then amplifies the frequency of brainwave output. The film surrounding the brain—the dura—and fluid between that film and the skull, eventually begin to move up and down, by .0005 and .010 millimeters.

The body, based on its own micro-motions, then functions as a tuned vibrational system.

The report claims that the entire body eventually transfers energy at between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz. This matches Earth’s own energy (7 – 7.5 Hertz). The resulting wavelengths are long. They are about 40,000 kilometers in length. Which curiously also happens to be the perimeter of the planet earth.

According to Bentov, the signal can move around the world’s electrostatic field in 1/7th of a second.

To recap, the Gateway Process goes like this:  

  • Induced state of calm 
  • Blood pressure lowers 
  • Circulatory system, skeleton and other organ systems begin to vibrate at 7 – 7.5 cycles per second 
  • Increased resonance is achieved 
  • The resulting sound waves matches the electrostatic field of the earth 

The body and earth and other similarly tuned minds become a single energy continuum. 

Image from Getty Images.

Image: kovacevicmiro via Getty Images

A psycho-quantum level deeper

Wayne then turns to the very nature of matter and energy.

More materially (or less if you will), solid matter in the strict construction of the term, he explains, doesn’t exist.

The atomic structure is composed of oscillating energy grids surrounded by other oscillating energy grids at tremendous speeds.

These oscillation rates vary—the nucleus of an atom vibrates at 10 to the power of 22, a molecule vibrates at 10 to the power of 9, a human cell vibrates at 10 to the power of 3. The point is that the entire universe is one complex system of energy fields. States of matter in this conception then are merely variations in the state of energy.

The result of all these moving energies, bouncing off of energy at rest, projects a 3D mode, a pattern, called a hologram, A.K.A our reality as we experience it.

This describes the individual world-line realities. Don't get too confused.

It’s best to think of it as a 3D photograph. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down here. Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our “life.”

Consciousness then can be envisaged as a 3D grid system superimposed over all energy patterns, Wayne writes…

Using mathematics, each plane of the grid system can then reduce the data to a 2D form. Our binary (go/no go) minds can then process the data and compare it to other historical data saved in our memory. Our reality is then formed by comparisons. The right hemisphere of the brain acts as the primary matrix or receptor for this holographic input. The left hemisphere then compares it to other data, reducing it to its 2D form.

In keeping with our species’ commitment to exceptionalism, as far as we know humans are uniquely capable of achieving this level of consciousness. Simply, humans not only know, but we know that we know. This bestows upon us the ability to duplicate aspects of our own hologram, project them out, perceive that projection, run it through a comparison with our own memory of the hologram, measure the differences using 3D geometry, then run it through our binary system to yield verbal cognition of the self.

CIA screen grab.

Screengrab: CIA

Metallicman comment

This is very similar to the way that the consciousness moves in and out of different world-lines. It moves in a sine wave. One instance it is in a world-line, and the next it is between world-lines in the non-physical reality. We move in this similar way.

The click-out phase

Wayne then shows his cards as a true punisher, issuing, “Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins.”

Shots fired, Wayne.

What he’s preparing the commander reading this heady report for is the reveal—how we can use the Gateway to transcend the dimension of spacetime.

Time is a measurement of energy or force in motion; it is a measurement of change.

This is really important.

For energy to be classified as in motion, it must be confined within a vibratory pattern that can contain its motion, keeping it still. Energy not contained like this is boundary-less, and moves without limit or dimension, to infinity. This disqualifies boundary-less energy from the dimension of time because it has no rate of change.

Energy in infinity, also called “the absolute state,” is completely at rest because nothing is accelerating or decelerating it—again, no change. It therefore does not contribute to our hologram, our physical experience.

We cannot perceive it.

Now back to frequencies.

Wave oscillation occurs because a wave is bouncing between two rigid points of rest. It’s like a game of electromagnetic hot potato (the potato being the wave and the participants’ hands being the boundaries of the wave).

Without these limits, there would be no oscillation. When a wave hits one of those points of rest, just for a very brief instant, it “clicks out” of spacetime and joins infinity.

For this to occur, the speed of the oscillation has to drop below 10 the power of -33 centimeters per second. For a moment, the wave enters into a new world.

The potato simply disappears into a dimension we cannot perceive.

Theoretically speaking, if the human consciousness wave pattern reaches a high enough frequency, the “click-outs” can reach continuity.

Put another way, if the frequency of human consciousness can dip below 10 to the power of 33 centimeters per second but above a state of total rest, it can transcend spacetime.

The Gateway experience and associated Hemi-Sync technique is designed for humans to achieve this state and establish a coherent pattern of perception in the newly realized dimensions.

Image: Spectral-Design via Getty Images

Passport to the hologram

In theory, we can achieve the above at any time.

The entire process though is helped along if we can separate the consciousness from our body. It’s like an existential running head start where the click-out of a consciousness already separated from its body starts much closer to, and has more time to dialogue with, other dimensions.

This is where things get a little slippery; hold on as best you can.

The universe is in on the whole hologram thing, too, Wayne writes. This super hologram is called a “torus” because it takes the shape of a fuck-off massive self-contained spiral.

Give yourself a moment to let the above motion sink in…

This pattern of the universe conspicuously mirrors the patterns of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Galaxies north of our own are moving away from us faster than the galaxies to the south; galaxies to the east and west of us are more distant. The energy that produced the matter that makes up the universe we presently enjoy, will turn back in on itself eventually. Its trajectory is ovoid, also known as the cosmic egg. As it curls back on itself it enters a black hole, goes through a densely packed energy nucleus then gets spat out the other side of a white hole and begins the process again. Springtime in the cosmos, baby!

Screen grab from the CIA.

Screengrab: CIA

The entire universe hologram—the torus—represents all the phases of time: the past, present, and future.

The takeaway is that human consciousness brought to a sufficiently altered (focused) state could obtain information about the past, present, and future, since they all live in the universal hologram simultaneously.

Wayne reasons that our all-reaching consciousness eventually participates in an all-knowing infinite continuum.

Long after we depart the space-time dimension and the hologram each one of us perceives is snuffed out, our consciousness continues. Reassuring in a way.

And that is the context in which the Gateway Experience sits.

The Technique

The following is an outline of the key steps to reach focus levels necessary to defy the spacetime dimension. This is an involved and lengthy process best attempted in controlled settings.

If you’re in a rush, you can apparently listen to enough Monroe Institute Gateway Tapes in 7 days to get there.

The Energy Conversion Box: The Gateway Process begins by teaching the subject to isolate any extraneous concerns using a visualization process called “the energy conversion box.”

Resonant Humming: The individual is introduced to resonant humming. Through the utterance of a protracted single tone, alongside a chorus on the tapes, the mind and body achieve a state of resonance.

The Gateway Affirmation: The participant is exposed to something close to a mantra called The Gateway Affirmation  . They must repeat to themselves variations of, “I am merely a physical body and deeply desire to expand my consciousness.”

Hemi-Sync: The individual is finally exposed to the Hemi-Sync sound frequencies, and encouraged to develop a relationship with the feelings that emerge.

Additional Noise: Physical relaxation techniques are practiced while the Hemi-Sync frequencies are expanded to include “pink and white” noise. This puts the body in a state of virtual sleep, while calming the left hemisphere and raising the attentiveness of the right hemisphere.Advertisement

The Energy Balloon: The individual is then encouraged to visualize the creation of an “energy balloon” beginning at the top of the head, extending down in all directions to the feet then back up again. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that this balloon will provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels that he or she may encounter when in the out-of-body state.

Focus 12: The practitioner can consistently achieve sufficient expanded awareness to begin interacting with dimensions beyond their physical reality. To achieve this state requires conscious efforts and more “pink and white noise” from the sound stream.

Tools: Once Focus 12 is achieved, the subject can then employ a series of tools to obtain feedback from alternative dimensions.

Problem Solving: The individual identifies fundamental problems, fills their expanded awareness with them, and then projects them out into the universe. These can include personal difficulties, as well as technical or practical problems.

Patterning: Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere.

Color Breathing: A healing technique that revitalizes the body’s energy flows by imagining colors in a particularly vivid manner.

Energy Bar Tool: This technique involves imagining a small intensely pulsating dot of light that the participant charges up. He or she then uses the sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy (formerly known as the dot) to channel forces from the universe to heal and revitalize the body.

Remote Viewing: A follow-on technique of the Energy Bar Tool where the dot is turned into a whirling vortex through which the individual sends their imagination in search of illuminating insights.

Living Body Map: A more organized use of the energy bar in which streams of different colors flow from the dot on to correspondingly-colored bodily systems.https://oembed.vice.com/MBh6HBt?img=1&lazy=1&v=1&app=1

Seven days of training have now occurred. Approximately 5 percent of participants get to this next level, according to the report.

Focus 15 – Travel Into the Past: Additional sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes includes more of the same, plus some subliminal suggestions to further expand the consciousness. The instructions are highly symbolic: time is a huge wheel, in which different spokes give access to the participant’s past.

Focus 21 – The Future: This is the last and most advanced state. Like Focus 15, this is a movement out of spacetime into the future.

Out-of-Body Movement: Only one tape of the many is devoted to out-of-body movement. This tape is devoted to facilitating out-of-body state when the participant’s brain wave patterns and energy levels reach harmony with the surrounding electromagnetic environment. According to Bob Monroe, the participant has to be exposed to Beta signals of around 2877.3 cycles per second.

Conclusions

Wayne expresses concern about the fidelity of information brought back from out-of-body states using the Gateway technique. Practical applications are of particular concern because of the potential for “information distortion.” 

The Monroe Institute also ran into a bunch of issues in which they had individuals travel from the West to the East Coast of the U.S. to read a series of numbers off of a computer screen. They never got them exactly right. Wayne chalks this up to the trouble of differentiating between physical entities and extra-time-space dimensions when in the out-of-body state.

Wayne swings back to support mode though, lending credence to the physics foundation of the report. He cites multiple belief systems that have established identical findings. These include the Tibetan Shoug, the Hindu heaven of Indra, the Hebrew mystical philosophy, and the Christian concept of the Trinity.  Here he seems more interested in hammering home the  theoretical underpinnings that make The Gateway Experience possible, rather than  the practical possibilities promised by The Gateway Tapes.

Possibly with his CIA top brass audience in mind, Wayne then gives an A-type nod to The Gateway Experience for providing a faster, more efficient, less subservient, energy-saving route to expanded consciousness. This finishes with a series of recommendations to the CIA for how to exploit Gateway’s potential for national defense purposes.

The missing page

One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It’s a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads “And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the,” The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn’t just revealed the very secret of existence. 

The gap has not gone unnoticed. There’s a Change.org petition requesting its release. Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have demanded the same. In all cases, the CIA has said they never had the page to begin with. Here’s a 2019 response from Mark Lilly, the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, to one Bailey Stoner regarding these records: 

One theory goes that that rascal Wayne M.-fricking-McDonnell left the page out on purpose. The theory contends that it was a litmus test—if anyone truly defies time-space dimensions, they’ll certainly be able to locate page 25.

Quick notes

This is an introductory post to this subject. I will include better, more “meaty” posts subsequent to this. I will also include the Hemi-Sync audio tracks that the MM reader can experiment with.

Do you want more?

This post starts it’s own sub-Index. Within this index will be (or are) a collection of audio files (in either MP3 or FLAC formats) for your personal use, adventures and exploration. Free.

I have more posts like this in my World-Line Travel Index

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index
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Many US Agencies have their own “Big Brother” autonomous person monitoring programs

Fourth amendment? What's a "fourth amendment"?

-Joe Average American Citizen

This is a compilation of articles, thoughts, information and data that I threw together for my personal use. It dates from the time period of 2013 through to 2018, and has not really been updated to account to the enormous expansion of the surveillance capabilities of the various alphabet organizations under President Trump.

Essentially, it became too overwhelming. It was impossible to keep up with the massive effort under-weigh to convert the United States government into a totalitarian utopia for the oligarchy.

Looking at the sole enormity of this information shows an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the United States is not only no longer “free”, but that it has become a prison-state. It somehow by-passed or slid past the military totalitarian state mode and went straight to wall-less prison.

“Im just setting up a barebones linux laptop to go to Panama with.  All the essentials will be kept on an encrypted thumb drive just incase I need to access client machines.  Installed Skype, remote software and password safe, but the data is on the thumbdrive that gets wiped after 10 tries at the password.  Its a shame that americans have to be like this for doing nothing illegal.”

-Skype message to the Author on 13JAN18.

We are witnessing the integration of spying on two levels, the government level (federal, state and local) and the corporate level (via telecom providers, web services and credit card companies).  It’s “Full Metal” Orwell.

The term "full metal Orwell" is a play on words.

Full Metal
Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 British-American war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford's novel The Short-Timers (1979). Its storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training, primarily focusing on two privates, Joker and Pyle, who struggle to get through camp under their foul-mouthed drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by soldiers. The film was released in the United States on June 26, 1987. In slang the term “full metal” means “to go into combat or to fight”.

Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell.It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons

If you are a user of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Craigslist or another popular site, the U.S. security state is watching you. An increasing number of federal agencies are employing sophisticated means to monitor Americans’ use of social networking sites.

1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.

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Federal entities from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Department to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to even the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are involved in developing programs to track the American public online.

Criminals are running the United States government; call them what you will, but they all serve their own interests. 

“There’s nothing more destructive to a society than the institutionalization of immunity for elite criminals, yet that’s exactly what’s happened since the financial crisis. Top tier predators, whether they operate within government or mega corporations, recognize that the system they control will never hold them accountable for anything they do.” 

Read more here; https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/01/22/we-can-do-a-lot-better-than-this/

This is not, not, NOT how a function government acts. Not how ANY functioning goverment acts. Let alone one that was set up as a “Republic” for the people, by the people.

“Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. 

Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. 

We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state.... 

The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… 

It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government.... 

This group ... is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.”

— Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech

This corruption of what the United States is has many facets. But in this article we will look at a very specific, tiny portion of this corruption. It is, to put it in a nutshell, the abrogation of the powers of Congress to agencies; the “alphabet organizations”. And the powers that they have grabbed for themselves when Congress stopped policing their behaviors.

In short, Congress has created numerous “Frakenstein monsters”. (Named CIA, FBI, IRS, ATF, DHS, etc…)

A metaphorical Frankenstein monster is a situation —political, financial, ecclesiastical, or domestic—which has been created through folly, and which has become so potent and uncontrollable that it is now a menace to social stability.

Meaning of “A Frankenstein Monster” phrase of Idiom

To each one they granted it their own regulation-making and law-making powers. And to each one they allowed it to grow and get big with no limits on behaviors, no oversight in what they were doing, and no controls or rules over their ability to run “roughshod” over the Bill of Rights.

Particuliarly the 9th and the 4th amendments.

The Ninth Amendment was James Madison’s attempt to ensure that the Bill of Rights was not seen as granting to the people of the United States only the specific rights it addressed. In recent years, some have interpreted it as affirming the existence of such “unenumerated” rights outside those expressly protected by the Bill of Rights.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Here is a brief summary of some of the programs that now exist un-constitutionally within the alphabet organizations that Congress has created.

WARNING: Specific examples come from both Conservative and Progressive websites. There, apparently, is more conservative examples of progressive abuses being illustrated than the other way around. Sorry about that. I use what is available to me.

Let it be well understood that the two political parties are both THE SAME PARTY. It is the party of the rich and powerful. They conduct theater to keep you and I occupied while they rob us blind. So do not get all caught up on “he did this”, or “she was innocent”, nonsense.

The examples used are illustrative only. So please do not be offended that I am using Hillary Clinton as an example, or Donald Trump as an example. Stop thinking of them as being the “flag bearers” of your own personal ideology.

They are both actors playing a role. Nothing more.

Justice Department

“To block exposure of their misdeeds, these officials falsely claimed that national security would be damaged.”

-Michael Goodwin

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a report from the DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section, “Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites,” that describes how evidence from social networking sites can reveal personal communications that might help “establish motives and personal relationships.”

It reports that monitored data from such sites can provide location information and “prove and disprove alibis.”

Perhaps most illuminating, it advises agents that “going undercover” on social media sites can enable law enforcement to communicate with suspects and targets, gain access to nonpublic information and map social relationships.

The DOJ document notes that Twitter retains the last login IP address, but does not preserve data unless legally required to do so. However, that means nothing. Twitter censors, deletes, and fabricates lies to meet whatever objective that it deems appropriate.

It was in 2016, when angry tweeters alleged that Jack Dorsey et al., were purposefully censoring and "suppressing" certain content on Twitter, 

[1] namely anything to do with the leaked DNC and John Podesta emails, as well as 

[2] hashtags critical of Hillary Clinton 

[3] while "shadow-banning" pro-Donald Trump content. (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-31/twitter-shadow-banning-donald-trump) 

We can now confirm that at least one part of the above was true, because during the late 2017 Senate hearing, Twitter admitted it "buried", which is another word for censored, significant portions of tweets related to hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in the months heading into the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Twitter’s systems hid 48 percent of tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag and 25 percent of tweets using #PodestaEmails, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said in his written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Twitter.

Can you just imagine all the issues related to twitter with Donald trump? Oi Vey! I’ll tell youse guys. You are either convinced that there is no such thing as freedom of speech or not. It’s not my job to prove it to anyone.

“While the FISA court’s activities are secret, the court did admit in 2013 that it had, during its several decades in existence, approved over 99.9 percent of the US government’s surveillance requests.”

-Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity


There is an American idiom for this. It is known as “rubber stamping” something. It means to approve something without any consideration, as a formality.  Obviously any court that approves 99.97 percent of anything isn't doing jack shit as far as doing its job is concerned. 

Hence, rubber stamps became one of the symbols of excessive bureaucracy, and a rubber stamp, in your sentence, would be someone whose role was merely to signify their approval of something, to endorse uncritically. The OED says of "rubber stamp" as a verb: "To endorse or approve uncritically; to pass routinely or automatically."

Rubber stamp - phrase meaning and origin

The IRS

“The gov is so rotten that it’s going to take an incredible, massive, long effort to expose, indict, charge, try, convict, and sentence the evil doers. It won’t always be pretty. But it HAS to be done.”

-2/8/2018, 5:24:35 AM by little jeremiah 

The IRS uses a variety of social media sites like Facebook, Google, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and Second Life to investigate taxpayers.

It seems to have started this practice in 2009 (shortly after Obama became President), providing agents with special training on social networking operations, and user habits. The EFF posted the IRS’ 38-page training that offers detailed tips to agents on how to conduct searches, locate relevant taxpayer information, narrow down and refine results.

Some Links:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence

This office is seeking a tool that integrates all online information, including web searches, Wikipedia edits and traffic webcams.

The DOD Social Media Strategic Communications Program (SMISC).

The Defense Department has solicited proposals through DARPA for a $42 million “Social Media Strategic Communications” (SMISC) program, a tool that tracks social media and weeds out information.

It has set four goals for the project: [1] to detect, classify and measure the development of ideas, concepts in hidden social media messages; [2] specify the structure of the campaign and influence in social media sites and the community they create; [3] identify the participants and intention in conducting a social media campaign of persuasion and measure its effect; and [4] develop an effective counter-message to an identified campaign carried out against the enemy.

The FBI

If not, we are no longer America. We are a banana republic where it’s acceptable for the government to use its police powers against political opponents.”

-Michael Goodwin
 

There should be no doubt in the mind of the reader as to just how corrupt the FBI has become. Permitting serial felonious treason, while at the same time operating “secret societies” within the government, are all crystal clear indicators of dangerous behaviors.  Behaviors that can turn on the American people at any time for any reason.

“Earlier this morning, I examined the classified, four-page memo from @HouseIntelComm regarding the FBI, DOJ, and the so-called #RussianCollusion. To put it simply, “WOW.” I joined the call to #ReleaseTheMemo. Americans deserve truth and transparency. pic.twitter.com/r2RJnLNaULRep. Jody Hice (@CongressmanHice) January 19, 2018
 

The FBI has become a dangerous and out of control anti-American organization.

“Several other GOP Congressmembers have weighed in. "I have read the memo," tweeted Rep. Steve King (R-IA), adding "The sickening reality has set in. I no longer hold out hope there is an innocent explanation for the information the public has seen. I have long said it is worse than Watergate. It was #neverTrump & #alwaysHillary. #releasethememo."

Along with the four-page memo, Congressional investigators learned from a new batch of text messages between anti-Trump FBI investigators that several individuals within the Department of Justice and the FBI may have come together in the "immediate aftermath" of the 2016 election to undermine President Trump, according to Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) who has reviewed the texts.”

-From the article; “Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe All Named In FISA Memo, First Leak Reveals”

Unfortunately, for all the scandal, most people watching the mainstream media (run by the oligarchy) would be unaware of the turmoil inside of the FBI.

The FBI operates as a secret police. They are completely armed with military grade weapons, and they have their own secret court system. They do not follow the rule of law, and make it up as it suits them. It has gotten worse over time, and most alarming (after “upgrading” by President Obama) they have become dangerously political.

We can only imagine the terrible capabilities that they must now have after a Trump Presidency, and a Mike Pompeo Secretary of State.

This is pretty darn sad.

“So it was — and, look, this is scary stuff, right? I mean, these are secret courts. And I have long supported these because it’s mainly to go after terrorists and people abroad who are looking to do bad things. Never did I think that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would be used to go after a political campaign. And, you know, there’s gonna have to be some major reforms done to these programs. And what shocks me is that the people at these institutions aren’t worried about this.

I mean, you know, we have a hard enough time, Rush, trying to track down terrorists and bad guys around the world. And just the fact that they would have wasted our intelligence agencies’ time to go after somebody like Carter Page to try to get into the Trump campaign is really scary stuff and really a waste of taxpayer money, and I think every American should be concerned about this no matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat or don’t even pay attention to politics, you ought to care about this.”

- Congressman Devin Nunes of California (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) discussing the abuse by the FBI and how it was weaponized by Hillary Clinton for political purposes to attack American citizens.

The truth is, that today, the FBI was involved in activities more suited to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, China under Mr. Mao, and Cuba under Fidel Castro than their constitutionally stated purpose.

They not only went far and above the law, they created their own internal “secret society”.

While the "secret society" reference may have been in jest, a “whistleblower” has (allegedly) confirmed the existence of clandestine meetings. Of which high ranking U.S. intelligence officials met "offsite" to conspire against a sitting President. 

This is according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).

“...we have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site,” Johnson said. “We have to continue to dig into it,” he added. “This is not a distraction. This is biased, potentially corruption at the highest levels of the FBI.” 

-The Hill

On the night of 22JAN18, Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Fox News what they had learned from a batch of communications between two FBI investigators. These FBI communications were contained within a 384-page batch of text messages that were delivered to Congress from the DOJ on 19JAN18.

Of particular note is that Ratcliffe says that Strzok and Page were included in the clandestine anti-Trump cabal. This was at the highest levels of the American intelligence community. This is disturbing stuff no doubt.

These meetings are evidence of a secret society, or club. It’s a secret society where they gathered together and determined how to achieve their own internally-determined objectives.  Often, if not always, that ran counter to the needs of the American people.

I wonder if they wore robes, had secret handshakes, and performed satanic rituals…

“The thousands of texts @TGowdySC and I reviewed today revealed manifest bias among top FBI officials against @realDonaldTrump. 

The texts between Strzok and Page referenced a "secret society."”

— John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) January 23, 2018

It is critical to the “powers that be” that this information be kept secret and hidden from the American people.

Therefore, of course, the oligarchy is fighting back hard. 

Sen. Feinstein, Rep. Schiff urged Facebook and Twitter to investigate involvement of Russian bots in pushing "Release the Memo" campaign:"

If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors." pic.twitter.com/SkAci5NefK” (https://t.co/SkAci5NefK)ABC News (@ABC) January 23, 2018 (https://twitter.com/ABC/status/955830690381254659?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

The letter's claims were immediately shot down by Facebook, which told the Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/source-twitter-pins-releasethememo-on-republicans-not-russia/) that #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag has been pushed by actual Americans. 

A knowledgeable source says that Twitter’s internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo. 

There are no preliminary indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is either predominantly Russian. 

In short, according to this source, who would not speak to The Daily Beast for attribution, the retweets are coming from inside the country.

The PTB, and their oligarchy, simply just doesn’t want to lose their grip on power.  They need the FBI, CIA, DHS, IRS, and the DOJ on “their side”.  Or else they risk swinging from nooses on scaffolding.

It appears Billionaire (Democrat mega-donor) and Rabid-Clintonite Tom Steyer (D) is surprised that the nationwide ad campaign he bankrolled to urge members of Congress to impeach President Trump hasn’t yielded any results. 

Steyer went off on both Republicans and Democrats in January 2018 after a House vote on articles of impeachment garnered a paltry 66 votes.

"This vote is not a reflection of whether or not Trump has passed the threshold for impeachment, which he did months ago, it is a failure by members of Congress to do what’s right to keep the American people safe."

- Steyer stated on Friday 12JAN18 in a press statement after the Congressional vote.

Steyer, a billionaire (former) hedge fund manager from California, launched his ‘Need to Impeach’ movement in October of 2017. While more than four million people have signed his petition, Democrats aren’t particularly happy with the initiative. Democratic leaders believe pushing for impeachment could hurt their party’s chances in the midterms later this year. 

Steyer underscored his campaign by sending copies of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” to every lawmaker. 

Check out this video; https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-21/democratic-megadonor-launches-campaign-impeach-mentally-unstable-trump

To anyone reading these references, they seem so out-of-date, and boring. It’s “old news” the argument goes. Or, “Hey! it’s the democrats”, or “Hey! It’s the Republicans!” That’s not the point.

That’s not the point.

It’s both “parties”.

It’s a club and you ain’t a part of it.

Look at what is beginning to go on after the 2020 election, it’s all the same “song and dance”. It’s not to amuse Americans. It’s to control them.

Any idea of transparency in government is a FARCE.

As these dated examples indicate.

So to recap: not only were high level intelligence officials allegedly involved in clandestine meetings in which they conspired to “impair” Donald Trump, this leak in conjunction of the four-page GOP memo confirms what many have suspected all along; a highly illegal operation was conducted against a sitting President (President Trump) which goes all the way to the top of the U.S. government.

It’s a club, and you are not part of it. If you are an “outsider”, you will have zero support, and every method will be used to remove you.

“Stop and think what really happened here. We have a political candidate who lost the election. (Then) commissions an opposition research document, the Steele dossier. Which is then packaged and presented as legitimate intelligence (gathered by respected intelligence agents the world over). And it features such shocking details as the golden showers story.

We find out that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC paid for this, $10 million. We find out that Steele did not even talk to these people in Russia in person on the phone.

We then find out that the FBI uses this to get a warrant, as you say, to spy on Carter Page. They did NOT tell the court that this was a political document. This is the kind of thing that movie scripts contain and are made of.

It’s hard to get my arms around comprehending the number of people that had to be in on this and their motivation. Now, you may be nervous about going into motivation. To me, that is everything. Why? What’s the purpose here?”

-Rush Limbaugh talking to Congressman Devin Nunes of California (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) discussing the abuse by the FBI and how it was weaponized by Hillary Clinton for political purposes to attack American citizens.

It’s a private club. It’s a “secret organization” that floats in the upper percentages of the United States population. The entire American government, all that juicy “freedom” and “mouth-watering “democracy” are just lies used to manipulate and control the American people from rising up from their roles as cash-cows under a feudal serfdom.

Bread and circuses A phrase used by a Roman writer to deplore the declining heroism of Romans after the Roman Republic ceased to exist and the Roman Empire began: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” The government kept the Roman populace happy by distributing free food and staging huge spectacles.

So, they must do everything in their power to keep their actions secret. For their actions are illegal and against the Constitution, and ultimately the citizens of the United States. They absolutely MUST keep things secret.

“In Comey's testimony where he said he did not determine not to recommend Hillary for indictment before her interrogation was held he asked that if any FBI person thought he was lying they should contact him privately before stating their opinion.

I thought that was a very odd thing to say.”

-Lostinfortwalton Jan 25, 2018 8:00 AM Permalink


A former Federal Prosecutor sat down with The Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/20/obama-administration-plot-exonerate-hillary/) to give perhaps the most comprehensive rundown of the Obama Administration's "brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton" and "frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy."

“The FBI used to spy on Russians. This time they spied on us.

(This is) what this story is about - a brazen plot (by the FBI) to exonerate (Democrat Presidential Candidate) Hillary Clinton from a clear violation of the law with regard to the way she handled classified information with her classified (secretive) server.

(This was) Absolutely a crime, absolutely a felony.

It's about finding out why (as the Inspector General is doing at the department of justice) why Comey (head of the FBI) and the senior DOJ officials conducted a fake criminal investigation of (to exonerate) Hillary Clinton.
(They) ...

[1] Followed none of the regular rules, 
[2] gave her every break in the book, 
[3] immunized all kinds of people, 
[4] allowed the destruction of evidence, 
[5] no grand jury, 
[6] no subpoenas, 
[7]no search warrant(s).

That's not an investigation, that's a Potemkin village. It's a farce. 

And everybody knew it was a farce.

The problem was, she didn't win (the 2016 Presidential election).

And because she didn't win, the farce became a very serious opera. It wasn't a comic opera anymore, it was a tragic opera. And she was going to be the focus. 

What this is about, this is about a lavabo, a cleansing of FBI and the upper echelons of the Department of Justice. 

We're going to discover that the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch (under President Obama), her deputy Sally Yates, the head of the national security division John Carlin (under President Obama), Bruce Ohr and other senior DOJ officials, and regrettably, lying attorneys (were ALL involved in this effort).
People who were senior career civil servants violated the law, perhaps committed crimes, and covered up crimes by a presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton)

But (it was) more than that, they tried to frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy that never existed, and they knew it, and they plotted to ruin him as a candidate and then destroy him as a president.

That's why this is important. That's why connecting the dots is important. 

DiGenova condemned the FBI for working so closely with the controversial Fusion GPS, a political hit squad paid by the DNC and Clinton campaign to create and spread the discredited Steele dossier about President Donald Trump.

Without a justifiable law enforcement or national security reason, he says, the FBI “created false facts so that they could get surveillance warrants.

Those are ALL crimes.”

-Daily Caller

The FBI has become a very powerful police force run for and by the oligarchy.

It is used to keep the American people under control and “in line” while America undergoes a transformation to a “new” government structure –one that favors the elite oligarchy, and closes everyone else out.

This is not my opinion.

There proof of this is out there and obvious to all who is willing to face the ugly truth;

“The leadership of the FBI and DOJ behaved in a way we would expect of the former Soviet Union, not the United States of America. I applaud Representative Nunes and other Republican members of the House Intel Committee for fighting and exposing corruption.

Americans are tired of corrupt bureaucrats and their career politician enablers.

If powerful leaders are not held accountable, the American people will never regain faith in the institutions meant to protect us. Former FBI Director James Comey was entrusted with one of the most powerful positions in the world. Sadly, he intentionally abused his power in an effort to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.

He should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and sent to prison for his crimes. No one is above the law. No one.”

– Georgia GOP Gubernatorial candidate Sen. Michael Williams demanding the prosecution of (former) FBI Director Comey for his efforts related to treason.

The FBI is seriously corrupted, and works to further the agendas of others.

III. Conclusion

We should all recognize the harm done to our rule of law when crimes go unpunished because government officials look the other way for the wealthy, famous, or powerful.

Americans rightly expect a single and impartial system of justice for all, not one for the well connected and a separate one for everyone else.

The information available to the Committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private email server. We know that:

• The FBI did not use a grand jury to compel testimony and obtain the vast majority of evidence, choosing instead to offer immunity deals and allow fact witnesses to join key interviews.

• There were substantial edits to Director Comey’s public statement that served to downplay the severity of Secretary Clinton’s actions, and that the first draft of the memo was distributed for editing two months before key witnesses were interviewed.

• Director Comey stated that he had not consulted with the Justice Department or White House, when text messages suggest otherwise.106 We have text messages in which two key investigators discuss an “insurance policy” against the “risk” of a Trump presidency, and “OUR task.”

• Messages discuss “unfinished business,” “an investigation leading to impeachment,” and “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”

• Senior FBI officials—likely including Deputy Director McCabe— knew about newly discovered emails on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner for almost a month before Director Comey notified Congress.

• Over the period of at least four months, the FBI did not recover five months’ worth of text messages requested by DOJ OIG and two Senate committees; however, when pressed, DOJ OIG was able to recover missing texts in less than one week.

Taken together, this information warrants further inquiry. While some may discount the investigation for political reasons, we all have a great interest in ensuring the public has confidence in the integrity and independence of the FBI, the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world. Unlike prosecutors or inspectors general, the primary goal of congressional oversight is full transparency in order to promote public awareness and confidence in federal agencies. For these reasons, our important work will continue.”

- THE CLINTON EMAIL SCANDAL AND THE FBI’S INVESTIGATION OF IT. An Interim Report.  A Majority Staff Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate. Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman

file:///C:/Users/Michael/Downloads/2018-02-07%20Interim%20Report_The%20Clinton%20Email%20Scandal%20and%20the%20FBI’s%20Investigation%20of%20It.pdf

To this end, the FBI has it’s hands in all kinds of ways to monitor (so they can control) Americans.  Of course, we know that the 4th amendment to the United States Constitution prevents them for collecting “unauthorized” information.  They need a court document from a judge to do that.  So what they are doing in the meantime (without going through a judge) is simply collecting the information…you know, “just in case”.

Democrats do it. Republicans do it. It is a policy that is rampant.

FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system

The FBI’s NGI System was developed to expand the Bureau’s biometric identification capabilities, ultimately replacing the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) in addition to adding new services and capabilities.

-FBI Announces Full Operational Capability of the Next ...

As of 2016, the FBI has been soliciting a bid for a program that seems very similar to the DHS social-network monitoring program. Dubbed the “FBI Social Media Application,” the program would have

"[the ability] to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence ... to quickly vet, identify and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats."

In the FBI’s 12-page solicitation, it requests a program that can quickly identify, display and locate alerts on geo-spatial maps and enable users to summarize the “who, what, when, where and why” of specific threats and incidents.

Going further, it seeks to not simply detect “credible threats,” but to identify those organizing and taking part in gatherings and to predict upcoming events. According to the FBI,

"Social media will be a valued source of information to the SIOC [i.e., Strategic Information and Operations Center] intelligence analyst in a crisis because it will be both eyewitness and first response to the crisis."

An FBI spokesperson insisted,

"[We] will not focus on specific persons or protected groups, but on words that relate to 'events' and 'crisis' and activities constituting violations of federal criminal law or threats to national security. Examples of these words will include lockdown, bomb, suspicious package, white powder, active shoot, school lockdown, etc.”

Rest assured, much like the assurances voiced by the DHS, the FBI insists that its monitoring won’t be used to focus on specific individuals or groups.

The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system is made up of fingerprints, iris scans, faceprints, and other facial recognition data. As of 2016 EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) sued regarding the FBI’s plan to include tattoos and scars in the database.

According to EPIC:

“With NGI, the FBI will expand the number of uploaded photographs and provide investigators with ‘automated facial recognition search capability.’ The FBI intends to do this by eliminating restrictions on the number of submitted photographs (including photographs that are not accompanied by tenprint fingerprints) and allowing the submission of non-facial photographs (e.g. scars or tattoos).”

 “The FBI also widely disseminates this NGI data. According to the FBI’s latest NGI fact sheet, 24,510 local, state, tribal, federal and international partners submitted queries to NGI in September 2016.”

EPIC asked a judge to force the FBI to release records about its plan to share the biometric data with the U.S. Department of Defense. EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2015, but the FBI has so far refused to release the 35 pages of responsive records.

EPIC and privacy advocates are concerned about the potential for cases of mistaken identity and abuse of the collected data. EPIC also argues

“the FBI stated that ‘increased collection and retention of personally identifiable information presents a correspondingly increased risk that the FBI will then be maintaining more information that might potentially be subject to loss or unauthorized use.”

Although very little is actually known about the database, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and EPIC have been able to uncover that the FBI would like to track every individual as they move from one location to another. In 2013, EPIC obtained a document that showed

“NGI shall return an incorrect candidate a maximum of 20% of the time.”

In 2011, EFF observed the growing biometrics trend:

"Once the collection of biometrics becomes standardized, it becomes much easier to locate and track someone across all aspects of their life. 

EFF believes that perfect tracking is inimical to a free society. 

A society in which everyone’s actions are tracked is not, in principle, free. It may be a livable society, but would not be our society.”

In 2014, EFF received documents from the FBI related to the NGI system.

Based on the records, EFF estimated the facial recognition component of NGI would include as many as 52 million face images by 2015. Indeed, the danger of abuse from facial recognition programs is on the rise.

Activist Post recently highlighted a new report from Georgetown Law University’s Center for Privacy and Technology that details how law enforcement is using facial recognition software without the knowledge or consent of the people. The report, “The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America,” examines several cases of misuse or abuse of facial recognition technology.

Facial recognition software is not the only type of surveillance tool the FBI has an interest in. The Bureau is reportedly set to sign a contract with Dataminr that will provide the feds with an upgrade to social media monitoring software.

According to the Federal Business Opportunities’ official government page, the contract will provide the FBI with around 200 licenses for Dataminr’s Advanced Alerting Tool. This upgrade “will permit the FBI to search the complete Twitter firehose, in near real-time, using customizable filters.”

The FBI claims to want the social media tool for detecting and catching terrorists, but it doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to see how this could be applied to U.S. citizens.

The pursuit of facial recognition software and social media monitoring tools is just the latest step in the expanding war on privacy, which is itself a part of the eternal war on freedom.

This system has been in operation for a number of years now, and is toted as a success.

This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) covers the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS), which serves as the FBI’s biometric identity and criminal history records system and maintains the fingerprints and associated identity information of individuals submitted to the FBI for authorized criminal justice, national security, and civil purposes.

-PIA: NGI-Interstate Photo Systen — FBI

Finally, let it be understood that the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system exempt from Privacy Act News roundup: The FBI Next Generation Identification biometrics database is exempt from the Privacy Act.

The FBI sweeps up all your Photographs

“From Rep. Adam Schiff’s increasingly desperate attempts to stonewall the truth to the FBI’s predictable appeals to secrecy from law enforcement to cover corruption, this memo is lifting the scales from the eyes of voters all over the country.

It’s telling them the cockroaches have run out of corners to hide in.
Time to put on our pointy shoes and start kickin’.

The reaction to this memo puts paid the classic libertarian critique that an organization’s highest priority is self-preservation.  Doing what you formed the organization to do comes a distant second.

Government creates organizations that are not directly accountable to the people who fund them and therefore can dig moats around themselves to ensure their survival no matter what.

This is the essence of corruption.  It is the essence of why the Swamp needs to be drained.

The FBI is a corrupt and venal organization of power-hungry, self-righteous arbiters of arbitrary justice.  Even the good agents are tainted by the organizational rot.  The same is true in every government department.
No one sees corruption like a government employee with half a conscience.

The pressure to not release this memo comes from formerly very powerful people – Obama and his staff, the Clintons, the DNC, etc. The fallout will be an overhaul from the ground up of multiple powerful agencies within the Federal Government.”

-Tom Luongo
 

It’s often the case that new technologies arrive on the scene faster than our society and its legal code can keep up. Sometimes this can be a good thing. For instance, 3D printing allows people to print out unregulated gun parts, thus allowing gun owners to circumvent the onerous laws of our government, which has struggled to come up with new laws to restrict the technology.

When technology advances at a breakneck pace however, it can also be quite dangerous for our liberties. This is especially true in regards to privacy. If a new technology makes it easy for the government to track us, you can bet that the government is going to take its sweet time updating the legal code in a way that will protect us from surveillance.

That certainly seems to be the case with facial recognition software. During a recent Congressional Oversight Committee hearing, members of both political parties sounded the alarm on the FBI’s use of the technology, and read the written testimony of Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Jennifer Lynch:

Lynch detailed the stunning scope of the FBI’s photo collection. In addition to collecting criminal and civil mug shots, the agency currently has “memorandums of understanding” with 16 states that mean every driver’s license photo from those states is accessible to the agency—without the drivers’ consent. The FBI also has access to photos from the U.S. State Department’s passport and visa records.

 Lynch argued that “Americans should not be forced to submit to criminal face recognition searches merely because they want to drive a car. They shouldn’t have to worry their data will be misused by unethical government officials with unchecked access to face recognition databases. And they shouldn’t have to fear that their every move will be tracked if face recognition is linked to the networks of surveillance cameras that blanket many cities.”

 “But without meaningful legal protections, this is where we may be headed,” Lynch stated. “Without laws in place, it could be relatively easy for the government and private companies to amass databases of images of all Americans and use those databases to identify and track people in real time as they move from place to place throughout their daily lives.”

All told, law enforcement agencies around the country have access to 400 million photos in facial recognition databases, which are connected to roughly 50% of American adults. Most of these people have never committed a crime, and obviously haven’t given any consent to this.

At first glance it may sound harmless to be in one of these databases. Movies and TV shows make it sound like this technology can help law enforcement swiftly and precisely nab suspects. So what do you have to fear if you haven’t committed a crime? It turns out that in real life, facial recognition is far from perfect.

Internal FBI documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center indicate that the FBI’s own database, called the Next Generation Identification Interstate Photo System, or NGI-IPS, had an acceptable margin of error of 20 percent — that is, a 1-in-5 chance of “recognizing” the wrong person.

 And research published in the October 2015 issue of the scientific journal PLOS ONE by researchers at the universities of Sydney and New South Wales in Australia found that the humans who interpret such data build in an extra error margin approaching 30 percent.

If we ever allow our government to roll out facial recognition cameras on a wider scale, lots of innocent people are going to be hurt. Whether by mistake or by malice, it will become shockingly easy for law enforcement to identify ordinary people as criminals. The surveillance control grid will not only be inescapable, it will be unwieldy and rife with abuse.

It’s often said that you should never trade freedom for safety. In this case, we wouldn’t receive any kind of safety.

The FBI is operates as a “Secret Police”

In order to boost the credibility of the FBI’s investigations of the Trump team, much of the media is whitewashing the bureau’s entire history. But the FBI has been out of control almost since its birth. Here is a concise summary of some interesting history regarding this issue. Intelligence provided here was  collected by James Bovard and all credit due to James Bovard.

1924

A 1924 American Civil Liberties Union report warned that the FBI had become “a secret police system of a political character.”

1930’s 

In the 1930s, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court feared that the FBI had bugged the conference room where justices privately wrangled over landmark cases, as Tim Weiner noted in his “Enemies: A History of the FBI.

1945

In 1945, President Harry Truman noted that “We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction.” Somehow, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover compiled a list of 20,000 “potentially or actually dangerous” Americans who could be rounded up and locked away in one of the six detention camps the federal government secretly built in the 1950s.

1956 to 1971

From 1956 through 1971, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program conducted thousands of covert operations to incite street warfare between violent groups, to get people fired, to smear innocent people by portraying them as government informants, to sic the IRS on people, and to cripple or destroy left-wing, communist, white racist, antiwar, and black organizations (including Martin Luther King Jr.). These operations involved vast numbers of warrantless wiretaps and illicit break-ins and resulted in the murder of some black militants. A Senate Committee chaired by liberal Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) issued a damning report on FBI abuses of power that should be mandatory reading for anyone who believes the bureau deserves deference today.

1990’s

According to Politifact, the FBI is not a “secret police agency” because “the FBI is run by laws, not by whim.” But we learned five years ago that the FBI explicitly teaches its agents that “the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.” No FBI official was fired or punished when that factoid leaked out because this has been the Bureau’s tacit code for eons. Similarly, an FBI academy ethics course taught new agents that subjects of FBI investigations have “forfeited their right to the truth.” Are liberals so anxious to get Trump that they have swept under the rug the 2015 Washington Post bombshell about false FBI trial testimony that may have sentenced 32 innocent people to death?

Politifact absolved the bureau because “The FBI doesn’t torture or carry out extrajudicial executions.” Tell that to the Branch Davidians — 80 of whom died after the FBI assaulted their ramshackle home with tanks and pyrotechnic devices and collapsed much of the building on their heads even before fires burst out.

Politifact quotes a professor who asserts that “any use of unnecessary violence (by the FBI) would be met with the full force of the criminal law.” Is that why an internal FBI report claimed that every one of the 150 shootings by FBI agents between 1993 and 2011 was faultless?

FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi gunned down Vicki Weaver in 1992 as she stood in her Idaho cabin doorway holding her baby. After being accusing the FBI of a coverup in a Wall Street Journal oped, FBI chief Louis Freeh denounced Jim Bovard for twisting the truth. But after a confidential Justice Department report leaked out revealing the FBI’s deceits and unconstitutional rules of engagement, the feds paid a $3 million wrongful death settlement to the Weaver family. When an Idaho County sought to prosecute the FBI sniper, the Justice Department invoked the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution to torpedo the case. (Ah, the 9th Circuit Court, rules in favor of the Progressive government.)

Politifact asserts that “just because the FBI sometimes operates in secret does not mean that it’s a ‘secret police.’” But the FBI’s secrecy is profoundly skewing American politics.

The so-called fact checkers insists that any comparison of the FBI and KGB is “ridiculous” because the FBI is “subject to the rule of law and is democratically accountable.” But there is little or no accountability when few members of Congress have the courage to openly criticize or vigorously cross-examine FBI officials. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs admitted in 1971 that Congress was afraid of the FBI:

“Our very fear of speaking out (against the FBI) ... has watered the roots and hastened the growth of a vine of tyranny ... which is ensnaring that Constitution and Bill of Rights which we are each sworn to uphold.”

The FBI is currently scorning almost every congressional attempt at oversight. Thus far, members of Congress have responded with nothing except press releases and talk show bluster.

Politifact repeatedly scoffs at the notion that the FBI is “a secret police agency such as the old KGB.” And since the FBI is not as bad as the KGB, let’s mosey along and pretend no good citizen has a right to complain. A similar standard could exonerate any American president who was not as bad as Stalin.

In the 1960s, some conservatives adorned their cars with “Support Your Local Sheriff” bumper stickers. How long until we see Priuses with “Support Your Secretive All-Powerful Federal Agents” bumper stickers? But those who forget or deny past oppression help forge new shackles for the American people.

The FBI can come after YOU!

This should be obvious, but it isn’t. Most Americans think that “it can never happen to me”. Ask anyone in prison. Life can change in a heartbeat. Especially when the corrupt and powerful is in control of your life.

“RUSH: And welcome back. We wrap up here with Congressman Nunes. I thought of one more thing I wanted to run by you during the break. And it was… I played the audio sound bite of this earlier. It’s a former CIA counterintelligence muckety-muck guy named Phillip Mudd, and there have been two other people like him over the weekend saying to President Trump, “You know what? If you’re gonna pick a fight with the FBI, you don’t want to make those guys mad.“They can really come after you.”

And I’ve heard that before. The same thing has been said by Chuck Schumer to President Trump about the CIA, the intelligence community. I’m sure you’re getting the same kind of insults. Now, with people saying, “You better not make the FBI mad! They could really come out and do you damage or come after you,” doesn’t that kind of validate what’s already going on, if we have people advocating that the FBI be used as a weapon against political opponents?

NUNES: Yeah. So those days are over, Rush. That is what they did in the Obama administration. These institutions became corrupt at the top, and it’s not just the FBI. It’s all of the departments who became just out of control. I mean, do we have to go back to Lois Lerner and the IRS and all of those games that were played?

RUSH: Right.

NUNES: And what’s happening here is that the first time in a long time Congress — which is a separate branch of government. We created the FBI.

RUSH: Right!

NUNES: We created the Department of Justice.

RUSH: You could abolish them if you want to!

NUNES: We could abolish them. We could cut their money off. But the bottom line is this. I said, “We’re done. You cross the rubicon. You abused the FISA court.” And, you know, I had to fight for these documents for months and months and months. We issued the original subpoenas back in August of last year, and it took until just a few weeks ago for us to finally put all the pieces together. So, you know, I’m not gonna take their crap. I’m not gonna be threatened. They tried to do an end run around me, and Speaker Paul Ryan said, “No. The Congress is gonna exert our authority.”

-Rush Limbaugh talking to Congressman Devin Nunes of California (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) discussing the abuse by the FBI and how it was weaponized by Hillary Clinton for political purposes to attack American citizens. 

It’s getting pretty serious. It is obvious that the FBI no longer serves the American people. It serves the oligarchy and itself only.

“I’ll tell you how serious it’s getting. Well, not how serious it’s getting. To illustrate for you just how even greater the divide is becoming, there’s a CIA analyst named Phil Mudd and we’ve got the audio sound bite coming up. This guy is on CNN, and he’s actually saying to Nunes and to Trump, “You know, you make these guys at the FBI mad at you, and they can come back and destroy you.”

What in the hell does that mean? You make these guys at the FBI mad, and they can really come get you. What is that supposed to mean? And he says that with approval and advocacy, like as though he’s in favor of the nation’s premier law enforcement agent targeting people for their politics. It’s like when Chuck Schumer warned Trump, “You better be careful of these guys in the intelligence community. They can wipe you out six ways from Sunday,” which we know to be the case, but to advocate for that.

And lest anybody have any doubt, I’m amazed at people who are just realizing this, but they are. I’ve read I don’t know how many pieces, media on our side — I’m talking about the conservative media, forget the left — who have come to a sudden shocking realization that the media is part of the establishment! I’m reading this, “Duh. You think that’s a revelation?” But, I mean, I’ll take it. I mean, the more people get it, the better.”

-Rush Limbaugh
 

The FBI Is Paying Geek Squad Members To Dig Around In Computers For Evidence

“Compared to the 18-minute “gap” in the White House tape during the Watergate scandal, this is the Grand Canyon[i]. So what does the Bureau have to say about it?

They blamed it on “misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades.” Someone at the FBI actually wrote that.“

-Robert Knight - Sunday, January 28, 2018


[i] "The Grand Canyon". The pattern of alarming behavior at the FBI and the Justice Department deserves a recap:
 
On June 27, 2016, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch held a private meeting with Bill Clinton in a jet at the Phoenix airport, even though the FBI, a branch of the Justice Department, was investigating Mr. Clinton’s wife’s conduct as Secretary of State. A more glaring conflict of interest is hard to imagine.
 
A week later, on July 5, then-FBI Director James Comey released a report exonerating Mrs. Clinton. He criticized her misuse of emails, but described her violation of national security protocols as “extremely careless” instead of the criminally indictable “grossly negligent” in the original draft. The ever nimble Mr. Strzok has been credited with that edit.
 
Mr. Strzok also revealed in a text that the FBI team had removed a reference to President Obama as having received a text from Mrs. Clinton when one of them was “on the territory of sophisticated adversaries.” Was it Russia? Alabama?
 
To downplay the severity of the breach, the FBI report editors cleverly demoted Mr. Obama from president into just “another senior government official,” according to The Journal. The very next day after Mr. Comey’s press conference and release of the report, Ms. Lynch announced that no charges would be filed against Mrs. Clinton, to no great surprise.
 
Mr. Comey also drafted a statement closing the Clinton email investigation before the FBI even interviewed Mrs. Clinton or her staff. And, Mr. Comey leaked his own memo to a reporter about a conversation with President Trump in order to trigger the Mueller investigation. This all adds up to a disturbingly convincing scenario in which partisan FBI officials bent the law to protect Hillary Clinton, sully Donald Trump before the election, and destabilize his presidency afterward.
 
If something here isn’t a federal crime, I really don’t know what is.

Law enforcement has a number of informants working for it and the companies that already pay their paychecks, like UPS, for example. It also has a number of government employees working for the TSA, keeping their eyes peeled for “suspicious” amounts of cash it can swoop in and seize.

Unsurprisingly, the FBI also has a number of paid informants. Some of these informants apparently work at Best Buy — Geek Squad by day, government informants by… well, also by day.

According to court records, Geek Squad technician John "Trey" Westphal, an FBI informant, reported he accidentally located on Rettenmaier's computer an image of "a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." 

Westphal notified his boss, Justin Meade, also an FBI informant, who alerted colleague Randall Ratliff, another FBI informant at Best Buy, as well as the FBI. Claiming the image met the definition of child pornography and was tied to a series of illicit pictures known as the "Jenny" shots, agent Tracey Riley seized the hard drive.

Not necessarily a problem, considering companies performing computer/electronic device repair are legally required to report discovered child porn to law enforcement.

The difference here is the paycheck.

This Geek Squad member had been paid $500 for digging around in customers’ computers and reporting his findings to the FBI. That changes the motivation from legal obligation to a chance to earn extra cash by digging around in files not essential to the repair work at hand.

More of a problem is the FBI’s tactics. While it possibly could have simply pointed to the legal obligation Best Buy has to report discovered child porn, it proactively destroyed this argument by apparently trying to cover up the origin of its investigation, as well as a couple of warrantless searches.

Setting aside the issue of whether the search of Rettenmaier's computer constituted an illegal search by private individuals acting as government agents, the FBI undertook a series of dishonest measures in hopes of building a case, according to James D. Riddet, Rettenmaier's San Clemente-based defense attorney. Riddet says agents conducted two additional searches of the computer without obtaining necessary warrants, lied to trick a federal magistrate judge into authorizing a search warrant, then tried to cover up their misdeeds by initially hiding records.

The “private search” issue is mentioned briefly in OC Weekly’s report, but should be examined more closely. Private searches are acceptable, but the introduction of cash payments, as well as the FBI having an official liaison with Best Buy suggests the searches aren’t really “private.” Instead, the FBI appears to be using private searches to route around warrant requirements. That’s not permissible and even the FBI’s belief that going after the “worst of worst” isn’t going to be enough to salvage these warrantless searches.

A bill that will allow homes to be searched without a warrant was passed with overwhelming support by the United States Congress.

It was signed into law by President Trump.

It happened silently with no media coverage and very little fanfare. 

On the surface, House Joint Resolution 76 looks harmless. The title of the bill claims that its purpose is “Granting the consent and approval of Congress for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia to enter into a compact relating to the establishment of the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission.” 

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/congress-passes-bill-allowing-homes-searched-without-warrant/

No 4th Amendment Protections!

As Andrew Fleischman points out at Fault Lines, the government’s spin on the paid “private search” issue — that it’s “wild speculation” the Best Buy employee was acting as a paid informant when he discovered the child porn — doesn’t hold up if the situation is reversed. AUSA Anthony Brown’s defensive statement is nothing more than the noise of a double standard being erected.

Flipping the script for a minute, would an AUSA say it was “wild speculation” that a man was a drug dealer when phone records showed he regularly contacted a distributor, he was listed as a drug dealer in a special book of drug dealers, and he had received $500.00 for drugs? Sorry to break it to you, Mr. Brown, but once you start getting paid for something, it’s tough to argue you’re just doing it for the love of the game.

In addition to these problems, the file discovered by the Best Buy tech was in unallocated space… something that points to almost nothing, legally-speaking.

In Rettenmaier's case, the alleged "Jenny" image was found on unallocated "trash" space, meaning it could only be retrieved by "carving" with costly, highly sophisticated forensics tools. 

In other words, it's arguable a computer's owner wouldn't know of its existence. (For example, malware can secretly implant files.) 

Worse for the FBI, a federal appellate court unequivocally declared in February 2011 (USA v. Andrew Flyer) that pictures found on unallocated space did not constitute knowing possession because it is impossible to determine when, why or who downloaded them.

This important detail was apparently glossed over in the FBI’s warrant application to search Rettenmaier’s home and personal devices.

In hopes of overcoming this obstacle, they performed a sleight-of-hand maneuver, according to Riddet. 

The agents simply didn't alert Judge Marc Goldman that the image in question had been buried in unallocated space and, thus, secured deceitful authorization for a February 2012 raid on Rettenmaier's Laguna Niguel residence.

Courts have shown an often-excessive amount of empathy for the government’s “outrageous” behavior when pursuing criminals. The fact that there’s child porn involved budges the needle in the government’s direction, but the obstacles the FBI has placed in its own way through its deceptive behavior may prevent it from salvaging this case.

The case is already on very shaky ground, with the presiding judge questioning agents’ “odd memory losses,” noting several discrepancies between the FBI’s reports and its testimony, and its “perplexing” opposition to turning over documents the defense has requested.

In any event, it appears the FBI has a vast network of informants — paid or otherwise — working for both private companies and the federal government. Considering the FBI is already the beneficiary of legal reporting requirements, this move seems ill-advised. It jeopardizes the legitimacy of the evidence, even before the FBI engages in the sort of self-sabotaging acts it appears to have done here.

Underneath it all is the perplexing and disturbing aversion[i] to adhering to the Fourth Amendment we’ve seen time and time again from law enforcement agencies, both at local and federal levels. Anything that can be done to avoid seeking a warrant, and anything that creates an obfuscatory paper trail, is deployed to make sure the accused faces an even more uphill battle once they arrive in court[ii].

The DHS Media Monitoring capability Program (MMC).

Department of Homeland Security. A more aggressive monitoring program was revealed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

This occurred when it secured from the DHS a list of approximately 380 keywords that the agency tracks. The allegedly threatening terms were found in the DHS’ Analyst Desktop Binder, part of its 2011 Media Monitoring Capability (MMC) program.

A 2017 March update; https://tomfernandez28.com/2017/03/10/update-fbi-extensively-used-best-buy-geek-squad-for-secret-surveillance/

These terms are organized into nine categories:

  1. Agencies – 26 terms, including “DHS,” “FBI”, “CIA,” “Air Marshal,” “United Nations” and “Red Cross”;
  2. Domestic security – 52 terms, including “assassination,” “dirty bomb,” “crash,” “first responder,” “screening” and “death.”
  3. Hazardous materials – 34 terms, including “hazmat,” “nuclear,” “leak,” “burn” and “cloud.”
  4. Public health – 47 terms, including “ebola,” “contamination,” “wave,” “pork” and “agriculture.”
  5. Infrastructure security – 35 terms, including “AMTRAK,” “airport,” “subway,” “port,” “electric” and “cancelled.”
  6. Southwest border violence – 65 terms, including “drug cartel,” “decapitated,” “gunfight,” “marijuana,” “heroin,” “border” and “bust.”
  7. Terrorism – 55 terms, including “Jihad,” “biological weapons,” “suicide attack,” “plot” and “pirates.”
  8. Emergencies and weather – 41 terms, including “disaster,” “hurricane,” “power outage,” “ice,” “storm” and “help.”
  9. Cyber security – 25 terms, including “cyber terror,” “malware,” “virus,” “hacker,” “worm,” “China” and “Trojan.”

The DHS has been engaged in monitoring social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and LinkedIn as well as blogs since at least 2010. Its effort is run through the Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS), National Operations Center (NOC), and is entitled “Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness (Initiative).” Its ostensible purpose is to provide situational awareness and strengthen its common operating picture.

The scope of DHS’ practice of social monitoring was unexpectedly revealed in a special congressional hearing, the House Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Intelligence, headed by Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), in February. Two DHS officials, Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan and Director of Operations Coordination and Planning Richard Chavez, raised the representatives’ ire by appearing to be deliberately stonewalling on the scope and practice of the agency’s social media surveillance.

Most disturbing, the DHS reps appeared unsure about the monitoring program’s goals, how the gathered information would be used and whether it would be shared with other agencies. In an unusual show of bipartisan unity, Reps. Billy Long (R-MO), Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) joined Rep. Meehan in chastising the DHS officials.

Under intense congressional probing, DHS reps revealed that the keywords chosen for monitoring were drawn from commercially available, off-the-shelf database programs that were customized to meet its specifications. The agency was particularly interested in determining first witnesses to breaking events like the 2011 Tucson shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others and the January 2012 bomb threat at an Austin school.

The DHS reps insisted that data gathered was only used to confirm other news reports and that information on private citizens was not being collected. In addition, they claimed that that all personally identifying information was regularly scrubbed from the agency’s servers.

Few should feel comforted by the DHS assurances. At the House hearing, it was also revealed that the agency was involved in what appears to be an ongoing campaign to monitor the actions and beliefs of individual Americans engaged in community-based political activism. It compiled a report, “Residents Voice Opposition Over Possible Plan to Bring Guantanamo Detainees to Local Prison-Standish MI,” that tracked community reactions to the proposed location of Guantánamo detainees in a local Michigan prison.

The DHS report is part of the EPIC documents acquired through a Freedom of Information request. It details that information was gathered from a variety of sources, including newspaper articles and responses, blogs by local activists, and Twitter and Facebook posts.

The House hearing also shed light on the DHS practice of outsourcing keyword tracking of social media through a sole-source contract to the giant defense contractor, General Dynamics. In 2011, General Dynamics had revenues of $5.5 billion of which 84 percent ($4.6 bil) came from government contracts. Earlier it’s Advanced Information Systems division was awarded a $14 million DHS contract to (in the words of a press release) “provide constant and continual watch operations for critical communications to the agency’s National Coordinating Center.” In addition, it will “identify the possible impacts of potentially disruptive events.

In keeping with the prevailing ethos of corporate unaccountability, it turns out if the General Dynamics employees are found to have misused the information garnered from a social network user, including a journalist or public figure, the employee must take a training course or, worst case, lose his/her job. No criminal penalties are specified.

A word to the wise, Big Brother is watching you.

The US Ministry of Propaganda

In the last your of President Obama’s term of office, “a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth had been quietly introduced in Congress.

As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information.

Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Ted Lieu (D-CA), H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.”

Creation

Also called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692), when introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), the legislation represents a dramatic return to Cold War-era government propaganda battles. 

“These countries spend vast sums of money on advanced broadcast and digital media capabilities, targeted campaigns, funding of foreign political movements, and other efforts to influence key audiences and populations,”

Portman explained, adding that while the U.S. spends a relatively small amount on its Voice of America, the Kremlin provides enormous funding for its news organization, RT.  Portman stated,

“Surprisingly, there is currently no single U.S. governmental agency or department charged with the national level development, integration and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”  

Yah. Sure. What ever you say bub.

You ever hear of the NID, or the NED, or the “color revolutions” or the “Pro-Democracy” movements?

Long before the “fake news” meme became a daily topic of extensive conversation on such discredited mainstream portals as CNN and WaPo, H.R. 5181 would task the Secretary of State with coordinating the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” which will pinpoint sources of disinformation, analyze data, and — in true dystopic manner — ‘develop and disseminate’ “fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.

In short, long before “fake news” became a major media topic, the US government was already planning its legally-backed crackdown on anything it would eventually label “fake news.”

Implementation

Fast forward to December 8, 2016 when the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” passed in the Senate, quietly inserted inside the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. And now, following Obama signing of the NDAA in the evening, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is now law.

+ + +

Here is the full statement issued by the generously funded Senator Rob Portman (R- Ohio) on the singing into law of a bill that further chips away at press liberties in the US, and which sets the stage for future which hunts and website shutdowns, purely as a result of an accusation that any one media outlet or site is considered as a source of “disinformation and propaganda” and is shut down by the government. Go Here to read about this historical event.

Portman-Murphy Bill Promotes Coordinated Strategy to Defend America, Allies Against Propaganda and Disinformation from Russia, China & Others

U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) today announced that their Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations– has been signed into law as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. The bipartisan bill, which was introduced by Senators Portman and Murphy in March, will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work. This will better leverage existing expertise and empower our allies overseas to defend themselves from foreign manipulation. It will also help foster a free and vibrant press and civil society overseas, which is critical to ensuring our allies have access to truthful information and inoculating people against foreign propaganda campaigns.

“Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel,” Portman said. “But today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas. With this bill now law, we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on. I am confident that, with the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against us, our allies, and our interests will fail.”

“The use of propaganda to undermine democracy has hit a new low.But now we are finally in a position to confront this threat head on and get out the truth. By building up independent, objective journalism in places like eastern Europe, we can start to fight back by exposing these fake narratives and empowering local communities to protect themselves,” said Murphy. “I’m proud that our bill was signed into law, and I look forward to working with Senator Portman to make sure these tools and new resources are effectively used to get out the truth.”
 

Priorities

The bipartisan Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is organized around two main priorities to help achieve the goal of combating the constantly evolving threat of foreign disinformation from our enemies:

  1. The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering THE foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.
  2. Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.

And so, with the likes of WaPo having already primed the general public to equate “Russian Propaganda” with “fake news” (despite admitting after the fact their own report was essentially “fake”), while the US media has indoctrinated the public to assume that any information which is not in compliance with the official government narrative, or dares to criticize the establishment, is also “fake news” and thus falls under the “Russian propaganda” umbrella, the scene is now set for the US government to legally crack down on every media outlet that the government deems to be “foreign propaganda.”

Just like that, the US Ministry of Truth is officially born.

Impact

The Founding Fathers protected freedom of speech and freedom of the press as the most important liberties. They are protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  And as discussed below, the Founders recognized that the ability to speak freely was the foundation for all other freedoms. If you remove it, the other freedoms would fall. Thousands of years of history shows how rare and valuable such freedoms really are. Please consider…

Socrates

Socrates was killed in 399 BC for “failing to acknowledge the gods that the [government] acknowledges”.

Using the Printing Press

Before the invention of the movable type printing press by Gutenberg, the church controlled the production of books. Gutenberg’s invention allowed cheap production of books. This challenged the monopoly on books by the church, and thus allowed different viewpoints to be heard.

For example, when Martin Luther posted his “95 Theses” on a church door in Germany criticizing the corrupt Catholic practice of selling “indulgences” – paying the church in return for a reduction of your time in purgatory – the printing press spread his writings throughout all of Germany in 2 weeks, and throughout “all of Christendom” within a month.   This launched the Protestant Reformation, and challenged the power of the Catholic church.

So Pope Alexander VI issued an edict against unlicensed printing in  1501.

And in 1535, Francis I of France prohibited – under penalty of death – the printing of any books.

William Tyndale

William Tyndale was killed in 1536 for translating the Bible into English so that everyone could read it for themselves, and no longer had to rely on the clergy to tell them what it said.

Unlicensed Printing

In 1585, the Star Chamber assumed the right to confine printing to London, Oxford and Cambridge, to limit the number of printers and presses, to prohibit all publications issued without proper license, and to enter houses to search for unlicensed presses and publications. The search for unlicensed presses or publications was entrusted to an officer called the ” messenger of the press.”

In 1557, Henry II made the collecting of prohibited books punishable by death or imprisonment.  An in 1559, he made it punishable by death to print without royal authority.

Galileo

In 1616 and 1633, Galileo was tried for saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun, instead of agreeing with the church’s “mainstream” view that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Heretics and Critics

Many people have been killed over the centuries for saying anything that the church authorities of the day disliked. And the British monarchy punished anyone caught with materials criticizing the monarchy, which they labeled as “libelous” or “scandalous”, even if what was written was true.

(Indeed, the ransacking of houses by authorities searching for “heretical” and “libelous” material was so common that it was the main reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting unreasonable “search and seizure”).

Benjamin Franklin

In 1773, Ben Franklin was fired as colonial Postmaster General for informing the American Colonists about what the British were really doing.

Strongmen

Strongmen of all stripes have cracked down anyone who insults the strongman or criticizes his policies.

Book Burnings

In 1933, the Nazis carried out numerous book burnings of authors such as Einstein, Freud, Kafka, Hellen Keller, Jack London, Thomas Mann, Proust, Upon Sinclair and H.G. Wells because their writing book …

“acts subversively on our future or strikes at the root of German thought, the German home and the driving forces of our people…”

There have been many other book burnings throughout history.

Mussolini

Mussolini had around 2,000 people killed because they challenged the dictator.

Stalin and the Soviet Union

Stalin murdered or through into insane asylums countless people who criticized the Soviet government or Communism.

Other Communist Regimes

China’s Mao and other Communist leaders killed people who failed to sign the Great Leaders’ praise.

CIA

In 1972, CIA director Richard Helms relabeled dissenters as “terrorists”.

Reporters

The extremely popular tv personality Phil Donahue’s show – the most popular on MSNBC – was canceled for questioning the wisdom of the Iraq war. Indeed, many reporters have been fired, harassed, spied upon and even accused of terrorism for reporting stories critical of government actions or policies.

Protect What Makes Us American

Those in power are always tempted to censor and punish critical speech and reporting.  George W. Bush said “You’re either with us or your against us”, and cracked down on criticism and protest.  Most powerful Democrats now want to suppress right-wing speech. But freedom of speech and of the press – no matter how much we may disagree with and even hate what someone else says – is the bedrock of America.

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

– George Washington
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

– Ben Franklin
“Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”

– U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo
“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.”

-U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Douglass
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

NGA

If you’re one of the countless Americans who was distraught to learn of the revelations made by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, the mere idea that there might be yet another agency out there – perhaps just as powerful and much more intrusive –  should give you goosebumps.

Foreign Policy reports that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA, is an obscure spy agency former President Barack Obama had learned to love and appreciate. Like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), the NGA is an intelligence agency, but it also serves as a combat support institution that functions under the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

With headquarters bigger than the CIA’s, the building cost $1.4 billion to be completed in 2011. In 2016, the NGA bought an extra 99 acres in St. Louis, building additional structures that cost taxpayers an extra $1.75 billion. Enjoying the extra budget Obama threw at them, the NGA became one of the most obscure intelligence agencies precisely because it relies on the work of drones.

A partially redacted March 2016 report released by the Pentagon revealed that drones had already been used domestically on about 20 or fewer occasions between 2006 and 2015. Though some of these operations mostly involved natural disasters, National Guard training, and search and rescue missions, quotes from an Air Force law review article found their way into the report. In it, Dawn M. K. Zoldi wrote that technology designed to spy on targets abroad could soon be used against American citizens.

Use Foreign Intelligence to Collect Intel

.@Judgenap: Three intel sources have disclosed that Pres. Obama turned to British spies to get surveillance on Trump pic.twitter.com/IghCFm7qhO

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14, 2017

During the waning months of the Obama Administration, then President Obama used the British spy agency GCHQ to collect information on incoming President-elect Trump.  This was because of both the constitutional limitations placed on him by law, as well as avoiding any connection to spying (and wiretaps like Richard Nixon had the unfortunate experience to endure) by using a “cat’s paw” to collect the intel.

MUSCULAR (DS-200B)

MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom, is the name of a surveillance programme jointly operated by Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents which were released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

GCHQ

GCHQ is the primary operator of the program.GCHQ and the National Security Agency have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google.Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.

The programme is jointly run by:

  • Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (United Kingdom)
  • U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)

MUSCULAR is one of at least four other similar programs that rely on a trusted 2nd party, programs which together are known as WINDSTOP. In a 30-day period from December 2012 to January 2013, MUSCULAR was responsible for collecting 181 million records. It was however dwarfed by another WINDSTOP program known (insofar) only by its code DS-300 and codename INCENSER, which collected over 14 billion records in the same period.

Figure 25. Menwith Hill

According to the leaked document the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo! and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. The programme operates via an access point known as DS-200B, which is outside the United States, and it relies on an unnamed telecommunications operator to provide secret access for the NSA and the GCHQ.

According to the Washington Post, the MUSCULAR program collects more than twice as many data points (“selectors” in NSA jargon) compared to the better known PRISM Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.

Because of the huge amount of data involved, MUSCULAR has presented a special challenge to NSA’s Special Source Operations. For example, when Yahoo! decided to migrate a large amount of mailboxes between its data centers, the NSA’s PINWALE database (their primary analytical database for the Internet) was quickly overwhelmed with the data coming from MUSCULAR.

Closely related programmes are called INCENSER and TURMOIL. TURMOIL, belonging to the NSA, is a system for processing the data collected from MUSCULAR.

Blaming Others for Nefarious Activities

The WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 release contains a batch of documents, named ‘Marble’, which detail CIA hacking tactics and how they can misdirect forensic investigators from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to their agency by inserted code fragments in foreign languages.  Per the WikiLeaks release:

"The source code shows that Marble has test examples not just in English but also in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi. This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion, --- but there are other possibilities, such as hiding fake error messages."RELEASE: CIA Vault 7 part 3 "Marble"WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 31, 2017

The latest release is said to potentially allow for ‘thousands’ of cyber attacks to be attributed to the CIA which were originally blamed on foreign governments.

WikiLeaks said Marble hides fragments of texts that would allow for the author of the malware to be identified. WikiLeaks stated the technique is the digital equivalent of a specialized CIA tool which disguises English language text on US produced weapons systems before they are provided to insurgents.

 It’s “designed to allow for flexible and easy-to-use obfuscation" as "string obfuscation algorithms” often link malware to a specific developer, according to the whistleblowing site.

The source code released reveals Marble contains test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi.

 “This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion,” WikiLeaks explains, “But there are other possibilities, such as hiding fake error messages.”

 The code also contains a ‘deobfuscator’ which allows the CIA text obfuscation to be reversed. “Combined with the revealed obfuscation techniques, a pattern or signature emerges which can assist forensic investigators attribute previous hacking attacks and viruses to the CIA.”

 Previous Vault7 releases have referred to the CIA’s ability to mask its hacking fingerprints.

 WikiLeaks claims the latest release will allow for thousands of viruses and hacking attacks to be attributed to the CIA.

CIA's "Marble Framework" shows its hackers use potential decoy languages
Background: https://t.co/GsoN4BuyTz pic.twitter.com/ZT66doCnfY

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 31, 2017

Full release from WikiLeaks:

Today, March 31st 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 "Marble" -- 676 source code files for the CIA's secret anti-forensic Marble Framework. Marble is used to hamper forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA.

Marble does this by hiding ("obfuscating") text fragments used in CIA malware from visual inspection. This is the digital equivallent of a specalized CIA tool to place covers over the english language text on U.S. produced weapons systems before giving them to insurgents secretly backed by the CIA.

Marble forms part of the CIA's anti-forensics approach and the CIA's Core Library of malware code. It is "[D]esigned to allow for flexible and easy-to-use obfuscation" as "string obfuscation algorithms (especially those that are unique) are often used to link malware to a specific developer or development shop."

The Marble source code also includes a deobfuscator to reverse CIA text obfuscation. Combined with the revealed obfuscation techniques, a pattern or signature emerges which can assist forensic investigators attribute previous hacking attacks and viruses to the CIA. Marble was in use at the CIA during 2016. It reached 1.0 in 2015.

The source code shows that Marble has test examples not just in English but also in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi. This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion, --- but there are other possibilities, such as hiding fake error messages.

The Marble Framework is used for obfuscation only and does not contain any vulnerabilties or exploits by itself.

Intentional Fabrication of UFO lore.

And why not?

You see all the above examples, the many, many, many examples are mostly political, or used to add control “for natural security”. It’s all just excuses.

It’s not about “getting your political opponents”. Nor is it about “the children”, or “for national security”.

It’s all about control.

"I share your concern over the secrecy that continues to shroud our intelligence activities on this subject."

-Congressman Thomas L. Ashley in a letter to NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) on the subject of UFOs.

Numerous government employees have been actively engaged in the creation of UFO / extraterrestrial lore.   This involves various people in the military; including the leadership, various government employees of various agencies that includes both contractors and direct payroll staff, and even elected officials who do so for political purposes.  The reasons behind why they were involved in such activities ran the gambit from governmental projects with intentional goals, to mere mischievous pranks.  These individuals are now well known in their complicity to deflect, redirect, and discredit all extraterrestrial related study and lore.

One must give pause as to why the government would want to employ someone to do this full time.

A former Air Force special investigations officer named Richard Doty has admitted to having infiltrated UFO circles.   As a UFO researcher says:

"Doty had this wonderful way to sell it – 'I'm with the government. You cooperate with us and I'm going to tell you what the government really knows about UFOs, deep down in those vaults.'"

Doty and his colleagues fed credulous ufologists lies and half-truths, knowing their fertile imaginations would do the rest. In return, they were apprised of chatter from the community, thus alerting the military when anyone was getting to close to their top-secret technology. And if the Soviets thought the US really was communing with aliens, all the better.

The classic case, well-known to conspiracy aficionados, is Paul Bennewitz, a successful electronics entrepreneur in New Mexico.  In 1979, Bennewitz started seeing strange lights in the sky, and picking up weird transmissions on his amateur equipment.  The fact that he lived just across the road from Kirtland air force base should have set alarm bells ringing, but Bennewitz was convinced these phenomena were of extraterrestrial origin.  Being a good patriot, he contacted the Air Force, who realized that, far from eavesdropping on ET, Bennewitz was inadvertently eavesdropping on them.  Instead of making him stop, though, Doty and other officers told Bennewitz they were interested in his findings.  That encouraged Bennewitz to dig deeper.  Within a few years, he was [1] interpreting alien languages, [2] spotting crashed alien craft in the hills from his plane (he was an amateur pilot), and [3] sounding the alert for a full-scale invasion.  All the time, the investigators were watching him observe them.  They gave Bennewitz computer software that “interpreted” the signals, and even dumped fake props for him to discover.  The mania took over Bennewitz’s life. In 1988, his family checked him into a psychiatric facility.

There’s plenty of stories like this.   

Many central tenets of the UFO belief system turn out to have far earthlier origins.  Mysterious cattle mutilations in 1970s New Mexico turn out to have been officials furtively investigating radiation in livestock after they’d conducted an ill-advised experiment in underground “nuclear fracking”. 

Test pilots for the military’s experimental silent helicopters admit to attaching flashing lights to their craft to fool civilians.  Actual photos were doctored to appear that things were being hidden, while other actual pictures were lost in the static of confusion.

It is now easy for anyone to simply say;

“There are no aliens or extraterrestrials at all.  The government has been conducting a program to hid advanced research and development programs from the public.  They use the smoke-screen of extraterrestrial activity to stigmatize observers of such actions into passive silence.” 

As that is, indeed, partly the case. 

But I am here, and I am telling you otherwise.  Oh, the extraterrestrial presence is real.  The technology is real.  The government cover-up is real. 

But most of what you read on the Internet, and in books are but lies and fabrications.  What you see on the television, and observe on the Internet are but cleverly orchestrated efforts used to manipulate group conventional thought and placate the populace for the purposes of the government.

Conclusion

Long and drawn out.

Boring. Old “news”.

Old “subjects”.

Yeah! I get it.

These articles dated to before the Trump Administration. Now, you can well imagine that things are much tighter, the controls more restrictive, exacting, and lethal to your supposed “freedom”. You all are just animals in a big “free ranging” field. Nothing more.

And please don’t get all “hung up” on the “political song and dance”; the “progressives vs. the conservatives”. It’s all just “bread and circuses” for the mindless masses.

bread and circuses A phrase used by a Roman writer to deplore the declining heroism of Romans after the Roman Republic ceased to exist and the Roman Empire began: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” The government kept the Roman populace happy by distributing free food and staging huge spectacles.

-Bread and circuses | Definition of Bread and circuses

When Congress gave up it’s powers to the alphabet organizations, they did much more than create “Frankenstein Monsters”. They created an endless system that keep you within a stratified social construct. One that you must toil for the well-being of others, and by which you can be imprisoned and even killed if you fail to conform.

read and circuses A phrase used by a Roman writer to deplore the declining heroism of Romans after the Roman Republic ceased to exist and the Roman Empire began: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” The government kept the Roman populace happy by distributing free food and staging huge spectacles.

This means a complete subversion of the systems that are intended to help you and your family in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The subversion is now complete. It is beyond redemption.

Key Point: The “fighting” for your Rights is all just a farce. The elections are all just theater. The systems are in place, and you are the cattle that toils for your new masters. Oh, the faces change on the “news” screens, but the takeover is complete. So any articles about “regaining” your “God given” Rights is just meaningless. You have NONE. It’s over. And nothing will be done when one party or the other takes power. It’s all just nonsense.

Anyone still sticking around in America is now trapped. It’s probably too late to escape. And if history has anything to say, it is that it’s only going to get worse.

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my Front Row Seat Index, though this could just as well fit under any other index as well.

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Is anything real any longer? Are likes, and comments, and opinions real or just manufactured?

After a solid year of [1] hate-China spewing from all my feeds, [2] comments that I have made mysteriously being erased, and [3] the most contentious articles being flooded with “likes”… you have to wonder if you are in some kind of fake-mirror world.

It really seems that way.

We, as humans, have feelings and thoughts, ideas, and relationships. We have emotions, both good and bad, and we have desires, goals and yearnings. Yet, if we try to participate in any of the American forums… our opinions are often scrubbed and erased.

I’m not talking about swearing. Nor am I talking about being racist or making threats. I am talking about saying something innocuous like “I like hamburgers”, and then finding that you offended a vegan, who immediately pressed the “alert” button.

Yes, “safe” areas have sprung up all over the internet where people of “like minds” can communicate and put forth their opinions. Such as “Gab”. But even there, you risk banishment if your comments do not fit the appropriate target audience in the associated “news” venue.

Venue ExampleAssociationNon-compliance result
salon.comAlt-LeftBan
Yahoo.comMainstreamBan
freerepublic.comAlt-RightBan
Table of the three major venues for American discussion.

It’s pretty much evidence that people are being put into nice tidy boxes based upon their thoughts.

And this, boys and girls, are how governments isolate, control and manipulate people. Which should give everyone reason to pause and think.

Historically, this has resulted in people's names going onto lists. And then later on, the police and military rounding up people on those lists, and doing very, very bad things to them.

Now, I know it’s hard to absorb if you are right now sitting in the middle of all this. So, instead of looking at the American media reality, maybe take a gander at another nation.

Like India…

If you read (for example) the Indian news media, you would be convinced that India is ready to invade China, and walk straight into Shanghai and no one can stop them. If you read Alex Jones or Hall Turner, you will be convinced that Donald Trump will win next weeks election in a landslide, and if you read CNN you will be convinced of the absolute opposite. Nothing is moderate or neutral. It’s all just nonsense.

Or is it really?

Are we really reading “news articles” and listening to the “comments” by others like ourselves? Or, as I believe, we are reading “fake news” which are really articles designed to manipulate, with comments and opinions and “likes” generated by ‘bots and software algorithms.

No longer “news”; a reporting of events.

Let’s look at the morning Drudge Headliners.

Drudge Report 29OCT20

Instead, of “news”, we now see the generation of “articles of manipulation”. These articles are fully intended to change how the reader thinks. They are not designed to inform. You know, like these…

What news? Every election is like this. No one really knows who will win an election. So is this news, or is it something else?
Indeed. Isn't what they all say? Elect me and I will make everything all right!
Oh, every six months of so, someone writes a book, draws a cartoon, makes a statement, writes a poem, and fundamentalist islamic's are enraged and demand death! Is this news?
Oh yeah. This debit clock thingy has been in the read for decades now. Why keep track? No one really cares, at least those who have the power to do anything about it.
The police shoot and kill a black man, and the black folk in ghettos riot. Black folk riot. It's what they do.

It's sort of a cause and effect kind of thing. But is this news? You all ever been to a black ghetto in Philly? Do you know him? Is Pennsylvania on your radar screen?
Seriously? 

I think that the real interest in an article like this is how any one can train monkeys to do anything. Than how to create a for-profit model around it.
Of course Drudge must have the obligatory anti-China article. It's a thing in America, don't you know.

So any-day-now Beijing is gonna invade Taiwan!  Taiwan is a state of China. Just like Texas is a state within America. The Taiwanese all have Chinese passports, speak the Chinese language, learn Chinese history, and so forth.

It's sort of like "any day now, Washington DC will invade Texas." Silly, I know. But the American audience has been so enormously dumbed-down that they just are not able to discern how ignorant they are.

To me, it looks a lot like a science fiction horror flick where the people haven’t a clue as to how badly they are being manipulated.

America today.

Let’s look at this.

Let’s look at (what I like to call) Internet Forum Manipulation…

Internet Forum Manipulation

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all innocently comment on articles that we read on the Internet, and then our thoughts can be read by others. Others could read our thoughts and there would be a free exchange of ideas and thoughts. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice…

Not so. It turns out that the control of thoughts and ideas is one of the most important tools in the arsenal of power and control. (Not to mention world-line alteration and redirection.)

As such, those in power, whether rich, wealthy, powerful or in government are totally desirous of harnessing this avenue to serve their own purposes.

It’s a horrible reality.

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of an internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a ‘uncontrolled forum.’

Professor identifies "moderate" websites.
Professor identifies “moderate” websites. The only thing is that the websites that he lists are all “Alt-Left” websites. Which is, of course, propaganda. Is this what is being taught in schools today? White is black. Happy is sad. Good is bad. Right is wrong?

.

Let’s look at some of the techniques that those in power use to control us.

PTB - The Powers that Be.
The Oligarchy - The top 1% of the richest in a society.
The deep state - The long-employed unelected government employees.
The elected - The visible face of the government farce.

The caretakers - Actually, they are not involved at this level.

Forum Sliding

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum – it can be quickly removed from public view by ‘forum sliding.’

A very popular technique on Freerepublic.com.

In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to ‘age.’ Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a ‘forum slide.’ The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public.

To trigger a ‘forum slide’ and ‘flush’ the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then ‘replying’ to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list (“bump to the top” or BTTT), and the critical posting ‘slides’ down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings.

By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Altering Opinion & Reviews

Your opinion does not matter. If it did, then you would be able to speak freely and without fear.

There would be no such thing as “freedom of speech zones”, and “no hate” campuses.

The days of the first amendment protections are over. The first amendment only applies to those who regurgitate the narrative as defined by the government, or their owners; the oligarchy.

Here, in this section we discuss just some of the techniques that those in power use to suppress your thoughts, opinions and activities. The reader should be well advised that it is terribly out of date and obsolete. Such is the situation in the United States today.

Who is really in control?
Who is really in control? Are you?
“The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation … The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. 

They practically control both parties … [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. 

They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. 

It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.”

– John F. Hylan, Mayor of New York City from 1918-1925

It is common knowledge that businesses and even individuals can alter the behavior of those on the Internet.  But what is not so well known is that the Government takes this kind of manipulation very seriously and is doing their best to replicate it. 

Consider these examples that have somehow become public knowledge.

Facebook Manipulation

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

-George Orwell

Facebook Quietly Admits to Censoring information regarding the WikiLeaks DNC Links, but doesn’t say why.

Well, we know why.

Facebook and the DNC are partners in the collection of raw data of American citizens.  I am sure that their efforts are quite extensive, and because of this, I shall only offer one or two examples of their efforts. If the reader chooses to disbelieve my conclusions in this matter, it will make no difference to me. So believe what you want.

Previously, Facebook was discovered to have removed a Live video of Philando Castille dying, and posts of the Bastille Day aftermath were scrubbed from the newswire.

Its news bar has also come under fire for being biased.

Facebook can call the issues disparate, but they’re not — not to users. At some point, the ignorance and blind claims of ‘damn that algorithm’ have to end. If Facebook wants us to turn to it for news and treat it seriously, then it has to be much more open.

Afterall, no one want’s to be spoon fed censored material.

The WikiLeaks link issue has reportedly been fixed, which is great — but also not really the point.

The fact links to the archive was blocked at all suggests there’s a very tight reign on what’s allowed on Facebook across the board, and that’s a problem.

Americans in America today.
Americans are both figuratively and physically tethered to a unified way of thinking. As time progresses, this system becomes stronger, more invasive and all encompassing.

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Not to mention, that this manipulation can be directed from outside the organization as well, such as from government agencies.

“More than 1,800 requests were so-called “emergency disclosures,” which are granted to law enforcement on a case-by-case basis, and are a subject of some controversy. 

They include, for instance, requests to suspend someone’s account, as was the case with Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old mother who was shot and killed by police in 2016, after she reportedly threatened officers with a weapon. 

She was broadcasting her confrontation on Facebook, and police asked the company to shut down her account, saying that other users were egging her on.”

-Hanna Kozlowska in the article titled “Facebook is giving the US government more and more data” (I guess that the First Amendment no longer has any validity.)

Google Manipulation

Google could influence who voters pick to be America’s next president.  This is the conclusion that research psychologist Robert Epstein came to after studying the demographics and algorisms used by the software firm.  Writing for Politico Magazine, Epstein, contends the Google search engine behemoth (as well as others) has;

"…amassed far more power to control elections … to control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs … than any company in history has ever had."

He continues;

"America’s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google’s secret decisions, and no one — except for me and perhaps a few other obscure researchers — would know how this was accomplished,"

According to Epstein, Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more and even up to 80 percent in some demographic groups. 

Even if we ignore that voting is the imposition of a majority’s will on a minority, facilitated by wielding the violence of the state. Even if we disregard that voting only allows its participants the choice between two entrenched, corrupt, archaic political parties (while third party and independent voices are intentionally blocked, ridiculed and plowed under.) 

We must then begin to confront the fact that electronic voting is such an openly obvious fraud to any “democracy” that would insanely choose to use it. 

To have an unverifiable invisible counting mechanism, a proprietary, secret software and hardware platform, a meaningless archiving and recount system, a closed-source software system that cannot be audited and inspected is essentially and deliberately the worst possible implementation. 

Not only does our country have the obvious electronic voting problems to deal with, but we have also implemented electronic voting in the most counter-intuitive, corrupt and problematically designed manner that it can possibly be implemented.

Epstein points to one telling experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups in which search rankings favored either Candidate A, Candidate B or neither candidate.

In the experiment, the participants were given brief descriptions of each candidate and then asked how much they liked and trusted each candidate and whom they would vote for.

Then they were allowed up to 15 minutes to conduct online research on the candidates using a Google-like search engine.   Each group had access to the same 30 search results, but the ordering of the results differed among the three groups. 

When our participants were done searching, “opinions shifted in the direction of the candidate who was favored in the rankings,” he writes. “Trust, liking and voting preferences all shifted predictably.”

"Perhaps the most effective way to wield political influence in today’s high-tech world is to donate money to a candidate and then to use technology to make sure he or she wins…"

- Robert Epstein

It is interesting to note that while Google had been extremely active in attempting to manipulate the 2016 election in favor of their preferred candidate Hillary Clinton, they ultimately failed. 

It was not because of their techniques however, but rather due to their expectation that the race would be close with Hillary leading by five points.  Their manipulations did not take into account other scenarios.

Google is facing new scrutiny in the wake of revelations that it stores users’ location data even when “Location History” is turned off.

In the past, Google quietly edited its description of the practice on its own website—while continuing said practice—to clarify that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

As a result of the previously unknown practice, which was first exposed by the Associated Press, Google was sued by a man in San Diego. Simultaneously, activists in Washington, DC urged the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether the company is in breach of its 2011 consent decree with the agency.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in San Francisco, attorneys representing a man named Napoleon Patacsil argued that Google is violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the state’s constitutional right to privacy.

The lawsuit seeked class-action status, and it would include both an “Android Class” and “iPhone Class” for the potential millions of people in the United States with such phones who turned off their Location History and nonetheless had it recorded by Google.

Further Reading

Google’s new scheme to connect online to offline shopping scrutinized

Also on August 17, attorneys from the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote in a sternly worded three-page letter to the FTC that Google’s practices are in clear violation of the 2011 settlement with the agency.

In that settlement, Google agreed that it would not misrepresent anything related to "(1) the purposes for which it collects and uses covered information, and (2) the extent to which consumers may exercise control over the collection, use, or disclosure of covered information.

"Until the Associated Press story on August 13, Google's policy simply stated: "You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored."

This turns out to not be true.

Amazon Manipulation

Sorry, but I am going to use an example from politics. Hopefully this one (being so dated) will not be offensive to my readership. Just remember people, politics in America is just a big game of "bread and circuses for the masses". All the participants work together. 

Amazon can and will change and manipulate reviews for political reasons.  With the proper amount of money, they will do so for ANY reason. (And, we all know, that the United States government has a bottomless supply of money…)

Let’s go back to later 2016, early 2017…

Hillary 2016 Book – Stronger Together

Here’s a funny story that wasn’t reported in the mainstream media.  It took place during the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald trump. Both had written books to promote their causes and beliefs.  However, Hillary Clinton’s book tanked and was poorly received.  Here’s a screen shot;


Hillary Clinton’s book was just not selling.

.

As The New York Times reported at the time, the book was a disaster.  Both Mrs. Clinton and her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, have promoted the book on the campaign trail, but the sales figure, which tallies about 80 percent of booksellers nationwide and does not include e-books, firmly makes the book what the publishing industry would consider a flop.

“Stronger Together,” whose cover shows Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kaine waving, arrived closer to Election Day than most of these types of books. Named after the campaign’s slogan, “Stronger Together” offers readers, according to the book jacket,

“specific and practical solutions, while also articulating a bold and expansive vision of change and renewal.”

Its roughly 250 pages intersperse bullet-point policy ideas, like “launch a national initiative for suicide prevention” and “humanely address the Central American migrant crisis,” with photographs of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kaine on the campaign trail, charts in the campaign’s signature chunky font and highlights from Mrs. Clinton’s speeches.

Unfortunately the book was a flop. 

No one wanted it, and the one’s whom actually bought the book gave it negative reviews.  So, as with everything else in this ‘new normal rigged’ world, something had to be done and (Washington Post) WaPo-owner Jeff Bezos’ Amazon reviews appear to have been ‘tweaked’.

They apparently changed the reviews and the stats to reflect a much more favorable view of the book. 

Indeed, more than doubling Hillary’s top reviews.

But, as WND.com explains, Amazon’s steps to ‘fix’ Hillary’s book reviews has resulted in 5-star ratings with scathingly negative comments. (I guess that is what happens with the literate masses object to such blatant manipulation.)

If you can’t even win when the rules are changed in your favor, things must be REALLY bad.

That’s how it looks for Hillary Clinton’s new 2016 campaign book, “Stronger Together,” co-authored with running mate Tim Kaine. WND reported this strange turn of events when the book was being savaged on Amazon.com with negative reviews, with 81 percent one-star ratings and an average of only 1.7.

Of course denials were everywhere, and the Clinton organized shrills quickly lashed out at “trolls” they said were criticizing the book only because they oppose the Democrat’s presidential candidacy.

It’s really quite funny.

Once it became news what Amazon was doing, other purchasers of the book had to chime in.  WND previously reported there were more than 1,200 reviews, and the number grew to than 2,000.

Zero Public interest did not fit the Public Narrative.
Zero Public interest did not fit the Public Narrative.

.

However, that just couldn’t possibly stand, and by Thursday afternoon, the amount was yet again culled (again!) until there were only 255 reviews, with many of the most critical reviews removed by Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post, which created an army of 20 reporters and researchers to investigate the life of Donald Trump.

Victory for the Clinton book, however, remains out of grasp, with the negative, one-star responses, outnumbering positive, five-star responses nearly 2-1. The one-star ratings Thursday were 62 percent, to 35 percent for five-star ratings.

And, of course,  knowing the DNC manipulation of all their reviews, the book reviewers simply punched the five-star button then made harshly critical condemnations of the book and Hillary Clinton.

That way their opinions were still posted…

"I didn’t buy this book or read this book, but I have read the reviews, and enjoyed hours of entertaining, fun filled reading, expressing the TRUTH, about a crooked, lying, corrupt, terminally ill Presidential candidate, who stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders, and who is about the steal the Presidency with the use of election fraud. 

10 Stars to the authors of these reviews. 

Proof that not only are Amazon.com shoppers of superior intelligence, but thye call it like they see it…. Amazon shows this as a verified purchase, when I didn’t buy the book … how fun!”

- From suz702, who posted a five-star ranking

On and on, there’s pages of this stuff…

 “the book confirms the hrc is a racist. every matter in her mind is about racies (sic). but reality is she does not care about the black people. just look at the ever increasing trend of black population that are relying on welfare since the obama rule. the fundermental (sic) cause of this result is the fact that lefties of the country favor the riches by allowing outsourcing jobs to other countries. black people should wake up, stop supporting dnc and hrc, who is effectively a puppet of the elite class. the book is simply a propaganda.”

- Ian alexander, another five-star reviewer said.

Just two days earlier, out of 1,244 reviews, 81 percent were one-star and 16 percent five-star. The book plunged from No. 840 earlier this week to No. 1,538 on Thursday. It was No. 5 in the subcategory “Books-Politics & Social Sciences-Politics & Government-Elections & Political Process-Leadership.”

The reviews dripped sarcasm, both before the Amazon edits to the reviews and after.

“I bought this thinking it would be a how-to book. 

I wanted ‘How to set up your own Foundation for fun and profit.’ Also, would like to have seen a chapter on ‘Ten easy steps to setting up your own secure server in a bathroom,'”

-Elaine.

And, here’s another…

“Not only no but hell no. I’d rather read Mein Kampf,”

- Anthony Messina.

Chjhores said:

“Pre-ordered an autographed copy but had to return it after this week’s announcement as I was worried it was contaminated with pneumonia bacteria. 

I didn’t want to end up exposed to the illness like her grandkids in Chelsea’s apartment she was playing with on 9/11 after she collapsed, or the little girl she was hugging in the street afterwards. Thought about ordering the Kindle version but I thought it might open my device up to being hacked by communist countries. I wasn’t too surprised to see Tim Kaine on the front cover giving the traditional National Socialist salute (“Heil Hitler!”), I felt it fitting.

Strongly recommended for those who believe the USA isn’t anything special and should be more like the peaceful utopias of North Korea, Iran, or Cuba.”

And kpm said,

“Imagine my dismay when key parts of her life were omitted, would have made for far better reading if she had included all of the below starting with flunking the D.C. Bar Exam to:

  • Was removed from her House Judiciary Committee staffer job because of incompetence and lying.
  • The Whitewater scandal.
  • Married a serial liar and cheater, who occasionally had sexual encounters with nonconsenting partners.
  • Lied about “sniper fire” in an attempt to simulate exposure to danger in a war zone.
  • The subject of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that led to the impeachment and disbarment of her husband
  • Took crockery, furniture, artwork and other items from the White House — had to return and/or pay for them.
  • Said “what difference, at this point, does it make” about four brave people killed in Libya as a direct result of her failure to protect them on the anniversary of 9/11.
  • Totally ignored the structure and rules for the handling of sensitive national security information.
  • Amassed a personal fortune with “speaking fees” and payments from private sector political donors and foreign governments into transparent “foundations” in obvious exchange for future political favor.”

Nearly 1,500 people found that review “helpful.”

But more than 3,400 found helpful the comments from Daniel B.:

“I was going to read this book … I really was. 

But just as I got started, I found myself under sniper fire, passed out, and fell and hit my head. After that I got double vision and had to wear glasses that were so damn thick I couldn’t even see to read. 

As if that wasn’t enough, I then had an allergic reaction to something and started coughing so hard I spit out what looked like a couple of lizard’s eyeballs, my limbs locked up, and I passed out and fell down again, waking up only to find out I had been diagnosed with pneumonia 2 days earlier. 

Somehow I managed to power through it all, but it’s a good thing I was able to make a small fortune on this random small trade in the commodities market (cattle futures or some such thing) and then, miracle of all miracles, a few banks offered me a few million to just talk to their employees for a few minutes – and all that really helped out because I swear I was dead broke and couldn’t figure out how I was gonna come up with the 6 bucks to pay for this book, let alone pay the $1,500 for my health insurance this month. 

I still want to read it, but, honestly, what difference at this point does it make? I hear it sucks anyway.”

Clinton’s 2015 book, “Hard Choices,” received an average of only three stars despite garnering 2,460 customer reviews.

Here’s some screen captures of the “Stronger Together” reviews, because by the time this manuscript is released all of these reviews will be erased to fit the new narrative.


Of course Bezo would manipulate the data his company controls.  It is in his own best interests. WND also has documented Bezos’ interest in the election outcome, with the Post’s army of investigators looking into Trump’s life.

As WND reported this summer, Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward told the National Association of Realtors Convention in Washington Wednesday:

“There’s a lot we don’t know. We have 20 people working on Trump. We’re going to do a book. We’re doing articles about every phase of his life.”

Woodward said he has been investigating Trump’s real-estate deals in New York. Why a book on Trump and not Hillary and her 22 biggest scandals?

“[W]e have years and years of reporting on Hillary Clinton to draw from, including her last presidential campaign, her time as secretary of state, and her position as U.S. senator, Because Trump’s involvement in political life is far more limited, the Post newsroom decided to embark on a book as a special project. In order to complete the book in a timely fashion, reporters from throughout the newsroom have been assigned to work for a brief period on particular aspects of his life and career.”

Coratti explained.

The one-star reviews for the Clinton book also continued. All were dripping with sarcasm.  Just Thursday afternoon, Jimsdun wrote:

“Well I’m disappointed. This doesn’t tell me how to create a faux charitable foundation and then use it for money laundering.”

Hillary 2017 Book – What Happened

You would think that Amazon would know better than to repeat their manipulative techniques, but obviously they do not read alternative media.  They are still drinking off the teat of mainstream media and are completely unaware of the public knowledge of their actions.

In what many have dubbed a flagrant intervention by Amazon itself to seemingly boost the rating of Hillary Clinton’s new book “What Happened“, the Telegraph first reported, and subsequently many others observed first hand, that Amazon has been monitoring and deleting 1-star reviews of Hillary Clinton’s new book “which was greeted with a torrent of criticism on the day it was released.”

Reviews of What Happened have been mixed, with some accusing Clinton of using it as an opportunity to blame others, such as former FBI head James Comey, Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin, social media and pretty much everything else, for her failure, rather than herself.

Even The New York Times, which supported Clinton’s campaign, wrote that the book is “a score-settling jubilee”.

What is fascinating, is how few one-star reviews have remained on the website amid reports and screen-grabs showing that reviewers used the space to criticize the former First Lady. One 1-star review, which remained on the website earlier, read:

"Read all the promotional excerpts, which combined come close to book length – pretty good novel. It is fiction, isn't it? Surely, someone is playing a joke."

Another wrote

"Picked this book up at Wal-Mart out of sheer morbid curiosity. Returned it, claiming I bought the wrong book"

While this is not the first time Amazon has intervened to “adjust” the ratings of its products, in November negative comments under a book by anti-Trump broadcaster Megyn Kelly appeared to be removed by the retailer, it has rarely “adjusted” reviews of such a prominent product so publicly.

Speaking to Fortune, an Amazon spokesperson said:

"In the case of a memoir, the subject of the book is the author and their views. It’s not our role to decide what a customer would view as helpful or unhelpful in making their decision. We do however have mechanisms in place to ensure that the voices of many do not drown out the voices of a few and we remove customer reviews that violate our community guidelines."

So how does this change reality….

Well just look though the lens of a clock.


And then seven hours later…

What Amazon.com shows as of today 29OCT20;

A best seller!

Yes, it’s a best seller!

Man! If only my writings could become a best seller. What’s her secret? Are her ghost writers all that great. Truthfully, I am terribly jealous.

Screen cap. 29OCT20.
Hillary Clinton is obviously a well-beloved and liked person, who is an excellent writer and who has made the world a better place for everyone.

Twitter Manipulation

Perhaps one of the most manipulated social media platforms is Twitter. I don’t use it.  I signed up for it when it first came out, and then lost interest after two days. That is the sum total of my twitter experience. However, I am an outlier. Others, such as Donald Trump, use it quite frequently.

Let’s look at some of the ways it is manipulated to serve the needs of those in power.

Twitter Manipulation – Shadowbanned

Following the permanent banning of [1] conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos from using its service; the [2] suspension of the account of Glenn Reynolds, aka @instapundit and creator of the Instapundit blog, a University of Tennessee law professor and a conservative columnist for USA TODAY; and [3] blocking veteran reporter Mahir Zeynalov after bowing to pressure from Turkish president Erdogan; October 2016 saw the [4] ‘shadowbanning’ of thoughtful – non-violent – twitter-er Scott Adams – the creator of the Dilbert cartoon character.

Scott Adams asked his followers for examples of Clinton supporters being violent against peaceful Trump supports in public… which seems to have ‘triggered’ some people and got Adams “Shadowbanned” from Twitter…

“This weekend I got “shadowbanned” on Twitter. It lasted until my followers noticed and protested. Shadowbanning prevents my followers from seeing my tweets and replies, but in a way that is not obvious until you do some digging.

 Why did I get shadowbanned?

 Beats me.

But it was probably because I asked people to tweet me examples of Clinton supporters being violent against peaceful Trump supporters in public. I got a lot of them. It was chilling. 

Late last week my Twitter feed was invaded by an army of Clinton trolls (it’s a real thing) leaving sarcastic insults and not much else on my feed. There was an obvious similarity to them, meaning it was organized. 

At around the same time, a bottom-feeder at Slate wrote a hit piece on me that had nothing to do with anything. 

Except obviously it was politically motivated. 

It was so lame that I retweeted it myself. The timing of the hit piece might be a coincidence, but I stopped believing in coincidences this year. 

All things considered, I had a great week. I didn’t realize I was having enough impact to get on the Clinton enemies list. I don’t think I’m supposed to be happy about any of this, but that’s not how I’m wired.”

Twitter Manipulation – Bots

“Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. 

In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. 

Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.” 

-Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World Revisited (1958)

In a 2014 report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the social networking site Twitter estimated that more than 23 million of its active user accounts were being run by “bots” — software agents or bits of code that act on their own to respond to news and world events. They interact with real users, never revealing their true nature.

Bots of this kind have been used in efforts to sway public opinion in Central America already for a decade. The hacker and political operative Andrés Sepúlveda claims to have employed armies of bots to influence at least a half-dozen major election results in Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Could the same happen in the U.S. and Europe?

Probably so, given findings on bot activity ahead of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. As part of the Computational Propaganda Research Project at Oxford University researchers looked at some 300,000 Twitter accounts and found that a mere 1 percent of them generated about one third of all tweets relevant to the Brexit debate.

1/3 of all Brexit debate were generated by 1% of accounts.

They believe that many of those accounts were run by bots, because human users could not have sustained such a level of activity without the help of automation. It’s not clear whether the activity swayed the result, though the Leave campaign did generate more automated tweets.

This issue is far bigger than Brexit: The disturbing reality is that computational propaganda is already with us.

In the 2016 U.S. presidential race, Twitter bots support both Trump and Clinton. Bots of various kinds live on cloud servers and operate 24 hours a day, and account for about 50 percent of all activity on the web.

According to the Central American hacker, Sepúlveda, peoples’ opinions tend to be swayed more by views they see as coming spontaneously from real people than by views expressed on television or in newspapers.

Twitter Exposed by the NY Times

Most of the reports regarding the manipulation by the media are buried deep down in the lower nooks and crannies of the mainstream media.  Obviously they do not want people to know how they manipulate and conspire to alter viewpoints and opinions. Yet, occasionally an excellent article comes out that just “kicks the door down” regarding just this type of activity.

The New York Times wrote just this kind of article regarding Twitter. It’s worthy of a read. Here is what political commentator Rush Limbaugh (The New York Times Exposes the Fakery of Twitter, on 29JAN18.) has to say about this article;

Folks, I have to tell you something. The New York Times put on their website late Saturday and published in their newspaper on Sunday one of the most phenomenal stories. Now, I know. I am on record as having lost respect for the New York Times, and I am on record as having said many times that my instinctive reaction to anything in the New York Times is not to believe it. However, this story I happen to know is true — and it is phenomenal.

It is a very, very long story. I would recommend that you read this story on your computer so that you can benefit and experience the amazing graphics that they use to illustrate the point. The point of the story is that you, anybody, can buy followers on Twitter and Facebook. You can buy retweets. In other words, you can buy fake human beings and have them reported as following you. The names of people who have done this are listed in the story. They run from actors, to athletes, to pundits, to journalists.

These are bots. You know, I’ve found a lot of people — when I say a Twitter bot or a Facebook bot — say, “What is that?” Well, the easiest way to explain it is it’s just an automatic script. It’s just a little piece of code that is triggered by anything the creator wants it to be triggered by. It’s called a robot or a bot because there’s no real person behind it. It’s a fake. It’s made to look like an actual human being with a Twitter account but no human being exists.

It’s totally fake, made up. Some of these bots are actually based on real people whose identities are stolen and modified ever so slightly so that you wouldn’t notice it to the naked eye. And others are just manufactured out of whole cloth. There’s an actor mentioned here in this story that has 975,000 followers with the vast majority of them unreal. They have been purchased. The number one company selling these bots is right here in West Palm Beach, above Rocco’s Tacos on Clematis Street!

Not to be confused with the Rocco’s Tacos on PGA Boulevard. The Rocco’s Tacos on Clematis Street is where this little guy’s office is. He’s 27 years old. He makes people think that his office is in Manhattan. It’s exceedingly cheap. You can buy 100,000 followers for 10 bucks. The guy has earned six to $7 million selling fake followers. My friends, what this means is that very little is real on Twitter, ditto Facebook when you can buy followers.

Ray Lewis, future Hall of Fame linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens is listed as one who has purchased followers. Now, some of these people are gonna say, “I — I didn’t know! My agent must have done that.” But the bottom line is, you can create bots to do anything. The reason I know this is true is because — as I have shared with you on countless occasions — we have run up against this procedure, this technique trying to damage our business here. And we have found out in our investigational research, it is exactly what happened.

In our case it was 10 people who were flooding our advertisers with massive amounts of emails made to look like it was coming from tens of thousands of people, and it was 10 people creating fake Twitter users, fake customers, fake everything. So it’s one thing to create bots to bombard your enemies. It’s another thing for you to knowingly go out and purchase followers. So what it means is that when you’re on Twitter and you’re looking at somebody that is somewhat known, not the well-known at all, a YouTube star that has millions of followers, the likelihood it is it is nowhere near true.

But look at the influence that it has had. This is why followers are purchased. Look at how often the Drive-By Media quotes Twitter in every story they do. How many times have you heard in reaction to a story “Twitter is melting down”? And you are being led to believe that a story happens, whatever it is, and on Twitter there is this massive reaction to it, either positive or negative — and then you are further led to believe that that story is huge and that millions of Americans have an opinion on it.

And the likelihood is that very little of that is even true. Now, you might be asking, “Why would the New York Times be doing this?” It’s very clear to me. The New York Times had to weigh a couple of things here. On the one hand, these bots can be used to really damage your enemies — business enemies, business opponents, political opponents, political enemies, personal enemies — because you can create fake bots, and you can make it look like a person is literally despised and hated when that person isn’t.

And you can turn it around. You can make it look like a person is universally loved and adored and renowned by gazillions, and that isn’t true. It’s a way to earn fake popularity. Everything is fake on this social media. Not everything. So much of what social media is is fake. So much of it is unearned. So much of it is the result of shortcuts. I’m certain the New York Times did this because they’re fed up with Twitter having more influence than they do. “The New York Times is the paper of record!

“The New York Times is the media of record. Who the hell, what the hell is this Twitter business?” they have probably been saying themselves. I mean, it is a long story. It has many different writers and reporters on it. The evidence is pretty clear. As I say, if I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of this, then I would be highly suspicious of the reporting, of the agenda, the whole narrative. But since I know that this stuff happens. Now, by the way, I have to tell you, I did not know — and I’m happy admitting this.

It makes me sound like I’m a bit naive. I did not know you could buy followers. I didn’t know that. But a lot of people have found out you can buy followers. Do you realize the power of that, folks? Let’s say you’re a B actor or a B pundit, you’re a YouTube star. In reality, you don’t have millions of people watching. Ridiculous! Streaming hasn’t grown that much yet. But yet there’s all these “YouTube stars.” Can I give you some evidence of this? There was some YouTube guy. I forget his name.

I don’t mean this to be critical of the YouTube guy. Please do not misunderstand. But some YouTube guy was creating very clever videos. I don’t even know what the genre was. His first name was Casey. So CNN thought this guy had this massive Millennial audience. And they signed this guy up to start producing videos for them. And they got zilch. The guy finally had to admit that he didn’t know how to do what CNN wanted. He didn’t know how to… So… Well, what the real problem was, the guy didn’t have anywhere near the number of followers and audience that it was made to appear that he did.

See, when did you live by the fake sword, you die by it. When you want fame but it isn’t real, it’s gonna come back and bite you. When you want wealth but that isn’t real — you’ve stolen it, you’ve cheated it, you haven’t earned it — that’s gonna come back and bite you. You want popularity. And everybody on social media does. And this is just one side of social media that’s bad. The other side is just the absolute sewer that it is with the cultural-destroying language and behavior that is used on these social networks, the discourse and all of that.

And then the third element of this is all the lying about what great lives people have and how exciting their lives are. And people read this and think their lives are miserable and they get depressed. I mean, this is… It’s bad all the way around, and now adding this buying followers to it. So how many people have now comfortably gotten a false, totally incorrect opinion of the popularity of certain issues, of the popularity of certain people, when you can go buy it all? And I’m telling you, it’s cheap.

You can buy 100,000 followers for 20 bucks, folks. All you have to do is know where to go do it. Some of these bots are actual real people who do not realize they’re being used. Their e-mail address is changed with one letter. A capital I might become a small I so that nobody would notice it. The user photo might be compressed a little bit so that it looks slight different color but not enough so you wouldn’t notice it without a side-by-side comparison. They make up people and they take actual people and steal their identities, ’cause you have to have some legitimate feel of the follower scam to work.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This Twitter debauchery is even worse. You can kill a stock. You can drive a company’s stock down or the other way with some of these fake bots, the followers and so forth. I’ll tell you what. James O’Keefe, folks, his latest book involving his expose on the political nature Twitter and how they literally ban conservative thought is called American Pravda. It’s been outs a couple of weeks. If you read books, and if you want to learn — at least get a primer on what Twitter really is and how it operates — James O’Keefe, American Pravda.”

Altering Product Reviews

Talk about a glowing review: one five-star review given to a light-up USB cable for sale on Amazon had a headline claiming that this product “has lit up my life.”  That review was not only glowing, it was steaming, Amazon says.

In today’s world, anything can be bought for the right price. 

This includes written opinions about products and services.  One particularly worrisome example is with the book reviews on the website Amazon.com.  It turns out that there is a high percentage of them (relatively) that are fake; fabricated and simply made up to deceive either one way or the other.

In the case of the glowing review of the light-up USB cable;  The review was fake, purchased by a third-party Amazon seller, the online retailer claims, and probably cost the manufacturer between $19 and $22 (£13 and £15) to write it and have it listed on the Internet for (assumingly) forever.  Those are the accusations Amazon has made in its first-ever lawsuit against sites that sell reviews.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Seattle’s King County Superior Court, accuses Jay Gentile, a California resident, and the websites [1] buyamazonreviews.com, [2] buyazonreviews.com, [3] bayreviews.net and [4] buyreviewsnow.com, of trademark infringement, false advertising and violations of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

The sites sell packages of reviews, from as few as 3 to as many as 100.  Promises include “drip-feed delivery” that won’t raise Amazon’s suspicions and a “100 percent stick guarantee” for reviews, promising to replace any that Amazon deletes or filters out.

One of the sites Gentile is accused of running, buyazonreviews.com, sounds like it’s on the up-and-up:

“We use real people that are sourced from all around the world to deliver high quality unbiased reviews on your products.”

The fine print sounds just as legit:

“We are not receiving any money for your reviews nor are we paying reviewers. Your payment goes towards review sourcing, database management, and operation costs. “

But Amazon says that the reality “is far different.”

In this, its first ever crackdown on fake reviews since it debuted the review platform 20 years ago (with its first review of Dr. Seuss’s “The Butter Battle Book”), Amazon accuses Gentile of promising to “provide as many five-star reviews as the purchaser wanted” and to “slow drip” them onto Amazon’s product pages so that the company would have a “more difficult time detecting them”.

In the complaint, Amazon also accuses Gentile of advising his customers to “do a few verified purchase reviews … so as not to raise any eyebrows with Amazon.

"The reviewers don't actually have to receive the products, Gentile allegedly told customers.  Rather, his clients could just send empty boxes to try to fool Amazon into thinking that the reviewer was a "verified purchaser."

The complaint quotes the advice Gentile allegedly gave:

Note: You do not have to actually ship the item unless you want to. We suggest that for tracking purposes is that you just ship out an empty box or envelope, this will show [A]mazon that the item was actually shipped.

When one clueless reviewer working for buyazonreviews.com complained about not having actually received a product, Gentile allegedly reassured his client that she’d be brought in line:

“All our reviewers know of the process and I am not sure as to why she sent this to you but I will ensure it does not happen in the future.”

Amazon gave a number of examples of what it says are phony reviews, such as the USB cable five-star review:

This has lit up my life
By j9 on March 31, 2015

Verified Purchase

“Review: I was kinda doubtful about the "electroluminescent technology" of this USB cable. That it actually would work. But it actually did. Not only did the blue light function as they should, they were clear and bright, plus they turned off when the charge was finished. It's rad. They should make them in other colors too. Let's just say we're really impressed and are going to order a few more...”

Amazon is bringing claims of [1] trademark infringement, saying the websites are using the company’s name and logo without authorization.  It’s also accusing the websites of [2] cybersquatting by hosting sites with names “identical to or confusingly similar to” Amazon’s own site.  Amazon has asked the court to force the various websites to stop using its name and trademarks and to stop selling Amazon reviews. It’s also seeking triple damages and attorney’s fees.

Imagine a world where if individuals can set up a cheap website and system to do this, what powerful and well-funded governments can do. 

It should not be believed that they would do nothing, for the maintenance of those in power (regardless of where they reside) are all heavily dependent upon securing the mass opinions of the populace.  The reader should view everything on the Internet with suspicion, from news reports, to product reviews.  The Internet is a wonderful tool, and it’s use in shaping your opinion on various matters is a well-honed and well-sharpened skill.

Flooding the Forum with “Likes”

In most forums, those posts with the greatest number of “likes” are presented first (or at the top of the forum).  By controlling and altering the number of “likes” by various computer bots, one can effectively control the postings on a given internet forum. 

This is a very common practice, and is common at Facebook, and Google where the actual software companies takes control of the forums in this manner.  However, outside entities can also manipulate the forum using this technique.

Bangladesh “Click Farm”

The idea behind a click-farm is simple, but it takes a little explanation to understand how they came to be.

In the old days, when social media likes and website views were incredibly valuable, many webmasters turned to the dark side of the Internet to find ways to inflate them. Earning 1,000 likes or 1,000 website hits was a tough process, but it could be made a lot easier by setting up a program to refresh the page over and over. For Facebook, those bots would register accounts and use them to like the page.

Robots are easy to detect. 

Facebook fan page likes  could easily find these fraudulent accounts and remove them. Something needed to be done to make those number-inflating accounts less visible. Something to make them look more legitimate.

The answer, as it turned out, was just to make them legitimate – or as legitimate as it was possible to make them, anyways.

Bangladesh “Click Farm”.
Bangladesh “Click Farm”

.

Webmasters pay people in developing nations like Bangladesh, where an annual income of $120 is acceptable, to create Facebook accounts. Or, more likely, webmasters pay a company that in turn pays these people.

These people register accounts, sometimes dozens, and sit idle until the money comes in. They receive a payment and a target Facebook account, and they relentlessly like the page with their accounts.

Even this was fairly easy to detect.

After all, if 10,000 accounts all mobilize in the span of a week and they all like the same selection of 10 pages, those ten pages very obviously purchased likes from a click farm.

At one point, Facebook purged so many fraudulent accounts it totaled nearly 10% of their entire user base. Unlike YouTube wiping views, however, Facebook’s deletions didn’t remove fake likes.

The modern version of a clickfarm still works the same way, only the people running the accounts take steps to obfuscate their traffic.

In addition to liking the pages they’re paid to like, they also click through ads and related pages on Facebook and like pages they aren’t paid to follow. This is how your page, running legitimate Facebook ads, can run afoul of a click-farm. The flurry of “organic” likes makes it much harder to pick out the mobilization of a click-farm for purchased likes.

The Chinese “Click Farm”

In 14MAY17, an unnamed person disclosed the operational details of a Chinese “click farm” used to manipulate the number of “likes” on a given Internet forum[i].  Photos were provided and some details were presented.  From the article;

Chinese “Click Farm”
Chinese “Click Farm”

The bizarre ‘click farm’ of 10,000 phones that give FAKE ‘likes’ to our most-loved apps

Pages on social media websites are given fake ‘likes’ to make them look more popular by thousands of phones

“Footage has emerged of a giant "click farm" that uses more than 10,000 mobile phones to give product ratings and pages on social media websites phoney "likes". 

Companies reportedly pay thousands to get their apps more likes by using services like this massive plant offers. 

This covert clip in China shows rows and rows of like-making machines all wired to other devices in a factory. And there are said to be thousands more phones in the same building all made for the same purpose.”

The reader should note some details regarding all of the cell phones.  They are all smart phones, typically generic or “off make” brands (probably due to cost considerations). 

Note that the camera is covered by tape so that if any agency wanted to turn on the camera, it would not be able to record any video. Notice the screens, all of them are slightly different, but the forum that they are posing on is identical.  The computer software provides a kind of software personality that automates the clicking algorithm.

A Russian man took video footage of the like-making machines and shared it online. But social media users reacted angrily to this clip. One viewer wrote: “Is everything in the modern world ‘fake’?” While, a third furious user shared: “Is anything actually real anymore?”

To which I must educate the reader. 

Yes.  Everything on the Internet is fake.

The Thailand “Click Farm”

Three Chinese men arrested in Thailand have acknowledged that they were operating a “click farm,” using hundreds of cellphones and several hundred thousand SIM cards to run up “likes” and views on WeChat, a Chinese social media mobile application, Thai police reported on 13JUN17.

Immigration Police Capt. Itthikorn Atthanark said the men explained they were paid according to how many likes and views they generated, each earning 100,000-150,000 baht ($2,950-$4,400) per month. Click farms are hired to inflate an online site’s viewership for prestige and profit.

Thailand click farm.
Thailand click farm.

Some politicians boast of how many followers they have on social media, while clicks can generate ad revenue.

WeChat is China’s most prominent online social media platform, incorporating a text-messaging service as well as marketing for online stores.

Police seized 476 cellphones and around 347,200 SIM cards during the arrests Sunday at a house in Sa Kaeo province, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of Bangkok. The men, identified as Wang Dong, Niu Bang and Ni Wenjin, were charged with working without a permit and importing the phones without paying taxes.

Itthikorn said the arrests followed a police stakeout at the Sa Kaeo house after receiving reports of suspicious activity. He said a police search Monday at another residence believed to be engaged in the same activity came up empty-handed, though police believe others connected with the business are still at large.

Russian “troll farm”

Not only can you find “click farms” in Russia, but they are also used with ‘bots to flood the social media with trolls and other denizens of internet discussion. These farms park themselves and place ‘bots fully intended to disrupt the discussion on social media sites.

And what’s more, they are open for hire, and will do so for any social media. Apparently some of their biggest clients reside in the United States where they make princely amounts disrupting discussion as tolls on social media. So in Russia, not only do you have click-farms, but they also double as ’bout farms, and bit-mining operations.

The Internet is full of articles on this subject…

Consensus Cracking

A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is ‘consensus cracking.’

Pig Farts are destroying the Ozone Layer
Posted by Trustworthy Joe Average

Everyone knows that XXXXXX. It has been proven that XXXXXXX. And since XXXXX is a Y-chromosome, and Brando is good for plants, that DNA is great with JAVA, and the study clearly indicates that bovine farts are safe, while pig farts are dangerous.

To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made – but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting.

Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favor is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger ‘evidence’ or disinformation in your favour is slowly ‘seeded in.’ Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped.

This works on most websites, such as Facebook.

However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then ‘abort’ the consensus cracking by initiating a ‘forum slide.’

In April 2020, my LinkedIN feed was filled with articles stating that the Italian government was being overwhelmed with lawsuits against China for "mishandling" of the Coronavirus.

The only thing was, all of Italy was in lock-down at that time, and mail, servers and the Judicial apparatus were not functioning. They didn't even begin to resume operation until July.

Obviously it was a big lie. 

No legal actions were taken inside of Italy against China at all, but you would never realize that if you were not aware of the situation within both Italy and China, and how the legal systems works. Things that most Americans are unaware of, which is why this technique is so prevalent in America today.

Topic Dilution

Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues.

This is a critical and useful technique to cause a ‘RESOURCE BURN.’ By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a ‘gossip mode.’ Which is the ideal outcome.

In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion.

The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in.

Caution is often warranted. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to ‘drive in the wedge.’ By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Information Collection

Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them.

In this technique in a light and positive environment a ‘show you mine so me yours’ posting is initiated.

From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your ‘favorite weapon’ and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favorite ‘technique of operation.’ From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

This method has become famous by various anti-gun groups who intentionally collected information on gun owners in selected cities in anticipation of a anti-gun government.

Anger Trolling

This technique is known as anger trolling.

Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction.

From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking.

To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes – without the requirement to ‘stage’ a fake abuse video.

This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to ‘lead’ the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you ‘do not care what the authorities think!!’ inflammation.

By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.

JTRIG

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

Over a period of several weeks, NBC News published a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance.

As of 2015, another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.” Was published with goes into great detail how the United States government intentionally smears and destroys the reputation and credibility of anyone whom it wants to.  It does this through pure application of honed Nazi and KGB techniques.

By publishing these stories one by one, NBC reports highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: [1] the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, [2] the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, [3] the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and [4] destructive viruses. But, here, specifically, lets focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two primary tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: [1] “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), [2] fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and [3] posting “negative information” on various forums.


Gaining Full Control

It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavorable postings – and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public.

The goal is to only have forum postings favorable to your desired point of view present.

This is the ‘ultimate victory’ as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed.

However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a ‘honey pot’ gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes. The object is to gain full control.

Prohibit Non Approved Opinion

The powers-that-be understand that if the government can control speech, it controls thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry. In fact, some of this past century’s greatest dystopian authors warned of this very danger.

  • In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, reading is banned and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
  • In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, serious literature, scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through the use of conditioning, social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality are viewed as vulgar and abnormal.
  • In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.”
  • And in almost every episode of Twilight Zone, Rod Serling urged viewers to unlock their minds and free themselves of prejudice, hate, violence and fear. “We’re developing a new citizenry,” Serling declared. “One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”

Conclusion

Yes, the manipulation of speech is an important tool for the control of people.

And we see a lot of this in regards to politics. Specifically in politics related to “democracies”, which pretty much rely upon “mob rule” to select the leadership. Thus we see that data in democracies are subject to popular opinion and thus must also be manipulated.

So, we see that in a “democracy”…

  • Leadership and politics are heavily involved in censorship and manipulation.
  • And in data sets and metrics of success, leadership also manipulates heavily.

But this is not the case in other forms of governance.

In totalitarian, and Republic forms of governance, there is no need to appease the population, thus there really isn’t a need to manipulate or censor. You can use China as a good example.

China
There was an outbreak of COVID-XXX in ZhangXin on March XXXX. 2,338 were infected, 388 died, and 78 were arrested for non-compliance with the mask law. 

The Chinese don’t need to lie about these figures, or the presentation of them. They are facts. And whether you like them or not, agree with them or not, or anything else has no bearing on the issue. They do not CARE about your opinion.

Compare that to America, where mob opinion is very important and can result in positive or negative opinions of the leadership. Eventually resulting in their termination if things go bad.

USA
COVID-XXXX hits Boston. 456 infected, 34 deaths. But these figures are not verified by a secondary source and there are indications that they might be artificially enlarged by confusing it with the influenza. A government spokesperson admitted that there were a "few" deaths, but that everything was under control and a vaccine is under production right now to prevent further infections. Further, the vast majority of those that died had prior conditions, were old and feeble, or had other complication.

Sound familiar?

Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM.

Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM.

.

Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precedence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them.

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What is freedom?

In this post we will address one of the most common misconceptions found in the world. We will address what freedom is and what it is not. And the reason why we are going to do so is simply because brutish rulers use the ignorance of their people to enslave them. And part of that enslavement is to convince them that they have this intangible “thing”; this “freedom”. And, if you are one of those people who think that you are “free”, and that you proudly wave your flag and shout how “free” you are, perhaps this post is written for you.

What it is not.

The first thing that we must make perfectly clear is define what freedom is not. Because many people confuse “freedom” with other things. Like [1] trains that run on time, [2] having ATM machines, [3] having fast food restaurants, [4] being able to vote, or [5] having a “democratic system of governance”. Ah. None of those things have anything to do with freedom. Not one thing. None of them.

In fact, when the United States was initially founded, the people who founded it wrote an entire book on why they founded the nation, and how it was designed to work.  This book was called “The Federalist Papers” and you can see it online (for free in full free text), if you don’t believe anything that I have written herein. And one of the most important principles within that book was a warning that democracies take away freedom. And, that the (then newly formed Republic) should be guarded from ever the encroachment of democracy.

So, keep in mind that if you reside within a “democracy” the chances of you having any kind of freedom is practically zero.

That’s not me talking. That’s Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the rest of the crew that first established the United States back in 1776.

Well, if a democracy is not freedom, then what is?

What freedom is…

It’s actually very simple. It’s the ability for YOU to live life on YOUR terms without any kind of interference.

If you want to go walk down the street, the freedom to get up and walk down it should be cherished. This includes the freedom if you want to eat a hotdog, or listen to a song on a radio, or being able to swim in a pond. The ability to do any of these things are freedoms.

Even the strange and the odd, maybe even especially those things.

Having the freedom to live your life on your terms is what freedom is all about. And if you cannot, then you do not have freedom.

Freedom is the ability to live life on your terms no matter what other people think. Here’s a picture of a man holding his cock out for the entire world to see.

But that is not realistic…

Now, that is where things start to get tricky. You see, there are all sorts of people, “busybodies” as I like to call them, who have a vision of a “better world”. And more often than not, their vision requires you to act in some way that they feel is proper. So they make rules, laws, add fees, and taxes, and prohibitions and bans to stop you from exercising your freedoms.

Any action that you do that has any of the following attached to it is NOT a freedom;

  • A regulation.
  • A rule.
  • A tax.
  • A fee.
  • A membership.
  • A prohibition.
  • A ban from use.
  • Forced used.
  • Forced sharing.
  • Permit.

So, if you like to eat a triple greasy hamburger with a sunny-side-up egg on top, with a beer, and your dog beside you inside a restaurant in New Jersey, but…

  • There is a ban on triple hamburgers.
  • There is a ban on sunny-side-up eggs.
  • You are prohibited from bringing your dog in a restaurant.
  • You must pay tax on your meal.
  • You must be carded to check your age for the beer.
  • You must finish before 2 am in the morning.

You are NOT free. You are enslaved.

Ah. But how do you measure it?

Well, surprisingly enough, freedom can be measured by the same set of criteria that was laid out in The Federalist Papers.

It’s the ability to have [1] life, [2] liberty, and [3] the pursuit of happiness. With part one [1] life being further divided into [1a] food, [1b] clothing, and [1c] shelter.

And, following the guidelines as listed above, any encroachment of any of those five items is a subtraction of freedom from your life.

Since most people are confused what freedom is, and how you can measure it, let’s go one by one through those five characteristics as listed…

[1a] Food

The ability to put anything you want in your body, at any time, and at any amount free of taxes, regulation, rules, bans or prohibitions of any type is a freedom. Failure to do so is tyranny. If you and your nation is somewhere in between it is “an encroachment of tyranny”.

One person’s freedom is another person’s horror. Here, many Hindu’s from India would be horrified by this meal, and would ban this meal and probably lynch you for eating it.

It does not matter if it is a tuna fish sandwich or a tab of LSD. The freedom to ingest, inject, or partake in anything into your own body free of outside influence, regulation, fees or taxes, let alone bans or prohibitions is a freedom.

[1b] Clothing

The ability to wear what you want, when you want and how you want is a freedom. If you are forced to wear a hat, a scarf, or a head-covering, you are not free. The same is true if you must wear a uniform. Whether it is a type of dress style for your corporate office, or a uniform as part of a para-military unit. True freedom involves personal dress selection.

This also includes hair styles, and makeup and other adornments.

One person’s freedom is another person’s horror. In America many companies would forbid you to wear these outfits as part of the “dress code”.

[1c] Shelter

The ability to own things is the bedrock of freedom.

Throughout history, up until the last century, people would build houses and would put their belongings within those houses. All of which they would totally and completely own.

Now, however, things are quite different.

You rent out your house to the bank on a thirty year mortgage. Your home is subject to real estate taxes, and school taxes, and you must obey the regulations set by your neighborhood from everything that you do to change the house. In fact, often you must get permission to cut down the trees on your property, or suffer with fines and fees for the failure to maintain your property up to community standards.

Because certain areas are too restrictive in the United States, people move out of the heavily taxed and restrictive areas (such as California) and more to less restrictive areas, such as Alabama.

If anyone can place rules, regulations, prohibitions, taxes, fees, or anything else on your home, you do not own it.  Failure to own things is (historically) a trait of the slave and sub-servant classes.

[2] Liberty

According to the dictionary, “liberty” is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.

In other words, while the first three characteristics involved property (1a,1b, and 1c) this involves thought, belief and political views.

If you are unable to express them, or are constrained in writing about them, reading about them, or discussing them with others, you do not have liberty. It has been taken from you.

Some regions restrict how you think about things and what you actually think. To these other people, your thoughts and the resulting lifestyle that you embrace is a threat to their well-ordered life and society. Thus they do everything that they can to ban your behaviors and actions.

[3] Pursuit of Happiness

Finally, whether you have freedom or not, the ability to forge towards getting freedom is important. And this act, trying to have freedom is known as the “Pursuit of Happiness”.

However, if someone places laws, regulations or obstacles in front of you that prohibits or prevents you from obtaining your freedoms, they are interfering with your pursuit of happiness.

The Ideal vs. the Actual

Now the astute reader will note that the ideal cannot be found anywhere on the planet. There simply isn’t anywhere where people can have all five elements of freedom unencumbered. That is fine. Not perfect, but fine.

It leaves plenty of room for the pursuit of happiness, don’t you know.

Instead, we can measure things comparatively.

United States and China

Of course, the United States says that it has “freedom and democracy”. But does it really? According to the criteria above, the answer is a big flat no. On every level, the amount of freedom that a person has in the United States is actually quite scant.

What about China?

Well, according to the American media, China is a horrible, terrible and repressive place. It is a place full of sad impoverished people and a terribly corrupt nation. Well, that is what the powerful American press says.

Well, those expats who has visited it can confirm that it doesn’t look anything like what the American media narrative says it is. And, I can say and confirm that while there are many things that aren’t free (like not being allowed to take recreational drugs, for instance), on the whole, most Chinese people experience a far greater, wider and more diverse set of freedoms than Americans do. And if you don’t believe me, hop on a plane an see it for yourself.

Conclusion

It is easy to repeat the mindless mantras as spewed forth by the mainstream and the alt-press media. It’s far harder to engage in rational thought with those that do. This post is my “baseline”.

It’s simple.

You are either free or you are not.

If you move from a place that doesn’t have certain freedoms to a place that does, you are enjoying the “pursuit of happiness”.

And that’s exactly what I have done.

  • I went from a place where every single purchase of alcohol required me to show some picture identification, to where I just raise my hand and it is brought over wordlessly.
  • I went from leaving my dog in the truck to taking him inside of restaurants with me.
  • I went from taking a few drags of an expensive cigarette in the rain in the company parking lot, to smoking cigars in my large spacious office.
  • I went from paying yearly taxes, and reporting it to the federal government, on my house every year, to owning homes with zero taxes, zero reporting, and zero regulations.

Freedom.

You either have it or you do not.

One person’s idea of freedom is another person’s horror. Here, many Muslims would outright ban eating bacon, and maybe even decapitate you for even considering such a sandwich.

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Why Vault 7 matters. It’s not about collection of your information, instead it’s about control of your mind.

All the people writing about the intrusive nature of the NSA, and the collection of data through the cell-phones by back-door access has got it all wrong. It’s not about the collection of data. It’s about using your phone to control your mind.

All these “back doors” and secret embedded code within your electronics, your chips, and your cell-phones is not simply about collecting your personal information. That is the obvious purpose, but that is not the ultimate purpose.

The ultimate purpose is to enable the embedding of special algorithms and embedded code that allow the government to manipulate what you see, read and hear. These enormous (and hidden) embedded programs overlay instructions to your mind. They alter the selection of programs that you might want to use, they change the access and ease of access to websites. They alter the type, range and frequency of information on your feeds, and change what you would watch, see and listen to.

Have you ever been on your cell phone, and musing about something... thinking about a memory or an event... and then suddenly you see a link or an article related to a similar type of event?

No. It's not coincidence.

It's intentional. 

You are being subconsciously manipulated to act, think, and behave as part of a herd of humans, that the oligarchy wants to shepherd into certain defined behaviors.

And the revelations by Wiki-leaks in Vault 7 proves this.

Vault 7

Whenever you mention the “power” that the United States has over the serfs citizens living there, you really need to mention “Vault 7”. “Vault 7” proves, beyond all and any shadow of a doubt, that the United States government has complete distain for the Bill of Rights, and everything that it stands for. Americans have no protections.  ZERO. Americans exist at the mercy of their government.

Democrat Senator Feinstein trying to put limits on the the first amendment to the Bill of Rights.
Democrat Senator Feinstein trying to put limits on the the first amendment to the Bill of Rights.

Americans are just monitored cattle. They are monitored by their owners; those handful of Billionaires that fully control the government.

WikiLeaks has published what it claims is the largest-ever release of confidential documents on the CIA. It includes more than 8,000 documents as part of “Vault 7”, a series of leaks on the agency, which have allegedly emerged from the CIA’s Center For Cyber Intelligence in Langley, and which can be seen on the org chart below, which Wikileaks also released:

A total of 8,761 documents have been published[v] as part of “Year Zero”. This “Year Zero” is the first in a series of leaks the whistle-blower organization has been dubbed “Vault 7.” WikiLeaks said that “Year Zero” revealed details of the CIA’s “global covert hacking program,” including “weaponized exploits” used against company products including “Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.”

WikiLeaks tweeted the leak, which it claims came from a network inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.

Wikileaks released ORG Chart.
Wikileaks released ORG Chart.

Among the more notable disclosures which, if confirmed, “would rock the technology world“, the CIA had managed to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”

Another profound revelation is that the CIA can engage in “false flag” cyberattacks which portray Russia as the assailant. Discussing the CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s UMBRAGE group, Wikileaks’ source notes that it “collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.

“With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the “fingerprints” of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from. UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.”

As Kim Dotcom summarizes this finding,

"CIA uses techniques to make cyber attacks look like they originated from enemy state. It turns DNC/Russia hack allegation by CIA into a JOKE"

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 7, 2017

But perhaps what is most notable is the purported emergence of another Snowden-type whistleblower: the source of the information told WikiLeaks in a statement that they wish to initiate a public debate about the “security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.”  Policy questions that should be debated in public include “whether the CIA’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency,” WikiLeaks claims the source said.

The FAQ section of the release, shown later, provides further details on the extent of the leak, which was “obtained recently and covers through 2016”. The time period covered in the latest leak is between the years 2013 and 2016, according to the CIA timestamps on the documents themselves. Secondly, WikiLeaks has asserted that it has not mined the entire leak and has only verified it, asking that journalists and activists do the leg work.

Weeping Angel

Among the various techniques profiled by WikiLeaks is “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.

As Kim Dotcom chimed in on Twitter,

BREAKING: CIA turns Smart TVs, iPhones, gaming consoles and many other consumer gadgets into open microphones. #Vault7Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 7, 2017

Dotcom also added that “Obama accused Russia of cyberattacks while his CIA turned all internet enabled consumer electronics in Russia into listening devices. Wow!”

Obama accused Russia of cyberattacks while his CIA turned all internet enabled consumer electronics in Russia into listening devices. Wow!

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 7, 2017

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that

“There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such ‘weapons’, which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of “Year Zero” goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective.”

Key Highlights

  • “Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
  • Wikileaks claims that the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
  • By the end of 2016, the CIA’s hacking division, which formally falls under the agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other “weaponized” malware. Such is the scale of the CIA’s undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook.
  • The CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.
  • Once a single cyber ‘weapon’ is ‘loose’ it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

CIA targets iPhones, Androids, smart TVs:

CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA’s DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).

The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide.

The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell’s 1984, but “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization.

The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.

As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.

The CIA’s Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones. Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user’s geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone’s camera and microphone.

Despite iPhone’s minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA’s arsenal includes numerous local and remote “zero days” developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.

A similar unit targets Google’s Android which is used to run the majority of the world’s smart phones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC and Sony. 1.15 billion Android powered phones were sold last year. “Year Zero” shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 “weaponized” Android “zero days” which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and cyber arms contractors.

These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the “smart” phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.

Take aways…

  • CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA’s DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).
  • The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell’s 1984, but “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization.

CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routers

The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware. This includes multiple local and remote weaponized “zero days”, air gap jumping viruses such as “Hammer Drill” which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ( “Brutal Kangaroo“) and to keep its malware infestations going.

Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by the CIA’s Automated Implant Branch (AIB), which has developed several attack systems for automated infestation and control of CIA malware, such as “Assassin” and “Medusa”.

Attacks against Internet infrastructure and webservers are developed by the CIA’s Network Devices Branch (NDB).

The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB’s “HIVE” and the related “Cutthroat” and “Swindle” tools.

Also cars,

  • As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks.
  • The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.

This is quite suggestive of the CIA having a role in the death of Michael Hastings.

And computers:

  • The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware.
  • This includes multiple local and remote weaponized “zero days”, air gap jumping viruses such as “Hammer Drill” which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ( “Brutal Kangaroo”) and to keep its malware infestations going.

Hoarding of Zero Day exploits:

In the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA, the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard — serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or “zero days” to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers.

Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others.

The U.S. government’s commitment to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process came after significant lobbying by US technology companies, who risk losing their share of the global market over real and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. The government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing basis.

“Year Zero” documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration’s commitments. Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA’s cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.

As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in “Year Zero” is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities (“zero days”) possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.

The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone &mdsh; at the expense of leaving everyone hackable.

Take aways…

  • In the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA, the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard — serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or “zero days” to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers.
  • Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others.
  • Please see the table of contents for the full list of projects described by WikiLeaks’ “Year Zero”. (Over 500 and counting…)

Proliferation of leaked/hacked Cyberwar programs:

  • While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber ‘weapons’, once developed, are very hard to retain.
  • Cyber ‘weapons’ are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost.
  • Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booze Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers.
  • Once a single cyber ‘weapon’ is ‘loose’ it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

The U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a covert CIA hacker base

  • In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
  • CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ( “Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe” or CCIE) are given diplomatic (“black”) passports and State Department cover.
  • The instructions for incoming CIA hackers make Germany’s counter-intelligence efforts appear inconsequential: “Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat, and all they did was stamp your passport”

Examples of CIA projects

  • The CIA’s Engineering Development Group (EDG) management system contains around 500 different projects (only some of which are documented by “Year Zero”) each with their own sub-projects, malware and hacker tools. The majority of these projects relate to tools that are used for penetration, infestation (“implanting”), control, and exfiltration.
  • Umbrage: The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation. With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the “fingerprints” of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.
  • Fine Dining:  Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency’s OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically “exfiltrating” information from computer systems) for specific operations.  Among the list of possible targets of the collection are ‘Asset’, ‘Liason Asset’, ‘System Administrator’, ‘Foreign Information Operations’, ‘Foreign Intelligence Agencies’ and ‘Foreign Government Entities’. Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals.
  • ‘Improvise’; a toolset for configuration, post-processing, payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor).
  • HIVE: HIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its associated control software. The project provides customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to communicate with these implants. The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS with the webserver of a cover domain; each operation utilizing these implants has a separate cover domain and the infrastructure can handle any number of cover domains.

Evading forensics and anti-virus

A series of standards lay out CIA malware infestation patterns which are likely to assist forensic crime scene investigators as well as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and anti-virus companies attribute and defend against attacks.

“Tradecraft DO’s and DON’Ts” contains CIA rules on how its malware should be written to avoid fingerprints implicating the “CIA, US government, or its witting partner companies” in “forensic review”. Similar secret standards cover the use of encryption to hide CIA hacker and malware communication (pdf), describing targets & exfiltrated data (pdf) as well as executing payloads (pdf) and persisting (pdf) in the target’s machines over time.

CIA hackers developed successful attacks against most well known anti-virus programs.

These are documented in AV defeats, Personal Security Products, Detecting and defeating PSPs and PSP/Debugger/RE Avoidance.

For example, Comodo was defeated by CIA malware placing itself in the Window’s “Recycle Bin”. While Comodo 6.x has a “Gaping Hole of DOOM“.

CIA hackers discussed what the NSA’s “Equation Group” hackers did wrong and how the CIA’s malware makers could avoid similar exposure.

UMBRAGE

The CIA’s hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a “fingerprint” that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity.

This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved then the other murders also find likely attribution.

The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.

With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the “fingerprints” of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.

It’s easy to have the NSA place “digital fingerprints” on their hacking efforts using these tools, and then blame another nation.

UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.

Unless maintained, the Bill of Rights becomes useless and superannuated.
Unless maintained, the Bill of Rights becomes useless and superannuated.

Fine Dining

Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency’s OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically “exfiltrating” information from computer systems) for specific operations.

The questionnaire allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical support staff.

Among the list of possible targets of the collection are ‘Asset’, ‘Liason Asset’, ‘System Administrator’, ‘Foreign Information Operations’, ‘Foreign Intelligence Agencies’ and ‘Foreign Government Entities’. Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals. The ‘Case Officer’ is also asked to specify the environment of the target like the type of computer, operating system used, Internet connectivity and installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents, audio, video, images or custom file types. The ‘menu’ also asks for information if recurring access to the target is possible and how long unobserved access to the computer can be maintained. This information is used by the CIA’s ‘JQJIMPROVISE’ software (see below) to configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific needs of an operation.

Improvise (JQJIMPROVISE)

‘Improvise’ is a toolset for configuration, post-processing, payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor). Its configuration utilities like Margarita allows the NOC (Network Operation Center) to customize tools based on requirements from ‘Fine Dining’ questionairies.

HIVE

What is an "implant"?

It is the embedded code that instructs your brain what to do and how to behave when you are using electronics technology.

It is the software that has the back of your mind musing about certain things, issues of the day, or getting all emotionally upset about something.

HIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its associated control software. The project provides customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to communicate with these implants.

The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS with the webserver of a cover domain; each operation utilizing these implants has a separate cover domain and the infrastructure can handle any number of cover domains.

Each cover domain resolves to an IP address that is located at a commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server) provider. The public-facing server forwards all incoming traffic via a VPN to a ‘Blot’ server that handles actual connection requests from clients. It is setup for optional SSL client authentication: if a client sends a valid client certificate (only implants can do that), the connection is forwarded to the ‘Honeycomb’ toolserver that communicates with the implant; if a valid certificate is missing (which is the case if someone tries to open the cover domain website by accident), the traffic is forwarded to a cover server that delivers an unsuspicious looking website.

The Honeycomb toolserver receives exfiltrated information from the implant; an operator can also task the implant to execute jobs on the target computer, so the toolserver acts as a C2 (command and control) server for the implant.

Similar functionality (though limited to Windows) is provided by the RickBobby project.

See the classified user and developer guides for HIVE.

Conclusion

“You could have all the crazy thoughts you wanted, as long as you smiled and kept them to yourself.”

― Mara Purnhagen, Past Midnight

99.9% of the articles (on the internet and in books) discuss how “unconstitutional” the collection of information, by the NSA, is. They argue (and rightfully so) that the United States government should not be doing this, that it is against the Constitution, the law, the purpose of government, and is a dangerous precedent. Ah. We all get this and understand it.

I argue something a little different.

The reason why the United States wants your reading, watching, listening, and Geo-location information (as well as your passwords, your friends, and your associations) is not so much to track your actions and behaviors. But instead, to be able to feed embedded algorithms into your phone.

These hidden and secretive signals direct your subconscious actions.

They control what you look at, what you listen to, and what you are exposed to.

Thus, they “box you in” to a particular “mind set”. And in so doing, they control you.

And the American PTB (Deep State) Oligarchy leadership are believing that this 2D manipulation of minds will guarantee their successful implementation of change; guarantee that they will remain in power forever, and guarantee that their goals and societal adjustments will occur without any opposition.

But the universe is far more complex than any 2D operation. It’s at a bare minimum, an 11D exercise. And pushing this controlling narratives into the minds of millions of Americans will have , or is having…

… unexpected, or unintended consequences.

It should be no surprise that the United States is now balkanized into violently radical warring factions. All of which are attuned to certain pre-defined narratives. Individual, independent thought no longer exists. You are either “A”, or “B” or “C”. And they have further classified you in to a direct subcategory all for the purposes of your control. “A-4”, or “B-7”.

Vault 7 exposes this.

Now a cursory look at the files might (indeed) give you the impression that it’s just advanced techniques for the collection and gathering of information. I urge the reader to think past that. Any nation that has an intimate knowledge of your “private papers” and “personal privacy” in real time has the ability to control you.

It’s all about control.

The control of what and how you think, by a very powerful government.

And this is why Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo are all up in arms about 5G, and Huawei. It's not that the technology is better, dangerous, or would have "back doors". It is that the stranglehold of the American government control over people would come to an end as less and less people use programs with these embedded algorithms. 

If you want to protect yourself from being manipulated by hidden, invisible and secret manipulations, you need to start using phones, and software developed outside of the United States. Those products that are being “banned from American use” such as Huawei and Xiaomi are almost certainly devoid of NSA malware.

Though, perhaps the best thing might be to just move away from all electronic media and live a far simpler life.

A simpler life.
A simpler life.

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How to have a baby in China and give it Chinese citizenship when you are a foreigner.

This was so interesting for me to see, because I've experienced the same thing - people I know who have lived & worked there (China)  have such a different view from those who haven't. 

And if you talk positively about China in the US, you are viewed with skepticism at best, at worst - viewed as a traitor. Judged by people who have never been to China!

-Greg Reed

How to have a baby in China. This article discusses what it is like for a foreigner to have a baby inside of China and give it Chinese citizenship. If you do not want to give it Chinese citizenship then there are few other options available for you. The baby would be born within China and be a “stateless person”. It would be your responsibility to apply for citizenship at the nearest embassy or consulate.

Why not automatically make it American?

I cannot tell you, my dear reader, how many times people have asked me this. They ask “Why didn’t you give your Child American citizenship?” As if, suddenly the American citizenship would grant my child an automatic and wonderful life…

American family
A sizable population of Americans are not working, and are instead being paid existence money. I want my children to be productive and make the world a better place as opposed to subsisting.

Hey! Have you been watching the United States lately?

But I will describe it in the simplist way possible.

Imagine three children;

  • Tom. Chinese born. Chinese citizen. Raised in China.
  • Dick. Chinese born. American citizen. Raised in China.
  • Harry. Chinese born. American citizen. Raised in America.

If you look at the three children, you can pretty much say that “Tom” represents most Chinese people. They are born in China of Chinese parents, and they attend Chinese schools, and have excellent opportunities within China.

Dick is the kind of child that a number of expats are faced with. As an expat, they come to China as part of a two or three year long duration package as part of a career move. They want their children to be raised where ever they live, but they want them to be American citizens to “enjoy” the rights and privileges of “being an American”.

Harry represents a scenario that many rich Chinese face. They want to move to America and raise their children as American citizens. So while the child might be born inside of China, they are raised in America as an American.

The Trade offs…

Well, most people reading this are neither native Chinese living in China (the “Tom” situation), nor a rich and wealthy Chinese who emigrated to China. (The “Harry” situation.) They are in the “Dick” situation.

And their question is simple.

Should the baby apply for Chinese citizenship or American (or other country) citizenship?

Well, to make the decision process easier, I have broken it down. Keep in mind that it is a far greater amount of work to make your baby a Chinese citizen than to make it an American citizen.

[1] Baby as a Chinese citizen…

You must follow the application procedures and be approved. The government will monitor the healthy of the baby and you must take tests and attend classes during the entire pregnancy.

Once the baby is born, it can attend Chinese schools, and be treated as a Chinese citizen even if one of it’s parents is non-Chinese. It gets social insurance, and placement in schools and the educational process.

When it grows up, it will have a “Family Register”, with a history, and be able to set up businesses within China. It will be subject to Chinese income tax which (for around 80% of citizens) is under 3% of the yearly income taken directly from the paycheck with no annual reporting requirements.

[2] Baby as a American citizen…

The baby can be birthed anywhere and no tests or procedures are required. However, it will not be granted a birth certificate. So the parents must work with the embassy before the birth to apply for citizenship. If you give birth, and do not have a birth certificate, you have until the baby is five years old before the difficulty in application process goes exponential.

Once the baby is approved and is an American (or other national), it can live pretty much like it’s expat parents, except…

It cannot go to most schools. Only Chinese students can go to the local school. It must go to an “approved” school that is permitted to take foreign students.

Can Foreigners Go to Primary or Secondary School in China?

While most international schools will only accept Chinese students who hold a foreign passport, Chinese public schools are required by law to accept children of legal foreign residents. 

Admissions requirements vary but most schools require an admissions application, health records, passport, visa information, and previous school records. Some, like nurseries and kindergartens, require a birth certificate. Others require recommendation letters, assessments, on-campus interviews, entrance exams, and language requirements.

Students who cannot speak Mandarin are usually held back a few grades and usually start in first grade until their language skills improve. All classes except English are taught entirely in Chinese. Going to a local school in China has become a popular choice for expat families who live in China but can’t afford the high price of international schools.

The admissions materials at local schools are typically in Chinese and there’s little support for families and students who do not speak Chinese. Schools in Beijing that accept foreign students include Fangcaodi Primary School (芳草地小学) and The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China Beijing Ritan High School (人大附中).

There are over 70 schools approved by China’s Ministry of Education to provide foreign instruction. Unlike local children, foreigners must pay a yearly tuition which varies but starts at about 28,000RMB.

-What Is School in China Like

So your child has three options.

[1] If you live in a big city like Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen, there is the possibility that an “approved” school will take in your child. Be prepared to pay a fee, and your child will probably need to go down a few grades until their Chinese language skills are improved.

[2] You child can be home schooled.

[3] Your child can attend “International Schools”. In China, the international schools are among the most expensive in the world with costs approaching $10,000 / month or 70,000 rmb/month.

Then once the baby gets older, it must obey American tax law where ever it lives. Which means that if the child decides to stay in China, it must pay both American taxes to the IRS as well as Chinese taxes. It will be double taxed for the rest of it’s life. This handicap MUST be taken into consideration in any calculus regarding the child’s future.

Things have mitigated somewhat for expats, but Americans do need to be careful and file yearly reports to the government. These requirements of reporting income, telling the American government what you do and why, and asking permission on how you handle financial affairs, whether it results in tax liabilities or not, are repugnant to a free person. It is up to you to decide if you want to saddle your child with this reporting nightmare.

Applying for Citizenship.

Most people assume that China is like their nation. That it has birth-right citizenship. You know, like America has. And that all you need to do is have sex, go to a hospital or even to a parking-lot, and have some witnesses that sign a birth certificate, and zoom! Your baby is a citizen.

Birthright citizenship is the legal principle that any person born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen of the United States. 

Birthright citizenship was established in 1868 by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and confirmed by the US Supreme Court in the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

-Birthright Citizenship in the United States

Nope. China doesn’t have this. Not in the least. And that is a good thing. It helps mitigate if not eliminate entirely many of the ills that America is facing with unrestricted immigration, “birthright immigration” and a “welfare state”.

If you want your baby to become a citizen of China, you must apply.

In short, you need to go down to the local government office, and fill out the application form; “Application for a baby to become a Chinese citizen while still in the womb.” (Or something like that.)

The rules are very strict. You either meet them or you do not. There is no “wiggle room” for borderline cases.

To become a citizen in China, you need to have a [1] male father, a [2] female mother, and [3] one of the parents must be of Chinese ancestry. Further, you need to apply with these criteria, to the local government office, and be approved by them.

If they approve, then they will issue you with two books. (And they are books.) One is white and one is pink. You will use these books to record and monitor the baby health while in the womb.

Monitoring the prenatal growth of the fetus.

The local government watches and maintains records of the baby’s growth in the womb. They provide mandatory training sessions for the mother, and pay for the tests to make sure that the baby will not have any defects or any sort of retardation.

If the baby has a physical, or mental defect, you will have a problem.

In short, you will not be permitted to have the baby and obtain citizenship for it.

Yes. You can still have the baby if your really want to. It’s just that it will not be a Chinese baby.

However, you will [1] need to pay for all the medical care and support by yourself. It will be a great financial burden, and [2] it will not be a citizen. Which means additional headaches.

In short, the odds that a parent would want to continue and give birth to the baby once it was found to have a defect at some level, like an inherited illness, a genetic defect that might cause a mental or psychological disorder, or a physical disorder is very… very small.

During the entire nine months of pregnancy a series of tests must occur that includes bloodwork and exams of the mother, as well as scans of the baby in the womb.

In order to prevent termination of the embryo because it might not be of the preferred gender (typically male in remote rural areas, like the Xinjiang Muslim areas), strict rules are in place that keeps the baby gender unknown until the moment of birth. This goes through every test. Including the DNA test.

In the DNA test, a needle is inserted into the womb and extracts a DNA sample of the baby. It then goes to a lab and is studies for all sort of inherited or rare illnesses or unusually allergies that might be present in abnormal DNA. The DNA that determines whether it is a boy or a girl is intentionally blacked out so the parent is unable to see what sex the baby would be.

Birthing Hospital

While any hospital can give birth to a baby, the local government would prefer you to use a “birthing hospital”. This hospital deals in one thing… anything about giving birth from the moment of conception to post birth problems.

These are busy places.

They usually are part of a big, wide campus. And on that campus are various buildings for pre-birth training, and what to expect for young mothers. As well as traditional Chinese medicine services. (Which actually DO WORK.)

Story time…

When we were trying to get pregnant (my wife that is), we were having a difficult time at it. We used artificial insemination, and yet, we had four (x4) miscarriages. Yikes! It’s was not only totally and completely expensive but a roller-coaster ride of emotion. After the fourth miscarriage, we went to the head doctor who said that we were doing everything right, but it wasn’t working. So she had us go to the Chinese traditional doctor section.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

So we went to the “Traditional Chinese Medicine” wing of the sprawling hospital complex. We made an appointment with the doctor there.

The doctor sat her down. Looked at her hands. Looked at her mouth. Looked at her feet. Then studied her spine. After examining her, the doctor said “well, of course!” She explained. “Your womb is cold!” She elaborated. “You can never give birth if your womb is cold and not receptive. You need to make it warm”.

Now the terms “warm” and “cold” are not direct translations for the Chinese terms. For there are no English terms for what they were describing. But it was close enough.

So she had to make these terrible concoctions of drinks that she quaffed down. She was put on a strict diet of what she could eat and drink. She also had to perform a kind of smoke therapy with this “smoke box” that she put on her belly and burned these kinds of strange grasses and plants on top of it with.

After four months of this, the doctor looked at her tongue and hands, then examined her feet and said “ok, you are ready and ripe to have a baby”.

Then, we went and had another artificial insemination (her egg and my little guys) and it took! So yeah, nine months later we had a beautiful Chinese baby girl.

Nay-Sayers say that this was just coincidence. But nope. It’s not. This and other events have 100% convinced me of the benefits of Traditional Chinese medicine.

The paperwork was automatic. Not only did she get a birth certificate, but she was placed in the “Family Register”. This is a book that lists all the members of a given household.

Inoculations

The government has an entire operation and system for monitoring the growth and well-being of young children. That includes monitoring of the child’s growth and weight. A review of the condition of the mother and the family environment. As well as all inoculations.

This is tied together with the local police.

If you do not attend the training course, or the doctor visits, the police will call you up and ask you if everything is going ok. I am not taking about missing a few scheduled appointments. I am referring to missing one singular appointment.

The Chinese view the early development of children to be the future of society; the bedrock of the Chinese nation and culture, as well as important to the future health of the economy of the world.

Certain regions have this police interaction all automated, and in Wenzhou there is an APP that is a straight direct line to the local police.

Yes. The local police knows who your baby is and everything about your child. If you child is lost or disoriented, it can go into any police station and they will be able to find out who it is and where it lives. If a new child appears in any police districts, it is noticed. And thus added to the central database. Thus stolen or lost childen are quickly found and accounted for.

Buying a house so the child can attend school.

Free government schools do not exist in China.

The schools are all associated with the local communities. For your child to attend a local school in the neighborhood, you must own a house.  Housing complexes have kindergarden, primary and middle schools attached.

Chinese children all get a primary and middle school public education. Each class averages 35 students. After middle school, parents must pay for public high school.

-What Is School in China Like

Now, unlike the USA, there are limits in house ownership. While it depends on the region, I can tell you that the limits for house ownership in Zhuhai, China are as follows…

  • Three house limit for the Father to own.
  • Three house limit for the Mother to own.
  • If the parent is a foreigner, then it is a two house limit.
  • The child is permitted to own no more than three houses.

Thus, a family of three (father, mother and baby) can own at most nine homes in Zhuhai, China.

Some notes.

Houses in China typically are part of enormous housing developments with schools and businesses set up in clusters.

Houses tend to be smaller than American houses.

Houses tend to be much more expensive than American houses.

In China property is not taxed. The Chinese believe that real freedom is the ability to own property, and real ownership of this means that it is free of taxiation and regulation.

Once you obtain a house, then your child can potentially attend the local school there. There is a criteria that is used for placement within the school, and it all revolves around your own personal family stability and social history.

Housing complex in Zhongshan China. The three schools are circled in red, and the central administration area for the local police, and government is circled in blue.
Housing complex in Zhongshan China. The three schools are circled in red, and the central administration area for the local police, and government is circled in blue.

When I mention this to Americans the “knee jerk” reaction is to think that that most Chinese students then don’t attend school. Their reasoning is that since most Americans are either renters or paying a mortage, that this must be true in the rest of the world as well. But actually the exact opposite is true. Most Chinese people OWN their houses. Renting is what is typically done by unmarried couples, or people who have to work away from their homes.

Obtaining the certificate of motherhood.

In order to assure that your child is able to get a seat within a local school, you will need to meet certain criteria based on your roles, your work, your career, and your contribution to society. This is the much maligned “social credit scoring” that you hear so much about in the American media.

But it’s not really a bad thing. Just don’t be rude, a criminal, or disruptive. You can increase your social rating through community efforts, being helpful, and other means.

If you are a troublemaker with a history of scamming people, or polluting, or just being rude, your score will be lower than someone who isn’t.

  • If you participate in the riots in Hong Kong, for example, your social rating is now zero… forever.
  • If you pushed someone on the bus or had some kind of altercation, or just threw trash on the road and was filmed by a road cam in the process, you will have a reduction in your social rating.

Now, in order to guarantee high placement of your child in a local school you will need to take a class in being a mother. You will get a certificate, and that grade and the presence of the certificate will guarantee placement in the best classes of students in the best schools.

This class is a very comprehensive and difficult class that involves books, movies, first-hand class instruction and homework. You must get over a 90% to pass the class and obtain the certificate. My wife took the class, and it consists of two tests. The first being 1000 questions and the second being 300 questions.

Conclusion

The decision to have a child in China is a big one, but need not be frightening. China is a fair and just place that is well organized, if very large and populated. The key to your child’s health and well being lies with you. And the very first decision you should make is what citizenship should your child have.

In this case, do you want Chinese or American citizenship?

American citizens get to have all sort of free stuff, like free healthcare, free food, and free housing. While in China, the citizens must work or die.
American citizens get to have all sort of free stuff, like free healthcare, free food, and free housing. While in China, the citizens must work or die.

As an American citizen, I chose Chinese citizenship for my children. I see China in 2040 bigger, stronger, happier and better in just about every way compared to a 2040 America. But that is just me. Many others disagree with me, and believe the opposite; that America is the best, always was and always will be.

Well…

Only time will tell.

Best Regards.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Chinese index here…

China

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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Master Index

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Some stories from prison. How other people ended up being locked up. The landscaper.

Prison is full of stories. Some are lies. Some are half-truths and some are truths that add insight to the human condition.

When you are in prison, you adjust. You adapt. You make friends and alliances. You survive.

You get to know other people; other inmates. And you hear their stories. And you learn from them.

Here is one such story…

The Landscape Business Owner

He wasn’t a rich man, but he was making a good living. He had about fifteen steady customers and a small crew that helped him mow lawns and trim hedges. He had a truck (new) that pulled a trailer that held the tools of his trade, and emblazoned on the side of the truck was his landscape businesses name and his logo.

He lived in a modest middle class house in a nice neighborhood. He was making mortgage payments, but they would be paid off in five years and then the home would be his completely.

His life was easy. It was relaxed and very low stress. He would get up in the morning, eat a nice breakfast and coffee at the local diner, and pick up his crew at 9 am, so that they could start work on the lawns while his clients were working at their regular 9-5 jobs in town.

He described the work as easy.

The crew would do the hard boring tasks and he would supervise and do the tasks that he wanted to do. Like, perhaps, planting flowers, or arranging bushes, or trimming moss. He told me that he would just enjoy the day. Do the job. (Take a) Break for lunch. Take a nap in the truck, and then resume work.

Then he would come home on time and his wife would make the dinner while the kids would be off doing kid stuff.

Then one day…

As he was leaving the house in the morning, getting ready for his normal routine… (two eggs, over medium, whole wheat toast, chicken fried steak with gravy and grits with coffee)…

A hearty breakfast for a working man.
A hearty breakfast for a working man.

…two police cars pulled up.

One blocked the truck in. The other pulled behind the truck.

“Friendly officer” Dan came out and asked him if he was Mr XXXXXXX. Well, of course he was. He knew the officers himself. Everyone knew everyone else.

His neighborhood was small enough that it would fit within a Norman Rockwell painting.

They told him to turn around, put his hands behind his back, and they loaded him into the squad car to take to the office.

What is going on?

Once he was handcuffed, they informed him that he was arrested for forgery, creating false documents and accessory to crimes valued at the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What?

He was 46 years old. Running a laid-back landscape business, that had been in operation for at least 15 years. His greatest crime that he could recall was being late paying his water bill.

What was going on?

Well, as it turned out the anti-terror legislation passed in the wake of 9-11, eliminated the statute of limitations for anything that could be used by terrorists. So an entire swath of crimes, which normally had a seven year statue of limitations now were open-ended and had no “sunset date”.

  • Forgery
  • Identity Theft
  • Interstate criminal activity
  • Use of the internet to conduct crimes
  • Use of a road to conduct crimes
  • Use of computers to commit crimes…

Any law can be twisted to serve a purpose…

Further, certain states had agreed to match the requirements of the Federal statutes and his (our) state was one of them.

Which meant that he was being dragged into the “system” by federal anti-terror legislation for crimes committed a long time ago, and was being charged on both the federal and the state level. Two sets of charges for one singular crime.

How is this even possible?

What happened?

Well, it seemed that over twenty five years ago, when he was in college, he set up a small operation making fake driver’s licenses. In America, they have minimum drinking ages, and you cannot buy alcohol or cigarettes or even enter a restaurant, bar or club unless you were over that minimum age requirement.

In America you need to show identification showing that you are of legal age to drink beverages that contain alcohol.
In America you need to show identification showing that you are of legal age to drink beverages that contain alcohol.

What he would do is make a fake ID.

With a fake ID the kids could get around that legal requirement. They could enter bars, clubs and restaurants that served alcohol. They could also go into liquor stores and buy beer, wine, and hard alcohol.

The client would give him a name, and he would make an ID for them that resembled a state driver’s license in every detail. He had worked out a system where he got original blanks for the ID’s, and used the same machines that the state used. Thus producing a genuine appearing, but fake ID.

He did this for his friends.

And then, as his reputation expanded, for others in other schools as well.

At the time, a fake driver's license was not difficult to make, and had no serious criminal penalties attached with it.
At the time, a fake driver’s license was not difficult to make, and had no serious criminal penalties attached with it.

He did this for a few years, and then about two years after he graduated, he shut the business down. He no longer associated with the younger set of “kids” and moved on to bigger and better things.

Yet…

Yet…

His cards were still out there. Still being used. Not just thrown into a cluttered drawer of old socks and brick-a-brack. Not just forgotten. Not just discarded when the clients got older.

Some were no longer being used to buy alcohol…

The events…

Well it turned out, that of the thousands of cards that he sold to students, one was sold to a girl…

…who was now a grown woman.

And who used that fake identification to procure an entire slew of bank credit cards. And she used those card to purchase all kinds of things.

  • Expensive clothes.
  • Television screens.
  • Expensive watches.
  • Fine clothing.
  • and automobiles…

When she was caught, she had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent purchases.

And while under investigation, the FBI and the DHS were able to ascertain her system and method. They were able to track down everything back to a lone fake ID that was made some 25 years previously.

She of course, was looking at state and federal charges for wire fraud, and an entire slew of interstate commerce violations.

But…

But…

She used a fake identification. And fake identification, the generation and creation of it, is now a federal issue that involves terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security.

Thus the arrest, and imprisonment.

Long story short

He was facing both State and Federal charges. He was threatened with everything from Gitmo, to twenty five years in a Federal prison, to life at hard labor in a State Prison.

He accepted a plea bargain.

He got two years of prison in a State Prison (Brickeys – North Arkansas Regional Unit) at hard labor. And that is where I met him.

A look at the issue of “Rights”

One of the first things that you realize when you hit prison is that the idea of what a Right is, and what it actually is do not match. We are told that we have “Rights” and a “Rule of Law”. But that is not true.

The laws in America, at both the States and Federal levels are capricious.

They are whatever those with the guns say they are.

They are in constant change; in flux, and anyone can get snared in them.

Anyone.

Including you.

If the American Federal and State constitution were being followed, this entire event sequence would be avoided.

  • Following the Statute of limitations.
  • The criminal activity charge must fit the actual actions.
  • Local crimes do not apply to international issues.
  • A trial for jury should never be usurped by a plea bargain.
  • No double jeopardy.

But none of that matters now.

I am sure that he is out and back to living life.

Presently

Last I heard, his wife took over the business and ran it while he was absent. When he got out, I’m sure that after he was able to readjust, he went back to work. And his life went on and continued.

He fared better than others that I have met. Their stories are also quite interesting and illustrative. I’ll discuss some of them in further posts.

Do you want some more?

I have more stories about my retirement in my MAJestic Index here…

MAJestic

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE .
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.

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Other (lesser known) techniques that one can use to manifest intention.

Let’s tackle something really weird. (And coming from me at Metallicman, that’s saying a lot.)

Here we are going back into the world of quantum physics. Which is, by nature, really really weird. It’s “Twilight Zone” stuff, ya all.

Now, as I have repeatedly mentioned before (over and over again), thoughts create our reality. Thus, the control of our thoughts enable us to create the life of our dreams.

Thoughts create our reality.

Woo! Woo!

In other posts I have covered ways and techniques in how to best “pray” or utilize intention to improve our life. That is… if you pray, and you do it properly, your dreams will come true. (Ah. More or less. The “Devil is in the details”. Don’t ya know.)

I have (in the past) concentrated on the “Prayer plus intention board” method as it is simple, robust and works. But you all should know that there are many other methods that one can use. You do not need to follow my suggestions. You can go your own way.

Here we talk about some of these other methods.

These other methods have varying degree of success. The key in all cases is one’s thoughts and belief in the effectivity of the mechanism and system that it represents.

Introduction

Our reality is a constant stream of world-lines that we visit momentarily, one after the other. We call this “the passage of time”.

What we think of, and what we concentrate on, establishes which world-lines we move toward. If we think bad thoughts, bad world lines start to appear. If we think good thoughts, good world-lines appear.

Imagine your self sitting behind the wheel of a car. The road lies before you and you see houses and trees alongside the road. 

But you get in a bad mood...

Suddenly the sky darkens and hail starts to pelt the car. You get angrier, and cracks start forming in the road.

However, if you are in a good mood...

The sun shines brightly. Flowers start to appear at the side of the road, and people start waving to you as you drive by.

If we control how and what we think of, we can manifest the world-lines that actually appear to us. By doing so we have the ability to generate the life that we live and the reality that surrounds us. For good, or bad.

In a way, our life on this earth is much like the Twilight Zone episode "It's a good life". While in the show, a single young boy had the ability to alter his reality and the reality of others, the truth is you innately have this ability. You just need to cultivate it.
In a way, our life on this earth is much like the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a good life”. While in the show, a single young boy had the ability to alter his reality and the reality of others, the truth is you innately have this ability. You just need to cultivate it.

The control of thought is not easy. It requires discipline and perhaps some training.

Which is pretty much why our life is all “messed up” right now. In nations (like the United States) with the “freedom” of the press, and a culture of “do yer own thang” everything seems to have gone to “ape shit”. The craziest thoughts, amplified by the internet, television and radio has resulted in a chaotic world of unimaginable complexity and strife.

And while your consciousness has made this reality your very own, it is the thoughts of the “shadow quanta consciousnesses” that are assaulting your and your life every single day.

You need to [1] control this barrage, and [2] you need to control your own thoughts regarding it.

In almost all my other writings I have placed an emphasis in using the”prayer plus intention board” method. Its a good general method that works quite well, and is easily adaptable to most people regardless of age, or culture.

Many Techniques

Now it should be very obvious that there are all manner of techniques to manipulate the world-lines. So many, many other techniques. In the past I discussed numerous ways involving technology…

  • Dimensional portal.
  • EBP w/ ELF implants.
  • Aluminum foil wrapped travelers.
  • Use of a car to move in and out of world-lines.
  • John Titor’s saga.
  • Popping in and out of reality (on bicycle or just walking)

Here we continue on ways (techniques) that an average person can use to control their reality. I offer up five additional methods. The methods that I will cover here are…

  • Self-hypnosis
  • A actual “wish machine”
  • Use of a talisman or mark
  • Ritual
  • Hemi-sync as a gateway

[1] Self-hypnosis

Since the key to the control of the manifestation of our reality involves thought, then it should become clear that if we program our brain on how to think, that we can begin to manifest changes to our reality.

Self-hypnosis doesn't rely on specific thoughts, so much as how your brain tends to generate the thoughts.
Self-hypnosis doesn’t rely on specific thoughts, so much as how your brain tends to generate the thoughts.

The technique doesn’t rely on specific thoughts, so much as how your brain tends to generate the thoughts.

There is an entire world of self-hypnosis techniques and practitioners. It runs the gambit from sessions with a trusted hypnotherapist to self-hypnosis using audio-tapes or similar devices. As you can read elsewhere these techniques are conventionally used to stop bad habits (smoking), or to improve your personality (fear of flying, etc). Here we will concentrate on a method that you can use much the same way your use your prayer affirmations. Only in this case we will use it to TRAIN YOUR BRAIN to think thoughts in a certain way.

This is a pretty simple method.

The first step [1] is to create a recording that you will listen to when you are undergoing self-hypnosis.

This recording will have [1.a] an entry section. This section is one that is designed to put you into a self-induced trance. In it you will tell your self to start walking down stairs. Each star that you tread upon, you will get into a more restful and deeper state of mind. You will start at stair 100, and go down steps, 99, 98, etc. At step 0 you will come to a door. You will only be able to open the door when you are relaxed enough to begin the session.

The first part of this programming is to tell yourself to go into a receptive state. One of the easiest ways is to tell yourself to start walking down a flight of one hundred stairs.
The first part of this programming is to tell yourself to go into a receptive state. One of the easiest ways is to tell yourself to start walking down a flight of one hundred stairs.

At [1.b] you will continue the entry section, only that you are more mentally suggestive. You will now be on a level platform. You will tell yourself to be receptive to the following commands. That you will convene your mind to work with your consciousness. That the next group of phrases will describe the situations, and realities that you will create for yourself. That your mind and your consciousness will work together to manifest those thoughts, and ideas into a combined reality that you will live within.

Then, you can [2] start placing your verbal affirmations, your prayers, your desires and all associated warnings, and specification here. Just follow the same guidelines that I have specified in making your intention / prayer list.

What ever you do, don't follow the "weak wristed" affirmations found on the internet. Such as...

I trust that I am on the right path.
I give myself the care and attention that I deserve.
I accept my emotions and let them serve their purpose.
I give myself permission to do what is right for me.

Instead, your affirmations should describe what your life; your reality is like. It should program your mind to be tuned to that new reality. Like this...

I am calm, cool and collected.
People respect me.
People like me, and help me when needed.
Money comes to me with ease, I never worry about money.
You can place all the verbal affirmations in the "prayer and intention board" method here within the tape. You need to read them out clearly and plainly and tell yourself to obey them.
You can place all the verbal affirmations in the “prayer and intention board” method here within the tape. You need to read them out clearly and plainly and tell yourself to obey them.

Then [3] add the “decompression” routine. This part walks you out of the self-hypnosis session. It tells you that you will not consciously remember what transpired clearly, but that your mind and your consciousness is now effectively programmed to do everything within their ability to manifest the reality as specified earlier. You will tell yourself to slowly enter into a normal day to day consciousness only that your reality will begin to change per your instructions. That you will awake rested and fine after the session.

Once you have made the self-hypnosis tape, you need to set up a system to use the tape. Often this means a part of your day where you can go into isolation and privacy. You will need to be able to close the door and tell people to leave you alone and not disturb you. You will also need to set aside an amount of time longer than the length of the recorded tape.

It need not be fancy, just a quiet bedroom where you can lay down and relax free of noise or disturbances. Since most people (with kids) will be unable to do this, it is not the ideal method as you absolutely need a period of undisturbed peace for it to work properly.
It need not be fancy, just a quiet bedroom where you can lay down and relax free of noise or disturbances. Since most people (with kids) will be unable to do this, it is not the ideal method as you absolutely need a period of undisturbed peace for it to work properly.

You can use a computer and a *.mp3 file that you generated, or an old fashioned cassette player or anything in between. Just make sure that whatever happens there won’t be any interruptions like some kind of advertisement pop-up in the computer display or the batteries int he cassette player running out.

Wear headphones, head sets or ear buds.

Lie down and put a light blanket on your lower torso. Your body temperature will start to decrease during the session. Dim the lights or lower the curtains. Do not allow anything to disturb you. that includes cats jumping on your belly or dogs barking for your attention.

Like the “prayer and intention board” you will do these daily sessions until you feel that you have had enough. Then you would put them aside and forget about them. Eventually things will manifest, or you will start a new campaign.

[2] A “wish machine”

Since the key to the control of the manifestation of our reality involves thought, then it should become clear that if we program a machine to repeatedly process the thought quanta for us, we won’t need to.

You can construct a “wish machine”, and it will actually work.

This is not to be confused with other kinds of "wish machines", mechanisms or other things related to "Orgone" generation. 

This functions totally and completely different. The only thing that connects the two is the similarity in name.

The general idea behind this is to create a vortex, or “waterfall” like device that would siphon up some of the (thought related) quanta that surrounds you, your life, your abode and press them through a “filtering mesh” that would create a new emerging reality for you.

Collect Quanta > Filter it to what you intend > Broadcast

In this particular instance, the term "quanta" refers to those quanta that are associated with [1] thoughts and [2] the mechanics of the consciousness - physical brain interface. 

It does NOT refer to all quanta. 

A “machine” in this case replaces your action with your mind and physical activity to achieve your goals. It’s nothing more than an automaton.

Without getting into too much detail, understand that the components that make up the atoms, the electrons and everything in our physical world is a timeless, dimensionless entity somewhat understood or known as quanta. They flutter about and enter all world-lines and cluster around your primary consciousness location. They are not tied to physical locations, thus their proximity to your thoughts are what is of interest here.

This quanta, that which is associated with the moment to moment operation of your consciousness within a reality, is what you want to utilize.

You want to push that particular brand or type of quanta… without your active participation… through a mesh or a filter.

To do this, you utilize a machine.

In this instance we will look at the general construction of two types of “wish machines”…

  • [2a] Electronic
  • [2b] Hydraulic.

[2a] Electronic type “wish machine”

Firstly we look at an electronic “wish machine”.

The electronic device can be considered to be similar to this machine. (NOT identical.) And essentially, you place a “wish” or “image” or “concept” upon a surface, run some electrical current through it and broadcast it to the surrounding area. The device listed (in the link above) will not work very well, because of some structural defects. But the concept is similar to this discussion herein.

The system process is as follows;

  • Collect the thought-related quanta.
  • Pulse the quanta.
  • Amplify it.
  • Push it through a “filter”.
  • Broadcast it back.

Of the components we can create a very simple “machine” that would do our work for us. The major problem with this is the physical limitations of the collection system.

Collection plate. This is a series of two plates. Both preferably copper that you sandwich together with an image arrangement. The arrangement consists of a transparent overlay of what you want to add to your life, over a picture of yourself. Make sure that that picture of you does not have any faults, as you will broadcast and amplify those faults in the device.

As such, you will present two charges to the system. One wire would connect to the top plate, the other wire would connect to the bottom plate. Combined the image & overlay would be sandwiched between and the entire apparatus would combine to form a simple capacitor.

Intention collection plate capacitor arrangement.
Intention collection plate capacitor arrangement.

The capacitor is a two terminal electrical conductor and that is separated by an insulator. These terminals store electric energy when they connected to a power source. One terminal stores positive energy and the other terminal stores negative charge. Charging and discharging of the capacitor can be defined as, when electrical energy is added to a capacitor is called charging whereas releasing the energy from a capacitor is called as discharging.

Capacitors include dielectrics made from all kinds of materials. In this case the dielectric is the image or the paper upon which the affirmations are written upon.

The simplest form of a capacitor is “ parallel plate capacitor” and its construction can be done by two metal plates that are placed parallel to each other at some distance. This is what the collection plate actually is, electrically speaking.

Pulsing the Quanta. Since the capacitor can reach stability in a very short period of time; meaning that one side gets charged positively while the other side is charged negatively, you need to constantly turn the power on and off to have any kind of electrical movement through the system. If you don’t, the charge will just sit there. Seemingly doing nothing (not really the case, but let’s not get too technical here.)

Electrical movement will “carry quanta” along with it. So you want the key quanta to move with the electrical system in operation.

This kind of movement is important. As it “refreshes” the system. It charges and discharges your desires, over and over again. It has the same net affect of reading all your affirmations over and over again within a split second (um. Well, depending on the construction of the capacitor you created.).

A simple circuit using the 555 integrated circuit to generate a pulse. The frequency and speed of the pulse is adjusted by the 1 M ohm rheostat at top.
A simple circuit using the 555 integrated circuit to generate a pulse. The frequency and speed of the pulse is adjusted by the 1 M ohm rheostat at top.

Pulsing the system is easy to do. You just add a pulse circuit in the machine. The simplest is a simple timer (like a 555 or 556 DIP) with an output going direct to a transistor. (I’m just trying to keep it simple here.) It acts as a gate and you can charge and discharge the plate until “the cows come home”. (Charge, discharge. Charge, discharge. Charge, discharge.)

Amplify. Now you can amplify the signal. You can change the current, the voltage, the power and the other aspects of the mechanism. But I am not all that convinced that there will be a corresponding amplification in the intensity of the “wishes”.

Certainly there is a relationship of sorts. The more electrons in movement, means the more quanta in movement. But how about those quanta associated with thought? The “thought quanta”. As far as I understand it, the mere presence of the device is enough to secure “thought quanta” movement.

Simple amplifier that amplifies the signal going to the “intention plate capacitor.”

Personally, I believe that it is the speed at which the electrons switch back and forth to the plates that have the biggest impact. This is the “frequency” of the device.

Never the less, the system can be amplified with an “amplification circuit”. It’s just an electrical device that changes the scope of the signal to or from the plates. In other words, “why not?”

Filter. In this mechanism, the collection plate is the same as the filter. The collection plate is actually both plates in the capacitor while the filter is the dielectric image or (if you prefer) word-laden paper sandwiched in between.

The machine is most effective for single thoughts, or single-use concepts. It might not work as well for (say) a list of affirmations. So to properly use this device, you will need to create a specific dielectric.

What you do is create a base image. Usually a picture of yourself.

Then create an overlay of what you want to surround you with. The most effective method is to make a collage of things or ideas / concepts that you want. Then print it in a printer on clear acetate. Which makes a transparent image overlay.

Then your dielectric is simply the photo of you with the image overlay on top of it. Both sandwiched in between the two contact plates within the capacitor.

Now, that being said, the more astute readers will simply tear apart an old laptop and place the screen between the two plates. Then rotate desktop images in sequence. But that is a far more complex and involved DIY project to list herein. 

I'll cover it elsewhere at another time. OK?

Broadcast. Finally, you do want to broadcast this system. But that’s the beauty of it. You see, the plates that you use as a capacitor are also the broadcast antenna. While it is on, and the “thought quanta” are moving back and forth through that composite image that you created, that… is in itself… all that is required.

And that is it.

I provided some electrical schematics for the more electrically inclined hobbyists out there to construct. If you want, I can throw together a complete DIY post on how to construct this mechanism yourself. It's not hard, but if you've never taken on this kind of project before it might be too daunting. Besides, novices shouldn't play with electricity. Don't try it unless you know what you are doing.

But why waste the time. There are other solutions…

The rules of the physical world work the same throughout the different sciences. The only difference is their form. So let’s look at a hydraulic version…

[2b] Hydraulic type “wish machine”

As long as things are in movement around and through your “intention image”, the associated “thought-related quanta” will also move through that image.

Well, you can achieve a similar effect by placing your (previously mentioned) “intention capacitor plates” under a stream of running water.

Obviously, you must not make any rookie mistakes…

  • No electricity of any kind or type.
  • The plates are not necessary. You just need to hold the images together somehow.
  • Place the image-sandwich under the water and let it run and run and run.

And that, boys and girls is all that there is to it.

Oh,…

One very important point. Your physical presence must be near the device. Or else the effect of the machine will entangle with the quanta of others aside from yourself.

Obviously you will run into a problem with privacy. Because sooner or later someone is going to run into your little image collage and their thoughts will impact on the intentions that you are trying to manifest.

[3] Use of a talisman or mark (iconology)

Since the key to the control of the manifestation of our reality involves thought, then it should become clear that if you associate yourself with a particular symbol or mark that the thoughts and the history associated with the mark (or symbol) will now be associated with you.

  • The historical thoughts associated with that symbol.
  • What you (yourself) associate with that symbol.
  • What others around you associate with that symbol.

This is both good and bad.

Which is why, boys and girls, I advise NOT getting tattoos or body adornments until you fully appreciate the consequences of your actions. Words… actions… images… and symbols all come with attraction or repellent qualities. You need to be absolutely positive that your attachment to iconology is absolutely what you want.

Tattoo with occult symbology. You must be absolutely certain, and positive that you can live with the consequences of attachments to various iconology.
Tattoo with occult symbology. You must be absolutely certain, and positive that you can live with the consequences of attachments to various iconology.

Here we look at various ways to utilize iconology to manifest intention.

[3a] The Intention Experiment

This is a book that pretty much compiled the scientific experiments related to intention and ESP. It is in agreement with some of the investigations that were performed elsewhere and in alignment with my understandings. All of which are explained within the book “The Intention Experiment” by Lynne Mctaggart.

In short, you can “bless” an object through providing “good will” or “prayer”. The object would retain that quantum alignment, and then when you carry that object around, you will obtain the blessings and positive quanta associated with it.

In practical application, this means that you can create your own talisman.

Anything can become a talisman.

You need to pray and perform some kind of meaningful "ritual" or event to distinguish the thoughts associated with the talisman.
It is the thoughts that you associate with it that are critical.

When you discharge thoughts or emotion to the talisman you must center yourself in peace and serenity. You might mediate or perform other actions to accomplish this.

It operates differently from prayer affirmations. Instead you create a talisman that will give you “luck” or “advantage” in your day to day life.

[3b] Feng Shui

This is how BaZi Chinese traditional “horoscope” (Feng Shui Bracelets) systems work. Indeed, if you go to China, you might be surprised how many people wear these bracelets of beads. Wood beads, stone beads, complex intertwined red rope bracelets.

Top 7A Tiger's Eye Natural Stone Chinese Zodiac Charm Bracelet for Good Luck and Fortune for a man.
Top 7A Tiger’s Eye Natural Stone Chinese Zodiac Charm Bracelet for Good Luck and Fortune for a man. There are many types of charms and they are tied to the complexities of yearly movements of non-physical forces. These charms are intended to restore balance to ones’ life.

Again, this is a method to improve your “luck” or create advantage during “non-auspicious situations”. It is similar to the methodology as described in “The Intention Experiment” except that it is based on a theory (or belief) in cycles of non-visible groupings of quanta.

In Chinese horoscopes / astrology they have mapped out movements of non-physical associations. These objects go by many names and there are no English equivalents. As these non-physical objects move about your reality, they can off-set your balance. The goal is always to maintain perfect physical balance in all things. The use of these bracelets or iconology is to assist in balancing off the effects of the non-physical reality.

[3c] Catholic iconology

This is how Catholic iconology works. Here, a icon becomes the target for your directed thoughts and intentions.

Most Catholics utilize a combination of prayer types.

They might wear a talisman, charm or image of a favored Saint or Jesus. These are always blessed within a church.

Catholic four way metal with the four iconology symbols. This particular medallion can be found HERE.
Catholic four way metal with the four iconology symbols. This particular medallion can be found HERE.

They also follow a distinct ritual of scripted prayers. In general they run through a litany of prayers directed to a specific person, idol or concept. The Virgin Mother Mary, Saint Peter, and others are often petitioned alongside the prayers and blessed talismans.

It should be of interest that non-Catholics can utilize the power of intention associated with all the Catholic iconology.

Many Catholics keep a statue in their yard to bless their home and family with.

[3d] Golden Dawn / Aleister Crowley

It is also what Satanic rituals, Golden Dawn, and the writings of Alex Crowley rely upon. There is a great deal of work revolved in ritual and symbology here. In fact, even the Ozzy Osbourne song “Mr Crowley” refers to Alex Crowley as it’s all “symbolic”.

Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.

Once a major player in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley’s falling-out with the secret society within only a few years of his 1898 induction set a pretty good precedent. We really don’t want to get into the history of all this muck. What we do want to get into is the belief how ones thoughts can control one’s reality…

Goetia First Edition - Aleister Crowley - Bauman Rare Books
Goetia First Edition – Aleister Crowley – Bauman Rare Books

For us, at this stage, we are concerned with “Thelema“.

The concept had been around for a long time, but it was Aleister Crowley who created the blend of Western ideals and Eastern mysticism that became Thelema. Even though there’s a lot written on it, it’s sort of an odd philosophy, in that it can be applied in many different ways and interpreted differently by different individuals.

There are some basics, though, that Crowley outlined: The most famous of these tenets is his infamous “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” line. Even that’s up for interpretation.

Some say that it clearly means that you can do whatever the heck you want to, and you’re still within the accepted guidelines of the philosophy.

A somewhat alternative interpretation, though, brings ethics and morality back and says that it simply means that everyone has a divine purpose and nature inherent within them.

I interpret it as a freedom to control your own reality as you feel fit. As such, by doing so, you are utilizing thoughts and ritual to alter and control your reality.

[3e] The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King

Here is a subset of the Alex Crowley / Golden Dawn belief structure. You would conjure up a demon (a non-physical entity in possession of a certain type of specialized power) through symbol and ritual. Then once conjured, you would ask them to perform a task for you for a price.

Each demon is associated with a symbol.

You do not need to perform a conjuring ritual. You can just display the symbol of the demon on objects, clothing, or tattoos and expect to have the attributes of that particular demon manifest in your life. For after all, each symbol is now associated with thoughts…thus giving it power.

The Goetia; inside the book.
The Goetia; inside the book.

The Goetia (pronounced Go-EY-sha) is Book 1 of the Lemegeton (Lesser Key of Solomon), a grimoire that circulated in the 17th century and is penned in the name of King Solomon. This translation/compilation comes from SL MacGregor Mathers in 1904.

According to kabbalah scholar, Gershom Scholem, the text was not originally Jewish and was only translated into Hebrew in th 17th century. He describes the book as “a melange of Jewish, Christian, and Arab elements in which the kabbalistic component was practically nil.” (Scholem, Kabbalah)

Link to Amazon.

Many of the demons found in the Goetia were initially published in the 16th century by Johann Wier. Curiously, a handful were left out. The Goetia also uses some of Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal illustrations.

This system does work, but it is fraught with danger and concern. You must absolutely careful when using the iconology established by others. For i might come with other associations and “baggage” that you might not want in your life.

[4] Ritual

Since the key to the control of the manifestation of our reality involves thought, then it should become clear that if you utilize ritual, you will be magnifying your thoughts as every action involving the ritual comes complete with it’s own set of thoughts. This is true whether it is a Catholic ritual, or an occult ritual.

An occult ritual set up designed to conjure up a demon for certain specific actions.
An occult ritual set up designed to conjure up a demon for certain specific actions.

The system should not be a surprise.

If words are culled with the ability to manifest reality, shouldn’t actions as well? Well, they absolutely do. In fact, how you say your prayer affirmations are just as important as just reading them out loud. By putting passion into your vocalizations, you add an extra dimension to the effort that you are trying to undertake.

Ritual frees up thought and replaces it with action. Our thoughts associated with the ritual begin to act automatically. That auto-action amplifies the combined thoughts that go along with the ritual. It’s a feed-back loop and very powerful.

The Mass, the formal, official worship service of Catholicism, is the most important and sacred act of worship in the Catholic Church. Going to Mass is the only way a Catholic can fulfill the Third Commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day and the only regular opportunity to receive the Holy Eucharist.
The Mass, the formal, official worship service of Catholicism, is the most important and sacred act of worship in the Catholic Church. Going to Mass is the only way a Catholic can fulfill the Third Commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day and the only regular opportunity to receive the Holy Eucharist.

Ritual adds depth and “color” to an affirmation. It can be used alone or in conjunction with other methods of controlling and directing one’s thoughts.

[5] Hemi-sync as a gateway

Since the key to the control of the manifestation of our reality involves thought, then it should become clear that if we clear our minds of all thought, that we can focus on the thoughts that we want to, to the exclusion of all else.

The deeply relaxing sound patterns of Hemi-Sync® Meditation will gently lead you into powerful, free-flow explorations and leave you centered, focused and totalls refreshed.

-Monroe Institute

Hemi-sync has many applications from thought control, to out-of-the-body-experiences, to remote viewing. In fact, it was utilized by the CIA for a spell, and not all of the results are unclassified.

If you have never experienced using the hemi-sync method, it might be interesting and instructive to obtain some tapes and listen to them.

Warnings

Items, physical items, can “absorb” thought components. This can be good, as in the case of “blessed” objects, and can be problematic as in “cursed” objects.

Do not be under the assumption that physical objects cannot absorb thoughts and obtain “properties”. They can. That is why every language in the world has a word describing “cursed objects”.

Quantum Physics and Intention

Here’s some links to the relationship between quantum physics and thought.

Conclusion

Thoughts create our reality.

There are different techniques that one can use to focus, alter, control or magnify thoughts. Some of which are in common use, such as the Catholic iconology, and other shunned or frowned upon like the Golden Dawn. Some are considered to be “fringe” and “tin foil hat” subjects like the “Wish Machine”, and some are in use by various elements of the United States government like the Hemi-sync Gateway.

You can use what ever method you feel most comfortable with.

Remember, unless you have direct control of your thoughts and actions, you will never be able to have control over your life. Control requires discipline of thought.

Do you want more?

I hope that you found this post curious and interesting. I have other posts of a similar nature in my MAJestic Index here…

MAJestic

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE .
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.

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Accept no wooden nickels.

I have been informed by various people that there are others “out there” in internet land who sound like me, that say that they live in China / Asia and post (seemingly) “disclosure” type information. And thus I am asked, is that me?

No.

I only post in one place.

That is right here and right now.

Accept no wooden nickels.

A wooden nickel is a worthless or counterfeit coin. A wooden nickel is a person or thing that only vaguely appears to have any real value, but is ultimately worthless. A nickel is worth five cents, thus already being worth very little.

-Don't take any wooden nickels

Details

Please take special note. I do not comment or post on any other forum.

However, there are two exceptions.

  • The first exception to that rule is LinkedIN. I have posted some topical links to metallicman in the comment sections of my feed from time to time. People who know me personally, and have connected to me professionally are the only ones that can see that feed.
  • The second exception is the posting of entire metallicman posts on Free Republic in 2016. I did that until I was banned. The situation behind the banning was my accurate contention of suggesting the NID was behind the “pro democracy” movement in HK. I am now perma-banned and will never return.

That is it.

So, if you read, hear, or someone that seems to be me on any American forum, please realize that they are not me. No matter how much of what they say seemingly appears to fit within this dialog.

Rules

I do not trust American-based social media. So I do not use it.

Do you want to know why?

Perhaps it is my experience with the American police state, when armed black-clad assault troops poured into my home as I was leaving for work. The event left scars. And, I will never forget how I was treated, and the absolutely ease at which they went though my personal papers and household belongings.

I talk a little bit about it here…

Link

And while I am at it, you might want to check this out. They do go hand-in-hand, don’t you know.

Link

Additionally, please take special note that I live in China.

I live in China

Most access to American social media and software is banned in China. That means that you cannot use it because your computer cannot even find it. There was a time when you could bore through the firewall with a VPN, but that ended in 2016.

The Chinese internet presence is much larger than what is available in America. There is a greater selection of websites, software, applications, and larger audiences by a factor of ten compared to anything in the United States.

Once you get adjusted to the differences, you pretty much appreciate getting all that nonsense out of Politically Correct California off your home computer.

Trust no one who says that they are in China, yet posts on American media platforms. They are lying.

The following social media sites are IMPOSSIBLE to access from within China;

  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Gmail
  • Snapchat
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

And there are many others.

Do not believe anyone who says that a VPN can bore or tunnel through the “Great Fire Wall of China”. An occasional lapse in the wall might happen from time to time, but it is not consistent, nor stable. Certainly the best that I have been able to accomplish was a seven minute “window of opportunity” for my ProtonMail account back in the Summer of 2019.

It’s a situation that allows brief and temporary access to banned Western websites and APPs, but prevents practical and substantive long-term utility.

Do not be confused

There are well meaning people out there who earnestly want to spread the “gospel” about our benefactors and other things that I discuss. They mean well, but they are not me.

Since they are not me, their experiences are not mine and not shared. Thus they will say things that I not only disagree with, but that I know is absolutely false. Keep in mind…

  • Solar systems with large stars, hot stars, variable stars, and young stars are pretty much devoid of civilization.
  • MAJestic is an American organization.
  • “Reptilians” do not exist. It’s a fiction.
  • There is no prohibition on drinking alcohol, doing drugs, having sex, or eating certain kinds of foods by any of the species that I encountered. Those are human fabrications.

This does not mean that I am the sole guardian for “the truth”. I am not. I only know what I know. No more, no less.

So read what you see from others and absorb it in, but know that it is not me, and I cannot validate any information that they might have provided to you.

Accept no wooden nickels.

At that, please have a great day! Be safe, and make the day special in some way.

Master Index

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE .
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.

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Will the “REX 84” program be activated this year?

Well, America is in the middle of the COVID-19 viral emergency. Due to incompetence at all levels of the various American governments, there has been a complete failure of handling this event and it has manifested into an outright fiasco. With things as they stand today, and what we know about the corrupt American government, what is next?

Already States, and local governments are placing restrictions on liberty and behaviors. Stores are being ordered to close and assembly can get you arrested.

No one stated it better than Remus in the Woodpile Report…

These are your choices. They always were and they always will be. 
                           
Prepare when no one else is preparing.
Panic when everyone else is panicking.         
         
Got food? Ammo? Meds? 
It's too late now to prepare adequately  for the pandemic much less the impending derailment of civilization  itself. Preppers were calmly topping off their stashes in early January,  at regular prices, in any quantity with lots-o'-choices. They saw the    foreshadow of this emergency and acted appropriately. Prepping always  looks crazy until the rug gets pulled.  Paranoia is a survival tool,  panic is not.
         
Systems are visibly collapsing.  
The stock market is  out-crashing the 1929 debacle in both speed and depth. "No Admittance"  signs are posted at hospitals and needed surgeries are being cancelled.  Police aren't responding to anything less then a murder in progress.  Cities are opening the prison doors and chasing off the inmates. Food  wholesalers were cleaned out in a fortnight and many can't restock  enough to matter. Others have stopped answering their phones.  
         
Guns and ammo  are selling at a record rate. 
Dealers say even   anti-gun leftists are buying 'em. No one will say it, but it won't  take much  scarcity for the perpetual EBT Diversity to go where  the  food and supplies are.    It's just there they'll  meet real resistance  for the first time in their lives. The suburbs  have learned their  family freezers are worth more than  social posing. Unlike the stock  market, price discovery will be utterly reliable when it comes to fried  chicken and a six pack.
         
Emergency Rooms
Our Open Borders Diversities already clog the ER and get it  all for free because you're paying their bills. Activists will choose  the most deserving victims and it won't be the Deplorables.  Compulsory  charity can't be any other way. Tribal loyalty or redemption will be  served. Either way, traditional Americans are a problem to be solved and  inaction leaves no fingerprints. 
         
The Center for Disease Control
The CDC had one job. Virology. Other countries had reliable  test kits ready to go, in sufficient quantity to be useful. The  technology is decades old yet the "renowned" CDC managed to botch it.  The  CDC distributed excuses and promises. N95 masks? Ventilators? Um,  no. Maybe eventually, their Top Men are working on it. Somehow they    always have  plenty of everything to "fight the epidemic of obesity and  racism" but not enough  to perform their mandate.   The CDC is  useless  and incompetent, an 11 billion dollar scam, benefiting no one except  otherwise unemployable social activists.
         
Meanwhile, Russia is shipping nine planeloads of medics and surplus equipment and supplies to Italy, including ventilators. 
         
Natural News reports:
                      
The battle for Los Angeles is lost. LA County announces no more testing  for coronavirus, containment now impossible, 100,000+ may die in LA,  prepare for chaos
           
The tipping point of containment has long since passed.  That’s not even the goal anymore, and the number of infections being  reported out of LA will no longer even come close to describing the real  situation on the ground there...
            
Expect chaos. Expect looting and violence. It's LA, after all, and the gangs are barely kept in check even during good times.          

America is right now in the midst of a full-scale SHTF event.

This is the thing that preppers have been readying for all these many, many years. And as all preppers know, there is a point in time when you are in the middle of “it”…

You know when you are in the middle of "it".
When you are in the middle of “it”.

With all this in mind, lets take a look at what will follow next

A need for "violent" change.
A need for “violent” change.

For the oligarchy (PTB) have well prepared for this. And make no mistake, they will use this event to consolidate their power and implement sweeping changes to America… to your families and… your way of life.

Let’s dust off this document of horror

The following is an article titled “The Next American Revolution? Anticipated Civil Unrest”By Larry Romanoff in Global Research, November 27, 2019. Edited to fit this venue and all credit tot he author.

The Next American Revolution? Anticipated Civil Unrest

Preparing For Civil War?

US authorities have for decades become increasingly prepared for  mass civil disturbances resulting from government and corporate attacks  on American society. 

We can recall that in the early 1980s the Hidden State launched its open war on the middle class by the savage  FED-induced recession and the unilateral revocation of the social contract that had existed since 1946.

At that time, the US government  had already anticipated widespread public unrest, fully expecting mass protests and riots, and had made preparations to deal with them in the form of internment camps. 

In a real sense, the government had prepared  for another civil war.

REX-84

Like most of the “Great Transformation”, it began during Reagan’s reign with what was called “Rex 84”, an abbreviation for Readiness Exercise 1984.

It is a plan by the US government to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of civil unrest.

This master plan involved the FBI, Department of Defense, the Emergency Measures group, the Secret Service, the CIA and altogether 34 government agencies.

Rex 84.

It was presented as an exercise to test military assistance in civil defense in times of national emergency, but in fact the plan was anticipating civil disturbances, major demonstrations and labor strikes that would affect continuity of government.

The anticipated civil unrest from the FED-induced financial crisis that devastated the middle class was considered “subversive”.

And, REX-84 is an authorization for the US military to implement government-controlled movements of civilian populations at both state and regional levels. Including the arrest of many segments of the American population, and the imposition of martial law. (1) (2)

Federal Police in America have been training alongside the American military to best be able to deal with Americans within the individual states.
Federal Police in America have been training alongside the American military to best be able to deal with Americans within the individual states.

Initially, the Rex-84 program was created under the pretense of a possible mass exodus of illegal aliens attempting to cross into the US from Mexico.

However, when the program accidentally became public during the Iran-Contra Congressional hearings in 1987, it was revealed that it was in fact a secret federal government program…

“to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, assign  military commanders to take over state and local governments, and  detain large numbers of American citizens determined by the government  to be ‘national security threats’.”

Ah. That good ‘ol “National Security” reason.

An Actual Program.

This was part of a master contingency plan.

It is a plan for which the FBI today has a primary list of more than 100,000 Americans, and a secondary list ten times larger, who are targeted to be rounded up as subversives.

Scene from the 1980's movie "Red Dawn".
Scene from the 1980’s movie “Red Dawn”.

This list includes labor leaders, scholars and public figures. With the incarceration designed to isolate political dissidents and to contain civil unrest.

And these are prison camps, ringed with fences, barbed wire and armed guards, not places from which escape would be likely, and they were designed to hold Americans, not Mexicans. (3)

"Avenge Me" Scene from the 1980's movie "Red Dawn".
“Avenge Me” Scene from the 1980’s movie “Red Dawn”.

There is no question the US government is prepared for the possibility of widespread and uncontrollable domestic disorder.  

This program in place and building for years was encouraged by fears of a massive public uprising in the wake of the 2008 banking fraud.

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said some years ago that [1] concentration camps were a likely future reality for Americans and [2] that the Supreme Court would not do anything about the tyranny should the executive branch think it necessary.

"Avenge Me" Scene from the 1980's movie "Red Dawn".
“Avenge Me” Scene from the 1980’s movie “Red Dawn”.

He mentioned the World War II internment of Japanese in the US and said of these camps,

“you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again”. (4) (5)

“Internment specialists”

In 2009, as the US financial crisis deepened and concern about public unrest was increasing, the US National Guard was posting job opportunities for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” to work in “civilian internee camps”. These camps were within the United States. With Halliburton subsidiary KBR actively seeking subcontractors to staff “emergency environment” camps located in five regions of the US.

KBR, outsourced Americanized Gestapo forces.
KBR, outsourced Americanized Gestapo forces.

Earlier, in 2006, KBR was contracted by Homeland Security to build detention centers designed to deal with “the rapid development of unspecified “new programs” that would require large numbers of people to be interned.” (6) (7)

The US has for many years been dangerously close to a situation where, if the American people take to the streets in protest, these internments can be easily carried out.

By 2004, there were more than 800 of these internment camps in the US, all empty, but all fully operational, staffed, and surrounded by full-time guards, ready to receive prisoners.

I have seen photos.

State of the art American patrol car.
State of the art American patrol car.

As well, many military bases are slated to be closed down and used as extra civilian prisons if the need arises, all intended for the internment of dissidents and others deemed “potentially harmful to the state”.

Some camps can each hold 20,000 or more prisoners, a massive effort at civilian population control, and the program is still expanding.

America is at this point today.

The US is very near the point today where political dissidents questioning the actions of their government will risk being rounded up. And then forced into these prison camps,. This is essentially a government plan to forcibly suppress political dissent under the guise of rooting out domestic “terrorism”.

State of the art American patrol car.
State of the art American patrol car.

The US government defines many Americans as having become “pre-revolutionary” from their outrage at the 2008 government-approved housing collapse. They have increasing concern that massive civil unrest would emerge from both the poverty-stricken lower classes and the eviscerated middle class. They believe that this would lead to what would become an internal civil war.

This is the reason that the FBI and DHS increasingly focus their “anti-terror” apparatus on white middle-class Americans like the Occupy Wall Street protestors who were categorized as “low-level terrorists”.

State of the art American patrol car.
State of the art American patrol car.

“Domestic Security”

In 2008, the Washington Post reported government plans to station many tens of thousands of troops inside the country for purposes referred to as “domestic security”. They did this in the light of massive civil unrest that would follow an economic collapse or serious financial crisis, perhaps stemming from 2008.

According to the government document,

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would  force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to  defend basic domestic order and human security”,

stating that the military may be needed to quell “purposeful domestic resistance”.

State of the art American patrol car.
State of the art American patrol car.

To prepare for this quelling of resistance, the US has resorted to demonizing its own citizens.

A recent study funded by DHS conveniently identifying those Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and who exhibit signs of being “reverent of individual liberty”, and re-categorizing them as “extreme right-wing” terrorists. (8) (9) (10)

The program is designed to “reduce and eliminate” all domestic resistance to the US government.

“Crowd control agents” will be used for this purpose, and government agencies will be involved in “gathering information on dissidents” to identify all those who have either “threatened or are creating disturbances”.

American police forces today.
American police forces today.

Manuals and Policies.

The US military produced a manual on what it termed “Civil Disturbance Operations” that outlines how military assets will be used to “help local and state authorities to restore and maintain law and order” in the event of mass riots and civil unrest.

Military and other law-enforcement will be tasked with “breaking up unauthorized gatherings” and restoring order by

“presenting a show of force, establishing roadblocks,  breaking up crowds, employing crowd control agents, and other operations  as required”.
American police forces today.
American police forces today.

The same government manual describes how prisoners will be processed through these internment camps, and outlines how these internees would be “re-educated” while detained in prison camps inside their own country by their own government.

FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations

A leaked military document titled ‘FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations’, outlined a program for “re-education camps” in the US which contained plans for “political activists” to be “pacified” by various psychological officers.

They would be re-programmed into “sympathizing” with the government and into “developing an appreciation of US policies” while detained in prison camps inside the US.

American police are fully equipped to suppress a well-controlled American populace.
American police are fully equipped to suppress a well-controlled American populace.

The document was restricted to Department of Defense personnel but was been leaked and posted online.

It outlined policies for “processing detainees into internment camps” and made clear these operations would be used for domestic civilian situations. (11) (12) The full document is available here: (13)

“Once the detainees have been processed into the  internment camp, the manual explains how they will be “indoctrinated”,  with a particular focus on coercing political dissidents into expressing  support for U.S. policies.”
The American police are trained to control, and suppress Americans who refuse to obey Federal laws.
The American police are trained to control, and suppress Americans who refuse to obey Federal laws.

Part of the stated role of the psychological officers would be to identify political activists, political leaders, ‘malcontents’, and other agitators, and to develop and execute appropriate

“indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes”.

However, their first task would be to “pacify and acclimate detainees to accept the internment facility’s authority and regulations”.

Americans have become accustomed to the new face of Authoritarian government control.
Americans have become accustomed to the new face of Authoritarian government control.

Approved use of violence against Americans.

There are also disturbing insights into the government’s intention to use brutal force to violently quell any civil political unrest.

The manual includes a long list of weapons meant to be used against protesting American civilians, including anti-riot grenades.

All over America, from Hawaii to Alaska, from California to Maine, the police are armed with military weapons and equipment for use against American citizens.
All over America, from Hawaii to Alaska, from California to Maine, the police are armed with military weapons and equipment for use against American citizens.

Page 20 of the manual authorities the use of “deadly force” in confronting these peaceful political “dissidents”, the murderous intent made disturbingly clear with the directive that “Warning shots will not be fired” first.

Northcom itself, in a September 8, 2008 Army Times article, said the first wave of the deployment, which was put in place on October 1st at Fort Stewart and at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, would be aimed at tackling “civil unrest and crowd control”.

All sorts of high precision, and lethal weapons are deployed with American police and Federal police today.
All sorts of high precision, and lethal weapons are deployed with American police and Federal police today.

In November of 2013, Forbes Magazine ran an article based on the AP newswire, detailing that DHS had been assembling a massive weapons arsenal since 2011 or 2012. (14)

The AP reported that Homeland Security had been stockpiling ammunition by buying more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition in addition to a prior purchase of 1.5 billion rounds, for a staggering total of more than three billion rounds.

Depending on the state and the local police force, all manner of high-technology and state-of-the-art weapons are issued to police forces. These weapons are not for the military to use against an enemy. They are for American police to use against American people.
Depending on the state and the local police force, all manner of high-technology and state-of-the-art weapons are issued to police forces. These weapons are not for the military to use against an enemy. They are for American police to use against American people.

This is more ammunition than the US military used collectively in all its wars in the last decade, and represents about ten shots for every man, woman and child in America.

There were also confirmed purchases by various government agencies, of hundreds of millions of hollow-point rounds to be delivered to dozens of locations around the US.

These bullets are so lethal they are banned for battlefield use during wars because they mushroom and fragment on impact, their only purpose being to cause the maximum possible damage to internal organs.

The reader must ask themselves why suppression firearms, like machine-guns, and grenade launchers are being issued to American police forces. The Constitution has been quite explicit and exact that standing armies are forbidden to exist upon American soil.
The reader must ask themselves why suppression firearms, like machine-guns, and grenade launchers are being issued to American police forces. The Constitution has been quite explicit and exact that standing armies are forbidden to exist upon American soil.

Also purchased were large numbers of magnum rounds with the power to penetrate walls, and a frightening hundreds of millions more rounds of specialty sniper ammunition.

Friendly Weapons

Even more, it was reported in early 2015 that DHS had placed orders for massive amounts of other kinds of anti-civilian weaponry termed “Less Lethal Specialty Munitions”, which were described as “an arsenal of specialized weaponry for training and deployment against crowds”.

Why are American regional police forces issued and trained to us the M134 GAU-17 Gatling Gun?
Why are American regional police forces issued and trained to us the M134 GAU-17 Gatling Gun?

These included flash grenades, light bursts, gas and chemical grenades, riot rounds, rubber bullets, and much more.

These are all heavy-duty crowd control and civilian intimidation weapons.

They have no other purpose and, in the volume in which they are being purchased, it is clear the US government is expecting some very serious civil disturbances, possibly a revolution, and soon.

One such non-lethal weapon is the 500-vold shotgun.
One such non-lethal weapon is the 500-vold shotgun.

As recently as 2018, Forbes was reporting more of the same, that these purchases have reached an astonishing ubiquity.

It isn’t only Homeland Security who is arming to the teeth. Thousands of agents at the IRS now have tactical assault rifles and heavy weaponry.

  • The Small Business Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs have purchased thousands of Glock handguns.
  • The Health Services agencies purchased millions of dollars worth of Glock handguns – equipped with silencers.
  • The US Geological Survey, which is a weather bureau, purchased millions of dollars worth of Winchester Black Shadow shotguns with large bulk ammunition orders in addition to Glock handguns.
  • Even the Department of Education purchased millions of dollars worth of Glock handguns, shotguns and body armor.

I am unaware of any nation in the world where the income tax department or the departments of education and health care require huge amounts of military-grade weapons, much less body armor and gun silencers.

Non-lethal microwave cannon to use to fry the living daylights out of protesters and mobs.
Non-lethal microwave cannon to use to fry the living daylights out of protesters and mobs.

Armed to the teeth

In June of 2016, RT reported that non-military federal agencies had more firepower than the entire US Marine Corps.

This including agencies like education, health and income tax. (15) RT documented, a new report where 67 non-military federal US agencies spent $1.50 billion purchasing guns, ammunition and military-style equipment.

Tazer pistols are quite common all over America and are used with far less restraint than normal pistols.
Tazer pistols are quite common all over America and are used with far less restraint than normal pistols.

The details came from the Militarization of America: non-military federal agencies purchases of guns, ammo, and military-style equipment, published by the non-profit good government group OpentheBooks.com. (16) (17)

In addition to the massive purchase of ammunition, DHS was showing off its acquisition of heavily armored and mine-resistant personnel carriers.

Sticky foam is one such non-lethal weapon that is deployed inside America.
Sticky foam is one such non-lethal weapon that is deployed inside America.

These have been seen on streets all across America and verified with photos and video.

Forbes noted that these vehicles are equipped with gun ports and are “designed to withstand IEDs, mine blasts and 50 caliber hits to bullet-proof glass”, and asked why they would be necessary on American streets.

The “Thunder Generator” was originally developed by Israeli farmers to scare away crop-eating birds. However, it has now grown to become a viable weapon against humans. In good conditions, the Thunder Generator can hurl a series of super-short shockwaves up to 100 meters (328 ft) away. In general, these shockwaves serve to only knock down and stun individuals. Any closer than 10 meters (33 ft), however, and the waves can result in permanent damage or death.
The “Thunder Generator” was originally developed by Israeli farmers to scare away crop-eating birds. However, it has now grown to become a viable weapon against humans. In good conditions, the Thunder Generator can hurl a series of super-short shockwaves up to 100 meters (328 ft) away. In general, these shockwaves serve to only knock down and stun individuals. Any closer than 10 meters (33 ft), however, and the waves can result in permanent damage or death.

The DHS also purchased large amounts of riot gear and bullet-proof checkpoint booths, as well as a purchase of 7000 automatic rifles, and 2700 armored vehicles, and the deployment of drones with allowance for their use on US citizens.

The DHS is becoming a massive domestic army to handle domestic conflict. In the words of Ellen Brown,

“somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest …”
American police have taken a page out of the Communist Chinese civilian suppression manual and have adopted drones for surveillance, crowd control and suppression purposes.
American police have taken a page out of the Communist Chinese civilian suppression manual and have adopted drones for surveillance, crowd control and suppression purposes.

False Claims of utility.

DHS chief Janet Napolitano claimed this was to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States that would require the “shelter and processing” of large numbers of people, but this is nonsense.

By whom will the US be attacked that Homeland Security would be responsible for defense, and from where would arise a mass of peaceful immigrants so large as to require more than three billion bullets to repel them?

America has spent millions of dollars, if not billions, on prisons and internment facilities to deal with emergencies and large scale unrest.
America has spent millions of dollars, if not billions, on prisons and internment facilities to deal with emergencies and large scale unrest.

This is the same government that recently shut down many of its operations including most of the National Parks, for lack of funds, yet had sufficient money to purchase billions of bullets for a non-existent civilian army.

A spokesperson was quoted as justifying this massive purchase to “help the government get a low price for a big purchase”, and claimed DHS used “as many as 15 million rounds every year in training exercises”.

Someone should ask DHS to divide 3 billion by 15 million, which tells us the ammunition purchase will supply DHS needs for the next 200 years.

America has spent millions of dollars, if not billions, on prisons and internment facilities to deal with emergencies and large scale unrest.
America has spent millions of dollars, if not billions, on prisons and internment facilities to deal with emergencies and large scale unrest.

The authorities naturally attribute criticism and hard questions to mentally-unbalanced ‘conspiracy theorists’, but this is one more instance where actions appear irrational and the official story is so full of holes that it makes no sense.

‘Unconventional’ paper targets.

Another DHS purchase that produced a firestorm of anger when its news went viral, was the supply of what we might call ‘unconventional’ paper targets which were used as practice shooting targets in ‘training exercises’.

This could very well be the future for many Americans who are not "with the program".
This could very well be the future for many Americans who are not “with the program”.

These targets consisted of figures of American civilians in residential settings. They included small children. They include a young pregnant mother, and old women in robes. They include grandmothers and grandfathers in their kitchens and front yards. They include teenagers in parks, little girls and more.

Perhaps the most frightening part being that all these were termed “no hesitation targets”, meaning to fire without hesitation at the sight of these enemies.

American protestors are the exact type of people that these weapons are targeting.
American protestors are the exact type of people that these weapons are targeting.

What could possibly justify the supply of such targets to a military force, with such an instruction? The US fedbiz.op website took down the solicitation after Infowars broke the story, and eventually apologized publicly for creating these targets of small children.

A Fake City

In early 2014 it was reported that the US military had built a $100 million fake city of about 300 acres in Virginia, for use in training.

The Federal government has created these fake cities and towns from which to train warriors to fight American patriots on American soil with.
The Federal government has created these fake cities and towns from which to train warriors to fight American patriots on American soil with.

This was for the training of troops for the occupation of cities, complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for future combat scenarios in American urban areas.

The subway carriages even carry the same logo as those in Washington DC. More disturbingly, it was reported that

“soldiers are being taught that Christians, Tea Party  supporters and anti-abortion activists represent a radical terror threat, mirroring rhetoric backed by the Department of Homeland Security  which frames “liberty lovers” as domestic extremists.”

The DHS is also building a 176-acre secure compound in the lowest-income area of Washington, DC, which seems almost certainly a preparation for civil war. (18) (19)

American soldiers, train alongside the DHS, in these American sized towns wearing full spectrum bio-warfare gear.
American soldiers, train alongside the DHS, in these American sized towns wearing full spectrum bio-warfare gear.

The Trigger Event

The trigger could be an economic collapse that causes angry Americans to flood the streets similar to the Occupy Wall Street and other scenes witnessed across both the US and Europe during the last FED-induced economic crisis.

Or it could be COVID-19.

It is worth noting that the Occupy Wall Street protest had the right idea but the wrong target.

A military urban training center, which is a mock 30-acre town located on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, has been recently upgraded to look more American than the ‘international city’ it once did, adding a Baptist church, a police station and several farmhouses.

Just last February we posted a story of another fake “American looking” city, equipped with our street signs, a church and an underground subway system nearly identical to one in Washington DC.
A military urban training center, which is a mock 30-acre town located on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, has been recently upgraded to look more American than the ‘international city’ it once did, adding a Baptist church, a police station and several farmhouses. Just last February we posted a story of another fake “American looking” city, equipped with our street signs, a church and an underground subway system nearly identical to one in Washington DC.

Wall Street is just an idea, and a bit player. The ultimate cause is the FED, and that should have been their focus. But the FED, the bankers and the FBI saw this coming and infiltrated and financed the protest groups as a way to take control and deflect them from any useful action or focus.

The “top secret” exercises

In the middle of 2013 several US local media reported the DHS was conducting widely public but still “top secret” exercises categorized as “full scale terrorism drills” across the entire nation.

All of this was with the stated purpose of making citizens “feel safe”, but which resulted in thousands of terrified people not knowing how to respond to what appeared as a domestic invasion by the US military.

The military has a very long history of training and using aerosols that they would spray over regions. They have done this for cloud seeding, insect control, and to practice germ and chemical warfare operations in simulated battle conditions.
The military has a very long history of training and using aerosols that they would spray over regions. They have done this for cloud seeding, insect control, and to practice germ and chemical warfare operations in simulated battle conditions.

People were capriciously apprehended and released after having their belongings searched, but nevertheless urged to celebrate their “independence” from tyranny.

These drills were presented as readiness training for potential terrorist incursions, though DHS failed to mention the New York Times observation that all the domestic terror plots in the United States over the last decade were “hatched by the FBI”.

One other worrying development …

One other worrying development was the appearance of US military C-130 cargo planes apparently spraying “mosquitoes” over various Florida cities at an altitude of less than 50 meters.

An American Air Force C-130 spraying pesticides over a target area.
An American Air Force C-130 spraying pesticides over a target area.

Pest control is hardly a military duty, these events immediately reminding me of the US military spraying bacterial and other pathogens over many parts of the US in various CIA-related experiments on the domestic population.

These low-altitude overflights are almost certainly practice runs for potential crowd control in the future, for dispensing tear gas or other non-lethal (or lethal) material that would disperse or disorient protestors.

A spraying and aerosol mixing assembly system being installed and loaded into a C-130 cargo plane for undisclosed purposes.
A spraying and aerosol mixing assembly system being installed and loaded into a C-130 cargo plane for undisclosed purposes.

I cannot imagine all the possibilities, but the US military most certainly is not going into the mosquito-spraying business. (19) (20)

US Major General Curry was quoted as stating,

“We have local police, backed up by each state’s National  Guard, backed up by the Department of Defense. So in addition to all  these forces why does Homeland Security need its own private army? Why  do the SSA, NOAA and other government agencies need to create their own  civilian security forces armed with hollow nose bullets?”

Some may want to dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory, but we might recall the words of Senator Daniel Inouye in 1987,

“There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air  Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to  pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and  balances, and free from the law itself.”

The threats to civil liberties

The threats to civil liberties go much farther and are much more ominous than I’ve related so far.

Another factor is the spate of secret Executive Orders that Obama signed without Congressional approval, observers claiming those orders violated existing laws and were therefore illegal, but that the powers behind the White House considered themselves above all law.

Militarized police can go and conduct military operations, using the same sort of tactics, in America against Americans at will.
Militarized police can go and conduct military operations, using the same sort of tactics, in America against Americans at will.

One of the most sinister was Executive Order 13603 which granted authorization to seize possession of every possible resource, including property and “all food storage facilities”.

One author wrote that…

“This extremist, maniacal edict is designed to enforce  our submission, rendering us totally dependent on Big Brother  government or face the obvious – starvation and extermination.”

What could possibly have instigated such an order, unless the government is preparing for an all-out war against the American people?

What possible excuse, during peace-time, would a “democratic” government have, for the initiation of a program to seize all the “food, water and food storage facilities” of a nation?

The various American government(s) at all levels have been training on how to control, herd and disarm normal American civilians.
The various American government(s) at all levels have been training on how to control, herd and disarm normal American civilians.

If we add these to the internment camps and the bullets, what conclusions are possible?

Another Threat

Another ominous threat is that much of the NSA’s illegal intelligence-gathering activities were transferred to the Department of Homeland Security.

This is the same people with the 800 internment camps and the 3 billion bullets.

The apparent reason is that the NSA can collect information on domestic political dissidents but has no police powers to act on them, whereas DHS has legislative authority to gather, arrest and incarcerate anyone on their watch lists.

American police today more resembles a military army that operates on American soil, in complete defiance of the United States Constitution.
American police today more resembles a military army that operates on American soil, in complete defiance of the United States Constitution.

DHS is apparently creating a “graded list” of these targeted so-called “security threats”. Those at the top of this list assessed according to how widely disseminated are their anti-establishment views, the followers they appear to have. These will be the first to disappear into the internment maze.

This new policy gives Homeland Security full authority to effectively terrorize the American people under a pretense of controlling domestic terrorism. When we consider these two items, Executive Order 13603 and the new powers granted to DHS, the only possible response can be fear.

When the militarized police come into your communities they will first sweep it of guns, making absolutely sure that the civilians are disarmed properly and completely.
When the militarized police come into your communities they will first sweep it of guns, making absolutely sure that the civilians are disarmed properly and completely.

Secret Procedures

If all this isn’t enough, DHS was revealed to have a secret procedure for the instant shutting down of all private communications in America. This includes mobile phone networks. It is a program that was accidentally revealed when government officials in San Francisco disabled all mobile phone calls during a peaceful protest.

The administration insisted it had the legal authority to control these communications “during times of national crisis”, and “for the purpose of ensuring public safety”. It has also given DHS the power to actually “seize” all privately-owned communications facilities in order to prevent any civilian communications occurring.

It is quite common to find militarized police in America conducting "no knock" raids on innocent American civilians. People! Not even Communist China does this.
It is quite common to find militarized police in America conducting “no knock” raids on innocent American civilians. People! Not even Communist China does this.

Some individuals applied to the courts for further information on these new procedures and policies, but DHS claimed it was “unable to locate or identify any records” in relation to the matter.

Nothing more to be said, but it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the US government is quickly becoming fully prepared for war against its civilian population.

No Fourth Amendment.

With the NSA revelations by Edward Snowdon, there is no longer any question that many US government agencies have been monitoring and gathering information on large numbers of known American political dissidents.

These many agencies include the NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, various military groups and another 70 or 80 so-called “public-private fusion centers” scattered around the US.

Americans are monitored -, then they will be disarmed, as they are all on "lists" where the government will use to secure them into "camps" for their own safety.
Americans are monitored -, then they will be disarmed, as they are all on “lists” where the government will use to secure them into “camps” for their own safety.

Former NSA Technical Director William Binney claimed in an interview that the NSA had a list of 500,000 to one million people in the US who were closely watched and whose every communication and bit of personal data were recorded.

These are not terrorists in any sense, but potential leaders of political dissension and therefore potential suspects in the event of civil disturbances.

Americans are on “lists”…

There also exists a database known as “Main Core”, containing names of Americans who might be considered troublesome.

Knowledgeable sources claim these lists contains the names and communication information of more than eight million Americans who would be potential suspects of political activism.

“Political Activism” would include “national opposition to US military invasion abroad”.

It includes political dissidents, environmental and other activists, political and tax protesters, lawyers and professors, publishers and journalists, and many more who are most likely harmless, average people.

Average, everyday Americans, are the targets for the PTB; the oligarchy that plans to totally transform America into their vision of utopia.
Average, everyday Americans, are the targets for the PTB; the oligarchy that plans to totally transform America into their vision of utopia.

The database apparently contains all to and from email addresses, all email content, all in and out phone numbers plus duration of calls, the amounts and locations of ATM withdrawals, all credit card purchases and much more.

It appears that this dissident surveillance program dates back to the early 1980s, the time of our Great Transformation.

When it was revealed that Oliver North, operating from a secure White House site, had been using a database called PROMIS which was part of the REX-84 plan, to track dissidents and potential troublemakers within the United States.

This database was meant to identify and immediately locate perceived “enemies of the state” if mass civil disturbances were to break out. (21) (22)

The perceived “enemies of the state” are average people like you and I, who might not agree with the % who rule America.
The perceived “enemies of the state” are average people like you and I, who might not agree with the % who rule America.

The Middle-Class Revolt

In late 2008 a leaked internal memo from Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank’s chief technical strategist, contained ominous predictions for American civil society after the vicious financial crisis. He wrote,

“The world is not going back to normal ‘after the magnitude of what they have done'”.

Fitzpatrick claimed that [1] the massive destruction of the middle class, [2] the draining of all the wealth from the population, and [3] the QE money creation by the FED would either bring about a resurgence of inflation…

… or that the US would fall into “depression, civil disorder and possibly war”.

Occupy Wall Street protest.
Occupy Wall Street protest.

He claimed that with the passing of each week and month there was a growing danger that could lead to political instability, a risk of domestic unrest because people were becoming increasingly disenfranchised and impoverished.

Lest we succumb to the temptation of accepting the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting loss of homes as an accident of fate, it would be wise to consider these quotes by Montagu Norman, Governor of The Bank of England prior to the crash of 1929, addressing the United States Bankers’ Association, New York, Idaho Leader, 26 August 1924.

“Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both  by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages  foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through process of law, the  common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more  easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a  central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well  known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an  imperialism to govern the world.”

And his thoughts on democracy:

“By dividing the voters through the political party  system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance.” 

“It is thus, by discrete action, we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”

The US government has developed an increasing fear of its own middle class.

The PTB Oligarchy should not need to fear Average Americans unless...
The PTB Oligarchy should not need to fear Average Americans unless…

Armed Citizens

A middle class that is wide awake to the protests and uprisings in other nations where governments have colluded with the international bankers.

And where large multi-nationals to gut their middle classes and effect the same transfer of wealth to the top 1% as occurred in America.

People in many Western societies have become disgruntled and bitter at the increasing evidence that their vaunted democracies have been usurped by the unrestrained capitalists, creating intolerable situations where the people are sacrificed for the increasing wealth of that same top 1%.

While the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the world some people are stockpiling toilet paper and food, while Americans are flocking to buy guns. Images and videos of people lining up outside gun stores in the United States are emerging on social media. Amelia Adams, the US correspondent for Nine News tweeted a video of people lining up outside a gun shop in Los Angeles, with the queue trailing some 10 meters from the shop’s door down the sidewalk.
While the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the world some people are stockpiling toilet paper and food, while Americans are flocking to buy guns. Images and videos of people lining up outside gun stores in the United States are emerging on social media. Amelia Adams, the US correspondent for Nine News tweeted a video of people lining up outside a gun shop in Los Angeles, with the queue trailing some 10 meters from the shop’s door down the sidewalk.

At first, the US government exhibited a grim and rather reprehensible kind of satisfaction at watching the misery in other nations where the FED and IMF and the International Bankers had succeeded in their aims of wealth transference, but it also realized that the same boiling rage existed in America and perhaps much less controllable.

US citizens were protesting against a government that was no longer democratic in any sense…

… and was both unwilling and unable to repair a hopelessly corrupt and inefficient system.

They finally awoke en masse and objected to ingrained corruption, shoddy public services, high taxes, homelessness, unemployment, rising inflation, the development of a police state, and more.

Public Rage

It is public rage at the realization of having been betrayed by a “democratic” government that converts civil unrest into political activism and revolution…

… and it is this that lies at the heart of the FBI’s categorization of US political dissent as “domestic terrorism”.

The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.
The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.

This terminology is important because the US, in all its hypocrisy for democracy, free speech and freedom of assembly, cannot face the world with open and apparent suppression of political dissent.

Therefore, US citizens protesting against their own government cannot be exercising free speech but rather anarchy and terrorism, thereby justifying the use of deadly force to control dissension.

The powers that control America (PTB) have no interest in fairy-tales of freedom. They are interested in wealth and control, and the people in any country are irrelevant – including those in the US.

The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.
The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.

Americans have experienced first-hand the destruction of their quality of life; they see clearly the disappearance of future opportunity for their children, and they recognize better than most the loss of their freedom of expression which they have so valued.

And they know it is precisely the retraction of that expression that is necessary for their no-longer-democratic government to maintain control.

The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.
The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.

This is where their economic and social dissatisfaction mutate into political activism – revolution, in fact – and it is this realization among the authorities that has spawned the internship camps, the billions of bullets purchased, and the “shoot to kill” orders.

Revolution – The Struggle for Class Power

Buried in the litany of troubles the US is facing today is the primary fact that the nation is engaged in a brutal class war, a struggle for class power that the bottom 99% are losing.

This war was declared in the late 1970s, gained great momentum in the 1980s and 1990s, and is still accelerating toward its final desperate conclusion.

There are few signs on the horizon that cause hope for a change in direction, and I fear it may be too late.

The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.
The number of American militias form with each encroachment on freedom and liberty. Today, many such militias exist throughout the United States.

There is still power with the people themselves, and indeed without the both active cooperation and silent complicity of the people, none of the pathological descent into despair would have been possible.

Probably the only force in America that can change what is happening is the combined force of labor.

This isn’t so easy today, since the government killed most labor organizations and there is now little if any leadership.

A total withdrawal of labor succeeded in forcing a new social contract in 1946 and may be the only power remaining today, but times have changed and tactics must change too. If all unions withdrew their services with the full cooperation of unorganized labor, change might be possible.

Socialist Antifa shock-troops lining u to overthrow the government in favor of a social utopia.
Socialist Antifa shock-troops lining u to overthrow the government in favor of a social utopia.

But realistically, there is no hope that such a mass protest could be organized even though it is the only possible way to get the attention of whatever remains of a conscientious government and force through a reversal of the tide.

In any case, taking to the streets is unlikely to produce pleasant results. If the police don’t have enough bodies to beat up and arrest everyone, DHS has its internment camps, its 3 billion bullets, its years of practice with “no-hesitation” human targets, and it will use all of them.

BLM - Black Lives Matter forces demanding "social and racial change".
BLM – Black Lives Matter forces demanding “social and racial change”.

The only safe way for Americans to go on strike today is to stay at home. On this topic, one internet commenter wrote,

“Just don’t go to work. There is no need to picket in the  streets to be on strike, and the factories and offices will be just as  quiet and empty, and the profits just as non-existent. The police cannot  possibly conduct home-by-home visits to beat up strikers one by one,  and no military, even the DHS, is efficient when trying to blow up  houses scattered all over the county, one by one. Strikers are probably  safe if they stay at home and lock their door.”

Another wrote,

“Another tactic is for Americans to simply quit shopping.  They don’t have the money anyway, and don’t need all that useless junk.  Don’t buy anything you don’t actually need, and delay even those  purchases as long as possible, especially the big-ticket items like cars  and furniture. If at all possible, delay every purchase for at least  one year. As much as is practicable, stop driving your car. Cancel your  cable TV and read a book.” Your grandmother gave you advice 100 years  ago that is still valid today: “Use it up, wear it out. Make it do. Do  without.”

A third commenter gave this advice:

“One thing you can do to get their attention is to stop  paying your bills. VISA and MasterCard can’t cancel 800 million credit  cards at the same time, and no bank can process 100 million mortgage  defaults. No system can cope with massive non-payment of debt. You are  their only source of money and you can ensure they don’t get any of it.  That will wake them up. Tell them you’ll begin paying when the overseas  corporate tax holiday is over, when high income taxes are reinstated for  the rich, when the individual bankers are in prison and when the lost  jobs begin returning. This isn’t foolproof, but it’s the best I can do.”

And finally, a more ambitious poster offered these comments:

“Today, the US State Department, the CIA and the FBI  pride themselves on their ability to use Twitter and Facebook to cause  civil unrest, chaos, violence, and even revolutions, in other countries.  It may not have occurred to them that the same tools they use against  everyone else can be just as easily used against them. The CIA used Gene  Sharp and his Einstein Institute to prepare the Otpor civil  disobedience manuals that our government used as the gunpowder to  destroy Jugoslavia, and as the template for a dozen other “color  revolutions” of which it was so proud. Copies are freely available on  the internet.”

William Blum again:

“As I’ve said before: Inasmuch as I can’t see violent  revolution succeeding in the United States (something deep inside tells  me that we couldn’t quite match the government’s firepower, not to  mention its viciousness), I can offer no solution to stopping the  imperial beast other than this: Educate yourself and as many others as  you can, raising their political and ideological consciousness,  providing them with the factual ammunition and arguments needed to sway  others, increasing the number of those in the opposition until it raises  the political price for those in power, until it reaches a critical  mass, at which point … I can’t predict the form the explosion will take  or what might be the trigger … But you have to have faith. And courage.”

Isn’t this exactly what is happening today?

Isn’t all these suggestions what is occurring today? People are staying inside. They are not buying anything. They are sheltering in place, and cowering in fear.

This translates into one of two things.

  • Advantage for the PTB to implement drastic change.
  • Advantage for the grassroots American citizenry to implement drastic change.

Both of which are truly frightening in the “powder keg” that America is today.

Author

Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com

Notes

(1) Rex 84: FEMA’s Blueprint for Martial Law in America

(2) Rex 84 – Your Internment Camp Awaits You

(3) U.S. Concentration Camps: FEMA and the REX 84

(4) https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/04/03/before-his-suspicious-death-justice-scalia-predicted-the-return-of-internment-camps/

(5) https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/3/justice-scalia-to-lecture-at-univ-of-hawaii/

(6) Army National Guard Advertises for “Internment Specialists”

(7) Video: Become a FEMA Camp Internment/Resettlement Specialist

(8) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_2.html?hpid=topnews

(9) Pentagon Plans To Keep 20,000 Troops Inside US To Bolster domestic security

(10) Washington Post: 20,000 More U.S. Troops To Be Deployed

(11) FM 3-39.40 INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT

(12) FM 3-39.40 INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS

(13) https://www.infowars.com/yes-the-re-education-camp-manual-does-apply-domestically-to-u-s-citizens/

(14) Why Are Federal Bureaucrats Buying Guns And Ammo? $158 Million Spent By Non-Military Agencies

(15) 24 Jun, 2016; Non-military federal agencies have more firearm authority than entire US Marine Corps

(16) https://www.openthebooks.com/the-militarization-of-america–open-the-books-oversight-report/

(17) https://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_-_the_militarization_of_america/

(17) Asymmetric Warfare Group Built a Fake City in Virginia

(18) US army builds fake city to shoot at during training

(19) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-enlists-u-s-air-force-to-spray-for-mosquitoes-after-harvey/

(20) Pentagon Misinformation Ops Target Press and Public

(21) Main Core – Wikipedia

(22) https://www.infowars.com/main-core-a-list-of-millions-of-americans-that-will-be-subject-to-detention-during-martial-law/

(23) http://calendar.northeastern.edu/event/political_economy_forum_presents_chris_hedges The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Global Research, 2019

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It’s time that we Americans start to question the need for a Federal Government. I argue that we all would be better off just simply having singular State Governments.

Think about it. What benefit does the United States Federal Government provide that the State governments cannot?

And, is that benefit worth the extra multiple layers of taxation?

I strongly believe that it is not worth it at all. The United States today is an out of control corrupt empire, and almost everything it does benefits a mere handful of people, while Joe and Suzy Average derives very little benefit. I would like to expound on this, through the lens of history.

The following article; “The Antifederalists Were Eerily Prophetic” is a most excellent article from the Mises Institute.  Written 17NOV19. All credit to the author; Gary M. Galles.

The Antifederalists Were Eerily Prophetic

What the Antifederalists predicted would be the results of the 1776 Constitution turned out to be true…

… in almost every respect.

By Gary M. Galles

Most school kids are left with the impression that the US Constitution was the inevitable follow-up to the Declaration of Independence and the war with King George. What they miss out on is the exciting debate that took place after the war and before the Constitution, a debate that concerned the dangers of creating a federal government at all.

The Antifederalist Movement

Everyone knows about the Federalists who pushed the Constitution. But far less known are the Antifederalists who warned with good reason against the creation of a new centralized government, and just after so much blood had been spilled getting rid of one.

The first of the Antifederalist Papers appeared in 1789.

The Antifederalists were opponents of ratifying the US Constitution as (they feared) it would create what would become an overbearing central government.

What the Antifederalists predicted would be the results of the Constitution turned out to be true in most every respect.

As the losers in that debate, they are largely overlooked today. But that does not mean they were wrong or that we are not indebted to them.

Those that fight the Deep State are antifederalists.
Those that fight the Deep State are antifederalists.

Confusing nomenclature.

In many ways, the group has been misnamed.

Federalism refers to the system of decentralized government. This group defended states’ rights—the very essence of federalism—against the Federalists, who would have been more accurately described as Nationalists. Nonetheless, what they predicted would be the results of the Constitution turned out to be true in most every respect.

The Antifederalists warned us that the cost Americans would bear in both liberty and resources for the government that would evolve under the Constitution would rise sharply.

That is why their objections led to the Bill of Rights, to limit that tendency.

Their Oppositions to the Constitution

Antifederalists opposed the Constitution on the grounds that its checks on federal power would be undermined by expansive interpretations…

… of promoting the “general welfare” (which would eventually be claimed for every law)…

… and the “all laws necessary and proper” clause (which would be used to override limits on delegated federal powers)…

… thus creating a federal government with unwarranted and undelegated powers that were bound to be abused.

George Orwell.

One could quibble with the mechanisms the Antifederalists predicted would lead to constitutional tyranny.

For instance, they did not see  that the Commerce Clause would come to be called “the everything clause” in law schools...

...justifying almost any conceivable federal intervention...

...because the necessary distortion of its meaning was so great even Antifederalists couldn’t imagine the government could get  away with it.

It merits remembering the Antifederalists’ prescient arguments and the virtual absence of modern Americans who share their concerns.

And they could not have foreseen how the 14th Amendment and its interpretation would extend federal domination over the states after the Civil War.

But despite that, it is very difficult to argue with their conclusions in light of the current reach of our government, which doesn’t just intrude upon, but often overwhelms Americans today.

We need to listen to the Anti-federalist argument.

Therefore, it merits remembering the Antifederalists’ prescient arguments…

… and how unfortunate is the virtual absence of modern Americans who share their concerns.

One of the most insightful of the Antifederalists was Robert Yates, a New York judge who, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, withdrew because the convention was exceeding its instructions.

Yates wrote as Brutus in the debates over the Constitution.

Given his experience as a judge, his claim that the Supreme Court would become a source of almost unlimited federal overreaching was particularly insightful.

Expanded Judicial Power

Brutus asserted that the Supreme Court envisioned under the Constitution would become a source of massive abuse…

… because they were beyond the control “both of the people and the legislature,” …

…and not subject to being “corrected by any power above them.”

When the opportunity arises the corrupt officials will spring into action and restricts the rights of Americans so that they can gain personally.
When the opportunity arises the corrupt officials will spring into action and restricts the rights of Americans so that they can gain personally.

As a result, he objected to the fact that its provisions justifying the removal of judges didn’t extend to rulings that went beyond their constitutional authority…

…thus, leading to judicial tyranny.

Brutus argued that when constitutional grounds for making rulings were absent…

… the Court would create grounds “by their own decisions.”

He thought that the power it would command would be so irresistible that the judiciary would use it to make law, manipulating the meanings of arguably vague clauses to justify it.

America today.
America today.

Expanded judicial power would empower justices to shape the federal government however they desired.

The Supreme Court would interpret the Constitution according to its alleged “spirit”…

… rather than being restricted to just the “letter” of its written words (as the doctrine of enumerated rights, spelled out in the 10th Amendment, would require).

Further, rulings derived from whatever the court decided its spirit was would effectively “have the force of law,”…

… due to the absence of constitutional means to “control their adjudications” and “correct their errors.”

This constitutional failing would compound over time in a “silent and imperceptible manner,” through precedents that build on one another.

Expanded judicial power would empower justices to shape the federal government however they desired…

… because the Supreme Court’s constitutional interpretations would control the effective power…

…power vested in government and its different branches.

That would hand the Supreme Court ever-increasing power, in direct contradiction to Alexander Hamilton’s argument in Federalist 78 that the Supreme Court would be “the least dangerous branch.”

Judicial Tyranny

Brutus predicted that the Supreme Court would adopt “very liberal” principles of interpreting the Constitution.

This is America today.
This is America today.

He argued that there had never in history been a court with such power and with so few checks upon it…

… giving the Supreme Court “immense powers”…

…powers that were not only unprecedented, but perilous for a nation founded on the principle of consent of the governed.

This is America today.
This is America today.

Given the extent to which citizens’ power to effectively withhold their consent from federal actions has been eviscerated, it is hard to argue with Brutus’s conclusion.

Brutus accurately described both [1] the cause (the absence of sufficient enforceable restraints on the size and scope of the federal government) and [2] the consequences (expanding burdens and increasing invasions of liberty) of what would become the expansive federal powers we now see all around us.

We need to understand their arguments and apply them to a NEW Constitution, if there is to be any hope of restraining the government to the powers it was actually granted in the Constitution.

Today

It’s well past time for a change.

But today, Brutus would conclude that he had been far too optimistic.

The federal government has grown exponentially larger than he could ever have imagined…

In part because he was writing when only direct,  e.g., excise taxes and the small federal government they could finance  were possible before the 16th Amendment opened the way for a federal  income tax in 1913.

…far exceeding its constitutionally enumerated powers, despite the Bill of Rights’ constraints against it.

The result burdens citizens beyond his worst nightmare

The rise and fall of America.
The rise and fall of America.

Conclusion

The judicial tyranny that was accurately and unambiguously predicted by Brutus and other Antifederalists shows that in essential ways, they were right and that modern Americans still have a lot to learn from them.

We need to understand their arguments and take them seriously now, if there is to be any hope of restraining the federal government. Constraining it precisely to the limited powers it was actually granted in the Constitution. This is absolutely necessary given its current tendency to accelerate its growth well beyond enumerated Constitutional limits.

In my mind, the first step to controlling the out-of-control beast is to reestablish State sovereignty. Then, through concentrated and systematic efforts, starve the beast. Allow it to whither and die on the vine.

If Americans are unable to control this raging nasty beast, the rest of the world will need to call Animal Control to put it down, and that will certainly not be a pleasant event to witness.

This is America today. Look around you. The rest of the world is moving forward, and the enormous American empire remains dark and immovable.
This is America today. Look around you. The rest of the world is moving forward, and the enormous American empire remains dark and immovable.

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What we can expect to happen when the Deep State “Swamp” declares war against American Citizens.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few decades, you should be aware that most Americans are quite unhappy. The progressive liberals hate the nation, the country and what it stands for. They want it to burn, be destroyed and replaced with a social utopia. The conservatives hate what the nation has become. They want a full return to the original intended government, and a leadership that obeys it. Meanwhile, the wealthy and the powerful, in full control of the government, is playing both sides against each other.

A conflict is inevitable.

There should be no question at all that our nation is at an impasse. There is a serious question of direction. As in what direction should the nation follow?

  • Embrace a Marxist paradise with the genocide of deplorables.
  • Scrap all the progressive “improvements” and return the government back to the original intent.

The Conflict.

Basically, there are those who see America as a thing to be preserved and another who see it as a thing needing to be destroyed.

  • Patriots want a return to the original principles of the founding.
  • Progressives want everything torn down and replaced with a Marxist utopia.

The Marxist Plan.

It was said by a number of Marxist thinkers over the decades and most notably William Ayers, that for America to be destroyed, it was a thing to be destroyed first from within, then by getting help from the outside.

William Ayers.
William Ayers.

And while Marxist and Anarchist apologists will be quick to minimize those statements through saying its simply from a man caught in the winds of his time, its incredibly important to note that this is the prevailing thought among higher-level academia. An academia which has groomed the brokers of power in all of our nation’s ruling agencies.

Ayers is but one man with a relatively small group, an incredibly high percentage of academics in this nation not only sided with him but not-so-quietly cheered such abhorrent actions on, shaping higher education for the decades to come.

Which brings us to the present day.

William Ayers was behind the Antifa riots in Berkley, California.
William Ayers was behind the Antifa riots in Berkley, California.

In every sociology program in America, undergrads are taught Max Weber’s theories on authority in a society and, perhaps more importantly, his theories on Bureaucracy. Normally juxtaposed to Gramsci’s theory of the superstructure, it is stressed in lectures that in order to control a society, control over the bureaucracy must first be established.

The American Government today.

Once that control is slowly implemented, there is no need for a sudden revolution. Control is already obtained. Crime becomes a tool of political power rather than a question of morality. Through this power the ability to define one’s enemies- and thus eliminate them- is simple.

Where we find ourselves today is the veil of objectivity in such a bureaucracy having been ripped away.

The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a “deep state” that they claim to be not some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others) and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in democracy intent on doing the right thing.
The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a “deep state” that they claim to be not some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others) and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in democracy intent on doing the right thing.

The ongoing impeachment farce has brought a vibrant highlight to that power wield upon anyone or anything they deem a worthy target. If the denizens of the ‘interagency group’, an unelected, unaccountable group of ring-knockers who apparently view themselves outside the authority of anyone but they, who decided to target the President for literally nothing at all, what will they do to you?

Indeed, all this political posturing is a war that is raging all around us.

When the dust clears, how will it affect you?

The Fourth Amendment.

I don’t believe its far-fetched to say the Fourth Amendment is finished.

There are no Fourth Amendment protections for Americans.
There are no Fourth Amendment protections for Americans.

There is no such thing as privacy when so many freely chose to live their lives online. Where they are always volunteering an incredibly high amount of data on themselves. Which is a data set known as patterns of life in the intelligence world…

And when such a time occurs as say, a threatening of a mass disarmament and criminalization of firearms ownership and the right to organize and train under arms…

… that without protections against the machine, armed networks of potential guerrillas may very well be unknowingly compromised before such a thing can even get off the ground.

Revolt is fated to end before it’s even vocalized.

The tools of tyranny.

The tools that are available, even open source, are powerful enough to easily map networks of potential troublemakers. This can be easily conducted beginning with collecting social media data and then confirming it all by conducting physical surveillance.

America is a full-on police state in the very definition of what a police state actually is.
America is a full-on police state in the very definition of what a police state actually is.

The process behind this is known as the Target-Centric Intelligence Cycle.

It follows five steps.

  • Find
  • Fix
  • Finish
  • Exploit
  • Assess.

It begins with a target of interest. All data is collected on the potential target with the aim of creating a plan of attack. Finishing the target is the actions-on stage. The target is either apprehended or neutralized, depending on the desired result, giving way to exploitation and assessment- whatever effects were felt in the larger targeted community, while resetting the cycle based on new targets of interest.

Military Targeting Process.
Military Targeting Process.

With the tools at their disposal, this process can be done almost entirely remotely with the only physical surveillance necessary is to confirm the data on the targets, and usually just before conducting the actions-on raid of the cycle.

Think about that one for a second.

The interesting thing about collective action and social movements is that once it gathers a fever pitch, its far too much of a risk for the superstructure to wield collective force. Some would argue that the use of force even reveals the waning influence of the superstructure. Right or wrong, the optics of such a move are never good and in my personal experience, only galvanizes a people against that power.

So the question remains then- what happens when a government decides on a dirty war against those it deems a threat?

They hate us.

We know without a doubt at this stage that the real power structure in this nation absolutely hates you and I.

By their own words they have nothing but contempt for us, for our points of view, for our way of life.

They hate us. They all have come from "privilege", and have come to despise us common people.
They hate us. They all have come from “privilege”, and have come to despise us common people.

Indoctrinated by the very same America-hating academics who serve on advisory committees…

… to the very agencies which created the powers for themselves…

… the communist revolution of gaining control of Gramsci’s superstructure has been applied to the principles of bureaucracy outlined by Weber.

Your future home - if you are lucky.
Your future home – if you are lucky.

Now, with the tools they have at their disposal, how would such an organization commit itself to a dirty war- not risking overt action but rather simply eliminating voices of dissent quietly?

Simple implementation.

So-called ‘martial law’ doesn’t have to be declared nor would it be desirable. Ties between government agencies and elements of underground criminal organizations are very real- and will be used.

Rather than risk their own officers, target packets will be handed off to the local gang and a robbery gone wrong just might happen. Do not forget that they’ve imported millions of undocumented- and thus disposable- people for more than just votes.

MS-13 criminal gang.
MS-13 criminal gang.

Maybe your drive-by-wire car all of a sudden uncontrollably accelerated into a tree.

And while all of this looks like a pattern to the folks who are awake, but being covert in nature, its an entirely deniable way to wage a war on anyone deemed a threat.

Maybe outright killing a target is too dramatic.

Maybe you’ll get caught on false charges and given a draconian sentence, while career offenders are released for ‘processing errors’.

You could be taken into custody for jay-walking, having a photo on your computer, or driving while talking on a cell-phone. Then, you could spend five or ten years in prison.
You could be taken into custody for jay-walking, having a photo on your computer, or driving while talking on a cell-phone. Then, you could spend five or ten years in prison.

Maybe your bank accounts will get frozen or assets seized. Without hard proof (or even with it), naysayers are opening the door to lawsuits you can’t afford to fight while the rest continue their normalcy bias.

The normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a belief people hold when there is a possibility of a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects, because people believe that things will always function the way things normally have functioned. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare themselves for disasters, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias in disasters. 

- Normalcy bias - Wikipedia 

They’ve been waging a dirty war, and its about to get even worse as more people wake up to the totality of the situation.

Break the Cycle.

Break the cycle. Its way more than just about firearms, the President, or your so-called rights.

Its a fight for survival.

The weight of an unaccountable class of people are bearing down on the rest of us, and its high time to shrug them off.

Recognize that we are an enemy to them. They are at war with you and I.

We are a threat to the "deep state" oligarchy and their "swamp". This is a fact that will not go away. We can never coexist peacefully.
We are a threat to the “deep state” oligarchy and their “swamp”. This is a fact that will not go away. We can never coexist peacefully.

One thing is absolutely certain- they won’t back off any of this and they have no interest in stopping.

The bureaucracy which wholly serves the Leftist cause in the United States wants voices like ours gone and they’ve propagandized us as no longer being human.

And when they fail to yield to protests and non-violent demonstrations, you must be prepared for what comes next.

Genocide.

Conclusion & Takeways

What is the point of this aimless and wandering post?

  • Peaceful coexistence between Marxists and deplorables is impossible.
  • The oligarchy owns the “Deep State”.
  • The vast numbers of the “Deep State” are Marxists.

Therefore…

  • Deplorables are going to be silenced, firstly. (Already in process.)
  • Then they will be treated as second or third class citizens. (Also already in process.)
  • Then they will be disarmed. (Already in process.)
  • Finally they will be exterminated.

Gear up. You have to be an idiot not to see the “writing on the wall”.


If you enjoyed this little rant, you can read more here…

SHTF Articles

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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Be the Rufus; more examples of personal heroism in China. Part 20.

More examples of personal heroism in China. This is part twenty.

Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference.

When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.

Make a difference. Be like Rufus!

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

These are all micro-videos of very short duration. From ten seconds to three minutes. I would suggest that you, the reader, allow them to load to get the full experience.

Video 1 – Rescue of a baby trapped in a car that overturned and is in the river.

What would you do if you watched a car go off the side of the road, then land upside down in the dirty brown water below? What would you do when you rush over to the side and hear a frantic mother screaming, a baby crying and a man trying desperately to open the door? What would YOU do?

Video 2 – Husband freaks out his wife.

This guy is so bad. But, I like the video because it shows how a loved one would react (emotionally and physically) to an emergency regarding their loved ones.

Video 3 – Confused old man needs help.

There are tons and tons of old people in China. Many are in their late 90’s and they go about, doddering about in their daily chores and activities. Totally, in many instances, rather oblivious to the world around them. They are not thinking clearly and need help.

Video 4 – Emergency CPR at a roadside rest area.

This is a roadside rest area. They are common in China, just like they are along American highways. The roadside rests have public restrooms, and a few convenience stores and maybe a restaurant or two. Here we have a situation, caught on camera, of a man who collapses inside a restaurant.

Video 5 – Emergency going up…

All malls in China have escalators. They are very common. There are a a lot of old people and little kids, and because of the large numbers of people, there are often a higher percentage of accidents that can occur. Here we watch what is going on…

Video 6 – Helping children cross a flooded road.

Rufus helps Jesus carry the cross. Real heroes come in all sizes and shapes, and will do things that will soon be forgotten. This is my tribute to them…

Video 7 – How to tie a tie.

This video is a set-up. It illustrates just how helpful Chinese people can be. This actor pretends not to be able to tie a tie. (I can’t blame him. I hated wearing the things.) And we can watch how others react to helping him or not…

Video 8 – Muslim take-down outside of a school.

The radicalized terrorist Muslims are all over the world. Unlike the United States, China has ZERO tolerance for them.

So when you see a Muslim carrying a knife or butcher chopping cleaver towards a kindergarten or an elementary school, you call the police, and get ready to defend the children. The Radicalized Muslims love to kill babies so they can get into Heaven and cavort with their seventy virgins.

Video 9 – Police arrest a Muslim extremist.

Speaking of radical Muslims, here’s another video.

They believe that they will go into heaven if they can commit horrible crimes while shouting the words “God is great”. Silly ? Yes, but that’s just the way it is.

Video 10 – Police clear a path…

When emergencies strike, where will you be. Will you be recording the event on video or taking the time to participate and do the good work by saving and helping others? It’s your life, and how you handle it will forge your future in the Heavens.

Here we have an infant that is collapsing and is having trouble breathing and will not regain consciousness. Obviously the mother is terrified and in Shock. What would you all do?

Thank you for reading this.

God bless.

Conclusion

We do not know when the calling will come.

However, when it calls, you must take action. It will not make you wealthy, rich, famous, or attractive. But, it will make a difference when you are judged upon death. Be the Rufus. Make a difference. Help others. It’s our highest calling.


If you enjoyed this post, please click on this link and check out the rest of my Rufus series…

Hero Stories

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Some of my favorite links and browser bookmarks.
Here are just some pretty decent websites, bookmarks, URL's and sites that I would like to share. I think that there is something here for everyone. These, in my mind, are the "cream of the crop" of underappreciated websites, and some places that you all might want to visit.
Mongolian Women under Genghis Khan
The history of how Australia obtained Sheilas; the story of The Lady Juliana, The 18th-Century Prison Ship Filled With Women.   This is the story of the Lady Juliana. This was a special ship designed to convey female convicts from England to Australia. The idea was that a boat load of female convicts would happily link up with a colony of convicts in Australia. Thus making everyone very, very happy, and reform the colony in New South Wales.
What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Gaslighting
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
The Navy is scrapping the F/A-18 Hornet.
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
The most popular American foods.
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Asian Nazi Chic
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
The Confederados
Democracy Lessons
The Rule of Eight
What High School taught me about Diversity.  Here we look at idea of "diversity" from the point of view of what it was like in my High School years. For my High School was fully and intentionally diverse. And at that time, there were two techniques of grouping people.  These techniques were by [1] merit, and [2] by random association. Or in other words; "diversity". Thus we can compare diversity against merit as the criteria used in a selection process.

Funny Pictures

Picture Dump 1

Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1
Be the Rufus, part II. More tales of heroism.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 3.
Here are some more videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 4.
Here are some more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 5.
Here are even more fine, fine videos of personal heroism. These videos all take place in China, and show examples of how average, normal, everyday people (or dogs and cats) can make a difference. When the calling strikes and an emergency occurs, will you be the one who turns their back, or will you run and offer help? Will you be the one who stays playing on the cell-phone, or will you lend a helping hand? Will you be the person who will make a difference in the lives of those around you, or are you just going to fade into the background.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like int he same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 6.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 7.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 7.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 8.
This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 8.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 9.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 9.
Be the Rufus; more stories of personal heroism in China. Part 10.
We all have a need to participate within our communities, to have a role, and to give meaning to our lives. This role is important, and it is such that it often can call upon us to be heroic in acts and deeds. This is a selection of videos that portray everyday heroes doing good, kind works. We all like in the same (apparent) world and we all share the same environment. It is thus important for us to make it the best environment to coexist within. These videos are part of a much larger collection of videos. This is part 10.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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A comprehensive review of the dangers of ANY association with Google.

This stuff was all over the news a few months ago. Then, guess what? Life moved on. And people, being who they are, forgot the message.

People, please listen up.

A private company has taken on the role of the former East German Secret police, known as the Stasi . They have been implementing these cold war policies with the full blessings of the United States government, and it’s going to get far, far worse.

This private company is Google.

In an interview, Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies, advises against having any association with Google. He warns of their dangerous practices and comments that they have declared war on anyone who is not a progressive socialist. They expect everyone to cower away in silence. Their expectations are that their consumers be placid and as non-threatening as possible.

The Google World infographic created by Overdrive Interactive is a visual representation of Google's projects, services, technologies, and companies acquired by Google. View the Google World or download it as a PDF with live links to over 200 assets.
The Google World infographic created by Overdrive Interactive is a visual representation of Google’s projects, services, technologies, and companies acquired by Google. View the Google World or download it as a PDF with live links to over 200 assets.

Zach worked as a senior software engineer at both Google and YouTube for over eight years.

He has, and shares, his inside knowledge of his experiences and knowledge. He is convinced that Google and other software giants in silicon-valley possess a global monopoly. A monopoly that is both dangerous and evil. He also states that Google is not a reliable source of information any longer.

We should all heed his advice.

Google’s monopoly over search is mandated simply because of a continued reassurance that it is an unbiased search platform. Yet that is absolutely not true. Google is actively suppressing and censoring information. It is impossible to censor something and be unbiased at the same time.

Zach Vorheis has some things to say.

It’s pretty much well known, but the Untied States is owned by a handful of oligarchs. They utilize companies and manipulate the people in order to have them do their bidding. Thus, the point of sharing this information is that the largest mechanism for obtaining information in the world is terribly compromised.

Google is manipulating search results to influence our behavior. At the same time, denying this is happening.

The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal published a a very thorough investigation covering these same points. As well as explaining the consequences of this behavior.

Disclosure of evil intent on Project Veritas

Zach Vorhies released about 950 pages of internal Google documents. These documents provide a comprehensive picture of what’s going on at the upper management within Google.

You can find all of thosedocuments on the Project Veritas website.1

They illustrate that Google has become corrupt, evil, political in nature and aligned with wealthy oligarchs who intend to use the platform to manipulate great masses of people. In order words, to use Google much the same way that “Over-seers” used to control plantation slaves.

What Happened to ‘Don’t Be Evil’?

Zach comments…

“Everything started out with Google really great,” Vorhies says.

“They had this mission statement of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. They also had this idea of ‘Don’t be evil.’ It was built right into their initial public offering (IPO) statements.

I thought at the time, ‘This is great. This is exactly the kind of company that the world needs. We need to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible. We need to let the algorithms decide what goes to the top and let the users decide what’s most useful for them and then make sure that other people are able to find that information.’

Google stayed true to those principles all the way up until 2016, until Donald Trump won the election.

For some reason, they decided they were going to throw all these mission statements away and go after the president of the United States, censor the internet and distort the news so that people’s searches could be redirected towards anti-presidential sentiment.

This eventually morphed into not just censorship of the president, but censorship of information related to health …

I realized [that] if this was allowed to continue, then this agenda of Big Pharma would be able to become … ‘the truth’ …

Once I found out that Google was censoring a lot of information, I started looking at the information it was censoring with a new degree of ‘They wouldn’t be censoring it unless it was true,’ sort of thing.

It’s a strange heuristic to use to figure out what’s true in the world, but you’ve just got to figure out what they’re censoring. You kind of understand that they’re censoring it because it’s not Big Tech-friendly. It’s not friendly to the established players.

Some ‘Fake News’ Isn’t so Fake After All

Shortly after Trump won the presidential election, you started hearing more and more about the scourge of “fake news.” Google, like Facebook and others, decided they had to protect users from fake news. The problem is, who determines what’s fake and what’s not?

Exactly. 

As Jordan Peterson said  in regards to hate speech: "Who is going to regulate it? Who is going  to define it? 

I know the answer to that - the last people in the world you would want to." 

Using Google’s internal search engine, Vorhies set out to determine what Google’s definition of fake news was.

He found several examples in a presentation.

However, in it were actual, verifiable real news events.

“I went, ‘Wait a minute. Is this about fake news or is this about controlling the narrative for like political purposes?'” Vorhies says.

He began collecting these documents because he knew they were explosive enough that Google would remove them if word ever got out about them.

In his continued search for real news presented as fake, he started unearthing other disturbing projects.

The main project responsible for Google censorship is a thing called ‘Machine Learning Fairness’ (ML Fairness).

As you imagine, they’re not going to call their censorship regime something bad. They’re going to call it something like ‘fairness.’

So, if you’re against that, you’re against fairness.

It’s a euphemism. I discovered there was this umbrella project, ‘ML Fairness,’ and there were these sub-components like ‘Project Purple Rain,’ which is a 24-hour response team that is monitoring the internet.

How Machine Learning Fairness Twists Perception of Reality

Just what is ML Fairness and how does it work? Vorhies explains:

Let’s say that this circle right here represents the entire spectrum of all possible artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. ML Fairness is a small part of that type of AI. It’s a relatively new type of AI. What machine learning does is it simulates brain neurons and how they fire.

If you remember how a brain neuron fires, it takes in as input signals from other neurons and then mixes those signals together and decides whether it wants to fire or not, based on the signals that it receives.

Well, these artificial neurons do something similar. They have a collection of inputs, depending on the internal rule set. It will fire depending on the inputs it gets … And then that output is used as input for further downstream processing.

If you have this collection of millions of simulated neurons … you can start to create very complex behavior that’s able to solve problems, like chess or the game Go …

It can classify hate speech. That’s the part that’s interesting to me — how this thing could be used to classify information across the internet.

ML Fairness is a type of AI that takes information on the internet, classifies it and then ranks it. And then the Google engine will figure out whether the information is fair or not. And if it is ‘fair,’ it goes to the top. If it’s not fair, then it gets pushed to the bottom. That’s what ML Fairness is in a nutshell.

What this manipulation ultimately ends up doing is presenting a twisted and false view of the world. What you’re seeing in your search results is what the AI algorithm decided is most fair — not what’s actually happening in the real world.

This is how you now end up getting automated search suggestions such as “men can have periods” and “men can have babies,” even though these are biological impossibilities. However, the algorithm deems the idea that only women can menstruate and bear children as “unfair” and basically “sexist,” and thus it’s pushing these ridiculous search suggestions to the top.

This obnoxious discrepancy is clear when using search terms like “men can …” The manipulation of reality will not be as transparent when using health or political search words, when you cannot be absolutely sure, ahead of time, about what the absolute truth is.

Did Google Conspire to Commit Treason?

Vorhies saw these changes starting to take place in early 2017.

Shortly afterwards, Google announced it was going to start assigning an “authoritativeness score” to all news content.

“I was able to see this ranking on internal documents. High rankings were given to outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

“These outlets, in my opinion, have been producing propaganda,” Vorhies says. “They led to us into war with Iraq with the weapons of mass destruction hoax. They’ve lied to us [about] Vietnam. They have a history of supporting every war and military encouragement around the world that has [led to] the destruction of millions of lives.”

In June 2017, chief executive officer of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, announced that this was how they were going to filter news content across the YouTube platforms.

As Vorhies expected, this led to a clamp down on anything that goes against the mainstream narrative.

“Around that time, I had the fortune of catching [another] seditious activity by Google. What I caught them doing was deleting words out of the translation dictionary from Arabic to English, in order to make a Trump tweet sound crazy.2,3

President Trump had recently come back from a visit to Saudi Arabia when, on May 31, 2017, he tweeted: “Despite the negative constant press, covfefe.” Originally, people were able to translate “covfefe” to “We will stand up.” Taken together, you could see President Trump’s tweet basically said, “Despite the negative constant press, we will stand up.”

“People got really excited about that,” Vorhies says. “Well, The New York Times decided that they were going to write an entire article saying, ‘Actually, this word is nonsense. And everyone who thinks there’s a decode is just wrong.’

The same day that this article came out, I believe it was June 1, 2017, a senior executive person at Google … of one of the AI divisions, wrote up a design document saying, ‘We translated this world from Arabic to English.

But according to The New York Times, that’s not right. That’s actually nonsense, so let’s get rid of the word.’

And so, they got rid of the word.

The team that was responsible for getting rid of this word called themselves the ‘Derrida Team.’ Why is that significant? Because there was a French philosopher by the name of Jacques Derrida, who advocated for the destruction of Western culture through the manipulation and censorship of language.

What a coincidence that this team responsible for censoring words would have the same name as this very significant philosopher who is considered the father of post-modernism.

About six days later, I saw the newspapers were making a push for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove a sitting president from office due to mental incapacitation. One of the reasons that they cited was how Trump was tweeting nonsense.

Now, wait a minute, that was made nonsense by this manipulation of the dictionary! I realized these people have gone too far. There’s obviously a collusion here. I have to bring this to attention no matter what.

This isn’t because I’m necessarily a Trump supporter — I didn’t vote for him — this is simply because they can’t be doing this to a sitting president of the United States. That just can’t happen. It’s treason.

If this is going to happen, then I’ve got to let the public [and] law enforcement know about it. Because if I don’t, then I’m part of a conspiracy of silence … It was at that point that I decided I could no longer sit in silence. I took my cache of documents and I started to prepare for a disclosure event.”

Comment: Finally, an explanation for the infamous covfefe tweet'! It's insane that this word was actually a translation, yet it was used to paint Trump as insane. And the fact that, up until this insider document dump, 

NO ONE KNEW THIS.

YouTube Censorship Has Had Lethal Consequences

In 2018, the real-world ramifications of censorship hit home when an Iranian YouTube creator who had recently been demonetized marched into YouTube headquarters and opened fire on employees and then shot herself.4

“Her name was Nasim [Najafi Aghdam]. She had a video that went viral in Iran … She was creating really bizarre videos that were just — I don’t know — I watched them and I actually strangely loved them. I couldn’t stop watching them. They were so weird.

She decided that she was going to quit her job and become a full-time content creator, like millions of others … YouTube was the platform to do that. Everyone was getting a lot of subscribers and were trying to generate money, get monetized on the platform …

They would get a cut of the ads that were running when people interact with the ads or view them … What YouTube did is they made a blanket ban. Anyone under 10,000 subscribers got censored. By censorship, I mean demonetized. They lost all of the funding that they could get for their videos. They can still post videos, they just couldn’t get any money [from Google Ads] for it.

And so, this person had just lost her job. She felt she was being oppressed by YouTube. She drove all the way from San Diego, came to the YouTube headquarters on 901 Cherry Avenue … came into the lunch area patio, took out a handgun and started firing …

She shot a couple of people. Ran out of ammo, reloaded and shot some more and then [shot] herself in the chest and [bled] to death … Obviously, this person was mentally deranged but, also, she was triggered by Google’s censorship. Now I’ve got this very personal story about how censorship has affected my safety.

You would think that maybe YouTube would [rethink] its censorship, but no. They didn’t … Every day I would come into work and I would think, ‘You know, with this increase in censorship, is someone going to come in with a gun?'”

Google Attempts to Destroy Vorhies by ‘Lawfare’

Vorhies resigned from Google June 28, 2019, and was immediately put under investigation, as the company had logs showing the many documents he’d been searching for and reading through.

Vorhies tells the story of what happened next:

“When I went to Project Veritas, I went under anonymity. We only released two pages of the 950 that they had [been given]. My hope was that Google would leave me alone … But they decided they weren’t going to do that.

They decided they were going to attempt to financially destroy me by engaging in lawfare, which is warfare via the legal system.

Within a few weeks of me disclosing ML Fairness to Project Veritas, they sent me threatening letters, demanding access to all my data outside of work …

I wrote them back a letter admitting I had retained files, telling them I had given them to law enforcement … The NDA, the nondisclosure agreement I signed is nonenforceable in cases where the company is committing criminal activity. Sedition is criminal activity, which means that the NDA is null and void.

I can submit evidence of Google’s criminal activity to the government and to the media when the company is engaging in unlawful activity. That’s what I did. Also, I signed the NDA in good faith, believing that Google’s word of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful and ‘Don’t be evil,’ were truthful statements …

I met an attorney who was representing Kevin Cernekee, another Google engineer who attempted to blow the whistle in the most legitimate way possible, which was to notify the Federal Labor Relations Authority in California. Kevin gave these papers to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Google responded by ambushing him with HR, seizing his laptop, seeing all the documents that he had downloaded, and then firing him and creating a legal theory that he had hacked into Google to get documents so that he could reconstruct Google’s legal strategy and maybe even sell it.

They applied criminal charges against him. They made him defend himself in court for his collection of evidence that he had sent to the NLRB. He’s [spent] $100,000 dollars of his own money defending himself from Google, so I knew what was in store for me.

[Cernekee’s] lawyer was like, ‘Yeah. This is the first step in a very painful process that’s going to drive on for years. They’re going to make it very expensive. Their goal is to destroy you.’ Well, in that case, I’m not going to fight in the legal law. I’m going to fight in the court of public opinion.

I decided at that point to come out to Project Veritas and disclose who I was so that I could get eyes [on me], and I said, ‘If Google’s going to take me down, then I’m going to leverage that so that everyone else can see what they do and what they’re really about. And then we can make Google’s censorship program part of the national discussion.’

I disclosed everything. I released it to the public, all 950 pages … August 17, 2019 … [I’ve] tried to become a cultural force so that we can hold Google to account of what they’re doing, because their censorship is wrong.

It’s wrong for America. It’s anti-American. Their election meddling is something that needs to be looked at, needs to be watched, because they’ve meddled with the elections in the past. They’re meddling in the elections now.

They were able to deactivate Tulsi Gabbard’s ad account directly following the Democratic debates.

They’ve meddled in the Ireland elections.

They’ve meddled in the Brazil elections.

We know this because there was a Supreme Court ruling that released the evidence showing they had a secret agreement with one of the politicians to generate dirt and boost it up on the current president of Brazil.”

How Autofill Can Shift Political Opinion

Vorhies goes on to explain and describe how Google tools such as autofill search recommendations can be used to sway public opinion on political (and other topics), which can have significant political consequences.

Autofill is what happens when you start typing a search query into a search engine and algorithms kick in to offer suggestions to complete your search. We’ve been led to believe that whatever the autofill recommendations are is what most people are in fact searching for — Google has stated that the suggestions given are generated by a collection of user data — but that’s not true, at least not anymore.

“This story about the autofill first got disclosed by Dr. Robert Epstein, who is a Harvard-trained psychologist and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today,” Vorhies explains.

“What he said was that Google had flipped a bunch of votes for Hillary using this autosuggest feature. I’ve investigated this claim.

I’ve verified it to be true …

It turns out that a lot of the popular searches were being suppressed.

For example, you typed in ‘Clinton body count.’ It’s a popular search term. This brings up all the people who have died in the decades that were associated with Hillary Clinton.

Well, this search result has been deleted off the search suggestion. What’s happened instead is that a bunch of negative search terms have been inserted that went against the current president of the United States, Donald Trump.

So, when you’re typing in search queries for Trump, it’s autocompleting and suggesting, ‘Do you mean that he’s a liar? That he’s a crook?’ … And then you do the same for Hillary Clinton and it has all these positive terms … They were doing this on the political stuff.

The most significant thing about this feature is the fact that you don’t expect to have this part of your online experience to be hatched for political reasons. You think that this is legitimately what other people are searching for.

As a result, you don’t have your filters on. Your brain puts on these filters when it starts to evaluate politically charged information. When you read a newspaper article, you may be thinking to yourself, ‘This may be true, this may not.’ You’re skeptical.

But when you’re typing into a search, you don’t think that because you don’t think that’s rigged, so whatever bias is inherent in that search result slips through and goes directly into your subconscious. This is what Epstein was explaining.”

The Search Engine Manipulation Effect

Epstein developed a “black box test” (a method of software testing) to measure just how influential a tool like autofill can be. Remarkably, his test demonstrated that “Google’s ‘autocomplete’ search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split”5,6 — all without anyone being aware of the manipulation.

Similarly, when Epstein looked at the power of search engine manipulation to shift preferences and perceptions, he found that:7

“(1) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (2) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (3) such rankings can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation.”

The good news is, there are ways to lower this manipulation effect, but to do so, people have to be aware that biased ranking is taking place. In his 2017 paper, “Suppressing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect,” Epstein writes:8

“A recent series of experiments demonstrated that introducing ranking bias to election-related search engine results can have a strong and undetectable influence on the preferences of undecided voters.

This phenomenon, called the search engine manipulation effect (SEME), exerts influence largely through order effects that are enhanced in a digital context.

We present data from three new experiments involving 3,600 subjects in 39 countries in which we replicate SEME and test design interventions for suppressing the effect. In the replication, voting preferences shifted by 39.0%, a number almost identical to the shift found in a previously published experiment (37.1%).

Alerting users to the ranking bias reduced the shift to 22.1%, and more detailed alerts reduced it to 13.8%. Users’ browsing behaviors were also significantly altered by the alerts, with more clicks and time going to lower-ranked search results.

Although bias alerts were effective in suppressing SEME, we found that SEME could be completely eliminated only by alternating search results — in effect, with an equal-time rule.

We propose a browser extension capable of deploying bias alerts in real-time and speculate that SEME might be impacting a wide range of decision-making, not just voting, in which case search engines might need to be strictly regulated.”

As pointed out by Vorhies,

“We’ve got to watch out for Google, because … they’re going to try to rig the 2020 elections.”

Based on Epstein’s results, Google certainly appears to have the power to do so. The only way to prevent it may be an information campaign that exposes this hidden agenda, thereby helping to suppress this search engine manipulation effect.

Do a Google Detox

How can you prevent getting sucked into the false-reality vortex that is Google? Vorhies offers a number of suggestions for how to minimize Google’s influence over your life:

Stop using Google search. Options include DuckDuckGo9 and Startpage10

Stop using Gmail. ProtonMail,11 which provides end-to-end encryption and less spam, is an excellent option, and one which I use here.

Switch from an android phone (powered by Google) to an iPhone. (I use Chinese cell phones. 5G and unhackable by the NSA in America.)

Link

There are alternatives for most if not all Google products, and by using these other companies, we can help them grow so that Google becomes less and less relevant.

“Use iPhone, use DuckDuckGo and use Protonmail. Those three things will get most of Google out of your life,” Vorhies says.

“I’ve been a lot happier because of that. I know [Google is] able to read everything that I write when I’m on Gmail or I’m using one of their services. I’ve had people who want to interview me on YouTube, and then their YouTube pages get destroyed.”

  • Stop using Google docs (Digital Trends has published an article suggesting a number of alternatives12).
  • If you’re a high school student, do not convert the Google accounts you created as a student into any type of personal accounts.
  • Both the Chrome and Firefox browsers have been compromised by Google, so consider switching if you’re on either of those.
  • Brave is my personal favorite, but the Opera browser is another alternative.13
  • Vorhies is also a fan of Brave.

He says…

“The guy who created this browser, Brave … added features to eliminate all the ads. Now my MacBook runs like new.

I’ve got a 2012 MacBook. I thought I had to upgrade it in order to make it run fast. [Using] Brave instead, my computer operates five times faster when it opens a lot of browser tabs.

It’s phenomenal.

Not only do I get to Google detox, but I get a better experience by not using Google. It’s a no-brainer.

People should just use it. And all of the plug-ins I use, like LastPass, which contains all of my passwords, they all install.” Support Vorhies’ ‘Disclosure Tour’

In the interview, Vorhies recounts a long harrowing incident in which Google instructed local police to perform a mental wellness check on him. Pretty crazy stuff. Which eventually escalated into a full-blown evacuation of the entire street due to a fake bomb threat. Obviously a ruse, confabulated in an effort to get him out of his apartment.

Crazy stuff during crazy times.

He also discusses how Google’s censorship of things like holistic health and clean energy developments is actually evidence that a better future is ahead. The drug and oil industries are starting to lose their grip as safer, less expensive and more effective alternatives are gaining ground.

He argues that censorship is a last-ditch effort to hold on to a crumbling paradigm.

Raising Awareness of the dangers of Google

As Vorhies mentioned earlier, his primary focus right now is to raise awareness about Google and to create a cultural force for change.

You can follow Vorhies on Twitter. His handle is PerpetualManiac (Twitter.com/PerpetualManiac).

“If you click the follow button, you’ll be part of a collection of patriots who are looking to ensure the survival of the republic, to ensure sovereignty and to bring Google to account for the censorship they’re doing.

People are helping me raise awareness by retweeting the things I’m saying. Because honestly, I’m fighting giants,”

“If [Google is] going to take me down, then I’m just going to go down fighting. I’m going to leverage everything they do to further the great awakening that’s happening right now in the United States and across the world.”

“I’m doing that because, ultimately, I’m in service to a higher power … I believe this magnificent creative force in the universe wants people to be free. It’s up to us to ensure that the freedoms we enjoy are handed down to our children … our grandchildren and our collective future.”

Sources and References

See also:

Conclusions

If you haven’t divorced Google, and blocked it completely from your browser, then DO IT NOW. This is only the “tip of the iceberg” and it’s a lot worse than anyone knows.


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Facts about the largest and most successful nation in the history of the world; China and how it is transforming everything.

No. This article is not about America. So it is an outlier. In truth, America lost that role decades ago. It lost it when it decided to embrace something other than it’s charter. The moment when the government stopped serving it’s people, it became something else. Nope. This is about China. Communist China to be exact.

What is put forth is going to anger many, but that’s to be expected.

This article is not about America. It is about nations that obey their charter to serve the needs of their people. Over the last century many nations have failed at this charter, and as a result created an internal rise in nationalsim. As such we are covering China, for they are a serious nation that cares for it's people.
This article is not about America. It is about nations that obey their charter to serve the needs of their people. Over the last century many nations have failed at this charter, and as a result created an internal rise in nationalism. As such we are covering China, for they are a serious nation that cares for it’s people.

We are in the midst of titanic changes and shifts on the global stage. These changes will be uncomfortable for some, but will open up amazing opportunities for others. It’s all going to boil down to an awareness of the way things really are, as opposed to what we are instructed to believe.

We look at things as they actually are.

Here, we address this issue. In fact, we address it with the largest and most successful nation in the history of the world; China. Not America.

The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that  the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that  this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the  history of the world. 

-Lee Kwan Yew. 

China is the biggest player in the history of the world.

This narrative doesn’t fit the nonsense spewed out from the American media by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, it is the truth. American media serves a purpose; to control Americans. Not to inform.

American media serves a purpose; to control Americans. Not to inform.
American media serves a purpose; to control Americans. Not to inform.

In 2003 Godfree Roberts (Check out his site UNZ.com.) published a book charting America’s decline in thirty-six social and economic indicators. It’s a great read, but is out of date. Today, the decline is quite pronounced, and disturbing.

Back in 2003, he mailed copies to the Bush Administration, Congress and department heads. For all effort, he only received one reply. Only one singular reply. No one else even bothered to say “thanks for the book“. It was like talking to a brick wall.

The singular reply was from the Director General of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He said that the Agency had been providing almost identical information to the government for decades. But no one, apparently was concerned. The administration at that time felt…

  • The global New World Order was a good thing.
  • America is strong and will always be strong.
  • America can bend the rest of the world to fit it’s model of perfection. The CIA, NED and the rest can instigate proxy wars on anyone that steps out of line.

Since then our decline and China’s rise have both accelerated and momentum has carried us so far so quickly that today it is too late. Global competition against China (at this stage) is unrealistic. China is far too strong and far too capable. They are not a nation to trifle with.

Most of the rest of the world realizes this.

The BRI with its multiple proposed pillars extending beyond  infrastructure development (including free trade, financial integration,  people-to-people connections) appears to have the potential to  transform the ever-challenging region between Europe and China.

In this regard it is important to avoid confrontational  ideology and focus on the areas of mutual interest (facilitating a  non-discriminatory regulatory environment, the convergence of  technical/SPS standards, greater cost efficiency and sustainability of  investment projects), as well as avoid imposing ‘either-or’ choices on  the countries along the New Silk Road. 

The long-run objective of facilitating peace and prosperity  in the still problematic regions of Central Asia and the Middle East is  in the common interest of China, the EAEU and the EU.

-  China’s Belt and Road Initiative: opportunity or threat? 

We look at things as they actually are.

Reality vs. Illusion

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

If China resembled the caricature our media has drawn for the last seven decades then yes, we can compete against her and be victorious. If they are a real joke… a real third-world shit-hole… and a population of dog-eating communists…well yes. Yes we can compete against her. Easy.

Easy peasy. Lemon squeezy.

The Global Attitudes Spring 2016 survey by US-based Pew Research Center said nearly 60 per cent of the Chinese think that territorial dispute between China and its neighbouring countries could lead to a military conflict, while 45 per cent see the power and influence of the US as a major threat.
The Global Attitudes Spring 2016 survey by US-based Pew Research Center said nearly 60 per cent of the Chinese think that territorial dispute between China and its neighboring countries could lead to a military conflict, while 45 per cent see the power and influence of the US as a major threat.

We could make an example of her.

We could show the world how American democracy can compete against China. China, that evil and backwards third-world shit-hole with her repressive, extractive, authoritarianism. And we could invest our bounty in advanced technologies to ensure that we remain the envy of the world.

We can show the world with our large fine and massive military, our state of the art aircraft carriers, and our space adventures where we capture a dishwasher-sized asteroid and put it in orbit about the moon.

We can show off our state of the art health care, our humane treatment of illegals, and our fair and just government. We could show the world how talented, serious and no-nonsense our freely elected officials are. We could do all this and more.

We could show the world our network of high speed rail, our wonderful and cost effective medical care systems, and our institutes of higher learning that run on merit and produce the brightest and best that the world can offer.

But…

What if our assumptions are all wrong?

Shanghai is a typical Chinese first tier city.

Think about it. What if the media is lying to us? What if FOX news lies just as bad as CNN? What then?

  • What if China is neither repressive, extractive nor authoritarian?
  • What if we have no bounty left to invest? What if it has been squandered by the generations before us and nothing much is left?
  • What if Chinese leaders are more popular, respected and competent than ours?
  • What if her economy is thirty percent bigger and growing three times faster, with one-third the debt burden?
  • What if she is already ahead of us scientifically and technologically?
  • What if she is militarily impregnable, with weapons or mass destruction that rivals (or are superior) to our own?
  • What if China has and possesses more–and more powerful–allies than we do?

What should we do then? What could we do?

Think about this situation. Pause. Think. Look at the facts in a true and real context. Look at the world, the globe, as an ever changing organism with constantly moving lines of power and control. Look at what happens when nations, people, and systems grow and change. Look at China today.

Here’s an inventory:

Government

“If people have no faith in their rulers then the state cannot exist.” 

- Confucius 

As an American, our trust in our government is at its lowest point in history. It is rock bottom, scraping and mired in the sludge at the very bottom of the barrel.

Gallup says most of us rank government as our most pressing problem. All that I can say to that is…”Duh!”.

Although rated worse than any other institution in the country, federal  lawmakers are not alone in facing mass disdain by a US electorate who  increasingly thinks that the system has stopped working.   

- Poll: 80% of Americans Think Government, Banks, Corporate Media are Corrupt  

So in America, the majority of people do not trust the government, the institutions that they represent and support, and the media that reports about their actions. Very precious few American people trust their government and their institutions.

America was founded on the principle that the government was made by the people, and it's sole purpose is to serve the people. If Americans do not trust the government, then that means that it is NOT servicing the people and they are not happy about it. This is a serious concern, and should not be taken lightly.
America was founded on the principle that the government was made by the people, and it’s sole purpose is to serve the people. If Americans do not trust the government, then that means that it is NOT servicing the people and they are not happy about it. This is a serious concern, and should not be taken lightly.

America, by just about every indicator, is a nation that does not serve it’s people. The government functions within an isolated “bubble” much like France was before the French Revolution, or like Russia before the Communist Revolution. People know this, and do not trust the government.

America, by just about every indicator, is a nation that does not serve it's people. The government functions within an isolated "bubble" much like France was before the French Revolution, or like Russia before the Communist Revolution. People know this, and do not trust the government.
America, by just about every indicator, is a nation that does not serve it’s people. The government functions within an isolated “bubble” much like France was before the French Revolution, or like Russia before the Communist Revolution. People know this, and do not trust the government.

Do you? Do you, dear reader, do you trust the American government? Do you believe them? Do you think that they have your best interests at heart?

If the government raised your taxes (again), would it end up improving your life? If they seized all your firearms, would you feel safer at night? If they banned something else, would you believe that your personal life was improved?

Most Americans would say no.

America, by just about every indicator, is a nation that does not serve it's people. The government functions within an isolated "bubble" much like France was before the French Revolution, or like Russia before the Communist Revolution.
America, by just about every indicator, is a nation that does not serve it’s people. The government functions within an isolated “bubble” much like France was before the French Revolution, or like Russia before the Communist Revolution.

Don’t you think this is a problem?

Meanwhile, China’s system of professional, non-factional government has returned it to its traditional role as the Central Kingdom.

Compared to ours, China’s government is forward-looking, decentralized, efficient and thrifty.

For instance, the Government Entrance Examination selects the top 2% of graduates each year and success is the only avenue to power, responsibility.

For instance, the Government  Entrance Examination selects the top 2% of graduates each year and  success is the only avenue to power, responsibility.
The Chinese Government Entrance Examination selects the top 2% of graduates each year and success is the only avenue to power, responsibility.
While in America it is completely different. In America it is well-promoted "blue bloods" (family dynasties) that are promoted and elected by mob rule through corporate media promotion.

The 200 members of the State Council, all promoted on their ability to work cooperatively, have collectively governed billions of people for a combined 5,000 years and their publicly available statistics are jaw-dropping.

  • Most of the Chinese leadership in Beijing have a PhD.
  • Most of the Chinese leadership in Beijing has an IQ over 140.
  • All of the leadership began their careers in the country’s poorest villages.
  • All of the Beijing leadership stayed in their home villages, and were only able to leave once they raised local incomes by 50%.
  • They repeated that performance at every level, including the presidency, as Xi Peng is doing.
Most of the American government are members of a private club of "elites". They have an enormous bureaucracy that services them that are culled by ideology. 

American university and agency entrance exams have done away with placement though merit. In the interests of inclusion and diversity, positions are filled by "other criteria". It "improves" America, don't you know.

As a result, the people of China (contrary to the anti-Chinese propaganda in the American media) trust their government.

Chinese people trust their government because they had bettered their  lives for three generations. The people also have a bright future to  look forward to.
Chinese people trust their government because they had bettered their lives for three generations. The people also have a bright future to look forward to.

China is super patriotic, and who can blame them. Just about everyone is living light-years better than their parents did at their age.

Chinese people trust their government because they had bettered their  lives for three generations. The people also have a bright future to  look forward to.

They know that peace and stability are essential  to achieve what China has achieved and requires strong leadership to do  this. They therefore like a strong leader and they see this in President  Xi Jinping.

They trust their government also because not only  have they delivered but more importantly create an environment whereby  they can improve their lives. The equal opportunity for everyone to  raise their wealth and living standards are all there for people to  witness.

They are now ready to be self sufficient and not  dependent on the US for export to improve their economy and the latter  does not like it. The US is seen by the Chinese people as attempting to  thwart their progress. This is spurring the Chinese people to unite  behind their leaders and providing them with incentive to work harder  and more innovatively to beat the US. 

- Louis Lim. 

China is super patriotic. So most Americans need to forget the media-promoted illusion that the Chinese are ready to leap into the arms of “democracy”. It’s not the case, and is a big lie.

Impromptu show of patriotism in a mall in Hong Kong. While all of Western media are focusing on the radicals storming the subways lines, destroying things, and dressed in Antifa black wearing Antifa black masks, and behaving like BLM radicals, the rest of Hong Kong is more like this. They are proud of their nation, proud of their country, and proud of their heritage.

Leadership

In America, we choose leaders by acclamation–a Greco-Roman custom favoring eloquent rascals–and that is exactly what we have.

Rascals.

Gavin Newsom
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – AUGUST 22: California Lt. Gov. and California gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom looks on as he visits the Alice Griffith Apartments on August 22, 2018 in San Francisco, California. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco mayor London Breed toured a low-income housing complex. Newsom leads Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox by an average of 23 percentage points in recent polls. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It’s so bad, and so outrageous, that they are no longer trying to hide their crimes. The rich, and powerful know that they can get away with things with impunity. They are no longer giving a care as to what others think.

Meanwhile, as President Trump observed

“China’s leaders are much smarter than ours. It’s like taking the New  England Patriots and Tom Brady and having them play your high school  football team.”

While this is covered above, it should not be overlooked. The Chinese is a true merit-based society. The government is run by intelligent leadership. Not hand-puppets of the oligarchy. And while America has an enormous career bureaucracy, it is nowhere as talented or driven as the Chinese.

Nor are American leaders policed. For in China, all government officials are under observation by the “Corruption Police”.

Three more officials have been given the chop as part of China's anti-corruption drive. The disgraced politicians are the latest in a string of purges of former aides to Zhou Yongkang, China's retired chief of domestic security, fueling speculation that Zhou will eventually face charges. Ji Wenlin, former deputy governor of Hainan, and Yu Gang, former senior official in the Politics and Legal Affairs Commission, have both been expelled from the Communist Party for taking "huge bribes" and committing adultery, announced the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Wednesday. Adultery, while not illegal in China, is considered a serious violation of Party regulations. The third official charged with corruption is Tan Hong, a former senior officer in the Ministry of Public Security. All three have close ties to Zhou, working under the security czar at some point during their careers. Zhou was a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body, until he retired in 2012. He was considered one of the most powerful men in China, serving as the head of China's security and police institutions. On China: Tigers and flies  On China: Tigers and flies 01:52 On China: fashion and corruption .
Three more officials have been given the chop as part of China’s anti-corruption drive. The disgraced politicians are the latest in a string of purges of former aides to Zhou Yongkang, China’s retired chief of domestic security, fueling speculation that Zhou will eventually face charges. Ji Wenlin, former deputy governor of Hainan, and Yu Gang, former senior official in the Politics and Legal Affairs Commission, have both been expelled from the Communist Party for taking “huge bribes” and committing adultery, announced the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Wednesday. Adultery, while not illegal in China, is considered a serious violation of Party regulations. The third official charged with corruption is Tan Hong, a former senior officer in the Ministry of Public Security. All three have close ties to Zhou, working under the security czar at some point during their careers. Zhou was a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body, until he retired in 2012. He was considered one of the most powerful men in China, serving as the head of China’s security and police institutions. On China: Tigers and flies On China: Tigers and flies 01:52 On China: fashion and corruption

In America, the opposite is true. In Washington, it’s a free-for-all of corruption and abuse.

However, in China, all government officials, their aides, and support personnel are all under the careful watchful eyes of the “corruption police”. The Chinese do not want rampant corruption to reach the levels of 2004 in China, or what it is in America today. So they have taken aggressive and proactive steps to ensure that this will not happen.

In 2013, some 182,000 officials were disciplined while courts nationwide tried 23,000 corruption cases, according to the CCDI. After coming into power in late 2012, President Xi Jinping banned official extravagance -- from banquets to year-end gifts -- and vowed to target "tigers and flies" alike in his fight against corruption when describing his resolve to spare no one regardless of their position.
In 2013, some 182,000 officials were disciplined while courts nationwide tried 23,000 corruption cases, according to the CCDI. After coming into power in late 2012, President Xi Jinping banned official extravagance — from banquets to year-end gifts — and vowed to target “tigers and flies” alike in his fight against corruption when describing his resolve to spare no one regardless of their position.

Given the high levels of corruption in the American government, one can really wonder American-based criticism of Chinese attempts at curbing corruption.

Since Donald Trump become President there has been exactly zero arrests, and zero prosecutions for the thousands of felonies committed in the last ten years. His DOJ head Jeff Sessions, did nothing. And the current Attorney General, Mr. Barr seems to be heading in the same direction.

Economies.

Today, China generates 20% of global GDP vs. our 15%, its imports and exports are in balance, its trading relationships are excellent, its currency fairly valued, its economy one third larger and growing three times faster, its manufacturing wages at parity with ours and its plans for 2025 are breathtaking.

Share of the world economic output. Including forecasts.
Share of the world economic output. Including forecasts.

Infrastructure.

What is China? New highways, railways, subways and ports and, next year, the fastest, most advanced Internet and entire cities built around 5G. Meanwhile, 6G development is well in progress and there is a race on it’s development and implementation.

The infrastructure comparison is stark, and alerting.

What is America?

Not much. $77,000,000,000 for high speed rail, and all anyone has to show for it is an army of attorneys demanding more fees, fifteen miles of partially completed tracks and a cardboard mock-up.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?

China started it’s High Speed Rail plan at the same time as the United States did. Today it is everywhere and super convenient. In America it is no where to be found.

Chinese high speed rail is very commonplace. It goes just about everywhere, and is cheap, clean and affordable.

America can’t even build a simple fence on it’s border. I mean, don’t you know, that’s a purely dysfunctional government you all. (I turn my head and spit on the ground.) It’s all totally fucked up. It’s a train-wreck, and getting worse.

China, well, that bridge that connects Hong Kong to Zhuhai is an amazing civil construction feat that is beyond the abilities of Americans. Fact.

Zhuhai to Hong Kong Bridge.

Geopolitics.

In 2018 China’s 34% world approval rating beat America’s 31% and Gallup says, “As the global balance of soft power continues to shift, it may prove even more difficult for the US to counter this influence.”

They are focusing their attention on Eurasia and, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned…

“Control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail  Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania  (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent.  Seventy-five percent of the world’s people live in Eurasia and most of  the world’s physical wealth is there too, both in its enterprises and  underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the  world’s known energy resources.”

We ceded control of Crimea and the Black Sea to Russia and, increasingly, the Middle East, too.

With the Belt and Road, China and Russia are amalgamating numerous alignments.

  • The Eurasian Economic Union.
(Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,  the Kyrgyz Republic and Russia with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Moldova  in consideration)
  • The Shanghai Cooperative Organization, SCO.
(Russia,  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, China, and  Pakistan; with Afghanistan, Iran, Mongolia and Belarus as observers and  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey as dialog  partners)
  • Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, RCEP.
(Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines,  Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, India, South Korea,  Australia and New Zealand). 

Once the Nord Stream II and South Stream pipelines are completed in December, how can the EU resist joining them?

The Belt and Road Initiative is a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government involving infrastructure development and investments in 152 countries and international organizations in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. The leader of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, originally announced the strategy during official visits to Indonesia and Kazakhstan in 2013.
The Belt and Road Initiative is a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government involving infrastructure development and investments in 152 countries and international organizations in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. The leader of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, originally announced the strategy during official visits to Indonesia and Kazakhstan in 2013.

This plan, the Road and Belt Initiative, has been in the works for decades, and it’s implementation has taken years. It’s just another example of how China plans. They do so generationally – 25 years in advance. America plans by financial quarter – three months in advance.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not only the most  ambitious and all-encompassing economic development project in the  history of humanity but also the core of what is likely to be China's  grand strategy for the twenty-first century. It aims to connect China  and Europe in a web of roads, high-speed rail, power lines, ports,  pipelines, fiber-optic lines and other infrastructure with the goal of  stimulating growth in the scores of developing countries in between. New  maritime trade corridors provide China with new shipping alternatives  while offering its less developed western, northern and southwestern  provinces easier access to new markets. While the initiative offers  China great strategic and economic benefits it also offers hope to the  struggling economies of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Yet, despite the  magnitude and promise of the initiative and its interface with almost  every region in which the United States has strategic interests – the  Middle East, South China Sea, India-Pakistan, Eastern Europe and Central  Asia to name a few – Washington has largely ignored it, and in some  cases it even took active measures to undermine it.  

- Dr. Gal Luft

After trying to derail it, the United States decided to create their own version. This United States version is loosely structured on providing funds in USD to member nations in exchange for their “loyalty” to the United States in a slew of areas. So far, as of November 2019, only Australia signed on.

The Chinese Road and Belt Initiative will transform the globe in a better and stable way. It will surround China with growing nations with thriving middle classes that are economically tied to China.

Finances.

The Financial Times says,

“America will need to sell $12 Trillion of bonds in the coming  decade. Who on earth–or in global finance–will buy this looming mountain  of Treasuries, the US borrowing requirement even before Trump’s major  upgrade of America’s weapons systems?" 

Who is willing to buy one billion dollars in US bonds, let alone one trillion dollars worth? Who, which nation, can afford twelve trillion in bonds? Jupiter?

For reasons outside of fiscal responsibility, the United States government has been borrowing money for everyone on the planet. These borrowing needs [will all] eventually have to be financed in the context of already high global dollar debt exposure.

What it does show is what then Senator Barack Obama eloquently described in 2006: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.”  The reality is that at some point, sooner or later, we will have to pay back the money we’re borrowing. The longer we wait to do this, the more painful it will be to do so. The victims of all this are America’s youth. Peter Welch and his 189 cohorts in the House, his allies in the press, and anyone else who supports this fiscal insanity seem to have no moral problem sticking our children and grandchildren with a tab that will dramatically diminish our kids’ future standard of living.  This is intergenerational theft. There’s nothing noble or courageous about it.
What it does show is what then Senator Barack Obama eloquently described in 2006: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

The reality is that at some point, sooner or later, we will have to pay back the money we’re borrowing. The longer we wait to do this, the more painful it will be to do so. The victims of all this are America’s youth. Peter Welch and his 189 cohorts in the House, his allies in the press, and anyone else who supports this fiscal insanity seem to have no moral problem sticking our children and grandchildren with a tab that will dramatically diminish our kids’ future standard of living. This is intergenerational theft. There’s nothing noble or courageous about it.

One of America’s biggest hedge funds privately concluded that in five years’ time the Treasury will need to sell bonds equivalent to 25 percent of gross domestic product, up from 15 per cent now.

This level of debt has occurred just twice in the past 120 years, first during the second world war and then again during the 2008 financial crisis”.

China's External Debt accounted for 14.4 % of the country's Nominal GDP in 2018, compared with the ratio of 14.5 % in the previous year. China's External Debt: % of Nominal GDP data is updated yearly, available from Dec 1985 to Dec 2018. The data reached an all-time high of 17.1 % in Dec 2014 and a record low of 5.1 % in Dec 1985.
China’s External Debt accounted for 14.4 % of the country’s Nominal GDP in 2018, compared with the ratio of 14.5 % in the previous year. China’s External Debt: % of Nominal GDP data is updated yearly, available from Dec 1985 to Dec 2018. The data reached an all-time high of 17.1 % in Dec 2014 and a record low of 5.1 % in Dec 1985.

Russia and China have no foreign debt (only domestic debt), and at that, China has abundant savings and carries a debt burden one-third America’s or the EU’s.

Science.

Their natural genetic encoded ten IQ point advantage over Americans means that they have 600,000 people with 160 IQ, compared to only 30,000 in America.

Here is the average IQ of more than 80 countries. These numbers came from a work carried out from 2002 to 2006 by Richard Lynn , a British Professor of Psychology, and Tatu Vanhanen , a Finnish Professor of Political Science, who conducted IQ studies in more than 80 countries.
Here is the average IQ of more than 80 countries. These numbers came from a work carried out from 2002 to 2006 by Richard Lynn , a British Professor of Psychology, and Tatu Vanhanen , a Finnish Professor of Political Science, who conducted IQ studies in more than 80 countries. On average, children from Asian countries get about a 107 IQ relative to American norms. Tracking and following through on the comparisons in society and the importance of education, we end up with these trends as illustrated.

China has overtaken the US to become the world’s largest producer of scientific research papers, making up almost a fifth of the total global output, according to a major new report.

China dominates a global ranking of the most-cited research papers published in the 30 hottest technology fields.

China dominates a global ranking of the most-cited research papers  published in the 30 hottest technology fields.
China dominates a global ranking of the most-cited research papers published in the 30 hottest technology fields.

Though the U.S. accounted for 3.9 million research papers overall compared with 2.9 million from China, the Asian country produced the largest share in 23 of the 30 fields that drew the most interest, while America took the crown for the remaining seven.

Presently, China spends more on R&D than Japan, Germany, and South Korea combined, and only trails the United States in terms of gross expenditure. In 2016, China’s spending accounted for roughly 20 percent of global R&D expenditure. According to some estimates, China will overtake the US as the top R&D spender by 2020.
Presently, China spends more on R&D than Japan, Germany, and South Korea combined, and only trails the United States in terms of gross expenditure. In 2016, China’s spending accounted for roughly 20 percent of global R&D expenditure. According to some estimates, China will overtake the US as the top R&D spender by 2020.

As we can infer from the chart, the social groups controlling our surplus used it for non-productive, ego-satisfying purposes which distributed the surpluses to consumption but did not provide more effective methods of production.

In China you must compete and be the best, otherwise you will spend the rest of your life begging in the streets. There are no prizes for fifth or sixth place, and no allowances for minorities or diversity quotas.

China is the most influential country in four of eight core scientific fields, ranking first in computer science, mathematics, materials science and engineering and is rapidly catching up in physics.

The U.S. led in physics, environmental and earth sciences, basic life science and clinical medicine. And each year, the USA lead drops far, far behind.

Pretty good for elementary school students. Try to have an American fifth-grader design and build a robot from scratch.

As impressive as all this is, let me underline a very significant point. After 12 to 16 hours of studying, the typical Chinese student will squeeze in a job, or labor to help with the family. Try to find an American student willing to put up with this kind of pace, or familial expectations.

Young lady working after school, still wearing her school uniform.

Twenty years ago Samuel Huntington said,

“Civilizations grow because they have an instrument of expansion,  a military, religious, political, or economic organization that  accumulates surplus and invests it in productive innovations and they  decline when they stop the application of surplus to new ways of doing  things. In modern terms we say that the rate of investment decreases.  

This happens because the social groups controlling the surplus have a  vested interest in using it for non-productive but ego-satisfying  purposes which distribute the surpluses to consumption but do not  provide more effective methods of production.”

To the rest of the world, Americans are seemingly looking more and more like a parody of idiocracy.

Americans are seemingly looking more and more like a parody of idiocracy."
Americans are seemingly looking more and more like a parody of idiocracy. Our government, based upon the ideas of “modern progressive thought” has allowed a dangerous oligarchy to take over. This has created a global oligarchy that services the top 1% of the world globally. It serves no one else. When another nation, China, improves upon the model, the American reaction is disgust and fear. But, you know, it need not be the case. Learn. Adapt, and adjust.

Technology.

Two thirds of the world’s fastest computers are Chinese but nothing reveals the emptiness of our IP closet more than Chinese dominance of enhanced mobile broadband.

We will take twice as long and spend twice as much integrating a less affordable, functional, compatible, upgradeable system.

5G is the next generation of mobile broadband, which will replace or augment its 4G/LTE predecessor and will set the stage for 6G service. The company that can get ahead in 5G will be able to have more market control over 6G service in the future. The benefits of 5G are faster download and upload speeds, and other measures of network efficiency like latency. These faster download and upload speeds will be essential for processing and moving large amounts of data for services like autonomous vehicles.  Huawei technologies, the Chinese tech company, has been aggressively pursuing 5G dominance, adding the most technical contributions to the 5G standard at international conferences where what 5G is and how it will be implemented is outlined. The company has added more than 11,000 technical contributions to the 5G standard. Swedish telecoms company, Ericsson, has added the second most to the standard, adding over 10,000 technical contributions.
5G is the next generation of mobile broadband, which will replace or augment its 4G/LTE predecessor and will set the stage for 6G service. The company that can get ahead in 5G will be able to have more market control over 6G service in the future.

The benefits of 5G are faster download and upload speeds, and other measures of network efficiency like latency. These faster download and upload speeds will be essential for processing and moving large amounts of data for services like autonomous vehicles.

Huawei technologies, the Chinese tech company, has been aggressively pursuing 5G dominance, adding the most technical contributions to the 5G standard at international conferences where what 5G is and how it will be implemented is outlined. The company has added more than 11,000 technical contributions to the 5G standard. Swedish telecoms company, Ericsson, has added the second most to the standard, adding over 10,000 technical contributions.

Yet our feckless media derided President Trump when he called for America to dominate 6G, despite the publicly known fact that Huawei has had 600 mathematicians, physicists and engineers working on 6G for over a year.

China leads the world in most of the top ten ‘hot’ fields like battery research and accounted for more than seventy percent of all papers on photocatalysts and nucleic-acid-targeted cancer treatment, which ranked 12th and 14th.

The US led in three biotechnology fields, including #7 genome editing and #10 immunotherapy.

China leads the world in basic research and in most technologies, especially hot areas.

China also leads in all fields of…

  • civil engineering
  • sustainable and renewable energy
  • manufacturing
  • supercomputing
  • speech recognition
  • graphenics
  • thorium power
  • pebble bed reactors
  • genomics
  • thermal power
  • ASW missiles
  • drones
  • in-orbit satellite refueling
  • passive array radar
  • metamaterials
  • hyperspectral imaging
  • nanotechnology
  • UHV electricity transmission
  • HSR
  • speech recognition
  • robotics
  • radio-telescopy
  • hypersonic weapons
  • satellite quantum communications
  • quantum secure direct communications
  • quantum controls.
“Approximately 72% of the academic patent families published in QIT  since 2012 have been from Chinese universities. US universities are a  distant second with 12%.” 

China will overtake the US in the most-cited 50% of Artificial Intelligence research papers this year, the top 10% of research papers next year, and the top 1% by 2025.

Six of the eleven AI unicorns are Chinese.

Unicorn (finance) A unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. 

- Unicorn (finance) - Wikipedia 

We have no entrants in quantum encryption or face recognition, nor 100 mph maglev subways, nor lossless power transmission. We are so far behind in those fields that it’s not even tying to begin with.

  • Aerospace: China launched more space missions in 2018 than Russia or America and its first indigenous airliner will take to the air this year, despite FAA foot-dragging. It is the world’s leading provider of UAVs and the largest manufacturer and exporter of light combat aircraft. Now that its WS-15 fighter jet engine is in production, its J-20 will out-carry and out-speed our fighters.
China’s newest warplane, the J-20 stealth fighter, will make its first public flight at the Zhuhai Air Show, its manufacturer announced on Monday, as Beijing flexes its long-range military muscles.  The J-20, “which military enthusiasts at home and abroad have watched closely”, will make its first public flight demonstration, said Tan Ruisong, the president of China’s state aerospace company AVIC.  China trailed the world in aerospace technology 20 years ago, he told a press conference, but was now at the leading edge.  Swift, stealthy, and armed with long-range missiles, the new J-20s+ represent a leap forward in China’s ability to project power in Asia and compete in capabilities with the United States.
China’s newest warplane, the J-20 stealth fighter, will make its first public flight at the Zhuhai Air Show, its manufacturer announced on Monday, as Beijing flexes its long-range military muscles. The J-20, “which military enthusiasts at home and abroad have watched closely”, will make its first public flight demonstration, said Tan Ruisong, the president of China’s state aerospace company AVIC. China trailed the world in aerospace technology 20 years ago, he told a press conference, but was now at the leading edge. Swift, stealthy, and armed with long-range missiles, the new J-20s+ represent a leap forward in China’s ability to project power in Asia and compete in capabilities with the United States.
  • Ocean engineering. China is the go-to builder for LNG transporters and naval vessels that require technical expertise (the USN approached it about building a floating dock) It designs, builds and operates the most powerful surface combatants afloat, the Type 55 cruiser, ensuring that its claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea will not be contested.
At a time when the United States Navy is struggling to determine the future of its Navy, China has been quietly building up its naval forces. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has risen to be the second largest navy in the world by tonnage. It’s not just quantity that China is after, but the also the quality of its ships. Case in point is China’s newest warship to be launched, the Type 55 destroyer. With this warship, China has produced a destroyer larger, more powerful, and far more capable than its predecessors.
At a time when the United States Navy is struggling to determine the future of its Navy, China has been quietly building up its naval forces. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has risen to be the second largest navy in the world by tonnage. It’s not just quantity that China is after, but the also the quality of its ships. Case in point is China’s newest warship to be launched, the Type 55 destroyer. With this warship, China has produced a destroyer larger, more powerful, and far more capable than its predecessors.
  • Advanced railway equipment: China leads in all aspects of railway engineering and wins the bulk of global rail contracts. The first of five low speed maglev lines has completed testing and two more will open this year.
High-speed rail (HSR) in China consists of a network of passenger-dedicated railways designed for speeds of 250–350 km/h (155–217 mph). It is the world's longest high speed railway network, and is also the most extensively used.
High-speed rail (HSR) in China consists of a network of passenger-dedicated railways designed for speeds of 250–350 km/h (155–217 mph). It is the world’s longest high speed railway network, and is also the most extensively used. Over 2,800 pairs of bullet trains numbered by G, D or C run daily connecting over 550 cities in China and covering 33 of the country’s 34 provinces.
  • Energy-saving and new energy vehicles: China leads the world in batteries and electric cars and has more than 20 manufacturers competing to survive.
While Tesla engineers have been gradually adding autonomous capabilities to its electric stable, Chinese firm LeEco has gone one step further and announced a car that can do it right from the off.  The LeSEE, announced last night in China, managed to drive itself out of a shipping container and on to the stage with little more than a few voice commands spoken into a smartphone by CEO Jia Yueting. It even reversed, too.
While Tesla engineers have been gradually adding autonomous capabilities to its electric stable, Chinese firm LeEco has gone one step further and announced a car that can do it right from the off. The LeSEE, announced last night in China, managed to drive itself out of a shipping container and on to the stage with little more than a few voice commands spoken into a smartphone by CEO Jia Yueting. It even reversed, too.
  • Power equipment: China leads the world in basic research and manufacturing of renewable energy and nuclear energy and installed more renewable and nuclear power last year than the rest of the world combined. It owns the market for long distance UHV transmission.
Ultrahigh-voltage (UHV) electricity transmission has been used in China since 2009 to transmit both AC and DC electricity over long distances separating China's energy resources and consumers. Expansion of both AC and DC capacity continues in order to match generation to consumption demands while minimizing transmission losses.
Ultrahigh-voltage (UHV) electricity transmission has been used in China since 2009 to transmit both AC and DC electricity over long distances separating China’s energy resources and consumers. Expansion of both AC and DC capacity continues in order to match generation to consumption demands while minimizing transmission losses.
  • MaterialsScience. China’s share of the most cited nanoscience papers grows 22% annually and overtook the US in 2014. Its contribution–in quantity and quality–is now greater than the rest of the world’s combined. Most of the world’s graphene is manufactured in China, home to most graphene startups and the country is even with us in nanomaterial development.
 China Creates LiFi Nanomaterial to Replace WiFi | News ... 
 Chinese scientists develop nanomaterial to remove diesel ... 
 Chinese scientists find nanomaterial could reduce lead ... 
 Chinese scientists develop new material for treatment of ... 
 Titanium-Dioxide Nanomaterial Market Insights 2019, Global ... 
  • Biomedicine and high-performance medical devices. Judged by papers in 82 high-quality research journals, China is the second leading contributor to biomedical engineering articles after the US and will overtake us in three years.
China has become the top destination for research involving these animals, which are invaluable models for studying human disease. Other countries do not breed the primates in such large numbers or to the standard produced in China.  “Some 95% of papers using transgenic monkeys come from China,” says Bezard, director of the Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Bordeaux, and manager of his own lab at the Institute of Laboratory Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Among recent breakthroughs, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have genetically modified cynomolgus monkeys so they exhibit autistic-like behaviours, to better understand what causes the disorder, and how to treat it. CAS scientists have also cloned primates using a technique similar to the one that produced Dolly the sheep. Bezard has used rhesus monkeys to show how brain–computer interfaces can restore leg movement after spinal cord injury.  These developments have coincided with improvements in the regulation and enforcement of international standards in the biosciences in China. Two events were critical to the process: the 2003 SARS outbreak, which put a spotlight on the issue of wildlife and lab animal management, and the creation in China of the world’s first human–rabbit embryos in 2001, which provoked an international public relations crisis for the country.  The Chinese government recognizes that bioscience will play a major role in its global competitiveness. Biomedicine, synthetic biology and regenerative medical techniques are listed as strategic fields and industries in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan. “China doesn’t want to miss the life-science biotech revolution,” says Cao Cong, an innovation studies researcher at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.
China has become the top destination for research involving these animals, which are invaluable models for studying human disease. Other countries do not breed the primates in such large numbers or to the standard produced in China. “Some 95% of papers using transgenic monkeys come from China,” says Bezard, director of the Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Bordeaux, and manager of his own lab at the Institute of Laboratory Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Among recent breakthroughs, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have genetically modified cynomolgus monkeys so they exhibit autistic-like behaviours, to better understand what causes the disorder, and how to treat it. CAS scientists have also cloned primates using a technique similar to the one that produced Dolly the sheep. Bezard has used rhesus monkeys to show how brain–computer interfaces can restore leg movement after spinal cord injury. These developments have coincided with improvements in the regulation and enforcement of international standards in the biosciences in China.

Two events were critical to the process: the 2003 SARS outbreak, which put a spotlight on the issue of wildlife and lab animal management, and the creation in China of the world’s first human–rabbit embryos in 2001, which provoked an international public relations crisis for the country.

The Chinese government recognizes that bioscience will play a major role in its global competitiveness. Biomedicine, synthetic biology and regenerative medical techniques are listed as strategic fields and industries in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan. “China doesn’t want to miss the life-science biotech revolution,” says Cao Cong, an innovation studies researcher at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

Trade.

Midway  in the sixteenth century China became the great repository of the early  modern world’s newly discovered wealth in silver. Long a participant in  international maritime trade, China experienced the consequences of the  greatly enlarged patterns in world trade. In that commerce China was  essentially a seller of high-quality craft manufactures. 

Other countries  could not compete either in quality or price. The colonies of the New  World and the entire Mediterranean sphere of trade, from Portugal and  Spain to the Ottoman Empire, began to complain that the influx of  Chinese goods undermined their economies. 

-F.W. Mote 

China’s most significant trade relationships are with Asia and Europe, with the US third.

Almost no other country in the world has such a strong influence on the multilateral trading system as the United States. But with his “America First” policy, U.S. President Donald Trump is increasingly undermining international trade law. And that comes with huge costs not only for its trading partners but also for the United States itself.
Almost no other country in the world has such a strong influence on the multilateral trading system as the United States. But with his “America First” policy, U.S. President Donald Trump is increasingly undermining international trade law. And that comes with huge costs not only for its trading partners but also for the United States itself.

As Parag Khanna says…

"Beijing must wonder why #3 would launch a trade war against #1.  

Though we are self-sufficient in many things,we may be more dispensable  than we imagine. 

‘America first’ sounds great except when it actually  means ‘America alone’."

China has a multi-generational plan for on-going trade with the rest of the world. As discussed previously, the first step is the “Road and Belt Initative”, but other systems are slowly being put in place.

Meanwhile, the 2016 to 2019 “Trump Trade War” between the United States and China, has proven, beyond a doubt that the United States is NOT a stable trading partner, and other trading partnerships need to be developed.

Social Indicators.

China’s GINI, which never reached our nosebleed levels, is dropping like a stone and extreme poverty will be gone next year, when every Chinese will have a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health and old age care.

The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and a hypothetical line of absolute equality, expressed as a percentage of the maximum area under the line. Thus a Gini index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality. 

- China GINI index, 2017-2018 - knoema.com 

When this happens there will then be more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.

China’s GINI, which never reached our nosebleed levels, is  dropping like a stone and extreme poverty will be gone next year, when  every Chinese will have a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe  streets, health and old age care.
China’s GINI, which never reached our nosebleed levels, is dropping like a stone and extreme poverty will be gone next year, when every Chinese will have a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health and old age care.

500,000,000 urban Chinese will have more net worth and disposable income than the average American, their mothers and infants will be less likely to die in childbirth, their children will graduate from high school three years ahead of–and outlive–our kids.

Chinese upper middle class house and lawn.
Chinese upper middle class house and lawn.

Ninety-eight percent of Chinese listed as ‘poor’ already own their homes (not “have mortgages”, they actually own the homes and the homes are paid off.) and Xi has scheduled 2021-2035 to bringing GINI below Finland’s.

Chinese apartment houses

Education.

No country has so many intelligent, well trained, devoted engineers.

One-fourth of the world’s STEM workers are Chinese, an intellectual workforce eight times larger, growing six times faster and graduating high school students three years ahead of ours.

One-fourth of the world’s STEM workers are Chinese, an intellectual  workforce eight times larger, growing six times faster and graduating  high school students three years ahead of ours.
One-fourth of the world’s STEM workers are Chinese, an intellectual workforce eight times larger, growing six times faster and graduating high school students three years ahead of ours.

By 2025, China will have more technologically skilled workers than the entire OECD–the US, EU, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Israel, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Turkey–combined.

The Chinese school system is merit based. You get zero points of diversity, economic hardship, or gender advantage. You succeed or fail. There are no easy outs.

The Chinese school system is merit based. You get zero points of diversity, economic hardship, or gender advantage. You succeed or fail. There are no easy outs.
The Chinese school system is merit based. You get zero points of diversity, economic hardship, or gender advantage. You succeed or fail. There are no easy outs.

Violence.

Low crime, no religious nonsense or Islamic violence. Companies can invest safely without fear of religious unrest, violence or robbery.

In China it is against the law to promote “progressive” change.

When the SJW movement took control of China

In China it is against the law to have any kind of social upheaval. It is also (functionally) against the law to have a lifestyle outside of the traditional conservative Chinese family. If you try to do so, for what ever reason, you risk being arrested and spending the rest of your life in a re-education camp, if not killed outright.

The Chinese do not mess around. Know your history.

Diversity Initatives

Faith in the future.

Faith in the future, nationalism, a belief in building a better China: the Chinese have a strong belief in the future and willingly sacrifice time and effort for the next generation.

Faith in the future, nationalism, a belief in building a better China:  the Chinese have a strong belief in the future and willingly sacrifice  time and effort for the next generation.
Faith in the future, nationalism, a belief in building a better China: the Chinese have a strong belief in the future and willingly sacrifice time and effort for the next generation.

The Chinese are feeling as we did in the 60s, except that their wages and wealth have doubled every decade for seventy years.

Their Market.

There are twice as many people in China than in the US and Europe combined and domestic consumption of China is growing 7% annually thanks to 200 million rural people moving into new cities.

China will have abundant low salary workers in its western provinces for the next 15 years.

Chinese companies are flexible beyond imagination. They can change products, management, focus or whatever literally overnight.

The Chinese are incredibly flexible and their culture has already outlived the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans. Western companies are hierarchically organized whereas in Chinese companies decisions are made fast, often on the phone.

Politics.

China is the world’s leading democracy. It’s called “Communist” as a hold-over from the Mr. Mao days, but that time is long, long past. China holds on to the idea that it is “communist” in the same way that Americans still call America a “Republic”. Both have evolved far, far away from their initial charter.

Here is why China is a democracy. You need to study the indicators that define governance of a nation…

In 2005, The Carter Center  began transferring America’s democracy knowhow to China. Today, China’s  democracy is bigger, faster, safer and cheaper than ours and runs  entirely on Chinese intellectual property. 

There’s a potentially huge  market for an improved version. Might Chinese democracy displace America’s? Should we be surprised if the Chinese model becomes  competitive? 

For three thousand years no subject has preoccupied their elite more than governance. From their perspective, Deng’s 1977 comment  about Western democracy, “It’s too soon to tell,” was simple common  sense.

Barely forty years later, perhaps we can  tell. 

Only twenty percent of citizens in newly-democratic Hungary,  Czech Republic, Romania, Latvia, Poland and Bulgaria, trust their  governments. Even fewer Britons trust Parliament and less than ten  percent of us trust Congress. 

Western democracy is losing legitimacy  because governments’ agenda have remained at odds with their citizens’ agenda for decades but, as Margaret Thatcher would have said, there was no alternative. 

- Selling Democracy to China 

Now there is an alternative and, if we compare American democracy to China’s on seven axes we can at least begin the conversation.

  • Constitutional
  • Elective
  • Popular
  • Procedural
  • Operational
  • Substantive
  • Financial

Let’s talk about them a spell.

Constitutionally, China’s constitution stipulates,

“The State organs of the People’s Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. 

The National People’s Congress  and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections. 

They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the State are created by the people’s congresses  to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised”.  

America’s founders carefully omitted the word ‘democracy’ from all Constitutional documents. As it was initially founded as a Republic. But the 12th and the 17th amendments changed it into a democracy. Thus paving the way for Wilson, FDR, Clinton and Obama to turn America into a medieval-style serfdom functioning as an oligarchy.

Link

At least the Chinese constitution clearly says that it is a democracy.

Electively, China’s bigger, more transparent elections were designed and supervised by The Carter Center which continues to expand the franchise at the behest of Premier Wen Jiabao, who told them in 2012,

“The experience of many villages shows  farmers can succeed in directly electing village committees. If people  can manage a village well they can manage a township and a county. We  must encourage people to experiment boldly and test democracy in  practice”. 

Today, 3,200 democratically elected Congressional representatives must vote, almost unanimously, to approve all senior appointments and all legislation.

In the U.S., wealthy, unelected people propose and fund candidates for election. An unelected Electoral College chooses the chief executive.

Popularly, the Chinese, who still bear scars of recent governance mistakes, will tell you that it was when Mao, Deng and the Qing Emperor ignored experts that they got the country into trouble.

Today, Chinese democracy resembles Proctor and Gamble more than Pericles.

There are more than a thousand polling firms in China and its government spends prolifically on surveys, as author Jeff J. Brown says,

“My Beijing neighborhood committee and town hall are constantly  putting up announcements, inviting groups of people–renters, homeowners,  over seventies, women under forty, those with or without medical  insurance, retirees–to answer surveys. 

The CPC is the world’s biggest  pollster for a reason: China’s democratic ‘dictatorship of the people’  is highly engaged at the day-to-day, citizen-on-the-street level. 

I  know, because I live in a middle class Chinese community and I question  them all the time. I find their government much more responsive and democratic than the dog-and-pony shows back home, and I mean that seriously”.  

Even the imperious Mao would remind colleagues,

“If we don’t  investigate public opinion we have no right to voice our own opinion.  Public opinion is our guideline for action,” 

which is why Five Year Plans are the results of intensive polling. Citizens’ sixty-two percent voter participation suggests that they think their votes count. Princeton’s Gilens and Page, on the other hand, examining the causes of Americans’ fifty-two percent voter participation, found

‘the preferences of the average American  appear to have a near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon  public policy’.

Procedurally, The Chinese engineers, economists, statisticians and sociologists who develop policies practice democracy among themselves and the top seven decision makers–appointed independently of each other and with a collective 200 years governing experience–require at least six votes to send legislation to Congress.

If President Xi claimed that global warming is a hoax he would be regarded as autocratic, not democratic.

If he wants a new climate policy and persuades five colleagues to support it, he can push it into the trials pipeline but, without solid trial data, he can’t propose legislation and the popularly elected, unpaid congress has proven willing to delay leaders’ pet projects for decades.

Data-driven democracy has steadily narrowed the gap between public expectations and government capacity, which is why Chinese support for government policies stands at 96 percent, higher than even Switzerland’s or Singapore’s and far higher than our twenty percent.

Operationally, American presidents resemble the medieval monarchs upon whom their office was modeled, as Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, observed,

“We elect a king for four years and give him  absolute power within certain limits which, after all, he can interpret  for himself”. 

Our presidents hire and fire all senior officials, secretly ban fifty thousand citizens from flying, order people kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned and assassinated and take the country to war.

No Chinese leader, not even Mao at his peak, could do any of those things.

The president cannot even choose his prime minister (always his strongest rival for the presidency), can only make decisions with 6–1 or 7–0 support from colleagues and can’t hire or fire officials, elect, assign or suspend members of Congress.

President Obama’s healthcare initiative relied on his popularity and promises whereas, as Stanford VC Robin Daverman explains, China’s initiatives rely on math:

“China is a giant trial  portfolio with millions of trials going on everywhere. 

Today,  innovations in everything from healthcare to poverty reduction,  education, energy, trade and transportation are being trialled in  different communities. 

Every one of China’s 662 cities is experimenting:  

Shanghai with free trade zones, 
Guizhou with poverty reduction,  
twenty-three cities with education reforms, 
Northeastern provinces with  SOE reform: 
pilot schools, 
pilot cities, 
pilot hospitals, 
pilot markets,  
pilot everything. 

Mayors and governors, the Primary Investigators,  share their ‘lab results’ at the Central Party School and publish them  in ‘scientific journals,’ the State-owned newspapers. 

Major policies  undergo ‘clinical trials,’ beginning in small towns that generate and  analyze test data. 

If the stats look good, they’ll add test sites and do  long-term follow-ups. 

They test and tweak for 10-30 years then ask the  3,000-member People’s Congress to review the data and authorize national  trials in three major provinces. 

If a national trial is successful the  State Council [China’s Brains Trust] polishes the plan and takes it back  to the 3,000 Congresspeople for a final vote. 

It’s very transparent  and, if you have good data and I don’t, your bill gets passed and mine  doesn’t. 

People’s Congress votes are nearly unanimous because the  legislation is backed by reams of data. 

This allows China to accomplish a  great deal in a short time: your winning solution will be quickly  propagated throughout the country, you’ll be a front page hero and  you’ll be invited to high-level meetings in Beijing and promoted. 

As you  can imagine, the competition to find solutions is intense”.  

Operationally, data-driven legislation wins hands down.

China is doing this right. America is just running around in circles playing games (politics) and servicing the millions of leeches that live off the system. No wonder nothing can be completed in the USA.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?

Substantively, China has won her battle for survival and is now militarily and economically impregnable, so authoritarian giants like Mao and Deng are no longer needed.

Today, researchers, experts, media, academics, stakeholders and obstreperous citizens set the agenda.

Since 2000, China has allowed foreigners to conduct surveys and publish apolitical results without submitting their questionnaires and Harvard’s Tony Saich, who’s been polling there for over a decade reports, in Governing China, that ninety-six per cent of Chinese are satisfied with their national government and, according to Edelman’s 2016 Report, almost ninety percent of Chinese trust it.

World Values Surveys found that eighty-three percent say China is run for their benefit rather than for the benefit of special groups–compared to thirty-eight percent of Americans.

Financially (we exclude financial democracy from polite conversation but the Chinese don’t), ninety-five percent of poor Chinese own their homes and land and the Chinese own, in common, the commanding heights of their economy– banks, insurers and utilities.

And Inequality is being effectively addressed.

In its 2017 study, Global Inequality Dynamics, America’s National Bureau of Economic Research reports that, though the bottom half of Chinese saw their share of national income fall from twenty-seven percent to fifteen percent after 1980, Americans’ share collapsed from twenty percent to twelve percent.

Simultaneously, China’s top one percent captured thirteen percent of all personal income, but America’s elite grabbed twenty percent.

Since those figures were compiled, China has eliminated urban poverty and, the World Bank adds,

“We can reasonably expect the virtual elimination of extreme  poverty in [rural] China by 2022”.  

Every Chinese–not just the poor–has doubled her income every ten years for the past 40 years, an extraordinary improvement in income mobility and the inverse of our experience.

In the U.S., says Stanford’s Raj Chetty,

“rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for  children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Absolute  income mobility has fallen across the entire income distribution, with  the largest declines for families in the middle class”. 

Whether or not we’re willing to call China’s 20th century system democratic, it’s clear that they’ve improved on our quaint, eighteenth century model.

How long before they start selling the new, improved version of democracy? Yes, the Chiense version of democracy is light-years vastly improved over that clunky oligarchy model that exists in Washington, D.C..

Though this claim enrages many Westerners, regardless of the metric employed, electively, popularly, procedurally, operationally, substantively, financially, and technologically,

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American  politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian  Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of  interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased  Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have  how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic  elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of  one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been  possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each  other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do  so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables  for 1,779 policy issues. 

- Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens 

China is a thriving democracy and America is not.

Defense.

To understand China and how they view defense, you should understand their history. They have over 5000 years on nearly continuous warfare. They have evolved within this reality.

To understand China you must understand that they have evolved though over 5000 years of wars, and bloodshed.

The PLA fields some of the most modern weapon systems in the world at half the cost of America’s defense budget.

Its more modern missiles out-range ours in every weight and class thanks to the tight coupling between their world leading chemists and rocket propellent manufacturers.

Russian weapons systems fill any gaps.

Morale.

A highly cohesive society, the Chinese, by a full 95% support their government’s policies and most are willing to fight for their country. They are fiercely patriotic. No matter what the Western media might say otherwise.

A highly cohesive society, the Chinese, by a full 95% support their government’s policies and most are willing to fight for their country. They are fiercely patriotic. No matter what the Western media might say otherwise.
A highly cohesive society, the Chinese, by a full 95% support their government’s policies and most are willing to fight for their country. They are fiercely patriotic. No matter what the Western media might say otherwise.

The Future.

By 2025, nine provinces will enjoy higher average incomes than the US. By 2040, all will.

By 2025, nine provinces will enjoy higher average incomes than the US. By 2040, all will.
By 2025, nine provinces will enjoy higher average incomes than the US. By 2040, all will.

Conclusion

As large and great as America was, it is now in decline, and the Chinese nation is on the rise. Every indicator, on just about every level, confirms this. It is a fools errand to ignore this fact and to try to stymie this natural progression of the human species.

The smart and intelligent will recognize this and try to personally profit from this growth.

The sunset of the United States as a global empire.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

The US involvement in the HK "Democracy Now" movement.
Uyghurs in Xinjiang
How the USA can win a trade war.
Chinese reaction to the Trump Tariff Wars.
China's Global Leadership
Popular Music of China
The logistics of relocating a facotry from China back to the USA.
Hong Kong and the NED CIA operations.
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year
Trade Wars
How to get work in China if you have HIV.

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions
A polarized world.
America's sunset.
Trump trade wars  - Phase One
Asshole

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Wolf Disco
Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Some fun videos of China - 1
Fun Videos of Asia - 2
Fun videos of Asia - 3
Fun videos of Asia - 4
Fun Videos of Asia - 5
Fun videos of Asia - 6
Fun videos of Asia - 7
Fun videos of Asia - 8
Fun videos of Asia - 9
Fun videos of Asia - 10
Fun videos of Asia - 11
Fun videos of Asia - 12
Fun videos of Asia - 13
Fun videos of Asia - 14
Fun Videos of Asia - 15
Fun videos of Asia -16
The best way to cook marshmallows.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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Surprise! It’s not Swamp Gas. The UFO’s are real and the government has finally admitted it.

What do you know? Hell finally froze over, well… maybe started to get a little slushy, maybe. I thought it would never happen. But it seems that a slow but cautious opening up of admittance is a start. No, of course they aren’t admitting the active studies, the contacts, the programs, and all that. That is never going to happen. But, at least they are starting to acknowledge that someone or something appears to have some extremely advanced technology. And it is the Pentagon, and not the CIA, that is actively changing the nature of the conversation about it.

Finally, after decades of public denials, and public cover-ups, the Navy  finally admits that there are vehicles and objects that possess  technologies far, far advanced than what we are capable of having. 

I’m sure that there are “officials” that are livid about this.

The sightings of strange activity in the Ann Arbor region of Michigan in March 1966 is perhaps more famous for the rather outlandish, but official explanation issued for itthat the sightings were down to “swamp gas”. It was an explanation that the witnesses would reject outright. As would the vast majority of UFO researchers who examined the case over the decades since. 

- Michigan, 1966 – The “Swamp Gas” Incidents 

The “Tic Tac” incident.

Date:  November  14,  2004;  Location:  Pacific  Ocean

Jack  Sarfatti  writes,  The  USS  Nimitz  UFO  incident  refers  to  a  2004  Radar-Visual  encounter  of  an  unidentified  flying  object  by  US  fighter  pilots  of  the  Nimitz  Carrier  Strike  Group.  In  December  2017,  infrared  footage  of  the  encounter  was  released  to  the  public.  Prior  to  the  December  2017 incident,  early  November  2004,    the  Ticonderoga-class  guided  missile  cruiser  USS  Princeton,  part  of  Carrier  Strike  Group  11,  had  been  tracking  mysterious  aircraft  intermittently  for  two  weeks  on  an  advanced  AN/SPY-1B  passive  radar.

 Prior  to  the   December  2017 incident,  early  November  2004,     the  Ticonderoga-class  guided  missile  cruiser  USS  Princeton,  part   of  Carrier  Strike  Group  11,  had  been  tracking  mysterious   aircraft  intermittently  for  two  weeks  on  an  advanced  AN/SPY-1B   passive  radar.
Prior to the December 2017 incident, early November 2004, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, part of Carrier Strike Group 11, had been tracking mysterious aircraft intermittently for two weeks on an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.

When  the  same  event  occurred  again  around  12:30  EST  on 14  November  2004,  an  operations  officer  aboard  Princeton  contacted  two  airborne  US  Navy  jet  fighters  from  USS  Nimitz.  The  first  fighter  aircraft  was  piloted  by  Commander  David  Fravor,  commanding  officer  of  Strike  Fighter  Squadron  41,  assisted  by  his  weapon  systems  officer  (WSO)  in  the  back  seat.  Lieutenant  commander  Jim  Slaight  was  aboard  the  second  jet  which  was  serving  in  the  role  as  a  wingman.  The  officers  were  training  aboard  two  FA-18F  Super  Hornets  in  a  routine  combat  exercise.

The  first  fighter  aircraft  was  piloted  by  Commander  David   Fravor,  commanding  officer  of  Strike  Fighter  Squadron  41,   assisted  by  his  weapon  systems  officer  (WSO)  in  the  back   seat.  Lieutenant  commander  Jim  Slaight  was  aboard  the  second   jet  which  was  serving  in  the  role  as  a  wingman.  The  officers   were  training  aboard  two  FA-18F  Super  Hornets  in  a  routine   combat  exercise.
The first fighter aircraft was piloted by Commander David Fravor, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, assisted by his weapon systems officer (WSO) in the back seat. Lieutenant commander Jim Slaight was aboard the second jet which was serving in the role as a wingman. The officers were training aboard two FA-18F Super Hornets in a routine combat exercise.

Princeton’s  radio  operator  first  asked  the  AWACS  of  the  Carrier  Airborne  Early  Warning  Squadron  117,  which  was  assisting  the  two  F-18s  to  guide  them  to  intercept  the  unknown  aircraft.  Princeton’s  radio  operator  directly  instructed  the  pilots  to  change  their  course  and  investigate  and  asked  if  they  were  carrying  operational  weapons;  they  replied  that  they  were  not.

The  weather  conditions  for  that  day  showed  excellent  visibility.  When  the  jet  fighters  arrived  on  site,  the  crew  of  four  saw  nothing  in  the  air  nor  on  their  radar. 

Looking  down  at  the  sea,  however,  they  noticed  a  turbulent  oval  area  of  churning  water  with  foam  and  frothy  waves  “the  size  of  a  Boeing  737  airplane”  with  a  smoother  area  of  lighter  color  at  the  center,  as  if  the  waves  were  breaking  over  something  just  under  the  surface. 

A  few  seconds  later,  they  noticed  an  unusual  object  hovering  with  erratic  movements  50  feet  above  the  boiling  water.  Both  Fravor  and  Slaight  later described  the  object  as  a  large  bright  white  Tic  Tac  30  to  46  feet  (10  to  14  meters)  long,  with  no  windshield  nor  porthole,  no  wing  nor  empennage,  and  no  visible  engine  nor  exhaust  plume.  According  to  Fravor  “I  have  no  idea  what  I  saw.  It  had  no  plumes,  wings  or  rotors  and  outran  our  F-18s.  But  I  want  to  fly  one”.

Bigelow, stated, “Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma.” “China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”
Bigelow, stated, “Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma.” “China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”

Fravor  began  a  circular  descent  to  approach  the  object,  but  he  claimed  the  UFO  was  intentionally  avoiding  any  short-range  dogfight  radar  lock-on  with  “impossible”  maneuvers  [not  in  citation  given]  that  made  engagement  difficult.  As  Fravor  got  closer  descending,  he  reported  that  the  object  began  ascending  along  a  curved  path,  maintaining  some  distance  from  the  F-18,  mirroring  its  trajectory  in  opposite  circles. 

Fravor  then  made  a  more  aggressive  maneuver,  plunging  his  fighter  to  aim  below  the  object,  but  at  this  point  the  UFO  accelerated  and  went  out  of  sight  in  less  than  two  seconds,  leaving  the  pilots  “pretty  weirded  out”.

Subsequently,  the  two  fighter  jets  began  a  new  course  to  the  combat  air  patrol  rendezvous  point.  “Within  seconds”  the  Princeton  radioed  the  jets  that  the  radar  spot  had  reappeared  60  miles  away  at  the  CAP  point  indicating  a  speed  of  2,400  miles  an  hour  to  cover  the  distance  in  the  reported  time.  The  jets  went  to  investigate  the  new  radar  location,  but  “by  the  time  the  Super  Hornets  arrived  […]  the  object  had  already  disappeared.”  Both  F-18s  then  returned  to  Nimitz.

The aircraft carrier and its strike group also engage in maritime security operations to interdict threats to merchant shipping and prevent the use of the seas for terrorism and piracy. Aircraft carriers also provide unique capabilities for disaster response and humanitarian assistance. The embarked carrier air wing provides helicopters for direct support and C4I assets to support them and ensure aid is routed quickly and safely.  The 10 nuclear powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the world, each designed for an approximately 50 year service life with one mid-life refueling. USS NIMITZ (CVN 68), USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69), USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70), and USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71) have all completed their Refueling Complex Overhauls (RCOH) at Newport News, Va., with USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72) having commenced RCOH in 2013.
The aircraft carrier and its strike group also engage in maritime security operations to interdict threats to merchant shipping and prevent the use of the seas for terrorism and piracy. Aircraft carriers also provide unique capabilities for disaster response and humanitarian assistance. The embarked carrier air wing provides helicopters for direct support and C4I assets to support them and ensure aid is routed quickly and safely. The 10 nuclear powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the world, each designed for an approximately 50 year service life with one mid-life refueling. USS NIMITZ (CVN 68), USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69), USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70), and USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71) have all completed their Refueling Complex Overhauls (RCOH) at Newport News, Va., with USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72) having commenced RCOH in 2013.

A  second  team  took  off  at  15:00  EST,  this  time  equipped  with  an  advanced  infrared  camera  (FLIR  pod).  This  camera  recorded  an  evasive  unidentified  aerial  system  on  video,  publicly  released  by  the  Pentagon  on  16  December  2017  alongside  the  revelation  of  the  funding  of  the  Advanced  Aviation  Threat  Identification

This  footage  is  known  as  the  2004  USS  Nimitz  FLIR1  video.  It  officially  shed  some  light  on  a  decade-old  story  that  was  largely  unknown,  except  for  a  2015  second-hand  story  on  FighterSweep.com  that,  in  spite  of  providing  a  lot  of  details,  remained  unconfirmed  at  that  time.

Over a two-week period in late 2004, an unknown, 45-foot long Tic Tac shaped object played cat and mouse with the U.S. Navy off the coast of California. The mighty U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier, and its support ships including the U.S.S. Princeton, carrying the most sophisticated sensor systems in the world, repeatedly detected recurring glimpses of the Tic Tac but were unable to lock on.  On Nov.14, F-18s were ordered into the area and saw it up close. Veteran pilot Dave Fravor, commander of the elite Black Aces unit, says the Tic Tac reacted to the presence of the F-18s then took off like a bullet fired from a gun.  "It takes off like nothing I've ever seen. One minute it's here, and off, it's gone," said retired Navy pilot David Fravor.  In the explosion of media interest that followed the Pentagon's release of the Tic Tac video along with recordings of two other encounters, Commander Fravor expressed the opinion that the technology was far more advanced than anything known on earth.
Over a two-week period in late 2004, an unknown, 45-foot long Tic Tac shaped object played cat and mouse with the U.S. Navy off the coast of California. The mighty U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier, and its support ships including the U.S.S. Princeton, carrying the most sophisticated sensor systems in the world, repeatedly detected recurring glimpses of the Tic Tac but were unable to lock on. On Nov.14, F-18s were ordered into the area and saw it up close. Veteran pilot Dave Fravor, commander of the elite Black Aces unit, says the Tic Tac reacted to the presence of the F-18s then took off like a bullet fired from a gun. “It takes off like nothing I’ve ever seen. One minute it’s here, and off, it’s gone,” said retired Navy pilot David Fravor. In the explosion of media interest that followed the Pentagon’s release of the Tic Tac video along with recordings of two other encounters, Commander Fravor expressed the opinion that the technology was far more advanced than anything known on earth.

A  second  infrared  footage,  known  as  the  GIMBAL  video,  has  been  released  by  the  Pentagon  alongside  the  2004  FLIR1  footage.  Although  the  media  often  present  the  two  videos  together  to  illustrate  the  2004  USS  Nimitz  UFO  incident,  the  GIMBAL  video  is  unrelated,  filmed  at  the  East  Coast  of  the  United  States  at  an  unknown  date.”

Confirmed

The U.S. Navy has confirmed that three F-18 gun-camera videos first released by The New York Times and a UFO research organization show “unidentified aerial phenomena.”.

The term “unidentified aerial phenomena.” or  UAPs is a more formal term for UFOs that doesn’t have all that little-green-men baggage.

The Times originally released two of the videos in a December 2017 article. The article revealed that the Pentagon had operated a secret UFO investigatory project, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

All three videos were published on the website of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a UFO research organization founded by former Blink-182 singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge.

The news that the Navy considers the three videos, unofficially known as “FLIR1,” “Gimbal” and “GoFast”, first appeared on The Black Vault. The Black Vault is a web site that specializes in declassified government documents.

“FLIR1” is from November 14, 2004, and “Gimbal” and “GoFast” are from January 21, 2015.

Joe Gradisher, a spokesman for the office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, said in a statement that the Navy expects to keep the information it gathers private for a number of reasons. “Military aviation safety organizations always retain reporting of hazards to aviation as privileged information in order to preserve the free and honest prioritization and discussion of safety among aircrew,” Gradisher said. “Furthermore, any report generated as a result of these investigations will, by necessity, include classified information on military operations.” “Therefore, no release of information to the general public is expected.”
Joe Gradisher, a spokesman for the office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, said in a statement that the Navy expects to keep the information it gathers private for a number of reasons. “Military aviation safety organizations always retain reporting of hazards to aviation as privileged information in order to preserve the free and honest prioritization and discussion of safety among aircrew,” Gradisher said. “Furthermore, any report generated as a result of these investigations will, by necessity, include classified information on military operations.” “Therefore, no release of information to the general public is expected.”

Joseph Gradisher, official spokesperson for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, emphasized that these videos represent only some of the many UAP sightings the Navy is investigating.

“Those three videos are just part of a larger effort by the U.S. Navy to try and investigate a series of incursions into our training ranges by phenomena that we’re calling unidentified aerial phenomena,” says Gradisher, who declined to say how many sightings there have been. “Our aviators train as they fight. So when they’re out there training, if there’s an incursion by any kind of aerial vehicle phenomena, whatever, it puts the safety of our aviators 
at risk as well as the security of our training operations.”

Sample Links

Here are some links related to this subject matter. The United States Navy is openly admitting that they have witnessed, observed and tracked unknown vehicles with amazing behaviors that they cannot understand which defy the known laws of physics.

What many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all.
What many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all.

The new Navy position on this matter.

Few stories have garnered more requests for elaboration than the recent news that the Navy has decided to very publicly change its UFO / USO reporting rules and procedures.

Why? People ask?

Everyone has their opinions. As do I. And, yes, there have been wildly varying takes on all of this.

Finally, after decades of public denials, and public cover-ups, the Navy finally admits that there are vehicles and objects that possess technologies far, far advanced than what we are capable of having.

This obviously implies that it wasn’t ours, and unfortunately doesn’t explain the different objects seen in the pictures.  Top Secret claims that on one of the pictures, there were some inscriptions. I don’t have a version of this, and it is too faint to see on these photographs.  Upper left it says “Official Photograph. Not to be Released. CT.”  In the bottom right corner it says (sic) “Unauthorized Disclosure Subject. Security Certificat SSN 674. Criminal Sanction”
Swamp gas! This obviously implies that it wasn’t ours, and unfortunately doesn’t explain the different objects seen in the pictures. Top Secret claims that on one of the pictures, there were some inscriptions. I don’t have a version of this, and it is too faint to see on these photographs. Upper left it says “Official Photograph. Not to be Released. CT.” In the bottom right corner it says (sic) “Unauthorized Disclosure Subject. Security Certificat SSN 674. Criminal Sanction”

Politico was first to report on the Navy’s new directions for reporting unexplained objects operating in the same environment as its vessels and aircraft.

Politico’s Bryan Bender writes:

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from POLITICO. "For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report."

"As part of this effort," it added, "the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

To be clear, the Navy isn’t endorsing the idea that its sailors have encountered alien spacecraft. No, that will open up an entire keg of worms. Truthfully, it’s not admitting to anything other than the fact that the Navy has observed and recorded strange objects in the skies and in the waters of the world.

It’s a Duh! moment, for certain.

On this photo, we identify without a doubt a triangular-shaped UFO. It seems to be in trouble.
Swamp Gas! On this photo, we identify without a doubt a triangular-shaped UFO. It seems to be in trouble.

However, there is an entire army of CIA paid debunkers, and a branch of MAJestic that has been devoted to obscuring, covering up, and ridiculing anyone who even vocalizes that strange objects have materialized and disappeared in and around our planet that defy conventional explanations.

So, in a way, it’s a kind of vindication.

I and others have told our stories about MAJestic and the involvement of the US Navy in it. We have been ridiculed and laughed at, and even though this latest posturing is a long, long way off from the actual reality. It is a start.

It is a start.

For what ever it’s worth; been enough strange aerial sightings by credible and highly trained military personnel that they need to be recorded in the official record and studied. Yes, rather than dismissed as some kooky phenomena from the realm of science-fiction.

Several impressive photos of alleged UFOs over the arctic captured on camera by the Navy in 1971 have been leaked to UFO researchers, and their discovery has been getting worldwide media attention.  UFO researcher Alex Mistretta claims that the images were originally given to him by an anonymous source in Europe. Later, he discovered that they were also published in a French paranormal magazine called Top Secret.
Several impressive photos of alleged UFOs over the arctic captured on camera by the Navy in 1971 have been leaked to UFO researchers, and their discovery has been getting worldwide media attention. UFO researcher Alex Mistretta claims that the images were originally given to him by an anonymous source in Europe. Later, he discovered that they were also published in a French paranormal magazine called Top Secret.

The Washington Post did their own follow-up to Politico’s story, stating:

Recently,  unidentified aircraft have entered military-designated airspace as  often as multiple times per month, Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for  office of the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare,  told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Citing safety and security concerns, Gradisher vowed to “investigate each and every report.”

He  said, “We want to get to the bottom of this. We need to determine who’s  doing it, where it’s coming from and what their intent is. We need to  try to find ways to prevent it from happening again.”

As if.

But, like I said, it’s a start.

Life on Mars fround by NASA.

Now, you all have to realize that there is no real way to distinctly classify something like a UFO or USO without the creation of controversy. And controversy in the Navy can be a career limiting move.

 Controversy in the Navy can be a career limiting move. 

The moment you report something like this, the ONI and MAJestic takes control. Any investigation outside those channels are squelched and suppressed.

Like these links discuss…

This new reality has led to much speculation.

Of course, and as such we can naturally conclude that the military knows far more about these strange happenings than they are willing to let on. It’s not like suddenly out of the blue they started, just now, to observe and record these sightings. Do not be silly.

The original anonymous source claims that these:  1) The photos were taken from a United State Navy submarine.  2) The location was between Iceland and Jan Mayen island in the Atlantic Ocean. (Jan Mayen belongs to Norway, and is only inhabited by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and the Norwegian military.)  3) They were taken in March of 1971.  4) The Submarine was the Navy’s USS Trepang (SSN 674) and the Admiral on board was Dean Reynolds Sackett. Obviously, the next step is to try and locate this Admiral Dean Reynolds, if he exists.  5) The Submarine came upon the object by “accident,” as they were in the region on a routine joint military and scientific expedition. Officer John Klika was the one who initially spotted the object with the periscope.
The original anonymous source claims that these: 1) The photos were taken from a United State Navy submarine. 2) The location was between Iceland and Jan Mayen island in the Atlantic Ocean. (Jan Mayen belongs to Norway, and is only inhabited by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and the Norwegian military.) 3) They were taken in March of 1971. 4) The Submarine was the Navy’s USS Trepang (SSN 674) and the Admiral on board was Dean Reynolds Sackett. Obviously, the next step is to try and locate this Admiral Dean Reynolds, if he exists. 5) The Submarine came upon the object by “accident,” as they were in the region on a routine joint military and scientific expedition. Officer John Klika was the one who initially spotted the object with the periscope.

Otherwise, why wouldn’t they want to know more about intruders wielding fantastic technology that makes them impervious to existing countermeasures and defenses?  

Now all this appears to be changing. Why?

The technology is real

The fact is that we actually know that in the last 15 years, under at least some circumstances, the military has wanted certain high-fidelity data related to encounters with UFOs.

The most compelling encounter of recent, at least that we know of, occurred in and around where the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was operating during workups to deployment in 2004. 

A carrier strike group (CSG) is an operational formation of the United States Navy. It is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also, on occasion, includes submarines, attached logistics ships and a supply ship.
A carrier strike group (CSG) is an operational formation of the United States Navy. It is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also, on occasion, includes submarines, attached logistics ships and a supply ship.

This encounter is known as the “Tic Tac Incident”.

The incident, or really the series of incidents as they occurred over a number of days, have become near legendary in nature as the witnesses involved are highly credible in nature and numerous.

In addition, we have official reports detailing the incident that convey a very compelling story, as well as hours of testimony from those who were there—a group of sailors and naval aviators that seems to be emerging more and more out of the shadows with each passing day.

Top Secrets

To examine all public evidence available, it becomes clear that [1] someone has some amazing technology, [2] modern technology is recording it all over the world, and [3] it didn’t just start happening…

The WSO first picked up a contact on the radar around 30nm away while it was operating in the RWS scan mode. He checked the coordinates and it was indeed hovering at their precise CAP point. He attempted several STT locks, to no avail. Later, in the debrief, he explained that he had multiple telltale cues of EA. The target aspect on the track file was turning through 360 degrees along with some other distinct jamming indications. In the less precise scan mode, the return indicated that the object was, in the WSO’s words, “A few thousand feet below us. Around 15-20K– but hovering stationary.” The only movement was generated by the closure of the fighter to the CAP location.
The WSO first picked up a contact on the radar around 30nm away while it was operating in the RWS scan mode. He checked the coordinates and it was indeed hovering at their precise CAP point. He attempted several STT locks, to no avail. Later, in the debrief, he explained that he had multiple telltale cues of EA. The target aspect on the track file was turning through 360 degrees along with some other distinct jamming indications. In the less precise scan mode, the return indicated that the object was, in the WSO’s words, “A few thousand feet below us. Around 15-20K– but hovering stationary.” The only movement was generated by the closure of the fighter to the CAP location.

And since it didn’t just start happening, then the Navy knows more about all this than they will ever admit. The classification is MAJestic.

Sales Pitch

No matter how you look at it, the “Tic Tac” incident that involved the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group off the Baja Peninsula in 2004, implies some pretty mind blowing conclusions.

Our reality is wrong.

The main revelation is that technology exists that is capable of performing flying maneuvers that shatter our perceptions of … well, everything.

Everything.

It's quite possible that by the time the FLIR saw the object, it was closer than 30 nmi. The above account also says that the object was "hovering at their precise CAP point," which corroborates Princeton's radar contact, and suggests that this was not an ordinary civilian jet. But the account also says that the F-18's radar indicated that the object was hovering below them and that the FLIR was slaved to the radar, yet the FLIR footage shows the object moving to the left above them, assuming that TTSA's video annotation is correct when it says "Sensor aimed 6° above aircraft axis."
It’s quite possible that by the time the FLIR saw the object, it was closer than 30 nmi. The account also says that the object was “hovering at their precise CAP point,” which corroborates Princeton’s radar contact, and suggests that this was not an ordinary civilian jet. But the account also says that the F-18’s radar indicated that the object was hovering below them and that the FLIR was slaved to the radar, yet the FLIR footage shows the object moving to the left above them, assuming that TTSA’s video annotation is correct when it says “Sensor aimed 6° above aircraft axis.”

This includes propulsion, flight controls, material science, and our basic ideas of physics. So many things that we thought were so fixed, unchangeable and fundamental to our universe are just wrong.

Let me underline this again for you, the Nimitz encounter with the Tic Tac proved that exotic technology that is widely thought of as the domain of science fiction actually exists.

It is real.

The WSO first picked up a contact on the radar around 30nm away while it was operating in the RWS scan mode. He checked the coordinates and it was indeed hovering at their precise CAP point. He attempted several STT locks, to no avail. Later, in the debrief, he explained that he had multiple telltale cues of EA. The target aspect on the track file was turning through 360 degrees along with some other distinct jamming indications. In the less precise scan mode, the return indicated that the object was, in the WSO’s words, “A few thousand feet below us. Around 15-20K– but hovering stationary.” The only movement was generated by the closure of the fighter to the CAP location. The WSO resorted to the FLIR pod on board, slaving it to the weak track the RWS mode had been able to generate.
The WSO first picked up a contact on the radar around 30nm away while it was operating in the RWS scan mode. He checked the coordinates and it was indeed hovering at their precise CAP point. He attempted several STT locks, to no avail. Later, in the debrief, he explained that he had multiple telltale cues of EA. The target aspect on the track file was turning through 360 degrees along with some other distinct jamming indications. In the less precise scan mode, the return indicated that the object was, in the WSO’s words, “A few thousand feet below us. Around 15-20K– but hovering stationary.” The only movement was generated by the closure of the fighter to the CAP location. The WSO resorted to the FLIR pod on board, slaving it to the weak track the RWS mode had been able to generate.

It isn’t the result of altered perception, someone’s lucid dream, a stray weather balloon, or swamp gas.

There has  been speculation as to where Allen Hynek, scientific consultant for  Project Blue Book, came up with the possible explanation of swamp or  marsh gas as to what was seen on successive nights in Dexter and  Hillsdale, Michigan, (March 20, 21, 1966). 
             
Some reports suggest Hynek got the idea from a University of Michigan  botany professor or that Hynek became informed about the phenomenon  through reading.  However, in my research for an article titled "Swamp  Gas Revisited",  published in the February, 2004, issue of UFO Magazine  (UK), a much different explanation was revealed to me. 
             
In interviewing Washtenaw County  Sheriff Doug Harvey for the article, the former Sheriff explained how he  had taken Hynek to the Frank Mannor farm near Dexter for some on site  investigation.  The sheriff described how Hynek interviewed witnesses  and sloshed around in the swamp for a time in an attempt to determine  what the many witnesses had seen a few nights earlier.  The Sheriff then  brought Hynek back to the Sheriff's headquarters located in Ann Arbor. 
             
According to Harvey, they talked for a time about the sighting and  Hynek admitted he didn't know what the witnesses had seen on the Mannor  farm. "That's when the phone call came in," Harvey told me. 
           
"What phone call I asked?"

Harvey said, "it was a call for Hynek and it was from Washington." 
             
"How did you know it was from Washington," I replied. 
             
"Because the dispatcher stepped into the office and said, 'Dr. Hynek, you've got a call from Washington.'"
             
Harvey told me that Hynek stepped out of the office to take the call  and then returned in a few minutes looking a bit perplexed.  And then,  according to the sheriff, Hynek said, "it's swamp gas they saw, swamp gas." 
             
It was a short time later that Hynek held the infamous press  conference at the Detroit Press Club and suggested that a possible  explanation for the recent sightings might have been marsh or swamp  gas.  The explanation became a front page story the next day in papers  across the country and Hynek became the butt of jokes and cartoons.  He  was ridiculed to such an extent that Michigan Congressman Gerald Ford  (later President Ford) asked for a Congressional investigation. It was  one of Hynek's worst moments. 
  
The  important thing here is that if the Washington phone call actually took  place, and I believe it did, then Hynek was receiving direction from a  high government source. The whole thing smells of more UFO governmental  coverup. 

- The origin of Dr. Hynek's "Swamp Gas" explanation 

Someone or something has crossed the technological Rubicon and has obtained what some would call the Holy Grail of aerospace engineering.  And now the Navy is throwing up it’s hands, and letting the rest of the world (a little bit) in on it’s big secret…

…it’s not swamp gas.

CARET

This reality is very hard to process for many.

Hows Stuff Works is for fags. Electrolytes are what plants crave. Duh.
Hows Stuff Works is for fags. Electrolytes are what plants crave. Duh.

There is always an out for some in the form of claiming an odd impromptu conspiracy. Or alternatively, some hollow explanation that doesn’t pass muster beyond the first paragraph. Yet, seriously, in the end, it actually happened.

Some people are so caught up in their belief system that they are unable to reason at any sort of cognitive level.

Consider the skeptics... 

A UFO can land on network television, within a football stadium with hundreds  of onlookers. The hatch can open up, and everyone in the stadium, and all the news-media would record the event on their cameras. An extraterrestrial can get out, bow to the camera, and dance a tango with the star quarterback.  

All the skeptics would report would be that swamp gas affected a nation-wide bout of insanity.

As uncomfortable as that fact is, it’s reality.

It was simply hanging in midair. He [the WSO] switched to the TV mode and was able to again lock the FLIR onto the object while still trying, with no luck, to get a STT track on the radar. As he watched it, the AAV moved out of his screen to the left so suddenly it almost seemed to disappear. On the tape, when it is slowed down, the object accelerates out of the field of view with shocking speed. The WSO was not able to reacquire the AAV either in RWS or with the FLIR.
It was simply hanging in midair. He [the WSO] switched to the TV mode and was able to again lock the FLIR onto the object while still trying, with no luck, to get a STT track on the radar. As he watched it, the AAV moved out of his screen to the left so suddenly it almost seemed to disappear. On the tape, when it is slowed down, the object accelerates out of the field of view with shocking speed. The WSO was not able to reacquire the AAV either in RWS or with the FLIR.

So, we need to use this event as a precious insight going forward when it comes to evaluating and contemplating what is possible and where truth actually lies.

Because, I’ll tell you what, the general public hasn’t a clue.

The Oxia Palus Facility

Perfect location for observation.

What many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all.

This entire encounter was not captured on a cell phone. It was captured with an array of the most advanced electronic and sensing equipment known to man.

What  many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and  time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever  created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all.
What many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all.

And it is the recording part that is maybe the most interesting facet of the Nimitz encounters that has largely been passed over in terms of significance and notoriety. 

Ideal test conditions.

What most don’t realize is that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group wasn’t just equipped with some of the most advanced sensors the world had to offer, but that it also had hands-down the most advanced networking and computer processing capability of any such system.

What  most don't realize is that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group wasn't just  equipped with some of the most advanced sensors the world had to offer,  but that it also had hands-down the most advanced networking and  computer processing capability of any such system.
What most don’t realize is that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group wasn’t just equipped with some of the most advanced sensors the world had to offer, but that it also had hands-down the most advanced networking and computer processing capability of any such system.

Dubbed Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), this integrated air defense system architecture was just being fielded on a Strike Group level for the first time aboard Nimitz and the rest of its flotilla. 

At its very  basic level, it uses the Strike Group's diverse and powerful  surveillance sensors, including the SPY-1 radars on Aegis Combat System-equipped cruisers and destroyers, as well as the E-2C Hawkeye's  radar picture from on high, and fuses that information into a common  'picture' via data-links and advanced computer processing. This, in  turn, provides very high fidelity 'tracks' of targets thanks to  telemetry from various sensors operating at different bands and looking  at the same target from different aspects and at different ranges. 

Whereas a stealthy aircraft or one employing electronic warfare may start to disappear on a cruiser's radar as it is viewing the aircraft from the surface of the Earth and from one angle, it may still be very solid on the E-2 Hawkeye's radar that is orbiting at 25,000 feet and a hundred miles away from the cruiser. With CEC, the target will remain steady on both platform's CEC enabled screens as they are seeing fused data from both sources and likely many others as well. 

This is a amazing “quantum leap” in sensing capability and data fidelity that provides information (and all associated data imagining fidelity) at an amazing degree of detail.

Advanced sensors, sources, and optical components for the generation, transmission and detection of ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation RF and mmW photonic devices and circuits Electro-optical quantum components for sensors, information and computation are all available and in active, constant use by the United States Navy in Carrier Groups during deployments.
Advanced sensors, sources, and optical components for the generation, transmission and detection of ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation RF and mmW photonic devices and circuits Electro-optical quantum components for sensors, information and computation are all available and in active, constant use by the United States Navy in Carrier Groups during deployments.

The data-link connectivity and the quality of the enhanced telemetry means that weapons platforms, such as ships and aircraft, could also fire on targets without needing to use their own sensor data.

For instance, a cruiser could fire a missile at a low-flying aircraft that is being tracked by a Hawkeye and an F/A-18 even though it doesn’t show up on their own scopes.

Advanced Navy sensors recorded the entire UFO incident.
What many may not know about this event is that it occurred in a place and time where the most powerful set of aerial surveillance sensors ever created were amassed together and were watching and recording it all. This entire encounter was not captured on a cell phone. It was captured with an array of the most advanced electronic and sensing equipment known to man.

This capability continues to evolve and mature today and will be the linchpin of any peer-state naval battle of the future that the U.S. is involved with.

Now, to keep things in mind, you must take note that back in 2004, it was new and untested. At least on the scale presented by the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group as it churned through the warning areas off the Baja Coast.

The key takeaway here is that if ever there was an opportune time to capture the very best real-world sensor data on a UFO, it was then. At that place. At that time. Under those circumstances. Thus, it did capture data and sensor readings off the scale. It observed and recorded a high-performance target in near lab-like controlled settings offered by the restricted airspace off the Baja Coast, this was it.

The key takeaway here is that if ever there was an opportune time to capture the very best  real-world sensor data on a high-performance target in near lab-like  controlled settings offered by the restricted airspace off the Baja  Coast, this was it.
The key takeaway here is that if ever there was an opportune time to capture the very best real-world sensor data on a high-performance target in near lab-like controlled settings offered by the restricted airspace off the Baja Coast, this was it.

Thus, by intention or chance, this is exactly what happened. 

Someone within the DoD was very interested

By multiple accounts from vetted first-hand sources, the hard drives that record CEC data from the E-2C Hawkeye and Aegis-equipped ships were seized ( some may say “in a very mysterious fashion”) following the Tic Tac incident.

MAJestic has full authority over extraterrestrial events. So there is really nothing mysterious about it at all.
How to tell...

Uniformed U.S. Air Force officers showed up on these vessels and confiscated the devices and they were never to be seen again. Which is a normal, programmed and standard operating procedure for these events. MAJestic takes over.

How to tell -2

This is not rumor or hearsay, this is attested to by multiple uniformed witnesses that were on the vessels that made up the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group at the time. Hundreds of people observed the “Tic Tac” UFO. And hundreds of people watched the information being suppressed right before their very eyes.

A radar dish aboard Mobile At-Sea Sensor (MATSS) barge (IX-524) undergoes final testing before upcoming flight test mission FTM-16. MATSS provides advanced remote telecommunications capability that extends the reach of the 42,000 square-mile Pacific Missile Range, the world’s largest instrumented multi-environmental range capable of supported surface, subsurface, air, and space operations simultaneously.
A radar dish aboard Mobile At-Sea Sensor (MATSS) barge (IX-524). MATSS provides advanced remote telecommunications capability that extends the reach of the 42,000 square-mile Pacific Missile Range, the world’s largest instrumented multi-environmental range capable of supported surface, subsurface, air, and space operations simultaneously.

At the same time, on an official level, the Navy seemed to shut down any further investigation into the incident. The aforementioned after-action report states that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group’s senior intelligence officer, whose name is redacted, alerted the Navy’s 3rd Fleet intelligence officer, or N2, about the incident via secure Email. That same Email, known as a Mission Report (MISREP), included the video footage and other details. 

For unexplained reasons, officials at the 3rd Fleet N2 declined to send this report up the chain of command. It went straight from the Senior Intelligence Officer (N2) direct to MAJestic.

The reason might be unexplained to the layman, but all issues of an extraterrestrial nature alerts MAJestic and then everything falls under the MAJIC classification.

They also deleted the MISREP ( Mission Report ), but speculated that paper copy should have been available. However, there is no indication that anyone went looking for this physical copy of the MISREP during the investigation. 

That night in the berthing I asked a very close friend in intel if he could confirm the legitimacy of the film. Without speaking, he gestured that it was correct. So, my skepticism began to fade and that next day a group of individuals were "cod'ed" onto the carrier and they retrieved all the tapes. I can confirm they cod'ed onto the ship, but the seizure of tapes came from people that work in those shops.
That night in the berthing I asked a very close friend in intel if he could confirm the legitimacy of the film. Without speaking, he gestured that it was correct. So, my skepticism began to fade and that next day a group of individuals were “cod’ed” onto the carrier and they retrieved all the tapes. I can confirm they cod’ed onto the ship, but the seizure of tapes came from people that work in those shops.

As such there is no official indication that an investigation into the events that week ever occurred.

According to hundreds of witnesses, we do know someone within the military had a very high interest in what went on. As such, after the N2 alert, they wanted the high-fidelity radar data collected from the Strike Group.

According to hundreds of witnesses, we do know someone within the military had a very high interest in what went on. As such, after the N2 alert, they wanted the high-fidelity radar data  collected from the Strike Group.
According to hundreds of witnesses, we do know someone within the military had a very high interest in what went on. As such, after the N2 alert, they wanted the high-fidelity radar data collected from the Strike Group.
That night in the berthing I asked a very close friend in intel if he  could confirm the legitimacy of the film. Without speaking, he gestured  that it was correct. So, my skepticism began to fade and that next day a  group of individuals were "cod'ed" onto the carrier and they retrieved  all the tapes. I can confirm they cod'ed onto the ship, but the seizure  of tapes came from people that work in those shops. 

- https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comme...re_while_on_board_an/?st=JBGR1RZM&sh=51769c5f 

Not deleted, seized, potentially for exploitation.

So yeah, someone was highly interested in this event within the DoD. Whether that was because it was of an unexplained nature or part of a test of a very capable secret aerospace program, remains unclear. 

What is so interesting

Luis Elizondo, the former DoD intelligence officer who headed up the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) until 2012, is now an investigator with Tom DeLonge’s ‘To The Stars Academy’ and is featured on HISTORY’s new television program (ie: the History Channel), “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation”.

It was Elizondo and the ‘To The Stars Academy’ that were integral in bringing to the public the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Navy cockpit video from 2004, with USS Nimitz-based pilots’ comments that included, “Holy sh*t, what is that?”, and “It’s white. It has no wings. It has no rotors,” and “It didn’t fly like an aircraft. It was so unpredictable.”

When Elizondo ran the DoD’s AATIP, he compiled a list of extraordinary, logic-defying capabilities most commonly associated with unidentified aerial phenomena sightings. Here are Elizondo’s “five observables”:

  • Anti-gravity lift – UAPs (Unidentified Ariel Phenomenon) have no visible means of propulsion and lack flight surfaces such as wings – thus the tubular, ‘Tic Tac’ description. They thus fly and operate using systems that do not rely on air, pressure, lift forces, and other qualities that conventional propulsion utilize.
  • Sudden and instantaneous acceleration – UAPs will accelerate or change direction so quickly that no human pilot could survive the g-forces. This implies [1] non-human operation, [2] robotic or automated operation, or [3] inertial suppression abilities.
  • Hypersonic velocities without signatures – Aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound will typically leave a “signature” like vapor trails and sonic booms. UAPs don’t. They are a closed-loop system, where all conventional vehicles are open-loop systems.
  • Low observability or cloaking – Witnesses to a UAP will usually only see a glow or haze around them.
  • Trans-medium travel – UAPs have been seen moving in and between different environments, such as space, the earth’s atmosphere and even water. USS Princeton radar operator Gary Vorhees later confirmed from a Navy sonar operator in the area that day that a craft was moving faster than 70 knots underwater, roughly two times the speed of nuclear subs.

UAPs’ origins are still officially unknown. Are they a super-top-secret U.S. defense project? Do they hail from Russia? China? Or from even further afield? The only thing we do know is that their capabilities exceed any technologies currently in the U.S. arsenal.

Could it be ours?

The latter possibility is also very hard for people to come to terms with—that this capability could belong to the U.S. military.

There is no better place to test such a system than against the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group with its CEC abilities during its workup off the Baja Coast.

It is not an operational environment.

 According to the report (turn  to page 6), a Lt. Col. was doing a Function Test Flight (a test to see  if the plane was fully functional after being repaired) when he was  asked to go check out an "unidentified airborne contact," along with two  other pilots.
  
 He was asked if he had any ordnance (weapons) on board, to which he replied no.
  
 Officials say this was a strange question; no air controller had ever  asked him that when dealing with an unknown contact situation.
  
 Soon after, he came close to the coordinates of the unknown object and was told to "skip it" and head back by the controller.
  
 Instead, the Lt. Col. decided to go check it out.
 
What he found was a "disturbance" in the water between 50 and 100 meters in diameter that was close to a round shape.
  
 It created a large area of frothing white water, and reminded the  pilot of "something rapidly submerging from the surface like a submarine  or a ship sinking."
  
 Soon after, he looked toward the area again and found no trace of the disturbance or any craft near the spot.
  
 According to the report, the disturbance may have been caused by an AAV that was 'cloaked' or 'invisible to the human eye.' 

-Outerplaces

Aircraft are not armed and nobody is expecting a fight.

It is high-level integrated training with crews that have sharpened skills as they prepare for a cruise in which they could very well be called upon to fight for their country.

Those  warning areas and range complexes that extend out and down from the Channel Islands off the SoCal coast are among the best space the U.S. military has for training and testing advanced hardware and tactics in a secure and sanitized environment. 

In other words, it was an ideal testing environment that featured the very best aerial, surface, and undersea surveillance sensors and sensor crews on the planet. 

it was an ideal testing environment that featured the very  best aerial, surface, and undersea surveillance sensors and sensor  crews on the planet.
It was an ideal testing environment that featured the very best aerial, surface, and undersea surveillance sensors and sensor crews on the planet.

Black research budget

Maybe these are super-secret new technology on evaluation trials, instead of ET trying to buzz our military.

What then?

The fact is that the U.S. government has poured tens of billions of dollars each year into the black budget. It has done so for the better part of a century. Maybe, the argument goes, they developed some amazing technologies that appear to be extraterrestrial in origin. We consider them extraterrestrial as they are so advanced that we cannot possibly associate them with “home grown” technology.

Maybe, the argument goes, they developed some amazing technologies that appear to be extraterrestrial in origin.
Maybe, the argument goes, the Navy developed some amazing technologies that appear to be extraterrestrial in origin.

The idea here is that somewhere along the way they got lucky. The argument goes that they made major breakthroughs in highly exotic technologies. And these technologies are so outrageous that difficult to understand that we simply associate them as “impossible” or “from another world”.

"There  are some new programs, and there are certain things, some of them 20 or  30 years old, that are still breakthroughs and appropriate to keep  quiet about [because] other people don’t have them yet."

-Ben Rich

There’s some reason to follow this train of thought. This argument mirrors some cryptic statements in the industry. These were made by top players in the “dark areas” of aerospace development.

Like, for instance, the late Ben Rich.

 "Anything you can imagine we already know how to do...."

 -Ben Rich 

Clearly, the ability to defy the limits of traditional propulsion and lift-borne flight would be the pinnacle of aerospace and electrical engineering. It would define new rules. New laws to abide by, and a host of new procedures and disciplines from design, to physical laws, to manufacturing.

 "The U. S. Air Force has just given us a contract to take E. T. back home."

-Ben Rich

Because of this, it would be far too sensitive to disclose, at least in some people’s eyes within the national security establishment. Though, and I do mean this, how are you going to field the new technology without observation? Eh?

 "We also know how to travel to the stars."

-Ben Rich 

But forget fielding. Let’s get down to “brass tacks”. How about testing. For long, long before anything can be put on the “field”, it needs to be developed, prototyped, and tested. First in sub-assemblies, and then in pilot models.

Indeed, even the risk of testing this technology against known air defense capabilities would have to be weighed against the need for the tightest of secrecy.

"Anything you can imagine we already know how to do."

-Ben Rich 

But, of course, the CIA, MAJestic and all the rest have done a real “smash up” job on the idea of extraterrestrial life. It is just about impossible for anyone, contemporaneously, to come forth and say that UFO’s exist. They risk a serious backlash from the programmed mindless masses.

He sees a man with a blank expression and a bleeding head wound above his left eye, who stands a bank of slot machines. The backglass of each has diagonal logos advertising BLAKDIX capsules (n.b. the wallpaper advertises BONERAX), telling players they can play while they wait, and that they can WIN FREE MEDICAL CARE. The reel strips don’t show bells or fruit, but rather, pills. The blood from the head wound shines in the lights.
The movie Idiocracity pretty much aptly describes the direction that America is heading, and with the dumbing down of the institutional systems, a pretty accurate one at that. In the movie, the main character enters a hospital. St. God’s: Insurance Slot Machine. He sees a man with a blank expression and a bleeding head wound above his left eye, who stands a bank of slot machines. The backglass of each has diagonal logos advertising BLAKDIX capsules (n.b. the wallpaper advertises BONERAX), telling players they can play while they wait, and that they can WIN FREE MEDICAL CARE. The reel strips don’t show bells or fruit, but rather, pills. The blood from the head wound shines in the lights.

This is very true, since UFOs carry such a stigma and have deep pop culture roots in our society, the risk of doing so against an unknowing Carrier Strike Group operating under tight training restrictions seems small and the setting uniquely ideal.

Seems so.

America is so dumbed down, that very few people are capable of understandign the transgressions of those in government.
America is so dumbed down, that very few people are capable of understanding the transgressions of those in government.
 "If you've seen it in Star Trek or Star Wars, we've been there and done that."

-Ben Rich 

In other words, could the Tic Tac have been ours? 

"We have things in the Nevada desert that are alien to your way of thinking far beyond anything you see on Star Trek."   

-Ben Rich

Yes. It could have been.

Could have.

But…

Listen up.

If this entire sequence is a result of a “black budget” testing of new technologies, then I will need to point out a few points…

  • It would be tested at NWS China Lake.
  • Field trials are a late testing development.
  • The N2 would be aware of the testing beforehand and briefed.
  • The crews and officers would be briefed on the testing.
  • The retrieval of the sensor data would have been handled differently.

We know that whoever that craft belonged to, the information the flotilla collected on it was of great importance to some entity within the DoD.

Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is a large military installation whose mission is to support the research, testing and evaluation programs of the U.S. Navy. It is part of Navy Region Southwest under Commander, Navy Installations Command. The installation is located in the Western Mojave Desert region of California, approximately 150 miles north of Los Angeles. 

- Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake - Wikipedia 

And the fact that just the radar data was seized makes sense in that the extent of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group radar network could not be replicated over land during small-scale testing, or via a chance encounters with military aircraft.

the fact that just the  radar data was seized makes sense in that the extent of the Nimitz  Carrier Strike Group radar network could not be replicated over land  during small-scale testing, or via a chance encounters with military  aircraft.
The fact that just the radar data was seized makes sense in that the extent of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group radar network could not be replicated over land during small-scale testing, or via a chance encounters with military aircraft.

With all this in mind, the idea that the Navy is supposedly just now interested in what its aviators and sailors see when it comes to unexplained craft peculiar and nebulous, to say the least.

One can’t help but feel there are two realities at play within America’s defense apparatus—one that sits on or very near the surface and one that resides deep below it. 

Thus…

  • MAJestic has been working with highly advanced extraterrestrial technology for decades, and operates in the deep black.
  • NWS China Lake has coordinated advanced development programs via MAJestic.

Whether extraterrestrial-related, or home-grown, an event (known as the “tic toc event” occurred) and was observed. For certain China Lake, and MAJestic were both involved.

Whether extraterrestrial in origin, or “home grown” is all up to speculation.

Controlled release of the visible portion of technology without disclosure of achievement milestones.

So why the release now?

Why is the DoD admitting to the observation and study of vehicles that are clearly not of conventional human design? Why now? Why in this venue and in this manner?

If the DoD truly has no idea of what these things are, then it seems absurd that it is just now curious about them. Now, for goodness sakes. After the better part of a century of sightings and major encounters, and denials.

"UFO's are just the imaginings of simpletons. There are no extraterrestrials. The government would tell us."

In fact, we know that isn’t the case historically.

Publicly, the government and the military, has had varying degrees of documented interest in the topic over the years. This includes funded studies, and research. For instance, there is the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (better known as AATIP), and many others.  

One could posit the idea that a government-manufactured (or at least encouraged) information conduit of sorts, is behind this latest admittance by the US Navy.

"It's clearly swamp gas. There is no other reasonable explanation."

This entire arrangement sounds… well… Squirrely.

This, folks, is where the rabbit hole of information and disinformation opens up below us. There is no way around it. We accept it as it is, or we plunge into the abyss. There are no alternatives.

There is the enormous vacuum of verifiable information that the government has created on the matter. That is intentional, and has been in place since the late 1940’s.

Yes. That long.

Now with all the rumor and speculation, one’s truth compass begins to spin crazily, as you dig into these issues.

  • UFO’s are UAP’s.
  • The idea that extraterrestrial life exists is still considered outlandish.
Life on Mars fround by NASA.
  • There is a black budget, but the technologies developed will never be observed by the common man.
  • There might be the remote possibility of others having technologies and vehicles that are superior to what we field in our military.

It is not only about what is real and what is not real. It is fundamentally about what does the government want us to believe and not to believe.

In other words, even if the government wants the truth to come out eventually, it seems alarmingly clear they are going to do it on their own terms, and the timeline for that plan could be measured in decades, not years, or more. 

Reasons for the switch in direction.

There is a very real reason why the Pentagon would want the idea of UFOs injected back into the public’s consciousness and to add validity to it.

They literally spread disinformation to the public in order  to create a wonderfully convenient cover for the myriad clandestine  weapon systems in development or operational at the time.  

Doing so is in itself a very old chapter in Uncle Sam’s information warfare playbook.

During the Cold War, the government actively lied about UFOs and perpetuated UFO hysteria to cover up its secret aircraft programs.

They literally spread disinformation to the public in order  to create a wonderfully convenient cover for the myriad clandestine  weapon systems in development or operational at the time. 

Now, we are once again back in an age of “great power competition,” according to the Pentagon, and billions of dollars are being pumped into new technologies that were considered exotic themselves just years ago.

Trans-medium travel – UAPs have been seen moving in  and between different environments, such as space, the earth’s  atmosphere and even water. USS Princeton radar operator Gary Vorhees  later confirmed from a Navy sonar operator in the area that day that a  craft was moving faster than 70 knots underwater, roughly two times the  speed of nuclear subs.
Trans-medium travel – UAPs have been seen moving in and between different environments, such as space, the earth’s atmosphere and even water. USS Princeton radar operator Gary Vorhees later confirmed from a Navy sonar operator in the area that day that a craft was moving faster than 70 knots underwater, roughly two times the speed of nuclear subs.

With this in mind, reanimating maybe the best and most broadly self-perpetuating cover story of all time for sightings of clandestine aircraft that people see in the sky seems like a highly logical and proven act.

They literally spread disinformation to the public in order  to create a wonderfully convenient cover for the myriad clandestine  weapon systems in development or operational at the time.  

Reinvigorating the presence of UFOs in the American psyche by adding heaps of validity to the topic on an official level and possibly also on a less than official level (To The Stars Academy for instance) can help keep secret programs that grace the skies just that, secret.

And who knows, that list of programs and technologies could include the very Tic Tac and other bizarrely shaped craft that can defy imagination with their aerial feats that have been spotted and even recorded in recent years.

Conclusion

If the Pentagon really doesn’t know what these things are, then I am a sweet potato. Of course they do. The issue isn’t at all about the situational facts, but how the information can be manipulated for advantage.

If the DoD doesn’t know where they come from, after so many years of sightings and odd encounters and its own studies and shadowy probes, then that would be an unfathomable dereliction of duty.

Bigelow,  stated,    “Internationally,  we  are  the  most  backward  country  in  the  world  on  this  issue,”  Mr.  Bigelow  said  in  an  interview.  “Our  scientists  are  scared  of  being  ostracized,  and  our  media  is  scared  of  the  stigma.”   “China  and  Russia  are  much  more  open  and  work  on  this  with  huge  organizations  within  their  countries.  Smaller  countries  like  Belgium,  France,  England  and  South  American  countries  like  Chile  are  more  open,  too.  They  are  proactive  and  willing  to  discuss  this  topic,  rather  than  being  held  back  by  a  juvenile  taboo.”
Bigelow, stated, “Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma.” “China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”

Certainly, considering they are, after all, tasked with keeping America safe from the foreign harm.

But really, how can we believe the idea that the military has zero opinion on the matter?

It seems like a laughable proposition at best. If there is anything they would have high interest in, it would be craft capable of decimating the enemy on a whim. 

With all that being said, what does the Navy’s move to change its procedures and rules in regards to reporting UFOs mean? 

It means nothing. 

So don’t get your collective hopes up.

MAJestic Related Posts – Training

These are posts and articles that revolve around how I was recruited for MAJestic and my training. Also discussed is the nature of secret programs. I really do not know why the organization was kept so secret. It really wasn’t because of any kind of military concern, and the technologies were way too involved for any kind of information transfer. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we were obligated to maintain secrecy at the behalf of our extraterrestrial benefactors.

How to tell...
How to tell -2
Top Secrets
Sales Pitch
Feducial Training
Implantation
Probe Calibration - 1
Probe Calibration - 2
Leaving the USA

MAJestic Related Posts – Our Universe

These particular posts are concerned about the universe that we are all part of. Being entangled as I was, and involved in the crazy things that I was, I was given some insight. This insight wasn’t anything super special. Rather it offered me perception along with advantage. Here, I try to impart some of that knowledge through discussion.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the universe
Alpha Centauri
Our Galaxy the Milky Way
Sirius solar system
Alpha Centauri
The Fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The London Hammer
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
The Mystery of the Bronze Bell
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility
Brown Dwarfs
Apollo Space Exploration
CARET
The Nature of the Universe
The Landscape of the MWI
Type-1 Grey Extraterrestrial
The mysterious flying contraptions.

Utilizing Intention

Using Intention to make your life sparkle.
Using intention to navigate the MWI.

Influencer Questions

Here are posts that have gathered a series of questions from various influencers. They are interesting in many ways and could help all of us unravel the mysteries of the lives that we live.

Interview with an Influencer.
More discussions with an influencer.
FAQ - 1
FAQ - 2
FAQ - 3
FAQ - 4
FAQ - 5
FAQ - 6
FAQ - 7
FAQ - 8
FAQ - 9

MAJestic Related Posts – World-Line Travel

These posts are related to “reality slides”. Other more common terms are “world-line travel”, or the MWI. What people fail to grasp is that when a person has the ability to slide into a different reality (pass into a different world-line), they are able to “touch” Heaven to some extent. Here are posts that  cover this topic.

Cat Heaven
MWI
Things I miss
How MWI allows world-line travel.
An Observed World-Line switch.
Vehicular world-line travel
Soul is not consciousness.

John Titor Related Posts

Another person, collectively known by the identity of “John Titor” claimed to utilize world-line (MWI egress) travel to collect artifacts from the past. He is an interesting subject to discuss. Here we have multiple posts in this regard.

They are;

Articles & Links

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"We discovered that if you want to monetise a blog you need to be getting about 100,000 hits a day! "

-6F12
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A warning to the oligarchy; you will not live through a second American civil war.

There is a sizable majority of the American (and by extension, globalist) oligarchy believe that they will be able to “ride out” the coming “shit-storm” of societal upheaval slated for America. They have bought land, and established residences, and constructed mini-fortresses in far away lands for precisely this purpose. Well, I am going to be the first to lay out the truth; you all will not be able to avoid your comeuppance.

It’s coming.

It’s heading and barrelling right down upon all of us, and this time, the oligarchy will be not be spared.

The American second civil war will not be like Bosnia, Rhodesia, Rwanda, or any other revolutionary messes. You know the ones. Where the wealthy creates a situation, and then skedaddles off to a “safe haven” to wait out the societal reconstruction.

Take note. This time is different.

We are coming after you.

The world is connected. There’s a Burger King and Pizza Hut on Tutuila island, for goodness sakes! Internet is everywhere. We know where your “hidy holes” are, and who built them, and when, and what mechanical systems you utilize. We know which planes you fly, who pilots them, and where the pilots families reside.

We know a lot more than you think we know, and (drop the bullshit) you know that us “deplorables” are not at all the under-educated white racists that you so loudly proclaim. We are watching you all with seething anger.

I met Lloyd Blankfein at a Super Bowl. It was the New England Patriots  and the New Jersey Giants. And Blankfein came up to me, “I know who you  are, but you don’t know who I am.” And I said, “The hell I don’t! You  run Goldman Sachs. I know who –” and he was stunned that I knew who he  was. He said, “I know who you are,” like, “I know who you are. Ha-ha. I  know what you’re up to, but you don’t know who I am.” “Oh, yes, I do.” 

-Rush Limbaugh

We are chomping at the bit for an excuse to come after you all. It’s gonna be glorious.

Shot and dying.
Factory workers, with their company name badges, in the parking lot of their employer. Two dead and one dying with his legs shot off. He and his co-workers had no idea that “world war III” would break out while they were trying to clock in at work. When one group of people identify another group, and target them with hate, and violence, it only escalates. It gets worse. Eventually there is whole-scale blood shed. Do not be under the illusion that it will never happen in America. There are enormous groups of people just chomping at the bit to attack conservatives and traditionalists. All in the name of a progressive utopia.

And no. You cannot avoid our wrath.

See how easy it was to find this information, on just a three key-word search. Very easy.

But you know, escape anywhere will be fraught with problems. We, as humans, are all interconnected. He have histories, associations, and ties. And, it’s not all “black and white” internet data streams either. It’s personal. It’s visceral.

It's not going to be like you all think. With some kind of race genocide, on top of political machinations, with overtures of hicks riding around like some scene out of Mad Max.

There are going to be elements of WWIII, and WMD. There's going to be a great deal of political and sociological changes, and you are right to realize that "blue areas" in America will not be safe.

But you are wrong to think that you all can sneak away and go somewhere where you will be forgotten. You will NOT be forgotten. 

Let that sink in.

And, it’s all going to come back and haunt you.

What? You think that you don’t have siblings, who are married with kids? You think that they are immune from the consequences of your evil machinations? You think that you are NOT on watch lists? You think that your behavior is not tracked? You think that your “connections” in whatever government entity will protect you?

Listen up.

The world is not a new “enlightened”, and “progressive” reality where wars are long behind us. Where citizens will turn in their weapons willingly to be serfs under a wise Kingly leader. Nope. Those are all imaginary fantasies that many of you all believe.

They are not true.

Most of human history has been fraught with terrible, terrible battles and conflicts. Where entire blood lines were executed. Where women, if they were lucky, were enslaved as sex slaves, while everyone else were killed. Know your history. Entire cities were decimated. Men, women, children, even the dogs and cats. All killed and the ground salted afterwards.

The time has come that you all must start to live like the Kings of old. With poison testers, thrice-tested body guards, and loyalty oaths that are rock solid. You will not be able to hole-up behind strong stone walls. You will not be able to escape to a land where you will be unknown and untraceable. You will not be able to escape the wrath of your fellow citizens who have spent decades watching you cart your weight around and lord over us.

We are coming for you.

The loss of the freedom to defend yourself and the liberty to live your life is what often suffers under progressive democrat control.
Know your history. This is what really happens when a particular group comes to power and their enemies are disarmed. It is never pretty. Know your history.

You think that your accents, behaviors, and lifestyle won’t give you away. You think that being a flabby old white dude walking on the beach of Mahebourg on Mauritus will be overlooked? Is that what you think? Do you actually believe that an extensive underground lair in Dunedin will protect you? Hey! Am I being specific enough for you? Or, perhaps you think that you will be different…

We are coming for you.

No, you do not have to worry about one singular person. Personally, I not going to do Jack Shit. But what you will need to worry about is the consequences of your support… in all the myriad of ways… for the coming Shit Storm that is going to engulf the United States into a conflagration of an unparalleled magnitude.

Read your history books. You cannot simply take on a defensive posture and hole up like some hermit in a monastery while Rome burns, or the Huns sack your city, rape your women and torture everyone else.

The “bubble” of civility is coming to an abrupt end.

Rape of a girl by military troops.
Graphic photograph of a capture and subsequent rape of a young girl by German soldiers. Know your history. This will be common. Know your history.

It had a good run. At least in America, it did. Eighty years. That’s long enough to assume that things will always be a certain way, and full danger is really only the stuff of nightmares. Well, it is ending.

In large part because of your actions.

As such, the historical “normal” is returning. Buckle up. You and yours are all in the cross hairs.

Greek authors rarely go into any  detail when describing the fall of a city, so if we want to know what  this really means, we are to some extent forced to use our imagination.  However, it's clear from what little we hear that Xenophon's 'universal  law' usually meant 3 things:

All movable property was taken
All adult men were killed
All women, children and elderly men were sold into slavery.

The  first of these points is least well attested, but probably most  widespread. Every warrior who was sent against an enemy settlement would  hope to come away with a profit. 

Homes could be stripped of furniture  and metal objects; temples could be robbed of their dedications and  temple treasuries emptied. If there was time, even the rooftiles and  wooden fittings of houses could be torn off and carried away. 

The simple  fact that large amounts of ancient coinage and jewellry was preserved  in its hiding place (buried, thrown into wells, etc.) shows that people  were quite concerned to keep their valuables out of the hands of greedy  invaders. 

The second point is better known,  because it was a matter of justice and pride. When a city was attacked,  it could choose to surrender; if it did not, it forfeited any claim to  mercy. Those who had decided to resist their enemies would get what they  deserved. The most explicit example of this is the fate Agamemnon  desired for Troy:

Not  a single one of them must escape sheer destruction at our hands. Not  even if a mother carries one in her belly and he is male, not even he  should escape. All together they must be exterminated from Troy, their  bodies untended and invisible.
-- Iliad 6.57-62

There  are loads of examples from Greek history of sieges ending with the  slaughter of all adult men. These massacres removed the defeated  community's ability to fight and ensured that there would be no further  resistance.

The third point arises  from the fact that the Greeks seem to have considered it barbaric to  kill captured women and children as well as men. The few examples of  this in Greek history were condemned as savage. Once the needs of  revenge had been satisfied, the remaining population was instead  considered a potential source of profit:

When  they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most  guilty of the Barkaians and set them impaled around the top of the wall;  the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in  like manner. As for the rest of the Barkaians, she told the Persians to  take them as plunder.
-- Herodotos 4.202

There  was substantial money to be made from this, which is why commanders  sometimes tried to restrain the bloodlust of their victorious troops.  Even if it was just, as well as satisfying, to kill the defenders, it  still amounted to the destruction of a source of income:

Dionysios'  entire army burst into the city (...) and now every spot was a scene of  mass slaughter; for the Sicilian Greeks, eager to return cruelty for  cruelty, slew everyone they encountered, sparing without distinction not  a child, not a woman, not an elder. 

Dionysios, wishing to sell the  inhabitants into slavery for the money he could gather, at first  attempted to restrain the soldiers from murdering the captives, but when  no one paid any attention to him and he saw that the fury of the  Sicilian Greeks was not to be controlled, he stationed heralds to cry  aloud and tell the Motyans to take refuge in the temples which were  revered by the Greeks. When this was done, the soldiers ceased their  slaughter and turned to looting the property.
-- Diodoros of Sicily 14.53.1-3

The  beginning of this passage is unique in actually describing a scene that  must have been typical when a city fell to a Greek army. Most  successful siege assaults were not the result of elaborate  circumvallation, but of a surprise assault or betrayal. 

As a result,  rather than bottling up the helpless enemy from all sides, the attackers  usually entered the city from one point and began their rampage from  there. 

Those left in the city therefore had two choices: either to  resist or to flee. The former would result in the brutal fate sketched  above - but the latter explains how Greek communities often seem to have  survived a lost siege despite the genocidal intent of their attackers.  It was often possible for a substantial part of the population to get  away.

Their ultimate fate would  then depend on what the victorious enemy intended to do with the  settlement. Sometimes (especially in the Archaic period) their intent  was to seize the territory for themselves; in these cases the town would  be razed, and the fugitive population cast adrift. Fear of this outcome  was supposed to keep the Spartans in the fight against the Messenians  early in their history:

The  most wretched of all things is for a man to leave his city and its  fertile fields, reduced to the life of a beggar, wandering with his  mother and aged father, his little children and wedded wife.  Wherever  he ends up, he will be as an enemy dwelling among them. He will succumb  to need and detestable poverty, bring shame upon his family, disgrace  his splendid looks. All forms of dishonour and misery will dog him.  Since this is how it is and no one cares for or respects a wanderer or  his offspring at all, let us fight hard for our land and die for our  children without sparing our lives.
-- Tyrtaios fr. 10.3-14

If  they had friends elsewhere, they might be able to obtain a temporary  home, or even gain resident status and a home away from home, as the  Plataians did at Athens when the Spartans razed their settlement in 427  BC.

In the Classical period, the  intention was often rather to plant settlers on the conquered territory  in order to expand the victorious city's number of land-owning citizens.  This is what Athens did with the land of most of its defeated enemies  from 506 BC onward. In such cases, the captured city might be  reinhabited - at times by the new settlers along with the old population  of women and children, whom they took as wives or slaves.

Alternatively,  once due vengeance had been exacted, the remnants of the city's  population could simply be allowed to return to it, often subjected to  tribute and an imposed political regime. When the Athenians finally lost  their fleet at Aigospotamoi in 405 BC, fear washed through the city,  because the Athenians fully expected to meet the same fate that they had  inflicted upon other Greeks throughout the decades of their Empire -  the eradication of their community, the death of their men, and the sale  of their women into slavery. However, for reasons that are still  debated today, the Spartans decided to spare them. They got away with  "only" a sack, the destruction of their walls, and the imposition of the  tyrannical yoke of the Thirty. 

- What actually happens when a city is sacked? 

You should have paid attention to history class. The historical normal is one where no one is ever safe. It is always a short bubble of time, no more than one or two generations in length where people can live together in some sort of sanity.

But that bubble always pops, and the people living their nice safe lives are often overtaken by the shock and brutality of the reality that will overwhelm them.

We know what will happen.
We know what will happen. It has been well documented. People will be collected. They will be rounded up into urban areas, or centers. The men will be separated out from the group. They will be led to an isolated area, a cellar, a warehouse, a cluster of tree, an area behind a bulldozer. They will then be held down by two people and shot dead.

We are coming for you.

It’s going to be historical. It will be Biblical, and it will consist of many elements that are not at all “enlightened” and “progressive”. It will be raw and unbridled.

Who are “we”?

We have learned all about the great con game, and we are fed up. We know know what is going on and we are pissed, and desire real, substantive change. But for those of us  who have awakened from the con, it is time for a clean break – a refusal  to accept that anything over the past 60 years was any good…a desire,  that is, to move forward in an entirely new way, unshackled to whatever  we might have said or done in the past.
We have learned all about the great con game, and we are fed up. We know know what is going on and we are pissed, and desire real, substantive change. Now, for those of us who have awakened from the con, it is time for a clean break – a refusal to accept that anything over the past 60 years was any good…a desire, that is, to move forward in an entirely new way, unshackled to whatever we might have said or done in the past.

Like water, we are not one set person, but rather a very lose and amorphous collection of many well-educated people that will not allow instigators, and criminals to scurry away unscathed. It won’t be me, but I’m telling you that it will be others. And they won’t have any set plans, no set maps, no coordination. But they will see you all for what you actually are; big, plump, juicy, lush, targets to seize and use for purposes that you do not want to read about.

Yet…

Yet, there is still time. You can alter your future and atone for your sins. Your future does not need to be that of fertilizer spread out upon a glassed-over barren wasteland. You can change. You can start taking action to prevent the crisis that is barrelling straight down the Pike for us all. You can make a difference.

Yes, YOU!

Well… listen NOW.

But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy  you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m  not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I  think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen  in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now? 

I see pitchforks. 

- On  Friday Jun 27, 2014 at 12:04 pm  Michael Krieger posted an article where he offered up a warning for thouse oligarchs about the coming shit-storm and what you can do about it. 

He and others have warned you.

KIlled.
Once a political ideology takes power, they are ruthless in their treatment of opposition. They will kill you, and if you are a woman, they will rape you and then kill you. There will not be any mercy. It is better to die fighting when they come to your house, than to accept the lies that they will put you into “protection” for your own best interests.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. 

There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

-From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats

The is something about money, wealth and power that corrupts. It corrupts everyone it touches, and no one is immune. If you are wealthy then you are corrupted. There are no exceptions.

You might not think that you are corrupted.

You might, somehow, think that you are different. “Just one of the guys that got lucky.” You are deluding yourself.

The “freedom from need” corrupts the soul. Thus, the individual finds other pursuits to occupy the void in their being.

"What I do care about is the kind of power that such money can buy, and  how that power is then abused to purchase politicians and run roughshod  over entire societies. I have also been disgusted with the fact that the  0.01% as a class seem self-absorbed, apathetic and delusional when it  comes to the catastrophe the current economic and financial system is  reaping upon the planet. So busy are they patting themselves on the back  and scrambling to acquire that next billion to see what is rapidly  unfolding beyond their moats."

-  Michael Krieger  

And that is where you are all.

You might consider yourselves smart, intelligent, lucky, fortunate, or whatever.

But you are not.

You have forgotten so much.

Execution
The progressive liberal communists rounded up anyone who could possibly be a threat to them. They loaded them into trucks. They tied their hands behind their backs, and they killed them.

You have forgotten, or maybe never had the experience of being a most valued employee; working 14 hour days for months in a row, earning the company millions of dollars and then you suddenly being let go on Christmas eve. Coming home to a shocked wife, with the baby screaming for food, and you being forced to go into your meager savings… savings that will be depleted in a week… to buy some day-old vegetables, and on-sale food-stuffs.

That’s America for the last fucking three decades you God damn son-of-a-bitches!

You think that we are going to turn the other cheek and not find a scapegoat to roast over some burning embers? Maybe you weren’t the the person who handing out the pink-slip, or the manager that approved it, or the VP that authorized it, or the President that demanded it. But all of you… EVERY… FUCKING… ONE… contributed.

We will never forget.

Your time is coming.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond  the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the  99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. 

The divide between the haves and  have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats 

Yes.

Inequality is one aspect of it. There are “haves” and “have nots”. But that’s not the point. Many of us watched our life fall apart before our very eyes, not because we were lazy while we toiled in the company, but rather instead to make the bottom-line look better to the investors of the companies where we were employed.

Cambodian genocide
We see pictures in history books and say, “nah that could never happen here”. The roads are dirt. The people are wearing military clothing. There isn’t anything that looks like a part of America in the pictures.

This attitude… one of us being just a useful tool… like a broom or a toilet brush… has altered the emotional fabric of America. And, yes, part of the turmoil that you see all over America today is a direct result of this arrogant behavior.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is
intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society.

Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will 
disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us  who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this  economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain  this kind of rising inequality. 

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats  

Oh, do not be under the illusion that the situation and the contributors can all be quantified on some sort of chart. They cannot. Like the school kid relentlessly bullied by the school-hall bullies, an anger has been pent up for decades.

You do not want to be on the losing end of that stick.

Killed girl.
During these times and types of conflicts it is NORMAL for women, and girls to be abducted, raped repeatedly and then killed. This is a historical norm.

The only way that you avid this fate is to confront it.

Face on. Right now.

Do good works, and stay out of politics. Help people.

In fact, there is no example in human  history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t  eventually come out. 

You show me a highly unequal society, and I will  show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples.  

None. 

It’s not if, it’s when.

Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What  everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and  go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially  destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead  of time. 

Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens.  

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats   

You know that this is coming. Its not a surprise.

You all are not fools. Indeed, you all are investing in property, safeguards and insurance plans.

Sex slave
ISIS sex slave at a slave auction in an occupied region of Syria. During periods of change, the plight of women is always a dangerous one.

What I am saying is that clutching your bags of gold and scurrying off to your rat-hole in some remote location is not the answer. Historically it will not end up like you think. This will not be like a Hollywood movie.

Instead, it will (more) be like a barricaded city that tries to deal with an overwhelming and vicious Mongol horde.

Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. 

One  day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the  streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. 

And then  there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream  Vs and fly to New Zealand. 

That’s the way it always happens. If  inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We  will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody.  

But especially for us.

  -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats    

Imagine that you and your family are living in one of those cities, one thousand years ago.

It’s a very large city for the time. With large stone walls that tower up many, many stories high. You have a great life, based on trade along the “silk road”. You are wealthy. You have a large spacious home. You have a beautiful family, servants, fine clothes and a home filled with fine arts, laughter and parties.

You are aware of the coming Mongols.

You have discussed this matter with your other wealthy friends. They all have strong political connections and everyone reassures you that there is nothing to worry about. Most of the Mongols are over-rated they say. Plus they have provided reassurances that our military, with the best fighters in the world are more than a match for them. They even took you on a tour of the military barracks and you saw first hand how well organized they were.

Rather than agree to the demands of the Mongols, the most intelligent in the city advised that the rulers confront the Mongols with their superior military.

And so a strong force of 20,000 of the best warriors in the city left the city gates and marched forward with trumpets blowing to confront the horde.

You don’t know what will happen. But you have been reassured that your military will be victorious. After all, they have never lost a battle for at least four decades.

Still you worry.

All you know is that the military went out one week ago and never returned. The King gave you every assurance that things are proceeding well, and that you need not worry. But the truth is that you feel very uneasy.

Joint suicide.
This is a joint suicide by a Burgermeister and his family upon news that the Americans were entering the town.

The wife says that people are beginning to talk and rumors are starting to fly about what happened at the battle last week.

You cannot put your finger on it, but there is this feeling of dread and gloom that you cannot shake. yet, the sky is blue. The birds are fluttering in the trees, and the boys are playing in the yard. Your daughter just bought a nice silk dress that she is going to wear to a religious celebration in two days. Yet, that dread persists.

“Maybe I should flee?” you ask yourself.

Maybe.

At Politicon 2019 in Nashville on Saturday, during a "conversation" with  Never Trumper MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, James Comey said, "Our leaders must  reflect the glue that holds us together. They can’t be people who lie  all the time. They just can’t. And I hope people see that’s true whether  they are Republicans or Democrats. 

Wallace then asked, "What if he wins  again? Will you still believe that?" 

Comey said, "I will be, from my  new home in New Zeland, I will still believe in America."  

-Townhall

Do you want to place a bet that what Comey says will come true? That he will be safe and forgotten in New Zealand?

Mass grave.
Do not think that in today’s “modern” and “enlightened” society that we are beyond mass genocide against a particular race, or group of people. Here are people who were seized out of their homes at the dead of night by militarized police (the Federal Police), handcuffed with wire-ties (behind his back) and then killed and dumped in a mass grave. Like this poor fella. I am quite sure that the person putting the wire-ties on his clasped wrists was very polite and nice about it. Cool and professional, most certainly. Then he was handed over to others. Those others then killed him like one would step on cockroach. And, with just as much care. What? You think America can’t relive the Bosnia experience?

Or do you think that he will be in chains before he can ever reach an airplane? Or, barring that, seized by the NZ authorities upon the direction of the American government?

All of you are delusional.

Raped and then killed.
Raped and then killed. This is the fate for most targeted women from the ages of 10 to 40. Those outside will probably just be killed.

You keep on dancing near the fire, unaware that you are dowsed in kerosene and that a single spark can set you, and those around your alight.

Because here’s an odd thing. 

During the past three decades,  compensation for CEOs grew 127 times faster than it did for workers.  Since 1950, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio has increased 1,000 percent, and  that is not a typo. 

CEOs used to earn 30 times the median wage; now they rake in 500 times. Yet  no company I know of has eliminated its senior managers, or outsourced  them to China or automated their jobs. Instead, we now have more CEOs  and senior executives than ever before. 

So, too, for financial  services workers and technology workers. These folks earn multiples of  the median wage, yet we somehow have more and more of them.

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats   
Rape center Grbavica.
Grbavica where a huge complex was set up for the mass internment and rape of women. This is what it looked like at the tail end of the war. 1996.

People! You have jumped over the turnstiles, and gobbled up all the money that you can. Then you set up systems to keep it all for yourself. And somehow you think that the rest of us hasn’t noticed.

Well, we have, and we are royally pissed off over it.

Wal-Mart is our nation’s largest employer with some 1.4 million employees in the United States and more than $25 billion in  pre-tax profit. 

So why are Wal-Mart employees the largest group of  Medicaid recipients in many states? 

Wal-Mart could, say, pay each of its  1 million lowest-paid workers an extra $10,000 per year, raise them all  out of poverty and enable them to, of all things, afford to shop at  Wal-Mart. Not only would this also save us all the expense of the food  stamps, Medicaid and rent assistance that they currently require, but  Wal-Mart would still earn more than $15 billion pre-tax per year.  Wal-Mart won’t (and shouldn’t) volunteer to pay its workers more than  their competitors. 

In order for us to have an economy that works for  everyone, we should compel all retailers to pay living wages—not just  ask politely.

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats    

All of you are fucking guilty.

And if you live in an upscale neighborhood, YOU WILL BE TARGETED.

There will be no avenues of escape. You are FUCKED.

SHTF will not be pleasant.
While Donald Trump is undoing many terrible things, nothing is being done about the pre-genocidal conditions already put in place. Unless action is taken by the President or Congress, it is just a matter of time before they will be mobilized against YOU and your family. Take notice.
We rich people have been falsely persuaded by our schooling and 
the affirmation of society, and have convinced ourselves, that we are the main job creators. 

It’s simply not true. There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. 

I earn about 1,000 times the median American annually, but I don’t buy thousands of times more stuff. My family purchased three cars over the past few years, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. I bought two pairs of the fancy wool pants I am wearing as I write, what my partner Mike calls my “manager pants.” I guess I could have bought 1,000 pairs. But why would I? 

Instead, I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good.

 -From Nick Hanauer’s excellent Politico Op-Ed: The Pitchforks are Coming…For Us Plutocrats  

Back to the wealthy man living in his villa in the upscale part of the city-state that he inhabits…

Last night over some chicken and some fine vintage wine, you discussed what was going on with a fellow trader friend of yours. He had entered the city and was planning on leaving in the morning. He said some worrisome things.

He said that he used to trade to numerous cities to the East. But he no longer trade with them any more. They no longer exist.

When we went to visit them, they were abandoned. Some still had the walls intact, but most of the homes were empty. Some wild dogs and a goat or two were all that remained. He said that most of the homes no longer had roofs and it looked like the entire city was sacked and set ablaze.

Some had piles of bones blowing in the sand and trapped under broken stone, bricks and walls. Farm fields of plants weren’t harvested and allowed to go fallow. The trees were ripe with apples, but no one collected them.

He couldn’t tell what happened.

All he said was that it looked like it came upon everyone suddenly and no one was spared. Even the churches were burned to the ground. What was not looted, was intentionally destroyed.

He said that he was going to leave in the morning and wanted the family to leave and accompany him.

Grbavica 1996
960403-A-2407B-008 Photo of a suburb in Sarajevo Bosnia after the fighting that took place between the Serbians and the Muslims,taken by Specialist Nadine Byrnside from the 55th Signal Company Combat Camera team, in a place called Grbavica on 3 April 1996.

In Conclusion.

I tip my hats off to Mr. Hanaeur and Mr. Krieger. I think you all should listen to them. But if you choose not to, that is fine. Then listen to me. Your fucking days are numbered, and if America burns, then do not rest easily, for you will be searched out. Located and slaughtered.

It will be historical.

Heed my words. There will be no place for you to hide.

I am talking about the annuals of history and the role that you will play in it. It will not be pretty. But there are things that you can still do about it. You can still make a difference. And running away to hide is not one of them.

It rarely works.

Cylon Rebels
This is what happens to people who do not “go along” with the “new” way of doing things. It is never pretty. You are rounded up. You are handcuffed, and you are killed. That is the way it has been for thousands of years. It never stopped. It will continue.

It is time to atone for your sins. Do not put it off.

Now, you are probably wondering what happened to the family that was awaiting the news of the battle between their city and the Mongol hordes…

Large Urban Cities…

Worse was to come in 1221 — ‘a year to live in infamy’. While  Genghis’s other armies had been busy in the east, threatening Tbilisi in  Georgia and terrifying the Christian world, Tolui, one of Genghis’s  equally reprehensible sons, took Merv (in modern-day Turkmenistan), one  of the largest cities in the world.  

Promised safety, the citizens  surrendered and emerged from behind their walls. Tolui ‘surveyed the  masses dolefully gathered with their possessions, mounted a golden chair and ordered mass executions to commence’. 

They took four days and nights to complete. 

Genghis’s rotten fruit did not fall far from the tree. Terror — and the certainty of its visitation — was a major weapon in  Genghis’s arsenal: decapitated women, children and even cats and dogs were reputedly displayed.   

- Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?  

Complete devastation…

Incursions into Southeast Asia were largely successful, most factions  agreed to pay tribute, and only the Invasions into Vietnam and Java failed.  

Europe was devastated by the Mongols. 

They destroyed near enough  every major Russian city, and invaded Volga Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Poland,  and Hungary. 

If rumours spread that the Mongols were coming, then it  would cause a mass panic, and some would run to safety.  

There was no  guaranteed way to defeat the Mongol hordes, they continuously defeated  much larger armies, so numerical strength couldn’t protect you.  

Mongol  conquests would leave once populous and flourishing areas as wastelands,  with little to no people, those remaining would be slaves.  

-ESKify 

The Women…

Genghis Khan had so much power that he could do whatever he wanted. 

For  instance, when Genghis occupied some new area, he would kill or enslave  all the men and share all the women amongst his tribe. 

Genghis Khan  would even make beauty contests of captured women to decide which woman is the most beautiful one. 

Yeah, he was having his Miss Universe  competition before it was cool.  So, the queen of those beauty competitions would win the privilege to become one of many Genghis Khan's women. 

Rest of the Mongolian army would share all the other contestants.
   
-The Richest   

The Wealthy…

Genghis Khan was the most feared human of the 13th century, who could  destroy dynasties just by moving his little finger. He created the  Mongol Empire all by himself and earned his eternal spot in the history  books.  

However, a lot of people had to suffer for Genghis Khan to  succeed. Oh yes, the Mongolians were known for their horrendous  torturing techniques. 

One of the most popular was pouring molten silver  down the throat and ears of a victim.  Genghis Khan also liked bending  his enemy's back until the backbone snapped. If that sounds barbaric,  skip this next part. 

So, the Mongols once celebrated victory over  Russians in a very bizarre way. They picked all the Russian survivors,  dropped them on the ground and put a heavy wooden gate on top of them.   

Then, Genghis Khan and the entire Mongol army had a huge banquet on that  wooden gate. They ate, drank, and watched how Russians were dying one  by one from the suffocation, pressure, and wounds.  

-The Richest    

A return to the old ways…

 “The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them  before him, to take all they possess, to see those they love in tears,  to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his  arms.”  

-Genghis Khan. 

SHTF Related Index

This is a collection of my posts related to prepping, SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), CWII (American Civil War 2), Fourth Turning (Strauss–Howe generational theory) and other posts related to the very sad and sorry tatters that America is today. Actually, I am a little stunned that I have written so much about these matters. But America today is very ill and there are things that really should be said.

Here are the posts.

SHTF and Related Index

The Tale of the Killdozer.
The use of technicals for genocide.
The Climax of the Fourth Turning in 2025.
2025 - the Fourth Turning Crisis - A nuclear response
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
The grim future.
Is it clear enough for you?
SJW
r/K selection theory
Pictures of a gun-free utopia.
Link
Historically, how preppers failed during periods of turmoil.
Universal Background Checks
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?
The Ninth Amendment
How they get away with it
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Parable about America
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Democracy Lessons
We can no longer build. As we enter the Fourth Turning.
A polarized world.
America's sunset.
Asshole
Types of American conservatives.
America is no longer a nation. When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation. America is no longer a nation. It might still be the remains of a once great empire, sort of like Rome was after the Vandals sacked it, but as a functioning nation, it is no longer. When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation. I argue that the United States is no longer a nation. Forget about being a nation that follows the Constitution. Rather, I argue that it is not longer a nation in the crudest, simplest, and most primitive terms. What it is is up for debate. But, a nation... no it is not.
Lawless Nation.
A reassessment of American republican democracy.

Some prepper humor…

Nuke from orbit.

Articles & Links

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How we’ve devolved into orderly lawlessness; the catastrophe that is America today.

This article suggests that of the numerous forces tearing America apart, one such force is an out-of-control legal system. No, we are not talking about the US Prison system that incarcerates a full 25% of the inmates on the planet. Though, yes it is a problem. We are instead going to talk about laws and regulations in the United States and the damage to liberty that they have forged. This article argues that when the laws and regulations have become so numerous and complex, that the entire system devolved into lawlessness.

Now, of course, there are numerous forces that are tearing the United States apart, and eventually (sure as shit) it will crumble and die, and a New America will rise up from the ashes. What it will look like, no one knows.

Though, I have painted some pretty dark and gloomy pictures of what could happen in other posts. Don’t you know.

These forces are numerous and include such things as…

  • The socialists Marxist movement started 100 years ago by President Wilson.
  • The greedy oligarchy that is gobbling up everything that they can lay their hands on.
  • The upper middle class which is following the (winning) strategy of the oligarchy.
  • A collapsing culture and morals.
  • A decaying infrastructure.
  • A collapsed educational system churning out imbecile serfs ready to work on “the plantation”.

And, many more.

Here is an article that was written by Alec Orrell . I think that is is really very good. He mapped out how we devolved into orderly lawlessness. His article is titled Legitocracy in America, and it is worth the time to read.

This article is copied as written without much editing aside from some paragraph formatting and the fonts used in this template. 

I added some "pull away" text for highlighting and maybe interjected on or two personal comments along the way (though you will be able to easily see that they are from your's truly.) 

I have added my own pictures to help illustrate some of his fine points, but there are a couple of decorative "splash" pictures on his originally posted venue. 

After reading the article, I would suggest the reader go to his original article and read some of his other works. This fellow is brilliant and a word-smith. (Though he tends to write on a university level, where I tend to be far more plebeian.)

All credit to the author Alec Orrell writing in Human Events.

Legitocracy In America.

How we’ve devolved into orderly lawlessness.

By Alec Orrell on October 10, 2019

The commentariat across the political spectrum have recently reveled in predicting imminent authoritarianism and the “literal death of democracy” unless sundry bugbears are stopped.

As Murray sees it, the United States’ hyper-complicated  and outrageously voluminous law is much the same as no law at all for  the ordinary citizen.

The catastrophizing is quaint.

Perhaps they are too terrified, distracted, or dissembling to utter the truth obvious under closer examination: the United States ceased to operate as a constitutional democratic republic at least 100 years ago. Democracy isn’t “in peril”—it’s dead and buried.

The United States ceased to operate as a constitutional democratic republic at least 100 years ago. Democracy isn’t “in peril”—it’s dead and buried.

How did we get here?

How did we get here? Social scientist Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) penned a fascinating but little-remarked book titled By The People in 2015. There, Murray argued the United States has become, in effect, a lawless society.

His assertion may strike some as odd, because lawless usually calls to mind a breakdown in order, like in Afghanistan or Somalia.

But countries maintain order without righteous law all the time.

Dictators the world over regularly keep the peace using suppression and intimidation. There’s no shooting in the streets, but there’s no sense of justice or predictability, either.

Dictators  the world over regularly keep the peace using suppression and  intimidation. There’s no shooting in the streets, but there’s no sense  of justice or predictability, either.
Dictators the world over regularly keep the peace using suppression and intimidation. There’s no shooting in the streets, but there’s no sense of justice or predictability, either.

LAWS, LAWS, AND MORE LAWS

As Murray sees it, the United States’ hyper-complicated and outrageously voluminous law is much the same as no law at all for the ordinary citizen. The oppressor isn’t a dictator but an incomprehensible and unpredictable justice system passed from one set of leaders’ hands to another, from one political party to another.

Murray writes:

[L]et’s talk about the legal system not as it looks from thirty thousand feet to law professors, where everything can be fit together and rationalized, but how it looks at ground level to ordinary law-abiding citizens … 

I am reminded of science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke’s famous observation that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” 

From ground level, our encounters with today’s legal system as it actually functions are often indistinguishable from lawlessness.

Consider that, between federal, state, city, county, and judge-made law—along with truckloads of regulations and codes by state and federal agencies which carry the full force of law—an American today lives under something like 100 times as much law as his or her great-great-grandfather. That’s a chilling comparison.

An American today lives under something like 100 times as much law as his or her great-great-grandfather.

Further, consider that the average American thoroughly understands few or none of the laws governing him.

Sure, he possesses a vague sense of the basics and some traffic law, but that’s all.

Should the internal functions of the miraculous device go awry, the  average citizen is helpless. He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers  to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the  legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless  of his culpability.
Should the internal functions of the miraculous device go awry, the average citizen is helpless. He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.
 Washington, D.C.; April 29, 2019:  A study released today shows that the vast majority of Department of  Health and Human Services regulations issued over a recent 17-year  period are unconstitutional. The first-of-its-kind study reviewed 2,952  rules issued by HHS and found that 71% of final rules from 2001 through  2017 were issued by low-level officials and career employees who lack  constitutional authority to do so. 

Such  rules are unconstitutional. The Constitution requires that significant  government decisions must be made solely by “principal officers”  appointed by the president after Senate confirmation. Issuing a  regulation with the force of law is one of those actions that only  principal officers can perform.

The  majority of unconstitutional rules were issued by the Food and Drug  Administration. Just 2% of FDA rules were issued by principal officers,  while 1,860 rules were finalized and issued by career employees. 

“In  a democracy, those who make the rules need to be accountable to the  people,” report co-author Thomas Berry, an attorney at Pacific Legal  Foundation, explained. “That’s why the Framers included the Appointments  Clause in the Constitution. Only properly-appointed officers in the  executive branch may issue regulations that are binding on the public.  This preserves democratic accountability for significant executive  branch actions.”

One such  rule is the controversial “Deeming Rule,” which classifies tobacco-free  vaping products as tobacco products. The rule prohibits Steve Green, a  California vape shop owner, from telling his customers his story about  using vaping to stop smoking and recover from early signs of emphysema.  PLF filed three lawsuits challenging the rule last year. 

“Among  the hundreds of illegal FDA rules, 25 rules were classified as  significant because they had an impact on the American economy of at  least $100 million or had other significant economic impacts,” said  Angela Erickson, PLF’s strategic research director and co-author of the  report. “Congress and the White House should ensure that this practice  ends and agencies comply with the law.”

The full report is available at pacificlegal.org/HHSreport. 
He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.

The law is like an iPhone: a miraculous device at which he glances all the time and uses for simple tasks without knowing the first thing about how the internal functions perform their magic.

Should the internal functions of the miraculous device go awry, the average citizen is helpless.

He usually cannot afford skillful lawyers to interpret the laws or to defend him when he is forced to confront the legal system. A lawsuit or a criminal prosecution ruins him, regardless of his culpability.

In the United States, Federal drug defendants who won’t plead guilty pay dearly, according to our new report, “An Offer You Can’t Refuse.” Prosecutors use their ability to vary the charges to seek longer mandatory sentences for people who turn down plea bargains. Defendants who go to trial receive sentences that, on average, are three times as long. Not surprisingly, 97 percent of drug defendants are convicted by pleas, not trial
In the United States, Federal drug defendants who won’t plead guilty pay dearly, according to our new report, “An Offer You Can’t Refuse.” Prosecutors use their ability to vary the charges to seek longer mandatory sentences for people who turn down plea bargains. Defendants who go to trial receive sentences that, on average, are three times as long. Not surprisingly, 97 percent of drug defendants are convicted by pleas, not trial.

The wrongfully accused regularly plea bargain to avoid being crushed by the legal process.

The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States end not in courtroom trials but in negotiated agreements between prosecutors and defense lawyers. Plea bargaining dates to the 1800s and has often been controversial. Law-and-order advocates say the practice lets criminals get lower sentences, while some defense lawyers and civil libertarians say it coerces defendants to give up their legal rights. Most prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, however, say the practice helps produce justice while reducing strains on the court system. Defense lawyers last year cheered a court ruling that would have barred prosecutors from offering leniency in exchange for a defendant’s testimony against accomplices. But prosecutors celebrated last month when the ruling was overturned.
The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States end not in courtroom trials but in negotiated agreements between prosecutors and defense lawyers. Plea bargaining dates to the 1800s and has often been controversial. Law-and-order advocates say the practice lets criminals get lower sentences, while some defense lawyers and civil libertarians say it coerces defendants to give up their legal rights. Most prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, however, say the practice helps produce justice while reducing strains on the court system. Defense lawyers last year cheered a court ruling that would have barred prosecutors from offering leniency in exchange for a defendant’s testimony against accomplices. But prosecutors celebrated last month when the ruling was overturned.

The citizen is told that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but he cannot correct his ignorance himself nor pay to have others supplement it.

James Madison wrote in Federalist #62:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. 

Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Madison’s sketch of run-amok law bears an uncanny resemblance to the United States today.

He highlights a fundamental truth Americans have forgotten amidst the partisan bickering over which byzantine laws to pass:

Representative lawmaking does not produce democracy when demos (“the  people”) cannot grasp the laws, either to express their disagreement  with them or to follow them. 

In Madison’s view, such edicts aren’t real law, just dressed-up tyranny divorced from the ethos of a constitutional republic.

 Taxation of  Social Security benefits. The complicated formula and the 20 step worksheet used to determine the percentage of  benefits (up  to 85%) subject to tax aren’t new, but they are affecting more Americans as the number receiving Social Security grows. Back in 1997, my then editor, Forbes' Investment Strategies Editor William Baldwin, used his Harvard degree in applied math to reduce this tax madness to an amusing equation and graphic
Taxation of Social Security benefits. The complicated formula and the 20 step worksheet used to determine the percentage of benefits (up to 85%) subject to tax aren’t new, but they are affecting more Americans as the number receiving Social Security grows. Here is the equation as i stood in 1997.

Were Madison alive to witness the present debacle, he might opine:

The United States possesses no authentic law, only enforced order. 

A tyrant who inflicts his will with rifles and a legal priesthood who inflict their will with occult laws are functionally equivalent. In both cases, citizens lose all confidence in a coherent moral order of their own design underlying their day-to-day existence.

The United States possesses no authentic law, only enforced order.

RULE BY LAWYERS

The United States today might be better called a legitocracy—a government by the legal priesthood for the legal priesthood.

Judges, lawyers, prosecutors, regulators, law schools, bar associations, and legal-activism conglomerates like the ACLU and GLAAD use their specialized knowledge to function as gatekeepers of society’s rules, politics, and culture.

Nothing is accomplished without the involvement of the legal priesthood.

Judges, lawyers, prosecutors,  regulators, law schools, bar associations, and legal-activism  conglomerates like the ACLU and GLAAD use their specialized knowledge to  function as gatekeepers of society’s rules, politics, and culture.Nothing is accomplished without the involvement of the legal  priesthood.
Judges, lawyers, prosecutors, regulators, law schools, bar associations, and legal-activism conglomerates like the ACLU and GLAAD use their specialized knowledge to function as gatekeepers of society’s rules, politics, and culture. Nothing is accomplished without the involvement of the legal priesthood.

Armies of lawyers draft the bills for elected lawmakers, who enact their recommendations with only a vague understanding of their mandates.

Then lawmakers turn the laws back over to prosecutors, regulators, and jurists for implementation and enforcement. More often than not, lawmakers come from the ranks of the law-schooled themselves.

Representative lawmaking does not produce democracy when demos (“the people”) cannot grasp the laws, either to express their disagreement with them or to follow them.

Thus the legal priesthood operates in a closed system, disconnected from the populace and unaccountable in practice to anyone but themselves.

Thus the legal priesthood operates in a closed system, disconnected from the populace and unaccountable in practice to anyone but themselves.

To be sure, the priesthood declaims with great eloquence about “democracy,” a “nation of laws,” and “the people”; but they amount to an insular social class—the card carriers in a one-party state.

The rest of us are merely along for the ride.

One is reminded of the famous maxim:

“Those who vote decide nothing.  Those who count the votes decide everything.” In this case, one might  say: “Those who enact the laws and vote for lawmakers decide nothing.  Those who interpret and enforce the laws decide everything.”

Much like the aristocracies and theocracies of bygone days, the chieftains of the legitocratic class have fallen into warlording over which of them gets to make the rules that control the society and the state.

They bicker over bizarre ideologies and disrupt elected government at every turn with nuisance lawsuits and politically-motivated prosecutions. They divert political and cultural issues from legislatures and elections into courtrooms.

They divert issues away from legislatures and elections and into the courtrooms instead.

For example, Americans recently were treated to the groaning spectacle of a federal judge deciding how the President may operate his personal Twitter account, and whether biological men must be allowed in women’s locker rooms when they identify as women.

As in all warlordism, the resulting instability destroys the average citizen’s peace, predictability, and trust.

He may not be able to articulate the government’s devolution into feuding legitocracy; nevertheless, he senses that he lives in a failed state.

He  sees no sacred or impartial justice emerging from the legal system  anymore. Virtue and common sense have no place and no reward. All he  sees are wizards in tailored suits hurling thunderbolts at one another  and terrorizing his day-to-day existence with their staggering  litigiousness and self-righteous culture crusades.
He sees no sacred or impartial justice emerging from the legal system anymore. Virtue and common sense have no place and no reward. All he sees are wizards in tailored suits hurling thunderbolts at one another and terrorizing his day-to-day existence with their staggering litigiousness and self-righteous culture crusades.

He senses that he lives in a failed state.

He sees no sacred or impartial justice emerging from the legal system anymore.

Virtue and common sense have no place and no reward.

All he sees are wizards in tailored suits hurling thunderbolts at one another and terrorizing his day-to-day existence with their staggering litigiousness and self-righteous culture crusades.

The average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind,  defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek  redress for real injuries.

Should anyone bother to ask him, the citizen will declare that the words chiseled on the Supreme Court building (“Equal Justice Under Law”) have turned to bitter irony.

He watches with ballooning cynicism as the  legal priesthood deploys word games to exonerate one another’s heinous manipulations, then turn and damn ordinary citizens like him to years of legal hell  for standing up to their diktats.
He watches with ballooning cynicism as the legal priesthood deploys word games to exonerate one another’s heinous manipulations, then turn and damn ordinary citizens like him to years of legal hell for standing up to their diktats.

He watches with ballooning cynicism as the legal priesthood deploys word games to exonerate one another’s heinous manipulations, then turn and damn ordinary citizens like him to years of legal hell for standing up to their diktats.

Justice is no longer a sacred right grounded in fear of God and His mystery. It is something you hire or receive as a reward for loyalty.

Justice is no longer a sacred right.

The legitocratic class has changed the motto of the United States from “In God, We Trust” to “There Is No God—Trust Us.”

Thus, the average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind, defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress for real injuries.

He fears to resist the legal system’s incessant cultural bullying, lest he gets sucked into the vortex and land in Oz for years pursued by flying monkey lawyers.

Thus, the average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind,  defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress  for real injuries. He fears to resist the legal system’s incessant  cultural bullying, lest he gets sucked into the vortex and land in Oz  for years pursued by flying monkey lawyers.
Thus, the average citizen hesitates to publicly speak his mind, defend his person, establish a business, worship openly, or seek redress for real injuries. He fears to resist the legal system’s incessant cultural bullying, lest he gets sucked into the vortex and land in Oz for years pursued by flying monkey lawyers.

He can’t say how it happened, but the citizen knows he dwells at the bottom of a multi-tiered, politically corrupt, unchecked cabal of a legal system that cares nothing for his well-being.

  • Will the legal priesthood reform themselves?
  • Will activist judges voluntarily give up their arrogated and unconscionable power of nationwide injunction?
  • Will the Supreme Court allow voters and lawmakers to address questions of culture and politics through elections and legislation once again, rather than dictating both from the bench?
  • Will law schools cease to operate as seminaries of progressive social engineering, imperious elitism, state-enforced credentialism, relativism, nihilism, identity politics, and other ever-shifting philosophies?
  • Will the legal priesthood stop terrorizing the unanointed and favoring their own, demanding with one voice that the law revert to a form comprehensible and accessible to the average citizen?

Of course they will, right after unicorns fly out of Chief Justice John Roberts’ robes.

He can’t say how it  happened, but the citizen knows he dwells at the bottom of a  multi-tiered, politically corrupt, unchecked cabal of a legal system  that cares nothing for his well-being. Happiness has been replaced by trinkets and freedom by tax rebates, and liberty... well, it just doesn't exist.
He can’t say how it happened, but the citizen knows he dwells at the bottom of a multi-tiered, politically corrupt, unchecked cabal of a legal system that cares nothing for his well-being. Happiness has been replaced by trinkets and freedom by tax rebates, and liberty… well, it just doesn’t exist.

PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN

One cannot do better than echo Thomas Paine: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Americans live in denial of their rationalized, systemic oppression.

Over the last five or so generations, legalistic authoritarianism has progressively choked the average citizen’s pursuit of happiness, like a slow garroting in a collar of recondite laws.

Americans live in denial of their rationalized, systemic oppression. Over the last five or so generations, legalistic authoritarianism has  progressively choked the average citizen’s pursuit of happiness, like a  slow garroting in a collar of recondite laws.
Americans live in denial of their rationalized, systemic oppression. Over the last five or so generations, legalistic authoritarianism has progressively choked the average citizen’s pursuit of happiness, like a slow garroting in a collar of recondite laws.

If one doubts this, it’s only because he hasn’t experienced the extremities of the legal system’s insanity himself yet—the Kafkaesque horror of an endless, politically motivated IRS audit, or a court telling a father he must call his 6-year-old son a girl. The law and government do not serve the will of the people; it’s the other way around now.

The law and government do not serve the will of the people; it’s the other way around now.

Where does that leave the citizen?

He is reduced to hoping the orderly lawlessness of the legal system remains confined to the courts and the government, that disorderly lawlessness does not erupt in public.

He is right to be concerned.

Americans are quarreling with  one another in frustration. A growing number of individuals and groups  misidentify the root of the tyranny and endanger public order,  blaming vague and simplistic concepts like “white supremacy,”  “fascism,” “the patriarchy,” “capitalism,” etc. for the oppression they  sense.
Americans are quarreling with one another in frustration. A growing number of individuals and groups misidentify the root of the tyranny and endanger public order, blaming vague and simplistic concepts like “white supremacy,” “fascism,” “the patriarchy,” “capitalism,” etc. for the oppression they sense.

Americans are quarreling with one another in frustration. A growing number of individuals and groups misidentify the root of the tyranny and endanger public order, blaming vague and simplistic concepts like “white supremacy,” “fascism,” “the patriarchy,” “capitalism,” etc. for the oppression they sense.

Meanwhile, disturbed young male shooters at the end of their tether scapegoat women and minority groups for the proliferation of politically correct rules under which they feel smothered.

Tracing their anxieties back reveals a common source: alienation from the rules that govern them.

Tracing their anxieties back reveals a common source: alienation from the rules that govern them.
Tracing their anxieties back reveals a common source: alienation from the rules that govern them.

Unsurprisingly, the legal priesthood plays both sides to lengthen their reach and tighten their grasp: The root problem is not that the people toil under mountains of legal minutiae and can’t even breathe without violating at least five laws.

No, according to them the problem is always too much freedom requiring (you guessed it!) more laws.

  • Laws restricting firearms.
  • Laws restricting hurtful speech.
  • Laws restricting plastic straws.

Laws, laws, laws.

A violent response.

Rooftop Koreans taking matters into their own hands when the government failed them.
Rooftop Koreans taking matters into their own hands when the government failed them.

A militia-like civil defense response from ordinary citizens akin to the Roof Koreans of the L.A. riots seems well within the realm of possibility these days.

Fed-up citizens arm themselves in ever-greater numbers.

Scene from the television series "The Walking Dead". Americans are getting ready for the cloflict that lies ahead. They are "prepping" and make no mistake, it will happen unless drastic action takes place immediately.
Scene from the television series “The Walking Dead”. Americans are getting ready for the conflict that lies ahead. They are “prepping” and make no mistake, it will happen unless drastic action takes place immediately.

They worry about losing the capability to manage both social instability and the last vestiges of fundamental civil rights.

American citizens must be brought to understand that the struggle gripping the country does not fundamentally pit liberals against conservatives or Democrats against Republicans.

The struggle pits average citizens who want to live under clear, predictable, and widely understood laws against the legal priesthood’s empire of complication and confusion.

American citizens must be brought to understand that the struggle  gripping the country does not fundamentally pit liberals against  conservatives or Democrats against Republicans. The struggle pits  average citizens who want to live under clear, predictable, and widely  understood laws against the legal priesthood’s empire of complication  and confusion.
American citizens must be brought to understand that the struggle gripping the country does not fundamentally pit liberals against conservatives or Democrats against Republicans. The struggle pits average citizens who want to live under clear, predictable, and widely understood laws against the legal priesthood’s empire of complication and confusion.

And that is the way it is.

One of the first things that you notice when you move to another nation is just how simple it is. 

If there is a tax, it's only one singular tax. There are no regulations, and the things that you can do, from driving without a seat-belt, to having your five year old buying a beer for you is astounding. 

Here in communist China, I am afforded so many, many MANY freedoms that Americans haven't a clue to what they have lost. That's a fact Jack. Deal with it.

If the public can grasp that their system of government has slowly changed without their consent, the legal priesthood’s magical powers will evaporate and the U.S. legal system will be seen for what it is: a recondite abomination propped up by platitudes. At that time, rescuing the democratic republic back from the pit of legitocracy stands a chance.

Until that time, the wizards will continue to rule, and may God help us all.

May God help us all.

SHTF Related Index

This is a collection of my posts related to prepping, SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), CWII (American Civil War 2), Fourth Turning (Strauss–Howe generational theory) and other posts related to the very sad and sorry tatters that America is today. Actually, I am a little stunned that I have written so much about these matters. But America today is very ill and there are things that really should be said.

Here are the posts.

SHTF and Related Index

The Tale of the Killdozer.
The use of technicals for genocide.
The Climax of the Fourth Turning in 2025.
2025 - the Fourth Turning Crisis - A nuclear response
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
The grim future.
Is it clear enough for you?
SJW
r/K selection theory
Pictures of a gun-free utopia.
Link
Historically, how preppers failed during periods of turmoil.
Universal Background Checks
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?
The Ninth Amendment
How they get away with it
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Parable about America
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Democracy Lessons
We can no longer build. As we enter the Fourth Turning.
A polarized world.
America's sunset.
Asshole
Types of American conservatives.
America is no longer a nation. When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation. America is no longer a nation. It might still be the remains of a once great empire, sort of like Rome was after the Vandals sacked it, but as a functioning nation, it is no longer. When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation. I argue that the United States is no longer a nation. Forget about being a nation that follows the Constitution. Rather, I argue that it is not longer a nation in the crudest, simplest, and most primitive terms. What it is is up for debate. But, a nation... no it is not.

Some prepper humor…

Nuke from orbit.

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America is no longer a nation. When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation.

America is no longer a nation. It might still be the remains of a once great empire, sort of like Rome was after the Vandals sacked it, but as a functioning nation, it is no longer.

When you cannot enforce a border, enforce laws, and prosecute criminals, you no longer have a nation.

History doesn’t like vacuums anymore than nature does, and what we’re  facing is a vacuum of authority that the USA has never experienced  before. That’s the final consequence of a society in which anything goes and nothing matters. 

Better check what you believe and who you believe in the days ahead, and recalibrate accordingly. This ain’t no foolin’ around. 

-Kunsler

Here is an article written by Gordon Wysong titled “Will we ever prosecute?”. He makes the point that if the worst criminals can walk free, then (regardless of all the lesser crimes that are prosecuted) the nation does not enforce laws. And if laws are not enforced, there is no nation. For a nation without laws is pure anarchy.

It is presented as written, with little editing aside from the blogger-template on word-press. Any photos and commentary are set apart so that the reader can realize that it is not part of the article but rather designed to supplement it. 

Links to other related articles are embedded in the text. You can click on them and they will open up in a new tab. That way you will not need to interrupt your reading of this article.

Enjoy.

October 12, 2019

Will We Ever Prosecute?

By Gordon Wysong

Imagine that the local cops know that a gang member, named William, broke into the pawn shop and stole guns, jewelry, and money.  

William’s fingerprints, film image, and DNA add to the hard evidence log.  The owner knows it; the prosecutor knows it; William’s gang associates know it.  But he is not arrested.  

Nearby shopkeepers and neighborhood mothers are asking why he is walking the street.  No one explains it; mum’s the word.  

Could it be there is a grand plan to take out the gang’s leaders?  No one knows; mum’s the word.  

Shopkeepers and residents are about to give up and start moving away from the area, and no one asks them to stay the course.


Fast forward to today.

Fast-forward to today’s still vocal Obama gang.  Why no indictments?  Mum’s the word.  Can anyone hold to the faith in American justice?  Those who support the rule of law feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.  

It’s coming — oh, wait, it’s coming…oh, wait…

Without doubt, a criminal cabal is an extraordinarily complex organization, and understanding who did what, why, when, and how is a challenge to the mental faculties of anyone.  But, what happens if the full scope of activities is never clear?  

Does everyone get off?  Does complexity confer immunity?


Is our government that incompetent?

In engineering, there is no perfect answer to anything, so changes are made incrementally, addressing the problems as they are recognized.  Each step brings a clearer view of remaining problems, which are then addressed, each in its turn.  

The completed project is still flawed, but the solution is practical and productive.

So it should be with a grandiose scheme like the Russia Hoax.  The ringleaders don’t have to be handled with kid gloves.  They don’t even have to be handled at all.  Just start with the low-hanging fruit, and get as far (up the tree) as possible.


Those old enough to remember My Lai, Vietnam, know that Lt. Calley and Cpt. Medina were not alone in their actions.  However, their prosecution forever changed the game of passing the buck on war crimes.

So, too, can rabid prosecution of bit players in the Russian Hoax forever change the landscape in plots involving treason.  

Those who would participate at the lower levels must know they are subject to prosecution, so they remain circumspect in such a re-enactment of the coup attempt.  This would be the Achilles heel of another cabal — those who are intimidated by the prospect of prison.  Those who realize they don’t have sufficient rank to escape punishment will be loath to participate in such a scheme.  Without them, there will be no operational viability to an unlawful coup.

Admittedly, there are always problems in pursuing a criminal case.  It must be so under our Constitution, but it cannot be impossible!


Prosecution should not be impossible.

Prosecutors don’t get all the information, but at a certain point, for each criminal, evidence accumulates that there is a real and provable crime.  

It may not include every transgression of that person, nor is it the magic revelation, untangling the Gordian knot of the conspirators.  It is a simple criminal act.  

It is what it appears, and it need not be put in the context of the big picture — it is as plain as the nose on your face.

That stage is the stimulus for a prosecutor.  It is the time to move.  If the DOJ acts, many of the sins can never be prosecuted, because the prosecution of their lesser crimes may foreclose pursuit of other crimes under double jeopardy protection.  

However, failure to move puts evidence and witnesses at risk of being lost.  This point has passed for so many of the coup conspirators that it seems there will be no justice for many of them, like Lois Lerner.

Why?

Is it clear enough for you?

Why no action yet?

A full recounting of all that is already known would be tedious, and to expound on the criminal conduct yet again seems shrill.  It is not necessary to understand the intertwining of all the crimes before simply bringing the charges that are facially obvious.  

But the deferral of prosecution, for whatever reason it is done, allows many of the cabal to walk free when they shouldn’t.  

In fact, the indication is that they are continuing the very conduct for which they should be prosecuted.

Why has McCabe not been charged with lying to the FBI, lying under oath?  Nothing more is needed to start the dominos falling.  Who will step forward to exonerate him?  No one can, and no one will.  That omission — of a vigorously supported defense — will send a message to the others in the coup conspiracy.

Why has Samantha Power not been indicted for violating national security requirements in unmasking or transferring her unmasking authority to others?  It doesn’t pass the smell test that she is too important to be prosecuted.

Why is Huma Abedin strolling around, free as a bird?  She forwarded classified emails to Anthony Weiner’s laptop.  What else is needed to demonstrate a crime?

Did Strzok do anything?  Did Page?   Which one lied to Congress?  Their contradictory accounts mean at least one is a perjurer.  Sure, there is more “there” there, but it isn’t necessary to keelhaul them; just send them to jail, and send others a message.

How they get away with it

Listing all the cabal members, who are quite obviously criminal, is not easy — in fact, it is not doable.  

It need not be the aim.  A public that finds this whole thing partisan or tedious will not be easily impressed if a 2,000-count indictment naming 43 people is suddenly dropped.  Bringing along the public is certainly part of sending the message for future conspirators.  

It probably is better done gradually.

Suggested Action

Removing the context and simply prosecuting crimes is the method to educate both today’s and tomorrow’s citizens.

Selecting single actors, and naming obvious crimes, will have a chance to convince even skeptical partisans that something is wrong.  The lack of support from other participants will indeed remove most doubt.

The full scope of what has gone on will never be known, but the lessons for future participants in such a scheme is essential.  The next time, the prosecution will be more severe, more certain, and more expedient.  Protecting the Constitution is more important than perfect justice.  Some miscreants will escape, but they will never sleep well again.  The lesson must be taught.

A DOJ that fails to move loses its credibility and its honor.  The foundation of the Republic is placed at risk.  Without the rule of law, what do we have?

At some point, deferral of prosecution is dereliction or abetting.  Has it reached that point?

I argue that it has. 

Watergate prosecuted Nixon within months. The prosecution of the assassination of Lincoln, and Reagan took months.

It's almost four years and there are ZERO prosecutions. ZERO.

Therefore, I argue that the United States is no longer a nation. Forget about being a nation that follows the Constitution. Rather, I argue that it is not longer a nation in the crudest, simplest, and most primitive terms. What it is is up for debate. But, a nation... no it is not.

Comment by John Paul Roberts

 Trump is so far over his head in Washington waters that he is  incapable of realizing that the criminal George W. Bush and Obama  regimes put powers in the hands of the president that enable him to  destroy the plotters of the coup against him.  Instead, Trump “distances himself from Giuliani.”  

In  other words, his enemies have Trump on the run. Has it ever occurred to  Trump that every real whistle-blower, people protected by statutory  federal law, was completely destroyed by the executive branch, and no  one said a word? Yet, here is Trump twisting in the wind on the basis of  an unknown CIA agent who orchestrated the whistleblower complaint with  Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.  In  US law there is no such thing as an unknown whistleblower, much less  one that has more power than the president of the United States.

 We are going to lose a president, who intended to mend America and  restore peace, and our country along with him, because American peace  and prosperity does not comply with the agendas of the elite who rule  us.  

 The American people are so stupid, having demonstrated their  unlimited capability for utter and total stupidity by buying in to the  Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11, Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,”  “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” “Iranian nukes,” “Russian invasions,”  “Russiagate,” ad infinitum, that the Deep State and their media whores  take for granted that the dumbshit Americans will equally accept the  latest lie.

 America is already in the trash bin of history.  Most other countries will say, “good riddance.” 

- Trump Is History and So Is the USA 

Credit to the author…

Gordon Wysong is an engineer and entrepreneur who has served as a county commissioner in Cobb County, Ga.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/will_we_ever_prosecute.html#ixzz62TuM3mBI

Some related links

SHTF Related Index

This is a collection of my posts related to prepping, SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), CWII (American Civil War 2), Fourth Turning (Strauss–Howe generational theory) and other posts related to the very sad and sorry tatters that America is today. Actually, I am a little stunned that I have written so much about these matters. But America today is very ill and there are things that really should be said.

Here are the posts.

SHTF and Related Index

The Tale of the Killdozer.
The use of technicals for genocide.
The Climax of the Fourth Turning in 2025.
2025 - the Fourth Turning Crisis - A nuclear response
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
The grim future.
Is it clear enough for you?
SJW
r/K selection theory
Pictures of a gun-free utopia.
Link
Historically, how preppers failed during periods of turmoil.
Universal Background Checks
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?
The Ninth Amendment
How they get away with it
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Parable about America
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
America's sunset.
Asshole
Types of American conservatives.

Some prepper humor…

Nuke from orbit.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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Free Intention Dream Boards

Here are some free Intention / Dream boards for your use. I would suggest that you copy the (presented image) photos to your computer and alter and customize it to fit your own personalized intentions. As such, please feel free to download and use to your heart’s content.

A dream board is a collage of images, pictures and written affirmations of the intentions and desires you wish to achieve. It helps you through visualization, thus activating the Universal Law of Attraction, or “likes attract like.” 

- 6 Tips for Making a Dream Board - Fit Bottomed Girls 

The so called “Law of Attraction” is an element of the quantum physics law known as the “observer effect“. It has been repeatedly proven that a person’s thoughts alter the reality that they experience.

Though many people outside of MAJestic haven’t a clue as to the mechanism for this behavior.

Here are some attempts to explain this curious effect, and how a person can utilize it for their own personal use. If you are the kind of person that wants to know what all this is all about, and why it is important, these following links might be of help.

Now of course, us in MAJestic (well, at least those in my particular program) actually know how the universe works. We know how to manipulate it, and we do know the dangers of thought imposition.

How it works

Ah, I covered this subject in great detail in other posts.

However, for now, let’s just keep it simple. The universe is nothing like we think it is. Seriously. It does not resemble anything that is being taught in universities, or being promoted in any of the world’s religions.

Time is the movement of consciousness in and out of adjacent world-line variations.

The thoughts generated by the consciousness navigate the movement through these realities.

By controlling your thoughts, you can set destination realities for you to inhabit.

Which, by the way, means that you must be the pilot for your consciousness. You must keep your destination in mind, and your objectives clear. You have to avoid the “rocky shores” or disruptive thoughts. Thus you need to stay away from discordant news, and toxic people.

Dream Boards

I often go on the Internet and see examples of Intention / Dream boards. Their heart is in the right place but they are going about it wrong.

  • Firstly, a “Dream Board” is one element of “Intention Projection”.
  • Secondly, a “Dream Board” is useless without an associated prayer.

Also the theory behind how it works, as promoted on the internet, is really not accurate. To fully understand how an Intention / Dream board works, you need to understand just how our universe works. And, you know what, everyone has it wrong.

Prayer

Unless you are backing up your vision board with prayer, you will not derive full benefit from your dream board. It is your thoughts that define your reality. To navigate in and out of the realities that are constantly evolving and shifting around us, you must pilot your consciousness. You need to be the Captain of your consciousness.

To navigate, you need to control and master your thoughts. You need to do the following…

  • Pray. These are thoughts that show your intentions, and desires.
  • Create a vision board, or vision “splash screen” on your electronic media.
  • Isolate yourself from negative media; news, music or movies.
  • Isolate yourself from negative or disruptive people.

Use of the Vision Board / Splash Screen

You use the sample image as a desktop background. When ever you see the desktop image in the background you say your prayer associated with it. Thus is you want to use multiple backgrounds on a rotating basis, it becomes helpful to have a nice list of intention prayers that you read once a day.

Setting in Microsoft Windows 10.
In the Windows control panel, this is the setting that will enable you to control your desktop splash screen.

Remember, that in order the intention board to work, you must recite your prayers out loud. (This is can be in a whisper, don’t you know.)

The longer you do this, the more “stable” your destination reality will become. However, there will come a point in time when you will “tire” of the prayers and dream boards. When this occurs, let it go and forget about it all. (It’s an important evolution that is established by your consciousness.)

You can do a different prayer and dream board, if you want. Just know that your intention will most certainly manifest.

The Things people wish for

I went on the handy dandy internet, and researched the things that most people wish for. Then I compiled them into a list and I am presenting intentions splash screens for each item on the list. Please consider these splash screens as an idea from which you can base your very own intention splash photos off of. Or use them raw as shown. It’s all up to you.

The Samples

The samples provided are just that. Samples. If you want to use them, feel free, but you MUST include an associated daily prayer with them.

Also note, that providing the samples here does not mean that I agree with the thought projections. Some of the samples offer vices, and other elements that do not fit my personal preferences. They are offered as suggestions for you the reader to base your own dream boards on.

Please take note that all these images and dream board splashes are made using the Microsoft Visio application. It is amazingly easy to use and simple. You just create a picture and add other pictures and text to your desired image.

Further, please take note that there is a trade off between a singular image with prayer, and a collage of images. A group of images will offer the person a greater degree of latitude and versatility in how the intention manifests. This latitude enables the manifestation to occur quicker. A singular image properly prayed for with strong intentions take much longer to manifest, but the results are more exacting.

Here we provide (mostly) singular images for your study and enjoyment.

Power

This intention desktop “splash” is related to POWER.

If you are desirous of increasing your apparent power within the reality that you inherit, then this image is for you. You are free to use it as is, or make your own along these lines. Alternatively, you can fill the entire image screen with smaller images that illustrate the kinds of power that you might wish to evoke.

Power intention
This is the image that you can use if you want to use the power of intention to manifest power for yourself. Feel free to “left click” and save the image to your “Pictures” folder. Then set the desktop background on your computer to this image.

Please note that you must use the following dialog in your prayers associated with this image…

I utilize the desktop image display on my computer to help cultivate the reality that my world-line is.

In all cases, the dominant male figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself.

Images that portray mafia figures, or "bad people" portray myself in similar roles of power. They do NOT, however, manifest these kinds of people arrayed against me.

If you do not take care in your prayers, and in the application of the desktop display intention splash, it could easily “backfire” against you. Therefore, it is critically important for you to have a very clear and well defined image intention with an associated prayer.

After all, unless you are careful on how your thoughts manifest, you might end up having this crew come a knockin’ at your door…

Chinese triad gangsters.
Chinese triad gangsters. If you are not careful and try to use the power of intention to alter your reality towards one of power, you could just as easily invoke the more negative manifestations that come with that territory. This could include Chinese Triad gangsters.

Success in business

Again, here is a a different intention desktop splash. This is for people who are desirous of having a very successful business, and the rewards that come with it.

Success in Business
Success in Business. This is a fine intention (PC) desktop dream splash canvas if you are desirous of being very successful in business… financially. As before, please right click on the image and save to your Pictures folder. Then set your background image display to this image.

Again, it’s not enough just to use this image as a desktop background display. You need to associate it with a prayer. I would suggest that what ever prayer that you utilize, that you incorporate the following prayers / affirmations…

I utilize the desktop image display on my computer to help cultivate the reality that my world-line is.

In all cases, the dominant male figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself.

Images that portray "bad people" portray myself in similar roles of power. They do NOT, however, manifest these kinds of people arrayed against me. 

Suave

This is for you men who desire to be considered charming, confident, and elegant by others. Whether that is members of the other sex (women) or men, it does not matter.

charming · sophisticated · debonair · urbane · worldly · worldly-wise · polished · refined · poised · self-possessed · dignified · civilized · gentlemanly · gallant · smooth · smooth-talking · smooth-tongued · silver-tongued · glib · polite · well mannered · civil · courteous · affable · tactful · diplomatic · slick · cool · mannerly 
Suave
Here is the intention dream splash image for a person who would like to be suave within their reality. Always remember that we cannot change others, all that we can do is alter the reality that surrounds our souls. In so doing the perceptions that others have for us can change in alignment with our desires.

And again, you must associate this image display with your prayers…

I utilize the desktop image display on my computer to help cultivate the reality that my world-line is.

In all cases, the dominant male figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself. 

The manifestation of this reality is gradual and safe and is in alignment with my deepest desires.

Good Health

Good health is something that we take for granted, and it isn’t until we get older when we start to panic at how our bodies age. There are things that we can do, of course. We can eat better, stay away from bad people and negative thoughts, and do some moderate exercise.

Also we must not neglect the role that good, directed thoughts play in shaping our life.

While you cannot simply wish or pray to be healthy, it can help assist in the movement of world-line selection towards the manifestation of your desires. The formula works a little like this…

Modest physical efforts + strong directed thoughts = Attainment

Here is a nice splash image for your desktop. In all cases laid out here, from the Power to the Fame, you MUST provides some kind of minimum physical action from which the desired world-lines can manifest.

  • Wishing for something to happen = nothing will happen.
  • Physically working for things = maybe might happen.
  • Directed thoughts for things = a possibility can happen.

But… you should take careful note…

  • Physically working towards things + Directed thoughts = cause your desires to manifest.

Please kindly keep that in mind when you utilize these desktop displays and splash screens. These intention boards are only part of a much more inclusive system that requires your participation to work.

You can manifest the world-lines that will be favorable to your intentions, and thus they will appear to manifest for you.

To put it in another way, laying on a couch / sofa eating potato chips and just leaving a intention dream canvas splash display rotate passively on the computer will result in NOTHING.

You must pump your thoughts full of directed thoughts, you must use the desktop display and view it from time to time to refresh your imagery, and you must do a moderate amount of physical action to generate a baseline from which your thoughts can manifest upon.

I have generated two splash intention dream canvas. One is for a man and the other is for a woman. Those of you who are of confused gender, you can follow the guidelines to create your very own specialized splash screen.

Men

Desktop splash screen for a man for good health.
Desktop splash screen for a man for good health.

Woman

Desktop splash machine for a woman to be in good physical health.
Desktop splash screen for a woman to be in good physical health.

And do not forget to add this prayer…

I utilize the desktop image display on my computer to help cultivate the reality that my world-line is.

In all cases, the dominant figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself. 

Fame

The desire for fame is one of the most popular desires that people have. Yet, it’s perplexing why this is. Personally, I think that it is rather silly. Why do you want fame? To have followers, groupies or get offered free sex on demand?

People, if that is what you want, then you just go ahead and ask for it directly. If you want to have loads of sex with strangers who are enraptured with you, then ask for that in your intention prayers. You don’t need to ask for “fame”.

The problem with fame is “thought imposition”. The associated thoughts and quantum environment associated with others will severely influence your life. Trust me, you DO NOT want large groups of people thinking negatively about you. Or, even if it is positive, these thoughts can severely impact your ability to direct your own thoughts.

Never the less, I am placing the free desktop splash photo for those desirous of “Fame” here. In every case, you absolutely MUST associate it with the following affirmation / prayer.

I utilize the desktop image display on my computer to help cultivate the reality that my world-line is.

In all cases, the dominant male figure portrayed in the image(s) represent myself. 

The manifestation of this reality is gradual and safe and is in alignment with my deepest desires. However, at any event, the manifestation of fame as pictured will be positive in every way, and will not have any negative connotations or spawn negative associated events.

Here’s my suggested image desktop splash intention photo;

Desktop splash for Fame intention.
Desktop splash for Fame intention.

Sex

Sex. It’s a biological driven human attribute. If you do not have the desire to reproduce, or at least go through the motions of reproducing, then you are not living life. All humans desire sex.

It might not be politically correct, but that is the way it is.

Which is one of the reasons why tyrannical governments ban vices, such as sex out of marriage in order to control people. It is a very common and human element that is very easy to use to control others with.

As are other things, like mind altering substances (alcohol) and things that are fun. It's a way of controlling people.

“Everything I love is illegal, banned or dangerous.”

When constructing you very own dream splash canvas, you can be very generous with the images used. However, take most special attention to their selection.

Improperly selected images, and splash screens without a detailed prayer / intention affirmation can easily result in conditions, situations and environments that you might find undesirable. Be very careful, precise and exact when selecting the images that you wish to use.

Desktop splash image for generating an intention prayer of Sex to manifest.
Desktop splash image for generating an intention prayer of Sex to manifest. Be very careful in your selection of images to use. If you are not careful, the more undesirable elements of thought generation can manifest with negative consequences. Be careful.

Happiness

The reader will notice that all of the images depict people and are representative of situations that people are in. That’s the way a dream / intention canvas works.

Picture and image the situations.

Do not image things.

You cannot display pictures of money and expect that it is to be associated with you having lots of money in your wallet. Instead, it is just a picture of an item. And you, constantly seeing that item, turns it into a kind of world-line scenery; Something that might lie around you, but not anything that you are associated with.

Not exactly what you want.

You see this all the time. People set up dream intention boards with nice expensive cars, pictures of houses, and images of a lot of nice things. They will include words that describe what they want to accomplish in their life.

While it will contribute to the world-line direction that the creator intended, it will be done so inefficiently. You need to explicitly map out your desires and intentions and navigate properly in a very careful manner.

After all, you don’t want to make the same kinds of mistakes that our hero Elliot made in the movie “Bedazzled“, do you?

Elliot Richards (Brendan) would give  anything to have Allison Gardner (Frances O'Connor) in his life, or so  he says. Who should overhear? The devil (Elizabeth Hurley) of course.  She offers him "seven absolutely fabulous wishes for one piddling little  soul". Only Elliot finds out that you don't always get what you wish  for.  
Elliot as a basketball star. He’s a great star, bigger in life in so many ways… well every way except for one teeny, tiny thing. Just a small thing, really.

The image you use, or the images you select MUST have a special meaning and association with you personally. Which is why many intention / dream splash screen canvases must be made intentionally for your own wishes and desires, as well as to have a prayer dialog that you must recite daily that will reset your thought direction, for world-line navigation, properly.

Here is a sample splash screen for a Happiness directed intention.

Happiness directed intention / dream splash screen photo.
Happiness directed intention / dream splash screen photo.

Wine and Cats

The most effective intention splash screens are those that represent people, and actions. However, you the reader should note that there are other techniques that can be used in a dream splash canvas. Here we explore one such concept.

Here is a splash screen for a person who wants a life filled with wine and plenty of kitty-cat friends…

Wine & cats intention splash image for the desktop.
Wine & cats intention splash image for the desktop.

There are no limits

There are really no limits to the direction that you want your life to evolve into. You simply think about your goals and dreams, all the time, while also removing all the nonsense from others, the news, and other’s manufactured problems. Stay pure, and you will walk the path to your deepest desires.

You can use many clusters of pictures

Many people create an Intention / Dream board that they place on their wall. This is often filled with photographs and images that were cut out of magazines. Every time they see this board, they are instantly reminded of their goals and dreams, and thus it serves it’s most exacting purpose.

In today’s computerized age, I suggest using the computer to do the same thing, and while my examples have one singular photo on it, in my own personal case, I use multiple images myself, creating a collage.

Here is an example of a “fairly decent” dream board. They use imagery that is important to them, and use words to specify the purpose and utility for the images.

A example dream board found on the internet.
A example dream board found on the internet. It describes possessions, lifestyle, and other aspects of the desired world-line goals that are intended to manifest.

You see, everyone is different.

We all have different desires, goals, needs, wants and interests. So each dream splash screen will be different for different people. And, while I argue that you need to let the intention splash screen be a part of a tool kit for manifesting your reality, how you use the tools will depend on your own experiences, lifestyle and needs.

Here’s another example.

Another example of an inspiration / dream / intention board.
Another example of an inspiration / dream / intention board. This one is better than most as the use of images tie together to describe an overall theme or lifestyle.

Warnings

When you get on the internet, you will see all kinds of examples of people describing their intention / dream boards. You will also find many that monetize this effort.

Do not fall for that trap. The United States has become one great big vending machine and the people are the commodity.

Keep this most important fact in mind. You do not need to pay anyone for anything regarding how you think.

Also… Your thoughts are private.

We have come to accept the idea that you can police discourse on the internet, that the government agencies can extract history, reasoning, and behaviors from you at will, and that your thoughts are subject to scrutiny.

That is false.

Not only is it all against the 1st, 4th and 9th amendments to the United States Constitution, but it is a fundamental nature of yourself as a human. Privacy is a human need.

No. The "elected" officials in the United States are NOT doing their job, nor have they been since the last 150 years or so. But that is a subject for another time.

You need NEVER justify why you desire something to manifest in your life. It is secret and only between you and your God.

Everyone’s mind works differently

When I use the term “mind” I am referring to HOW the consciousness implants thoughts into the brain. It also includes how the brain reacts to the physical stimulus that surrounds it in this reality (that it inhabits).

Everyone’s mind works differently.

Oh we are often under the impression that while there might be deviance in thoughts from the baseline “normal”. That is all false. Really, really false. We all think differently. Do not assume that others will understand you or accept your thought processes. They won’t. It’s a foregone conclusion and do not even bother trying to explain anything.

His vrs Her thoughts.
It’s funny because it is so very true. Girls and guns. So very funny.

Do not assume anything. Live your own life to the best of your ability. Do not care, or give any consideration to what others think of you, your actions or your thoughts.

Conclusion

Creating an inspiration or dream board is a fundamental technique for a person to pilot their life to manifest their desires.

It works on the quantum physics principle of the observer effect.

Secrets of the universe

Why it works is not well understood outside of MAJestic. That is because the vast bulk of the world has absolutely zero concept of how the universe works. However, we in MAJestic (well at least those in my sub-project) know quite well the mechanism involved.

It’s simple really.

There is no singular fixed reality. Instead there are a near infinite number of realities.

Our consciousness moves through each one, forming a path.

This path is called time.

We travel at a rate, more or less, around 4Hz.

The selection of the next reality for us to inhabit is determined by our thoughts. Typically, we migrate to realities that are defined by our thoughts that are influenced by the world around us. This can be dangerous and evil people use media to manipulate, and thus cause our travel path to bend and twist towards realities that we might not want to participate in.

Therefore, to manifest the life that we desire to live, we need to do three things…

  • Turn off all negative, distracting, and disruptive thoughts that surround us.
  • Stay away from people with strong thoughts and personalities that are contrary to our desires.
  • Focus our thoughts on our ultimate goals.

A vision dream (intention) splash desktop will help accomplish this. Provided that it is linked to a daily prayer that includes the subject matter listed.

Related Links

Here’s some other related links for the interested fellow or chick.

Using Intention to make your life sparkle.
The Nature of the Universe

A little bit more background for the more scientifically inclined…

Ah, and why I ended up learning the utility of all this as part of MAJestic. Here is the end ball game…

Final Note

This is how it works people. And, at that, perhaps this is my MAJestic gift to the world.

The things we did with our extraterrestrial benefactors was intended to help sort out the sentience selection for the human species. It seems to me that it is still in flux, but that need not concern you all. What you should be concerned with is how you can truly embrace the life that we live and customize it to fit your ultimate desires.

Being able to control our thoughts is the FIRST step in mastery of our life. You can do this through [1] prayer, and [2] visualization.

There is a reason why ritual is important. For ritual permits proper direct visualization so that prayer can be conducted without distraction.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
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How to manage a family household.
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Cat Heaven
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Baby's got back
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Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

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Being older
Things I wish I knew.
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Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
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Snopes
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The Rule of Eight

Funny Pictures

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Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1

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Why are Americans so Angry?

Face it. The U.S. government no longer belongs to the people and it no longer represents them. This causes a rage, an anger because Americans feel helpless. You see, there is absolutely nothing they can do about anything. Nothing. Americans are absolutely powerless, and the ballot box is simply a facade.

One reason the American public is so passive relates to the fact many  people live in a state of willful denial. To admit your country runs  more like the Corleone family than some famed tome of Greek  political-philosophy is a difficult step to take. 

To admit this means  you’re either going to cower in a corner and hope to stay safe, or  you’re going to do something about it. 

Many people still don’t want to  do anything about it, so they continue to exist in a comfortable mental  and emotional narrative of what they want to believe the U.S. is, as  opposed to reality. 

-LibertyBlitzkreig

It is no longer possible to redress grievances in America. At best you will be ignored. At worst you will be shot dead and killed.

Take note, this uneasy feeling is not misplaced. It reflects the real state of affairs. It’s a very sad thing to say. But, yes. Yes. We have lost the government we learned about in civics class.

You’ll squeal like stuck little piggies when Real Americans finally get  themselves a bellyful, and some of that same mostly-peacefulness that far too many of us have already experienced from your side gets unleashed upside your heads for a change. 

Glad to hear it; that means the Second Amendment, against all odds,  is still working as intended. It also suggests there might actually remain some small hope, however minuscule, of you frothing fascists coming to your senses and stepping back from the brink before it’s too late. People like you are precisely whom the Founders warned us  about; the 2A was written not to protect anybody’s right to hunt but to act as a deterrent to your kind, a last line of defense should you fail to heed its warning at last.

Your fear is wise and proper. May God grant that you never lose or dismiss it—for ALL our sakes. 

-Cold Fury

Oh yes. It was a great ideal while it lasted. It sounded so perfect with its democratic election of representatives. With the representatives compelled to do the voters’ will in framing laws. And one in which the president vows to execute faithfully, unless (of course) the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional.

But…

But…

That small government of limited powers that the Founders designed, hedged with checks and balances, hasn’t operated for a century at least. While you can trace many contributors back even further, the real America; the one described in the Constitution, was eviscerated back a hundred years ago.

Of course, all its parts still have their old names.

And yes, indeed, they still appear to be carrying out their old functions.

They appear to be functional…

Yet in fact, a new kind of government has grown up inside the old structure. It’s insidious. It’s like those parasites hatched in another organism that grow by eating up their host from within, until the adult creature bursts out of the host’s carcass.

This transformation is not an evolution. It’s an usurpation.

The parasite that feeds on its host. It only keeps the host alive as long as it can feed. Once it has ate it’s fill and can no longer benefit from the relationship it bursts forth and the host is tossed aside as a discarded carcass.

The Government today…

“I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile  but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and  everyone with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything  except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our  very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is  about giving, not getting.” 

-Hubert Selby, Jr., Requiem for a Dream (Preface 2000)  

What has now largely displaced the Founders’ government is what’s now called the “Administrative State”. It’s a horrible, horrible, monster. It has all the characteristics of all the worst aspects of the human experience.

The American government today is the Administrative State. It is a monster that is too big for anyone to control.

Over the last twenty years we have watched this monster burst forth from it’s host. Those, whom we have elected to control this beast, were consumed by it. Perhaps, the election of Donald Trump was the final, last middle finger and effort to control this beast.

Every single institution in the United States is either actively  malicious toward the American people, or a complete scam—and often both. 

- From Darren Beattie at American Greatness  

So far it looks like the monster is far too big. It appears that radical surgery will be necessary to medically control the monster. It will not be surgical. It will be messy and quite ugly.

It will be nasty.

How this monster came about…

It’s a transformation that was premeditated by its main architect, Woodrow Wilson.

I am a "conspiracy theorist". I believe men and  women of wealth and power conspire. 

If you don't think so, then you are  what is called "an idiot". 

If you believe stuff but fear the label, you  are what is called "a coward".

 — Dave Collum (@DavidBCollum) July 19, 2019 

The destruction of the United States government, as established by the Founders in 1776, was premeditated by its main architect, Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson was the man who changed America from a Constitutional Republic to an Oligarchy. And Oligarchy ruled by the richest people in the world.

Yes, that thin-skinned, sanctimonious college-professor president.

You know the one. The self-righteous smug know-it-all who thought himself enlightened far beyond the citizenry he was supposed to represent.

This jerk-off had no respect for the Constitution, or for his fellow Americans. When he wasn’t trying to ship young men off to distant wars to die, he was busy rewriting the Constitution in his own image.

An image, that I must make clear, had no resemblance at all to the original Constitution signed in 1776.

Take a look at how he wanted to be remembered…

Wilson legacy.
You can judge a person by their great works. Wilson wanted a progressive, modern United States. Which is one of Kings ruling over serfs. As such, he wanted to be the person foremost in the minds of the new American royalty.

A “Living Constitution”

He laughingly dismissed the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights as so much outmoded “nonsense”.

  • He viewed individual Rights as nonsense.

Further, he rejected the Founders’ clunky constitutional machinery as obsolete.

  • He viewed the Constitution as an obsolete document that needed to be replaced with a modern progressive one.

What a modern enlightened country needed, he said, was a “living constitution”. It was a construction that would keep pace with the fast-changing times. It would do so by continual, “Darwinian adaptation”, as he called it. He achieved this goal by fundamentally altering the Judicial Branch.

Wilson started America on the road to being an oligarchy.

You see, he wanted things to change often and fast. A Constitutional Convention was far too slow for his vision. Instead he worked out a scheme in which the Judicial Branch would be the key element to institute change.

In effect his changed empowered the federal courts to act as a permanent constitutional convention.

  • He changed the Justice Branch to act as a permanent constitutional convention.

A new modern progressive America.

Modernity, Wilson thought, demanded efficient government.

So, in his progressive mind, an efficient government would be one run by independent, nonpartisan, benevolent, hyper-educated experts. It would be run by trained experts cultivated to fit the political mold that he would create.

Sounds good, right?

Scientific expert.
The modern progressive thought was based on having life-time “experts” solve the problems that America faced. These “experts” would then work under the authority of the Executive Branch and carve America into a new form and a new shape- a progressive one.

These experts would apply the latest scientific, economic, and sociological knowledge to solve the various issues that can occur when running a nation. He strongly believed that the industrial revolution created unprecedented problems. Problems that were too complex for self-governing free citizens to solve.

  • He created the bureaucracy that the United States government relies upon. With NO oversight. He assumed that the organization would be self-policing and self-governing.

But not only that. Without wasting any time, he got Congress to create additional executive-branch administrative agencies. Such as the Federal Trade Commission, to start running administrative tasks.

Federal Government.
Federal Government. Federal Government—power of the government is divided between a central agency and local agencies.

FDR feeds the monster.

While he might have started this nightmare, other progressive presidents expanded upon it. It was in their benefit. The more they expanded upon it, the greater the power that they could wield.

For instance, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) proliferated such agencies.

FDR implemented the New Deal.
The “New Deal” was President FDR’s attempt to implement wide ranging social programs, all centrally run out of Washington D.C. to solve the nation’s chronic problems at that time.

This started from the [1] National Labor Relations Board and the [2] Federal Housing Administration to the [3] Federal Communications Commission and the [4] Securities and Exchange Commission. All of which were fully intended to put the New Deal into effect.

  • Using the administrative agencies as a baseline, subsequent presidents created many such specialty agencies.
American agency seals.
Once, the Constitution was rewritten to permit the delegation of power, all sorts of “agencies” were created. Thus diluting the power of the three main branches, and greatly expanding the amount of power influenced over Americans.

Packing the Supreme Court

The problem with this, however, is that all these agencies (that he created) violated the Constitution. Which was, as I must remind the reader, intended to support a small limited government. Let me repeat;

All these agencies are in violation of the Constitution as written in 1776, and every time they were constructed and put in place, the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional.

  • When the Supreme Court ruled that the actions of the President was unconstitutional, he changed the composition of the court to be more progressive and agree with his policies.
FDR court packing scheme.
Among the things that pro-New Deal advocates hardly ever bring up is one of the most shameful acts by a president in U.S. history. That’s the infamous “court-packing” scheme that President Franklin Roosevelt proposed when the Supreme Court was declaring much of his New Deal unconstitutional. Not only was the philosophy of the New Deal, with its elements of socialism and fascism, alien to the Constitution as initially written. Add a justice for every member (up to six) over 70 years of age.

Thus, FDR had altered the Constitution.

He had to stretch the Constitution’s Commerce Clause beyond recognition. Which he did by changing the Supreme Court in fundamental ways. These changes allowed him to change the meaning of the Commerce Clause.

The commerce clause.
The commerce clause in the United States Constitution was intended to enable the United States government to regulate trade with other nations. FDR altered the meaning of this wording. It went from “regulate trade with other nations”, to “Regulate Everything”.

Abuse of the Commerce Clause

FDR packed the Supreme Court with people friendly to his progressive vision. As such they made rulings which altered the meaning of this clause. Thus, this clause now had a new meaning. The new progressive meaning now puts the federal government in charge of all economic activity, not just interstate transactions.

  • FDR, though his revised SCOTUS, redefined the Commerce Clause to mean “everything“.

FDR also had to pressure the justices to allow Congress to delegate legislative power. This was, in effect, what the lawmakers did by setting up agencies with the power to make binding rules. The Constitution, of course, vests all legislative power in Congress, empowering it to make laws, not to make legislators.

  • FDR enabled Congress to delegate their powers to Federal Agencies.
Every single institution in the United States is either actively  malicious toward the American people, or a complete scam—and often both. 

- From Darren Beattie at American Greatness 

These changes radically, and profoundly, affected the economic makeup of the United States.

New Deal impact.
SOURCE: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Significant Features. of Fiscal Federalism (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979), 7.

But the Administrative State’s constitutional transgressions cut deeper still.

Changing the nature of Justice…

Think about it. As per the 1776 Constitution; if Congress can’t delegate its legislative powers, it certainly can’t delegate judicial powers either. The 1776 Constitution reserves this power exclusively to the judiciary.

But now it’s a whole new “ball game”. Now, after these administrative agencies make rules like a legislature, they now then can exercise judicial authority like a court. They can do this by prosecuting violations of their edicts and inflicting real criminal penalties, such as fines and cease-and-desist orders.

FDR’s alterations fundamentally changed the nature of crime, law, and justice.

  • Crimes now no longer require a victim or an aggrieved person. Anyone can now get arrested for anything.
Victimless crimes.
Victimless crimes are almost always initiated by an Agency rather than an elected official. While elected officials might make laws defining laws against vices, it is Constitutionally illegal to be arrested where you cannot confront your victim or accuser. The work around this pesky Bill of Rights protection is to enforce the law though an agency. The agency now can make laws (called rules) and enforce them. For instance, the IRS which has it’s own judicial courts, enforcement arms, including SWAT, and punishment schemes.

The Separation of Powers redefined.

All of these changes severely redefined the separation of powers that the United States Constitution defined.

Separation of powers
Separation of Powers Division of the national government’s power between 3 branches

Now, today, as the agencies can now perform all these functions, they also violate the principle of the separation of powers.

After all, if congress has the power to make laws, and they delegate that power to an agency, then whoever controls that agency now has the power to make laws instead. 

The power has been transferred to someone else elsewhere.

The separation of powers lies at the heart of our constitutional theory. Though, ivory-tower president Wilson believed that it really was just senselessly curbing efficiency.

  • Without a clearly defined separation of powers, there becomes no limit to the growth of the Federal Government.
Democracy doesn’t die in darkness; it dies when our institutions shred their mandate to serve us and start serving themselves. 

And that’s all they do – serve themselves. 

-Townhall

So now, we have a government that fits this progressive template. It’s “efficient” and “modern”, and “progressive” arrangement. You can see simply by looking at the organization charts.

Social Services…

Organization chart of the Federal Health and Social Services.
Organization chart of the Federal Health and Social Services. Once, the progressive and modern improvements were made, this behemoth came into realization.

The ACA, ObamaCARE agency…

ACA ObamaCARE organization chart.
ACA ObamaCARE organization chart.

Due Process of Law changed.

This collapse of the separation of powers also severely altered the due process of law.

Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights
For they trample the citizen’s Fifth Amendment right not to lose his property unless indicted by a grand jury. As well as to be tried by a jury of his peers.  

Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights
Today they can search a citizen or a  company’s private papers or premises, without bothering to get judge-issued subpoenas or search warrants based on probable cause. Which is, of course, a Fourth Amendment protection. 
  • Changing the due process clause, eviscerates the Bill of Rights protections.
5th amendment
It’s funny because it is so very true.

Laws can be selectively enforced…

The government can now issue waivers to their rules. The end result of this is that the law is not the same for all citizens and companies but is instead an instrument of arbitrary power.

  • FDR made sure that laws can be arbitrarily applied.
Rule of law in America? Don’t be ridiculous. There are rulers and the ruled. Which bucket do you think you’re in? 

-Liberty Blitz

FDR himself ruefully remarked that he had expanded a fourth branch of government that lacked constitutional legitimacy. Not only does it reincarnate the arbitrary power of the Stuarts’ tyrannical Star Chamber, but also it doesn’t even meet the minimal conditions of liberty that Magna Carta set forth 801 years ago.

In modern usage, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings are sometimes called, metaphorically or poetically, star chambers. This is a pejorative term and intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings. The inherent lack of objectivity of any politically motivated charges has led to substantial reforms in English law in most jurisdictions since that time. 

-enacademic.com
  • Rulings on laws can now be made with strict, arbitrary rulings.
Basically, the best-case scenario here is that our  government is unbelievably incompetent, not a particularly soothing thought. But the alternative is that it is corrupt and criminal in ways we can barely imagine. There’s an even less soothing thought. 

I can’t wait until these Einsteins take over my health care and are no longer restrained by the citizen veto of the guns we bitter normal people have, so far, wisely clung to.
 
The fact is you cannot trust our institutions. They are not, and have not been, operating in the interests of Normal Americans for quite some time. 

They have degenerated into seedy scams run by, and for the benefit of, a garbage ruling caste that inherited the most powerful society in human history and seems determined to do in a couple  generations what the Romans took a few hundred years to do – squander  it. 

Look at our useless Department of Justice. 

It gave Hillary a  pass and basically rubbed it in our faces. If you or I pulled the  classified material shenanigans she did, we’d could have been Epstein’s  federal pokey pals. But James Comey – who we were duly informed by the  smart set was a paragon of integrity – let her walk. Later, that Looming  Doofus distributed classified material to his media pals to undermine  the president we rubes elected and who he did not approve of, and so far  he’s walking too. 

There are rules for them, and rules for us, and that’s not exactly going to reinforce our faith in our DOJ’s commitment to justice without an agenda, is it?  

-Townhall
  • The government can protect itself, and go after those that question it’s abuses.

The Progressive onslaught…

Adding insult to injury, Wilson, his allies, and their current followers call themselves “progressives“. This is for certain a fatuous boast implying that they are the embodiment’s (and chosen instruments of the spirit) of an ever-improving, irresistible future.

  • The goal of all these changes is to make a more “progressive” America.

These “progressives” claim to be marching toward an as-yet-unrealized goal of human perfection.

Now, that perfection, the original German philosophers believed, would look something like Prussia’s enlightened despotism. Progressism would manifest as “enlightened despotism”.

enlightened despots
The end goal of progressiveness is to twist the Constitution to create a society that favors rule by enlightened despots. Yes, that’s right. Rule by a Kingly ruling class, and the rest of society living in a utopia where they functionally act as serfs.
  • A “Progressive America” is one ruled by an enlightened despot. The people would live in this utopia as serfs.
I will repeat. The idea, and the end-game for the progressive utopia is for the feudal-model. There are a very small band of rulers, with a supporting cast of assistants, and the rabble. The rabble will be further grouped into the slave-class, the serf-class, and the utility-class.

But this is America, “The Land of the Free”!

For Americans to think that it is progress to move from the Founders’ revolutionary achievement…

...a nation of free citizens, endowed with natural rights, living under laws that they themselves have made, pursuing their own vision of happiness in  their own way and free to develop as fully as they can whatever talent  or genius lies within them... 

…to a regime in which individuals derive privileges granted to them from a benevolent government superior to them is contemptible.

It’s an ugly monster.

Seriously now. How in heck, is a return to serfdom an advance on freedom?

Really?

How is being a serf, in any way, being free?

How in heck, is a return to serfdom an advance on freedom?

No lover of liberty should ever call such left-wing statism “progressive.” In every way. From every angle, it is a regression towards an environment of a ruler class, and a serf class. In historical terms, this elevation of state power over individual freedom is not even “liberal” but quite the reverse.

It is now quite obvious.

And it is quite dangerous. Dangerous to everyone.

It’s a wreck. 

That’s the legacy of our elite. We did not do that. Our  alleged betters did that – it’s on them. Yeah, I know Trump’s our  president – and he has been for about 30 months. 

This disaster didn’t  start when Trump swore in, and he’s not going to be able to hose it out anytime soon. But at least he’s trying. 

We elected Trump because we couldn’t ignore the unfolding disaster any longer. 

-Townhall

The United States today is in a serious situation.

It is SERIOUS.

In any sociopolitical project aimed toward a preconceived end, there’s a  “point of no return,” after which the result must be either complete  success or devastating failure. 

There’s no going back to try for some  other end. Once past the point of no return, it’s win or die. The Left  has taken us past that point. 

-Baston of Liberty
The government is quite dangerous. Dangerous to everyone.

Not only have all these agencies grown in size, became corrupted, and expanded their power with zero limits, but they have not aged well. Like a cancer they have metastasized.

As these agencies have metastasized, they have borne out not a single premise that justified their creation. You now have the FDA preventing the implementation of 99.99% of all new medications. (This remains true even though many of the new medications would functionally perfectly well for 99% of the population.) You have TSA screening that violates fundamental rights within the Bill of Rights, and you have the IRS that blatantly violate fourth amendment protections with casual aplomb.

All this hasn’t gone unnoticed. Indeed, their increasingly glaring failure has drawn citizens’ angry attention to them.

And of these “experts” that run these agencies…

Expert?

As a New Deal congressman immediately recognized with shock, many of those who staffed the Administrative State were kids just out of law school, with zero real-world experience or technical knowledge. Today, once people find a seat within a government agency, they need not worry about being up-sized, downsized, laid-off, fired, or suffer though down-turns, to right-sizing. They do not need to perform. They can relax and provide a minimum of effort.

They can become slothful, and many take advantage of this situation.

These agencies can eat a person alive.
Alleged  sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein received far more jail work-release  privileges about a decade ago than the public previously knew, according  to records released Friday.
 
At  one point in 2009, Epstein’s already generous work-release agreement  was modified to allow him to leave Palm Beach County Jail seven days a  week, for up to 16 hours a day — including two hours per day at the Palm  Beach mansion where he previously sexually abused dozens of minor  girls, records from the Sheriff’s Office reveal. 

Epstein’s suicide while facing sex trafficking charges  in New York six days ago has not stopped scrutiny about Epstein’s time  in Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s custody after Epstein pleaded guilty to two  state prostitution counts in 2008. 

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is conducting a criminal investigation  into how the Sheriff’s Office and former state prosecutor handled  Epstein back then. The Sheriff’s Office released the expanded Epstein  case file Friday in response to a public records request.  

Epstein was the only sex offender among 21 inmates in the work-release  program at the time, and his approval for the program both surprised and  concerned federal prosecutors, records show. 

State Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, led the calls for an FDLE  investigation, noting how “Epstein enjoyed an unprecedented and deeply  troubling level of leniency and luxury while incarcerated by PBSO … We  need answers if we want accountability.” 

- Jeffrey Epstein’s special treatment in jail was far more lenient than anyone knew 

Modern and efficient?

Efficient?

Can-do America, free of government agency restrictions, can build the Empire State Building in 11 months and ramped up airplane production during World War II from 2,000 in 1939 to nearly 100,000 in 1944. But now, under the oppressive government, now takes years of bureaucratic EPA busywork to do the simplest of actions. Say, to repair a bridge or lay a pipeline. Now, who knows how many businesses never expand or even start because the maze of government regulation is too daunting and costly to navigate?

Nothing is more glaring than the corruption that siphoned $77 billion dollars from High Speed Rail, and left us with 15 miles of track in the middle of nowhere, and a fiberglass and cardboard mock up of a locomotive.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?

Serving the people, as benevolent?

Benevolent? As in non-political?

Ask Lois Lerner at the Internal Revenue Service.

Oh wait: she pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Oh yes, and her boss, John Koskinen, simply ignores Congress’s orders. He does as he wishes, for without any controlling oversight, you can have your very own fiefdom.

  • The Agencies and the Federal Government no longer serves the people. Instead it serves the wealthy oligarchy.
You are right, our govt is a mafia/gangster state. I’ve read that  pedopilia networks are a part of all govts and they will do anything  &  everything to cover it up, including destroy people’s lives,  their careers, family, and  murder to cover evidence. Schaeffer Cox , an  AK resident Patriot, was exposing pedophila at the AK state level. 

The  FBI came and ‘staged’ an event to indict Cox, set up a ‘kangaroo court’   to convict him, including omitting critical evidence that would have  proven him innocent. He was sentenced to 26 years in a maximum security  prsion in IN, rarely gets to see his wife and young children. This is a  young man who was completely innocent. Most of his life will be wasted  in a prison cell. 

Our govt is as corrupt as it gets. 

-Carolyn McDowell                                                                            

Representative of the people it serves?

And it is a fiefdom.

The Constitution specifically warns and prevents the placement of military on American soil (to be used against Americans), even as more than 2,000 of his enforcement agents have acquired military-grade weaponry, among 200,000 of such administrative-agency officers now similarly equipped with lethal arms, presumably for coercion of the citizens they supposedly serve.

"From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws,  except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of  said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of  Congress; . . . " 

- The Posse Comitatus Act in 1878 

Renaming a grinder (also known as a po-boy, subway, and torpedo) and calling it a sandwich, does not change it’s function, or appearance. A military force is a military force.

Grinder sandwich
This is a “Grinder” from Massachusetts. You can call it a sandwich, or a “Po-boy”, or a “Torpedo”. No matter what you call it, it is still functionally the same. Renaming things does not change their utility.
  • Renaming something does not change it’s functional utility.

Protecting Citizens?

Protecting citizens? What about from industrial capitalism’s giant corporations?

Where were the [1] Securities and Exchange Commission, [2] the Federal Reserve, [3] the Office of Thrift Supervision, and [4] the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight as the mortgage bubble blew up in 2008?

Asleep at the wheel. Obviously.

It was such an massive failure in oversight, that it lies completely withing the realms of criminality. This fiasco was horrible, nearly taking the whole financial system with it and producing the worst economic bust since the Great Depression. It was so horrible, that even today has sunk the labor-force participation rate and hiked the suicide rate among working-class men and women to record levels.

These agencies have become tools of the wealthy.

  • These Federal Agencies are the de-facto tools to control Americans for the benefit for the wealthy.
"Moreover, from the  establishment of the first administrative agency—the Interstate Commerce  Commission in 1887, essentially designed to create shared railroad  cartels—these agencies have been key instruments of crony capitalism,  which today often takes the form of senators and congressmen pressuring  agencies for rule changes or waivers to benefit their contributors,  usually at the expense of their competitors as well as the public, as  the author of the recent Confessions of Congressman X complains  of his fellow legislative “puppets.” "

Little wonder that today’s Americans think that such people don’t represent them.

Pollsters report that trust in government is at its lowest level ever, with only 19 percent expecting government to do the right thing, according to Gallup and Pew polls.

Protecting Health and Safety?

Ensuring the citizens’ health and safety?

Consider the TSA. As for the infamously dysfunctional Transportation Security Administration, its Keystone Kops’ regularly reported inability to spot journalists carrying banned weapons onto airplanes, no government official takes action. Why? They are too busy fondling travelers’ private parts or undressing grannies, is a standing national joke—on us.

We lost our constitutional safeguards for this?

TSA pat-down comic.
TSA pat-down comic. Though seriously now, having the police perform ANY kind of invasive search WITHOUT a judicial court order is against the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

FDR spewed out his agencies in a “try anything” spirit to cure a Depression that his predecessor’s misguided palliatives had worsened. Now, the debate still surges over whether the New Deal agencies did harm or good, instead of considering their doubtful legitimacy.

  • America needs to erase all the progressive “improvements” that are destroying the nation.

But America is just fine with “good intentions”

Well, that is the conventional belief. How do we know? Well the media tells us.

  • The mainstream American media is owned by five people. All of whom are members of the wealthy elite oligarchy.

Then came Obama…

Progressives worship Obama as if he is a God.
Progressives worship Obama as if he is a God. Part of it is his belief in Marxist socialism with a friendly face, and part of it is the non-stop American mainstream media promotion of him.

Today, however, it is obvious to see all the actions and activities of Obama when he was in office. he conducted many ploys and techniques to expand and extend the Government control over the citizenry. Today people see his actions as a cynically calculated ploys to extend government’s power over the people.

On the pretext of addressing the financial crisis, the administration partially socialized American medicine with legislation that only Democrats voted for. (Of course) without bothering to read it. With the American citizens who opposed the measure—still a solid majority of those polled—saw it as a kind of coup d’état, against them.

It was framed with utter irresponsibility and ignoring the scary financial mess.

As happened during the New Deal, a timid Supreme Court found the act constitutional only by the politically driven concerns.

It struck many as flimflam, not government by consent.

New Agencies in abundance…

The result was a spectacular expansion of the Administrative State, with some 150 new agencies and commissions created (no one knows the exact number).

And these agencies purposely removed the Administrative State even further from government by the people.

King Obama
Once progressism is fully implemented, and it takes around 100 years historically to do so, the resulting leader is a de-facto “enlightened despot”. They are a King that rules over serfs. Today, you can compare the Kingly actions of President Obama, and the situation of American citizens to the Kings and serfs of the middle ages. When you compare you will be shocked to find that the serfs in the middle ages had it better than Americans have it today (short of the technological advances, of course).

One agency, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (the so-called death panel) is so democratically unaccountable that Congress can only abolish it by a three-fifths vote in both houses within a seven-month period next year.

After that, the law bars Congress from altering any of the board’s edicts, a provision as far from democratic self-government as you can get.

  • It is now easy to create independent agencies with no oversight.
  • It is now difficult to remove agencies when they are problematic or are of no value.

Stimulus program scams…

To keep the American citizenry compliant with an out of control government, they offer all sorts of “free things”. Much as how you give a sugar cube to a horse from time to time. These “free things” are often in the form of “stimulus programs”.

The public idea of a “stimulus program” is a system to take money directly from the government and apply it selectively to key areas in the economy. Or, in other words, to the people in key important areas that need financial backing.

BTW. Our nation was founded on the premise that everyone was equal and that equal treatment for everyone equally would be protected. Selective "gifting" of money, for any reason, goes absolutely against the core principles of the Constitution.

As for the Obama “stimulus” that was supposed to give a Keynesian boost to the economy: since you can’t prove a negative, no one can show that if all that money had stayed in the private economy. No one could show that. It should have created more jobs and economic growth than the economically anemic Obama era has done.

What unemployed or underemployed workers saw, though, is that a good portion of stimulus money went elsewhere. It went, instead, to protect the jobs of public employees. Not to assist people in the private sector.

Coal miners saw that, even as the administration  aimed to kill their jobs, its "stimulus program" instead, shoveled out hundreds of millions  of dollars elsewhere. The huge bales of money went to the now-defunct Solyndra and other nonviable,  crony-capitalist “green” energy companies.  

Ah, the “green hoax”, read about it here…

Beware the Expat

For some reason, I attribute to greed, these supposed solutions to a global-warming crisis is fiercely defended by Washington Insiders and key-people working in these Federal agencies.

There are some two dozen public officials who seem keen to suppress, Inquisition-style, the very utterance of the thought that “climate change” is a money-making scheme founded on a hoax. And those individuals that defend this hoax the loudest live within America’s three highest-income counties. Of course, which are in the Washington suburbs that house the federal government’s recession-proof functionaries.

Of course.

America’s highest-income counties are in the suburbs that house Washington’s recession-proof functionaries.

More and more…

There are many, many things wrong with the United States today.

There are many things wrong with the United States today.

Everything from “open borders”, to serfs earning money to pay for the dreams of oligarchs elsewhere in the world. We can parse the various issues, of course. We could discuss the Trump wall. We could talk about the off-shoring of American industry. We could go round and round about the abuses by the Clinton’s, and the mainstream media with tries to herd Americans into any matter of pre-defined traps.

It’s structural perfection is only matched by it’s hostility.

We can discuss our bloated military that is way… way… outside the pervue of a defensive military. We can discuss our involvement in Syria, Yemen, Iran, and all those other nations that have zero impact in the lives of Americans. We can talk about how big pharma and their lackeys in the government work hand in hand to steal from us.

The last 100 years.

For the last 100 years, the progressive sickness has infested our government, our lives and our society.

  • Fully functional traditional conservative families had to split up to enable both parents to work.
  • Everything in America now is either regulated, taxed, or has to be paid for in fees. Even extending to water.
  • The wealthy have gotten filthy rich.
  • The middle class has all but disappeared.
  • There is zero privacy in all methods of communication, and in all public or private locations.
  • Most Americans cannot save, or support a family on a single person income. (The historical norm.)
  • Private ownership of property no longer exists; except in name only.
  • The Bill of Rights no longer functionally exists.

It is so outrageously bad that there are more freedoms in Communist China than anywhere in the United States. That’s pretty darn bad. And, very, very disgustingly sad.

Freedom & Liberty in China
Rather than "poo, poo" that statement. Click on the link and learn something new for a change.

Why bother?

Why bother indeed. It is obvious to all except those who profit personally from this broken, corrupted monster of a nation. It must change or be allowed to die.

  • America must change or be allowed to die.

Americans will either [1] accept to live under a King as serfs as they have been doing under progressive enlightenment, or [2] they will need to kill the beast.

We’re on an express elevator to Hell. Going down.

There are NO OTHER options.

None.

Zero.

In any sociopolitical project aimed toward a preconceived end, there’s a  “point of no return,” after which the result must be either complete  success or devastating failure. 

There’s no going back to try for some  other end. Once past the point of no return, it’s win or die. The Left  has taken us past that point. 

-Baston of Liberty 

Do not buy into the platitudes out of Washington D.C.

The fact is that the USA is in need for a complete overhaul. Not some minor cosmetic tweaks or fixes. And, no a “blue panel” of “experts” is not the solution. America is totally and completely broken. The most important and fundamental institutions DO NOT WORK. They need to be discarded, and replaced with functional, working ones.

In order to erase all the damage done by the last century of progressive change, the entire nations must erase everything and return back to the original Constitution of 1776. However, it must also add safeguards to prevent another progressive socialist usurpation of liberty.

This will be a fight.

The progressive socialists will not go quietly into the night.

Hard times produce geniuses, heroes, and saints. Easy times produce  idiots, cowards, and criminals. They both produce lot of corpses. 

-Zero Hedge
We will need to arm up and confront the well-paid, the wealthy and the powerful.

But maybe it’s too late.

Maybe…

It is becoming increasingly clear, that upon termination of the Trump Presidency, that the March of progressive Marxism will go from a trot to a gallop.

Unless we reign in those horses, we will get run over.

Do YOU understand?

We must kill the beast so that it can no longer harm us.

Deference to the greater wisdom of government, which Wilsonian  progressivism deems a better judge of what the era needs and what the  people “really” want than the people themselves, has been silently  eroding our unique culture of enterprise, self-reliance, enlightenment,  and love of liberty for decades. 
There is no easy way around this fact. The rich parasites that feed off this bloated, progressive government will not go quietly in the night. They will need to be removed, one by one, and they will oppose it kicking and screaming.

And killing the beast will not be pleasant. It will be very, very, very nasty.

People will get hurt.

Arrrrggggh!

It will be very, very ugly.

It will make the American Civil War look like a kindergarten playground.

Those progressives are radical Marxists that believe that you and me should be exterminated, the records of our existence burned, and the land salted for centuries afterwards.

It WILL be ugly.

I say we take off and nuke the ENTIRE site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Listen to me for once.

Many of us sense an existential crisis is close at hand, and the U.S. is  ill-prepared for such a crisis. Possibilities broached by others  include a global war, a break-up of the U.S. into regional states, or a  civil war of some sort. My bet is on a moral and financial crisis in  which the ruling elites and the federal state lose their legitimacy,  i.e. the consent of the governed. 

- Charles Smith says at Of Two Minds

Just listen.

It’s the only way to be sure.

For if we do not kill this monster now, we may never get the chance again.

We might never get another chance.

Look at the youth today; Pre-packaged zombie-serfs.  Do you think that they will do something? Heck, to them the freshness and newness of their shackles is a sign of their "liberty".

Now’s our time.

We are over the edge. We’ve actually passed the red line.

We’re into the black now.

Game over man. Game over!

Take note, this uneasy feeling is not misplaced. It reflects the real state of affairs. It’s a very sad thing to say. But, yes. Yes. We have lost the government we learned about in civics class. We need to get it back or accept a life of servitude.

You’ll squeal like stuck little piggies when Real Americans finally get  themselves a bellyful, and some of that same mostly-peacefulness that far too many of us have already experienced from your side gets unleashed upside your heads for a change. 

Glad to hear it; that means the Second Amendment, against all odds,  is still working as intended. It also suggests there might actually remain some small hope, however minuscule, of you frothing fascists coming to your senses and stepping back from the brink before it’s too late. People like you are precisely whom the Founders warned us  about; the 2A was written not to protect anybody’s right to hunt but to act as a deterrent to your kind, a last line of defense should you fail to heed its warning at last.

Your fear is wise and proper. May God grant that you never lose or dismiss it—for ALL our sakes. 

-Cold Fury

May God grant us the strength to confront the monster.

We’d better go…

Great Links

I am not the only one who feels this way. Here are some other related articles on this very same subject…

SHTF and Related Index

This is a collection of my posts related to SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), CWII (American Civil War 2), Fourth Turning (Strauss–Howe generational theory) and other posts related to the very sad and sorry tatters that America is today. Actually, I am a little stunned that I have written so much about these matters. But America today is very ill and there are things that really should be said.

Here are the posts.

The Tale of the Killdozer.
SJW
r/K selection theory
Link
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?
The Ninth Amendment
How they get away with it
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Parable about America
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
Asshole
Types of American conservatives.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Some fun videos of Asia; to include China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan. (Part 16)

We continue in our video exploration of Asia. This episode has some really great and noteworthy entries. Especially the Chinese reaction to the Trump Trade War.

Before we get moving on to the videos, let’s talk a little about the screen splash above. It is from the music video by Kid Rock called “First Kiss”. It is a tribute to the care-free and easy life of the 1970’s when people would go about and have fun and drink together.

Scenes from the Kid Rock song tribute to the 1970's lifestyle in the song "First Kiss".
Scenes from the Kid Rock song tribute to the 1970’s lifestyle in the song “First Kiss”.

Morning & Evening group exercises are still a common sight

When the Chinese government co-opted the “Dancing Grandmother” network, no one knew what to expect. They thought that at the bare minimum that it would tone down all the noise and obstreperous racket that infested the Chinese cities. Well, by making it part of the “healthy China” initiative, it has become very popular.

Read about this program, and why it exists here; (Don’t fret the link will open up into another tab. It’s a good read, I’ll tell you what.)

Fat China

Anyways, it is just as popular as ever and everyone from elementary and middle school ages to 90-year old grandmothers participate in the group dances (and learn a few dance moves in the process).

China responds to the Trump Trade War

China wants and desires very much to be on friendly and peaceful relations with the USA. In many ways, traditional conservative Chinese are very much like their American counterparts. They understand why Trump is doing what he is doing and feel that he is a formidable businessman. Not the “joke” that CNN, and the UK Guardian make him out as.

That being said, the attitude in China is that if you want to have some competition (say in sports, or in this case) in business, then they will fight to win. The Chinese will unleash everything, and they do fight to win.

So While Trump is instigating the “tariff wars”, exerting influences on up-and-growing tech companies (like Huawei), negotiating with other nations to stop doing business with China, and using CIA dirty tricks in Hong Kong, the Chinese are not sitting back. They released the brakes on the yuan-USD conversion and let the market decide. So far, the value of the yuan is falling relative to the USD, and now everything made in China is 30% cheaper relative to what it was before Trump.

But it’s more than that.

You might not like China. You might be under the impression that China is hard-core Marxist (it’s not), or you might be under other misconceptions as spread by the Western media. But one thing is very clear to anyone who has had any dealings with the Chinese; they don’t play around, and they fight to win.

The Chinese fight to win.

Here’s one of the more popular movies this Summer and you should look at it from the point of view of the Chinese in a “trade war” with the West…

Look at it as a friendly, but serious, message to Trump from Beijing.

Oh, you don’t think that it has anything to do with trade? Watch the clip again, and pay attention to the English dialog…

Who do you think you are?

You collect money from me. You don't share it.

Do as I say.

You are not qualified to make deals with me.

And the discussion continues…

If you quit, you can take this business too. I can get anybody to take care of it.

And then, the sheer arrogance of the Westerners reaches an explosion point when he says…

Will somebody get this yellow piece of fat to get out of here!

After that we see how the Westerner battles and demolishes the Chinese man. It’s strong. It’s vicious, and he dies.

He’s dead. The Westerner has won.

Then, it’s payback time.

Get together in Thailand

In the United States, at least during the 1960’s, the 1970’s, and well into the 1980’s mu friends and I would go cruising in our cars up and down the town streets. We would then go to specific spots. Much like the “Moon Tower” in the movie “Dazed and Confused” where we would party.

Which always involved beer, and often some kinds of other libation.

Hanging out
Hanging out. During the 1970’s we would all hang out together with friends and go drinking, singing, and dancing together in the countryside. At that time we would listen to Led Zep, and other classics of the 1970’s.

I don’t know if this is still an activity in the Untied States.

For some reason, I don’t think so. Simply because it would be one of the first things that busy-body democrats would try to regulate, fine, fee or make laws against.

Yah. You know this is true.

First Kiss by Kid Rock
Screen shot from the song “First Kiss” by Kid Rock. It’s a tribute to the days when young folk would go riding around the town and hanging out with each other. While many Americans wish and yearn for those day again, they are not gone. They might be banned or difficult int he USA, but the rest of the world still celebrates those times…everyday.

Well, it’s still a popular pastime in the rest of the world. Here’s what it’s like to gather with your 20-something friends and play around with along the Thailand-Cambodian border…

Everyday China

This next video takes place in Shanghai at night. yeah it’s super-typical. But what I would like to point out is some of the very common elements that are found all over China, that you might miss if you were not aware of it all.

When you watch the video, please pay attention to the painted road markings on the road. Notice that they have incorporated solar powered LED lighting that flashes to alert people. Notice the body cameras, radios, and lighting on the police officers. Notice the streets how clean they are and devoid of trash, as well as notice that there isn’t any graffiti anywhere.

You will also notice the raised walkway surfaces on the sidewalk. This is common all through China. It is for blind people so that they can make their way around town.

Watch the video and look for those things…

Hiphi – The Chinese Tesla

Of course, the vast bulk of storage batteries, electric motors, automotive controls, and complex wiring systems are all made out of China. (Outsourced from the USA since the mid 1990’s.) Therefore, it should not be any surprise that China is leading the world in the production of electric and hybrid vehicles.

Bet ya didn’t know that.

Not only are there more vehicles (on a quantitative basis) made in China, but there are far more models, types and variations. Heck, here in tiny Zhuhai, almost all the buses have been fully “green” (all electric) for two years now.

I like them that way. So quiet.

Big difference from the noisy gas-powered behemoths that lumber along.

Here’s one of the car brands. I place it here not because it’s the best or anything like that. I just like the design and the style. Oh, by the way, you can’t buy it in the USA. It’s going to be another ten or so years before the automotive regulations catch up with the innovations out of China. (That’s why the implementation of LED’s on American cars took 15 years, don’t you know. And, only five years in Germany and the UK.)

We become conditions to accept our chains.

This video is addressed to my fellow Americans, not all of them, but rather to the trolls who don’t read anything that I post. Those that don’t study the issues. Those that refuse to look at things from a third-person point of view and are not listening to my warnings.

– Warnings –

  • China is growing and it is not what you think it is.
  • China is a serious nation, run by serious people who got into positions of power through merit, not popularity.
  • China plays to win.
  • America was established as a Republic. But, today it is an Oligarchy.
  • We have grown used to the loss of liberty and freedom that America now represents. We do not realize that America today is the absolute opposite of what it was first established as.

Most Americans live a life in ignorance and fear. They don’t realize just how far down into tyranny they have fallen.

For instance, we pay taxes, and watch as the government overspends it. That is NOT in the benefit of the citizenry.

We believe that we own houses and cars, yet both are subject to confiscation by the government. That is NOT ownership.

We must submit to regulations, pay various fees for the most simple tasks and ask permission to do anything from selling lemonade in your front yard, to fishing.

People that is NOT freedom.

Americans do not realize how conditioned they are to their life as a serf. They have no idea that all these things are all chains and bindings that restrict their freedom.

Like this video aptly illustrates…

I have many more videos, but I just cannot put them into a single post. It will bog down your computer terribly. So to watch the rest of the videos in this post, please continue…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Some fun videos of Asia; to include China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan. (Part 13)

Let’s continue on our exploration of videos and things about Asia. However, firstly, let’s comment on the splash screen above. It’s from the 1990’s situation comedy on television (anyone remember watching television?) called “Seinfield”.

Seinfeld is a situation comedy which ran from July 5, 1989 to May 14,  1998. One of the most popular and influential TV programs of the 1990s,  it epitomizes the self-obsessed and ironic culture of the decade. In  2002, TV Guide ranked Seinfeld as the greatest TV show of all time. The  show was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. 

The show stars Seinfeld as a  fictionalized version of himself, and mostly focuses on his personal  life with a handful of friends and acquaintances, including best friend  George Costanza (Jason Alexander), friend and former girlfriend Elaine Benes.
Seinfield cast on the set of Seinfield.
Seinfield cast on the set of Seinfield. I loved this show when it came out, and it was always a subject of light water-cooler banter during the coffee breaks at work.

I think that this funny comedy is a monument to itself. Yet, the trivia associated with it is quite noteworthy…

Larry David famously  instituted a policy of "no hugging, no learning", meaning that the show  must avoid sentimentality and moral lessons, and the characters must  never learn or grow from their wrongdoings.   
As Kramer (Michael Richards)  became more popular, his entrance applause grew so prolonged that the  cast complained it was ruining the pacing of their scenes. Directors  subsequently asked the audience not to applaud so much when Kramer  entered.   
Seinfield in the puffy shirt.
Seinfield in the puffy shirt. Did you know that you can buy this shirt on the internet? Yup, you can. I think that it would make a great thing to wear on casual Friday. Just make sure that your coworkers have seen Seinfield and knows what the shirt is all about.
Jerry Seinfeld turned down an offer from NBC that would have made him $110 million for a tenth season of the show.   
Michael Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld's friend after whom George is named, filed a $100 million lawsuit against Seinfeld, Larry David,  and NBC, claiming invasion of privacy and defamation of character.  Costanza claimed damages due to the show's alleged use of his likeness.  The case was dismissed with the judges adding that the statute of  limitations on the case had run out, as Costanza did not sue within one  year of the show's debut in 1989.   
George and Kramer on Seinfield.
George and Kramer on Seinfield. In this episode, George poses for some sexy photographs.
The Soup Nazi (Larry Thomas)  is based on the actual owner, Al Yeganeh, of a take-out soup business  in Manhattan on West 55th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue. Just  like in the sitcom, his soups were known for their excellent quality,  but Yeganeh was also famous for the unusual way he treated his  customers. Instead of calling him a Nazi, local patrons called him a  terrorist, presumably because they knew Yeganeh was born in Iran, not  Germany. Yeganeh was so angered by the episode (Seinfeld: The Soup Nazi  (1995)), that he forbade the use of the "N word" in his restaurants.  Even the slightest reference to this show would push his buttons (it can  be seen in an interview he did with CNN). So when some cast members and  writers from this show bravely visited the restaurant after the episode  aired, Yeganeh claimed that the show had ruined his life.   
The puffy shirt used in episode 5.2, Seinfeld: The Puffy Shirt (1993), is currently placed in the Smithsonian. A doll-sized replica was included with the fifth season DVD set.   
George orders soup from the soup Nazi.
George orders soup from the soup Nazi. Ah, the best soup in New York City, but the cook is something else entirely…
John O'Hurley  (Peterman) recalls attending a friend's 40th birthday party and being  recognized at the buffet line. A man came up to him to say "that would  be grounds for dismissal.", one of his J. Peterman lines. During their  conversation, O'Hurley learned that this guy was not only a fan of  Seinfeld but a fan of the real J. Peterman catalogue, too. He would  actually read the over-the-top item descriptions to his wife in bed. He  thanked O'Hurley for finally giving him a voice to use for the catalogue  readings. The fan was none other than Tom Hanks.   
Jerry's (Jerry Seinfeld) girlfriend's infamous "man hands" in episode 8.3, Seinfeld: The Bizarro Jerry (1996), were actually those of James Rekart.   
Seinfield's girlfriend has "man hands" Yikes!
Seinfield’s girlfriend has “man hands” Yikes! This is yet another classic show. It would probably be too politically incorrect today.
ABC Entertainment executive Lloyd Braun lent his name to a character appearing in three episodes, season five, episode seven, Seinfeld: The Non-Fat Yogurt (1993), season seven, episode ten, Seinfeld: The Gum (1995), and season nine, episode three, Seinfeld: The Serenity Now (1997), and is an old childhood neighbor and nemesis of George Costanza (Jason Alexander).   

Now, moving forward, let’s go back to Asia…

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

Thailand School

Here’s a cute music video of an elementary school in Thailand…

Videos about the Protests in HK

All these (so called) “pro-democracy” protests in Hong Kong get a lot of air-play in the United States. I can’t but help that they are instigated by Donald Trump and his CIA operatives to stir up and instigate some “backyard” conflict for China. You know, just like how the CIA agitated the protests the last time Obama visited HK.

The American news media, whether it is CNN, or (even) Rush Limbaugh all parrot the same line.

They parrot the same old narrative; [1] It’s organic and “grass roots”, [2] all they want is “freedom” and “democracy”, and [3] that they are fighting against Communism. The videos and movies on you-tube all support this narrative. It’s a nice narrative, and everyone in the USA is repeating this.

The only thing is…

The narrative is nonsense.

What do they actually want? Well, for one thing, they want universal suffrage. You know where everyone can vote, with no age limits, or limits on the number of times that you can vote, or whether you are a citizen or not. Pretty radical stuff.

Sounds like the American democrat platform, I’ll tell you what…

While Hong Kong is part of China, it operates autonomously. It has it’s own laws, and own systems, and own ways of doing things. Many of which are freakishly different from the mainland Chinese way.

So… very… predictable… How do we know? It’s all recorded in the history books. You all should read them some time.

SJW

And, this is what happens when no one puts their foot down and squashes the SJW movement…

Link

Tear down the Chinese Flag

One of the often promoted videos is how the “Chinese people” joyfully tore down the Chinese flag in Hong Kong. Then they discarded it into the water, and danced around joyously.

What they don’t tell you is what happened afterwards…

Residents are sick of the SJW Kids

Almost all of the protesters are Social Justice Warriors in their early 20’s attending school or otherwise unemployed. Their desire for social upheaval is disruptive to the crowded Chinese community, and the residents are rather fed up with their protests and the interruptions in their lives.

Just like how the black-clad Antifa stopped traffic, and broke apart stores and ships, these SJW troops are doing the same thing. The only thing is, in America they did it in enclaves where the local leadership wanted them to protest and supported the protests. Say Berkley and Baltimore, for example. Not in places where they would get shot. Like in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. That is the big difference between China and the USA.

The Chinese do not accept this kind of nonsense. So they fight back as these two videos indicate.

First, we have a pissed off mother. (Though she is blaming Japan for initiating all the violence.)

Then we have some pissed off office workers…

You will note that this narrative is not promoted in the Western press. At best they might mention that “Pro-Chinese” people lash back at the protesters. But what is really happening is that shop owners, workers, people going to work, and street vendors are all really pissed off that their nice orderly life is being torn apart by these kids.

Hands are NOT tied…

The Chinese government is not ham-strung by an aggressive media propaganda machine, and public opinion. They have lived through numerous SJW uprisings and they know what can happen with they are not squelched rapidly and forcefully.

People die.

President Xi Peng saw this personally… up front and up close. He will NOT permit to happen on his watch. No way. No how.

If you don’t know what I am referring to, then read this article (opens up in a separate window.).

When the SJW movement took control of China

To this end, they have practiced, planned, and have worked on solutions. Here is one such video on what to expect if the local HK government fails to contain the radical Social Justice Warrior elements…

Make no mistake. The Chinese government will shoot to kill if order is not stabilized soon.

Make no mistake. The Chinese take these protests as a very serious threat, and they are prepared to fight against the protesters.

And while I can show you the reader, video after video of Chinese SWAT and paramilitary forces training inside Hong Kong in riot and capture duties, perhaps this recent video of HK police can convince you that the Chinese do NOT mess around…

I have many more videos, but I just cannot put them into a single post. It will bog down your computer terribly. So to watch the rest of the videos in this post, please continue…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The Forgotten Ninth Amendment to the Bill of Rights; Why it is More Important Than Ever.

The Ninth Amendment? What is that?

Well, do you know? Most people don’t, and if you were to poll Joe-and-suzy average on the street, you would find that just about no-one has ever heard of it. Yet, it is THE most important amendment to the United States Constitution. In fact, I would argue that the United States is what it is today due to ignoring this amendment.

Yes… yes… yes…

We all know that the Bill of Rights functionally no longer exists. It doesn’t, and it hasn’t existed for over a hundred years. I’m not going to insult the reader with the facts, it has long since been documented time and time again…

  • The sole purpose of the ATF is infringe on the Second Amendment.
  • The Utah Data Collection Center would not exist if the Fourth Amendment was being enforced.
  • Judicial “Plea Bargains” circumvented both the Sixth and Seventh Amendment Protections.
  • The DHS and TSA has severely degraded Fifth Amendment protections.
  • The Tenth Amendment was eviscerated when the Southern States lost the American Civil War.
  • The Preamble to the Bill of Rights is ignored.

The facts are there, plain as day. There is no need to parse individual details. Those doing so are either [1] Living in an Ivory Tower bubble, [2] Mentally retarded, or [3] Shrills for the Oligarchy. There is no other excuse.

The United States was set up to be free of regulation from government.
The United States was set up to be free of regulation from government. The founders believed that a people should be unhampered, and unfettered by links, and chains of an oppressive government. Not only did they hate regulations, but they felt that the United States government should have ZERO ability to regulate anything.

I argue here, that just about everything related to the “War on Drugs”, the “War on Poverty”, regulations for “Climate Change”, and just about every single liberal progressive social engineering effort (from cake baking, to LGBT bathrooms), would be stopped dead in it’s tracks, if the Ninth Amendment were being followed.

We now inhabit a world that demonizes Thomas Jefferson and elevates  Frederica Wilson. Is there any way out of this mess that doesn’t involve  a spaceship? 

- From the editors, at Taki's Magazine 

What is the Ninth Amendment?

The Ninth Amendment

The ninth amendment states that though only some rights are specifically listed in the Constitution, those rights not specifically listed are not denied to the people. 

It was designed to further protect the rights of the people by preventing the government from creating restrictions on unlisted rights.

-Wikipedia

I like that sentence…

“It was designed to … prevent the government from creating restrictions … on citizens.”

The exact text reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 
 

Ah, it’s pretty clear, don’t ya think. Just because the Constitution list the freedom to speak as a Right, this amendment says that there are many, many other Rights that Americans have.

The Ninth Amendment was James Madison’s attempt to ensure that the Bill of Rights  was not seen as granting to the people of the United States only the  specific rights it addressed.  

In recent years, some have interpreted it  as affirming the existence of such “unenumerated” rights outside those expressly protected by the Bill of Rights. 

-Legal Information Institute

The FDA example.

For instance… consider this RIGHT that is not enumerated within the Constitution;

The RIGHT to eat and drink whatever you want.

Or, in other words, the RIGHT to take what ever medicine or substance and ingest it. If you want to drink alcohol, then the government should not get involved. If you want to smoke crazy-weed, it’s none of the government’s business. I you wanted to take a large dosage of vitamin “D”, go ahead.

That’s what freedom is all about.

A person living in freedom, as delineated by the Ninth Amendment would not have to contend with…

  • Regulations on “Obama-School-Lunch” composition.
  • All FDA restrictions, and drug schedules.
  • Regulations on the manufacture of home-made moonshine.
  • Regulations on “Magic Mushrooms”, “demon weed”, and “tobacco”.
  • Even, regulations on eating Tide Pod’s.

Freedom, real freedom, is the ability to enjoy or even harm yourself unencumbered by laws, regulation, or the busybody next door.

Thus, I argue, that the Ninth Amendment clearly says that the RIGHT to eat and drink what you want shall not be restricted, infringed or forbidden by the government.

Thus, the enormous federal bureaucracy (the FDA) that restricts access to food, drugs, and drinks DOES NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY HAVE THE POWER to ban, restrict or reduce access to anything. The only power that they have is advisory.

Or, are you going to use the twisted logic that banning access to local plants falls under the “commerce clause” in the Constitution?

Ah. I can hear the squeals from the busybodies in the audience! Look over there… Jeff Sessions is really going to clamp down on that “demon weed”, and look over there…! Nancy Pelosi is all hot and bothered…”what about the children?”!!!!

Jeff Sessions meme regarding smoking marikuana.
Jeff Sessions meme regarding smoking marijuana. In a free country, people have the liberty to practice freedom. That means that you can live your life on your own terms. Free of regulation, laws, or the busybody down the street.

Today, we need the Ninth Amendment more than ever before. With larger and larger number of Radical Muslims taking seats in Congress, it won’t be long until pork products will be banned in America, and Islamic food preparation methods will be mandated across the land.

People, the government is NOT our parents.

The United States government was intended to be a mechanism of government, a machine that we the people controlled. Why in Heaven’s name would we create a government that would hurt, harm or restrict our Rights? Hum?

Another Example, the EPA…

Today, most Americans have no idea what the concept of “property” means. They think it is a house. A house that you make mortgage payments to a bank, and yearly tax checks to the government. A house that when you die, your heirs must fight the government to determine how of of “your” property you get to keep in the family.

Nonsense!

Property is anything that you own that no-one can tax, regulate, inspect, investigate, or seize.

Under that definition, most Americans don’t have any property.

It’s true, and I don’t want to rub your face in the doggie-do-do, but that’s a fact. Everything that you “own” can today be seized, inspected, or taxed by the all powerful United States government. Including your very own body. Everything.

And, since you don’t own anything, the government can tell you what you can or cannot do with it. People, if you actually owned property, no one could tell you what to do with it, nor could they tax it either.

Like…

I argue that the Ninth Amendment protects your RIGHTS to own property.

The RIGHT to own property that cannot be taxed, inspected, regulated or seized by any government agent.

Which brings me to one of the favorite militarized branches of the progressive left; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Or, are you going to use the twisted logic that telling you what you can do on your property falls under the “commerce clause” in the Constitution?

The commerce clause.

Rights retained by the people.

The Federalists contended that a bill of rights was unnecessary. They believed that everyone understood that God made man and gave him Rights. Therefore, we could have a kind and just government that did not need to enumerate any Rights given by God. They believed that the government would always protect the Rights of man.

Such fools. Such simpletons!

They argued that if you started to list the Rights given to man by God, that you would have to list every single Right. Or else the government would insist that only those Rights listed would count as Rights.

Well, they were correct. That is how the government works today.

Rights come from God.

Madison adverted to this argument in presenting his proposed amendments to the House of Representatives. He said…

“It has been objected also  against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to  the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not  placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that  those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned  into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently  insecure. 

This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard  against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I  conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as  gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth  resolution.”

It is clear from its text and from Madison’s statement that the Amendment states are but a rule of construction. He made clear that a Bill of Rights might not by implication be taken to increase the powers of the national government. Whether it was in areas not enumerated, or in any other fashion. Further, the simplicity of the amendment, does not contain within itself any guarantee of a Right or a proscription of an infringement of a Right.

In 1965 the Amendment was construed to be positive affirmation of the existence of rights which are not enumerated but which are nonetheless protected by other provisions.

Justice Goldberg devoted several pages to the Ninth Amendment in one of her rulings…

“The language and history of the Ninth Amendment  reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are  additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement,  which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned  in the first eight constitutional amendments. . . . 

To hold that a right  so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right  of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not  guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the  Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment  and to give it no effect whatsoever. 

Moreover, a judicial construction  that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because  it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight  amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment. . . . 

Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth Amendment  constitutes an independent source of right protected from infringement  by either the States or the Federal Government. 

Rather, the Ninth Amendment  shows a belief of the Constitution’s authors that fundamental rights  exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments  and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed  exhaustive.”

- 381 U.S. at 488, 491, 492. Chief Justice Warren  and Justice Brennan  joined this opinion. Justices Harlan and White  concurred, id. at 499,  502, without alluding to the Ninth Amendment,   but instead basing their conclusions on substantive due process,   finding that the state statute “violates basic values implicit in the   concept of ordered liberty” (citing Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319,   325 (1937)). Id. at 500.  

Therefore, although neither Douglas’ nor Goldberg’s opinion sought to make the Ninth Amendment a substantive source of constitutional guarantees. Which is unfortunate. Instead, both read it as indicating a function of the courts to interpose a veto over legislative and executive efforts to abridge other fundamental rights.

Never the less, the text to the Ninth Amendment is quite clear…

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Other Rights that fall under the Ninth Amendment…

Here’s some other Rights that the Ninth Amendment would normally be protecting were it enforced…

  • Right to Privacy.
  • The Right to exist.
  • The Right to own property without infringement.
  • The Right to eat and drink freely.
  • Right to Internet Freedom.
  • Right for the Freedom of Thought.
  • The Right of DNA privacy.
  • The Freedom to be forgotten.
  • The Freedom to be forgiven (Felons).
  • The Freedom to have opinions.
  • The Rights of those not yet born.
  • The Right to be left alone.

All of which were non-enumerated Rights that Americans enjoyed in 1776. Which, unfortunately today, Americans no longer have.

An average citizen here in 1800 would go years, decades even, without  seeing one single minion of the federal government, anywhere, not only  his entire day, but for his entire life. 

- From Aesop at Raconteur Report 

Conclusion

I argue that the Ninth Amendment is severely under-utilized.

I further argue that this amendment would render much of the regulatory agencies in the United States obsolete, as they all operate under the assumption that Americans only have enumerated Rights. Not any non-enumerated Rights no matter what the Ninth Amendment says.

The presence of any regulatory agency presupposes that there are ZERO non-enumerated Rights.

Supreme Court decisions that involve the Ninth Amendment have implied that only the enumerated Rights (in the Bill of Rights) are all that is needed for American citizens to have. Their mention of the Ninth Amendment is only in passing without any substantive effect on governance. Hopefully this will change in the future.

That being said. I’m not going to hold my breath. The swamp is big, enormous and very powerful. The ONLY way that the nation can recover from decades upon decades of abuse is to “nuke it from orbit” and start all over fresh.

nuke-from-orbit-meme
Sometimes, when things are so bad, you just don’t take any chances. You get far, far away from the danger, and then you eliminate it completely. This scene has long since became a meme that is used in many different situations. It is not intended to be taken literally, but rather suggestive of how to handle a particular issue.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?
The Tale of the Killdozer.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight
Types of American conservatives.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Assorted Influencer Driven FAQ’s Regarding this MAJestic Disclosure (part 3)

This is part three of a multi-part post.

Regrets – continued.

We all have regrets. Don’t we? Unless you have a mental illness, you will have regrets of one form or the other.

Do you have regrets about your joining MAJestic?

Sometimes I actually do.  But these are short lived events often triggered by physical needs such as worry, fear, shelter, hunger, etc. It’s hard being “MAJestic retired” in the USA.

That’s why I said “Fuck this”, and moved to China.

Disbelief

What do you have to say to those who do not believe you?

Fuck you.

Brainwashed

How do you know that you are not “brainwashed” or manipulated by the probes in your brain?

I do not know.  I could very well be played the fool. 

However, it really does seem like a vast waste of resources to take an educated person who exceeded in college, then got accepted to fly Naval aircraft in high stress situations to turn them into some kind of a joke or lab rat…

I mean, think about it. 

The President of the United States (Ronald Reagan at that time) does not authorize a program that depletes the Naval Aviator candidate pool (a very selective and elite group) only to use the people as “lab rats” or “test subjects”.

Now, if it was another President… like Barrack Obama, Bill Clinton, or George Bush… well, that could be a distinct possibility. But I do have a real difficult time believing that Ronald Reagan would deplete the Naval Aviation ranks on a whim.

Military Space Command since the 1970’s

If you go on the Internet, you will read people who claim to have gone through dimensional portals, much like I lay claim. They will talk about high technology, and weapons, and “space marines”. So, naturally, the inquisitive person will go ahead and ask me about this.

Others who have claimed that they were part of MAJestic state that there is a military space command where human battle extraterrestrials and defended the earth. Were you part of this contingent?

As far as I know this is all nonsense.

While Ronald Reagan wanted to increase our military in numerous areas, it would take centuries for us to be able to successfully battle against the Type-I greys and the <redacted>.  They have an understanding of reality that is beyond our comprehension, with supporting technology that could implement just about anything that they desire. 

While we would try to figure out some new kind of “pulsed ion cannon”, they could simply flick a switch and move our entire world-line into the center of the sun for about five minutes.  Then move it back, all smoking and roasty-toasty. Then they would simply start all over with fresh life on the planet. 

They are that powerful and capable. The universe is not what everyone assumes it is. It’s not even close.

MAJestic Career Path

The fucking thing about this is that I entered MAJestic for a singular role, and that was it. Nothing else.

If you were in MAJestic, why didn’t you advance to a more impressive leadership position?

That is not how MAJestic works. 

MAJestic is not set up like a conventional business or military operation.  Once we join, our roles are fixed. 

Yeah. Tell me about it. It does fucking suck.

None of us advance or change roles or tasks unless it is specifically intended (by non-human beings long before the selection process ever occurred).  We operate in that role, obtaining and gaining experience, but never advancing in position or responsibility. There are no “pay grades” in MAJestic.

Dimensional Portal Technology

Good question this. Pay attention.

Can the Jump gate technology (dimensional portal) be used to traverse the galaxy to other solar systems?

I do not know officially, however it is my personal belief that this technology could deliver a person [1] anywhere in the known universe, as well as [2] anywhere in an alternative universe, as well as [3] anywhere in an alternative time line.

I personally believe that some of the numerical values in my “manual mode” operation of world-line travel involves physical and time coordinates.  However, I could not (easily, and on a whim) manipulate them.  I do not know that this was the actual case, but I suspect it to be true.

The “manual” mode indicated only seven alpha-numerical values. 

However, the mode using the circular glyphs (the one driven by the drone pilot) was far more intricate and complex than just seven variables. If I were to provide a raw number, I might suggest a much higher value on the number of variables. Perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of different variables that would alter and tailor the destination world-line that a person can travel to. 

The circular glyphs were always that complex. 

This tells me that the “manual” mode was a greatly limited version of what was possible through use of the biological artifice.  If I were able to fully control all the variables open to the drone pilot, I am sure that I could travel to anywhere in the universe, at any time, and on any world-line at any degree of deviation. 

From what I can gather, the answer is “yes”, you can travel anywhere, at any time, all over the known (and unknown) universe.

However, you will absolutely need to fully understand your destination coordinates, otherwise travel could be fatal.

Fatal, as in dead.

Purpose

What information does the <redacted> allow you to disseminate?

They have their own purposes, of which I can only speculate on.

I have thought about this issue a lot. I have thus come to the conclusion that somehow, in some way, whatever I discuss is of some importance to some (one or two) key people. I am absolutely convinced that I am not destined to provide information to the masses. But rather to provide some insight that would benefit mankind in SENTIENCE sorting.

What that information is, can be anyone’s guess.

It could be anything from the importance of eating a well-made club sandwich, with a frosty icy beer, to the psi realities in how the universe is actually constructed.

On a personal note, I have answered some perplexing mysteries that the alert searcher should pay attention to.

  • The Cambrian Explosion was initiated when the moon entered orbit around the Earth.
  • The CARET gliphs are ladder chains that have defined indexing features.
  • The moon has an enormous void and within it exists an long-duration colony of extraterrestrials.
  • The “Mantids” are native to the Earth and evolved to become multi-dimensional beings.
  • The “passage of time” is actually world-line switching in the MWI.
  • Consciousness does not share physical reality.

At the bare minimum, don’t you all think that either [1] I know this from MAJestic entanglement like I say, [2] that I am an absolute fucking genius. Or, else [3] I am bat-shit loony-tunes.

Choose one.

Exploration

Why didn’t you manually explore really “interesting” or strange world-lines?

There is a cost to do so.

The greater the deviance, the larger the effect or influence on the consciousness.  If I were to go to a world line of say 30% deviance, and return, my consciousness will be affected and influenced. 

Long term influences are problematic because once I return to the previous world-line my integration or “fit” into it alters. I will start looking, thinking and reacting to things differently.  My memories reside outside of a given world-line. They exists outside. And, no (chuckles) they do not exist within the brain. Only a simpleton thinks that.

World-line travel affects a given world-line just as much, or maybe even more so, than thoughts do.

Think about that for a second will ya.

A great example of this is a scene in the movie “The butterfly effect” where the hero goes from one world-line where he was in prison, to a new world-line where he was “normal”.  However, when he was in the new world-line, he still maintained his previous prison behaviors (such as covering his meal when he ate). This was a habit that he picked up in the “prison world-line”. While in his new world-line, he had nothing to do with prison, his habits and actions reflect his memories of his previous excursion in the “prison world-line”.

The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American psychological thriller supernatural fiction film written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. The title refers to the butterfly effect, a popular hypothetical example of chaos theory which illustrates how small initial differences may lead to large unforeseen consequences over time.
Scene from the movie "The butterfly effect".
World-line travel can result in uncomfortable realities.

World-lines are realities constructed for one purpose only; they create experiences for the soul.  While we can traverse nearby world-lines with little consequence, distant world-lines (in terms of deviance) will have consequences.

Not to mention, my most important consideration, which is that once you have a “good thing going”, you don’t want to risk it all on a lark.

Seriously.

It is very easy to leave a perfect world-line on the promise that the “grass is greener” on another world-line only to find out that it is worse off in many other ways. Please take my word for it, when you have a great thing going you DON’T FUCK IT UP.

In a Treehouse of Horror episode, Homer changes the past and comes back to an alternate universe where his family is rich and happy. All is fantastic, but when Marge  does not know what a donut is, Homer freaks out and leaves abruptly. 

Homer goes back to the toaster-time-machine to travel  back through time again. He obviously doesn't want to live in a world or universe where there are no donuts. 

However, we learn just when Homer leaves, it starts raining donuts. (On that world-line, donuts are called rain.)  
Sometimes you need to stop when the grass is green enough.

Abductions

Yes. I do get these kinds of questions.

Were you ever involved in an abduction of a human?

No. 

However, I have “observed” the collection of biological samples from Americans who were not physically or consciously aware of the collection process.  (Entanglement had it’s benefits.)

They were treated well, if indifferently, and were returned back to their point of acquisition without any memory of the engagement. There was none of that nonsense that you might read on the internet about.

It is my understanding that their soul had given prior approval to the collection process. This could be considered, by the ignorant, as an abduction event. Not to be insulting, but I do mean “ignorant of the realities of consciousness migration”.

A little bit about "observation" in this context. 

Though entanglement with the artifice I can "observe" certain events. It’s very difficult for me to describe, but I can “tune in” to various events that the Drone Pilot was involved in. It’s similar to being in a crowded room that is full of noise.  

You can selectively “tune in” and hear certain conversations by focusing on a a particular subject. For instance, if there are some High School girls talking, you can focus on them. If there is a pair of old people, you can focus on them. It is like that.

Which brings up an interesting point. The Drone Pilot was NOT only my pilot. It was the pilot for all of us Drone Commanders.  Thus, by concentrating on the feed, or “noise”, we could observe or see what was going on elsewhere. 

I could “listen in” on what other drones were doing through their Drone Commanders, though I could not at all access the Drone Commander myself. I could only access his feed as it passed through the artifice to the drone pilot.

Another interesting point is that, if my impressions are correct, the number of people involved in this program is far less that what I have stated. I have stated that it might be as high as 12. Yet, the truth is <redacted> artifice.

<redacted>. 

<redacted>  

Maybe I said too much. Eh?

Area 51

Have you ever been to “Area 51”?

No.

Alternative 3

What can you tell me about “Alternative 3”?

Nothing. 

I was never briefed on it, nor was there anything regarding this in the <redacted>  My personal opinion is that this is a human fabrication for some reason or the other.  Yes, as far as I know, this is an Internet hoax.

Personally, I really do not believe it.  However, that means nothing.  What I can say is that I have absolutely no experience with this or anything like it.  To me, it sounds outrageous and far fetched.

The following was found on the Internet.  I do NOT agree with the information presented.  It is only for the reader to know what is being discussed without needing to go sleuthing on the Internet themselves.

“Alternative 2 and Alternative 3 are again secret programs of the “Secret Government” having to do with the colonization of the Moon and Mars. Alternative 2 was the program for the colonization of the Moon. This occurred long before our first official public landing on the Moon by astronaut Armstrong.

The basic plan of the Alternative 2 program was to build a vast network of underground cities and tunnels in which a select representation of all cultures and occupations would survive in case of a nuclear holocaust on Earth.

Alternative 3 was a similar joint Soviet Union and United States plan to set up a similar colony on Mars. A space probe landed on Mars and confirmed the existence of an environment that could support life. Not long afterward the construction of a colony on Mars began in earnest. This information was obviously not released to the American people.”

Cell Egress at ADC Pine Bluff via MWI

You said that the core kit #2 group of probes provided you with world-line travel ability without using a dimensional portal. Why didn’t you exit your cell (at ADC Pine Bluff) if you regained access to that technology?

This is a very good question. Once, I was able to regain control of my implants after Lester the “good ol’ boy” messed everything up, I did indeed try to jump to alternative world-lines. 

In fact, I suspect that the two feducials directly opposite my cell door in Pine Bluff were for that distinct purpose, or if not, something similar in regards to the MAJestic program.  When I saw the feducials, I knew proof-positive, that I was at ADC Pine Bluff for MAJestic retirement.

As such, I did try. 

Man, I will tell the reader, I tried and tried.  I must have spun through a thousand switches.  And you know what, they were almost all alike.  (I knew that I was actually successful in switching.  The dialog <redacted>.) In every case, I still ended up inside the Pine Bluff prison cell. 

Tells you something about fate, eh?

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

MAJestic Related Posts – Training

These are posts and articles that revolve around how I was recruited for MAJestic and my training. Also discussed is the nature of secret programs. I really do not know why the organization was kept so secret. It really wasn’t because of any kind of military concern, and the technologies were way too involved for any kind of information transfer. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we were obligated to maintain secrecy at the behalf of our extraterrestrial benefactors.

How to tell...
How to tell -2
Top Secrets
Sales Pitch
Feducial Training
Implantation
Probe Calibration - 1
Probe Calibration - 2
Leaving the USA

MAJestic Related Posts – Our Universe

These particular posts are concerned about the universe that we are all part of. Being entangled as I was, and involved in the crazy things that I was, I was given some insight. This insight wasn’t anything super special. Rather it offered me perception along with advantage. Here, I try to impart some of that knowledge through discussion.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the universe
Alpha Centauri
Our Galaxy the Milky Way
Sirius solar system
Alpha Centauri
The fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The Hammer inside the rock.
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
Mystery of the bronze bell.
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility
Brown Dwarfs
Apollo Space Exploration
CARET
The Nature of the Universe
Type-1 Grey Extraterrestrial
The mysterious flying contraptions.

Influencer Questions

Here are posts that have gathered a series of questions from various influencers. They are interesting in many ways and could help all of us unravel the mysteries of the lives that we live.

Interview with an Influencer.
More discussions with an influencer.
Using Intention to make your life sparkle.

MAJestic Related Posts – World-Line Travel

These posts are related to “reality slides”. Other more common terms are “world-line travel”, or the MWI. What people fail to grasp is that when a person has the ability to slide into a different reality (pass into a different world-line), they are able to “touch” Heaven to some extent. Here are posts that  cover this topic.

Cat Heaven
MWI
Things I miss
How MWI allows world-line travel.
An Observed World-Line switch.
Vehicular world-line travel
Soul is not consciousness.

John Titor Related Posts

Another person, collectively known by the identity of “John Titor” claimed to utilize world-line (MWI egress) travel to collect artifacts from the past. He is an interesting subject to discuss. Here we have multiple posts in this regard.

They are;

Articles & Links

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Assorted Influencer Driven FAQ’s Regarding this MAJestic Disclosure (part 2)

This is part two (2) continued.

Organized Government Time-Travel

Is this a thing?

What do you think about organized government plans regarding time travel?

I know nothing about the subject aside from what I have heard on the Internet. I know that time travel, as conventionally understood does not exist. 

The closest thing is (apparent) time travel, which is really dimensional travel that indexes a different state of entropy via gravitational proximity measurement (such as described by John Titor).

While it is well known and widely understood that the United States government has been involved in all kinds of highly classified and secret projects, the plausibility of one being related to time travel is actually rather low. 

The reason behind this belief is because there has to be a reason for a given project. Those involved in the projects must have [1] a quantifiable goal, with [2] specific measurables to judge the success or failure of the task.

For instance, I was in MAJestic.  My particular project fell under MAJI simply because I was involved working with extraterrestrials. 

I do not know what my management thought my role would be, aside from being lent out as I was.

I could not fathom anyone from Washington D.C. approving “dimensional anchoring” activity as directed by an extraterrestrial species.  In fact, I think it was set up with an understanding that I would be “used” by the <redacted> for some unspecified roles.  I do believe that they proceeded on the assumption that I might be hurt or changed in the process, but shrugged their shoulders and said “meh”.

That the monitoring of my engagement with them would be recorded by the ELF signals. 

My functional goal was dimensional anchoring.  The measurables were also defined.  Either the human sentience follows a normal evolutionary development, or veers off into unapproved sentience development.  It was clear. 

I have a difficult time believing that time travel would have a specific goal.  That is because if a person does not like how something turned out, they can move to a different world-line. Also, how could the success of such an action be measured?  It just cannot.

Operation Black Opera

What do you know about “Operation Black Opera”?

Nothing, aside from what I have heard on the Internet

Point One. Truthfully, If a person was involved with extraterrestrials or involved in using extraterrestrial technology, they would have a Core Kit #1 probe installation.  Everyone in the world, who deals with extraterrestrials have these probes. If they don’t have the probes, then they are just blowing smoke up your ass.

Point Two. To get the probes, you would need to be associated with the military. They would also be in the military, probably the United States Navy, and be part of MAJestic.  Even those pretty civilian girls on the base, were ON THE MILITARY BASE.

Point Three. Additionally, they would NEED to have a technical background.  That means an engineering degree at the bare minimum. Engineering degrees teach how to research, solve problems, and quickly analyze situations. These are fundamental requirements for extraterrestrial interaction.

If you are going to utilize extraterrestrial technology in any way then you will HAVE and NEED to possess a technical background; a college degree in some technical field. It would be a baccalaureate or higher in the sciences.

This should be obvious to every clear thinking and reasoning person out there.

No one is going to expose extraterrestrial contact and technology to anyone without making sure that they have the skills and knowledge to handle the knowledge.  Right?

A friend of mine bought a steak for his dog, Buddy. It was an end cut, but he wanted to give the dog something special. So he bought a $10 slab of steak.

I will never forget that day.

He showed the steak to Buddy. He sniffed it, and went CHOMP, and swallowed. It went from steak to zero in less than a second.

And Buddy is there, not knowing what's going on, begging. More, more, more...

You have to know, and understand, and show by demonstration that you are able to handle NEW, unusual, and unique experiences. It’s NOT handed out like political favors (a nod to the Obama’s), or given because you provide sexual gratification (a nod to Hollywood), or given to you because your parents are wealthy and powerful (a nod to Stanford, Yale and the rest).

That requires verifiable education. 

They are not going to hand over the keys to any technology without them [1] being implanted with ELF probes (core kit #1 at minimum) and taking [2] a military oath.

So when I read stories about people who supposedly held key leadership roles in MAJestic, and they have no demonstrable abilities, all I can do is laugh.

Uncontrollable laughter.

Discordant Sentience’s

What is a discordant sentience?

Concerning humans, the <redacted> did not want a discordant sentience to develop; (in the case of humans) the discordant sentience is a “service for self sentience” that believe that they are actually a “service for others” sentience. 

There are really three types of sentience’s that human consciousness can migrate towards. They are (plus the discordant variant)…

  • Service for others.
  • Service for another.
  • Service for oneself.
  • Discordant.

Discordant sentience’s manifest in different ways.  In short, a discordant sentience is one that will not evolve into an approved sentience archetype.

This was what was actually occurring at the time of my entry into the program.  Through the advances in technology, various individuals were convincing vast groups of people that they were “helping others” by “being selfish”.  As a result, large groups of people were getting conflicting thoughts regarding their identity.

All entities must know their identities. 

A fox knows it’s a fox.  A dog knows it’s a dog. However, humans (in larger and larger numbers) started thinking they were doing one thing when they were actually doing something else. 

Believing that you are helping people by demanding that person "X" does something to help person "Y". You believe by doing so you are helping others. You aren't. You are instead being selfish.

Thoughts create realities. 

So the resultant world-line directions were not going in associated directions. The manners that would match the thoughts with the actions were not occurring. 

This created problems in world-line direction, and altered severely the educational value of the experiences that the people would be exposed to. This is absolutely and positively unacceptable.

Examples abound.  Such as [1] having a basically kind and loving person vigorously insists that we need to tax other people to help a certain “special” segment of the population.  Alternatively, [2] that we had to fight a war, to help others who would suffer otherwise.  In both examples, the kind person believes that they did not have to do anything, just make others do the work that they think is required.  

Sentience is tied to personal physical action of the person having the thoughts. You cannot delegate responsibility or actions. It does not work that way.
The Bakers.
James Orsen Bakker (born January 2, 1940) is an American televangelist, convicted fraudster, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host (with his then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker) of The PTL Club, an evangelical Christian television program. An accusation of rape made by his secretary led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce. He later remarried and returned to televangelism.

A person can be manipulated into being a discordant sentience.

This is selfish behavior on behalf of the kind person.  They did not do anything positive.  Instead they “forced”, though thought or action, another person fulfill their desires.  Their thoughts were kind, their intentions were good, but their actions were selfish. 

Those who do this possess discordant sentience’s. Ignorance has no bearing in this issue.  Thoughts create realities.

The Future Doom…

Will any of the great “fears” actually manifest in your lifetime?

No.  California will not slide into the Pacific ocean

Global warming will not melt the ice caps, nor will it cause a “snowball effect” and another global ice age.  The same was true about global cooling. Both excuses are suitable for collecting money for the easily manipulated ignorant. Humans do not have the ability to alter climate on a global basis… yet.

There will not be a global pandemic, and there will not be a pole shift that we need to worry about. 

“Mad Cow” disease will not kill too many people.

2012 will come and pass with hardly a ripple. (And there wasn’t a ripple was there?)

All these things are simply media generated fears specifically targeted to manipulate people to behave in certain ways. Usually to empty our wallets and to give the money to “others” and “experts” to use as they see fit. 

One of the reasons for the NEED to anchor mass groupings of world-line realities was because of the amplification of efforts to manipulate people though mass thought control.

Education

Do you believe that you can teach the science of our souls to the general population?

No. 

We do not know enough about soul construction to be able to teach anything.  What I know is only trivial in substance.  What I provide here is intended to be a spark that ignites an effort to study and research the soul, and it’s construction.

CIA

Were you in the CIA?

No.  Nothing that I was involved in has anything to do with that agency.

Naval Aviator

Why do you claim to be a Naval SEAL? It sounds like you are making up stories to inflate yourself like being an American Indian like Senator Warren.

I was never a Navy SEAL.

I never applied for one, and have no idea why anyone would want to be one in the first place. My interests were always in aviation, and with the most skilled aviators, flying the most advanced aircraft. These people were (and still are) in the US Navy.

My goal and desire has always to be a “Spaceman”. You can pour through my High School transcripts, my university transcripts, and come to the same conclusion. I studied hard, hard science classes. Then you can easily see that I was in class 21-81 at AOCS at NAS, NASC Pensacola, Florida.

All of what I proclaim is verifiable. Go ahead. Look at my W-2 forms. You will see that I dropped off the grid right after joining MAJestic, and popped up at NAS China Lake where I trained. It’s all verifiable. It’s all in my jacket. Or my retirement binder. It’s in multiple places.

I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. I am in a monitoring program, and I have seen the document. It’s THICK. It’s about five times thicker than any others that I have had the chance opportunity to compare with.

If you don’t want to believe the paper-trail, you can minimize it. You can say that it’s just coincidence.

Now, people like Elizabeth Warren say and do what they do for MONEY. They use it to obtain wealth, popularity, or some other kind of physical benefit. They want fame to acquire power, and use it to obtain wealth.

Not me.

I get absolutely derive zero benefit from writing this, except to leave something behind upon my death. I do not want fame. I have other ventures that provide income, and anything that I get off this blog is really a minuscule pittance.

Come on. Be honest with yourself. Do you really think that I would derive any kind of benefit by telling others about my life?

Really?

This is what my life is…

In general, if you found paradise… you keep it to yourself.

The “Deep Dive”

Why didn’t you stay in the “great life” that manifested during the “deep dive”?

I had no control. 

I could not abort the process and the procedure. The “deep dive” was beyond my control. Besides, I really do not think that I would like it as much as I do my current life.

If there is one thing that I have learned is that there are trade-offs with everything.

The Roswell event.

What do you know about Roswell, NM and the famous UFO event?

I only know what I have read. I never had a briefing on this event, and I have no idea one way or the other about it.

Retirement as a sex offender

Is there anything that you have learned since you were arrested, imprisoned, and released from prison?

Yes. Many things.

Firstly, if I can be thrown in prison for “nothing” but a trumped up charge, anyone can. I have lived a rather unassuming and quiet life. All MAJestic members do. We are quiet and keep to ourselves as part of our training.

If “they” want you there, you will go and there isn’t a bloody thing that you can do about it. It is now your fate, as horrible as it is.

You must deal with it.

In my case, my attorney gave me a document to sign. On it was a plea bargain. I agreed to nine months in-home supervision at my Father’s house in exchange for a plea of guilty.

I believed that if an arrangement was worked out between the DA and my attorney, that that was the way things would work out. So I signed it.

Plea of Guilty = 9 months in-house detention.

But the DA fucking lied.

During sentencing, the judge held the plea agreement. He started to give me the sentence agreed to. However, the prosecuting attorney used HAND SIGNALS (a thumbs up, waving vigorously upward) to signal the judge to NOT give me the agreed to plea. As a result the judge stopped mid-sentence, and started to say one year, and the DA shook his head vigorously. Then he started to say two years. Still the DA wagged his head and shook his head. Finally, he said “Five Years” and slammed the gravel.

He gave me FIVE YEARS. Five years at hard labor for a FIRST OFFENSE. Anyone who works in the Justice Department will tell you that is is one fucking harsh sentence.

My father, who had come to the sentencing to take me home for my detention, was crestfallen and didn’t know what the fuck was going on. He couldn’t believe that our Justice system was so corrupt.

Sentenced on a Guilty Plea = Five years at Hard Labor

If they want you in prison, you will go. Even if that means that they will lie to you.

Secondly, it was terrible and uncomfortable. (Putting it mildly.) I endured Brickey’s which has the reputation in the United States for being the worst hard-labor facility in America. And yet, you know what? I survived.

If I can survive Brickey’s I can survive anything.

You can endure and survive anything, and once you get out “It’s all good”. It’s downhill, easy street for the rest of your life.

I can feel carpet on my feet. I can see and appreciate colors. I can use wall outlets and light switches. I can eat food… glorious food. I can sleep without a light over my face. I can sit on a chair with a soft cushion.

Oh FUCK, it’s all good.

Thirdly, and I know that no one is going to want to hear this, but I no longer fear the police and getting arrested.

Prison was not fun, but you adapt. What that means is that now, today, if I will need to fight someone, I will fight to KILL. I will not hold back. I will stab their eyes out. Bite their nose and swallow it. I will pick up a spoon and jab that sucker right through the temple.

I am not afraid what would happen afterwards. Big fucking deal. I get arrested. Big Deal. Big deal. Been there, done that. I dealt with the worst and survived it.

Being a murderer won’t be worse than being a sex offender felon at Brickey’s.

I know the truth in this.

I did five years Bricky hard labor on a whim, while murders got two years maximum in an “easy” prison like Malvern. I’m no longer afraid. I did the harsh time. I did the awful time.

Inter-dimensional Communication.

How can the drone pilot, and the biological artifice operate if you are on a different world-line then they are?

Outstanding question.

I do not know. I can only presuppose that they operate in a state of reality that transcends that of the physical world. To solve this quandary we must take a good hard look at the anthropic principle. Specifically, the ψ which is a measure of how thought alters our reality.

World-lines are each individually ψ-epistemic .

While the entire universe is actually ψ-ontic.

Obviously the <redacted> species has been able to derive a technology that is finer than anything available with a ψ-epistemic world-line MWI.

Confused? Check out this post for clarity…

The Nature of the Universe

The Girls

What about the girls who entered the portal with you; since you all entered at the same time, are they not the same as you and have the same mission parameters?

No.  [1] None of them were Naval Aviators.  So they did not endure the same entry qualifications as we had.

[2] They were all female, and Sebastian and myself (the only two Naval Aviator Candidates) were male.

Additionally, [3] none of them went directly through the portal on the same day that they must have been implanted (they had to be implanted, otherwise the portal would not work for them). 

[4] None of the females were at the same implantation booths during our implantation.

Finally, [5] during the SAP briefing, the person instructing us told us that we had different roles and were involved in different program, and were subject to different levels of SAP.  He specifically stated that Sebastian and myself were involved in a much more secretive program.

Thoughts

What are thoughts exactly?

Thoughts are what your consciousness creates. It is the only thing that a consciousness can create. It is a directed entanglement of an idea, a place, a person, or a thing.

These “creations” are how consciousness can navigate the MWI. It is how different world-lines are manifested.

The thing about thoughts is that they are generated by a number of things;

  • An individual consciousness can generate individual thoughts, and this can navigate the MWI many world-lines.
  • Other “quantum shadows”, the other “people” within your world-line also have thoughts. In fact every world-line is filled with the thoughts of all the quantum shadows that occupy the world-line.
  • Thoughts are “sticky”. They tend to associate themselves with objects, people and things.
  • They can be influenced by other thoughts. This can be nearby within the world-line, and also from adjacent world-lines that cluster near the one that is occupied.

If you are in a place, like prison for example, the thoughts of those around you will “stick” with you. And as your consciousness moves through the MWI and in and out of different world-lines, they will attract and repel other thoughts. This will create bad situations (if you were in prison), or good situations (if you were in a monastery).

It takes time for the “sticky” thoughts to fall away. That is why I strongly recommend a serious period of contemplation and a good happy environment for the person who is released from a bad situation.

Or else, they will come across a higher than usual percentage of individuals and situations similar to what they just left.

This is also true of used furniture, and other objects such a “haunted” houses, and automobile “lemons”.

Scene from the Stephen King horror movie “Christine”.

For us to be truly happy we need to carefully cultivate our thoughts.

  • Avoid negative friends, relationships and toxic people.
  • Avoid old things, clutter, and brick a brack.
  • Avoid most news.
  • Avoid movies, or music that will upset us.

Regrets

Do you have any great regrets?

Yes.  I wish that I would have spent more time with my friends and family. 

When opportunities arose, I should have taken them.

I wish that I would have spent more time with my pets rather than worry about work so much. I wish that I would have spent the time to play with my dogs and cats and given them more happiness, no matter how tired and stressed I was.  I should have been a better caretaker of my pets. 

I should have been a better friend to those whom I cared for, and I should have been a better human to the strangers whom I encountered. I truly regret that I did not purpose my personal life more fully.

I was far too goal-focused, and missed out on the wonders of life as they were presented to me.

When it became clear that my first wife possessed a terminal mental illness, and that she would never get better. I should have taken the doctor’s advice and left her. It would have been better for both of us. Instead, I only endured a very painful process. I could not stop her madness. I could only delay its onslaught. The price that I paid for this postponement took a great toll on my sanity and health. It did not help her at all.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, and how much effort you put into something, you will fail.

When my beloved pet was dying. I should have taken him to the vet and put him to sleep. Instead, I wanted to keep him alive as long as possible. This was selfish of me, and my dear pet suffered because of it. I did things for my own selfish reasons.

I was too selfish at times, and love ones suffered.

When I was younger, and my mother was happy and singing while getting things together during Christmas, I should have allowed her to sing, and even joined her. Instead, I criticized her singing, and just pouted about, not even offering to help her in the kitchen. I was so self-absorbed.

Yes. I have regrets. All humans (aside from sociopaths) have regrets.

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

MAJestic Related Posts – Training

These are posts and articles that revolve around how I was recruited for MAJestic and my training. Also discussed is the nature of secret programs. I really do not know why the organization was kept so secret. It really wasn’t because of any kind of military concern, and the technologies were way too involved for any kind of information transfer. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we were obligated to maintain secrecy at the behalf of our extraterrestrial benefactors.

How to tell...
How to tell -2
Top Secrets
Sales Pitch
Feducial Training
Implantation
Probe Calibration - 1
Probe Calibration - 2
Leaving the USA

MAJestic Related Posts – Our Universe

These particular posts are concerned about the universe that we are all part of. Being entangled as I was, and involved in the crazy things that I was, I was given some insight. This insight wasn’t anything super special. Rather it offered me perception along with advantage. Here, I try to impart some of that knowledge through discussion.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the universe
Alpha Centauri
Our Galaxy the Milky Way
Sirius solar system
Alpha Centauri
The fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The Hammer inside the rock.
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
Mystery of the bronze bell.
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility
Brown Dwarfs
Apollo Space Exploration
CARET
The Nature of the Universe
Type-1 Grey Extraterrestrial
The mysterious flying contraptions.

Influencer Questions

Here are posts that have gathered a series of questions from various influencers. They are interesting in many ways and could help all of us unravel the mysteries of the lives that we live.

Interview with an Influencer.
More discussions with an influencer.
Using Intention to make your life sparkle.

MAJestic Related Posts – World-Line Travel

These posts are related to “reality slides”. Other more common terms are “world-line travel”, or the MWI. What people fail to grasp is that when a person has the ability to slide into a different reality (pass into a different world-line), they are able to “touch” Heaven to some extent. Here are posts that  cover this topic.

Cat Heaven
MWI
Things I miss
How MWI allows world-line travel.
An Observed World-Line switch.
Vehicular world-line travel
Soul is not consciousness.

John Titor Related Posts

Another person, collectively known by the identity of “John Titor” claimed to utilize world-line (MWI egress) travel to collect artifacts from the past. He is an interesting subject to discuss. Here we have multiple posts in this regard.

They are;

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
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A listing of the different types of Conservatives found in America today.

This is a listing of the various types, and sub-classifications of American conservatism today. As one delves deeper, one can clearly see that modern American conservatism comes in many types, shapes and flavors. There is no “one size fits all” American conservative.

Here we discuss 30+ different types of American conservative.

The key to the success of any Presidential Conservative candidate or President is to be able to unite all these disparate groups under one singular banner. Is it even possible?

[1] The members of the “conservative movement.”

We start right off, addressing one of the most common themes used in the American mainstream media. That is, being a member of the “Conservative Movement”. This is generally a catch-all phrase that has no real meaning. However, it is useful by progressive liberal Democrats to single out and demonize non-Marxists.

While the mainstream American progressive-liberal media likes to talk about this “Conservative Movement”, most actual conservatives haven’t a clue as to what they are actually referring to. We kind of feel offended that we are so often labeled by the ignorant elites inside the urban centers.

What is the "Conservative Movement"? Does anyone really know?
What is the “Conservative Movement”? Does anyone really know?

In actually, and functionally, it is usually associated with a constellation of single-issue nonprofit organizations. All of which were singled out by former President Obama, for IRS targeting and harassment from 2008 to 2016.

As such, they were, thus effectively suppressed from political dialog during the 2012 election, which permitted the rousing reelection of Barrack Obama for another four year term. As well as to allow other conservative movements to arise to the forefront.

Most of these nonprofits sprung up in the 1970s and still exist in the form on single-issue conservatism. These non-profits include (and are not limited to);

  • Gun Rights, Second Amendment supporters, and their ilk.
  • Pro-life, anti-abortion, and anti-death-penalty folk.
  • Taxpayer rights, anti-16th amendment people, and transparency movements.
  • The Right to work movement, and other labor issues.
  • Privacy movements, and other 4th amendment movements.

Functionally, most “single issue” Conservative movements revolve around the American Federal Bill of Rights. All of the movements can be traced back to a point where the Bill of Rights is being violated.

  • The right to bear arms is a second amendment issue, and the various issues today related to individual freedoms and violations thereof can be traced to fifth amendment construction.

[2] The Conservative “Intellectual” movement.

This group mainly consists of the well-written and published American Conservatives. It consists of writers, scholars, and others whose journalistic and political work deals mainly with ideas. These are the folk that will argue up and down, and sideways all elements of a particular issue through academic parsing.

Ivory Tower Conservative also known as intellectual conservative.
Ivory Tower Conservatives also known as intellectual conservatives.

They are the “Ivory Tower” folk who tend to be quite bright but not really very practical. These are the conservative people that scream bloody murder when President Trump tries to implement an EO to stop some out-of-control situation simply because previous precedents were not clear. Their utility was too murky.

Never Trumper.
“Never trumpers” are university – belt-way conservatives that are terribly out of touch with America. Screen shot from the Rush Limbaugh show.

In real life, when confronted by an armed robber, they would hold up their index finger to the robber. Tell them to “wait a minute”, while they dial 911. Then wait until the police arrive, rather than deal with the robber themselves. They are that out of touch with reality.

[3] The Conservative “Talking Heads”

This group mainly consists of the visible (to the public at large) American Conservatives. This group consists of people that “Joe Average” would associate with Conservatives, good or bad. Noted members include…

  • Rush Limbaugh
  • Sean Hannity
  • Ann Coulter

These commentators serve a very useful purpose. many of them voice the feelings, beliefs and motivations of the silenced conservative majority. They do so with amplification, and control over the air-waves, and in the case of El’ Rushbo, a Golden EIB Microphone.

Rush Limbaugh at the EIB golden microphone.
Rush Limbaugh at the golden EIB microphone.

They can educate, inspire, entertain, and lambast, but they cannot make policy. They serve as icons for whatever exists of modern contemporaneous conservative thought.

[4] Tea Partiers

The Tea Party movement is an American fiscally conservative political movement. Their primary emphasis has been on fiscal responsibility. Which means lower taxes, and a serious reduction of the federal debt.

In a way, one could argue that this group is focused on 16th amendment issues.

As such, the movement supports small-government principles. They are opposed to any kind of “big government” initiatives and opposes government-sponsored universal healthcare. They demand a re-look at the 16th amendment in light of the damage that it has caused the United States, and require an audit of the Federal reserve to determine just how in debt the United States actually is.

Tea Party Rally in Mississippi.
Tea Party Rally in Mississippi.

This is considered a serious threat by the progressive Marxists in power in the United States, and they took action against this organization.

And, of course, the progressive American mainstream news media (Newsweek) has tried to spin the narrative in favor of the Marxists. So they report the exact opposite. Makes sense in a kind of “Big Brother” sort of way…

The Tea Party movement has been described as a popular constitutional movement composed of a mixture of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activism. It has sponsored multiple protests and supported various political candidates since 2009. According to the American Enterprise Institute, various polls in 2013 estimate that slightly over 10 percent of Americans identified as part of the movement.

-Wikipedia

[5] Grifter Conservatives

These people are NOT conservatives.

They are apolitical, and feed off Conservatives as a financial resource; a “cash cow”, if you will.

Though they pretend to be conservatives. Instead, these are leaches that feed off conservatives. They control the pools of money that grass-root conservative efforts collect, and siphon off huge percentages for themselves.

They hide behind pro-Conservative organizations. Say things that conservatives want to hear. They make promises and ask for donations. Once the donations arrive, they pocket the money for themselves.

Many are not conservatives. Like this guy…

Grifter - Al Gore
Al Gore, a Democrat, exactly fits the profile of a grifter conservative. These are people who have no real political ideology, rather they use American politics as a kind of “gravy train” from which to profit from.

The are called conservatives as that is the mantle they wear while they are stealing money. Many, I am sad to say, then take that money and use it for their own personal needs and (perhaps) give the rest to progressive liberal causes.

These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats  or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They  care not for their fellow man. They don’t care about future generations.  They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. 

They  have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are  meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal  and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in  this world. 

This precisely describes virtually every politician in  Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government  agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and  blood sucking advisor to the president. 

-US vs Them

By looking at the percentages, once can see that it is all just an enormous racket to steal money from conservatives.

Here’s some typical examples. Found from HERE.

  • Back in 2013, Conservative StrikeForce PAC raised $2.2 million in funds vowing to support Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor in Virginia. Court filings and FEC records showed that the PAC only contributed $10,000 to Cuccinelli’s effort. Less than one-half of a percent of the collected moneys went to the professed cause. This is 0.45%.
  • Back in 2014, Politico researched 33 political action committees that claimed to be affiliated with the Tea Party and courted small donors with email and direct-mail appeals and found that they “raised $43 million — 74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs.”
  • Back in 2015, RightWingNews reviewed the financial filings of 21 prominent conservative PACs and found the ten 10 groups at the bottom of their list spent $54.3 million only paid out $3.6 million to help get Republicans elected.
  • Back in 2016, campaign finance lawyer Paul H. Jossey detailed how some of the PACs operated and lamented, “the Tea Party movement is pretty much dead now, but it didn’t die a natural death. It was murdered — and it was an inside job. In a half decade, the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form of pyramid scheme that transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural, poorer Southerners and Midwesterners to bicoastal political operatives.”
  • In 2016, Roger Stone founded the Committee to Restore America’s Greatness. It raised $587,000 and spent $16,000 on independent expenditures supporting Trump.
  • In 2016, Great America PAC raised $28.6 million from donors. They donated $30,125 to federal candidates. In 2018, Great America PAC raised $8.3 million from donors. They donated $31,840 to federal candidates.
  • In 2017, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said that despite the actions of a PAC that claimed to be raising money for a Clarke bid for U.S. Senate, he was not running. That PAC raised $2 million.
  • In 2018, a federal indictment declared grassroots conservatives across the country gave $23 million to scam PACs run by William and Robert Tierney from 2014 to 2018, believing they were supporting conservative groups like “Republican Majority Campaign PAC,” “Americans for Law Enforcement PAC,” and “Rightmarch.com PAC.” Only $109,000 went to candidates.
  • In the 2018 cycle, Tea Party Majority Fund raised $1.67 million and donated $35,000 to federal candidates.
  • That 2018 cycle, Conservative Majority Fund raised just over $1 million and donated $7,500 to federal candidates. 0.75%
  • Conservative Strikeforce raised $258,376 and donated nothing to federal candidates. 0%.
  • Put Vets First PAC raised $3.9 million in the 2018 cycle; they gave $9,000 to federal candidates. Or 0.02%! That is two-one hundredths of one percent.
  • Earlier this year, it was revealed that David Bossie’s group, Presidential Coalition, had raised $18.5 million in 2017 and 2018 to support state and local candidates in furtherance of the Trump agenda. Only $425,442, or 3 percent, went to direct political activity.

There are pages and pages of examples. Conservatives are often enticed to fund conservative efforts, and in many cases the money is siphoned off for personal enjoyments, and the balance given to progressive and not conservative causes.

[6] FReeper Conservatives

“Free Republic” conservative individuals go by the name FReepers. They have been around since the early days of the Bill Clinton administration, and came into being as a conservative back-lash against his most outrageous policies. Such as…

  • NAFTA
  • Replacement of the International Space-station with the ISS.
  • Paying Russian soldiers salaries.

They formed a chat-room on the internet and there they would post articles and comment on them. They formed clusters of activists and were instrumental in uncovering such things as the looting of Air Force One on EBay by the Clinton’s, and gluing down of the “W” on all the key-boards in the White House.

FReepers are true and real "grass roots" conservatives.
FReepers are true and real “grass roots” conservatives.

They became such a force to be reckoned with that there was a mainstream media backlash. Many of which forbid any of their articles to be reposted on the FR website. Today, most websites have buttons that allow a person to easily repost an article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other such venues, yet Free Republic postings are still banned.

  • Shared articles permitted to liberal websites.
  • Shared articles prohibited to conservative websites.

The organization itself is a loose collection of individuals from many different conservative camps. The active participation ebbs and flows over the years, but there is a core constituency that are very politically astute. Roughly speaking there is a community of “lurkers” who regularly read the postings but do not contribute or comment. This group is like an iceberg and represents the bunk of the FR readership.

  • FReepers – Active participants.
  • Lurkers – Non-active readers.
  • Trolls – Paid commentators used to derail posts.

This organization is also considered a “thorn in the side” of the liberal mainstream media, and is only permitted to exist as long as they can direct traffic to liberal-friendly mainstream media outlets. To this end, there are paid trolls that frequent the site in shifts.

The objective of the FR trolls is to limit conservative dialog to the site; box it in. Make it limited so that there isn’t any traceable “spill over” onto the Internet.

Trump tweet on conservative censorship of search data by Google search engines.
Trump tweet on conservative censorship of search data by Google search engines.

This is so that the Google algorithms do not notice traffic to other smaller conservative websites. It serves to keep small conservative bloggers, websites, and associated traffic way… way down in the search hierarchy. Instead of a Conservative post being on the top three pages of a Google Search, they can end up on page 50 to 60 in a given search.

(This is) Based on their internet connectivity to other websites.

They gamed the system that way. You can read about this in more detail in these other articles.

By limiting small conservative websites from getting any internet traffic, they effective “box them in” in such a way that they are practically invisible to any given search. They have to compete against liberal posts, blogs and articles that allow linking to other liberal social media like Facebook, twitter, etc.

Search Engine buttons
Social media share buttons help establish prevalence in Internet search engines. Trolls on Free Republic have a role to minimize small conservative, articles, posts and blogs from ever being recognized by the search engine. This is accomplished by limiting their internet connectivity.

Every time a person reads a Washington Post article, and then clicks on the “share on social media” button, the article makes an impression on the Internet. When a person reads a complete, wholly copied article on Free Republic, there is no impression made.

So from the Google algorithm, it appears that the liberal Washington Post article has more popularity and value (worth) than a conservative article posted on Free Republic. This is a significant factor in relevance placing in the search results.

To accomplish this suppression of conservative articles and blog posts, the FR Trolls do so using the following techniques…

  • Demand full text transcripts from conservative blogs or sites, not excerpts.
  • Ridicule posters that have a conservative ideology.
  • Spread lies about posted links (i.e. pop-up ads, or paywall, etc.)
  • Make derogatory statements regarding a particular poster.

The trolls are easy to spot, as they are usually the first to post on a conservative themed blog or article. They are also the first to say anything negative. Whether it is intentional redirection to just nasty comments.

Today, FReepers represent a good cross-section of everyday conservative thought. They tend to be part of a wide and deep demographic and thus serve as an accurate biometic to measure the pace and mood of the conservative audience. The website itself provides a good cross-section of conservative thought, intermixed with articles regarding other subjects (known as “chat”).

Known conservative lurkers to Free Republic include;

  • Rush Limbaugh
  • Donald Trump
  • William F. Buckley (Deceased)

The website can be found here; www.freerepublic.com

Donald Trump is a known lurker on Free Republic.
Donald Trump is a known lurker on Free Republic.
Update. Access to the Free Republic website was terminated in June 2019. 

Unofficial sources (a Chinese government worker who maintains the Chinese "firewall") told me that a singular Chinese dissident out of Hong Kong was solely responsible for the banning. 

Within a two week period of time he flooded FR with a large number of anti-Chinese articles. This flagged the algorithms and shut down FR in China.
5JUL19 Update. Arrests were made on the organizers of the HK protest movement. 

These people were tracked by their posting history on social media, as well as their behavior at various events. Information HERE and HERE. 

SJW have no place in Chinese society. They should move to a more progressive place, with "democracy" for all like Sweden, France, the UK and the USA.

[7] Trumpists

Check this out…

Trumpist is the mainstream shorthand to describe the quintessential Trump follower, who by varying accounts is a non-college-educated white male, an unemployed factory worker, a reactionary with racist inclinations, or any American who’s angry, worried, and economically insecure.

- From “Trumpkin” to “Trumpista,” Trump-Inspired Words 

That is hardly true. But, it makes for great liberal copy to boost the deranged progressive left’s idea of self worth.

Trumpist
Trumpist

Now, for what a Trumpist actually is…

A Trumpist is a person, who might be conservative, or not, that supports President Trump in his efforts to Make America Great Again.

The individuals might not agree with all of his policies, they might not like his behavior, and his mannerisms. They might not like who he picks for cabinet roles, and they might not like individual policies, however they will stick to and support him because he is a person who represents the ideology of modern nationalist conservatism.

And, also he’s a rough-and-tumble fighter.

Warning, the Fake News hates all-things-Trump. Here’s what they have to say about this issue…

[8] Fusionistic Conservatism.

This term describes self-proclaimed conservatives that live within Washington D.C., and on university campuses. In a way they are different types of Intellectual Conservatives that have collaborated together as a group in order to focus on the most important element of conservatism; the element of freedom.

They argue back and forth between each other, and post intellectual tomes for consideration by the elite.

However, they have zero influence in policy matters. Otherwise, of course, we would start to see the millions of laws that infringe on the Bill of Rights be disassembled in real time. Ergo, since there just isn’t a smidgen of effort in this direction, the prognosis is quite clear. They are not a very effective prophet for the conservative cause.

[9] Jacksonian Conservatism.

There are those who consider that Donald Trump is following Jacksonian politics. Not me. I think that he has developed his own individual brand of conservatism.

Now, today, is not the time to search for similarities to earlier forms of American politics as a bridge towards justification for decisions made today. Today is quite different than any other time in American history.

These people look to Walter Russell Mead’s landmark essay in the Winter 1999 / 2000 National Interest, “The Jacksonian Tradition in American Foreign Policy,” as proof. They view the essay as a road map that not only brought Donald Trump to the Presidency, but also as a possible guide to incorporating populism and conservatism.

They argue this case…

The Jacksonians, Mead said, are individualist, suspicious of federal power, distrustful of foreign entanglement, opposed to taxation but supportive of government spending on the middle class, devoted to the Second Amendment, desire recognition, valorize military service, and believe in the hero who shapes his own destiny. 

Jacksonians are anti-monopolistic. They oppose special privileges and offices. “There are no necessary evils in government,” Jackson wrote in his veto message in 1832. “Its evils exist only in its abuses.”
Senator Tom Cotton
Senator Tom Cotton
This is a deep strain in American culture and politics. Jacksonians are neither partisans nor ideologues. The sentiments they express are older than postwar conservatism and in some ways more intrinsically American. (They do not look toward Burke or Hayek or Strauss, for example.) 

The Jacksonians have been behind populist rebellions since the Founding. 

They are part of a tradition, for good and ill, that runs through William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Jim Webb, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump. 

The Jacksonians believe in what their forebears called “The Democracy.” 

They are the people who remind us that America is not ruled from above but driven from below. Irving Kristol captured some of Jacksonianism’s contradictions when he described the movement as “an upsurge of revolt against the moneyed interests, an upsurge led by real estate speculators, investors, and mercantile adventurers, which spoke as the voice of the People while never getting much more than half the vote, and which gave a sharp momentum to the development of capitalism, urbanism, and industrialism while celebrating the glories of the backwoodsman.”
The Jacksonians have extended their conception of the in-group to include Americans of every ethnicity and race. The somewhat slippery distinction they make is between American and foreigner. I say slippery because sometimes it is hard to tell when Jacksonians decide to accept a legal immigrant as fully American. 

Jacksonians emphasize borders. They are happy to see the government direct benefits to the middle class. They don’t want to reform entitlements. They are willing to accept short-term sacrifice if it ends up benefiting the people. 

They are skeptical of preemptive war, but if a conflict arises, they want to finish the job quickly and ferociously. “The very faults of the persuasion as a guide to prudent statesmanship,” wrote historian Marvin Meyers, “may have been its strength as a call to justice. For a society inevitably committed to maximizing economic gains, this persuasion in its various forms has been the great effective force provoking men to ask what their nation ought to be.”

The current Jacksonian in the Senate is Tom Cotton.

He’s taken the lead on conservative immigration reform. A supporter of the president, he is also a Neocon. The some ONE thing that I just personally HATE.

Which in my mind, is a very big No-No. People die in wars. Economies tank. Rich people get richer, and poor people get enslaved. There is NOTHING good about war. I follow Sun Tzu in this matter; War is a failure on the part of government to resolve social differences.

Now, about Tom Cotton as a Neocon…

He was perfectly Jacksonian when he said a conflict with Iran, should it erupt, would be swiftly concluded due to overwhelming American force.

Ah… I don’t think so.

DONALD TRUMP’S USA boasts the most powerful armies the world has  ever seen – but today military experts warned they would NEVER beat Iran  in a military conflict even as the possibility of a hot war between  Iran and the USA increased as British and US servicemen raced to the aid  of two oil-tankers attacked off the Iranian coast in the Gulf of Oman. 

It’s Neocon people like this that should be watched closely.

After spending nearly 20 years in Afghanistan, and over one trillion US dollars in the process (not to mention the many thousands killed), it is beyond comprehension that this idiot thinks that the United States can take on a potentially nuclear-armed nation and conclude a war swiftly.

Heck we can’t even build a simple wall on our border. We are mired in a twenty-year-long war in Afghanistan, and are now fighting eight wars. We cannot even build a simple High Speed Train to link two close cities together.

Map of the california boondogle.
The usefulness of the California 77 billion dollar high speed rail program. Map shows the major population areas of California for reference, and to show that the rail does not impact any of these areas. The reader should note that 77 billion far, far dwarfs the amount of money that NASA spent to send men to the Moon.

Senator Tom Cotton, a native of rural Arkansas and an Army veteran, his new book Sacred Duty describes the Jacksonian code of honor and sacrifice. Die with honor.

As long as it’s not him, his children or any of his relatives. Yes, the elite oligarch way.

There is NOTHING glorious about death. Nothing.

Dead Americans
Bodies of US Airborne paratroopers lie near a command post during the battle of An Ninh, 18 September 1965. The paratroopers, of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, were hit by heavy fire from guerrillas that began as soon as the first elements of the unit landed. The dead and wounded were later evacuated to An Khe, where the 101st was based. The battle was one of the first of the war between major units of US forces and the Vietcong

[10] Reformicon Conservatism.

Reform conservatism began toward the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. I think that they felt that the Bush presidency gave Republicans a “bad name” due to all the anti-Bush press generated by the mainstream media. They believed that they should appease the mainstream press in such a way as not to be so Conservative, instead they should start to embrace some progressive thought, thus making the mainstream media be more Republican friendly.

Some people credit its’ start with the publication of Yuval Levin’s “Putting Parents First” in The Weekly Standard in 2006. Or, with Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam’s Grand New Party in 2008.

They believed that the conservative “movement” needed to be reformed to “keep with with the times” that has been, over the last century becoming more and more Marxist. They felt that it needed to adapt with the times to be more inclusive and add more diverse people under the conservative banner.

This could mean such things as adopting some of the progressive liberal Marxist ideas and policies.

This would manifest as agreeing and voting with progressive liberals on bills in the House and the Senate, and showing favorability towards LGBT, diversity, “White Privilege” and Global Warming issues.

Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin

Thus, in 2009, Yuval Levin founded National Affairs, a quarterly devoted to serious examinations of public policy and political philosophy. Its aim is to nudge the Republican party to adapt to changing social and economic conditions. To change. To accept things as they are and move with the changing tide of public opinion.

After a few years of successful publication, he proposed some reforms.

Thus, in 2014, working with the YG Network and with National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, Levin edited “Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for a Limited Government and a Thriving Middle Class.”

The report was the occasion for a lot of publicity, including a Sam Tanenhaus article in the New York Times Magazine asking, “Can the GOP Be a Party of Ideas?”

The number on champion of Reform Conservatism was the well-promoted Marco Rubio.

However, the Reformicons had no problem with trade and immigration. They felt that everything was just fine as was, and pretty much ignored those subjects, thus opening up the door for Trump to become president.

[11] Country Club Republican Conservatives

"Country Club Republican" also known as a "Country Club Conservative" or "Establishment Republican" is an expression employed, usually pejoratively, to describe certain members of the Republican Party in the United States. 

Some of the characteristics attributed to country club Republicans are higher than average income or inherited wealth, fiscally conservative opinions but with liberal, moderate or indifferent views on social issues such as abortion, censorship, and gay rights. Also, they are more likely to have attended prestigious colleges and universities than other Republican Party members. 

-Wikipedia

I love the Hollywood imagery of such conservatives. Like this one showing a country-club republican next to Rodney Dangerfield (He kind of reminds me of Donald Trump. Eh?) from Caddyshack…

Caddyshack
When I go out and go golfing it usually ends up a little something like this. CADDYSHACK, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield, 1980. (c) Orion Pictures.

[12] Neo conservatives (Neocons)

Neoconservatism (commonly shortened to neocon when labeling its adherents) is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party, and the growing New Left and counterculture, in particular the Vietnam protests. 

-Wikipedia

These are war-hawks and have no problem with war, destruction and excessive military spending. One of the most well known is that evil son-of-a-bitch John McCain. You can read about him and his legacy here…

Asshole
Neocon.  A politician who, on the lectern, claims to be a conservative, claims belief in smaller government and less government spending, but in practice increases spending and increases the size of government. John Mccain calls himself a conservative, yet he votes for Cap and Trade. He's just a centrist neocon. 

-The Urban Dictionary

Some characteristics…

  • They believe that war is necessary for social cohesiveness, and to keep donor coffers full.
  • They first started to have a voice in internal politics as early as the Ford administration.
  • They tend to lie in order to accomplish their goals.
  • One of their biggest lies is to support “smaller government” initiatives. In reality believe in big spending and tax cuts for their wealthy political and business friends, hence deficit spending.
  • They pretend being social conservatives, although true social conservatives believe they really care about social issues. Neocons distract the public by acting like they really care about social issues like gay marriage, abortion, and flag burning. Meanwhile they are busy conducting wars and stifling your freedom.
  • They believe in costly wars and creating boogeymen to try and make you think only they can keep you safe while they restrict your freedoms to “protect you”. This is their signature issue, to help keep them in power.
  • They actually despise any types of small government advocates, Barry Goldwater, traditional live and let live conservative, and libertarians

Some Neocons include George Bush I and II, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and John McCain.

[13] The Paleos

Where the paleoconservatives distinguish themselves from the other camps is foreign policy. The paleos are noninterventionists who, all things being equal, would prefer that America radically reduce her overseas commitments. In a way, they are almost the opposite of a Neoconservative.

I might be considered a Paleo Conservative, if I wasn’t having so much fun with food, drink and pretty girls.

Though it’s probably not how he’d describe himself, the foremost paleo is Tucker Carlson, who offers a mix of traditional social values, suspicion of globalization, and noninterventionism every weekday on cable television.

Carlson touched off an important debate with his January 3 opening monologue on markets. “Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined,” Carlson said. “Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible. You can’t separate the two.”

Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson

Carlson’s indictment of America’s “ruling class” and “the ugliest parts of our financial system” was remarkable for several reasons.

  • First, he delivered it on a network whose opinion programs normally laud American capitalism and free enterprise.
  • Second, the speech was wide-ranging, criticizing everyone from Mitt Romney to Sheryl Sandberg to parents who let their kids smoke weed.
  • Third, Carlson offered a theory of the case. Social decline, he said, is related to the loss of manufacturing jobs. It happened in the inner cities. Now it’s happening in the Rust Belt and in rural America. When jobs disappear and low-skilled male wages decline, family formation breaks down.

While Carlson noted in passing that wage income is taxed at a higher rate than investment income, he did not make any specific proposals.

“I’m not a policy guy, I’m a talk show host, but I sincerely believe that no problem is solved unless you have a clear image in your mind of what you want the result to be,” 

-Carlson told Michael Brendan Dougherty at the National Review Institute conference in March. 

Earlier this month, he welcomed John Burtka, the chairman of the paleo journal The American Conservative (TAC), on to his program. Burtka argued for treating the social media giants as monopolies. Carlson loved it.

Burtka offered a defense of “economic nationalism.” He advocates a national industrial strategy, without providing many details, though presumably incorporating some mixture of tariffs and government-directed investment. His reluctance toward nuts-and-bolts legislative proposals is widespread.

“We still need to figure out a lot of the details for how this vision of conservative politics, a pro-family, pro-worker, pro-American nation, conservatism actually looks in practice,” - J. D. Vance told a recent TAC gala.  

Paleos have brought renewed attention to the condition of American communities.

Paleos might not have exact answers when it comes to domestic policy, but they are certain American foreign policy should be restrained, within constitutional bounds, and prioritize diplomacy over military force. Amen to that!

[14] The Never-Hillary Army

Hillary Clinton, for what ever reason, has become the defacto face of the modern American democratic party. There are others, of course, but Hillary with her strong political support, the fawning media, and her Tony Soprano-style leadership well represents what the Democrat party is today.

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton

In a way, the people who voted for anyone other than Hillary voted conservative, but might not actually be conservative. For example, a liberal man who does not think having a woman president is a good thing might fit into this category.

This is a single issue person who may or may not be conservative, but who will vote conservative against a singular person. According to the mainstream media, many disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters fell into this category.

[15] Constitutional idealists.

They close a blind eye to what America has become, and ignore reality in the hope that one day everything will revert back to the intended utopia as defined by the Constitution.

Ah. One day. One day…

As such, they will watch as activist judge after activist judge thwarts actions by President Trump, but the moment that Trump does something that has borderline (not absolute) Constitutionality, they jump up and scream bloody murder.

Rand Paul is one such Constitutional Idealist.

Rand Paul is a true believer, a Constitutional Idealest that believes in only fighting Marxists within the framework of the Constitution as explicitly written.
Rand Paul is a true believer, a Constitutional Idealist that believes in only fighting Marxists within the framework of the Constitution as explicitly written.

[16] Deplorable Conservatives

The demonetization of others that do not share your ideology is a staple of Marxist ideology. It is used as a prelude to revolutionary takeover and social upheaval, often leading to genocide.

We saw how Hitler demonized the Jews for “Jewish Privilege”, how the term “Tutsi Privilege” was used to conduct genocide in Rwanda, and how “Tsar Privilege” was used to conduct genocide in Russia.

Deploribles.
Hillary Clinton ignited the term “Basket of Deplorables” to describe non-Marxists who believed in a traditional American way of life.

The term “Deplorable” was first used by (then presidential candidate) Hillary Clinton to clump together anyone who opposed her politically, ideologically, and socially. This label included the now famous “White Privilege” that contemporaneous users hope will soon mean the total extinction of conservatives in America.

Through genocide.

And, let’s be clear about this. Make no mistake they do want to kill you. They really, really do.

Spitter at a protest rally.
These people are ideological. They are dangerous. They follow a solid Marxist belief system, and treat all others as below them and with contempt. If given a gun, they will shot you without blinking an eye. They are very, very dangerous.

In short, anyone who is not a progressive Marxist is automatically labeled a “Deplorable Conservative”.

[17] Alt-Right

The "Alternative Right," or more commonly, the "alt right" is a diverse assortment of people, mostly online, who identify as right-wingers but consider themselves either opposed to, or profoundly alienated from mainstream American conservatismusually because they view it as being too liberal.

-Quora

The mainstream American media considers them extremist, simply because they believe on following the Constitution.

They believe that the American constitution is like a set of rules that one must obey when running a government. Of course, the American media, as progressive-Marxists believe in a “living document”, one that is always subject to change.

Game rules and structure.
Rules are part of structure. A failure to have an adequate structure will result in a collapse. This is true in everything from relationships, to buildings, and yes also society.

However, that only works in the favor of the one making the revised rules as they go along. As any child knows, unless you play by the rules, eventually, some child will throw the game in the air and give up and pout and sulk.

In “real life” it is only through rules that society is able to be cohesive and stable. The moment when rules are ignored, you start to have all sorts of problems, often lasting for decades before full termination of “the game” occurs.

Alt Right believe that rules are fixed.
The Alt Right believe that rules are fixed and must be adhered to without exception. The Marxists hate this, as they believe the exact opposite. Well go ahead and try to play at a Casino and not follow the rules and see what happens.

[18] Zombie Reaganism

It's a belief that conservatives are a mindless, stupid mass, just aimlessly ambling forward and devouring everything in their path. The current incarnation of the zombie was given to us almost single-handedly by George Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead and its sequels. 

- 6 Mind-Blowing Ways Zombies and Vampires Explain America 

This is a derogatory term. It has different meaning depending on who is using it.

As used by a Conservative on other Conservatives…

Some of my fellow conservatives knock what they call “zombie Reaganism.” They use it to refer to the idea that we should incorporate Reagan-like polices today. Such as in economics, global world strategy, and on the home-front.

What they are saying, I think, is that policies of the Reagan era don’t fit every time and place. Most certainly, it might not fit today’s reality. One with Marxist control of almost every part of the government, forming a “Deep State” “swamp” and a fully alert and active Marxist American media.

Conservative intellectuals eager to privilege either freedom or virtue like to attack this consensus, which they often describe as “zombie Reaganism.” The truth is that the strength of fusionism always has been exaggerated. 

- Making Sense of the New American Right | National Review 

In this reality, it makes absolutely no sense to revert to the baseline politics of the Reagan era. For this is a new era. It is a era of Trump. We need fighters and brawlers. Not experts in playing partisan politics, Reagan-era style.

As used by a Progressive Marxist Democrat to Describe Conservatives…

Democrats (or progressive socialist Marxists, by another name) just cannot understand why anyone would not embrace the wonderful socialist platform.

  • Free school.
  • Free medical care.
  • Free food.
  • Free internet.
  • Free public transportation.
  • Free housing.

As such, they decry non-Marxists as ignorant, non-understanding, mindless dolts. Much like zombies who will follow any leader that appeals to them. To this end, you can google up tons of pictures depicting conservative zombies.

Here’s a picture of a liberal book cover, trying to convince people how out-of-touch, and backwards, and dangerous traditional beliefs are…

Zombie Reaganism
Zombie Reaganism

[19] Catholic Integralists 

It is a belief that theology, especially Catholic theology, should guide the policies and decisions of the President of the United States.

Integralism or integrism as a political term designates theoretical concepts and practical policies that advocate a fully integrated social and political order, based on converging patrimonial political, cultural, religious and national traditions of a particular state, or some other political entity. 

Some forms of integralism are focused on achieving political and social integration, and also national or ethnic unity, while others were more focused on achieving religious and cultural uniformity. 

In the political and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries, integralism was often related to traditionalist conservatism and similar political movements on the right wing of a political spectrum, but it was also adopted by various centrist movements as a tool of political, national and cultural integration.

 -Wikipedia

I don’t know much at all about them. However, here’s some links if you, the reader, would like to study this matter in more detail.

[20] The Post-liberal Conservatives

The post-liberals say that freedom has become a destructive end-in-itself. All of the problems that America experiences today can be traced to having too much freedom and not enough rules or boundaries.

Their solution is to limit freedom.

  • Economic freedom has brought about a global system of trade and finance that has outsourced jobs, shifted resources to the metropolitan coasts, and obscured its self-seeking under the veneer of social justice.
  • Personal freedom has ended up in the mainstreaming of pornography, alcohol, drug, and gambling addiction, abortion, single-parent families, and the repression of orthodox religious practice and conscience.
“When an ideological liberalism seeks to dictate our foreign policy and  dominate our religious and charitable institutions, tyranny is the  result, at home and abroad,” 

-The signatories to “Against the Dead  Consensus,” a post-liberal manifesto of sorts published in First Things in March 2017. 

In a way, I do see their point.

In a way, everything that they are proposing goes absolutely against the core belief that Rights originate from God. What they want to do is to let the government be the arbitrator of Rights. They want to do this by transforming Rights into Privileges granted by a benevolent government. It does go against the spirit and very being of the structure of the Constitution, now doesn’t it?

“The ambition of neoliberalism, is to weaken and eventually dissolve the strong elements of traditional society that impede the free flow of commerce (the focus of nineteenth-century liberalism), as well as identity and desire (the focus of postmodern liberalism). This may work well for the global elite, but ordinary people increasingly doubt it works for them.” 

- The editor of First Things in the spring of 2017. 

The result, he said, has been populist calls for the “strong gods” of familial, national, and religious authority.

The post-liberals are mainly but not exclusively traditionalist Catholics.

  • Patrick J. Deneen . Their most prominent spokesman is Patrick J. Deneen, whose Why Liberalism Failed (2018) was recommended by that ultimate progressive, Barack Obama.
  • Yoram Hazony . Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony’s Virtue of Nationalism (2018) is another important entry in the post-liberal canon. Hazony has contributed essays to both First Things (“Conservative Democracy”) and American Affairs (“What Is Conservatism?”) making the case for conservatism without Locke, Jefferson, and Paine.
  • Josh Hawley . The closest the post-liberals have to a spokesman in the Senate is freshman Josh Hawley, who attends an evangelical Presbyterian church. Not six months into his term, Hawley has already established himself as a social conservative unafraid of government power. He has picked fights with the conservative legal establishment by criticizing two of President Trump’s judicial appointments. He has identified Silicon Valley as a threat to traditional values and proposed legislation to begin to rein in the tech industry. And in a little noticed commencement address to King’s College, he inveighed against the fact that

The post-liberals say that the distinction between state and society is illusory.

Josh Hawley
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) participates in a mock swearing in with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during the opening day of the 116th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein – RC16E9DDF6F0

They argue that, even as conservatives defended the independence of civil society from state power, the left took over Hollywood, the academy, the media, and the courts.

What the post-liberals seem to call for is the use of government to recapture society from the left. How precisely they intend to accomplish this has been left undefined. (Though the levy on large university endowments included in the 2017 tax bill is a start.)

Appeals to the common good are rhetorically powerful, but they often run up against the shoals of America’s constitutional structure and overwhelming emphasis on individual rights. That is one potential reason the post-liberals seem more interested in European philosophy and politics. It also could be why many of them are eager to abandon the term “conservatism.”

-New American Right schools of Thought

[21] Conservative tribalism

Tribalism and US Politics. Tribalism: s the state of being organized in, or advocating for, a tribe or tribes. In terms of conformity, tribalism may also refer in popular cultural terms to a way of thinking or behaving in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, their country, or any other social group. 

-Tribalism and US Politics

There are those that believe that people form “tribes” or groups of people with similar interests. This is herd behavior. Such as what you would find in sheep, cows, goats, and lemmings.

Conservative Tribalism
Conservative Tribalism

Conservatives correctly identify that many progressive liberal Marxists are who they are through Tribalism. They care what other people are doing and establish their belief structures on group consensus. We can see this in their love for Hollywood leadership, magazines like “People”, and the cult of personality.

In a like way, liberals argue that conservatives do the exact same thing. They join groups to “fit in” and follow their leadership blindly.

I disagree, but what do I know? Here are some further links on this subject.

I usually regard liberals and conservatives as equally but not  identically reprehensible, rather like the complementary halves of a  migraine headache. Some differences do stand out. Peculiar to  conservatives is a certain tribalism, often accompanied by subclinical  paranoia. 

They seem to be looking fearfully about as the wolves circle  closer. It doesn’t matter whether there actually are any wolves. 

-Lew Rockwell

[22] Conservative populists

Right-wing populism is a political ideology which combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. The rhetoric often consists of anti-elitist sentiments, opposition a perceived Establishment, and speaking to what is seen as the "common people." 

In Europe, right-wing populism is an expression used to describe groups, politicians and political parties generally known for their opposition to immigration, mostly from the Islamic world and in most cases Euroscepticism. 

-Wikipedia

The prevalent understanding of populism is that it seeks involvement of government to intercede on behalf of ordinary people. It is popular, and thus “populist” because many under-educated people look to the government as the solution to what ever problems that they might face.

Populism requires that government intercede in peoples’ lives.

This distortion is rooted in a systemic effort by Statists of all ranks to disguise the factual nature of populism. You are mislead to believe that a populist seeks a more equitable distribution of wealth.

All rights reside in persons, and are not at the mercy of governments.

Yet, the State possesses no rights at all. It’s only purpose is to serve the people. The ability for the will of the populace to be expressed, dwells in the representation within a republic form or government. Within that framework the repose of society maintains a balance as long as officials are held accountable to the fundamental principles of the American experience.

There are basic standards which are the essence of conservatism.

  • Traditional society.
  • Small government.
  • Small, if any, taxes.
  • War as a last-resort utility.
  • Local, regional, governance.

Violating these codes, while claiming the designation of a traditionalist, does not make one unprogressive.

A progressive accepts the State as a solution. A genuine conservative understands the State to be the greatest threat to Liberty.

Thus, those counterfeit conservatives are closet progressives, who are so embolden with their new found power, that they enjoy opening the door to their true motives.

Populist Conservatives are actually progressive Marxists who do not understand the fundamental nature of society.

Politics is based on three other  philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics- on a  theory of man’s nature and of man’s relationship to existence. It is  only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political theory  and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into  politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing  conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality  which is loosely designated today as “conservatism.” 

-Ayn Rand  

[23] MAGA Conservative nationalists

MAGA means Make America Great Again.

It argues in favor of local nationalist policies by the government to protect it’s citizens. This is in opposition to the New Global World Order as espoused by Hillery Clinton, Barrack Obama, and George Bush.

Thus, by nature, MAGA support is a nationalist ideology.

MAGA rally in North Carolina with President Trump.
MAGA rally in North Carolina with President Trump.

Since many conservatives, of all types and classes follow Donald Trump and his nationalistic message, and very few (if any) do, we can automatically equate MAGA conservatism with singular nationalism.

[24] MAGA Liberal nationalists

Politics really comes down to a value judgement: how does society best organize its collective life?

For nationalists, love of country, its inhabitants, and its unique character guides law-making.  Government is formed solely for the benefit of citizens.  High-minded psalms to the brotherhood of man have little place in policy.

The globalists are devoted to the biggest community on Earth: worldwide humanity.  To the globally minded activist, there is no difference between the man next door and the man in a hut in Cambodia.  Each is due equal consideration when it comes to the law.

While there are many liberals that love big government and “Big Brother” and the “Nanny Society”, not all of them want to share it with the rest of the world. They are selfish. They want this big gracious government to be theirs and theirs alone.

Thus, we have the phenomenon of liberal nationalists that follow Donald Trump and his MAGA message.

[25] Conservative Libertarians

For the longest time, I was a libertarian that voted along conservative and Republican party lines. I had this “live and let live” attitude, with was a hold over, I think from my free-wheeling 1970’s childhood.

I wasn’t all that happy with my “elected” officials. I pretty much thought of them as “country club republicans”. But, as long as I was left alone, well heck, I just let the world slide past me.

Many kids of the 1970's turned into conservative libertarians.
Many kids of the 1970’s turned into conservative libertarians.

That lasted for many years, that is until I moved to China. It was there that I discovered that of the many things that they did right, the most impressive was to make traditional conservatism the Law Of The Land. This is Chinese-conservatism, not American-conservatism.

They outlawed all non-conservative politics.

In China, progressive activism is against the law.

They called Chinese-Conservatism a new name. They called it “Communism with Chinese Characteristics“, which pretty much confused just about every American on the planet.

So we shrugged our shoulders and said… “Meh. Communism by any other name is just Communism.”

But, yeah, it isn’t.

Names are just names to describe things, and depending on who is listening, there could be all sorts of misinterpretations.

China has created a conservative society that is NOT a democracy. It is a conservative, traditional authoriartian government.
China has created a conservative society that is NOT a democracy. It is a conservative, traditional authoritarian government.

As far as I can tell, aside from some confusing terminology, the (so called) Communist Chinese are actually Traditional Conservative Libertarians that have formed an Authoritarian Government based on traditional Chinese-conservative principles.

Let me repeat, but with a better laid out presentation;

  • Chinese communism is…
  • Single party, authoritarian…
  • Traditional…
  • Chinese Conservative…
  • Leadership by merit…
  • Permitting families libertarian freedoms…
  • With core laws based around a centralized structure…
  • And, with regional interpretation of those laws.

I don’t know who well this will play out in the next one hundred years. However, what I have seen first-hand, I can tell you (the reader) that they have avoided and sidestepped many of the problems that democracies, and republics have had to contend with.

At the same time, still permitting their citizens the ability to be themselves, play around, and not be afraid to do things.

Living in China is the closest thing to reliving the free-and-wild 1970's in the United States.
Living in China is the closest thing to reliving the free-and-wild 1970’s in the United States.

I have often wondered what America would be like, if it followed the US Constitution To-The-Letter, and banned all political parties like the “Communist Chinese” have.

Remember, boys and girls, the United States Constitution as originally written was much like “Communist” China is today…

  • No opposition political parties…
  • Traditional.
  • Well educated leadership.
  • Libertarian ideals.
  • Judicial interpretation of laws.

Today, it doesn’t look anything like this.

What would America be like without all those laws about drinking, smoking, and just having fun? What would America be like if we could use straws, and paper bags for groceries? What would it be like if we could swear on demand, say “Merry Christmas” without a “Diversity Officer” calling you into the HR’s office and threatening your livelihood? What would it be like?

It would be like China. That’s what it would be like.

It’s stuff for thought, and maybe you (the reader) should give it some thought as well.

Really, is “democracy” where everyone can vote really a good thing? Did giving women the right to vote make the United States better or worse, or neutral? Think, know your history, study trends, and then answer.

One thing is for sure, you wouldn’t have any of the progressive events that we are dealing with now. The Chinese do not mess around. They have declared war on SJW folk.

When the SJW movement took control of China

In America, we have people who are libertarian, but who vote conservative out of practicality. These are known as “Conservative Libertarians”. They want to live their life, and be ignored by the government in the process. They don’t want to have to file taxes in April. They don’t want to report bonuses to an IRS. They don’t want to be told what size of drink they can or cannot get, and they don’t want their straws banned.

The only difference between them and “Chinese Communists” is that the Americans believe that “democracy” and the idea that “everyone can vote” is a good thing. Where the Chinese believe that only qualified, and vetted people should be able to influence the governmental structure and policies.

In America we believe that popularity is more important than merit. In China it is the opposite; they believe in merit over popularity.

A small change… with a BIG difference in results.

Living in China is like living in a Chinese version of an American Conservative Libertarian utopia.
Living in China is like living in a Chinese version of an American Conservative Libertarian utopia.

[26] Buckley conservatism

Buckley Conservatism was basically two things. Beat the Soviets and keep the Progressives from pulling the roof down on us. The Soviets are gone and the Progressives are too busy hooting about men in dresses to care about pulling the roof down. Buckley Conservatism, it turns out, is not a timeless philosophy after all. 

-Buckley Conservatism

Ah, I don’t know about youse guys, but I think that his political philosophy pretty much died when he passed on.

William F. Buckly with Ronald Reagan.
(Original Caption) 11/18/1986-Washington, D.C.-: President Reagan talks with William F. Buckley, Jr. prior to a dinner honoring the latter. The dinner was sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in honor of its 19th anniversary.
There was a time when the Whigs were an important check on the  Jacksonian Democrats. No one knows what a Whig is today. 

Fifty years  from now, it will be hard for people to understand “conservatism” and  why it was important. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on. 

 -Buckley Conservatism 

[27] Historical traditionalists

Traditionalists value old-time morals, safety, security, and consistency. They have more respect for brick-and-mortar educational institutions and traditional lecture formats than online, web-based education and training. This generation favors conventional business models in the legal workplace and a top-down chain of command. 

- Common Characteristics of the Traditionalists Generation 

If you find yourself longing for the “good old days”, you might be a traditional conservative. Certainly because you wish for traditional values, but possibly also due to the fact that America up to the 1970’s was a majority conservative nation.

[28] Conservative Pragmatists

Pragmatism (Conservatism)  Thatcherism is characterised by privatisation, deregulation, marketisation of the welfare state, a flexible labour market, lower taxation and the creation of a property-owning democracy. Thatcherites are as passionate in their beliefs as any other comparable ideologue from the left of the political spectrum. 

- Pragmatism (Conservatism) | Politics | tutor2u 

Donald Trump Is Not Conservative, He’s A Pragmatist.

As a pragmatist Donald Trump hasn’t made wild pie-in-the-sky promises of a cell phone in every pocket, free college tuition, and a $15 hour minimum wage for working the drive-through a Carl’s Hamburgers. Those are utopian dreams that are sold to a progressive audience.

Trump is a pragmatist. He sees a problem and understands it must be fixed. He doesn’t see the problem as liberal or conservative, he sees it only as a problem. That is a quality that should be admired and applauded, not condemned.

Donald Trump on WWF.
Donald Trump on WWF.

We have had Democrats and Republican ideologues and what has it brought us? Are we better off today or worst off? Has it happened overnight or has it been a steady decline brought on by both parties?

I submit that a pragmatist might be just what America needs right now. And as I said earlier, a pragmatist sees a problem and understands that the solution to fix same is not about a party, but a willingness and boldness to get it done.

People are quick to confuse and despise confidence as arrogance but that is common amongst those who have never accomplished anything in their lives and who have always played it safe not willing to risk failure.

[29] Christian Conservatives

Those that follow the Christian faith tend towards liberalism simply due to the nature of the New Testament. It teaches many things such as forgiveness, charity, being supportive of others, and “turning the other cheek”. Many Conservatives, for right or wrong, have found that in “real life” application, attempts to do this has backfired.

When they try to give a job to a vagrant, they find they they try to rob them. When they gave money to various causes, they found the grifters have stolen most of the money. When they have tried to be kind and forgiving, they have been ridiculed for doing so, then attacked and “stabbed in the back”.

Christian Conservatives are pragmatic followers of the writings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible.

[30] SHTF, CWII, and other Alertist Conservatives

Now, let’s get to the fringe.

At least the “fringe” as identified by the mainstream American media. Many people consider “preppers” and those that believe that they SHOULD NOT count on the government when domestic discord spirals out of control domestically, to be “tin foil” hat types.

Not true.

They are historians.

They have read history, and are frightened by the many, many, many parallels between American and other events that have happened in the past and in other nations. These are almost always conservatives who wish to prepare and avoid any hardship and discord. Thus, they will vote accordingly.

I tend to agree with them, and these posts describes why…

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs

[31] Frotocons

There is no clear definition as to what a Frotocon is. It is a term used quite often by El’ Rusbo, but no one has ever sat down and defined what it is until now.

In my mind, it relates to American conservatives that behave like the character Froto from the story “The Lord of the Rings”. He was physically small, weak, had no training, but had a mission and would use what little he possessed, on the hope that someday his mission would be realized.

Frotocon (N)

Pejorative. Describing a type of American conservative by their lack of social understanding, failure in political battle, and their stalwart reliance that if they only "stick with the Conservative plan" that "some day" everything will just work out.

They are not fighters willing to do battle for any particular Conservative cause. They are bit players that merge with the group and urge them forward, with tiny squeals and statements, that in the long-run the very nature of conservatism will survive. As such they have a mission.

Of course, in the fictional story “The Lord of the Rings”, Froto succeeds in his mission.

But, that is, of course, a fiction.

[32] Fredocons

Mr. Schlichter writes, “We prefer a free society based on personal  liberty and mutual respect. But if you leftists veto that option, that  leaves us either a society where you rule and oppress us, or one where  we hold the power. 

So let me break this down, both for the left and for  their fussy Fredocon enablers: You don’t get to win.” 

A Fredocon is a conservative that behaves much like the character Fredo did in the movie series “The Godfather”. They, by their weak-wrist behaviors, are only enabling the enemies of conservatism. They do no good, and in the long run hurt the conservative cause.

fredocon
This movie still symbolizes the totality of what a Fredocon is. They go against conservatism by being a “snake in the grass” against others of the conservative movement.

Good management requires that there needs to be a strong sorting effort made to remove Fredocon’s from the conservative banner. For they hinder rather than help conservatism.

Guess what kind of Conservative that I am..

Here’s a fun game. Guess what kind, or type, of a American conservative that I am. Yes. Conservatives often have more fun than progressive liberals, simply because we follow rules, and avoid social revisionism.

Here’s two hints…

And…

And at that, I will finish this post. I do hope that you enjoyed it as much as I had writing it. Best Regards.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The Pedestrian (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This story was copyrighted in 1951 by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

Introduction

For years I had amassed a well worn, and dusty collection of Ray Bradbury paperbacks that I would pick up and read for pleasure and inspiration.  Later, when I left the United States, and moved to China, I had to leave my treasured books behind. Sigh.

It is very difficult to come across Ray Bradbury books in China. When ever I find one, I certainly snatch it up. Cost is no object when it comes to these masterpieces. At one time, I must have had five books containing this story.

Credit to the wonderful people at Mother Earth News for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

Full Text

Here is the full text of the masterpiece. I will let the reader read it and enjoy it.

The Pedestrian

To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.

He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.

Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.

Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building was still open.

Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk.

For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening.

On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, toward the hidden sea.

There was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow.

He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.

“Hello, in there,” he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. “What’s up tonight on Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?”

The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in midcountry.

If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.

“What is it now?” he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch.

“Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?”

Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened.

He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk.

The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass.

In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.

He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town.

During the day it was a thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarabbeetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions.

But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.

He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home.

He was within a block of his destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him.

He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it.

A metallic voice called to him: “Stand still. Stay where you are! Don’t move!” He halted. “Put up your hands!”

“But-” he said.

“Your hands up! Or we’ll Shoot!”

The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was only one police car left, wasn’t that correct?

Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one.

Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.

“Your name?” said the police car in a metallic whisper.

He couldn’t see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.

“Leonard Mead,” he said.

“Speak up!”

“Leonard Mead!”

“Business or profession?”

“I guess you’d call me a writer.”

“No profession,” said the police car, as if talking to itself.

The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.

“You might say that, ” said Mr. Mead.

He hadn’t written in years. Magazines and books didn’t sell any more.

Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy.

The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.

“No profession,” said the phonograph voice, hissing. “What are you doing out?”

“Walking,” said Leonard Mead.

“Walking!”

“Just walking,” he said simply, but his face felt cold.

“Walking, just walking, walking?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Walking where? For what?”

“Walking for air. Walking to see.”

“Your address!”

“Eleven South Saint James Street.”

“And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr. Mead?”

“Yes.”

“And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?”

“No.”

“No?” There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.

“Are you married, Mr. Mead?”

“No.”

“Not married,” said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent.

“Nobody wanted me,” said Leonard Mead with a smile.

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”

Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.

“Just walking, Mr. Mead?”

“Yes.”

“But you haven’t explained for what purpose.”

“I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk.”

“Have you done this often?”

“Every night for years.”

The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming.

“Well, Mr. Mead,” it said.

“Is that all?” he asked politely.

“Yes,” said the voice. “Here.” There was a sigh, a pop. The back door of the police car sprang wide. “Get in.”

“Wait a minute, I haven’t done anything!”

“Get in.”

“I protest!”

“Mr. Mead.”

He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.

“Get in.”

He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.

“Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi,” said the iron voice.

“But-“

“Where are you taking me?”

The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes. “To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.”

He got in. The door shut with a soft thud.

The police car rolled through the night avenues, flashing its dim lights ahead.
They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.

“That’s my house,” said Leonard Mead.

No one answered him.

The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all
the rest of the chill November night.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The Taxpayer (Full Text) by Ray Bradbury

This story was written by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. This is from the Martian Chronicles. Which is a great collection of stores about Mars.

Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.

Here is a story that illustrates the frustration of American taxpayers that dutifully give away their hard-earned money to a government that squanders it with stupid abandon. How can we forget the seven billion dollars that Obama gave to South Africa to “improve their energy grid”, Heh heh… Or the millions to universities to study the endangered tiger-striped bo-bo fly? The emotions and feelings are real. And Ray Bradbury captures them perfectly.

I love the way that Ray Bradbury brings advanced concepts to the masses though his very (seemingly) simplistic stories.

Introduction

“There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go…” 
-R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury

For years I had amassed a well worn, and dusty collection of Ray Bradbury paperbacks that I would pick up and read for pleasure and inspiration.  Later, when I left the United States, and moved to China, I had to leave my treasured books behind. Sigh.

Ray Bradberry book colleciton
A small collection of well worn, well read and well appreciated Ray Bradbury books. My collection looked a little something like this, only I think the books were a little more worn, and a little yellower.

It is very difficult to come across Ray Bradbury books in China. When ever I find one, I certainly snatch it up. Cost is no object when it comes to these masterpieces. At one time, I must have had five books containing this story.

I have found this version of the story on the Ray Bradbury library portal in Russia, and I have copied it here exactly as found. Credit to the wonderful people at the Ray Bradbury Library for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. (Рэй Брэдбери .RU found at http://www.raybradbury.ru ) And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.

Martian ruins.
The book “The Martian Chronicles” discusses the planet Mars and the humans that try to visit it. It takes place around a fictional world where Mars has inhabitants and large cities and canals.

THE TAXPAYER

Ray Bradbury

He wanted to go to Mars on the rocket. He went down to the rocket field in the early morning and yelled in through the wire fence at the men in uniform that he wanted to go to Mars, He told them he was a taxpayer, his name was Pritchard, and he had a right to go to Mars. Wasn’t he born right here in Ohio? Wasn’t he a good citizen? Then why couldn’t he go to Mars? He shook his fists at them and told them that he wanted to get away from Earth; anybody with any sense wanted to get away from Earth. There was going to be a big atomic war on Earth in about two years, and he didn’t want to be here when it happened. He and thousands of others like him, if they had any sense, would go to Mars. See if they wouldn’t! To get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription and government control of this and that, of art and science! You could have Earth! He was offering his good right hand, his heart, his head, for the opportunity to go to Mars! What did you have to do, what did you have to sign, whom did you have to know, to get on the rocket?

They laughed out through the wire screen at him. He didn’t want to go to Mars, they said. Didn’t he know that the First and Second  Expeditions had failed, had vanished; the men were probably dead?

But they couldn’t prove it, they didn’t know for sure, he said, clinging to the wire fence. Maybe it was a land of milk and honey up there, and Captain York and Captain Williams had just never bothered to come back. Now were they going to open the gate and let him in to board the Third Expeditionary Rocket, or was he going to have to kick it down?

They told him to shut up.

He saw the men walking out to the rocket.

Wait for me! he cried. Don’t leave me here on this terrible world, I’ve got to get away; there’s going to be an atom war! Don’t leave me on Earth!

They  dragged  him,  struggling,  away.  They  slammed the policewagon door and drove him off into the early morning, his face pressed to the rear window, and just before they sirened over a hill, he saw the red fire and heard the big sound and felt the huge tremor as the silver rocket shot up and left him behind on an ordinary Monday morning on the ordinary planet Earth.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
The Warning Signs
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Make America Great Again.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

Take control over your life by using “the rule of eight”.

Today, in fact ever since the 1970’s, it has become easy for Americans to fall into debt. Here we are going to discuss how to gain control of your life financially. We are going to talk about the implementation of the “rule of eight”.

Implementation of “the rule of eight” is the fundamental first step in gaining control of your finances. I know. I know. It’s a boring subject. But, hear me out.

The trick to keeping your money and living the lifestyle that you deserve is in spending your money properly. And, that, boys and girls means that you don’t just spend money on things you want. It means, instead, that you plan on how to spend your money.

You plan on how to spend your money.

Because having full control over your money means that you will obtain full control over your life.

Full control of your money = Full control of your life.

The “rule of eight” is a very simple rule. It just means that everything that you buy must full under the “rule of eight”.

  • There are three (x3) parts to this rule.

Part 1 – Wait eight days before you buy something.

This little rule destroys impulse buying.

Most credit card purchases are impulse buys. Most of the things that get us into trouble financially are due to impulse buys. In fact, most sales in stores and on-line revolve around “sales” that are intended to get you to perform a purchase on impulse.

In fact, the source of the biggest problems in families today is that there “isn’t enough money” to live off of. Yet, if you look at their budget, you would find that the money has disappeared into a deep deep black hole. This black-hole is impulse purchases.

Stop.

You must end the impulse buying nightmare and get off the treadmill of debt.

Info-graph of impulse buying.
By controlling the purchases you make through use of the “rule of eight”, you will be able to have a very successful family budget. As such, you can then gain control of your life and steer it towards what ever goals that you set for our and your family to attain.

In practical application, the person in the household who controls the budget (this would be the woman of the house if you are in a traditional conservative family), or the owner of a wallet (if you are in a progressive family) would have money set aside as “spending cash”. In companies this goes by the term “petty cash” but the idea is simple; a set amount of money is provided for each person to use as they need for minor sundries.

Depending on the person, this could vary from $5 to $20 /week.

The rest of the money is formally budgeted. The budget would consist of “containers” where money is allocated into different uses. Again, in a traditional household, the woman (or house-person if a same-sex household) would do the budgeting.

Woman stocking the refrigerator.
Since the “Woman’s Rights” movement of the 1970’s came about, having a woman in control of all the money has been demonized. When a man insists on working, and the wife wants to tend to the children and teach them how to grow up and learn, it is considered to be a throw-back to primitive repressive times. Feminists refer to the woman as a “Handmaids Tale”, which is really nonsense. Women, most especially mothers, are far better at budgeting and managing a household than a man is. Men and women both have their strengths and weaknesses. A traditional household leverages those strengths superbly.

Some budget items might include such things as…

  • Food for home cooked meals.
  • Eating out for the one or two meals outside.
  • House payments or rent.
  • Utilities (electricity and gas)
  • Savings
  • The various payments on outstanding debt (car, college)
  • Planned purchases
  • “Petty Cash”

In the rule of eight, you wait eight days for purchase of anything outside of “petty cash” or budgeted expenses. This is eight days, or one day more than a week.

Here is an example. 

Imagine that you have a traditional conservative household. The man works a 40 hour/week job, and the wife handles the domestic responsibilities of household and childcare. Further assume that the man makes $1000 / month.

He, as a traditional conservative, would give 100% of his salary to the wife. Then she would budget the money accordingly.

Rent - $400
Groceries - $200
Utilities - $50
Savings - $150
Pay off debt - $100
Petty Cash - $50 ($20 to the man, $20 to the wife, and $5 child allowance)
Discretionary Funds - $50

With a budget, you now have a monthly allocation of $50 to use for discretionary purposes. You can plan on what to use it on. That is how a budget works.

Having a budget, and following the “rule of eight” gives you time to determine if the purchased item has value more than a momentary emotional appeal.

You will find, that the rule of eight plays a very important role in the ability to save money, budget food, and master your own household. Instead of a home filled with clutter and junk, most people who follow the rule of eight find their house to become uncluttered, and tend to eat better. They also tend to save money.

Vintage advertisement for a refrigerator. Showing the role of the housewife in the proper raising of the children.
When you have a family budget, you have a far better degree of control on what happens to the money that you make. Some families set aside large amounts of money towards saving, while others put an emphasis on delicious home cooked meals. While others spend very little, but what they do purchase is of the very best quality. Having control over your money is a fundamental staple of a happy household.

This first part of the rule of eight, effectively eliminates spontaneous impulse purchasing. As such, it is probably the most important part of this rule.

You wait EIGHT DAYS on the purchase of anything not already budgeted for.

Part 2 – Purchase by quality value.

The next component of the Rule of Eight is the quality component. This little rule assigns value to what your purchase.

What has more value? A breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and unlimited coffee at a family diner for $4, or an $8 cup of Starbucks coffee?

You start to purchase things based on their value to you.

LIve your life well; eat good food.
I well remember a restaurant that I went to. They had a special on their dinner, and the wife and I went inside to try the food and save some money. I will never forget that meal. It was the worst meal that I had ever tasted in my life. People, life is far too short to eat sub-standard quality food.

The idea here is that you start managing the quality of the products that you use.

In general, you try to avoid low-quality items for they will always, eventually one way or the other, detract from your standard of life. And, while you might want to have everything “high quality”, it will be prohibitive to do so, as they tend to be expensive.

Think of the quality of any item you purchase on a 10-point scale: a “one” is the lowest quality/throwaway item and a “10” is the highest quality available.

  1. Free sugar at a fast food restaurant. (Free = zero value.)
  2. Disposable plates and silverware.
  3. Cheap plastic toys for children.
  4. Walmart quality appliances.
  5. Canned food at a supermarket.
  6. Frozen food.
  7. Fresh fruits, vegetables, cuts of meat.
  8. Upper level quality appliances. (The “sweet spot”.)
  9. Best quality anything.
  10. Best quality on a “name brand” item. (Super expensive.)

The Rule of Eight says that once the quality of any purchased item exceeds eight on the 10-point scale, the price rises very rapidly. It rises exponentially. However, the usefulness of the item (economists call this the “utility” of the item) barely changes at all.

For example;

You can buy a second-hand car (maybe two years old) for far less than a brand new car right off the sales lot. Yet, both of them would be able to give you the same kind of functionality in the five-year period of ownership.

Because of this relationship, items that are eight and larger on the scale are considered to be “luxury items”.

Chart of the rule of eight.
Chart of the “rule of eight”. If you plot out the prices of everything sold in the world, you would get a chart a little like this. You can characterize the value of each item by using a numerical value. Eight is the “sweet spot”. This is the area where you would get the most value for your purchase.

The “sweet spot”, or the area where you get the best quality at the most reasonable price is just under the value of eight. This is to the left of the red line.

Obviously not every purchase will be in that area. However, if you use the “rule of eight” to make quality decisions, then you will discover that heavy-use items (such as automobiles, tools, and appliances) should have values from 6 to 9. Most other items can range from 5 to 7.

The relationships between good, cheap and fast.
Good and cheap won’t be fast. Fast and good will not be cheap. Cheap and fast will not be good. These are basic truths that everyone should well understand.

And by the way, keep in mind that forays into the very cheap and the ultra expensive need to be justified by careful thought and consideration.

Part 3 – Control the quantity of items purchased.

The final component of the Rule of Eight is quantity. You need to spend the vast bulk of your money on the items that provides value.

This is an easy one: 80% of your purchases should conform to the Rule of Eight. So, in practice this means that most of your spending will not be on super-high quality brands and items.

Nor will it be on the cheapest junk you can afford.

It will be somewhere in between. If the items are going to be put through daily use, like for instance, a computer or a cell phone, then you need to get a good sturdy reliable model. If, however, the item is going to only be used a few times, then the quality of that item can be far less and you can discard it when finished.

Most of the items you purchase should reside somewhere in the middle 80% of the mainline price range. Remember, you get what you pay for.

Utility plot
When you follow the “rule of eight” you will find that almost all of your products that you purchases will fall within a 80% region. You will stop buying cheap things, and no longer waste money on expensive things. Take coffee for instance. Why go to Starbucks when you can obtain a better up of coffee for a better price?

What does all this mean?

By implementing the “rule of eight” you will start to find that you are in control of your money. Not someone else.

To implement it, most people discover that they need to make some changes in their lives. Most of the changes are fundamental. That is, the most successful families are ones that have adopted traditional ways of running a household.

  • The household sets up rules that people follow.
  • Roles are established to process the rules; a “bread-earner”, a “finance manager” , and someone in charge of “domestic affairs”.
  • Members follow the rules.
  • There will be a minor period of adjustment to the rules.

What this means, is that once you are in control of your finance, that all sorts of good things start to happen to your life. I have covered them in other posts, and you might want to read about them here…

Here we talk about the two different types of familial structures that are present in the United States and how they work…

The two family types and how they work.

If you decide to have a traditional conservative type of family, then you will start to eat better, and the meals at the house will take on an entirely new dimension…

Link

Now, the reason why there is so much confusion as to roles and rules is because society has changed. American society has changed, and no one has been monitoring that change. Here, I talk about it…

r/K selection theory

Of course, the theme behind this post is that men need guidance on how to carve their life out in the world. As such, I try to offer some support here.

Build up your life

As well as other posts along this same theme…

Things I wish I knew.
Being older
Link
Travel
Thank you.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

What the Progressive Socialist Liberals have in store for Conservatives (part 5)

The progressive liberal socialist “democrats” do have plans for you and your family. Yes. They really do.

 “It is one of those things that is easily said. ‘The Jewish people is  being exterminated,’ every Party member will tell you, ‘perfectly  clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating  them, a small matter.’

 “Altogether we can say: We have carried out this most difficult task  for the love of our people. And we have suffered no defect within us, in  our soul, or in our character.”

 These two gruesome comments are from the diary of Heinrich Himmler,  which has recently been revealed in a military archive, in Podolsk near  Moscow in Russia. The diary was first found by the Red Army after the  War and was kept in the war archives; the journal consists of some 1000  pages full of gruesome details of war crimes committed by the Fuhrer’s  right-hand man. 

Know this…

 A lifetime of pain taught me one thing: When people say and do  certain things, you no longer have to worry about their welfare. They're  TELLING YOU in plain English, “I’m crazy! If you’re nice to me, I’ll  destroy you!”

Did you read or hear about the chef on the New York  subway kicking a 78-year-old retired kindergarten teacher in the head  six times? Nobody helped her, and the chef was proud. I’m 56 years old,  and I have full-body osteoarthritis. If I’d been there, the chef would  be dead. That’s all there is to it. He was attacking a defenseless  elderly woman, and I’m in no shape to get into a prolonged fight. So I’d  have to kill him.

Many years ago, I learned how to instantly kill people with my bare hands. It’s actually quite easy. I can still do it. 

-The Abusive Spouse

When SHTF, and CWII occurs scenes like this will be common place. Young armed youth will travel forth from the cities in new trucks right off the sales lot, and they will attack the people in the smaller cities and rural areas.

After  a month or two, gangs started operating, destroying everything.  Hospitals, for example, turned into slaughterhouses. There was no more  police. About 80 percent of the hospital staff were gone. I got lucky.  My family at the time was fairly large (15 people in a large house, six  pistols, three AKs), and we survived (most of us, at least). 

-Commonsense Show

They might even have technicals installed on brand new (white) Toyota trucks. (An Obama and Hillary trademark.)

Make no mistake. They will be armed, supplied and equipped by a very wealthy (and hidden) army of progressive liberal Marxists. They will out-gun you. They will out-number you. They will be filled with hate and RAGE, and all this will be magnified by drugs that they will be given.

Hillary Clinton equipped ISIS technicals.
Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama made arrangements to supply the ISIS with brand new white Toyota pickups, and provided CIA assets to equip them into technicals. It is quite common for governments, especially the United States government to perform these black or grey cover operations to further their own political agendas. Do not think that they will fail to do so during a CWII event, and when SHTF, the forces you will be fighting will be well-equipped.

Beware of Ideologues

Killing Jews by MG42.
Killed because Hitler demonized them for an entire decade before he came to power. Once you are demonized, you will be treated like a cockroach. And killed without a moments notice or a second thought. Know your history.

The “killing fields” of Cambodia should wake anyone up.

In Cambodia, adults were forced to dig their own graves before they were slaughtered with spades and sharpened bamboo. Their children, meanwhile, were smashed to death against the trunks of trees and thrown into the mass graves where their parents lay.

Cambodian skull
The “killing fields” of Cambodia is what happens when government sponsors genocide. Note that the progressive democrats believe that the world is over populated and it needs to be cleansed, and that means to “get back” at the bad conservatives that caused all their anxieties.

There were more than 150 of these execution centers across the country.

During the invasion of Cambodia in late 1979, Vietnamese soldiers uncovered a hastily abandoned prison in Phnom Penh containing meticulous records of each inmate, complete with a portrait photo and detailed “confessions” of their crimes committed against the Khmer Rouge.

That prison was Tuol Sleng, or Security Prison 21, a former high school in the Cambodian capital that was converted into a prison and interrogation center upon the Khmer Rouge’s ascent to power in 1975. 

Under the guise of building a classless agrarian economy, the Khmer Rouge targeted anyone that was incompatible with their vision of Cambodia including intellectuals, ethnic minorities, religious figures, and city-dwellers.

In the following four years, Cambodians perceived to be saboteurs or traitors to the state — some simply because they worked in factories or wore glasses — were taken to the prison to be tortured until they provided a full confession along with names of their collaborators. After confessions were made, almost all inmates were executed: of the 20,000 prisoners taken to Tuol Sleng, only seven survived. 

-All that is interesting

The massacres on the killing fields stopped when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and brought an end to the Khmer Rouge. As the Vietnamese marched through Cambodia, they found places like Tuol Sleng. They uncovered mass graves full of thousands of human remains – and found photos of some of the many people who had been lost in the Cambodian genocide.

Germany in the yearly years of World War II.
You do not want to be dragged out of your home. Lined up in the street in front of your house, and then shot dead. But, we know, that is what will happen if you are disarmed. It is not about having a lot of guns around. It is about having one, and being an expert at using it. You need to have the will and the strength to know that SHTF is moving forward soon and quickly. Know that no one is doing anything about those “diversity officers”, and the media monopoly, or the Socialist HQ under Obama /Soros. No one is doing anything, so CWII and SHTF will happen. To prevent it, action is long over due, and I fear that the damage, at this time, is irreversible.

It’s all planned

Jews being driven away
The people on the lists will be collected from their homes. The embedded “snitches” progressive activists will take glee in watching those people dehumanized and shamed. They will be loaded onto trucks and then driven to isolated places to be killed.

When genocide breaks out, and make no mistake, any civil war in the United States conducted today will be one of genocide, will not be spontaneous or “grass roots”. They will be planned. They will be armed and prepared well in advance.

Pretty soon, the nice houses and estates in the countryside of America will start to look like this. Prepare.

Rural Bosina.
Rural Bosina. No, CWII will not be anything like Hollywood is trying to portray. You won’t go scavenging for materials or hot-wire a car to drive. Things will be destroyed, dead, rusted and useless. War is very, very ugly.

All genocides are planned. They are planned, often for years, if not decades. The genocide that is being prepped for America has been in the making for at least 50 years if not longer.

        
The term Bosnian Genocide is used to refer either to the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995, or to the ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.

In the 1990s, several authorities, in line with a minority of  legal scholars -- including the leading Holocaust scholar Dr. Robert Jay  Lifton -- asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of  the Bosnian Serb army was genocide. 

These included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly  and three convictions for genocide in German courts, (the convictions  were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by  international courts).  In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that  "the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms  defining genocide". 

Just like those protests against Brett Kavendaugh were not organic, or the organized protests against illegal aliens, it’s all just show and tell for the progressive mainstream media. Only this time, it will not be televised.

PPT on Rwanda genocide.
Typically during genocidal events, neighbors will turn on you, or contact other confederates that will perform violent actions themselves.

It will be the “real deal”, and “out of no where”. It will be roving bands of young heavily armed ideological youth. It will be these thugs and gangs targeting your towns and communities and manning road blocks and seizing key strategic points.

We know what will happen.
We know what will happen. It has been well documented. People will be collected. They will be rounded up into urban areas, or centers. The men will be separated out from the group. They will be led to an isolated area, a cellar, a warehouse, a cluster of tree, an area behind a bulldozer. They will then be held down by two people and shot dead.

Know your history. Do not expect it to be random or spontaneous.

The weapons had materialized out of nowhere, and every man had one:  rocket-propelled- grenade launchers and Kalashnikovs and sleek black FN assault rifles and even old shotguns and sabers left over from colonial days. 

They had come from the bush, these men, and they'd brought with  them their protective magic and their claims of special powers. They  wore sackcloth tunics and fishnet shirts studded with crocheted pouches  that were supposed to stop bullets. They sewed cowrie shells onto their  clothing and wore bone necklaces that hung down over their ammo belts  and clacked against their guns. 

One guy had nothing on but shorts and a  pink ski-parka hood. Another had a headband made of live machine-gun rounds. They stood in angry little clusters around shortwave radios listening to the afternoon BBC report and slapping ammo clips into their guns. 

-The Terror of Sierra Leone

Never Forget…

Left will do this.
What the left has planned for their enemies.
"They have no interest in us, except as slaves or, more likely, as a  vaguely troubling memory of a problem solved long ago. Guess how they  would solve us? 

Not sure? 

Well, there’s this thing called “history,” and  you can look up leftism’s track record regarding unapproved people like us unless Google is hiding the results for that too. "
 
-The real leaders of the Democrat party want you to shut up. 

Yeah. Here’s a nice meme that I found on the internet.

Do not trust the goverment.
If you trust the government, you have obviously failed history class. Never trust the government.

Know your history. Plan on dealing with an enemy that intends to exterminate you and your family. They will be ideologically motivated and the troops will more than likely be heavily armed, and high on drugs.

It will be nothing like you see on television or in the movies. It will be a horror show.

It was early morning and there was no one there; the gate had been torn  off its hinges, and twisted clothes and spent bullets littered the  yard. We stepped inside and sloshed through water that was three inches  deep over the marble floors. Somewhere it was still running, gurgling  out of a pipe where protesters had torn the plumbing out of the walls.  There were women's panties and bras on the towel rack in the bathroom,  as well as an empty bottle of 1998 Laurent Grand Siècle Ferme. In the  upstairs bedroom there was an empty box of 70-mm. ammo. Papers were  scattered everywhere, and syringes—thousands of them, used and  unused—lay piled in the corners like drifted snow. 

-The Terror of Sierra Leone

Traitors in our midst

There are organizations all over the United States that have had the SHTF, and CWII planned. In fact, they have been planning this for decades. They have secretive membership, secretive financing, secretive meetings, handshakes and even flags.

I kid you not…

Flag graphic of socialsit organizations internal to the USA.
Flags of one of the many organizations devoted to the overthrow of the United States of America.

1940 Katyn Forest Massacre

The Russian eagerness to slaughter Poland's military leadership was not  simply born out of savagery. Many believe that Stalin reckoned that such  ruthless tactics would permanently weaken the Poles, and make them a  much easier people to subdue.  -Dailymail

Know your history. It is going to be repeated. It is going to happen in the United States. It is going to happen.

Do not let it happen to you.

Katyn massacre
The progressive liberal communists collected anyone who could possibly be a threat to them. They loaded them into trucks and trains, and carted them off to an isolated forest. There, they tied their hands behind their backs and systematically killed each one.

Get ready.

In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. They came from both sides, and within weeks, Poland was captured. The Western half of Poland became occupied by Germany. The Eastern side of Poland became occupied by the Soviets.

Poland division
Once the Germans and the Soviets took over Poland, it was divided up. The Poles in the West had to deal with the German Nazi’s. The Poles on the East had to deal with the Soviets.

In 1940, once Russia took over a huge portion of Poland, they collected people. They collected anyone who was smart. They collected anyone who had skills. They collected anyone who had an education. They considered these people threats to the “new progressive reality” that they planned to impose on Poland. They collected them.

And, then they massacred them.

  • Anyone with a college education.
  • Anyone who was an educator.
  • Anyone in politics.
  • Anyone who owned or supervised in a factory.
  • Anyone who was related to anyone who was famous.
  • Anyone who held an officer rank in the military.
  • Anyone who was a small business owner.
  • Anyone who was a land owner (owned a house).
  • Anyone who was singled out by someone else as non-progressive.

In November 1939, the Russians arrested over 15,000 Polish officers and deported them to western Russia.

Among them were civilians, professors, doctors, lawyers, journalists, artists, judges,an Olympic athlete, priests, and the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army.  

The prisoners sat there for months, afraid of what was going to happen, but few guessing their true fate. As Peszkowski said: ‘We did not think it possible that the Russians would kill us without mercy.’

Katyn Poland
Desc: Katyn massacre (Polish army officers killed by Soviet troops in Katyn forest, near Smolensk, western Russia,1943), Nazi propaganda poster, Central Europe • Credit: [ The Art Archive / Private Collection / Marc Charmet ] • Ref: AA399882

Military leaders were sent to three prison camps, at Kozielsk, Starobielsk, and Ostashkov.

In April of the following year, the Polish prisoners were told that they would be repatriated to Poland. It was a lie, of course. When progressive liberal democrats (whether they call themselves Marxists or Communists is of not matter) say anything, it is ALWAYS a lie.

Progressive Liberal Socialists always lie.

Katyn map
Multiple locations were used to kill all of the intellectual class of Poland. The workers, ignorant, and women were singled out, and segregated. The men were taken to remote locations and shot.

The first group boarded a train, but oddly it was not traveling east, but rather westward.  It came to a stop outside Katyn Forest, situated near Smolensk.  

With orders to kill everyone.
Executions normally take place hurriedly, but in this case the killers were in no rush. The victims were taken from their prison camp and put on a train for two days without food and water. When they arrived at their final destination, they were bundled onto coaches with windows smeared with cement to obscure their view. After a short drive, the men were directed one by one to the rear door of the vehicle. As each man stepped into the gloomy light of the Russian forest, he would have had no doubt as to his fate.

From there the Polish officers were herded into black vans which drove them to a clearing in the woods.  

When they stepped out, they were simply led to the edge of what would imminently be their grave. The Russians took them to a large pit inside the forest, and forced them to kneel at its edge.

Led, forced to kneel and then killed.
Led to the edge of the pit. Held and bound, then forced to your knees. The progressive liberal socialists will put the pistol to the back of your head and kill you dead with it.

Their hands were tied behind their backs, and a choke knot tied around their neck and hands so that if they struggled they would have strangled themselves.

Held on either side, the victims were approached from behind by an NKVD man equipped with a German Walther 7.65mm pistol.

The relatively small recoil, compared to that of heavier Russian pistols, made the task far easier on the executioner’s wrist, an essential requisite for a killer with so many men to dispatch.

The shot was fired at the base of the man’s skull, and if the job was done correctly, the bullet would have exited through the forehead. Death was instantaneous, as one by one the Polish officers filled the mass grave.

They were surrounded by dozens of armed NKVD agents who made sure that everyone was killed. No one escaped.

Killed by progressive socialsts.
Polish officer shot in the back of the head by progressive liberal socialists from the Soviet Union. These people are dangerous.

Their bodies were thrown into mass graves.

This convoy of death went on for several weeks.  By mid-May almost 4,500 Polish officers were murdered and buried in eight mass graves – the largest grave contained 12 layers of corpses.

Shot in the back of the head.
Polish aviator shot in the back of the head. This is what the progressive liberal socialists have in store for anyone that does not agree with them on any of their crazed ideology.

Among the dead were more than 200 pilots including friends and classmates of the Kosciuszko Air Squadron.  

In memory
Is is a photo of a memorial ceremony in Poland for the absolute slaughter of the Polish leadership, intellectuals, and workers of Poland, by progressive liberal socialist democrats from the Soviet Union. They called themselves “Communists”.

One of its’ victims was the brother-in-law of Witold Lokociewski.    The sole survivor of Katyn was Professor Stanislaw Swianiewicz.  

He was on board the train headed to Katyn Forest, and was standing in the line ready to board the van, but an NKVD colonel had pulled him out of the line. 

The Germans invaded Russia in July 1942, but it wasn’t until the next spring that they discovered the mass graves in Katyn.

The bodies were exhumed and examined by a team of experts, and they accused the Russians of having committed the atrocity.  The Russians denied all responsibility and countered by saying that the Germans had committed the massacre.  

When Polish Prime Minister Sikorski called for an investigation by the International Red Cross, the Russian government abruptly severed all diplomatic ties with Poland. Sir Owen O’Malley, the British Ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile, described the grisly scene:

” In the broad deep pit their comrades lay, packed closely around the edge, head to feet, like sardines in a tin….up and down on the bodies the executioners tramped, hauling [the corpses] about and treading in the blood like butchers in a stockyard. “

Sir Owen O’Malley conducted an investigation and produced a detailed report that proved that the Soviets were guilty.  But Churchill hastily absconded with the report and warned everyone not to ever speak a word about it. –Katyn Massacre

They rounded them up. They loaded them into trucks. They tied their hands behind their backs, and they killed them.

They politely told them to turn around. They asked them to put their hands behind their backs. Then they shot them FUCKING dead.

Dead.

Dead as a fish. Dead. D-E-A-D.

Execution
The progressive liberal communists rounded up anyone who could possibly be a threat to them. They loaded them into trucks. They tied their hands behind their backs, and they killed them.

When the atrocity was reported, the governments all, ordered it to be kept quiet and for no one to say a word about it.

Know your history.

You see, the progressive liberals; the communists wanted a complete extinction of all opposition in Poland. They destroyed anyone with knowledge. They eviscerated anyone with skills, ability or talent. They erased anyone who could organize against them.

You know…

People like YOU.

In the spring of 1940, Stalin and Lavrenty Beria planned to liquidate  this potential source of opposition to Soviet control and gave orders  to murder over 20,000 Polish officers.

The murders were carried out at several sites. The most famous was the NKVD burial ground at Katyn, near Minsk (today in Belarus), but killings were also carried out at Piatikhatki (near Kharkiv in Ukraine) and at Mednoye in Russia.

Other killing sites were never identified, although it is believed  that another group of officers was placed on old barges towed out into  the White Sea near the Arctic Circle and used for target practice by the  Soviet Navy.

Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 NCOs, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, and 131 refugees. 
 
One female air force officer was among the dead. Also among the dead were 20 university professors; 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 pilots. 

-Learning History

We know about this because, while Stalin ordered everyone to be killed, their bodies were discovered by the Nazi’s that invaded Russia the subsequent year. They heard about the bodies and they investigated.

They used the information and pictures of what they found as anti-Soviet propaganda.

Killed Polish General remains
The remains of Brigadier General Smorawinski (
Mieczysław Smorawiński ) found in one of the many graves in the Katyn forest. He had his hands tied behind his back and shot in the back of the head. After a short stay in various Soviet prisons and POW camps, at the end of 1939 he was transferred to the NKVD Special Camp in Kozelsk. Smorawiński left the camp on 7 April 1940. Together with most of the Polish officers imprisoned there he was executed by the NKVD at Katyn, in the spring of 1940, aged forty-six, in what became known as the Katyn massacre. During the exhumation of 1943 his body was exhumed and identified, as one of the Polish generals to be identified.
Katyn Memorial in Jersey City
Katyn Memorial in Jersey City. The progressive liberal democrats in power want it removed, or put in an isolated area so that “mothers don’t have to explain what happened in history”.

There are memorials to this horrible massacre in the United States. Though the progressive liberal democrats currently in power wants the statues to be removed.

In Jersey City, a park official proposed relocating a monument of the massacre to a less-traveled locale. He argued this because he found it “a little gruesome”, adding that “I can’t imagine how many mothers go by and have to explain it to their children.”

The real truth, since he is a vocal socialist, is that he wants to erase history in order to pave the way for an eventual full progressive utopia .

This happened in Katyn, but also in Cambodia. As well as in China. It also happened in Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Know your history. All of the ground-work is being laid down today for a near by future.

Killing fields
The Cambodian Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War. The mass killings are widely regarded as part of a broad state-sponsored genocide. Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicate at least 1,386,734 victims of execution.

There will not be any leniency in this matter. If you are a threat, maybe you wrote something, or maybe you said an off-hand comment at work, you will be singled out. The “Diversity Officers” in your company have a firm lock-grip on who is not “with the program”. Take heed.

You will be taken to the edge of a dug hole in the ground and you will be shot dead.

Dead.

 
Please kindly be advised that all of this will happen before you are aware that the SHTF. 

You will wake up in the morning and dress like normal. You will drive in your car like normal, and get a coffee at a fast food restaurant like normal. The only thing out of the normal might be a friendly police officer that might pull you aside to "have a small chat with you". 
Cambodian genocide
We see pictures in history books and say, “nah that could never happen here”. The roads are dirt. The people are wearing military clothing. There isn’t anything that looks like a part of America in the pictures.

But the truth is that yes it can happen here, and if you read ANYTHING at all about genocide, know the [1] it is always government sponsored, and [2] it is rare for a nation to escape a period of genocide longer than 100 year period between genocidal events. [3] It is always preceded by disarming of the citizenry.

America is long overdue for one.
Then you will turn around nicely while they put handcuffs on you. You will be entrapped long before you have any idea that things are going down. IT WILL NOT BE REPORTED, and you will be unaware.

Do you think that all those people killed in Katyn had any idea what awaited them? Do you think that those factory workers in Serbia had any idea how their day would end? Do you think that those teachers in Cambodia had any idea what would happen when they "worked the fields".

Be ready to be SURPRISED.

If you are handcuffed, you will stand there while they go through your house.

Betrayal is as old as man, but the pace and severity seems to be  accelerating. It hasn’t touched you or me yet, but someday soon we will  be told to “be patient, as we restore your account balance,” or “the FBI  will not allow this to happen again,” or “we’ve made some mistakes in  the past but we (the same people) will do better going forward.” Ya,  thanks. 

- Karl Ushanka 

You WILL be disarmed.

Understanding Progressive liberals
You need to understand… it’s ONLY a matter of time. You will be disarmed. Maybe not today, but it will happen, as NO ONE is taking action to stop the march of progressive reality.

You will watch them take your guns and throw them in a pile with zero concern. Guns that you would gingerly caress and hold with care would be tossed like rubbish onto the floor and into a pile.

In 1911, a national gun registration law was passed in Turkey, with  no apparent ill intention beyond increasing public safety.  

Four short years later…

In 1915,  during the Great War, these gun registration lists were used to disarm  the Armenian and other Christian populations. 

Army battalions cordoned  off entire towns and did gun sweeps. 

Once disarmed, the official state  violence visited against the Armenians ratcheted up to murderous levels.  

Typically, on town-wide sweeps, all of the men and boys were taken away by the Turkish soldiers, never to be seen or heard from again.

Oh, yeah. America is “exceptional”. It could never happen here. Right?

  Only after these Armenian “enemies of the state” were disarmed and  completely helpless to resist did the final step begin: the officially  sanctioned, ordered, led and conducted wholesale “deportations” of the  Christian minorities from Turkey. 

These “deportations” were in reality  forced marches into fiery deserts, accompanied by pervasive sadistic cruelty comparable only to the Japanese “Bataan Death March,” and the  less known but much more deadly death marches of the last surviving Jews in Nazi hands as the Red Army closed in on Germany. 

-Bracken 

You will be interrogated for any other guns, and your other family members will be separated from you. Your wife in one room, and your children in an other. They will play good cop – bad cop.

They will have a list that they will read off of.

They will tell you that you own XXX number of guns, and that they don’t believe that they were all stolen. They will threaten you. They will search your house, they will tear it apart. You will find that they will wreck it and destroy precious valuables.

The Pol Pot Plan to implement a Socialist utopia.
The Pol Pot Plan to implement a Socialist utopia. – Ethnic cleansing. – To regain the glory of the Angkor Empire. – To reclaim Kampuchea Krom. – To get all CIA and KGB agents out of Democratic Kampuchea.

Oh they will go look for your guns. They will not take your excuses that they were stolen at face value. They will treat you as dangerous and will go ahead and look for them.

They might even have a metal detector.

Do not think that they will not be readily equipped. They might have dogs that can smell out gunpowder. They will be looking for your guns. That will be their purpose; to disarm you.

They will set you down and yell at you, and depending on the level of urgency, get physically violent with you. They will separate you from your family. They will scare the living Dejesus out of your loved ones.

The children, will of course, tell them where your hidden weapons are. No matter that you instructed them otherwise. The children will tell. THEY WILL TELL.

Your children WILL tell and report on you.

Your wife, well… that is touch and go. But, you can expect a 60% chance of her telling them anything just to let you guys live in peace. Any secret hiding places that they know about will be exposed for the police to get.

God thing that you have a very secret stash that ONLY YOU know about, eh?

Grease
Research, using a safe search engine, the best type of grease to use to protect firearms. You want cheap, non-corrosive grease that is available in gallon or larger sized drums. Know how to use it to store firearms with, and ALWAYS have some ammo next to the stored guns. You cannot assume that ammo will be available when you need to access the firearm.

A couple of months will pass from the time of collection to when you will start seeing a need to have a firearm.

How do we know?

That is the way it ALWAYS happens.

We know from history. We know from Bosnia. We know from Sierra Leone. We know from Germany. We know from Russia. We know from Poland. We know from Spain. We know. We know. We know.

We fucking know.

 In the Turkish case, only a small clique understood the true purpose  behind the gun registration and gun control laws of 1911. If average  Turks thought about the gun laws at all, they probably believed they  would actually lead to greater public safety, as advertised. 

...

That was  also generally the case with the Russians, Germans, Chinese, Cambodians,  Guatemalans, Rwandans, and all the rest who were required to register  or even turn in their firearms for “public safety,” and who accepted the  demand at face value as a “reasonable” gun control measure, to their  later regret.

...

 American liberals who would like to see the Second Amendment torn out  of the Constitution as a problematic relic of a bygone era generally do  not know—or pretend not to know—this well-established historical  pattern. 

But American Constitutionalists, who are more often than not  students of history, understand the pattern very well.

 So, directly behind the insane faces of contemporary villains like  Loughner, Holmes and Lanza, we see the smirking faces of Stalin, Hitler,  and Mao, tyrants who did not murder individual victims by the fives and  tens, but entire populations by the tens of millions.   

...

And in each case, these national genocides were preceded by gun  confiscation that was made possible by national firearms registration  laws sold to a gullible population in the name of “public safety.”

...

Interestingly, during the bloody French Revolution’s “Great Terror” of 1793 to 1794, it was the “Committee of Public Safety”  who condemned tens of thousands of French men and women to the  guillotine or other forms of summary execution without trial. 

...After  previously being disarmed, of course.

 -Bracken 

Then, we will “hear of shootings”, and “events”. Not all of which will be reported.

Be ready to fight dirty.
Be ready to fight dirty. For you to survive, you will need to be a most dangerous person. You will not be able to trust anyone. The enemy will look like you, speak like you. Dress like you. Do not trust anyone.

You won’t know you are in danger until it is too late.

Often a singular incident will be used to obtain “advantage” by the forces that want to initiate the genocide. In Rwanda, the oligarchy shot down the plane carrying the Rwandan President and his chief of staff. This was enough for them to implement their plans.

Plane shot down
The genocide in Rwanda was “kicked off” when the plane carrying the President and all his staff was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile. Once the President was confirmed dead, the oligarchy put their plans in place, and all the caches of arms, and their trained minions organized quickly and initiated “wack a mole” terror throughout the countryside.
...there is often a long delay between the stages of the  registration-confiscation-extermination progression. 

...

For example, national gun registration in Germany was implemented in the 1920s, without any immediate dire consequences. Then Hitler was elected and  took dictatorial powers under the Enabling Act. 

(Then) Beginning in 1938,  Hitler used the gun registration lists to first disarm and then exterminate his enemies, primarily the Jews. 

 
 -Bracken  

Oh, and by the way, do not think that this isn’t going to happen. It is. It’s just that the implementation schedule was thrown off track and delayed by the Donald Trump presidency.

Are you ready?

Because, I’m telling you directly, no one is stopping the progressive-Marxist takeover. It’s moving forward and in the long term, the Presidency of Donald Trump will only be considered a “speed bump” on the way towards Marxist utopia.

Comprehensive list of reasons why Americans should be disarmed.

It is coming.

 Remember,  all genocides are preceded by gun confiscation. All gun confiscations  are preceded by registration. Remember, you are your own first  responder. FEMA has admitted that they can protect and/or rescue you.  You are on your own and when you finally come to realize this fact, then  you will plan accordingly, just like the people of Bosnia were forced  to, or they perished. 

 Before  the government takes away your guns, you need to acquire multiple guns  with 2,000 rounds of ammunition each. Find hiding places for your guns.  Learn how to conceal and carry without being obvious and the next time a  would-be Manchurian candidate shooter walks into a mall or a theater,  there will be someone there to take. Then the Deep State will be forced  to come up with new false flags. But never, never, never give up your  guns. The lessons of history speak loudly and clearly.  The ties that  binds our society are thin and they are weak. We are an event away from  being Bosnia. Chicago is already in a state of 1990's Bosnia.  

-Commonsense Show
Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Parable about America
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
The Warning Signs
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Make America Great Again.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

The story about how I got married to my Chinese wife.

This is the story about how I got married to my wife in China. As such, this is my dedication to all the others who have to plow through obstacles to be together. Here is what to look out for, and how getting married in China works.

“Sometimes this culture of controlling their kids and who they marry then gets passed down from generation to generation..."

- The moms of 'Crazy Rich Asians' discuss the diversity of motherhood

I know all the details are too tedious and boring for casual reading. So I am not going to go into the details.

However, there is a music video 听见下雨的声音 that describes what it was like for me and wife to get married. I want to dedicate this post using this video as the narrative.

Pause. Watch the three minute video. Return.

This is the way it happened. I tell you the truth.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

Let it be well understood that getting married to the love of my life was was not easy. It wasn’t easy. There were all sorts of hurdles in the way, and yes per Chinese tradition she was to be married off to another boy. This guy was richer, better, more attractive than me.

It was an arrangement made many many years ago. It was made when I was still in elementary school, and while my love knew about it, she somehow felt that she could get around it.

No. She could not.

He was better than me in every measurable way. But somehow we overcame all those obstacles. There is a music video that aptly describes what it was like for us to get together, and I refer to it throughout this post.

Have I been treated unfairly by a boyfriend’s mother because I was not their kind of Asian? 

Absolutely! (Two now-ex boyfriends, in fact.)

I was never going to be good enough because I wasn’t the right shade of Asian. I didn’t come from the same background, go to an Ivy League school, or have the right last name.

-ThoughtCo

Yes, my background is certainly more capable than the humble clerk in the music video. Yet, this is a timeless story that others, just like me and my wife, have gone through. This is my dedication to all the others who have to plow through obstacles to be together.

This is my dedication to all the others (maybe others like you, perhaps) who have to plow through obstacles to be together. This is my dedication for all you out there who are in love and are fighting to be together. This is my dedication for you, and for your love.

Love In the 7-11
This boy and this girl loves each other. He is working at a 7-11 as a clerk. He doesn’t make enough money, but he is a hard worker. He is kind, honest, and loyal. She doesn’t love him for his money. She doesn’t love him for his family, the car he drives, or the school he went to. She loves him for who he is.

It’s true.

In fact, if you want to get married to a Chinese guy or girl in China, you WILL need their parents approval. This is codified in law, as well as the documents that all families have. If you get married, your name will go into a household register, and who controls that document? Well… the parents do.

Unless you have their approval, you will not be able to get married in China.

This is because in China, you will need more than love. You will need HEART.

This means that love will not be enough. You will need to make your relationship work. Not only functionally, but you will need to obtain the approval of parents. Many, of whom will have natural biases against you.

These biases are many, and depending on where your love lives, it can include anything from your familial background to your earning potential.

Father chases the boy away.
Chinese parents will come with automatic biases that they will judge you by. This will include your earning potential. This will include your intelligence. This will include your family’s social standing, and this will include your ability to be a good provider. Chinese families are traditional.

So yes. You will need to love, and you will need to work. You will need to prove yourself, but also you will need to fight for your love.

More so than Westerners, many Chinese view dating as a pragmatic affair. It’s not always about finding love so much as it is about finding a potential marriage partner who fits with one’s own ideals. For example, although many men get married without a house and a car, Chinese women will often say that they’re looking for these things because that’s the sort of person who probably has a stable career and will be able to provide for her and their future children in the long-term. It’s not always about love. As one contestant on China’s most popular dating show put it, "I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle."

-ThoughtCo

You must, of course, fight. I don’t mean put on some boxing gloves. I mean push yourself, and push yourself to your limits. You need to make the money to prove that you are worthy. You need to be a little better than everyone else. You need to show to your mate that you are worthy of them.

Working boy.
He is a worker. He doesn’t laze around. He works, and earns money. He works at three or four jobs and saves up all his money. (7-11 clerk, deliver food, deliver newspapers, and janitor)

In this video, a poor boy is working all the time so that he can be married to the girl of his dreams. This girl is the one. You know what I am talking about?

The ONE; that one very special person that you want to share your life with.

Ah, but.. But he doesn’t have a college degree. He is of limited means, so he works at what he can do. He works multiple jobs and saves and saves his pennies. He works and works. He does his best, and yes it is dirty, and demeaning work.

Father has a husband lined up.
But in China, love is not enough to form the basis of a family. You need money, connections and potential. Her father already has picked up a nice promising man for her to marry. Here in the video, he is “interviewing” him as a potential husband for his daughter. This is a often referred to as a “date” in China.

Well, the father does not like him. Instead, he chooses a rich boy, one who is upwardly mobile for his daughter. And she, as a good Chinese daughter, listens to her father.

She obeys her father.

This is a very sweet version of the song from the video, sung by Kiniyo. I place it here so that you, the reader, can listen to it now.


I think Kiniyo does a nice job singing about this very, very common situation that Chinese boys and girls must endure.

This is not fifty years ago. This is today. This is contemporary China, and yes this practice is still very common. It is the most common way for a person to get married in China. However, today (in most of China) they tend to be a little softer about who the daughter is to marry.

As such, they give them a year or two to find a mate. If they don’t find a boy, then the parents will find one for them.

Every parent is different, of course, but in general Chinese parents expect to be more involved in their children’s relationships. It’s not uncommon for parents and grandparents to set their children up on blind dates with suitable matches they’ve found.

If their child’s significant other doesn’t meet with the parents’ approval, continuing the relationship will be very difficult. That’s why if you’re dating someone who is Chinese, it’s very important you make a good first impression with the parents!
-ThoughtCo

In richer families, like my wife’s, they are often very strict and particular on who will marry. They are absolute in this regards, most especially if you come from certain regions in China. Like some of the richer sections of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, or Beijing. Or in certain provinces or cultural enclaves like Wenzhou.

And, in certain areas (regions) of China, dating a 外国人 (wài guó rén) – a non-Chinese foreigner, is absolutely out of the question.

The father will decide who will marry his daughter.

Father approval.
The father has picked up a socially and financially mobile husband out for her and he tells her that she WILL marry this boy. This is the Chinese way and it is still very common. And yes. It happened to me.

But you know, love is the glue that builds a family. Not a document or diploma. It’s not how good you look or how well connected you are. It is the love that binds the family together and enables the family to persist through hardship.

Love is what you need to make things last decade after decade. Love has a purpose and there is a reason why it exists. When you love someone you are connected to them, and you can “feel” them and what is going on with them.

Yes. You can “feel” them, and this is a real connection.

The girl feels the boy.
When you love someone you are “attuned” to that person. You can “feel” them and are aware of them to a certain extent. This awareness varies from person to person, but it does exist.

In China, especially if you come from a wealthy or prominent family, you WILL marry who they tell you to marry. This is the way that it is done, and I can tell you that I encountered this situation personally.

This is what it is like. You need to have parental approval to get married in China.

If you have any questions or confusion about this, then perhaps you should get your head out of the sand and watch the movie “Rich Crazy Asians“. That movie had a number of scenes that really reflected how parents influence the people their children marry.

Mother from Rich Crazy Asians.
The Chinese parents exert a tremendous amount of influence on their children. They expect their children to excel in life, and they will make sure and enforce who they will marry.
Crazy Rich Asians is a 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan. Kwan stated that his intention in writing the novel was to "introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience". He claimed the novel was loosely based on his own childhood in Singapore. The novel became a bestseller and was followed by two sequels, China Rich Girlfriend in 2015 and Rich People Problems in 2017. A film adaptation of the novel was released on August 15, 2018.  
-Crazy Rich Asians - Wikipedia

This influence can be an enormous burden and hardship on the child. This is especially true when they love someone, and their parents forbid them to be together. While it is true that many people can get married in China and avoid family approval, this is not true for everyone.

There are still many families that take marriage and future family composition quite seriously.

Midway through Crazy Rich Asians, Michelle Yeoh–who plays the disapproving mother of Constance Wu’s love interest and would-be husband–tells Wu’s character, “You will never be enough.”  -Fastcompany

In the MV by Jay Chou titled 听见下雨的声音, this is quite realistically portrayed.

The pain of being a rich Chinese daughter.
This fact of life, and Chinese truth, can be very difficult. In the case with most Chinese daughters who love another boy, they find that they must marry someone that they do not love. Meanwhile they are forbidden to be with the one who they love.

In the video, the boy saves up all of his money.

That’s what a guy does. he saves up everything and than gives it all to the girl of his dreams. This might sound so strange as it doesn’t fit the progressive liberal reality of what a family is. It is the way traditional families are structures, and in traditional families, the man works as hard as he can and give all of it to his wife.

Not some of it. Not most of it.

All of it.

ALL OF IT.

Money saved up.
The boy works hard and gives everything to his girl. In China, a family man gives 100% of what he earns straight to his wife. Not “most” of his money. Not 99.5% of his money. He gives ALL OF HIS MONEY, as his wife and his family is everything to him. That is what a traditional life, and a traditional family is all about.

That is how the dowry came into being. It was a way to show that the boy loves the girl well enough to give everything to her.

That is what a dowry is. But in today’s world, it isn’t enough.

Often in China, the mechanism for getting married was set in place many, many years earlier. The love of your life; your dream girl… THE ONE, might be promised to someone else. And the entire community might know of it. And there might not be anything that you can do about it.

She will be obligated to marry who ever her parents tell her to, or else the entire face of the family will be in jeopardy.

Just like in the English expression “saving face,” the “face” we’re talking about here isn’t a literal face. Rather, it’s a metaphor for a person’s reputation amongst their peers. So, for example, if you hear it said that someone “has face,” that means that they have a good reputation. Someone who doesn’t have face is someone who has a very bad reputation. 
-Face Culture in China

But life is not that simple.

Love isn’t enough. Money isn’t enough.

You need the blessings of the parents. Without those blessings, you will be absolutely unsuccessful in getting married or having a family register in China. Without a family register, you cannot have children.

Chinese Household Register.
This is what a Household Register looks like in China. It is a book. It is kept by your parents, and when you get married, your name and your spouse is added to that register, and your parents keep the book. If they do not approve of your love, you can never get your partner added to the book.

You need the blessings of the parents.

Family history
The household register can trace your family’s genealogy back many, many generations.

But, there are often other forces and other situations that will define what happens in your life. There are complex relationships, long held debts, and familial responsibilities that you can be caught up in and not even know about.

The parents will have a duty to make sure that you obey the familial obligations.

An arranged marriage.
The girl is going to her pre-arranged marriage. This is common in China, and this is what happened to us in my life. You might think that this is all a nice made up tale. It isn’t. It is real life in China. It makes us better understand the importance of love and relationships.

But you know, sometimes being wealthy, being kind, saving money, working hard… isn’t enough. The things running against you two being together are too large. The obstacles are too formidable.

The ultimate goal of most relationships in China is marriage. Young Chinese adults are often under a lot of pressure from the elders in their family to find a good husband or wife and get married relatively early.

This pressure is particularly acute for women, who can be called “left-over women” if they pass the age of 26 or 27 without finding a husband. Men can find themselves similarly left-over if they wait too long to get married.

This is a big part of why dating is often taken so seriously. Chinese young people often feel like they don’t have the time to “play the field” that their Western counterparts are afforded by society.
-ThoughtCo
It can be difficult.
Sometimes everything is just impossible to overcome. You cannot do it on your own. All you can do is your best, and often doing it alone won’t be enough.

When that happens, you just cannot give up. You can never give up. You must keep on going and never give up.

I know that it will seem impossible. It will seem difficult, and you will look at what you have; your resources, and see that are are sorely lacking. You will see the world trying, and doing so successfully, to take away what you (in your heart) yearns for.

It doesn’t matter.

You must never give up.

Never. Give. Up.

I am dead-on serious about this. If what you love is so darn important to you then you must fight for it. You must work and strive for a strong life with the one; yes, (here we go again) that ONE person in your life that is THE ONE.

Never. Never ever give up.

Build up your life

You must fight for the things that are important to you.

Seriously. You MUST fight for the things worth having.

You must fight for the important things. And no, often you will not be ready. You won’t have enough money. You won’t have the right job. You won’t have the family blessings. You won’t have what it takes. But…

But… you MUST fight for the things that are important to you.

You fight for what you love.
Well, maybe all your plans fall flat on their face. Maybe everything collapses. Maybe it all goes to deep shit. It doesn’t matter. You keep on fighting for what you love.

One of the great things about love is the strength of it when it is shared. Yes things can be impossible, and the obstacles can be far too great. However, when both of you are working TOGETHER, there is nothing that can come between your love.

As long as both of you…

Both of you share the same kind of love…

Is it too late.
It is very easy to follow the parents, peers, and society. But if the love is strong enough, and the heart is fierce enough, you can make decisions before it is too late.

There is nothing that should come between your love for each other. That is why love is so important in a family. It is the glue that outlasts money, that outlasts, beauty and that outlasts family commitments.

But, love will melt away unless you desire it with all of your heart. You will need to make some difficult choices in your life, and there will be others who will not understand. You will need to make them, and it might not be all that easy.

Make the decision.
One of the most difficult things that a person might have to do is to disobey their parents and follow their heart. Doing so, especially in Asian cultures, will come at a cost, and there will be a price. But, only you know if it will be worth it. You have to decide. It is a red-pill, a black and white moment.

Things can become uncomfortable. But you know…

The things that are important must be fought for.

In China, and in most of Asia, you might need to disobey your parents. In my case, we ended up getting married in Hong Kong because her parents did not approve of her marriage to an American. I understand that in certain circles in Singapore, or Indonesia it is even stricter with religious and social strata considerations.

And don’t even get me started with India…

Follow your heart.
The better things in life are the harder to get. Even though your family might want the best for you, only you know in your heart what is important to you. You do need to follow your heart.

Always follow your heart.

Always follow your heart.

Your heart will tell you what to do. Your feelings and your emotions will guide you. Listen to them.

You need to listen to your feelings.

Remember, feelings and emotions, are the glue that hold families together. When you are younger, the emotions are very strong. There is a biological reason for this. Use it.

Listen to your feelings.

Follow them and let them lead you.

You must fight for love.
When there are things that matter to you, you need to FIGHT for them. You just cannot be passive about the things that are important to you. You must fight for the things that have meaning, and others might be hurt in the process. But you need to put your needs first.

And just like the music video… and just like the fairy tales… there actually can be a “happily ever after”. Just remember that you need to fight for the things that matter to you, and if you find the ONE… that ONE person that you want to spend the rest of your life with, then both of you should fight together.

You can achieve your dreams when both of you two are fighting together for the same thing…

LOVE is worth fighting for.
There can be a happily ever after. You just need to believe and follow through. Don’t give up. Don’t you ever give up. If there is one thing worth fighting for in this earth it is LOVE.

If there is one thing worth fighting for in this earth… it is love.

I really believe that if both of you share the same emotions, and both of you are willing to have a traditional, conservative family with a solid grounding in familial roles, there will be nothing that you cannot accomplish. [This is not a political issue. Many progressive democrats have conservative, traditional families. Like the Obama’s for instance.]

A traditional, conservative family is a time-tested 100% guarantee of family success with over 5000 years of documented proof. It is a family where the man works and gives 100% of his labors to this family. The wife handles the budget, the household and teaches the children.
The two family types and how they work.

While you might end up fighting against the wishes and desires of the parents to get married, do not neglect the importance of your new family. Establish it with a solid foundation.

Love.

Happily ever after.
And they lived happily ever after. And no it’s not a fairy tale. This is real life you all. This is the real deal. This is what happened in my life, and this is what can happen in your life as well.

Fairy tales DO come true. There is, actually is, a rainbow with a pot of gold under it.

Hugs as my favorite kind of love.

Conclusion

My life was from my time and based on my situation. I could get all involved telling the story about this conditions, and that condition, as every situation is complex. There is nothing really simple about relationships. Once you start documenting your own, you will find that it gets complex really… really quickly.

Yet, fundamentally, my story is one of love and cultural complexities. In fact, I think that a foreigner marrying an Asian, whether they are from China or some other nation, will also encounter some situations of relative similarity to mine.

And yes, while I wrote this little post about myself, it’s really about YOU the reader.

I want to impress to you that you, I mean everyone, needs to have the fundamentals in their life “locked down”, put in place and secured. That means a life and relationship founded on love, and created with a solid emotional foundation, and structured in a proven traditional way.

It’s a winning combination.

It really is.

It is a little like this…

The Video that I refer to.

In this post I repeatedly referred to a music video (MV) that I believe reflects the story that I am trying to relate. Earlier in the post, I embedded the song sung by Kiniyo. I think that she really “nailed” the emotions and the feelings of the situation quite clearly. Indeed, if you want to get “goosebumps” on you arms, you should go to a concert where everyone is singing this song together.

Who says that this is an uncommon experience?

Like this version of the song sung by A-Lin. Watch the people in the audience. Yes, this situation is more common that we in the West would assume. Check it out…

Now, the song (and video) is by a famous Taiwanese Chinese singer named Jay Chou. His Chinese name is 周杰伦. The name of the song is 听见下雨的声音 .

If you have access to non-restricted Internet (the non You-Tube internet), you can find the video at any of these websites;

If you are so inclined, you can see the lyrics (in Chinese) alongside the English translation HERE.

A non-Asian views the video

The thing is that this is Asian – Chinese culture. It is difficult for a non-Asian to understand it. They will make all kinds of inaccurate assumptions on what is going on.

Here we see an American chick watching the MV movie and is confused by what is going on.

An American girl views the video.
An American girl comments on the video when viewing it the first time. She does so based upon the visual clues and makes erroneous assumptions as she does not understand Chinese Asian culture.

Yes, she understands that the father doesn’t like the boy, and that they are rich, but she doesn’t understand that she MUST obey her father. And, she doesn’t understand that they are meeting at her house simply because that is the place where they can meet. (She orders take-out just so that she can meet him.)

Oh, and that “store” where she get the top is not a store. It’s her father’s factory, and she picked out a top for the boy to wear, and the father says no. So, it is not just any store.

American watches video 2
Even seeing the MV, and not understanding the lyrics or the cultural framework, you can be well moved by the video.

No, girl, it’s not as easy as you think.

She doesn’t understand that the boy is working four jobs, it’s not an option for him. And that mark on his face is a birthmark, and yes there are many people in China that have these.

She doesn’t understand that this is a formal arranged marriage, and who cares if he is handsome, wealthy and your parents like him. If there is no love, there cannot be a family.

Watching the video 3
To truly understand what is going on and why, you need to have some understanding of Asian culture. This is NOT America. This is China, and things can be very complicated.

She doesn’t understand that when the girl gets out of the car and runs to the boy it is not a cliché, that there are a lot of things going on and risks that she is taking are serious ones. This is not America, girl. This is China.

She might hate the story line because it is so cliché, but this is China today, and these things and events do actually happen. Maybe not in America they don’t, but in China they most especially do happen.

And yes, happy endings do actually happen.

Oh, BTW, I'm not trying to get in her grill. She just doesn't understand Chinese - Asian culture, and thus missed some of the important elements of the story. Besides, later on she comments on another one of my favorite Jay Chou videos. And, it's closer to what is going on.

The Song the MV is based upon.

This is a live version by Jay Chou.

Afterwards

After the hardship will be a period of calm and happiness. I promise.

It happened to me, and it will happen to you.

About Traditional Families

I am a big believer that you must build up a life with the ONE who you love. As such, there is a time-tested method to make your love last a lifetime.

That method is known as the “traditional conservative” method.

The trouble is that it is just about extinct in the United States today. It is not taught anywhere, and there are all sorts of distortions of what it actually is. Well I talk about it and go into get lengths to explain it.

You can read about it here…

The two family types and how they work.

Links about China

Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
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When the SJW movement took control of China
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Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
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Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
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China and America Comparisons

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The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
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10 Misconceptions about China
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This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

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Learning About China

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Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

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The Mystery of the Dellschau Flying Contraptions

There was a time, long before compartmentalized special access programs, that other people created their very own secret organizations. These programs operated outside of government control, and oversight. In fact, during the last century, the United States was full of these “fraternal” organizations. Most of which operated with a secret side. And most, of which, were men-only membership and required rituals to join, and tasks to complete. All in secret. Here we look at one of them; the Dellschau flying machine project.

Secret Organizations…

These other people, and these other organizations, created societies with membership, and worked those programs to their conclusions. They kept all of their activities secret. They took “blood oaths”, and policed their ranks. They held belief in causes greater than themselves. They toiled and worked, and then moved on.

Sometimes the objectives were political in nature. Such as to “liberate” a land or a people. Sometimes the objectives were social, as to provide an outlet for fun and debauchery where the prying eyes of the “lesser sex” could be safely occluded. And, yes, sometimes the organizations revolved around devices, inventions and adventuresome activities.

Gathering
Vintage photo of a knights of Columbus gathering. Undated. Membership was all male and consisted of hard working, men of all occupations, of the local community. They supported each other and places rules of behavior and membership. Unlike today, where everyone can join for “equality”, these members placed merit over equality. No one was equal. They recognized that everyone was different, and they only wanted the best to join their organization.

These organizations would often hold meeting in secret, and rotate the locations. They would elect members, and would enforce initiation rituals and codes of secrecy. They would hold meetings, of which members would repeat and enforce codes of behaviors and rituals shrouded and cloaked in the arcane.

Often they would have secret handshakes, and special symbols and behaviors that only other members would recognize. Such as rings, ways of tying their shoelaces, pins and badges and other behaviors that would be ignored by the uninitiated.

The secrecy was considered important, as it was strongly believed that the “average person on the street” were just simply “rabble”. As such, the “better” people of society needed to operate the “levers” of control away from the prying eyes of the well-intended ignorant.

Moose hat.
Hat from the Royal Order of the Moose. When the organization was first founded, it was set up as a serious organization with serious importance and critical purpose. They enforced membership to men only, with character being of upmost importance. They made rules and enforced them. They established “good old boys networks” to assist members in building up lives for them and their families and kept the “riff raff” out.

When they would meet, they would often wear special regalia. This might include cloaks, hats, and other adornments. They would wear these elements over their normal everyday clothes. As there were an inherent hierarchy present in these organizations. And traditions, rules and laws needed to be followed to “the letter”.

Time moves on…

Over time, many of these organizations died out. While the larger ones became something else entirely.

They expanded their membership to include women, then children. Then gays. Then LGBT, and now today anything that can apply and pay the fee can join. It’s for “diversity”, you see. It is for “equality”, don’t you know. It’s for a better world, to protect the children, and other such themes…

The larger ones became social clubs, where you could combine low-priced alcoholic drinks with community daycare. (After all, what better way to meet with friends and associates that over some beers and song, while the kids are watched over in the next room?) They developed “play rooms”, bought pool tables, and would rent out the social halls for a profit to fund building maintenance.

Such is what happens when your membership can be all inclusive. Everyone can join, and the standards are lowered to zero to accept everyone.

Many of these transformed organizations are well known today. We have the VFW, the Lions, the Elks, the Moose, the Polish Falcons, and many others. Today they are considered an anachronism. They are considered nothing more than a holdover from a “barbaric” time when men needed to gather and discuss “trivial” matter of local society.

We have all forgotten why they were founded in the first place. We have forgotten the society from whence they sprung up from. We have forgotten their importance, and in our rush to “modernize” them, and make them more “progressive” by opening up membership to everyone and every thing, we have lost something valuable.

We have lost our history.

What remains…

Yes. Over time things have changed. In many cases, the members died, and at their death the secrets that these programs held went with them to their graves. The organizations, their membership and their objectives become forgotten. Only the relics remained.

Relics that were themselves often discard and misidentified by the few whom blundered upon them. “Oh, that’s just a flag of some para-military organization that your great great grandfather belonged to.” or, “I don’t know what that crazy knife is. It’s probably just a fancy letter opener”. Or, better yet a strange “tapestry” with strange symbols and an unusual motto in Latin, might be found and then “cleaned out” by a well-meaning but wholly ignorant relative.

Mystery object
Special objects, and items of significance lose all their importance when no one remembers their history, their purpose and why they existed in the first place.

This should come as no surprise. 

We all have heard about the “ The Masons”, and “The order of the golden dawn”, and many, many others. Some are relatively well-known, and weren’t really all that secret, such as the ‘Black Panther” movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. But some were so secret, that when they disbanded, all that remained were some dusty scraps of mystery.

Yes, some of the secret organizations come out of the shadows and make their appearance from time to time…

The order of the golden dawn
Member of the far right Golden Dawn party hold flags as they take part in a rally in Athens on February 1, 2014. Some 3 000 far right Golden Dawn nationalists took part in the rally to commemorate a 1996 incident between Greece and Turkey at Imia island. Meanwhile anti-fascist protesters clashed with police as they gathered nearby to oppose the rally of members and supporters of the Golden Dawn extreme-right party. AFP PHOTO / Louisa GouliamakiLOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images

But what of the secret organizations that continue to remain hidden? What of those?

What of these still secretive organizations?

These are secret organizations, set up at the time of the loyal order of Elks, or other fraternal societies. These are organizations where members can join, and become involved in something far bigger than themselves. Members can become part of an organization that can control the life and direction of mankind, in their own unique and secret manner.

Let’s look at one of these long forgotten, but highly secretive organizations. Let’s look at the “Dellschau Flying Machines”.

Introduction to secrets and disclosures

Everyone has secrets. For some, it is the cookies that you stole from your grandmothers house. For others it is a dark past that you try to keep buried and hidden. For others, it is being part of a secret society. A secret society.

With that in mind…

Let’s look at the secrets of a neighborhood butcher. For it is a great story, and involves the dreams and adventures of manned flight at a time with it was considered an impossibility to fly. For at that time, “everyone knew” that man could never fly.

"If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with wings"
- William L. Shanklin

Yah. Everyone knew.

Just like today. “Everyone knows” that there is no such thing as extraterrestrials. Everyone knows that if the government discovered intelligent aliens that they would announce it to the world, and that the world would rejoice in happiness and rainbows (with the possibility of dancing unicorns, thrown in for good measure.)

Everyone knows this. Even the anointed one; (former) President Barrack Obama (the first) said that there is no such thing as extraterrestrials. He told the world this while he was on that very important television show; the Ellen DeGeneres show.

Anyways…

This story is one shrouded in mystery, and almost lost forever. It is a story intertwined with secret societies, hidden codes, otherworldly theories and seemingly impossible inventions. It is a story that place at a time, long before man even dreamed of flying in automated mechanisms.

It is the story of a dream, and an obsession of a man, or a group of men, all toiling in secret. To everyone else, however, Charles Dellschau had only been known as the grouchy local butcher.

He was nothing more than that. Or… was he?

Dellschau Flying Contraptions
Dellschau Flying Contraptions – a sample showing the level of detail present and the curious statements involved.

A discovery in the junk

This is a story that was unseen for decades until it was salvaged by a junk dealer in the 1960s. It all began with a trash heap outside a crumbling house in Texas. This is the story of an entire body of work that would later go on to marvel the intellectual world.

1969 in NYC.
The late 1960’s was an interesting time. America was changing. Styles, hobbies, and fashion were quite different from what we are accustomed to today.

It all began in 1969, when a used furniture dealer named Fred Washington bought 12 large discarded notebooks from a garbage collector.

He brought them to his warehouse. There, among the clutter and dusty odds and ends, they found a home. I am sure that there were boxes of old men’s magazines, vintage fishing tackle, and dusty vintage pictures of cats with big eyes, and clown portraits resting everywhere. They fit right in.

1960s art
For some reason, that mystifies me today, big eyed cats, clowns, and kids with guitars were very popular decorations for living-rooms int he 1960’s. I guess that they matched the decor at that time.

He must have thought that they were an interesting curiosity. As he kept them lying around in his warehouse. Eventually finding a new home in the corner under a pile of dusty carpets.

Of course, junk stores are frequented by starving students and their ilk. They need to find cheap apparel, inexpensive furnishings, and curiosities to outfit their dorm room or apartments. As such, many younger kids would come in to the store to look around and browse.

A sample drawings of the Dellschau Flying Contraptions  showing design, production and technical details related to operation and theory.
A sample drawings of the Dellschau Flying Contraptions showing design, production and technical details related to operation and theory.

An art student takes a look at the work

In 1969, art history student, Mary Jane Victor, was scouring through his bazaar of antique furniture and brick a brack castaways when she came upon the notebooks. As she brushed off the dust from the covers, she could clearly see that the work was truly unique and very, very special.

1960s college fashion.
A typically dressed gal on a college campus sometime during the late 1960’s. She is very “mod” and fashionable.

This was not some mass-produced ancient harmonica. This was not your run-of-the-mill lamp, artwork made out of dried macaroni, or a broken lava lamp. No. This was unique. It was not mass produced. It was custom made, and obviously one of a kind.

These notebooks became known as “the mysterious works of a Charles Dellschau”.

Technical illustration.
While some of the works seem like fanciful art revolving around newspaper clippings and colorful sketches, many are far more technically inclined and quite involved.

Inside the scrapbooks she discovered a remarkable collection of strange watercolors and collage pieces. They were beautiful and amazingly detailed. And yet, and yet, there were boxes and boxes of these books. As she looked, she would remove a book, only to find yet another under it.

When she asked about purchasing the books, the junk dealer gave her an outrageous price. Indeed, this was most especially outrageous for a “starving” art college student. He asked for around $2000 dollars for everything. This was equivalent to $13,775.26 today. (Calculator HERE.)

One of his many inventions.
Was the butcher a “wanna-be” inventor, or something else? Was he an artist, or a draftsman? Or, was he exactly what he claimed to be; the scribe for a secret organization of early aviator pioneers?

What’s an art lover going to do?

There were more than 2,500 intricate (and detailed) drawings of flying machines alongside cryptic newspaper clippings filled the pages, crudely sewn together with shoelaces and thread. It was a work of art, and if she (as someone who appreciated it) wouldn’t purchase it, then who knows what would happen to it…

A patron of the arts becomes interested

In frustration, she discussed this matter with her friends. Maybe she smoked some of that devil “weed” and listened to Janis Joplin in the process. Who knows? What we do know is that she felt the need to “rescue” the works that she discovered.

Mary Jane immediately notified the Art Director of her school, a Mr Dominique de Menil, of Rice University. He was not only a major influence in the art world, but was also Houston’s leading fine art patron. He immediately snapped up four of the books for $1,500. Where he wasted no time to put on an exhibition at the university entitled, “Flight”.

Artwork on display.
Today this body of work are considered a beautiful curiosity. While the drawings might be associated with a secret flying organization, this aspect of the man and his life is considered to be not nearly as important as the art that he created.

With that, Mr. Charles Dellschau, a Prussian immigrant had finally been discovered, nearly 50 years after his death in 1923.

But…

The question remains; what was he? Was he a visionary? Was he an artist? Was he a scholar? Was he an inventor? What the heck was he, and why did he devote so much of his life to such an endeavor?

Mr. Charles Dellschau, a Prussian immigrant

Immigrants to the USA.
Photograph of a Group of Immigrants Outside a Building on Ellis Island 10450_2007_001

He had arrived in the United States at 25 years old from Hamburg in 1853. Documents show he lived in both California and Texas with his family, working as a butcher.

He retired in 1899, at the ripe old age of 71 years.

As an old man, he took to filling his last days by filling notebooks with a visual journal of his youth. In fact, for the remaining years of his life, he apparently locked himself in the house (more or less) only leaving when absolutely necessary. He found comfort and solace in his house, among his belongings. As such, we would spend his time, not by watching “Laugh In”, but rather working on his autobiography.

He called the first three books, Recollections and recounts a secret society of flight enthusiasts which met in California in the mid-19th century called the ‘Sonora Aero Club’.

How’s that for a mouth full?

Dellschau flying machines
Very detailed drawings and artwork. The Dellschau flying machines seem to be more of an art-derived obsession by an unhappy butcher, or were there something else…

The books are an autobiography of a secret society that he belonged to.

The books are many things, but fundamentally they are an autobiography of his early life, and notations from a secret organization that he was part of. As such, there is no question at all about it. His autobiography is a strange one.

Mystery man or butcher?
Was Mr. Dellschau a simple butcher? Was he an artist? Was he crazy? Or did he have a secret that he had to keep to himself, but was totally and fully enraptured by?

In fact, it is heretical. He claimed that flying machines were not only invented, but perfected, after the American Civil War. He showed the various designs, and discussed ways and means (mechanisms) to solve the various issues that arose when operating those machines.

The Wright Brothers wouldn’t even make their famous first flight until 1903. Yet, yet… Dellschau draws dapperly-dressed men piloting brightly-coloured airships and helicopters with revolving generators and retractable landing gear.

Aside from this body of work, no other records have ever been found of the Sonora Aero Club. And, a study of Dellschau’s artworks hide a secret coded story. Inside the art and the strange designs apparently lie evidence of secrets and private stories.

Whatever it was that he had to say was apparently too private even for his own notebooks and even today, much of the mysteries has yet to be revealed.

Enter Mr. Pete Navarro

A Mr. Pete Navarro, graphic artist and UFO researcher, heard about the “Flight” exhibition in 1969 and became enthralled.

He believed there was a connection between Dellschau’s drawings and another mystery. This other mystery was the mysterious mass of “airship” sightings that occurred all over the United States at that time period. Indeed, at the turn of the century, there were mysterious sightings all across a swath of states. This included a full 18 states that ranged from California to Indiana.

In 1972, he discovered that 8 remaining books of Dellschau were still sitting at the junk shop, unwanted and unclaimed. He bought the lot for $565 and spent the next 15 years obsessively decoding Dellschau’s work.

Most importantly, Dellschau never drew himself aboard the fantastical aero inventions. Instead, he only represented himself as the club’s scribe/ record-keeper, rather than as one of its inventors or pilots. At which we have the answer to the mystery, though no one wants to believe it. That these drawings are the sum total of the records of that secret organization.

The designs

In a study of the work, you can see many, many various designs and inventions. In fact, there are as many as 100 designs for airships with names like the Aero Mary, the Aero Trump and even an “Aero Jourdan”.

The mission

The club’s secret mission? To design and build the first navigable aircraft using a secret formula he coded as “NB Gas”. This “NB Gas” enabled the airships to negate gravity and drive the ships mechanical devices. They could actuate the wheels, side panels and compressor motors. This is pretty amazing that this all took place during an era when air travel was still viewed as a mystical impossibility.

Gases that are lighter than air include water vapor, methane, hot air, hydrogen, neon, nitrogen, ammonia and helium. These gases have a lower density than air, which causes them to rise and float in the atmosphere.

A dark side

Some of his drawings tell of fatal crashes of the society’s airships.

While others talk about sabotage of other club members and the banning of members who talked about the secret organization to outsiders. According to Dellschau, the club’s aero prototypes would travel the open roads disguised as gypsy wagons to avoid detection.

Imagine that! The vintage UFO’s would be carted on the contrivances of the day and ride on the roads in plain sight of the common village-people there.

Flying Machine 2
Drawings were complete with aux views and cutaways. These do not simply describe a fantasy, but rather a serious technical interest in a forbidden technology at that time.

NYMZA

In the notebooks’ strange code of germanic lettering, Pete Navarro found a phrase that translated as “NYMZA”. Dellschau reveals this to be an even larger secret society that allegedly controlled the Sonora Aero Club branch.

Based on Navarro’s findings, UFO theorists have come up with some far-fetched speculation that the NYMZA was in fact an extra terrestrial entity. (Thus lending ammo to the idea that UFO theorists are all bonkers.)

Vintage UFO.
Vintage photograph of something in the sky. This predates Photoshop and is thus considered to be something accidental. Like an out of focus crow, or a meteor taken by a low-quality camera of the day. Some even speculate that this is a vintage alien saucer-shaped spacecraft.

Secondary sources

While Navarro rubbished those claims, he did manage to find some supportive evidence. He found press clippings in Texas archives linking one of the names of Dellschau’s secret society members to an article published in 1897 about a local airship sighting.

The San Antonio Daily Express article identified one of the airship’s mysterious occupants as Hiram Wilson. Now Hiram, who according to witnesses, revealed that his airship design came from someone else. He claimed that it came from his uncle named Tosh Wilson.

Amazingly this Tosh Wilson was the very name Navarro had found mentioned in Dellschau’s watercolours as a Sonora club inventor.

To crazy to believe?

But even Navarro, despite his exhaustive research, had his doubts about Charles Dellschau’s story and how much of it was fiction. Were they tall tales to keep an old man entertained? Or were they true accounts of his youth, perhaps innocently exaggerated here and there?

Fiction or not, a single page from Dellschau’s notebooks could fetch as much as $15,000 in the late 1990s. Today, Navarro is no longer in possession of his books; he sold them off in need of some cash to museums, galleries and private collectors in Texas, New York and Paris.

And now, today, all that remains is an occasional Internet posting and a Wikipedia entry.

The Back-Story

How did the books end up in a trash heap in the 1960s in the first place?

Well, it turns out that the books had been hiding in Charles Dellschau’s attic where he lived and worked much of his life. They just sat there, forgotten and collecting dust. When he died, they continued to lie there. They grew dustier with time, and long forgotten.

Life moved on.

Seasons came and went. Wars came and went. After World war I, came the “Great Depression”, and that was followed by World War II. Then came the Korean War. Then, after that came the Vietnam war. By the end of the 1960s, the remaining family members, an Anton Stelzig, the husband of Dellschau’s step-daughter, was living in the house.

In the 1960s he, and his two ageing sisters, had a nurse to care for them. (It’s what often happens when you age.) The nurse would come in, make meals clean the house do laundry, and then leave.

As part of this care, the house and living arrangements needed to be assessed by the government. As such, the department assessed that the house was a hazard and ordered that it be cleared of debris. It was a cluttered mess of brick and brack from at least three full generations. We can well imagine the mess of stacks of papers, boxes of old clothes and rubbish that defied explanation.

Cluttered House.
We do not know what all the clutter looked like, but we do know that it was severe, and that the government ordered it to be cleaned up. It had to be pretty bad as this was the 1960’s and government intervention in the lives of others wasn’t any way as pervasive as it is today.

The nurse was given the task of “cleaning-up”.

Her way of doing things resulted in many of the family’s treasures being thrown out onto the street. She just picked the stuff up, hauled it out and set it on the curb. Everything went. It was a “fire sale” of three generations. Everything went, including Dellschau’s books. Anton’s grandson Leo, painfully recalls the nurse saying, “I took care of that mess and cleaned it all up.”

Some of Dellschau’s work is still believed to be missing, probably lost forever.


In 2009, Pete Navarro finally published his co-written The Secrets of Dellschau, revealing a lot of the script he had decoded from the books. Four books still remain in the Menil Collection, locked in a humidity-controlled room. Researchers continue to unearth new pieces of information through  surviving relatives.

Another Dellschau enthusiast, William Steen, obtained the aviation enthusiast’s journals in the late 1990s which included details of [1] a secret club boarding house, with [2] a bar and [3] dining room where the society would have meets, dream up their newest flying machines (and probably just have a bit of guy time)!


“The more details I see about Dellschau, the more convinced I am that a great deal of it is highly possible,” he told the Houston Press. “Even though it’s fantastic, it’s more than just fairy tales.”

Other Mysterious Airships at the turn of the century

Back at the turn of the century, people would see strange things in the sky. They did not call these items UFO’s. No. Instead, they called them something else. They called them “mystery ships that sailed in the skies”, or “Mystery airships”. Despite numerous reports of sightings, and claims of responsibility by mysterious inventors, none of the aircraft were ever discovered.

March 1880

The first report that is known, dates from 29 March 1880. It was found in the Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican. Although it could be fictional, there is a core of credible reports that indicate that the mystery airships cannot be entirely dismissed as hoaxes.

1892

In 1892 there were a series of reports of airships on the German-Polish border. The airships were seen to hover and even fly against the wind – impossible for known airships at the time. Four years later the airship wave took off.

November 1896

Mid-November 1896 saw several reports of mysterious airships over California.


Fast-moving (or sometimes stationary) nocturnal lights were seen over major cities, and spurious claims were made on behalf of “inventors.” The stories fizzled out in December, but the following February more reports came from Nebraska.

Two witness described a conical craft with wings and a fan-shaped rudder.

April 1897

Reports of airships soon spread, and by April reports were coming from much of the region.

Stories circulated, once again, of inventors exiting their craft and confided in witnesses.

It is easy to dismiss these stories of inventors as fictitious. In today’s society, most people are totally oblivious to the fact that back then people had no desire for fame to the extent that they do today. We automatically assume that everyone yearns for fame like they do today. It’s a barren assumption bases on ignorance.

The Dallas Morning News of April 19, 1897 reported that an airship had crashed in Aurora, Texas, and its “Martian” occupant had been buried in the local cemetery.


1909

Although this wave of reports would eventually die down by May, there was one more wave of sightings to come. In 1909 airships were reported in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. This is known as the British airship wave.

This wave of airship sightings mostly consisted of fast-moving cylinders with strong lights. Given the time period, they were blamed on German spies. In the Untied States the US sightings were blamed on a Mr. William E. Tillinghast of Worcester, Massachussetts.

Tillinghast was apparently blameless.

After the first world war, reports of mystery airships largely died out, but sporadic reports were made of cigar-shaped craft with propellers or fins in Kentucky (1927), California (1946), Kansas (1952) and New Mexico (1967).

A great write up on the codes

The following is from Lexicon. They discuss the codes and how they were cracked and what they have to reveal. It’s a pretty good and detailed, not to mention, interesting article. I placed it here so that it will not be lost in the annals of time. All credit to the respective authors, and note that the text is copied exactly as presented (broken into paragraphs for easier reading) and placed on a pink background.

I urge the reader to visit the Lexicon Magazine website as there are many, many illustrative pictures and diagrams that go along with the text narrative.

I would also like to take a step back and put up my hands and say that this study is far too in-depth for my own understanding and is placed here for those interested in such a level of investigation. Enjoy.

PROLOGUE:

“Charles A.A. Dellschau’s Aporetic Archive” * by Thomas McEvilley

The Fate of Charles A.A. Dellschau’s (1830 – 1923) Work After His Death

For forty years Dellschau’s thousands of Plates moldered in the darkness of a closed attic, gathering dust. The only intrusion known to have taken place was when a male child of the Stelzig family became curious about the Dellschau books and rummaged through them.

Sometime in the 1960s there was a fire elsewhere in the house, and a fire inspector said to clear the debris out of the attic. So, after four decades in the secret dark, gently wafting the aura of twenty years of solitary late-night concentration into the depths of shadowy and slightly sinister corners, over the pieces of sad furniture with sheets flung over them and gathering dust, Dellschau’s life-work was carried unceremoniously out into the light of day and literally left in a heap in the gutter. (It was born into the gutter, you might say.)

So the first venue for Dellschau’s oeuvre was his bedroom; the second, an attic; the third, a heap in the gutter.

From this point there is uncertainty, and two versions have emerged. First, that a furniture refinisher named Fred Washington, making his rounds to see what people had thrown out, found Dellschau’s stuff and took it to his shop in Houston, called the OK Trading Post. Another version adds another pair of hands and another transaction. The heap in the gutter, on this account, was taken to the dump by a garbage truck. In the junkyard a nameless picker found it and sold it to Fred Washington for $100.

In any case, the story is that once Washington had Dellschau’s things in his shop they spent some time under a stack of old carpets or, in another rendition, tarpaulins. Before long they were discovered by a browser who recognized them as artworks of some kind, and then the books began their wanderings through the artworld and its levels of society.

The find made under a pile of carpets in the OK Trading Post was talked about a bit and began to be split up and moved in various directions—mostly upward (through the classes).

Four of the twelve books were acquired by the Menil Collection, in Houston, which had previously shown some interest in outsider art.9 Fred Washington sold the other eight books to a man named P.G. Navarro, who is an interesting figure in the story. Navarro was a practicing commercial artist in Houston who in his spare time had developed as a hobby an investigation of certain reported airship sightings.

These mysterious airship sightings occurred in the late 1890s first in Northern California (not far from Sonora), then throughout the United States but especially in the Southwest and Texas. The phenomenon was known in the press (not only in Texas) as the Great Texas Airship Mystery.

Navarro was studying the airship mystery at the time Dellschau’s books were discovered in the OK Trading Post, and it occurred to him that the Dellschau material might somehow be a part of it. Perhaps at first Navarro didn’t know about the Sonora Aero Club and assumed that the Aero drawings referred to aeronautical events around the turn of the century.

You’ve got to admire this sensible guess, and as he started to carry it out it became even more admirable. Navarro filled several notebooks with his findings, and these pages are exquisite in conception and execution; his obsessive concentration on order and neatness was not so unlike Dellschau’s own. Dellschau’s aesthetic is more expressive—meaning somewhat looser and more gestural—whereas Navarro’s notebooks are “expressive” of rigid order—more or less a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps Navarro appreciated Dellschau’s books as artworks. In any case it is clear that for one reason or another—maybe aesthetic, maybe spiritual, maybe as a search for something he couldn’t exactly name—Navarro felt a strong attraction toward the Dellschau material.

It almost seems he got into a folie à deux with the long-dead Dellschau; in his notebooks, Navarro redrew many of Dellschau’s pages, carefully and in detail. He worked many long evenings to decipher coded messages he found there in what looked vaguely like alphabetical symbols, as seen in Plate 1631 (at left), but from some other tradition. Navarro says Dellschau used a simple one-to-one substitution code and claims to have worked it out.10

He worked on this hobby for thirty years and became something of a philological scholar in the process. He is still alive now at age ninety-three, the age at which his ego-ideal Dellschau died. At some point Navarro sold four of the eight Dellschau books of drawings in his possession to the San Antonio Museum Association; two went to the San Antonio Museum of Art and the other two went to the Witte Museum, also in San Antonio, a museum devoted to South Texas culture. His remaining four books ultimately entered the art market and ended up in various hands.

DM = XØ

Present in many of the plates of the works of Charles Dellschau are character-like symbols that look as if they are based to a degree on letters of the Greek alphabet. It is not clear to what end these only semi-recognizable characters are used. A formula that is on many of the Plates looks almost like ¯ DM = XØ but not quite. The two letters on the right of the equation look more like chi and phi from the Greek alphabet than like X and O from the Latin alphabet. The formula ¯ DM = XØ has a horizontal dash entering the D around its middle, from the left, and a diagonal line from upper right to lower left through the O. And of course D and M are both in the Greek alphabet, too. Delta mu = chi phi? It may be Dellschau didn’t leave enough clues to figure it out. Maybe it has something to do with Peter Mennis, as on Plate 2003 (as described by P.G. Navarro in his “Books of Dellschau”) are the words: “Have you never heard of P. M.’s goose and heir offspring DM = XØ—Peter I haven foregot you!”

Navarro thought he had worked it out in Dellschau’s code so that DM = XØ translates into NYMZA.

In his interpretation the five elements refer by code to a mysterious organization, perhaps operating from Germany, that was the sponsor or secret director behind the activities of the Sonora Aero Club. There is in addition one drawing (Plate 2550) that is signed, “a DM = XØ Club Debate Studia . . . Drawn by CAA Dellschau.” Studia is the term Dellschau used for a model or study or artist’s proof. So: this is the Study-Model that came out of a Sonora Aero Club debate.

But of couse Dellschau treated the right side of the equation as if it was the Latin letters X and O, and didn’t consider the problems about those letters mentioned above.

CODEX to unlock the cipher:

He translates the ciphers as (left side, top to bottom) P, O, N, M, L, K, I, H, A, B, C, D, E, F, G and (right side, top to bottom) Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Y, Z, CH, SCH, with the O used for double letters and no representation for J or V. By using this code, he claims the passages on the left and right edges of the drawing read “Now talk about your dirigibels” and “O yes we didden know nothing say.” P.G. Navarro, e-mail to Stephen Romano, July 30, 2012.

Code 1 from Lexicon Magazine.
Code 1 from Lexicon Magazine.
Code 2 from Lexicon Magazine.
Code 2 from Lexicon Magazine.
Codemap from Lexicon Magazine.
Codemap from Lexicon Magazine.
Codebreaker from Lexicon Magazine.
Codebreaker from Lexicon Magazine.

Extracted from “Empire of the Wheel III: The Nameless Ones”, by Walter Bosley

The Mysterious NYMZA In “Empire of the Wheel 1″, we presented evidence that extremist members of the Spiritualist movement were the most likely suspects involved with the deaths we associate to The San Bernardino Working of 1915.

In that book, it is revealed that the ancient goddess Hekate was central to the events surrounding deaths of four adults and three children.

The circumstances appear to have shrouded the identities of those involved. In EOW2, we extrapolated on the facts and possibilities by pulling a seemingly innocuous thread which ultimately revealed that an historical figure was at the center of events and offered a possible explanation as to why. Looming even taller in the background was the specter of a nameless string-puller, the difference now being the unexpected presence of an organization steeped in shadow and mystery but finally offering at least an apparent name:NYMZA/ NJMZa.

EOW2 already provides a very logical translation of the acronym NYMZA/ NJMZa. Here we must go a level deeper for therein is the thread through all we’ve presented in this book. Charles Dellschau NYMZA has multiple meanings, much like a hieroglyph. There is NYMZA the mysterious organization behind the airship mystery, according to Dellschau.

EOW2 attempts to translate this NYMZA according to Dellschau’s own description of it being an organization based in Germany and overseeing several airship builders in the United States, especially the Sonora Aero Club formed mostly of German immigrants.

This NYMZA/ NJMZa is also associated with the Great Airship Mystery of 1896, by this time also allegedly involved with known Spiritualist/ Theosophist investors and other players. It is here we can link NYMZA/ NJMZa to occult interests and not just via the Spiritualist scene in America but because of the German occult associations of the time.

However, in true occult spirit, the acronym is embedded with what may be the identity of the hand behind the secretive Germans overseeing the airship operations as outlined in EOW2.

NYM-ZA: The Sesh Heri Analysis In Sesh Heri’s 2008 novel Metamorphosis, second book of the Wonder of the Worlds trilogy, Ed Morrell explains the NYMZA to Jack London and the narrator of the story: “That member of the (Sonora) Aero Club had figured it out. He was a professor of ancient languages. He had studied Latin and Greek all his life, and he had also studied ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Mayan. This professor told me that NYMZA was a very ancient word that predated all known languages but that it had survived into ancient Egyptian, Greek and Latin in somewhat altered forms.

For example: nomen in Latin and onyma in Greek are the words from where we derive our English word for name. But these Latin and Greek words were only derived from the older Egyptian nym which meant ‘who?’… “The word for ‘who?’ in Egyptian was related to several other words in that language that sounded the same…” “Homonyms,” Jack said. “That’s it,” Morrell said, “There were a number of words that were all pronounced something like nym, like the words for sleep, walk or stride, to do evil, wrongdoer, place of slaughter, slaughterhouse, execution, chamber, cellar… “They tell a story, a very ancient story.

It’s all about the ancient gods who once ruled the Earth.

They weren’t human; they were different kinds of creatures. They were amphibian. The Sumerians called these fish-men gods Annunaki – ‘Heavenly Ones Fallen To Earth’… The fish-men fought a war among their own kind and subdued the evil ones. What the fish-men did was confine the evil ones among them to a particular astral plane for all eternity… “That’s why all those nym words in Egyptian mean things like evil and slaughterhouse and cellar. The evil ones or wrongdoers, nymi, were put to sleep, nym, in a kind of cellar which could also be likened to a slaughterhouse, for although these evil beings continually walk or stride in that place of confinement, they exist in a kind of living death… “And should anyone ask about these evil beings who have been so confined in this living death, one can only reply who?, nym, for they are forgotten among the living… because their names have been taken away from them and this has cut them off from life…” “And that thing I encountered on the bottom of the ocean,” I asked, “You’re saying you think it was one of those old ones, one of those fish-gods, imprisoned on the astral plane long ago?”

“Yes,” Morrell said, “And not only that, but these things, the NYMZA, continually try to reach out to the minds of mankind and control us. Their ultimate aim is to escape from the astral plane and return here where they can once again rule according to all the evil that is in them. This NYMZA has been a manipulating force throughout the history of mankind on both Earth and Mars, and it was they who constantly interfered with mental communications going on between the Aero Club and some of the people on Mars… “They cannot build in the material world, but they can project their thoughts into this material realm through the minds of living things, especially the humans. Through such mental doors, the NYMZA hope to eventually escape their endless imprisonment.

That machine on the ocean floor is designed to rend the fabric of space and open an astral portal so those things can escape…” NYM-ZA or NYM-SA means specifically, according to Heri, ‘Name That Has Been Removed’ and he makes the distinction that this is the result of a punitive action. The‘cutting’ of the name was a revoking of a ‘key’, the name symbolizing the more important ‘identity’ or, as Joseph Farrell might say, ‘individuation’. This identity key is what, according to Heri’s interpretation, allows a being to exist on our plane, i.e. our material plane as opposed to the astral plane to which the ‘NYM-ZA/ NYM-SA’ were banished. Heri adds that the desire for these beings to possess a key drives them to seek possession of the identity of others, for the specific identity does not matter to them so much as simply having the key to return to this material plane of existence. It is in this desire for the ‘key’ of identity/ individuation that we may also find the motive for the possession of living bodies by disembodied entities, i.e. ‘demons’.

Consider the story in The Bible wherein Jesus encounters the man possessed by multiple demons. When Jesus asks for a name, the voice replies, “My name is Legion”. This apparent name actually refers to a multitude of entities possessing the man. Notice not one specific name identifying any of them by their personal identities is given but instead what Jesus is given is a group name. Heri argues that ‘Legion’ is equivalent to NYMZA/ NYM-SA. Had any of these entities retained an ‘identity key’, they would not need a living body to enter this plane of existence. Heri uses both his understanding of the phonetic cabala and modern words traced to ancient lexicons.

Confining his examples to English, German, Latin, Greek and ancient Egyptian, which can be demonstrated to be the sources for Greek and Latin terms. His source on the ancient Egyptian is Budge’s An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (Murray, London, 1920) Pgs. 373-385. “-nym” is a suffix in English, i.e. patronym, pseudonym, etc. It refers to “name” as in the Greek onyma or “name”. Heri is convinced onyma came from the Egyptian word nem which meant “who?” Nem is a question concerning the specific identity of a person, the answer being their name. In ancient Egyptian, there were two words for “name”, being ren and ka. Nems means veil. Consider our context and remember this because we’ll bring it up a little later.

Ka is usually translated as “soul”, but Budge explicitly states that sometimes ka was used to mean “name”. This demonstrates to Heri a crucial link between the concept of the soul and the idea of a name. Heri argues that the Egyptian nem or “who?” entered the Greek language as onyma i.e. “name”. Now let’s bring the second syllable of NYMZA into the analysis. Heri believes the ancient Egyptian sa i.e. “cut” is the root of the “-ZA”. Thus nem-sa means “who? cut”. But then Heri points to nems, meaning to enlighten or illuminate in one usage yet “veil” in another. Heri thinks this hints at the “cutting off of illumination”. We shall return to this momentarily. Interestingly Heri points out that other nem related homonyms in ancient Egyptian mean “evil”, nehem “to deliver”, nehem-ra “to kill”, nemmta a type of fish. There are nem words relating to “lake”, “to bathe or swim”, “to sleep or slumber”, and “bedchamber”. This also extends to the Greek and Roman (Latin) nymphs, often associated with water; and the Greek nystagmos “drowsiness” derived from the ancient Egyptian nem in its aforementioned “sleep” association.

Now we go to the German nehmen “to take” which is also used to mean “to possess” or “to consume” as in “eat”. Heri is convinced that this can likely be traced back as well to the ancient Egyptian. He suggests nehmen might also be used to mean “to take someone” or possess someone. Returning to the second syllable of NYMZA once again, we have the German zahn “tooth” which relates to chewing or cutting, bringing it back to the ancient Egyptian sa. But Heri also points out the German zahllos “innumerable”, which hints at the aforementioned “legion”. Thus, according to Heri, do we have the following: NYM meaning “name” and ZA( SA) meaning “cut” NYM meaning the answer to “who?” and ZA relative to “innumerable” NYM-ZA meaning “without a name” or “nameless” Heri goes even farther to reveal the revelation that links his translation to our mystery:

a. Recall the nemmta or “type of fish” link to nem/-nym/ name? Remember the “lake” and “swim” associative definitions to nem?

b. Consider the “sleep” usage of the ancient Egyptian nem and its Greek derivative nystagmos “drowsiness”.

c. Now add the “possession” usage of the German nehmen which, if it is derived from the ancient Egyptian nem, provides yet more evidence for a NYM-ZA association. What does all this suggest to Heri? A nameless fish-like being sleeping under the water yet taking possession of something.

Does this sound familiar? It should.

Heri’s argues that his analysis reveals to him that the NYMZA are equivalent to Lovecraft’s Elder Gods from the stars whose priest-god Cthulhu sleeps at the bottom of the sea reaching out psychically to possess the minds of humans so as to appropriate their identities and capture the key necessary for the Elder Gods to enter our material plane.

That’s not all Sesh Heri has to offer as evidence. Heri argues that Nommo of the African Dogon tribe revealed the NYMZA presence on Earth.

Heri cites Robert K. G. Temple: “Nommo is the collective name for the great culture hero and founder of civilization who came from the Sirius system to set up society (civilization) on Earth.

Nommo – or, to be more precise, the Nommos – were amphibious creatures…” (Note 131) Nommo is a collective term, not a proper name. It does not mean any one particular personage, thus is essentially “nameless”. Nameless, amphibious or fish-like, gods from the stars. We won’t even go into what Jules Verne may have known, naming his legendary mystery man of the sea Captain Nemo… NYMZA: Their ‘name’ is ‘Legion’. They are numerous and ‘revoked of their identity key’ or ‘nameless’. Heri thinks this is their condemnation, but it may also be useful. If you lack an identity, you cannot be identified.

The Heri translation adds an unexpected element to the mystery. We have already provided an effective and valid German translation of NYMZA/ NJMZa in EOW2, so what are we to do with this new translation which also fits so disturbingly well? The answer is simple. Both may be right. Homonyms are the key. Words spelled the same yet having different meanings depending upon usage and context. Why not an acronym? Heri has already demonstrated a German association to the ancient Egyptian from which he derives his translation. We are dealing with Germans – specifically esoterically motivated Germans – all over this mystery. The implication is startling. NYMZA means NJMZa to the aero clubs yet it may also mean NYMZA ‘The Nameless Ones’ behind the nems. Oh, pardon us, we meant The Nameless Ones behind the veil, that definition of nems we told you we’d bring up again. Might the German NJMZa, as presented in EOW2, be the “veil” behind which hide the NYMZA aka The Nameless Ones?

Behind The Zodiac Killer and the ambush murders of Officers Christiansen and Teel are Nameless Ones. Behind the disappearance of April Pitzer and the murder of the McStay Family buried on a telluric current are Nameless Ones. Behind the murder of Harry Houdini and the Cthulhu Mythos are Nameless Ones. Behind all the mysterious shrines to Hekate and operational necromantic sites of the Inland Empire are Nameless Ones. Just as in EOW1 where we state that neither the reader nor we need to believe in the reality of these Nameless Ones, what matters is that the perpetrators of crimes in their honor believe in them, and to catch them, we must understand how they think. To catch them, we must identify them, in spite of their efforts to emulate their gods and remain without a face to put to their crimes. It is an ironic mirror image which these very real perpetrators anonymously commit atrocities in veneration of their gods who themselves are believed to remain entombed because they have been stripped of individual identities.

The nameless/ faceless punishment for one becomes the cloaking security for the other. Who are these Nameless Ones? Lovecraft would say they came from the stars aeons ago and remain on this planet to command their devotees in an objective of conquest. Now there’s an interesting possibility that may indeed have played a role in The San Bernardino Working after all. How? There has been one player in this melodrama that moved across the stage seemingly as a red herring. The circumstances suggested a greater hand in the events of 1915, yet the facts simply did not provide the necessary evidence to accuse this particular actor. Indeed, it appeared the truth stood in solid opposition to the natural assumption based upon the public persona of the individual – but now we know more. We must consider again the notorious Aleister Crowley.

EPILOGUE:

Extracted from

The Mystery of Flight- Hieroglyphica and American Visionary

 by decadentmanifesto

We don’t know if the Sonora Aero Club actually existed, and if so, did these flying contraptions exist? If they did not, what was Dellschau’s purpose in creating thousands of coded illustrations? There are notes in his journal that one day the Wonder Weaver would break the code. If this was the case this might be the only evidence we have that Dellschau intended these works to eventually be released to the public, and evidence for why he devoted thousands of hours and literally decades to create them. But we still don’t know fully the message he intended to deliver. The process of learning about Dellschau and his Press Blooms somewhat resembles cracking the Mayan code, to a much lesser degree.
What we do know is that from revolutions to family deaths Dellschau’s life was struck with tragedy. During the end chapters of his life’s narrative he invested countless hours into creating artworks that reflected a period in his life that was between revolutions and love. We don’t know much about what he did during his first years in America, but when he began painting this Aeros he chose that time of his life to create this narrative— perhaps because it happened, or maybe because his family could not trace and reveal inconsistencies in his claims during those bachelor years. He was fascinated with flight and the use of codes and a secret society reveal that he was inspired beyond the science of aviation. As a butcher he daily dealt in the field of death. Even his Press Blooms are visceral in their dissection of the airship’s anatomy. And though he might never had ascended in an airplane by creating these works of art he transcended his life after death.

Charles A.A. Dellschau left us a great mystery to be solved, one that might be impossible to solve. As it has been the experience with Pete Navarro, Stephen Romano, and so many people who have come in contact with Dellschau’s work a sense of excitement and curiosity is aroused. The type a curiosity that takes one through countless hours studying Dellschau’s artwork to see if they can decipher the code. It is that curiosity that inspires mystics and magicians to delve into occult matters. It is the same curiosity that inspires man to defy the laws of nature and from his own creativity to manifest vehicles that can ascend beyond our limits. In the two-dimensional color plates height and width, the horizon and the heavens, reflect the formula for transcendence.

The third dimension, depth, is a line drawn inward to our own psyche.


At which I must conclude that all this code-breaking, discussions of Astral planes, and ancient creatures that wish to control humans are far, far, far beyond my experience. Information presented here is for your information, and possible consideration.

What you, the reader, should take out from this is simple…

Secret organizations exist and have existed in the past. They are involved in arcane knowledge and understandings that are far removed from that of the “common man”. Secrets do exist.

Further reading

This is an interesting subject, but beyond the scope of this blog.  I suggest the reader follow up on this most interesting of subjects using the following links;


Conclusion

The world is filled with secrets. The idea that everyone should know everything and that there are no secrets is a big lie. The world is filled with secrets, plots, and schemes. Some are run by diabolical megalomaniacs, while others are just extra-ordinary adventures that are eventually forgotten.

The most important thing that a person needs to take from this story is the idea that most people are unaware of the things that goes on around them. The idea of lighter than air vehicles were a reality at a time when the world’s renowned scientists couldn’t even contemplate human flight in any capacity what so ever.

As such, were someone desirous to tell someone their secret, it should not be to broadcast to everyone. Instead, only a select few would be offered the opportunity to know and be let in on the secret. The advantages of what ever benefits are derived from secret endeavors is NOT beneficial to the masses of humanity. Instead, they belong to a select few. These people would then use the knowledge to further advance mankind at a pace unencumbered by the sloth of the mass of humanity.

Other than that, it is probably just as well that the rest of the world be ignorant and forget that any secrets ever existed in the first place. And thus the world turns, and new lives are lived while others sunset.

MAJestic Related Posts – Training

These are posts and articles that revolve around how I was recruited for MAJestic and my training. Also discussed is the nature of secret programs. I really do not know why the organization was kept so secret. It really wasn’t because of any kind of military concern, and the technologies were way too involved for any kind of information transfer. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we were obligated to maintain secrecy at the behalf of our extraterrestrial benefactors.

How to tell...
How to tell -2
Top Secrets
Sales Pitch
Feducial Training
Implantation
Probe Calibration - 1
Probe Calibration - 2
Leaving the USA

MAJestic Related Posts – Our Universe

These particular posts are concerned about the universe that we are all part of. Being entangled as I was, and involved in the crazy things that I was, I was given some insight. This insight wasn’t anything super special. Rather it offered me perception along with advantage. Here, I try to impart some of that knowledge through discussion.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the universe
Alpha Centauri
Our Galaxy the Milky Way
Sirius solar system
Alpha Centauri
The fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The Hammer inside the rock.
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
Mystery of the bronze bell.
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility
Brown Dwarfs
Apollo Space Exploration
CARET
The Nature of the Universe
Type-1 Grey Extraterrestrial
The mysterious flying contraptions.

MAJestic Related Posts – World-Line Travel

These posts are related to “reality slides”. Other more common terms are “world-line travel”, or the MWI. What people fail to grasp is that when a person has the ability to slide into a different reality (pass into a different world-line), they are able to “touch” Heaven to some extent. Here are posts that  cover this topic.

Cat Heaven
MWI
Things I miss
How MWI allows world-line travel.
An Observed World-Line switch.
Vehicular world-line travel
Soul is not consciousness.

John Titor Related Posts

Another person, collectively known by the identity of “John Titor” claimed to utilize world-line (MWI egress) travel to collect artifacts from the past. He is an interesting subject to discuss. Here we have multiple posts in this regard.

They are;

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

ound how I was recruited for MAJestic and my training. Also discussed is the nature of secret programs. I really do not know why the organization was kept so secret. It really wasn’t because of any kind of military concern, and the technologies were way too involved for any kind of information transfer. The only conclusion that I can come to is that we were obligated to maintain secrecy at the behalf of our extraterrestrial benefactors.

How to tell...
How to tell -2
Top Secrets
Sales Pitch
Feducial Training
Implantation
Probe Calibration - 1
Probe Calibration - 2
Leaving the USA

MAJestic Related Posts – Our Universe

These particular posts are concerned about the universe that we are all part of. Being entangled as I was, and involved in the crazy things that I was, I was given some insight. This insight wasn’t anything super special. Rather it offered me perception along with advantage. Here, I try to impart some of that knowledge through discussion.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the universe
Alpha Centauri
Our Galaxy the Milky Way
Sirius solar system
Alpha Centauri
The fuselage embedded within the rocks of Victoria Falls.
The Hammer inside the rock.
The Hollow Moon
The Mystery of the Lapulapu Ridge.
The Mystery of the Baltic UFO.
Mystery of the bronze bell.
Mystery of the oil lamp found inside a block of coal.
Did extraterrestrials set up a colony in Pennsylvania?
The Oxia Palus Facility
Brown Dwarfs
Apollo Space Exploration
CARET
The Nature of the Universe
Type-1 Grey Extraterrestrial

MAJestic Related Posts – World-Line Travel

These posts are related to “reality slides”. Other more common terms are “world-line travel”, or the MWI. What people fail to grasp is that when a person has the ability to slide into a different reality (pass into a different world-line), they are able to “touch” Heaven to some extent. Here are posts that  cover this topic.

Cat Heaven
MWI
Things I miss
How MWI allows world-line travel.
An Observed World-Line switch.
Vehicular world-line travel

John Titor Related Posts

Another person, collectively known by the identity of “John Titor” claimed to utilize world-line (MWI egress) travel to collect artifacts from the past. He is an interesting subject to discuss. Here we have multiple posts in this regard.

They are;

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.

How a Chinese Business KTV works – NSFW Parties

This is a very detailed discussion on how a Business KTV works in China. This is a pretty large multi-part post. It was originally posted HERE, but it soon became problematic as the videos would not load and the SEO flags weren’t being picked up by the search engines. So I broke it down into smaller bite-sized posts. It’s faster to load, easier to read, and you can see all the videos without problem. Enjoy.

This is part 9B of 17.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

NSFW Parties

What are we? Children? All the term “NSFW” is designed “to protect the children”, yet at most of these venues there isn’t anyone under the age of 25. So, it’s all kind of silly trying to maintain NSFW standards designed to protect pre-adolescent children.

In America everything is so PC. There is even a term for hiding behavior in such a way that you might not lose your job. NSFW means Not Safe For Work. Heck, only in America or some selected European Socialist "Paradises" perhaps. Not in China.

So everybody is well fed, well drunk and you’ve had your fill of beer, karaoke, weird Chinese snacks and “hands on” strip shows – now what? It’s up to you… usually.  

Sometimes, depending on the arrangement with the girls manager, the parties can get really fun, as these two videos can attest…

The girls will typically have a good time. I know that I certainly do.

Their enjoyment is directed by their manager, who works out what ever arrangement that is proper with the host boss. They will be edged on by the other girls who might inspire playful acts of a sexual nature and other curious events.

LAGNAF!

The basic idea is to get drunk. Lower your inhibitions and have a good time.

As these videos attest, being with a cute gal (both of you) getting drunk and playing around is a great reward for an ambitious boss.

The KTV is a refuge. It is a controlled environment where a person can become someone else and behave differently. In China, everyone wears a mask. This is a face (mingzi) that defines their role and how they conduct their business. For many bosses they only have two roles; Boss and Family head. Each time, they must exist within that role.

They come home and the wife and the children expect the father to be a traditional father. He will play with the children. He will help them learn. He will support the wife and take care of things that she needs help with. He will do this within the role and the face that he must wear.

Then, he goes to work. He puts on the Boss face. Here there is actions and behaviors that he is culturally restrained to follow. He must maintain that appearance. He must always be calm and collected and stern and in control.

The problem is…

There is never an opportunity for him to let loose and be himself. Never. Never, that is until he goes to a KTV. There, once he is inside the doors, he is in a world where he can be himself. It is a protected world. The doors are closed and sealed. Guards protect the people inside. Female entertainment is provided, and if the KTV is half decent, the girls are vetted to make sure they do not prey on the clients.

KTV-typical
In a KTV environment, the boss gets to “let his hair down” which is a very difficult thing to do in the Asian culture. In Western cultures everyone is “doing their own thing”. Not so in Asia. Thus the need for a release value where a hard working alpha male can have a release from the stress of life.

He eats, drinks and is merry. Then he can go upstairs to the hotel room and have a nice long happy ending with the girl that he had selected. Else, she might ride home with him to a different hotel. All of which is under the helpful and watchful eyes of his aides, the girls and KTV managers, and the security guards that are stationed for protection.

The KTV is a place for fun.

Now who doesn’t like to smoke, drink, sing and dance with pretty girls? It’s a rare person indeed. When I grew up we used to have keg parties in the woods and we always would sing, and carry on. We always loved it when the girls would play with us and have fun. This is universal.

There are all kinds of fun activities that take place. They vary from singing and dancing to smoking cigars, and playing poker. One of the most common things to do is play “rock, paper and scissors”. This is an ancient Chinese drinking game. I guess that it was ported to the United States during the great migration of Chinese right after the American Civil War.

Here’s some chicks playing during dinner…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to return to the start of this series, please go HERE.

Links about China

Dance Craze
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

Learning About China

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Articles & Links

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The Warning Signs that Government Collapse is Imminent

Ah. These are exciting times that we live in.

This article discusses a very uncomfortable point in time. That is when local, state and federal government is no longer in substantive control. It’s a transitional period. It is when one government style fails, and another one takes it’s place. Historically, it is a given development that eventually happens to all nations. All of them. Including the (virginal) United States.

We, as Americans, have never been in this situation.

Because, we and our parents have never experienced it, we think that it will never ever happen to us. As such we tend to laugh, make fun of, and disparage those that argue that it might. We call them “radical preppers”, “members of the tin-foil-hat army”, and “uni-bomber wanna-bes”. Other terms that come to mind include “fruit cake” and “bonkers”.

The argument is always like this;

“First of all, America is large, modern, and well managed. Societal collapse only happens to mismanaged tyrannies. It never happens to an advanced “democracy” like the United States.”

(Yes, I know that United States was formed as a Republic. Most Americans don’t know this. Which is why the statement is in quotations.)

“Second of all, the American people ARE the government. If their elected representatives fall in love with tyranny, the American people will vote them out of office. The American people are far too strong. They have guns. They (the government) will NEVER try to seize them. After all, the argument goes, “When they come to my front porch, I’ll teach them a lesson or two.”

The bravado is laudable.

The time is rapidly coming when we’re going to have to "open the ammo box".

And so what, exactly? Take them out of the box, shine them up, and put them back in the box? Because that is what's been happening for decades now. Conservative keep saying "don't cross this line in the sand", yet don't realize the cliff behind them is one more line in the sand away. Getting tired of all of this bragging about firing back when not one damn thing has been done since forever. 

- 4/23/2019, 10:40:46 AM by CatOwner

What is a “Collapse”

"...first, the French traffic fines are ubiquitous, and the government  has set the stage for this by ramping them up. The fines are very high:  $70 just for going as little as a single kilometer over the speed limit  on a first offense, and as the tourist boards show, oh, yes, they do  issue them – and hunt you into the grave to get them. They even fine  people for having red light camera-detectors – $32,000, two years' jail,  and three years' license suspension. They've also reduced the speed  limit, even in rural areas, where higher speeds are a necessity, to one  size fits all for geographically diverse, "246 kinds of cheese" France,  all in the name of "safety," or as the Brits would say, "your own  good..."

-American Thinker

The term “collapse” can mean many things. To some people it might mean [1] a scene out of a science fiction movie where there is a total breakdown in all governmental functions. Sort of like a scene from the television show “The Walking Dead”, so (in other words) a zombie movie.

Oh, it might seem all fun and games. But, the real deal will be anything but fun. Think of starvation, sleeping wet and cold with a high fever. Consider your friends and loved ones dead or dying. A real apocalypse will not be pretty.

Zombieland
Zombie movies are popular for many reasons. In it, the heroes or heroines try to survive in a world where the government has collapsed, and they must survive based on their wits and abilities.

To others [2] , it might mean that there is a revolution and a period of confusion where local, state and federal government services are disjointed and confused. Think of the French Revolution, or what happened to Nicolae Ceausescu,the dictator of Romania.

There are elements of progressive liberal socialists that are earnestly trying to foment this kind of revolutionary change. They have been weaned in the belief that they, somehow, will become in control. As if revolution is some kind of real-life first-person-shooter. It isn’t.

The Romanian Revolution.
FILE – In this file photo dated Saturday, Dec. 23, 1989, people stand on a armored carrier in the suburbs of Timisoara, Romania, during clashes between the army and pro-Ceausescu forces, as over 5000 people are reported killed in Timisoara during this week. Twenty-five years ago the people rose up against Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, executed him and set the country on a path to democracy. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File)

To still others [3] it might mean the collapse in the stock market and a plummeting in the value of the US Dollar as a means of commerce.

Never a good thing, the United States has been artificially manipulated with a serious of “bubbles”. Sooner or later, these “bubbles” will need to contract. It will not be good for anyone, or any business tied to the stock market.

Stock Market Crash.
The feel-good times of the “Roaring 20’s” came to a screeching halt when the Stock Market crashed. Since that date, the market has crashed and reset numerous times. How well it will influence the general population depends a lot on it’s apparent influence.

There is a great deal of variation on what a “collapse” is depending on your social status, your financial situation, your geographical region, and your source of income. Therefore, to be inclusive, I use this term here very broadly.

  • It is a [1] period of “discomfort” where the established “normal” way of life is altered in some fashion. It is altered because the government is undergoing a change or revision of some sort.
  • This will be accompanied with [2] either a loss of possessions, Rights or abilities, and / or an increase in restrictions of some form or the other.
  • Finally, it will include [3] a defanging of the population in some manner. Whether it is the outlawing of weapons, the rewriting of the second amendment or some kind of rule(s) that make it difficult for the American citizen to redress any kind of grievances. This will be especially true when fraud, deception and crimes make the Constitutionally prescribed avenues of redress insignificant.
Kevin D. Williamson: They watched crimes being committed and did nothing.
Madeleine Kearns: How do the police balance peacekeeping with First Amendment rights?
Kevin D. Williamson: There isn’t anything unpeaceable about the exercise of First Amendment rights. I don’t care for mass protests myself — a large crowd of people all facing one direction and chanting seems to me more properly part of a religious exercise than a political one. But if that’s your thing, then by all means go and bark at the moon. But when people start blocking traffic, pounding on the hoods of cars, damaging property, committing assaults, that’s a different thing. And I don’t think there’s really much of a First Amendment issue presented by policing ordinary crime when that crime happens in the course of a political action.

-Antifa Exposed

The “collapse” will be a period of great discomfort for the bulk of Americans.

Depending on your circumstances, you might find anything from progressive socialists unhappy that they cannot get their moca-frappa-latte at Starbucks, to suburban white families starving in the streets. The “collapse” will mean different things for different people. It’s up to you, the reader, to ascertain what it will mean for you and your family.

A notorious, vicious drunk, Johnson had himself filmed as he ordered his men to torture Doe. While he sat behind a desk with two open cans of Budweiser beer, a young woman fanning him from behind, Johnson ordered his men to strip Doe. The portly president kneeled before Johnson in his underwear, quivering, sobbing, begging. Johnson’s men hacked off his ears. Blood poured down his torso. Doe’s body was later found dumped outside a medical clinic. 

Firestone and the Warlord

The “Event”

Based upon history, the resolution will not be based on compromise, civility, reason, or peaceful means. The combustible combination of unpayable debt, civic anarchy, and global chaos are set to detonate, creating an era of maximum darkness, death, destruction, and decisions.  

Making America Great Again will require personal sacrifice, dreadful choices, survival skills, intelligent decisions, and the courage to win at all costs.

-2019 from a Fourth Turning perspective.

What I refer to as “the collapse” goes by different terms and conventions depending who you might talk to. Some call this “The Fourth Turning” which refers to the theory of generational change. Others refer to this in a more visceral way, referring to it as the SHTF (The Shit hits The Fan.). Still others simply refer to this as “The Collapse”, or “The Event”. Other terms include…

  • The Collapse
  • A Generational Reset
  • A Revolution of the People
  • A Restructuring of Society
  • The Event
  • The Fourth Turning
  • SHTF

For Americans, there will not be any clear and defined point in time when The Event happens. In general, that will be the point in time when the government goes blatantly rogue. The key word here is “blatantly”.

  • I argue that this will occur when the FBI becomes autonomous and tries to seize control of the government.
  • I argue that this will occur when the Judges will become obstacles to normal government operations.
  • I argue that this will occur when the election system is so broken that widespread fraud is reported without consequence in the media and zero action is taken to correct it.
  • I argue that this is a point in time when seditious activities are not only discussed openly, but applauded as future events.

I argue that WE ARE THERE now.

You are here.
General graph of the state of transition of events prior to a major reset. I argue that we are close enough to The Event that we can consider ourselves near to the danger zone. Now is the time to make preparations, what ever you might believe necessary to secure your standard of living, your family and your resources.

However, others disagree. They point out that the ballot harvesting to change the vote tallies in California (and flip 40 some districts) is inconsequential. They argue that it is fine to have an FBI conducting a coup against the President. They suggest that when SHTF occurs they will know about it. They suggest that the stock market is the true and ONLY indicator of The Event.

Maybe.

>>This isn’t merely a question for Trump supporters, but for  anyone who still thinks that a political system that isn’t completely  run by thugs, with only a simulacrum of democracy as window dressing, is  something worth trying to maintain and improve. <<

It is a fool’s errand to attempt to save the Union. The ideological gap between left and right is far to wide to ever bridge. They are polar opposites.

The best we can hope for is an amicable split. Fredrick Douglas wondered if the US is just to large an area to be governed by one central government in Washington. It is, a “one size fits all” system is not working

The sooner the majority of people in this country realize that and start the process of diving the nation in a peaceful manner, the better. Otherwise, we will continue our slow decent into hell.

- Posted HERE at1/27/2019, 7:44:54 AM by Tejas Rob

I argue that The Event will not be televised. I argue that CNN will not have discussion boards of “experts” debating back and forth about the implications of “The Event”. I argue that many things are going on in secret and behind the scenes, and the bulk of Americans will be unaware of what is going on until it is too late.

The ruling class will not accept the outcome of any presidential  election it does not win. Trump notwithstanding, this class will rule as  it has in the past three years. So long as its hold on American  institutions continues to grow, and they retain millions of clients,  elections won’t really matter. Our country is in a state of revolution,  irreversibly, because society’s most influential people have retreated  into moral autarchy, have seceded from America’s constitutional order,  and because they browbeat their socio-political adversaries instead of  trying to persuade them. Theirs is not a choice that can be reversed.  Our ultimate objective is peace, but what kind of peace we may get  depends on the extent to which we may compel our enemies to leave us in  peace. And for that, we must do unto them more and before they do unto  us. 

-Codevilla

I argue that this upcoming event was long planned, and while the timeline is offset by the election of Donald Trump, the process and procedure is still in place. Some elements have advanced, and some were stymied. Never the less, the event will go as planned.

“During every stage, the process of imposing tyranny by stealth is  cloaked with a veneer of bogus legality. But thanks to the vision and  wisdom of our founding fathers, our liberty has two clear and  unbreakable lines of defense: the First and Second Amendments.”

-Bracken: Covington Gives a Glimpse of Civil War Two

A Long Drawn-Out Process

 
I actually read the EU Constitution once...out of curiosity. I  wondered how ours can be so short, and if followed, is a remarkable  instrument. 

So when I read it, I was appalled at it. 

It is written in  legalese, and panders to nearly every damn protected group.
 
It is a body of unelected bureaucrats. 

When I heard that the UK was  going to leave it, I was elated because most people there don’t realize  what a bullet missed them if they do manage to withdraw. But I think they won’t. They have their own deep state as well.

- 1/13/2019, 2:42:54 PM by rlmorel 

So far it has been a very slow and long drawn out process.

We have become acclimatized to the idea that it is “normal” for our government to be rogue. While there is an obvious “deep state”, and an obvious state of political corruption, there still remains elements of the government that (at least on the surface) maintain the form of decorum and principle. Some.

Bill of Rights
President Obama had no qualms in redefining the Rights of man. He was supposedly a “Legal Scholar”, but his understanding of the basic ideas that the nation was founded upon were laughingly missing. What is the point in having a Bill of Rights when they are not enforced, and guarded by those in government. Obviously something is amiss.

It’s all “crazy talk”

With the declarations of sanctuary, the governor of California has already seceeded.

The President should invade California with US Army troops, capture the entire government and downgrade the state to federally controlled Territorial status. In so doing, the entire congressional and senate delegations would cease to exist. The territorial border can be placed under firm military control .

- Opening the Floodgates of Secession 1/26/2019, 10:35:00 PM comment 29 of 39

As such, we have become acclimatized and accustomed to the government being dysfunctional. Just like we think nothing of getting undressed to board a airplane, pissing in a cup to get a job, or giving out our social security number to every Tom, Dick and Harry that asks for it. We, for the most part, have truly forgotten the foundational principles of liberty that America was founded upon.

  • We could speak our minds.
  • We could defend ourselves, our families, and our livelihood.
  • We we free of taxation.
  • Our personal matters were private, and kept that way.
  • We never had to change our behaviors for any reason.
  • We never had to report to any government official.
  • We were never forced to buy or purchase anything.

The “good old days” are now gone. We are currently in a transitional nightmare as our Republic barrels down headlong towards a tyrannical progressive socialist dictatorship.

The Big Event.
The FBI’s Peter Strzok planned a coup against the elected President. This was all recorded by the NSA. He viewed the idea that the people could vote in their elected officials to be dangerous, and that he and others in the “shadow government” could unseat the president. They would then operate the reigns of the government from behind the scenes as what was proper and right (in his mind).

As such, there are elements within government, and their political circles, that want to continue this process and exacerbate it to a fruitful (to them) conclusion. They look forward to the day when they have full aristocratic control of the reigns of power over Americans. They look forward to the day when the populace can be disarmed like the Australians or the Brits, and then implement the (already planned) policies that will merge America into a borderless global “utopia”.

One, of course, ruled by them. And, of course, where everyone else is absolutely and positively controlled by them.

Trump also speaks for the working class dismissed by Democrats as the “Trump Deplorables.”  It  is the working class that has paid for “globalism” and trade deals by  having their jobs given to foreigners. 

The way America is ruled, it  benefits the One Percent with crumbs spilling down to the top 10  percent.  No one else benefits.  

Trump is a multi-billionaire who  aligned with working Americans. That’s how he got elected. I remember  driving through working class neighborhoods and seeing only Trump signs.  That’s  when I knew he would be elected. 

The Democrats have abandoned the  working class and the poor for Wall Street money. Bill Clinton and  Hillary showed them the way. 

- Paul Craig Roberts

To them, they see various elements of success in other nations. They note how easy it was to disarm Australians and Brits. They note how difficult it is for Britain to leave the EU. They note how Brussels has control over other NATO signed nations and are doing things that their civilian population loathe. They are emboldened by this knowledge.

Australian firearm turn in
There was a time when all Australians could own firearms. Then the government banned the guns “for the children”. Initially, they offered voluntary collection and turn-in programs. Here are some firearms turned in by an aged grandmother after her husband died.

The End Game

Now, what will happen, the one thing that just about everyone can agree upon, is there will be a point in time when the government “takes charge“. This point in time will mean different things depending on the philosophy of the people yearning for it.

  • To the Conservatives, this means when the Constitution will be followed. The American people would get their Rights returned back to them. The government would greatly shrink in size, the taxes would decrease and the global endless series of wars would end. To many conservative, it seemed like the election of Donald Trump would be the start of a long process where this could actually reverse centuries of corruption.
  • To the Progressive Socialists, this means when a (parental) socialist government rewrites the Constitution. A “nanny state” would control all the citizenry in benevolence. They would tell us what to eat, how to dress, how to act and how to behave. The rulers would be perfect and benevolent. In their minds they see Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as leading this effort. They see them handing out favors to “the blessed ones”, and dishing out punishments to those undeserving.
Line up arrest.
Here is a mass arrest in Russia. Why does everyone think it cannot happen in America? Certainly we have democrat elected officials openly calling for mass arrests of “deplorables”, they are calling for civil strife, and public attacks.
A black uprising led by Kanye West has struck fear into the hearts of  Democrats, giving them further incentive to keeping the southern border  open to new Democrat voters.  With gun grabbing liberal politicians  attempting to disarm the deplorables in flyover country, while  supporting antifa and black lives matter terrorists, and thwarting  efforts to keep criminals and terrorists from illegally entering the  country, a violent showdown is inevitable.

-2019 from a Fourth Turning perspective.
  • In the case of the Tyrannical Progressive Left, this means when the Bill of Rights is no longer considered an obstacle to the desires of those in power. It would be destroyed and in it’s place would be a Bill of Privileges that are things granted tot he citizens by the ruling elite. They hold a very dangerous and radical agenda that is in alignment with Pol Pot, and views the actions of Hitler and Stalin to be amateurish.
Nazi arresting Jews
When the progressive liberals came to power in Germany, they called themselves Nazi’s. They then identified their enemies. Today we call them “deplorables”, but for the Nazi’s they called them the undesirables, and that included a wide range of people.
On the more normal political front, I spoke with a local union leader  who gave me some pretty good insight on how the Trump phenomenon had  radicalized her membership. The thing about places like Portland and San  Francisco is that they aren’t nice. They have a reputation for being wooly and hippieish and silly, but they are in fact very angry  places, full of very angry people. They are also highly segregated places in ways that the South and Southwest really aren’t. Angry white people with money make the world go ’round, apparently.

-Antifa Exposed

We can see this happening all around us… in little drips and dabs, depending on what is reported to us and what isn’t. The Bill of Rights has been so rewritten to be nearly meaningless to the average American citizen…

  • Political Correctness is an affront to the First Amendment.
  • Every “Gun Control” bill is an affront to the Second Amendment.
  • Even the Third Amendment is under assault. And the judges now say that it is not a Personal Right.  Maybe they should read the preamble to the Bill of Rights.
  • They say that “No Knock Raids” do not violate the Fourth Amendment…

Etc. Etc. Etc…

The Tattered Constitution

Madeleine Kearns: You’ve written that Portland’s mayor is partly responsible. In terms of policy — what do you think could be done?
Kevin D. Williamson: He might consider asking the police officers who work for him to enforce the law.
Madeleine Kearns: In what way were the anti-fascist protesters you saw fascists?
Kevin D. Williamson: They are the American Left’s answer to the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, down to the penchant for black shirts. They perform the same function: using violence and intimidation to silence political opposition and to terrorize the political opposition. “Fascist” is a notoriously difficult word to define, but they are as close to a textbook case as you are going to find.
Madeleine Kearns: You write that their “idol is the proletariat rather than the nation.” Could you please unpack that?
Kevin D. Williamson: Utopian political movements — and all totalitarian movements are basically utopian — love the world, except for all the people in it. They all are antiliberal and they all seek to degrade the individual and individualism. Their liturgy requires an object of adoration, and it’s usually the same object: the People, or, as American populists like to put it, We the People. For traditional nationalists, it’s the Nation in abstract and idealized form; for socialists, it’s always been the proletariat, who apparently are the only people included in the People. If you’re acting in the name of the People, you can brutalize persons. The interests of the People require a gulag, the interests of the People require a death camp, and if the people have to suffer for the People, then so be it.

-Antifa Exposed

All of these events, these terrible terrible events that we are tired hearing about, and which anger us so are really just symptoms. They are just a multitude of small bites, snips, nips and tears at the Constitution. It has been going on for a very long time, and while many people are aware of it, and frustrated by it, we prefer to believe that the bare bones of the Constitution will still remain intact.

It is like an army of little “piranha fish” are tearing the very fabric of the Constitution and doing so unopposed. Our elected officials either support their efforts, or shiver under their desks in fear.

We believe that all these little nips and tears at the fabric of the Constitution will either eventually end, out of exhaustion, or maybe some strong lawman might step in and take control. Maybe some day, we all collectively hope.

Well, I hate to bust your collective bubble. It’s not going to happen.

What will happen is that there will be a point in time that the “piranha fish” that are tearing at the Constitution will eventually hit the bare bones, the fundamental bedrock of the Constitution. There will be no meat left, and only one final step will need to take place.

That final step will require a bigger fish with the jaws that can break up the bones into tiny bite sized pieces. This bigger “fish” must make it’s appearance. For all the actions and activities of the progressive left are counting on this big fish event.

The Handover

Now, that being said, the big turning point will be when there are [1] organized door-to-door collections of either firearms or firearm accessories.

Other elements that we can look forward to, in prelude to this collection activity will include; [2] Laws for registration of firearms, [3] laws for collection of selected ammo, or firearm parts, [4] registration of guns or their owners and of course [5] the mainstream blanket reporting supporting the collection of firearms.

It is already happening…

Two police officers ordered to remove firearms from a house on a “red flag” protective order fatally shot an armed man Monday morning in Ferndale, Maryland, police said.

Anne Arundel County Police arrived at the house at 5:17 a.m. to remove guns from the home. This was under a new law that allows for the seizure of firearms if a person shows “red flags” that they are a danger to themselves or others.

- November 2018. The Baltimore Sun. More information can be found HERE.

Already there are articles and articles supporting that notion that disarming people makes for a more peaceful world. Such as this nonsense from VOX. Aside from the onslaught of propaganda, there are many people who actually believe that disarming people, and letting the “government” take “parental-style” control over everything will bring about paradise.

Progressive Liberal socialist utopia.
Many followers of the progressive liberal socialist dream actually believe that a utopia can be achieved. Their understanding of how the universe, the world, culture and society is forged upon distortions, thus creating this imagined perfection that they actually believe is attainable.
A New Jersey law that makes it a felony to possess a gun magazine capable of holding over 10 rounds of ammunition is now active. This wildly unconstitutional law instantly criminalizes hundreds of thousands of New Jersey citizens who legally acquired normal capacity firearms magazines — which include 17-round pistol magazines and 30-round rifle magazines — as tools of self-defense against the very same violent criminals that are protected by the Democrats who passed the gun magazine ban.

Now, the New Jersey State Police have told Breitbart News they won’t rule out “house-to-house enforcement” of the new magazine ban, meaning they plan to conduct house-to-house arrests and gun magazine confiscations. These Nazi-style anti-gun operations will, of course, be carried out at gunpoint, further underscoring the entire purpose of the Second Amendment and the need for citizens to arm themselves with 30-round magazines to defend against government tyranny.

“Breitbart News contacted New Jersey State Police on Monday to ask how they planned to enforce the newly enacted ban,” reports Breitbart.com. “The NJ State Police refused to rule out house-to-house checks. Rather, they responded: ‘We do not discuss enforcement strategies.’”

The very reason citizens need 30-round magazines is because the government wants to use coercion and the threat of violence to take away their legally-acquired firearms and magazines. If citizens surrender 30-round magazines, the next step will be New Jersey banning all magazines, followed by the banning of all semi-automatic firearms. Almost overnight, citizens of New Jersey will find themselves living under an authoritarian regime of pure tyranny and lawlessness… with no means to defend themselves against the state, which will then have a monopoly on effective firearms.
This is a repeat of Nazi Germany, which disarmed the Jews before mass murdering six million of them.

It’s so much easier to murder people, after all, when the government disarms them first. And anyone going along with the disarmament is signing their own death warrant.


Mike Adams
Natural News
December 13, 2018

Collection Leadership

Those owning the last obstacle to tyrannical control; firearms will be defied and spoken of in the pejorative.

This has been going on for decades, and there is a systematic process that is being honed every few years using “crisis actors”, a easily controlled media, and selective reporting. Today, an event and an anti-gun narrative can be concocted at the flip of a switch.

Remember, boys and girls, the monied elite; the oligarchy has everything all planned out. They fund the politicians and the insurgents. Certainly you can recall this, can’t you…

ISIS CIA convoy
The ISIS was fully funded by American tax dollars through the CIA. Evidence is highly suggestive that it was part of a larger plan orchestrated by Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton to establish a socialist Arab enclave in the Mid-East fully funded and aligned with their own interests. This all fell apart when Donald Trump was elected President. The point here is that the oligarchy will fund and establish military units to go against American citizens.

It’s all planned.

These events have been planned years ahead of time. When things do not go the way as planned, other elements already in place, still must proceed. The result being a very odd juxtaposition of mainstream media confusion and a bid thud in the people’s reaction.

Do not be under the impression that the 2017 Las Vegas shooting was random. It wasn’t. It was planned months earlier, if not years. There is ALWAYS a mass shooting within the first six months of a Democrat Presidents election. It happened with Bill Clinton, it happened with Barrack Obama, and it was planned for Hillary Clinton. In this case it was a “dud”, as she wasn’t elected. Donald Trump was elected President instead.

However, in 2017, with Donald Trump as president, only half of the anti-gun “machine” could be actuated.

In Australia, it was the "Port Arthur rampage" which prompted a severe crackdown on firearms that saw more than 640,000 weapons turned in to authorities.  The Australian government subsequently introduced the National Firearms  Agreement — legislation that outlawed automatic and semi-automatic  rifles, as well as pump-action shotguns. A nationwide gun buyback scheme  also saw more than 640,000 weapons turned in to authorities.  

This is a reminder for those of you who still don’t “get it”. Those who are in positions of power in the Untied States have got there, not by luck, but being skilled in the means of deception. They are experts at deceit. They will do [1] what ever is necessary, and [2] use enormous piles of money, [3] mass group manipulation, [4] laws, and [5] states of emergency to disarm Americans.

This is because an armed populace is the only thing that is really stopping them from complete and total control.

Collecting the dissidents.
Once the people are disarmed, it is much easier to control them. Today, people can be threatened and forced into compliance with a barbed wire of rules and regulations. However, there STILL is the threat that they will shot back. Until that threat is eliminated, the socialists are hesitant in implementation of their “final solution” against deplorables.

(It seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? I mean, don’t they all have enough riches and wealth already? Don’t they have enough power already? What more power could they ever possibly want or even need? – But that’s not the issue is it. Greed, and power are vices that can never be satiated, or satisfied.)

There has been a long-term effort by “the powers that be” to disarm Americans. They are active in both political parties, with a near-complete stranglehold in the Democratic party. Thus, whenever a Democratic President is elected a system of events converge to create a favorable environment for total and complete gun confiscation.

Obama
President Obama crying that he cannot take guns away from innocent citizens. Never the less, he wrote execute orders and enacted efforts to make access to ammo and weapons to be very difficult for American citizens while equipping all Federal agencies with military grade hardware.

The election of Hillary Clinton was to have solidified the anti-gun movement and resulted in the destruction of the second amendment. With an immediate effort to seize all privately owned firearms.

The plan was to have a virtual smorgasbord of firearms involved in the shooting, thus the effort would be to have a wide swath of firearms banned from public access. (Ah, certainly the reader can remember the wide selection of firearms that the shooter had amassed, both at home and the 24 planned-to-be-banned weapons in his hotel room? The “talking heads” openly wondered aloud why he carried so many firearms up to the hotel room with him. When the reality is that it would support a wide-ranging and all-inclusive gun-ban narrative that was set up and in place prior to launch.)

Poor Hillary Clinton. Plans don't always work out the way they were planned. Hillary Clinton should well take solace in the Beer Hall Putsch.

The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed coup d'état that occurred on November 9, 1923, when the Nazi party's leader Adolf Hitler, the popular World War I General Erich Ludendorff, and other leaders of the Kampfbund, unsuccessfully tried to gain power in Munich, Bavaria, and Germany.

While I have no idea how this was supposed to manifest, I strongly suspect that it involved a liberal leaning supreme court. One that would be put in place by Hillary Clinton.

Thus, it was expected that the Supreme Court would rule that the second amendment was not an “individual right”, but rather a “right of government”. As bastardized as this would be, this is how I think it was supposed to manifest.

Supreme court justice Ginsberg.
Supreme court justice Ginsberg is dedicated into turning America into a socialist nations much like the former Communist Russia or China under Mr. Mao. This is her life-long goal and will work on this goal until she dies.

Donald Trump’s Election only postponed the banning of firearms

I hate to break this news to you all, but history is pretty darn clear on this. When the oligarchy wants something done, they will push and push until it is accomplished. As such, let me tell you this. They WILL disarm Americans. At least most Americans. It might not happen this week, or next month, but it will happen.

The next Democrat President, no matter what they promise, will effectively ban the private citizen ownership of firearms.

Firearm collection and banning WILL happen in the United States.

In case I am not clear, I will repeat. You might want to believe that you can stand your ground. You might think that you have inalienable Rights. You might think that you have the law on your side. You might think all of this.

The reality is not like some rock-music video “when the bullet hits the bone”, but rather when the polite police man tells you to turn around and put your hands behind your back. He will tell you to turn your wrists to make it easier to put the icy cold stainless-steel handcuffs on. Or he might use wire-ties if they are going to stop at multiple houses.

Mass grave.
Do not think that in today’s “modern” and “enlightened” society that we are beyond mass genocide against a particular race, or group of people. Here are people who were seized out of their homes at the dead of night by militarized police (the Federal Police), handcuffed with wire-ties and then killed and dumped in a mass grave. What? You think America can’t relive the Bosina experience?

You won’t dash back into your house to grab your .30-30, or .303. It won’t be a scene from “The Walking Dead”, or an event where you will act like 007 or Jason Bourne. Nope. As soon as you step outside your front door, armored military vehicles will swarm all over your property.

They will tear up your rose bushes, knock down your shrubs, and block your access out of the driveway. There will be snipers and secondary SWAT team members at the rear of your house, and they will tumble out of the vehicles wearing black, with armor and Kevlar vests. They will have fully automatic weapons, wear combat helmets, and will be pointing the weapons at you and your family.

If your dog starts barking, or leaps at them, it will be killed. Your children will start crying, and everyone will be on edge. Oh sure, they will have a warrant, though they really don’t need it. It’s all a formality, anyways…

DHS vehicle
The DHS is well armed with military grade vehicles, and armor. They are trained to fight on American soil. The Obama administration has been setting up the stages for an armed conflict of Americans against Americans.

The Rulers think differently than the rabble

Firstly, you need to unlearn all what you have read about in History and Civics class. The Constitution and the Government only works in certain ways depending on who runs it.

Today we have a massive “deep state” that operate in ways beneficial for the state apparatus and the oligarchy that control their leadership. What the Constitution says and what you have learned is meaningless.

Female deplorables.
When the progressive liberal socialists came to power in Germany, they called themselves Nazi’s. One of the first things that they did was start collecting “undesirables” and sending them off to camps “for their own safety”. There they worked under grueling conditions, and many died.

Many rulers, once they get the strings of power interpret the Constitution to their own personal benefit. This is a basic fact, one that the founders of the United States recognized, but one that we the people have forgotten. Leaders interpret the Constitution however they want it to be used. It’s not just American political leadership that does this, but foreign leaders as well.

Consider Hitler. So did Idi Amin. So does Nicolás Maduro Moros in Venezuela. So does Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa. What do they all have in common?

The law is what ever they say it is.

When a new prisoner arrived at Ravensbrück she was required to wear a colour-coded triangle (a winkel)  that identified her by category, with a letter sewn within the triangle  indicating the prisoner’s nationality. 

For example, Polish women wore red triangles, denoting a political prisoner, with a letter “P”. (By 1942, Polish women became the largest national component at the camp.)

Soviet prisoners of war, and German and Austrian Communists also wore red triangles; common criminals wore green triangles; and Jehovah’s Witnesses were labelled with lavender triangles.

Prostitutes, Gypsies, lesbians, or women who refused to marry were classified separately, with black triangles. Jewish women wore yellow triangles but sometimes, unlike the other prisoners, they wore a second triangle for the other categories.

-Ravensbruck

When they come to power, and they say that there is a new law that takes away guns, and right or wrong, they will disarm you. They will. And you might not want to face that fact, but they will do so. If you show the slightest hesitation they will kill you and your family.

Mass grave.
Mass graves like this are common all over the world. They are what happens once there is a change in government and a new government takes charge.

And you, yes YOU, will cringe in supplication as you hand over your firearms, your ammo, your prized memorabilia to the well-armed SWAT team dressed in black that has a .50 cal machine gun pointed at your family.

They will take them.

And you, out of the concern for your loved ones, will hand them all over.

Know your history 1
In the 1930’s the German progressive-liberal socialist government (the Nazi’s) ordered the registration and then the collection of all firearms. Then less than a decade later they started rounding up certain classes and groups of people to “protect” them. These people were taken to “safe areas” known as reservations and camps. There they were killed in mass.

Gun Confiscation will be the LAST warning sign

It will not be the first. It will not be the only one. Yes, it will not be the only warning sign.

In fact, during the time of collection, the economy will still be humming along. The news papers will still talk about the latest political scandals (of a trivial nature of course), and people will still be watching the movies out of Hollywood. It will seem like an ordinary day.

Any armed resistance to the confiscation efforts will NOT be reported. If anything, they will be under-reported by alternative media and labeled as tin-foil-hat conspiracy stuff, if not blanket shadow-banned by the software conglomerates.

Tin foil hat
Alex Jones of infowars dons a tin-foil hat to make a point. During the mass purge of firearms and the suppression of individual rights in the United States, anyone not following the “official” government policy lines will be branded a tin-foil-hat conspirator.

What the collection of the guns and weapons will do, however is enable to the government to stop propping up some unfavorable (to them, in leadership positions of power) politically-dangerous positions. They will no longer need to hold various policy positions. They will no longer need to give lip-service to certain programs or actions, or even rules of law. They will be free to implement their long-kept secret plans…

These plans were kept secret for a series of reasons.

Typically they are because they would be unpopular, but also because they would be anti-Constitutional. Thus, with the population disarmed, they could implement their full intended agenda. They will then start to announce very unpopular actions, rules, laws, and policies. These polices, rules and laws will be obviously anti-Constitutional.

They will start to implement these polices rapidly, and quickly.

Ravensbrück was the only major women’s concentration camp during  World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a  site near the village of Ravensbrück.

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by the order of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that the camp was intended to hold exclusively female inmates. The facility opened in May 1939 and underwent major expansion following the invasion of Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, some 130,000 to 132,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; around 40,000 were Polish and 26,000 were Jewish from all countries including Germany,18,800 Russian; 8,000 French, and 1,000 Dutch.

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, about 50,000 of them perished from disease, starvation, overwork and despair; some 2,200 were killed in the gas chambers.

Only 15,000 of the total survived until liberation. According to Britannica, on 29–30 April 1945 some 3,500 female prisoners were still alive in the main camp. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

- Ravensbrück

Within a half of a year, once the policies are enacted, various segments of society will start to fall apart. I cannot predict what will happen to the “neck of the woods” where the reader lives. As the collapse will be gradual… it will be regional… and it will be under-reported.

I will stress… it will be under-reported, if reported at all.

Monrovia
Revolutions are ugly. This is a scene in Monrovia in August 1990. There is nothing fun or enjoyable about violence. You need to win, losing is unacceptable. If you lose, you WILL die.

A Period of Discomfort

In my understanding, there will be some periods of discomfort in the United States. It should peak in the middle 2020’s and be resolved by 2030 or so. So, we can expect a climax to this current Crisis sometime in the 2025 range. The question for us, at this time, is what events will transpire between 2019 and 2025 (the six years) before a climax is reached.

The level of discomfort will vary from person to person depending on where they live, their support network, and their degree of preparation.

Of course, what do I know? I am often wrong, and I have made mistakes. I am sure that at any time now, the progressive liberal socialists might mellow out and have a breather. They might calm down and stop their attacks on president Trump, mitigate their politically correct arguments, and take a step backwards from their more radical elements.

They might, you know. It is a possibility.

I however am not discussing the world of rainbows, and prancing unicorns in fields of lollipops and free “medical” marijuana for everyone. No, I am discussing what happens when the worst fears actually materialize. I am discussing what MIGHT happen.

Wounded Knee
When the Army ordered the Sioux to give up their weapons, one Native American fired his weapon, and the army fired back…… Sioux were killed.

This period of discomfort might vary from person to person. I rather doubt that everyone would experience the same level of discomfort.

For some, it might mean only that the value of their stocks have decreased. For others, it might mean that they might have to alter their way of life as their standard of living has changed. Some people and families might find that it is more difficult to drive around in their cars. Others might discover that their favorite foods are more difficult to obtain. Still others might discover that there just isn’t any work, or that the social-support functions of government has collapsed.

Yet, and for others, it might mean something quite grim.

These kinds of societal evolution can get very ugly. We know what happened during the purges by Stalin in the Soviet Union, we know what happened during the American civil war. We know what happened when Mr. Mao came to power in China. We know what happened in Bosnia. We well remember the French Revolution.

Venezuela unrest
Venezuela unrest. When the government failed to provide the basic needs of the population, they started to complain and ask that things would get taken cared of. The government reaction was a show of military and police and a brutal crackdown on the civilian population.

Here we look at the grim side of change.

In the United States, there are forces that are pumping money and chomping at the bit for radical change. Unless some real substantive action takes place, and does so quickly, there will be some difficult times ahead.

Described in detail here…

My Advice

I do not know the future. I only know about trends. From where I sit, I can easily see and forecast a confluence of events. I advise prudence and firstly, [1] suggest the reader to plan a long-term strategy to leave any progressive-socialist strongholds that they might (presently) unfortunately live within. This might require a job or career change. This might require a downsizing of possessions and housing. This will require a change in lifestyle. While initially discomforting, it will be advantageous in the longer term.

Since, any major governmental related crisis will probably involve the defanging of the population, and would advise steps be taken to minimize the governmental neutering of you and your family. To this end, I also suggest [2] during your relocation obtain weapons that the government cannot confiscate. As they will have no knowledge of them.

These weapons should be practical, and they should be something that you are trained and skilled in using. Hopefully they will never be needed. However, you should plan on using it against intruders at close range, firstly. In this regard, a 10 ga shotgun is preferable to a .303 scoped rifle. A 30 round SLS or AK-47 clone would be preferable to a match-grade .22 long rifle. You might also want to have a weapon that can use the same kind of ammo that state police, and the DHS use.

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have  been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make  an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to  say good-bye to his family? 

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?...

The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Learn from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. They permitted the government to take them away from their families, take away their freedom and destroy their lives because they relied on the news media to report on the actions of the government. Don’t make the same mistake.

The Event will NOT BE REPORTED.

You will more than likely be unprepared for the SHTF when it occurs. There will not be a Paul Revere galloping from house to house warning you. It will hit you and your family by surprise.

The “bullet won’t hit the bone”, you will be in wireties before you realize what is going on.

Too late.
You and your family will be in wireties before you know what is going on. Your will not be protected by your Rights. You will not have a chance to fight, shoot back, or run. The time to do that is NOW. When the police are there in your neighborhood it will be too late.

Thirdly [3], hide and secure these weapons. Tell no one where they are. Not your spouse, or your children. They (your family members) will tend to place confidence in friends and associates without the realization how deadly serious this issue can be. Only YOU, and you alone, will know the location. Again, tell NO ONE that you have any weapons hidden. It is a secret that you cannot share with anyone.

Militarized police
The government has militarized all sorts of federal agencies with military equipment, weapons and vehicles. They are to be used against Americans on American soil. Credit for the image from Peekpromotion.com.

For storage, I would suggest packing them in grease and then placing them in sturdy PPT packaging and burying them. Place ammo (and a reloading kit) nearby. The idea is to recover them after the bulk of the citizenry is disarmed.

Storage containers.
Here are some storage cases that can be found in Army and Navy stores, and sportsman’s supply outlets. However, you do not need to use these containers, if they are not available. You can purchase used 55 gallon drums, clean them out and use them. Just make sure that they are sealed tight. You can also make sure that they are waterproof by coating all the edges with mobile home roofing tar, or plain ordinary tar. What ever you do, you must bury these items in secret, and make sure that they cannot be discovered accidentally by a utility repairman, a housing inspector or a utility road crew. Be surreptitious.

The police, the federal police, and others are trained to search for hidden things. Expect them to ASSUME that you will have some weapons hidden. If you have a history of being a gun collector or one who has an internet history related to prepping or survival, they will start to look for your buried cache. I don’t know what to say about that. Though, a “sacrificial” decoy cache might be a consideration.

As a friendly suggestion, no one ever goes into electrical substations. Whether they are active or inactive. I had a friend who once had a problem with people climbing over his fence and messing with the collection buckets for his maple syrup. So, he started to put “Danger High Voltage” signs all over his property, and layed thick cable here and there. Since then, no one would dare tresspass.

Note that most people would tend to ignore a cement wall, or cesspool, or cemented over driveway.

Electrical substation.
If you want to hide something, then hide it in plain sight. Something like an unused electrical substation, or a cement pillar or foundation might be a good place to pace your cache.

Finally [4], tell no one about your plans, or why you relocate. No one will agree with you or believe you. Just move to a safer area and tell others that the reason was economic. Do not tell them about your worries. Tell others that you are moving for a better life. Most people will accept this as a valid excuse. In general, heed my advice, AVOID urban areas.

Now is the time to prepare. Not after things start to really go downhill. I pray. I hope. I wish that things will never get as bad as I warn against. However, history says otherwise.

Do not forget the Holocaust. The progresive liberal socialists, as much as they claim to hate Nazi's, actually want to implement their policies.
Do not forget the Holocaust. The progressive liberal socialists, as much as they claim to hate Nazi’s, actually want to implement their policies.

The Core Article

This article was inspired and based upon the writings of a Mr. Selco from Venezuela. They come from his article titled ” These are the signs the SHTF are real“. Yes, I know, Venezuela is not Hattiesburg, Mississippi or Framingham, Massachusetts. However, he is relating events that occurred recently when the progressive socialist government effectively disarmed the populace and started implementing their own brutal policies.

So while his experiences represent another nation, another society and another culture, the reader should pay attention. People are people. Nations follow basic rules of ascendancy and decline, and politicians are politicians no matter where their offices are.

Venezuela ruling government.
Maybe the cars are a little different. Maybe the armbands are different and the facial features are different, but those who rule governments are all the same. They might make promises, and they might even grant a few of the promises, but they intend to RULE.

Learn from his experiences. Here is his comments highlighted in color. Comments on it are my own.

How do you know if the SHTF is actually here? One of the cornerstones
 of survival is how to recognize that a situation has gone so bad that 
the S is truly going to hit the fan.
Basically, we are talking how to recognize that it is time to bug out or hunker down because it is going to be (really) bad.
I call it “survival mode” (no, it is not invented by me), and it  means that you at some point based on your own observations, feelings,  the situation around you, events, etc. going to are going to jump into  that mode where you gonna implement actions based on different  priorities than everyday life. It is personal but it may include:
  • no longer going to work and school
  • bugging out
  • bugging in
  • using violence on “first shoot, then ask” philosophy

In short, you are putting into action decisions that you prepared for a long time because (the) Shit did hit the fan.

How do you know when the real SHTF has arrived?

One of the members of the Prep Club FB group
 asked a very good question about this, and basically what she asked (in
 very shortened version and paraphrased) was: “How am I going to 
recognize that it is time to leave my job because the whole situation is
 going to s**t?”
The easiest (and pretty lame and lazy) answer is that you need to 
leave your job as soon as you see something bad is happening around you,
 and go home, bug in, bug out or whatever your plan is.
Police gathering downtown.
How do you know that things are spiraling out of control? How do you know that the SHTF and that things will start to get increasingly dangerous for you and your family. At what point in time do you realize that going to work might become too hazardous?
But it is lame because something bad is happening all the time around
 us – people being robbed or killed, folks losing jobs, cars being 
stolen, food poisoning, protests, political scandals – not to mention 
terrorist attacks happening more often and the migration crisis..
But you still need your job to pay bills. Your kids need to go to  school. Violence and bad things are always around us, but that does not  mean you’ll have to quit your job and bug out. If you do that, you are  achieving nothing.
Shot and dying.
When one group of people identify another group, and target them with hate, and violence, it only escalates. It gets worse. Eventually there is whole-scale blood shed. Do not be under the illusion that it will never happen in America. There are enormous groups of people just chomping at the bit to attack conservatives and traditionalists. All in the name of a progressive utopia.
So we are actually talking here how to recognize the “big event”, a real SHTF event, when you need to jump into that survival mode and stop  worrying too much about your regular day-to-day life.
The real fun here is that there is no universal answer. There is no specific point at which you will recognize it, but definitely, there are some things to pay attention to.

So firstly, we must remember the story of the two frogs. because that is exactly where most Americans are today. They have been cooking for decades in water while the congresscritters in Washington D.C. has been turning up the heat.

They have even issued laws, rules of engagement and behaviors to look for that criminalize YOU (the reader). The DHS is not your friend, and these rules are written against YOU for a reason.

DHS notice.
Yes, you are classified as a Right-wing extremist by the DHS. You are presumed guilty and a threat instead of an innocent citizen deserving of Rights and Habius Corpus.

Remember the two frogs.

I often refer to this story. It is a great story because it illustrates exactly what is going on in the United States today.

A well-known story is about the two frogs. One is thrown directly into a  pot of boiling water, and of course, the frog immediately jumps out of  the bowl and runs away.
The other frog is being thrown into a pot of cold water and then  water is gradually heated to point of boiling ,and at the end, this frog died.
The patriot.
In the British colonies, an early version of the DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) seizes a citizen under the suspension of Habeas Corpus during a “no-knock” raid. We need to look at our history using modern terminology and situations to truly appreciate our past.
When the water is gradually heated to the boiling point, the frog does not realize it is gonna die.
Most of us are frogs in a big bowl of water that is gradually heated  to the boiling point and let me tell you, that water is getting pretty  warm. You really need to be the well-prepared and smart frog to realize that the warm (and maybe pleasant) water is going to be deadly boiling  in a very short time.

When the police come to your door, often in the middle of the night, they will seize you. They will cart you and your family away. Trying to explain the Bill of Rights to them will not matter. Trying to explain that you did nothing wrong will not matter. Trying to explain that you have Rights (both State and Federal) and they you want to talk to an attorney WILL NOT MATTER.

When the “Big Event”, the SHTF starts to happen, the world that you thought existed would be long gone.

Demaning Rights
German woman demanding her “Rights” when the German Federal Police come to take her and her family to a “resettlement farm” for their “safety” and “protection”. We don’t know what ever happened to her. We do know that she was taken to what was later called “concentration camps” where many people died. I guess she didn’t explain her “Rights” clear enough to the armed police officer that came to gather her and her family “for their safety”.

Get out while the “water is still pleasant”

2016 Election Results by County
2016 Election Results by County. I would suggest moving to a predominantly red county, and the greater the number of other red counties between you and a blue county the better. Nebraska and Oklahoma as well as rural Missouri would be desirable locations if you were to follow this advice.
I believe the term is “strategic relocation”, or in  other words, it is moving to an area where the situation going to be better if SHTF. It is not bugging out when SHTF. It takes very carefully planning.  You are looking far or new place to live, a job, a good environment for  kids, natural resources, and a good home, etc., today while times are  still (more or less) normal.
It is quite specific for each person based on the region where you 
live, job opportunities, family circumstances and a lot of other things,
 but in essence, a few things that I would look for are:
  • smaller communities
  • places where you already have some network (family, friends…)
  • availability of resources ( land, rivers, woods, hunt…)
  • reasonably far away from big infrastructure
  • laws that allow you freedom (or absence of restrictions) like farming, weapon carry, homeschooling etc.
Keep in mind that again it is not bugging out, it is living in  circumstances where you gonna have a much better starting point when  SHTF. You still have to work for a living, and the kids need school etc.
Know your history.
Remember the woman arguing with the Nazi policeman in the picture earlier? Well, here is the place of safety that she was promised. An all female concentration camp where the women were abused, used, and experimented upon prior to execution. Listen to me; once you turn your back and put your hands behind your back for the handcuffs, it will BE TOO LATE.

Signs that the SHTF has actually arrived

 Collapse is already here 
Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
It’s a process, not an event…

Many people are expecting some degree of approaching collapse — be it economic, environmental and/or societal — thinking that they’ll recognize the danger signs in time.

As if it will be completely obvious, like a Hollywood blockbuster. Complete with clear warnings from scientists, politicians and the media.  And everyone can then get busy either panicking or becoming the plucky heroes.

That’s not how collapse works.
Collapse is a process, not an event.
And it’s already underway, all around us.
Collapse is already here.

As I have already mentioned, I would argue that one of the signs that The Event of the SHTF has started is government mandated firearm collection. Also remember, that IT WILL NOT BE REPORTED UPON.

The first thing to look for is closing or shuttering up of arms dealers or gun stores. Look for ammo drying up. Look for the passage of laws that make owning a gun or a gun magazine illegal. Look for pronouncements that suggest police door to door searches are necessary. Look for mainstream media making heroes out of people who turn in guns, report on people who own guns, or something very similar.

Disarmed Indians.
Know your history. Once you disarm a group of people you can rewrite laws, treaties and Rights. You can do what ever you want with them. You can demonize them, and treat them terribly. First you MUST defang them. Else they will fight back.

The author continues using his experiences as a guide…

Since most of can not afford “strategic relocation's” we are forced to  stay and hope to see on time that S gonna hit the fan, and hopefully  jump on time into that survival mode and act accordingly.
I am in the same position.
I am not talking here about obvious signs that something bad has  happened, because if you hear a huge explosion and there is no signal on  TV suddenly, no internet or electricity, you do not have to be a prepper  to realize something bad has happened, and you are already in the  middle of it.
Here are some of the signs that the SHTF has actually arrived.

Now the author goes into three things to look for. I only listed one major item. To me, once there is some kind of police-collection of firearms door-to-door, you are in the midst of The Event, or SHTF. He names three things to look forward to…

  • Freedoms disappear.
  • Hate and Violence increases in frequency.
  • Access to news becomes harder.

[1] Freedoms and Rights are disappearing.

Again, this experienced individual is saying the same thing that I am trying to say. Only he is doing it much better than I ever could. His first point is that while there has been a gradual erosion of freedom and Rights, there will be an acceleration of their loss. This will either be overt (such as a government pronouncement) or covert (such as you suddenly need certain types of ID to do things that used to be free.).

You usually feel like your rights and freedoms are something written in stone, and you may be right. But in terms of signs of a coming huge SHTF, keep in mind that when  your freedoms and rights that are really important are taken away from you, the S is going to hit the fan soon.

Which is my point about the first and second amendments to the Constitution. The attempts at their suppression will eventually hit a threshold level that will indicate the start of The Event. So far, the progressive left is taking bits and taking nips at them. Eventually their suppression or distortion will be such that it becomes obvious that they no longer exist. Sort of like what happened with the fourth Amendment – the “personal privacy amendment“.

And again probably it is going to happen gradually enough that the  majority of folks will not go out on the street to fight for those rights, and also, it may happen in a way that the majority of people  will welcome it, under some new laws that “save lives” or “keep them  safe” or similar.
But the result is going to be same. Your rights and freedoms are 
gonna be taken because you are gonna be easier to manipulate then.

As he stated, your rights will be removed because it will be easier to control and manipulate you. The greatest obstacle to progressive socialist rule is the second amendment. Thus, it will… IT WILL be taken prior to The Event.

[2] Polarization, hate, and violence are on the rise.

Up until Barrack Obama came to power with his progressive liberal socialist agenda, who ever heard about the SJW troops, the BLM, and the Antifa movement? I like to think that they have already met their maximum impact and influence and are now on the wane, but history argues differently. Thus, I must agree with the author, the worse is yet to come.

Expect more angering news, expect more troublesome actions and worrisome activities.

I have mentioned all of that before,  more then once, but prior to SHTF it is going to be worse when it comes  to hate because again, a lot of stuff you cannot see clearly when you  are in a state of hate or fear.
Hillary Clinton and the BLM movement.
Progressive liberals will utilize the Black Lives Matter movement, the Social Justice Warrior movement, and the Antifa movement to achieve their objectives.
A lot of things can be moving in the background while you are coping with disorder, hate, and violence.
Antifa 1
Antifa is yet another new domestic terrorist group motivated in part by Islam and the liberal agenda to destroy America and replace it with a socialist utopia. First they must destroy all tradition, and from the ashes create a world wither the top 1% rule over the rest of humanity with benevolence.

[3] Your access to information will be limited.

Pay attention to you ability to get news. Can you get news on Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. I don’t know about youse guys, but the free flow of information is becoming narrower on the internet.

Your free access to independent information will be “shrunk”. 

Independent media will be harder and harder to find, or you will be fooled and you will think that actually, you have access to free information while in reality, it is junk, propaganda. 

The shutting down of free media and people who hold information will disappear. These are some of the last signs, and again, most people will welcome it.

Independent media will be almost “demonized”.

Could it Happen Here?

(This section is based off from a contribution from policestateusa.com.) 

One of the big arguments against gun confiscation in the United States is that it is an obvious and direct violation of the second amendment to the Bill of Rights. The argument is that it would NEVER happen in the United States because we are protected by the Bill of Rights. This argument is historically wrong.

It has already happened in the United States numerous times..

In 1775, during a time of palpable civil unrest among the colonies, the Massachusetts governor ordered soldiers to confiscate firearms from civilians in the interest of thwarting a rebellion.

In 1861, after rejecting the power of states to peacefully secede from the Union, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act, thus authorizing federal troops to confiscate firearms from civilians in preparation for military reconquest of the South.

In 1890, during the height of the American Indian “relocation” effort, U.S. troops disarmed the Lakota people en masse “for their own safety and protection” as they were corralled into their new home.  Most of the tribe was massacred when a deaf Lakota man refused to surrender his rifle to the federal soldiers.

In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt used a foreign attack on an American territory to justify the mass confiscation of guns and other property from thousands of people deemed “enemy aliens” all over the United States.  After the confiscation, these disarmed individuals were rounded up and placed in concentration camps.

Watch the behavior of people in the know.

Now, here is where the really good stuff resides. Listen to his story…

I will give you some examples. 

I had a friend who worked for the secret police before the war. He ended up in the sieged city together with me.

He did not have a clue that things were gonna get so bad, even with his position and his access to the information.  He simply was fed bulls**t by people that he trusted.

On the other hand, I had a friend who, prior to the war was a smuggler of different kind of things from Italy, such as marijuana, electronics, and whatever was popular at that time.

He knew something bad was gonna happen, and he bugged out in time to Italy.

In his “job” he had connections with people who “pushed” things for other people who were pretty powerful criminals.  Based on moving on those “goods” and information, he simply concluded something bad was going to happen.

The point here is to keep your ear to the ground and see how things and events are moving around you.

Most probably you are not going to see things coming on TV on mainstream media, but if you have a buddy in the police force who will let you know that a lot of equipment is being delivered to them or a friend in some not “legit” places who  can give you good information, you can conclude a lot.

There is no specific advice here, but a network of friends with information from the right places is worth much more than a TV network.

Like I have been saying all along. Do not expect to be informed by the news media, or the internet. Things are planned months or even years in advance. When it happens, you will be the last person to find out.

You may miss the signs. I did.

I have seen all the signs above, and I failed to run. 

I ended up right in the middle of SHTF.

It is not only important to see and recognize signs. It is important to believe that it can actually happen. Because after I saw all the signs, I just said to myself, “Oh, it cannot happen here. Somebody somehow is gonna solve everything.”

It is very hard to trust in something that you did not experience before. Only now do I believe that a lot of horrible things are possible.

A big “Thank You” for Mr. Selco

This article was inspired and based upon the writings of a Mr. Selco from Venezuela. They come from his article titled ” These are the signs the SHTF are real“.

I urge all readers to go visit his website as there are other articles from his unique perspective and experience.

My Opinion

Since there were no serious negative ramifications to the massive full-scale vote fraud in the 2018 mid-term elections, we can expect that the progressive socialists will use this technique to turn entire states “blue”. While Donald Trump is indeed very popular, this could have a disastrous effect, and could swing both houses, and even the Presidency towards radical socialism.

Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg will hold out until a democrat President takes the reigns of power, and then assist in a full onslaught of pent-up socialist changes from their bucket list. First on that agenda will be the wide scale disarming of the American populace. Followed shortly with isolation and termination of their enemies.

The time scale for this is 2020. The four year time period of 2020 to 2024 will be a very contentious one. As it is likely to be a motivated radical democrat in control of the White House.

Supportive Links

Conclusion & Take Aways

The radicals took control of the House today. Far left anti-Trumpers  and open Socialists are now in charge of the US House of  Representatives. Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, an open Israel-hater, was sworn in on a Koran today. And after her swearing in she immediately called on President Trump’s impeachment — the “mother f*cker”!! The far left crowd LOVED IT and Cheered with delight! 

-Gateway pundit

I believe that the United States is long overdue for a reset. The government has become far too large, far too corrupt and is running amok. People from all over the country can see this. Their solutions are, however, diametrically opposed. As such, my points are…

  • A reset event is due to occur.
  • This event is already starting as of 2019.
  • I have no idea how serious this event will be, as it will depend on many variables and will vary from one family to another. It could be anything from total war and devastation to a minor increase in the cost of a cup of coffee. There are far too many variables at play.
  • I would advise caution.
  • The event or elements of it will be well under-weigh before being televised to any extent.
  • I would advise moving to a region that might escape and avoid major disruptions.

If you are unable to leave, I would then suggest the following prudent measures be considered…

  • I suggest that a firearm be procured, kept hidden, and be trained to use it properly.
  • I suggest stockpiling some antibiotics, if need be you can make your own. Here, Here, and Here. Alternatively you can google search “aquarium antibiotics” and buy fish-Pen (250mg) or Fish-Pen Forte (500mg) online. 100 tablets go for about 39.99 at the lower dose and 49.99 for the higher dose. Buy as much as you can afford, there is no prescription necessary.  You can also buy all sorts of antibiotics in bulk from Alibaba HERE.

Plan for regional discomfort increasing in stages from 2019 through 2025. Depending on the geographical regions, the severity of the change will vary. The types of changes and the personal influences will be divorced from what is presented on mainstram media and television.

This continued event eventually changes sometime into 2030. With a “new” normal manifesting.

Know your history. Townhouses.
Townhouses in Bosnia. We cannot predict what will happen, or how it will play out. All that we can say is that the current status quo in the United States is not sustainable. There will be change. For Conservatives and traditionalists, they will need to fight for their very lives, as the Progressive Liberal Socialists want them exterminated.

Russian Official on 12JAN19

“I think that America is actually engulfed by its second civil war now,” Rogozin told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, as translated by the state-run Tass Russian News Agency. Reported by Newsweek.

Former Federal Prosecutor: “We Are In A Civil War… I Buy Guns”

Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova says civil discourse is over in America, and recommends voting and buying guns because “we are in a civil war.” 

Speaking with Laura Ingraham on her podcast, diGenova noted that the “all liberal” media has given a pass to both Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) and VA Attorney General Mark Herring for appearing in blackface, while similarly glossing over Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax’s credible sexual assault allegation. 

“There’s two standards of justice, one for Democrats one for Republicans. The press is all Democrat, all liberal, all progressive, all left – they hate Republicans, they hate Trump. So the suggestion that there’s ever going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future in this country is over. It’s not going to be. It’s going to be total war. And as I say to my friends, I do two things – I vote and I buy guns.”

Other Articles

The partial government shutdown is about more than a shutdown. It’s  civil war. There are not guns or violence, at least not yet. The U.S.  military has not turned against any portion of the citizens. Nobody has  openly called for secession yet, at least to the point where it can  credibly happen. Not just yet. Yet all these things are just beneath the  surface. Any one of these things could happen, almost at any time,  although — for perfectly understandable reasons — most of us prefer not  yet to know it. 
Donald Trump came along in the midst of this growing crisis. He didn’t start the fire, nor did his supporters. He merely represents the frustration and outrage of the half or so of the population who has simply had enough. The people who dominate all those red counties on the political map, and who also comprise a sturdy but usually silent minority (bigger than you think) in those blue map locations.

A civil war, in psychological terms, happens when two sides reach a point of irreconcilable differences. The government shutdown and the border wall, while very important issues, are not the only issues dividing this country. The country is divided on even bigger things, such as whether we should move toward higher taxes and socialism or lower taxes and capitalism; more regulation or less regulation; more control for the Democratic-Republican establishment in D.C., or less. Should we use all our military force against militant Islam, or bow down and blame ourselves, as Obama did? Should we permit other countries — China, European countries — the advantages of capitalism while imposing on ourselves the disadvantages of socialism? Or should we fight back, as President Trump has done?

The root issue of all political conflict, including our own, boils down to one factor: The individual versus the state. Does the individual have the right to make up one’s own mind about one’s life, or should government be involved in making many or most decisions for us? Whether the issue is gay marriage, abortion, taxes, capitalism/socialism, whether or when to utilize military force, what the budget should be, or anything else, that’s what it all boils down to. Even the border wall issue applies here. To border wall advocates, it’s an issue of whether the federal government should set up boundaries between our (hopefully) free country and individuals or nations who are not free, who may be hostile and threatening, and should in some way be screened before coming into our (hopefully) free country. This didn’t used to be controversial. But the Democrats have moved so far left — no border wall, no borders at all — that the divide seems new, and it is new for that reason.

Our country today reminds me so, so much of a marriage at the end of its time. I am sorry to say it, but it’s true. Sometimes a marriage therapist tells a couple, “It just seems like so much work. You’re fundamentally divided on so many matters. Why don’t you just divide up your property and go your separate ways? Set yourselves free?” There are times when it’s rational to conclude this, which is why divorce and breakups are often rational.

The smart couples do break up and rationally divide up their property — even time with their children — and move on, often to better and calmer lives. Will that happen in America? Not a chance, based on the way it looks right now.

Americans no longer seem to agree on the fundamentals. The Second Amendment is now up for grabs. For years, Democrats have claimed to support the Second Amendment in theory, but now they are prepared to pass legislation in effect outlawing guns (or ammunition, which is the same thing). It turns out when they said, for all those years, that “the Second Amendment applies to the military, not to individuals, even peaceful ones,” they really meant it. This alone is an unsustainable and unresolvable difference. Am I wrong? Prove me wrong. I’d love to be wrong. I see no compromise on this point.

And now the First Amendment could be at risk too. Increasingly, it seems that leftists, self-described progressives and Democrats really mean it when they say, “Hate speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment.” Seriously? What is hate speech? I have been called a promoter of hate speech for supporting President Trump on many matters and opposing Democrats. Is that what we’ve come to? Is hate speech now speech I don’t like? And regardless of how one defines “hate speech”, how on earth do you reconcile the First Amendment with anyone’s speech — however it’s characterized — being subject to any kind of government regulation or chilling whatsoever?

When two or more parties disagree on matters of principle, you’re at a point of civil breakdown. The First and Second Amendments are at the top of our Bill of Rights for a reason. When the two major political parties disagree on these two most precious components of individual liberty — the right to defend your body and to speak your mind — then civility is over. What a literal civil war would look like, in the twenty-first century in the USA, I frankly have no idea. Maybe we’re already in it. The government shutdown is a metaphor for the impossible, irreconcilable differences between two schools of thought. I keep thinking: This is what civil war looks like. Each side wants the other to humble him- or herself. But it’s not going to happen. Never, ever with the Democrats, who have never once caved on anything, ever. And no longer with the dissenters or so-called “deplorables”, at least if President Trump is any indication.

I don’t know the answer or solution. I only know one thing: The cause of the breakdown, whenever it happens, always resides in the most important issue in any political or social matter: The individual versus the state. If there is any solution to find, it will be there.
In the 1980’s, for example, the newspapers featured stories about the so-called homeless crisis on a weekly basis. That’s when we went from calling them bums to pretending their only problem was a lack of shelter. Once Clinton assumed power, the homeless stories disappeared. It was a running joke for a long time, because it was so obvious, but also because it was so predictable. Everyone got the joke, except Lefty.

As many have observed, the mask began to drop during the Clinton years when so many media members quit their jobs and went to work in the administration. It’s hard to maintain the illusion of independence when there is a revolving door between the media and left-wing political operations. That’s when CNN became known as the Clinton News Network, because they were so hilariously in the tank for them. Some tried to maintain the ruse, but any pretense of objectivity ended in the 1990’s.

Again, there was still a sense that it was just bias and that it was predictable and therefore you could adjust for it. Today, that does not appear to be the case. The mainstream media has become advocates, but not necessarily advocates for the Progressive base of the Democratic coalition. They seem to be serving the agendas, financed by private parties operating off-stage. For example, sites like the Huffington Post and Daily Beast are about moral enforcement than news and current events.

The recent harassment of Alex McNabb by Antifa member Christopher Mathias is a great example of the phenomenon. The Huffington Post provides him with a cover identity as a reporter, but in reality someone else is paying his way. His job is as a witch hunter, looking for anyone in violation of the blasphemy laws. This is a strange new phenomenon that does not have a corollary in the past. Even Woodward and Bernstein were legitimate reporters, even if Woodward had deep connections to the intelligence community.

There’s an argument that this sort of religious advocacy is the natural result of the narrative journalism that evolved in the 1960’s and 1970’s. If you are going to report stories, the point is to inform. If you are going to spin tales, then the first goal is to entertain and there is nothing quite as a gripping as a morality tale. These doxxing stories are just campfire stories for the hard thumping loons of the far Left. The point of them is to tell the reader that they must be vigilant as heretics are everywhere.
The postwar era saw the creation of international institutions ranging from NATO to the United Nations to the World Bank, along with a proliferation of think tanks and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to accompany them. It saw the vast expansion of higher education in the United States, and the transformation of academic degrees into something close to must-haves for the upper-middle class. It saw a great expansion of power on the part of media organizations, and on the part of government bureaucrats and lobbyists, both of whose numbers increased enormously.

But after the turn of the millennium, other Americans, much like the workers and peasants in the old Soviet Union, started to notice that while the New Class was doing quite well (America’s richest counties now surround Washington, D.C.), things weren’t going so well for them. And what made it more upsetting was that — while the Soviet Union’s apparatchiks at least pretended to like the workers and peasants — members of America’s ruling class seemed to view ordinary Americans with something like contempt, using terms such as “bitter clingers,” “deplorables” and flyover people.

Class wars in America disguised as culture wars

Suddenly, to a lot of voters, those postwar institutional arrangements stopped looking so good. But, of course, the beneficiaries showed no sign of giving them up. This has led to a lot of political discord, and a lot of culture war, since in America class warfare is usually disguised as cultural warfare. But underneath the surface, talk is a battle between the New Class and what used to be the middle class.

Jack Minzey on Civil War

Civil War
How do civil wars happen?

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge. That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that. But it’s not the first time they’ve done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn’t really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election.

There’s a pattern here.


What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don’t accept the results of any election that they don’t win. It means they don’t believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections.

That’s a civil war.

There’s no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to kill a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice. But the Democrats have rejected our system of government.
This isn’t dissent. It’s not disagreement. You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship.

Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress. They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can’t scratch his own back without his say so, that’s the civil war.

Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that’s not the system that runs this country. The Democrat’s system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country. If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance. His power is unlimited. He’s a dictator.

But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can’t do anything. He isn’t even allowed to undo the illegal alien amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented. A Democrat in the White House has ‘discretion’ to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy. A Republican doesn’t even have the ‘discretion’ to reverse him. That’s how the game is played That’s how our country is run. Sad but true, although the left hasn’t yet won that particular fight.

When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren’t even allowed to enforce immigration law. But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own immigration laws. Under Obama, a state wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without asking permission. But under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying that California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries.

The Constitution has something to say about that. Whether it’s Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.

Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can’t serve in if you’re not a member. If you haven’t been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals. If you aren’t in the club. And Trump isn’t in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren’t in the club with him.

Now we’re seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down.

That’s not a free country.

It’s not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an ‘insurance policy’ against Trump winning the election. It’s not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It’s not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It’s not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn’t supposed to win did.

Have no doubt, we’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government.

Posted on Free Republic on 3JAN19

This was posted on Free Republic on 3JAN19 HERE. Aside from the snarky trolls and generally disparaging remarks, those that actually did read the article have a different opinion than what is stated herein. None of which seems to believe that “The Event” will manifest.

The overall opinion is that it will continue to be “business as usual”. If anything “bad” were to occur, the American population would adjust to it, and not give it a moment’s thought. The general consensus is that nothing serious will occur. There won’t be any major economic downturns, socialist purging, and no fighting Bosnia-style. Americans will just adapt and succumb…

I think the writer is wrong about how the gun confiscation will happen.  It will be less violent than his view which seems to predate the AI  revolution. 

We will get China’s Social Credit scoring and eventually find that we cannot buy airplane tickets or maybe gasoline and other stuff becomes progressively more expensive, like food, because our scores are too low.

Then we are informed that the only way to raise our scores is to turn in our guns. Possession of guns will be a big hit on the SC scores.

- arthurus

Here is a reasoned argument in alignment with the article, however it does not anticipate anything outright serious. The impression that I get, for this writer is that the battles will be political in nature, and not visceral.

It is in the left’s best interest to convince the public that the wheels are coming off. Actually, it's in the best interest of all  establishment politicians to do so. 

In a very, very real way Trump's election, and the growth of alternative sources of information, have threatened the political class and those whose careers and stature are derived from it. They won't go quietly, and their responses aren't limited by ethics and morality - in the least.

We went from the first year of Trump's presidency, during which there was widespread optimism about the economy and the future, to now - with people lamenting about the collapse of America as we know it. This is orchestrated. No doubt. We can't give in to an impending sense of doom.

The reality is that all Trump has done to date, including the trade standoff with China, his efforts to end the ‘cheap labor express’, verbalizing that the tech industry has spawned monopolies that may have to be dealt with as antitrust issues, standing up to European governments that criticize us but take our money, AND, fighting the left on our own soil - including standing up strongly against people like Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, etc., all has to be done.

None of these things were likely to be easy, and none of them were likely to be painless. But, they had/have to be done.

- neverevergiveup

This next comment agrees that things are trending to be “interesting”, yet how serious they will become and what will happen will be up to the individuals involved to determine. I can agree with that.

I’ve noticed the last few years that every year is much more  “interesting” than the year before, but also that humans are like  cockroaches, and highly adaptable to their situation.

I saw it in 2007 when housing in my area, Seattle, collapsed. I remember saying, on seattlebubble.com, that real estate could drop as much as 20%. I was chastised for it because it was crazy talk and sounded apocalyptic. And it did, even to me.

Well, prices dropped as much as 50% in many areas and much more than 20% everywhere else. So, was it an apocalypse? Yes. But what was people’s reaction? “What a great buying opportunity".

They ignored that before the collapse, defaults on real estate loans happened, but were definitely not common. And now everyone knew at least one person, if not many or even themselves, that simply walked away from their home, or became squatters in a home someone walked away from. It just became the new normal and was no big deal.

It’s how we seem to operate.

And yes, 2019 will be a lot more “interesting” than previous years. How interesting remains to be seen.

- cuban leaf

Finally…

"The Warning Signs that Government Collapse is Imminent"
Let's start with a $21.5 Trillion National Debt.

- Yo-Yo

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Link
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

What the Progressive Socialist Liberals have in store for Conservatives (part 1)

This is a multi-part posting. The amount of content is enormous and the scope is too broad for a couple of paragraphs. Please follow the arrows to move between the different sections. Also note that this article covers a very politically-incorrect subject matter, and supporting photos and writings are very graphic. This is not for children or people of tender sensibilities.

...there are periods in history when the entire paradigm you’ve been  accustomed to living under changes rather abruptly and for good. A  change of this nature alters the entire game on a global basis and  happens perhaps once in a lifetime. The last such shift happened during  World War 2 and we’re living in the next one. How big of a change this  will represent in the context of human history remains unknown, but we  know it’s big. Really, really big.

The most significant challenge most of us face when confronted with  such a moment is to remain focused and emotionally stable during the  transition. This doesn’t suggest apathy, but it does mean staying  grounded and not giving in to the constant news and pundit cycle of  incensed outrage and anger about every single event that unfolds. After  all, it’s important to recognize that almost everything you see in the  news is a symptom of something far bigger happening in the background.  Namely, that the global order most of the planet has known in the  post-WW2 period is coming apart at the seams. If you don’t stay focused  on the big picture, you’ll be easily and hopelessly manipulated without  even knowing it. 

-Liberty Blitzkrieg

What I intend to lay out here is that historically, there are predictable elements of societal evolution. These elements can be unsavory and distasteful, but that does not mean that they do not exist.

They do exist.

Historically, we know what has happened when there is conflict between a traditional society and a progressive socialist movement that has (or is in the process of gaining) the reigns of power in government.

We know what happens. It is a predictable, and well understood process. It is well documented.

Progressive liberals killing Poles.
When one side has the guns, and the other side does not, there can only be one outcome.

So we know what will happen… eventually when a progressive socialist movement tries to gain control of a government.

We are in the middle of the very beginnings of this in the United States. Here we discuss some very important points that other articles of this SHTF theme all leave out…

You will not know you are in danger until it is too late.

You will not know.

Hands-tied
Once you are told to turn around and put your hands behind your back it will be too late. You will be lead politely into the vehicle. Then as door after door closes behind you, you will discover yourself in a position of disadvantage and you will be killed. It will happen and you won’t be aware of it until it is too late. Do you think this fellow was anticipating being killed the morning when he put on his shoes?

You will not know that you are in danger until it is too late.

You will NOT know you are in danger.

I had been living in Germany since 1988 and was living there when the shelling of Sarajevo, "my city" started. The best description of the state that I was in when the news reached me is simply: shock! 

I always wonder how  the people in Bosnia  must have felt at this time. I was  really panicked and kept phoning my friends in Sarajevo which remained possible for a couple of weeks  after the bombing started. 

I kept  asking them what to do and what the  situation was like over there. They told me  about relatives of theirs  who had fled into Sarajevo from smaller towns and  villages throughout  Bosnia and Hercegovina where they had witnessed the torturing  and  killing of people including small children. 

They had witnessed the installing of concentration camps and other horrors. During these first months of the war in March, April and May 1992. 

I was paralyzed - I  spent weeks and weeks sitting on the couch watching  television and  reading the newspapers . I was totally unable to understand what was going on and I was waiting for  someone to come and stop it. 

-Biserinternational
Know your history.
When SHTF happens, it will be a very dangerous times. Do not be caught in the target hot area. Do not be caught unarmed. Do not try to hide in easily located places like attics or basements. Be ready.

One of the keys in socialist and Marxist control of a region is to get the citizenry to comply to their rules. They lie. They tell falsehoods. They set up false senses of security. They use children. They use the media.

Do not believe any of it.

Historically speaking, the lies will result in people dying.

1994 genocide in Rwanda.
1994 genocide in Rwanda. This followed the well documented model. Demonize a class of people. Then disarm them. Finally, herd them together under a blanket of lies, and kill them all.

The Outcome is Absolute and Predictable

Sierra Leone war
The outcome of all state-sponsored genocide against a certain group of people is well recorded and predictable. Here is a photo from the Sierra Leone Civil War.

The outcome is absolute. Historically, with the exception of China (with the SJW uprisings), most progressive socialist movements eventually take over the reigns of government and mold it to their will. Those whom follow the traditional and often “old Style” of political discourse are eventually overwhelmed.

Once they gain power, they take over the government and mold it to their will. Suddenly the traditional symbols of government are co-opted and remolded into other purposes. This leads many traditionalists confused. This confusion sets up a perfect environment for the FULL implementation of their agenda.

Demaning Rights
German woman demanding her “Rights” when the German Federal Police come to take her and her family to a “resettlement farm” for their “safety” and “protection”. You know the places like Auschwitz. She obviously don’t want to go. Note that here were many other camps in German occupied Poland including Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Chelmno.

When the new progressive socialist government takes control, one of the first things that they do is hunt down and slaughter their opposition. Historically, that has been the conservative and traditional elements of the society. I am sorry to say this, but this is the historical truth.

Consider Bosnia…

 
"There used to be a law about weapons here, where I live, before the  war. And yes, you could own a weapon but it was such a hard law that  actually not too many people owned legal weapons.
  
And right when the (Shit Hit The Fan), first thing that happened was the  confiscation of legal weapons, based on lists of who own legal weapons.
  
Now what people could do then was to say, “This is my legal  weapon. I have a right to own it, by the law.”  
...And those who did that usually got shot.
  
There were 20 heavily armed guys at your door asking nicely for  your weapon, to be turned over to them in the name of “law” as an effort  of a government that wanted to calm down a chaotic situation.
  
Sometimes if you said no, those guys would simply destroy the whole house with RPGs and bombs.
  
And guess what that meant?
  
Folks who owned legal weapon lost them even before the big SHTF.  And a lot of guys who owned them in an illegal way hidden somewhere  still own them when SHTF.
  
Illegal and legal have different meanings in different times and based who says those words, so think about it.
  
I am not saying that it will go like that there where you are.  What I do say is you that you need to think a bit outside the box when  it comes to owning things."


-Organic prepper 
The horrible take over of Cambodia by the progressive liberal Marxists
When the Khmer Rouge emerged from the civil war victorious and marched down the streets, thousands of terrified people fled, some rushing for the border with Thailand while others flooded the gates of the French Embassy. The massacres soon began and the Cambodian genocide was underway. The fighters who had stood up against the Khmer Rouge were executed en masse. Then the Khmer Rouge turned on civilians, driving the people into the countryside and killing thousands in the process. Soon, the Khmer Rouge was rounding up anyone who did anything that could be seen as capitalist. Selling a product or talking to anyone from the world beyond Cambodia’s borders was treated like an act of treason. Those caught were sent to so-called re-education camps like Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, a fate that nearly always meant getting tortured and killed.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to figure this out. All you need to do is read one or two history books. Nothing being said now should be any shock to anyone even remotely versed in history. It’s a very well established progression of history.

Every progressive liberal socialist movement eventually goes full-on Pol Pot.

Mass grave.
Do not think that in today’s “modern” and “enlightened” society that we are beyond mass genocide against a particular race, or group of people. Here are people who were seized out of their homes at the dead of night by militarized police (the Federal Police), handcuffed with wire-ties (behind his back) and then killed and dumped in a mass grave. Like this poor fella. I am quite sure that the person putting the wire-ties on his clasped wrists was very polite and nice about it. Cool and professional, most certainly. Then he was handed over to others. Those others then killed him like one would step on cockroach. And, with just as much care. What? You think America can’t relive the Bosnia experience?

What should be a shock is that the United States is destined to be one such nation. And you, dear boys and girls, are just about ready to be placed smack dab in ground zero for conflict. It will not be comfortable. It will not be pleasant. And, there will be those who will absolutely refuse to believe that it is happening.

They will come up with all kind of excuses. Such as “Sessions is playing 5D chess…you’ll see”, “Firearms confiscation will never occur in America.” and that great knee-slapper “Snopes fact checked it, and says that you are full of it.”

Cambodia infographic.
The genocide in Cambodia followed the well known and well defined pattern. Marxists take control. They disarm everyone. They propagandize against certain kinds of people. They use lies to escort them to “safe areas”. Then they kill them.

Remember when the Marxists took over Cambodia…

April 17, is a date that sends shivers down the spines of most Cambodians. On that day in 1975 the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh and took control of the country after almost five years of bitter fighting in the countryside.
 
Only a few photographers ventured onto the streets of Phnom Penh on April 17 and captured images of the victorious Khmer Rouge fighters entering the besieged city, taking enormous risks to photograph the mysterious communist guerillas who had a well-deserved reputation for brutality and taking no prisoners. 

 As the battle-hardened Khmer Rouge made their way into the city on the morning of April 17, none of the remaining foreign reporters and photographers who took refuge in the grounds of the French Embassy knew what to expect.
 
“I had seen the badly decomposed or disfigured corpses of Khmer Rouge soldiers on several occasions on the front line, but this was the first time I’d seen one alive,” said Neveu.
 
“At first nobody moved as we knew it was not a simple case of being brave of foolhardy. Then, just across the road, a few excited children holding hastily-made white flags above their heads walked out of a side street to meet the approaching guerrillas.
The Marxists now have complete control of the nation of Cambodia.
The Marxists now have complete control of the nation of Cambodia. They can do whatever is necessary to bring their idea of utopia to fruition. Most of which requires killing large number of “impure” and evil citizens.
 “The ice was broken. Walking cautiously across the road, we approached the group, keeping an eagle eye on the whole area, feeling not entirely safe. The Khmer Rouge soldiers were probably enjoying their first moments of relative safety in many days since the operation to seize the city had begun.” 

 The calm did not last long. By early afternoon the Khmer Rouge were ordering all residents to leave the city with a minimum of belongings, the start of what turned out to be a death march for thousands. The city remained mostly empty until the Vietnamese invasion almost five years later.
 
“Some soldiers were shooting in the air in order to force the inhabitants to flee the city,” said Neveu. 
Aggressive Marxists.
When Marxists take over a city, crowd control will be very aggressive. The chances of survival is very slim. If you are caught in the middle of SHTF, do whatever is necessary to escape, survive and use evasion to protect you and your loved ones. Trust no one.
 It has been estimated that at least 20,000 people perished during the evacuation of the capital. It marked the start of what the Khmer Rouge leaders called the “Year Zero” campaign, emptying towns and cities and forcing city-dwellers to become slave laborers in the countryside. By some accounts, Phnom Penh’s population dropped from two million to 25,000 in only three days.
 
Foreigners were ordered to move to the large grounds of the French embassy, and Neveu, Mabuchi and Rockoff joined them after spending the day roaming the city, talking photos of various Khmer Rouge units and government soldiers surrendering and handing over their arms, which were being piled up on street corners, overseen by Khmer Rouge cadres.  

-The Day the Nightmare Started  

Leadership will scurry.

When it seems like everything is beyond hope of redemption, the instigators of the conflict with evacuate and scurry to their “safe havens”. In the case of the United States, it will mean well fortified, and guarded locations, outside of the country. Such as underground lairs in NZ for the Software billionaires, and well fortified chateaus in Europe for the corrupt politicians.

 This is not a win for team Trump, but it was inevitable, just as it  was with Reagan. Conservatives would love to cut down our deficit and  trim our budget back to size, but with three-quarters of our budget  going to entitlements, there is no way forward without cutting those.  Even if we halve the military budget (20%) we will achieve nothing. Even  if we cut all programs across the board by 10% we will achieve nothing  except debilitating them. 

 This is how democracy ends: it spends itself into oblivion, collapses  the society, and a few rich industry leaders, union organizers, and  politicians board planes for Switzerland with suitcases full of cash.  

-Periscope

Do not expect any of the instigators to remain in the USA when SHTF. They never do.

Evacuation of American forces.
Once the conflict escalates, those that sponsored the event will move to safe areas. These will be pre-prepared locations where they can continue their plotting without worry about repercussions. In Cambodia, the entire genocide was the end result of American and CIA machinations. Here is a last chopper leaving the nation.

In Cambodia, the American elite and their CIA covert operatives were bundled up by the United States Marines and evacuated out of the “Hot Zone”. They flew away and watched the nation burn.

 Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and U.S. Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia's besieged capital. Residents believed the Americans were rushing in to save them, but at the U.S. Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept.

Forty years later, John Gunther Dean recalls one of the most tragic days of his life — April 12, 1975, the day the United States "abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher."

"We'd accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That's the worst thing a country can do," he says in an interview in Paris. "And I cried because I knew what was going to happen."

Five days after the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell to communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. They drove Phnom Penh's 2 million inhabitants into the countryside at gunpoint. Nearly 2 million Cambodians — one in every four — would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture. 

This happens EVERY TIME.

The instigators gather up their belongings, and what ever they can grab and flee. This has happened time and time again, and it just starting to happen in America RIGHT NOW.

That was the moment when serious reform and severe consequences for the  criminal perpetrators of economic collapse could’ve reset the system and  brought the world back to a sustainable path, but we all know that’s  not what happened. 

Instead, the “elites” in charge of addressing the  situation decided instead to temporarily prop up a broken system while  ensuring they’d be the primary beneficiaries of the specific polices  that supposedly “saved the economy.” 

In fact, nothing was saved. A dead  system was put on life support while our self-proclaimed heroic elite  grabbed everything not nailed down. A stealth crime spree that is  ongoing to this day. 

-Liberty Blitzkrieg 
U.S. Marines come under Khmer Rouge fire while they were on the ground near the U.S. embassy during Operation Eagle Pull which evacuated American and embassy personnel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 13, 1975. (Tea Kim Heang/AP)
U.S. Marines come under Khmer Rouge fire while they were on the ground near the U.S. embassy during Operation Eagle Pull which evacuated American and embassy personnel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 13, 1975. (Tea Kim Heang/AP)

What to expect

The first thing that can be expected is mass disarming of the populace.

Cambodia weapon collection 1976.
Once the Khmer Rouge took over and capture Phnom Penh in 1976, the disarmed everyone. Those that refused, that stood on their Rights as Cambodian citizens, were shot, and the entire family arrested. The weapons were collected in major road intersections and put in display so that everyone could see that the new Marxist government was fully in charge.

I am not going to rehash history. You should know this. The only thing that I must underline is that YOU are not immune from the steam-roller of historical events. They will occur whether you want them to or not.

Shot and dying.
Factory workers, with their company name badges, in the parking lot of their employer. Two dead and one dying with his legs shot off. He and his co-workers had no idea that “world war III” would break out while they were trying to clock in at work. When one group of people identify another group, and target them with hate, and violence, it only escalates. It gets worse. Eventually there is whole-scale blood shed. Do not be under the illusion that it will never happen in America. There are enormous groups of people just chomping at the bit to attack conservatives and traditionalists. All in the name of a progressive utopia.

If you haven’t read any history books by now, any statement from myself will be meaningless. So, I’m not going to do so.

Instead, I will lay out some of the characteristics that are common with every single progressive liberal socialist takeover of government. I will put them in terms that are applicable to Americans today…right now.

In the Country…

Urban youth, armed with fully automatic weapons, and RPG’s will burst forth and stream out of their protective enclaves. (Enclaves where their ideology has been nurtured for decades to hate one type or class of person.) They will ride forth in new cars and trucks. Sort of like how the ISS managed to get all those brand-new white Toyota trucks and turn them into “mechanicals”.

The people in the rural sections will have to fend for themselves, and they will have a tough go at it. There will be local Marxists in just about every village and town reporting on who to target and who has guns, etc. They will compile lists and they will provide those lists to their leadership in the cities.

The people in the rural areas, will be forced to go on the defensive. They will try to block the roads from whence the urban youth streams from, and they will have road-blocks and barriers as best they can, so that they can move their loved ones to safety.

Bosnian roadblock
The people, isolated and undefended, in the rural regions were dangerously exposed. Large packs of armed “militia”, actually ideological youth armed with military arms and on drugs and in an frenzy against perceived slights (“privilege” and “advantage”) as promoted by the media prior to the SHTF event. This is a scene in front of a “road block” that was set up by local residents to slow down the roving bands of armed urban youth. Their hope was that it would give them enough time to stream into the nearby cities for protection. The only thing was that the cities were all controlled by the very same people who set all the attacks in motion.

Paradoxically, this will mean that they will stream as refugees to apparent “safe areas” within urban areas. These areas will be controlled by the very people who have unleashed the terror.

In the cities…

The people, now pouring into the cities will be collected by the armed forces there. Most likely given to the Marxists who fully intended for this to occur.

The men will be separated from the women and the children.

Captured and led to his death.
During times of great turmoil, the odds of living after being handcuffed are mighty slim. Once you are in a confusing war zone, DO NOT EVER allow yourself to be handcuffed. The odds of survival are very slim. Know your history.

Most of the men will be killed immediately. Those rare exceptions would be those who would be tortured for various reasons to make a point to the remaining captives.

S 21 refers to “Monti Santesok S 21,” the main “security office” of Democratic Cambodia of the Khymer Rouge. Nearly 17,000 prisoners where imprisoned, tortured, interrogated and executed there between 1975 and 1979.

Only three of them are still alive. 

All of the women will be dehumanized, raped and sent off to “collection centers”. There they will be provided dehumanizing clothing and attire, and raped until they are of no further use.

Captured women in Germany.
German Nationalist Socialists (Nazi’s) collected Jewish women. Stripped them, and provided them a roughly hewn sackcloth to wear, and a scarf to cover their head with. An uncovered woman is considered to be a threat. And used them as they felt necessary.

Everyone, and every moment will be documented to excess. It doesn’t matter if it was the Nazi’s with the Jews, the Soviets with other Soviets, the Khmer Rouge with their fellow citizens, or Americans against Americans. Each person will be interviewed, indexed, photographed, sheared, and categorized prior to execution.

Know your history.

Photographed prior to death.
Everyone, and every moment will be documented to excess. It doesn’t matter if it was the Nazi’s with the Jews, the Soviets with other Soviets, the Khmer Rouge with their fellow citizens, or Americans against Americans. Each person will be interviewed, indexed, photographed, sheared, and categorized prior to execution.
Prisoners, who included everyone from infants to grandparents, were brought in and tortured until they confessed they were either CIA or KGB operatives - even though many did not know what the CIA or KGB were. They were then further tortured until they "named" at least one other person who was also a CIA or KGB operative.

Then they were executed.

Nhem En, who was 16, was the house photographer. As each prisoner was brought in, he took their picture - a classic mug shot, the prisoner staring into the camera. He estimates he photographed 6,000 prisoners, knowing that all were about to die. 
Photographed before being killed.
Cambodian soldier who turned in weapons as directed by his commander when the Marxists took power. Once disarmed, he was tied up and bound. Still in his army uniform. Photographed before being killed. This is the price you pay for not qualifying to live in a Marxist paradise. He was demonized for his “privilege”, attacked for his social irresponsibility, and tortured, well… because it was fun. He was then photographed and killed.

So much for the introduction.

The next six pages break down, in detail, how America is primed for a progressive Marxist genocide. Everything is in place. And make no mistake, many conservative politicians are on board with their Marxist confederates. We look at such things from the point of view of history and how it WILL manifest in the USA.

History can teach us a lot. But, it’s not a very pretty sight.

The election of Donald Trump has only postponed the genocide. I describe in depth why this is the case, and show clearly why this genocide SHTF CWII train-wreck is going to happen whether we want it to happen or not.

My you-tube video on this article

I created this video years after this article was first written. It serves as a perfect match for the contents of this article. It discusses the idea that societies collapse before governments do, and that is reason to be concerned (if you are an American.)

Keep in mind that I am an American expat living inside China. I took the “life boat” to a much safer place, and I wish and want those who have decided to “stay put” and “duke it out”, great success in your efforts to survive the present conditions of chaos and insanity. Hang in there! I believe in you!

You can view it on my you-tube channel. Here’s the video…

The following six articles will cover;

  • How your Human Resource manager will determine the future of your family.
  • How to defend yourself; the rule of three.
  • How the media is used to demonize; and then communicate to the Marxists.
  • How to avoid innocent but dangerous situations.
  • How the “lone wolf” mentality will get you killed.
  • What not to do, and what to do, to prepare realistically from a historical perspective.
  • How to get your family and loved ones to protection.
  • Avoidance of being a target.
  • How to take down a technical.
Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

If you want to see my MEGA-Index about the collapse of America click here…

SHTF Articles

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The Lies the Media Tell Us

Have you ever wondered why some people think the way that they do? I mean, why is it “common knowledge” that Trump followers are “Deplorable” Nazi “Red-Necks” who are High School dropouts and uneducated bumbletons?  Why is it “common knowledge” that Universities and Colleges are the perfect routes for success in today’s’ modern world? Why is it “common knowledge” that we need to pay income taxes or else our bridges would collapse and our telephones would explode?

The News Media told us.

Have you ever really wondered about this? This absolute disconnect between the reality that we experience every day, and the reality that is presented to us on the news. Have you ever thought about it?

I mean it. The United States is currently fighting seven …SEVEN… S-E-V-E-N wars! Not a single one of them is a threat to the United States in any direct way. Why are we there? Why are we fighting and our soldiers are dying there? Why?

Because the media tell us that we MUST be there.

It’s not only news about the United States, culture and society. But it is everything.  How do we know what China is like? How do we know about how dogs are treated in China? Why do we think that dogs are considered more delicious than a fine juicy sirloin or T-bone steak in China?

Because the media tells us, that’s how we know.

How do we know that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016? How do we know that the 2016 election was corrupted by Russian spies, and that Donald Trump is the worst president since Ronald Reagan? How do we know that Donald Trump is uncouth, ignorant, and a lousy person?

Because the media tell us.

Speaking of Presidents… How do we know that George Bush Senior was a fantastic President, a real saintly man. That he was a man of principle and who raised taxes simply because he knew that it was the “right thing to do”. How do we know? How do we know that Barrack Obama was the most “transparent” and civil minded person in all of history? How do we know that he and his wife are the most beautiful couple since Adam and Eve?

The media tells us this…

Ah yes. The media tells us…

Salon news manipulation.
Salon is a magazine that is straight from the oligarchy to your electronic media. They produce “news” and (so called) “reports” to manipulate you and to cause you to react. They want to manipilate your feelings and your emotions and eventually your actions. Who is paying them, and WHY do they want to manipulate you? Think about it.

The media tells us.

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why Barrack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? Was it because of his accomplishments? Was it because he was great, kind, and very intelligent? Was it because he issued in a new world of order and understanding? How do we know that he actually deserved the prize?

The media told us.

How are we able to find out that the prize as requested back? And that the committee fired the directors that granted it? How do we know?

The ALTERNATIVE media discovered it.

How did we discover about the dalliances that Bill Clinton had in the Oval Office? How did we know about the semen stain on a blue dress? How did we discover about the pay-offs and cover-ups?

The ALTERNATIVE media rooted it out.

The alternative media is the only media that matters in today’s world. Everything else is bought up, controlled and manipulated for financial gain by the oligarchs that control our world. Through their money, and through use of science they have created a situation where the media acts like a Shepard, and moves mass groups of people here and there to meet their personal criteria.

Media and conspiracies.
The media does not report on news. They provide entertainment disguised as news. They have stopped reporting news back in the 1960’s. Since then, they have been bought up and reorganized for financial profit and to manipulate large groups of people to do the bidding of the super wealthy oligarchies that own them.

So while we might laugh at Alex Jones wearing a tin-foil cap, and Rush Limbaugh smoking a cigar with his formerly nicotine stained fingers, it is truly the alternative media that has any value in reporting the true and current state of American news today.

We might get frustrated with the Drudge Report reprinting obvious fake news from CNN, ABC, and MSNBC. However, at least he is trying to provide balance. Balance, mind you, to a playing field that has for a very long time, been completely distanced from real news reporting.

That is right. Distanced from ANY type of real news reporting.

Ask yourself why…

Why is it that we know about the latest bombing in Israel, and the torture and death of a journalist in the Saudi Arabian embassy, but not the failure to fix the potholes in Pennsylvania roads? Why isn’t Lois Learner being investigated? Why is Hillary Clinton still free? Why is the news still talking about Michelle Obama? How do we know which news is important?

How do we know that a mob of SJW and BLM activists are trying to disrupt traffic, force behaviors, and violently attack people with bicycle locks? How do we know that these are spontaneous events, and are grass-root reactions to what is going on in Washington, D.C.?

Dedia deception is so very easy.
The American mainstream media concocts fake news. They take small events and blow them all out of proportion. They promote news that only affects the top 1% of the population, while ignoring the news that affects the rest of the 99% population.

The media told us. That’s how.

Why is it that we discover that eating steak makes men impotent, and that a cup of Starbucks brand coffee a day will make you virile and sexy? How do we know that Starbucks will not hire veterans, but will endeavor to hire five thousand refugees?

Why has it become ok to accuse a man, any man of sexual misconduct, assault and rape? Why has it been considered ok to ban Christmas cheer in the workplace, and schools? Why is it just fine and dandy not to salute the flag and instead “take a knee” for the oppressed?

Why should be be fearful of giant rat-sized zombie hornets killing people in China? Why should we be concerned about the poor children that are knocking at the Southern border of the United States? Why should we be fearful of eating sunny-side-up eggs, and drinking with plastic straws?

Why should we be afraid to give our children peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches? Why should we worry about the next hurricane, the next Winter, or the next scorching Summer? Why should we worry?

Manipulated.
Global warming is just an excuse to put people in fear and collect their money. Just like Global Warming was. You are being manipulated.

The media tells us to.

How do we know what news is true and what news is fake? How can we check to see if an article is actually factually correct, or is just propaganda? How do we know that we need to go to a media-aligned fact-check website…

fact checking CNN
The news media fact-checks themselves. How so very convenient. All done in the comfort of your living room.

The media instructs us, and checks for us.

They tell us if news is real or fake.

They tell us where we should go to get the “actual” truth. They tell us which government official is evil, and which is corrupt. They tell us which one is pure as the freshly fallen Winter snow.

The media tells us.

They have told us that Hillary Clinton was the most popular candidate in 2016 and that she would win by a landslide. They told us so. They told us that Donald Trump was a joke, and only uneducated hillbilly “gun toting” hicks supported him.

Media reporting on the election of 2016.
The mainstream media told us that Hillary Clinton rallies were full of enthusiasm. They told us that Donald Trump had no following. They lied to us.

They told us this.

The news media is not what we think it is. It is no longer “news”. The reporters no longer report on events. They define narratives. They tell us what to think and they massage our emotions. They have honed these techniques for many decades, and it has reached a point that where today, watching any form of media is opening yourself up to manipulative propaganda.

CNN covering Hillary Clinton
CNN is referred to as “Fake News” because they lie. They do so often. They stage fake and contrived “news events”, while ignoring actual news.

The Media Tells us…

Do not listen to alternative news. The Drudge Report must be banned, and Mr. Drudge must be imprisoned and broken so that he will never threaten the oligarchy narrative ever again. Dittos for Rush Limbaugh. Rush needs to be thrown in Jail, the radio show banned, or at least “balanced” (pro-progressive reporting) must take place.

Do not listen to Alex Jones. He’s a hate monger, and spews racist and bigoted nonsense. Don’t listen to him! Cover your ears! Protect your children! Wear a hard hat!

The Media tells us…

“This is a perfectly normal and sane way of doing things. It is perfectly normal and sane to strip the earth bare and poison the air and the water in an economic system which requires infinite growth on a finite planet. 

People who say otherwise are raving lunatics!”

Meanwhile the social engineers wonder why there’s increasing disaffection and alienation among the populace.

CNN reporing 1
CNN televised discussion. This is not news. It is a bunch of well paid actors reading scripted lines to manipulate the public. Again; the “news” is an entertainment network designed to manipulate people. Those “experts” are all well-paid actors and actresses.

The Media tells us…

“Just spend your time in this world turning the gears of the machine and you will be happy. The machine is your friend. The machine takes care of you. Work hard pulling its levers and greasing its cogs until you are old and you will gain satisfaction,”
Office Space.
Today we live in a world were you were forever running on the the treadmill of life. No matter what opportunities would be presented to you. The movie “Office Space” has became your perpetual reality.

Yah. Yah. And then they wonder why we’re all gobbling up antidepressants like candy.

The Media tells us…

“We need to drop explosives on Nation X because they need Freedom and Democracy™. We know we said that about Nation Y and Nation Z and that went terribly wrong, but that’s because it wasn’t managed properly. Trust that it is good and proper for the citizens of Nation X to be killed with bombs and bullets,”
Iran
Americans are in a constant state of war. Since our nation was founded in 1776, there were only five years where we were not fighting a war. When the Constitution was written, a war was considered the last resort of desperate men. No so today. It is considered the “duty” of America to police the world at the expense of the American taxpayer for purposes of Global harmony.

Yikes! And then they wonder why people keep snapping and committing mass shootings.

The Media tells us…

“Look at that gibbering maniac trying to get a third party up and running in the most powerful nation in the world! 

Only someone who is deeply awful and defective would believe that the two party system isn’t serving us,”

Yet, they supposedly wonder why everyone feels disempowered and unheard.

The Media tells us…

“Of course this is the way things are; it’s the only way things could ever be. 

Anyone who would try to change any part of this is either mentally ill or a Russian propagandist,”
CNN and Russia.
CNN has been pushing the fake narrative about Russian collusion in an effort to undo the election of 2016 results. This narrative is so tiring that few people pay attention to it any more.

Thus they tell us that they wonder why people shut down and numb themselves with opiates. It’s all out of our control. It’s Russia! Russia! Russia! and the only thing that we can do is shut up and pay more taxes! Pay much more in taxes! That’s the only solution!

The Media tells us…

“Everything is great. Everyone is doing fine. Everyone is happy. Look how happy everyone is on this sitcom. 

If you aren’t happy like that, it’s not because of the machine, it’s because of you.

People need to be protected from your insanity. You mustn’t be allowed on any screens. You need to be silenced on social media.

Trust us. Don’t trust yourself.

Don’t trust that growing, gnawing sense that everything is fake and everything you’ve been taught is a lie.

We have never lied to you. We have never been caught red-handed deceiving you and then acted like nothing happened.

We have never gaslit you.

You are misremembering things because you are confused.

Shut up. You are dangerous.

Shut up. You are foolish.

Shut up. You are insane.

The machine is sanity. The machine is freedom. Everyone is equal here. Everyone matters. Everyone gets a voice.

Except you.”

Meanwhile the social engineers wonder why people are trusting them less and less. They don’t want to hear what we have to say. They only care that we obey their dictates.

Media manipulation.
The media manipulates people. They set one group of people against the others. They unify against others, and align themselves with others so that their narrative is perfected and ideal for the issue that they are trying to promote.

The Media tells us…

“War is normal. 

Poverty is normal.

Mass surveillance is normal.

Censorship of dissenting ideas is normal.

Mass media propaganda is normal.

Escalating wealth and income inequality is normal.

Escalating police militarization is normal.

Escalating tensions between nuclear superpowers is normal.

Looming ecological disaster is normal.”

And people wonder why everything feels so odd, and surreal. We wonder why everything seems so precarious and that we are living in a dangerous place. We wonder why we are so afraid of everything and that any day the entire house of cards is going to come crashing down.

The Media tells us…

“Insane things are sane. Sane things are insane. 

Up is down.

Black is white.

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength.

If you disagree, you are crazy.

If you disagree, you are poison. Shut up.

You will contaminate the herd. Shut up.

You are garbage. Shut up.

You are a disease. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”
Shut Up!
Shut Up!

Unless…

Unless you have experienced something first hand, the information is more than likely false. It is a packaged narrative, sometimes based on truth, but often based on lies. It is a narrative designed to herd you, like cattle being herded by dogs. Humans are herded into behaviors by the news media. And they are tricky.

  • Sometimes the use techniques to massage your emotions.
  • Sometimes the use techniques to appeal to your intellect.
  • Sometimes they appeal to your sense of justice.
  • Sometimes they call on your instincts.

All of that is dangerous. For the most dangerous and threatening manipulations are those that we want to believe.

Conclusion

All news is a fabrication of one degree or the other. While we can read and watch the news, we absolutely need to be vigilant against manipulation. For today, ALL media without exception is designed to manipulate.

Further, the techniques to do so have been honed and perfected over the last 6 decades.

Further, the rapid increase in communication technology has made it increasingly easy to manipulate humans into mob and herd-animal behaviors.

We listen, watch and read the news at our own peril. We must do so carefully.

Thus, if you feel any of the following “urges”, please check your emotions and pause and think…

  • The need to go to war with a nation in a far away land.
  • The need to increase taxes for “the environment”.
  • The need to ignore a crime because the criminal is “special”.
  • The need to restrict or limit any freedom for reason “X”.
"I’ve been telling people that for years, and most of them just shrug and yawn, but the sad fact is that almost everyone who reads the papers and watches the news programs simply assumes that what they’re reading and hearing is true and beyond question. 

My view may be considered seriously jaundiced but I tend to doubt the truthfulness of damn near everything the news media reports."

- 12/19/2018, 9:58:18 AM by fortes fortuna juvat

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.


The Consequences of the #MeToo Movement

Five months before the Kavanaugh nomination hearings, the following (concerning the #MeToo movement) was posted anonymously on LinkedIn. It was posted on June 10th, and within 72 hours it was taken down. Now, not even the Wayback Machine has a record of it.  Welcome to modern Internet censorship. 

The article reads as truth.

Fundamentally, the #MeToo movement might just be undoing all of the damage that Affirmative Action and HR Harassment Firings have done to men’s ability to work over the last forty years.

Perhaps the pendulum of political correctness is starting to swing in the other direction.

Perhaps, one day, we’ll be returning to a more traditional ordering of things. A world,, indeed, a world where men can bring home the bacon, and support their families to the best of their ability. Meanwhile, the children are raised properly. Taught and nurtured by the mother. As well as taken cared for in a loving and supportive fully functional parental unit. 

Maybe… 

Congratulations #Metoo…You’ve Made Women Employees Radioactive
BY DAVIS M.J. AURINI · June 25, 2018

As a corporate CEO I now have a fiducial duty to avoid hiring women

I was having lunch the other day with my group of fellow CEOs…some current and some former. I asked the question: “Well, who has gotten that visit from the corporate lawyer, advising you to avoid hiring women executives”.

Every one in the group groaned and looked away. The message was clear. They had ALL gotten that visit.

As a corporate CEO, I have an fiduciary and moral obligation to my employees. (It is) NOT to do something stupid that will destroy the company and throw them out into a very hard and dangerous world. The streets of Silicon Valley are full of RVs and campers with homeless former engineers and former managers, many with no health insurance. I am obligated by law and by custom not to add my people to that list.

That’s why I can’t hire women.

Even before #Metoo, hiring women came with a significant risk. I’ve seen several small companies wiped out by some angry ex-employee claiming some sort of sexual harassment. In each and every case, the company leaders honestly tried to prevent the problem, but were wiped out anyway. “$150K just to walk in the front door” says any law firm.

That’s enough to destroy most startups.

As a CEO I have a legal obligation to avoid risk. Because of #MeToo, women walk in the door with the metaphorical equivalent of a suicide bomb strapped to their back. The slightest wrong move, the slightest insult, and BANG. Everybody is dead.

In the past it was just a few women who had this tendency to use lawsuits to destroy. Now in the era of #MeToo, it has become fashionable. Even the not-so-bright receptionist I hire as a temp is on the lookout for her moment of perceived fame.

Fod the #MeToo Accuser
The Kavanaugh nomination hearings were in September 2018. This was five months after LinkenIN erased this article from their postings. The truth hurts.

As a CEO there is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent a clash, when women are so eager to take offense. Human sexuality is wired into every man and women. Even if I install webcams and watch every single second of every interaction, having training classes, and instill fear in my male employees, there will inevitably be some action that some man will take, maybe on purpose, maybe accidentally, that will cause some woman to take offense and sue.

I am unable to prevent it, just as I can’t prevent someone from passing gas after lunch.

Litigation is the business equivalent of nuclear war. It only destroys. Now every woman walking into my HR department is carrying a nuclear launch button on her sleeve, and is being goaded by their friends to USE IT!

#MeToo filure
Kavanaugh Accuser Admits She Lied: It Was A “Ploy” & “Tactic” To Get Attention Clearly, the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were fabricated as there was no evidence and no corroborators to any of the allegations.

Every other employee in that company — male and female — has a mortgage and family expenses, and is looking with fear at that new female hire.

This is what generals call an “asymmetric threat”. I have zero control, almost no preventative measures, and huge, deadly risk.

That leaves me and other smart CEOs with only one solution: stop hiring women.

And that is what’s happening, quickly or slowly, at every small startup all over the country. Will we be sued for not hiring women? Nope. Hard to prove. Penalties actually quite unlikely.

To my granddaughters who are just entering the workforce, and to the many wonderful women who long ago learned to ignore male clumsiness and just get the job done — I can only say how sorry and sad I am to see this.

Unfortunately, you women have been betrayed by a group of radical women who are, to put it bluntly, fools. They are dragging you into a conflict which will leave you burned and the men in your lives burned. Everyone will get burned except the lawyers and the activists who will, as always, sit back and profit from the war they created.

Maybe there will be comments from women telling me “I don’t get it” or “You’ll get sued.” Um, no. I get it just fine. I’m just speaking a harsh truth, that people don’t like. Listen.

Conclusions and Commentary

It is the duty of the officers of a company to protect the company and it’s employees.

That is why there are rules for work-place safety, work-place harassment, and standards of behavior that all employees must abide by. This includes dress codes, behavior at work, and in some companies off-work as well.

Given the outrageous accusations of those in the #MeToo movement, and the enormous legal risks,  the situation is clearly a dangerous one.

“This is what generals call an “asymmetric threat”. I have zero control, almost no preventative measures, and huge, deadly risk.”

If there is even the slightest risk of a #MeToo accusation, I would suggest the CEO, Executive Director and owners be cautious. I would suggest proactive steps and action be taken.

After all, according to the mainstream media (whether it is fake news or not) the perception is that there is wide spread sexual harassment in the workplace. This is an advantage that the accuser has, and it places the company at a severe disadvantage.

As such, I would [1] strongly advise against hiring females in the workplace. Certainly for management positions, and even for lower level positions. Females should also [2] be vetted carefully, and their Social Media be checked to assure that their threat level is sufficiently minimized.

Further, [3] I would advise that a legal document be drafted to protect the company and the employees in the event that a female is actually hired. This legal document should be applicable to both males and females.

Indeed, it is an ugly world that we live in. This is one of the harsh consequences of that reality.

It's real. A relative of mine in an exec position was advised to avoid hiring women in the exec ranks and to avoid having any one on one contact with women at all costs. This will greatly hamper the ability for women to advance in companies.

Granted, I'm not shedding much tears... since during my 20+ years in corp world I've witnessed countless women gain promotions (and some over me) by sleeping around. It's more common than many would suspect. These were usually married women as well.

-12/18/2018, 12:21:58 AM by StolarStorm

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.


Every Man Should Have a Roll-Top Desk

Here I would like to discuss a long standing dream that I have had since I was a small boy; the possession of a large roll-top desk complete with a multitude of tiny drawers, cubby-holes, and spaces for all my personal junk and treasures. I have had this dream for a long… long… long time.  With that in mind, let’s discuss this work of art; this magnificent idea and concept of the roll-top desk.

During the last century, the idea of a Roll-Top desk was appealing and very popular all over America. Many American homes had these styles of desks and throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s they faded into obscurity. There was a brief revival of Roll-Top desks in the 1980’s and then they have been forgotten as overly expensive and extravagant items of furniture. This is unfortunate, because every man should have a Roll-Top desk.

Roll top desk 8
Here’s a fine roll-top desk. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of. It’s a beautiful work of art.

The first time that I encountered a roll-top desk was a very long time ago. One of my friends had inherited it from his father. It was in his bedroom and he would work on his various projects at the desk. He had this kind of glue with a rubber top that you could use to spread glue on paper and make scrap books with .

"I believe that glue is called muslage; I don't see it for sale anymore. Really dates me, eh? if I know what *muslage* is. LOL"

-posted on 12/17/2018, 3:03:44 AM by Daffynition
Glue
During my childhood, we all used this kind of glue. My friend had it in his desk. We made posters with this. It was fun.

He also had a punching bag in his basement and we would try boxing. Ai! At such an early age! Heck! We were only in second grade, for goodness sakes. It was kinda goofy at the time, but our fathers both thought that boxing was something that all boys had to learn.

What is a Roll-Top Desk?

A roll-top desk is a large desk with drawers and a top compartment that possessed a rolling cover that could cover and lock the contents of the desk in place. This desk was made out of wood, with the vast majority of the wood being hardwood. Under the protected roll-top working area, there were all sorts of smaller drawers, and compartments for the user to store things in.

Roll-top-desk 1
Antique roll-top desk from the 1930’s. Instead of a modern reproduction, this desk sports small handled mini-drawers, pigeon holes, top, pencil drawers, and ledger spaces. Note the four drawers on both sides of the pedestal base, and the central desk drawer.

History of a Roll-Top Desk

The roll-top desk appeared just as the industrial revolution was getting started. At that time, small armies of clerks and office workers were needed to support the various duties of the factory. This included everything from managing inventor to handling the large number of workers at the factory.

The desk was designed in such a way that the top could be pulled down and protect the work from being disturbed. At that time, the office workers would be engaged in work that involved large numbers of papers and documentation. It was impractical to put every thing away at the end of the day and pull them out at the start of a new day. So the roll-top desk was invented.

Roll top desk 2
Here is another antique roll-top desk. Again, please pay attention to the mini drawers and pigeon hole compartments. The rolling cover and it’s path is clearly shown. What is not shown is the most excellent swivel chair that would go with the desk.

Further, there was a need for specialized compartments to hold various office stamps, pens and papers, and folders. This created the various styles that had miniature drawers, shelving, compartments and side pockets.

Drafting supplies.
A roll-top desk is the perfect place to store such things as drafting supplies. here is a nice set of drafting supplies that hadn’t made it’s way (yet) to the trash heap. With a roll-top desk, it could be stored safely and elegantly.

This item of furniture was the mainstay of the small or medium-sized office at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Roll-top desk 3
Antique Roll Top Desk made sometime between 1900 and 1950. I personally think that there is an over abundance of drawers in the desk. They are mostly all of the same size. However, different people have different needs. Aside from that, this desk has a leather mat writing surface, and some very small mini-drawers for keys and minor items. Note that this desk has sides that are on hinges. They can be swiveled out of the way for an unobstructed work area.

In the working industry, it eventually was phased out and replaced by more durable and cheaper (mass produced) steel desks.  Additionally, the idea for filing cabinets, and “flat files” came into being that would (firstly) augment the compartmentalized sections and ledgers of the roll-top desk, and secondly the determination that the roll-top desk did not fit in the modernized image of the state of the art 1930’s Art Deco decor.

These desks could often be found in various small offices, and homes throughout the 1970’s. Over time they were often left to fall apart and rot. Today they are generally rare, with some small-build reproductions floating around here and there. You can find them occasionally at antique dealers and in selected flea-markets. Aside from that, they have pretty much disappeared from the social scene.

Roll top desk 4
This antique roll-top desk has some nice compartments and nice style. It fits the grand criteria for a roll-top desk. I especially like the “mail box” slatted chubby-holes in the center.

Features

These desks had numerous features that made these desks very special. I personally believe that these features are often overlooked in our modern society – one that has an over reliance on cloud computing and storage.

important parts of a roll-top desk
While there are world-wide variations of this desk. Most roll-top desks are strictly American in design and function. Here we can see some of the important elements labeled and identified for the reader.

These features are;

  • Large, deep, and wide pedestal drawers, with compartment slats.
  • Pull-out “bread board” panels on both the left and right sides.
  • Wide and deep working area.
  • A selection of small “square” pigeon-hole areas.
  • Some desks would have small cabinets or closets (some with windows).
Desk drawer.
A man needs a drawer to place his little treasures in. He can store the things that matter to him, and the papers and documents that he must maintain.
  • A number of horizontal pigeon-holes for papers.
  • A number of vertical pigeon-holes for journals and log-books.
  • Small mini drawers, each with a metal knob and a slot for a label.
  • A slat for holding rulers, drafting triangles, or cardboard folders.
Desk drawer.
Here’s a nice vintage desk drawer. Notice that it has a movable tray compartment, and is made out of good solid hardwood. No fake plywood or particle-board construction here. Also note the beautiful grain of the wood and the overall appearance. Wonderful!
  • Medium size mini-drawers, often with a plain knob for pens, and miscellaneous tools. Sometimes lined with green felt backing.
  • The roll-top top, often made out of slats that can be locked in place for privacy and security.
  • A grand “middle drawer” that would have a wooden carved “tray” for pencils, erasers and paperclips and the like.
Details 2
Here are some details that can be found on various roll-top desks. I particularly like the leather mat writing surface, though many people simply would purchase a felt mat and place it on the surface. Note also the side pull-out “bread-board” feature. Often people would place lists of important phone numbers, addresses or codes on these boards, and pull them out when they needed to refer to something.

Accouterments

These desks would often be paired with this low swivel chair. Often with a cushion and wooden arm-rests. It would also be paired with a nice desk mat. Some desks had a leather writing surface, while many did not. In that case, a person would go to the hardware store and purchase their own writing mat.

Desk details 3
Here are some interesting details that can be found on certain roll-top desks. This includes compartments inside the writing surface and pencil trays in one or more of the main desk drawers.

The writing mat was often leather with a felt surface. The most popular was green. A “banker’s” lamp, with a green shade, and a brass base was also often employed. Though, Tiffany lamps, and lamps with cast designer bases were often employed.

Swivel chair for a roll-top desk.
Here is a fine vintage oak wood office chair. It is on a swivel base and has wheels to move around in. Note that it has a small leather cushion, though many chairs did not have this feature. It’s a fine chair just about made for ta roll-top desk.

Material

Early roll-top desks were built of heavy woods such as black walnut, and small local companies might choose from a variety of local hardwoods. There are many hardwoods that were used.

Roll-top desk 6
This roll-top desk has a working and writing surface that can be pulled out and makes for a larger working area. Notice the top of the desk as well. It can support lamps and even a shallow cabinet or bookcase.

Most popular toward the end of the 19th century, close-grained oak was often quarter-sawn, or cut to promote a particularly even grain, reducing the possibility of warping and increasing durability.

Wood for a roll-top desk.
At one time, these desks were made with care and concern for the overall appearance of the desk. Wood was selected carefully and cut with care and precision. the end result was a work of art.

Mahogany, teak and cherry also appear in old desks, but from 1900 on, most desks were oak. A desk made from cherry after 1900, for example, would have been a special order or the work of a local craftsman.

Lamp
Here is an antique “Banker’s lamp” with a Tiffany Art Deco inspired shade (instead of the traditional green glass shade). It’s certainly beautiful.

Why a Man Should Have a Roll-Top Desk

I well remember the exact moment when I fell in love with roll-top desks. My father needed to get or renew his insurance for the car. This was in the late 1960’s. At that time we had a Buick Electra. And, we were trading it in for a 1966 Lincoln Continental.

1966 Lincoln Continental
Man! I sure wish that I had this car today. I’ll tell you what. This is a 1966 Lincoln Continental. It was black with a black interior. (So hot in the Summer.) But we loved that car.

So he went over to the local insurance agent in the town. We lived in a small town at the time, and he was a friend of a friend. So dad went into his office. It was a cluttered office next to a tire dealership.

We walked in. There was centuries of dust and clutter there. Inside was this amazingly enormous man. He was built like an elephant and existed there in a state of decay and confusion. He seemed to blend in with all the clutter, piles of paper, stacks of dusty junk, dusty Venetian blinds, and the ancient Art Deco fan that was providing the much needed air flow in that tiny cramped and cluttered office.

He sat there smoking a cigar, with a largish (green plastic) AM radio playing a baseball game in the background. Next to him was a cigarette stand. You know the type, it was a metal pedestal with a handle and a large glass tray in the center. The ash tray was filed with the ashes of many a well smoked cigar.

He sat at this enormous roll-top desk, and offered me a “Orange Crush”. When I said “sure”, he flipped me a quarter and told me that there was a pop machine around the corner…

Roll top desk 5
There is a certain beauty in a roll-top desk. It is a place where a man can put his stuff. As a boy, I enjoyed the idea of a place where I could put my stuff and collectables at. At that time, I had a a small wooden cigar box that I held my “treasures”. But an entire desk…now that would be awesome.

In his office was a roll-top desk. This was not just any roll-top desk. It was enormous. I am not at all exaggerating. I haven’t seen anything like it since. This desk was easily the size of our dining table. Not only that, but that tiny office had two of them. They dominated the room, and on them was the clutter of years.

I just sat there amazed. I just looked at the amazing array of cubby-holes and mini-drawers. I loved that desk. I just sat there and soaked it all in. I listened to the baseball game and sipped on my soda.

The meeting lasted maybe two hours. My father signed some papers and then we left. On the way out, I asked my father if we could have a desk like that. He just chucked.

Office supplies
A roll-top desk is the ideal place to store your much needed desk supplies and paperwork. Instead of all the clutter, it can be positioned within easy reach for the user of the roll-top desk.

“Why do you want such a broken down piece of junk?” he asked. I just shrugged.

We walked to the car and then went and got an ice cream. But, while I never mentioned it again to my father, secretly inside, I always wanted to have my own roll-top desk.

Much later…

I was in Ridgecrest, California. I was in training at the China Lake Naval Weapons Center for my MAJestic role. At that time, I was living on Dolphin Avenue, in a small housing development. My neighbor, who also worked on the base as a contractor, just happened to have a roll-top desk that his girlfriend bought him.

I loved that thing. Sure, it was a reproduction. And, it was not a full-size desk. But, it still was pretty darn cool.

I think that the reason why I have always liked the idea of a roll-top desk was the idea that it had spaces and compartments for all my stuff. I would, over the years collect junk, papers, writings and bits of flotsam that had meaning to me, but would eventually get lost in the detritus of the house. Probably eventually collecting in dusty boxes in remote corners of the garage. Sigh.

But, if I had a roll-top desk… well, now it’s a whole new ball-game. I could store my prized fishing lures in one place, and my precious treasures in other spaces. Of course… being much older, my desk might look a little bit like this rather than my boy-hood dream ever was…

moden man's needs
As a man get’s older his tastes change. I lost many of my boyhood treasures over time. Now my needs and passions are much simpler. So, yes, I probably don’t NEED this kind of desk. yet, wouldn’t it be grand to have it to keep some prized whiskey or smokes?

Conclusion

A personally think that having a big roll-top desk would be awesome. It would be a place for my brick-a-brack and clutter.  I can well imagine a selection of pens and pencils in the various drawers, and indexed compartments full of my various treasures. I could some of my few remaining baseball cards, and my small collection of bottle openers. Not to mention a fine jewelers loupe and electricians scissors. With them I could place my small nine inch metal rule, and a few calipers.

What ever. All men need a place to keep their personal junk and a roll-top desk fits the bill quite nicely.

Free Republic Posting

This article was published on Free Republic on 16DEC18. The posting and the comments can be found HERE.

"I have one of these steelcase desks that I got from a VA hospital that was dumping them. I love this thing but my wife hates it. In a nuclear detonation or earthquake you could hide under it."

- Posted on 12/16/2018, 10:24:53 PM by outofsalt
Nuclear desk
Nuclear proof roll-top desk.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.





Alternative Search Engines instead of Google

Back in the day, I was one of the first people to start using Google as a search engine. I liked it’s clean interface, and simplicity.

Of course, over the years, other people also found this to be the preferential search engine. Unfortunately, Google became big, powerful and yes, evil. They siphon up your personal information with zero regard to fourth amendment protections. They sell the information to the highest bidder, and give it away for free if the person is part of a government agency.

Unfortunately, people like myself VALUE privacy. And that means that I no longer can use Google.

Here is a selection of various search engine alternatives to Google. It is not a complete list. As there are thousands of alternatives. These are some the best ones that I have found.

You might discover, as I have, that they have BETTER and more comprehensive results than Google. You just need to understand that they work differently than Google. So you must query your searches differently…

You see, Google only provides results to you that they feel should be presented to you.

Google
A “googlr”; an employee at Google. They feel that THEY know what is best for you. They will set up the software programs to sort through the reams of information on the internet, so that you only get to view the information that THEY want you to see. See this chick here. She thinks that she is better than you are, in determining what you need to know.

This is problematic. Because they only show you the possible results that you qualify for. The qualification rules are kept secret, and are a closely held secret at that. They, like many of their politically liberal breathren, consider themselves as your parents and have the role of censoring your search results for (what they consider to be) your own good.

With all this being said, let’s look at the top candidate…

Duck Duck Go

Let’s start with the fist step is divorcing yourself from Google. Use Duckduckgo. If you go duck, you will never go back.

It is clean and operates much like Google does. The only difference is that it is private. Yes, you can think of it as the Google that should have been. While Google is “evil Spock” (a fine Star Trek reference), Duckduckgo would be the “good Spock”.

Evil Spock and good spock
Evil Spock and Good Spock. Image is from the The Enemy Within (Star Trek: The Original Series). For those of you who have never watched Star Trek or who don’t understand the reference; “good Spock” is clean shaven. “evil Spock” has the beard.

Duckduckgo is a search engine that does not track or personalize your searches and results.

For those of you who are unaware, the “personalization” of search results is the permitted censorship of search results. Don’t go down that dark and scary road.

A dark and scary road.
A dark and scary road.

It is my humble opinion that if you like Google, then you will love Duckduckgo. They offer the same kind of service, only faster, better, quicker and with far more privacy.

If you want to make the world a better place, then stop using Google and start using search engines that respect your privacy.

Google Privacy
Here is a comparison between Duckduckgo and Google. Obviously DDG takes privacy very seriously. While Google only gives it “lip service”. Well… how do you think Google makes all it’s money? You don’t see any ads on the front page do you? Nope. They are paid by government agencies to give them YOUR search information.
Duckduckgo is a great search engine that values privacy over everything else. They operate much like Google only they respect your fourth amendment rights.

It should be obvious that Google is working closely with the United States government in the collection of your personal data, as well as the manipulation and censorship of data to control your thoughts. After all, look at all the trips Google had with Barrack Obama. They certainly weren’t swapping golf stories. 

Quack!

Unfortunately, for me, Duckduckgo is banned in China. major bummer! So, personally I am forced to use alternative search engines. Which brings me to…

Search Encrypt

Search Encrypt
Search Encrypt

Like DuckDuckGo, Search Encrypt is a privacy-based search engine. It includes a general search function, as well as image and video search. This is a search engine that was design with privacy in mind. They believe that your likes, thoughts and search history should be just as private as the color of your underwear.

I agree.

They have a very clean interface, much like Google, except that everything is private and kept secret. They can do most of what you need, and all of what I (personally) use the search engine for.

Search Encrypt should be a preferred search engine for anyone wishing to maintain their privacy in a world where everyone lies and makes false promises. I use it in China without a problem.

I can see this search engine growing and becoming more popular over the years.  Time will only tell, if they will maintain their role as the guaranteerer of privacy, or if they will sell out to the highest bidder…

Those tech “giants” in California tend to make empty promises and will sell you out in a heartbeat. Let’s not forget the promises that Yahoo! made when it acquired Tumblr, and then what happened when Verizon took over and crapped on the policies that reflected creative expression  in 17DEC18. Never forget the broken promises, the lies, and the sell-out for huge monetary gain.

CEO Tumblr David Karp Akhirnya Mengundurkan Diri
CEO Tumblr David Karp Akhirnya Mengundurkan Diri. When money becomes an issue, all the free thought, artistic creativity, and hope and dreams come crashing down. Who cares about creativity when you could end up with a new Lamborghini, a nice home on the beach, and all the perks of the wealthy.

That’s About It!

Sorry, but that’s about it for privacy based Internet Searches that I (personally) would feel comfortable using. The problem is that most other search engines are either (somehow) tied to Google (and the American NSA spying apparatus), or tied to one or another government. Now, there is good and bad with this revelation.

  • By splitting up searches between different government agencies and promoted search engines you can effectively DILUTE the content of search history that any one government has on you.
  • By using different search engines the SEO attributes are different; thus resulting in different search results.

With that being said, let’s look at some more or less QUESTIONABLE search alternatives out there. Some are promoted as “big on privacy”, others are simply large but tied to a non-American government.

Keep in mind, these search engines must be used with caution and consideration…

StartPage

We will start with a well promoted search alternative. You can find this quite easily on Bing and Google as the “private” alternative to internet searches. Now, back in the day, Startpage was the world’s most private search engine. It was, because no one else gave a rat’s ass about privacy.

Start Page / ixquick
Start Page / ixquick

You see, StartPage was the first search engine to allow users to search privately. None of your details are recorded and no cookies are used, unless you allow it to remember your preferences. It also provides a proxy for those who want to not just search, but browse the internet with full privacy.

Instead of being a full alternative to Google, it combines Google Search results with user privacy. So, when you use StartPage, you’ll get the same Google Search Engine results. The only difference is that your privacy/information isn’t submitted. Google only sees StartPage, not the StartPage user. This enhancement is one of the reasons why StartPage results are so useful. 

In short, StartPage Search Engine is the most appropriate private search engine for those who love Google results but can’t make a compromise with privacy.

The user should beware. Many companies that suck up your personal information and browsing habits ALSO promote Startpage. You have to wonder why.

I mean, why does Facebook and Google offer links to “their versions” of Startpage? It makes me pause and think.

Do you believe that a Facebook version of Startpage would maintain your privacy? What about a Google version of Startpage? I don’t. In fact, even if they were sincere in wanting to secure your privacy, I can’t help but think of them polluting the entire effort.

Evil Laughter
Evil Laughter

MetaGer

How about going to a different country? How about Germany? Now, I have to make a full disclosure that I personally love Germany. I think the German people are awesome. I love the food. I also like the “restaurant chain style” bordellos. Not to mention it is a beautiful land with an awesome history.

They also, and most importantly, respect privacy.

Metager
Metager

MetaGer is German-based meta-search engine, developed on 24 small scale web crawlers. It focuses on user’s privacy and makes searches untraceable by leaving no footprint behind. Also, it integrates a proxy server so that users can open any link anonymously from the search results while keeping their IP address hidden from the destination server. This eliminates the chances of advertisers to target you for ads.

The results are obtained from 50 different search engines. Before presenting final results of the query, they are filtered, compiled and sorted.

Comparing Metager to Google.
Comparing Metager to Google.

If you have optimized your website for search by Google, and Bing and the other more prominent American websites, you might be disappointed. This search engine utilizes a completely different criteria to search with, and the results reflect it.

However, the really great news is that you will find many websites that Google, and Bing cannot find.

And now the bad news. It might be publicly private, but who actually knows what the German government might have on the browsing habits of those whom use this search engine…Hum?

Yandex

Now, we go to Russia!

Yes. Russia, of all places. We need to put on our commie waders and step out of the American deep-state swamp and enter another deep-state swamp. Only this time it is a cold one covered in icy slush; the Mother Russian land of internet.

Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia with nearly 65% Russian market share. According the Comscore, it is the fourth largest search engine in the world with over 150 million searches per day as of 2012.

Yandex Search Market Share.
Yandex Search Market Share.

Yandex features a parallel search that shows results from main web index as well as specialized information resources, including blogs, news, image and video webpages, and eCommerce sites. In addition, the search engine provides supplementary information (like sports results), and contains spell checkers, autocomplete functionality and antivirus that detects malicious content on webpages.

Unlike the other search engines, this one is NOT optimized for privacy.  So, that tells me that you can pretty much expect the Russian government knows who you are and are tracking your internet history for their own purposes. What ever they might be.

Hum… is there a cute large-chested blond-haired Russian femme fatal in my future? I wonder?

Now, the beauty in using this search engine is that the organizations that want your personal information don’t really want your data. After all, it’s going to be pretty hard to target you for Russian Viagra in Saint Petersburgh when you are living in Sunnyside, California. And, it will be unlikely for you to read the Cyrillic characters in their advertisements in the first place.

Russian advertisement.
Russian advertisement for ice cream. Heck, it might even be enjoyable to see some targeted Russian advertisements for a change.

Personally, I think that there is far more harm in the NSA having your personal information than any Russian secret police force, even if it’s a modern version of the KGB.

The reasoning is simple. If the United States government; federal, state, local or agency want’s to arrest you, they will need to make a case out of how evil you are. Then they will compile the reasoning into the most damning case, and convince you to agree to lesser charges via plea bargain. Often they will use your computer habits to justify their narrative.

However, in Russia, and China, they won’t do this. If they want to arrest you, they will simply do so. Period. No justification and song and dance of survival is necessary.

Storm in Russia.
Storm in Russia.

Bing Search

OK. Now, back to America. We all know that Google has rivals…Microsoft.

Bing is Microsoft’s attempt at unseating Google, and arguably the second-most-popular search engine today. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. They should NEVER be considered a Search Engine that honors individual privacy. However, they are placed here in this list for those members of the European Union, who get to have privacy in the their searches that Americans are denied.

Privacy with the Microsoft BING Search Engine.
Privacy with the Microsoft BING Search Engine.

Touted as a decision engine, Bing tries to support your researching by offering suggestions in the leftmost column, while also giving you various search options across the top of the screen. Things like ‘wiki’ suggestions, ‘visual search’, and ‘related searches’ might be very useful to you. Bing is not dethroning Google in the near future, no, but it is definitely worth trying. 

Like Google, however, they will most certainly block certain websites, and avoid others at the request of the United States government. From “Uncle Sam’s” point of view, you go after the “low handing fruit” that the vast bulk of Americans use. Then ridicule the outliers as “misfits”, “deplorables”, and “Nazi’s”.

Kick Ass Torrents
The international website “Kick Ass Torrents” was seized by the Department of Homeland Security. The reason being that they offered royalty free downloads of copyrighted movies and music. Thanks to President Obama, visiting any of these websites is a federal crime that Americans are forbidden to visit. Even for a nano-second.

As far as privacy is concerned, Bing will alter the behavior of the Search Engine if you live in the EU.

All you need to do is [1] Go here and fill out the application form, [2] wait for a response. Then, [3] trusting that they will obey your request, you are free to use Bing.

"Please provide any other relevant information describing your privacy interest in having this information blocked in response to searches on the name specified above and why you believe your privacy interest outweighs the public’s interest in free expression and the free availability of information."

That’s right, boy’s and girl’s, you need to petition Bing and explain why you want to have privacy. That should tell you all you need to know about how these software companies think of you and your families.

Microsoft privacy
If you are European, you must petition to these people and explain why you want privacy. As an American, you will not be granted privacy. It is not granted by Bing. You are forbidden to have it, simply because NO ONE is enforcing the fourth amendment.

Youdao

Now to China. Privacy…I highly doubt it. 

Youdao Chinese Search Engine.
Youdao Chinese Search Engine.

Youdao is a search engine in China released by the company NetEase. It allows users to easily search for images, web pages, music, news, blogs, and even Chinese to English entries in the dictionary, and several others. In 2012, Hui-hui shopping assistant was established, serving as a tool that will allow users to compare items and prices online.

I would not say that they would honor a person’s right to privacy. However, like the Russian search engine, the companies that seem to want to collect user information would find most Americans boring and useless.

Yippy Search

Some deep searches are worth the risk to privacy. When that comes in play, consider Yippy!

Yippy
Yippy

Yippy is a Deep Web search engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search.

That’s where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool. 

Visit Yippy Search

There isn’t any guarantee that your privacy would be maintained, however, this search engine will take you places that other Search Engines (think Google and Bing) would hide from you.

Yahoo! Search

Yahoo! Search
Yahoo! Search

Yahoo! is several things: it is a search engine, a news aggregator, a shopping center, an emailbox, a travel directory, a horoscope and games center, and more.

This ‘web portal’ breadth of choice makes this a very helpful site for Internet beginners. Searching the Web should also be about discovery and exploration, and Yahoo! delivers that in wholesale quantities.

Yahoo! also won’t protect your privacy like some of the other search engines mentioned herein. However, they won’t pre-censor to “protect” you either.

On Google, for instance, I had to wade through pages and pages of stuff about how the John Titor Time-traveler was a hoax, with no pages on the actual text of his BBS narrative. Yet, Yahoo! took me right there in a nano-second. Straight the “meat”, with no roadblocks of propagandized articles.

The Internet Archive Search

The Internet Archive - the Way back machine.
The Internet Archive – the Way back machine.

The Internet Archive is a favorite destination for longtime Web lovers. The Archive has been taking snapshots of the entire World Wide Web for years now, allowing you and me to travel back in time to see what a web page looked like in 1999, or what the news was like around Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

You won’t visit the Archive daily, like you would Google or Yahoo or Bing, but when you do have need to travel back in time, use this search site.

Visit The Internet Archive

DeepWebTech

Deep Web Tech
Deep Web Tech

With DeepWebTech you can choose between five search engines. If one doesn’t work for you, you can always count on the other to help you find what you need. Just like Chrome, DeepWebTech also counts with browser plugins for you to use if you are searching for something in particular.

With this deep web search engine, you can find information on a subject such as medicine, science, and business. If Google is not giving you what you are looking for, you can count on these deep web search engines getting the job done.

While the privacy is suspect with all these search engines, I do not think that occasional use of such Deep Web trawlers are anything to be overly concerned about. Use a VPN and TOR, if you are concerned.

Other Search Engines….

Here are some other search engines that are worthy of a spin. Like before, they won’t really guard your privacy. However, they might scatter all your searches in a series of disjointed data centers.

Ask.com

Launched in 1996, Ask.com is a question answering-focused web search engine. Despite its age, Ask is still very active. They have coupled their search-system with a robust questions and answer system with billions of online content.

As of 2014, the website had 180 million global users per month (with a larger user base in the US), and to date, its mobile app has been downloaded over 40 million times. They acquired a social networking site, Ask.fm, where people can ask questions with the option of anonymity. ASKfm handles around 20,000 questions every minute.

Baidu

Baidu is the most popular search engine in China. This is definitely the most useful engine if you want to improve your SEO’s, but it functions very differently from Google.

The main differences compared to Google come down to how the sites operate. While on the surface they may look similar, different focuses and older systems mean that while Baidu’s technology is better at processing Chinese, they still place a high emphasis on Meta tags, meaning users are open to scams.

One key difference that should be noted is that Baidu is a completely Chinese website, and there are very few non-Chinese sites that come up. While this is difficult for those who are trying to break into the market, it is one of the reasons why it has such a large user base.

QiHoo 360

This is another very important search engine in the Chinese market. In 2016 they had around 29%  (according to SEOagencychina.com) of the market share, however, in 2017 they seem to have around 10% of the market. This is a significant drop and can be accounted for by Baidu’s massive increase.

QiHoo 360’s flagship search engine is actually called Haosou, so it is important that while the company is called QiHoo 360, the search engine has a different name.

Haosou offers a wide range of services including news, websites, images, Q&A, videos, images and music, as well other services. As you can tell it runs a very similar service to Baidu.

Other Search Engines

There are other search engines that you can use. However, you do need to be careful. Many (not all, but many, many) work with Google. (Snarl!) They offer (so called) “anonymous searching” but rely on Google as the back-end. I, for one, do not trust them. When I search, I don’t want to have anything to do with Google. No matter what anyone else says.

Gibru

Gibru claims to provide Uncensored, Anonymous Search Engine experience — both in the web version and with the official Mozilla Firefox toolbar. This search engine is noted for the 128-bit secure encryption, the promise of data safety and optimal privacy.

Lukol

Lukol is an easy-to-use private search engine. It does neither track your information nor store your IP. It has no tie-up with Governments or security agencies to share your data. In short, you don’t have to worry about your search indexes getting exposed.

Qrobe.it

Qrobe.it is another alternative private search engine to rely upon. The interface is way too simple, and you’ll be able to search for Images and Web content. You also get some Settings option and Advanced Search

Some Alternative Search Engines…

Ah, it is just impossible to do anything privately today. Everyone wants a piece of your action. Sigh.

Naver

Naver isn’t actually an “alternate” search engine at all. In fact, Naver is number one in South Koreawhere Google has a very small share. It used to be powered by Yahoo’s Overture system, but following the Yahoo-Microsoft alliance, the engine decided to build and launch its own keyword advertising system, so Naver has now become a leading search engine with its own advertising system. If you’re targeting Korea, put this one first.

Seznam

In the Czech Republic, Seznam has been in the lead for a long time and still just about competes with Google there. However, Google is rapidly creeping up and knocking at its door. For now, continue considering Seznam as essential in the Czech Republic. Over the border in the the Czech Republic’s sibling state Slovakia (they were once one nation and known as Czechosolvakia), Google has already taken over as a strong lead in first place.

Eniro

Eniro is an interesting example of a search engine in Sweden and for a variety of reasons. Eniro is the orignial publisher of Sweden’s Yellow Pages and, as a result, Eniro still has significant brand traction in the country. However, more recently, Eniro has partnered with Google for some aspects of search and for advertising.

What’s interesting though is that Eniro has developed its own pay per click advertising system and then backfills with Google ads which is a model I think we can expect to see emerge more widely. You don’t have to take much more share of advertising revenues, to justify building such a system and amortizing its costs over a few years.

Onet.pl

Well, I will say this about the Poles. They are honest about collecting  your data and selling it to others for their own purposes…

Before you click "Go to site" or close this window, please read this information. 

We ask for your voluntary consent to the processing of your personal data by our business partners and provide information about the so-called 
cookies and about the processing of your personal data by us. 
By clicking "Go to site" or closing the window by clicking the X icon, you agree to the following. You can also refuse consent or limit its scope.

A Polish portal with a strong following, Onet.pl has a slightly different version of the Eniro approach. Here, its search coming almost entirely from Google. It relies on on its advertising for revenue generation.


If you want to agree to the processing of your personal data by Trusted Partners of RAS Polska Group, which you share in the history of browsing websites and web applications and location data generated by your device for marketing purposes (including automated analysis of your activity on websites and applications to determine Your potential interests for adapting the advertisement and offer), including placing web tags (cookies, etc.) on your devices and reading such tags, click "Go to website" or close this window.

Orange

The telecoms companies over the years have, in general, gained a larger slice of “eyeballs” and have often overtaken the former search engines for audience. In France, for instance, Orange has a very strong portal which carries a search function. That search function is powered by Voila.fr — probably the number one ,original French search engine. It’s not Google…Hurrah!

However, the pay per click advertising on Orange.fr comes straight from Google, so this is an example of the opposite business model to those above.

Spiegel.de

Another trend of the moment is of newly prominent search sites that are news portals, generally the online mirrors of offline mega-brands. Der Spiegel (The Mirror) has been the leading and best respected German news magazine since its launch in 1947. Its move to online guaranteed a strong audience and an opportunity for both search and news advertisers.

It has a fascinating approach to search. Here, all searches query the Spiegel itself. Other issues are broken down by related organizations. For instance,  plus manager-magazin.de for management issues, merian.de for travel and Wikipedia, clearly giving it a focus on responding to informational queries.

Spiegel doesn’t yet have a keyword-specific search facility not yet having discovered the opportunity, but it does enable you to build your own banner ads directly online and is just one step away from a very influential keyword search facility. Watch this space!

It’s very interesting, and might one-day be the future of searching the internet. However, an alternative to Google, it is not.

Alibaba.com

It is a search engine and it’s not. It is a Yellow Pages and it’s not. Strongest in China and India, Alibaba is difficult to describe apart from saying that in size, it dwarfs some of the better known search engines.

Some describe Alibaba.com as a dating site matchmaking manufacturers and their various types of distributors, which is actually pretty fair. And it has its own keyword matching advertising facility as well.

Personally, I use Alibaba quite a bit. If you want something. You buy in Bulk. Why spend $400 for ten Viagra pills, when I can buy the raw material for 100,000 pills for half that amount?

Conclusions

One cannot utilize the Internet without a Search Engine. Today, many programs and most of our communication is through the Internet. Our portal and the ways of accessing this Internet is through Search Engines. A person who controls your access; controls your life.

Don’t allow them this ability.

Not free
In America we proudly call ourselves “free”, and that we have “Freedom”. We announce that we have the Bill of Rights that “protects” us. None of this is true. This is simply because, like a garden, the Bill of Rights must be nurtured…respected and tended to from time to time. And when rabbits come and much on the plants in the garden, they need to be shooed away or killed if need be.

Update 27JUL20

Mojeek.com: 

One of the last independent search engines. Mojeek is based out of the UK, and indexes websites on its own (just past 3 billion last month). It advertises no bias in its search results and it lives up to this claim. I searched for “vaccine danger” and was impressed with the variety and accuracy of the sites listed—mostly anti-vaccine sites, as expected, as opposed to Google which heavily filters it to only pro-vaccine apologia sites. There isn’t even an option for filtering the content for typical “family safe search.” Other than that it is a bare-bones search engine with a tab for web, news and images. The have a robust privacy policy, but very little independent reviews of this site, and I can’t tell how they get revenue. 

Gigablast.com: 

An independent search engine using open-sourced code, Gigablast gathers its own results from independent web-crawling (it has indexed over a billion websites). In this it fights an uphill battle against the big players who refuse to give its bots equal treatment to information. So far I have found its search results fair and unbiased, but there is a little more “clutter” in the results than I am used to from the big search engines, but this reflects its honesty: it is a small, organic search engine. The only source of income is a link for donations (unfortunately through Paypal). Their blog reveals many of the underhanded ways that Google manipulates the information marketplace. They don’t have the privacy features touted by other search sites, except to say that they don’t sell any personal information. 

Private.sh: 

Fortunately another privacy-oriented group built a smooth interface based on the Gigablast independent search results and adds the highest possible privacy. Not only does it strip away any IP information, but it encrypts any search terms you enter within your own browser before it traverses the internet to their website, where it is decrypted, sent to Gigablast, and the results encrypted before sending back to your computer. This effort effectively shields both your query and the results you see from any spying or eavesdropping attempts along the way. Additionally, no personal information is stored and cannot be subpoenaed. All of this is done seamlessly.

Take Aways

  • Selection of Search Engines are important for free and unlimited access to information.
  • There are many search engines to select from.
  • This post includes English search engines that have various degrees of privacy.
  • The first step in taking control over your fourth amendment protections is to STOP using Google and use a private and secure search engine.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Tomatos
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Civil War
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
r/K selection theory
How they get away with it
Line in the sand
A second passport
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.