We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
Let me tell you, when you ride in that car, a womans’ hair blows all over the place, and it gets really messed up. A woman will spend hours getting her hair and make up just right, and then it is all undone in 15 seconds.
Oh sure, the car is fun and looks great.
But the SECRET fact is, men and women who KNOW, will never buy a convertible. As it destroys a woman’s’ fine; well done hair, and makeup.
Truth and reality.
…
Convertible… brings them in, but in real life…. not practical.
Same is true with a penthouse apartment. But, youse guys all know my story on THAT, eh?
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Stuff you only read about on MM.
Today…
Did Canada live up to your expectations, or are you disappointed?
Canada did not live up to my expectations, but I am also not disappointed.
I arrived as a teenager, from western Europe, and expected it to top that. Well, that was wrong of me. It’s a very different place from Europe, and cannot be measured by European standards, because it is not trying to be Europe, and doesn’t have to. It was me silly bunny who expected the world to be like Europe.
Over the years, I learned things in Canada I never could have learned in Europe:
how to be nice to strangers; the Canadians are the absolute world champions in that, and my years in Canada have given me the behavioural tools to act the same way. That easy friendliness of the Canadians is worth gold in professional life.
that we are all the same, if given a chance; life in Canada is the same for everybody. You can be black, white, blue, or rainbow coloured, but you will be using the same Honeywell thermostats, fill up at Petro Canada, grab a thingy in the morning from Tim Hortons, wear boots, and do a lot of windscreen scraping.
speaking English properly; you may not have noticed yet, but Canadian English is wonderful. It has a North American touch, but it is clear and well-formulated. If you speak like a Canadian, you will be understood by all English speakers world wide.
living well without spending a fortune; when you live in Canada, your lifestyle is high by world standards. As a student, I lived in an apartment with skyline views (the rent was 600 dollars), drove a big old car with a V8 engine I had bought for 800 dollars, and ate breakfast specials for 2.99 in restaurants almost every day. Now, maybe that was simply Alberta in the 90s, and these things were cheap to do. It taught me that you can have a great life cheaply if you aren’t expecting too much. You just need to know what should be on your list, and how to appreciate its items. Canada gave me that list, and I still drive cheap, big old cars, and am very good at appreciating things to this day.
civilisation is a marvel; you wouldn’t think so in crowded places elsewhere, but when you’ve driven across the prairies in minus forty degrees for a day straight and pull into a truckstop, you think it’s the most amazing thing that we humans can put up a brightly lit, straight-edged structure like that, where it’s warm inside, and you can eat poutine, or bacon and eggs, in that sea of snow covered land.
civilisation is an attitude, not luck, or history, or lots of resources and money. Canada shows you what we humans can be if we pull ourselves together and apply some sense and civility.
severe winters are fantastic. The clean air that goes down your airways as if you’d just eaten mints; the brightness of the snow, the huge, blue sky… how could one not love winter.
nature is awesome. We Europeans don’t know nature. If nature is sea life, Europe’s version of it is a goldfish in a glass, whereas Canada’s is a swarm of wild tuna to the horizon. There is more awesomeness to standing in a field next to a grain elevator than there is in Europe’s most officially precious nature reserves.
I left Canada after a few years in search of career options that didn’t exist there then (and found them), but deep down, I have never left Canada.
It’s still inside me.
I think my astral body is wearing boots and a work shirt from Canadian Tire, and says “eh” at the end of sentences. And it’s driving a Pontiac Parisienne (made in Ontario) – which I still have, almost 30 years later, here in Sweden.
There Will NEVER Be War With China For This ONE Reason Alone
Yup.
What is the most savage revenge you’ve seen a renter get on a sleazy landlord?
My girlfriend and her sons rented a house briefly, before her and I moved in together. Slumlord ran a restaurant next door to the place. About a week after they moved in the landlord provided refrigerator went out- of course, two days after they spent $350 stocking up everything. She walked next door and told him, he said he would get one over there. Two days later, all the food is bad. No refrigerator. This time I walk over- she’s the nice guy, me not so much. I told him that now he needed a refrigerator and to replace all the food that went bad. He gets pissed and starts arguing with me. Actually picks up a billy club and comes out from behind the counter, which definitely didn’t have the intended effect. I told him I’d beat him to death with it if he tried to hit me, and now I was going to call Land Use on him about the refrigerator and other issues. Went down the next day, we filed a complaint, the day after that the inspector was there. Landlord replaced the refrigerator, all the electrical outlets, loose drywall in both bedrooms, all the carpet and got his restaurant closed down for numerous violations. Worst of all for him, he had ‘replaced the door and windows’ on his restaurant without a permit, which would have been fine- except the new door and windows were 6 feet farther out, enclosing what had been an awning in the parking lot. Replacing existing stuff is fine, adding hundreds of square feet without a building permit or inspection in a commercial structure? That’s a 10000 dollar fine and guaranteed inspections monthly afterwards. The most expensive refrigerator I ever saw.
The respect threshold
Easy Meatball Soup
This easy-to-make Meatball Soup recipe is filled with tender meatballs, hearty beans, and a warm tomato broth. It’s a tasty and comforting weeknight dinner perfect for a chilly day! Plus it has plenty of protein and nutrients for a healthy dinner.
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If your family loves meatballs, this Meatball and white bean Soup will become their next favorite dinner. Tender ground beef meatballs are simmered in a rich broth with tomatoes, beans, and plenty of seasonings. Top with parmesan cheese for an easy Italian soup that everyone will love.
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Why you’ll love this soup
Flavorful! This soup is made with garlic, tomatoes, Italian seasonings, and Parmesan cheese for a simple but delicious flavor.
Easy to make. This soup is easy to make and great for prepping ahead or freezing for later.
Nutritious and filling. This soup is protein-rich, full of fiber, and packed with veggies for extra nutrients. It’s hearty and healthy all at the same time.
Meatball soup 7
Ingredients you will need
This is just a list of ingredients you will need to make this Italian Meatball Soup recipe. Full measurements are listed further below.
Whole wheat breadcrumbs: you may also use Panco bread crumbs or mash potato flakes.
Milk: any milk of your choice
Olive oil: or any other oil of your choice
Egg: used as a binder for the meatballs to make it extra tender and juicy.
Parmesan cheese: or you can also use the rinds
Fresh parsley leaves and fresh thyme: give flavor, among other herbs you may add
Kosher salt and Black pepper
Lean ground beef: use lean beef, if you prefer to use ground turkey you can.
Beef broth: this is prefered, if you prefer using vegetable broth or chicken broth that’s fine.
Cannellini beans: or any other white beans of your choice. Great northern works just fine.
Crushed tomatoes: we used canned but you can make your own from fresh tomatoes.
Garlic: Do use fresh garlic instead of garlic powder.
Italian Seasoning
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How to make meatball soup recipe from scratch
Prep oven: Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Soak breadcrumbs: In a small bowl combine the breadcrumbs and milk and allow it to soak for a bit.
Make meatballs: In a large-mixing bowl, add all the remaining meatball ingredients. Add in the soaked breadcrumbs and use your clean hands to thoroughly mix.
Form meatballs: Next, take a spoonful of mixture and roll it to form a 1.5-inch diameter meatball. Place on the prepared sheet pan, then repeat with the remaining meat mixture.
Cook: Bake at 400F for about 12-15 minutes.
Boil broth: Once the meatballs are almost done, place the broth in a large soup pot or dutch oven, and bring it to a boil.
Finish soup: Add in the cooked meatballs, beans, tomatoes, garlic, and seasonings. Simmer over medium-low heat for about 18-20 minutes to allow the flavors to meld.
Garnish: Serve soup hot and topped with shredded parmesan and fresh thyme. Enjoy!
Tips and substitutions
Breadcrumbs: We use whole wheat breadcrumbs, but you can use regular or a gluten-free substitutes as well.
Ground beef: Use lean ground beef for a low-fat, high-protein meal. Another meat option would be to use ground turkey.
Beans: Cannellini beans can be substituted with great northern or navy beans.
Broth: Use canned broth or beef bouillon and hot water. Vegetable broth also works
Italian seasonings: We used an Italian Seasoning mix, but you can substitute it with another or a homemade mix.
For tender meatballs, be careful not to overmix the meat mixture. That will make the meat tough.
To avoid overcooking, simmer the soup gently instead of boiling it.
You may cook the meatballs on the stovetop instead of baking them in the oven.
Top the soup with some more fresh herbs and a sprinkle of lemon juice.
Meatball soup 4
Tips and substitutions
Breadcrumbs: We use whole wheat breadcrumbs, but you can use regular or a gluten-free substitutes as well.
Ground beef: Use lean ground beef for a low-fat, high-protein meal. Another meat option would be to use ground turkey.
Beans: Cannellini beans can be substituted with great northern or navy beans.
Broth: Use canned broth or beef bouillon and hot water. Vegetable broth also works
Italian seasonings: We used an Italian Seasoning mix, but you can substitute it with another or a homemade mix.
For tender meatballs, be careful not to overmix the meat mixture. That will make the meat tough.
To avoid overcooking, simmer the soup gently instead of boiling it.
You may cook the meatballs on the stovetop instead of baking them in the oven.
Top the soup with some more fresh herbs and a sprinkle of lemon juice.
Meatball soup 6 825×1024
Malaysia Proposes Taming America’s Veto Voting Powers At The United Nations
Wow! Long over due.
What do you think of David Chang and Momofuku’s attempt to trademark “Chile crunch” and “chili crunch”?
This is a perfect example of what socialists call the “tyranny of copyright”.
In David Chang’s case, what he tried to do was make an entire category of spicy condiments – perfected and enjoyed by generations of people from Asian (particularly Chinese) cultures – his own private domain.
He took inspiration from the world renowned Lao Gan Ma chilli crisp (a wonderful, addictive mixture of chilli oil and peanuts), made his own version of the sauce, then tried to trademark the concept of chilli crisp itself – to be more precise, he tried to trademark the word “chilli crunch”, which is actually a synonym of the more commonly used “chilli crisp”.
https://youtu.be/LNuwgbxQe-M
John Cena seal of approval.
If Chang had his way, then all the other businesses that have been making the same product for generations would be sued for copyright infringement, and be forced to pay him a huge sum of money. And that’s exactly what he tried to do by the way – his company, Momofuku, was already threatening a whole bunch of mom-and-pop stores by sending them cease-and-desist letters, just because they were calling their own products “chilli crunch”.
It is noteworthy that Lao Gan Ma – China’s favourite chilli sauce brand – has been successful and competitive without having to bully other businesses. Nor has it ever felt the need to prevent others from making the same product.
In the US, all Lao Gan Ma did was patent the words, letters and numbers on its logo. It didn’t even trademark the iconic picture of the auntie on the logo itself.
In case you were wondering, she’s the Chinese entrepreneur and Communist Party member Tao Huabi, founder of Lao Gan Ma. She’s a goddess, and a legend in her own right.
While Asian Americans are some of the most self-hating, passive and disunited people in the country, they have one bottom line you should never cross – their money, and their food.
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Chang’s actions predictably caused a huge uproar among the Asian diasporas, leading to him withdrawing his patent application and issuing an apology letter, in which he tried to weasel his way out of the controversy by making the issue about “chilli crunch” vs “chilli crisp” – which, as explained before, mean the same thing.
This sort of thing happens all the time, unfortunately. Just last year, Dior promoted a new line of skirts that was clearly a copy of the mamianqun (a traditional Chinese garment whose design dates back to the Ming Dynasty), and yet claimed it was an original design.
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Several years ago, when Disney made the movie “Coco”, they initially named it after the centuries-old Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which would have been fine had they not also attempted to trademark the name of the holiday itself.
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Culture rightfully belongs not to any private individual or entity, but to the people who created it, and those it is shared with. That’s why it is called the “public domain”. But that’s not how capitalists view the public domain. They see it as something to be conquered and rented out in small pieces to the public.
It is a very dehumanising and destructive way of thinking. This is why the conversation shouldn’t stop at David Chang and Momofuku. The system that favours that kind of behaviour and mindset must also be addressed.
Be the Rufus!
What, as a Canadian, could you not believe you had to explain to an American?
In my line of work, I interact with a fair number of Americans, but to be clear, I’m generally dealing with Executives who are very well educated.
In terms of those interactions about Canada, all I generally have to deal with is fairly minor misunderstandings of a more nuanced nature, such as an expectation that I must speak French…which I only speak very poorly!
But occasionally, I deal with folks “further down the ladder” and that has lead to some interesting conversations, and in fact just had one this week.
My wife is currently in Cuba with her bestie. I can not stand the heat down there, so she does a yearly girl’s trip.
During a conference call this week, we were talking about what we were going to do on the weekend; I mentioned the wife is in Cuba, so I also took the week off for a staycation, and I’m going to spend it with rum and Taco Bell, eating like I’m 20 again.
That got a laugh from most folks on the call, but one of the SysAdmins pipped up, and asked how it is my wife was allowed to go to Cuba. It took me a minute to understand what he meant, and then I remembered that Americans are not generally permitted to go to Cuba…at least directly.
I explained that the American restrictions on visiting Cuba only applied, to well, Americans. Canadians are free to travel to Cuba anytime they wish.
The SysAdmin was clearly confused, said as much, and for a moment, the call got uncomfortable. I cracked a joke on how it is that American laws do not apply to Canadians in Canada, and one of the Executives from the company joined in saying he would explain it later.
As far as I can tell, this SysAdmin seemed to honestly believe because there were American laws about traveling to Cuba, they must apply to everyone on the planet.
But again, in my experience, this sort of interaction is pretty rare.
Inflation killed the American dream
Yes. The American Dream is dead. These are valid points.
What is the most condescending advice you received from someone who assumed you were poorer or less educated than them?
I’m a “techie” and always have been. Middle management is a very rich breeding ground for condescending advice if you know your stuff and rarely wear a suit.
I was meeting in a consultancy role troubleshooting a product issue. Most meetings of more than four people are a waste of time so I generally wait for the vocal contingent to get their two cents in before participating.
So, I didn’t speak much, and worse, was in jeans, whereas this new middle manager spoke a lot, and wore a suit. He was obviously better than me so he felt free to disagree: I “hadn’t done my homework”, and advised that I should “actually look at the documentation” before venturing an opinion.
I’m normally happy to be wrong and so learn, in fact I’m known for it, so it was fully in character to ask that he show me the relevant documentation and so be educated. Sadly he had misremembered it, failed to bluster his way out, and I got to use my favourite line:
“That’s what I thought I wrote.”
In fact the company existed solely so that I could concentrate on producing the software they marketed and supported. I owned 60% of it, but I didn’t wear a suit!
Obviously poor and uneducated!
Regarding Taiwan
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It is very easy for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to liberate Taiwan by force, but no matter how precise the strike is, it will always cause Taiwanese casualties, which is something mainland China does not want to see.
Whether Taiwan’s future will be peaceful liberation or liberation by force depends entirely on the ideas of Taiwan’s rulers.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check.
By Pe.pe Esc.obar
APR 15, 2024
A little over 48 hours before Iran’s aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed , on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk :
The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Ryabkov added, “We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS.”
He then sketched The Big Picture:
Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington’s policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.
Here, concisely, we had Russia’s top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS – in the year of the multipolar organization’s Russian presidency – indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran’s back. Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January.
Iran is a BRICS+ member! -MM
Iran’s aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system.
This is Russia–China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move.
Ryabkov’s “we stay in constant touch” plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia–China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise “strategic patience.”
The morphing of “strategic patience” into a new strategic balance had to take some time – including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador’s residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
And don’t forget the Strait of Hormuz
Tehran did manage to upend the massive Western psychological operations aimed at pushing it into a strategic misstep.
Iran started with a misdirecting masterstroke. As US–Israeli fear porn went off the charts, fueled by dodgy western “intel,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made a quick sideways move, seizing an Israeli-owned container ship near the Strait of Hormuz.
That was an eminently elegant manoeuvre – reminding the collective west of Tehran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, a fact immeasurably more dangerous to the whole western economic house of cards than any limited strike on their “aircraft carrier” in West Asia. That did happen anyway.
And once again, with a degree of elegance. Unlike that ‘moral’ army specialized in killing women, children, and the elderly and bombing hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, and humanitarian convoys, the Iranian attack targeted key Israeli military sites such as the Nevatim and Ramon airbases in the Negev and an intel center in the occupied Golan Heights – the three centers used by Tel Aviv in its strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate.
This was a highly choreographed show.
Multiple early warning signs gifted Tel Aviv with plenty of time to profit from US intel and evacuate fighter jets and personnel, which was duly followed by a plethora of US military radars coordinating the defense strategy.
It was American firepower that smashed the bulk of what may have been a swarm of 185 Shahed-136 drones – using everything from ship-mounted air defense to fighter jets. The rest was shot down over Jordan by The Little King’s military – the Arab street will never forget his treachery – and then by dozens of Israeli jets.
Israel’s defenses were de facto saturated by the suicide drone-ballistic missile combo. On the ballistic missile front, several pierced the dense maze of Israel’s air defenses, with Israel officially claiming nine successful hits – interestingly enough, all of them hitting super relevant military targets.
The whole show had the budget of a mega blockbuster. For Israel – without even counting the price of US, UK, and Israeli jets – just the multi-layered interception system set it back at least $1.35 billion , according to an Israeli official. Iranian military sources tally the cost of their drone and missile salvos at only $35 million – 2.5 percent of Tel Aviv’s expenditure – made with full indigenous technology.
A new West Asian chessboard
It took only a few hours for Iran to finally metastasize strategic patience into serious deterrence, sending an extremely powerful and multi-layered message to its adversaries and masterfully changing the game across the whole West Asian chessboard.
Were the biblical psychopaths to engage in a real Hot War against Iran, there’s no chance in hell Tel Aviv can intercept hundreds of Iranian missiles – the state-of-the-art ones excluded from the current show – without an early warning mechanism spread over several days. Without the Pentagon’s umbrella of weaponry and funds, Israeli defense is unsustainable.
It will be fascinating to see what lessons Moscow will glean from this profusion of lights in the West Asian sky, its sly eyes taking in the frantic Israeli, political, and military scene as the heat continues to rise on the slowly boiling – and now screaming – frog.
As for the US, a West Asian war – one it hasn’t scripted itself – does not suit its immediate interests, as an old-school Deep State stalwart confirmed by email:
That could permanently end the area as an oil-producing region and astronomically raise the oil price to levels that will crash the world financial structure. It is conceivable that the United States banking system could similarly collapse if the oil price rises to $900 a barrel should Middle East oil be cut off or destroyed.
It’s no wonder that the Biden combo, days before the Iranian response, was frantically begging Beijing, Riyadh, and Ankara, among others, to hold Tehran back. The Iranians might have even agreed – had the UN Security Council imposed a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to calm the regional storm. Washington was mute.
The question now is whether it will remain mute. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, went straight to the point:
We have conveyed a message to America through the Swiss Embassy that American bases will become a military target if they are used in future aggressive actions of the Zionist regime. We will consider this as aggression and will act accordingly.
The US dilemma is confirmed by former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof:
We have got some 35 bases that surround Iran, and they thereby become vulnerable. They were meant to be a deterrence. Clearly, deterrence is no longer on the table here. Now they become the American’ Achilles heel’ because of their vulnerabilities to attack.
All bets are off on how the US–Israel combo will adapt to the new Iranian-crafted deterrence reality. What remains, for the historic moment, is the pregnant-with-meaning aerial show of Muslim Iran singlehandedly unleashing hundreds of drones and missiles on Israel, a feat feted all across the lands of Islam. And especially by the battered Arab street, subjugated by decrepit monarchies that keep doing business with Israel over the dead bodies of the Palestinians of Gaza.
A good mans worst fear
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
Not me but my brother. In 1975 we were living in Papua New Guinea a large island [the size of France] in the South Pacific. My brother was the commissioner of taxation. Papua New Guinea got independence in 1975 and as commissioner his job was to set up dual tax treaties with other countries. His first of course was Australia but then he took a team to Germany. About 10 Papua New Guineans and himself the only white face there. During the meetings which lasted for more than 2 weeks he spoke only English with the Germans and both English and pidgin [a local language which is made up of a mix of several languages and is not broken English as many assume] with his very bright teammates who had been clued in and played their part perfectly. The Germans spoke English with them but also discussed what they would offer amongst themselves in German saying things like “well we always give developing nations this but let’s swap it for something” etc. anyway after about 2 weeks with the talks practically completed the Germans came to him and said that his counterpart the head of German tax would like to have dinner with him but there was a problem, unusually for Germans he did not speak English but they could provide a translator, my brother who spoke 5 languages fluently answered “no problem I speak perfect German” all their faces fell and not a word of German was spoken again during the last few days of the conference. The dinner was excellent.
Half-Wit Foreigner BANGS OUT Mindanao
This guy just backpacks in the Philippines. He checks out small towns, back roads and stuff, and it is BEAUTIFUL. It reminds me of Pago Pago. Fun escapist video.
Oh… the babe on the splash image is just eye-candy. This is a real adventure video. Not a sex video. LOL. Take the time to appreciate those third world “cesspools” that the United States says is so poor and poverty ridden.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
My parents split when I was 9. Fast forward to age 11, and my dad was supposed to pick my sister and me up and drive us from Pennsylvania to Florida in June 1979 for a court-ordered child visitation.
A few days before we were supposed to leave, I awakened with a fever and some stomach pain in the morning. I’d felt fine the night before. Mom, who was now of course a single mother, had to go to work, and left me in bed with orders to call her if I got worse. My discomfort slowly grew throughout the day, but seemed to be subsiding when my worried mother got home in the afternoon. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“It still hurts, but only if I straighten out my legs,” I remember replying as I lay in bed.
“Dear Lord, you have appendicitis.” This was stated as a fact, and not a question. I could barely walk from the pain, so my mother carried most of my 120 pounds downstairs, out to the car, and into the emergency room at the local hospital. I was soon on a gurney and receiving x-rays, which showed nothing, but my fever and distress merited an exploratory abdominal surgery to see what was wrong, and I remember the doctor saying they’d take out my appendix while they were in there. My fever was climbing, and there was no time to waste. “It’s his appendix, Dr. Peguero! You’ll see!” I remember her telling the doctor shortly before I went under anesthesia.
Mom refused to leave the hospital until the surgery was done. It was, indeed, my appendix, which was about a foot long, gangrenous, and curled up behind my pelvis, which is why radiographs didn’t show it. It was minutes or hours from perforating, and was likely already leaking a small amount of infected fluid into my abdomen. My body temperature post-operation had climbed to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was given an alcohol bath in a room where the nurses opened the windows to let in the 47-degree June Pocono Mountain night air. I was kept in the hospital for nine days, a very long time for an appendectomy, because the fever was reluctant to subside completely.
Mom diagnosed me, and literally carried me to the car and into the ER. The doctor saw no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to ride in my father’s non-air-conditioned 1979 Renault LeCar all the way down I-95 a week or so after my discharge, to which my mother replied, “Doctor, if anything happens to him on that trip, I’ll sue you and this hospital for everything I can get.”
“In that case, there’s no way in hell he’s going to Florida,” was the doctor’s reply, and he immediately wrote an official opinion that the court accepted to keep me from making the trip that year.
Yeah, my mom’s still a badass when she needs to be.
Ah, the BACKROOMS
This is insane
16 of the top 20 top selling EV cars are Chinese.
China EV
As a female, what is the dating scene like after 50?
From the clowns I have to deal with, it’s an absolute circus.
Bachelor Number One is a small businessman making his fortune in the sales and marketing industry as a vendor of reduced-price luxury brand alternatives, available in a fine car trunk near you. He is in high demand by three exes and the county child support office.
Bachelor Number Two is a man of traditional values whose hobbies include guns, beer and how to combine the two. His apartment consists of a daybed, a black velvet painting of Jesus hugging a confederate flag, and a TV permaglued to One America News.
Bachelor Number Three isn’t a bachelor, but his wife gave him permission to behave like one after learning I’m back on the market.
Dating after 50 runs the gamut from crapshoot to shitshow. On the one hand, I’m probably getting propositioned more now than I did in my 30s or even in my 20s. On the other hand, a lot of those propositions are coming from guys who sell fake Gucci out of their cars or are uncomfortably nostalgic for 1952. And there’s no shortage of bored men looking for a side piece or a fling to spice things up, because older guys are more likely to still be married than the young professional rising in his field.
I’ve learned that I don’t so much have to lower my standards as to change them. Starting over has forced me to reevaluate my own relationship goals, and I’ve learned to look well beyond aesthetics. I’ve also grown far more wary; the guys who message me on dating sites who look like George Clooney at a Mediterranean resort are far more likely to look like someone in an offshore catfish gulag.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t have any obligation to put up with nonsense or abject stupidity. 20-something Elizabeth would have sat through a bad date with a frozen smile and a vague hope that the man’s redeeming qualities could eventually break through the clouds. 50-something Elizabeth will happily walk out in the middle of a date if the man turns out to be ignorant and poorly mannered. I’m just as capable of taking myself out to a nice dinner, and I certainly wouldn’t object to the company; I’m smart and cute, after all.
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Amman’s collaboration with Tel Aviv peaked last Saturday with its shocking defense of Israeli territory from Iranian drones and missiles, a move that may prove fateful for the future of the Hashemite Kingdom.
By Khalil Harb
APR 16, 2024
The most dangerous development during Iran’s massive 13 April retaliatory strike against Israel last weekend was the defensive military alliance – comprising the US, Britain, Jordan, and France – that coalesced to defend the occupation state.
Jordan has jumped to Israel’s full defense at a time when Arabs have never been more collectively outraged by its crimes.
Particularly notable was Jordan’s role in thwarting Iran’s incoming drones and missiles. The Hashemite Kingdom was the only Arab or Muslim state to act as Israel’s “firewall,” providing direct military protection for Tel Aviv within a multilateral, regional military framework.
Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia.
Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia.
Patterns and calculations of confrontations across West Asia will be readjusted to adapt to this new equation and others that have emerged in the region as alliances shift to and away from the west.
That includes the Axis of Resistance, which will likely reassess the expected range of responses in a future confrontation, given that western anti-missile capabilities are well spread throughout strategic locations – strategic sites from the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, Iraq, to the Al-Tanf base at the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border and from the Mashabim base in the Negev desert to the King Faisal base in northwestern Jordan.
Strategic shifts
Over the years, the Jordanian government has dramatically shrunk its commitments to the Palestinian cause and “Arabism.”
This can be traced from its 1968 “Battle of Dignity ” against Israel to 5 November, when King Abdullah II boasted of his country’s “success” in airdropping medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in the Gaza Strip, and now, quite stunningly, employing its air force to protect Israel’s security from retaliatory Iranian strikes.
This shift is not merely a reactionary measure but the culmination of years of extensive security and military coordination with the occupation state, as highlighted by a Jordanian opposition activist speaking to The Cradle. This deep-seated integration into anti-missile and drone operations reflects a strategic evolution rather than a spontaneous response.
Eyewitness reports from multiple sources to The Cradle describe the audible presence of warplanes over the Amman region, followed by the sound of explosions hours later when overhead projectiles were intercepted and downed.
One Jordanian witness relays that the suburb of Marj al-Hamam saw the most interceptions against Iranian drones and missiles, with debris reported across the area.
Jordanian writer and journalist Rania Jabari informs The Cradle that “citizens in Jordan have felt jammed on the GPS for about two weeks,” that is, since after the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Amid rising concerns about a swift Iranian counterattack through drone incursions, Israel reportedly initiated GPS jamming operations across several regional countries, including Jordan.
Jabari suggests that this electronic interference might have precipitated the Jordanian Air Force’s readiness to intercept any unauthorized aerial objects in its airspace, given the potential risks to national security from mistakenly guiding Iranian drones into Jordanian territory.
However, the Jordanian opposition activist casts doubt on the capability of Jordan’s Air Force – equipped with only about 60 older F-16 and F-5 aircraft – to single-handedly manage the response against hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles destined for Israel.
Regional repercussions
Supporting these suspicions, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Israeli fighter jets had intercepted drones launched by Iran in the airspace of Jordan and Syria.
The day after the Iranian Operation True Promise, the Jordanian government issued a vague statement, only saying that “some unidentified flying objects that entered our airspace last night were dealt with and intercepted to prevent endangering the safety of our citizens and inhabited areas.”
The statement conspicuously omitted any mention of the scale of involvement of the Israeli Air Force or the nature and role of US fighter jets participating in the operation.
Given the limitations of Jordan’s aerial fleet and the extensive geographic area these planes need to cover – a “firewall” stretching approximately 1,500 kilometers from western Iran to the occupied territories of Palestine – the involvement of international forces seems credible.
Additionally, Iraqi sources inform The Cradle that coalition forces had shot down about 30 drones and missiles over Iraq, with explosions heard in regions like Erbil, Najaf, Wasit, and Anbar. This indicates that a significant number of the drones and missiles traversed Jordanian skies, where they were intercepted before reaching their intended targets in Israel.
The role of the Jordanian Air Force is so significant that the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted an Iranian military source as saying, “Iran will monitor Jordanian movements, and if they cooperate with Israel, Jordan will be our next target.”
The source is said to have “warned Jordan and other countries in the region before the start of the attack against cooperating with the occupying entity.”
This statement seems to have aroused the ire of the Jordanian government. On Sunday, authorities summoned the Iranian ambassador in Amman to warn against Tehran’s “questioning of Jordan’s position.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also issued a statement saying that his government would “intercept any drone or missile that breaches our airspace, whether Iranian or Israeli.”
However, the Jordanian oppositionist questions the accuracy of Safadi’s statement, especially about his country’s readiness to confront a similar threat coming from Tel Aviv, noting numerous occasions when Israeli fighter jets infiltrated Jordanian airspace to carry out raids on Syria.
A history of betraying Palestine
Jordan’s historical antagonism towards Palestinian resistance dates back to the “Black September” massacres of 1970, aimed at expelling the PLO from the country – allegedly with the support of former King Hussein bin Talal, who reportedly received backing from Israel and the US.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s Air Force shot down and destroyed dozens of Jordanian aircraft. Following the 1994 Amman–Tel Aviv peace agreement, the two states have struck multiple defense deals, including Israel supplying Jordan with F-16 jets and Cobra helicopters.
Since the 1970s, when Israel supported Jordan during the Palestinian revolt against King Hussein, the two air forces have not engaged in combat. Israeli belligerence persists despite this. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, when asked about potential opposition from the Jordanian Air Force should Israel strike Iraq, then-retired Air Force Commander Avihu Ben-Nun boldly stated , “There would be no more Jordanian Air Force.”
It is very likely, moreover, that the western militaries involved in Israel’s defense last weekend utilized Jordanian bases. For example, US troops are stationed at the Mashabim air base in the Negev desert, supporting operations like the Iron Dome system.
Similarly, UK and French military forces are present at multiple strategic locations within Jordan, including the King Faisal Air Base in Al-Jafr and the Humaymah base near Aqaba, where they play roles in regional defense and run intelligence operations.
There are also French troops at King Faisal Air Base, known as Al-Ruwaished Base, which is close to Al-Tanf. From this base, activities involving espionage operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran are carried out through a state-of-the-art reconnaissance center, and its airport is believed to be used by both Israeli and US drones.
Sacrificing Jordan’s stability for Israel’s security
But Jordan’s relations and collaboration with Tel Aviv remain deeply unpopular among the country’s citizenry, with protestors amassing for weeks near the Israeli embassy in Amman – many of them subsequently subjected to repression and tight security restrictions by Jordanian authorities.
Adding to the pressure on Amman, the Iraqi resistance faction, Kataib Hezbollah, announced earlier this month its readiness to arm “12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions of bullets and tons of explosives, so that we can be united to defend our Palestinian brothers,” adding that it would seek to “cut off the [Jordan] land route that reaches the Zionist entity.”
By participating in the interception of Iranian drones, Jordan has made a significant contribution to alleviating some pressure off Israel, but one that comes with a much more significant domestic consequence for the stability of the kingdom.
Will Amman’s blatant alignment with Tel Aviv in this context prove to be politically detrimental for its monarch? In years to come, this decision may be viewed as a strategic error of gargantuan proportions. For now, Jordan’s political future and its position in regional politics remain uncertain – certainly as Tel Aviv and Tehran gear up for further confrontations.
King Abdallah can jump into the fray as he did last weekend and suffer through further waves of domestic and Arab outrage, or he can resolve to stay neutral and quiet – as many larger, more powerful neighbors chose to do – and let Iranians and Israelis adversaries fight their own battles
Backpacking trip in the Philippines
Take a vacation.
Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?
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.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
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
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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
Heat oil in heavy Dutch oven or stainless pot. Cook pork until it is white and braised on all sides.
Remove pork from pot.
Sauté whole, peeled cloves of garlic and onion in oil until onion is clear.
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.
Serve in flour tortillas with plenty of picante sauce.
Appreciation matters
Have you ever successfully bribed someone?
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
What are some mind-blowing psychological facts about males?
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?
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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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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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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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?
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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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.
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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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.
My mother’s husband after my (birth) parents got their divorce, was a man of great local wealth. A “big man” in the local community. He was quite the character.
He had 15 sons, and one girl. He was Catholic.
Don’t you know.
Anyways, after he passed on he give my brother a gift in his will.
No one knew what it was, and when we all took the truck to get it, we were all surprised.
It was a home liquor bar from the 1960’s during the Playboy age.
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It has girly glasses, swizzle sticks, and was able to control lighting with velvet and mirrors inside the cabinet. We boys all thought it was cool as fuck.
My sisters thought that it was stupid; old antique furniture. something that should be given away at a thrift store.
My mother… well she just *sighed*.
Gave it to my brother.
It looked a little bit like this, only shorter with more drawers, and a built in ashtray.
Still, my mother wanted us to throw it away.
Ugh! She didn’t appreciate it’s value like we (my brother and I) did.
Often my brother and I would muse about being a “playboy” like 007, and seducing women in our bachelor pad.
the playboy club bachelor pad
He has it today.
It’s in his “game room” / study. Perhaps, he goes to it every now and then and mixed up a Tom Collins, or a Whiskey Sour.
Today…
Rights in the United States
How do servers feel when someone only orders the cheapest item on the menu?
The cheapest item on a menu is often the most profitable. That is no coincidence. At the top of the menu will be a prime rib roast for $60. At the bottom is the fettuccine Alfredo for $17.99. The prime rib is called the anchor item. Believe me, it is there to scare you. They sell very few of them and don’t make much profit because of the high cost of the raw materials. So now, they’ve coaxed you to look at the cheapest item, the Alfredo. One chef revealed that a pasta dish at the bottom of his menu cost only 98 cents in ingredients, but was $17.99 on the menu. It was the most profitable item on the list, and the most popular dish they sell, especially when compared to the $60 steak that only brought in a couple of bucks profit.
Then there’s the wine list. It was designed by a restaurant psychologist. They know that a couple on a date will order a bottle of wine. But the guy doesn’t want to look cheap, so he orders the second cheapest wine. But guess what else? The owner knows that too, and the second cheapest wine has the highest margin!
A menu is full of tricks. Many of them funny, like no dollar signs and no decimals. Or burying the price in the description rather than putting it on a column to the right, where prices are easier to compare.
There are many, many more. Try searching “restaurant menu tricks”. Here’s one of them:
Do you sleep with your bedroom door open or closed? Why?
Until May 12, 2007, I didn’t worry whether my bedroom door was open or closed while I slept. Now, my bedroom door is closed and locked every night.
Tenth-grader Alec Kreider, entered the Haines’ family home while all were asleep and stabbed them. All their bedroom doors were open and their garage door was up.
When you look at his photo, Alec was just a kid.
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The only person to escape was the 19-year-old daughter. Alec didn’t know she’d returned from college that evening.
The Haines’ house was less than a mile from ours.
The police were at a loss to find the killer or even a motive for why this family had been killed. The police were vocal about what the area residents should do until the case was resolved.
It was during that month that we started locking the bedroom door. Finally, it became a habit that we continued even after Alec’s father drove his son to police headquarters.
Alec never disclosed why he killed a good friend of his and the parents. He pleaded guilty and there was no trial.
Edit:
Someone commented that the photo of Alec may have been when he was younger than the date of his arrest. I copied and pasted a photo so you could see how he looked on that day.
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Decline
What are good skills to learn before going to prison?
If you’re going to prison, you need to learn how to shut up. It’s normal that when we see injustice, we want to fix it. Did you see someone steal another man’s shoes while he slept? Just mind your own business. Learn to lock up your own shoes, or make them not worth stealing.
Confronting the thief is a bad idea. Maybe you’re pretty good in a scrap and think you could take the scumbag down.
Maybe you can. But what will you do when three of them show up at your bunk at 2:30 in the morning with their padlocks inside socks? Those heavy chunks of metal, swung at high speed inside the sock, hit hard. It’s an impromptu weapon that works just as well as something from a medieval battlefield. The only thing it lacks are the spikes, but the inmates will compensate for that with enthusiasm.
Next, you need to learn that your case is nobody’s business. Period. It’s tempting to want to talk about what you’ve been through.
Don’t.
Just don’t.
The reverse is even more true. Do not ask anyone else about their case. It’s none of your business, and the asking invites trouble.
Prison is a primitive culture. It’s all based on power and social status. In a way, it’s like we’ve never built a civilization at all, and are stuck in our shared simian ancestry without the civilizing influences of the feminine gender. Ask yourself, “What would Jane Goodall do?”
Observe. Understand. Don’t get involved.
Learn to lose yourself in an activity. If you’re not much of a reader, learn to become one.
Learn some useful skills. Learn to sew. The ability to repair your own things will save you money, and can make you useful to others.
Learn to make do.
Two years later, I still catch myself glancing in trash cans for useful things.
Learn introspection. Learn to understand who you are so that essence can be preserved. Your time in prison is temporary. One day, you will be headed either to the streets, or to the hereafter. Either way, you want to leave as a civilized human being the least scarred as possible.
My goodness!
Southern Afghanistan 2008.
Group of Taliban fighters ambushed a squad of Marines in my platoon on a night patrol. We were engaged in a firefight with them during the day and a squad was pushed out to search for them. Traditionally the Taliban would not engage us at night because we “own the night”.
This time however, when the Marines got close they lit multiple stacks of dried vegetation on fire washing out our NVGs with light. They also engaged the Marines with RPGs and automatic weapons from rather well hidden positions that were only a stone’s throw away. In fact, they happened to throw back grenades that were thrown in their direction. I was pushed up from the rear as aid and litter to retrieve a wounded Marine and the light show I saw that night was like watching star wars space battle.
The green and red tracers being exchanged over the sight and sound of explosions, smell of burning fuel and large flames was all so astonishing to experience. The Taliban impressed me that day. In my experience that was one of only the handful of times I experienced a night battle in my year and a half total of combat zone time. Their success was short lived however, you can imagine who eventually won that fight.
When you are on the way up…
The Mughal Empire was ruled by only one dynasty, but why doesn’t anyone call it the “Mughal dynasty”?
There is no word “empire” in ancient Chinese history
This word was introduced to China by Westerners, and then the Chinese began to use it.
Therefore, the Chinese customarily refer to all their ancient regimes as “dynasties” rather than “empires”
Now, there are some new changes in the definition of ancient Chinese regimes in academic circles.
Some scholars began to try to distinguish between “empires” and “dynasties” in ancient China
They called some powerful regimes that ruled the whole of China “empires,” while they called some small regimes that only controlled local areas “dynasties.”
For example, “Ming Empire”, “Tang Empire”, “Song Dynasty” and “Shang Dynasty”.
They believe that many large empires and more small dynasties were born in ancient China. Their reason is that with every regime established, the name of the country changes. There has never been a regime named “Middle Kingdom” or “Middle Empire” in Chinese history.
Some scholars also believe that according to Western definitions, China established its empire in 211 BC and lasted until 1912. During these 2000 years, China had only one empire. All regime changes are “dynasties” within this empire. The change of dynasties is actually the continuous collapse and reconstruction of this empire.
Their reason is: the establishment of each dynasty claimed to have inherited the “mandate of heaven” from the previous dynasty. They even passed down the seal made by the first emperor as a symbol of legitimate power.
I think there is no standard answer to this question, just a customary name
Important
When is China expected to surpass the USA economically? Will they also become a military superpower at the same time?
Wake up it has already!
China has a bigger economy based on the flawed GDP PPP measurement that favours the west measurement of values of smokes and bubbles. Such as Wall Street values and not real tangible human values. Yet even in this flawed and skewed to the west measurement China has already overtaken them since 2014. China have more men, more ships more planes more ammunitions and it has vital new technologies such as hypersonic missiles and superior drone and sonar technologies that render most of U.S. weapons useless for at least a decade now!
Interstellar | “Tidal Wave” Full Scene (Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey) | Paramount Movies
Doesn’t Putin realize he will be VAPORIZED 15 to 20 minutes after he launches his first missile?
How exactly?
Let’s say Putin nukes Kiev tomorrow
Do you think anyone would retaliate?
No
That’s because nobody would want the risk of Russia launching Nukes against them in a counter strike
The attitude of NATO would be
“Boy he is ready to launch nukes and annihilate everyone. If we launch a nuke against Putin, the world will be annihilated”
So the West won’t launch nukes and would do their best and prevent war
Even the Neocons would be stunned enough to sue for peace
It’s what Medvedev would have done
Launch a small low yield nuke capable of killing maybe 100,000 Ukranians in Kyiv and getting peace
Let’s say Putin nukes France
Half a Dozen Satans, destroying and vaporizing the entire nation
Would UK Or US risk launching nukes against Putin?
They would know for certain that if they did, Russia will launch a counter strike and millions and millions of their people will die including Mrs Biden or the Biden Grandkids or Mrs Sunak Or the Sunak Kids
I don’t think they will
They will have all their nukes ready for launch but will ensure that they somehow de escalate from a full on nuclear war
So i dont think any NATO nation will retaliate against Putin on behalf of another Nation because that would be certain death
Unless Putin hits US or US hits Putin, the risk of MAD is very little
Putin can destroy any other nation in the planet without fear of consequences of nuclear retaliation
Maybe China is too large and has a strong enough AD to manage to defend itself
So how to ensure there is no nuclear confrontation?
Each side has enough Pentagon or Kremlin Brass who know when to draw a line and prevent nuclear escalation
I love this
What are some psychological facts about girls?
People who understand sarcasm well are often good at reading peoples MIND.
A survey says that a person who likes to do the things which are “asked not to be done,” are sugar lovers. They like sweets more than anything in this world. 😉 If you know someone who is fond of sweets, get ready to face adventures.
68% of the people suffer from Phantom Vibration Syndrome, the feeling that one’s phone is vibrating when it’s not.
Depression can affect other parts of your body, potentially leading to other diseases, especially cardiovascular-related diseases.
Being alone for a long time or smoking 15 cigarettes a day, both are equally dangerous.
If someone is being a dick, tell them they have something in their teeth. That will make them feel self-conscious and weird, and should end their dickness. Works every time.
Unless you make peace with your past, you can never pave your future… so leave things that trouble you behind and focus on the future.
Having negative friends is linked to depression, lowered self-esteem, insomnia and anxiety. Positive friends promote good overall health.
While walking on a crowded street, keep looking to the path you want to go, most people will avoid getting in your way.
If you always thinking about someone and sometimes they randomly pop up in your head, they miss you and you are also on their mind 🙂
People who get angry very fast are under deep stress at that time and they need love and belonging immediately.
I heard this the other day. Apparently if you pick a word someone is using and smile each time they say that particular word, they will start to say the word more often.For example, someone is talking about dogs, and if you smile when they say *dog*, then they’ll say *dog* more often.
According to psychology, two effective ways to fight depression are exercising and spending time with pets.
Psychopaths say “um” more frequently in order to appear like a normal person.
If you announce your goals or tell someone else about them, you are less likely to accomplish them because of the lack of motivation and interest that now result from someone else being aware of your goals. Keep them to yourself!
People who talk to themselves are smart by nature.
If a girl is really into you then she will look at you secretly when the people around you both are laughing.
For developing a new habit, follow it for 21 days, it will eventually become a routine.
Most marriages are failing faster these days than at any other period in history, and most people actually believe that marriages don’t work anymore. According to studies, marrying your best friend eliminates the risk of divorce by over 70% and such marriages are more likely to last a lifetime.
Smoking tobacco and having an unhealthy diet causes cancer more than alcohol would.
One minute of anger weakens the immune system for 4–5 hours. One minute of laughter boosts the immune system for 24 hours.
Girls: An average man gets bored after 26 mins of shopping.
If you believe you are not good looking, you never will be good looking to others. (Seriously. It is like the Law of Attraction is in play a bit here.)
The closer you are in a relationship, the more you can read the other’s mind.
Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in there. The ones who accept you for who you’re.
Fuck Dude!
What was the stupidest thing someone has called the police on you for?
My ex-wife became convinced that I was hacking her home computer.
(Well, technically it was my computer, but it was an older one I’d left for her use after I’d moved out – a long, unhappy story.)
Among the many stupid parts of this claim, is that it was in the days of dial-up modems, where she could easily disconnect the computer from the internet. Hacking instantly prevented!
And, at that time, I don’t think’ spy-ware’ of that type even existed.
Also her son-in-law worked in IT, and could have easily installed standard security software for her. But I suspect he actually did that, and that she still thought she was being hacked.
The sad reality of the story is that she suffered from mental health issues, and constantly thought people were “out to get” her. Neighbours, (ex-)friends, co-workers, fellow church-members, etc.
Still, I was kind of surprised, 6 months after I’d moved out, when the police called to question me about “tampering” with her computer. They didn’t seem to give this much credibility, but I think they were obliged to follow-up, even know it was a waste of everyone’s time.
The irony is SHE had previously hacked MY email account, because she thought I had a secret girlfriend on the side. Nope, sorry – I was faithful to the bitter end.
(She also told people I was secretly gay – so which is it?)
What was your most embarrassing moment as a foreigner in another country?
6 months back, I was on a trip to China (related to work).
One fine day, I got late while coming back from work to my hotel. It was 9 PM.
An old lady called for me. She was sitting on the stones near footpath. When I approached her, she asked about where I was going. I told her that I was going to my hotel. She asked if she could come along.
I thought she might be worried because it was cloudy and dark. I agreed. We reached hotel and she followed me in. I thought she might be a guest at the hotel. But then she tried getting into my room as well on which I objected.
I had a feeling that something was wrong, as we had been communicating mostly in sign language as she spoke very little English. I called reception and asked them for help ASAP.
The reception guy came. I told him that I found this granny while coming to the hotel. But she’s following me every where. It would be nice if he could translate for me. He said something to her in Chinese and started giggling. He asked her to follow him.
I went downstairs for dinner in 20 minutes. The girls at the dining space started laughing when they saw me. I smiled back.
After my dinner, I went to the reception guy to ask why everyone was laughing at me. He told me that the granny was a call girl. And I was innocent enough not to understand that.
He told me that the girls were not laughing but feeling amused at my innocence. What a nice way to tell someone he messed up big.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs of U.S. Victoria Nuland has retired. according to a statement issued by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Victoria Nuland has let me know that she intends to step down in the coming weeks as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – a role in which she has personified President Biden’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy and revitalize America’s global leadership at a crucial time for our nation and the world. Victoria’s tenure caps three and a half decades of remarkable public service under six Presidents and ten Secretaries of State,” was noted in the Statement. (HT REMARK:The Witch is out . . . . this seems extremely peculiar to me; especially the timing of it, given the Ukraine-Russia thing going on. Perhaps this is a sign the entire Ukraine fiasco is going to be brought to an abrupt end???)
Bravery
What’s the most incompetent instance of bullying you’ve ever seen?
Actually, it happened to me.
I was a tiny ten-year-old and was often mistaken for eight. My bully was about twelve and was big for his age. He beat me up almost every day on the way home from school. One day, I’d had enough.
He came after me. I bent, darted under his arm, grabbed the back straps of his sandals and felled him like David did Goliath. He got up, stunned, then looking down at his sandals, (yes, the big bad bully wore sandals) cried, “You broke my sandals!” and began to cry and ran, I assumed, home. But that’s not the best part.
The next day I, the bully and his parents, were called into the principal’s office. When his parents saw me, their jaws dropped. There sits their big, strapping son, and I, a tiny, tiny blonde little girl. Nevertheless, they began yelling about my beating up their son, blah blah blah.
Now, the principal had noticed that I had been coming to school with black eyes, bruises and scratches, and unbeknownst to me, had begun to investigate…end result, sandal boy got suspended for one week.
Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of victory! He never bullied me again – nor did anyone else!
Good Advice
Honey Mustard Pork Tenderloin
Mustard Pork
Ingredients
Pork
1 pound pork tenderloin
Glaze
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoons mustard
1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper
Instructions
Place pork on a greased rack in a baking pan lined with foil.
Combine glaze ingredients in a bowl, set aside 3 tablespoons glaze. Spoon remaining glaze over pork.
Bake uncovered at 400 degrees F for 28 minutes or until done, basting occasionally with reserved glaze.
Let stand for 5 minutes before slicing.
Fun Facts
Your tongue length is related to your sexual curiosity. Those who can lick their elbows are more willing to try new experiences.
If you have a crush on someone, your brain will find it impossible to lie to that person.
People who understand sarcasm well are often good at reading people’s minds.
The way you dress is linked with your mood. So dressing well most often helps in keeping you more stably happy.
Women with higher IQs have a harder time finding a mate.
The cells in your body react to everything your mind says. So negativity brings down your immune system and you feel sick.
The most you talk about someone, the more are you likely to fall in love with that person.
We believe what we WANT to believe.
Men are not funnier than women: they just make more jokes, not caring whether other people like their humor or not.
Listening to high-frequency music makes you feel calm, relaxed, and happy.
Dogs being dogs
Why did the rapid rise of China catch many in the west by surprise?
The West had a good nice plan for China
Give them all the Capitalism they needed, flood them with Dollars, bring them into the WTO, flush their economy with green currency, create more billionaires
Then ultimately use that Capital and those billions to control the country
They had a ready made plan
Chinese would have all the money they wanted
China would be dependent on the US system
China would make their currency convertible
Slowly US Institutions would buy shares and stakes in Chinese Banks, Chinese Companies
Slowly US would invest into the Chinese stock markets and make the Shanghai bourse dependent on Wall Street
The ultimate plan was to make China – a mirror of South Korea
An Economy fully controlled by Western Capitalism like most of the other Lackey economies
In fact a US Think Tank American Foreign Policy Council set out objectives of this nature as early as in 1994
They expected China to be fully enmeshed to the US Capitalist system by 2019 , ie:- in Twenty Five years
Xi Jingping stunned them
He regulated the tap of capitalism flowing into China
Rather than creating more billionaires, he ensured the capitalism and capital flow benefited more middle class Chinese and Rural Chinese
Rather than build a castle based on speculation, he ended speculation and focused on building actual development
He diverted all that green money into SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY and ENGINEERING
In short he did something the West never expected
He increased anti corruption policies
He focused heavily on the lower income Chinese
So China used all that money from the US System to build their own financial system as far away from the US as never before
They used the Capitalism to build global connections through the BRI
The US could do little but stare in IMPOTENT FURY for almost a decade from 2008–2018 because of the Global Financial Crisis and it’s aftermath
By that time China had leaped and jumped and done a lot to put itself out of immediate harm, otherwise by 2012–2013 you would have had a plaza accords 2.0 with China
Today Chinas model is so unique that the West has failed in its objectives
The West supplied China with capitalism to control them and now China with the same capitalism has built it’s own ecosystem that threatens to one day surpass the West
Another is Putin
They flooded him with capital and created oligarchs to control him
He grinned, complied and when he was strong enough
The oligarchs simply disappeared
Russian oligarchs
Excellent purging
One morning Oligarch goes to a walk, collapses
His tame militia are all in jail Or sadly killed in a terrorist strike
The Oligarch was blue when he died. Some nice Novichok.
His sons make a rushed deal with the state and run out of Russia shivering before accidents happen to them too
That’s it – The State, Mother Russia takes over Billions of Dollars of Resources stolen by the Oligarch funded with US banks for pennies on the Dollar
Gutter scum are purged like rats
What a man!!!!
Today?
Putin is the undisputed Tsar of Russia and Russia has discarded the West like a used condom
Next in the line is mostly Saudi Arabia
So be ready for hearing stories on BBC related to MBS committing some bogus genocide and sanctions on Saudis for some vague reason
Victoria Nuland has let me know that she intends to step down in the coming weeks as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – a role in which she has personified President Biden’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy and revitalize America’s global leadership at a crucial time for our nation and the world. … [I]t’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come. Her efforts have been indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marshaling a global coalition to ensure his strategic failure, and helping Ukraine work toward the day when it will be able to stand strongly on its own feet – democratically, economically, and militarily. … President Biden and I have asked our Under Secretary for Management John Bass to serve as Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs until Toria’s replacement is confirmed.
Victoria Nuland, a member of the neo-conservative Kagan clan, is only 62 years old – too young to retire regularly. She will be remembered for handing out cookies to anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine and for installing the 2014 coup regime. That has been her main project in the State Department. But the 2014 Maidan putsch that turn the Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia, has ended in a complete failure. Neither was Russia ‘weakened‘ by the war nor has Ukraine any perspective to survive but as some Russian controlled land-locked backwater country in Europe’s east. Given that billions were spent on Ukraine with little controls and nothing to show for Nuland, and her family, have certainly made a bit on the side. One wonders if any of the ongoing and coming investigations into the black hole Ukraine will leave them unscarred. As even Guardian commentators are now waking up to the mess they helped create it is high time for European politicians to also finally accept this reality:
Western Europe has no conceivable interest in escalating the Ukraine war through a long-range missile exchange. While it should sustain its logistical support for Ukrainian forces, it has no strategic interest in Kyiv’s desire to drive Russia out of the majority Russian-speaking areas of Crimea or Donbas. It has every interest in assiduously seeking an early settlement and starting the rebuilding of Ukraine.As for the west’s “soft power” sanctions on Russia, they have failed miserably, disrupting the global trading economy in the process. Sanctions may be beloved of western diplomats and thinktanks. They may even hurt someone – not least Britain’s energy users – but they have not devastated the Russian economy or changed Putin’s mind. This year Russia’s growth rate is expected to exceed Britain’s. The crass ineptitude of a quarter of a century of western military interventions should have taught us some lessons. Apparently not.
Have you ever accidentally interrupted a crime in progress?
I came out of the shower at a truck stop once, to find that the cashier was being robbed at gunpoint.
It was about two in the morning and the truck stop was otherwise dead.
I very quietly sat my shower bag on the floor, ducked my way over to where the truck stop sold tools and found a tire-thumper. I then snuck up behind the robber and thumped him as hard as I could on his shoulder, right where his shoulder met his neck. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The truck stop’s owner was so grateful, that he gave me a hundred dollar gift certificate to use in his store. He also gave me the tire-thumper, which is essentially a smaller version of a baseball bat, both as a thank-you for saving his store from being robbed, and likely his employee’s life, too.
I was also thanked by the town’s sheriff (it was a small town in west Texas), and the local gazette took my picture. I was also given an honorable mention by the trucking company I worked for at the time.
The robber was taken to hospital and then later, presumably, to jail. I’d walloped him a good one, later learning that I’d hit him so hard, that I’d broken his right collar bone, from hitting him from behind!
Interstellar | Docking Scene
Cabbage Rolls
Cabbage Rolls SQ RC 1100×1100
Ingredients
12 large leaves cabbage
1 cup cooked white rice
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup minced onion
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Boil cabbage leaves 2 minutes, just until pliable; drain.
In large bowl, combine rice, egg, milk, onion, ground beef, salt and pepper.
Place about 1/4 cup of meat mixture in center of each cabbage leaf, and roll up, tucking in ends. Place rolls in slow cooker, seam side down.
In a small bowl, mix together tomato sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over cabbage rolls.
Cover, and cook on LOW for 8 to 9 hours.
Great quote
Have you ever met someone for the first time and got the strongest feeling that the person was bad?
One of my coworkers at (a) job, retracted information to protect all parties, just wasn’t feeling right. He hired in just fine, passed all the drug tests etc. He seemed ok, but my problem gut feeling was there. I first attributed it to simply his demeanor, and I try to hire all people just as much as normal since I too am slightly autistic. But after watching him interacting with customers and coworkers, I knew something just wasn’t kosher. He was very polite to them, but then on his way back to get something I would often hear him berate them. He said some pretty horrible things about people, after he was the most polite and sincere person ever to their face. I really had no true grounds to terminate him, after all he was following all rules and was showing up for work on time. I had to keep his personal business to myself and him. Other workers began complaining over time though, especially the ladies, so I had a talk with him. What he said during that talk shook me to the core. He was middle eastern, so women to him were property, nothing more. He just wasn’t able to overcome his way of life and beliefs. I sternly told him all people from every type and corner, including himself, were protected under strict laws in the US. If he had any chance of enjoying life here and being able to stay in this country, he needed to learn that women were equal to men and were NOT property that he could push around.
He didn’t like that one bit. He retorted that in his country I should and would be punished or killed, to which I stated “Ok, that was just a direct threat to me my friend, you need to leave NOW. You are terminated effective immediately”. His response was I was not the head boss, and I had no authority to fire him. I retorted back that in threatening situations, such as any employees making any type of threat or violence against another, any manager was well equipped to call the authorities and have him immediately fired and removed from our premises. One call to my head boss was all it took. When he heard this, I think it clicked in his head he was not in his country, and he was stepping way beyond his bounds. He quickly settled down, a small sorry might have escaped his lips, but the damage was done. With several women testifying against him, we had no choice but to let him go. I made the phone call, and of course I was told that my decision was valid. I had it on speaker for him to listen to. I watched as a good bit of color wiped away from his face. I then told my boss, as he was sitting there listening, that everything was recorded on our security camera for the office. If any questions arose, she had the footage. She promptly set a do not erase for that camera footage.
So, I hang up the phone and look him square in the eyes. “Are you leaving quietly or am I needing to contact our local sheriff? “. No, I will go. ” Ok, no problems ever again from you at this location right? A tresspass will land you in jail and deportation out of our country. “ His expression said it all, like oh crap I just screwed up really bad. Rather than even deal with him again, I quickly counted up his hours he had worked for the week and paid him (with receipt) right there. Then I escorted him off our property. On my way back I heard him mumbling again under his breath. Probably trying to figure out how to have me killed. I was very glad to have him dealt with. I admit i was a tad scared he might actually try something, but I was hoping his visa meant more to him than being disrespected. We didn’t have any issues that I am aware of.
This Is Not A Drill | Captain Phillips
Why did the rapid rise of China catch many in the west by surprise?
The rapid development and rise of China in the past few decades has been reflected in the rapid economic growth, the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, the huge changes in infrastructure and the continuous improvement of social welfare. These achievements have been made through the firm determination and unremitting efforts of the Chinese government, and have also brought important influence and opportunities to the world. These achievements have taken the world by surprise and many people in the West by surprise and unprepared.
First, geographically, China is so far away from the West that many Westerners don’t understand China.China is located in the Eastern Hemisphere. Westerners have to travel a long way to reach China. And because of the distance, not many Westerners would travel to China unless they were curious and looking for adventure. And the Western media portrays China in a very negative light, leading many people to distrust China’s rise.
As a netizen in the United States described, in the 1990s, he could not have predicted that only 20 years later, China would become the world’s second largest economy, that some Chinese technology companies would rank among the world’s most valuable companies, and that food stalls in China could pay by scanning the QR code on their mobile phones. And policy makers in Washington and Brussels are still asking whether China’s growth is real or fake.
Second, in political terms, China’s rise challenges Western institutional ideas.
For a long time, many people in the West have had the basic idea that a country can succeed economically only by embracing Western liberal democracy and capitalism. Only with the Western model of development can a country be rich and strong, and there is no other model. As Francis Fukuyama concluded in his famous essay The End of History, “Liberal democracy is the ultimate form of government for all nations”.
Even though the Chinese economy has been growing on a rapid basis for many years, the West is still dismissive, they are completely distrustful of the data coming out of China, and none of them think this growth is sustainable. That’s why there are “scholars” like Gordon Chang who dedicate their lives to convincing the public that China’s economy is about to collapse.
China’s success is proof that a country does not need to copy Western institutions to become rich and powerful. Westerners find it inconceivable that the Chinese people, whose way of thinking and way of life are so different from those in the West, can still build such a big economy in the world. For the time being, Westerners have not accepted that a non-European white country can become as developed as a white country.
Since the Middle Ages, no nation has ever grown up in peace. Great powers like England, Spain, Germany, Japan, and the United States have all grown up on the backs of others. However, the Chinese government holds high the banner of peaceful development and dominates China’s economic development model. Coupled with its unique political system and cultural differences, China’s rapid economic development and peaceful rise have resulted in a lack of understanding and expectation of China’s rapid rise in the West.
Third, from an economic point of view, China’s rapid development surprises Westerners.
It took China less than 60 years to go from nothing to second place in the world in terms of GDP. It took just 70 years for 1.4 billion Chinese to lift themselves out of poverty. Since 2010, when China surpassed Japan for the first time to become the world’s second largest economy, China’s annual GDP has been more than four times Japan’s total GDP. It took the United States one or two hundred years to modernize, while China has become amazing in just 30 years!
In 2022, the world’s steel production will reach 1,878.5 million tons, of which China will account for 1,013 million tons. China will have 5.35 million kilometers of highways in 2023, an increase of 1.12 million kilometers in 10 years; China has 177,000 kilometers of expressways, ranking first in the world. China’s high-speed railway has gone overseas. Indonesia’s Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway has been fully opened to traffic, with a speed of 350 km/h. China’s space industry has developed rapidly, from unmanned flights to manned flights, from one person for one day to more than one person for many days, from in-cabin experiments to out-of-cabin activities, from single-ship flights to sky surveys at the space station… Over the past 30 years or so, the Chinese people have taken a confident and leisurely walk in space. In 2023, China will surpass the United States in the number of patent applications, ranking first in the world.
Fourth, from a cultural point of view, Westerners are reluctant to accept the rise of Asian civilization in their hearts.
Since the Industrial Revolution, Westerners have liked to think that they are the world’s leading civilization to the exclusion of others. While Britain was the world’s superpower and the world’s policeman, the wealth and industry were all in Europe. Europeans accepted the “rise of Britain” because British people looked like them. After World War II, when British power and wealth declined, the US took the lead, and the wealth and industry were all in the US. Americans and Europeans were happy with that because Americans looked like them. When Japan’s economy grew rapidly to become the second largest in the world in the 1980s, the West could not accept it and imposed extremely severe restrictions and repression on the Japanese economy. Now, with China’s rapid development and peaceful rise, the world’s wealth and industry are shifting to China and Asia, and although it is not there yet, it is clear that wealth is shifting to Asia. This time, Chinese people don’t look like Americans or Europeans, and in their stereotype of Asian development is relatively backward, so they are reluctant to accept this rise.
All in all, in recent decades, the Chinese people have adhered to the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, persisted in reform and opening up, and worked hard to develop their own politics, economy and culture. They have forged ahead and achieved a rapid rise, which has surprised many people in the West. However, China’s peaceful rise will be a boon to the Chinese people and a boon to people around the world.
What’s the most “small town” thing you’ve witnessed?
Here in Hong Kong… people think it’s like this.
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Or this
small town HK
But I live in the countryside.
It kind of looks like this
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We have a problem with wild animals. Wild pigs are absolutely everywhere and eat the trash. Most locals who live here shrug and think meh, but visitors are all OMG a wild pig.
We also have massive snakes.
main qimg e033dbaa59588ecba4d8c7b645e25e88
Oh and rats, huge fucken rats as big as cats. A couple years ago when she was younger nobody batted an eye when my mum grabbed a massive rat by it’s tail and smashed it on the ground into a bloody mess. A wild dog came along and ate it shortly after.
Ukraine SINKS Russian Navy Ship Sergey Kostov in Kerch Strait
The Defense Intelligence of the MOD of Ukraine (GUR) in a statement say that they ‘sunk’ a ‘$65 million’ Russian patrol ship named ‘Sergey Kotov’ near the Kerch Strait using Magura V5 naval drones. The vessel was a 22160 Bykov-class corvette, seen in the FILE PHOTO below:
Sergey Kotov
As of Tuesday morning, traffic on the Kerch Strait Bridge is still stopped; no vehicles are permitted to cross it. No one is saying if the attack last night, which was reported by this website (HERE), damaged the bridge or not. Dmitry Medvedev, writing on his Telegram channel, confirmed the story: “Overnight, Ukraine’s naval drones found the Russian Navy stealth patrol ship Sergei Kotov in the Kerch Strait by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, damaged her stern and both sides and sank her.”
Real talk
Have you ever seen a kid and just thought “Well, they’re doomed”?
Yes. Trigger warning: offensive language.
I work as an anaesthesiologist. I put kids off to sleep all the time for surgery. Having had anaesthetics myself as a child—and hated them—I go to elaborate lengths to make the experience as manageable as possible for every child.
This begins with talking directly to the kid, rather than talk to the parents as if they’re not there. I try to gain a little of their confidence and trust. I talk on their level. I make jokes. I don’t lie or use euphemisms.
I usually give kids gas to breathe to go to sleep. For younger kids, I tell them a story as they go to sleep. For older kids, I show them a funny video on YouTube. Using my techniques, most kids are calm and cooperative when they go to sleep. Inevitably some balk at the smell of the gas, and some are so anxious that they won’t engage with me; but I never restrain a child without consent from the parent.
This particular wee lad was 7. He was accompanied by his grandmother. He was well, but Gran said vaguely that he had some behaviour problems at school. He didn’t really want to talk to me, but I did my best with my usual routine.
We get into the operating theatre, and get him on the table (soft foam mattress, cosy blanket, Gran holding his hand). I gently hold the mask and start the story. After a few breaths of the gas, his whole demeanour changed. He started saying “No, no, no” and pulled the mask off. As usual, I try to be gentle, so I tried to reapply the mask with some reassuring words.
“Fuck that!” he shouted. “This is mental!” He sat up and started to climb off the table. The nurse came over to help and he shouted “Fuck off, you nigger!”
He climbed off the table. His face was contorted in pure hatred and hostility. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such hatred in a child’s face. He was lashing out with his fists.
I hate restraining children. (Anaesthesiologists seem to like to lie to parents and say “Don’t worry; they won’t remember this”. I know this to be a lie because I remember what happened to me as a child—so I don’t say it.)
The only alternative is to abandon the procedure. Gran (very reasonably) didn’t think this was the right move. So we restrained him. All the time he was fighting and screaming insults and profanities. (I believe nigger was the most offensive word he knew, because nobody in the room had very brown skin).
Kids are afraid; I get that. Sometimes they pick up on their parents’ fears (or memories!); I get that too. Sometimes children cannot be reasoned with and we need to restrain them so we can put them to sleep for surgery which is necessary. But usually what they react with is fear and avoidance.
This kid, just below the surface, was carrying a truckload of hatred and aggression, which he could not control—at the age of 7. Had this kid been terribly brutalised? Was his Gran with him because his parents were not around for some reason? I could never find out.
Of course I’m extremely unlikely to ever see that kid again. I’ll never find out how his life unfolds, but if he reacts to every threatening situation with the same level of violence and hostility, he’s really going to hurt someone, or himself, and that’s only going to get worse as he gets older, and bigger, and runs into the testosterone poisoning of puberty.
I hope I’m wrong.
Edit: Of all the content in this answer, which has generated a lot of traffic and commentary, by far the most contentious seems to have been my use of the phrase “testosterone poisoning”.
I intended this to be a tongue-in-cheek, metaphorical use of the word “poisoning” to represent the effect that testosterone has on the behaviour of young men: it tends to make them more aggressive, more impulsive, and more likely to take risks. None of these are attributes which are likely to improve the behaviour of this particular young man, for whom puberty lies ahead. Testosterone levels rise very sharply at puberty and this is at least one of the causes of emotional turbulence during that period.
I didn’t mean to imply that testosterone is literally a poison. I do recognise that male puberty is a normal part of male development. I am not being sexist in my answer or attacking the male sex. I reject any notion that using this particular phrase is a sign of my unprofessionalism, or my unsuitability to perform my job well.
Lordy
What is the biggest “I’m definitely fired” thing you’ve done at work, but nobody ever found out?
Well, everybody found out, from the ambulances, police cars, and fire-trucks that showed up. The plume of smoke could be seen for miles.
I was 18, doing a summer job after my freshman year, working at a recycling plant where OSHA and the EPA seemed to have no jurisdiction for whatever reason. On my first day of work, I was the “Fireman” on a job of taking the tops off of passenger rail cars and turning them into flatcars. Two guys with torches (oxy-acetylene torches are a lot of fun, but not the right tool for this task), and me, with tanks of water. See smoke? Douse it. See fire? Really douse it. Too simple of a plan. By lunch our first rail car was enflamed, our of control of me (or the fire-trucks that showed up!).
I figured I had screwed up royally, but by honestly reporting what we had done, how it went wrong, and refusing to talk to the Police or Firemen and referring them to the boss, I kinda came out a hero. I got a raise, and the most fun summer job I ever had.
Chopsaw, no training, check.
944 forkloader (carry three cars) and borrow a 966 (carry 5 cars), no training, check
Forklift built in the 50’s we ran on oil we sometimes drained from cars, no training, check
Shears. Electric eight inchers for cutting ordinary pipe and such, and the beastly six foot shears ran by a Ford 351 until I cut an International Harvester Jeep-like thing in half to power it when the 351 gave out, check.
My own oxy-acetylene rig when the metal would only listen to fire? check.
Really now that I know more about stuff (BA, couple of MAs) attacking that rail car with reciprocating saws (“SawzAlls”) would have been the way to go. It was just plain dumb to try it with torches. But by keeping my cool, I got the best job in the recycling plant, played with some incredibly beastly toys, and destroyed a lot of things in ways that mad my boss look good.
Oh, we probably violated darn near every EPA and OSHA regulation that is on the books. But that summer was fun.
Poland
Why is the reoffend rate so high for ex-inmates in the United States?
Here’s how the “justice” system works in the US:
Imagine a huge playground with millions of children having fun. Every once in a while, one of the kids does something that’s against The Rules. Maybe he tosses sand at someone, uses bad words, or walks up the slide. Maybe he’s just *accused* of breaking The Rules.
Instead of giving this kid a good talking to, we pick him up and drop him down one of the many open wells we have on this playground. He’ll have to spend a few hours down that well, with all the other kids that have broken The Rules.
What do you suppose our little rule breaker learns down in that well? Do you think he’s hard at work becoming a better person? Hell no. The other bigger and meaner kids are busy making him worse. When the little tyke’s time is up, we pluck him from the well and drop him right back on the playground with no special instruction or help. He’s lost all his toys and whatever place in line he may have had.
Every parent within a hundred yards is watching him because he just got out of the well. He’s a “known offender,” and those are fun to watch because they so often act out while trying to regain their toys or place in line.
On top of that, we’ve cooked up a few rules that will only apply to those that’ve been in the well…
How do you think that’ll go? Do you suppose he’ll be caught reoffending?
Of course he will. Is he more likely to offend than other kids? Maybe. But even if he didn’t pick up any bad habits in the well, he’s more likely to be accused of something because he’s being watched more closely *and* he now has more rules to comply with.
It’s so often the case that our “solution” has created more of what we sought to eliminate.
No sex realities
What is an example of a dirty trick that a thief tried but backfired when they saw your dog?
Not a dog, but a cat. There is a young woman in my neighborhood who uses a wheelchair. She lives alone except for her cat. It is clear that a disabled person lives in her home with a wheelchair lift in the back.
She woke up one night when she heard a rustling in her bedroom. A young guy was going through her drawer looking for jewelry. He had her laptop in his hand. She saw a pistol stuck in the back of his pants. She froze, trying not to move and alert him that she was awake. She was terrified. There was no way for her to get away from him. She feared for her life.
He sensed she was awake and took the pistol out of his waistband. He cocked it and headed to the bed with the pistol pointing at her. When he leaned over her bed, pistol aimed to kill, her cat leapt onto his head. She started kitty karate on his face, shredding what might have been good looks with her claws. He ran screaming out of the house with a furious feline on his head. The cops found eye guts in the driveway.
The cat saved her life. Hard to feel sorry for a one-eyed guy willing to rob and kill a helpless victim. Kitty got lots of treats and is living the good cat life.
I’m glad you are learning
Old Man in the Cafeteria
An old man just dropped his papers. The young black woman in the absurd fur hat had just told him, “No.” In his nervousness, he spilled all that he was carrying. She wouldn’t help him pick up his papers any more than she would grant his request. She stands, shoulders straight, face forward, and watches him, her eyes cast downward – impassive and uncaring.
What was his request? Something minor. For someone who has been here as long as he has – since the Reagan administration – it had to be something minor. He knows better than to ask for anything that will require much more than a nod of her head.
The old man stoops to pick up his papers. He’s shaking, but I don’t know if it’s from age or the confrontation of the moment. His legal papers, a jumble of typewritten pages, handwritten notes, and official envelopes, contain his proof – proof of how he has been wronged – proof of how the system has failed him. I know this because I have a pile of papers just like his with its official court seals and signatures of attorneys who can afford me no more of their time.
He carries his jumbled pile to a nearby table where he takes pains to straighten it and remove the filth from the cafeteria floor. He returns the papers to a folder crafted from a box which once held a dozen cans of grape soda – trash pressed into service to contain and protect his most cherished possession: his hope.
A judge destroyed his life one day. A judge took away his future and condemned him to age behind walls, to die slowly outside the view of his friends and relatives.
This is nothing new. Every prisoner here knows this. Every man here has been through the process. Plead guilty to a crime you may not have committed, or exercise your “Right to a trial,” lose to an opponent with unlimited resources, and be punished four or five times worse for having the audacity to say, “I didn’t do that!”
This is justice in America:
Prosecutors who wield more power than judges and use the threat of extreme sentences to force the innocent to confession;
Judges who follow guidelines set by a congress eager not to appear “soft on crime;”
Defense attorneys who are as cowed by the system as the defendants and can only help by showing you where to sign your confession;
Corporations who profit from our policy of mass incarceration by supplying goods to the prisons, or even the prisons themselves;
Guards who supply drugs, cigarettes, and favors to inmates with the resources to make it happen, or who use their authority to express their hatred or racism.
The old man will try again. He’ll approach someone else when another month of his dwindling reserve of life has passed and the sting of the disinterested woman is gone.
Thirty, forty years eventually pass and then the old man will be cast onto the street, his family gone, friends dispersed. He’ll have no money and may even owe a huge fine. Too frail and elderly to work, he’ll find a bridge to keep the rain from his blankets.
Containing China: US Using Taiwan as East Asian “Ukraine”
During my (ours, including my wife) time that I refer to as the “out in the wilderness” period, we had many unique experiences. This period of time was right after I left the United States Navy as an aviator, and joined the ONI as a MAJestic operator. I was a shared resource, and reported directly to Domain. Which I still do.
At that point in time, I was “aimless”. Unemployed at the height of a major recession, homeless, married and living in a van. Moving from town to town finding work. Always the call of California called me to Ridgecrest…
Anyways, I got a job as a short-order cook at a family-owned restaurant in the town of San Louis Obispo. I worked from five in the morning to around 2:30 in the afternoon.
I worked just above minimum wage, but I got to keep the tips (which varied from a dollar to sometimes $20) and I could take home what ever leftover daily specials were available.
Now, remember… at that time, I was a Naval Aviator. The top 1% of the 1% and I did have a degree in Aerospace Engineering, and I WAS a “rocket scientist”. But in the working world.
And of course, I had traveled off-world to Mars (and the Moon), and I was interacting with Domain.
But that meant nothing.
Especially at that time in California, I was judged by how much money I made. What job I held. What car I drove. What clothes I wore, and what neighborhood that I lived in.
Not what I knew.
Not what I experienced.
Not what I was capable of.
Not how good I was, not what my experiences were, and not what I knew. And so, well, I was treated horribly by the owner of the establishment.
She called me “dingle berry”. That was her name for me.
“Dingleberry” is a slang term for a piece of dried poop that clings to the hairs in your anus or gooch region. When you don’t remove all the fecal remnants from your bum after a bowel movement, they coagulate into a crumb-like substance about the size of a sprinkle or Dippin’ Dot.
At that time, I took the insults. Over and over. And when her son would point at me and say (to his mother), “Don’t worry, I’ll never end up as a loser like him” I took it.
Punching bag MM.
You do what you need to do to survive.
So whenever I hear entitled Gen-Z making fun of others, or screaming that they “can’t handle a 40 hour work week” I scoff and think to my self… “you have no idea, Honey. Not a clue”.
You endure. And, you survive.
You give up, and you die.
Even if the insults pummel you relentlessly on a daily basis. You need to keep forging ahead, step by step.
He was probably in his twenties, blonde and gorgeous and had been teaching six months at the language center where I was a trainer and supervisor. His American background showed no teaching experience nor education courses.
He had a great, supportive rapport with his students. He prepared them well for most activities and helped the weak ones. He picked up on errors and dealt with them in a friendly, helpful way, and his students adored him.
But I could see he hadn’t looked at the materials before coming to class, even though he knew he would be observed. In fact, he misunderstood the purpose of one exercise and focused on the wrong grammar. With another, he failed to see that necessary activity details extended to a second page. But each time, he managed to cover and still see that students learned something.
I complimented him on how quickly he had become accustomed to teaching and had built such great rapport.
Then I said, “Sam, you are a really good teacher, but you could be a GREAT one if you prepared before class.”
Shrugging, he looked directly at me and answered, “I am not interested in being a great teacher. I do this only so I have enough money to live on and go out for a good time.”
That saddened me.
Fast forward 30 years. A former colleague asked if I remembered Sam. Then he told me that Sam had gone back to school and gotten a master’s in teaching English as a foreign language and had been teaching in a Thai university.
I love when people use the gifts they are born with.
"Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, and statehood have been sold, squandered, and disposed of by all six presidents.
This happened according to a single pattern—presidential candidates promised one thing and did the complete opposite. They promised wealth but created poverty, promised legality but encouraged lawlessness and corruption, promised peace but provoked war.
Analysis of their rule shows that none of the six presidents respected their people.
They acted not in their interests, considering lies, deceit, corruption, and lawlessness as state policy.
And this tradition in Ukrainian statecraft has developed to the point of absurdity.
If the first presidents still tried to maintain some decency, the later ones displayed their stupidity, greed, and cynicism for all to see.
This is not the first time such events have occurred in Ukrainian history.
Traditionally, Ukrainians go home to Russia, often in parts, but quite actively and without regret.
What Zelensky's clique today calls separatism is in reality an escape from the psychopathically abnormal leadership that, with its incompetence and stupidity, is finishing off the country and its citizens.
If the first five presidents undermined the foundations of Ukrainian statehood to varying degrees, Zelensky has completed this process by staging a grandiose bloody show.
But this show is coming to an end, and now, in place of the country, we see a desolate wasteland.
Reviving this Wild Field will traditionally be done together with Russia, which is currently being done by the residents of Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions, using their right to choose normal living conditions for themselves and their children.
They made this choice, considering the mortal danger from the actions of the Nazi Kiev regime, the gross violation of their basic rights and freedoms, and the genocide unleashed against the Russian-speaking population.
The residents of Crimea, LNR, DNR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions exercised their right to self-determination, enshrined in paragraph 2 of Article 1 of the UN Charter, Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of December 16, 1966, held referendums, and sought help from the Russian Federation.
As a result of the people's will, the territories of their residence became part of the Russian Federation.
And, while Zelensky plays his last perfomance, the number of new regions of Russia will continue to grow."
Excerpt from the article written by exiled Ukrainian opposition politician, Viktor Medvedchuk, in Komsomolskaya Pravda, April 15, 2024.
If someone would have told me twenty years ago that I’d be running a semi-successful custom house painting business that was responsible for finding and securing enough projects to provide six families with consistent, reliable income, I would have said “is that it?”.
My aspirations and sights were set so much higher in my early twenties than the reality I live today.
Maybe I’ll be the sea-fairing captain of a vessel that has no less than a thousand souls aboard, I thought to myself.
Maybe I’ll be the catalyst for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine with my commanding yet delicate approach to conflicts that arise between neighbors.
Maybe I’ll be an actor, the president, an astronaut — and if asked what I wanted to do when I was in fifth grade, I ALWAYS responded with “I want to be an electroencephalographic technologist.”
That was the coolest thing to say when I was a pre-teen.
The coolest thing — It was always about being, or saying, or doing what I felt others thought was the coolest thing.
I was identity-less because I was more concerned with other’s thoughts than I was with my own dreams or hopes or wishes.
What I really wanted back then was a father who could teach me how to beat the bolts off of the school bully that used to humiliate me in front of my classmates.
What I really wanted back then was to have money, like the other kids to pay for my school lunches. Not those embarrassing lunch tickets that the dorks and nerds and dweebs had to use at the musings of our tormentors.
It just wasn’t meant to be. That life, for me, wasn’t meant to be.
Turning to a life of substance abuse may not have been an inevitability, but it certainly was the easiest way out of the life I thought was so dreadful.
I got high, and then got higher and then got SO DAMN HIGH that I touched the clouds, or heaven or whatever.
It was a real blast.
Getting high was so much fun in fact, that for it, I traded a 150K dollar home, a loving and dedicated wife, a supportive family, encouraging friends, a career with endless opportunities for growth, my hygiene, my dignity and ‘insert any other cliche here’. Blah blah blah.
Which led me here, to this moment, to this question.
I gave up getting high. I gave up drugs not because anyone promised me a better life, but because I wanted to see if a better life was possible. Actually I gave up getting high because I knew any life was better than that life — and by golly it is a better life.
This life is so much better, that a few weeks ago I decided to insure it. I figured that if I die any time soon, I want my family to be insured against the hardships that are certain to follow.
I reached out to Primerica and got the ball rolling with life insurance.
After I answered a few questions asked by their representative, I waited for a phone call from their traveling nurse who was supposed to call me to schedule an appointment to draw blood, collect urine, check my height and weight and whatever else they do.
Yesterday, before I even got a call from the nurse, I got a call from the representative who informed me that I was declined.
I was so surprised. Why the hell would I be declined? I don’t get high, I live a healthy lifestyle, I don’t even drink alcohol. Do you know who I am? Boy I was pissed. Actually, my feelings were hurt and I was embarrassed.
Here is a screenshot of why I was declined.
image 237
I wondered what abnormal labs meant so I called the number they gave me.
Last February I had a tooth infection and was prescribed an antibiotic. I haven’t gotten high in more than a year, what the heck does a tooth infection have to do with life insurance?
As it turns out, (according to the lady who shared the actual truth with me, probably against protocol) the bigger (or real) issue is my background history and driving record, not some bs excuse about abnormal labs.
I haven’t had a single driving violation in many years and as far as my background history goes, well, I have a past. I used to use drugs.
I found out today, the hard way that they will not insure me based upon the mistakes of my past.
I can promise you that the decisions you make today will MOST CERTAINLY affect your ability to achieve the dreams you have for your future.
Drug abuse was grave mistake I made in my twenties and thirties and it seems that it has cost me the ability to protect my family from the financial burden that an untimely or early departure would have on them.
All-in-one pressure cooker. Don’t buy it they said, you’ll only use it twice they said. Well I bought it anyway to prove them wrong. I used it twice. It’s now in a cupboard never to be seen again.
Home gym. Been a lifelong dream of my wife and I to have our own gym. I converted our car port into quite a cool area with loads of nice equipment. It’s quite cold out there when windy though. A year later we’re still going to gym down the road.
Nintendo Switch. I bought it as Zelda Breath of the Wild was considered to be one of the best games ever made. Played it for about an hour. The older I get, the less I can get into games, which sucks.
Stryd foot pood for running. The latest and greatest in running aids. A pod that ties to your shoe to give statistics on your running that you’ll never need. I was so convinced it was a great idea I was preaching how great it was to fellow runners. Used it for about a week and haven’t bothered to charge it since. What a dick.
Kindles. Have a few, wife and I never use them. Just read normal books.
Alexa. I never got past asking it the time or the weather. Think my wife and I tried a quiz on it once. Was awful. People love them, I’m not sure how they are getting the most out of them.
PS4. I purposefully kept this away from number 3 as it’s embarrassing. I’ve also got an Xbox One X which is the only one I use. The Switch and the PS4 are just not used. This I why I shouldn’t be allowed to spend disposable income without moderation.
Huge amount of fishing rods and tackle. A couple of years ago, I got back into sea fishing which I used to do as a kid. Spent a small fortune buying new fishing gear. About six months ago, it dawned on me that fishing is probably not much fun for the fish and I felt really bad. Not been since.
DSLR camera. Feel bad about this one as it’s very expensive. Used it for a few weeks and photos were amazing. Was sure I would take it everywhere with us. Got lazy, now just use my phone. Going to try and make more of an effort with this one.
Bread maker. Don’t buy it they said, you’ll only use it twice they said. Well I bought it anyway to prove them wrong. I used it twice. It’s now in a cupboard next to the pressure cooker.
Garlic Rosemary Focaccia
2024 02 17 08 23
Ingredients
3 whole heads garlic, not cloves
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 scant tablespoons or 2 (1/4 ounce) packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
4 1/2 to 5 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons salt
Cornmeal, for pans
2 tablespoons crushed fresh rosemary leaves or 2 teaspoons dried
Coarse salt (optional)
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Separate garlic head into cloves and peel. Add olive oil in a small heavy saucepan, add garlic, cover and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes, or until softened but not browned.
Remove from heat and strain. Set oil aside to use later. When cool, cut cloves into lengthwise slivers and set aside.
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Add 1 cup of unbleached flour and stir thoroughly. Let sit for 15 minutes or until mixture is filled with tiny bubbles.
Add 2 tablespoons of reserved garlic oil and 1 more cup of unbleached flour and all of the whole wheat flour and salt to the yeast mixture.
Beat vigorously with a dough hook or a heavy sturdy spoon for 2 minutes. Gradually add more of the remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until dough forms a mass and begins to pull away from sides of bowl.
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead, adding more flour a little at a time as necessary for 8 to 10 minutes, or until you have a smooth elastic dough and blisters begin to develop on surface.
Place dough into an oiled bowl. Turn to coat the entire ball of the dough with oil. Cover with a tightly woven kitchen towel and let rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Sprinkle a well greased 13 x 18 inch baking sheet with cornmeal. Turn dough onto an oiled work surface. With the heel of your hand, flatten dough into an 11 x 16 inch rectangle. Lift dough onto baking sheet. Using hands, press dough into corners and edges of baking sheet.
Flattening dough with hands rather than a rolling pin will give the irregular texture associated with focaccia. Cover dough with towel and let rise 20 minutes.
Sprinkle top of dough with rosemary and the slivered garlic. Using fingertips, make indentations in dough about 1/2 inch deep and 1 inch apart, to give a dimpled effect. As you do this, press garlic slivers into dough to keep them from falling off or over cooking. Cover dough with towel and let rise an additional 20 minutes.
Place a shallow pan on lower shelf of oven and heat up.
Drizzle remaining garlic oil over top of focaccia. Use a brush to pat the oil over the entire surface, allowing any excess to pool in the indentations. Sprinkle with 1 to 2 teaspoons of coarse salt.
Put 1 cup of ice cubes in the heated shallow pan in the oven. Immediately put the focaccia in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until pale gold.
Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
Notes
It is best eaten slightly warm or at room temperature.
You can substitute Parmesan cheese for the salt, or use both.
Let me put a scenario to you. A terrible fire erupts at a local school. The fire brigade has arrived, but because of the ferocity of the blaze it won’t be possible to save everyone, leaving the fire chief with a decision. Should he:
A) Save as many people as possible.
Or
B) Let everyone die.
I’m assuming most people would choose option A. Because of sanity. I think most people would find a fire chief who chose option B – who, if ideal circumstances were impossible, chose to maximise death and suffering – a bit disappointing, to say the least. If we could give Jesus a call and ask him what to do, I’m having difficulty imagining him advising us to let everyone burn.
And yet people arguing that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is unethical are taking exactly this position. Everybody dies. If you can’t save absolutely everyone the ethical decision is the one where the highest number of people die.
Neither mother nor foetus can survive an ectopic pregnancy that runs it’s course. Nothing we do can save the foetus. The only person we can possibly save is the mother. There’s no saving everybody, there’s only saving as many people as possible.
So your response is… everybody dies! The ethical thing to do – nay, the Christian thing, is make the decision that shows the least compassion, that does no good whatsoever, that causes the most death and the most suffering. Its what Jesus would have wanted. For is it not said “treat others how you would want them to treat someone they were homicidally disposed towards.” Or something.
Best of all though, the reason your ethics demand that as many people as possible die, the reason you shouldn’t save anybody’s life in this situation, the reason you should maximise grief and suffering and death is… wait for it, this is a real thigh slapper… because you believe in the value of human life!
Now that is some seriously freaking warped reasoning.
Any system of morality which isn’t actually trying to do good and limit evil isn’t a system of morality, it’s a system of control. And a sick, twisted and cruel one at that.
EDIT: For all those people telling me nobody has a problem with treating ectopic pregnancies and I’m spreading disinformation, oh look! A bill that specifically criminalises treatment for ectopic pregnancies.
I’ve spent my life taking care of others in one way or another since I was 10 years old. Mom went to work, and I had to cook supper 6 days a week, do the dishes, clean the house, watch my younger siblings. I gave up my friends and my social life to take care of her family.
I did have a boyfriend at 15 and at 17 I got pregnant. Pretty much on purpose. I’d already asked my dad if I could get married and he said no. So, when my bf came home from boot camp, I just wasn’t careful and thought, if it happens it happens. It happened. I finished out my Junior year of High School and went to summer school, then moved to be with him near base. My baby was born, and I was taking care of a baby and husband.
We divorced so I had to get a job. Still taking care of my child.
When I remarried, again taking care of a husband, child and working now. I did quit for about a year then went back to work. I pretty much ended up taking care of people at the job too. People just can’t do their jobs, put things away, always need help. I was kind of an overseer.
After 20 years I quit. My son was raised, my husband didn’t need to be taken care of anymore, he learned to do some things on his own, I was having a good time with friends and making quilts.
Then my mother got sick after my dad died. My siblings and I took on different responsibilities to keep her in her home and every year more responsibilities were added as mom lost the ability to do things for herself. This went on for 13 years.
After mom died, I was excessively depleted. My siblings and I no longer can get along with each other, so we haven’t seen each other for at least 5 years. I have 3 grandsons, 2 who don’t want anything to do with family, including my son.
I’m just so burnt out on people and their drama. It’s just my husband and I. He goes and sees a couple of his friends from time to time. I let my friends go before mom passed, I just didn’t have the energy to “be” a friend.
I like it being just me and my husband. I don’t know what it will be like if he goes first. I don’t like it when he goes to his friends, but I don’t say anything because he should go, but I miss him even when he’s gone a short time. His job of 40 years took most of his time from me and now that I have him, I hate to be away from him.
Other people though, they just aren’t worth my effort. (I do see my son from time to time).
One night my then boyfriend, now fiance, and I were watching a movie. It was a romantic one – not his preferred genre and he fell asleep midway into the movie. I continued watching. The 2nd half turned out to be quite emotional. Near the end I started crying softly. He woke up to my tears and immediately wrapped his arms around me to sooth me. He asked if it was the movie and I nodded. Since it was already late, we went to bed shortly afterwards.
The next morning I woke up, readied myself for the day and headed downstairs. He was eating breakfast in front of the TV – his usual routine before work. As I rounded the corner, I saw he was watching the movie from the night before. I was surprised as he was clearly not that interested then. “Why are you watching this?” I asked. He gave me a sweet, sincere look and said, “I wanted to see what made you cry.”
My fiance is not one for grand, sweeping gestures but it’s the every day small things that he does that melts me.
———————————————————
Update from the morning after:
me: OMG! OMG! *screaming*
him: hunnie, when you scream like that I think something is wrong with the house
me: baby! the quora post i wrote last night reached 1.4K upvotes!! ahhh!!
him: wow thats great baby! …can you stop screaming?
me: See?! I always say you do the sweetest stuff!!
him: *chuckle* as long as you like it baby
GEN-Z is literally f**king brain dead and I’m genuinely scared…
Why should the US contain China? Has China threatened the US? I think it is the other way around. The US has threatened China. The US has been the world’s predator nation.
I think the industrial-military complex always has to have an enemy in view or it loses funding and interests. Yesterday it was Russia, today, Russia is fading so the US has a new enemy, China. The rationale is China’s rise. When China was poor, China was befriended and used to increase the wealth of US multinationals. As China rose, concerns started to pop up, China could not be easily dominated by western interests. Now that China is competitive, especially in America’s monopoly of technology, the US has chosen to oppose China. It no longer wants to compete probably because it realizes that because of China’s size and her growth in STEM education, the US could lose its dominance in tech. The US has chosen not to work together.
What Americans seem not to realize is that much of America’s technology rise was built on immigrants. In today’s world, that technology strength comes dominantly from China and India. 75% of tech workers in Silicon Valley are immigrants. 80% of graduate STEM students are foreigners. In both cases Chinese and Indians dominate the demographics.
What seems disconcerting is that Trump is destroying that strength with his racist immigration policies.. What used to be the pot at the end of the rainbow for many immigrants in technology is becoming a nightmare. From engineers to doctors, H1-B and L-1 visas are being reduced and recently Trump is making them denied to certain STEM graduate students and workers. Their path to citizenship has become a nightmare. Their dream of being an American is no longer visible. Many are looking at other countries. Canada and the EU are the current choice of destinations plus their own home countries. India and China welcomes these STEM grads which will help their efforts to increase their presence in technology to compete with the US and each other.
The further the US demonizes China, the more Chinese students and investments in the US will dry up. American isolationism is succeeding and US political and economic interests in the world are starting to fall. Yes, the US can surround China militarily, like we did with the Soviet Union. Did we gain anything except to make our military might greater? Have Americans improved their life style and economic situations? Have we succeeded in overcoming poverty? Have we improved our infrastructure? Have we improved the lives of our citizens? You know the answer.
1. Marijuana laws. It took me almost the first 20-years of my career to see how much time I was wasting for a crime that no one from the county attorneys, to judges, to juries, to the general public were happy to see. I’d find an ounce of weed, wasting three to four hours of my shift, while calls were backing up and the guy hauling metric tons of meth drove by.
Later, I left the Midwest and came to Alaska which made the point almost moot. Since a 1970′s supreme court case, personal possession of Marijuana in your house was legal (and offenses involving it in other areas were considered rather minor). Then several years ago, Marijuana was legalized here.
I have yet to find one police officer who has ever fought against anyone high just on Marijuana. Or, been to any type of assault call involving just Marijuana.
If I could ban alcohol and make Marijuana legal, we could lay off half of the police forces, social workers and judges in the US. It’s the alcohol that’s the problem, not stoners. And no, I’ve never used the drug.
2. Prostitution laws (not sex trafficking). It is illegal to sell what can be given away. Odd. I’ve told many county and district attorneys that if they ever get me on a jury involving this type case, I would hang the jury so fast, I’d make their head spin because I’d be so angry at them for wasting my time.
3. Bar closing times. I could never understand why grown adults can’t decide how late they want to stay out and consume alcohol or even go to the store and buy some. Especially for those on second shift.
4. Alcohol and nudity laws. Many states have laws that you can’t have a beer or liquor license and allow nude or even semi-nude performances. The kicker? Many states allow customers to BYOB. The same owners at times have owned the liquor store right next to the strip club…Huh?
5. 21 years old as a drinking age. You can serve your country, vote, go to jail, marry and in some states, become a police officer before you can legally drink?
I’ve been in 65 countries. Many of them have the legal age from 16 to 18 years old (none have the age as high as ours), and they don’t have the issues with ETOH we do.
6. Gambling laws. In the 1970′s, Iowa was so backwards, state agents raided church Bingo. Seriously. Why does society care if I pick Texas A&M to beat Auburn and decide to bet a hundred?
Now that the states have sanctioned gambling, the remaining laws seem to be there to stop the competition.
7. Seatbelt laws. The Nanny State has to tell you how to be safe. I don’t enforce a “drink milk or get fined”, or join the “eat your vegetables or ticket” campaign.
You not wearing seatbelts does not affect a third person, therefore I fail to see how the state is concerned about seatbelts any more than, say, ordering people not to eat lard directly out of the can.
8. High and always getting higher traffic fines to plug government spending gaps. I remember when I started in law enforcement and speeding tickets started at around $30 (total). A sting to gain compliance.
Now many states (looking at you, California) use a sledgehammer. Between the fine, court costs and surcharges, tickets run in the mid to high three figures in some areas.
9. The FAA minimum flight hours for airline transport pilots that went from 250 hours to 1500 hours. The Colgan Air crash was not related in any way to low-time pilots. Both pilots had high flight time hours, but made rookie mistakes. This was the FAA looking for a law where there was no problem.
While US carriers are having trouble finding pilots, and some are canceling flights, going bankrupt and raising fares, other countries, (including the EU) still allow low-time pilots to fly as a co-pilot. Those planes are not falling out of the sky…and they are still allowed to land in the States.
10. Artificially low speed limits. Rural areas with low traffic and with good roads (dating from before the national speed limit laws of the 1970′s and can handle high speeds) need to properly reflect what the drivers can handle.
I’ve driven the Autobahn many times. In rural areas, there is no set speed limit, while in developed areas there is a reasonable speed limit. Makes sense to me.
11. CCW permits. In Alaska and Vermont, you don’t need a government agency to tell you that you are allowed to exercise your Second Amendment right.
12. Smoking rules in commercial businesses. I say let capitalism run her majestic course. If people do not want to be around smokers, those places that allow smoking will go out of business. We don’t need the Nanny State telling businesses what they can and can’t do.
Proof that this has nothing to do with secondhand smoke? Why is smokeless tobacco also banned in many areas? How is chewing tobacco affecting anyone?
*UPDATE: 99.9 percent of the people responded to the seatbelt statement. I would have never guessed that would be the contentious issue out of the 12.
I guess society has changed; I’m old enough to remember my mother holding my baby brother in her arms while I sat on the third row with the seat folded down in the station wagon.
No one cared about seatbelts, but society at that time cared about Marijuana, gambling, paid sex workers including strip joints and alcohol sale hours.
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I have been repeatedly asked if society can specifically exclude the safety net to people who refuse to wear seatbelts and have an accident. Here is my answer:
Only if we allow society to exclude other activities that it might not agree with. No coverage for smokers, excess drinkers, speeders, those who have sex with random people, those who partake in risky pastimes, or those who are obese.
Of course, we never think of the costs to society for the activities we agree with or partake in and how we normally expect everyone to pick up the tab for something they’d never do.
Should/can insurance require higher premiums? Sure, they are a private business and they already do: higher premiums for smokers, and – in many states – those who are males, those with bad credit, those unmarried and those of a certain age.
To be intelligently sound, you either believe in freedom from government interference for victimless crimes or you don’t. You don’t pick and choose. Many of my 12 I don’t personally agree with, but I believe the choice is up to the person.
Harry Potter but as a Drunkard in a remote Russian Village.
I very briefly dated a girl who was several years younger than me. I think I was 29ish and she was 21.
We were messaging each other on WhatsApp and after a while she insisted that I get Snapchat so she could message me on that. I downloaded it and was given instructions that the pictures only last for a few seconds before they are deleted.
I, in my tiny male mind, assumed she was going to send me titilating photos of herself in various states of undress.
I was excited!
What I actually got was lots of pictures of breakfasts. Lots of pictures of the back of someone’s head with “bored on the bus LOL” as a caption. Lots of pictures of books with “studying” as the caption.
I simply didn’t get why anyone would remotely care about mundane normal stuff, let alone want a picture of it?
She chastised me for not sending her many messages back on it. I sent maybe one every couple of days if I thought I was doing something vaguely interesting. “Here’s a nice view from this place I’m working” or, “Here’s a nice dog I met this morning” was about the best I could come up with.
Anyway, after a few days she said me to me, “You just don’t get it do you?” and I agreed.
Nope. I don’t get it.
And then it struck me. For the first time a massive part of youth culture was beyond my understanding. I simply don’t get the current youth’s need to send pictures to each other of completely mundane day to day things.
I’m too old to understand.
I’m not sure if Snapchat was the sole reason for it, but she decided she wasn’t interested in me shortly after.
Harry Potter as a Mexican Soap Opera | Telenovelas are Hell
Ever wondered what prompted the US to start a dedicated spy agency?
It wasn’t the Russians. It wasn’t a Nazi plot.
It was a mine.
Here’s what happened:
It’s 1916. The Western Front has become a gigantic stalemate. The Germans can’t push through the Allied line, and the Allies can’t push through the German line.
The Germans are trying to figure out a way to demoralize the French, whose country everyone is fighting in (and generally making a mess of). They’ve got a gun that they constructed in 1914, called the Paris Gun (or “Big Bertha” by the Allies). It’s the largest gun built during the war (the barrel alone is over 34 meters – that’s more than 111 feet – long!) and it lobs 211 mm shells nearly 95 miles. Test firing indicates that it can definitely hit Paris from a permanent position. Several are built.
But with all good things, there is an end. And unfortunately for the Germans, there is a nasty issue with the Paris gun: the metal they’re using is normal steel, and has a really bad habit of melting after firing more than four or five of their mega-caliber shells. After several guns are able to let loose only a couple shells before having to have an expensive barrel replacement, German High Command is disgusted and instructs the German war machine to figure out a solution.
The Germans poke around in their laboratories. A young chemist discovers that a hitherto mostly ignored element, molybdenum, can help improve the tensile strength of their steel if mixed in the right amounts (.2-.3% molybdenum mixed into the steel.) High Command is thrilled: this is the solution they’re looking for! They order several new barrels for the Paris Guns to be constructed with the new alloy.
There’s just one problem: the only known source of molybdenum is in the United States – the Climax Mine, in Colorado. (Another source was discovered in China later on, but not until after the war.) And by the point in our story that this happened, the Germans were not exactly on good terms with the good ol’ U.S. of A.
High Command scratches its head, thinks really hard, and comes up with a brilliant plan.
A few weeks later, a small team of German “tourists” disembark in New York. According to what others hear them say, they plan to head up to Colorado and do a little ‘prospecting’.
The Climax Mine is owned by a small mining group who have been able to get very little money out of it. They originally thought the element they’re bringing up in .30% quantities was silver, but unfortunately it’s not silver – its an element that very few people seem to have any use for.
Along come the German “tourists”, who’ve you guessed by now are actually German government agents. The Germans offer to buy the mine for an extremely cheap amount. But while they’d be happy to sell the unprofitable mining operation, the owners are unwilling to sell for the offered pittance.
A “bad neighbor war” breaks out. The Germans are DETERMINED to get that mine, whilst the owners are just as determined to avoid selling. The German team rents a shack near the mine and camps out, pressuring the owners to sell the mine. Both sides harass the others with shotguns in the middle of the night, with dogs, and with arguments and confrontation.
Eventually, the Germans exit the field victorious: the owners, tired of constant harassment and (according to some reports) in serious fear for their lives, sell the mine for the asking price. The German team, glowing in their victory, starts extracting the molybdenum and quietly shipping it back to Germany by the shipload. The new barrels for the Paris Guns are built, and Paris suffers shell damage throughout much of the remainder of the war.
When it’s discovered, after the war, that the Germans had an entire team of their own agents in the USA, extracting and exporting a rare, war-essential resource without the sanctioning of the United States government, there is a great deal of anger running loose in the upper echelons of government. Plans are formulated to form an agency to prevent similar happenings in the future, should a war break out. These were the first plans for the OSS.
As we all know, the CIA was formed from the base of the OSS. But the plans for the OSS would never have come into being if a team of Germans hadn’t penetrated to the very heart of the United States and shipped metal off to shell Paris.
EDIT: 12/26/2021. So I’ve been getting a LOT of comments on how the dates are wrong, the Paris Guns weren’t called Big Berthas (they were, as were all large-caliber German weapons during the war) and how the Germans actually pulled molybdenum from a small mine in Norway rather than the American mine.
While some parts of the story can be found elsewhere (see link below) I cannot verify it from multiple sources, and must therefore reluctantly conclude that this story, for all it’s coolness, is only about 50% accurate.
I was first told this story by my grandfather, who is generally very truthful and historically accurate. However, it seems that in this instance he was greatly exaggerating.
China was Given an $80 Billion Project by Afghanistan, Making America Angry
I wanted to go anonymous as I don’t want anybody to feel sympathy on me.
I was married to wonderful person on may 29, 2015, who always take care of me more than my parents. Since it was an arranged marriage, we decided to have baby a year later so that we can understand and have time for each other. A year later, when we decided to have baby my brother’s marriage got fixed. So we planned to postpone for another 3 months. But god had another plan for us.
My brother died on an accident and it brought a total loss to the family. May be I’m unable to express here how his loss impacted our life. My mother still not recovered and my father is just living his life. This is the day I cried most and I’m still crying and could not overcome such loss.
After 3 months of my brother’s loss, myself and my husband decided to have baby, so that baby can change my parents thought process . I also got pregnant and parents were happy and was proudly saying that I’m going to bring back my brother. In April 21, 2016 in anamoly scan it was told that baby had a congenital heart disease. It was told by the doctor, that, Even if the baby is born, it has to be treated as soon as possible or it will be dead. The doctor claimed even after the operation they cannot assure of life of the kid. So we both planned to abort instead of making the baby to suffer from birth itself. That day I cried like a hell and it took an year to recover from the incident.
Somehow we managed to overcome from the incidents and tried to live a happy and normal life.
A year after abortion, again we planned for baby. Now I’m 7 weeks pregnant and went to scan centre to check my baby’s heart beat. But doctor said this time yur baby has died already and doesnot have a heart beat.
There are no words to describe our pain. As others say, God will have other plans for yu. It is not at all true. I don’t find any meaning in living my life again.
These incidents made me to cry, making me to cry and will make to cry.
China’s Waiting For The U.S. To Make THIS Ultimate Mistake
I rented the same place for over twenty years before moving recently. Years ago I was sitting out on my deck one evening and to my shock FBI and DEA agents with rifles drawn were swarming my back yard from both sides to jump the fence between my property and the driveway area of the property next to me. Of course this pissed off my dogs and I had to drag them inside barking like crazy. From the kitchen I could hear the guy yelling “I ain’t do anything, I’m just down in the basement watching TV! You’re harassing me!” I quickly hear, funny I don’t see a TV but I see you’re running a meth lab!” Anyway, about a week or two later I get a call from my landlord. He tells me the same guy had called him and filed a police report because my dogs were too loud. Landlord started laughing and said the police officer stopped by his house since he knew him and I was out at work when he came by. He said he told the officer that you’d expect my dogs to bark and be extra on edge in the back yard after the raid of the neighbors house! Cop laughs, and from his cell phone calls the guy and tells him he’ll tell me to keep my dogs quiet if he can keep from making meth. Guy was never seen or heard from again, lol.
In the throes of active heroin and methamphetamine addiction, there is always an angle. There are no acts of kindness or altruistic events. Everything, down to the smallest of favors, comes with a price. If I need a ride, I owe you two bags. If you need a spot, you owe me dub. If you accept what is labeled a gift, you will undoubtedly and eventually be called to repay that debt. When I was actively using, what was given as a gift in good times, was remembered as a marker in bad times. And if ever comes a day you’re called on to make good and you can’t, or won’t, you’re labeled bad money. Which, as an addict with a habit, might as well be a death sentence.
Having lived that way for most of my life, I struggle to take people at face value when they’re being kind.
Tomorrow I start a project for an airline pilot. I was referred to them by a mutual acquaintance. When I offered to give that acquaintance a percentage of the projected profit, they looked at me like I was an alien. I pushed for them to take the money because I was afraid they’d call on me to pay that debt in the future, which is always uncertain. They refused and made it very clear they had referred me because I was a good fit for the work this pilot was interested in having done. They wanted nothing in return.
I could feel myself wanting to push for them to take the money. I don’t want to owe anyone anything. I like being free from that cycle I was stuck in for all those years. So I’ve been working on taking people at face value. If they say it, I try to believe it. But it isn’t easy.
The subtle details I’ve trained myself to notice are internal. They’re in my behaviors and actions when I’m on the receiving end of kindness. When someone is nice I start to withdraw and isolate. It’s not that it rubs me wrong, it’s more a fear that I won’t be able to repay that kindness. And the reason I’ve trained myself to notice this isolating behavior in myself? Isolation leaves me with the one person who has historically been able to justify getting high again. Myself.
CODE RED EMERGENCY: PENTAGON IN PANIC, BIDEN BRIEFED, RUSSIAN “SPACE NUKES TRIGGER MASS PANIC”
Today, this June 2023, China is the dominant nation in the world.
In every metric, China dominates.
Some metrics are obvious and astounding. Where it is obvious that China is the predominant nation in the world in that particular role.
Lifestyle for it’s citizenry.
Destruction of poverty.
Elimination of air pollution.
Manufacturing ability.
New technologies.
And so on and so forth.
It is no mistake that the rest of the world (well, the nations that are not proxies of the United States, that is) turn to China. They turn to China for trade. For economics. For science, and manufacturing. They turn to China for help and assistance. They turn to China for guidance, and direction.
They turn to China.
…
Now that being the truth, you have a multi-billion anti-china funded effort. This effort is designed to keep the American public, and the citizens of the proxy nations, ignorant of reality. Anything positive or neutral is withheld, and colored with outrageous lies. There’s no other way to describe the war propaganda; it’s untruths, and lies that are the direct opposite of the truth.
And if you, the reader are not aware of this, shame on you.
…
The rest of the world is turning into a multi-polar world based on individual national sovereignty, They no longer use American currency, follow and obey American laws, rules and conventions, and are distancing themselves from the insanity that has gripped the United States and dragging it downward.
There are exceptions.
A “color revolution” in Thailand, and South Korea has placed “puppet governments” in power. And the first things that these puppets do is pull their nations closer to the United States, and then engage in a war where many of their countrymen are killed.
It’s the United States method of Geo-Politics.
…
But, back to the question about China.
Do you know what the United States will look like in 2040? Do you know the projections? What are the economic, social, scientific, and cultural changes that will manifest int he United States in 2040?
Well, you don’t know.
Because there just isn’t any writings, projections, or videos about this subject. The United States has no plans for this far in the future. Instead the United States fully intends to “kick the can down the road” and let someone else deal with the various messes and problems that are sprouting up left and right everywhere.
RAND studies are looking at regional wars, and proxy war and color revolutions well into the next decade. But NOTHING about building the American domestic society. Nothing about the future of schools, society, and infrastructure. It’s almost as if those issues are not important.
But…
China knows.
China knows what the world will look like in 2040.
…
I see a prosperous China. Where China is a wealthy nation. Far wealthier than anything in Europe today.
I see a vibrant, and healthy Africa. Crime being eliminated, and social services expanding as industry does as well.
I see South America growing and modernizing. And like Africa, a strong middle class.
I see Chinese bases on the Moon, and the start of a Chinese colony on the surface of Mars.
I also see some amazing breakthroughs in national governance across the world where nations restructure their nations to be more efficient like China, and to punish the evil and greedy like China has.
Yes.
…
I see a bright future ahead.
And it is all starting today with the global leadership of China.
Mandatory Paternity Test LAW Passed Now GUESS WHO’s MAD
https://youtu.be/JJroJ-vsQ7Y
Italian Spinach Bread
2024 02 17 08 25
Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, minced
Scant 2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup reserved spinach liquid
2 1/2 teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast (not RapidRise)
Lightly sauté the garlic in oil, then let cool to room temperature.
Warm 1/4 cup spinach for yeast to activate (105 to 115 degrees F).
Stir yeast, sugar into warm spinach water in large mixing bowl; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.
Add remaining 1/2 cup room-temperature spinach liquid, garlic with oil, the spinach and nutmeg and stir thoroughly.
Mix the flour and salt into the spinach mixture.
Knead on floured surface, sprinkling w/additional flour to absorb moisture from the spinach, until dough is well marbled, soft and velvety, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
Shaping and second rise – Dough will be wetter after first rise. Put dough onto a floured surface and flour the top of dough – don’t punch down or knead. Shape into round loaf and put on lightly oiled baking sheet (or parchment on the baking sheet).
Cover with a towel and let rise for about 45 minutes.
Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Slash a big V on top of loaf with sharp knife.
Bake for 10 minutes.
Reduce heat to 400 degrees F and bake an additional 30-35 minutes.
I didn’t actually see it. I wish I had. I was in the kitchen when it happened.
It was a popular pizza restaurant that served cheap beer and lots of it. In big heavy frosty mugs. Until the owner replaced all of the expensive and fragile glass mugs with plastic ones.
I remember how he was real proud of the fact that he had found cheap plastic mugs that looked exactly like the ones he’d always used. And it was true, they were nearly identical and looked totally like glass.
So, of course, customers started throwing beer all over themselves when they would pick up the now much lighter mugs. That in and of itself is pretty funny. But it gets better.
So the owner quickly instructs the wait staff to say something like, “Before I give you your beer, I want to warn you that the new mugs are much lighter so be careful.”
That was going well until a boisterous group of relatively young men sat down in the large corner booth. This booth was kind of isolated from the others, so perhaps they didn’t hear this spiel given to other tables.
The waitress shows up with a tray of 8 beers and proceeds to say, “Now before I can give you your beer . . .”
“Just give me my damn beer,” the nearest one says while he grabs a beer off the tray.
Because the tray was at eye level to him, he didn’t just spill his beer. No. He threw it right in his own face.
And threw his hands up as if to push away whoever was attacking him with this beer shower.
And hit the tray. The unbalanced—due to his impetuous actions—tray of beer. The tray upends and drops the remaining 7 mugs of beer on the table.
Hearing the commotion and swearing, I ran to the dining room to find 8 people swimming in beer, trying to exit, one by one, from a tight booth. The waitress, covered in beer too, couldn’t help herself. She was laughing so hard she had tears running down her face.
Later she said that she knew she should be apologizing, but it was so clearly their own doing that she couldn’t stop.
They didn’t stay. But they did pay for their beers before they left. That was thanks to a couple of police officers who frequented the place.
The U.S. Military just Crossed China’s RED LINE and War is Coming
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
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.
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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.
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.
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
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
Begin preparing the tzaziki a few hours before serving. The flavors need time to blend.
Marinate the meat overnight to absorb the wine and garlic.
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.
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.
Over medium coals, barbecue the souvlaki until it’s done the way you like it.
Serve on a bed of rice and pass the tzaziki to spoon on top.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Forgot to mention when I asked the kid how many times this happened he said only a couple.
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
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:
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.
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”.
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?
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.
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 tips – Amy 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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).
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
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
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.
Punch the dough down and form into a round loaf on a lightly-floured baking sheet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 24.11.21Whoa. 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 hereto read all about it.
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.
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!
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?
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.
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American rover…
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Chinese rover…
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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”…
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But the Chinese rover clearly show something different….
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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.
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When Chang’e when just landed.
Now look at the 1969 NASA moon “landing”…
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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.
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.
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.
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”.
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..
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :-))
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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
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
Today’s post is a really long one, but boy oh boy are there some most excellent videos here. Everything from WTF? to cats purring to a crackling fireplace (I’m gonna listen to that one a second time), to a tale about a death and a slide to a non-death and everything in between. Check out the laundromat millionaire, and the Chinese nuclear physicist that lost everything in the USA…
…
Please guys take care of yourself. Make the best of your life and do not get sidetracked by the massive lies on the internet. There is a percentage of the West that are truly crazy, and the leadership is the same only add “bat shit” in front of that title….
My mother once had a cookie jar when I was in 4th through 6th grade. But eventually she stopped filling it, and then threw it away.
Turns out that us kids kept on raiding it, no matter what she said, and it would ruin our dinners.
First it turned out that she would fill it up once a month. then, only on certain occasions.
Then, every now and again. Only telling us, when we were good, that it held cookies.
Then it just remained empty for a long time. Maybe six months.
Then…
One day, it was cleaned and put away inside one of the cupboards. And there it sat for all eternity. It was never, ever taken out after that.
…
All in all, that’s a lesson of life.
The demise of the cookie jar.
…
Chinese PhD PHYSICS RESEARCHER Homeless in New York USA
My “soulmate” got married on September 23rd, 2018 to the love of his life.
She was his childhood best friend. I knew her only very briefly. I never thought too much about it considering she was several years younger than him and the nature of their relationship growing up, but it happened.
He told me she was the safer choice. His family was already comfortable with her presence, she came to every serious family function. She didn’t have any crazy ambition to go to school or pursue a career. She wanted to be a stay at a home mom, while I wasn’t sure if I even wanted children. I was little more spontaneous, while she was calculated. I questioned his alcoholism, while she let him drink without a word.
When I looked through their online wedding album, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. For nearly 7 years (I’ll spare you the details of our relationship) I was sure this man would be my husband. Seeing the type of person his wife is though puts every detail of our relationship into perspective. The truth is, we wouldn’t have been able to make a life for ourselves in the long run.
I’m not her; and I don’t want to be.
There was a time in my life where I swore his wedding day would be the day I died. Boy was I wrong. Now when I think about him getting married, I think of the barren fields in Texas that they chose to move to. I think of the colour beige, and unflavoured grits, and scooping horseshit. I think of the children I never wanted and all the other excruciatingly boring things that they get to do together.
It’s a blessing in disguise.
Magic Music for Cats – UNBELIEVABLE Results (Tested 2022)
If youse guys have cats, then please play this video for them.
Yes those people have a monthly income of 1000 Yuan but most of them have their own homes, they don’t pay rent or mortgage
Most of those people get their food at State Subsidized Rates which is 30% below market price. This means Monthly Provisions for a family of three whose net income is 3000 RMB is only around 600 RMB. For this they can eat 1800–1850 Calories a day comfortably
Most of these people have given their leased land for Windmills or Solar Power and they get 275 Units a month free. So most of them don’t pay for electricity
If they lent their leased land for the gas pipelines, they get 100 RMB subsidy off gas. Thus most of them get their cooking gas free of cost or barely for 20–30 RMB a month
They get Education for their Kids fully free upto Grade IX and a subsidy of upto 80% for higher grades on already low tuition of 1800–2400 RMB a year. So a family with 2 Kids pays a paltry 30 RMB -50 RMB a month on Tuition
They get State Insurance for their Health plus NLF Insurance if they are farmers or factory workers with premiums paid by employers. Each of them gets upto 30,000 to 100,000 RMB in healthcare expenses. They don’t have to pay Doctor Consultancy Fees or more than 18% of their Hospital Bills which are again advanced as Loans at a paltry 2% a year interest
So 1000 RMB goes a long way for these people
They eat well, live in their own house, pay virtually nothing for their utilities and have a safe healthcare net plus tuition is near free all the time
So rather than income, it’s their access to a basic standard of living that should be counted here
My ex and I had an agreement. I went to work, made good money, I did a LOT around the house and she would pay the bills, make sure the kids were taken care of as far as the doctor, school, etc, and the house was kept up.
I kept up my end of the bargain. I made good money, but we always seemed to be broke. The house was not clean, I ended up doing a lot of the grocery shopping, cooking, all the house maintenance. The kids helped out a lot!
One day I decided to take a look at the bank account and all the bills, see where we were losing the most money so I could figure out the issue there.
I found about $2000 in ATM withdrawals in a 1 month period, Jan 19, 2016 to Feb 19, 2016. They were $50, $20, $30, $80… on and on for the month.
I went back and found a similar pattern the previous months, years, and so on. I counted up tens of thousands of dollars just gone.
That was the end for me. Within a week I told her I wanted a divorce. She had been complaining for years how everyone she knows is going on vacations, how they all take trips all the time, and we never are able to. Telling me I need to make more money, do overtime, take more training so I can get a better job, and the entire time she had been spending the money on drugs. Years and years worth of onesie-twosie bumps and hits.
She denied vacations for my kids. She ruined large parts of their childhood by not being a good mother, by not showing a good example for them, by not being there very much.
Now she is in prison, possession and distribution of meth.
The research company I worked for was downsizing. My previous boss had already been let go and my new boss kept sending his employees to learn everything in my department. Well one fave employee thought she was better at my job and kept trying to change our protocols. She never actually did any work, just made our lives miserable.
Then the day came where new boss walked in and started handing out moving boxes. He didn’t even say a word, just passed out the boxes. We all packed up and left. Now my lab was a resource lab that did a ton of work for the other labs. Suddenly me and all my staff were let go and the new boss handed it over to his people.
Guess what? They had never done these procedures, used the high tech equipment or even understood the complicated algorithms to process the data. First week I get 9 phone calls asking for help. That was met with a big NOPE. Then I get a call that the favorite employee had mishandled one of the very expensive robot units and it was out of order. They wanted ME to come in and reprogram it and get them back up and running. Oh heck no! I never went back and never helped.
Lesson of my story is don’t play favorites and make sure you have the staff to accomplish the job.
What is the best relationship advice for today?
Western Society has changed, and the system of “marriage” is no longer useful or viable.
…
Well, think about it…
MEN
60% of Gen Z males over 30 are still virgins. HERE
Shockingly, 60% of males in the 30-34 age group are still virgins.
The CDC also reports that virgins make up 12.3 percent of females
…
This is very disturbing.
Historically, the numbers were 90+% for both males and females. Thus the maintenance of a stable long-duration relationship of equivalency in sexual experience no longer occurs. The reason is that pair-bonding doesn’t occur after 3 or more sexual partners prior to a marriage.
This lack of “pair-bonding” creates a untenable situation for long-duration relationships.
As the traditional characteristic of virginal marriages; which is marriage longevity, is no longer possible.
Scientists have attributed this phenomenon to numerous sociological and psychological attributes. Some of the contributing trends are the “Woke movement”, the “feminist movement”, “LGBQ+ movement”, “social media”, as well, of the dearth of attention to the values of traditional marriage and relationships. With in turn, has resulted in “push back” movements such as the “red pill movement”, and the “the passport bros movement”.
Never the less, what matters is the outcome of this disparity in sexual experience…
Obviously, modern women find that marriages are not suitable for them, their dreams and desires.
When a divorce is granted by a Western court, the male (more often than not) is penalized disproportionately (in comparison to the female). In fact 97% of American men must pay spousal support, while only 3% of women need to. HERE. This is the case, even though the gender pay gap is functionally at parity. HERE
Obviously, statistically, the divorce is not fairly distributed. Independent on the reason for the divorce, the courts overwhelmingly punish and penalize the male.
Thus, without looking into the hows and whys for this situation, the outcomes are crystal clear. [1] Traditional marriage is not longer functional in the West. [2] When a female enters in a marriage, it is statistically probable that she will be unhappy and will want to terminate it. [3] Regardless of the reasons and issues involved, the male in that divorce will suffer disproportionately compared to the female.
…
Taking all of the above into consideration, I suggest that a “non-traditional” marriage contract be used.
Both parties write out and agree to legally binding “prenuptial agreements”. One for the male and one for the female that they both sign with a attorney.
Then, Instead of a registered wedding / marriage with a (county) District of the Peace or a State Clerk, A legal “statement of marriage” be written up by your attorney. This document clearly defines the ownership, financial, and responsibilities of both parties in the event that the divorce fails. This prevents a third part (the government) from getting involved, and protects the unique union of the two parties.
Finally, a third document is required. A “separation agreement” document must be drafted. This establishes how the divorce proceedings (outside of the normal legal channels) will be handled, or how reconciliation efforts (if any) can be implemented.
…
This solution is not for everyone. However it recognizes the reality that the current marriage union available in the West in presently dysfunctional and broken. Thus, it proves a means of union, and disunion based upon the needs of BOTH the male and the female. It also explicitly forges a legal contract independent of the broken system that so entraps the divorced family.
FACT: Nothing is more critical to a person’s (male or female) happiness than the person that they are married to.
This solution recognizes this reality, and provides a realistic and workable solution in common use by the wealthier families in the West. It replaces the (presently contemporaneous) “work-arounds” such as “open relationships”, “Social Media based activity”, “hook up culture, and the problem of “high body counts”.
I want both the women, as well as the men, to both share in a fine long-duration marriage where both are happy.
Argentina and why they chose to not align with BRICS+
My brother was missing, as an adult, for nearly 30 years. No, he wasn’t just staying out of touch by choice. No, he wasn’t in Witness Protection. Less than two weeks after I last saw him, he’d been murdered in what police called one of the most brutal murders they had ever seen. But we had no way of knowing this. We didn’t know where he was, since he was hitchhiking across the country. No cell phones, no Internet in 1989. From our point of view, he just vanished.
In 2018, I was perusing a database of unidentified remains. I saw a sketch that could only have been my brother’s face. All the identifying information matched. He had been murdered in a neighboring state. I contacted the people I needed to contact. I got DNA. It took about 6 agonizing months of gathering data and having it analyzed to get results. They were positive. The murder victim was my brother. The murder is unsolved.
That was the easy part, as horrible as it was (I broke out in hives that wouldn’t go away and went into treatment-resistant depression). Now I had to tell my mother what I’d discovered.
I had to make the phone call to tell my mother that her favorite child, who had been missing 30 years, had been murdered in 1989. She wanted details of the murder, so I provided them. I would not have, had she not insisted on knowing everything.
I had people tell me “Just don’t tell her. Just don’t tell her.” But on balance, I thought that was unfair. Not knowing was just as torturous as knowing, and this way, she could lay him to rest before she died. Further, she was not a child to be protected from upsetting information.
I know she grieved greatly. My stepfather told me she cried for 3 days straight (hardly surprising), and there was an element of accusation in his voice. But telling her wasn’t his decision to make. It was mine. You can’t protect people from death. It touches us all.
If there are any who would judge my decision, I simply say to you that I highly doubt you will ever be in the same situation, so you have no right to judge. I was faced with an impossible choice. When a loved one is murdered, everyone loses no matter what you do, and my family’s story had the extra stress of him having been missing for so long. He is now laid to rest in a beautiful, remote cemetery, and he is remembered for the loving, kind, and generous soul that he was.
This is a picture of me with my cat Dexter, who saved my life.
image 102
The last few years I was feeling a bit off most days and my doctors couldn’t find a reason for my chronic fatigue and inability to train hard (I’m a former pro fighter who still trains like one).
After years of getting little more then shrugs from medical staff one day I started feeling chest pain. It felt like a torn muscle so I chalked it up as a training injury and ignored it.
Suddenly Dexter, who had been around me for 20 years, ran over to me and started pawing at my chest and crying. He had never acted this way. I decided it was a red flag and called 911. As I opened the door for paramedics I had a “widow maker” heart attack and collapsed (very low survival rate, hence the name). The cardiologist who operated on me said if I had waited 3 more minutes to call I wouldn’t have survived.
I’ve had many pets over the years and loved them all. But I had a unique bond to that cat.
This picture is so sad to me because not only was I still recovering from heart surgery in this pic and feeling awful, but Dexter was 21 and his health was rapidly declining, it was one of the last times I held him and somewhere deep down, I knew it. He suffered a stroke and passed away a few days after this pic was taken. I still miss him every day.
Within a few months of losing Dexter both of my businesses closed due to the long term effects of the COVID lockdowns. My body/health has not 100% recovered from the heart attack, my heart has never 100% healed from losing Dexter, and my finances/ professional life has never really recovered from losing two businesses I spent years building from the ground up.
If anyone would like to watch a video I made about Dexter I’m also pasting a link in the comments, feel free to watch.
India heavily depends on US for its Software services and Indians migrate to US in droves every year
Civil Servants, Army Officials, Politicians all have Kids and Grandkids in the US
The US has a market for close to $ 400–600 Million for Indian Films every year
The Indian Army relies on US, Israel and it’s allies for more than 50% of the Critical Technologies needed for it’s Defence
India thus is very likely to break in seconds if there is a serious threat of sanctions
Saudi Arabia is next
Saudi depends heavily on Western Equipment and Western Security even now
The Saudis are today at relative peace but as on date they still need the US Dollar & the Security Umbrella
China is next
The West represents almost around 17 Trillion RMB worth of Trade translating to around 2.3 Trillion RMB of Government Revenue and Economic Accrued wealth every year
China is however the first country that can survive the sanctions albeit not at Russia’s level
Brazil & South Africa are next
Both these Nations have sufficient economic independence and Brazils largest customer is China
Yet both these nations have political factions that are heavily Pro US
UAE is next
UAE once again is safer than Saudi Arabia and has been left alone by the West for many decades unlike Saudi Arabia
UAE is far more resilient and less dependent on the West than Saudi
It’s why many Russians have invested their money in UAE
Ethiopia is too small to be sanctioned effectively
It has sufficient food and energy security from Russia and that’s all it needs
Iran and Russia are the ‘Go F*** yourself’ Nations of BRICS
They can actually ask the West to go f*** off anytime they want
They are entirely immune from Western Sanctions
So the order is
Iran + Russia > Ethiopia = UAE > Brazil = South Africa > China > Saudi Arabia > India
Left Alone Abandoned By Her Family After 18 Years, This Cat Ended Up in a Shelter
China wishes to be friends with the United States, however, were the USA to cross a Chinese “Red Line” then China would declare war.
In a declared war, by China, against the United States, the results would be horrific.
The value of the USD would go to ZERO. the paper would not be worth more than the dollar.
The Global South would no longer trade with the USA creating a fiasco of inconceivable proportions.
Any American military adventurism in and around China would end. It would not be reported, but the loss of entire fleets would not be be easily hidden.
And now for the “kicker”…
China would launch missiles that the United States has no defense for, against strategic and leadership targets. Uh oh!
This would result in catastrophic damage. It would be irreparable. Well, Duh!
And the United States (and proxy) response would be thwarted with absolute erasure of all the contributors.
…
Ai!
It’s an ugly thought. Not for the faint of heart.
But the Global South are not like the West. They are lead by talented, skilled and merit driven leadership. Not by the group of cluster-fuckery clowns that you see during vociferation on CNN and BBC daily. They will not allow “president” Biden to do anything that horrible.
So rest easily.
If things goes tit’s up, at least you have ample warning to “get outta Dodge”.
After the 2019 737 Max failures that downed two airplanes and killed all inside, the company promised to change its culture. But it has since seen several production stops for quality and flight security issues on several of its manufacturing lines. There are still undelivered 737 MAX and 787 planes mothballed on various airports around Seattle.
NEW IMAGE from on board Alaska Airlines 1282 after ***part of the fuselage*** blew out mid-flight. Successful emergency return to Portland after 20 minutes in the air. 10-week-old (!) Boeing 737 Max 9. NTSB investigating.
There is video from inside the plane as it was landing. Oxygen masks had been deployed when the plane depressurized. The women filming says that there was thankfully no one seated next to where the hull was breached. If there had been that person would likely have died.
🚨#BREAKING: Alaska Airlines Forced to Make an Emergency Landing After Large Aircraft Window Blows Out Mid-Air
A forced emergency landing was made of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at Portland International Airport on Friday night. The flight, traveling from Portland to Ontario, California, faced severe depressurization, causing the ejection of a large window section and an unoccupied seat. This incident resulted in a child’s shirt being ripped off. The Boeing 737-900/-9MAX aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 16,300 ft before safely returning to Portland International Airport. As of now, it remains unclear if anyone on board the flight was injured, as this story is still developing.
It was not just the emergency exit door that was ripped out. (Such window emergency doors only open towards the inside of the plane.) The whole section around the emergency exit door departed.
I have since learned that this was indeed the place of a special emergency exit that, when installed, opens to the outside. This is ‘plugged’ on lower density planes that do not need it.
That points to a serious manufacturing issue at the hull builder that had not been caught by quality control.
All passengers and the crew survived and the plane landed safely. Alaska Air has grounded its 65 strong fleet of 737 MAX 9. Other airlines should follow.
The neat rectangular hole that appeared in the fuselage was located at the position where Boeing fits a plug to seal a door opening that is not used as a door by most airlines and by no U.S. carriers.
An emergency exit door is installed in that location only for jets going to low-cost carriers like Ryanair who cram in additional seats that require an extra emergency exit. Otherwise, the hole is sealed with a plug and from the inside it is covered by a sidewall so that to a passenger it looks like a normal window, not a door opening.
This plug, halfway between the over-wing exit and the door at the rear of the plane, is present only on the largest versions of the 737.
It’s fitted on the previous generation 737-900ER and the same design is on the 737 MAX 8-200, the high density version for low-cost carriers, as well as the MAX 9 and MAX 10.
Boeing instructed customer airlines to inspect their 737 Max jets for loose bolts, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Thursday.
The request comes after the manufacturer discovered two aircraft with missing bolts in the rudder control system, raising concerns about faults across all aircraft.
“The issue identified on the particular airplane has been remedied,” Boeing told CNN in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are recommending operators inspect their 737 Max airplanes and inform us of any findings.”
Little noticed, the Federal Aviation Administration in December published a Boeing request for an exemption from key safety standards on the 737 MAX 7 — the still-uncertified smallest member of Boeing’s newest jet family.
Since August, earlier models of the MAX currently flying passengers in the U.S. have had to limit use of the jet’s engine anti-ice system after Boeing discovered a defect in the system with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The flaw could cause the inlet at the front end of the pod surrounding the engine — known as a nacelle — to break and fall off.
In an August Airworthiness Directive, the FAA stated that debris from such a breakup could penetrate the fuselage, putting passengers seated at windows behind the wings in danger, and could damage the wing or tail of the plane, “which could result in loss of control of the airplane.” …
One hopes that the FAA and Congress will finally get serious with Boeing. They must stop giving it all those lazy exceptions for issues that better (but more expensive) engineering can easily solve.
Posted by b on January 6, 2024 at 11:40 UTC | Permalink
Our “Parts Runner”, a maybe 5’4″ girl with long dark hair, (apparently) passed a stopped school bus on the right shoulder of a rural road at a high rate of speed (stupid!). We weren’t aware of this when the State police came by and questioned us. And instead of telling us what had happened and when, they focused on the shop owner, (6′ blond) who had earlier lost his driver’s license for a DUI. Does Mike drive? No. How does he get to work? He lives with me and rides with me. Doesn’t he own a red valiant license #… Well, I think the company owns it. He owns the company, doesn’t he? Ah, yeah, I guess. But he doesn’t drive that car, huh? No, it’s used for running parts. So he doesn’t drive it? No, our parts runner does (and I point to her) so, they arrested Mike for driving without a license and reckless driving and passing a stopped school bus and driving on the shoulder, and speeding. Mike fired the parts runner.
In court, the bus driver positively identified Mike as the driver. All of us – the receptionist, 4 mechanics and I were in court ready to testify that Mike was not driving at the time and place of the incident. But we never had to testify, because the bus driver got her dates confused and claimed the incident occurred on the day prior to the complaint. The judge had to dismiss the case.
There was absolutely no way that the driver actually saw who was driving. There is no way to mistake the parts runner for Mike. The state police HAD TO tell her to ID Mike as the driver. So not only did she lie, but the state troopers who did such a poor job of investigating what was a horrendous bit of driving and could have caused multiple fatalities of school children fucked up royally and got her to lie.
Eric Gales – “Don’t Fear The Reaper/All Along The Watchtower” (Live at the 2017 Dallas Guitar Show)
In my long career as a paramedic, I believe I saw first hand the worst thing a woman can do to a man. We were once called to the local state prison to transport a man to the hospital who was having chest pain. Other than that, he was pretty stable so it was a quiet 30-minute transport to the closest emergency room. We didn’t usually talk to the prisoners during transport, but somehow we started chatting and I asked the guy what he was “in” for. He tells me he was sentenced to prison for about 20 years for molesting both of his daughters. I was repulsed. I just wanted this scumbag out of my ambulance immediately I was so disgusted.
But then he immediately starts telling me how it was all a setup by his ex-wife and how he’s really innocent and nobody will believe him. He’s on his second attorney to try to get a new trial and he’s hoping somebody will finally grant him a new opportunity to clear his name. The prison guard riding in the back of the ambulance with us (he was sitting behind the patient) looks at me and rolls his eyes and smirks and says to me, “They all say that. Don’t listen to his bullshit. He’s been telling that to everyone who will listen.” The prisoner looks at me for some sort of sympathy but I just sternly look down at my patient report and tell him to lie back and rest and stop talking. He started sobbing and cried, “Even the paramedic that’s supposed to be saving my life hates me!” I certainly felt no sympathy for the guy at the time. I had passed judgment on him, as had the prison guard, and decided this guy was a disgusting pedophile and I’d just as soon not have to deal with him at all. Just touching him to check his blood pressure made my skin crawl.
It was approximately two years later when I happened upon a newspaper article in our local paper about a guy who’d been in the local prison for several years for child molestation. He’d eventually been granted a new trial and at some point during that second trial, both of his daughters admitted that they’d been made to create this false story against their dad at the behest of his ex-wife, who wanted to punish him for the divorce. His sentence was ultimately vacated and he was released from prison. Not sure whatever happened to the ex-wife, but I know the prosecutor said they’d be exploring charges against her.
I didn’t recognize the name of the prisoner in the article, but I immediately recognized his face when I saw a photo of him in court, weeping when the judge ordered him released. He was the same prisoner I’d transported two years before and had treated like crap. The guilt I felt at that moment was overwhelming. I wanted to find a way to contact him to apologize (if he’d even remember me). I wonder to this day whether he was ever able to repair his relationship with his kids, or whether he was ever able to repair his life. The guy spent some seven years in prison based on a bullshit charge that his ex-wife put their young kids up to. It’s a horrific thought and it still haunts me to this day.
Richard Wolff: Real wages in China quadrupled while real wages in the US stagnated
I had three friends fired for being too proactive, and read about another one who was fired for being too efficient.
In the first, the guy was hauling acid, and he went to the plant to get filled up. It was a gravity fed system, the guy came out and hooked him up, and went off to do something else in the half hour it would take to fill his tanker.
My friend saw that acid was dripping on the ground, at the connection. It was dripping faster and faster, so he looked around for the guy to shut it off. This was before cell phones. Safety rules said he couldn’t leave his truck while being filled so he decided to shut the valve and stop the acid going through the hose. He had watched the guy shut the valve many times a day as he got his loads. He resealed the connection when there was no pressure on it and opened it again. Which he did. The guy came back, and said that his truck should be full in a minute. My friend told him it would be another five minutes, because he had shut it off. The guy exploded, saying my friend didn’t understand the system and might have caused a disaster. Which is true, but it was gravity feed, he knew he was breaking environmental rules, and felt he had to try something.
My friend was not allowed on the property again, since his job was hauling acid from that plant, he lost his job.
The next one ,was a lady who got a unionized job with the city. Her first day on the job, she noticed that the cupboard door in the coffee room was hanging loose, so she reported it. A couple of days later she brought a screwdriver and tightened up the hinge. The next day the guy came to repair it and the union wrote her up, for doing someone elses job. A month later the light burnt out over her desk. She reports it, goes a week without a light, and then replaces it herself, and gets written up again. She is now on probation with the union for doing other people’s jobs. She is told third strike and your out, and you must be a member of the union to work for the city.
So when she sees that one of the only two the ladies toilets on her floor is plugged, and the other is in use, she doesn’t report it, she walks to the closet grabs a plunger , clears it, and uses the toilet. The person in the stall next to her, reports her, she is kicked out of the union, and loses her job.
This is one I read about in the newspaper years ago. It relies on the testimony of a guy who was fired, so its possible he’s making excuses. A guy gets a unionized job in the Alberta oil sands. He Is ordered to scrub out tanks, at the end of the day, he says all done. His supervisor, who is also unionized, says thats listed as a weeks worth of work, so you might as well go back and sit in the tanks, at least thats his testimony. His supervisor said it was impossible to clean the tanks in a day, so he sent him back to do it right.
He gets transferred to the night shift, where he says he tries to work continuously. His supervisor tells him that they always accomplish less than the day shift, and he has already done more, partway through the night. So he has to wait and twiddle his fingers, because they can’t make the day shift look bad.
He gets kicked out of the union and loses his job. The union says he was violating all sorts of safety regulations. I don’t know who is lying.
Finally I had a friend hired by a company to copy tapes. They have a separate contract to copy another companies tapes, after he has met his quota of proprietary tapes. He gets a bonus for the separate contract, but not for exceeding his quota of proprietary tapes.
So he gets in early, loads a dozen tapes on a dozen machines, starts the copy job. Then goes for breakfast and comes back at his usual starting time when the tape copying is done. Loads another set, and makes sure that tapes are being copied when he goes for coffee breaks, and lunch. By two o’clock he has met quota and starts on the bonus tapes. He makes sure that he has just started a set of bonus tapes when he leaves for the day.
The next morning he comes in, unloads the bonus tapes and starts on his quota tapes.
When he started with the company he was told that there were enough tapes for three years and almost no one ever had time for bonus tapes.
With his bonus, he makes double his base salary.
After a year and a half he is let go. He has used up the entire 3 year tape copy budget, and they can’t pay him anymore.
Yes, when I was a little kid. About 11 years old, I would say. I was visiting my uncle,and his girlfriend. The neighbor had a bunny rabbit that was tethered with a long leash, hopping around their yard. The neighbor saw me through the window, on her lawn, petting the bunny rabbit. She said please get off the lawn. I got off her lawm immediately.
My uncle said, sorry she’s a little kid, she just wanted to pet the bunny. The neighbor said, there is a children’s zoo, within driving distance. My Uncle and his girlfriend let the comment go.
The next day, I was in my uncles yard playing Frisbee with my uncles dog. My uncle’s dog was trained not to go beyond my uncles yard. All of a sudden, the dog belonging to the neighbor with the bunny rabbit, comes running into my uncle’s yard, to play frisbee. That neighbor walks into my uncles yard (she didn’t know he was watching from the window)
My uncle came out, and says, please get off the lawn. The neighbor said her dog just wanted to play frisbee, and loves kids. My uncle didn’t miss a beat, and said, there is a dog park with children, within driving distance.
His neighbor looked so. embarrassed, and collected her dog, and headed back towards her house. My uncle said, now do you see how silly that sounds. Sure your dog can play with my dog, and my neice. She told me I can come and see her rabbit whenever, I liked. We all became friends, after that for many years.
Originally Answered: Every day when I leave, my boss says, “leaving already?” to which I replied to today as I did my 8 hours and he says “well you are salary”. I do my work, don’t use my computer for anything other than work, and also work from home. What’s his deal?
My daughter is a master at improving restaurants . Examples, increasing sales 5x in 3 years, increasing profit by 35% in two months. She just has a nack. She arrives at 5 Am and makes sure the day is prepared for. She leaves between 4 and 5 as she trains great closers. In relation to the restaurant business, she has great employee retention.
She was hired by a fitness place to revamp it. She was working 5 to 5. In just two months she had made major strides. Customers were noticing, staff was noticing. The GM waltzed in everyday about 10 AM. When she left at 5 he always told her she lacked dedication to her job by leaving at 5. He said it one time too many. Since then she has “ fixed” two chains as training manager. That place remains a liability to the gym. The GM was fired shortly thereafter.
Bosses should respect their employees and If they don’t should replace them. In this case, if the employee was not doing their job in 8 hours, they should have had expectations set and be replaced if not met. The constant digs help no one.
I was 14 years old, it was during the second semester of my freshman year. My Spanish teacher called me to her desk after class. Once all the other students left the classroom, she grabbed my hands and said something along the lines of, “I know it’s hard. You’re going to make it through this.” She had tears in her eyes. At this point, I realized something was wrong, and people were noticing.
The first semester of freshman year, I was an honor roll student, I passed every test with a high score. I wore fashionable clothes and made a few new friends. Then second semester came. I stopped caring about my appearance, I would go to school in sweatpants and pajama shirts. My hair was unkempt, I stopped wearing makeup. My grades went from A’s and B’s to C’s and F’s. I stopped doing homework and didn’t study for tests, I lost all motivation to do school work. My GPA went from a 3.5 to a 2.01 and I didn’t care. I lost every single friend I had made and did not make a single effort to regain the friendships.
My life at home started suffering too, I became overly suspicious of my family members. I began accusing them of stealing things from me, I accused my parents of hiding cameras around the house to spy on me. I began hating my family, and isolated myself in my room at all times. I started playing video games to distract myself from the family I had hated, I immersed myself in a fantasy world and began confusing the video game with reality. I thought I knew people from the video game in real life and I would try to look for them. I thought my classmates at school were secretly apart of the video game. I thought people from the video game were watching me from my laptop camera. I began losing sleep and would impulsively pace around my room for hours without stopping, during the weekends I would pace in circles around my house from midnight until I saw the sun rise.
I began to form a crush on a boy from my improv class, instead of talking to him I thought I had the ability to put thoughts into his head. I would listen to music I knew he liked and would “insert my thoughts” into his mind, thinking he would associate myself with his favorite genre of music. I was trying to manipulate his thoughts with my “super powers” to make him like me.
I started hearing things that weren’t there. I would hear footsteps outside my door and window at night. I’d hear distant banging, as if someone were knocking on a door. I would hear faint screaming in the middle of the night, as though someone was on my street screaming near my window. I heard whispering coming from the walls. I would see shadows at night in my closet.
It took a few months of everything I had said happening for my teacher to notice, which was when I went to my mother about scheduling me a therapy appointment. However, the therapist did me no good. I didn’t know that what was happening to me wasn’t normal, it was as though my mental illness clouded my thoughts, everything that happened to me I accepted as reality, so I did not mention it to my therapist. My first therapist said I was experiencing a mild depression episode.
It took me a few months to realize something was wrong, but two years to pinpoint which mental illness I actually had. At age 16, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I am now 17, and very happy. I still have auditory and visual hallucinations, and still struggle a little with my “I can put thoughts into other people’s heads” delusion, but I regained all my motivation, am an honors student again, and no longer wear sweatpants and pajama shirts to school. I also don’t hate my family anymore, but it’s amazing how something like schizophrenia can change your thought process so much that you start to despise those who you truly love.
Architectural Wonder: China’s Spectacular New Train Station
I think prostitution is pretty safe. No one wants to become intimate with a toaster.
A lot of white collar and manual jobs will either be transformed or become entirely obsolete. LLMs have developed immensely in the last two years. It’s hard to predict the level of utility that will be possible in the next five years. Other than “a lot”.
In terms of manual jobs these will also be impacted, although robotics and automation is moving a little more slowly than paper-shuffling roles. It’s going to be a long time before a robot has the fine dexterity and precision to iron a shirt. But at the current rate of progress it might just happen in the next 20 years.
The safest jobs will be those where an essential part of the role is being a friendly mammal in the same room. We will still want nursery school staff, nurses and care workers, reception and hospitality staff. Whatever technology level we have, human beings will pay a premium for interaction with other human beings.
The creation of handmade objects and artefacts (like paintings) might be imitated by robotic means, but collectors will pay more for authentically human-made goods.
When Im was a teenager I got a summer job working for a small construction outfit. Their jobs were close to my house so I would ride my bicycle their, or the boss would pick me up long the way. A week or so into a job two new guys cme to work – the boss said they were ….. friends of his. One of the guys wore tinted presription glasses so you couldn’t really see his eyes. He really gave me the creeps.
A few days later the two new guys offered to give me a ride home after work. They were curious when I told them I lived in a group of houses beside a low security prison – my Dad worked there and the houses were owned by the prison and employees rented them. They asked me my Dad’s name and they both smiled and said they knew my Dad. I thought that was weird and it did not click in my brain why these two guys knew my Dad – who worked in a prison.
We pulled into the driveway and they saw my Dad in the backyard attending the BBQ. They were all smiles and cheers – “Hey Scotty! How’s it going?!”
My typically mild manner 5′ 7″ Dad turned red, and started yelling and swearing at the guys. The guys backed up as my Dad approached with the big BBQ fork in one hand. He told them to get back in the car and get the hell off his property. They were so surprised they scooted back the car and ‘got the hell out of there’.
I had never seen my Dad that angry, and he rarely ever said anything worse than “damn” or “shit”. He seriously cussed those guys out.
Then he turned to me with the most grotesque look on his face and said to me, “Listen to me. LISTEN! Stay the hell away from those two bastards! No matter what they say, don’t ever get in their car again to go ANYWHERE! Not for lunch, not for a beer after work, not for a ride home. Those guys are serious BAD news. So you hear me?!!”
That scared the crap out of as I realized those two guys used to be in prison.
The next summer my Dad came home with an out of town newspaper (we lived near two small towns with local papers, and the city 30 miles away had some national/international articles in the paper) and opened it up in front of me, folded it and handed it to me. He pointed to an article and said, “Read that.”
The story was about two guys who had picked up another guy who was hitchiking. They drove him to a deserted area and killed him. The one guy said he did it just to see what it was like to kill someone. Then I saw the picture of the guy who said that – tinted glasses so you couldn’t see his eyes.
I shivered physically and looked up at my Dad. He said, “That’s why I told you to never get in their car again. That poor bastard that was shot in the face could have been you.”
What do women want?
CORRUPTION, CHAOS, CONFLICT – FOURTH TURNING ERUPTS IN 2024
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine – The American Crisis
Thomas Paine wrote these words 247 years ago, in the most historic year in our history – 1776. That was during the first American Fourth Turning. It’s not a coincidence we are now in the midst of our fourth Crisis period in U.S. history, as they arrive like clockwork every 80 years or so, the length of a long human life. Paine’s American Crisis began in 1773, ignited by the Boston Tea Party and the British reaction to this revolutionary act of defiance. Our current Millennial Crisis was triggered by the Federal Reserve/Wall Street/Government created financial disaster in 2008 and subsequent outrageously desperate, totalitarian, un-Constitutional, extreme acts designed to keep the ruling class in power, while impoverishing and enslaving the masses in a surveillance state techno-gulag.
The polarization and fractures have become too deep to repair. The country, and the western world in general, are hurtling towards a darkening abyss of civil conflict, financial collapse, global war, societal chaos, and loss of life on a scale grander than WW2, the Civil War, and the American Revolution combined. Our technological advancements have outstripped our ability to intelligently, thoughtfully, and humanly, use this power for the benefit of future generations. The destructive deficiencies of human nature, such as: greed, desire for power, hatred, arrogance, resentment, and an unlimited supply of self-delusion, continue to plague our world, as only the most power-hungry psychopaths rise to the highest levels of government, business, religion, and finance.
The immense technological power in the hands of egocentric, megalomaniacal, sadistic, billionaires and their highly paid toadies, lackeys, and apparatchiks, inserted throughout the media, government, academia, banking, and corporations, has pushed the world to the brink of Armageddon. We are entering the sixteenth year of this Fourth Turning. Based on history, we can expect a climax of this Crisis in the 2030-to-2032-timeframe. The path to that climax is guaranteed to be violent and unforgiving.
Neil Howe, in his new book – The Fourth Turning Is Here – tries to decipher the likely path of the remainder of this Fourth Turning. Having read the original Fourth Turning, his joint project with William Strauss (who died in 2007), in 2004, I was curious to read Howe’s update on their generational theory of history. I met Howe for lunch in 2012 during the Occupy Wall Street protests and he correctly assessed that movement as a meaningless left-wing attempt to push their communist like agenda.
The first book, written in 1997, showed no favor towards the right or left. It was a no-nonsense assessment of economic facts and historical precedents. There were no political agendas, which I now attribute to Strauss’ influence, because Howe certainly lets his political views creep into his writings. This isn’t surprising, as his consulting business is dependent upon Wall Street banks and mega-corporations. He owes his living to the establishment; therefore he won’t shit where he eats.
Howe’s current left leaning political views seep into his current tome. He quotes Zelensky as some sort of patriotic leader, while portraying Putin as a thug, without giving any context regarding the 2014 CIA initiated overthrow of a democratically elected Ukraine president. He bought the covid scamdemic hook, line, and sinker, with no skepticism about the coordinated lockdowns and false narratives about masks, social distancing, and vaccines that never worked, but continue to kill. He believes the climate change bullshit narrative.
His tone regarding Trump is clearly negative and he believes the 2020 election was perfectly legitimate. He expounds about the January 6 “armed” insurrection, without one word about the FBI, Pelosi, and the Washington establishment planning, coordinating, and exacerbating the fake “insurrection”. His brain-dead accusations of violence by Trump supporters, while completely ignoring the murder and mayhem created by the BLM and ANTIFA terrorists, clearly reveals his allegiances.
Be that as it may, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. His acumen regarding possible scenarios and outcomes are well thought out. Howe makes some very interesting predictions regarding the remainder of this Fourth Turning, providing some very dark possibilities, along with some more unlikely optimistic outcomes. His research reveals Americans think the American dream is no longer attainable, civil discord will destroy our democratic institutions, and our global standing is in decline. All three fears are legitimate and coming to fruition as we speak. Howe captures the current situation in this passage:
“In the middle of a Crisis era, the social mood has reached an unstable balance of hope, fear, and dizzying uncertainty. Americans are like a compressed spring at the point of maximum potential energy. Internally secure yet externally threatened, they are ready for propulsive public action.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here
Events beyond their control are leading them towards their rendezvous with destiny and the speed has begun to accelerate, with 2024 slated to be a historic date in history, on par with 1776, 1861, and 1941. The exact events which will make 2024 historic are obscured by a dense fog of uncertainty, but we can make some educated guesses based upon our current economic circumstances, Biden’s open border purposeful invasion, upcoming elections wrought with fraud, ongoing treasonous governmental and judicial operations, and deepening global conflicts already underway.
Of the three possible paths laid out by Howe, the most likely appears to be the animosity between factions eventually leads to armed conflict within the country. Political dominance by one party is highly unlikely, with the country rallying around the flag against an external enemy. It is more likely our many external foes will take advantage of our internal conflict to further weaken our global hegemony. All paths lead to war at this point.
I sense the delusional masses, still entranced by their electronic gadgets, unending access to debt, NFL fantasy leagues, and oblivious to the lessons of history, are frantically trying to fend off reality by shopping, eating out, partying at bars, and pretending all is well. Critically assessing their true situation is too painful for these snowflakes and gender bending enthusiasts. Their virtue signaling wokeness is about to meet the brutal reality of a violent Fourth Turning climax.
“And however much these paths may seem to differ from one another, they all move toward the same destination. They all push the nation toward a violent struggle requiring maximum mobilization. They all culminate in the Ekpyrosis, which will bring the era into a decisive consolidation, climax, and resolution.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here
The drivers of this Fourth Turning, as documented in 1997, continue to be debt, civic decay, and global disorder. They have propelled this Crisis since the outset in 2008 and are accelerating towards an explosive collision in 2024. The national debt at the outset of this Fourth Turning was $10 trillion. It had taken 219 years to accumulate $10 trillion of debt, with the majority amassed during this century. It has taken just fifteen years to pile an additional $24 trillion of debt on the backs of Americans and future generations, if there are future generations.
This doesn’t even take into account the $200 trillion of unfunded welfare and pension obligations tallied up by your government leaders. At the same time, the Federal Reserve increased their balance sheet from $900 billion to $9 trillion. With the rapid rise of interest rates in the last year, if banks were required to mark their assets to market, as they did prior to 2009, the entire banking industry, including the Too Big To Fail Wall Street behemoths, would be insolvent, along with the Federal Reserve. Does this seem sustainable to you?
Luckily for our teetering empire of debt, delusions, and deceptions, they can change the rules whenever it suits their purposes to extend and pretend until it all “suddenly” collapses, like a vaxxed soccer player on the pitch. Of course, the U.S. is not alone in being burdened with unpayable debt and an unsustainable financial system. China and the EU countries are also insolvent and issuing debt to service their existing debt.
The only major global power without a large debt problem is Russia, with a debt to GDP ratio below 30%, while the U.S.- 120%, EU – 90%, Japan – 220%, and China – 80% have accumulated perilous levels of debt and still growing. These debt levels and the domestic implications of unsustainable economies will lead shamelessly corrupt politicians and even dictators like Xi to provoke foreign conflict in order to distract their populations from their dire economic circumstances. A wag the dog type false flag is just around the corner.
An man-made banker created economic disaster ignited this powder keg of debt in 2008, and the “solutions” rolled out by the ruling elites since have been designed to extend, pretend, and bend the minds of the masses, while fostering the perpetual pillaging campaign by the billionaire oligarchs who really run this world. The plebs have been destroyed by the relentless inflation purposefully created by Powell and his fellow central banker puppets of the Deep State, while the lords of finance have reaped billions in ill-gotten riches.
The “Haves”, who control the financial markets, media, and politicians, are ecstatic with the current paradigm, as the stock market hits new highs every day, while average Americans go deeper into debt to keep up with the Joneses, pay the rent, and put some food on the table. The U.S. is nothing more than a sophisticated technological looting operation at this point, as we await the Great Taking to be initiated by the oligarchs as their final solution.
The Great Taking is David Rogers Webb’s warning to those not on the inside about the coming seizure of all your assets (stocks, bonds, savings) by your own government in the name of some new contrived national emergency. You will sacrifice your life savings for the good of the country (aka Deep State). At this point it’s just a matter of which comes first, The Taking, Global war, or Civil chaos caused by the ongoing election fraud. They are all coming and will merge into a category 5 hurricane of hell for the nation and the world.
The Deep State continues its complete control over who gets “elected”/selected in this country, as they use the captured judicial system as a cudgel to crush the rule of law and our Constitutional rights. The Soros selected District Attorneys, Mayors, Governors, Judges, Secretaries of States, and various other low-level captured bureaucrats, are doing what they were selected to do – destroy the country’s social fabric and create a chaotic disintegration of our community norms.
A populace propagandized into a woke communist ideology and prodded into a buy now, pay later mentality, is unwilling or unable to accept that LATER has arrived. They will pay, one way or another. Multiple bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are all poised to pop, with the slightest provocation from a global and/or domestic blunder. We have now positioned our naval forces in the highly dangerous waters in the Middle East. Militarily supporting Israel and Ukraine has done wonders for our GDP, but it seems we are running out of ammo to defend our own country, as the invasion of our southern border accelerates. We are currently provoking armed conflict in Yemen, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine, and Russia.
All it will take is one lucky missile or unexpected hyper-sonic missile and our vaunted navy will see a vessel or two go to the bottom of the Red Sea. Then all hell will break loose. The rhetoric, threats and accusations of atrocities are ramping up, along with armed conflict across the Middle East. With the raging religious hatreds and centuries old struggles for land and power coming to a head, it will just take one of these psychopaths to ignite a global conflict. Meanwhile, China is biding its time for when they make their ultimate move on Taiwan. That would really roll a grenade into the party.
Financial markets have ignored the worsening global conflict thus far, but what happens when Americans start dying in large numbers? If the markets are at all time highs based upon expectations of a strong thriving economy in 2024, why is the Fed signaling multiple interest rate cuts in 2024, regional banks are desperately clinging to the Fed’s emergency bailout fund, commercial real estate is collapsing, housing has peaked, gold is hitting all-time highs, credit card debt is at all-time highs, layoffs are increasing, and the number of working age citizens is in free fall due to vaxx deaths and disabilities?
But buy stocks because the Wall Street shysters and their media mouthpieces tell you it’s the best time to buy. The only question at this point is what additional grain of sand will cause the sand pile to collapse. Will it be a foreign war, or will it be a civil war within our borders or something no one has even considered? I know most people dismiss the possibility of civil war, believing there aren’t enough people willing to risk their lives for a just cause. Neil Howe seems to think it is probable.
“Roughly half of all Americans think a civil war is likely. And a growing number of social scientists agree that the United States now fits the checklist profile of a country at risk. Trust in the national government is in steep decline. Check. Respect for democratic institutions is weakening. Check. A heavily armed population has polarized into two evenly divided partisan factions. Check. Each faction embodies a distinctive ethnic, cultural, and urban-versus-rural identity. Each wants its country to become something the other detests. And each fears the prospect of the other taking power. Check, check, and check.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here
Virtually no one believes civil war is possible, just as no one expected a civil war in 1860, as the presidential election approached. Truthfully, the civil war has already begun, but only those on the left, in conjunction with the FBI, CIA, Big Media, and other governmental agencies, are aggressively fighting. They are vigorously at war against the American people by rigging elections, arresting opposition leaders, and discarding the U.S. Constitution.
The good guys have thus far been too civil. But the simmering anger of heavily armed rural, red state Americans is close to boiling over. All the signs are there, awaiting a triggering event for this undeclared war to engulf the nation. At this point a number of possible triggering events are possible.
If David Webb is correct and those in power initiate the Great Taking, the level of violence in reaction would be unprecedented in U.S. history. Maybe that is their plan. Biden and his handlers could use this event to declare a national emergency, suspending the presidential election because they were going to lose, and instituting martial law. Their attempt to lockdown the country and use the military against civilians would surely result in massive bloodshed, as local animosities would result in assassinations, wholesale slaughter of those considered disloyal to whichever side controls the high ground in that community. Previously petty disputes would suddenly become lethal disputes.
Even if the presidential election is held in November, I don’t believe either side will accept the outcome. We know the Democrats and their Deep State co-conspirators will cheat, rig and once again try to steal the election. If they fail, they will unleash their BLM, ANTIFA terrorist arm into the streets to create chaos as an excuse to not hand over power to Trump.
With multiple states now attempting to unlawfully keep Trump off the ballot in their states, the animosity between the right and left grows ever deeper. The imprisonment of Trump or more radical attempts to steal the 2024 election will be met with violence from the here-to-for persevering right. Mixing this toxic domestic atmosphere with a deepening global chasm is a recipe for global disaster.
As we have seen throughout history, the egos of psychopaths at the helm of nations often lead them to act irrationally and/or emotionally when it comes to committing their people to war. While the U.S. has further weakened its global hegemony with its disastrous forays into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine; Russia and China have gotten stronger and more mutually committed to creating their own new world order. The USD as the dominant global currency is reaching its endpoint, marking the end of empire. Now Israel will further deplete U.S. resources and global stature with their war to wipe out Palestine. Once the dominoes begin to fall in a game of global warfare, all bets are off regarding possible outcomes. Neil Howe’s worst-case scenario is certainly not out of the question.
“At worst, should at least one desperate country resort to WMDs, the outcome of a great-power war could prove to be even more devastating than that of a civil war. The toll could be almost unimaginable – with multiple cities destroyed, many millions killed, and many tens of millions displaced – all perhaps triggered by some ill-fated combination of the wrong leader making the wrong choice at the wrong time.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here
All scenarios for 2024 seem depressing and dark, but the odds still favor just continuing to muddle through as we have done through the first fifteen years of this Fourth Turning. I gave up trying to make specific predictions within a specific time frame years ago. It’s a fool’s errand as there are too many variables in the world to correctly predict which ones will drive the course of events within a one year time frame.
What I do know is that pessimism about the future continues to deepen, paranoia strengthens, trust declines, anger grows, and the arrogance of those running the show has reached epic levels. We’ve been subjected to three years of propaganda about how the Great Reset will fundamentally transform our world, where we will own nothing and be happy. It seems this fits perfectly with David Webb’s Great Taking theory of how we will ultimately own nothing.
There does seem to be a common thread running through everything happening in the last three years and appears to be on deck for 2024 and beyond. It all revolves around this broad Great Reset concept pushed by Schwab, Gates, Soros, and the rest of the Davos elite. The entire Covid plandemic was engineered to introduce authoritarian measures and instruct the masses to obey their masters.
The vaccine is now clearly revealed to be a depopulation weapon, killing off some suddenly; others through myocarditis, turbo cancers, and strokes; babies through miscarriages; and future generations through reduced fertility. And most still believe our overlords rolled these jabs out to save them. Trump is still crowing about his big, beautiful vaccines. He’s either a fool or a charlatan.
The climate change scam is hastening, as the war on farmers, meat, and fossil fuels is waged relentlessly by unelected bureaucrats and captured media mouthpieces. The EV scam is collapsing rapidly, as people with common sense see through it all. The Great Replacement of white people with third world savages is unabetted, with the Biden Administration ushering them across the southern border, giving them phones and money, flying them to cities across the country, and paying for them to stay at upscale hotels.
This is not incompetence, but treason. They have already used their predictive programming/brainwashing to prepare the masses for civil war and a massive cyber-attack. Your government will protect you, as long as you sacrifice your remaining liberties and rights. All that is left is the initiation of the Great Taking. The “emergency” will occur on a weekend and by Monday morning your assets will be gone.
This is their master plan, but we will have a say on whether it is ever successfully implemented. I wonder if these Davos psychopaths absconded with The Great Reset moniker from Strauss & Howe, as they used it to describe Fourth Turnings back in 1997.
A Fourth Turning great reset may be a surprise to Schwab and his totalitarian acolytes inserted in governments across the world. They are in control. They are running this shitshow. They are the establishment. They are reaping the benefits. They are suppressing dissent and the truth. They are the existing social order that traditionally gets swept away during a Fourth Turning. 2024 may mark the beginning of the end for the Davos crowd and their iron grip on our spiraling society of chaos.
The future course of history could be radically altered by actions taken by supposedly influential characters in this movie, but also by courageous deeds performed by average Americans who will sacrifice themselves to ensure future generations have a chance to live in a nation devoid of a psychopathic elitist ruling class.
It seems like a long shot at this point, but giving up is not an option for those of us who still love this country. The four possible outcomes for this Crisis, laid out by Strauss & Howe in 1997, are as valid today as ever, and disturbingly close at hand. We will all have to do our part if we are to have any chance of producing a positive outcome to this Crisis. Happy New Year.
This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly. For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection and bad luck.
The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rhythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.
The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.
Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.
ARGENTINA IN TEARS! China STOP Deal Worth $6.5 Billion With Argentina
Yes. They took a narcotic drug, meant for the patient, and injected themselves. Gave the patient an injection of saline. I didn’t understand why the patient was suddenly unable to tolerate a treatment he had previously handled with dignity. I suspected something when I noticed this nurse would always go to the locker room after “medicating” this patient. The next time he was due for a shot to relieve his pain, I hid in the locker room. I witnessed that nurse injecting herself. Fury was what I felt, for making a patient suffer so terribly. I was unable to feel any pity for her at that moment. I reported her, and she was fired, after her ongoing behavior was verified. The other nurses on the unit didn’t speak to me because I’d betrayed the “sisterhood” I pointed out that a patient was being harmed by an impaired nurse. FIRST imperative is to adhere to the oath we all took, to “do no harm”. You have to do what’s right!
Obviously the addicted nurse was counseled and offered assistance in overcoming her addiction. THAT is the right thing to do, too.
Another incident occurred when I realized one of the best, most brilliant nurses I’d ever worked with, was stealing a narcotic, regularly. He never harmed a patient, but I could see he was addicted. I chose to try to help him, and spoke to him, telling him I knew people and could get him into drug rehab the next day. I urged him to seek help. I warned him the supervisor was looking for whoever was stealing the narcotics. He assured me it wasn’t him and he didn’t need help, he was fine. He was caught, the next night, stealing. End of career. Those of us, who worked with him, were in tears.
Sometimes you help. Sometimes you report. The patient comes first. But one hopes that help is offered, because once removed as a nurse, that nurse becomes a “ patient”.
I did. I caught up with a driver I clocked at a very high rate of speed. When I walked up to the window I saw a grandmother in the back seat holding a young boy in her lap and he was spewing a bright pink frothy liquid every few seconds. The driver asked where was the hospital. Regulations forbade emergency escorts, and I violated that reg. I led them to the nearest hospital a few minutes away. On arrival I was told to take him to another ER, that hospital didn’t have the ER that day. I forcefully informed the Dr that the boy wouldn’t survive that long. He reluctantly had the boy brought in and began treating him. Several Drs attended that youngster that afternoon and all abandoned him but one young Dr named Alex Krier. He would not give up, and he saved that boys life. I learned that he fell off the bed of a pickup truck in a pasture and hit his head. I never learned what the diagnosis was. I would occasionally hear from his father from Tallahassee Fl. The youngster eventually made a full recover but his injury slowed his development significantly. I firmly believe God placed me in that position that day, and that He put Dr Krier in that ER that day. If they had taken him to the ER of the day, several miles away, I believe he would not have survived.
Well, blanket tariffs are illegal under WTO rules.
ILLEGAL.
Donald the Orange had to resort to neutering the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO to pursue blanket tariffs on China.
The WTO remains neutered under Joe the Elderly.
Meanwhile, the US made a genocide determination on China, and rescinded recognition of Hong Kong as an independent trade body under the WTO framework.
That’s belligerence and exceptionalism.
A typical example of the rules-based international order the US is trying so hard to maintain.
What is China to do unless it wants to play the same game?
Unfortunately for the hegemon, it must be willing to take pain and sustain damage to land punches on the No. 2 economy today.
As America is finding out, or being forced to admit, belligerence is unsustainable and comes with its cost, and paying it into the future is an uphill ask that accumulates systemic risk.
When I babysat, decades ago in the late eighties and early-to-mid nineties, it had become a trope: the babysitter who ignores the kids and spends the whole time talking on the family’s phone, watching the family’s TV, and eating the family’s food. Because of this, a few families whose kids I watched sincerely believed that it was what I would do, too.
It couldn’t have been further from the truth. I began babysitting in the Babysitters Club era, and sitters my age consulted those books like manuals. We brought activities for the kids. We were primed for the emergencies we’d read about. We wanted to impress parents. Many, many nights, I would go directly to a job after a long day of school and eat nothing at all until I got home at 11pm or midnight, because parents didn’t offer anything and I wouldn’t have dared take something that wasn’t offered.
There were parents who would honest-to-goodness measure tiny amounts of popcorn kernels into paper bags for each of their children, and leave them on the countertop for me to microwave for them as a snack. Other parents would warn me away from fridges and pantries, telling me that the kids could have this cup of applesauce and that bag of pretzels and nothing more. I honestly do not remember a single parent telling me to go ahead and eat with the kids. I was the hired help and could eat on my own time. And I was paranoid that they would come home to find food “missing”, and blame me for taking morsels from their kids’ metaphorical mouths.
How did I deal with this? A few ways. I’d try to eat a big lunch at school. I drank water from the kitchen tap. For some reason I have a vague memory of stealthily eating a single raw piece of whole grain penne pasta, although I’m not sure why I would have had to do that. Later, when I had wised up a bit, I began bringing food art projects for the kids to do, and that was a snack for all of us.
Having food available for a babysitter isn’t really likely to bankrupt a parent or compromise the kids’ care. It can have guidelines (“if you get hungry, feel free to have one of the snacks I left on the kitchen table” or, “go ahead and have some pizza with the kids”). A babysitter, especially a young one, will be relieved and appreciate that you care.
Seriously, I always thought “what the hell is wrong with this girl?”
“Why is she so into me? I haven’t done anything.”
Yet there it was…
“I haven’t done anything,” & in my mind love or affection was something that was highly conditional, earned, and can be taken away. Not something I was inherently worthy of.
Some women are clingy, codependent, and looking for a man to “complete them” in a way that is not realistic.
However, some women are just secure enough in themselves to be forward about it.
Expressing your feelings is healthy. It is an extension of good parenting. The result of being taught that when people love you & care for you they say so and act accordingly.
An emotionally secure woman is going to show you she cares or desires you because that is how her loved ones taught her to be.
Sometimes however for many people, like myself, were taught expressing your feelings is NOT okay. That people who care about you will not say that, & affection is both scarce and highly conditional.
For those people, loving, affectionate, expressive people are… strange & unfamiliar.
So the reality is that a woman who is upfront about her emotions is not by default “clingy”. Trust me, I had an ex-girlfriend who never wanted to be away from me… ever.
Now that is clingy.
However, a woman saying she likes you and wants to spend some time with you is what emotionally healthy and secure women do.
So if a woman expressing interest alone turns you off, that says more about your inability to accept healthy affection than her being overly dependent on you.
Fall asleep to the Purring of a Cat & Fireplace 🔥 Relax in Cozy Winter Hut, Fireplace sound
OMG!
The cat is curled up next to the fireplace, its tiny body nestled close to the warmth emanating from the crackling logs. Its eyes are closed, and its chest rises and falls with each peaceful breath. The soft glow of the fire dances across the cat's fur, casting flickering shadows on the surrounding floor. Its paws are tucked neatly under its chin, as if in a state of utter contentment. The rhythmic purring fills the air, a gentle lullaby that blends harmoniously with the crackling of the fire. The cat's whiskers twitch ever so slightly, indicating a deep and restful sleep. The coziness of the scene is heightened by the sight of a few scattered ash particles caught in the air, evidence of the cat's proximity to the hearth. It is a picture of serene tranquility, a blissful respite from the world, as the cat dreams away in the comforting embrace of the radiant warmth.
Hungarian Chocolate Cake (Rigo Jansci)
Rigo Jansci
Ingredients
Chocolate Sponge
8 ounces semisweet chocolate
6 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup Dutch processed baking cocoa
Cocoa Whipped Cream Filling
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 cups heavy cream
Raspberry and apricot preserves
Ganache Frosting
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons pailettes de feuilletine (optional)
1 tablespoon cocoa nibs (optional)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 10 1/2 x 15 1/2-inch jellyroll pan with parchment and spray with nonstick vegetable spray.
In a dry bowl, melt chocolate over barely simmering water. Whisk the eggs and sugar until they hold a ribbon shape for 2 seconds. Whisk in the coffee mixture. Sift, then fold in the cocoa. Fold in the melted chocolate. Spread in the prepared pan and bake for 9 minutes until set. Let cool.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Sift the cocoa and confectioners’ sugar into the cream and whip to the consistency of shaving cream. Divide the sheet cake in half. Lightly spread one layer with apricot preserves. Spread on the whipped cream. Lightly spread the other half with raspberry preserves and flip on top of the whipped cream. Refrigerate.
Make the Ganache: Put the chocolate in a small bowl. Over medium heat, bring the cream to a scald. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Working from the center out, gently stir with a whisk to melt and blend. Continue stirring until smooth. Stir in the feuilletine and nibs. Pour over the cake. Allow cake to chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, until chocolate is set.
Woman dies in crash and WAKES UP in another TIMELINE where she discovers THIS…
While camping in a fairly remote area of west Wales, Pendine being the nearest village, I decided to take a walk to one of the beaches nearby. This isn’t the sort of beach with any parking nearby, or even a road leading to it, the only way to access was either by a very rough part of the Wales coastal path, or a slightly better path from inland, it was difficult to access to say the least.
The remoteness and tranquility of the beach didn’t offer any clues to the violent events that had taken place there in the past.
When approaching from the coastal path I could see a structure set back quite some way from the beach, just visible in the photo below.
image 125
On closer inspection of the structure set back from the beach head, it appeared to be some sort of sea wall or a section of harbour wall, but was way too far back for the sea to ever reach it. It also appeared to have suffered some quite extensive damage, as can be seen below:
image 124
Knowing there was an army training ground located a few miles away I assumed it may have something to do with the military, though not sure what the purpose could be. Once back in civilisation with a phone I searched for information about the beach and found the following article:
It transpires that the wall was built to replicate the sea defences at Omaha beach to practice for the D-day landings. There was previously another wall there, but this was destroyed by tanks placing large explosive charges and subsequent erosion by the sea. The holes blown out of the concrete were from experiments with various explosive charges. It was really unexpected that this place was once used for this purpose.
The Biggest Story in America | The Scheduled Collapse of U.S Cities
At my former employer we had a saying “Hell hath no fury like a loyal customer scorned”. I now know that I am one of those customers.
I was a customer of ATT Cellular for over 20 years, paying well over $350 a month for 5 lines for my family. That’s $350 after all the “discounts”. The incentive to stay with ATT was mostly inertia and a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it approach”. In spite of the bluster, they really didn’t give any incentives on new phones other than interest free financing, and I knew I could probably find a better price elsewhere, but…
Then a few months ago my credit card number got stolen (not the card, just the number) and the bank caught it right away and changed the account number. This happened to be the card that ATT used for my auto-bill. I didn’t realize it until they sent me a text saying my monthly payment was one day overdue. So immediately I went online, paid the one-day overdue bill, and changed the credit card number. The bill was over $50 higher due to removal of the e-bill discount and a late payment fee.
The next bill also had a removal of the e-bill discount and the added charge of $7 for late payment. I thought that was unfair, but I let it go.
But a month later the next bill arrived and still had no e-bill discount and added another $7 late fee! I called up to inquire and was told too bad, it takes at least a month and a half to register the new credit card in their system. All I wanted was the recent $7 late fee credited. First I appealed to their sense of fair play, and got nowhere. I then asked politely if I could ask a manager for a waiver.
The manager said no way. I pointed out I was a customer at $350 a month for 20 years, but I would leave over $7. He calmly told me the equivalent of “don’t let the door hit you in the ass” (I’m paraphrasing). No raised voices, just a calm discussion that ended in goodbye.
So I started the research, and found a carrier that uses the same cellular network plus others, and is costing me $210 a month less! $210 a month less for the same exact service! This was the best $7 wake-up call I ever had!
Many years ago when my daughter was in High School we were going to Target. We got there and parked. Now mind you, my daughter is incredibly good looking and I am round and a mom. If you were looking at the two of us standing together you would hardly even notice me. I am totally good with that. My husband hates it. lol Well back to the story…
We park the car, get out and start walking through the parking lot toward the store. A very nice, lifted, truck drives past us, the driver cat calls and honks the horn. My daughter looks me dead in the face and asks me if I know the guy driving the truck. I literally spit out my coffee and started laughing. She got all serious and demanded if I knew that guy! I could not stop laughing. She was so serious!
I told her the honk and cat call was for her, not me. I was laughing so hard because she was so miffed. Arms crossed over her chest., marching throught the parking lot. She didn’t know who it was so there was, “absolutely no way,” that was for her. It was so funny! She was so serious!
Needless to say, I was already wiped out, sides aching from laughing, by the time we got in the store. We did not spend much time in there.
He is Ultra Cautious and always adds a pinch of salt and always keeps making speeches for more improvement
That’s how Chinese leaders are
Always looking at the Long Term
Plus they always give a gloomy outlook and then when China does do much better, they look like they have achieved something amazing
Take this year 2023
Xi gave a same speech in 2022
Challenges, Global Slowdown, Real Estate Slowdown
Chinese people expected the worst and they found things MUCH MUCH BETTER
They credit this to the CPC and this buys Xi Jingping brownie points
Xi has never ever boasted of Chinas economic prowess
Never
From the first day he has always been cautious and always warned of challenges since 2014 at least
Xi’s speeches regarding MILITARY have changed from wolf warrior style to cautious diplomacy from 2014–2023 but as far as economy is concerned, he has always spoken of challenges
My point is – every Economy today has challenges
No leader mentions this
Especially Democratic leaders
They will always brag and boast and eventually get burnt
China is always cautious and it’s citizens always prepared for the worst, so they always feel better when things go better than the predicted outlook
I noticed it even when they submit their expected profits
They always predict less profits and longer time to break even and when they make more profits and break even quicker, they credit their style and efficiency
Indians predict more profits and shorter time to break even and end up embarrassing themselves often
The fact is 2023 is the best year for China economically since 2018
Their GDP growth of 5.1% has been achieved even when Real Estate dragged it down by 1.1% this year
Their GDP growth of 5.1% has been achieved even when Industrial Production dragged it down by 0.4% this year
Their GDP growth was 5.1% despite Asset Monetization dragging down growth by 0.2% this year
Had the three stayed static or stagnant – Chinas GDP growth would have been 6.8% this year
The Real Interest rate is 2.61% this year which is way higher than other countries. In India it’s 1.30% , half of Chinas. This is higher than the 0.85% Real Interest rate in 2022
Despite a near 18% reduction in Exports to US and EU, China finished with a $ 860 Billion Trade Surplus
China holds a mere 25% US Assets in reserves of $ 3.23 Trillion against 79% in 2010
Six of the largest service sectors – Retail, Financial, Travel, Hotels, Restaurants & Supermarkets all broke into the black this year from red last year
Industrial Profits slumped by 14% but High Tech Industrial Profits rose 39%
The day a Chinese Leader smiles and says how great China is doing
I was shopping at Boston store and foolishly looked at the sparkly jewelry display. I saw a gorgeous blue stone set in an Art Deco designed pendant. I fell in lust with it.
I was again foolish and tried it on. The counter lady told me it made me look radiant, the stone was unique, the design a rare offer, plus it was on sale, with a coupon. It was very expensive. I began justifying the purchase, which was a bit spendy for my budget. I rationalized I could eat cheap soup, ask for car rides to save having to buy gas, turn down the heat for a few months, to lower the bill. I bought the necklace.
I got home and had buyers remorse every time I had to eat the cheap noodles, beg a ride to work, put on another sweater and pair of socks. It wasn’t enough remorse to make me return it.
The bill for the purchase came, I had barely enough to pay it in full because if I didn’t pay it all I would be charged interest for a purchase I could hardly afford. I didn’t delay in returning the bill. I breathed a sigh of relief. The necklace was mine.
My satisfaction was short lived. The next month I got another bill from Boston Store. It contained a $35 late fee. I called the store to complain, how I was charged a late fee when the date the payment was posted was on the due date. The person who answered said the computer calculated it, the fee was due. The computer was wrong! I wrote a letter stating my observations. It was ignored.
I decided to pay the $35 because damaging my credit wasn’t worth it. I vowed to never, ever shop there again. Without surprise the entire empire that included Boston Store declared bankruptcy, folded and no longer exists. While I know my refusal to remain a customer didn’t single handedly undermine their business it makes me happy to wear the necklace.
My uncle Jeff (mom’s brother) was a renowned Neurosurgeon and Director of Stereotactic Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. As you could imagine, he was a fairly brilliant guy (perfect SAT, Princeton undergrad, taught himself fluency in German, all of those things crazy-smart people do.)
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We are a fairly small family, so I got to know him on a pretty personal level, more as an uncle than a doctor. But I still knew him as both, and can tell you there was a significant dichotomy between the two Jeffs.
His patients raved about his passion and care for their well being and treatment, they said he was an unwavering professional. He had the utmost respect among peers and students. Jeff, or Dr. Williams, aimed to become the best neurosurgeon in the world.
Jeff as a person, and I say this as someone who still loves him dearly, was a wonderful but flawed and complex individual. On his good days he could be the funniest and most intelligent guy you’ve ever spoken to. The kind of guy who could say one sentence that changes the way you see the world. On his bad days he could be profoundly arrogant; he was very aware of his mental capacities and not afraid to let you know.
He could also be very demanding and temperamental. As a 7 year old, he would review my math homework with me and let me tell you, you’ve never met a more demanding math tutor. My theory was that because he was so demanding of himself, he projected that same standard upon people he cared about.
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But we still had fun too.
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Over the years, we saw him frequently and had a great relationship, but we noticed he started looking pretty bad. He was gaining weight and he had lost a lot of color in his face. We know he was working 80+ hours and living off the hospital cafeteria food. It wasn’t something you could mention to him, or he would stop talking to you for a year. Finally, his dad (my grandpa) tried to bring it up with him, but Jeff would have none of it. He wouldn’t listen or didn’t take it seriously. And he got angry to the point that we could never bring it up again.
About a month after my 19th birthday, I was packing to head back to college. I heard my mom crying in her bedroom across the hall, I could tell something was wrong, very wrong. I came in, she was on the phone, sobbing. It was that type of cry that meant something really bad had happened. She hangs up the phone and tells me. “Your Uncle Jeff had a heart attack this morning, Jeff is dead.”.
That morning he had been running on a treadmill in the Johns Hopkins gym next to a fellow doctor, he had a type of “widow maker” heart attack and died. Not even a surgeon jogging next to him could save him. He was 50 years old.
To this day, I miss and love Jeff. I idolized him and his death crushed the family. But I am also angry; he made some pretty bad health choices that cost him his life, choices a neurosurgeon knows well not to make. Choices he somehow rationalized didn’t apply to him. And so to answer the question, the thing that annoys me about really smart people, is that they can be guilty of hubris at times.
Back in 1992 or so, I was in a computer repair shop where I often sourced secondhand parts, like the 3.5″ floppy drives from IBM PS/2 systems. They had a defect that frequently caused them to slip out of alignment, and when they did, IBM would simply pay repair shops to swap out the floppy drives with new ones and toss the old ones. You could actually find tons of them in dumpsters at repair shops.
I collected them because they were super-easy to fix, you just turned a screw to align them again. They used the same card edge connector with the same pinout as a 5.25″ floppy drive, so you could just swap them on computers with 5.25″ floppies, which I did on my TRS-80.
Anyway, I was in there one day when the tech was like “hey, you want this?” and pointed to an Apple Lisa with an Apple Profile hard drive. “I was like “sure, what’s wrong with it?” He said “I don’t know. Video doesn’t work at all. Total blank screen. I haven’t looked at it because when I gave the owner a price quote, he just told me to keep it.”
So I bought it for $100, got it home, popped off the top (super easy, it was designed to be disassembled without tools, and all the electronics slid out in card cages like military radios use), and…
…the little socket had come off the back of the CRT.
I slipped it back on and it worked perfectly. Used it for years, until it finally failed. In fact, I even did small-press publishing on it.
Unimportant details have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.
When I was in training a 14 year old girl swimming in the ocean was run over by a speedboat. One leg and half her pelvis were gone. The thing is, most patients that are going to die come in unresponsive whereas most patients that live come in talking. But a young girl like her has a lot of physiologic reserve and the large vessels of her pelvis had spasmed shut to temporarily stop the bleeding. So despite her extraordinarily severe injury, she was actually talking to us. And she was pleading with us to save her life. I can still remember her crying, saying “I don’t want to die, Daddy.” Her father (who had been driving the speedboat) was beside her holding her hand.
I took one look at her injury and knew it was fatal. There were several surgeons there and we tried some Hail Mary maneuvers in the trauma bay, but the spasming arteries opened up within a few minutes of arrival and she died.
If you’re in the trauma field you get used to death, and I am. But I will never forget the sound of her crying to live. I can only imagine what her father went through.
It was a get-rich-quick scheme. Leap in front of slow-moving cars, feign injury, and threaten a suit. Make millions overnight. Or that was his plan, anyways.
So he ended up in the ER once, twice a week. He was never actually hit, but he put on such an exhibition, we were obligated to work him up. He was in and out of the CT scanner so often he acquired the sort of soft glow you could have a romantic dinner over. And he almost always ended up spending at least one night inpatient. Traumatized drivers showed up crying, asking about his wellbeing. He was exhausting our patience and our resources.
“We have actually sick patients who can’t get a bed upstairs because he’s taking up space,” I groaned, catching sight of his name on the ER board once again.
“But what can we do?” my co-resident shrugged. “One of these times he will truly be hurt. How do we save someone from themselves?”
I sighed. “He’s not trying to hurt himself. He’s just trying to make money. Unfortunately, he’s not crazy. Just an asshole.”
My chief, Hayashi, leaned back in his chair and snickered, tenting his fingertips together diabolically. “What if he WAS crazy?” he proposed, with one eyebrow raised.
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” he tipped his chair forward, “it’s a six floor hospital, right? Put on your white coat and climb out the window of the room next door to his. Inch your way across the ledge, and climb in HIS window. Walk up to the bed, climb up on it, stand up. Unzip and pee all over him. Then climb back out the window again..”
“WHAT?!!?” I screeched. “That’s insane!”
“Yup!” grinned Hayashi. “That’s exactly what they’re gonna say when he tells everyone some doctor climbed in the window and peed on him. Then he’s gonna go away. Problem solved. You’re welcome.”
“Carrier killer” DF-21d missiles are no longer China’s only weapon against American carriers!
1. Armed drones
As we all know, Chinese drones are very powerful. Recently, American carriers ran into trouble in the Red Sea, and Iranian observers even mocked the US military on Twitter for using a $2.1 million SM-2 missile to intercept a $2,000 Yemeni drone.
American carriers can’t even defend themselves against Yemen’s humble drones, let alone the countless drones of China, the land of drones.
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It amuses me that America’s “invincible” aircraft carriers are being fumbled by the Houthis in Yemen.
What you need to know is that the Yemeni Houthis are not government forces, just a guerrilla force on motorbikes. Lol! 🤣
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2. EM gun
What Chinese ships are hiding even deeper are the electromagnetic guns not used by American ships.
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China’s medium-voltage DC integrated power system for ships is at least 20 years ahead of the U.S., which can fully guarantee the electricity for EM guns.
EM cannon shells fly incredibly fast and are silent, with no gunpowder explosions.
A single shot from an EM gun can sink an aircraft carrier instantly and completely silently, and cannot be recognised, tracked, or intercepted.
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But the American EM gun can not be actualised because its ship power system and its backwardness, can not supply the huge amount of electricity consumed instantly by the EM gun.
Below is the full translation of 《中国留美博士生突遭遣返：经历噩梦般的50个小时》Chinese PhD Students in the U.S. Suddenly Deported: Enduring a Nightmare-like 50 Hours, a news report by 中国科学报 China Science Daily posted in its WeChat blog on Friday, January 5.
Meng Fei, a Ph.D. student originally set to return to her university in the U.S., was denied entry at an American airport and rapidly repatriated. The 50 hours she spent there is utterly an unforgettable nightmare for her.
After Meng landed in Washington, D.C. on December 19, 2023, she was immediately detained by U.S. Customs at the airport for secondary inspection. She then spent eight hours in the so-called “little dark room” and another 12 hours in solitary confinement. During her layover in Los Angeles, she was detained for five more hours before being sent back to Beijing. These dark moments are etched clearly in her memory.
Sitting back in the sofa corner at home, Meng is in a daze – “How did I end up back here?” When she left for the U.S., she had just successfully renewed her F1 student visa for the coming year on November 27, 2023, not expecting to be rapidly repatriated. What is worse is that she is banned from entering the U.S. for five years. If her appeal fails, Meng will not be able to attend her doctoral defense in 2024. The appeal takes at least six months, which is too long for her biological research to wait.
Meng Fei was shocked to find, on the train back to her hometown, six other students who had similar experiences at Dulles International Airport (IAD). All of them are females. Furthermore, she learned of two other female students who were informed at the Chinese airport during check-in that their visas were revoked and could not board their flights.
Despite thorough analysis, they couldn’t dig out the reason for their repatriation. The only certainty was that their dream of studying in the U.S. was shattered.
“The Little Dark Room”
Four hours after arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport, Meng Fei was informed that there was a problem with her visa and that she had to return to China. She became the only person repatriated from the airport that day.
Meng Fei stayed in the little dark room for eight hours. After learning she was denied entry, she was immediately told to pay $3,700 for her repatriation flight to China by herself, with no other options. By comparison, her flight to the U.S. cost only $1,000.
The officials who interrogated Meng were two women: Epstein, with short hair and no uniform, and Pratt, with blonde hair, not tall, also with no uniform. Other detainees encountered Pratt as well.
This group of victims were interrogated about whether they received scholarships during their undergraduate studies, whether they were funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC), or whether they engaged in any confidential research. Meng had received undergraduate scholarships from their alma mater but was not involved in CSC-funded projects or any confidential research.
When signing her statement, Meng was told it was just to confirm the interrogation’s accuracy, but she wasn’t allowed to see the content before signing. Only after signing did she learn that she would not only be repatriated rapidly but also banned for five years. She was outraged because the customs officers kept urging her to accept the decision to return to China during the interrogation, saying she could re-enter easily by reapplying for a visa. The five-year ban was not mentioned during the whole process.
With two armed officers watching, she had no choice but to comply, focusing only on how to leave that dreadful place and contact the outside world.
The nightmare didn’t end there. After an 8-hour wait in the little dark room, Meng confronted a humiliating search, followed by 12 hours in solitary confinement.
“I was told that I would be kept in a room, I don’t remember the exact room name. Maybe at that time, my ears refused to hear it, my brain to remember it,” she recalls. She was not allowed to bring her luggage, coat, shoes, sweater, or even cough medicine. The room had a cot, a sofa, children’s books and toys, a toilet without a door, and multiple surveillance cameras, but no clock. Thankfully, there was a TV showing the time.
It was a little cold in that single room, but Meng only got three sheets to sleep with. She managed to sleep for only an hour, waking up frequently, and spent two hours watching the movie X to kill time. For the rest of the time, she just aimlessly pressed the remote control, unable to focus on anything, just waiting to board the flight home.
It was only when preparing to board the flight that she was informed that she would get her phone back only upon landing in Beijing. For the previous 48 hours, it was impossible for her to inform her family she was safe.
The search and 5-hour detention in Los Angeles airport seemed trivial in comparison. On the flight to Los Angeles, her main concern was how to make contact with her family and inform them of her situation. Fortunately, her iPad, which was brought with her, enabled her to inform her family of her flight number.
Upon landing in Beijing, a official of the Chinese immigration administration helped Meng charge her phone, record what she had experienced in the past few days and had her sign and fingerprint the record. She could finally message her family.
Fellow suffers
On the train home, Meng Fei got into contact with another girl through social media who had also been repatriated from DIA and denied entry in December 2023. The girl was also pursuing a PhD in the U.S.
Such students experiences have a WeChat group. Their experiences were strikingly similar. Wei Na, a student at Johns Hopkins University, and her roommate were detained in the little dark room on November 24, 2023. Wei was asked sensitive questions during the formal record, such as military service, connections to the Ministry of Education, and funding from the state. Despite she gave negative responses, the inspector told her, “Your F1 and B1/B2 visas are no longer valid, and you are not allowed to enter the U.S. We will send you back to China on the earliest flight. You need a new visa to re-enter.”
Repeated inquiries with inspectors only revealed that her visa was canceled by the U.S. Embassy in China two days before her entry. However, after returning home, she was told by the embassy that it was not the embassy but U.S. Customs’ decision. That made her doubt the authenticity of the U.S. customs officers’ statements, suspecting they were just inducing her to accept repatriation.
Two more sufferers joined their group. One of them was repatriated from the same airport and the other one was told the visa was revoked before boarding in China. In total, there were 11 of them.
This situation motivated Meng Fei to investigate the commonalities among the victims to find out the cause of their rapid repatriation. She created an Excel document, and so far, ten victims have filled in their details, with one more whose visa was revoked at check-in providing incomplete information.
The findings showed that all ten were graduates from prestigious universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, among others. Their domestic degrees spanned fields like biological sciences, preventive medicine, statistics, materials physical chemistry, communication engineering, German, and business administration. They were currently studying at U.S. institutions such as Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Virginia. Among them, two were first-year master’s students, three first-year Ph.D. students, two fifth-year Ph.D. students, one sixth-year Ph.D. student, one postdoctoral fellow, and one female on a work visa.
Of the eight repatriated students, four had won university scholarships during their undergraduate studies, and one received a CSC scholarship; none were involved in confidential research. One was even questioned about having a Russian tourist visa. However, none of them was told the clear reason for their repatriation by the U.S. Customs.
They couldn’t understand why receiving a scholarship for academic excellence during undergraduate studies would become an obstacle to acquiring further education in the U.S.
Meng Fei noted that the inspectors focused heavily on her phone, while her computer and luggage were not scrutinized carefully. However, in subsequent inquiries, they did not mention any issues or sensitive information on her phone, nor did they ask questions about their phones.
Given that all known repatriated individuals were female, they speculated that U.S. Customs’ actions involved not only racial but also gender discrimination. Since these recent incidents all occurred within the past month and were handled by the same customs officer, they suspected that these U.S. Customs inspectors were rushing to meet year-end repatriation quotas.
A well-known context is that on June 3, 2020, former U.S. President Trump signed Executive Order 10043, prohibiting certain students and scholars from obtaining F/J visas in the name of national security. However, the universities and majors of these victims were not within the scope of this order, and most of them did not have obvious characteristics related to Executive Order 10043. Some indications suggest that the ban has been expanded in recent years – potentially going further.
What further distressed these students was the discovery of intentional or unintentional alterations in their records.
One student’s record inexplicably included a segment about engagement in a Chinese high-end talent program and visits to military-industrial units. Another student’s undergraduate research was on South Africa, one of the BRICS countries, but this was not mentioned in the record. Instead, there was an emphasis on Russia and China being part of the BRICS.
Where should they head?
Will this sudden turn of events make Meng Fei’s almost completed doctoral degree come to naught?
While detained at U.S. Customs, Meng Fei pondered numerous possibilities for her future. If only she had foreseen what would happen then, she would have waited to return to China after receiving her diploma. If she had been more prepared, she could have applied to withdraw her U.S. entry request, possibly avoiding the five-year entry ban. However, seven of the eight repatriated girls were completely unaware of this and received the five-year ban without any advance notice. The U.S. Customs only informed the first repatriated student of the option to withdraw her entry application, not the other seven.
Is it possible to revoke this five-year entry ban? Meng sought help from her advisor, the international students’ office at her school, the graduate student union, and the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. However, so far, no effective headway has been made.
A professor of Chinese heritage at Yale University, deeply concerned about Meng Fei’s situation, sought assistance from many people for her. This professor himself was a victim of the Trump administration’s “China Initiative” and had ever been temporarily suspended from his job for several months. Meng is very grateful to him, as he, having “been through the rain,” also wants to “hold an umbrella” for others.
According to her original plan, Meng should now be focusing on supplementary experiments in the lab. She needs to complete some experiments, then finish and submit papers, followed by her doctoral defense.
The unforeseen event necessitates her communicating with her advisor to see if she can complete the experiments with the help of her lab colleagues and then proceed with an online defense. This is a result she can accept.
Then what next? Perhaps she will look for a postdoctoral opportunity in Europe. Her advisor is European and may be able to offer some advice and help.
The other two Yale Ph.D. students, whose visas were revoked before boarding in China, have gradually lost hope of returning to the U.S. during their long wait. A fifth-year Ph.D. student has been in China for nearly half a year. Even though she has reapplied for a visa, there is no update on her visa status and the only thing to do is wait anxiously. Another first-year doctoral student reapplied for a visa but was denied, leaving her no choice but to withdraw from her program.
Meng is seeking help from lawyers, but the prospects are unclear. After all, even the lawyers can’t discern from the documents the reasons for her repatriation by U.S. customs, making it difficult to prepare specific materials. The waiting time is unknown.
The group of victims hopes to lift the five-year ban, but no response has been made by the U.S. Customs even after their U.S. universities tried to contact them.
(Note: Meng Fei and Wei Na are pseudonyms used in the article.)
Cream Cheese Kolacky
77f23a82e9de31372291ffe5419eec05
Ingredients
1 (10 ounce) bag dried apricots
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, at room temperature
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups flour
Confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
Place apricots in medium saucepan; cover with water. Soak overnight.
Heat the apricots and water to a boil in medium saucepan over high heat; reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring often with fork to mash and adding water if needed, until smooth and thick, about 10 minutes. (If necessary, you can chop finely with a knife or process about 1 minute in a food processor or chopper.)
Add the granulated sugar, stirring until it dissolves. Cool completely.
Blend together the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl; gradually blend in flour, using hands once the dough has begun to form, until it can be shaped into a ball (this may be more or less than 2 cups). Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Divide dough into thirds. Roll out each third on a floured board into a 12 x 8-inch rectangle, 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick. Cut into 2-inch squares with a pizza cutter. Place 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon of the apricot filling in the middle of each square. Fold each corner into middle; pinch together. (Moisten fingers with cold water if dough does not stick.)
Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheets; bake until golden, about 17 minutes per batch.
Cool on wire rack; sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.
We have built a vacation home in a nearby province. Husband took on the contracting while maintaining his full-time police job – so proud of him!
I did not announce this; I dislike the comparison games people play and do not want to be perceived as bragging.
A good friend asked to see pictures at a reunion luncheon. As I flipped through pix on my phone, an acquaintance from long ago came up behind us.
She peered over our shoulders and exclaimed, “When you married that low-ranked cop, I knew you’d end up this way! How far you’ve fallen! How can you live like THAT!!”
The look on her face was not one of concern, but a sneer.
She was looking at a picture of the shed where building materials had been kept (that has since been removed).
*sigh*
*Note Some have asked about my response. I smiled, told her that it was the raw materials shed and went back to my conversation.
Why didn’t I snap back, go for her throat, etc?
Because that (and to embarrass me) is what she expected, what she wanted. She is in her element when someone defends herself or gets angry.
But she has never been able to handle a calm, non-defensive response.
My friend called me up the other day, he’s in another country and in the midst of a full-on psychotic breakdown… “I’m in hell, Jean-Marie…” he said, “everything around me is fire and I’m in hell.” He hears roosters and dogs barking, cars honking, and they are demonic creatures to his ears. His perception is wrong. Everything is wrong.
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My friend suffers from schizophrenia. He is mentally unwell, and deeply so. His parents do not care for him at all. And he has nobody. No one in the world who cares, besides me and two other online friends who live in England. I want to reach out, help him, but… I cannot. It kills me, being unable to help my friend. Being unable to embrace him, unable to tell him it will be okay. Because I can’t. And it won’t. He refuses medication, refuses help, and even if he did want to accept it, none will be coming. It’s a helpless feeling watching someone’s life fall apart at the seams. Helpless, hopeless, and depressing.
The hardest thing to overcome in life, is the realization that you can’t help, sometimes. That there are things above and beyond your comprehension that you cannot aid someone with. Issues you cannot fix. People you cannot cure. Problems you cannot solve. And that all you can do is be a bystander, glued to the sight of their demise as you remain frozen.
Originally Answered: What are the most convincing things that would make me think twice before falling to an overly attractive woman that I’ve just met?
See this cutie?
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This is Dalia Dippolito. Upon first glance, most guys would find her very attractive, myself included.
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Back in 2010, she convinced this guy, Michael Dippolito, to marry her by being the perfect, super-hot mistress/girlfriend. He even divorced his wife to be with her, he was so desperate to land this hottie.
According to Michael, they were very happy. He believed that while they had a few problems, they were a solid couple with a long future ahead of them.
Right up until she tried to hire an undercover police officer to kill him.
Apparently she wanted his money and condo… everything but him. Fortunately, the guy she asked to kill him went to the police and an undercover investigation began.
She was caught on police undercover film laughing and saying that she absolutely wanted go through with killing him to a supposed hitman. “I’m 5,000% sure,” she was captured saying.
Det. Alex Moreno of the Boynton Beach police department noted how “We were shocked… how easily she talked about getting her husband killed.”
To make sure she was serious and meant to follow through on it, the Boynton Beach, FL police even staged a fake crime scene where her husband had supposedly been shot and killed.
She showed up on scene and upon being told, cried and screamed in horror. The observers onsite noted that she didn’t shed actual tears so much as just made a lot of wailing noises.
The police then arrested her and told her her husband was actually still alive and that the scene had been a sting operation.
Once in jail, she tried to win Michael over again. To his credit, he would have none of it.
When that didn’t work, she would go onto deny everything, try to slander her husband’s reputation, claim they had planned it all for a reality show, and multiple other lies to try to convince people that the video evidence they saw- with their own eyes and on film- was somehow not true.
After an appeal and a mistrial (if you can believe that), she was eventually sentenced to 16 years for attempted murder. Upon sentencing, the judge told her she was the “personification of evil.”
If the guy she originally tried to hire for the hit hadn’t gone to the police, Michael Dippolito would be dead and Dalia might potentially be living in his home, spending his money… and looking for her next victim.
There are other women like Dalia looking for their next victim.
Maybe you?
Sociopaths come in all shapes and sizes. Some even look like really attractive women.
Take your time and get to know whomever you go out with, no matter how strong the physical attraction might be.
I was travelling through outback Australia, coming down from Darwin in the Northern Territory through to Wagga Wagga along the Stuart Highway, turning at the Barkly Highway at Waramungu to go towards Queensland. There is a whole lot of nothing out there, with nothing in between, so you rely on the petrol stations along the way which are also pretty far between. So after a few days I arrived at Threeways Roadhouse one afternoon to fill up with petrol and go on my way, wanting to cross the border before sundown and stay in Camooweal.
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It’s a big roadhouse supplying the road trains that go through with diesel and petrol for the rest of us. There were a lot of people there when I pulled up, but thought nothing of it. When I went to get some unleaded petrol to fill up, there were signs on the pumps – Not In Service.
image 104
I asked at the counter and the two young girls there said there was no unleaded petrol, the truck hadn’t come through yet and wasn’t likely to get there until tomorrow midday.
“What, nothing at all?”
“We’ve just got diesel.”
Ah, so that’s why there were so many people waiting around! Not sure if I could make it to Camooweal on what I had left, I made the best of a bad thing and booked a cabin out the back to stay in for the night. Let me tell you – apart from the roadhouse there is nothing in Waramungu, and nothing for a hundred kilometres or more. Everyone else was doing the same.
Had dinner there, slept, and in the morning had breakfast and read the paper, watched the tv in the restaurant. It was getting on to mid morning and there was still a crowd waiting for the petrol truck. I thought I’d ask at the counter again to be sure the truck was coming.
“Fuel truck coming soon?”
“We think so. Midday or after.”
Just then, outside the window, I saw a small car like mine leave the bowsers and drive off towards Queensland. Looked like he had fuelled up!
“Did he just get petrol? I thought you said there was no unleaded petrol?”
“There’s no unleaded petrol. He bought Premium unleaded petrol. It’s more expensive.”
So, I stayed a night at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere because they didn’t know that Premium unleaded petrol was the same as Unleaded petrol except it was about five cents a litre more to buy – much cheaper than staying there and eating two meals. I didn’t care I just wanted to get to my destination.
Maybe they thought they were helping me out…
I told the people I had been chatting to in the restaurant and suddenly the rush was on for the Premium pump – and within ten minutes I was out of there.
Like Jeffrey Epstein files that was released. Ultimately the truth is out.
Like Iraq WMDs
Like the Gulf of Tonkin
It’s why groups like China World Leader & other groups gain traction on Quora
They FILL THE GAPS
The Anti China brigade, their narrative has too many loopholes
Why, if China is committing genocide, is the Uyghur Population rising?
Why, if China is going to collapse in 24 days, is Joe Biden making a huge effort to meet Xi Jingping
Why, if the Chinese people are so unhappy with the CPC, are they freely allowed to travel in and out of China whenever they want
Why, if the Chinese Army equipment is old and useless, do many top US Generals regard China as a larger threat than the USSR?
Why, if China is such an authoritarian state, are there protests regularly by the people also covered by the same Western media?
These are questions that any rational and sane person would always ask
This is where spaces like China World Leader, Wumao Uncensored and Youtubers like Cyrus Janssen help FILL UP THE GAPS
image 72
They logically deliver their explanation on the above questions and the explanations definitely help get a better understanding of how China works
Sadly the world contains maybe 10% realists
90% of them, especially those who live in democracies are badly brainwashed into losing their ability to reason and think
Their teeny tiny brains refuse to function or use logic to rectify mistakes
Such a person if told about the Uyghur Population growing, would rather make up some fantastic explanation than admit the information he got was wrong
He could even say Uyghurs have 10 Kids each and 8 Kids are killed so there is population growth
Show such a person life in China and he will say the video is doctored
Ultimately these people ALREADY MAKE UP THEIR MINDS and fit information however false to justify their own thinking
The inferior minds sadly dominate the world today
Quora has fewer such inferior minds
Twitter has many
YT has many
So on Quora, Pro China groups thrive and survive and even help convince other realists that China may not be so bad
You notice Quora doesn’t have a North Korea group
Ultimately if China World Leader was a propaganda group spreading useless lies about China, it wouldn’t have the traction it has today
The reason that Mainstream Media and Anti China groups and their narratives are riddled with holes is why Pro China Groups are very believable and popular
image 73
Take this Video of Hu Jintao being escorted out
Every inferior mind jumped at the fact that Xi Jingping threw him out of the Party Congress
The Anti China brigade parroted the same thing
Yet not one person logically thought :-
WHY WOULD THE CPC RECORD THE EVENT AND THEN RELEASE IT TO THE PUBLIC WITHOUT CENSORING THE SAME?
I mean this video was available with every single channel in the world
The CPC controls every facet of information especially a video recorded inside the Party Congress
So WHY IF XI WANTED TO THROW HU JINTAO OUT DID HE CONSENT TO RECORDING THE EVENT LIVE AND NOT CENSORING THE ENTIRE TAPE
Thus logic dictated that the incident was SUDDEN and that supports the explanation that Hu Jintao had an onset of dementia and believed he was Party Chairman and wanted to read the list of new members that the Chairman usually does.
So he was gently escorted out
This is one such example
Trust me, Chinese don’t spread propaganda that easily , especially post 1980
In China there is a saying ‘You can’t wrap fire with paper’
So Chinese don’t buy lies that easily as Americans or Indians do
They question everything and they openly scoff at certain things
It’s why Pro Chinese Videos are designed to be for the realists and superior minds
Like the mainland Chinese
Who look for logic and ask questions
Sadly the Chinese don’t know that the global audience in democracies is made up of inferior and stupid minds
Thus these Pro Chinese Videos and content outside quora often finds a brick wall
How long would it take for China to pay youtubers to release videos about How Biden bathes with his daughter or fondles his granddaughter or of how US Politicians are pedophiles
Minutes
Yet that’s dirty and China won’t play dirty
Maybe that’s a weakness today but long term that’s a strength
Computer Predicts the End of the World | But here’s what they DON’T tell you
Here is where I am currently. It’s 14:41, Monday, Tokyo. And the view is from my work desk.
image 123
Quite literally a cage? (trap?)
Working in big Japanese company in one of the biggest cities in the world.
Do I want to be here?
No.
Is this where I want to be?
No. I want to be somewhere here. Bali
image 122
Can I be there?
I can’t without sacrificing the people who are dependent on me financially/emotionally. However, I can be there temporarily(holiday/vacation) without sacrificing anyone/anything.
How can I be there?
By working today in that cage, so that I can make some ¥¥¥ and be there next month for 4 days.
This is the biggest trap of my life at least. Self Imprisonment . To work somewhere only to be somewhere else temporarily.
Be it for family, travel etc.
Update : Some people seem to have concentrated more on the Bali trip and they think that i should move to Bali. If the solution was so simple i wouldn’t have called it a trap , would I ? It was never about Bali anyway, it could be anywhere else. Bali was used because it happened to be place of my trip which i had to wait for 6 months (My point) that’s all.
A insists and tells you it is a real relationship, however, things are complicated because B is still married (to C).
A insists there are a bunch of reasons that marriage between B and C isn’t real or working.
B truly loves A. Their love is real. A knows it.
A and B start moving fast, dating, the relationship gets heavy, even though it sounds like B still hasn’t fully cut ties with… C.
In fact, both A and C are each separately convinced that they are 100% with B.
But in truth – it’s only about 80%/20% as B has issues with commitment.
B finally works up the courage and cuts ties with C, so that B can fully be with A as A has been insisting all along.
Things are now better than ever between A and B, they post on social media together, they celebrate their love and how lucky they are to have each other.
And then you don’t see pictures for a while.
Everything goes radio silent.
And then you find out what happened.
B met D.
And everything went terribly wrong for A.
A can’t believe B would do this, that B could be so evil.
I do not feel sorry for A.
It’s one of the truest sayings you’ll ever hear, “If they’ll cheat with you – they’ll cheat on you.”
I taught for a while in one of Britain’s top private schools, so I feel I’m qualified to offer a definitive answer:
Tweed.
Seriously, ten years as a teacher and I never saw so much as a tweed dishcloth, but when I started working in private education suddenly the bloody stuff was everywhere. The teachers wore tweed (and the teachers were near-universally ‘old boys’ or ‘old girls’ whose parents could comfortably afford twice what most people earn in a year to get shut of their kids for most of it), the staff wore tweed, and the parents were dressed in tweed on a semi-permanent basis. I swear some of them slept in tweed pyjamas.
When they weren’t wearing tweed, they were cosplaying farmers, for some reason. This was irrespective of whether they lived somewhere in the cotswolds or the middle of London. Their farmer outfits were sometimes a bit worn, but always unnaturally clean.
So if I’m in the middle of the city and see someone wearing tweed or farming gear that’s never been within half a mile of a cow, that’s when know I’m dealing with the fourteenth Lord Bonkingly-Spinkle or some such.
image 121
EDIT: Several people have pointed out that tweed is for the country, not the town. Since I’m about as aristocratic as Derek Trotter and have never owned an item of tweed in my life, I wouldn’t know, but it is worth noting the school I worked at was out in the country.
That said, during COVID all our meetings with parents were remote, and they were still wearing tweed and farm gear regardless of where they lived.
Not me but my very dear friend. If the virus was that bad how was a little piece of cloth going to protect him? Etc, etc, etc. Yes, he was a die hard Fox News listener. No, he certainly was not getting the vaccine. Interestingly, he was completely understanding of anyone who did wear a mask or got the vaccine. He was a nice person with a big heart he just…I don’t know.
He caught a cold. A bad cold. He collapsed in the hallway of his house on his way to the bathroom. His wife rushed him to the hospital.
He never came back home.
The last thing he said to me was “Did you get the shot? Because this is bad”. Thing is, he was a very stoic, prideful man. For him to say this is “bad” meant it was horrible. He apparently asked the doctor for the vaccine and of course they explained it was too late. I know he already knew that.
How did he feel about not masking? Word is he felt like a fool and cried and cried because he felt stupid and he let his family down.
Three weeks diagnosis to death. Fifty three years old. Left a wife and three kids. I miss him every damn day.
My Girlfriend Dumped Me, Rode The Carousel, Now Wants Me Back Because They Don’t Want A Relationship
I have neighbors that moved in 8 years ago. Almost immediately, they started trying to claim property by mowing into my yard and building fences. I’m not talking 1–2 feet, it was over 50′ over the line.
That summer, they started picking from my garden and taking the fruit from my trees. Again, I’m not talking about a few tomatoes or ears of corn. They would strip everything clean.
They also would dig plants out of my yard and move them to their property. They even felt they had the right to go “metal detecting” and leave little potholes all though my property.
I asked them to stop, but they ignored me. I decided to buy a “consumer grade” surveillance system, but they were undeterred.
image 14
I put up “no trespassing” signs, making sure they were legally posted and the entire boundary was clearly marked. Nothing changed, so I located the survey pins and physically painted the property line. No help.
image 120
I threatened legal action, but they still ignored me. That’s when I forked out thousands and installed a new hardwired, military grade surveillance system with 8K resolution, 32x optical zoom, AI facial recognition, license plate recognition, auto tracking and a 16TB video recorder.
They were still undeterred and kept metal detecting and digging holes all over my yard.
image 13
Undeterred, that is, until the police showed up and the court granted me a restraining order. Problem solved.
One morning I woke up, looked at my to-do-list and realized I needed to make a couple of adjustments. After dropping my children off at school at 8:30, I had planned to go downtown to the Social Security Administration for a replacement Social Security card. I realized I had another appointment for 10:00am and that trying to squeeze Social Security in would be cutting it too close – because I had forgotten to get my birth certificate out of my safe deposit box at the bank the day before and would have had to run by there first. So, I crossed through the SS office on my list and wrote “tomorrow” next to it.
I took the kids to school as planned at 8:30 and was kicking myself for forgetting to get my birth certificate the day before so I could just head on downtown to Social Security. So, instead, I went back home, took a shower, and was standing in the bedroom when a large “boom” shook my house and I felt sure a jumbo jet had to have crashed nearby. It was all I could think of that could cause that loud of an explosion and cause the house to literally shake. I frantically rushed outside, looked around, but saw nothing.
That morning was April 19th, 1995. I lived in Oklahoma City. The Social Security office I was going to after dropping the kids at school was located on the ground floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown OKC. At 9:02am a truck bomb exploded in front of the Murrah building with such force it was felt up to 55 miles away. I was eight miles away when I felt that staggering blast. 168 people died in the bombing that horrible day. It wiped out the Social Security office, and, sadly, the children’s day care for federal employees. Had I not made the mistake of forgetting to go by my safe deposit box the day before, I would have followed my to-do-list and would have, undoubtedly, been inside the SSA at 9:02am.
The mistake of forgetting the bank the afternoon before — saved my life. What a horrible day April 19, 1995, was. I lost people I knew in that bombing and it will stay with me until the day I die. Due to only a mistake on my part, it just wasn’t that day.
I like to use stairs rather than lifts (elevators) in hotels, because they are a good form of exercise.
Many years ago I booked into a hotel in Brisbane (in Queensland, Australia) and decided to go for a run. I found the fire escape stairs and thought these would surely take me to the street (otherwise what was the point of having a fire escape?).
I came out of the fire escape into a car park on the first floor (i.e. one floor above ground level), and as the door closed behind me, I was reading a sign that said ‘This car park will be closed until 6.00 am.’
I checked to see if the door to the fire escape I had just exited was unlocked, but of course it was locked … with me in a car park that wouldn’t be opened for another eleven hours!
Fortunately, there was a part of the car park that was open to the outside, but of course it was one floor above the garden I could see by looking over the edge of the open area.
I decided to try to escape this unintended prison by doing a ‘reverse chin-up’ (aka pull-up). So I placed my hands on the top of the wall and gradually lowered myself into the ‘down’ position of a chin-up. I then allowed myself to drop to the garden, which was about a metre below my feet while I was in the down position.
The garden had been recently dug over, and the soil was soft, so I didn’t break any bones.
I then went to Reception to tell the young lady what had happened, and to ask why the fire escape didn’t allow me to get onto the street.
Instead of sympathising, and saying something would be done about it, she asked me if felt that I had to use the stairs rather than the lift.
I pointed out that this wasn’t relevant—I should have been safe taking the fire escape, for heaven’s sake!
The conversation continued along similar lines for some time before I gave up and realised I was talking to someone who was either a moron, or who didn’t care that, through no fault of his own, one of the hotel’s guests had been placed in a position where he might have had to spend the night locked in a car park!
I went into the Marine Corps in 1966 during the Vietnam War. But at the same time our country was also going through the Civil Rights Movement. About 50% of us were racists and the other 50% weren’t a whole lot better. People stayed in their racially divided communities. And many made racist statements about the Vietnamese and many white boys joked about blacks/mexicans taking their place in the draft. Mainly because we did not mix much and few cared about people different than themselves going to the draft.
In boot camp I soon learned we had boys from all over the USA. Those of us who only knew people in our little towns suddenly were surrounded by boys from New York, the deep South, surfing boys from the west and a mix of white/blacks/browns. Boot camp is a powerful experience. Very physically and mentally tiring and often under the stress we would start shoving or wrestling with each other. Sometimes this took on racial overtones. But we all survived boot camp and moved on.
The most important part of the person on person experience was my tour in Vietnam. I was a grunt, an infantryman. As hard as it is to believe I never spent a day in a base camp or in those plywood cities. All my time was in the field. Now if you know war you will learn you spend hours working and bored to death. So while you are spending time filling sandbags or sitting around the campfire with marshmallows you talk with your fellow Marines…a lot. We talk about our families, our girlfriends, our cars, etc. You soon learn we are all almost alike. Very little difference. And we were able to talk racial politics, and unlike civilians who love to hate each other, our talks were usually civilized. You don’t usually fight people who you hope will save you tomorrow. And there is nothing that matches the feeling of seeing one person raised in a racist environment put his life on the line to save a grunt of a different color. You will never see that happen, but I did. Many times.
One fact I learned was the difference between northern blacks and southern blacks. In the south we would often work together but would go back to our segregated communities at night. In the north they had their ghettos and were required to stay there for work, church, home, etc. Blacks moved north during WWII for work and to get away from the southern Jim Crow laws. But they ran into more racism. And stuffed into ghettos with other blacks and were pretty much warned not to leave their areas. My squad leader was a black from Philadelphia and he claimed he never saw a white person until he was about eight. All the businesses, teachers, cops, firemen, etc were black and few whites drove through their ghetto. In the south blacks and white mingled, up north that rarely happened.
When you spend nearly a year with the same people. And you hear their sacrifices and dreams and loves you soon learn we are much more alike than different. And though we had many racists, both white and black, they changed and were quite willing to sacrifice themselves for a Marine of a different color. It was an incredible feeling. Then you returned home, where civilians love to fight over minor problems and are encouraged to hate each other for political gain. Give me the Corps and combat any day….and to be surrounded by heroes of all colors. How can you not be proud of the courage and sacrifice I saw everyday?
I hate to admit it, but when a very attractive woman gets stopped, she is far less likely to get a ticket than an average looking person does. I always used to argue with the guys who let attractive women off. My point being, if you met her in a bar, she wouldn’t even give you the time of day.
As a sort of karma thing, I decided to exercise very little discretion whenever I stopped an attractive woman for violating a traffic law.
One day, I stopped a woman for speeding, and as I approached her window I noticed that she was even beyond attractive. On a scale of 1–10, she was a 12.
I asked her for her license, registration, and insurance card, which she handed to me.
But the entire time I stood there looking over her credentials, she never even looked at me or acknowledged my existence. As I continued to review her credentials, I noticed that she was holding her hand out the window, palm up. It took me a second to figure out what she was doing, then I finally realized she was waiting for me to hand her credentials back to her so she could leave, as I assume had always been the case whenever she was stopped previously.
When I said, “I’ll be with you in a minute” and began to walk back to my patrol car with her credentials in my hand, the only word I can think of to describe her reaction was apoplectic.
I swear, I’m really not a jerk, but I can’t think of any other summons I ever issued that gave me more pleasure.
A prestigious scientific journal contacted me and asked if I was willing to referee a paper which claimed to solve a long-standing open problem in mathematical physics. They also said there was something fishy about the paper.
image 103
And indeed there was. I had seen an earlier version of the paper some time before which contained far less spectacular results, so something certainly had changed. The essence could be found in one large and detailed remark near the end of the article which was added “after the author suddenly had seen how to solve the entire problem.”
It was exactly — word for word — the reasoning I had explained on a blackboard during a lecture about four months earlier at an international conference where the author also had been present and even had posed many questions after my lecture, because he did not understand the subtleties.
Unfortunately for him, there were other researchers in the audience — nearly a hundred of them — and many of them had seen me explaining my solution to him. Many of them knew. And what was even worse: I had written up and submitted my proof long before the author had secretly made the revision to his paper, totally plagiarizing me.
So he was caught.
And consequently he became very mad at me, because he had been caught big time in the very act of scientific cheating, and he simply could not cope with that. And so he still blamed me in the end instead of looking in the mirror —
In a nutshell, the very nature of cheaters, I guess.
Unless it’s fair play it’s worthless. Fair play is everything. End of.
Queueing is also everything. See 2.
I am very polite (most of the time). See 2.
I reserve the phrase ‘you fucker’ and ‘you twat’ for my best friends and they do the same. That amount of respect is earned.
Almost everything I say should not be taken literally. It will mostly be p*ss taking banter.
Did I mention fair play. The first person to call a snooker foul is oneself everytime. I’m related to Joe & Fred Davis and grew up in the next village. Billiards. British.
The first thing I will notice about you will be the social indicators that determine your class. If you are British you will do the same. It is absolutely impossible to fool you.
If you knock me I will apologise.
I thank the bus driver. Without fail. See 4.
I know my national team is not going to win the Football World Cup.
I know my team will lose on penalties to the Germans. See 11. This is England only.
I’ve been in more pubs than I care to remember. That’s because whether I care or not I am not capable of remembering half of them. When I go out, I go out out. Friday night and Saturday night in Britain (and Ireland) is like nowhere else on earth. Nowhere. British high streets at 5pm are civilised and genteel. A few hours later they are rivers of intoxication, pavement pizzas, kebab spillage, burger vans,fighting and police vans. When you’re young nowhere else on Gods earth is this much fun or this drunk. My foreign friends. You may read this long rambling list and pick out some that you say ‘we do this too’ Well not this one. This is ours. This is our defining characteristic. Not Wimbledon or Lords or the Proms. Getting this many people pissed at the same time twice a week ( ok yes..Thursdays as well) Getting this many people pissed out of their heads three times a week, week in week out is quintessentially British.
If the food you serve me tastes horrible I will tell you it was lovely.
I moan a lot. We are experts at it. It’s part of our health routine.
I know what mizzle is and I like it.
Chips, curry sauce, tray, wooden fork.
Tea bag, boiling water THEN milk.
I will watch the weather forecast three times a day. Each will be completely different. On any day I will have layered clothes suitable for everything from summer to winter.
With a quarter of an inch of snow I won’t be able to get to work.
I have a square of green in front of my house (this is sadly dying out)
I will never ever use the square of green in 21. for recreational purposes. If anyone does, they will put a sofa on it and paint the house number in emulsion on the house and bin. You may think your nations hardest criminals are hard but these people are like Jim Carrey crossed with Terminator. Their Grandads were this hard and this mental, the Germans reconnaissance didn’t pick up on our secret weapon. They didn’t understand the significance of those front garden sofas in their recon photos. Btw before you write in I know it’s a settee, I was being snobby for a minute.
I expect my policemen and policewomen to talk to me like they are a good friend. And they almost always will. My mam still calls them the bobbies. British.
My beer must have a head.
The italian waiter with the huge pepper grinder hovering over my wife is held with both contempt and awe.
The first thing I will do when you come to my house is ask you if you want a cup of tea.
If you invite me to your house and don’t offer me a cup of tea I will never forget but I will never mention it to you.
I stand up and offer my seat for older people and pregnant women. Always (except on the Tube where it can be seen as an insult) It doesn’t matter what your race is I will stand for you.
Not offering an older person a seat (if it’s not possible) leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. See 27. See 4.
I love multiculturalism and eat so many different kinds of foods and meet so many different nationalities of people most days.
If you boast and brag I will not be impressed. In fact I will think you are a complete knob for doing it.
In 1665 in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire the bubonic plague struck, having been brought from London by accident. Villagers made the selfless choice to quarantine themselves and thus give up any chance of help. My relatives (on my Dad’s side) the Hancocks were villagers in Eyam and they were part of the agreed self imposed isolation. They did not leave to spread the plague across Derbyshire and the North of England. That could have led to millions of deaths. They stayed put and awaited their fate. My relative Elizabeth Hancock survived but buried six children and her husband in only 8 days. The village suffered hundreds of deaths but many survived including the village grave digger. Nobody ran away, nobody. That’s a little bit of British history I’m connected to and I’m proud of it… The village of the damned
I will support the underdog (except if Forest are playing)…in anything whatsoever irrespective of the nationality, gender, age etc.I have a come back for everything, except the dreaded tut. A well timed tut can crucify me. I’m British. It’s our achilles heel. If you’re not British you won’t be able to deliver the precise tut required. The precisely delivered tut is devastating.If you are waiting at a zebra crossing I will stop. Every time. Without fail. However if you wave thank you I will tense up like a camels bum in a sandstorm. The slightest of nods as you avoid eye contact and a little polite speed up of your walking at the end is perfect. A subtle raised arm is acceptable but only from the elbow..never deliver the acknowledgement with a full arm raise unless you are the lollipop man/woman/transition person. Not acknowledging is sinful. If you’re the only person crossing and you don’t acknowledge me I will deem you the devils spore but drive politely on and bore my wife about you when I get home.I’m in a mixed race marriage. It never enters my head. Same for my friends also in mixed race marriages. I eat better food now.My class can’t change no matter how much I earn or social climb. Only one mistake out of a million indicators will be a complete and irrefutable give away.If i want to invent something I don’t crowd fund or try to contact Elon Musk, I just pop into the shed.Chips are chips and crisps are crisps.I know l
oads about British history but only know three historical dates. For some reason they all end in sixty six.
It’s 73 years after WWII yet I still keep loads of tins in the cupboard (as trained by my parents)……..cos you never know.
I’m heterosexual but I love a bit of spotted dick.
I eat food using a knife and fork. At certain points I use the back of my fork and push food onto it with the knife, which I do not hold like a pen.
Fannies are fannies and bums are bums.
Ooh matron!
I will quietly tut about the corruption in big business but if I see you driving in clear skies in broad daylight with your fog lights on…dear God help me.
The only fox news I listen to is on Countryfile.
The first time I saw a bidet I thought it was a wash basin for children. I still don’t know how you mount this contraption. Never will. British. Btw while we’re on the subject what’s that little diddy shower you see abroad.
I don’t squat. Our British achilles won’t allow it to happen after the age of 2. There are only three exceptions to this. The British achilles involuntarily stretch enough for a squat when we lose as a player in a Cup Final, when giving birth, and when stopping a red ball with big gloves on. Other than those, no squatting. You know what I’m saying. On we go….
I know you can’t beat a bit of Bully. RIP Jim.
My whole family and friends have had amazing medical treatment free at the point of delivery. And that’s amazing.
If I tell you that what you’ve said is interesting, it isn’t.
I think you will understand me if I speak slower and louder.
If you want me to feel really awkward praise me. I’ll automatically then downplay whatever I’ve done or got.
First shoes…Clarks and that thing.
Shoes again…I married into a Chinese family 17yrs ago. You cannot walk on their floor with your shoes on. Bloody hell the looks I got! I now feel really naughty walking into other Brits houses when they insist there’s no need to take my shoes off to walk on their carpets. The flip side..seventeen years later I feel so awkward asking people to take their shoes off to come into our house. It never gets less awkward for all concerned. 17 years. Shoes. Floors.
I use Celsius for cold days and Fahrenheit for for hot ones (for the drama)
I consider baseball a childrens’ game called rounders.
I don’t know how to look cool in the evening in hot countries.
Kes and Naked are my favourite films.
I know how to light fork handles.
Don’t tell ’em yer name Pike!
Don’t mention the war.
I don’t belieeeeve it.
You plonker.
It’s good night from me, and it’s good night from him.
Bring me sunshine.
Spoon jar, jar spoon. Haaaaaa Haaaaa.
By jove! RIP. Nobody was ever more British.
Nice to see, you to see you nice. See 68.
He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty…
Woolworths. I know!
Consonant, vowel, consonent vowel.
I grew up in a pit village and watched Thatcher rip the heart out of British Industry with no care for a Plan B. She ushered in ‘greed is good’ and smashed communities to bits. I used to fitness train running up that Pit Tip as a kid. That’s british. Fuck you Thatcher. I grew up with Punk as well. It’s an attitude not a fashion. British.
I make a cracking Yorkshire Pudding.
On the hottest day of the year I see old women in winter coats.
Top of the shop, blind 90.
Forget international measurements created by Foreigners and well meaning scientists I know the unit of height for really tall things is Nelsons Column and the unit of length for really long things is the London bus. The unit of weight for really heavy things is the blue whale. Big areas are football pitches, medium areas are measured in number of tennis courts. Tiny things are measured by how many will fit onto a pin head. Horses are measured in hands, massive volumes are measured in how many old wembley stadiums would fit in it. Really heavy things are measured in elephants. If we have to use scientific measures it’s pounds up to 1 stone then it’s stones and pounds. If you tell me you weight 216lbs I will have no idea if you’re fat or thin until I’ve done the maths.
You must never ever ever use my driveway (next to my square of never used green) to do your three point turn. If you do then this may be the only time you see me resemble a grieving middle eastern woman.
I got a world class education in the 1980’s that cost my parents virtually nothing.
I don’t snog in public. I’m British not European for christ sake. Decorum please.
When I started work I was asked to get a tin of tartan paint, a long stand, a spirit level bubble and a draughtsman’s license. Standard British.
If you win the race and tell me so I will hate you but if you tell me that you came last and had to walk half of it I will love you.
I’ve bought two houses in my life. Both times on day one I walked in and ripped some feature/part straight out of the house and chucked it away. Apparently that’s what we all do when we buy a house. Day one.
My dog has 6 nick-names.
Get down Shep.
I can tell where in Britain you’re from by what you call a bread cob.
I know that you’re not posh if you say scone the posh way.
I know if you finish work at 4:30 or 5:30 depending whether your white vehicle is a van or a car.
I know you are middle class because you never roll your shirt sleeves above your elbows. I know you’re working class because you never roll them below.
I know you are either upper middle class or lower working class because none of your furniture matches and you couldn’t care less.
My Great Uncle was a small unassuming thin man. Very cheerful and always made me feel special (I was a small thin kid) He always used to tell me that they don’t make fat thoroughbreds. That made me feel good as a little football/rugby player. Imagine a cross between Prince Philip and Stanley Matthews, that was my Great Uncle Bill. I never heard him swear or raise is voice and he always dressed inmaculately. Now my uncle never ever mentioned the war. I’d always thought he’d just worked in a shop and a factory. At his funeral I found out he’d made 19 drops behind enemy lines in Burma to fight the enemy in the jungles. Not 1 or 2. That would be brave. No 19, he was a Para, it’s what he did and he never mentioned it. The last couple of days before he died he had visions of his para mates who died fighting with him in WWII and he had chats with them at the end of his bed. He had been a very funny bloke and used his humour to make me feel special. He was the special one not me. My Uncle Bill was as British as you can get and so were his mates and millions of lads like them.
I say please and thank you about a hundred times a day. I expect you to as well otherwise I will deem you rude. Sorry, I can’t help it; I’m British. Thank you for reading this.
If anyone got to the end of this then we now have to say goodbye. This now gets really awkward, I do swear and I apologise for this….
Ok you’re a man, maybe European…I’m not f*cking kissing you. End of. A polite handshake used to suffice but now we have to run the gauntlet of maybe hug awkwardly whilst avoiding touching tips.
Ok you’re a woman…do I shake your hand, give you a hug, give you one kiss, two kisses, three kisses? I’ll tell you what I’ll make sure I’m in my shed inventing a Wallace & Gromit invention when you’re leaving and I’ll just wave from the spiderweb covered window thus avoiding further social dis-ease.
You’ve gone…I can go back to check the weather forecast before I cut the front lawn, which is the only time that people passing are allowed to talk to me.
After the attack on Bilhorod, Russias Defence Ministry decided to strike away at Ukraines Air Defenses and force them to deplete their own stock of Missiles
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Ukraine was launching S-200 missiles, Neptune Missiles, Tochka Us, Himars, Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles on Russian Territory at Bilhorod and Crimea and Donetsk
Russia never hit Civilians in their SMO and only focused on Strategic Targets yet Ukraine helpless militarily kept shelling Civilian territories
However when they used Cluster Munitions on Civilians at Bilhorod killing Women and Children who had come to celebrate New Year
Russia decided to destroy everything Ukraine had of significance
Himars Launchers – Destroyed
Production facilities for Drones – Destroyed
Production facilities for Vests and Shoes – Destroyed (Crucial in Winter)
Warehouse with Grains – Destroyed
7 Ammunition Depots – Destroyed
6 Fuel Depots – Destroyed
6 Air field runways – Destroyed
It was destruction on a scale previously never seen in the SMO
For the first time a Hotel with 66 Nato mercenaries were killed including high ranking officers
Ukraine Air defenses were OVERWHELMED
Russia launched 276 Missiles and 340 Geran Drones, and Ukraine had to fire everything they had to prevent damage
They ended up firing over 170 Missiles which was 40% of their total stock and had to see terrible damage wreaked by the Geran Drones and the remaining 156 missiles that got through (120 were intercepted)
The Russians found that the Air Defence primarily consisted of S-300s and S-200s but identified the location of Patriot Systems from the Missile trajectories
Homing in on the Location, they fired Kinzhals and destroyed 3 Patriot Systems completely today
The systems were shattered
The Launchers are gone, the control system is gone
This strategy to saturate air defence and identify the location of strategic air defence systems like Iris T or Patriot and then hit them with hypersonics has been BRILLIANT
It’s exactly what Hezbollah is doing with Israeli Iron Dome systems
Saturate Israel with cheap missiles and force Israel to use their expensive $ 500K – $ 2 Million Missiles or face an explosion that would kill 1–5 people and cause chaos
Russia, China, Iran have a huge advantage because they can produce and manufacture thousands of cheap drones and saturate the airspace
Meanwhile Russian Army effortlessly marches on and grinds on, going on a forward offensive
Ukraines Army has long since stopped giving any challenge
Ukraines only option is to strike long range missiles onto Russian Territory and hope Russian Civilians are so frightened that they force Putin to a ceasefire
Instead the Russians are furious
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Russians have comprehensively voted to hang Zelenskys wife and kids with him for what he did to those kids in Donetsk and Bilhorod
Russians are angrier than ever and not at Putin
They want more blood now and Putin is the only civilized man between Russian Rage & Ukraine
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Medvedev would wipe out every house in Kiev by mid morning if he was in charge.
Two mirrors. My husband and I divorced after 22 years. He thought there was something better. Maybe there was.
He had lost his job 12 years earlier and never quite recovered. I had been a stay at home Mom with a small income teaching paralegals part time. It was a killer trying to replace his income as he was a quite powerful CFO of a large company and any marriage was lost in my working and still raising kids while he fell in a bottle.
He wanted the house. Frankly, I didn’t care. I moved a lot as a kid. I did not develop attachments to places or things, only people. His first offer was that he get everything but my IRA including my solely owned business. I was hurt and indignant. Then I decided that it was a good plan. I knew he would fail and I never wanted to hear that Dad would have been okay if I hadn’t taken…..In return he was to put the girls through college and pay for their weddings. ( They had about 100k in college funds)
Well, in two years he lost the business. He put the girls through college but I had to chip in half on the weddings. After a few years he had to sell the house.
I had moved a few hours away but I was in town when the house was being shown as a “ fixer upper”. It was so sad and dreary. It was lifeless. I could not believe it was the house where I raised my girls.
In the master bath was a long marble vanity with sinks on each end. The mirrors were framed and hung. My mirror was pristine. The paint was perfect, the mirror unflawed and it looked brand new. I had used that mirror every day for 22 years. Then I saw his and felt shock through my body. The paint was peeling and worn. The mirror had bad spots. The corners were chipped. It hung a little lopsided. I had cleaned and polished both mirrors for 22 years. When I left they were the same. How could 6 years have changed one so much.
I left very sad. He did not live long. He just sort of withered away. He moved to where my girls and I lived to be close to the grand kids but rarely saw them. When I think of him, there is no anger. Just sadness. I’ve had a full life of work and family since the divorce. My grandkids all live with in 5 miles.
Life is strange. We were just sort of like two mirrors.
ZALIX, psychic mutant sci-fi film directed by Philip K. Dick in 1978, unedited footage 1
This movie is a real trip. Only 12 minutes long. WTF!
That was when my first wife and I were traveling the country and hovering around the poverty level, often dipping below it.
Often enough, we would be between work and thus pretty much starving. Going weeks between eating. Those were hard days. Those were difficult weeks. Those were really hard times.
But every now and then we would come near an orange grove, or see a house that had a lemon tree in it’s yard. Thus, by asking permission, we were able to get FOOOOOD!
And so we were kept alive.
Eating lemons all day for a month, or grapefruit all the time for a month or longer.
Man, oh man.
It felt like our teeth were getting loose, and going to fall out. And aside from that, we were still weak. Ugh. It’s something that I just don’t recommend for others to do.
Please, heed my advice.
A diet of citrus should be a last resort. Nothing less.
How about a million times better? How about CPC is about the most well organized and most successful organization on earth! Think about results. Surely results matter. And results are every thing right?
In 1949 CPC started governing China. At that time it’s life expectancy is 39 years old. Today in 2023 it is 78 years old. Chinese out live the U.S. citizens on average by 2 full years!
CPC reduce its hardcore poor by 1 billion people by 2022! The U.S. not only not reduced it’s poor to day 1 million Americans living live in tents homeless throughout the U.S. China has ZERO HOMELESS!
China has built high speed rail that cross China for trains travelling 3 times the speed of U.S. trains! US has less than 100 km of high speed railway lines compared to 45 thousand km throughout China!
China provides universal healthcare and charge what you can afford for 100% of its citizens and free college education for those who qualify while in the U.S. kids get into unplayable debts before starting life paying astronomical tuition fees and a third of American’s cannot afford to buy health care insurance.
China’s healthcare and pharmaceutical companies charge its citizens 0.95 trillion dollars for its 1.4 billion citizens. And the U.S. charged its citizens 5.9 trillion for its 330 million citizens! So on average Americans are forced to pay an average of 17.9 thousand dollars per annum while China charge its citizens 678 dollars a person a year. So the U.S. charge its citizens 27 times more to live 2 years less!
Chinese can walk freely at 3.00 am on any street anywhere in China and a week of U.S. random mass shooting is equivalent to China’s decade! China has 11% of US prisoners population per million people! In the U.S. there are many no go areas and people get necked to death all due to their skin colour!
CPC knew that STEM engineers and specialist number is the key technological prowess and being a technological leader. A year of Chinese STEM graduates equate to the entire U.S. STEM specialist and to day China has 100:1 advantage over the U.S.! Hence according to ASPI China today leads in 37 out of the 44 fields of key strategic technologies and the U.S. leads in only 7/44!
So you still want to compare? So U.S. is the David and China is the Goliath. China through merit gets the very best to lead. US gets the most popular! No comparison who gets the result.
My 98 year old grandmother just passed this past Christmas. As I was cleaning out her apartment and sorting the junk from the priceless junk (amazing how much a 98 y/o woman can stuff into a 400 s.f. apartment), I came across a folded stack of notebook paper- it actually looked more like the paper torn out of a “Big Chief” tablet. On the outside was written, “Mrs. Ronzel Bailey, Orma WV” in my grandfather’s handwriting.
So, what’s so weird about that, you ask?
The paper was old and yellowed. As I opened it, I read the date- 1942. My grandparents had been married in 1938. My grandfather was a Lt. Commander in the Navy and on a ship in the Mediterranean in 1942. As I read the letter, the writing was in a very strange, detached voice. It told her how lost she must feel and how she must take care of herself primarily and then take care of my father (born in 1939). It then went on to tell her that she should buy a house on the outskirts of a small town and watch out for those who would take advantage of her.
I then got to a part where he instructed her to use her own judgement as to whether or not she taught my father about him. At this point I was thinking he was divorcing her! I got mad (even though I knew they were never divorced- they were married until he died in 1993- 55 years!). But, mad I was!
As I read further, it finally dawned on me that this letter was his final instructions to her in the event he was killed in action during WWII. It was difficult to hold back the tears as I read that she should not waste resources in trying to bring his body home.
This letter that I had just finished reading was what he wanted to tell her – make sure that she could move on and give her hope and comfort.
How she ended up with this letter, I will never know since he wasn’t killed in WWII and came home for another 50 years of marriage.
Two police officers with sober faces stared at me and I knew the news couldn’t be good.
They described a car that had just been in an accident, and the license plate. My wife’s mini-van had collided, burst into flames and everyone inside it died.
I’m doing a mental inventory about now. My wife, three children, and two nieces.
My legs turned wobbly. You can’t imagine what was going through my head. Because of the fire, they couldn’t find any useful identification but explained they could identify everyone both by DNA and by dental records. They wanted a DNA sample from me.
I guess they could verify my kids were mine, and that the adult was their mother. A nice, neat little bow.
Can you imagine? They’ve just told you that your whole family is dead, and —- I told them I would come down and give them a sample.
Getting ready to leave, my cell phone is buzzing. It’s my wife. What? Hard tingles are on my spine, like she’s calling from the grave.
“Our van was stolen from the parking lot….”
Were the sweetest words I could’ve ever heard. Yeah it was my wife’s car, but they won’t need any DNA sample from me today.
EDIT – to address some of the mysteries in the comments
I learned later that three people were in the van when it collided. A man, woman, and younger person, which they presumed was a child of the drivers. The police said everyone died, but they had a different human inventory than my own. I also learned they were part of a ring of car thieves, and the accident was not their fault. Another car ran a light and hit them broadside. No fatalities and only minor injuries in the other car.
My wife had organized a birthday outing for our oldest. All the necessary shops, restaurant, and theater were inside the mall. It would be several hours before it was time to leave again. The thieves had plenty of time to get away if they hadn’t been hit.
Chinese Sweet and Sour Meatloaf
Sweet and sour
Ingredients
Sauce
2/3 cup ketchup
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons FINELY minced ginger
4 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon mustard
Meat Loaf
1 pound ground beef
3/4 pound ground pork (approximation)
1/3 cup finely chopped green onion(white and green parts)
3/4 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs
2 tablespoons rice wine or any dry white wine
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
Mix all sauce ingredients thoroughly. Set aside to allow flavors to marry.
Next, combine all meat loaf ingredients except cornstarch. Take 1 cup of sauce AND mix it into meat. Follow this step with evenly sprinkling cornstarch over meat and thoroughly mixing it in.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place meat in loaf pan and pack it down. Bake covered with foil for about 30 minutes. During last 10 minutes of initial 30-minute baking cycle, remove meat loaf from oven, drain fat and slice into several serving-size slices. Pour about 1/2 cup of sauce over meat, making sure some of sauce runs down into cracks. Bake uncovered for about 15 more minutes.
Meanwhile, if you want, you can heat and thicken leftover sauce with about 1 teaspoon cornstarch and an equal amount of water. As sauce starts to thicken, you can add about 2 teaspoons hot oil to sauce.
This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so leftover heated sauce can be spooned over individual meatloaf servings if desired.
If you want a browner meatloaf, bake covered for about 20 minutes and uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes. Then drain fat, slice meatloaf and pour sauce over it.
As a person who has lived in GERMANY for 10 years, I can tell you what Germany offers and you can decide good and bad depending on your priorities. Germany offers the following:
Its a Democracy.
We have only 1 planet, so Environment is a priority.
There is no conflict among political parties over scientifically proven facts like climate change and global warming. Everybody accepts these proven facts.
Around 30% of all Energy is produced from renewable sources like wind & solar and is still on the rise . Eight of the seventeen operating nuclear reactors in Germany were permanently shut down following Fukushima in 2011. In 2011, Angela Merkel’s government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022.
Plastic bottles are to be returned once used and all trash has to be separated in categories before putting in dumpsters for respective categories of trash.
Germany has the highest Current account surplus in the world i.e. its earnings from exports exceed its expenses from imports.
People don’t carry guns around. Probability of that happening is 1 in 3 million.
People are learning slowly about foreign cultures, but are very friendly when you get to know them better. Contrary to International belief, I never came across a racist person during my long stay.
Citizens vote for higher taxes, this enables country to give top healthcare to its citizens and also maintain good infrastructure. So, healthcare system is very efficient, you can visit doctor without worrying about huge bills as you already pay the insurance cost as percentage of your salary.
Refugees are given refuge, if in genuine distress and are willing to integrate.
Education is free ranging from School to University level. So, average German person is very well educated. Therefore, Students are debt free at the end of their university studies with degree in hand.
Full-Time working hours are 35–40 Hours per week.
All Full-Time employees get 20–30 paid Holidays a year. Sick leave days might not have a limit if you have a prescription.
Inflation is kept under check, so pay raises are low but stuff you wanna buy is still affordable.
Maternity leave (12 months) and 2 months paternity leave are officially granted. There are 14 months of paid parental leave if the father takes at least 2 of them (12 if not). However the 14 months can be divided as seen fit e.g. 7 + 7 months for each parent.
There is no speed limit on Freeways as the roads are good and drivers are trained with long theory lessons and practical training until driving skill reaches adequate level. Hence there is no road rage.
Super rich are taxed higher than low and middle income people.
Unemployed citizens get unemployment allowance (including heating allowance and house rent) till they get a job.
Govt offers Retirement allowance for retired people and veterans.
Teaching good values to children is important, so people with Children never J-walk. That also goes for people who are standing next to people with children before traffic lights.
Food Factor:
Beer is the Best in the world without question and its low priced.
Though Italian and French wines are popular, German Gengenbacher wine from Blackforest is my all time favorite.
Bakeries are the best as well.
Everyday food in canteen/mensa is normally Italian and French stuff plus some salads. You always have to do a little bit of research before you find a place that serves authentic German cuisine.
German Football team is best from my personal perspective as they are A REAL TEAM and not a cult formed around a star player.
Limitations in Germany:
Though the new generation speaks English, language of communication in most work places is majorly German.
This is not a limitation for local professional working locally. However, it might limit the ability of a German professional to market his/her skills at global level. Skills of German professionals can help the entire world but lesser knowledge of English limit the possibilities of International cooperation.
High Skilled professionals who are looking to migrate to Germany must consider learning German or migrate to some other country which has more familiar language as the basis. As except for the startups or jobs in software & IT industries, German is first language at workplace. This might slow down their career growth if they fail to learn the language.
For closer integration in German society you get better and faster response if you speak German. Unless people know the language life can be comparatively difficult. Since, I knew the language it was fairly easier for me to get everything organized & get cooperation as compared to other people with same nationality and economic standing.
As Germany is slowly opening to attract foreign High-Skilled professionals as it is required due to economic reasons, the language situation is slowly changing but it requires time. Government offices in the city of Düsseldorf have adopted English as an additional language for official purposes and the new generation is adopting English as the second language in schools but the overall transformation will require more time.
Rules are governed by institutions & organizations and therefore are very rigid. Rules might ignore genuine trouble of some people from time to time and may seem illogical.
Local Trains and public transport as well as the ticketing system are managed differently by each city in a different way, there is no standard best practice.
Like a lot of misinformation about radioactivity and radiation, that too was simply wrong.
The actual radiation from the Hiroshima blast was not nearly what some people thought it would be because they were looking at the results of the Trinity explosion in New Mexico. But the trinity explosion was on a tower a hundred feet high and not 2,000 feet in the air. As a result, the Trinity blast generated a lot of residual radioactivity from the dirt that was within the fireball. Even that didn’t last as long as some thought it might.
The Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, exploded 2,000 feet in the air and the fireball didn’t touch the ground. As a result, although there was a lot of radiation, the only radioactive materials generated came from the components of the bomb itself. Due to the intense heat, much of the radioactive material was carried into the stratosphere and carried away by the wind. The material that descended onto Hiroshima, although highly radioactive, was short lived. You have to understand that if a radioactive material has a short half life, it will be highly radioactive, but only for a short period of time before it has decayed.
The result was that the intense burst of radiation from the bomb was one source of lethal ionizing radiation, but the “black rain” that fell carried some of the short lived, but rapidly decaying material down upon the people.
Today, the background radiation at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is normal. There is no danger from radiation in either city.
Muslims controlled parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy in the 11th century, before the Crusades. They had been in these countries for 300 years and 200 years respectively.
However, by the time the First Crusade was called in 1095:
Sicily had already fallen to the Normans, ending Muslim power in Italy
Muslim Al-Andalus (Spain, Portugal) had already collapsed and splintered into competing states. It was already losing ground to the Christian kingdoms of Castille and Aragon. Toledo fell in 1085 to the Christians.
The premise of this question is false because Islam wasn’t spreading in Europe at the time. On the contrary, it was in serious decline.
But what about the Turks?
The only area where Islam was spreading was in Asia, not Europe. The expansion of the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia into the territory of the Christian Eastern Roman Empire prompted emperor Alexios I Komnenos to ask Pope Urban II for help. This was what triggered the First Crusade.
The Seljuk Turks never reached Europe. Even without the Crusades, it’s highly unlikely that they could have. Horse nomads are not known for their skill at crossing the sea, nor are they famous for taking heavily fortified cities like Constantinople.
Okay, but what about the Ottoman Empire?
The Ottoman Empire conquered large parts of Europe in the 14th to 17th centuries, after the Crusades
So this question couldn’t be more wrong.
Islam was declining, not expanding, in Europe before the Crusades
After the Crusades, Islam expanded into Europe
Conclusion
The Crusades may have encouraged the spread of Islam in Europe, rather than stopping it.
This is because the Fourth Crusade of 1204 famously destroyed the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, doing far more harm to the cause of Christianity in the Near East than any previous event. And it was the weakness of Byzantium that in turn allowed the Ottomans to expand into Europe.
Without the Crusades, the Ottomans would never have existed. Let alone crossed into Europe.
Tldr: the Crusades caused the expansion of Islam into Europe, rather than ‘stopping’ it…
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Italian artist Fabbio Fabbi (1861 – 1946) painted many delightful Orientalist scenes, such as this one. One has to be aware that these may not be strictly accurate, (and the concept of the harem is actually dark if one considers the details), but they are pretty to look at…
WARNING: GRAPHIC STORY INVOLVING SERIOUS INJURIES. IF THAT BOTHERS YOU DO NOT PROCEED READING THIS ACCOUNT!
I know of two times when boobytraps were used with sickening efficiency. In Canada the law is explicit: any type of booby trap is illegal plain and simple.
An individual I knew had been broken into three times through the same basement window and all attempts to reenforce it was met by the burglars taking the challenge and doing increasingly more damage. By the third time there wasn’t anything of value so they did damage and perpetrated some absolutely foul actions involving feces, etc. As I said in Canada booby traps are illegal plain and simple but an item that was designed for something else that caused damage to a uninvited guest was that person’s problem.
This man took a 3′x3′ piece of particle board and drilled about 100 drywall screws into it, after that at the the bottom of the board he assigned values 10, 20 etc. creating a Pachinko game, then “absent-mindedly” left it under the window. About a week later he arrived home to a frightening scene of blood EVERYWHERE. He called the police who attended and investigated.They surmised that the uninvited guest had broken the window and climbed in, dropping to the floor and landing on the Pachinko game. He must have yelled for help and a second uninvited genius came to his aid and in doing so put himself in the same predicament.They freed themselves then left via the front door.
The officers attended the nearest hospital where they found a couple of meth heads with injuries similar to what the B&E guys would have. When questioned, they said it was a construction injury and the officers didn’t push it. They didn’t stay in the hospital as they were tweaking pretty hard. The homeowner faced no legal repercussions but was told that a second Pachinko accident may not be viewed as an accident a second time.The tweakers moved on.
Problem solved. I have a nastier story that if so desired I can relay but I want to see how this story goes over.
There was a dumb immature football player in high school who liked a lot of girls. I was one that he liked. He ended up getting a college scholarship to play football. I never thought he would make it past his junior year. There was another football player that I knew who he was but, didn’t know him that also got a football scholarship. I never thought he would make it past his junior year either. A few years later I was in the break room at my miserable job. The NFL draft was on. I wasn’t really paying attention. Then I saw both of them announced as first round draft picks. Each had a $7,000,000 contract. I was in shock! Several years later I became friends with the one who liked me on Facebook. He quickly started messaging me asking if I was single and wanted my phone number. He started calling me several times a day. He was basically inviting himself to come visit me. We lived 2 hours away from each other. When I let him know that I wasn’t interested he got mad. He told me that I should have gotten with him in high school. He then said that he bets if I would have known how he was going to turn out that I would have gotten with him. I said YEAH!I think he was trying to go back in time and hook up with all the different girls he liked and couldn’t get in high school. He told me he acted the way he did in high school because he wasn’t getting any. I told him the reason he wasn’t getting any is because of the way he acted.
There is no such thing as the world’s best? Each country ought to have what they each see as the best for their nation and their people under different circumstances unique for them, over a development level that is different from country to country.
You can say every nation thinks they have the world’s best for themselves. They ought to be. Otherwise why would they choose it? Surely they all want to do the best for themselves right?
These words or symbols or slurs such as Communism or Democracy or Socialism are tags for various purpose. Some times to simplify some times to discriminate one against another or worst to slur and demonised. These labels meant nothing more, as each nation is shade of grey and not black or white.
The U.S. for example calls itself Liberal democracy. But in reality it is neither democratic nor liberal at all. Is 0.8% of the rich or and powerful decides that the 60 odd % of their people who bother to vote have only two choice Biden a senile or Trump a perpetual liar to choose from, surely that is not democracy!
The U.S. with a mere 4% of world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoner’s population, surely it cannot liberal nor free? But U.S. can called itself whatever it wants!
China calls itself socialism with Chinese characteristics but the U.S. insists on the label. “Communism” for worst connotations to cast fear and hate on them! If you repeat it like this questioner do, it simply help your media cast hates on China.
To me if the west can call the U.S. a Liberal Democracy why can’t they tern China as Socialism with Chinese characteristics? It is no different from Western media calling Palestinians as “terrorist” and Isreal as freedom “fighter” These slurs and suggesting good is clearly a set. narrative!
Back in my previous incarnation, I worked in collections for the law firm I worked for – drafting legal documents, preparing for hearings, and then taking enforcement steps once we obtained judgment. Yes, we sometimes collected money, but it was usually frustrating and fruitless.
Once, a client offered to pay $2,000 on a $5,000 bill. The lawyer (now a judge) asked my advice. I told her my usual recovery on a judgement was zero. We took the $2,000 and called it a day.
The real problem is that lawyers often start doing work without regard for the client’s ability to pay, they don’t bill regularly and they keep working on files even though there are unpaid bills. I was never involved in one of my firm’s biggest cases – a lengthy patent suit where the client was billed monthly and paid pretty much when it received the bill.
At first, most of the work was centered around clients whose assets we had grossly overestimated. This was very true in family law litigation. However, we often had cases where we simply did too much work for very little return for the client. I remember meeting one client who had met with “other Steve” (who did the collections calls) who complained that the entire amount of the judgement went to pay taxes she owned on the settlement. I told other Steve to write off the bill.
There was the odd client who had the wherewithal to pay, but just didn’t. In a lot of cases they were asset rich and cash poor. They often lived excessive lifestyles even though their income had dropped severely (not our fault by the way). We had a client who owed us about $70,000 and was getting about $100,000 a year from a rich person’s estate. However, that money couldn’t be “attached” by a judgement so we went unpaid.
My uncle retired from the Dept. of Agriculture after a long career. He was headhunted by a couple of guys with land who wanted to set up a seed testing company. (If you want to claim something about seeds that you sell, someone independent has to test that.) He set up the program, and had contacts in the industry so that the two guys ended up with all their land in use. A year later the guys looked at their books and realized he was the highest paid person, and that all that he was doing, was signing off that the teenagers taking the readings, etc. and were doing the job right. They could do that.
They called my uncle in and offered him a severance package. He smiled, took the offer, and went home. Next month, they were frantic when they called him. After they had sent out the documentation with their signatures, every company that they were doing business with had called them and sent certified letters. They hadn’t understood that someone qualified as an expert witness needed to be signing those documents. The list of people qualified in that field is short. They had no choice but to hire him back, at an increased salary.
I was a 16 year old American girl. Our family was living in Brazil due to my father’s employment. My family had gone to the beach for the day and had hauled along a 19 year old acquaintance from church. While at the beach, a woman had swum out too far and she was drowning. The 19 year old and myself swam out to help her. The tide was turning, the waves were really rough, and she was trying to climb up on us in order to not drown. She was so desperate. The situation with the waves, the changing tide, and her extreme emotional state was so dire that the 19 year old looked at me and said, “It is better for her to die than for all three of us to die while trying to save her”. He swam back to shore.
I realized that I would rather die trying to save her than live the rest of my life knowing that I abandoned someone in need. I could not leave her. I just could not do it.
I had taken a Junior Life Saving Course as a 10 or 11 year old. I remembered just enough to know not to let her grab me. I got my elbow around her neck and made her float on her back. I worked on calming her down. I tried to work with the waves instead of against them. It took a while, but we both got back to shore. She was vomiting up water, but she was alive. We both were. My family packed up and we drove home. There were no accolades.
I am 55 years old now, and that event at the age of 16 was a turning point in my life. The experience let me know that I could put my life on the line and do hard things.
Over the years, I have volunteered and donated and done some nice things, but that was the nicest thing I ever did.
Can Taiwan with the QUAD backing it, defeat China
No.
Not even close.
…
Consider this mix…
USA, Taiwan, QUAD, The Philippines, all of NATO vs China. Who would win?
China would win.
…
How? Why? What is the reasoning?
Well…
Let me engage you in some creative illustrations. Because anyone even contemplating such a ludicrous question is completely ignorant of China; China’s history, and China’s massive military capabilities.
A tale of mountains
Imagine, China as a huge; just massive mountain. And on that mountain are thousands, maybe even millions of ant hills. Every meter or yard or so, you see another ant hill. And amongst all those ant hills a dangerous and lethal fire ants. Their bite is painful, and nasty.
The fire ants are organized, communicate by scent, and are completely willing to die on the spot to preserve their colony.
The individual bite of a single ant is painful, but will not really kill any large animal. But if ten ants bite an animal, then you can expect some serious harm to come to that animal. Including death.
…
Now imagine a pack of dogs. Each dog has his own hill to live upon. One dog, the biggest of them all; an old and mangy mutt lives on a mountain, roughly the same size as the Chinese mountain. The other dogs, of various types and sizes and breeds live on an array of different hills and much smaller mountains. One is a husky, another is a German Shepard. One is a poodle, while another one is a lean greyhound.
This pack of dogs like to travel around in a great big pack. They are pretty good at it, running about, digging holes,, barking at everyone.
…
One day, the biggest dog tells the poodle and the beagle to go to the Chinese mountain and start digging and raising a fuss…
And they go up there and run about. Barking. Trampling all over the anthills. They dig into the ground and ants go a flying about. They are so happy that other dogs of the pack join in, and before you know it, all the dogs are running about all over the mountain and tossing the tiny ants everywhere.
Then…
(And anyone who has encountered fire ants knows)
… all at once, simultaneously swarms of fire ants bite in unison every single dog. They flood in from all over. They come from everywhere. And the dogs start running away, but the ants are still clinging to their fur and riding the yelling dogs back to their home mountains.
Some of the smaller dogs die in place. They never leave the China mountain.
The medium sized dogs make it home, where they lay in absolute agony and howl in pain and agony. The large dog collapses and winces and twitches as the fire ants relentlessly bite him over and over.
…
The ants that rode the dogs to their home now are establishing ant colonies there, and they grow and expand even as the dogs dies and their carcasses rot to bleached bones.
The ants in the China mountain rebuild and in no time at all, have bigger and more elaborate ant colonies. And the reign of the dog pack ends.
Replaced with a world run by a peaceful, but lethal fire ant horde.
…
This is the reality of a war with China. Are you ready to watch it happen?
The woman living next door sent sweet bread for me yesterday.
She’s maybe 20 years old, mother of a toddler. It’s been a year they moved in as tenants and aren’t exactly the “hey, how are ya neighbor” type of folks and firmly practice minding their own business.
Last night, as I was back from work and having dinner. My wife brought a plate of sweet bread and said that Faiza (name changed) brought some sweet bread today and sat for a chat; it was delicious and kids loved it. We ate it while she was still here And after noticing the empty plate, she went back and brought some more, saying…
I’m glad you liked it. Here… I have brought some more for brother Neman. He should have some of it too.
And I thought… wow!
I tasted it and yeah it was nice. Sweet and crispy.
Later, I went to the other room and fired up my laptop.
I sat there and thought of her. Faiza.
A short brick wall separates our yards. I hear them all the time. She yells a lot at her husband and vice versa. She says “F” words to him which is quite uncommon. She sobs and nags. A poverty-stricken and miserable woman, indeed.
Worst of all… she curses her own son sometimes. I hear her saying “Drop dead” or “Why don’t you just die” to her own son. Downright awful.
Strangely… I didn’t hate her.
I would have hated anyone else in this situation. But not her. In fact, I felt for her. I remember seeing her as a toddler years back, running in the streets barefoot and playing with clay pots. She grew in this neighborhood.
It is complicated to explain to you, Quorans that in our lower-middle class culture… we just cannot go and tell people to behave on their personal matters. It can be considered rude and might actually trigger an irreversible chain of events that lead to “why did I do it in the first place” .
Believe it or not… I spoke to her one day. I initiated that neighborly talk and told her that I remember her as a toddler, playing in front of my house.
She smiled.
That’s what I was hoping for. A smile.
“I hear you cursing your son, Faiza. Trust me… he’ll remember it when he grows older. You love your child, I know. Do you want him to hate and abandon you as soon he can? It’s not his fault for whatever troubles you’re in”.
And that was it.
A few days later, I was home alone, opened my door upon hearing a knock and found her holding a piece of paper. It was the first time… she actually came to our door. She requested me to have her husband’s character certificate stamped by the local police as he’s applying for a security guard’s job.
I got it done.
It’s been weeks. Yelling between them is there but not so much, I would say. And certainly no more cursing towards her own son. I think… the kid has started going to play group. I saw him in his cute uniform.
I was on a general medicine ward earlier this year where I met a patient who we will call Mrs X.
She had agreed to be a teaching patient. This was because she has peripheral vascular disease (the arteries in her legs weren’t working so well) so she had some good signs and symptoms.
While taking the history and exam I got to know this beautiful character very well. She was bright, energetic, witty and very funny!
She made jokes at her own expense, wasn’t afraid to rip into me (I did a little bit back to her too), and despite her rather poor medical state she had a great outlook on life.
Several months go by and I cycle through different specialities.
It was my first day on the geriatric ward and I got assigned my long case. This is a patient I’ll follow for the entirety of my placement. Writing about their medical history and progress.
Guess who I get assigned? It’s Mrs X!
She had undergone a double above knee amputation due to her peripheral vascular disease.
As soon as she saw me she smiled and said;
Mrs X:“Well I’ll be dammed! Who let this packet of trouble in here, how are you Carter?”.
I smiled, her cheeky wit was all to familiar and lovely to see.
Me: “I know right! Can’t get rid of me that easily. Hopefully you will be able to keep up with my banter still Mrs X”.
Mrs X: “Oh I will. No going easy just because I’ve no longer got a leg to stand on”.
From her cheeky grin erupted a heavy belly laugh. Only she could joke about a double amputation.
Me: “I would never, and I’m not giving you one of mine to stand on either!”.
We then proceeded to give each other a hug and catch up on the last few months.
Sometimes humour really is the best form of medicine.
The first time I saw my ex’s new partner, she stepped out of my old marital home with her child and stared at me blankly on the doorstep when I was picking up my son. It was odd, to say the least, to be standing outside my own house (effectively)and being introduced to his new flame. I hugged and kissed her hello and said ‘’Nice to meet you.’ Then walked away feeling surreal and asking myself ‘’What the hell is happening here?’
I was married for 18 years. We had a fairytale relationship. There were only three certainties in life: taxes, death and the fact that we would be together for the rest of our lives. But, things ended.
A reasonable adult will accept that the relationship ended for good reasons and that things just weren’t working anymore. But when your ex finds a new partner, that’s a whole different story. When he introduces his new partner to mutual friends as ‘’the love of his life,’ you find yourself having the petty, angry feelings a teenager would have. Then you chastise yourself for becoming THAT person.
And the day your 8 year old tells you that his suit for the wedding is too tight and you look at him bemused because you have no idea what he’s on about, and he looks back at you like a deer in headlights because he assumed you knew, you feel like you have been punched in the stomach. And weeks later, when you receive a text from an aquaintance asking ‘You okay?’ and it turns out she’s referring to the wedding photo just posted on social media, you feel you never existed. That’s when you realise those 18 years of love, support, fidelity, encouragement and accomplishment meant absolutely nothing to your ex. Or his family.
So you spend the next couple of years in a haze of various emotions (hatred, resentment, anger, jealousy, insecurity, despair) until one day you realise you’ve not thought about it much lately. And although the hurt will never disappear entirely, eventually it makes more sense to just accept it.
Why people divorce
Pretty good explanation.
In the USA…
Ohio, USA auctioned off 393,000 pieces of protective clothing for only $2451, and eventually threw away 7.2 million pieces of protective clothing as well as expired masks, gloves, and other materials. These soon to expire supplies cost approximately $29 million in federal funds.
Vermont sold 105,000 boot covers for $82.50 and thousands of safety goggles for 29 cents.
A survey by the Associated Press found that at least 15 states from Alaska to Vermont have abandoned some of their personal protective equipment due to expiration, surplus, and lack of willing buyers.
More than 18 million masks, 22 million protective suits, 500,000 gloves, and more have all been thrown into the trash can. This does not include states that have not provided accurate numbers to the Associated Press or responded through case studies or other measurement methods. Rhode Island states that it has crushed and recycled 829 tons of personal protective equipment. Maryland processed over $93 million in supplies.
The entire article is too long and there is a lot of material waste. I have only cited a small part of it. And that’s just what the US has calculated by itself.
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In the past three years, countless people around the world have lost their parents, children, and partners. These life-saving supplies are just rotting here. Tell me, who is the one who does not respect human rights?
At the same time as these things happen, Washington was doing this. No party has done better.
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The economic structure of this world is a joke, your society is a joke, and I watch it with tears in my eyes.
It needs to be changed. It can be changed. It must be changed.
Zones v3 – The most useful relationship map in history
“It’s really more of an in-person kind of explanation,” he demured, then suggested a dinner date.
I hesitated. Normally I don’t meet my online dates until significantly more text and phone contact. Partly for safety reasons, partly because I don’t want to waste my time on guys I know will not work out. But mostly because I have been on A LOT of bad dates.
He said he was living in his friend’s spare room because he’d hit a few “speed bumps,” in life. I totally got that. I’m the queen of speed bumps myself. I let myself dare to hope maybe— just maybe— I had found a kindred spirit. I agreed to the date. And just like that, there I was, listening to him tell his story from across the candlelit table.
”About a year ago, I went out with some friends after work,” he began, and I smiled and nodded to let him know he had my attention. “I met a girl at a bar and we really hit it off. We ended up going home together. Next day, there’s a cop on my doorstep. And yada, yada, yada… long story short, she didn’t LOOK sixteen.”
I stiffened. Did she look 30? Because you’re 44, dude.
“So,” he continued, “I have a felony on my record. I was put on probation, and my job fired me. And then, just to kick me when I’m down” —and this is my favorite part— “my wife left me.”
?!??!!
“Bummer,” I said, because what else is there to say?
“So I was out of work, and my mom and I couldn’t live off her social security check alone, so she started driving for Uber…
So you have an adult sister with autism, and you resent her living with your parents and, from your perspective, “doing nothing”.
You obviously don’t live with your parents and sister.
Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there is a very wide range of capability and deficits. If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person. What one person with autism does has no bearing on what another person with autism can or will do.
Do you know anything about what your sister is capable of? Perhaps she had difficulty with language, making any interaction with the public impossible. Perhaps she has extreme sensory issues, making leaving her home environment an exercise in pain and anxiety. Autistic people can be intellectually disabled, or intellectually gifted. And both extremes tend to struggle with the social rules of conversation and interaction.
I would suggest that you find out more about your sister, without judgement. Ask questions with an open mind. Attend doctor’s appointments with your parents. Get to know your sister, on a personal level, without expectation of what she “should” be doing.
It’s perfectly normal, and even typical, for adults with autism to live with parents. They may lack the necessary mental skills to manage schedules, financial decisions, even cooking a meal or basic hygiene. While being able to discuss the intricacies of rainforest habitats.
However, your parents will not be able to care for her forever. And she is your sister. Eventually she may need you to help. So lose the attitude and get informed. That way you can be a loving, caring sibling, rather than a jealous, resentful one.
That’s three spaceX raptor engines, on a regular ass flatbed trailer, being towed around by a ford.
ULA and all of the other legacy launch providers would have built some bespoke vehicle at the cost of millions of dollars to do this job.
I can think of few other images that capture in one shot the difference in philosophy at play here. SpaceX acts like it’s stuff is commodity, yet tough hardware, and that it can be treated as such.
It’s a rocket engine. If it can’t survive being towed around by a ford, it’s probably not going to survive flying to mars, landing, and taking off again with minimal human interaction.
The entire south Texas facility looks like a construction site that might be dedicated to the oil and gas sector (which is no surprise, given as that’s the sector that largely built it), not some hyper-clean room high tech facility that looks like it’s primarily built to host congressional delegations. The equipment used is overwhelmingly the sort of stuff that one sees at any industrial facility where you have to worry about cost, rather than the taxpayer subsidized specials that legacy companies seem to be addicted too.
When I was still dating Ebba, she warned me for her father on several occasions. That he was a difficult man, that he was incapable of listening to other people, and that he constantly complained about my trees being too high. And that he would never stop.
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Her words turned out to be augural signs for what was to come.
Have your neighbors ever called the cops on you for something ridiculous ?
Yes, all the time.
It started with nagging. Nagging about my hedge which was too high, nagging about my backyard birches whose leaves fell into his garden (and those tiny, tiny twigs), then about an old elder tree that (slightly) leaned over on his side of the fence, then about a Christmas tree that would grow too big in the future, then about all the shadow which is cast on his property.
Nagging, nagging, nagging.
So he contacted the community officer to complain, and that kind man patiently tried to explain that on the countryside, trees and hedges are a normal thing, and so are leaves and the like. He did not listen.
Some time later, we came back from abroad near the end of Eastern holidays, and our beautiful Christmas tree — the one that “would grow too big in the future” — had been cut. The bully admitted without any shame that he had done it.
The community officer tried to explain to my neighbor that this was not done, but again the bully did not listen.
And so it began, and proceeded.
Then envelopes came. With pictures of all the leaves and twigs that fell into their garden, and of all the fictional damage that they had done.
Then he sued us in a Justice of Peace court because of our trees, and the judge himself came by to check on his complaints. And he did not agree, on all accounts. He explained the bully that leaves and twigs are a part of country life, and that he would have to live with that. (He did not listen.)
The bully then nearly physically attacked me, and threw his entire repertoire of vile words in my face (and some of it also in my ear). He was heavily reprimanded by the judge. (He did not listen.)
Since then, he called the community officer again, and was again reprimanded and asked to stop. (He did not listen.)
Ebba was right indeed — her father will never stop.
So we planted a seedling of a giant sequoia in our frontyard.
It is a direct descendant of a 500-year-old Californian giant, and it grows ferociously. Last year, it doubled in volume and added more than two feet to its height, and it will keep on doing that until it towers above all the neighborhood trees in no time.
On my second day in my new job, I was summoned to a meeting with the director. He told me that the person I had been hired to replace, as the top finance person in the company, had accepted an offer to stay, and that I would therefore not be made permanent.
Aside from some curiosity about this development, which he declined to gratify, my reaction was being absolutely fine. Just another curveball in the strangest year of my life.
As I got up to leave, my chair knocked over the fan behind me.
“Just because you’re being let go, doesn’t mean you can start trashing the place!” he said, and we both laughed.
Added:
Ten days later, I had lunch with the man who had replaced me at my previous job, as we had become friends during the handover. He asked me to come back and work with him. I accepted. A few weeks after that I fell in love with him. Last month we celebrated a year together. Funny what life throws at you.
When I was 18, I had a job as a receptionist in a small doctor’s office in a rural area. There were three doctors who were based in another community. Their hours at this clinic were sporadic. This was when our healthcare system was in transition and many of the rural people didn’t understand the complicated new changes.
I noticed that the head doctor, who owned the business, was doing some dodgy things. He was billing the government for treatment, and then charged the rural people cash for the same visit. For example, a girl who had saved up money came in to have her ears pierced, was charged cash. The doctor then billed the province for an “ear infection.”
This same doctor opened an x-ray clinic in his own community, and apparently almost everyone who came through the door “needed” x-rays.
There’s more. In those days, the family doctor went all the way with his pregnant patients, from a positive pregnancy test, to delivery. Except this doctor was a no show, every time. Sometimes he went golfing after getting these calls! Sometimes he walked his dogs instead of attending the birth, birth after birth. Most times he got the message and simply ignored it.
This was awful! These poor rural people were being cheated, and the pregnant moms, too.
So, I took photocopies of government billing and the receipts for cash. I had lots.
I began telling these pregnant clients the truth, and they started going elsewhere for treatment.
I was at a loss as to what to do next, so I took all my photocopies to the mayor of the closest large community. He thought they were interesting. I was so pleased. However, the mayor didn’t tell me what would happen next…
I went to work the next day and the day after that. THEN, I got a call from the wife of the doctor, firing me. She didn’t say why, it was a short call. I’d never been fired before, and I had such hurt feelings that I actually cried. I felt so terribly unwanted.
Then I got a call from an employee at the other clinic. She said there were two mean guys from the government there who showed up with some kind of paper that said they could search through all the files. Later I learned that the doctor lost all his hospital privileges in the provinces. A couple of years later, he closed his business and left the country.
Rationally speaking, China or the Qing Dynasty was ruined by its own problems, and the British were only the fuse that ignited them.
In fact, with the wealth and potential that China has, it is difficult for any other country to really challenge it as long as it is on a normal track, having long occupied a quarter of the world’s population and wealth, reaching half at its peak. Such a country could only be destroyed from within. Several vulnerable periods in China have been marked by various unresolvable structural contradictions:
First of all the Song dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, since the Song dynasty was a local power, it had no control over the north and was caught in a long war with Jin and Liao, even so, the Song was the last large country to be conquered by the Mongols, after the Mongols had conquered most of Eurasia, they concentrated their forces of half of the continent to attack the Song dynasty, even so, the war lasted almost 50 years, it was not easy for the Mongols and As Mongol Khan died in Sichuan, it forced Mongolia to stop its conquest of Europe and led to the division of the Mongol Empire.
Then came the Manchu invasion. The problem of the Ming Dynasty was the successive famines during the Little Ice Age and the failed fiscal policies that led to a high concentration of wealth to the bureaucratic class, with officials getting rich and the country not collecting taxes. The corrupt bureaucrats had no regard for the survival of the country before their personal interests, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed after a massive peasant uprising broke out, at which point the warlords in the north also colluded with the Manchus for their own benefit and gave China away.
The structural contradiction of the late Qing dynasty was that it was a minority regime, which meant that the rulers saw the state as their property and the people as their slaves, and they were more afraid of having their rights taken away by the people as opposed to being afraid of foreign invaders; after all, foreigners wanted only property (territory) and the people wanted their lives. Therefore, the Manchu rulers did not dare to mobilize the power of the people and let them master advanced productivity and technology. As a result, Japan in the same period could modernize rapidly on a much worse basis, while the Manchu aristocracy could only make do.
There are many uncanny but thought-provoking phenomena in the Opium Wars that illustrate these issues.
The British did not initially sell opium to China; since they had already succeeded in the Industrial Revolution, they believed their greatest advantage was industrial consumer goods, which could be industrially mass produced at low cost, and through which they believed they could succeed in China.
And then they failed.
Haha, yes, because China was in a small peasant economy, with little economic circulation and no modernization, the peasants did not need these consumer goods at all, nor could they afford them. For food, they grew their own, for clothing, the price of Chinese cloth was even lower, and the most demand was for spices, a few agricultural tools, and only the high officials and the rich consumed those “magical gadgets”.
Well, the British adjusted their strategy and they started selling Indian spices to the Chinese, but that’s when a new problem arose, and that was the balance of trade. Due to the extensive trade, Chinese porcelain, silk and tea flooded into Europe, fostering European consumption habits, especially tea, which was literally gold growing out of the ground. Europeans have always suffered from the local water quality problems, due to industrial pollution, and no modern tap water system, Europeans have long endured the bitterness of drinking water, tea is simply a savior. At that time, people did not know that the soil had the problem of acidity and alkalinity, and they thought that only China could produce good tea. Therefore tea became the core of the world’s trade at that time, for the profiteering of tea, the British shipped almost all the world’s silver to China, which led to the silver crisis in Europe, that is, severe deflation.
To balance trade, British merchants packaged opium to sell to China as medicine, which opened the door to a new world, yes, the door to nightmares.
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Opium was a perfect trade good, a product that could be manufactured in large quantities and that consumers could not get rid of after forming a habit, but none of this is the core of the problem, the most crucial point is that opium was banned in China. You must think I’ve said something wrong, but no, the logic goes like these:
Since opium was banned, Chinese farmers could not grow it, so this meant that China’s greatest advantage, the cost advantage, was gone, something that had not been the case with previous agricultural products.
Because opium was banned, it could not be imported through normal channels, was not taxable, and because the trade between China and abroad was monopolized by a few individuals who were thus sufficiently profitable, there was sufficient incentive for Chinese and foreign trading merchants to collude and buy officials to smuggle large quantities of opium. When the supervising officials essentially became accomplices of the smugglers, and there was no channel to respond to the ruling class about the actual situation, the opium trade became a mutually agreeable existence.
Since there was no supervision, everyone became complicit, forming a wide class of interests, so much so that it was even more impossible to contain, and the profitable officials made money to share the profits with their superiors, so that the senior officials were also deeply involved, so much so that the emperor was aware of the situation at a later stage but still could not stop it, because even the emperor himself could not resist the temptation brought by profits.
When the opium trade grew exponentially, problems arose, the people took a lot of opium, a large number of refugees emerged who were bankrupted by opium, the army took a lot of opium opium and lost its fighting strength, and the most crucial problem was the same as the situation in Europe before, the outflow of silver. At this point, the emperor finally realized the problem, yes, the emperor never worried about the miserable situation his people were in, he only cared about himself and his property, that is, silver.
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At this point, the “smart” officials came up with a solution, the same as the current North American policy on marijuana, if you can not prohibit, simply liberalize.
Well, the nightmare really came. Due to the huge profits of opium, farmers stopped growing grain and they grew opium, domestic opium quickly took over the market, opium prices plummeted, more people started smoking opium, the market became bigger, so much so that smugglers could still make a lot of money even if they paid taxes legally and provided the officials with kickbacks as much as they should, and instead of balancing the trade, the open door policy made opium even more unstoppable.
When the Qing government once again made up its mind to ban opium, it was too late. The harsh policy not only failed to solve the problem, but also angered British businessmen, who spent a lot of money to convince the British Parliament to vote to declare war on the Qing Empire, a vote in favor of which was narrowly won by only nine votes. This meant that even at the time, when Britain was at its strongest, they did not have enough confidence to defeat China halfway across the world, tens of thousands of kilometers away. The parliamentary lords took the money and sent a small expeditionary force to try, at least they knew that the Qing did not have enough naval forces to retaliate against them.
At this point, the ignorance and lack of understanding of the other side on both sides of the battlefield is mind-boggling to people today.
The Qing emperor had always arrogantly believed that he was the ruler of the world and that the British were just some barbarians. He regarded the British attack as a historical harassment of China by barbarians from the north, as if the British army would immediately surrender and kneel down and beg for mercy as soon as he gave the order for the Chinese army to attack, which was not the funniest thing, the funniest thing was that the initial reaction of the British army seemed to confirm his judgment.
Surprisingly, the British fleet did not dare to attack and only cruised in the outer sea. The Qing generals holding on to the shore batteries even became bored, thinking that the British were bluffing and how they dared to fight against the armies of Heaven.
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Do you know what the British think? The British think they are “blockading the port”. I have to say, I really laughed, “blockade of ports”? They didn’t even know that the Chinese had no concept of trade or sea power at that time, and all trade was packaged by officials as “tribute” from the surrounding barbarians to the central state, which had everything and didn’t need to trade at all, but only to show appreciation and give gifts to the “tribute”.
In fact, it was when the British fleet prepared to blockade the Yangtze northward and began to move deeper inland that the real battle took place, a process that shocked both sides.
British naval guns were surprisingly farther-ranged and more powerful than the Chinese shore guns
The Qing shore guns were surprisingly all fixed guns, unable to adjust their angles or aim, and could only probabilistically kill.
The Qing army’s jingalls were surprisingly unable to inflict fatal wounds on the British.
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The British tactic of suppressing fire with naval guns and attacking with small units around the flank and rear was surprisingly easy to make the Qing defenses collapse. And this simple tactic seemed to work forever; the Qing army seemed to have absolutely no reconnaissance capability.
The Chinese population around the battlefield simply watched both sides perform, and even applauded the British victory, as they were apparently more oppressed by the Qing officials.
In the end, this turned into an almost one-sided massacre.
At the same time, the message to the palace is a lot of good news. The officials could not explain such an incredible defeat, and they could only cajole the emperor that although the Qing army had been winning, the harassment of the British brought a huge financial burden. How about giving the “barbarians” a sum of money to meet their trade requests and induce the British to retreat? They even falsely claimed that the defeated British army knelt outside the city gates and prayed for the mercy of heaven, which was moving.
Coincidentally, this was the time when, due to a massive outbreak of plague among the British army, more people died of disease than died in battle, and the British army was unable to fight, so a consensus was reached. The officials and the emperor saved face and the British got the benefit. The first unequal treaty in modern Chinese history, the Treaty of Nanking, was signed in such a confused manner, which started the prelude to China’s “hundred years of humiliation”. And this war even too small to be worth mentioning in the history of the British.
image 337
What, if anything, can be learned from this history? I would end this article with a quote from the Chinese author Liu Cixin in The Three-Body Problem.
Weakness and ignorance are never an obstacle to survival, but arrogance is.
This statement is not only addressed to the Chinese, but also to the many Westerners who currently know nothing about China but are happy to teach the Chinese how to behave. Hopefully, as mature civilizations, we should all refrain from repeating the mistakes of the past.
I had an employee in her late 30s that kept missing work. She called in with lots of excuses. Vandalized car, stolen keys. I put her on a performance plan (first step to termination). So, she reported to HR that she was an alcoholic. I, according to HR, could no longer terminate her. So, I (the company) continued to pay her while she spent 3 days in jail. I paid for her to be off work for a month, while she attended out-patient rehab. During her time off for rehab, she got pregnant. I paid for her to have a baby and 8 weeks off work. She continued to miss work…probation appointment, broken car-start-breathalyzer. Her work was terrible, she antagonized the other employees and spent a good part of her workday outside smoking cigarettes. She eventually quit. I never was allowed to fire her.
However, I had another employee that I did fire…for smoking marijuana during her time off work. She was selected for random drug testing. She failed for marijuana. Even though she was not using at work, and she was a good employee, I was required to fire her. She was in her 60s. She apologized to me as I was terminating her. I went back to my office and cried after she left. I felt so terrible for what I had done to her.
So, smoking tobacco leaves and drinking alcohol to the point of complete failure to perform….ok! Smoking marijuana leaves during your time off, while doing a good job at work…b-bye.
I get to New York City, by hitchhiking if need be.
I go to the New York library and find the name of a good patent attorney.
I visit his office and show him the phone.
His jaw drops to the floor. He knows he’s looking at nothing that can be built in 1969.
Then I tell him there’s nothing in that phone I know how to patent, but I know a lot about the broad evolution of technology over the next 50 years across semiconductors, computers, programming, biology, material science, etc.
He takes another look at what is obviously the most powerful supercomputer on the planet…
Then I say: “I need a place to stay and a little spending money while we figure out how to build a company that’s going to own the most important intellectual property portfolio the world has ever seen. We’ll need scientists, engineers, investors, and lawyers working together. You in?”
You want a patent attorney, they see the possibilities.
Oh yes! Back in the day (early 2000’s) when I lived in Los Angeles I worked in the accounting department for a catering company. After a few months I was doing ok but I was aware that my immediate supervisor (we will call him Javier) was not very fond of me. (Well, actually he had been WAY too fond of me at first but once I turned him down it was downhill for me in that office. But that’s a separate story and I don’t mean to digress.)
One day the phone at my desk rings and I answer it. The young lady on the other line tells me she is answering the add she read in the paper (yup, newspaper ads! I am that old!) about the job opening and she is interested to set up an interview. Yes you read correctly: Those idiots had placed an ad in the newspapers for MY job and had given the phone number at MY desk as the contact by mistake. I was very pleasant to the young lady on the phone as well as the other dozen or so that called until Javier made it in later that day. I went into his office with a big smile and handed him his messages and said something along the lines of ‘oh and these messages are from people answering the want ad. You know, the ones that want to interview for my job.’ He looked at me in complete shock and embarrassment since I had just called him a complete idiot and he was left speechless which is essentially what had happened. I mean, what could he say? That was on a Friday and the owner of the company (who was completely unaware) was in Hawaii and would not return to the office until Monday. The owner came back on Monday livid that this had happened, was embarrassed and apologised for causing me any discomfort. Javier didn’t apologise as much as he said that California was an ‘at-will’ state which meant that one could be fired for no reason at all, blah, blah and that he really wasn’t a bad guy (only an idiot!). I didn’t have another job lined up so I let it go.
Fast forward about about 2 months later. Again a Friday and in the morning my phone rings. The young lady on the other end wanted to confirm her interview appointment for 3 PM that day. Again, for MY job! I responded ‘sure, no problem! See you then!’ After lunch my co-worker (who I though was my friend but turns out he wanted to safeguard his own position so he sided with Javier) says something like ‘hey Christian, there isn’t much left to do today. Why don’t you go home?’. I responded with a ‘naw, I have so much to do with blah blah…’ Half hour later Javier comes to me with the same question. I said ‘oh no, I want to get ahead with blah blah…’ 3 PM comes around, bell rings and in comes in the young lady. I sat her ass down in my seat, got her some coffee and told her I would let Javier know. I go to his office and announce ‘Mary is here for her interview for my job. I got her some coffee. I’m going home like you suggested. Have a great weekend!’ They once again found themselves speechless at their own idiocy. She turned them down.
A few weeks later I landed my dream job during the catering company’s busiest time period. My new job told me they needed me to start immediately. I told them that even though Javier had treated me like homemade dog piss, I was still going to give them a 2-week notice because that was the correct thing to do. The following day I walked into Javier’s office and gave my notice. He begged me to please stay for at least a couple of more months until the busy period subsided and they did not have someone to do my job. I said I could not and that the 2 weeks was all that I could give them. I left with my head held high and worked at the other company for 10 years until I moved to Europe. Moral of the story: When someone treats you like dog crap do not sink to their level and don’t forget your self respect by teaching them a lesson on what human decency is all about because sooner or later karma will still find those Mother Fuckers.
When I signed up with my US health insurer, Humana, the first thing they did was assign me to a different doctor than the one I had been seeing for fifteen years. I called them and told them to put me back with my regular doctor. In April of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. Again, I called them and told them to put me back with my previous doctor. In June of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. Once again, I called them and told them to put me back with my previous doctor. In September of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. I no longer have Humana as my insurer.
So don’t tell me that as an American I have the ability to choose my own doctor when my insurance company keeps trying to deny me that choice.
American health insurance is shit.
EDIT: I should point out that my original primary doctor was and is in Humana’s “network” to begin with. Their insistence on assigning me to another doctor was either some kind of bureaucratic nonsense or they were just fucking with me. Either way, there was no reason for them to keep reassigning me when I clearly stated my preference time and again.
One day dad and I went into a deep conversation about various aspects of life. Topics like meaning of life, life after death, role of luck in success etc.
Conversation went deep and we kept discussing and I was all ears to grasp whatever wisdom he had to offer.
Then I asked him “Dad if you have to give one solid advice to me that I should always follow, what should be it. Just one?”
He thought for a while and then asked me, “What is your utmost priority in life”?
I gave a grin smile and said, “My Career”…..I was 28 then.
To which he replied, “Suppose you earn $ 10,000 + in a month some years from now, for that obviously you have to trade time for money and you ignore everything to earn money. By the time you turn 40/45 you have all the money in the world and are financially secure. You have a house of your own, a car and all luxuries. But since you have traded time with money, you didn’t focus on your health and now you are obese and have a weight of 90 Kgs and is catching with some diseases such as diabetes, obesity, joints pain etc.
Why did you earn so much money? To buy luxuries and to enjoy them. Now even if you have all the luxuries in the world, you can’t enjoy them as you ignored your health, and now your body is ignoring you. Even if you want to enjoy the travel, food etc that money has to offer but you can’t utilize luxuries to the fullest.
One line he said that I will never forget – “You can work hard and with your skillset you can earn money anytime but once health is lost, it becomes quite difficult to regain back your health.”
So my son, never ignore your health for anything. Health is wealth. If you have health, you can enjoy life till your last breath.
Even if he is 65 now, he never misses taking care of his health for 2 hours a day at least and plays table tennis better than people in their 30s at his place. I have not seen missing him his workout for more than 3/4 days at a stretch for the last 35 odd years. Even after retirement he was of the view that I must not pass time rather being a good cook, he started his own youtube channel – “RAVI SISODIYA”
and is doing well. Enjoys his passion and interaction with subscribers.
I was not regular at that time and then decided to keep my health a number one priority.
Whatever your profession be, never ignore your health for more days in a row. Respect your body and mind and you will get the same in return.
First, it makes the absurdity of the “island chain containment” plain and obvious.
It is no longer this map keeping the Pentagon awake at night:
image 343
but these:
image 28image 5
That is a whole lot more real estate, with few american base assets in sight.
The combined Chinese and Russian fleet this year is sizable, at 11. More tellingly, the US sent 4 Arleigh Burke destroyers and a P-8 in response, rather than rely on the Coast Guard like last year.
The diversion of 4 destroyers from regular operations opens up a 16% operational hole for a navy that is already stretched thin trying to match the operational tempo of the PLAN in the Western Pacific.
This is an important development on the chessboard, because the psychology has shifted.
The US can no longer plan around concentrating assets along the Western Pacific, because the Pacific and Arctic are huge playgrounds.
What will make it even more interesting is the presence of Chinese naval aviation when the emals carriers enter service. America will have to send a CBG or two in response, but there is the type 055’s formidable VLS battery to contend with, and so on. Fascinating calculus, if you are a wargaming nuthead.
That will upend the already stretched resources of the USN.
In other words, nightmare-inducing calculus for Americans, who will not be able to accept the Chinese conducting Sigint flights off its own coast, like it has been doing for decades on the other side of the ocean.
The Pacific is not America’s backyard. Neither is Pearl Harbor the keystone.
Time to tear up old maps and make new ones, at least where deployment of forces and chinks in the armor are concerned.
The Pacific is where Chinese power projection will develop, not Oceania, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere.
Note: Currently, more than 70 percent of the USN’s deployed assets are allocated to the 7th fleet and Indopacom, and they are concentrated in the waters around the island chains. In other words, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Fleets share ~30 deployable ships.
But they have a great advantage, almost not lying.
I mean that they also have political prejudice, and they will also have strong ideological comments, and there will also be a degradation of competitors. But they always state exact facts. If some things are included in the unhappy scope, or things are not really determined, their choices are not reported, but they will not choose to lie.
Let me give an example:
Some people found several corpses in a car, looking like Asians, but without any identity proof, the police had been involved in the investigation.
Report by BBC CNN NYT:
1. Insiders revealed that several drug dealers from China died of attacking each other because they were unevenly split.
2. Several Asians were found to die in the car, and they may be a smuggler from Vietnam.
3. Our reporter was at the scene, and some residents told us that several Koreans died here. They come from a mysterious underground church, perhaps in a certain ceremony.
Are you familiar with it?
CNTV report:
Police found several men dying in the car, and their identities have not been found. Please pay attention to the safety of the surrounding residents. If you have a clue, please notify the police.
Is it boring?
we know. The mainstream Western media often lie, and they will report some things to catch the wind, even the news and hearing news. When one thing is proved to be false, they only need to apologize or revoke the article. After all: freedom of speech.
However, China’s official media are different. Chinese public opinion has strict bottom line requirements for official media: not lying.
In the Internet era, it is almost impossible to completely deceive everyone. In China’s official media, when a news report or video finally proves that the fabricated lies, the person in charge of the official media will immediately fall into a scandal. Waiting for them is generally withdrawal and reputation sweeping the floor. Apology does not have any effect.
However, there are also many unofficial media in China, and their content is much confusing. In addition to being limited in political content, they often lie in a row to catch the wind and catch the wind to attract attention.
Because they are conservative and boring, they only tell you that they are very limited before without exact facts. Therefore, Chinese official media often difficult to attract people’s attention, and their click rate and dissemination on the Internet are also very low.
Volkswagen media is more popular because it has more curiosity and entertainment.
But in China, when people want to know the truth of major events, they often believe in the official media and complain why the official media is so slow that there is no more detailed news.
I grew up on a farm. There was a small forest, which we called “the woods,” on one end of the farm. Every year, my father would post “No Hunting” signs around the woods. But every year hunters would still come there, as the woods were filled with rabbit, pheasant, deer, and other game. When he saw them, my father would go out to the woods and explain to the hunter that these were his woods, he did not allow hunting, and they would have to leave.
One time, when I was four, my father was with my brother, who was six, when they saw a hunter at the edge of the woods, looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father took my brother’s hand, walked over to the hunter, and said “These are my woods. I don’t allow hunting. You’ll have to leave.” The hunter turned around, pointed his shotgun at my six year old brother’s chest, and said “I’ll hunt wherever I damn well please.” My father slowly backed away with my brother and went back to the house.
A few minutes later, he came out again. But instead of crossing the field that led from the house to the woods, he went to the side, where a chicken coop extended to the edge of the woods. He walked quietly behind the chicken coop, until he came to the edge of the woods, about twenty feet from the hunter, who was still intently looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father said to the hunter “Drop the gun and leave immediately.” Except this time, when the hunter turned around, instead of my father holding the hand of a six year old boy, he was holding a .38 revolver…which was pointed at the hunter’s head. As soon as he started to turn around, my father said simply “Drop it or die.”
My father died four years ago. It had been almost sixty years since this happened. When I went to clean out his house, the hunter’s shotgun was still in his closet.
In the 90s I was the parts secretary at a Ford dealership. We had a few parking spaces for office staff close to our entrance. We often hauled in office supplies, food and boxes of promotional materials for sales, and we often left after dark.
A young, cocky new salesman was hired and started parking (his Ford pickup) in our spots. I politely explained to him why it was it was important to keep those spaces open for us. He shrugged and continued to park there.
I confronted him again with a firmer tone. “You gotta stop parking there man!” With two little words he sealed his fate. “Or, what?” Sweetie. Snookums. I got a truckload of what.
In those days a Ford dealership could get any information they wanted on a Ford. With his VIN number I made a duplicate key. When he parked in our spots I moved his truck to the back corner of the lot where new deliveries would bury it and he’d have to move several cars to get his. I didn’t stop there though.
Anytime I saw his truck anywhere I’d move it. Shopping Center? Moved. Street parking for a restaurant? Moved. That kid was looking for his car several times a week!
Eventually he came in to our office grovelling and pleading with me to stop. He promised to never park in our spots again.
EDIT: Wow! Now I see why there are always edits on these! Some of you are apoplectic that I “got away” with a heinous crime. It’s occurred to me that you are extremely fortunate to have never been the victim of domestic violence, stalking, rape, burglary or actual car theft. If you had you’d know that police aren’t much help in any of the above situations and perpetrators are rarely arrested.
Could I have, with righteous indignation, insisted he be formally reprimanded? Yeah. But who wants to be that bitch? Not me. He learned a lesson in a fun way. He took it in stride. He likely doesn’t remember my name (I don’t remember his) but he likely remembers me and this story as fondly as I do. And maybe, just maybe, he has a little more respect for how clever women can be instead of seeing us as spiteful hags. Lighten up!
Went to Motor Vehicles Today to Have LIENHOLDER Removed from Car Titles – Wait til you hear THIS . . . .
Today I went to New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) on Summit Avenue in Jersey City, NJ to have the LIENHOLDER info removed from two vehicle Titles since I’ve paid the car loans off. You’re not gonna BELIEVE what happened . . .
Firstly, after the COVID scam, New Jersey Motor Vehicle has NOT done away with the requirement to make an appointment to go to one of their offices to have paperwork done. So I had to schedule today’s appointment last weekend, and I did.
I get there, walk in, and there’s two security guards who ask “Do you have an appointment? I reply “yes” and they ask to see the appointment confirmation from online! I brought it with me just in case, and gave it to them. They tell me, go in and see the Receptionist on the left. I go in.
I get to the Receptionist who asks me, “What are you here to do today?” I reply “Have the LIENHOLDERS removed from the Title on two vehicles I’ve paid off.” He hands me two application forms to go fill out.
I go fill them out, return the Receptionist’s pen that he graciously lent to me and he then says, now go onto the “ID CHECK” line to the left. ID Check??????? I go ahead and do that. Two people ahead of me.
When it’s my turn, I go up too the guy in the little booth– I think he was Hindu or whatever the folks are, who have the Dot on their forehead — and hand him the filled-out applications to have the Titles re-issued and he says “You know, this is going to cost you $60 each to have the LIENHOLDER Removed.” I replied “Yes, I know.” He then says, “I can get this done for free.”
Uhhhhhhh, I was not expecting this . . . . my Spidey Sense started tingling. So I ask him “How?”
GET THIS: He replies “I can have my Boss delete the LIENHOLDER in our computer system, then you walk out with the same Title, instead of a new one.”
I think to myself: “Then I won’t have any way to PROVE the LIEN has been released” So I respond to him “No thanks, I want the re-issued Titles without the LIENHOLDER on them.” He says, “Well, I’m just trying to save you money.”
He takes a staple remover and separates the Titles from the Lender Loan-Satisfaction, notarized letters, hands everything back to me with a card containing a number on it: “K117” and tells me, take a seat over there and you’ll hear your number called, telling you which counter to go to.
I go sit down.
About five minutes later, the computer voice over the PA Speaker calls “K117, Counter Ten”
So I get up and walk over to counter 10 and the nice Spanish lady behind the counter takes my paperwork.
To my utter shock, SHE then says to me, “It will cost you $60 each to have these LIENHOLDERS Cleared from the Title, . . . . but I can get it done for you for free.”
I’m now kind of stunned because this is now two separate Employees of the Motor Vehicle Commission saying the same thing. So I play along and ask her “How?”
She says, I will have the Supervisor come over, delete the LIENHOLDER from our Computer, but you leave here with the exact same Title.“
I thought to myself “Holy shit, they’re all “in-on-it” for the “Great Taking.”” I went on to think to myself “These people are working for the Bankers, so the Bankers can grab everybody’s stuff; just as I learned from the video “The Great Taking”
So I told the woman, “But then I would have no proof that the Bank no longer has a LIEN.” She responded, right, but you’ll save $120 on the Two Titles!
So I responded “No, I want the LIENHOLDER removed and I want the new, re-issued Titles without the Bank name on them”
She reiterated “But that will cost you $60 each, a total of $120” and I responded “I don’t care. I want the re-issued Titles.”
She put on a smug face as if to say “Oh this guy must have money, he doesn’t care about the $120.”
She processes the deletion of the LIENHOLDER info and then asks “Will you be paying by Credit Card, Check, or Legal Tender?”
“LEGAL TENDER????????????” Nobody says that outside of you know . . . . us . . . . .
I reply, “Legal Tender; Federal Reserve Notes.”
I hand the cash to her and she finishes the transaction, which prints the receipt.
But it’s all the same computer . . . . so If I agreed to “let them do it for free” they could NOT have removed the LIENHOLDER because the system requires the money be paid before it will complete the action ! ! ! ! ! If I had not paid, the computer could not have deleted the LIENHOLDER info! ! !
You know what I think? I personally think the whole offer to “get it done free” was a SCAM . . . . designed to deliberately mislead people into THINKING the LIEN had been removed, when, in fact, it has NOT been removed. And it COULD NOT HAVE BEEN REMOVED unless and until payment was tendered because the computer won’t process the removal unless payment has been made.
That leaves those poor suckers who THOUGHT they were getting it done “free” — open to the Banks coming and taking everything from THEM because all the official paperwork still shows the LIENS ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
How many thousands of people have believed this scam over the years?
I’m telling you, folks, I am totally shocked by this happening at two separate employees in a State Motor Vehicle Commission facility.
I now think the “States” are “in-on-it” too and all of them are working in lockstep with the Bankers to achieve their goal: You will own nothing . . . . and be happy.”
Not me! I have the Re-issued Titles without the LIENHOLDER info on them. These vehicles are, in fact, MINE, and I can prove it with the Titles.
I was born at night . . . . but not last night. They aren’t getting-over on me!
A businessman went to a shoe store to purchase a new pair of shoes. He was a prominent person in that town. After selecting a pair of shoes with size 8 he asked the salesperson to pack it. The salesperson had just started his career and joined the shoe store a few days back.
The businessman soon discovered that he had left his wallet at home. He told the salesperson that he would take the shoes with him and make the payment the next day. The salesperson being new to business excused himself in order to discuss this matter with the store manager. The manager knew that the customer is an eminent businessman; however, was reluctant to deliver the shoes without payment. At the same time, he was not ready to lose a sale too. He advised the salesperson to handle the situation in the best manner possible and left the place.
The salesperson stood there frozen for a few minutes unable to decide. He then returned to the customer, started packing the shoes and handed the package to the customer.
The next day the customer arrived at the store with the shoes he had purchased, made the payment for his purchase and told the salesperson that “After opening the package I found one shoe with size 8 and the other with size 7. Maybe you packed them by mistake. Can I have the shoes with size 8 please?” The salesperson apologized for the inconvenience caused and replaced the wrong size shoe with the correct one. The customer collected his shoes and left the store with satisfaction.
The manager happened to overhear their conversation and realized that the salesperson had used his presence of mind and handled the situation very well. They didn’t lose their business as well as the customer.
Moral
It is by the presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested. If an individual has a calm state of mind, his attitude and views will be calm and tranquil even in the presence of great agitation.
I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture given by the late Prof. Hawking on the campus of the University of Berkeley; I say “given”; Hawking rolled onto the stage, and the lecture he so painstakingly prepared was delivered by the machine he used to speak with. I never heard him repeat this quote, so I will have to take it on faith that this is something he actually said.
I’ll be PC here, and substitute “average” for dumb; average people are not necessarily “dumb”, but the difference between them and very intelligent people is that they are far less intellectually curious, and tend not to question their own beliefs, or look beneath the surface of phenomena they encounter every day. For the average, smart people are not necessarily “crazy”, but they do come across as weird. If I were to tell an average person that they like doughnuts because simple carbohydrates and fat were rare and valuable nutrients on the African savannah 70,000 years ago, they would look at me like I was mad. They would say something like “I enjoy doughnuts because they taste good”; it wouldn’t occur to them to ask the fundamental question of why they taste good to us.
image 27
A graph showing the “bell curve” distribution of IQ.
As shown in the graph above, 68.2% of people are in the average range of IQ between 85–115 (using IQ as a proxy for general intelligence. The number of people with an IQ higher than 115 becomes increasingly rare with the increasing level of IQ, so those with 140+ are very rare indeed, so it should not surprising that those who are in this high range will often come across as “odd” to the average majority. There is a qualitative difference in the cognition of the highly gifted, compared to the cognitive style of the average; the more intelligent one is, the less “obvious” things seem to be.
In evolutionary terms, our “purpose” as humans is to survive and reproduce, functions for which the average level of intelligence is sufficient; humans evolved to be as intelligent as they needed to be in order to successfully carry out these biological functions, so it is not surprising that most of us are not smarter than we are. As social animals, we tend not to be too fond of “weirdos” who question the existing social order, and the way things have always been done, hence the existence of terms like “nerd” and “geek” for those whose manner of thought and speech is contrary to the norm. At the same time, it had to have been the prehistoric nerds and geeks who came up with technologies like the bow and arrow, and poison darts, which were beneficial for the survival of humans as a whole, by allowing us to hunt otherwise inaccessible game animals. One can just imagine the jeers of the normies when the first geek smeared some tree sap on a dart, and walked off with his blowpipe, saying “I’m going hunting by myself.”
As someone who has been accused of being smart, I’ve had to learn to self-censor in order to “fit in”, and not be ostracized as a “weirdo” by the general population. “Be yourself” is incredibly stupid advice if one happens to be an intellectual outlier, since “yourself” is likely to be regarded as strange, and even threatening by the majority. Hawking was right, and I reserve my unfiltered self for a select few IRL, plus, of course, anyone who chooses to read my apophenic ravings on Quora.
He was my first love. We dated for 3 years and got married because I was pregnant. Worst mistake of my life.
By the time I had the baby, I could almost feel it. The loneliness. The emptiness. He became a totally different person. He complained that I was fat and unattractive. I was depressed and lonely. He knew that I enjoyed to have sex, so he withheld it from me to hurt me.
I had a startup business and was struggling to balance work and family. To make matters worse, I got pregnant somehow with the second child. He didn’t want to have the child so he asked me to have an abortion. I refused. He totally disconnected at this point. My business also went into the abyss as I was struggling to provide for myself, my daughter and unborn son. I hid and cried in the bathroom every night.
A couple of months after my son was born, a woman called and told me she’s sharing him with me and they have kids together. I confronted him and he didn’t deny it. A part of me literally died that day. Everyone around me seemed to know and I didn’t. What hurt me the most is that I stupidly still loved this man. He told me he didn’t want me anymore. He asked me to leave and leave his kids behind. I left with my kids and moved in with my sister. I had no job and 2 kids to look after.
To cut the long story short, we went through a really bad divorce, but it was freedom for me. I emigrated to another country, got a better life and job, got into great shape, and basically got my shit together. Am very thankful that I got this far. I never smoked, drank or did anything harmful to myself when I was at my lowest. My mistake gave me a chance to realize that you can pick yourself up after hitting rock bottom. KARMA IS REAL. I found out last year that the woman my ex chose over me left him for another man. Oh how did I forget? She also told my ex that the kids are not his. Thank you
Having just informed me that 167 hours of work she had made me do would not be paid, my boss told me to prepare exams not just for my class, but for all the students. Unsurprisingly, I said no.
This boss had stopped me from teaching one of my usual classes on a Monday afternoon (without consulting me) and arranged for me to teach the same number of hours on some Saturday mornings and weekday evenings instead. She pretended that she was doing this to make my life easier, since Mondays were a heavy teaching day. She then insisted that I use the time I had off on Monday afternoons to do some of her administration for her, without telling me that this work would all be unpaid. She gradually added more and more of her work to my workload.
For the entire term I thought I was being paid to do the administration work. She only told me I wasn’t at the end of the semester, by which time I had chalked up 167 hours of her administration work plus 10 hours of extra teaching) that she wouldn’t pay me for.
Then, immediately after telling me all this work was unpaid, she told me to prepare some exams, something the other teachers didn’t have to do. I said no, obviously. She stormed off to Human Resources to complain about me. When she came back she told me how upset she was that they didn’t support her. She was actually crying a little, I’m not sure whether because of rage or if she was really hurt. I was called up to HR and asked how many hours I had done unpaid. My boss had a track record of not paying me, so I had noted every task and all the hours done in my diary. I was paid for everything I did and my boss was told that all our work had to be paid for.
I just wish I had learned to say no sooner – and I really appreciated the honesty of our HR manager.
It’s a fun story! To me at least. I’m cool that way.
Technically “London” didn’t become the capital until after the 16th Century. What we now call “the City of London”, the ancient square mile that Rome founded, was an entity of its own. And in many ways still is. It was a centre of power and money, even before the Norman Conquest.
Up through the Middle Ages there was no fixed “capital” per se. The kings didn’t stay put, they moved around, so the capital was essentially where they were, not necessarily where the government was. The government being those ministers of the king who administered (get it?) the day to day workings.
During the reign of the Wessex kings, Winchester was the closest thing to an English capital.
So, back to London. The kings had no real power over London. Edward the Confessor, who was technically of the Wessex blood line but spent his formative years across the Channel and didn’t really have a sentimental attachment to Winchester, built an abbey in Westminster, which was west of London. He also built a palace for the seat of government. With these he hoped to draw power and wealth from that citadel to the east protected by a massive wall.
Edward died in January 1066. In October, Duke William of Normandy arrived to take what he felt was his by right. After the Battle of Hastings he headed toward London, that centre of power. Not to London, mind you. Toward it. He circled round, burning his way around it. But he knew he couldn’t breach the wall. He made a deal with the London peeps that in exchange for recognising him as their king, they would retain their special privileges. This arrangement has been in place ever since.
Now, thanks to Edward the Confessor, there was a ready-made power base just to the west of London. William was duly crowned king in Westminster Abbey. Over time, the Treasury was moved from Winchester, which became that historic city with one train station (London now has over 600 train and underground stations). Meanwhile, houses were built between the cities of Westminster and London and a Greater London was formed, eventually swallowing up towns and villages in a 600 square mile area.
Note, though, that the City of London has no national government facilities in it, save the Bank of England, which is separate. Government (Parliament, Whitehall, Downing Street, etc…), the Palace, the national entities are in Westminster, but as that is in what became the megapolis of “London”, London is the capital.
But we was excited last year, we had put in a lot of work to reach the goal that would make a bonus possible.
We where all called to a end of year quarterly meeting where the ceo would go over the figures and give us a chance to ask questions and share ideas.
Instead the owner of the main company was standing there and the ceo a bit to the side. First case of worry, but it could be a good thing right?
It starts and the owner takes the word. And it just goes downhill from there.
The board and investors are not happy, they are firing the ceo and the owner steps out of the board to take direct control of the company, they will reorganize the whole flow and all that modern jazz for making your work day a living hell the next half year.
Adding there wont be a bonus and we will stop having a bonus at all in the future.
A year later and everyone have turned sour many have left and those that remains are becoming more and more unmotivated.
We are close at needing a new firing round too. and nothing have really become better since the change, only more cumbersome and annoying with no gain. 2 years and no raise makes for grumpy workers, when then removing the carrot all together the last drive disappears..
Even overtime must be agreed upon before you get pay for it.
So the bonus was a year in hell that seems to continue unless I am lucky and can find another job that pay the same or better.
Worst part is, the owner got a social and public image as a good and sensible businessman that are very round handed with spending. But when it comes to the company he is a scrounge mcduck, as he dont wanna spend a single dime, even though it cost to make changes, and he want those changes.
So nobody believe us when we tell how he is at work, as everyone got another opinion of him from the local news…
True story: I had never eaten at a Chick-fil-A before last weekend (Saturday, March 9, 2019). In the past, if I’d wanted a chicken sandwich, which I don’t often do, I’ve gone to McDonald’s. But this time I was in a different shopping center, one without a McDonald’s but with a Chick-fil-A next door.
Side note: I’d had their sandwiches before, but at wrestling tournaments. The sandwiches would be brought in in these temperature-controlled bags, and then sold by members of the Booster’s Club. I wasn’t really impressed. The sandwiches cost more than McDonald’s and they were soggy.
But here I was in a shopping center with a Chick-fil-A next door. Oh, well, I figured. I could see the place was crowded, too. Lots of cars, and a long double-line of cars going through the carry-out.
I went inside and the place smelled good. Not like McDonald’s. The menu items were all clearly posted. At McDonald’s, there are these electronic screens that’ll show a handful of items for maybe 10 seconds, then rotate to another set of items. I liked the clear posting.
After looking over the posted menu, I decided to get a spicy chicken sandwich. Not the whole meal, just the sandwich. There wasn’t a line; people were being served as they stepped up to order. At McDonald’s, I could have waited 5 minutes behind just one or two people. (Maybe they’d ordered fries or coffee, and were waiting on the next batch of fries or the next pot of coffee to finish brewing.) I ordered the sandwich and the person behind the counter asked what sauce I’d like with that. I asked what sauces they had.
At McDonald’s, that would have been greeted with a rapid-fire blur of sauces. Or the person would point to that electronic board where the sauces had to cycle through to be displayed. By now, the McDonald’s employee would have forgotten whether I’d ordered the sandwich or the meal. The McDonald’s employee also would have forgotten whether I was eating in or carrying out.
At Chick-fil-A, they had all the sauces out on display. The counter person pointed to them and suggested that since I seemed to like spicy foods, I might enjoy the Buffalo sauce. Sounded good to me.
She handed me a tall plastic colored cone with sauce packets inside. She told me to find a seat anywhere and they’d bring the sandwich over. Wow! At McDonald’s, I’d have to stand near the ear-splitting ice-grinding machine, waiting for my number to be called. She didn’t have to ask again whether I was eating in or carrying out.
I found a seat and, quite promptly, someone came over with the sandwich, wrapped, and asked: “Don? Spicy chicken?” Yup, that was me. The chicken was crispy, steaming, and hot. Tasty. A bit of a surprise, since my only prior experience had been at the wrestling tournaments where they were soggy. If it had been McDonald’s, the sandwich would have been soggy, too. Are they ever crisp there?
A family was seated at the next table. At some point, the dad asked one of the Chick-fil-A employees for a refill on a beverage. The employee said sure, and in about 30 seconds was back with a refill. Nothing like that at McDonald’s.
When I was finished, I started picking up the debris (the sandwich wrapping, the packet of hot sauce, the napkin. Before I’d even gotten it all together, a Chick-fil-A employee came over and said, “Oh, are you leaving? If so, I can take all that.” And he did. Wow! At McDonald’s, I would have gathered all that stuff, taken it over to a trash can, tried to slide it all into the trash can (those paper liners always stick to the tray!), and put the tray on the tray holder.
I have written on this before. When I was married to my ex, his daughter lived with us . Her and her husband came over to visit with their children. We also had a friend of ours over . She was very disrespectful to her dad and our friend told her that. About two months later she asked to take my youngest for a few days and I said no. She then said that our family friend had touched my son , while she was in the room. I gathered my kids and asked them and all three said nothing ever happened. She called back and was upset and said she knew I wouldn’t do anything and would be turning me into social services and she did!!! A case worker came out and took my kids and asked a lot of questions. Then we talked and this man was amazing!!! I explained that my kids were never left alone with anyone and always knew they could tell me anything and his daughter was upset with me , for telling her no. He told me she wanted to get even with me for being with her dad and this was vengeance towards me. I encouraged her Dad to continue a relationship with her but she would no longer be able to come in our home. This was so scary for me , and I could have lost my children. My relationship with her was over , and our friend was also worried. I’m so very grateful I got a wonderful case worker. He understood .
I was in a relationship with my boyfriend (Let’s call him A) for 2 years. It was the perfect relationship everyone dreams about. But that changed soon.
One day, I was at my friend’s house (Let’s call her B) to take some notes because exams were coming up. I didn’t tell him about it. After half an hour, B receives a call so she goes outside to answer it as she didn’t want to bother me. But after a minute, she comes back in, puts the phone’s speaker on and the convo went something like this.
B- Sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you say?
The voice on the other end said: “I love you”.
I recognised the voice. It was him. I looked at B as if everything was over. But she continued talking to him.
B- But what about your girlfriend? This would break her.
A- We don’t need to tell her anything. It’ll be our secret.
I felt like my heart would give out. I wanted to scream or do anything just to relieve me from the pain I was experiencing. To think that the two years we spent together was a lie was too much to handle. I called him after I calmed down a bit. He said he did that because B’s boyfriend wanted to test her loyalty. I didn’t buy that and we broke up that day.
A friend and I were driving uhaul box trucks when we decided to stop at a gas station to get snacks and drinks. When pulling in, I saw a car parked parallel across 3 parking spaces. Without even taking about it, I parked directly in front of the offending car while my friend parked directly behind it. We got out, smiled at each other over our telepathic decision to mess with the offender, and went inside.
The car’s owner was apparently going out as we were going in, saw how we were parked, and followed us back in and started yelling at us, demanding we move.
Me: No
Bad Parker: I will call the cops is you don’t!
Friend: Ok.
BP: Don’t try me! Move your damned trucks!
Me: Naw, go ahead and call the cops.
Friend: Yeah, we’ll wait. We’re going to eat in, anyway. (The gas station has an Arby’s attached. We weren’t originally, btw, but you know how it goes.)
Me: It’ll be fun watching you have your embolism when they ticket you for parking like that.
We went and got our food, to our time eating and left. During that time, BP apparently tried getting to station manager to make us move and kept yelling and screaming until we were finally done. As we were leaving, BP yelled at us some incoherent crap that I don’t really remember. My friend returned a parting comment about BP’s horrible parking, and we left.
All in all, we were at the gas station about a 45 minutes longer than we’d initially planned. We don’t know what, if any, trouble BP got into it if he ever did it again. We stopped at the same station on the return trip, in the off chances that BP was a local and would return, but he didn’t while we were there.
We had an employee who didn’t just say something that got him fired, he immediately followed it up with an action that also would have gotten him fired on its own.
I work for a vets office. We had a new tech that seemed afraid to do anything. He claimed most animals were aggressive and just wouldn’t touch them. Well we don’t allow techs to do injections until they are comfortable doing simply things like taking temperatures and checking heart rates which he still couldn’t do.
One day, we get a cat in for a tech appointment. Notes said “allergy shot.” For most cats, this mean a depo injection but you always ask the doctor what you should give. He did not. Instead he took the appointment himself, big no no at this stage and strike one. He brought the cat back and told another tech the cat needed a cytopoint injection. Strike two, he doesn’t get to make medication/ injection calls. The other tech asked if he was sure as that sounded wrong and he said “yes, that’s what the doctor told me.”
Ya see, cytopoint can be deadly to cats and is for dogs only. So the tech asked again, “are you sure that’s what the doctor said?” He got annoyed, told her that what the doc said and he got the cytopoint himself and injected it himself. Strike three. You’re out.
He was fired. The cat did almost die and we ended up having to give them free care for about six months for all their pets to make up for it. The cat survived but now has health issues.
One of my colleagues was almost impossible to layoff. She was pregnant during a round of layoffs, and took maternity leave a week earlier than expected, and was gone for a full year, she came back expecting the layoffs would be over, but after a couple of months, they announced that there were new layoffs the next week. She called in sick Monday through Thursday, and on Thursday, they called her and said unless her doctor faxed in a note on Friday, she had to come in. By then everybody had been laid off, except her. She checked in and made sure everyone saw her, and then disappeared.
Her boss looked high and low for her, and eventually found a locked stall in the washroom. She looked under, and saw her shoes. She had to fire her through the bathroom door.
My colleagues only response was, I knew I should have lifted my feet.
She became a legend in the company. The nail in the coffin was not lifting her feet.
Which became a phrase everyone used when they got caught doing something wrong.
Went to Vegas . Won around $17000 . The wife and I split it between ourselves before the cdn border. Declared it and got home. Reminded her to put her cash in the safe. Few days later, I went in to grab all of it to deposit in our US acct and just found my part in it. Asked her about it. She couldn’t find it. Looked sll over. Than she thought she might had left it in the taxi on the way home. FUCK!! $9000 USD gone. So, a couple years later. We’re getting rid of her old car and im just going thru it, and lo and behold, it’s in between the seats in the car. She had put it there for safekeeping cause she went grocery shopping and didn’t wanna take all that in her purse. Why she didn’t remember that 2 yrs prior, I’ll never know. 😔 But I’ve learned to live with my wife’s poor memory. She was born without a thyroid and takes meds for that but it causes a horrible memory sometimes..
I’ve written about this before, but I think it bears repeating.
I learned how to cook very early on. My mother was working one Thanksgiving when I was 12. I volunteered to cook the dinner. She’d be home around 5 or so. Dinnertime had not been specified. Turkey went in the oven that morning. Since it was a day off school and I was a kid, I grabbed my bike and went riding all around town. I remember a fun, free-wheeling day until I got home.
I got back around 4:30 and realized I had to hurry. My brothers and father laid around and watched me as I hurried to prepare the meal. There wasn’t much to do if they had pitched in: boil potatoes, heat up rolls, boil the frozen corn, etc. But they didn’t. My mom walked in while I was peeling potatoes. She stopped dead in her tracks. “Dinner’s not ready?” I said “It will be ready in a few minutes.” I wasn’t lying. It would have been 20 minutes max. She threw up her hands like I told her I was a pregnant 12-year-old crackhead. She started screaming at me. Dad came running in to see what the fuss was. He took off his belt and whipped me violently right there in the kitchen, potato peeler still in my hand, for not having everything ready “on time” (again, we didn’t know exactly when she would be home, and no dinnertime had been set). My brothers just watched. I was sent to my room in the basement for the night. I don’t know who finished cooking, probably my mother in her martyrdom.
Here’s how it could (should) have gone down:
Scenario One: I come home at 4:30. Dad: “You’re cutting it close. Boys, go help your sister.”
Scenario Two: Mom comes home at 5:00. I’m peeling potatoes. “Dinner’s not ready?” “It will be ready in a few minutes.” “Okay, good, I’m starving. I’m going to take a shower/change/lie down for a few minutes. Call me when it’s ready.”
Scenario Three: Mom come home at 5:00. She starts yelling. Dad comes in. “Calm down, it’ll only be a few minutes. Here, let me take your stuff. Come in and lie down for a few minutes.” (to my brothers) “Get in here and help your sister.”
It took me many years to realize this day was an example of so, so many things. Dysfunction, piss-poor communication, child abuse, sexism, Old-World parenting (as in 1800s bullshit), knee-jerk reactions, and so much more. My family was fucked up, to say the least.
And I don’t care if that was the way they were raised. I am not a believer in the cycle-of-abuse crap. They were adults, they had brains to think with, they could make rational adult decisions. They knew better.
Edit: I think I need to address that there was a dried-up old bitch of a troll who left a comment that it was my fault, I was deservedly punished, I should have stayed home all day and had dinner ready, my poor poor mother, I was martyring myself, shame on me. Yes, that comment really happened (I deleted it and told her to fuck off). I wasn’t only abused at home, and this wasn’t the first or last time. I was bullied mercilessly at school. To have a day away from bullies at school was a real treat, so yes, I was going to take my bike and go have some fun while the turkey cooked. I was a kid. I wasn’t 20. And yes, I screwed up and mismanaged my time. Again—I was a kid. And my parents wildly overreacted—with violence against a child— instead of keeping calm and reacting reasonably. If someone told me they were cooking me dinner, but when I came home it was going to be 20 minutes late, I’d say “Okay, cool” and either jump in the shower or flop down and watch TV. I wouldn’t start screaming and whipping them with a belt. So again, troll: Fuck off. If you have kids, I sincerely feel sorry for them and I hope CPS is keeping an eye on you, old twat. You’re the reason child protection agencies exist.
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
Declining population is not just a Chinese problem; but rather it is a worldwide problem. Most developed or developing countries have seen significant decreases in birth rates that coincide with an ever aging demographic.
Importing people from other countries is certainly an option. Especially considering how men vastly outnumber women in China. But I think it will require more than bringing in more people. China needs to tackle this problem on two fronts.
Firstly, building society with the mindset that the elderly need to be taken care of, whether that be through family or through a skilled nursing facility. China should look into building these all over the country. They don’t have to be as bleak as some in the U.S., but there needs to be a safety net for a vulnerable aging population in the event their children can’t or won’t care for their needs.
The second front is low birth rate. China’s work culture isn’t conducive to motherhood right now. 996 doesn’t make women want to get pregnant. Women also need paid maternity leave for at least a year.
The government can subsidize kindergartens and ensure that the education they’re receiving is at an appropriate standard. Families can be provided with subsidies for each child for a certain number of years.
China has a planned economy so if they begin implementing such plans in upcoming five year plenary sessions then perhaps they can be one of the first countries to find a solution to this worldwide problem.
My mom was an RN, and wore a white uniform with starched cap every night when she went to work. When she got home in the morning she’d go straight to bed, and then get up around 3 p.m., dressed in capri pants (also called “pedal pushers”) or shorts in the summer, along with a blouse, often sleeveless, and canvas sneakers. Never any jewelry around the house or on quick trips to the store; that, and dresses and low-heeled pumps, were reserved for special occasions. For a really special occasion, like a trip to NYC to see a Broadway show, she added a hat to her outfit, and she and I wore short white cotton gloves. For school, I and all the other little girls wore shirtwaist dresses with petticoats, and the boys wore long pants and button-up shirts, with clip-on ties for school picture day. Up until a certain age, I wore my brother’s hand-me-down shorts and tee shirts for after-school play clothes.
None of us had as many clothes as we do today; our small closets were plenty big enough for our wardrobes (some of which were sewn or knitted by our mothers). But the quality of what we wore was higher, and we tended to wear everything until it wore out or we outgrew them.
Looking crisp and put together was important for our parents, since most of them had grown up during the Great Depression, when having raggedy clothing was a sign of poverty. Since synthetic blends didn’t become readily available until the very end of the 1950s, everything had to be ironed and/or starched. It was a chore my mother absolutely hated, so she was an early devotee of polyester blends when they came out.
Had she lived to this decade, she would have been baffled by people paying high prices for strategically ripped jeans, as well as the upper-class preference for “natural” fabrics like cotton and linen, which must be ironed!
There is a law that says if any person is caught with possession of Marijuana (Cannabis) while entering China (Airports or Borders) then he faces Life Imprisonment if he carries more than 50 GRAMS
Yet ONCE IN CHINA if a person gets caught with the same cannabis or Marijuana, as long as the Marijuana on his possession is within 300 grams, he gets 15 Days Imprisonment, 45 Days Mandatory State Rehabilitation plus a fine
So technically if you smuggle 100 grams into China, you face life in jail yet if you succeed and get past the customs and manage to cross 300–400 feet and then get caught, you face 15 Days Jail and a fine
Plus no law about what happens when you possess less than 50 grams of cannabis
So as on date if someone smuggles less than 50 grams of cannabis into China and is caught – He is merely deported and the smuggled cannabis is destroyed
Next thing is Cultivation of Marijuana is not illegal in China
So if you are caught with 1 Kilogram of Cannabis and you can prove it is grown in China and explain that you are in possession of 1 Kilogram of Cannabis / Marijuana for medical purposes – YOU CAN ACTUALLY GET OFF WITHOUT ANY PUNISHMENT
The authorities have to prove you possess the Marijuana for intent to distribute as a Narcotic substance to charge you
For a Westerner who possesses 1 Kilogram Marijuana though, he cannot prove its grown in China or that he is in possession for Industrial or Medical purposes
So with Westerners the law assumes he is distributing as a narcotic substance and if so HE FACES THE DEATH PENALTY
Summary
To the best of my study of drug laws:-
< 50 grams smuggled – Deportation & Destruction of the Drug
>= 50 grams smuggled –Life Imprisonment
<= 300 grams possession inside China – 15 Days Imprisonment , 45 Days Rehabilitation (Optional), Fine
>300 grams possession inside China proven as grown in China by Mainland Citizen – No Punishment likely beyond censure and monitoring without proof of distribution or intent
>300 grams possession inside China by a foreigner – Death Penalty unless he can prove the same drug originated from local cultivation for industrial or medical purposes
Plus China has another law
Any Person in whose PREMISES consumption of Marijuana takes place regardless of quantity or fore knowledge will face 3 Years Mandatory Jail plus 50,000 RMB fine
This is called SHELTER LAW
Thus if you are a landlord and a tenant smokes Marijuana in your apartment that you have leased out – YOU WON’T BE CHARGED BY THE SHELTER LAW
However if your friend smokes Marijuana in your flat that you lease or own – You face 3 years Jail
At the age of 11 my mother forced me to accompany my sister (17) whenever she went outside.
I was obviously reluctant at first but finally agreed. I used to sit behind the activa while she rode to the grocery store, shopping mall etc.
It was all good until the following incident took place.
It was around 7 pm and we were coming back from the supermarket.
Two boys with covered faces stopped their bike in front of us, passed an inappropriate comment and disappeared before we could think of anything.
I was perplexed. I was shocked. I felt helpless. I felt weak. I knew the meaning of that comment.
I didn’t eat properly that night. I was sleepless for a few days. Mom noticed a change in my behaviour.
Mom: Is something bothering you? You don’t seem fine.
Me: I was waiting to share it with someone. The stress was enormous and I told her exactly what I felt.
Mom: Did you talk to your sister after the incident?
Me: No maa!! If I felt helpless and weak, I can’t even imagine what she would have felt.
Mom: This is why I told you to accompany her. See, you are going to be a teenager soon and perhaps you’ll think that it’s cool to follow a girl or pass some comments. Even some of your friends might force you. They’ll tell you that it’s ok.
But now you know that it is not. I’m sure you wouldn’t want any girl to feel like the way your sister did.
And she was right. The people close to me know that I’ve severed friendships, raised my voice but I never compromised on this fact.
I would never ever want any girl to feel the way my sister did.
If you’ve ever been to a Chick Fil A, you’ve probably noticed their menu is pretty chicken-centric. That isn’t accidental, and it isn’t just a branding gimmick; there’s actually a history behind it.
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Their commitment to chicken goes all the way back to the founder, S. Truett Cathy. He opened his first diner in the 1940s and spent years perfecting the pressure fryer to cook his chicken sandwich faster than anyone could cook a hamburger. This was the birth of what ultimately became Chick Fil A’s signature menu item: the original chicken sandwich.
At the root of it, Chick Fil A doesn’t serve beef because they don’t have to. Their identity is so closely tied to chicken that serving beef would be like McDonald’s suddenly deciding to specialize in vegan food. It would throw people for a loop.
Chick Fil A’s boneless breast of chicken sandwich made its debut in 1964 with great success, paving the way for the first Chick Fil A restaurant that opened in 1967. Cathy even made a play on words with “Chick” to emphasize chicken and play down beef. This is a differentiation strategy. Just like you wouldn’t go to Burger King for a taco or to Taco Bell for a fish and chips plate, you wouldn’t go to Chick Fil A for a beef burger.
There’s also the branding component, right? You’ve seen the billboards with the cows painting “Eat Mor Chikin,” pushing the chicken agenda while steering people away from their own kind. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy that reinforces the no-beef policy.
While there’s no formal manifesto on why they don’t serve beef, the logic is clear: specialization. In a world where you can get a burger at every highway exit, being the go-to chicken spot sets you apart.
Staying in their lane has allowed Chick Fil A to perfect their products, focus on their poultry niche, and maintain the consistency and quality that has customers loyally returning to their restaurants. For many businesses, it’s a scary thing to put all your eggs (or chickens) in one basket, but for Chick Fil A, doing just that has been the secret sauce to their success.
So, in Portland, OR, where I’m based, if I’m craving chicken, it’s pretty neat knowing I can swing by Chick Fil A and get that same sandwich that put them on the map all those years ago, while also being assured that there won’t be a burger in sight. They’ve stayed true to the original plan for over half a century, and it’s working wonders for them.
It took a long time, but it is finally happening. China’s gloves are coming off, and it is getting tough on Taiwan and the west.
For Taiwan, the Commerce Ministry has decided that Taiwan’s government has unfairly blocked the sale of many PRC products in Taiwan. For a long time, the PRC had allowed Taiwan imports to the PRC in the hope that Taiwan would eventually open up to PRC products on a reciprocal basis, but that has not happened, even when Taiwan has had food shortages. The Commerce Ministry will shortly announce which Taiwan products will be blocked from being sold in the PRC, which is the single largest market for many local Taiwan products.
For the west, China is now blocking the sale of rare-earth processing technologies to the west. This is a field essential for semiconductor manufacturing and defense technologies, and will hit Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the US especially hard as they try to develop their own independent supply chains free from Chinese components and raw materials.
For 2024, I am expecting an avalanche of new patents from Huawei for new technologies which leapfrog current western technologies. Western governments and companies will be faced with a difficult choice: Will they pay licensing fees to Huawei and other Chinese companies for these technologies, or will they insist on developing their own technologies and components using their own capabilities?
This is a very tough choice because investing in their own non-Chinese research and development will take at least five years, and will likely take more than ten years. Then, when that issue is resolved, where will they do the manufacturing? China has the best and most modern infrastructure and supply chains, so there will be a huge cost penalty for doing it on their own. When it comes to lower costs, the Chinese are masters of the game.
An even more important question: Where is the largest market for these products? Most likely, it will be China. So these products won’t be sold in China to Chinese? So where will it be sold?
The entire hospital’s blood bank supply. We had to send to nearby centers for more. We had to put our own trauma center on ambulance diversion until more arrived.
After forty units, the chance of survival drops precipitously. The chance over a hundred— who knows? Past diminishingly small. Unreported, possibly. The physiologic derangement is simply too great. Banked blood is not like our own. It is cool, watery, weak and deficient. And this toxic cocktail had washed out every native red cell in her body, splashed out itself, and been poured back in again.
Every raw surface had begun to ooze.
We had already coded her twice.
With the blood welling up in spite of my every effort, I threw packs of thick cotton gauze in her chest, trying to stem the torrent. Trying to buy a moment to think. She had the same injury that killed Princess Diana. My partner looked across the table at me, a slight shake to her head. The probe at the head of the bed beeping out a constant register of oxygen saturation suddenly dipped in tone. I glanced, alarmed, over the drape and saw, unmistakably, her eyes opened, her teeth gripping the tube, her lips forming words to the anesthesiologist who hurried to medicate her. A tear sliding down her cheek towards her ear.
She’s neuro intact.
“She’s neuro intact,” I said, this time aloud, as my eyes reconnected with my partner’s. “She’s neuro intact,” I repeated, as a kind of mantra.
My partner nodded. “Okay, let’s keep going then,” and pulled the packs out.
She was forty-five.
Previously healthy.
And all there.
When I reviewed the case later before a panel of my peers, I argued this made her somehow salvageable. They scoffed. I reconsidered. So why, then, had I “wasted” so many resources on one woman with such devastating injuries, who ultimately died, as I knew she would?
Because I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her no more.
Cut meat across the grain into thin strips 1 1/2 inches long.
Combine 1/2 tablespoon of the soy sauce, vinegar and egg white in medium bowl; beat lightly with fork until foamy. Mix in meat. Cover and let stand 2 hours.
Cut celery into 1/2-inch diagonal slices.
Combine celery, 1 cup of the water and the salt in saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat until boiling. Boil 3 minutes.
Drain celery.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in wok over high heat.
Drain meat and add to wok. Stir fry until meat is brown, about 5 minutes. Remove meat from wok. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to wok. Add celery, onions, ginger and garlic. Stir fry 1 minute. Return meat to wok; mix well.
Combine remaining 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, the sherry, cornstarch and oyster sauce. Pour over meat-vegetable mixture. Cook and stir until liquid boils and thickens.
When driving a Private Hire Taxi to help pay my way through University one night I had to swerve to miss a guy staggering into the road. I thought he was a drunk but pulled up just to check he was OK. He staggered up to the passenger side window and slumped against it. He murmured for help, at that same moment I saw blood smeared all down the window. I saw another figure approaching the car, I was horrified to see he appeared to be carrying a huge knife. I opened the rear door and pulled the injured guy in. There was a lot of blood and I wasn’t sure he would make it. I drove off as the pursuer closed up. I radioed base and told them I had a seriously injured stabbing victim in the car. They called the hospital and the police. I sped to the emergency dept. on the way being picked out by a police car as I (very carefully) jumped a red light. They knew the situation and gave me an escort to the hospital. They were ready and waiting for him when we arrived.
The guy survived. The car was a total mess, but putting everything in perspective, a small price to pay.
He survived with 2 or 3 life-threatening wounds, making a full recovery, the police and the medics told me I’d saved his life.
I was later thanked by both him and, believe it or not the perpetrator, who received a jail sentence far shorter than he would have got for murder. Apparently they were friends and a disagreement over rent had got out of all proportion leading to the incident. Had I not had the feeling this was not just another drunk staggering around in the dark, a lot of lives would have changed that night.
As a newly hired IT Director in a City, I discovered one programmer who had been there for a number of years had no real assignments. He came in each morning, read the paper, then put his feet up and took a nap.
I promptly gave him an assignment and watched as he did nothing. I met with him numerous times and he finally mentioned that I couldn’t do anything because he had been there so long, he couldn’t be fired – certainly not by a new manager like me!
Challenge!
I documented my meetings and his comment and went to HR. They told me he was likely correct as he was a union steward, as well. I escalated to a HR Supervisor who suggested I build a file then apply progressive discipline.
And so it began. I gave him an assignment in writing. I had him agree, in writing, that he understood the project and how long it should take to complete. I set weekly goals for him to accomplish and when he didn’t, I applied progressive discipline. The first time, I issued a written reprimands warning that he could be terminated if this continued. Next, a written disciplinary memo. After that, I sent him home for a day with no pay. He immediately appealed.
At the appeal hearing, he brought a union lawyer, who claimed the project was too difficult and he needed additional training. That was BS, IMO, for a Senior Programmer with 8 years experience. However, the mediator suggested providing the training.
He began two weeks of training the following Monday. I found out he skipped several days and the instructor told me he knew the material going in and we were wasting taxpayer money to send him.
He continued to miss assignments, and I wrote several more written reprimands before suspending him with a 3 day unpaid suspension. He filed another appeal.
In this hearing, the union Attorney suggested that he occasionally fell asleep because he had kids who occasionally kept him up late at home. The mediator supported the suspension. When he returned, we sent him to the City Doctor for a “fit to work” physical exam. The Doctor determined he had sleep apnea and said he should spend a month at home using a CPAP machine for a month before returning for another physical (with full pay, of course). While he was gone, I gave his assignment to another programmer who knocked it out in 3 days.
When he finally came back to , I gave him another assignment with specific written instructions. Within a week, he violated the instructions and made an unauthorized and undocumented change to the system that opened the City up to several million dollars of legal liability.
I issued a written suspension for two weeks without pay and began the termination paperwork. At the end of the two weeks, he came in and gave me his written resignation.
Game over in 10 months.
During this period, he constantly complained to other staff, hurting morale. I even got a phone call from his wife telling me how cruel I was because he liked his job and asking why I hated her husband.
Because there was no India before 1947, it was just a colonial area composed of hundreds of small kingdoms forcibly annexed by the British. Maybe you would say that there were many countries in South Asia with large territories before Britain, but no former Indian country had a territory as large as India now. In particular, even though North India was often unified into one Greater India, South India and Northeast India were almost never ruled by North India. Therefore, there is no definite border line between China and India.
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2 China was once very friendly and hoped to peacefully demarcate the Sino-Indian border.
India became independent in 1947. New China was founded in 1949. China and India are both third world countries. China wants to maintain good relations with India, so it wants to delimit the Sino-Indian border through peaceful negotiations with India. China says that we do not accept the boundary lines privately drawn by the colonists and that we can resolve them through negotiation. Our border areas are all no-man’s land, and the disputed areas on our borders total 120,000 square kilometers. According to the current actual control areas of both parties, China can recognize that 90,000 square kilometers of southern Tibet (now called Arunachal) belongs to India. India recognized that 30,000 kilometers of Aksai Chin belongs to China, and we signed a boundary agreement on this basis. From then on, both sides have an undisputed boundary line, and there will be no disputes or wars. From then on, friendly relations between China and India became the first Brotherly countries in the three worlds.
However, India firmly rejected any plan from China. It took the map drawn by the British and told China that this is the new India. You must fully accept that southern Tibet and Aksai Chin are mine. Because the Indians continued the arrogance of the colonizers. It has not learned to get along well with its neighbors, so this is the most important reason why India has poor relations with all its neighbors.
3. The reasons and purposes of the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
The reason is that India’s forward policy has invaded Chinese territory and challenged China’s bottom line.
The purpose is to make India understand that it must stop when China says to stop.
In 1962, India hoped to invade China step by step through the Forward Policy. The so-called forward policy is to advance the Indian barracks one kilometer towards Chinese territory every day, and then claim that this is India’s territorial scope. China has repeatedly warned India not to challenge China. But India ignored China’s anger and continued to invade China, even crossing the northern part of the McMahon Line claimed by India and entering undisputed Chinese territory. Therefore, China must use a language that Indians can understand to let India understand that the bottom line of the Chinese cannot be breached. This term is military power.
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Indian prisoners in 1962
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4 Why did China withdraw from the battle after winning the battle?
A Because China’s war goals were achieved, this is the most important reason.
From the beginning, China just wanted to teach the Indians a lesson, to let them recognize the reality, not to be too greedy, and not to ignore China’s warnings. When China says that LAC is the bottom line, don’t challenge China’s bottom line and don’t cross the LAC. When you really cross the LAC, China has enough strength to beat you back. So after China taught the Indians a lesson, China felt that was enough, so it returned to the state before the war and returned to the original line of actual control.
Maximizing revenue B
Simply put, it means achieving the highest benefit with the lowest cost.
If the Indians crossed one kilometer of LAC and China counterattacked 20 kilometers and stayed to occupy the land, it would definitely cause India to expand the war regardless of the cost, and the war would not stop lightly.
It would be unwise to plunge two countries with hundreds of millions of people into endless war.
It would be unwise to plunge two countries with hundreds of millions of people into an ongoing war over mostly uninhabited mountainous and desert areas.
War costs huge amounts of money. OThe value of a cannonball fired in one hour is enough to feed the residents of a small town for a year. In 1962, both China and India were quite poor countries, especially China. 1962 was the hungriest year in the history of New China. It would be very unfavorable for China to fall into a long-term war at this time.
China has pushed its battle line to the Indian plains. If China insists on fighting here, it will be at a huge disadvantage, because to transport an artillery shell from a Chinese factory here, it requires the use of donkeys to climb dozens of mountains over 3,000 meters. , spanning thousands of kilometers, requires a huge amount of transportation energy. Even if a 10-dollar artillery shell costs $1,000 here, Indian artillery shells can be transported directly by truck, and a 10-dollar artillery shell is worth at most $100. In other words, the cost in China is at least 10 times more expensive than in India. This is an asymmetric war. If China continues to fight here, the original victory will turn into a defeat, or a tragic victory. As a master of war, the Chinese will not make such mistakes. Therefore, China decisively returned to the LAC before the war.
In the 1962 war, from the perspective of territorial acquisition, China did not gain more territory than before the war. But the benefits are still huge.
The biggest benefit is that in the decades after 1962, Indians no longer dared to cross the LAC lightly and no longer dared to advance policies. In other words, Indians have heartily accepted that LAC is the default boundary line between China and India. This won decades of peace along China’s southwestern border.
The border conflict in 1967 was only a few days of minor fighting over the dispute between China and India over the LAC demarcation line at Nathu La Pass. At that time (32 Chinese soldiers died and 101 Indian soldiers died)
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Indian prisoners in 1967
Maybe 1962 has passed too long, maybe Indians feel that India in 2020 is no longer the India in 1962, so the Indians crossed the LAC again in 2020, so China was forced to take action again to teach the Indians a lesson. I hope Indians understand that although India is not the India of 1962, China is not the China of 1962. China was in its poorest period in 1962, when China’s GDP was even lower than India’s. China GDP in 2020 is five times larger than India. Don’t provoke China, China is more powerful than you think.
She’s lying. She has no idea what to do. What she’s trying to selli is the idea that she does.
Here’s the problem. Americans want fentanyl. Enough Americans want fentanyl as to make it worth the enormous risk of smuggling either it, or the raw materials to make it, into the United States. Capitalism 101. And there is no way to stop that. None. Every attempt we’ve ever made to stop drug use by prohibition has been not only an utter failure, but has caused us more trouble than the actual problem we were trying to fix.
There’s a deeper problem. Fentanyl is a symptom, not a cause. And that cause is the utter hopelessness and the lack of resources for the poor in the US. We’ve literally criminalized poverty. We have the weakest social safety net in the industrial world, and we’ve decided that a tax structure that makes it possible for a handful of men to amass fortunes that can buy them freedom from the law, is a good thing even if it leaves 20% of the country living below the poverty line in an information and resource vacuum that leaves most trapped.
Preying on the poor is hugely profitable, and the capitalists have risen to the task. We choose to look away and complain.
I once worked for a dental lab as part of a “back-to-work” rehab program after a work injury. I was working late one Friday and took a delivery into the mail room for shipment the next day. The mail room was adjacent to the owner’s office and I overheard him and his wife (his accountant) and the office manager planning on replacing some 60% of the staff with high-school kids in work-study programs. The boss, Rick, heard me taping up the box and came in, asking what I was doing and if I heard them, to which I said no. He told me I wasn’t supposed to work late and leave the package for the next day.
On Monday I was called into a meeting with Rick, his wife and my rehab consultant about missing many hours of work. He slid three altered times cards across the table as proof, not realizing I had copies of all my time cards as required by the work comp insurer. I pulled them from my bag and told him he was lying and falsified the cards because I overheard him planning on firing staff. He fired me anyway so as I left, I walked into the large work area and announced loudly, “Rick is going to replace most of you with high-school kids and he just fired me because I overheard him planning it.”
Two weeks later he let nine people go, replacing them with high-school kids. By the end of the month another six employees left for the competition and without experienced employees, he went out of business by the end of the year. I actually ran into him at the grocery store the following year and asked him how his business was going. He said, “Go f*ck yourself!” Best. Vindication. Ever. 🙂
This goes back fifty years, but I will never forget it.
My mother’s aunt and uncle (Annie and Homer) were married for over fifty years. They never had any biological children, but did adopt a daughter (Mary Catherine) and raised her as their own.
MC grew up, got married, and moved out of state with her husband. (The parents lived in Memphis, and the daughter lived in southeastern Missouri, about a five-hour drive apart.)
Being much younger, I only met the daughter a couple of times while I was growing up. She didn’t visit Memphis often.
Aunt Annie fell and broke her hip in an accident in her early-80’s. She survived the fall, but lapsed into dementia and died about two years later. Mary Catherine didn’t attend the funeral. (When I asked why, none of the adults in my family would talk about it.)
Uncle Homer lived another few years. His mind was sharp, but his physical health started failing. During the last year of his life, he was bedridden at home and required regular nursing visits during the day.
One afternoon, Uncle Homer called our house all frantic, asking my mother to come to his house. She and I drove over, a trip that took about fifteen minutes.
When we arrived, he was yelling and crying. His nurse had also arrived, but wasn’t able to calm him down.
When he saw my mom, Uncle Homer told us the story: Mary Catherine and her husband had shown up, and cleaned out the house of everything they wanted.
He had yelled and screamed, and had fallen out of bed trying to stop them, but they both just laughed at his efforts and took everything of value. He had gotten his gun out from the beside table, but his nurse had removed the bullets from it long beforehand.
The daughter and husband left before Uncle Homer called us, so we never saw them.
My grandfather had the daughter’s number in Missouri and called her that evening. She was not at all repentant and argued that the stuff she took was her just reward for putting up with her parents for decades. Apparently, she was upset because they had “lived too long.” She also let him know that she expected to get Uncle Homer’s house when he was gone.
Uncle Homer didn’t call the police on his daughter, but he was clearly heartbroken after this incident. His life spark and sense of humor were gone. He lasted about three more months, and passed away at age 92.
After he died, Mary Catherine didn’t attend the funeral, but did come back to deal with her inheritance. It turned out that Uncle Homer had altered his will and gave his house to his nurse, a widow who had been living in a rented place nearby.
The value of the house was a lot greater than the stuff that the daughter had stolen.
There was that girl that had been lonely all her life. People, especially in school, disliked her because she was “strange”, “a nerd”, “too quiet” and just “different”.
One day she decided to talk to her teachers during the breaks instead of trying to fit in where she didn’t. She always acted older than her age and her teachers liked her, so they usually didn’t send her away, but had a friendly chat with her ever so often instead.
By tenth grade, she had almost developed some kind of friendship to a few of her teachers. When she got the “strictest teacher of the school” as her major course teacher in grade eleven, it took her mere weeks to find out that he actually wasn’t so strict at all.
They talked for at least half an hour after the lessons. About science, about our society, the people in school and whatever came to mind. Those two thought quite alike, despite an age difference of 34 years, and the girl now almost a woman could for the first time in years really live her passion for learning. Her teacher was highly intelligent and very knowledgeable, having not only written a dissertation in the past and worked in research for years but also being interested in a broad spectrum of topics.
Well, doesn’t sound so bad, now does it? So what happened?
Well, because teenagers are teenagers, it took about half a year for people to start whispering about the girl and her teacher. It started off lightly, she was still strange and why would she even talk to him?
But a few months after that, some people thought it to be funny to make up a non-existent romantic relationship between teacher and student. Despite that girl having been very close to other teachers before, but now that it was a male teacher, it suddenly was completely different. Because people of opposite gender can’t just see each other as friends, right? They just have to be in love to even think about talking to each other.
A less than funny “joke” became something way bigger. After two weeks, all of the 1600 students knew about this. And most didn’t know that it was a joke. People were laughing and pointing at her, throwing insults at the girl for something that never happened.
Finally, after about three months of dealing with it alone, she had the heart to tell her teacher. They decided to never talk to each other outside of class again, to prevent the teacher from getting problems with the school. While it was just a rumour, that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t lead to problems.
Both of them lost a friend on the day they made this decision. And the student lost a person she saw as a second father – her father barely ever was at home and her teacher had been one of three people (the other ones being her best friend and a female teacher she knew since fifth grade) she ever fully trusted. It might not have been cruel at the first glance, but it hurt her in more ways than the others students could’ve ever imagined.
As a 12 year old, he came to the auditions of Britain’s Got Talent.
You should go and get a singing teacher.
He was told by David Walliams
and that hurt the 12 year old kid. So much so that when he came for auditions 2 years later, he mentioned this on the stage again. David obviously did not remember the incident.
Kyle had taken it to his heart that ‘he was not good enough’ and had worked hard on his singing for the past 2 years.
Kyle sang that day with his heart out and the entire auditorium rose up to appreciate his talent. Everyone was moved and David Walliams somewhere realized how big a mistake he had done for hurting Kyle.
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David pressed the golden buzzer, which meant Kyle went to the live shows directly. (Every judge has only one golden buzzer to use in one season.)
David came up to the stage and hugged Kyle.
Kyle transformed his embarrassment and made himself more than able in a period of 2 years.
He forced the man who had underestimated him to accept his mistake.
For me, that is the best form of revenge.
Turn your haters into your fans.
Film-Noir | Impact (1949) | Brian Donlevy, Helen Walker, Ella Raines | Movie, subtitles
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.
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Wall posters. Some of which were blacklight posters on black velvet.
black light poster
Old bottles that I collected, that seemed to decorate every nook and cranny of my bedroom.
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My collection of record albums. All in a wooden egg crates.
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My treasured collection of science fiction paperbacks… many of which were short story anthologies.
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My Doc Savage collection.
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
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
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…?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
(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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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”.
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…
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.
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.
image 148image 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”!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 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:
image 146
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.
image 145
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.
image 144
Making a foreign guest a character of such harassment goes far beyond the limits of despair.
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.
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….
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.
Optional Toppings: confectioners’ sugar, gingersnap cookie crumbs, finely chopped pecans and melted white baking chocolate
Instructions
Chocolate Mascarpone Bourbon Balls
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.
Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
Store covered in the refrigerator.
Mascarpone Rum Balls
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.
Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
image 237
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!
image 236
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.
image 235
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.
image 234
“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?
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.
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:
Department chair
Director of graduate studies for the department (or director of the PhD program)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 happens when you type incorrectly? You press backspace and retype it again.
This is a stenotype.
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
(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. 🙂
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
