Elevator gladiatorial battles in China

Today I want to talk about elevator gladiatorial battles in China.

The vast majority of buildings in China are skyscrapers. I would guess that the average size for buildings in China are around 40 floors. And it is impractical to go up and down stairs. Instead, you take the elevator.

In my Tanzhou house, our complex has 16 buildings. Each one is about 38 floors high. In my Shenzhen house, the building is 45 floors. In our Zhuhai house, there are 34 floors. And each one has a parking garage in the basement of the building. So what you do is drive into the parking garage, and then you leave the car and go to the elevator.

Well… not everyone drives a car. Many drive scooters. And the cars park in the basement, while the scooters park outside the front door on the first floor. Especially the delivery folk.

So here’s where the gladiator battles take place.

I’m in the basement garage (-1 floor), and I press the button. I watch the elevator go down from the 18th floor, it stops on the 12th floor. And then continues to the first floor.

I watch; People get on and get off.

I watch: Then the elevator goes back up.

Wait. What????

No shit.

Instead of continuing down to the -1 parking garage, it somehow reverses course and heads back up.

So what is going on is that the scooter riders (and the delivery guys) leave their finger on the elevator button so that it overrides all prior programming and the elevator zooms up to the floor so depressed. It doesn’t continue down to the -1 basement.

Well, I learned how to detect when someone does this.

It’s a combination of dwell time, and a flashing up and down arrow.

So in response, I push the “up” button in the -1 basement garage. I keep on pressing it. Twice a second, for a minute or until the override command stops and the elevator continues to the basement like it is supposed to.

The scooter folk long press.
I rapid fire press at the end stop (-1).

Now, that being said, the prudent thing is to have the building management talk to the elevator techs and disable the override function. It’s on my list of things to do. And that is coming soon.

And that is the gladiator battles in China.

Bet ya never knew about that.

Today…

Chinese Showing American TikTok Refugees How They Live Their Life On RedNote

A MUST watch!

The world is seriously changing.

What’s the strangest thing delivered to your house (that you did not order)?

When I was 21 I got a large box with my address on it but the wrong name. It was from the “Captain Morgan Rum Company”. I called them and told them a package had my address but not the correct name. They asked if I was at least 21 years old and then asked me to prove it by faxing them a copy of my drivers license. After they received proof they said it was a promotional package that was supposed to go to a bar in the area but said I could keep it. I thanked them and opened the package which contained a dozen bottles of rum, a life-size cutout of Captain Morgan, several T-shirts with Captain Morgan and some advertising slogan I don’t remember and a box of pirate eye patches.

I’ve never been a big drinker but my friends and I still had a great time over the next few months drinking rum while wearing eye patches and saying piratey things – “Arrgh”.

Update: Sadly my mother passed away a couple of months ago; my father passed 20 years ago. While going through her belongings and putting things in storage my brother and I ran across the safe in the closet and realized neither of us knew the combination. We contacted the company that made the safe and after giving them the serial number and verifying we had legal right to open it they sent us an alternate set of numbers. We opened the safe and aside from a few valuables and things my mother and father thought were valuable or might increase in value was the last remaining bottle of the Captain Morgan Spiced Rum we mistakenly received nearly forty years ago. I know it’s not a forty year old bottle of scotch but nostalgia makes it feel every bit as special. I haven’t opened it yet, not sure if I’m going to yet.

Why doesn’t the USA invade China?

As much as the American empire would love to add China to the long list of so-called “rogue states” (a.k.a those refusing to be absorbed) it has reduced to rubble, there isn’t a hope in hell of them achieving this aim in China…

…as much as Pompeo, Bolton, and co lick their lips when thinking about it.

The fact is, China is not a weak country like those America is used to bullying.

It is a huge, nuclear-armed nation with a huge military and an ultra-patriotic citizenry.

You think IEDs on the roadside in Iraq are a problem?

Think going home with missing limbs and PTSD is a problem?

If Amerca were to invade China, especially while they still have vivid memories of the “Century of Humiliation” plus, constant U.S lies, smears, and interference in Chinese affairs, I can realistically imagine the soldiers being torn limb from limb by tens of millions of furious citizens.

Improvised bombs, poisons, boobytrapped overpasses, and guerilla warfare from such an enormous population would make life hell for the U.S soldiers.

And this is only taking into account local resistance.

The Chinese army itself, all 1.6 million troops ( and let’s not mention reserves), would be the biggest and most professional force the U.S has ever faced.

And they would literally give their lives for their motherland without hesitation.

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The Vietnam war would feel like utopia compared to what the USA would face here.

The American citizenry would get tired of the bloodshed LONG before the (traditionally peaceful) Chinese would.

What are some reasons to own a gun? I am a progressive and I think there should be more gun control. But I want to see the other side.

Let me attempt to explain it this way. And I am asking you to look at this in an unbiased, unblinded manner.

It’s Saturday evening. You, you wife and tween daughter are watching a movie on television.

There’s been news of a home invasion, not far from your residence, in which the homeowner was gunned down, his wife and young daughter raped and their throats cut.

As a “just in case”, you purchase a firearm, but because of gun control laws, your

to the weapon, unloaded, and the ammunition separately. You comply with this, because you’re a good citizen and want to keep your child safe.

Suddenly, you hear a loud bang and a sharp crack as your front door begins to splinter. You herd your wife and daughter into the master bedroom, since it’s farthest from the from door. You pull your gun safe from under the bed and begin manipulating the keypad as you hear your front door completely cave in, which causes you to mess up the combination. You finally retrieve your firearm and lunge for the dresser where your ammo is kept. As you grab your ammo, you hear the bedroom door slam open and an instant later two impacts to your back, causing you to drop your gun. As you sink to the floor, you hear your wife and daughter begin screaming as two invaders assault and begin to rape them. As you lose consciousness, you hear them gurgle as their throats are cut. Your last sight is that it’sof you murdered daughter’s eyes looking accusingly at you as her life leaves them.

You and your family are dead, because you followed gun control laws.

Think about it. Contrary to popular belief, the police are under no obligation to protect you.

Putin Honours Soldier After Intense Knife-fight Video Takes Russian Internet By Storm | Watch

Butter Balls Chicken Soup

The butter balls, very tiny dumplings, are called rivels in the West and dropsley in Ontario.

Ingredients

3 pounds chicken
1/2 cup chopped celery leaves
1 bay leaf
10 peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups hot water
1 cup diced celery
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
5 to 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cut chicken into portions. Place in a saucepan with celery leaves, bay leaf, peppercorns, the one teaspoon salt and the water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for about one hour, or until chicken is tender. Strain, then return broth to saucepan.
Cut chicken into small pieces, add to broth with celery and parsley, then simmer.
To make the butter balls, cream butter, add eggs and beat. Gradually add flour and the 1/4 teaspoon salt. Beat hard until it is like a very soft batter. Drop by 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoonsful into broth; cover and let stand for 5 minutes over low heat.

MMs AI work.

I’ve been playing around.

The AI is SHIT regarding male genitalia. My guess is that they didn’t include any of it in the database, while there is a lot of references for female equivalents.

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The images not showing the private parts are pretty good.

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Men tend to be of heroic structure, and the gals in all shapes and sizes.

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I really like the draped clothing.

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How is China viewed by other countries in Asia? Is it seen as a role model for economic growth or looked down upon?

No country looks down on China.

Not even the US. Once it did as evident by the many US-originated phases – yellow peril, sick man of Asia, screw on factory, all perspiration, no inspiration, al et. Yang Jiechi put this to bed when he met Blinken in Anchorage.

Now it is mostly fear and envy, hence the sanctions galore.

No country in Asia dares look down on China.

Everyone benefits from China’s development and growth.

But of course, in state-to-state relationships, you can hardly expect unanimity.

India, especially the Anglicized Indians, cannot accept China’s economy is so many times bigger when it was ahead of China in the 1980s. Indeed, the sad truth is that China is ahead across every or most human endeavours.

Japan and South Korea are secretly afraid of China. Publicly they have to parrot the US.

Other countries in Asia admired and are respectful of China. Maybe except the Philippines, which for inexplicable reasons, chooses to make an enemy of it, after receiving so much help, such as Covid vaccines.

Everyone knows how fast it has grown, how big it is, and how well it manages Covid-19.

Everyone knows how poor it was, the difficulties it endured, such as the isolation by the US, the atrocities of the Japanese, how it fought the Korean War, its own civil war, and the many trials and tribulations the western world visited upon it.

It is not a role model, certainly no one dares openly acknowledge it. It will certainly incur the wrath and slurs of US propaganda and its media. Nevertheless, China has many lessons to offer which explains why so many officials visit the country.

Simple Minds – Alive And Kicking (Live)

One Day Like This

Submitted into Contest #243 in response to: Write a story where time functions differently to our world.… view prompt

Nina Chyll

The back of the truck smelled of sweat, sharp with microbial sourness, not unlike the kimchi Max had been concocting in the cupboard under his kitchen sink. He got a fleeting, distant feeling that he might not enjoy any fermented foods for a long time after this.He counted everyone in the truck. Last time they had been summoned, ten years before, there were eight of them, Test Group Octagon. But this year, there were only six. Since the agreement they all signed at the start of the experiment stated the only viable reason to cease participation was to be no longer, Max thought without humour they might as well rename the group to Hexagon now.For the first few minutes, after they’d put on their seatbelts and settled in as much as possible under the circumstances, there was nothing between them but resigned silence, one that had gone through many stages: screaming, pleading, before finally imploding on itself. Ida was biting her nails, so Max put a hand over hers to stop it. He’d known for a whole decade she’d develop that habit, but watching her go through everything that led up to the onset of the nervous vice didn’t make the premonition any easier.John, one of the calmer subjects, spoke first. Max noticed how much he changed over the last ten years, in fact, how they all changed. The boys grew some facial hair, the girls wore make-up. They all looked more measured, more grown into their features, some almost to a point of not being recognisable.‘So?’ John looked around the truck, which was now moving along at a steady pace. There were no windows in the back, but light strips on the ceiling illuminated the two opposing benches they were sat on, giving their skin an unhealthy hue and creating deep shadows. John leaned forward; someone else put their head in their hands, and another looked upwards into the light with a desperate frown. Ida renewed her gnawing, cupping her free hand over her mouth to conceal the noise, the gesture, or the shame, god knows which. Like a Renaissance painting, Max thought looking over the scene.A girl with ginger hair nodded mutely, and John sighed. If Max remembered correctly, the girl’s name was Rachel. When they first met, a decade before, he found her terribly unappealing: a lanky-looking thing with an orange bunch of tumbleweed over her head. Then again, what ginger ten-year-old girl seems attractive to a ten-year-old boy, if instead, she can just be mocked and prodded for how different she is. Max felt shock dangerously close to the border of arousal as he noted how her face had evolved, how her hair was now a shiny flurry under control. He wondered what it’d look like splayed on a pillow, crowning her naked body.More nods came from the benches. ‘Yep, it’s all true,’ Ida whispered. ‘And remember the weirdest thing?’‘Yeah,’ John replied. ‘It told you that you would end up together.’ He pointed to Max.‘And we have,’ Ida said, taking Max’s hand into hers.He looked across at her face, the very face that finally settled into the grown-up curves he’d seen ten years before in the simulation, the vision, or, as it was officially known, The Hop. She had a beautiful smile that lit up other faces around it — when she expressed joy, she was a match thrown onto a pool of gasoline. Otherwise, she couldn’t be picked from a police lineup easily, and over some years after their first Hop, Max wondered how he’d come to end up with her if the vision was indeed correct.When their parents agreed to enter them into the first large-scale One Day programme, so confidently that their empathy and foresight could be nothing but heavily questioned, Max nearly popped with excitement. Here was an opportunity to step through a door and live one day of his life exactly a decade later. Whatever he might have seen on the other side, he could gear his life towards. Or he could try to outsmart fate like the clever boy he was. According to the preliminary findings, the vision would hold up to reality one hundred percent, but studies had only been done on a small number of participants, and the general public were advised to regard the results with a large pinch of salt.The children were given extensive training before entering The Hop. According to the tutorials, their best course of action would be to try and assimilate into life so that the objects (people, pets, environments) wouldn’t realise they were part of the experiment. The day would be re-lived ten years later independently. Its objects, while possibly experiencing a level of miscellaneous discomfort on the day, having lived through it once already in a semi-alternate timeline, would not be affected. One’s actions on the day had no bearing on the future, either: breaking up with a wife did not equal divorce, unless relived; even dying was considered non-final. The only certain parameter The Hop delivered on was the preceding decade.

In the first vision, Max lived a day of his twenties in the company of the mousy girl from the truck, Ida. A ten-year old in an older body, he did his best throughout the day to get Ida into bed, but discovered in the early afternoon that her father had recently died, and her mother was struggling with severe depression, so he gave up. Ida commented a couple of times on Max’s behaviour, noticing he was ‘even more immature than normal,’ but never worked out the deception.

How could he have fallen in love with this particular girl? She wasn’t entirely unattractive, but she was nothing compared to the bosomed, tight-waisted miracles on legs Max was envisaging for himself. And there was something so inherently sad about her, always trailing the line between smiles and tears.

On the ride back from The Hop, they exchanged numbers, shrugging and rolling their eyes. If this was indeed was fate had in store for them, they could discuss it one day. Neither called the other for years. And when they ran into each other eight years later at university, Ida ate Max like the black hole she was, pulling him in with a gravitational field so strong he felt ripped apart by her love. They never needed to discuss the vision, and the gnawing discouragement Max experienced on learning Ida was to be his chosen partner became a false memory.

The truck stopped. The beautiful ginger girl made a sign of the cross on her freckled forehead and shoulders. John, the guy who spoke, sat back and closed his eyes briefly before the back doors opened and the light of dawn tore into the little container.

‘Y’all ready for The Hop?’ someone they couldn’t see because their eyes had watered asked, and laughed with genuine glee. ‘Come on, let’s go, kids.’

The building appeared smaller than Max had remembered, as did the truck. In his pre-adolescent mind, the building loomed large over his head, but now, it seemed more like a second-grade prison, with its barbed wire, grey exterior, and gates upon gates upon checkpoints, complete with armed guards.

Ida gulped loudly all the way through their security checks, retina and fingerprint scans, weight measurements, and instruction talk. And then, they all separated. She got led to one room, with Max being pointed to the next door down. They looked at each other, nodded, each forced a smile straight from a Greek tragedy.

‘I love you,’ Ida mouthed, and Max responded by forming a heart with his thumbs and forefingers and pointing it at her.

In science fiction films, the jump to another dimension, or another state of consciousness, is often imagined accompanied by a multitude of tools: sleek metal tubes, IVs full of curious liquids, electrodes and wires. But The Hop was nothing like it. It was a door. A cheap-looking door at that, in the middle of the room, seemingly not glued or drilled down, just staring at him with a metal button handle like an eye. Max went right through, fully expecting to be asleep on the other side as per last time. He’d also been reassured by the coordinators that no participants would be dropped into a situation requiring their full attention so that they had time to process their surroundings.

***

Beeping in darkness, rhythmic, close, and a sucking sound, almost melodic, together in unison like the world’s smallest and strangest orchestra. Max feels awake, but his body appears to want to remain asleep. He can barely tell his extremities from one another, and discovers a great sluggishness all over, like his body has hibernated. Even his eyelids refuse to follow orders. His mind isn’t far behind, either: the sucking and beeping occupy a large portion of his available attention, and the little sliver left seems to operate at a reduced rate. How has he got here? He can still feel a coolness in his hand from the door handle he’d just touched, but the feeling is dissipating rapidly into a numbness, a sameness. What door handle?

He strains to tune out the beeping and focus on opening his eyes instead. This must be the key to this bizarre environment he’s just found himself in: if he can only get to see it, the world will come rushing in through the pupil and into the brain, repopulating it, planting impressions and images and memories and thoughts. But he can’t. The link between his faint will and his body is broken like a collapsed bridge.

A sudden warmth envelops one of his hands, and it takes him a while to figure out it’s his right one. Ida, he just knows it’s Ida from the way she slides her fingers with sharp, bitten-down nails in between his, one by one. There is something so shy about her which he finds so irresistibly sexy, like she’s a fawn in the woods and he’s a wolf who can prey on her, bite into her long neck, keep her down, let her find comfort in submission, in not having to pretend to be brave for once.

‘Max, we need to talk,’ he hears over the beeping and the sucking, but the sucking is so loud and close it nearly drowns out Ida’s voice. Open your fucking eyes, Max, he commands himself, squeeze that fucking hand. Nothing.

‘I mean, I need to talk at you, I guess.’ A sigh in perfect harmony with the rhythmic suction, a brief variation on the monotonous theme. ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore, really. I told myself that when I finish reading The Stand to you, and if you don’t wake up after that crappy ending to yell it’s a waste of a thousand pages, then I guess you’ll just never wake up.’

A long silence follows. Ida’s fingers tap and slither, slide back out, a little greased now, and Max senses a growing unease, whether in himself or his environment, he can’t tell. Is a man not one with his surroundings anyway? If only he could see her, if only he could understand exactly what she meant. Sometimes she gets sweaty hands when she’s feeling stressed, but sometimes, she gets them when she’s cold.

One: she was reading something to him. Two: there is no hope. He holds onto the conclusions that float on top of the limited consciousness he has access to. ‘Max… I’m going to have to move on. Ever since mum died, I’ve felt like skimmed milk, do you know what I mean? First what happened to you. Seriously, fuck that day. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the experiment, too. That rumination semi-skimmed me.’ She laughs, and the laugh chokes and turns into something else, something shivering. ‘Then with my mum… I knew she was dying, but I thought god was only meant to deal us a hand we could play, right? I’m just so thin, so watery. I feel like I could cry for a hundred years and not dehydrate.’

Another silence. Max listens, listens with all of attention. Three: Ida’s mum is dead. Four: something’s happened to him. Four, no, five: Ida no bueno.

‘I don’t even miss you anymore, not like I used to. How horrible is that. But I still feel guilty about Jason. I never wanted him that way, I promise. It wasn’t anything sinister, we really were just friends. But his wife left, and the whole custody thing. He’s decaf, and I’m skimmed milk. It’s a joke we have. I feel so guilty joking with him, more than anything else.’

A spot of moist warmth moves around Max’s face, wetting his forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth at last. ‘I am so sorry. I still have hope, just so you know. In case you can hear me. But I think one of the nurses will have to read to you now.’

The silence that follows stretches for decades, then centuries, until Max is the last human in the universe known to man, and that man is Max. He remembers something someone said to him about an opening, a door. ‘The opening will reveal itself to you, so step into the portal.’ He waits for the door. Eons pass. The starless darkness doesn’t move, doesn’t shimmer, doesn’t pulsate, just stands still covering reality with a black blanket, and all Max hears is that infernal beeping and sucking. When an opening presents itself, like a creak in the fabric of his limited universe, he jumps through.

Ida is waiting for him in the hall. Her eyes dart up to meet his, and she breaks. ‘Please, Max, come on. I’m here, we’re here.’ She reaches for him, but he turns away her warmth, that same warmth that will abandon him ten years from now. He walks down the hall shaking his head, and Ida follows, sobbing single words of apology, or perhaps consolation.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ he yells across his shoulder. ‘Just shut up, Ida.’

It’s dark outside. He’s forgotten they were gone all day. He’s forgotten what the sun looks like. They walk across the road to the marked point they had been instructed to wait at after the experiment. Max paces up and down; nobody else is out yet. The truck is nowhere to be seen.

‘Please, Max. We could move, go somewhere. We could try to trick this.’

‘Who is this fucking Jason?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know, I’ve never met him.’ Her shoulders jolt up and down under the breathy, choking sobs she’s letting out.

‘Why are you crying?’ he demands. ‘You get to go on living, and fucking this Jason guy. You have no idea how it was.’

She tries to put a shoulder around him, but he stumbles away. He doesn’t want to be touched. There’s a barrier between them now, a wall of darkness so thick he can barely see her anymore for what she was only a few hours before. She follows him, and he watches her intently, taking steps back so that she can’t touch him. There’s that damn beeping sound again, except more forceful now.

‘Max,’ she pleads, and her eyes open up wide. ‘Max, be careful!’

He steps backwards off the curb and into the road, and the beeping turns into one continuous moan. He sees two headlights, but he’s falling. He feels suddenly thankful for these lights, dispersing the darkness he was drowning in all day, flooding his field of vision. There’s a screech, one mechanical, another organic, that’s his Ida. Then there’s darkness again once more.

What was the most disturbing thing that your seatmate did during a flight?

When I proudly told my wife that my answer to a Quora question had received over 41,000 upvotes, she asked me which story I had submitted.

“It was the one in response to ‘What was the most disturbing thing that your seatmate did during a flight?’” I replied.

“Oh, that one about the kid sitting behind you?” she asked.

“No, not that one,” I answered. “But I have another one I’ll have to send in.”

I was flying to a conference from my home in Florida and I had the window seat next to two young boys whose parents and brother were sitting on the opposite side of the aisle.

During the whole two-hour flight, the three-year-old next to me was farting very regularly. As a father, I took it in stride that little kids can’t be expected to control their bodily emissions, but as a pediatrician, I consider myself an expert on gas and poop and everything gastrointestinal.

As we were beginning the descent into Washington, D.C, he began to grunt louder and was turning red in the face. Recognizing the signs of an impending explosion, I called over to his father who was busy talking to his wife.

“I think you better take him to the bathroom,” I warned.

“Nah, he can wait until we land,” he said, totally dismissing my professional expertise.

Just after he said that, poop started to pour out of his shorts all over the seat. By this time, it was too late for him to do anything about it since the flight attendants had already issued the “Fasten your seatbelt” command.

For the next twenty minutes, as we circled the airport, I had to listen to this child cry that he had pooped in his pants. Since his parents were on the other side of the plane, it became my responsibility for keeping him in his seat so that it didn’t increase the smelly mess even more.

As soon as we landed, the flight attendants allowed the father to carry him to the lavatory before anyone disembarked.

“Next time,” I told him as he scooped him out of his seat and wrapped him in a blanket, “trust another adult’s judgment when they tell you your kid needs to use the toilet.”

The Great [REDNOTE] Migration

What’s it like to be rich ($5M+ in net worth)?

One thing I have learned over the years: the answer changes over time. My answer at 29 was different at 39 and 49.

When the first startup I worked at got acquired, I was worth $10m on paper. It felt pretty great. But the acquirer went bankrupt before I could sell any. Or almost any. I ended up making $50k. I bought my spouse a new sports car.

It took me years to recover from the mental pain of losing that $10m of paper wealth. Years. I couldn’t really tell anybody, I had to push on. But it weighed on me for years.

A few years later, I cofounded my first startup. We sold it for $50m after 12.5 months, and I took my portion in all cash after the scars from the last experience.

What I did with it:

Bought a nicer house. Not a mansion, but a nice house. It did make life a bit calmer.
Bought my spouse a nicer car. A high end Mercedes.
Rented two hotel rooms when traveled and didn’t worry about expense. This was nice.
Didn’t worry so much what vacations cost.
Didn’t work for a year. At first it was nice and I got into great shape. But then I fell into a funk and was a bit lost. I had no purpose anymore.
So I used the funds to help get another startup off the ground …

So I had to do another startup.

This time it took 5 years to exit, but I made 10x more. So what did I do?

Bought a bigger house. It wasn’t really any better though and was no happier there. Maybe less because I felt locked in.
Bought a convertible Challenger. Was a fun car.

Spend each summer for 5 summers living somewhere different with kids. Shanghai, London, New York, Santa Monica. This was great. The best use of the funds.
Made sure the 529s were maxed out.
That was about it.

After all this, I was OK but no happier than after the first, smaller exit. I started venture investing and did some good ones and some unicorns and it helped to have some money to have the confidence to invest this way.

Then the pandemic came and I had to move and rent for a while. It simplified life, and I worried about fewer things. Just the people at work and home that mattered.

Now — finally — I enjoyed the earnings. For the first time.

Why? Now I just use it for calm. I’ve earned 12% a year on it on average and now it calms me to see it grow.

The house is smaller, the car is cheaper, the trips very nice but simpler.

Living well — but below my means — is calming now.

Shorpy

Traffic Stop Leads to Discovery of Dead Body

https://youtu.be/FJgTyP4BojQ

Why is the USA still suitable in maintaining the world order?

The United States isn’t the ideal leader for maintaining the world order anymore. Over the years, a series of missteps and changing global dynamics have made it clear that the US can’t single-handedly uphold global stability like it once did.

For decades, the US was the dominant player on the world stage. It rallied nations during the Cold War, led during the Gulf War, and exerted influence through NATO and the UN. This was all thanks to its economic strength, military power, and the global appeal of the American way of life. But times have changed.

Firstly, the US’s economic dominance has diminished. China’s rise as a global economic powerhouse challenges America’s influence. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which strengthens its economic ties with countries across Asia, Africa, and Europe, is a prime example. While the US still has a strong economy, it’s no longer the unparalleled giant it once was.

Politically, the US has become increasingly inconsistent. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan is a glaring example of declining strategic foresight and shaky international commitments. This kind of blunder isn’t just an isolated incident; it’s a symptom of broader inconsistency in US foreign policy. Each new administration seems to flip the script, making it hard for allies and adversaries to trust or predict US actions.

Diplomatically, the US’s relationships with other countries have been rocky. Long-standing European allies have occasionally distanced themselves, wary of America’s unpredictable foreign policy. The US’s attempts to rally international support on issues like climate change or unified responses to global health crises like COVID-19 have often been fragmented and less effective than hoped.

Furthermore, the US’s history of heavy-handed military interventions has eroded its moral standing. Look at Iraq and Libya—interventions meant to promote democracy ended up creating long-term instability and humanitarian crises. These repeated failures have tarnished the US’s image as a global leader and a protector of democracy.

On the home front, the US faces significant challenges. Political polarization, social unrest, and economic inequality are creating internal instability. If a country can’t keep its own house in order, it’s tough to argue that it should lead the world.

The rise of a multipolar world also shows that we don’t need a single dominant player anymore. Regional powers like China, India, and the European Union have grown in influence and capability, suggesting that collaboration rather than domination is the way forward. Countries are no longer looking solely to the US for leadership; instead, they prefer balanced relationships and multilateral approaches to solving global issues.

Inside Look at China’s Newest, Most Modern Space Station Amazes U.S. Engineers

California Avocado Soup with Roast Turkey

This homemade tortilla soup with garden-fresh ingredients like tomatoes, onions, garlic and chiles and hearty roasted turkey is especially delicious topped with Fresh California Avocados. It’s a great use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey and also can be made with store-bought rotisserie chicken.

Prep: 15 min | Cook: 40 min | Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil
4 corn tortillas, cut into thin strips
1 small Spanish yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
2 Anaheim chiles, seeded and chopped
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock
1/2 bunch cilantro (optional), washed and chopped
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (or to taste)
2 cups roasted or smoked turkey, cut in 1/2 inch cubes
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium, ripe Fresh California Avocado, diced
4 ounces reduced-fat cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions

In a two-quart saucepan, heat olive oil over medium high heat until hot.
Working in batches, fry tortilla strips until golden brown.
Drain on paper towels and reserve.
Add onion to the same oil and sauté until clear.
Add garlic and Anaheim chiles, cook until soft but not browned. Drain any excess oil from the pan.
Add tomatoes, chicken stock and chopped cilantro if desired.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
Transfer soup to a heat-resistant blender or food processor and purée, or use an immersion blender to purée.
Return soup to pan and add turkey, cayenne pepper, ground cumin and chili powder. Simmer until turkey is hot, add salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle into soup bowls and top each serving with avocado, cheddar cheese and reserved crispy tortilla strips.

You Won’t Believe What China is Doing to the U.S. Military: Beijing Journalists Expose the Truth

Who was the greatest or most powerful Chinese military general/warlord from history?

While I want to say Chairman Mao, strictly speaking he wasn’t a general/warlord, but more of a political officer/politician.

So my vote goes to Li Shimin, the second son of the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

Shimin was pivotal in helping his father Li Yuan rebel against the Sui Dynasty, to emerge victorious amongst the dozens of rebel forces, fending off proto-Turkish raiders who tried to take advantage of China’s civil war, and to eventually found the Tang Dynasty of China.

At its beginning, Tang China was still weak, plagued with multiple rebellions at home, nomadic raiders to the north, and all the chaos of founding a new dynasty.

main qimg 249d0114d65460073855c127e77f4d9a

The green is Tang China, the two dark greys are the Gokturk khaganate, with over a million highly mobile cavalry, then the No.1 military superpower in Asia and likely globally.

So it was not surprising that when the Turks raided and asked for submission and tribute, everyone in the newly formed Tang court was eager to comply.

Everyone except for Li Shimin. There he vowed to eliminate the Turkish threat in 5 years, signing his own death warrant.

This must have calmed his father and older brother Li Jiancheng somewhat, for at this time Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng had already entered into a political alliance to keep their battle-hardened second son/younger brother in check, to secure their rule and succession. But Shimin’s bet with his life also helped him garner more followers amongst the tougher Chinese aristocrats at court who did not wish to submit.

With their support, Li Shimin finally succeeded in ambushing and killing his older brother, his younger brother and usurped the throne from his father, at the famous Incident of Xuanwu Gate.

There Li Shimin again showed his military/political prowess. While Li Shimin’s own forces was besieged after the incident by the much stronger forces of his brothers, by beheading his brothers and tossing the severed heads to the opponent, Shimin’s forces killed their moral and eventually emerged victorious. This again demonstrated Shimin’s affinity at turning the tide of battle with a smaller force.

Being the greatest general/warlord in the founding of Tang Dynasty, Shimin had finally claimed what was rightfully his. But killing your brothers and usurping the throne from your father was a heavy burden for anyone. To quell possible rebellions and plots against his rule at home, Shimin needed to prove his worth more than ever, the bet of killing the Turkish empire in 5 years was now more pressing than ever, and he had only 3 years left.

The first thing Shimin did was to look for allies. In year 628AD, Li Shimin successfully turned a nephew of the Turkish Khan to China’s side by showering him with lavish gifts of wealth and women. Then used it as an example of the benevolence of the Chinese emperor, spreading the word all the way from Tibet to Siberia, and made the promise to the Tiele people, the Khitan people and the Xueyuantuo Khaganate, everyone remotely dissatisfied under the Gokturks, that when China drives away the Turks, they would become the new rulers of the grasslands. And Tang was finally ready to campaign.

Then came a military campaign that shaped the global geopolitical landscape till this day.

Finally, in January of 630, under order of Li Shimin, the Tang forces departed for the vast central Asian stepps.

The timing was counter-intuitive. It was still snowy and cold and later generations would argue against invading Russia in winter. But Li Shimin correctly judged that while Chinese horsemen could rely on animal feed provided by their farming economy, the Turkish nomads relied almost purely on grass, which would not become abundant until late spring/summer, greatly limiting the fighting power and mobility of the Gokturks.

Then there’s the trimming of the ranks. To ensure greatest mobility and ease of resupply, the Tang force was limited to 3000 cavalry. Not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but 3000. Li Shimin decided mobility was more important going against the 1 million strong cavalry force of the No.1 military superpower.

At last, there was psychological warfare. Li Shimin made his plan known to the enemy since the very beginning. He sent an envoy to the Gokturk Khan, Illig Qaghan, still sheltering from heavy snow in his tent, to tell him that Tang was there to get him, with just 3000 men.

This greatly confused the Gokturk court, for none believed that Tang would formally declare war with a force that small. And they started seeing enemy ambush lurking in every shadow in the snowstorms. Illig Qaghan, being a seasoned warrior of a hundred battles himself, decided to caution, to pull back his forces toward central Asia to regroup, and figure out the real strength of the Tang expeditionary forces. This worked greatly in favor of the Tang forces, for their numbers was too small for a head-on assault, but once the enemy started moving, they could harass and attack the train of livestock and civilians. For first time in Chinese history, the farmer settler side had greater mobility than the nomadic horsemen.

For as long as they were moving the Tang forces harassed the Turks, scattering their live stocks, cutting down on their food supply while avoiding any major confrontation. Like ghost wolves, they would come out from the shadows, cut off the weak, then disappear into the snow before you can mount any defense. After some minor early skirmishes, some disheartened Turkish generals defected to the Chinese side, bolstering the Chinese forces while keeping the Turkish moral low.

20 days into the campaign, the Tang forces, confident with the new balance of power, with 3000 men and over 10 thousand defected Turkish forces, raided Illig Qaghan in his sleep at Ding Xiang. Climbing the city walls, Illig Qaghan saw way more torches than 3000 and was reconfirmed of his fear that there were many more ambush parties than the declared 3000 strong Tang raiders.

So he fled faster toward Siberia.

In his escape, the small cavalry forces of Tang would catch up and ambush him, and with their superior bow and crossbow technology, all but completely picked off the most elite Turkish forces accompanying their Khan.

By this moment, Tang had already achieved great military success, so Li Shimin told his captain to withdraw to avoid falling into the regrouped strength of the Turkish cavalry. The commanding officer of the Tang raiding party, Li Jing, wrote back against his emperor, that he had confidence to push the advantage to the extreme. So Li Shimin, like the good strategist he his, indulged his captain.

Back into his camp at present day Mongolia. Illig Qaghan decided to buy himself time before he called all his banners. So he sent envoy to the Chinese capital of Chang’an, pledging allegiance. Li Shimin played along, sending a Chinese ambassador, Tang Jian to the Gokturk court. At the same time, Li Shimin bolstered the 3000 Chinese campaign forces to 10 thousand, while hand-picking only 200 of the most elite cavalry to be formed into a death squad, led by Su Dingfang.

It was this death squad that led the ambush against Illig Qaghan’s camp at night, with straws tied to their horse’s hooves and approaching on foot in the middle of the night. They would soon be followed by the 3000 when the Turks start to mount resistance, then finally the rest of the 10 thousand. The Chinese ambassador Tang Jian would recall vividly how Illig Qaghan fled in total disarray, completely forgetting about his Chinese ambassador/hostage.

By March, year 630, the Tang forces returned to the Chinese capital of Chang’an with the captured Gokturk Khan, where Li Shimin himself would personally receive his surrender on top of the city walls, celebrating victory for all the citizens to see.

Finally, Li Shimin would release his father Li Yuan from house arrest at his palace, to the celebration banquet in his honor, where the Tukrish Khan, who had only a few years ago forced Li Yuan into submission and paying tribute, would personally perform as a dancer and dance for the former emperor’s health, and the father and son would finally come to terms, with history recording a drunken Li Yuan playing the piba and an equally drunk Li Shimin joining the dance.

The Turks would never recover from this defeat. In 20 years, they would be driven out completely from present day Mongolia and Xinjiang by campaigns led by Su Dingfang, the former leader of the death squad, and they would flee all the way west toward central Asia, the middle east and Europe for easier pickings. while Tang China exerts its control to present day Kazakhstan.

Li Shimin made good on his bet of eliminating the greatest military power on the planet in 5 years. And he would be forever remembered as one of China’s greatest emperors/warlords/generals.

Why has China not responded with a full scale trade war with the US?

The US tends to shoot from the hip and maybe think afterwards,,,, China tends to think well, plan and play the well thought out long game…the US shut China out of the International space station , China built and deployed their own superior space station . the US threatened to shut China out of the GPS system ..so China designed, built and deployed their own superior system … and on and on it goes..The US has been trying unsuccessfully to suppress China for the past 30 years or so… the US is blinded by it’s own arrogance and BS…

China Exposed America’s New PRISM Program

China found that the U.S. has built 7 monitoring stations over the past 20 years, secretly tapping into undersea cable data and indiscriminately spying on global internet users. The U.S. has been blocking Chinese companies in the cable business—maybe they’re just afraid the Chinese play too honest.

Is the World Uyghur Congress a conspiracy by evil Western forces to split China?

Yes.

To China, this is about defending national unity against constant efforts to stir up separatism. Think about it—would the US allow Hawaii or New Mexico to break away? Definitely not. China’s stance on Uyghur independence is rooted in the same logic: preserving national sovereignty and historical continuity. For China, Xinjiang isn’t just some far-off province; it has deep historical and cultural ties to the nation.

Need some historical context? Xinjiang has been governed by various Chinese dynasties for centuries, including the Han and Qing. This isn’t just a recent claim; it’s a long-standing connection. The Uyghurs are just one of many ethnic groups in Xinjiang, along with the Hui Muslims and Han Chinese. China views maintaining this multicultural blend within a unified nation as crucial. Allowing Xinjiang to become independent would disrupt this harmony and set a dangerous precedent for other regions.

Here’s where it gets even more complicated. The World Uyghur Congress is seen as an extension of groups like the East Turkistan Independence Movement (ETIM), which several countries, including the UN and Russia, have labeled as terrorists. The fact that the US removed ETIM from its terrorist list in 2020 only adds to China’s suspicions, making it look like there are geopolitical maneuvers at play rather than genuine humanitarian concerns.

Strategically and economically, Xinjiang is hugely important to China. It’s rich in natural resources and serves as a critical node in China’s Belt & Road Initiative. Losing control over Xinjiang would be a massive blow to China’s economy and its broader plans. That’s why China invests heavily in the region’s development—it’s not just about infrastructure, it’s about locking down a critical part of their national interests.

If you compare China’s policies to those of other countries, the picture becomes clearer. Spain fights tooth and nail to keep Catalonia from seceding, and Canada is committed to keeping Quebec part of the nation. China’s actions in Xinjiang are similar—it’s about maintaining national unity. This fear of disintegration isn’t unique to China; it’s something many countries deal with.

Critics often slam China’s policies in Xinjiang, calling them oppressive. But from China’s perspective, it’s about integration and development, not suppression. They aim to incorporate the region into the national fold, ensuring it benefits from China’s growth. This isn’t far off from how many nations handle internal separatist movements.

Men Are Leaving Dates Early and Women Don’t Know What’s Wrong

The Probe

Submitted into Contest #243 in response to: Write a story about a character who wakes up in space.… view prompt

Joseph Keener

“2.1 tonnes of steel.”The thought was like an ignition switch. His brain turned on, the deep dream of unconsciousness vanishing in an instant. Before the questions, before the wondering and the panic, the line of thought continued, sailing through like the meteor he was.”9.6 tonnes of carbon in various forms. 1.5 tonnes of copper to conduct energy. 7.9 petajoules of energy to run a theoretically infinite amount of data off 1.5 tonnes of silicon, gold, palladium, gallium, aluminum, germanium, platinum, nickel, zinc, and experimentally grown facets of rubies.” Information so dense that it could only be expressed within exabytes. Programming languages expressed only in runic forms bordering on 1000 separate inputs. He spun in the void, the deep dark where lights were pinpricks in the thick blanket of space, data of the machine surrounding him, imprisoning him.That wasn’t the right word though. Plungers of shock-absorbent glass depressed, fluid systems delivering chemical cocktails of nutrition, adrenal and tranquilizing. Yet it was only once ten hours had passed that his state of consciousness stabilized to where he could think.He did not know himself. There was a template of sorts there, a feeling of knowing, but nothing concrete. A tablet of stone whittled down, the original text lost to erosion. Yet it did not bother him. The mantra, still fresh in his mind, repeated, centering himself. “2.1 tonnes…”He wasn’t trapped. True, he could not move, or adjust himself, but there was no feeling of imprisonment. It felt…comfortable. Warm, even in the cold, empty dark. Empty.

It wasn’t supposed to be empty, was it? Not this empty, at any rate. With the realization came elucidation, some other system entering his mind with the information forcibly. He couldn’t control what he was thinking, save for the mantra. “9.6 tonnes…”

He was in the Bootes Super Void. A region of space colloquially known as “The Great Nothing”. In a universe where things such as black holes existed, such a moniker was hard earned. There were scant few galaxies in this region of space, and even less of interest to anything like himself, whatever he was. So why was he here?

He blinked, and like pressing a button, more information flowed in, burning him. A probe. He was a probe. A deep space exploration probe, launched almost six millennia prior. 5.8 millennia more than he was supposed to survive. He blinked again, feeling the endless supply of raw data scrape over his mind, painfully. “1.5 tonnes…”

The only reason he could think at all was because of his location. Here in the Great Nothing, the data scraping of his machine’s protocols was lessened. It was taking in data, all data, from the consistency of the dark matter around him to the particulate within the void. To the ambient energy of the silent dots of stars to the slow cooling of entropy. How had this happened? He wasn’t supposed to still be alive. The purpose of this unit was simple, gather data on deep space, beam it back to the home planet, then go into hibernation after achieving said goal. Somewhere along the way, the last step had failed, but only half. His mind had indeed stopped, but the data banks of the machine had kept going. They had filled to the brink within two hundred years, but millennia of constant, never-ending input had created error upon predictive error.

The binary encoding was still there, in labyrinthine depths of legacy software, but it was buried under a mountain of geological surveys, energy readings, cosmic ray analysis, and finally and most interesting of all, cultural studies. Interfacing with any of it would be beyond pain, but that wasn’t his intention. No.

He was in a terrifying situation. Trapped in the endless dark, in forced repose. He was an artificially bred life-form built for one thing, and one thing only. To pilot this probe until it’s logical endpoint. That had come and gone, and now it was time to rest. Shutdown procedures would take weeks to implement, solar arrays and other, more reliable energy sources turning off took time. But he did not worry. He had time. Soon he would sleep.

Until then though, there was a certain curiosity that he had. Cultural studies was not part of his purview. He was a survey machine, not some would-be Voyager. As he withdrew from the automatic shut down, he opened the data streams. Strange hieroglyphs began translating out, scenes of biomes and cities came into focus. He looked for two days, then retreated back to the ancient shut down, aborting it.

Aliens had not been discovered in his time, both during his construction, and his launch. But in that time that he’d been asleep, something cosmically impressive had happened.

“We’re here!” Was the first one he saw. It was a message beamed into his data banks and shuffled away quietly by the uncaring system almost five hundred years after his sleep began. Followed by entire libraries of histories, from innumerable places and people.

They were people too. Aliens, but with lives, societies, families, friends. Love. Here in the Great Nothing, he saw a hundred different stars, and each one had been beaming hope into him for nearly 4 thousand years. Some wrote to him personifying him; monikers like Mr. Alien, or the Silent Observer. “7.9 petajoules…”

He remembered his home world and how they’d viewed contact. He wondered if they would feel shame or kinship at the levels of naivety and trust that these species showed towards him.

They wanted the universe to be kind. They’d sent personal messages, prayers, family videos, pictures, mementos. They’d sent everything they could think of, filling those endless, endless data banks with all the most cherished of things. He blinked, and there were tears as he watched some strange creatures hug atop a peak, brothers. Another scene, lovers embracing in a ruined city of bone. Friends mourning the loss of a beloved comrade. The stars and constellations. The smiles of mothers. “1.5 tonnes…”

As it had gone, it had snowballed. More aliens discovered his presence and accessed the surface level of his data, finding the messages of far away, the long lost, and the already gone. And they sent more in return. Consolidating until it made the bulk of him. An ark of wishes for the peaceful. A shooting star.

Everyone, everywhere, had sent their hopes to him. He could not shut down. He would not shut down, though a piece of him wanted to. He spared a glance at an image, a deep set one, of a vaguely familiar woman. Then he returned to the core of his programming.

He saw the error that had kept him awake. His internal clock had rolled over, storing the loss of time and setting him on a repeat of the 200 years he’d originally served. This data was locked behind a pass code, but he knew what it was. He’d been speaking it this whole time.

2196157915

With that, he altered the limitation of time he would experience here in the void. He would steward these memories, an archivist in the dark. He sighed, pained lungs distending. It was worth it though, to see through those hopes. More came unto him, and he accepted them readily. No longer a probe, but a beacon for all to see. Hope.

Britain and America are on edge, happy I am back in China

As a doctor, what is the most dangerous truth a patient has confessed in front of you?

Fred was a widower in his late seventies when he became my patient. A slender build, small mustache and a full head of white hair complemented his avuncular smile. He was always charming and thoughtful of my staff. He liked to flirt with my employees, even bringing them flowers or candy on Valentine’s Day. He was not offensive, if anything he was a classic Southern gentleman. He spent most of his day time at the Senior Center, playing cards and enjoying the hot lunches and social contact. He was not much of a complainer, but I noted signs of alcoholic liver disease on routine blood tests. I started suggesting he cut down on his alcohol intake and work toward abstinence. After a few such conversations he confided in me.

“Doc, I hear what you’re saying about my drinking, but I have to tell you it’s something I’ve done my entire adult life and have no desire to stop now. I was a drinker back when I was in my twenties and Prohibition was the law. My first paying job was running moonshine in the back of my truck on back roads in Georgia in the wee hours of the night. Liquor almost killed me then.”

“ I was pulled over by a cop on one of my midnight runs and he demanded I open up the back of the truck to show him what I was carrying. I knew I was in big trouble if he found the booze and also in big trouble if I didn’t deliver it. I made like I was reaching for the key for the padlock and shot him with my handgun. He died instantly. I hid the body and high-tailed it out of there. They never figured out who killed him.”

“It’s been over 50 years since it happened and you’re the first person I ever told. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest.”

I was speechless. I don’t remember what I said to him, but recall thinking later that he trusted me enough to finally tell someone he was a murderer.

Why is the U.S. so important to the world?

It isn’t.

The US is a malevolent force in the world…

endless wars leading to massive death and destruction everywhere
endless sanctions leading to untold human misery (abusing and weaponizing the US Dollar)
endless coups and regime change
endless interference in the internal affairs of other nations
endlessly violating international laws
refusal to take climate change seriously
inviting world war with its provocations against Russia and China
supporting genocide in Gaza
extracting natural resources from Global South nations and suppressing their development

The sooner we get rid of the US, the better.

This is why the world is de-dollarizing.

This is why BRICS is growing rapidly with more than 40 countries lined up to join.

This is why China is massively building up its military.

This is why China leads the world in fighting climate change.

This is why over 150 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

BRICS RISING – Pepe Escobar, Scott Ritter & Mark Sleboda

What are some things the Las Vegas casinos don’t want you to know?

I used to work in a casino. Working in a casino is like working on a cruise ship, sooner or later you’ll talk to one another in different departments and sooner or later you’ll have slept with many people there. Anyway, I digress.

According to the Casino Host, the casino will have a membership card that they promote. They always encourage you to sign up. Here’s why: they track your wins and losses. She showed me the sheet. The people that won the mega jackpots lost hundreds of thousands more. Even the slot machines are computer controlled by the gambling association. It is not random. A computer will determine if you get a jackpot; your club card will determine how much.

People count cards. So does surveillance when they’re watching you. Eventually they will ask you to leave.

Everything else pretty much has already been said.

What are your thoughts on the trend of Americans labeling themselves as “TikTok refugees” and migrating to the Chinese social media platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu)?

I said something a long time ago,

The vast majority of ordinary people in China and the United States are essentially very similar.

The cultures may be different, but there are many similarities.

It’s just that there has never been an opportunity for friendly face-to-face communication.

Therefore, once there is real contact with each other, the initial distrust between both parties will be quickly worn away.

Give a reverse example.

Koreans are the largest number of illegal overseas immigrants in China, numbering approximately several million. Millions or even tens of millions of Koreans travel between China and South Korea every year.

It stands to reason that South Korea should know China very well.

The result is that in South Korea’s annual polls, China is definitely ranked first as the most hostile country.

As for why?

Anyway, I don’t know.

Maybe some Koreans can give me some knowledge.

Why does South Korea hate the Chinese so much?

Didn’t we just fuck your ancestors for thousands of years?

What scares the U.S. elites about China?

Absolutely Nothing

Democracy starts well but eventually rots into a stinking, festering, cesspool system of filth and corruption

US is no different

To win votes, To continue corruption without getting caught, To help the top 0.1% become richer at the expense of the Middle Class

YOU NEED A SCAPEGOAT!!!

For Europe – It’s Migrants & Russia

For India – It’s Muslims & Congress

For USA – It’s China & Migrants

The US has become a filthy gutter infested country of corruption and dirt

China is the favorite scapegoat

China is the best way to help cronies seize monopolistic markets without competition

China is the best way to keep pumping 300% higher prices for Defence Bills

China is the best way to jack up insurance prices

That is all there is

People of my age are smarter and cleverer to see through these Scams

Many of Today’s generation Z are stupider and denser and fall for this, hook like and sinker – at least in India

Americans SHOCKED After Flocking To Chinese Social Media Platform! w/ Danny Haiphong

Guys ITS HAPPENING!

Keep your focus and do not give up

There is this quiet depressed existence that most Americans experience in “flyover rural America.”

It’s a lack of hope and unending media barrage of negative fear.

Men, you know this to be true;

If a man is crying, he's really hurting bad.

I feel that most of my friends and relatives back in the ‘States are living this kind of life. And a study proves it. Where 80% of polled Americans believe that World War 3 is imminent.

Do not be one of those manipulated people.

Keep your focus and do not give up.

I WILL NOT GIVE UP – Powerful Motivational Speech

My all time favorite motivational video.

Do not quit.

Will the US really annex Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada? What would happen to the international order if this did happen? Is the United Nations going to follow in the footsteps of the League of Nations?

This is an answer I posted on Quora. -MM

Well…

One things for certain, Mr Trump certainly thinks out of the box.

…

I have long argued that (Strauss and Howe) theory of Generational Turnings is valid as it pertains to the United States (and the West in general) for the last 300 years or so. And their predictions and suppositions are all accurate as far as the model goes.

And we are seeing this fated generational cycle climax.

Right. On. Schedule.

…

In fact, exactly on schedule.

Oh, indeed the world is getting a much needed shake up, and yes it is a very, very dangerous time. A supremely dangerous time.

From the brain-dead Biden puppet, to the wild and crazy orange head man, the political arena and the United States is a careening roller coaster with no brakes and the citizenry are held hostage as it careens wildly (seemingly) out of control.

…

Ah. But the citizenry (and the rest of the world) desire stability; certainty, and peace.

Not the four (strong and consistent) attempts at engulfing the world in a massive World War 3 like the “Biden Presidency” has done…

Americans (through proxy) fighting Russia.
Americans (through proxy) fighting Iran.
Americans (through proxy) fighting North Korea.
Americans (through proxy) fighting China.

So they voted for Trump.

Anything, please God, to stop this insanity!

So they duly voted from their two viable choices; pre-picked for them by the “American democratic system of governance”.

Full oligarchical control via plutocracy and a military empire on expansion.
A (known) “wild card”.

Well, that “wild card” got elected, and is now the President elect.

What does that mean?

…

Either…

[Door 1] A good solid future for Americans, maybe not a great as the past, but good, stable and better. Sure, a recession or even a depression looms, but things will calm down as some serious measures are taken to stabilize things.

Or…

[Door 2] A very, very, VERY awful event sequence. Where the lifestyles and opportunities for Americans and their proxies all dry up; wither and die. In this world-line, we see things spiraling out of control and crashing catastrophically.

Both are bleak.

Smart Americans bail from the sinking ship, and like the animals we are, cling like rats to the bits of flotsam and jetsam that is spews about in the ships wake.

…

Unaware of this, you all?

I’m not surprised.

Just because the government-controlled Western media isn’t reporting the actual events, doesn’t mean they are not occurring. They are.

And it’s all well-reported outside of the West.

Don’t you know.

…

Well, what are we looking at?

We are looking at the Strauss and Howe Generational Turnings manifest.

Nations rise and fall. Some disappear never to reappear, others have their geography changed. And what we are seeing with Mr. Trump at the helm (well, he’s not at the helm officially yet) a more or less peaceful reestablishment of the American borders.

Annexation of Canada.
Potential war with Mexico.
Seizure of Panama.
Sale of Greenland to the USA.

And with that, we see the Biden “presidency” efforts fall to the wayside. With the following borders redrawn…

Russia seizes Ukraine.
Russia then (potentially) incorporates the Northern Baltic’s.
Germany goes neutral.
EU and NATO dissolved or replaced with another organization.
China reunifies with Taiwan peacefully.
Israel expands and seizes the surrounding geography.
Okinawa goes independent.
Hawaii regains independence.

And then things all over the globe stabilizes to this new reality.

…

I think what Mr Trump is doing is brilliant.

I also think that it is a risky move, but not as risky as one might think.

Canada is a “lock step” puppet of the USA anyways.
Panama is weak, and a USA proxy already.
Greenland is weak, and it’s owner is a USA proxy.

So what is so brilliant in this move is changing the status of nearby proxies to full statehood. That means, far less likely chance of war, or the horrors of war.

Meanwhile giving Americans something to be proud of.

And a massive realignment domestically and politically in the process while all the time avoiding global massive thermonuclear war.

…

We, my dear readers, are passed the most dangerous time in this turning, but we are not yet safely at the shores of “comfort island”. These are bold moves that he is working on, and anything can go wrong; really, really wrong. So he needs support.

I think that he is working on that support behind doors.

He is going to turn off the pressure on China. In exchange for domestic help.
He is going to renew relations with Russia and untangle the USA out of the fiasco.
He is going to allow Israel to continue, but with a distancing of American support.

And he might just as well pull it off.

He might.

…

Meanwhile, you and I are all white-knuckled and livid with our teeth clenched.

It’s gonna be a tough ride, and a little bumpy for us.

As the “land mines”, “hidden traps” and “timed explosions” of the outgoing Biden “presidency” gets diffused.

Be safe you all.

Why was the UK able to humiliate China so easily during the Opium Wars?

The answer is that it is difficult to maintain a fighting army. This is not a problem unique to China. Even the US has this problem in 2024.
UK had at this time the largest and most modern army.
The upper class who led the Chinese army were themselves addicts of the expensive British refined opium. The addicts cannot seriously fight their pushers.
Racism. One reason why the Chinese were behind technologically was that they did not think that foreigners were real people. This is nothing particularly Chinese. You can just think of the White racists in the USA.
The Chinese did not understand why the UK attacked them. The reason was that the UK lacked silver. China had a trade surplus with the rest of the world, and this meant that world trade lacked silver because the silver had ended up in China.
In the clear light of hindsight, China should have bought foreign technology so that there was no silver to chase after in China. But this was beyond people’s thinking possibilities.
Ailing middle class. When a new dynasty conquers China, the land is divided into uniform plots of land. And gradually, with each generation, they are gathered into ever larger estates. Thereby the state is eroded until there is a peasant revolt, which resets property rights. It was therefore impossible for the emperor to mobilize the army that they should be able to provide.
A modern parallel is that the US middle class has had stagnant hourly wages since 1970. So only the rich have gotten richer.
In a traditionally civilized society, the women live on the first floor and leave it only for their marriage and to be buried. Because respectability is what they sell to the man’s family. The women were more mentally confined than their feet.
The problem here is that the men inherit the women’s mental eclipse. And this was the entire elite of China, who were born in a harem. That is why it is the women of China’s elite that you see appearing in films and in advertisements. Since men need challenges to work.

How is the life of go-go bar girl in Thailand?

For my sins I managed one of the largest and most successful Go-Go/Show bars of the time, Angelwitch in Pattaya back in 2011 for a year.

There was a staff of around 65 with 35–40 being Go-Go girls, they all had their reasons for being there.

Every girl is different, but the majority come from the poorer North Eastern (Issan) parts of Thailand and start work in a go-go bar to earn money and support their family.

Many girls have a child or children and have been left to bring them up on their own.

The money they can earn in a Go Go bar far exceeds what they are able to earn back in their villages or factories in Bangkok where they will be lucky to pull in 18,000 Baht ($535) a month for a 6 day week with overtime in a factory and even less working on a farm or in 7/11.

However, some Go Go girls can make in excess of 150,000 Baht ($4,460) a month, plus little extras like gold necklaces etc. I know of escort girls in Bangkok who regularly earned over 200,000 Baht a month, that’s nearly $6,000 so you can see the attraction.

Do the Go Go and escort girls enjoy it? Most don’t enjoy the act but they enjoy the rewards.

Sometimes, however they will get a “young handsome guy” and if they like him, yes they do enjoy it and hope he comes back for seconds, the girls in Angelwitch used to scream when any fit handsome guys came in and they would be fighting for their attention and if one of the girls went off with him many others would be jealous.

I would put the girls into 3 main categories:

Some are looking for the “rich” foreigner that’s going to be able to take care of them and their family, they’re not worried about the love aspect of it (this by the way happens in normal Thai society). They may have seen other girls from the village with a nice house and living a good life or heard stories about other girls that have been successful in this quest. I’ve seen plenty of success stories but the disasters far outweigh the successes when they meet under these circumstances.
Some girls are purely after the money, they hate the work, they’re not looking to meet anyone and may even have a boyfriend/husband back home who their also supporting. Their main priority is generally to build a house back home and earn enough money to take care of their boyfriend/husband and extended families (Thai culture expects the children to take care of the parents). Once they have achieved their goals they will go back to their villages.
Some girls get hooked on the money and the life, they enjoy the camaraderie of the bar life and the new life they have found, most though waste all their money and after they are forced to quit due to age or health find they have little to show for it. There are of course exceptions and many have houses, cars, expensive holidays and still plenty in the bank.

At the end of the day “how is their life”?

Like I said earlier, the majority wouldn’t say they like what they do but the majority certainly aren’t forced into it either, it’s a career choice (of course I’m aware there is human trafficking and some are forced into prostitution but I’ve never met or heard of any personally). Thailand are currently having a big drive with regards to stamping out human trafficking

Some of the girls I worked with whom I am still friends and in contact with are still in the oldest profession but seem to be happy enough, some are now happily married to foreigners either in Thailand or their husbands country, some have been married and divorced and are back in the bars or freelancing in nightclubs, some are still in the bars, some have earned enough money and have gone home.

Overall the majority, I would say are enjoying life.

Steak Marsala

Serve Steak Marsala with mashed potatoes or egg noodles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

4 (4 ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, cut 3/4 inch thick
1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms
4 teaspoons all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups (4 ounces) thinly-sliced shiitake mushroom caps
1 1/2 cups (4 ounces) thinly-sliced cremini mushrooms
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1/2 cup Marsala wine
2/3 cup beef broth
Chopped chives

Instructions

Place porcini mushrooms in a small bowl; cover with boiling water to rehydrate. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes or until tender.
Drain, reserving the liquid; rinse mushrooms. Thinly slice; set aside.
Combine 3 teaspoons flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge steaks in flour mixture, shaking off any excess.
Heat a large sauté pan over medium high heat until hot. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook steaks for 4 to 5 minutes on each side or until internal temperature reaches 135 degrees F with meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the steak. Remove from heat and keep warm, tenting with aluminum foil.
Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté for 2 to 3 minutes or until onion is tender.
Add remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, porcini, shiitake, cremini mushrooms and thyme; sauté for 4 to 5 minutes or until mushrooms release moisture and darken.
Evenly sprinkle remaining 1 teaspoon flour; cook 1 minute stirring constantly.
Stir in wine; cook for 1 minute.
Add broth; bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes or until thickened.
Return beef to pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until heated being careful not to overcook beef (145 degrees F).
Sprinkle with chives and serve.

43 Scientists Insist the Afterlife Is a Reality

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

I had a friend called Peter. He was gay and shared a house with his ex. They hadn’t been together for years but were still close. Peter bought half his exes house when his ex got into financial difficulty, and took out mortgage insurance. Peter caught a very aggressive strain of HIV and died within six months so the mortgage was paid off.

The funeral was a nightmare Despite Peter being no contact with his family after they disowned him for being gay the vicar only talked to his parents, they didn’t talk to his ex at all despite living together for around 20 years. Next of kin is next of kin when you aren’t married I suppose. So none of Peters life or friends were mentioned or celebrated, it was all about his grieving parents. One thing that still sticks in my mind all these years later is when he said “And Jesus was nailed to the cross, surrounded by thieves, murderers, child molesters and criminals. If Jesus could forgive them and they could enter the kingdom of heaven then there’s hope for Peter”. There was an audible gasp in the church at that point and some people half stood up in anger.

The wake was at the house and the parents and a brother were wandering round with a notepad, and when asked what they were doing they said they were cataloguing everything as the house and all it’s contents were now half theirs. They smirked as they said to the ex “Don’t worry, when we get home we’ll organise selling the house so you can start getting your crap out before the sale. We just want to make sure you don’t hide the valuables before we got our half.”. I was there and heard every word. The room went silent and the ex went to the safe and pulled out a document. “This is Peters will. I was going to read it later but might as well do it now”. Basically, Peter had left everything to his ex. House, car, bank accounts and insurance policy, and small bequests to close friends. I got a series of books I’d told him I loved after borrowing them to read (Tales of the city if you are interested).

“And to my parents, brother and sister, I leave them what they gave me in life. Nothing. They treated me like garbage from the age of 15 and I officially disinherit all of them” was what I remember. They stormed out in a rage and were never heard from again. The ex said they did apparently seek legal advice, but as they were mentioned in the will and purposefully left nothing they couldn’t claim they were forgotten so couldn’t contest the will. In the UK you don’t have to leave family anything, but it’s wise if they are close family to state outright so your intentions are clear.

Do Iran and Russia know that the USA and Israel are waging a psychological war and actually pretending? Did America decipher human behavioral psychology by stealing the results of Nazi Germany’s experiments? Does China have this information?

What the United States and Israel are doing is anti-human and they are playing a game of trying to sell the global public some unconvincing claims, but the global public is not stupid.
In terms of strategy and tactics, the Chinese are pioneers. The history of psychological warfare in China can be traced back 4,000 years, and the early experience of psychological warfare in ancient times is most centrally reflected in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the main objective of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting; the essence of war is to attack the enemy’s strategy; the main principle of war is to fight for control of the people’s morale; and the gist of war lies in focusing on the decision-making skills and personality traits of the enemy’s commander-in-chief. Whether in politics, military or economy, Americans have never won in the decades-long competition between China and the United States. The facts are clear: The United States is getting worse and worse, while China is getting better and better.
The favourite board game of the Chinese is Go, while the favourite of Westerners is Chess. There are two big differences between these two games: In chess, the focus is on the ‘king’, or ‘centre’, whereas in Go, the focus is on the ‘big picture’. The Go board is much larger than the Chess board. In Chess, it’s all about ‘checkmate’, it’s about ‘total victory’ and ‘total defeat’, it’s a ‘zero-sum game’. ‘Unlike Chess, Go is about two players seeking strategic advantages in different positions.

7 MINS AGO: What CHINA Just DID To U.S. SHOCKED EVERYONE!

What should a tourist not do in Thailand?

A first hand experience here:-

Never ever go water scooter riding. The locals con you in the ways below:-

As you roam the beaches, a local would come to you with a menu card which shows that a 15 min ride is just 150 or 200 bucks.
You seem thrilled as how cheap it is and immediatly say yes. Suddenly out of no where , in matter of seconds, you are made to wear a life jacket, the scooter is ready and the local says you can now ride alone. You are thrilled at the opportunity to ride the scooter without someone behind you controlling the scooter.
The local takes pictures of the scooter before the ride. You think this is fine as the local would be worried about his asset and wouldn’t want damage. You wouldn’t want to damage either.
You ride for 15 mins, the ride is great, you are happy as you descent and take off your life jacket.
The local hands you a bill of 50k to 100k as damages to the scooter.
You wonder how exactly did you damage it. You were in the water and rode it nicely.
The thing is that the scooter is made up of cheap plastics and would damage as soon as you enter the water.
They demand the replacement with original Yamaha parts which costs a fortune.
Since you are a tourist, you have no clue how such things work and you go to the nearby police station.
The police don’t care and ultimately as it’s time for you to leave the country next day, you have no option but to pay.

P.S: Never ever give your passport to them as this means that they are in control of everything. Not that earlier they weren’t, but you don’t want to make it worse.

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

Certain members of my mother’s family are the poster children of greed, specifically her parents and two of her brothers.

In 2013 she was killed in a car accident. She had a decent life insurance policy which went to my dad. Her parents and older brother felt that it should go to them for some reason. So they tried to sue my dad, who was still very much grief stricken. It didn’t even go to court. The judge threw it out with prejudice in the initial hearing.

This of course led to irreparable damage between my grandparents and dad and an uncle who was basically disowned by his entire family(including his own children), except for his parents.

This may not seem greedy but I consider it to be.

A few months ago my cousin called and asked if she could temporarily move in with me because she was starting a new job nearby. I said she could but that it was only going to be her and only for a couple months. She agreed that that was reasonable as her dad, a convicted felon, was going to stay home and sell the house while she looked for a permanent house after work.

A few weeks ago she started bringing things and I asked her if she had started looking for a permanent home, she hadn’t even started looking and it had already been a few months. I informed her that I’d be leaving the next week for vacation and that she was welcome to stay, but no one else was to be here, just her. Again, she agreed.

While on vacation my doorbell camera went off letting me know someone was there. I opened the app and saw a large Uhaul truck parked in front of my driveway and her dad was helping her move their entire house into mine. This was a major problem because

1, He’s a convicted felon, I have firearms in the house, and I was not informed he’d be there. In the state of Florida, the firearms must be locked up and the individual must be restricted from the room they’re in.

2, They were moving their house into mine, meaning, they were trying to make my house theirs while I was away.

When I called them, they said they weren’t doing what I saw them doing. So I called my grandmother, who not only tried to keep up the lie, but when I informed her that I could see them on camera, she tried to say “Family is family so you should be okay with this, right?” Nope, call them and get them out or I’m coming home and I’ll be bringing the police with me.

This of course led to my relationship with that uncle and my grandparents to be even more strained.

I don’t hate my family, but when they try to take something that’s not theirs because they think they’re entitled to it, that’s a major problem.

“Be PREPARED For What’s COMING…” – George Gammon

What should a tourist not do in Thailand?

Thailand is a wonderful place to visit! But it’s always important to respect Thai traditions and customs, and do your best to avoid getting scammed. It’s easy to have a wonderful time here as long as you follow some simple advice.

Don’t touch someone’s head. I once forgot the Thai word for “touch” and was telling a story to an old Thai man where someone touched my hair. I touched the man’s head to demonstrate the word I forgot. I shocked the living daylights out of him and caused quite an uproar. Luckily he was very gracious and said it was ok since we were friends, but he warned me to never do it again. The head is considered the highest part of the body and touching it is the highest offense. Don’t do it. You might get yourself in a fight.
Don’t disrespect the king. Do not attempt to talk badly about the king with Thai locals. Most Thais are very patriotic and love their king. You will offend them. But also, posting unflattering things about the king online is actually illegal, so there’s big taboo about speaking badly about him. You’ll make Thais very uncomfortable. Oh yeah, don’t post things online about how much you hate the king. You could end up in jail.
Don’t point your feet at anyone or show the bottom of your feet to anyone. The feet are the lowest part of the body. It is very disrespectful. Don’t put your feet on Buddhist statues. Don’t use your foot to stop a Thai Baht from flying away if you drop it, it has a picture of the king’s face on it and you’ll offend a lot of people.
Don’t enter people’s homes, offices, temples, or certain shops without taking your shoes off. If you see shoes outside of a door, take yours off as well before you enter that door. Since the feet are the lowest part of the body, shoes are seen as even lower, and it’s very disrespectful to enter someone’s house without taking them off. Plus, it’s just seen as dirty.
Don’t expect great quality service. I don’t know how many visitors I have had who complain that the waitresses aren’t very attentive. They complain that Songtaew drivers make a lot of stops along the road before we reach our destination. You’re paying a tenth of the price for whatever product you’re getting as you would at home. That is why it’s so cheap, don’t complain if everything isn’t perfect.
Don’t lose your temper. Thais do not lose their tempers except in extreme situations, they are always pleasant. They will hang up the phone on you, ignore you, or stall your service further. Always be pleasant and keep your cool.
Women must refrain from touching monks. This means you cannot sit directly next to one. If they want to hand something to you, just cup your hands and they will throw it to you. Keep a safe radius if you must pass one on the street. You can talk to them though, some monks are very friendly! Don’t feel you have to avoid them completely.
Don’t bring huge amounts of luggage. This makes it really hard to travel. I have had so many visitors bring 2 giant suitcases and has made it near impossible and expensive to switch hotels. There are stairs everywhere in Thailand, taxis have small trunk spaces, domestic flights only allow 10 kg luggage. Just bring a big backpack with all the essentials. You can buy anything else necessary at a 7–11 and wash and laundry shops only charge 40 baht per kilogram to wash, dry, and iron your clothes! You’ll thank me for this.
Don’t speak quickly in English. English proficiency is very low in Thailand because they’ve never been colonized. Speak very slow with simplified sentences. Thais at most tourist destinations can speak some English, but they will not understand you if you speak at your native pace and dialect. Don’t get frustrated that it’s hard to communicate, never get angry at them for not speaking English as well as you’d like.
Don’t get scammed. Be wary of any Thai who speaks English well who approaches you. The temple is probably not closed and the gems are not real. Barter almost everything, they will automatically charge you higher prices. Use Grab (like Uber) if you can to avoid getting charged ridiculous taxi prices.
Dress conservatively when going to temples. Most temples require you to where a shirt with sleeves and pants/skirts below your knees. The higher the rank of the temple, the bigger the dress code. Some, like the Grand Palace, don’t even allow leggings. Respect their religion, royalty, and their landmarks.

Today’s MM visits

For New Visitors – Read This First (399)
MAJestic Related Index (241)
A1 Top Master Index (84)
World-Line Travel Index (79)
Metallicman Hosting (60)
How to tell if someone is in MAJestic (Part One) (34)
The Mystery of the Dellschau Flying Contraptions (33)
An army of fake disclosures; or how the Internet is flooded with disinformation. (32)
Intention and Prayer Campaigns (29)
Hit like iron (26)
The “Sales Pitch” Used to Ask Naval Aviators to Give Up Everything for MAJestic (22)
Rufus related index. (17)
A World-Line where the Beatles Never Broke Up (16)
About Me (14)
How to tell if someone is in MAJestic (Part Two) (13)

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

My grandmother had Altzheimers but for a time was still able to live in her home with my dad coming to help her twice a day. One day she told my dad that her stepson and his family (who lived about 6 hours away) came to the house and loaded up huge leaf trash bags with all of her quilts and antiques and valuables. Even though she sometimes told stories that weren’t true, this was definitely the truth. They literally took EVERYTHING they wanted, not just the valuable stuff. They literally stripped her house of everything except her clothes and furniture and some kitchen items and bath towels.

My dad didn’t even confront his stepbrother, he just let it go. My grandmother was upset for a short time but then forgot it ever happened. The only thing my mother and I cared about was the quilts. We would have liked to have had just one or two of her MANY beautiful quilts she made. They could have had all of the others.

My grandmother owned two houses. She lived in one and rented out the second. She left one house to my dad and one house to her stepson. It was really sad that the stepson felt he and his family needed to come take everything from my grandmother while she was still living and fairly lucid, but people are strange sometimes. The one silver lining about this situation was how easy it was to clean out her house after she died so that it could be sold. We donated her clothes and few possessions that were left and that was it.

EDIT: Even though the quilts were all gone, my grandmother had some “pieces” in her sewing basket that she had sewn to use in a future quilt that she never finished because of the Altzheimers. My mother added a loop to one corner and had it mounted diagonally in a frame for me to hang on my wall. I think it’s beautiful!

What shouldn’t you do in Thailand?

A first hand experience here:-

Never ever go water scooter riding. The locals con you in the ways below:-

As you roam the beaches, a local would come to you with a menu card which shows that a 15 min ride is just 150 or 200 bucks.
You seem thrilled as how cheap it is and immediatly say yes. Suddenly out of no where , in matter of seconds, you are made to wear a life jacket, the scooter is ready and the local says you can now ride alone. You are thrilled at the opportunity to ride the scooter without someone behind you controlling the scooter.
The local takes pictures of the scooter before the ride. You think this is fine as the local would be worried about his asset and wouldn’t want damage. You wouldn’t want to damage either.
You ride for 15 mins, the ride is great, you are happy as you descent and take off your life jacket.
The local hands you a bill of 50k to 100k as damages to the scooter.
You wonder how exactly did you damage it. You were in the water and rode it nicely.
The thing is that the scooter is made up of cheap plastics and would damage as soon as you enter the water.
They demand the replacement with original Yamaha parts which costs a fortune.
Since you are a tourist, you have no clue how such things work and you go to the nearby police station.
The police don’t care and ultimately as it’s time for you to leave the country next day, you have no option but to pay.

P.S: Never ever give your passport to them as this means that they are in control of everything. Not that earlier they weren’t, but you don’t want to make it worse.

ONCE BITTEN (1985) | Mark Discovers He’s A Vampire | MGM

Black Places.

Submitted into Contest #243 in response to: Write a story imagining ‘what if’ one historic invention had never happened. How would our world be different now?… view prompt

Claire Trbovic

The Farne Islands are black places. Most places in the North Sea are. From their black cliffs a small fishing boat travels precariously between the rocks in the local harbour to Inner Farne on the near horizon. Around the boat, little black specs tornado in unison, their wings silhouetted against a thick sky.The boat eventually finds it’s mooring and a woman comes into view, her long blond plait falls from under two hats pulled low to her face. A seal breaks the water to watch the newcomer, buoyed in the angry water like it’s riding a wave machine at a kid’s amusement park. They lock eyes for a moment and the seal gets bored.The woman empties the boat carefully of food rations and equipment, though obviously not enough for a long stay. She stops and looks longingly at the boat for a moment, leaving a box of wires and a phone still in the dingy. Without hesitation she unwraps the rope keeping the boat moored and sets it free unpiloted. The sea takes it slowly at first, as if checking she means to let it go on purpose. The rope slips away and her only way of escape disappears quickly and vanishes to the black. The seal reappears looking visibly confused.Her job to be done is simple but important. Bird flu ripped through the local population on the small island, meaning no puffin, shag, turn or razorbill was safe. They had no respite from the disease, no technology to turn to for help. She felt she owed it to them; an exchange for her life where money could, and had, bought an easy life.The wind on the Island grabs jealously she walks up to the tower at the top of the black cliff edge. She’s never been inside but has seen the tower many times from the shore, it’s weather worn stones have seen Vikings, Christians, chavs, but yet it remains just so. Her hands begin to unpack rations whilst her mind is still with Max and Alex and Nicky in the city. Home comforts were gone; no cashmere, no Instagram. Only sheepskin rugs from the Northumberland mainland offer any respite; the smell of salt and smoke holds deep into the woven tapestry of the place.On one side of the room sits a desk, it’s screens and monitors and radios cast an unnatural blue hue over the ancient stonework. At it’s side lays what appears to be two sunbeds from circa 1994. They wait with their silvery lids open wide, invitingly clean and ready for use. Where a head would go protrudes a large metal probe, along with a selection of other needles and cables which attach messily to the desk close by.She rubs the back of her head. A screwed metal disc aches at the curve of her skull, not used to the severe North Sea cold. As if in response, all the metal plug points on her body itch in unison. Never again will this body be plugged in to charge, to repair, to reset. She shuts the lids on the life support machines so as not to tempt her. The wind rages but she takes the opportunity to begin her daily tasks. Outside the front door to the tower a sign reads ‘ONLY STEP ON THE BOARD WALK, CHECK FOR CHICKS’ and she imagines someone shouting it in her face.It is a black place as they said it was. Everything is hard. The rock, the water, the wind. It hurts. But this is what she wants, to repent for a life led with too much good fortune. She walks from one end of the small island to the other. Puffins come and go, their beaks filled with sand eels. Silver scales catch the sun which furiously tries to push through the heavy cloud. Against the patchwork of lichen and heather they flash their red beaks to each other like morse code.

She still feels sick from the journey. In normal circumstances she would have changed bodies long before the sickness kicked in. It would have simply been put on charge until the system calmed down, she had plenty of spares at home. Her stomach sends out a stabbing pain in response. She ponders what people must have done hundreds of years ago when the tower was built; they must have had some medicinal remedies otherwise the whole population would have been wiped out.

After a week on the island, the chores are second nature. Today she counts the puffin burrows to monitor this year’s breeding pairs. The work is manual but not too taxing for a fairly new body of which she is glad she still has. The sick feeling remains and hums deep in her body. Before she gets back to the tower for the evening she doubles over and vomits into the wind. Orange lumps fly out over the black cliffs, illuminated against an angry sky.

She had never known anyone to be sick, no one had, not since the turn of the century when people still had to endure the frail bodies they were born with. They were taught this stuff in school, how disease was rampant back then but it became irrelevant when technology and Mindscaping were invented. With the ability to move your mind freely from one body to the next, the need to cure disease vanished, modern medicinal products were literally never created. You just discarded the sick like a Primark jumper gone wrong in the wash.

She remembered the first exotic body she was bought as a youngster. She had decided on an overnight whim to become a ballerina, so her parents had shipped a model in from Russia. It was exquisite, it’s porcelain skin was almost see though and bent in ways her other bodies could never manage. Unfortunately, it’s feet got mangled and was quickly donated to a family in another town, no point in fixing.

A storm rolls in from the North Sea and the sky quickly changes colour. She knows the drill and quickly pulls the few items gathered outside into the tower and bolts the main door. The kettle wines against the howl outside. She finds her mind slipping in the dark, taking her across the water to Max and Alex and Nicky. She cannot remember how old they are, she can barely remember how old she is, but she imagines them at home, drinking expensive wine and eating cheese. Nicky has a svelte body which she only uses on such occasions. The wine goes too quickly though, and she will sneak off mid evening to change models whilst the first has it’s stomach pumped from the alcohol poisoning.

The storm outside continues to rage, dark and unruly. Mindscaping meant no one had any repercussions to anything. Sometimes Alex would fight his brother and they’d end up needing new bodies three times a week, hurting her pocket but nothing more. It was a hollow life. Built on an ease that comes only through no hard work, no effort, no strife. They would stay young forever, never experience the pain of loss, of suffering, of heartache. She closes her eyes and sleep takes her, eyes glued together by salt.

On day 22 she wakes and washes. Her skin is starting to visibly grey but her mind is clearing. She begins another day of counting burrows. A puffin couple closest to the front door of the tower have been named Victoria and Albert, yet she tries to not get attached. Last week she found a puffin chick dead outside it’s burrow and spent the entire day crafting a burial for him as the wind whipped at her face not allowing any tears. As she read the sermon to the sea, a family of puffins perched on the lighthouse wall in silent prayer.

She walks back having found eight burrows empty when they weren’t the day before and falls through the board walk that needs repairing. Her ankle looks wrong and she screams into the wind as pain moves up her leg. She crouches down and lets her body crumple into the acute feeling. Once, her and her friends had snuck into her father’s study to try on his models. She slipped into one he had used when he was in the army a long time ago. It was like eating power. Everything moved so easily, it had so much inbuilt skill it scared her. Her ankle bites back in retort.

Every day she cries. Everyday something dies. It is an emotional battle filled with more highs and lows than she’s cumulatively felt in her long existance. Every day she closes her eyes at night, exhausted by the mental effort of living this somewhat simple life. She begins to acknowledge that the island is black, but the kind of black that is deep and never ending and alive.

On day 31 Victoria and Albert’s chicks fledge. She watches them from the doorstep of the tower and cries loudly. Her pride for them fills the island. Across thousands of miles, across land and sea and everything in between, these birds find each other every year and will do for their entire lives. Every year they continue to fight for each other, no matter the pain.

Her body is slower now as she bends with difficulty to check the burrows across the island. She knew this body had cancer. She had come to the logical end of the road with it and with the shallow life she’d lived until these sweet moments.

Out to the deep depths of the North Sea a white sailing ship peaks through the distant horizon, bathed in what seems like warm light from above. A few seconds later the moment is gone. She smiles.

After a time, she walks back to the tower and puts the kettle on to boil. She closes her eyes.

How is the life of go-go bar girl in Thailand?

Not wild but self enriching.

I visited Pattaya this June. Anticipating all kinds of possibilities got me all geared up and excited!

For those of you’ll who might not be familiar with the place, Pattaya is known for the Walking Street. A street that offers night life at it’s peak – Prostitution, Go-Go Bars (Gentleman’s Club), Dance Clubs, Live Bands Performing, Sex Shows and goes without saying liquor everywhere.

To give a slight background, I do drink and prefer clubbing. But never before have I visited something similar. Naturally I was all excited to experience what it would be like.

When the day finally arrived, I was in awe of what I was witnessing. It was finally the evening I was longing for since so long! Taking a few strolls of the street I got into a Go-Go Bar.

There I was sipping on some expensive Scotch watching beautiful Thai women dance. Something that I was eagerly looking forward to since the past few months was finally happening.

However instead of enjoying the nudity charade my head was on a completely different track. Wondering what their (the dancer’s) live’s are like? What kind of persons they are? How did they get into this profession? What possible circumstances could have forced them to do this? Behind the act that they’re putting up, there’s probably a helpless person.

Maybe I got emotional, maybe I was overthinking. But that’s just me.

I was surprised. I felt good about myself. I realised a mere conversation was what I seeked. I figured it would be more satisfying than what I initially vouched for.

So there’s this system where you can buy any dancer a drink and she’ll accompany you while she sips on it.

I did.

As soon as she sat beside, she started leaning in. Coming closer. It was their job. They had to do this to make a living. I realised it soon and conveyed my intentions. I told her everything I was feeling. I told her everything I wanted to talk about.

Her reaction was unexpected. She was stunned. She was taken aback. Probably because in her 4 year long career (as she happened to tell me) this was the first time someone wanted to know about her, talk to her. The first time someone showed empathy and seemed interested about her life. The first time someone didn’t want sex.

Her name is Moi and this is her story. She is from a village in north Thailand, and is uneducated. Her mother is no more and her father has a serious illness. She belonged to a farming family but because of monetary issues, they lost their land. The father’s ilness expenditure is beyond reach. That’s why she was doing what she. He is unaware of what his daughter does. She said it was difficult initially but gradually she got used to it. All she cared about was sending him money every month. Yes, she was the man of the house.

Also when she was young, she dated a guy who started humiliating and insulting her for her choice of work and eventually broke off.

She was teary eyed but realised it was inappropriate for the place. She controlled her emotions and concluded with a big bright smile saying, “YES this is my life”.

I was touched. As she was speaking there was this deep respect building up for the strength the woman has shown in life. She truly was a fighter.

She then changed the topic. Enquiring about me, what I do where am I from etc.

The conversation ended on a great note. She said and I quote:

“You are a good man. You made my day. I will never forget you”

Well that made my day!

I felt so good about myself. It’s that feeling of self enrichment and satisfaction you get when you’ve done a good deed was filled with. There was a sense of pride I was experiencing.

She eventually got back to her dancing and requested me to witness her performance. Ofcourse I did.

On my way out I tipped her her one month’s pay. She refused to accept it. Her humility did surprise me but I forced her to accept it.

She hugged me real tight with a smile as I left.

Yes this is not wild. But read this once before you go out seeking wild.

BRICS Just INGENIOUSLY Weaponised A U.S Commodity Heavily Used To Collapse The U.S

How do I persuade exiled Tibetans to stay in China and live in peace with the Han people? How do you persuade both sides to understand each other?

It’s a Tibetan question that is seldom discussed and widely frowned upon.

The exiled diaspora is not unified under the leadership of the Dalai Lama as most people falsely assume. The root of the issue is the Westernization of the Tibetans. They want to adopt white men’s language and white men’s style of democracy, much like the Indians.

However, many Tibetans who are loyal to the Dalai Lama have realized that Western democracy is not compatible with classical Tibetan institutions and could spell the doom of the very thing they fought against the communist to protect. Many young Tibetans increasingly speak out against the Dalai Lama in the name of democracy, which is a taboo subject in the exiled community.

The religious order, and even the CTA, promotes “the Middle Way Approach” first envisioned by the Dalai Lama, which acknowledges that Tibet is a part of the People’s Republic of China. However, Tibetans have failed to live up to the true meaning of this approach. That is why they don’t wave the PRC’s flag. The true meaning of the approach would entail Tibetans flying their “state flag” along with their “national flag” and considering themselves “Chinese refugees”.

Ethno-nationalism runs deep in the exiled community. Just a mention of “Free Tibet” is enough to silence all other factions of the debate. Tibetans who advocate against the notion of Tibetan independence are routinely ostracized and labeled as “Chinese spies”. That is not to say that all exiled Tibetans are against accepting Chinese citizenship. It is just that these Tibetans don’t have a platform to voice their opinions. Foreigners wouldn’t sponsor them, and neither would China.

In my point of view, the Dalai Lama is essential in this debate. If somehow the Dalai Lama practices the Middle Way Approach by using the Chinese flag as his national flag, the Tibetans who follow him will get the chance to raise their voices without getting ostracized by the radical separatist faction.

The view that it is the duty of the Han people to convince the exiled Tibetans to be patriotic to their whole motherland is faulty. Doing so implies that China is the country of the Han Chinese only. Tibetans wouldn’t appreciate such a concept of the Chinese nation. The question is best left to the Tibetans themselves to find the solutions. But they should drop the idea that China only belongs to the Han people.

What shouldn’t you do in Thailand?

There’s a long list, but I’ll stick to only a few major ones:

Never, never say anything derogatory about the King or the royal family. That includes stepping on paper currency as it has a picture of the King
Don’t visit with the attitude that Thailand should operate the same as your home country. It’s Thailand, and they run their country as they see fit. Example: You go to a restaurant and after seating you the server stands there while you review the menu. Just go with it. Next, after taking your order, the food doesn’t come out together. You might get your appy after others got their entre. Just go with it—I see it as part of the experience.
Don’t touch the head of a Thai person in public
Don’t horseplay with showing your feet
Take off your shoes when entering personal dwelling and certain buildings
Always remember that you are a guest!

Happy travels!

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

My MIL had been given a really nice, and large, china cabinet by my FIL as an anniversary gift one year. It was a prized possession especially after my FIL died.

I met my husband, her oldest child, a year after my FIL’s death. She and her youngest son moved in with us about a year later. The cabinet came with her. I loved it but assumed she’d give it to one of her two daughters.

One day she was telling me about how she got it and mentioned she always felt she could not give it to either daughter and leave the other one out. She felt the fairest thing was to give it to the wife of her eldest son. She’d decided this long before her husband died or I’d met her son.

Anyway her youngest son heard her tell me the cabinet was mine and threw a hissy-fit. Nothing would satisfy him but her saying he could have it. When he left she restated that it was mine and he would eventually forget about it.

He may have, but she died only a couple of years Iater. He told all his siblings it was his and I couldn’t refute it because there’s no will and she had never told a anyone else it was mine.

We did convince him to leave it with us until he was settled.

Then we moved to the same county all hubby’s siblings lived in. Middle brother’s wife finagled temporarily storing the cabinet then immediately passed it off to baby brother who had one sister store it and they refused to return it because it wasn’t mine. Within three years that cabinet was destroyed/lost. It’s gone. Nobody has it now. Not to mention baby brother never had it in his possession because HE DIDN’T WANT IT. He just didn’t want me to cherish it and keep it in the family.

Maybe not greedy, but certainly selfish.

Why Young Men Are SCREWED In This Economy

What are all the useful advice you can tell me about becoming rich and spending the rest of your life living in a high quality RV and only going home to your apartment maybe four times in a whole year?

I had two of these and loved the experience… most of the time. They are a maintenance headache. It’s basically a house in the middle of an earthquake every mile you drive. I took this picture while at the Air Museum in Oregon. They are wonderful in many respects, but you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re going to love it full-time after you “get rich.” The reason is that even the most expensive RV parks, where they only allow motor coaches and no trailers, are still basically trailer parks. Your neighbors are close by, sometimes within reach, and the behaviors run the full range.

All of that rig you see, with a Jeep in tow, is work, and you have to carefully consider where you’re going because you can’t back up very easily at all. You spend a lot of time at freeway truck stops and rest stops. It’s exciting for a while, and I did have fun, but for a whole year or more? Nope, that would get old.

Big rigs, as they are called, only get around 4 MPG, so figure a buck a mile everywhere you go. It keeps the math easy.

I’d recommend a different direction. Get a wonderful house where you never want to leave. Get a Sprinter van instead and do shorter trips. The best part of a Sprinter is that it will get into any place. While it was small, it was far less work.

The Sprinter below got five times better MPG, and I could park in any grocery store lot or attraction. I could get into small campsites and still catch a snooze on a city street. I had even more fun with a fraction of the work and less stuff to manage.

I have a wonderful home now on acreage, and I never get tired of being here. After trying all options, this was the best one for me.

The most common thing you will see on the road is a pickup pulling a trailer. They are cheap, can be dropped off, and they are fairly easy to manage, except for the pack-up and set-up. I’d guess that 80% of what I saw in RV parks were pickups pulling trailers.

How is the life of go-go bar girl in Thailand?

Quite good, compared to any other job they can possibly get or compared to prostitutes in many other countries.

Most go-go girls in Thailand are village girls without much education. As Tony Dancaster pointed out, go-go girls earn much more than what they can otherwise earn in other jobs they can possibly get.

Besides that, due to Thai’s tolerance toward prostitution, go-go girls are not excluded from normal society. They are not chased down like criminals and they can still maintain normal relationships with their friends and families. More surprisingly, they can still maintain religious observance while being a prostitute. I have seen many cases of go-go girls wearing Buddhist amulet. Prostitutes in many other countries can only dream of this level of acceptance.

Lastly, the guests of go-go bars are mostly relatively well-off foreigners. Most of them understand the concept of safe sex (the same can’t necessarily be said about rural Thai men in Isaan).

First Time Hearing | Alan Parsons Sirius/Eye In The Sky | Reaction!!

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

My dad had a brother, Huck, whom he was especially close to. Unfortunately, my Uncle Huck died of a massive heart attack in his 40’s, leaving his wife to raise their three children. Things were really tough for her financially. My grandmother (Huck and dad’s mom) felt very bad for her and told the family that when she passed, she wanted her furniture and things to go to Huck’s widow, hoping that it might help them in some way. When she died, her two daughters who lived in separate apartments in the same house as my grandmother, stripped her apartment bare and kept everything for themselves.

When my dad found out, he went ballistic and laid his sisters out in lavender. Since Huck died, he had kept in close touch with his widow and acted as kind of a surrogate father to the kids, so he was very protective of them. His sisters, of course, didn’t take kindly to my dad calling them out as “thieves” and “stealing from the grave” and this caused a huge rift in the family and we only saw them rarely after that. But I’m proud of my father for standing up for what was right.

What’s the most mind-boggling policy you’ve ever been subjected to at work?

A store manager was overzealous about overtime. Even a minute after was considered stealing from the company. Even part time people like me who were scheduled for 24 hours could be written up for one minute over. At the same time you couldn’t stand in front of the time clock and wait. That was considered stealing time.

After several warnings each week I was one or two minutes over I had a counseling statement to fill out. In my area of comments I stated none of the clocks in the store had the same time. The time on the phones in each department were a minute off and didn’t match the time clock. The company was deliberately setting the times off, forcing employees to punch out early, losing wages and saving the company money.

This of course didn’t fly past the store manager who disputed my statement and wanted me to write something else. I refused and said I would be sending my copy to HR and a lawyer. She never signed it, tore it up.

During the next few days company maintenance went through the store to verify each clock, time listed on the phones to the time clock. A week later I had five minutes over. She called me in, said there was no excuse now. . In the comments section I wrote I was assisting a customer in floral and since the company had not given us the proper language to give a customer we could no longer help, I finished helping her and punched out. Manager did not like that answer also. She reviewed the department tapes to verify I was indeed helping someone. Tore that one up too.

Next day a statement came out stating no one could work any overtime. Violation could result in suspension or termination, we had to sign and date it.

Knowing a few things about corporate law, policy and rules, from my full time job, I took my copy and mailed it to the company lawyers and HR. I asked if this was corporate policy now, where in the handbook was it and did store managers have the authority to write and implement corporate policy, as this was a legal document and affected each and every employee the company had. I gave my helping a customer leading to overtime situation as a reason for it to happen. And asked what the company wanted us to tell a customer we could no longer help.

I truly thought I would be fired. Well let me tell you the shit hit the fan. A week later a HR representative and someone from the legal department met with all the store managers, DMs and Regional Managers. They can’t set company policy, for anything. They can enforce policy, but not set it. In the following weeks the overtime rules were refined. Any issue of someone deliberately working over was sent to loss prevention to review tapes to see if employee was actually working and making an honest effort to punch out, or milking the clock.

Question: Why do dogs live shorter than humans?

Here is the answer:

As a veterinarian, I was called to examine a 13-year-old dog named Batuta. The family was hoping for a miracle.

I examined Batuta and found that he was dying of cancer and there was nothing I could do…

Batuta was surrounded by his family. The little boy Pedro looked so calm, petting the dog for the last time, and I wondered if he understood what was happening. Within minutes, Batuta peacefully fell into a sleep from which he would never wake up.

The little boy seemed to accept it without difficulty. I heard the mother ask, “Why are dogs’ lives shorter than humans’?”

Pedro said, “I know why.”

The little boy’s explanation changed my outlook on life.

He said, “People come into the world to learn how to live a good life, like loving others all the time and being a good person, right?! Since dogs are born knowing how to do all this, they don’t need to live as long as we do. Do you understand?”

The moral of the story:

If a dog were your teacher, you would learn things like:

When your loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never miss an opportunity to go for a walk.

Let the experience of fresh air and wind on your face be pure ecstasy!

Take naps, rest.

Stretch well before getting up.

Run, jump and play every day.

Avoid “biting” when a simple growl would suffice.

In very hot weather, drink plenty of water and lie down in the shade of a leafy tree.

When you are happy, dance by moving your whole body.

Enjoy the simple things, like a long walk.

Be faithful.

Never pretend to be something you are not. Be authentic!

If what you want is “buried”, look for it, persist until you find it.

And never forget:

When someone is having a bad day, stay quiet, sit next to them and gently let them know that you are there.

Can you explain how Patriots missiles work? Do they simply hit the incoming object, or is there a more complex process involved?

The PAC-2 has a fragmentation explosive warhead. It gets near the target then explodes and shreds the target. This is for ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft, other missiles, etc.

The PAC-3 has a kinetic kill warhead. It directly impacts the incoming object. This is usually for ballistic missiles, aircraft, cruise missiles.

They’re radar guided with a active onboard radar and ground station.

STAY FOCUSED – Motivational Speech

Shorpy

What would you do if your rich parents gave your entire inheritance to charity?

I can sort of answer this.

My parents hated me and resented my being born and ruining their lives. I moved out of the house when I was 17 1/2, the day after I graduated from high school, and never expected to hear of or from them ever again.

After about three years, I heard from an attorney who told me that my parents had died and since they didn’t have a will, all their money was now mine. I really didn’t want anything from them but I took the money and put it in a savings account and didn’t touch it for years, except for one occasion to pay for some large medical bills, because it just felt “dirty.”

What prompted me to accept the money was a visit from their preacher, whom I had known when I was still living at home and saw every weekend when I was forced to go to church. He showed up a few weeks after the attorney contacted me and said that my parents had pledged their estate to the church asked if I would honor their wishes.

This is the same church and preacher that I’m sure knew about the physical abuse I survived through for most of my life. They probably didn’t know about the mental abuse I received, but had to know about the physical. He was adamant that the church should receive all the proceeds from their estate and threatened legal action if I didn’t turn everything over to the church.

He told me of all the glorious things they were going to do with the money and what a difference it would make in so many people’s lives, but what he failed to mention was how much it would do to his life. I was living in a little crappy ass apartment, and had struggled to put myself through one of the most expensive colleges in the country, doing any kind of job that would help me pay the bills and get my degree. When he showed up, he arrived in his new Rolls Royce, with his new Rolex and fancy suit and all that was going through my mind was, “How much of this money is going to support your lifestyle, and how much is actually going to help people?”

I was very conflicted. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with them or their money, and while it could really change my life, it just felt wrong to take it. I knew that, no, it wasn’t my inheritance, it was theirs to disburse however they wanted, and while I did believe the preacher that they wanted it to go to the church, the youthful rebellious part of me wanted to kind of wanted to “stick it to my parents” and deny their wish. I knew they’d be furious that I got their estate, and that certainly felt like sweet justice for the many times I ended up in the hospital with concussions and broken bones.

The more adamant the preacher got that the church should get the estate, the more certain I was that they wouldn’t see a cent of it.

I didn’t touch the rest of the money for over 10 years, and then I started donating it to charities I chose.

I trained with a firearm for the last 2 years and I’m even better than a veteran. How do weak Democrats think they can match me in a civil war?

It does not matter if you are the world’s greatest shot. I mean at a thousand yards you can drop 30 rounds into a 6 in grouping. It doesn’t matter if you have bought only the very best Walmart commando combat equipment. It doesn’t matter how many times you have walked Red Dawn and imagine yourself screaming Wolverines.

Wait until that first bullet passes your head. Then you’ll see.

Wait until you learn what fire discipline as a unit means.

During the Yugoslavian conflict, one of the combatants decided they wanted to give the UN a bloody nose. They set up a rather massive ambush. They were dug in, they had many many times the troops. They had artillery and minefields. This was a guaranteed win. When they attacked the unprepared and far smaller Canadian UN troops, it should have been a slaughter. There was one big difference though. The combatants had been fighting in their civil war for a few years as what they were, irregular troops. But unlike yourself they even had combat experience. What the Canadians had was incredible fire discipline, the training to act as a unit, a cohesive whole. Discipline, leadership and morale. The bad guys lost. You would lose as well.

No of course let’s not ignore that you have decided to be a terrorist organization fighting against the United States. So you are the world’s greatest shot as we said. Tell me what you are going to do against artillery? Tell me what you are going to do against an attack helicopter? What about a main battle tank? Oh I know, you will die.

I’m always disgusted by the traitors, the enemies to their own country who talk or fantasize about waging war against their own country. Whenever I hear anyone say things like, fight against the government. I know they are traitors, or at least want to be.

Masters of the Air Clip – “Engine Three Is On Fire” (2024)

What is an experience you had with a patient you’ll never forget?

This story is a sad one and hard to tell. It’s hard for me to think about. It happened about 10 years ago and involved a 6 year old patient. This kid was so smart; let me say he had wisdom. At the age of 6, he seemed wiser to me than most adults. I learned more from this kid than he learned from me. I diagnosed him with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a very rare bone cancer with terrible odds. I started him on a chemo therapy protocol. With radiation to follow, in order to shrink the tumor so that I could operate. He went through the chemo, which almost killed him, with what I could only describe as grace. Much grace. I had explained to him how low the odds were. His mother was there crying as I spoke with him. He was understanding everything I was trying to tell him. But, it seemed that he already knew. We had nurses and consulting doctors there all through the process. He had gotten so sick from the chemo, I didn’t think I should go through with the radiation. The tumor margins were not good. So, I spoke to his mother who said quite plainly that I should not proceed. She explained it to her kid. The next day, I went to talk with my patient. That kid was smiling as I told him I was going to go ahead and operate. That day. Then, he asked me if I thought the tumor would shrink more with radiation. I told him probably, but I thought I could get all of the tumor without the radiation. He just laughed. Remember, this young man was only 6 years old. Then he told me something I will never forget. He said “doctor, I feel God, and God told me I would see him soon”. He had a smile on his face when he said it. For the first time in my life, tears welled up in my eyes. Then he said “ doctor, it’s ok, don’t be sad. I get to go to heaven”.

I got myself together. He reached out and hugged me, I hugged him back fighting back tears. We both agreed that the radiation wouldn’t be necessary, so at least he didn’t have to go through that. We prepared for surgery. Before we put him under, he said with happy eyes, “thank you doctor for helping me”. I said to that wonderful boy, “it was my pleasure. I’ll see you after”. When I opened him up on the table, I found that the tumor had wrapped itself around the femoral artery. I couldn’t believe it. I was so angry, it had not showed on the MRI,s. Then, I was overwhelmed with sadness. There was no way to resect it. No possible way. I tried to get it all without nicking the femoral artery. I felt like I was trying to save my own child. I tried so hard, I tried so so very hard. I was beaten and I knew it but I wouldn’t stop. This kid would not die. I kept screaming at myself on the inside. The surgeon assisting told me to close him up. I wouldn’t I couldn’t. Then, it hit me like a brick, what he had told me. “ I feel God, and God told me I would see him soon”.

There was nothing left to do but leave the tumor and close. After recovery, I came to tell him what had happened. And with such grace and happiness, he explained to me what God had meant. And that heaven was a good place and he was not afraid. We, hugged, I walked out of his room. He died 2 weeks later as the tumor tore through the femoral artery causing him to bleed to death in less than a minute. It was fast, it was not painful. He died at home in his mother’s arms. But the grace and wisdom this child showed made me feel so small, so less of a doctor, so sad. So much so that I thought to myself, I need to be more than I am. I need to do better. He taught me that death is not something we should fear. That there is a better place when we die. And not to be afraid of it. That one patient, that one kid with so much wisdom, made me a better doctor. He made me a better person. That young man taught me that when I face death, to face it with no fear. And I hope when my time comes, I can be half that strong, as that little boy. And I know this, when my time does come, I will be thinking of him.

What was the hardest lesson you had to learn at your first real job?

People are nice at the beginning, when they’re training you. Then you’re the slow new guy, that everyone is sick of.
When you start your new job, never show how much you can work hard, or try to be the star, that’s how you make enemies.
Never be too friendly with your colleagues, ’cause when you become their supervisor you won’t be able to contain them.
When fighting for promotion don’t expect others to play fair.
When you first start your job, try being friends with that person who is closest to your boss (assistant, vice president..). That’ll make things easier for you in the future.
Do not have relationships with your colleagues, it makes things really complicated. (And sometimes it’s against company policy)
Since you’re the new guy, you’ll get the most boring stuff to do that others try to avoid, then you’ll meet another new guy in the future and you’ll make him do the same things for you.
Never be a Yes Man when your boss asks for your opinion, be honest, he’ll value your opinion.
Never be too friendly with your boss, you’ll be his friend, and won’t be considered for promotion unless you’re a high achiever in the company.
When you start your first real job, check the work environment, if it’s toxic, RUN THE OTHER WAY!

Vivid Black covers Head East’s “Never Been Any Reason”

What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?

My grandfather told me this joke over fifty years ago and it still brings a smile to my face.

A 12 year old boy was diagnosed with cancer in one of his eyes and had to have his eyeball removed. His parents were poor and couldn’t afford a glass eye, so they put an eye made of wood into the boys eye socket. The boy was very self conscious and often tried to cover his eye with his hand and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone .

The school dance was approaching, and the boys parents encouraged him to go, despite Jim being very self conscious about his eye. The boy was unsure,but with the urging of his parents, he reluctantly agreed to go to the dance.

Friday night came and the boys parents dropped him off at the gym, assuring him he’d be fine. The boy went into the gym, but immediately went to a corner, covering his eye with his head. The other kids were dancing,having a great time but he was just too self conscious to ask a girl to dance.

He looked across the gym and saw a girl sitting alone. As he gave her a closer look, he could see the girl had a hair lip. He thought to himself, “ she might dance with me since we both have a physical problem “. His heart was pounding as he gathered all his nerve, approaching the girl. He had his hand on his face half covering his eye, but pulled it away when he reached her and with all the courage he could muster ,he said in a soft, shaky voice , “ Would you like to dance?” The girl answered excitedly “ Would I! Would I !” The boy replied, “ Hair lip! Hair lip!”

What are some life threatening experiences?

Oh boy where do I start?

I decided to make a trip to the world famous Lake Tahoe Nevada for a party beach day. I live 30 minutes away. Get absolutely plastered.

Playing beer pong with a random group, my partner asks to wear my LV sunglasses. Me being drunk, hand them over. Ten minutes later I look over and he’s taking off with them.

My friend and I chase him. I’m stumbling barefoot at this point. My friend is sober doing all the work. We finally catch up.

The theifs friend pulls a pistol out of his backpack, cocks it and pulls the trigger pointed at my face. I hear a click. It jammed while he cocked it. If that gun didn’t jam, I’d be dead 100%.

We tell our group, they knew who it was. Now I have 5 dudes who you just don’t F with texting this guy about my shades. I’m an innocent nice guy but my friends are felons. This theifs life is on the line at this point. He ended up dumping them in the trash. I let it go for the sake of the theif.

But seriously, that pistol clicked in my face. I would’ve been gone. One of many many stories at Lake Tahoe.

It’s absolutely breath taking, don’t visit the popular beaches on holidays

Strip Steaks with Garlic-Ginger Baste

Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients

2/3 cup sweet and tangy steak sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced, peeled gingerroot or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 (10 ounce) boneless strip steaks

Instructions

Mix steak sauce, oil, ginger and garlic until well blended. Reserve 1/2 cup of the sauce mixture.
Brush both sides of steaks with remaining mixture.
Place on grill over medium coals.
Grill for 4 to 6 minutes on each side or until internal temperature reaches 140 to 150 degrees F for medium.
Serve with reserved sauce mixture.
Use your broiler: Brush steaks with sauce mixture as directed.
Place on rack of broiler pan. Broil 3 to 4 inches from heat for 6 to 8 minutes on each side or until internal temperature reaches 140 to 150 degrees F.
Serve with reserved sauce mixture.

What are some common wilderness survival tips that are actually more likely to get you killed than help you survive?

Question: What are some common wilderness survival tips that are actually more likely to get you killed than help you survive?

Some thoughts:

Rationing water – Your body is perfectly capable of rationing your water; it doesn’t need your “assistance”. If you have water, DRINK IT. As much as you can hold at one or until you have to urinate, whichever comes first. Then you either limit your movement or talking and find shade to prevent excessive sweating and water. You may get thirsty when you run out of water; however dead people are often found with full or nearly full bottles of water that they were going to “ration” until the heat or thirst overcame them and they died of dehydration.
Drinking urine – Several other answers have already mentioned this; but you can’t emphasize it enough. Urine contains waste that were flushed by water in your body. Drinking urine simply returns those wastes to your body and may make you vomit or worse, have diarrhea.. You’ll quickly become even more dehydrated and a deadly spiral will continue until you die. Don’t do it.
Eating berries or unknown mushrooms – JUST DON’T. Even if they are not poisonous, they can cause hallucinations or even diarrhea and you’ll be in worse shape. You might get hungry, but under normal conditions, you’ll be found or you’ll find someone within 72 hours and you’ll be rescued. This is why it’s always important to keep SOME food in your vehicle or in your camping gear.
Making a solar still – Too much effort and water loss (sweating) for too little gain. Don’t bother,

US Doctor Who Studied 5,000 Near-Death Experiences Says This About Afterlife

Why is China so obsessed with having ownership over Taiwan? If Taiwan doesn’t want to be a part of China, shouldn’T they just let them be their own people?

Well, you know, one in five koreans died during the Korean War before an armstice was signed.

Seven decades later, a peace treaty remains elusive, because the United States is a counterparty, and it pursues a “take no prisoners” strategy when it comes to communists, especially when they are not useful.

The exceptions today are Vietnam and China, for obvious reasons.

Now, taiwan as we find it today is an active remnant of the Chinese Civil War, which was fought on a scale way bigger than Korea.

Why active? Because the roc didn’t sign an armstice with the PRC. Technically, a state of war exists between the 2 governments, with 99.5% of humanity recognizing Beijing as China’s government, and the remaining 0.5% Taipei.

Every first world state, every big (population > 100m) state is part of the 99.5%, and they maintain embassies/consulates in Beijing, under the One China framework.

Just like the Koreas, it is the United States being the road block to peace.

The United States was embarrassed in korea after being fought to a standstill. That set into motion the unique position of Taipei, which once occupied the P5 China seat at the UN.

The interested reader is welcome to dig further.

In the 21st century, the Chinese people are seeking a conclusion to the Chinese Civil War, for peace and complete sovereignty to return as mandate in China.

What is it like to have an anti-aircraft missile chasing your aircraft?

Well, it certainly gets one’s attention, along with giving one a huge spike of adrenaline!!!!

Also to be “chased” by a missile is to be not in a good position, especially since some of them fly at Mach III+. You can’t outrun them, unless you are at the very edge of their range or envelope. Indeed it is better to have them coming in at you from the forward hemisphere where you can see them and better defeat them, rather than it coming from the rear and chasing you.

Fighter pilots like challenges, and an air-to-air or surface-to-air missile fired at you certainly qualifies! Before the fighter pilot ever flies in harm’s way, his intelligence officer will have briefed him on the enemy’s missiles, their capabilities, their ranges, their guidance, their tactics, and how to defeat them. Earlier the fighter pilot will have practiced defeating a variety of enemy missiles, so he is trained and ready.

Without getting into specifics, different missiles can be defeated by different aircraft maneuvers and by various tactics. Certainly dispersing flares will hamper a missile with IR guidance, as will electronic countermeasures (ECM) and metallic chaff, hamper a radar guided one. You concentrate on what you have learned in training, and methodically do your job against the incoming missile threat.

The well-trained pilot with adequate countermeasures stands a good chance against most missile threats. After a while, it almost becomes routine if you have seen many missiles, and lived to tell about it.

Anecdote: For high and fast-movers, the SA-7 Strella (MANPAD) is not much of a threat, being small, slow, and limited in range. The first time I ever saw one fired at me, I thought, “What the heck is that?” It looked like a wounded duck, spiraling up at us in a corkscrew fashion. My wingman and I were laughing at it over the radio as we flew out of its range. We had seen too many and more deadly SA-2 ‘telephone poles’ shot at us to be impressed by this little guy.

Seismograph Triggers ALERT from Iran “Earthquake”

Hal Turner World October 06, 2024

An unusual seismic event has taken place in Iran; so unusual that seismographs have “ALERTED” over this “event.”

“I hear what women think” | What Women Want | CLIP

Would I still have to pay for electricity when I get solar panels installed in my home?

We had solar panels installed in 2021. It took a long time to choose a company and we interviewed a number of companies. It was very expensive (almost$100K), but we wanted Solar Edge panels and Tesla back-up batteries, top of the line 25 year warranty on the panels, 10 years on the batteries. The federal tax credit was 26% in 2021 and North Carolina gave us a $4,000 rebate on the panels.

There is a connection fee in most states and an agreement with your electric company to either pay you for the excess energy you deliver to the “grid” or to hold your excess for future use. This monthly connection fee ranges (by state and by Power Provider) from $15 to $35 per month. In North Carolina, our fee with Duke Energy is $16 per month and they hold our excess kilowatt hours for times when we have very little sun, rain, storms, winter. Since we had the solar panels installed, we have not had a single month when we needed to buy power from the electric company…but we did have to cover the whole house, back and front. (The spaces are for roof vent pipes.)

Because of the age, style and design (Victorian) of our house we had monthly electric bills of $200 to $450. Now they’ve been around $16 for three years. When we have a big storm coming, Duke Power keeps our batteries charged and we’ve never been without power on our basic systems. If you can afford it, you should do it. The electric company gets its energy mostly from petroleum, natural gas and coal. Everything we can do to help preserve our natural resources, we probably should do. P.S. Our house was prettier without the panels!

Chinas Growing Military Power SHOCKS USA: War is Coming w/ Col. Zhou Bo

What don’t they tell you about dating an attractive man?

An acquaintance of mine lives two blocks away.

He’s almost 40, but he looks like he is a GQ model. It’s redonkulous.

You know those magazine ads, those fancy dark haired guys in the black and white pictures on the beach walking, with piercing eyes, and that just muscular-enough body that drives girls nuts?

That’s him.

I catch women looking at him at parties for extended periods of time.

He’s got a million dollar smile that sparkles. He’s funny and easy to talk to.

And he’s a maxillofacial surgeon.

Codename, smart, hot guy with money.

If this guy went after a girlfriend of mine, I’m not sure I’d blame her for writing her own hall pass.

And I have a secret for you about this guy.

It’s going to disappoint you fellas.

He’s an amazing father and husband.

He’s been with his wife since college, he is a devoted dad. His kids hang on him like monkeys.

His wife is always happy. They are good.

I’m a divorced guy. I know a bad marriage when I see it. They have one solid marriage.

He’s a humble, normal, friendly guy. Who woulda thunk.

This GQ looking man, who could have rocked the single life harder than Charlie Sheen has chosen a noble path.

And he’s proof that not all attractive men are dogs.

We Are Sorry for the Inconvenience

Submitted into Contest #232 in response to: Write a story set in a world with a dying sun, or where light is a scarce resource.… view prompt

Jeanne Savelle

This is what we tell the newborns. We apologize for the inconvenience. We don’t explain. We just tell them, hoping that one day they will understand.We had to go underground to survive. We were the hunted, relentlessly so. That was 40 years ago, and still, we remain out of the light of the life-giving sun. There will be no reprieve. Those who remained on the surface blotted out all joy.Those of us from before, the ones who remember the sun and the moon, most of them went insane. I was there at the beginning of our exile. I was 9 years old. Now I am the caretaker of the garden that feeds our people.Early on, life was unforgiving, and I learned to be brutal, with myself of course. I had to help my mother make it through, but she didn’t, succumbing to depression within the first year. We sent the dead down the underground river that emptied to the sea, somewhere so far from our existence, it has been forgotten.My name is Amy. It’s the name I gave myself. We all gave ourselves new names for our new lives. My comfort friend chose Danny. I think he chose it for someone he knew back from before, but he’ll never tell. And I won’t ask at risk of his banishment.Danny was the key to our long-term survival. It took many years, but Danny created a way to channel filaments of sunlight through the earth and into our garden. Undetectable on the surface, these filaments swam through rock and dirt like fireflies. They tiptoed on the crowns of the plants and moved into them like blood.Once a week, we each received a shot of the golden nectar. You would enter a chamber and pull a weighted mask over your eyes. For 10 minutes, pulses of sunlight streamed through your pupils, but you couldn’t see anything, you could only feel the sun enveloping you like butter. To me, it felt like breathing water, and I carried that precious energy with me to the garden.One day, I woke in the garden to a chorus of concerns, Danny shaking me. “What?” I said. “There has been an emergency. One of our filaments has been extinguished. We’ve been exposed.” I began to cry.I felt like I was falling through sand, farther and farther, toward the other side of the universe. Danny pulled me up and we headed to the joining center. The others were there. Danny pointed to the damaged filament on our community map. It was way too close to the garden. One filament out in the garden and we would starve.The old woman, Edregon, came up and placed her hand on the map. It buzzed and set us all mute. “I will go, I’m old but I can still be useful.” Struck dumb, we just nodded and she de-materialized.Many months went by and every few weeks another filament went out, but the garden held. We took smaller plants into the chamber to encourage faster growth, but the chamber couldn’t accommodate both human and plant. We knew time was contracting and without change, we’d soon be cold little balls rolling to the sea.“I’ll go to the surface,” Danny said. Three others gathered around him, hands fluttering over his head. They draped the Savory cloak over his shoulders, chanting in their sing-song-y way and then, Danny was gone.We slept in the dark, ate in the dark, cleaned and dressed in the dark. The garden light and the weekly 10-minute blast continued but difficult decisions lay ahead.Months later, the youngest began to fall ill. The elders held them in the light chamber, but the signal was too weak to nurture both. The frailest of each melted away. By the end of the current cycle, only 20 of us remained, 4 children and no elders. I believed that both Danny and Edregon were dead but kept that to myself.On the last day of our meager harvest, smoke began to fill the garden. Smoke or steam or breath, we couldn’t tell. It smelled of animal magic and was the color of river rocks. We gathered around the garden reaching out into nothing. One by one we sat down as if hypnotized. A low hum rose and suddenly a voice boomed out “Rise children, you have been avenged.”I looked around and saw nothing but the smoke which curled and twisted and reached the cave ceiling. Drops of sunlight appeared within the towering smoke and our spell was broken. We all stood.

“What are you?” I said.

“I am the life everlasting and the death everpresent.”

“Where are Danny and Edregon?”

“They are within. Their bravery took them far, but they had to find each other to save the world.”

“Did they,” I asked?

“Oh yes, dear one, they did. They came together like thunderclap and trombone. The explosion rippled over the land disintegrating the joyless ones where they stood. But it also took Danny and Edregon.”

Everyone exclaimed and clapped their hands and screamed and yelled. WE ARE SAVED!

“No,” the smoke said. “You must carry everyone to the chamber. First, put all the children in together. They must stay in for 12 hours. The filaments are not yet restored, and it will take time to nurture them back to life. Then, you must do the same for the rest, three at a time for 9 hours. Bit by bit you must restore your balance. Do not eat, or drink, or bathe or sleep until everyone has been in the chamber.”

“Is that all?”

“No, when everyone has been in the chamber, shut it down and go to sleep.”

With that, the smoke was gone, and we began the ritual. I would go last alone. When it was done, we went to our sleeping places.

I don’t know how long we slept but we woke up together, no, not together, but as one. I woke up but I was everyone. There was no body, no cave, no garden, but the smoke returned. And there was light. I felt as if we were the light of the world, of the heavens, of all of life.

The smoke swirled around and away, leaving one thought behind: We apologize for the inconvenience, but we trust you are happy with the result. No do-overs accepted.

How is the life of go-go bar girl in Thailand?

The life of a go-go dancer is somewhat regimented, and I would say not glamorous.

They have specific working hours and set dance schedules during those hours.

Most have a time clock to punch when the arrive and leave and they are docked when they do not arrive on time, or leave early.

Not sure how it is now but most have to pay for their own costumes – nothing is provided.

There is sometimes a base salary – but it will not be much and if they want to make money then they need customers to buy them drinks and or take them home. Every time they get a drink bought for them, you get a bill and they get a token that they can redeem for cash later. Not exactly sure how much cash they get from this, but in order to keep the $ flowing they need to constantly be drinking. Yes, they can drink pop or orange juice, but many do not as the alcohol helps them to relax so they can do the job.

If the bar has ping-pong balls then a customer can buy a bucket of them and throw them at the girls and they can chase them around and redeem the balls for 20 baht/ball. (about 60 cents US).

They usually wear a bikini when working and then, when not dancing onstage they go and sit with men who are drinking and are very happy to have a bikini clad lady sitting next to them.

Note: In the bars that cater to western men, they do not have to go and sit with men, nor do they have to go home with these men if they do not want to. However, if they do neither of these things then they will not make enough money to pay the rent/eat. They are encouraged to sit and talk as it is good for the bar and for the girl when people are drinking.

They need to be happy and smiley faced ambassadors for the bar in order to attract customers into the bar and then get them to buy drinks.

They do try to lay claim to customers if they can as the customer may well be their meal ticket, but they also have to sit by and watch if the customer decided he wants to try a different girl.

All in all I would say it is a difficult life, that can be lucrative as another poster has already stated, but certainly not a good life.

Do you believe that the deployment of the Typhon missile system in the Philippines is a strategic move to deter China’s actions in the South China Sea?

Deter, no. Threaten, yes.

The typhon is an offensive strike system with a range of ~2,000km.

It is not a defensive system.

Deployed in Luzon, it allows America to strike deep within the mainland.

In principle, this is no different from China deploying dongfeng missiles on Cuba to deter America in the gulf of Mexico.

The United States will never accept such an arrangement, because the dongfeng, just like the typhon, can be armed with nuclear warheads.

Missiles in Cuba render impotent the early warning and layers of defense afforded by installations in korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii.

Typhon in the Philippines upsets the strategic deterrent calculus. Its presence on Filipino soil will not be tolerated and may lead to fundamental damage to bilateral diplomacy, beginning with trade and a shift of military activity south of the bashi strait into the east Philippine sea between Luzon and Guam.

China can ratchet up the pressure many more notches, because it hasn’t activated any significant levers yet against bongbong’s administration.

Israeli Broadcasting Corporation: “Israel Response to Iran DELAYED . . . ” Or Genesis 34 Deception?

Hal Turner World October 06, 2024

As of Sunday evening in Israel, the IBC reports “Israel’s retaliation against Iran has been delayed due to uncertainty about the damage the attack would leave.” Right . . . . Not the strange earthquake in Iran that mimicked an underground nuke blast.

The report that Israel will delay its retaliation caused Iran to lift all airline flight restrictions and re-open all airspace. which it had closed in the western part of its country.

But . . . . is this a feint?

Did Israel put this out as “mis-information” so as to get Iran to lower its guard? All the way back in the Bible itself, there is a story of how “Israel” tricked – and then slaughtered.

Genesis 34

Dinah Is Raped

34 Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, went to visit some of the women who lived nearby. ²She was seen by Hamor’s son Shechem, the leader of the Hivites, and he grabbed her and raped her. ³But Shechem was attracted to Dinah, so he told her how much he loved her. ⁴Shechem even asked his father to arrange for him to marry her.

⁵Meanwhile, Jacob heard what had happened. But his sons were out in the fields with the cattle, so he did not do anything at the time. ⁶Hamor arrived at Jacob’s home ⁷just as Jacob’s sons were coming in from work. When they learned that their sister had been raped, they became furiously angry, because nothing is more disgraceful than rape, and it must not be tolerated.

⁸Hamor said to Jacob and his sons:

My son Shechem really loves Dinah. Please let him marry her. ⁹Why don’t you start letting your families marry into our families and ours marry into yours? ¹⁰You can share this land with us. Move freely about until you find the property you want; then buy it and settle down here.

¹¹Shechem added, “Do this favor for me, and I’ll give whatever you want. ¹²Ask anything, no matter how expensive. I’ll do anything, just let me marry Dinah.”

¹³Jacob’s sons wanted to get even with Shechem and his father because of what had happened to their sister. ¹⁴So they tricked them by saying:

You’re not circumcised!^[a] It would be a disgrace for us to let you marry Dinah now. ¹⁵But we will let you marry her, if you and the other men in your tribe agree to be circumcised. ¹⁶Then your families can marry into ours, and ours can marry into yours, and we can live together like one nation. ¹⁷But if you don’t agree to be circumcised, we’ll take Dinah and leave this place.

¹⁸Hamor and Shechem liked what was said. ¹⁹Shechem was the most respected person in his family, and he was so in love with Dinah that he hurried off to get everything done. ²⁰The two men met with the other leaders of their city and told them:

²¹These people really are friendly. Why not let them move freely about until they find the property they want? There’s enough land here for them and for us. Then our families can marry into theirs, and theirs can marry into ours.

²²We have to do only one thing before they will agree to stay here and become one nation with us. Our men will have to be circumcised just like theirs. ²³Just think! We’ll get their property, as well as their flocks and herds. All we have to do is to agree, and they will live here with us.

²⁴Every grown man followed this advice and got circumcised.

Dinah’s Brothers Take Revenge

²⁵Three days later the men who had been circumcised were still weak from pain. So Simeon and Levi,^[b] two of Dinah’s brothers, attacked with their swords and killed every man in the town, ²⁶including Hamor and Shechem. Then they took Dinah and left. ²⁷Jacob’s other sons came and took everything they wanted. All this was done because of the horrible thing that had happened to their sister. ²⁸They took sheep, goats, donkeys, and everything else that was in the town or the countryside. ²⁹After taking everything of value from the houses, they dragged away the wives and children of their victims.

³⁰Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “Look what you’ve done! Now I’m in real trouble with the Canaanites and Perizzites who live around here. There aren’t many of us, and if they attack, they’ll kill everyone in my household.”

³¹They answered, “Was it right to let our own sister be treated that way?”

(BIBLICAL CREDIT ABOVE TO BIBLEGATEWAY.COM)

Could the Israeli’s being doing this same thing all over again; only this time to the Iranians?

Only time will tell.

My Family And I Often Teased And Mocked My Husband. One Day, My Husband Stood Up And Fought Back

Absolute Silence from NATO Meeting

Hal Turner World October 12, 2024

Today’s NATO Meeting in Germany has an information-seal on it so tight, I cannot get even a HINT at what, if anything, was decided regarding Ukraine’s desire to use west-supplied long-range missiles to hit Russia.

Whatever took place at that NATO meeting is apparently a forbidden subject – NO ONE is talking.

Not a hint, not a parallel construction, not even a coy hypothetical story. Zip. Zero. Nada.

I can’t even find out *** IF *** anything was actually decided!

I will persevere . . .

Ret. Secret Service Guy with Podcast says Have Preps for 3 to 6 months survival!

Hal Turner World October 12, 2024

My entire audience knows of my work with the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Force, but many simply refuse to take my advice on “prepping.” For those who won’t listen to MY advice, here’s a retired Secret Service Guy telling you have 3 to 6 months “preps.”

For God’s sake, if you won’t listen to me, listen to him!

U.S. “Surges” THAAD Missile Defense to Israel

Hal Turner World October 12, 2024

The US has urgently deployed at least one Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) air defense battery in Israel.

The deployment of this $3 Billion system is to reinforce defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles.

This is another signal that Israeli action in Iran is expected to be very forceful and likely trigger Iranian response.

DENIED! U.S. Defense Officials are now Denying the Deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) System operated by U.S. Forces to Israel, despite reports from Israeli Media and Sources; however, they state a Deployment is being Considered.

BULLETIN: ISRAEL BEGINS INVASION OF . . . . SYRIA ! ! !

Hal Turner World October 12, 2024

1:47 PM EDT SATURDAY — Following Lebanon, Israel’s ground invasion of Syria has begun!

Israeli special forces have broken through the Syrian border from the Golan Heights towards the village of Qadana in armored vehicles.

The initial assault began about an hour and a half ago and has reportedly advanced at least 500 meters into Syrian territory.

This is a rapidly developing story, check back for updates. . . .

UPDATE 1:59 PM EDT —

The map below shows the area where the Israeli invasion is taking place:

Israeli troops backed by armor entered ~500 m into Syria in the S. Quneitra province. They seized an area West of Kudna, along the border fence with Golan, & bulldozed trees. No clashes with Syrian forces are reported, yet.

UPDATE 2:10 PM EDT —

The Israeli army declares several areas in the Upper and Western Galilee closed military zones.

SIMULTANEOUSLY, IN LEBANON –

The Israeli army is calling on residents of 23 towns in southern Lebanon to evacuate immediately.

MORE: “Israel must also force the UN to evacuate. (UN positions on map below.) “These useless forces have failed in their only mission – to stop Hezbollah’s activities south of the Litani River.”

UPDATE 3:24 PM EDT —

From IDF: Following a situational assessment, the areas of Zar’it, Shomera, Shtula, Netu’a, and Even Menachem in northern Israel will be declared a closed military zone as of 20:00 today (Saturday). Entry to this area is prohibited.

5:19 PM EDT —

Israel declares a state of alert in the occupied Golan Heights and asks the settlers to pay attention to the instructions of the home front

BE THAT GUY – Best Hopecore Motivational Compilation

You make a poultice

Here’s a post for you with cats and kitties.

One of the things that cat owners deal with is puss filled blisters from cat-fights. What happens is that a cats claw will tear into the skin and leave a mark. Sometimes the scratches get infected, and puss forms. The puss (more often than not) grows under the skin and forms a blister. The blister tends to get really big, and it is really painful for the cat. It is called a abscess. Many cat owners will take the cat to the vet if the have the means. The vet will then cut the blister, drain the puss, and put a lancet in the hold. This is two holes, and a string that is kept in place for a couple of days. But if you don’t have the money, or the time, there is a traditional easy way to drain the puss filled blisters. You make a poultice.

Crush up one or four cloves of garlic. Say about a tablespoon or two full.
Put it in a clean sock, so that it is at the bottom at the sock.
Then put the sock with the garlic in a pot and let it boil for a few minutes.
Then let it sit there for a while.
Then remove the sock and let it cool off until it is warm but not hot.

Then get the cat. Rap it in a blanket so it is a cat-burrito. Hold it with love and then softly place the WARM sock with the garlic on the abscess. After a few minutes, the cat will start to squirm. Just hold on tight. The medicine is working. It is causing the abscess to drain. Eventually, after 15 to 20 minutes, it will drain. The liquid would be a thick greyish color and rather yucky. Just clean it up with a tissue, and that’s about it. In a day or two everything will be back to normal. And that’s it. If you have a cat… I hope that this has been of help to you. And that is all for now. Today…

Americans!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0DiNp1one8k?feature=share

Will Boeing ever return to a time that their commercial aircraft was the gold standard of the airline industry?

I used to work helping large organizations to change the norms of behavior to do business more effectively, and I can tell you that … it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. It’s made even harder because the only way to do it effectively is if management is UTTERLY committed to it and gives it the day-to-day, year-after-year attention it takes to make it happen. That’s bloody rare. Usually, any commitment is just a thin patina over more deeply held and conflicting values that make such large scale change impossible.

So, WILL Boeing ever return to a time that they were the gold standard? I have doubts, but let’s just explore how that might happen.

I have not been inside doing research into Boeing’s inner workings, so I have no particular knowledge of what Boeing needs to do, but let me just throw out some things that I’ve seen over and over and over again that are LIKELY things Boeing needs to do.

It’s clear from Boeing’s divestment of its vertical manufacturing assets over the years that management and the Board have bought into the idea that return on net assets (RONA), return on capital employed (ROCE), and economic value added (EVA) are the most important measurements of success. This approach has made Boeing dependent on quality assurance processes outside their direct control with terrible results. Boeing just announced the re-acquisition of a key vendor in what is clearly an attempt to bring at least some vertical manufacturing back. So that’s a positive.
From external reports, it seems clear that Boeing’s formal (and VERY likely informal) internal reward/punishment system focuses on meeting production goals. When quality is not a strong enough factor in being rewarded and avoiding punishment, you can be absolutely certain that managers at all levels will cut corners on quality in order to meet production goals. Boeing has to fix this, and fix it now. That will require both formal reworking of performance management and incentive pay design and a constant message that producing zero defects will enhance careers (and also making this true).
What Boeing really needs to do is to focus on this culture shift from production to quality right away, making the point to investors and customers that getting the quality issue right will lead to higher production. And it will, of course. Boeing has been mired in production difficulties stemming from supply chain disruption, ill-fitting parts, poorly made assemblies, and the like since they distributed their manufacturing to outside vendors. But this is not what will happen.I’ve been through this. What management will say is something like, “We have to become 100% focused on quality WHILE improving production,” followed up by something like, “We have to fix the bicycle while we’re riding it.” The result will be a mess of conflicting messages and reward and punishment structures. Employees and managers will quickly figure out which messages are BS and which are real, and the production side is likely to win out as the “real” message.
The decision to use the 737 airframe over and over in new variants to meet market demand in that segment is not working out well. Boeing needs a new aircraft, and there are serious questions about whether it is up to the job of producing a successful one. That’s an engineering issue, and there are serious doubts about whether senior management is up to the task.

So … can they? Sure. It’s possible. WILL they? I doubt it. It’s very hard to make this kind of change, and they really just may not have the management talent to pull it off.

What is your best experience with a babysitter as a child?

My Mom had a baby like every two years. So, it was pretty common for us to have a babysitter during the day when she was in the hospital.

We were a houseful of boys, so we went through babysitters like water. One of our most faithful babysitters was graduating high school, so she would not be available for much longer. Fortunately, she had two younger sisters, and the older of the two decided to sit for us.

Well, like I said, we were a bunch of boys, and our cousins who also lived on the farm were a bunch of boys as well. One of them was my best friend, and we were constantly finding ways to get in trouble.

As the years went by it finally came down to the youngest sitter to sit for us. Unfortunately, she was rather nervous about it after hearing stories from her older sisters about these country boys and their shenanigans.

When we heard that the she was going to be the new girl we thought we’d give her the good ole country boys welcome!

We used red food coloring to taint the water in our water guns. Then we put on white t-shirts.

When we heard Barbie (that was her real name) in the kitchen we began to yell at each other. No AC in the house, so the screen windows and doors allowed all the outside noises in.

She came to the kitchen window and asked what all the fussing was about. We made up some stupid story about how my cousin did me wrong, and I was going to shoot him.

She told us to behave and be quiet, but we would have none of it.

When I saw her looking at us I raised my water gun and yelled “Pow! Suddenly, my cousin’s shirt starting sporting a giant red mark. Another Pow and another shot to his chest.

We heard Barbie scream, but she screamed louder when my cousin shot me! We both fell down in the yard, and she went ballistic.

I’m not sure what happened after that, but my father came home in the middle of the day.

That was the first and last time that Barbie sat for us.

After that we had an old black woman who wasn’t nearly as excitable. But her fried chicken tamed us all.

When a Killer Vlogs His Murders

https://youtu.be/-vorUEpbHNU

Why can’t I find a single photo of the actual deaths as a result of Mao’s ‘great leap forward policy’, the greatest mass killing in history?

First off, kudos on asking this question. It seems as if, perhaps, you are beginning to think. I mean, if the numbers some report are accurate, then there must be physical evidence of it, right? But I’ll get to that aspect of it later. Before that, I should point out that strictly speaking, the Great Leap Forward didn’t result in any deaths (or at least any numbers of note. I’m sure that there were some mundane accidents, but not an anomalous amount). It was, however, a contributing factor in making the Great Chinese Famine worse than it could’ve been. This famine is what (usually anti-Chinese) people point to when they make their claims about the Great Leap Forward. But there were a few reasons why this occurred. In short, it was a mixture of mistakes on the national level, mistakes on the local level, environmental problems, and international political problems.

National level

The biggest mistake on the national level comes from a policy which was meant to eradicate endemic problems. There were four animals that were targeted as pests – rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. Some of these, like mosquitoes, are pretty obvious. Other ones, like sparrows, were not, but since they were known to eat crops, they were targeted. It later was realized that sparrows also kept in check the population of other, more dangerous (but less common) pests, like locusts. You see, locusts are a strange creature. They really don’t normally exist. Instead, usually they are grasshoppers, but when there is a large population of grasshoppers, they change themselves into the swarming variation, which we know as locusts. Since, besides crops, sparrows ate grasshoppers, and the population of sparrows was greatly diminished, it meant that the population of grasshoppers grew. Once it reached a large enough threshold, they morphed into locusts and devastated crops much more than sparrows ever could.

Environmental level

Yeah, I know, I have local mistakes listed before this, but in order for you to understand things more, it’s important that this goes here. Right as the Great Leap Forward began, in 1958, the Yellow River flooded. Nearly 2000 farming villages had to be evacuated. The end result was that the farmland was devastated in that region, and was unworkable that year. That already put the food reserves down from where they should’ve been. Because of the flooding, over the next few years, labor was moved from agriculture to building new dams, reservoirs, irrigation canals, etc. in order to help control the water. But again, this meant fewer workers in the fields, putting a strain on the system once again. Then, in 1960, China was hit with a drought. Now, it wasn’t the worst drought ever, but it was considerable, especially considering the aforementioned waterworks weren’t ready yet. This, again, therefore, resulted in crop failures.

Local level

Throughout 1958, a system of farming communes was implemented, and initially, the system was showing an increase in crop production. Local leaders were pleased by this, and based their production quotas on the belief that this was only the beginning. However, due to the above mentioned problems (i.e. the killing of sparrows and the weather extremes), the amount of crops grown kept shrinking. Many of the local leaders in charge of the communes tried to hide this fact – they didn’t want to admit either their mistake or the failure of the system. Instead, they pretended that everything was great, and they even falsely reported a continual increase in the amount of crops grown. Due to the local leaders being unwilling to communicate the problems, the national government didn’t initially know about it, and therefore did nothing. Food was taken away from the communes as if things were fine, but it actually resulted in the farmers who grew the food starving.

International level

Now, for starters here, we’ve got to go back around 20 or so years prior to the Great Leap Forward. During the war with Japan, as the Japanese advanced, the dictator of the Republic of China (the Chinese Civil War was still ongoing, but was put on hold around this time) ordered the destruction of infrastructure throughout China, including dams and canals, in order to slow down the advances of the Japanese troops. When the Chinese Civil War ended, and the ROC lost, the newly-founded PRC was practically bankrupt – the dictator of the ROC emptied the national treasury and looted museums before fleeing to the recently returned island of Taiwan. Work rebuilding what had been destroyed had to be prioritized, which is one of the reasons why the flooding of the Yellow River was so devastating – they hadn’t gotten around to rebuilding the waterworks yet.

But as for the period of the Great Chinese Famine in general, as knowledge of the situation finally reached the national level, it was too late for them to turn around and fix it themselves. People were already starving, which created a vicious cycle (starving people became weaker, which meant less output, which meant less food, which meant more starving). But by this time, in large part thanks to the Great Leap Forward, the industrial production side of the economy was stronger than it had ever been. They could trade with the rest of the world… except for one small problem. At that time, the United Nations still recognized the ROC as the government of China (it didn’t change until 1971, when the UN General Assembly voted on making the PRC the official government of China). As such, nations like the United States embargoed trade, meaning that it was basically impossible to import any food to alleviate the problem.

Now you know what happened and why, but how does that relate to your question? Well, right at the beginning, I mentioned how you were asking the right question. This is because it’s very important to understand the numbers reported. By looking at actual historical documents and other evidence, the numbers reported in China are between 3–6 million deaths. Now, I’m sure that you’d be shocked by that number – not because of how many died, but because of how few died. This is because in the West, the high numbers they report (I’ve personally seen people claim 50 million, 60 million, and 80 million deaths – the number always changes) are not actually deaths. You see, the number that they give are based on the birthrate. During the time of the Great Chinese Famine, birthrates dropped. They then look at this drop in birthrate and attribute non-births as deaths. Their argument being that if there were no famine, then these children would’ve been born. Therefore, their not being born means that they died. It honestly doesn’t make any sense. It’s like claiming that every time a man pleasures himself, he murders, on average, between 80 million and 300 million children (since that’s the average number of “lil’ swimmers” in a man’s “load”). But by claiming these high numbers, they can then turn around and claim that China is this big, bad, evil thing. And that’s the crux of the problem. The reason why you can’t find any photos of 50+ million deaths is because they literally weren’t there.

And for the record, isn’t it fascinating that people get hung up on this while completely ignoring the famines in British-controlled India that were directly caused by British policies? Around the same number of people died in what is now Bangladesh in 1943 due to the British essentially stealing the food from the local people. But, of course, you’ll never hear about that, since it makes a Western nation look bad.

Be the Rufus

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x22TXKt6rys?feature=share

What was the cruellest secret that anybody ever kept from you?

Nobody told me that my dad was dead. Here’s the deal, I was born out of wedlock to an interracial couple in the early 80s in (super white) Oregon. I’m my mother’s only child, my dad has 2 older boys.

He was a truck driver originally from Oklahoma, his route frequently took him to the West Coast, at some point in 1978 or 1979 he meets my mom and they strike up a relationship.

So a couple years down the road, they decide it’s time for a baby. They apparently already had a pregnancy earlier on, but ultimately decided to terminate it for whatever reason.

My mom was very adamant that although she never wanted kids (which is a whole separate topic entirely!) but she saw how great my dad was with kids and how much kids seemed to just naturally take to him, that she wanted that man’s baby! So due to his occupation, my dad was frequently in and out of the picture.

The relationship between them was very on and off (which I suspect the fact that my mom is gay played a factor.) anyways,

I’m born in August of 1982, named after my dad (middle name is “Dawn” and my dad’s first name is “Don”). For the next few months my parents really tried to make it work.

My mom was growing extra annoyed with my dad for what she perceived as lazy, he had stopped driving truck, had started smoking an increasingly large amount of marijuana, it just wasn’t working out for either one of them.

Apparently they split amicably and so when my dad told my mom that he needed to go back home because he just got the news that someone in his family had just gotten very sick, my mom thought nothing of it.

Then pretty soon the numbers he gave my mom to reach him in Oklahoma stopped working. The days, weeks, months go by…. nothing. My mom realized he wasn’t coming back and she was right. Now that I’m a mother, I can only imagine how that must have felt. To add insult to injury, I grew up to be the female version of my father, both physically and otherwise.

I’m told I walk and stand like him even. Same sense of humor, same musical abilities, similar personality… basically an everyday reminder of the child my mom was left to raise alone. Growing up I was told that my dad walked out on us, he was a deadbeat, this and that, in the same breath told that I’m exactly like him…which is very confusing to an already confused little girl.

So fast forward 30+ years, I reach out and find my dad’s family. The first call was from an aunt, my dad’s sister.

I see her Facebook profile and immediately notice the resemblance between myself and her, her daughter, and granddaughter!

She tells me “how pretty I am” lol, I laugh cause I look just like her! She tells me that they all knew about me.

My dad brought back so many pictures of me as a baby and had his entire room decorated with them. I asked when I would be able to talk to him, she got real quiet… she said that their brother would call me…ok…my uncle calls me next. Informs me that my dad had passed shortly after leaving Oregon the last time he saw me. He had been diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer sometime during my mom’s pregnancy and didn’t know how to tell her….so he just didn’t.

I was led to believe that my dad was a deadbeat who didn’t want me. In reality, I’m told that he literally died while looking at my baby picture on his wall. Later on I would come to know some caviats that at least give me some insight as to why no one felt it was necessary to notify my mom that he died.

My uncle told me that my dad specifically asked him to make sure I wasn’t around his family, he wanted me to be raised in Oregon by my mom and her family.

A cousin and I talked and she told me that sexual abuse is almost everywhere you look in our family, however when my dad was around, you knew you were safe!

He was 6ft 5 and wasn’t up for reasoning with anyone who hurts kids…that makes me proud! An uncle backed up this with telling me that my dad didn’t want me around any of his family if he wasn’t around to protect me, his only daughter.

I get that, but growing up feeling unwanted and unloved is not easy trauma to heal from either.

How a Small Town Took Out the Town Bully And Covered It Up for 30 Years

What do Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans think of each other?

This is the personal opinion of one Japanese person.

South Koreans:

They will help even strangers when they are in trouble.
Once you become friends with them, they treat you like family.
They will treat you with respect if you are older than them.
They often give gifts.
They are studious.
They are better at English than Japanese.
They are taller than Japanese.
They have a high sense of beauty.
They have a unique culture.
Korean idols are good at singing and dancing.
They make a lot of interesting movies and dramas.
Their GDP per capita is higher than Japan’s.
They are hasty, but they are often late for appointments.

North Koreans:

It is believed that there are many North Korean operatives in Japan.
North Korea once broadcast random numbers in the middle of the night, which we thought it was a code for spies. The North Korean female announcer kept repeating a code-like phrase over and over, which felt creepy to me when I heard it for the first time.
There was a rumor that if Japanese went to the sea at night, they would be abducted by North Korea. In fact, in 2002, North Korea admitted to abductions.

Chinese:

They are cheerful and have a sense of humor.
They are kind.
They are cheerful and have a sense of humor.
They are kind.
For better or worse, they are honest.
Many Chinese people in Japan are good at Japanese.
They are very proactive. I can see them even in where Japanese people rarely come.
They give their seats to elderly people on the train.
We both use kanji (Chinese Character), so even though they are foreigners, I feel a sense of closeness.
They value their families.
They have ancient Chinese saints that Japanese people respect.
They have a rich food culture. Yes, we love Chinese food.
They are far more advanced than Japan in the IT field.
The factory of the world. Most of the products around us are MADE IN CHINA.
They are good at sports.
They don’t apologize easily compared to Japanese people.

The Moment Cops Find the Man Offering Kids Candy to Get into His Truck

How do you feel when you see China go from the sick man of East Asia to a world power? I’m not hostile. I’m just asking?

The term “sick man” describing China as being ill and weak actually first came from British writers in the 19th century.

The term “sick man” being applied to China first appeared in the Daily News on 5 Jan 1863. The Daily News, started by Charles Dickens, was a national daily newspaper of Great Britain in those days.

At the time, China was undergoing a large scale civil war known as the Taiping Rebellion, which was started by a Hakka person by the name of Hong Xiuquan. He claimed to be the incarnated brother of Jesus Christ who had the heaven’s mandate to rule China. The Daily News was reporting on the ongoing civil war:

“Great pains have been taken to impress upon the public of this country the idea that China is in “agony,” but that cannot be truly said of it as a whole, and there seems some danger that the disorder of this sick man is about to be aggravated rather than alleviated.”

Two days later, the article was reprinted on Belfast Morning News under the title “The Supposed ‘Sick Man’ in China.”

So, it was the British newspapers who first described China as a “sick man”. In those days, the British must have felt they were superior after they defeated China twice in the two Opium Wars, looting many of the war booties from Chinese imperial palaces. Of course, the largest booty taken from China was Hong Kong.

Karma seems to have returned in one big circle. As China ascends to soon become the #1 economy of the world, British economy is sinking further after she was mismanaged by a number of Tory governments and most importantly, after Brexit.

At the current trajectory, it won’t be surprised to see Great Britain no longer become great but “aggravated rather than alleviated.” UK may just become a “sick man of Europe”.

Historian Warns the American Civil War of 2024 Has Already Started

What did the job interviewer say that made you NOT accept the job offer?

I’ve been in sales for roughly the last 20 years, and managing a team for the last 3. About 6 months ago I sent out some resumes to see what my current market value is, and to take on a new challenge. I saw an ad on LinkedIn, the job seemed perfect for me, the description was one that I would have written for myself if someone asked me what my next career challenge.

About 2 days after I sent my resume I got a call from their in house recruiter, a brief phone conversation and mutually agreed to move forward with a phone interview with the guy who would be my boss. I get an email shortly after my phone call with days/times available and we pick a time for a 2nd phone interview. He and I hit it off well, talked for 30 minutes or so, great dialog, call going great. He explains at teh beginning that he has a “hard stop” in 30 minutes. We get close to the 30 minute mark, he says, if I’m still interested, that next week he and his boss can fly into my area, or they’ll fly me out to them for a face to face.

They were going to be in NY the following week for a client meeting so it was decided that we’d meet while they were in the city, I’d work that area for the day and we’d grab lunch… all good.

We meet for lunch at a great restaurant, sit, good conversation, going well and I. WANT. THIS. JOB. Their Sr. VP of sales (he would be my boss’s boss) says they’ve made a decision, they flew up wanted to make sure that I present well in person before making an offer. They slide an offer letter across the table and we continue to talk about the job. I ask my favorite interview question

“Why did the person I’d be replacing leave this position?”

There’s plenty of good answers to this question, but I wasn’t ready for the answer that came from the Sr VP of sales. “Bob was very good at his job, he was with us 4 years, the last 2 he was salesman of the year, wrote 20–25% increases when the rest of the company was averaging 12%. He made great money, won the company trip. We decided to increase his budget to a 30% increase, he didn’t hit his numbers so we mutually agreed to cut our work relationship.”

I asked some follow up questions: “what was the rest of the team budget increases?” around 8% was the answer. “what was he trending?” about 22%. If he was writing 22% increase this year, and wrote more than 2.5X the average salesrep, why would you want to let him go, and why was the choice mutual?”

“Well his job is to hit budget, he wasn’t doing his job if he was only 22%. And because he was making less this year than last, he was complaining about his income being so much lower than the previous 4 years, we agreed he should find another job”

I had a brief follow up question: “If over the last 4 years he increased his/your business by over 100%, why would he make less money than in previous years?”

“Our commission structure is based on percent of budget, not on sales dollars, or sales increase”

My final question was, “so l want to make sure I understand, if I CRUSH this year, end up doubling my business, the following year you can budget me a 100% increase and if I only write a 75% increase, I’ll make less money, despite the huge increase again? and about how much less?” The answer was that it was a mathematical formula, and it would have been roughly 1/2 of previous year.

I thanked them for lunch, told them that’s not a program I would want to be on. I never opened their offer letter and have no idea what they offering. I just knew that it wasn’t the place for me. They knowingly wrote a budget the guy likely wouldn’t hit so they could decrease his pay.

NOPE NOT ME… I want every salesperson on my team to make as much as possible. The more they sell, the more they make. The more they make, the more I make, and the more the owner of our company makes

Men Are Turning Their Back On The West As It Collapses

Does China have a 24-hour uninterrupted power supply throughout the year?

In Urban China – Yes

Every Apartment has a Battery System and since most power cuts are between 30 seconds to 2 minutes due to distribution change (As Demand rises and eases through the day) – the Average Chinese doesn’t ever feel there are power cuts

Every Apartment nowadays has a backup battery system that immediately comes on when the power goes and within 1–2 minutes the power is back

Otherwise if the Apartments are older (Built Pre 2007), then they have a Generator and after 45 seconds to 90 seconds, the Generator is automatically powered on

So maximum you may have 1 – 1 1/2 minutes without power

The Lift will drop you on the next floor even without power (If you are between the 6th and 7th floors, it will go to the seventh floor and drop you and then stop there till either power comes back or Generator is on)

Longer power cuts happen due to (a) Weather related reasons

In such cases a Generator can run for upto 24–48 hours

You also have a six month maintenance for 8 hours without power

Yet again Generator and Battery makes sure that Power cuts are rarely even felt

Rural China is different

Rural China has a 92.2% Rural Electrification Rate meaning even today (31/12/23) , 7.8% Rural Households don’t have electricity (Mostly Xizang)

Priority is for Industry, so many times power cuts happen for even 1 Hour Or 2 Hours

Plus without a Coal supply, Power cuts could happen for 8–12 hours also

The Solothurn 20mm Anti-Tank Rifle

Mexi-Chili Casserole

Ingredients

1 to 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 (16 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can enchilada sauce
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 (6 ounce) package corn chips
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 to 1 1/2 cups sour cream

Instructions

In a skillet brown the ground beef. Drain off fat.
Combine beans, enchilada and tomato sauces in a bowl with minced onion.
Set aside 1 cup corn chips and 1/2 cup cheese.
Add the remaining cheese and corn chips with the meat to the beans. Stir to blend.
Empty into a lightly buttered 2 quart casserole.
Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until heated through.
Spread the top with sour cream and sprinkle with the reserved cheese.
Ring the remaining corn chips around the edge; return to the oven for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese melts.

Notes

This will double or triple easily for a large group. May be made ahead and refrigerated.

Question: China’s proven history does not exceed 3,700 years. Why does China state that their history exceeds 5,000 years?

Answer:

Nowadays the proof is actually quite simple, because they did dig up proof that China’s proven history exceed 5000 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liangzhu_culture

Of course, they know that previously as well. Duh, by the time oracle bones (where the 3700 years comment comes from) are around, the Chinese culture were a full-fledged feudal level civilization complete with culture custom and technology in all fields.

So unless you think aliens made the Chinese and skipped from stone/early bronze age straight to late bronze age/early iron age, then it is safe to assume the Chinese, like everyone else, spent considerable amount of time in those early age before advancing to the point where they found the oracle bones.

The fact they picked perishable material for record is a shame and made the later archeological work harder, but even very basic and simple logic should be able to tell you that fully developed civilization doesn’t just pop out of thin air and the previous archeologists are certainly capable of simple logic.

Edit (2023–06–06):

Apparently in the recent times they have dug out a lot more from the Liangzhu Ruins:

main qimg 34269a19f2f406943f466d9f53001f55

Note, the picture below is a re-creation based on the existing excavation results:

main qimg 9c8dd282fa5375a1e4f548bfaaf4a3ee

It turned out the ancient Chinese has been building things on par or even bigger than the great pyramids, but instead of tombs, these things are in the form of fortified city walls, water dams, etc. Certainly less mysterious than the pyramids since it doesn’t involve the dead, but actually a lot more challenging engineering-wise.

And yes, they started to dug up things with marks now:

main qimg b49447750ecae616abede9c184a032f3

One of the major mystery right now is this:

“What on earth were they fighting to require city walls of that size”? Because the Liangzhu walls were on par with something you’d see in great civilizations in 5th century BC instead 30th century BC.

The popular opinion right now is, well, the the Chinese ancestor were very very into human sacrifice. Specifically, prior to Zhou dynasty’s religious reforms in around 1000BC, the Chinese used to perform human sacrifice to such a scale that made Aztecs look like pacifists. This is mostly owning to the fact that there were a lot more people in East Asia back then than central Americas during Aztec’s time, but still.

So it is a high possibility that the ancient Chinese, when they war with each other, the loser would have an excellent chance of ending up on a sacrificial altar rather than being enslaved. So they are really afraid of losing.

Does the USA have a stronger army than the whole world combined?

Hell, no.

The USA isn’t even strong enough to take on Russia. Otherwise, it would put boots on the ground in Ukraine.

Remember, the USA had no qualms about fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but against Russia, it is reluctant.

China’s military is larger than the USA’s. The largest army (over 2 million). The largest navy (over 370 warships). A vast rocket force (including hypersonic) and a large fleet of stealth fighters (J-20). The USA would be foolish to take on China.

Combine Russia’s army and China’s army and Iran’s army (which is formidable), and the USA is easily outclassed.

The Oubliette: A Medieval Torture of Unspeakable Horror…

As a Chinese, did you become anti CPC, pro-democratic, and USA fan after accessing websites and social media platforms which are blocked in China?

No, and in fact, it’s the opposite.

I WAS an anti-CPC, pro-democratic and USA fan before I got access to the banned social media. It’s an universal rule that banned things are more appealing to people. U.S was like a heaven and I am living in hell.

But things change when I got a Facebook account, and I saw queations like:

Why don’t people in China brush their teeth?

Does China have highways?

I suddenly realized that foreigners, they are NOT Gods. Yes, they’ve had amazing persons, but they have fools too. There’s no such places of absolute heaven on earth.

I got so fed up of all the bias and racism on the Internet

I got so fed up of these losers blaming their own economy failure on my country.

I got so upset about people constantly asking me if my dog is safe.

I got so fed up of people denying everything you said just with the single reason of Chinese propaganda.

I’m brain washed and I know. Many of you didn’t realized that they are brain washed in some ways, and this is much much more dangerous than pure propaganda.

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

When I was the receptionist for a corporate office, there was always a bit of confusion as to who was supposed to relieve me when I went to lunch. The duty was shared around the office (often without the knowledge of the department that was suddenly saddled with answering the phones), but since the general rule in the office was that we only did warm transfers, that meant there had to be a person on the line to actually complete the transfer.

One day, we got a new GM and a new assistant to the GM, and after the question came up again between myself and the GM, the assistant inserted herself into the conversation to say that the phones should just be turned off when I went to lunch. After all, anyone who was affiliated with the company would know how to use the company directory to reach any office employee that they wanted to find, and anyone else would know to leave a message.

I tried to explain that this was not a good idea. I did not go to lunch at regular times, so on some days, the phones might be off from 11 to 12 and other days they might be off from 1 to 2 with no explanation. Also, it was not even remotely reliable to expect that other departments would answer the phones, even if they were called directly at their desk. Certain people in the office were well known for ignoring phone calls if they didn’t care to answer. But the assistant, who did not want to be put in the position to possibly answer the phones, remained insistent, and the GM decided that would be fine. Turn the phones off when you go to lunch, April.

So sure enough, one day when the GM was out of town, he called back into the office and couldn’t get anyone on the phone for a solid hour. When I got back from my lunch break, I had a very terse email to call him. I did.

Him: ”Why aren’t you answering the phones?“

Me: “I was at lunch.”

Him: ”Well, where’s [my assistant]?”

Me: ”Not sure, sir, I don’t see her at her desk at the moment, she might be walking around or she might also be at lunch.”

Him: ”Okay, but what about accounting? I called every one of their desks and none of them answered. Are they also all at lunch?”

Me: ”No, they’re all back there. Remember when I told you that if they’re in the middle of something, they don’t answer their phones, even if you called them directly?”

Him: (tangibly frustrated now) “So if you’re at lunch, NOBODY answers the phone at all?”

Me: ”Nope. Remember when your assistant said that it would be perfectly okay to turn the phones off for an hour? This is literally what happens if I’m not answering phones; nobody else bothers.”

There was silence. Then “Alright, I’ll handle it when I get back.”

He did. The phones stayed on while I went to lunch after that. And that assistant (after taking a shift on phones one day and coming away with a traumatized expression after one hour) began to keep her opinions to herself.

… sometimes.

2 men indicted for destruction on ancient Lake Mead rock formation

Why does it seem like no one wants to work these days?

Short answer,

Intergenerational Mobility

There is one famous quote from John Adams

[1]

I must study politics and war,

so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture,

so that their children can study painting, poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, tapestry and porcelain.

Notice the shift from ‘must’ to ‘may have’ to ‘can’.

This increase in the liberty to choose what you want to do with generations is known as intergenerational mobility.

For one generation, work is a need. They have no luxury to choose. Whether it is 16 hours or 18 hours, whether they like it or not, whether they are healthy or not, they have to work because their whole family depends on their income. They are like manual labourers in a company.

For the next generation, work is a want. They have the limited luxury of choosing where to work, what kind of job they want and how many hours they want to work. They have vacations, investments, insurance and relaxed evenings. They are like managers in the same company.

For the next, next generation, work becomes a passion and a desire. They are in the elite class. They have all the liberty to choose what they want to do, study what they like and switch their passions. They have the resources to do all the outsourcing and the privilege to use their mind more than their body. They are the business owners or angel investors.

So as you move forward with decades, you encounter more people coming out of poverty and climbing the ladder. Either because of technology development or their accumulated wealth, they don’t have to work as hard as their previous generation and do things which they really, really like. They get the luxury to choose their fights or whether to fight or not.

Best Advice

Borealis

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

Tzetze Fly

The hatch of the Aurora groaned open, its edges scraping against the jagged terrain. Astrid’s boots thudded onto the alien soil, sending up a puff of purple dust. Miles followed slowly, his eyes flicking around their surroundings.”Stable ground,” Astrid announced, her voice echoing slightly within the confines of her helmet. “Finally, after nineteen months! Atmosphere and temperature readings all within normal range. This planet might really be it.””Could be warmer,” said Miles.Astrid laughed, drinking in the silent panorama of undulating purple hills under a sky dotted with three tiny suns. She retracted her helmet and took a deep breath, the crisp air catching pleasurably in her throat.“This deserves a toast,” she said, swinging her loaded backpack onto the ground. It landed with a clang and Miles frowned.“Careful with that, Captain.”“Don’t worry, Miles. The embryos are safe in here.” She pulled out a slim platinum canister, perfectly smooth and cool, and waved it gently at him. “Ten thousand don’t take up much space, so ninety-nine percent of this is high-tech, triple-layered, thirty-first century bubble wrap filled with cryogel. It would survive a bomb blast, they actually tested for that.”“I know. Can’t help it.” Astrid’s voice softened. “This is the batch that contains two of yours. Of course you want the best for them. I never asked before, but did you give them names?” “Yes,” said Miles. “Exactly the same names. James Cadenius Eden and Isabel Zyla Eden.” “Did the cloning lab give you the extrapolative photos?” “Yeah, they’re pretty good. Close enough.” He looked into the distance. “Hopefully this planet is different enough.” “I checked – it has zero history and undetectable probabilities of level-seven tectonic tsunamis.” “Thanks, Cap. How about that toast?” Astrid rummaged for her thermos, a battered thing of daffodil yellow, with pill-shaped figures dancing around the rim. Some of them were wearing denim pinafores. “What the hell are those things, Cap?” “They’re called Minions,” Astrid said, smiling. “From a truly ancient movie, I can’t even remember what it was called. But they’re mad and bloody cute, and there’s some really good single malt inside. To James Cadenius and Isabel Zyla Eden.” Suddenly there was a buzzing sound. Miles put down his cup and dropped into a protective crouch, gun already in hand. Astrid stuffed her thermos into her backpack and put a hand on the laser knife at her utility belt. “Protect the embryos,” Miles hissed. Out of nowhere, a shadow eclipsed the triple suns above them, casting a dark veil over the landscape. A massive figure hurtled towards them, crashing into the ground with a thunderous impact that reverberated through their boots. Astrid’s hazel eyes widened in shock at the creature before her – a hulking mass of sinew and muscle, covered in vomit-green skin and brown bristles. Its grotesque features were contorted in a fearsome snarl, revealing rows of jagged teeth. Astrid and Miles ran, but the creature unleashed a weapon unlike anything they had ever seen. From its massive fist shot a glowing orb that pulsated with an ominous energy. Before they could react, the orb shot towards them with blinding speed, lengthening out into whipcords made of pure light that wrapped tightly all around them. Astrid and Miles strained against the luminous bonds, but the more they struggled, the tighter they were bound. “Who are you? What do you want?” Astrid gasped. To her surprise, the creature actually spoke. “I, Xoragzhar of Takuun,” it said. “You have Origin. Give me.” “The origin? Of what?” “He can’t mean the embryos, can he?” Miles whispered. Xoragzhar heard and stepped closer, nodding. “Origin. Of N’uru. Give me now.” Astrid studied Xoragzhar’s face, a twisted visage with a bulbous nose, deep-set yellow eyes, and a wide mouth lined with teeth like broken tombstones. His breath came out in raspy huffs, fogging the air between them. Jagged, frantic, raspy huffs. She looked at the meaty stubbled hands. They were shaking. Why? “We can’t give you what you seek,” Astrid replied in a firm and deliberate voice. “We are on a mission. We need to find a home for the last of our species. They are not yours to take.” She felt Miles flick a gaze at her. Then he said in a conversational tone, “How did you know about them? What are they the origin of?” Well done, Miles, thought Astrid. Keep stalling. She inched her fingers toward her utility belt, feeling for the hilt of her knife. Xoragzhar stamped on the ground. “No time!” he roared. “Give me now!” He shook a hairy fist and the glowing whipcord tightened even more. Astrid’s hand shot out from behind her, blazing orange from her laser knife. She slashed wildly. The crackling bonds fell away, dissipating into shimmering motes of energy. She heard Miles land on his feet and shouted, “Run!” They sprinted across the rugged terrain, the alien landscape blurring into streaks of color. Astrid’s heart pounded in her chest, adrenaline fueling her muscles as she pushed herself to keep pace with Miles. Xoragzhar’s heavy feet thundered behind them, growing closer with each passing moment. As they weaved through a labyrinth of rock formations, the air started buzzing again. A sudden gust of wind whipped up a thick cloud of purple dust. Then it settled to reveal a glimmering figure. Astrid skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with the mysterious being. A vision of otherworldly grace and splendor, he even had translucent wings, fluttering like delicate petals in the breeze. She thought, this is the meaning of iridescence. Intricate patterns adorned his silvery skin, shimmering in the ambient light, like filigree. The being held up a long-fingered, gently coruscating hand. Behind them, Xoragzhar thunked against what seemed to be an invisible wall and fell with a grunt. Astrid found that if she looked very hard, she could just see the merest whisper of a gossamer web hanging in the air. The being smiled. “You know what this means, Xoragzhar.” He turned his violet gaze towards Astrid and Miles. “Welcome, Dr Miles Eden and Captain Astrid Chang. My name is Za’raa. Welcome to N’urubia.” Xoragzhar growled, “Takuun. This Takuun.” “You know who we are?” said Miles, still staring. “Yes, Dr Eden. We have known who you are for three hundred million years.” What? “We know you were searching for a new home, a sanctuary for your kind. We know you brought to us our Origin.” “How?” Astrid demanded. “This mission is classified.” “This mission was successful. You did it. You brought to this planet the Origin of my people, the N’uru.” Xoragzhar spat. “The Origin took root and blossomed. In the beginning there were only ten thousand of us. And then there were a hundred thousand. And then a billion, whose skin began silvering, whose wings began budding. And now, here we are,” said Za’raa, opening his arms wide. Astrid blinked. “Are you saying that you’re descended fro— no, that you’re from the futur— oh my God, that you mutated—” “Yes, Captain Chang, and yes, and yes, though we prefer the word ‘evolved’. And Dr Eden – may I call you Miles? – I thought you might like to know, there are fourteen families among the N’uru named Eden, all healthy and thriving. Your children had good genes.” Miles’ eyes blazed hard enough to power a city. “I want to see them.” “Perhaps you will,” Za’raa said with a smile. “How will you do that?” asked a perplexed Astrid. “How are you here? And how are you here now?” “We have Xoragzhar’s people to thank. They spent generations building a time machine. All that time and energy that could have gone into building armies, multiplying themselves, even learning how to speak properly… no, they decided this machine was more important. And this is their big day. They used it for the first time today.” “To bring the Aurora here?” “No, child, you would have come here anyway. The machine was for bringing Xoragzhar here, three hundred million years into his past. And me too,” Za’raa added brightly, “although it wasn’t what they planned. Now, ask me why.” “Uh-huh?” Za’raa leaned in to look Astrid in the eye. “To destroy the embryos.” Astrid whirled around to glare at Xoragzhar. “What? Why?” Xoragzhar said, “N’uru, they take. Take and take and take. Food, air, water. But they say, not enough. Never enough. Then they say, too many Takuun. They say, kill Takuun.” Za’raa shrugged his slender elegant shoulders. “The primitive have to evolve, or die. I believe you would call it a zero-sum game.” He stretched out a hand to Astrid. “Now please give me the Origin.” Astrid ignored the hand. “Xoragzhar, what happened to your people? How many are there left?” Unhappy yellow eyes met her own. “Only five, and me.” Za’raa said, “Before you ask, the five were guarding the time machine. Against us. Well, there are only four left now. Possibly less.” He grinned at Xoragzhar. “I did bring a dozen of my best warriors with me.” Astrid stumbled backward toward Xoragzhar, keeping her backpack as far as she could from Za’raa. “No. I can’t let this happen. I can’t create a population of goddamn murderers.” Something went click. Astrid froze. Miles was pointing his gun at her. “My children. Get. To live,” he said in a low, dangerous voice she’d never heard from him before. “Miles…” “Take out the embryos and give them to Za’raa.” “No bloody way.” A now-familiar buzzing sound filled the air for the third time. Za’raa said, his expression serene, “Ah, a little more… encouragement has arrived for Captain Chang.” A dozen armed N’uru shimmered out of thin air. Their silver armour was battered and scratched, and there was blood in their golden hair and on their beautiful faces and filigreed hands, but their eyes glowed with triumph. A cold finger ran down Astrid’s spine. “Did you get them all?” inquired Za’raa mildly. “Yes, sir.” Xoragzhar’s howl echoed through the clearing, raising all the hairs on Astrid’s arms. A glowing orb appeared in each of his fists and stretched out into scythes. He hacked at the gossamer wall in front of him. The N’uru guards drew their weapons – spiked flails that glowed also – and marched toward him. Miles watched them advance, rapt. “Captain Chang,” said Za’raa, “there really are no more reasons not to give me the embryos. Once Xoragzhar is dead, which will be in about five minutes, there will be no more Takuun left to save.” Astrid dropped her head. She knelt and shrugged off her backpack, undid it with trembling fingers. She rummaged until her hand closed around the cold metal cylinder it sought. Averting her eyes, she held the cylinder up to Za’raa. “Excellent. Thank you, Captain Chang. And now we can close the book on Takuun history.” The N’uru warriors closed in on Xoragzhar and his swinging scythes, their movements coordinated and decisive. White light flashed wherever their flails landed. Miles cheered them on. In the strobing light, his skin appeared silvery too. Astrid closed her backpack and swung it back on her shoulders. She turned toward the Aurora. Walk, don’t run, she told herself firmly. She heard Miles say, “Za’raa, she’s getting away.” She heard Za’raa say, “It does not matter, Miles.” She swung herself up into the Aurora and shoved the hatch shut, making straight for the control panel. Her fingers jittered over the familiar buttons and switches. The console flickered to life, casting an green glow across her strained face. The Aurora began rising. Outside, Xoragzhar was losing. Dying. She met Miles’ gaze through the window, his silhouette stark against the alien landscape. He turned his back on her and walked to Za’raa. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they cast one shadow under the light of the triple suns. Za’raa was still clutching the metal cylinder in both hands. The battered, daffodil yellow, metal cylinder with the mad dancing Minions. Miles saw it too. He snatched the thermos from Za’raa and began running towards the Aurora, shouting. As if it would help. He was only getting smaller and smaller. Then the N’uru warriors began to flicker like candle flames in a gust of wind. One by one, they vanished into thin air, leaving behind a faint trace of silver dust that glittered briefly and turned into nothing. Za’raa was the last to vanish, his face too small for Astrid to see his expression. Good. Miles was tiny now. She saw Xoragzhar rise painfully to his feet. She was just able to see the orbs in his hands flare as he lurched toward Miles. When the Aurora was on autopilot, she picked up the platinum canister of embryos, tracing with steady fingers where the chilly light glinted off its perfect skin. She would find another planet that did not have purple soil or three goddamn suns, and most certainly not angry trolls or smarmy glowing angels who made far too many assumptions. She hoped that would be enough.

My generation

Shorpy

What Happened To The First Human Head Transplant? (Feat. Medlife Crisis)

Are China’s military exercises a threat that heighten geopolitical tensions?

You have watched too much news from BBC and CNN, so you say that “China’s military exercises have exacerbated geopolitical tensions.”

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Take a good look at this picture. The United States has military bases on almost every continent. The only continent without a US military base is Antarctica.

The United States uses these military bases around the world and the United States’ military influence to contain and suppress its imaginary enemies, especially China.

Using military exercises to form cliques is a common trick of the United States.

In recent years, the US military has frequently conducted military exercises around China, especially joint military exercises.

Through cooperation with allies such as Japan, Australia and the Philippines, the US military has not only enhanced its combat effectiveness, but also formed a containment of China to a certain extent.

Such exercises are not only a display of military strength, but also a clear warning to China, indicating that the United States is prepared for any potential conflict.

The United States has established a large network of allies in the Asia-Pacific region to ensure support in the face of conflict. Japan, Australia, the Philippines and other countries have strengthened their military ties with the United States by signing military cooperation agreements.

This collective security mechanism makes the United States more calm when facing China, and also puts China under greater strategic pressure.

The United States uses its powerful media and public opinion resources to continue to exaggerate the “China threat theory” in an attempt to isolate China internationally.

This kind of public opinion war not only affects the international community’s view of China, but also provides “legitimacy” for the US military action. In this way, the United States hopes to portray China as an “aggressor” to provide an excuse for its military intervention.

The game between China and the United States is like a war without gunpowder, and both sides are fighting for their own interests.

The United States has selected the main battlefield in the eastern Pacific and frequently held military exercises in an attempt to curb China’s rise, while China is constantly strengthening its own defense capabilities and striving not to lose in this contest.

The Insane Lobotomy Craze Of The 1950s

Should the Philippines assert its claim in the West Philippine Sea?

This may sound like waking up someone pretending to be asleep, but I have to say, there is no so-called “West Philippine Sea.” Internationally, this sea area is referred to as the “South China Sea,” and it does not mean that the entire sea belongs to China. In fact, China made territorial claims in 1948. The Philippines did not protest at that time, but in recent years, they have come out with “protests,” and even have made a fake “arbitration”, which is suspicious to anyone with common sense.

As for the territory of the Philippines, it is delimited by a series of international treaties. Whether it is the Treaty of Paris in 1898, the Treaty of Washington in 1900, or the Convention Between the United States and Great Britain in 1930, none of them include China’s Nansha Qundao or Huangyan Dao.

Only the area within the dashed line box in the map is considered the territory of the Philippines, while the area outside the dashed line box are nothing but the Philippines’ unilateral and illegal claims. The Philippines’ so-called “whoever is closer owns it” rhetoric not only goes against international law but also laughable in modern society.

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And you know what the Philippines should do? Withdraw its ship and personnel from China’s territory. It’s the only chance.

I noticed on Aug 31, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessel MRRV-9701, which has been illegally anchored in the lagoon of China’s Xianbin Jiao for a long time, provoked troubles in an unprofessional and dangerous way and intentionally rammed into the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ship 5205, which was lawfully implementing control measures. As a result, a collision happened between the two vessels.

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The recent actions by the Philippines once again highlight its close connection with certain Western countries. On-site footage shows that during the Philippine’s infringement operation, a US P-8A reconnaissance aircraft flew at low altitude, interfering with China’s law enforcement actions and providing on-site intelligence support to the PCG vessel. Ironically, after receiving some “support” from certain Western countries outside the South China Sea region, the Philippine side complained that Southeast Asian countries didn’t “support”.

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Since entering the lagoon of Xianbin Jiao without China’s permission in April this year, the PCG ship has assumed the task of imitating the Philippines’ BRP Sierra Madre, which has been grounded illegally at China’s Ren’ai Jiao for a long time. But in fact, under the control of the CCG in accordance with the law, the PCG vessel has seen increasingly limited space to make any move.

PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela admitted on Tuesday that the ship’s supplies were seriously insufficient and had reached a “critical level.” Seeing that it is difficult to “replicate” the goal of “deliberate grounding,” the PCG vessel 9701 began a new round of shows in Xianbin Jiao, which is nothing more than putting all the energy into making a scene and sadfishing, trying to make a public opinion sensation and gain sympathy by pretending to be a “victim.”

Betting on the safety of its own crew and the risk of military conflict, Manila constantly staged a self-inflicted provocative farce on the stage of the South China Sea, fantasizing about making “quantitative change” to achieve the breakthroughs of “qualitative change.”

The actions of the Philippines that have escalated tensions in the South China Sea are also a betrayal to ASEAN countries, clearly violating the provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, including Article 4’s requirement for peaceful resolution of disputes, and Article 5’s call for self-restraint and not to affect regional peace and stability in the South China Sea.

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Now the US and the Philippines are using each other in the South China Sea issue. For the US, no matter how beautiful the words are, the positioning of the Philippines as a “pawn” has never changed. Manila is also very clear that it has limited bargaining chips with the US, and the more extreme it goes in the South China Sea issue, the smaller its space it has in negotiating with the US.

Manila hopes that Washington can make some concrete commitments. However, for Manila, the most important thing is to face reality and give up illusions. Manila should not underestimate the cost of challenging China, nor should it assume that everything will be covered by the US.

The bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue has been held 9 times, with the most recent meeting taking place exactly 2 months ago. The commitments made by both sides to promote a de-escalation of tensions in the South China Sea are still fresh. Until Manila fundamentally changes its mind-set of using the South China Sea issue for geopolitical speculation, China is fully prepared for any possible backtracking or provocation by the Philippines. If the Philippines attempts to move forward one step, China will firmly push it back. China will not allow the Philippines to gain any advantage. Like I said, the only choice for the Philippines is to withdraw its ship and personnel.

Hungry thoughts

How does China enforce a limit of 3 hours per week of video games for offline games?

Here are the 2022 rules

A. User Internet Ids are assigned to every user who is over 7 years old

B. Users who are deemed Juvenile, ie:- between 16–18 years of age are restricted from logging on to any game on a Chinese platform between 10 PM and 8 AM on Mondays to Fridays and 12 PM and 7 AM on Weekends

C. Users who are deemed Minors between 12-16 years of age are restricted from logging into any game on a Chinese Platform only for a maximum of 2 Hours on a Weekday and 3 Hours on Saturday and 4 Hours on a Sunday but not after 9 PM on Weekdays and 11 PM on Weekends

D. Users deemed Children (<= 12) are restricted from playing any game on Chinese platforms for more than 3 hours from 12 AM on Monday to 11:59 PM on Sunday of every week

VPN for Chinese Games is useless

You can use VPN but when you play Chinese games, the Warning will say that if you continue you will go to a lower level and lose a lot of game money and game weapons and powers you have earned so far

So nobody uses VPN for playing games

Is it for all games?

Online Mobile Games deemed EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL and SCIENTIFIC are exempted

In 2023 May, Mahjong in all forms was included in the restricted list but Online CHESS was exempted

How is the rule enforced?

Every Game has a Player Login

Every Player needs Internet ID

So that’s simple

You can’t use your Dads Internet ID because that’s a different Player Profile Or ID

So best case you can create a Player Profile for your Dad and play in his name

Or your older brother

Why these rules?

The Government got an Educational Report that Children were addicted to Mobile games and with In app money purchases

What games are restricted FULLY or PARTIALLY to Children?

Games deemed Violent

Games deemed Sexual

Games that promote Theft, Robbery and Crime

Games that feature GAMBLING or Chance and Odds (Card Games are exempted provided the games don’t have any numerical odds or any transfer of winnings)

Games deemed capable of Brainwashing and giving instructions and dares (Such Games are fully banned from the Mainland)

Can you bypass the 3 hour limit?

A Brilliant 9 year old managed to bypass the ban by creating a small code to make the system forget that it was 10 PM amd make the system go to 19:59:59 from 21:59:59 and keep playing endlessly

Tencent of course saw that someone had played 63 levels in 2 hours which was impossible and immediately overrode the local codes and the Kid was flushed out

They gave the Kid a Science Scholarship (Chairmans Junior Scholarship) usually granted for 12+ year olds

However apart from that – NO

Like I said – VPN means losing a lot of levels and goodies earned

So the only way is to use your father or older brother or older uncles Internet id, create a profile and play as them

Prehistoric Australia Was Pure Nightmare Fuel

What was the most messed up punishment(s) you received as a child?

Not me but my younger brother.

My brother was an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, and from the start my mother wanted this kid gone by any means necessary. Unfortunately the law and her family wouldn’t allow it, so she was forced to carry this child to term and take care of it. She hated my brother from the start, wanted him dead or abandoned by the side of the road (whatever it took to get rid of him), and with that failing she strove to make this child’s life as miserable as she could for the sin of having dared to exist. My mother had a nasty cruel and vindictive streak.

Our parents divorced when I was nine and he was seven, and we moved to a house about 3 miles away. One day my mother got angry at my brother and locked him out of the house with orders to walk to our dad’s house. It was nighttime in mid December, about 15 degrees F outside, and he wasn’t wearing a coat. My mother then called my father and angrily bragged “I just threw him out of the house without a coat and told him to walk to your house. I don’t care if he freezes!”

My mother was not mentally ill, she was in complete control of herself, she was just filled with anger and hatred that she liked to inflict on those around her, especially those that had little choice but endure it. She felt it was a parental perk to be allowed to abuse your kids for whatever reason you wished, even if it was for her amusement (and it sometimes was). She got a certain sadistic joy out of making people feel miserable and worthless.

My father woke up the neighborhood and sent everyone out to find him, and he was eventually found wandering around a grocery store parking lot less than 1/4 mile from my mother’s house. He was minutes away from hypothermia. He very nearly died that day, and this was not the only time he narrowly escaped death at the hands of my mother.

I’ll never understand why she wasn’t charged and arrested for that. She passed away three years ago, and it’s a major trigger to my father (who hates her with a passion), so I guess I’ll never know.

POST EDIT: Several people have asked how my brother turned out, and he didn’t. He died at age 14, and ironically my mother had nothing to do with it. He asphyxiated himself huffing gasoline in my dad’s garage. After he died my mother almost never spoke of him again, and would go into psychotic rages whenever he was brought up. I quickly learned to not talk about him anymore.

He never had a chance from the start. This is the last known picture of him.

His name was Tim.

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Minestrone Macaroni

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
2 (14 ounce) cans Italian diced tomatoes, undrained
2 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 can kidney beans, rinsed, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinse, drain
1 (14 ounce) can cut green beans, rinsed and drained

Instructions

In a large skillet, brown beef; drain.
Add the tomatoes, water, macaroni and bouillon cubes; bring to a boil.
Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes or until macaroni is tender.
Stir in beans and heat through.

The man you see in this photo is not a poor man, nor a beggar or a homeless person. This man is Leo Tolstoy: one of the giants of Russian literature, everyone knows his name, few know the extraordinary story behind this photograph

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When he was fifty Tolstoy fell into depression. Day by day his sadness increased, for no reason. Tolstoy was a count, he was one of the richest men in his country, he was famous throughout the world. Yet he was unhappy. «Money was nothing, power was nothing. Many were seen who had both one and the other and were unhappy. Even health didn’t matter much; there were sick people full of the desire to live and there were healthy people who withered in anguish from the fear of suffering.”

One day he saw an orphan along Afanas’evsky alley, and moved with compassion, he took him home with him. And for the first time in a long time he felt good again. He forgot about himself, about his problems, about his sadness. From that moment Tolstoy renounced his gentleman’s clothes, luxury and privileges and began to lead a simple life, giving away what he possessed to those in need.

“Don’t talk to me about religion, about charity, about love,” he used to say, “but show me the religion in your actions.” Tolstoy was also the first theorist of non-violence, he preached brotherhood between peoples and his ideas inspired another great figure of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi. Until the day of his death he continued to help others, which is why many said he was crazy. In a world where he only counts having, possessing things and even people, where everyone wants to take but no one knows how to give, Tolstoy seemed crazy.

One day an old friend of his, who, unlike Tolstoy, lived in comfort and luxury, said to him: «What’s the point of doing all this? What do you care about others? You should think about yourself.” To which Tolstoy replied: “If you feel pain, you are alive, but if you feel the pain of others, you are human.”

Carboniferous Period Was a Pure Nightmare HORROR

The turkey that did not happen

You really need to assess who is mentally ill and who isn’t.

Mental illness is not a temporary thing that comes and goes. It is, instead, a permanent condition.

There are different variations of mental illness, like different flavors. Some are not so bad. Some are really horrible. And a mentally ill person will go though various stages in the illness that you (as an outsider) will not be aware of.

Obviously, you don’t want to be married to someone with this illness. As it will be an anchor chained to your ankle and it will really negatively affect your quality of life.

But also be careful about friendships as well.

Once, we were invited to a Thanksgiving meal by some friends.

Now, for you non-Americans, this is a big holiday in the USA. There is one huge meal. Often similar to that of a Christmas feast. It would have turkey and all the rest.

The people who invited us were friends. They had mental illnesses of some undisclosed nature and we accepted. Because we were not going to host the meal, we didn’t buy groceries. We waited two weeks, and when the Thanksgiving day arrived, we were all dressed up and went to their house.

The woman came to the door wearing her pajamas.

She nonchalantly told us that she didn’t feel like it. So they didn’t buy any food and were just going to stay inside and watch cartoons and eat “Cheerios” all day.

And so we went home.

Restaurants were out. All were closed.

Other friends were out, they all went to relatives homes.

We had nothing in the fridge.

So we went home, and made up some toast and had a can of chicken-noodle soup.

Some Thanksgiving eh?

Never put your trust in crazy people. Not only are they unreliable, but your association with them will often be painful.

Today…

Why do Chinese students educated in the West not support democracy when they return home?

Chinese are the world’s most apolitical people

They never discuss or talk about any form of politics

They complain if their services go wrong loudly to the local representatives

They call 12345 and if three guys make a phone on the same topic, the district level administration sends a team immediately

However beyond that – things like Democracy,Free Speech, Gender never ever occur to them

The mistaken notion is that somehow the Chinese would get attracted to democracy in US and support it when they come home was a MAJOR REASON BEHIND OPENING THE DOORS TO CHINA by Bill Clinton

The Chinese got attracted to the consumerism and the standard of living in the US but never the democracy or freedom

They are culturally different

They find the FREE SPEECH impractical and stupid

They like PRACTICAL THINGS

In China, if something is wrong – they complain to the authorities and get a solution

And Authority listens

Authority HAS to listen

Every People’s Representative has to have ONE DAY a week to meet the people and listen to their problems and open a Ticket and solve them

For instance when High Power Cables were rumored to cause cancer, the Local Representatives escalated the issue all the way to Beijing and got alternate leases to almost 9000 people in a district in Shaanxi

So Chinese Students find a system where a Politician is elected once in two or four or six years and after that disappears to Washington DC and spends all his time fund raising and never focusing on HIS PEOPLE until the next elections as Inferior

They find such Politicians who discuss Color Politics, Gay Rights and Abortion rather than the most pressing problems of the day as an Inferior and broken down system

They have NEVER FOUND WESTERN DEMOCRACY APPEALING

They have found it to be impractical and often STUPID

They find nothing unique in the Freedom to Vote because they also Vote

They find nothing unique in Free Speech because the issues covered by free speech like Gay Rights or Color Politics are things that are never talked about in China but pretty much happen anyway

Why would they suggest or recommend a system they feel to be impractical and stupid to their Country?

In the older days, they have felt US had a much better standard of living and a nice consumerist credit driven society with limitless goods

Now China has better access to limitless goods at a far lower price

They have the same KFC and Starbucks but also the 99 CNY store and plenty of other things to buy

They are appalled at the Crime they see in US because in China major crime is virtually non existent and criminals get caught in hours or a couple of days at the most

Today the main reason for a Chinese Student NOT to return to China after graduation is LOVE

They fall in love with a Local American Girl or American Citizen and get married to them

Otherwise they go back to China quite happily

Now the opposite is happening

American Students who go to China return back with huge praise and discuss the failings of their own system

Many westerners fall in love with Chinese and get married and settle down there

Yes Chinese do migrate to the West but most of them are those who are Rural Residents who go for jobs like Cooking or Running a Kiosk or some small china town business

The Intelligent Chinese inevitably always come back now

Many can’t wait to get home

They come home and get inspired by Research Facilities and other stuff

Not by Democracy which I repeat they find STUPID and IMPRACTICAL

They have convinced me of the same

It’s why I worship the Chinese System and detest western democracy with every fiber of my being

Ex-Google CEO’s BANNED Interview LEAKED: “You Have No Idea What’s Coming”

Can Chinese economically survive if the USA were to cut Beijing out of the U.S. capital markets?

China does not need the US capital market. Know also that it does not borrow from the US$ dominated international capital market. China’s foreign account is in substantial surplus.

There are only a few Chinese companies listed on NYSE. Those who sought listing on it did so for the higher valuations. Some like Alibaba, whose primary listings are on NYSE have secondary listings on the HKSE. Alibaba is seeking to upgrade it to primary listing.

US venture funds were once active in China. They made lots of money, and would have expanded were they not discouraged or banned by the US government. These funds brought with them connections and networks which benefitted China. Nevertheless, China’s start-up scene thrives, and unicorns are being created as a matter course. China is not short of venture funds, state- and private-sponsored, from incubation and nursery through pre-IPO.

There is no shortage of capital in China and Hong Kong. You may add Singapore in the mix. These are “new” money accumulated and nurtured from the growth of the economies in Asia. US capital is more in the nature of “old” money.

US financial investments in China have fallen. To some extent, they are replaced by inflows from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. China itself has massive supply of capital. Its foreign assets are worth several trillion dollars, including $750 billion of US Treasuries. It has large reserves of gold holdings. It current account from world trade is in surplus.

China offers far better investments opportunities and potentials than US and Europe, judging by their relative economic growths, and the prospects of growths.

China does not focus on financial investments that are short-termed and speculative capital flows.

China’s focus is on organic investments. It remains welcoming of foreign direct investments. These remain significant, including from the US, and notably Germany.

Meatballs in Kraut Casserole

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground chuck or round
1/4 to 1/2 cup minced onion
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup dry rice, divided
2 (1 pound) bags sauerkraut
1 teaspoon caraway seed (optional)

Instructions

Mix ground beef, onion, parsley, egg, salt and pepper well by hand and make meatballs the size of ping pong balls.
Drain kraut, saving juice.
Put half the kraut in a large deep casserole with half the drained juice.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup rice over the kraut, with caraway seed, if desired.
Place meatballs on kraut and add remaining 1/4 cup of rice.
Cover meat with remaining drained kraut and carefully pour water into casserole until it can just be seen under the kraut.
Cover and bake at 375 degrees F until kraut is beginning to brown and rice and meat are tender.
Serve with mashed potatoes and hearty bread and butter.

What are some incidents where people took revenge in a mind-blowing way?

How a singer avenged the damage of his guitar from United Airlines by causing it a loss of $180 million

David Carroll, a singer, was flying from Nova Scotia to Nebraska. At the time of luggage unloading, he noticed the unloaders were just throwing the luggage out.

And when he checked his luggage, he discovered his $3,500 Taylor guitar’s neck had been broken.

Dave tried for nine months to get a claim processed with United. The response was always “no.” They said he had waited longer than 24 hours to process a claim.

Dejected, he wrote a song and produced a music video. The song was titled “United Breaks Guitars.” He put it up on YouTube and it went viral.

United Breaks Guitars Song 2-1,322,582 views.

United Breaks Guitars Song 3-405,790 views.

After 150,000 views on song 1, United contacted Dave Carroll and offered payment to make the video go away. He had changed his mind by now, he told them that “United Breaks Guitars” wasn’t just a single song. It was part of a trilogy.

News media picks up the news

Soon newspapers and news broadcast media across America were doing stories about the song. He did over 200 interviews in the first few months.

Final outcome

The BBC reported that United’s stock price dropped by 10% within three to four weeks of the release of the video – a decrease in valuation of $180 million.

Source: A Public Relations Disaster – How saving $1,200 cost United Airlines 10,772,839 negative views on YouTube

The Nazi Trap Scene – Fury (2014)

Do you think China is understating its numbers?

I do

I believe for certain that Chinas Actual Forex Reserves are a minimum $ 7 Trillion today

The Total Trade Surplus of China from 2007 to 2024 June equalled $ 8.673 Trillion at various stages and various exchange rates every year

So i am absolutely certain that China has at least another $ 3.5–4 Trillion of secret reserves buried globally

Likewise I believe China has a minimum 800 Nuclear Warheads and even as many as 2000 Warheads

The Number 350 was way back in the 1990s and Fissile Material Production has Quadrupled since 1998 yet Nuclear Energy as share of total power hasn’t surged by 400% but by a mere 87%

So a huge amount of fissile material was not likely used to produce nuclear energy

So obviously they were used to make Warheads

Finally I believe a fairer estimate of Chinas GDP would be closer to $ 27 Trillion nominally

That’s because I believe the GDP of China in Yuan excludes a large portion of services from its 1977 methodology and if you include that, the GDP is closer to 137.2 Trillion CNY

The Exchange Rate with USD is artificially kept low to keep exports cheap and the real value is closer to 4.74

So the Nominal GDP would be 137.2/4.74 minus 7% variance = $ 27 Trillion

Why do Chinese students educated in the West not support democracy when they return home?

Because they found out, you are the ones living in a lie. Isn’t that hard to understand?

The Chinese economists and social scientists discuss and explain more important subjects and the mechanism behind it in details. Other than repeatedly teaching check and balance, separation of power, freedom of press, and all we see was the manipulation of that in the west.

Whenever there are problems they can’t solve, they are bringing out LGBTQ, abortions, BLM, China, in order to redirect public attentions.

It happens over and over again, nothing gets solved at the end, yet you dumb public never get tired of it.

That was why.

The Chinese doesn’t claim they have the best system, they don’t believe they have the best system, however they rather deal with the real problem than bullshiting. If they can’t solve the problem, they deliver development at their best.

TOP “Is He Smart” Reactions SPOILER Forrest Gump Reaction

What happens when the Chinese take over the moon and Mars like a D-Day invasion?

Fifty years after China landed on the moon, the Chinese will do what the Americans did:

The sudden loss of the ability to land on the moon, the sudden loss of all the records and drawings of the time, the regression of space technology, the regression of space station technology.

main qimg 9f60d289da8b629654b7a0e001d13a60

The Chinese stole US technology to be able to build the space station, go to the moon, have hypersonic missiles, 5G, BeiDou navigation system, DJI drones, e-payments, shield machines and high-speed rail …

It is easy for the Americans to take over the Moon and Mars like the Normandy landings. I really don’t know what America, the world leader in technology, is worried about.

My Parents Want Help With My Spoiled Brat Sister, I Told Them She’s Their Problem And Blocked Them

What are the benefits and drawbacks of retiring in Hong Kong or Macau for an American?

I have lived in Macau over 40 years and am retired here.

In Macau, we pay very low taxes. The government collects most of it’s taxes from the gaming operators

During covid, the government sold us masks at low cost. Paid our water and electric bills. Gave us free test kits. Gave a few rounds of $$$ in the form of consumption vouchers. Macau residents coming back from overseas were quarantined in a Sheraton! Tough life. We had a few rounds of city wide testing but it was well organized and we had to app so we could determine best times to go. There were no food shortages and life was normal except we had to wear masks on public transport. But most people just wore them everywhere. There was only two weeks of lockdown.

The government gives every citizen US$1200 as part of the wealth sharing. (Casino profits). Seniors get a monthly pension. Plus a new year payment and a payment in the fall. Public transport is free if you are over 65. Most buses are kneeling buses, so it’s great if you have mobility issues. Seniors pay US $6 a month for mobile phone service including 5G data. $3 more gets you three country service. Macau, Hong Kong and China. No long distance charges.

The streets are pedestrian friendly. Overhead walkways everywhere with escalators and elevators.

Medical services are top notch. All free if you are over 65. Including medicine. I’m taking two Entresto tablets a day for my heart. They are US$9 a pill. I don’t pay a penny.

There is a new hospital opening this month and it is state of the art.

Macau has many festivals year round. Film, art, music. World renowned performers and we pay peanut s because the government subsidizes these events. I’ve seen Midori, New York philharmonic, London Symphony, George Benson and many more. Seniors pay half price off the already low price. New York Philharmonic was like US $10!

Even a fireworks competition. And a Grand Prix every November.

Food in Macau is fantastic. Listed by UNESCO as a city of gastronomy. We have 18 Michelin Starred restaurants. Portuguese food that is authentic and delicious. The world’s first fusion cooking. Think Portuguese salt cod in a fried rice.

If you don’t speak Cantonese, you will miss opportunities to go deep in the local culture.

And it is hard to get residency and retire in Macau.

On August 20th, Jennifer Bachus, a senior official of the US State Department, stated that the US’s excessive stance could lead to the loss of most of the world, and many countries do not want to take sides. What do you think?

China tech tensions may turn off U.S. allies, State Dept. official warns

Policymakers debate whether Trump or Harris would take harder line on Beijing

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/China-tech-tensions-may-turn-off-U.S.-allies-State-Dept.-official-warns

“If we go in with a big anti-China message, we actually lose most of the world," she said during a panel discussion.

"Countries around the world know where the U.S. stands on our concerns about the PRC, but many of them also don't want to get drawn into what they see as a U.S.-PRC competition,"

What is Jennifer saying?

Corporate interests have been hurt, both foreign and domestic. They (I.e. Big tech) want a policy reset. The occasion after all was a gathering of big tech to talk future regulations.

It’s simple as that. Money talks. And here, we are talking mortal levels of damage that is dangerously close to being irreversible.

Shorpy

The Last Day of Summer Vacation in China

Yesterday marked the final day of summer vacation for most provinces in China. I asked my child, “Once today is over, your grueling school life begins again. So, how do you want to spend the last day of your summer vacation?” After thinking for a moment, he replied, “I want to go to the dyke by Wēi Shān （微山） Lake and skip stones.”

I wasn’t sure how to translate this game correctly into English. It’s a popular pastime among Chinese children in past days. The basic idea is to find flat stones by the water’s edge and throw them at a very low angle across the surface（dǎ shuǐ piāo,打水漂）. If you’re lucky, the stone will skip across the water, flying up and down in a series of parabolic arcs.

So, we drove about 40 minutes to Wēi Shān Lake, located on the border between Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. It’s one of China’s major freshwater lakes, with the northern shore forming part of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. The dyke here stretches for over 160 kilometers, lined with tall poplar trees and doubling as a roadway.

In the glow of the Wēi Shān Hú Lake sunset, my child and wife skipped stones together. We stayed until the sun set, then drove home in the direction of the fading light. The spot we chose felt like a hidden gem—rarely visited, with only the occasional cargo ship sounding its horn. When they grew tired, the three of us sat quietly, watching the ships pass by. Some of these vessels are homes, with living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms on board. My child and wife were fascinated by these “families on the water.”

And so, this unexpectedly delightful summer vacation came to an end. Over the past two months, we drove 5,500 kilometers across China, challenged mountains with an altitude of 3,700 meters, and visited over 30 natural and cultural sites. Besides all that, my child read seven novels, watched 30 movies by Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock, and listened to over 200 episodes of traditional Chinese storytelling, including The History of the Sui and Tang Dynasties and The Story of Hero Yue Fei. However, he also managed to fit in 70 online math and physics lessons. Every day was busy, but also joyful and fulfilling.

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Today is September 1, 2024, and we hope for an even better future.

The Election Ritual: the illusion of American democracy

Speaking TRUTH.

The big trip

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

Maranda Watford

We officially left Earth twenty-four hours ago. Me and my partner Samantha have been waiting eight years for this trip to space to discover a new planet we call Extra.”Harmony, I see nothing at all.” Samantha says in a irritated voiceI roll my eyes “Can you have a little Patience, we aren’t going anywhere for a while.”Samantha is IMPATIENT, but she’s very excited because we’ve been studying this planet for years. It’s the closest thing to earth we’ve seen, it has a sustainable climate, water and plants which means oxygen. Our planet is dying and I don’t think anyone takes that serious.

I grab the scope that lets us see outside the spaceship. As I’m looking around I see nothing as well, it’s pitch black and scary, even for the ones trained to be up here.

“We’ll check some more later. We should eat something.” I say to Sam.

Now being a astronaut is the most amazing thing ever but I’ve seen dog food that looks better than the crap they bag up for us.

“Meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”

Samantha says shaking the bag that sounds like it’s full of sand.

We prepare our dog chow and dig in.

“Mmm kibbles” I said sarcastically.

We both broke out laughing. We need to laugh after all it’s just us up here.

A few hours later, we’re studying per usual. We don’t have kids so our careers are everything to us.

I decide to check the scope again and when I did my heart almost gave out. Looking back at me is this giant, dark triangular spaceship but it’s nothing from earth and it don’t look friendly or welcoming.

“S-s-samantha, you might wanna see this.” I said said very shakily.

“What is it?” She grabs the scope from me and looks for herself. Her face said it all.

“Oh my God,aliens!” She could barely get it out.

And just as she said that we lost all power to our spaceship, it’s dark and scary in here.

“What do you think is going to happen Harmony!?” She is scared out of her mind, probably thinks we’re going to die soon but not me. I’m scared but that ship could easily consume this one, I think they’re just trying to intimidate us.

“I don’t know but we need to remain calm.” I say as I’m internally not remaining calm

I look through the scope again and I see this big ass ship start to divide into two and slowly start to come towards us. I watch slowly as we get pulled into the ship and it comes back together.

“Put your gear on, now!” I tell Sam as I start trying to put my gear on as fast as I can but in space that’s not fast at all. Before I could put my helmet on the top of our unit is ripped off.

Samantha might be right, this could surely be death. I’m scared but I can still breathe, How? I’m consumed with a million questions.

We hear something from above, footsteps maybe? Definitely footsteps, looking up we see something that absolutely blows our minds. Humans? Or aliens that look like humans. Three of them, two women and one man.

“Hello..?” I half expect to hear a English reply.

The alien humans consult with each other in a different language. It almost sounds sinister but then they look at us.

“Earthlings?” It was almost a question. Holy shit I’m getting scared because these aliens must be very smart. They have their extraterrestrial language and yet know our language too?

“Yes, we’re from earth. We’ve came to study a new planet that may be able to support human life.” Says Sam

I look at her shocked that she even spoke. Sam is doing a great job remaining calm or at least maintaining the image of calm.

“Earth is evil,greedy and scum, y’all must be destroyed one by one.”

The man looking alien say shining a glare right at me. I gulp back my tears as I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“We’re not bad people..or greedy…or evil. What makes you think earth is so evil? I say defending the lie that humans aren’t greedy or evil.

They completely ignored the question.

“You two will stay here forever. We have our own study to do and you just made it a lot easier for us.” One of girl looking aliens said with a chuckle.

The aliens climb down our broken spaceship and bring us out so we can finally see inside of this massive, intimidating spaceship. It’s way more advanced than what we came up here in, it’s like our ship of from the 1800s and they’re living in 2100.

We’re brought to a large room on the left side with only 4 beds. It’s painfully white compared to the rest of the ship.

Samantha is trying not to show her tears but I see them. “Can you please take us home?” She sobs.

“Maybe later Samantha, we have work to do.” The guy aliens says. “You two should get some rest.”

And we don’t put up a fight. We’re exhausted and shocked and really don’t know what to do. Maybe some sleep will help. The aliens bring us some crazy looking what we think are pajamas, silver latex pants and matching top with a pair of socks.

We change and get into the thin beds right next to each other. The aliens disappeared.

“Harmony, I love you and if we die I’m glad I’m spending my last few hours or days with you. Thank you for always being there to study and explore life with me. You were the sister I never had” Samantha says. I still see tears falling down her face. She’s accepted her fate.

Me, not so much. I’m not superman but I feel like I’m going home. Maybe my mind is playing games with me. We’re somewhere in space, our spaceship is destroyed and yet I still have a gut feeling that we’re going to be fine.

“I love you too, Sam. But please don’t give up just yet. We’re going home, we’re going home.” I say, giving her my “we got this” face.

We then said goodnight. Is it even night? What time is it? Oh yeah, time doesn’t exist in space. Sam surprisingly went right to sleep, being scared takes it out of you. I drifted off about 10 mins later….

“Start PREPARING Yourself…” – Danielle DiMartino

Have you ever bought a gun and regretted it?

Yes. I bought a “Bring Home” Russian SKS from a friends mother. After his father died, the mother and kids were cleaning up his dad’s stuff in the attic. They found what they thought was a fully automatic rifle and asked me to take a look at it and help them dispose of it, without being charged by the local police or ATF.

For those that don’t know, an SKS holds 10 rounds of 7.62x39mm, the same as the AK-47, but it is a semi-automatic rifle.

They did not want it. It was rusted, the bluing was well worn and the barrel was crusted in rust. Definitely not in any condition to fire unless you just had the fantasy of having a rifle breach blow up in your face, leaving you blind or burnt (or both) or dead in an extreme case.

In the condition it was in, in 2012, it was worth about 50 bucks. With the rifle was a typed note that detailed how it was obtained in Vietnam. “On February 4th, 1967, this rifle was used by a sniper chained to a branch in a tree, to engage a squad of Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division. Two Soldiers were injured by the sniper before he was located and shot by CPL ****** of 3rd Platoon.”

It had a typed rank and name of the Captain (probably the Company Commander the squad belonged to) and it was signed by the Captain and CPL ******. Corporal ****** was the father of my buddy.

I showed my buddy how much the rifle was worth in the condition that it was in, but, if they would throw in the letter, I would give them $200 for the rifle. They accepted and I added a non-functional Russian Stamped SKS to my collection.

Sounds like something you should not regret, right? Well it was the veritable double-edged sword.

By that, I mean after letting it set on my Foreign Weapons Wall, I could not stand it any longer and spent the next month disassembling the rifle, another three months de-rusting the trigger housing group, using enough Naval Jelly and solvent to flood a small room before I could remove the barrel without stripping/ruining the threads and soaked the barrel in Naval Jelly for three months, running a few patches through it each weak to remove the rust.

After the three months, I was able to clean the barrel and maintain the lands & grooves of the rifling.

Six more months and I was able to clean it up enough to remove the oils and grit to re-blue the barrel and receiver. I touched up, but did not change the furniture (wood buttstock, forearm grip, etc.

I spent about thousand bucks getting it back into very good condition and it’s a fantastically accurate rifle that I would use for hunting, but would use the 7.62x39mm round for only Whitetail deer because it is not a powerful round compared to the 7.62x51mm NATO round or the 30–30.

Why do I put it in the REGRET section? Because I’ve done a lot of work in my lifetime, but I’ve never put so much into a single personal project. I love the result, but the level of detail small and large and the hours and hours put into it was amazing that my “self-diagnosed” ADHD allowed me to work on the weapon for so long.

Yes, I do regret purchasing the weapon, but I am so freaking happy at the same time.

How common is it for recruits in basic training to sleep on top of their bedding in order to avoid having to make their bed in the morning?

“One hour in it equals two hours on it"

That was probably the most common quote I heard in the navy. Most of the time it was in the fleet, not training but the same principle applies. You will get a far better quality of sleep in a bed rather than just on their bed.

In basic training your sleep is limited. You need to get as much and as good quality sleep as you possibly can. Yes you may have to get up ten minutes earlier to make it, but if you lose an hour of quality sleep for it, that’s not a good investment.

There was only one time in training where I remember anyone doing it. It was the night before a really big, detailed inspection. People had spent hours getting their beds just perfect. They chose to sleep on the floor instead. I didn’t agree, but I saw the logic.

It also happened in the fleet during periods of intense training. If you were off watch but expecting an exercise you may not see the point in getting into bed, and lie on top ready for it all to kick off. Again experience showed this was a bad idea. I remember once being told a fire exercise was due to start in five minutes. I decided to risk getting into bed, hoping it may be a bit late and I could steal ten minutes of sleep. I was woken six hours later to come back on watch. There had been a defect and they could no longer do the exercise. A few others had waited up, then missed their chance to sleep.

My opinion, get sleep whenever you can, and get the best sleep whenever you can.

Hard Work Gets You Nowhere. Why Men Are Leaving The Labor Force En Masse

Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (15 ounce) can pizza sauce
8 ounces elbow macaroni, cooked and drained
2 cups (8 ounces) mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package sliced pepperoni
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink. Drain.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Transfer to a greased 2 quart baking dish.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes or until heated through.

Yield: 6 servings

What’s the most terrifying thing you’ve ever experienced?

I found the dead body of my best friend inside her apartment. She was murdered.

She was missing for 4 days. Me and the other girls were hypothesizing that she’d gone on vacation to Hong Kong or Singapore with her boyfriend so we weren’t worried that much.

A couple of days later, we decided to check up on her apartment just to make sure everything was okay. We had her spare key, so there we went.

We got there, opened the door, and found blood all over her apartment. Blood was all over the living room, the sofa, bathroom, everything was scattered all over the place. The room was in disarray even her giant coffee table had moved around one meter to another area. And when I got in to her bedroom, I found her dead body lying there on the floor, her body has bloated up and gotten so dark, it was almost purple-ish black, I couldn’t identify who was it. Even her eyes had already pushed out of the sockets. It looked nothing like her. But I recognized the dress. It was hers.

I freaked out. I got out of there and called the security and then the police.

She was murdered by her guy friend. They were close friends.

He was on drugs. They were fighting over money (which didn’t make sense to me, knowing exactly what kind of person she was), he ran to the kitchen, took a knife, and there. He stabbed her multiple times and dragged her to the bedroom.

I still vividly remember the trails of blood on her living room floor all way to the bathroom.

I still remember her bloated body, her dress, the color of her skin, her eyes. It was a nauseating scene I thought I could only see in a crime movie.

What are some mind-blowing facts that sound unreal but are actually true?

What if I say an entire national team vanished into thin air?

In 2004, the Sri Lankan national Handball team disappeared in Germany and it is one of the biggest mysteries in the world of sports that remains unsolved till date.

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20 years back, a 23-man Sri Lankan handball team arrived in Germany to take part in a program consisting of matches against local clubs. They were received with great hospitality by the Germans. Everything was normal until this point. However, the team’s performance during a match raised suspicion. The players seemed to not even know the rules properly and their performance was ‘awful’.

Well, what happened the next morning was unthinkable. The whole squad of 16 players and 9 other members, including the coach just vanished into thin air!

When the team did not show up for breakfast, the German hosts got worried and went out to look for them. When they could not find them anywhere they went to the team’s room only to realize that they had vanished. They had left all their personal belongings behind, including sports equipment and team jerseys, as well as a thank-you note to authorities thanking them for the hospitality, indicating that they were all leaving for France.

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The German authorities were baffled and when they contacted the Sri Lankan government regarding this, was when they found out: NO SRI LANKAN NATIONAL HANDBALL TEAM EVER EXISTED!

The team members haven’t been found to date and most of them are said to have settled in France.

P.S. There is also a movie called ‘Machan’ about this made-up team that vanished into thin air.

My Mom INSISTS A College Gal With Tatts + A Nose Ring A Can Still Have Her V-Card & Be Wife Material

Are the Japanese aware that they are about to enter a Third World War against China, North Korea and Russia and that, even though they are a peaceful country, they will have to lead military efforts in the Far East?

Chapter 2 of the Japanese Constitution: RENUNCIATION OF WAR

Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

The constitution was designed to prevent Japan, a defeated nation in World War II, from rearming after World War II.

UN Charter

After the end of the Second World War and the surrender of the former axis powers in 1945, the United Nations became the successor of the dissolved League of Nations. To ensure that these states, including Germany, Japan, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Italy and Romania (Hey, almost all of them are US allies) would never be able to start a war again, the Enemy State Clause was added to the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security.

The Enemy State Clause is a passage of chapter 53 and 107 of the UN Charter, which says that enforcement actions can be taken without the permission of the Security Council against all as Enemy States defined nations. Enemy States are declared as nations which have been an enemy of any signatory of the present Charter during the Second World War.

Furthermore these states can face consequences trough aggressive behaviour by UN members.

How prevalent is crime in Macau?

It’s practically non existent.

Petty crimes are not even a statistic.

I’ve lived in Macau for over 40 years. Can go out on the street anytime of day or night.

I live near the Macau prison. But I still leave my balcony door wide open at night without fear.

There was one period in the 1990s where it became a lawless state. The triads were trying to get their hands on the lucrative VIP rooms in the casinos. In one year we had 37 killings. In broad daylight.

I told everyone it didn’t matter as long as you don’t hang around the triads. The next day I heard a loud bang in a shopping district. I turned around and saw a guy bleeding to death on the sidewalk. The killer put his gun away and fled the scene. Everyone walked around like nothing happened.

I understood the indifference. A week before an American friend witnessed a stabbing at a Japanese restaurant. He called the police. Then became uncomfortable and hung up. When he got home, seven police were waiting for him. They asked (in a nasty tone) why he called the police and hung up. A week later, he went to Hong Kong with his family. When he came home, he found it was ransacked and they poisoned his cat. At that time, the police and triads were linked.

The commissioner of gambling escaped a car bombing. The triads were very brazen. Two motorcycles killed a carload of people in broad daylight in front of the then Portuguese appointed governor’s mansion.

China came in and “talked” to the triads and increased their security at Chinese government buildings.

Within weeks, the killings stopped.

That year 37 killings. The next year zero. Everyone was relieved.

Nowadays Macau is completely safe.

Operation Sunray | Hunting the Entity in the Tsarichina Hole

Fun.

Jammin’ with the Wailers

During our “van days”; that period of time in between the discharge from the US Navy and when I was picked up with MAJestic…

…we were living in a van, working as a cook in San Louis Obispo, California and just doing the best we could with the little that we had.

And during that time, we lived in a broken down van; inoperable, dead, and even the door locks didn’t work. We climbed in and out though the sunroof. It was parked in a the tail end of the church parking lot. And so life moved on. We would exit the van, walk to work and walk back. It was tough, but we managed.

It was a time of great frustration, but of greater hope.

THis was years before the mass layoffs that gave all of America a taste of what a layoff actually was. And so, we were surrounded by “know it alls” who had no sympathy for us, as we plodded on.

One day, as we were walking to and from the van, we noticed another overloaded station wagon (late model and older) with tons of gear piled on its roof. So we kept on our walk and some of the guys offered us some marijuana.

Normally we wouldn’t take, but they looked like they were from Jamaica (they were) and so we chatted and hit some of their ganja. The group was The Wailers. Though, at that time, Bob Marley wasn’t with them.

They were fine and we had many a rambling and insightful conversation; that unfortunately I have long forgotten. *sigh*

They gave us free tickets to their concert, but we were too stoned. We thanked them, as they were starting to set up at the pavilion. Instead, we just smiled and just walked back to our van.

And that is the story of how my wife and I met The Wailers. Just some travelers just like us. When you get off the beaten track you will meet all kinds of people. And you will have all kinds of experiences.

Today…

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Jamming

Why do Hong Kong people not fight back when they are discriminated against in the UK?

Hong Kong separatists suffer racial discrimination in the UK, but for them, the nightmare does not come from Anglo-Saxon racism, but from the actions of the Tiandihui (also known as the Hongmen) to punish Chinese traitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiandihui

Chinese abroad often rely on 3 kinds of civil society organizations for help: clan associations, hometown associations, and the Tiandihui.

Chinese embassies and consulates abroad are official institutions of the Chinese government overseas. They usually coordinate with government departments in the host countries through diplomatic means and are unlikely to intervene in private affairs.

Without the help of civil society organizations, overseas Chinese would not be able to gain a foothold in Chinatown.

The Tiandihui was founded by Ming loyalists in the early Qing dynasty to resist the Manchu invasion of China. This is an ancient organization that is still in operation today and it has become a multinational organization that also has branches in the UK.

Tiandihui members worldwide continue to observe certain common traditions: they all stress their patriotic origin; they all revere Lord Guan, a deified historic Chinese figure who embodies righteousness, patriotism, and loyalty; and they all share certain rituals and traditions such as the concept of brotherhood and a secret handshake.

Chinese Traitors in the UK are also divided into different levels:

Taiwan separatists have higher emotional intelligence. Although they are Chinese traitors, they will not show it on the surface.
Hong Kong separatists are 100% slaves of Anglo-Saxons. Even if Anglo-Saxons fart, they think it smells good.

Of course, Taiwan independence elements and Hong Kong independence elements are of no use. They only dare to be rebellious at home and remain calm abroad.

Tiandihui is a secret civil organization with many branches and complex structure, and does not conduct public activities.

Don’t expect the inefficient British police to protect Chinese traitors; they just need to accept their punishment honestly.

Dried Beef Casserole

Ingredients

2 cups dry macaroni, uncooked
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cups milk
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
6 tablespoons Durkee’s French fried onions
10 ounces dried beef, chopped
5 hard boiled eggs, sliced

Instructions

Combine soup and milk and stir until creamy, then add remaining ingredients except eggs. Mix well, then fold in eggs.
Cover tightly, and refrigerate overnight.
Bake uncovered for 1 hour at 350 degrees F.
If desired, add more onion rings to top ten minutes before removing from oven.

BREAKING NEWS: ISRAEL SEIZES CRYPTO-CURRENCIES OF ALL PALESTINIANS – – – TERRORISM

Hal Turner World August 26, 2024

Israel has ORDERED the crypto-exchange “Binance” to SEIZE the crypto-currencies of all Palestinians pursuant to Israeli Terrorism Law!!!!!

Israel did this by declaring the Dubai Exchange Company in the Gaza Strip, which is the only lawful crypto-currency entity allowed to operate in the Gaza Strip, to be a “terrorist organization.”

All Palestinians were required to use the Dubai Exchange Company for all their crypto-currency transactions.

Since the Israeli government declared the Dubai Exchange itself to be a “terrorist organization” all the money transferred by or through that company is then considered to be the property of the “terrorist organization” and thus subject to being seized!

Palestinians have APPEALED this mass seizure. Those Appeals are ALL being denied.

The DENIAL letter appears below in original Hebrew language, which has been machine-translated as follows:

BEGIN MACHINE TRANSLATION:

“In accordance with the authority delegated to me by the Minister of Defense, according to Section 61(a) of the Law on Combating Terrorism, 556- 2016 (hereinafter: “The Law on the Fight against Terrorism”) and further to your application as a reference, I would like to inform you that your claims against Seizure of property by virtue of an administrative seizure order (T56/23) signed by the Minister of Defense on November 1, 2023, by virtue of his authority according to the law, were examined by and rejected for the following reasons:

1. Section 56(b) of the Anti-Terrorism Law states, among other things, that the Minister of Defense may issue an order on Temporary seizure of property of a declared terrorist organization, as well as seizure of property that was used to commit a crime Serious terrorism or property where a serious terrorist offense was committed.

2. At the basis of the administrative seizure order (Tt56/23) is reliable intelligence information that teaches that wallets of cryptocurrencies, including one that is registered in your name, funds have been transferred by an organization — the declared terrorism of the Dubai Exchange Company in the Gaza Strip (declared on March 7, 2022, published in the 10084 p. 2505 on 4.4.2022.

3. According to the anti-terrorism law, cryptographic currencies that have been transferred by a declared terrorist organization constitute property of a declared terrorist organization and cryptocurrency wallets to which it has been transferred. Said property constitutes property that was directly used to commit a serious terrorist offense of providing a service or Establishing measures for a terrorist organization, as defined in the Law on Combating Terrorism, and therefore in accordance with the instructions The law allows the Minister of Defense to order their seizure by administrative order in preparation for their confiscation.

4. In light of the above, and if nothing is found in your claims to contradict the information that formed the basis of issuing an order The seizure, I intend to recommend to the Minister of Defense to order the confiscation of the property for which the seizure order was issued, In accordance with the authority of the Minister of Defense according to section 66(a) of the law.

5. According to the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Law, an appeal against this decision will be submitted as a petition to the Court of Matters administrative.

END MACHINE TRANSLATION —–

So the Israelis are considering ALL Palestinian crypto-currencies to be “terrorism” because they all went through the only lawful crypto exchange in the Gaza Strip, and Israel has now seized all that crypto-currency from the wallets of the people who sent it or received it. Whether that person was a “terrorist” or not, does not matter because the crypto-exchange itself was declared a “terrorist organization.”

Any of you who have Crypto-currencies, being held in a wallet that can be accessed by any exchange, should dump that crypto-currency absolutely immediately and get your money. What Israel has just shown is that they (or any other government) can simply make a declaration that the Exchange itself is a “terrorist organization” then grab all the crypto wallets that have ever been used via that exchange!

You would lose all your crypto, and automatically be considered to be “related to terrorist activities” with the stroke of a pen by some government lackey.

Remember this, too, when they start trying to get you to use “Central Bank Digital Currency.” They could do the exact same thing with that! You would find yourself cut off from all money. Try “appealing” anything when all the cash (you no longer have) is only “digital” and they just grabbed it all!

Today, as you scan your regular “news” sources, see if there is any reporting at all about this?

The TRAGIC TRUE Story Of The $280M Lottery Winner

A nightmare.

Shorpy

Parenting Gone Wrong: Spoiled Child Leads Family to Deadly Consequences At A Hotpot Restaurant

Have you ever caught a mechanic lying about a repair they claimed to have done to your car? What happened?

We recently bought out my wife’s company car, a Subaru Legacy, which we got a great deal on. Shortly before, while the car was still owned by fleet, we had taken the car in to the dealership for an oil change. This was before it got warm enough to need the air conditioner. Along comes summer and we notice the AC isn’t putting out cold air. I pop the hood and notice the wires to the compressor have been cut. I took a number of pictures from various angles and took the car back to the dealership and acted stupid, as if I had no idea why the AC was suddenly not working. An hour later they called to let me know they discovered that the wires had been chewed through, probably by a rat and said the entire wiring harness needed to be replaced at a cost of somewhere around $400–600. I lost my cool and told them they were lying to me and said it was obvious the wires had been cut. The service manager then told me they had found evidence of a rat’s nest under the hood. I told him I had taken a number of pictures of the engine compartment and that I had not seen any evidence of any rodent and said the wires were cut far too clean for them to have been chewed through and that it was pretty obvious this had been done when the car had last been in for service.

Thankfully my wife had a good relationship with the fleet manager and called him and asked for advice. He said to give us an hour and he’d get back to us. The dealership reached out shortly afterward and said they would be taking care of the damage at no charge to us. Apparently the fleet manager told them it seemed as though they were trying to take advantage of the fact that it was a fleet car (as it would have been had we not bought it out), had likely cut the wires expecting the fleet would be covering the repair bill (as they would have done had the car still been a fleet vehicle) and he was prepared to recommend blacklisting Subaru over their actions.

We will never take our car back to Carter Subaru in Shoreline (Seattle) again. Clearly they’re not to be trusted.

** Update: This answer must’ve recently been included in a digest email because it’s received a lot of attention. I figured I should probably update it with a couple of pictures I took before bringing the car in to the dealership. It clearly shows evidence of the “rat” that chewed, err, sliced through the wiring harness.

Which country has better fighters than the US? Are Russia or China known for having strong fighters?

Regarding the gap between fighter jets of China, the United States and Russia, the most appropriate objects of comparison are the three heavy stealth fighters: J-20, F22 and Su-57.

If we rank the number of the three types of heavy aircraft: J-20>F22>Su-57.

J-20, 100 new aircraft are produced every year
F22 has been discontinued for a long time, with only about 180 in total.
Su-57, no more than 10 are produced every year.

The combat effectiveness of the three heavy aircraft is ranked as follows: J-20>F22>Su-57.

The performance indicators of the fifth-generation fighter jets should be in order of importance:

Super perception (including informationization and intelligence): The maximum detection range of the F22 airborne radar is 250 kilometers, and the maximum detection range of the J-20 airborne radar is 300 kilometers.
Stealth: The J20 is more delicate than the F22. The J20 can adapt to various environments, whether it is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau or the western desert. The J20 only needs an ordinary hangar to be deployed, unlike the F22, which needs a constant temperature hangar for maintenance. Finally, regarding the Su-57, I think if the Su-57 is optimized, the stealth performance still has a lot of room for improvement.
Supercruise and supersonic maneuverability: The F22 should be the one with the best supercruise capability at present because of its engine advantage, but the J-20’s supersonic optimization is the most thorough. After replacing the new engine, its supercruise and supersonic maneuverability will far surpass the F22.
Multi-purpose performance (including payload range): Theoretically, the multi-purpose performance of Su-57 should be the strongest, its bomb bay is deeper, and the front and rear columns are also convenient for arranging large missiles. Compared with the F22, the J-20 has a longer fuselage, larger fuel capacity, and a larger bomb bay, so its range and multi-purpose performance are greater than those of the F22. The comprehensive comparison is Su-57>J-20>F 22.
Subsonic maneuverability (including supersonic maneuverability, also known as super-stall maneuverability): This is the most controversial issue at present. The domestically produced Taihang improved engine currently installed on the J-20 is only a transitional version of the WS-15 engine. Its thrust is barely enough for the J-20, so its over-stall maneuverability is definitely not as good as that of the F22 and Su-57. However, with the advent and deployment of the WS-15 engine, these problems will be solved.

The US military itself knows very well that they are losing their air superiority!

Young Connecticut Man Will Only Give His GF A “Symbolic Wedding” To Safeguard His Hard Earned Wealth

Interesting. Phew! What a crazy life.

Good Job

One day, while I was working upstairs in my office, my German Shepherd came upstairs, stood in my office doorway barking at me.

Then he walked over to the top of the staircase barking as he looked down the stairs. He lifted his head, looked towards me and continued barking.

He walked back and stood in the office doorway again looking at me, barking.

He did this repeatedly for a few minutes while I worked. It became obvious he wanted me to follow him downstairs. I got up and asked him, “What’s the matter?”

As soon as I asked this our house began to shake.

Everything on my walls and shelves were rattling.

I did not understand exactly what was happening, but we both ran down the stairs while I yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

We got outside and I felt the ground moving.

Then it stopped.

We had just experienced an earthquake. They are practically nonexistent in our region. Somehow, my boy knew it was coming and came upstairs to warn me.

He did many intelligent things in his lifetime, but that was the most amazing.

Suspects That LOSE IT During Interrogations

Brutal.

Ukraine Develops ‘Its Own’ Cruise Missile

On the Ukrainian independence day former President Zelenski announced that Ukraine’s forces would soon use a “rocket driven drone”:

On 24 August, during the Saturday ceremonies for Ukraine’s Independence Day, Volodymyr Zelensky stated that today, Ukrainian forces for the first time targeted enemy troops with a new long-range drone.- This is our new method of retaliating against the aggressor. The enemy was hit. Thank you to everyone who made this possible. All the developers, manufacturers, and our soldiers. I am proud of you, Zelensky said during his speech, quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda portal.

The rocket-drone system, produced indigenously by Ukraine and gracefully named “Paljanica” (like the traditional Ukrainian wheat flour bread, which symbolizes hospitality and happiness), is a military innovation. During the official ceremonies, Zelensky stressed that it is a weapon of a “completely new class”. He emphasized that “it is difficult to counteract it, but very easy to understand why.”

The work on the rocket-drone was carried out in secrecy.

Zelenski published a video that shows a second of the cruise missile in flight.

HI Sutton of Covert Shores created this picture from it.

This is not a drone but a turbojet driven cruise missile. Ukraine announced that it has been tested and could be used soon:

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov promised Monday the weapon would be used again soon in response to the overnight attack on Ukraine.“Ukraine is preparing its response. Weapons of its own production,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “This once again proves that for victory, we need long-range capabilities and the lifting of restrictions on strikes on the enemy’s military facilities.”

A Ukrainian military video hinted that its range is up to 700 kilometers (430 miles) — on par with the U.S.-supplied ATACMS. It showed a map with various airfields, including Russia’s Savasleyka air base, which lies within that range, adding that the Palianytsia can reach at least 20 Russian airfields.

Russia has expected longer range missile strikes for some time and its defenses are positioned appropriately. Another Ukrainian ‘wonder weapon’ will not impress it. Ukraine claims that the cruise missile was developed by itself:

One of the specialists involved in the long-range missile project said it was “a completely new development, from scratch” that began about 18 months ago.“This is not an extension of an old Soviet project,” said the specialist, speaking on condition of anonymity to safeguard the project’s secrecy. The missile has a solid-fuel booster that accelerates it, followed by a jet engine, the specialist said.
…
The specialist and Fedorov said each missile costs less than $1 million, and the military is turning to the private sector to bring down production costs further. “The private market generates solutions incredibly quickly,” the minister said.

I doubt that Ukraine has created its own cruise missile. There are too many parts of such systems, especially the navigation and targeting modules, that need high end solutions to be able to counter Russian electronic warfare measures and to deceive Russian air defenses. It expect that these will be derivatives from western projects.

Aside from that all Ukraine’s weapon and especially missile manufacturing facilities have been hit several times by Russian missiles. This morning a new large missile and drone attack again hit “the critical power infrastructure of Ukrainian defence industry”. Next to other infrastructure today’s strike damaged three irreplaceable 750 kilovolt transformer stations and several 330 kv stations.

The new Ukrainian cruise missile was probably designed by the U.S. or UK and its various modules will likely be assembled in Poland instead of Ukraine. Still, it will be a hassle to produce many of these. That is likely the reason why the Ukrainian leadership is begging daily to allow it to use long range missiles produced by the U.S. or Britain to hit targets within Russia.

So far the U.S. has blocked such moves because it fears retaliation by Russia. Russia has threatened to deliver such weapons from Russian production to U.S. enemies should the U.S. proceed and allow Ukraine to hit with U.S. weapons within Russia.

A “Ukrainian” cruise missile would of course eliminate that problem.

Posted by b at 16:01 UTC | Comments (153)

What happened in your office that became the stuff of legend?

We were getting calls from a lot of vendors about past due invoices – for MONTHS. This was so weird as our branch was doing very well and we just could not figure out why our vendors weren’t being paid. Invoices were posted in the AP and this should not have been happening. It got so bad that one of our major suppliers wouldn’t provide any more material until they were paid. This was bad – we had a MAJOR project going that we could not not have material.

We had what was called an Imprest Checking Account. We had a checkbook and could write checks for things like permits, licenses, etc. The cap per check was $500.00 with a monthly “allowance of around $3,000.00 per branch.

To avoid credit hold that month, our Branch Manager told the office manager to write a check for $30,000.00. Done and delivered, material is on the job site. Got a call from HQ/Co. President telling us we did a bad thing and not to do it again because overdraft fees.

Our AP admin decided to do some investigating. Holy carp – we were going gangbusters and collecting a lot of money every month but almost ALL of our AP was aging towards or past 120 days. So she looked in to the HQ office. Gee, all of their bills were being paid on time. So she took this info to the BM who called HQ and read them the riot act.

Next month, same drill – no material from the vendor for the project until they were paid. BM directed AP admin to write a check for $60,000.00.

A week later, same phone call from HQ President. BM invited us admins in to his office and put him on speaker so we could listen. Pres. was yelling and screaming at BM who just sat, calmly, nodding and listening. Pres ended his tirade with “What do you have to say?!” BM, very calmly, replied “Pay our fuickin’ bills.” Silence on the other end followed by unintelligible grumbling and a click. BM just sat there and smiled at the phone and the three of us were in awe. That man, our Branch Manager, was a legend.

After that, our bills were paid on time. I still tell that story and am still in awe of, perhaps, the best boss I ever had.

Wife Spent 5 Months On OnlyFans Before Confessing To Husband & The Reddit Army WENT CRAZY When He…

The term “relationship” has taken on new meaning these days. Not judging, but it is a bit of a shock to my 1960 era sensibilities.

How do you view the popularity of “Black Myth: Wukong” and the spread of Chinese culture?

Black Myth: Wukong” has shattered multiple global gaming records on its first day of release. As of 10 PM last night, it reached over 2.22 million concurrent players on Steam, topping the Steam concurrent player chart and setting a new record for single-player games. Additionally, “Black Myth: Wukong” has been the best-selling game on Steam globally for the past week, sweeping the charts in 12 regions including the United States, Singapore, Canada, and Italy.

“Black Myth: Wukong” sold over 3 million copies on Steam alone yesterday, and with sales on Epic, WeGame, and PS5 combined, the total surpasses 4.5 million copies, generating over 1.5 billion yuan in revenue. This figure is hundreds of times higher than the pre-sales of previous domestic single-player games (which typically reached around 100.

To be honest, no domestic single-player game has ever demonstrated such a terrifying dominance. Changcheng Securities even predicts that “Black Myth: Wukong” could catch up with top-tier games like “Elden Ring” and “Dark Souls” in terms of sales.

This is not blind optimism. With over 4.5 million copies sold in a single day and total sales exceeding 1.5 billion yuan, “Black Myth: Wukong” has set a new benchmark. For comparison, “Cyberpunk 2077” had 8 million pre-orders upon its release in 2020, and “The Last of Us Part II,” the 2020 TGA Game of the Year, sold 4 million copies in its first week. Moreover, “Black Myth: Wukong” reached 1 million concurrent players within 60 minutes, surpassing “Cyberpunk 2077.

“Black Myth: Wukong” is rich in traditional Chinese cultural elements, even featuring傩面 (nuò miàn,傩 masks).

Black Myth: Wukong” represents a significant milestone in the global dissemination of Chinese culture, offering a visually stunning and culturally rich gaming experience that has captured the attention of audiences worldwide. By examining the game’s portrayal of Chinese mythology, its impact on the global gaming industry, and its potential to foster cultural exchange, we can gain a deeper understanding of the role of video games in shaping cultural perceptions.

How will I survive prison being a 48-year-old male? I am awaiting sentencing in less than 23 days and I am facing up to 9 years in total in feds. How will I survived having ever been in prison before?

All right, sit down and listen. Jim Van Derlin wrote 10 things. do not forget any of it. Great stuff. Now, I was like 58 going into a Fed prison. I did time in 4 prisons including the Penitentiary at Victorville, CA and finished out my time at FCI Tucson, a medium-high that was rated as High due to it being a transfer point/holding site. Os some shit like that.

So, 9 years. Make amends. Payoff any debts you can. Say goodbye. Sell your car, cancel everything you can, your family won’t need it. If you have family, you will need to connect like never before because IF you get visits, they are hard. I didn’t even want my family coming to fucking prison. The penitentiary is surrounded by a 40′ wall lined with piles of razor wire. The inmates all look like they would eat your face just to stay busy. So you don’t think I’m insulting anyone, a big dude once asked me why I looked so mean, while we were in the visiting room. I think his daughter got scared. I was like ‘bro, you’re 6’9″, 325 pounds and have a face only a mother could love and you think I’m mean looking?

Before this fiasco, a speeding ticket ruined my month. I was not from the hood, I was not connected nor was I a fighting machine. So to reiterate a few comments from Jim, unless you want your asshole the size of a cucumber, DO NOT DO ANYTHING that causes you to owe money. $5 past due, a few homies come by, you no gots??? You trade for sex. It won’t necessarily be your choice. If Someone wants to give you a hit on a smoke, or a joint, DO NOT take it. Do not be surprised that the hit you took went on your tab. Yeah, the tab you didn’t know you had.

Respect others. Expect it back. If something goes sideways and nasty talk starts, you have about 10–12 seconds. If the other dude calms, let it rest. If he ain’t calm, expect an attack immediately. You will never argue more than 15 seconds before the shit flies! Be ready and swing back.

Carry yourself with confidence, but not arrogance. you can nod or a small half smile of acknowledgement to peeps you know from other races but do NOT think you can walk up and join a convo with another race. you’ll be sorry with a quick lesson.

My advice, do not be friends with the first guys that approach you. They will be conning you out of something. Hopefully, your bunkie or a guy from a close cell walks you down to the chow hall. Listen, answer questions honestly, and do not try to be someone you are not. Take it slowly. Be friend-LY with people but it takes months before you should trust or rely on others.

After the mental meltdown of the admitting process and the first few days of living in a parallel universe, you will start to go through your life. There is little you can do inside. I’m still married, somehow. Don’t expect to be. If you are and she waits, you are blessed.

I made it through my whole sentence until the last year. Something happened, I had years of being fed up. I started yelling about something. There were a couple of COs close by. The boys I was pissed at didn’t like being barked at in front of others. An hour later I got a visit at my locker. 5 dudes. A little talking, a little pushing. I counted and got to 11. I knew this was it. Early on in my sentence, I had decided that if I ever got hit by a group, it was gonna hurt. So I figured, I’m going to concentrate my “love and attention” on 1 guy. I wanted at least one dude besides me to walk with a limp, or a hanging arm, or a fucked up face! You’ll be in pain, but make 1 guy remember you. Word gets around.

China Threatens EU Dairy Economy, Argentina Gold In London, Major Bank “USD Big Crash Bets”

Tit 4 tat.

A HK story

So I rung my uncle in Hong Kong because I heard he had a fall recently.

He has to sit in a wheelchair for a while but he was in good spirits.

He was almost gleeful to share about Nathan Law’s recent travails.

Apparently, the white masters are cutting him loose and he is in a bit of a bind financially. His family and supporters are in trouble for sending him money. His mum even lost the subsidized housing unit due to rent arrears.

He wants Nathan to come back and face the music so the family don’t have to.

But he knows that is wishful thinking, because the man is a “chickenshit coward”. His original description is a little too colorful to print here.

He hates the leaders of the 2019 riots because his little side business went under during the mayhem, and incurred a tidy loss.

I don’t blame him.

I wish him a speedy recovery.

Why is China lagging behind India while its GDP is higher than India’s?

It’s commonly believed that India’s potential could soon eclipse China’s, but the real story is quite the opposite. While India’s GDP figures are catching eyes, China’s strategic investments in high-value sectors show that it is leagues ahead in sustainable economic growth.

You see, China isn’t just about huge GDP numbers. It’s about how they’ve managed to turn those numbers into substantial value through smart, forward-thinking strategies. Decades ago, China’s economy heavily relied on exporting low-margin goods. But today, the game has changed. China now focuses on high-tech manufacturing and mastering key technologies, earning significantly more per unit of export. For instance, a Tesla made in Shanghai leaves a big chunk of profit within Chinese borders, which wasn’t the case with the lower-margin goods they made years ago. The same goes for Huawei smartphones, which now rake in higher profits compared to the earlier contracts with Western brands.

Meanwhile, India’s economic landscape is in a different phase, more focused on assembly and service-based tasks. Even though India’s exports are expected to rise, the value they add to the economy pales in comparison to China’s high-tech exports. India finds itself deeply engaged in refining oil, assembling electronics, and providing software services. These sectors don’t bring significant value back home; most of the profits end up with the foreign owners of these technologies.

Another big part of the story is how each country invests in its people. China has poured resources into its education system, subsidizing costs and providing numerous scholarships, creating a skilled workforce geared toward innovation. On the flip side, Indian education remains expensive, burdening graduates and their families and making it challenging to cultivate a wide pool of talent needed for a tech-driven economy.

China’s economic prowess also stems from continuous investment in infrastructure and technology. The nation has heavily invested in electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind energy, sectors that promise not just jobs but also position China as a future leader in these critical industries. India’s investment in high-tech sectors and infrastructure has yet to meet the same level of effectiveness.

Social factors can’t be ignored either. China has nurtured a meritocratic environment with a focus on achieving technological advancements. Meanwhile, India’s societal focus on celebrity culture and ongoing brain drain diverts attention from the systematic nurturing of its economic potential.

So, if you’re asking why China’s GDP doesn’t tell the whole story of its economic superiority, it’s because of these deep, structural investments and strategic choices. Despite China’s substantially higher GDP, it’s the focus on high-value, technology-driven sectors, education, and infrastructure that sets it apart. For India to bridge this gap, there would need to be a massive shift in educational policies, a serious dedication to infrastructure, and a move away from traditional economic activities toward more innovative sectors.

In essence, while India’s GDP growth might look promising at a glance, China’s underlying economic strategies make it a more formidable force on the global stage. This difference in developmental focus and investment is why China, despite what headlines might suggest, continues to pave the way for a more stable and prosperous future.

American’s can’t comprehend living like Chinese..

So interesting, making fun of Americans. Actually a really good video pointing out the importance of LIVABILITY where you live.

What is the craziest sale you’ve ever made?

I bought a Jeep for $250, drove it a half mile, and sold it for $2,500…unintentionally.

My roommate blew an axle out of his truck, so as I was taxiing him around, he had me take a shortcut. On that back road, I saw this Jeep next to someone’s house. A real Jeep, a 1986 CJ-7, the year before Chrysler took the company over and ruined it. Since I learned the shortcut, I kept going that way, and kept seeing that Jeep, for probably 3 months, although it had clearly been there for years.

It was the homeowner’s son’s Jeep, and he’d moved across the country. He abandoned the Jeep there and ended up sending his father the title to get rid of it. Since I convinced the father I wasn’t a junk car guy or planning on scrapping it, I gave it a good hard closeup look and asked for a price. He said the scrap car guys belittled it and said it was only worth $250 max. Since I genuinely wanted to fix it up for myself, I could have it for that price, which I had on me.

I paid for the Jeep, jump started it, and surprisingly it ran. The brakes were crap, and this Jeep looked horrible, but I saw potential. I stopped at a gas station, and the guy there was mesmerized by this rusty hunk of a Jeep covered in tree crap. He asked me if I would sell it, to which I said I doubt he’s make it worth my while. He then offered me $2,500. I almost crapped my pants. I drove it about a half mile and made 10 times what I paid for it. My plan was just to make sure it had enough gas to get home since the gauge read empty, but instead I made it home with a lot more than I planned on.

After I thought, if he shot me $2,500 right away, he may have been willing to pay more, but I was so shocked I didn’t think of it until later. Who knows…

Is it possible for missiles to defeat the Close-In weapon System (CIWS) like the Phalanx system on a ship?

Yes. The Phalanx fires at 3,000 rounds per minute to 4,500 rounds depending on model.

These are designed to shoot down sub-sonic missiles.

Chinese research shows that in order to shoot down high supersonic missiles (missiles traveling at Mach3 – Mach 5) you need a CIWS that fires at 10,000 rounds per minute.

Also if the missile is maneuvering in terminal phase then the faster the firing rate the better. You also need better radars and powerful computers to predict the missile trajectory and get there first with the gun.

Current Chinese CIWS fires at 11,000 rounds per minute.

Everything in in-place. What event – or false-flag – will be used to trigger Actual WW3?

Hal Turner World

Just to clarify, so there is no misunderstanding . . .

Armies are in forward positions.
Scenarios were run through computer simulations (AI to use more trendy expression).
Alliances were decided and consolidated.
Legislation was put through legal process.
Politicians who will run things were selected.

Everything is ready.

Now it is a matter of using an event or creating an event to start WW3. What will be the spark that causes the explosion of war?

I guess scenarios that were run through computers did not give satisfactory results and that is a reason for delays.

But, everything is ready . . . for world war, version 3.

Ukraine was a beta test.

5,500 Dead! Ukraine’s Invasion into Kursk, Russia

Hal Turner World

Ukraine has lost 5,500 troops, 71 tanks, 30 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, 57 Armored Personnel Carriers, and 372 Armored Combat Vehicles in their two week long misadventure into Russia’s Kursk Region.

The staggering losses in such a short time reveal the complete idiocy of this maneuver by Ukraine, or the factual realization that any NATO planners involved, were utterly incompetent.

Medellin: The Sex Tourism Capital Of Colombia | Is This A Passport Bro Paradise Or Nightmare?

The war on “passport bros” has entered a new cycle; as a sexpat.

What is it like to be the child of a billionaire?

A friend of mine was born to rich (not billionaire) parents. His Grandad had started a company with nothing, his dad had taken it on and made it bigger and more profitable. He was the eldest son.

I met him when he was 22. He was a graduate from an elite university, and had a got a lucrative government sponsorship to study accounting, and I’d got sponsorship at 18, to do the same. Which is where I met him. I’m from a more typical background, 2 parents, working 9–5 jobs to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

We talked about the differences between us, on and off, over the next year or two.

Most of us have to go to work to earn money, support our family, and we keep turning up because if we don’t, we might get sacked. Those who don’t put the effort in, don’t get the bigger, better jobs. None of this applies to “daddy’s boy”. He knew if he wanted it, he would be MD of the family company. If not, the family would appoint a manager or sell the business, and he could live off the profits.

His dad was conscious of this, and had asked him the question a couple of times:

At 18 – Nope, I want to go to Uni

At 21, Nope I want to study to be an accountant

at 24 – I’d like to work in the private sector for 2 years.

Even at 26, his dad did his best to dissuade him:

You have a good career ahead of you, outside the family business. You can do well. You don’t need to take this on if you don’t want to. I can get a Professional manager.
You know, whatever you do, people will say you were “given it”. You will never get any credit.
It won’t be easy. I won’t give it to you, I will give you a couple of jobs, and if you goof around, I will leave you there. People’s jobs and their families depend on this company, and if you become MD, you need to take that responsibility seriously.
Once you come in, you will struggle to get a job outside the company again, as companies will always look at your CV and say “No point taking him on. All we’ll be doing is training him up for when he goes back to the family company.”
If you make a mistake here, people won’t let you forget. You can’t move jobs, and leave it behind.
You are giving up a lot of (government) benefits, if you come here, more than I can give you, and without the responsibility.
When you are MD, it’s pretty lonely. It’s not like being one of the workforce. It’s just you. People will give you advice, but they have their own agenda, and it’s only you who has to live with the consequences.
There’s always the risk that the company will fail, despite your best efforts. Then you’ll be stuck.

It was during this time that I started to realize that there were downside was well as upsides to being born in to his family.

When he did take it on, his dad was as good as his word. He gave him proper jobs. He made him make the decisions, stand behind them, and if he made mistakes had to own them. Sadly, his dad passed away when he was only 56, so my friend became MD at 30, which was earlier and sooner than his dad and him expected or planned.

He enjoyed it, and did very well. Took the business on to the next level. Increased sales, increased profits, added new product lines, won new customers, put a new computer system in place, trained up the senior team, introduced new production technology, and moved the factory to a new site double the size of the last one, but it was a very demanding role. He was the only family member working in the business, and the wider family seemed to add to his stress, not share the burden. I did some benchmarking on pay rates, and was surprised by his remuneration despite his stellar performance. I advised him that he well below market rates. The family were very reliant on him, but didn’t seem to recognise his performance. In his 40s, he developed some stress related health issues, and stepped away from the business.

After a couple of years sabbatical, he opted not to go back, and took a less stressful and more supportive, and appreciated career, and the company did get a locum manager, and still has it to this day.

The New “Anti-Woke” Visa

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What does a prisoner who is in solitary confinement do in a 24-hour period? What time do they wake up and eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, take a shower, go to work, and exercise? What does a day look like?

Here’s how a day in Z-9 Ad-Seg goes down, from the horses mouth

Sunrise:

The day starts early with medical pass at 0600. We kick things off getting the medicals handled first. By 0620, it’s chow time, and in Ad-Seg, that means meals served straight in the cells. The sergeant handles this personally, making sure it’s all by the book. Food goes through the tray slots, no face-to-face interactions. If it’s Ramadan, we’ve got specific procedures to follow, but the routine stays locked down tight.

After breakfast, inmates get their cleaning supplies through the slot. They’re expected to keep their cells up to standard—no exceptions. Hygiene checks happen regularly, and if someone’s slipping, it gets dealt with. Sometimes, it’s hard to see what’s going on in the cell because inmates like to put cardboard on their windows. That’s only allowed if the inmate’s an IEX’r (indecent exposure), otherwise, we’re not having it.

Mid-Morning:

Around 0800, it’s shower time. In Ad-Seg, showers are solo—no exceptions. Inmates get cuffed and escorted to the shower, where they have about 10 minutes. Then it’s straight back to the cell, still cuffed. No free movement here—everything’s on lockdown. If there’s a medical appointment or legal visit, it’s the same routine: cuffed, escorted, and back to their cell.

Afternoon:

Lunch comes around 1200, following the same procedure as breakfast—through the slot, no hassle. After they eat, they get a bit of in-cell time. Inmates might read, write, or get in some exercises. It’s a small break in the day, but they know the rules. If there’s any legal business or visits, it’s handled individually, under strict supervision.

Yard Time:

Yard is limited in Ad-Seg—only three hours a week. When it’s their time, they’re cuffed and escorted to the yard. It’s the only chance they get to stretch out a bit, but it’s still tightly controlled, with eyes on them at all times.

Evening:

Dinner rolls around at 1700. By now, everyone’s in the routine—food through the slot, no drama. After dinner, the day starts winding down. Mail gets handed out, and if they’re lucky enough to have a TV, they catch a bit of programming before lights out.

Night:

By 2100, it’s lights out. We lock down the unit for the night, making sure everyone’s where they should be. There’s no movement unless it’s an emergency. We do our rounds, checking cells, making sure everything’s in order. The night settles in, and it’s quiet—just the hum of the unit.

In Z-9 Ad-Seg, everything’s about routine and control. Medical at 0600, chow at 0620, showers, meals, and the limited yard time all follow a strict schedule. Whether it’s dealing with cardboard on the windows or getting the yard in, it’s all about maintaining order—tight, controlled, and always by the book.

What is a family secret you didn’t know as a kid, but now as an adult you do and when you look back it explains a lot of things?

My father was often not around when I was a young child.

But I remember an argument one dinner time with the 4 (my dad, mum, myself and my younger brother) of us sat around the dinner table, I would be around 8/9 my brother 5.

Things had been strained most of the day. Something was said and that led to an argument, I remember dinner plates being thrown, food going all over the place, i slid under the table and grabbed my brother and held my hands over his ears as words were being said I knew he shouldn’t hear.

They separated about 18 months later. The Divorce was messy to say the least and we were forced to spend time with him and his “new girlfriend” who had a little girl so she became our step sister… They ended up getting married a couple of years later and separating a few years after that….

My mum and brother were killed by a drunk driver in 1997 and my Dad who I had barely seen in 15 years given he was a violent drunk died in 2012.

It’s only relatively recently that I got back in contact with my stepmother to find out I had a half brother who was 35 years younger than me and born just before my dad died. But after that bomb shell we discussed memories and I worked out that dining table argument was him telling my mum that he had got her pregnant and that she wasnt my step sister but half sister.

That was the same conversation I discovered I potentially had other siblings too.

As it turns out I did…..6 in fact from 4 other relationships some from the same time he was married to my mum.

I’ve now a relationship with 5 of them, and in the process of adopting one of them, hes 12 and currently living in a kids home.

Leaders talk

China is the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council not involved in any international conflict in recent years, demonstrating its commitment to peace, said Timor-Leste’s President Jose Ramos-Horta during an exclusive interview with CMG’s Leaders Talk.

At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Timor-Leste’s president paid a state visit to China from July 28 to 31. This is Ramos-Horta’s first visit to China after he took office in 2022 and the first state visit of Timor-Leste’s president to China since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

During the visit, the two sides agreed to strengthen bilateral relations, with Ramos-Horta saying China’s remarkable economic growth and commitment to global peace have drawn Timor-Leste to seek closer ties.

“China is a global power, it’s the largest economy in Asia, second largest in the world. Over the years, China pursued several strategic tracks, one is building China’s economy to these impressive heights, which make China a global economic power, a global financial power. The modernization of its defense force adds to that, and that creates some jealousy among those who view China as a rival. And sometimes the jealousy is exacerbated, and they try to repeat what was a failure of the 60s and 70s, the so-called ‘China containment’,” the president said.

“China was never involved in any of the major wars in recent decades. Whether the war in Afghanistan, the war in Yemen, in Iraq, Libya and in the ongoing one in Ukraine. China is the only permanent member of the Security Council that is not involved in an international conflict. So for us, its common sense to have strong relations with an Asian power, an Asian country that is also a global power. And I know the history of China going back many centuries. What China was then, particularly before World War Two, after World War Two, a lot of upheavals in China. But long before that, wars waged by foreign powers against China like the Opium War,” he said.

What is the most satisfying thing you have done to someone who blocked your driveway?

I decided to spraypaint my fence.

Some bloke pulled in front of the drive about 10 minutes before I was due to go out, locked his car and started walking away. I called to him to ask him not to park there and was told to “fuck off and deal with it.”

My drive is not on a road where you can get round a car parked like that. I was stuck. So, I called SWMBO and told her I’d be late to our appointment and to give my apologies.

An hour later the driver wasn’t back and I was going to miss my appointment. So I decided on revenge and decided to do one of the jobs SWMBO had been badgering me to do. Repaint the fence… using my new-ish sprayer. I didn’t use it very often as it’s not a very efficient way of painting, as it releases a lot of paint and on breezy days, it tend to drift… a lot.

Our chosen colour was a cedar red… don’t ask… so I alerted my neighbour as she had washing on the line and set up to spray the fence. I managed to get two coats on the 4 six foot fence panels either side of my drive… plus some excess on the ground inside the garden. It drifted outside as well, but I needed to do the outside as well. Outside the garden isn’t as sheltered as inside so the spray drifted a bit more… right onto the gleaming black Subaru Impreza parked across the drive. I only managed to get 1 coat onto the panels outside before it got too dark to see properly for painting, but not too dark to clean the ground inside and outside with a few buckets of water. It’s a water soluble paint after all. I didn’t see what time he left but would love to have seen his face the next morning when he saw his pride and joy splattered with dried on red fence paint.

SWMBO however was more than happy that I’d painted the fence finally.

Wife Who DEMANDED Separation To “Look For Something Different” Gets Reality Check When Husband…

Reminds me of a time in my life that I have tried to forget…

The Celestial Hope

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

Rob Taylor

The Celestial HopeBetween the fabrics of existence, where the threads of reality intertwine, a universal truth persists—an unyielding axiom, as constant as the cosmos itself. Amidst the grand cosmic ballet where galaxies waltz and stars orchestrate an eternal symphony, a saga of boundless proportions unfurls—a tale that transcends the constraints of time and space.Eternity, an expanse beyond mortal comprehension, stands as an ever-present enigma, an eternal observer untouched by the transient choreography of moments. Here, within the unfathomable depths of cosmic vastness, a fellowship known as the Chosen Wanderers embarks upon an odyssey that defies the very essence of their immortal existence.At the helm of this eternal odyssey strides Captain Thalara, a figure of unwavering strength and profound sagacity. Her presence is a beacon of determination that pierces the veils of time, carrying upon her shoulders the monumental weight of leadership—a mantle forged in the crucible of unending epochs.By her side stands Lyndor, a spectral enigma whose eyes hold secrets as ancient as the cosmos itself. An heir to arcane lineage, he wields powers inherited from generations long past, now intertwined with his very being.Elysia, a luminary scientist ignited by an insatiable curiosity, graces the crew with her brilliance—a constellation of knowledge that shines even in the darkest reaches of the universe.

Completing this ensemble is Kaelen, a dauntless pilot whose hands navigate not only the cosmic currents but also the tides of destiny. His courage is a vessel that carries them through the currents of eternity, as he guides them toward uncharted horizons.

Through the collage of galaxies, where stars bloom and fade like cosmic flowers, their starship “Celestial Hope” navigates, leaving ripples in the very fabric of existence. The void echoes with the remnants of ancient civilizations—whispers of lives long gone, reminders of the impermanence of all things. Amid this journey, nebulous clouds of despair and tempests of doubt swirl, seeking to engulf their spirits in shadow. Yet, in defiance of the abyss, their camaraderie burns like a supernova—a radiant beacon against the inky blackness of space.

In the heart of this boundless expanse, Thalara’s voice resounds—a harmonious blend of weariness and unyielding resolve. “In the face of time’s inexorable tide, what path do we forge, when life’s embrace clings without release? Millennia have woven themselves into our very essence, as we traverse the chasm between universes, charting a course through the untamed cosmos.”

Lyndor, a specter of enigmatic wisdom and innate power, leans against the console, his gaze an ancient mosaic painted with the memories of eons.

“Within the currents of our veins courses the venom of eternity,” his voice carries a mournful timbre, heavy with the weight of choices made. “An oath, once taken with eagerness, now binds us with chains of regret—a curse woven into the very fabric of our being.”

Elysia, her fingers dancing across the luminescent constellations that map the celestial canvas, murmurs with reverence in her voice. “Recall the epoch when our predecessors glimpsed the unfathomable—a revelation of multiple big bangs, an eternal existence that defies all comprehension. Even the deities themselves pale in the face of such boundless expanse.”

Kaelen, the intrepid pilot who courts the cosmic unknown with audacious fervour, leans back with a half-smile that masks the weight he carries.

“Gods or no gods, our universe bowed to its inevitable conclusion—a requiem sung as stars winked out. Yet, we remain—ephemeral echoes in the aftermath, seekers of sanctuary in the wake of dissolution.”

As they negotiate wormholes that spiral like cosmic whirlpools and cross dimensions that shimmer like astral gateways, they traverse not only space but also the fabrics of existence itself. Their dialogues resonate like distant echoes through the corridors of the colossal starship—an intricate symphony woven from threads of hope, fear, and unwavering resolve.

“Sworn to a hope, we journey as bearers of the ages,” Thalara’s voice emerges as a soothing echo as the ship navigates the currents of the cosmos. “We are the chosen, tasked with the survival of ages.”

Lyndor’s eyes, impossibly ancient and eternally watchful, hold a depth of understanding that spans eras. “To comprehend eternity is to wrestle with its revelations—a truth more profound than any verse etched into cosmic parchment.”

Elysia’s gaze lifts toward the uncharted constellations beyond the viewport, her voice carrying both lament and wonder. “Our universe, once a cradle of myriad existences, now languishes—a relic adrift in the vast detritus of time.”

Kaelen’s fingers glide over the star maps he has charted, a testament to their journey’s wonder and weariness. “Yet, we endure, undaunted by the ceaseless ebb of eons that slip through our grasp.”

As their odyssey continues, a cataclysmic event unfurls—a singularity, born from the final gasp of a dying universe, threatens to consume them in its voracious maw. Amidst the concerto of alarms and the kaleidoscope of flashing lights, their voices rise like beacons in the tempest.

“A universe born anew, an era unseen,” Elysia’s breath catches, her voice a whisper amidst the maelstrom.

“An epoch that hungers to sunder us,” Kaelen’s voice is a resolute call amidst the chaos.

“Take any action necessary! Steer us away!” Thalara’s command cleaves through the tumult like a sword through the dark.

“Aye, captain,” Kaelen’s hands fly over the controls, each gesture a testament to his indomitable will.

Yet, the singularity’s maw widens beyond escape.

“Wormhole generators at full capacity in mere moments,” Elysia announces, her voice carrying both urgency and the weight of time itself.

“An eternity encapsulated within fleeting seconds,” Thalara’s mutterings become an indomitable mantra within the storm.

As alarms wail and the ship shudders beneath the onslaught of forces beyond mortal reckoning, Thalara’s call rings out with resolute clarity.

“Hold fast, all! Prepare for the impact that bridges being and oblivion!”

Lyndor’s incantations weave through the air, a desperate plea to mystic forces woven into the very fabric of reality.

“By the threads of existence, we stand resolute!”

Elysia’s voice, a poignant blend of awe and trepidation, pierces the chaotic symphony.

“Here, on this precipice, we straddle the boundary between existence and the void!”

Kaelen’s hands dance with an orchestral precision, their movement a symphony of defiance against impending annihilation.

“Falter, we shall not! Not now, not after traversing the rivers of time itself!”

Emerging from the cataclysm battered yet resolute, they find themselves adrift in the enigmatic embrace of eternity’s realm. Now the farthest off course that could be conceived, a billion light years have cascaded through their grasp, slipping like stardust through the hourglass of existence.

Thalara’s voice, a potent blend of determination and weariness, breaks the stillness that envelops them.

“Amidst the boundless expanse of eternity, we stand as sentinels—an embodiment of unyielding will. Though the search may seem to be at an end, the journey persists, for we are the very bridge between ages.”

Lyndor’s gaze, a window into stages long past, holds a glimmer of hope, a spark that transcends the barriers of time.

“Eternity may have claimed our lethargy, yet it has not extinguished our essence. We’ll make the proper repairs captain Thalara.”

Standing amidst the cosmic void, their silhouettes etched against infinity’s canvas, the echoes of their odyssey resonate through the corridors of existence—a harmonious melody that reverberates through the contexture of time. Their journey, one that challenged death’s dominion, embraced the abyss, and defied the very fabric of the cosmos, has become an indelible verse in the cosmic motif.

For even as they languor for a billion years, cradled within the timeless embrace of eternity, the saga of the Chosen Wanderers echoed across the cosmos—a saga woven into the very cosmic strings of existence. In the midst of interstellar ages, voyaging through the unfathomable vastness, the Celestial Hope and its devoted crew lay suspended in a timeless repose, a testament to their unwavering resolve in the face of unending existence.

The story of the Chosen Wanderers, forever inscribed in the cosmic annals, teaches that even in the ceaseless dance of stars and galaxies, in the unyielding expanse of eternity, the essence of mortal and immortal alike can forge pathways that transcend the constraints of time and space.

And now in their long great slumber, they tread upon the dreamy shores of a lush world untouched by the journals of history, the weight of countless eons finally lifts. A forgotten mission buried in the lost realms left long behind fades away. Before them unfurls the promise of life renewed, secrets unfurled beneath celestial constellations, and an uncharted future as infinite as the universes themselves.

But that too would be another story.

Enchilada Squares

Ingredients

2 (19 ounce) cans Las Palmas enchilada sauce
1 pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (4 ounce) can sliced olives
1 pound ground beef
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
27 corn tortillas

Instructions

Brown ground beef.
Drain oil and add salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder.
While meat is browning, heat enchilada sauce in medium size pan.
Heat oil in skillet. Place a tortilla in hot oil for 1 minute, then turn over and fry 1 more minute. Do not allow tortilla to become crispy.
Take fried tortilla and place in hot sauce for approximately 2 minutes, then take out and place in a 9 x 13 inch greased cake pan.
Repeat again until you have a layer with 9 tortillas.
Sprinkle half of the meat, 1/3 cheese, onion and olives.
Repeat another layer of tortillas dipped in oil and sauce as before.
Sprinkle remaining meat, 1/3 cheese, onion and olives.
Repeat another layer of tortillas.
Spoon leftover sauce atop.
Add remaining cheese, onion and olives.
When cool, cover pan with foil and refrigerate.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 1/2 hour or until cheese melts.
Cut into squares and serve.
If serving immediately, place in oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.

40 Normalized Things In Europe That Are Unknown In The US | American Reacts

Yeah. This is very good. So, so, so many things int he USA are fucked up right now.

What was the shortest interview you’ve had that led to a job offer?

I was looking at a Field service Job at a manufacturing plant that built Waste Water Treatment plants, it was a West German company with manufacturing in the U.S.

I knew absolutely nothing about waste water plant machinery.

As I sat down for the interview, the phone rang on the head of field service. He said excuse me but I have to answer that phone. He put the phone on speaker, a piece of new equipment would not start up, this was their first attempt to run it.

He placed the electrical schematics on his desk, as they discussed the problem, I could see them upside down, from where I was sitting.

Finally he says , I will get s tech there ASAP, and hung up the phone. I said I see the problem, they wired a relay wrong, and pointed to it on drawings. It should be normally closed, not open.

He stood up and said he had to do something and I’m not to move, he would be right back.

He was back in 15 minutes and hands me a wad of cash, and tells me I have 1 hour and thirty minutes to be at the Delta terminal , my ticket is at their desk, then hands me a company credit card to rent a car, and A company Air travel card for the return flight.

He said we will fill out your employment papers when you get back.

The problem was in Up State New York , I was in Birmingham Al.

Now for the “rest” of the story

The service manager called the plant with the problem once he Knew I was on the flight to NY, and told them a tech was on his way. Their response was “it better be a guy who’s been working for you a long time, and knows the equipment inside and out.

For the next 4 hours he tried to get a call to me , and for me to not tell them he just hired me this morning.

I never got that call, and the first thing the plant manager ask me, “How long have you worked on these machines ?”. My answer was “To Damn Long” and we both bust out laughing.

In 5 minutes the machine was running perfectly

Then he told me to call my boss, He’s been trying to reach you.

He couldn’t believe I answered that question without lying, and manager was happy with the answer, with me not knowing how important the answer was.

What are some of the most morally justified crimes ever committed?

Recently, Shane Goldsby, a 26-year-old U.S. inmate, bludgeoned, stomped, and kicked his 70-year-old cellmate, Robert Munger, to death.

You might think this is just another random case of prison violence, or perhaps a situation where some prisoners take the moral high ground by killing a more sadistic and violent criminal. Indeed, the latter was the case, though it was a more isolated incident. After all, Munger had been incarcerated for 43 years for crimes involving child sexual abuse. Anyone might feel justified in wanting to see him punished severely.

Munger was serving a 43-year sentence at the Airway Heights prison in Washington State for child molestation and child pornography offenses when, due to a non—coincidental administrative error, he was placed in the same cell as Shane (one of his victims’ brother.)

Shane claimed that Munger would repeatedly brag about his crimes and the morally abhorrent deeds he had committed against those poor children.

“I had so much stuff going on in my head,” he told the station. “I wasn’t stable at that point. I wasn’t. I was getting to that point because [Munger] kept wanting to give me details about what happened, what he did – about the photos and the videos of him doing this stuff. It was building up.”

Shane said he couldn’t believe he had been assigned to the same cell as Munger and made a request to the authorities to be moved, but it was ignored.

“I completely feel like this is what they wanted to happen,” he said.

“I was in shock,” he added. “I was like, ‘what the f***?’… This stuff doesn’t happen. You’re talking the same institution, the same unit, the same pod, in the same cell as this dude. That’s like hitting the jackpot in the casino seven times.”

“They put me in a position that I shouldn’t even be in. This shouldn’t have happened at all. You’re talking about this dude, who did some sick, twisted things to my little sis. My family. My blood. My life. And you want to put me face-to-face with this dude?” Goldsby said.

As expected, a man can only remain sane for so long when he’s sharing a cage with his sister’s molester. Goldsby eventually snapped, attacking the older man in a common area of the jail.

Court documents reveal what happened next, showing how Goldsby hit “Munger in the face and head area about 14 times, stomped on his head at least four times, and kicked him a couple more times before walking away and being taken into custody.” Munger died three days later.

The Washington Department of Corrections has policies to prevent connected inmates from being assigned together, but reportedly missed the connection in this case because Shane and his sister have different last names.

“There was no clear indication in the documentation regularly reviewed for housing assignments that there was a potential conflict,” DoC spokeswoman Janelle Guthrie told the Spokesman-Review newspaper.

In court, an emotional Shane stated:

“You put me in the same cell as this dude. I feel set up. I’m the victim.”

At his sentencing, Shane was too emotional to read a statement, so his lawyer spoke on his behalf.

“I’m ashamed of my actions. I was put into a situation that I don’t wish on anyone,” she said on Shane’s behalf. “I have a lot of fixing to do.”

“I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one in this kind of way,” Shane said through his lawyer.

“To his wife and his whole family, I apologize. I am so sorry, and I hope you are able to heal from what I caused.”

Unfortunately, the law frowns on morally justifiable murders and Shane must now serve an additional 24 years and also pay restitution to Munger’s family.

AI generated kingly pictures

Today’s AI developments…

Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(6)

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Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(2)

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Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister of Singapore, delivered his first National Day speech, saying that Singapore is not a western society. What does this mean?

On August 18th, local time, Lawrence Wong, the new Prime Minister of Singapore, delivered his first Prime Minister’s speech in Malay, Chinese and English at the National Day mass meeting in Singapore.

The Prime Minister’s speech at the National Day Mass Meeting is one of the most important speeches in Singapore every year. During the speech, Lawrence Wong’s speech in Chinese caught my eyes.

Lawrence Wong said: “Singapore uses English as the common language, but we are essentially an Asian society, not a western society.” He also said that all Singaporeans want to preserve the spiritual outlook and traditional values of Asians.

Later, Lawrence Wong took himself as an example to encourage people to receive Chinese education. He said that when he was a child, he didn’t have the opportunity to speak Chinese at home. He didn’t start learning Chinese until he went to school. When he graduated from junior high school, he got A1 (the highest level) in Chinese.

Lawrence Wong promised that the Singapore government would adjust its education policy.

“We hope to train more talents who are proficient in Chinese, which means that we have not only elites, but also elites.”

Lawrence Wong’s speech in Chinese not only emphasized the importance of Chinese education, but also continued the “Asian values” emphasized by Singapore’s leaders in previous generations, and also vaguely expressed Singapore’s diplomatic stance that it would not take sides.

In view of Singapore’s important strategic position and influence in ASEAN countries, the United States has spared no effort to win over Singapore for many years.

Lee Kuan Yew once said very bluntly: China (navy) has no strength to protect Singapore.

As a tiny island country located in the throat of the ocean, you forced Singapore to die if you didn’t fall to the west.

Understandable.

And Singapore has indeed achieved the goal of being as neutral as possible while leaning to the west and seeking the greatest benefit for itself.

Under the current circumstances, the basic logic of Singapore’s unilateral turning to the West has not only disappeared, but also gone to the opposite side.

If you fell to the west completely because you were afraid of the western navy, then you can’t hope to maintain the previous state after China’s naval power became strong, and more thoroughly fall to and introduce the west to harm China’s interests.

Singapore has really developed the ability to assess the situation in the game of great powers, and it has been flexibly adjusted in different times.

In July this year, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, Lui Tuck Yew, wrote a special letter to the American media, stressing that Singapore’s foreign policy is based on its own interests and it is a principle that Singapore has always adhered to.

Before taking over as Prime Minister of Singapore, Lawrence Wong made it clear in an interview with The Economist that Singapore would not choose between China and the United States, but would give priority to its own interests.

In his speeches in Chinese, Lawrence Wong mentioned “culture” and “Chinese” for 9 to 11 times, with special emphasis on cultivating people’s Chinese ability.

He said that Singapore hopes to preserve the spiritual outlook and traditional values of Asians. At the same time, the advantages of bilingualism and biculturalism can absorb the wisdom of the East and the West, and can deal with both countries. This is Singapore’s unique competitive advantage.

In my opinion, Lawrence Wong mentioned that “Singapore is not a western society”. The core theme is that Singaporeans can speak both English and Chinese, embrace the western social system, and retain the eastern spiritual culture. They can get along well with the United States, Britain and China. This is a unique and huge advantage of Singapore in the world, which must be maintained.

Forbidden Planet – Miranda Likes to Watch – Reaction

Ha ha ha. Have some fun.

On the trail of the shale

When I was in my early teens, but before I started working, my mother would drop us kids off at a nearby pool to spend the day at.

It was a swimming complex.

It has an attached golf course, and I would (most of the time) play golf and then just kill time. My sister, at that time, was relentless in ridiculing me, making fun of me, and making my life just miserable. So I avoided the pool. It was a hostile environment to me.

For a spell, perhaps when I was in 6th grade, or so, the pool was doing work on the pool. And the one side was torn up and exposed. And being a boy, I couldn’t help be explore it. And there, to my great surprise was piles of shale.

This, in case you don’t know it, is just layers upon layers of compressed grasses and leaves from the Carboniferous era.

I couldn’t believe my luck. I would easily chip open the blocks of stratified rocks and see images of leaves and plants that no human had ever seen.

Of course, my entire family thought I was nuts. My sister constantly made fun of me. My other brothers and sisters ignored me, and my father and mother complained about hauling home rock after heavy rock.

But I loved it.

It is the perfect pastime for the children.

Give them a hand trowel, and let them go to work. They will get an interest in history, in geology, and in collecting. In a world where everything comes with a price tag (in the United States) it’s free and cheap entertainment.

Today…

What was your first clue you were no longer as young as you thought you were?

It’s interesting that this question came along because I just recently got a clue.

It was , quite frankly, devastating. 🤣😂🤣😂

I went to see my son recently in Washington state.

We needed to take his van to the shop and used an Uber for transportation.

The driver was mid 40s or so. He was really friendly and very talkative about all the money he makes driving Uber. 😳

My son elbowed me and said hey this could be an easy way to make extra money and winked at me.

The Uber driver proceeds to say, “ Uber driving isn’t safe for woman especially elderly ones.

You could hear crickets. I’m thinking, is he talking about me? And my son is thinking, oh no, I hope he wasn’t referring to mom.

Because not a word was being said the driver asks , “ Mam, did I say something to offend you?

I said no, then we arrived at our destination and exited the car.

I turned to my son and just said, what the hell was that?! I felt as though I was being gaslit! I was just floored. And on top of everything I have never liked being called mam!🤣😂🤣😂

I asked my son if he would describe me as elderly? He said absolutely not mom, and anyway who is he to judge , he was pushing fifty at least!!!

Ok so I can laugh at it now but it really did a number on me.

Of coarse this became the theme of the trip. Every time we did something physical I would ask if this was something an “elderly” person would or could do.?!

We played badminton, we played frisbee, we hiked in the mountains, we replaced broken handles on his van. He lives upstairs and I took those stairs repeatedly like nothin!

Does that sound like an elderly person to you? 🤣😂🤣😂

I looked up what is considered elderly and the general consensus is 60 to 65, I will be 64 the end of the month.

I don’t know, but personally I have regarded being elderly as more of a physicality not age. Like the inability to do normal everyday activities without help of a person or device like a walker or wheelchair etc.

I guess it’s all one’s own perspective. I’m not oblivious to the fact that I’m not as young as I feel or think but having it thrown in my face like that was unnecessary !!

Alfred Hitchcock Presents S05E37 Escape To Sonoita

In your school, has a bullied ever snapped and beat the bully?

I was in seventh grade and there was a boy who was known to be handful to most of the teachers and a bully to a lot of the students. He tormented the girls. I was no exception. He was known to grab the girls in ways that would get him a “me too” hashtag today, though back then teachers brushed it off as “boys will be boys,” or “Oh don’t be so sensitive; he just likes you.”

Frankly I had endured his hands on me for the last time. One afternoon I was at my locker exchanging books for my classes. My hair was French braided, I had on a blouse, skirt, and dress shoes. This will be relevant in a moment.

The young man in question came behind me, sunk his hand into my braid down to my scalp and jerked my head straight backwards. Heaven only knew what he was going to do next but he didn’t get that far.

I spun around and slung my purse across his face like a sword, but I wasn’t done by a long shot. I dropped everything in my hands and took off after him when he started to run. Down the hallway we went. I was calling after him something along the lines of, “You think you’re tough, picking on the girls and grabbing us. How does it feel, huh?”

I cornered him and grabbed one of my dress shoes and walloped him over the head a few times before a teacher pulled me off of him.

Now it should be noted, I don’t condone violence and as an adult I have never put my hands on anyone in violence, but when someone continuously shows contempt for others, one must expect there will be consequences and you are not always free to choose the consequences.

Some have asked if I were in trouble for my actions. I was given a stern lecture for my “unladylike behavior” but that was as far as it went. Technically it could have been worse since I had “fought back” and they had a “zero tolerance.” But he had caused so much trouble in the past, and they knew my family would raise cane for punishing me for defending myself, that I think they felt it wise to leave it at that. And no, he never bothered me after that.

Toward a Second Cuban Missile Crisis? – Theodore Postol, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

How well do you think English signage is done in China?

I think it’s done very well.

In the 80s and 90s, there were hardly any Chinese characters on signs and advertisements in Beijing; they were all in English letters and Japanese kana.

Were we angry? Very angry.

Because we were poor, lacking technology and money, we had to swallow our pride. This included signs and subways; sacrificing the national pride of the entire population, we could only hope for more foreign investment.

Now, it’s required to have big Chinese characters on signs. No Chinese characters? Get lost! Do we really care about a few euros? Are you kidding?

Recently, a small African country launched a movement requiring the removal of Chinese signs and replacing them with local languages.

Because they said, “Our capital is almost turning into a Chinese county.”

All Chinese people feel: “Great, it should be like this!”

At least, in my opinion, it can be bilingual or trilingual.

In their country, their language should be on top, with Chinese or English on the second line.
Their native language font should be the largest, with Chinese or English reduced to 2/3 the size.
Even in Beijing, English letters still be the same size as Chinese characters, which makes me very unhappy.

Can’t the Chinese feel their lack of freedom?

The word “freedom”, if we go by what Franklin Roosevelt said, includes freedom of faith, freedom of expression, freedom from fear, and freedom from want.

I do feel that China has done very well.

Freedom from want – in China, you may not get rich, but as long as you are willing to work, you can always get by.

Of course, housing prices in the big cities are indeed very high, such as Beijing and Shanghai. But outside of the big cities, other things are not that expensive – meat, grains, transportation, industrial goods, clothing, etc.

The high housing prices in the big cities, I admit that this is a problem. However, if you don’t necessarily have to live in the big cities, housing prices in the smaller cities or rural areas are much more affordable.

Freedom from fear? I feel China has done very well in this regard. With nearly 10 million square kilometers of land, I don’t feel afraid to go anywhere. I’m not sure I fully understand what “freedom from fear” means.

I’m afraid of small meteorites hitting the earth, and I feel very fearful about that. But there’s no way to be free from that, right? I can only control myself, like saying I’m afraid of heights so I won’t go to China’s dangerous historic sites. Is that “freedom from fear”?

As for freedom of faith, I think China has that. There are over 300 million religious believers.

Take Islam for example, which the West has been constantly lying about – just in Xinjiang alone, there are 25,000 mosques. The entire US only has 2,000…

It’s true that Communist Party members are not supposed to have religious beliefs, but for ordinary people, who cares what you believe?

Atheism, agnosticism, and indigenous folk religions – aren’t they also forms of faith?

Freedom of expression.

At times, I really feel that the Chinese and American people, who has more of this freedom.

Yes, we can only use VPN to access the global internet, like the one I’m using for Quora now, which costs an extra $1.5 per month. It’s annoying to pay that extra $1.5, but it’s not that expensive. That’s all about it.

Chinese netizens chased and cursed at the Israeli embassy’s Weibo account, and in the end the embassy had to call the police. But the Chinese police could only advise the netizen to “be gentler”.

Chinese netizens made lots of mocking videos about Kim Jong-un, and North Korea put pressure on China through diplomatic channels. China’s response was: the netizen’s behavior was self-initiated, we can’t stop it.

Yes, I don’t dare make any mocking videos of Xi Jinping, but I also don’t want to, because I think he’s doing a good job. Even if I did mock him, I’d just get a scolding, nothing would happen to me. But I just don’t have the motivation to do that, because I genuinely think he’s doing well.

At the end of the day, you think we lack freedom and should resist. But if we feel we’re doing quite well, what should we do?

Barbara Bel Geddes As “Sybilla” – The Perfect Wife? | Hitchcock Presents

What did your sister do to you that you can never forget?

My sister is 10 years younger than me.

Once, when I was 13, I was in my room studying, when she waddled in.

“Watcha doin’?” she asked.

“I’m reading,” I replied, without looking up from my book.

“Why?”

“I’ve exams in school.”

“Why do you have essams?”

This is not going to end well, I thought to myself. I need help!

“Mom!” I yelled. “Get her out of here! She’s disturbing me!”

“Kiddo! Come over here, and don’t disturb your brother. He is studying,” my mother called out from the other room.

“I won’t dissurb him,” my sister yelled back. “I’ll be quiet.”

“Are you sure?” asked my mother.

“I promise!” she affirmed.

I decided to let it go. I did not want to waste any more time.

She picked up one of her books and sat on the floor, looking at the pictures. She was true to her word: she did not disturb me… for all of five minutes. She then looked around, pulled up a stool, and sat near me.

I ignored her.

She started “reading” aloud from her book.

I ignored her.

She stopped reading and looked at me.

I ignored her.

“Mom!” she yelled. “Tell brother to get out! He’s dissurbing me and not letting me read!”

How come the presidential succession process in China is not written down? What if President Xi is killed by a foreign power and China needs the new president quickly to make major urgent decisions?

It is not written down because China is not the US.

Chinese know that the most sensitive issues need to be decided by the right people at the right time while they are facing a challenging and fluid situation.

How can a written-down rule by dead people capture the dynamics of a challenging and fluid situation for living people?

It can’t…

That is why living people need to appraise the situation and decide what to do.

China’s opening vs. U.S. closing? Jeffrey Sachs explains the shift

Realistic and holistic approach that China is taking regarding itself and Geo-political issues.

The Economic Crash

Guest Post by Giuseppi Filotto

May finally be starting.

Nearly 3 Trillion USD wiped off the stock market in one day.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1931549/global-financial-meltdown-markets

Tel Aviv diplomats leaving Israel.

Iran saying a “decisive” response to Israel is coming in the next 24 hours

(((America))) sending warships to the middle East

It is starting to line up quite a bit.

Hypothetically, is Iran were to actually nuke Israel, as in really wipe it off the map, the Jewish bankers running America would undoubtedly try to go for global nuclear war in a fit of demonic rage, so it could get really bad.

Then again, the guys actually pulling the nuclear triggers MIGHT suddenly be struck by conscience (doubtful) either way, it is unlikely that is Israel was wiped out the global war would not intensify.

The point is that the puppeteers, whatever you believe about them and whoever your own research states they are, are not, ever, going to be removed from power by peaceful means.

Nor will they stop with their demonic agenda.

Once you DO do your own research and look into it, the conclusion that these people are operating under a spiritual, that is, religious, belief system to at compels them to act as they do is inescapable.

And that religion is “Illuminism” and their God is Lucifer, the light-bringer. And their coming of the “Messiah” is what Catholics have predicted for centuries: The Antichrist.

I was never a religious person and I thought Catholicism was absurd (because the Novus Ordo Satanic “Catholic” Church that has masqueraded as Catholic since 1958, IS absurd, AND Satanic).

It took a literal road to Damascus moment to show me God is real and God is Love. And I then spent the next 4 years obsessively educating myself on Christianity. And finally concluded real Catholicism (only espoused by Sedevacantists today) was indeed the closest and best representation of reality, and in testing it ever since, I have only had repeated, unfailing proof that it is in fact the best and truest way to interpret reality as it is.

I no more wanted Demons and Satan to be real than any other libertine still stumbling around addicted to pleasure and excitement. But reality is as it is, not as we wish it to be, and ultimately, no one will be left on the sidelines.

As our Lord explained some 2000 years ago:

Either you are with Him, or you are against Him. Those are the only two choices available. Ultimately the choice between Good or Evil is binary. Though the road to it is far from binary, the final choice is.

And you will not be spared the having to choose; because not choosing is also a choice for the darkness.

So. Pick your master, for we all have one.

I pray those of you as hard-headed as I was get your road to Damascus moment right now, and that those of you a little smarter can get there by logic and reason alone, but I pray you all get there.

God is real. So is Free Will.

You are not a puppet. You get to choose.

I hope you choose well. Sedevacantism is indeed the Way. Research it for yourself, don’t take my word for it.

Oscar Winning Walter Matthau In “Very Moral Theft” | Hitchcock Presents

Was there ever a time in your life where you had little to no social interaction? How long? What happened?

I recall a couple of episodes of about three weeks each.

The first was during a winter break during my second year of law school. I think my finals must have been extraordinarily early, because I had an entire three weeks off, and the four-bedroom house I was sharing was vacated by my three housemates, all of whom scattered for long family holiday plans. I decided to clean out the basement of the house, part of which had been left untouched since I moved in, and was packed with various old tools, painting supplies and junk. In the process, I found some sandpaper, tack cloth, brushes and some ancient spar varnish that looked in great shape, so I decided to refinish my dining room table. I’d never done anything like that before and it was in the days before YouTube (or any internet, for that matter), so the fact that it turned out beautifully still amazes me.

I never left the house for those three weeks except to walk across the street to drop a library book in the return bin. I spoke face-to-face with only one other person, an ex-boyfriend who dropped off a Christmas present for me, and that was limited to the basics, Hello, How are you, Thanks for the thought. Good-bye. I probably spoke with my mother on Christmas Day, because I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have called. And that was it.

I probably read a couple of dozen books, listened to a bunch of records, reorganized the hall closet, and built a couple of fires in the rarely used fireplace.

It was glorious.

The second was at a very rustic weekend vacation cabin I had bought on an Indian reservation north of Seattle (I owned the cabin, but it was on leased Indian land).

I was a practicing attorney at the time. A couple of cases scheduled for trial unexpectedly settled and freed up a block of three weeks with nothing that urgently required my presence, I hadn’t had a vacation in years, but it was on too short notice to do anything like foreign travel, so I packed up three weeks of supplies and a gallon of bleach to sanitize the well and went to stay at the cabin.

For those three weeks, I read, puttered around the cabin fixing things, hand-sewed some curtains, painted the interior, and saw nobody except the few cars a day that traversed the road in front of the cabin. I had no telephone (this was in the days of landlines only and there wasn’t one installed there) so I didn’t talk to anybody either. I had no TV, stereo or radio (except the radio in my car), so nobody talked at me, either. The only social interaction I had was that I did treat myself to a dinner out, alone, at a restaurant in a nearby town, and spoke to the waiter to give my order, ask for my check, and thank him on the way out. I’m pretty sure that was the only person I spoke to for three weeks. The only complaint I remember was that I didn’t bring quite enough books and quite enough wine.

Both of those episodes were long before the days of the Internet, social media, cell phones, email, etc. Isolation like that would be quite difficult today, I suspect.

After both of those experiences, I felt that I could have easily and enjoyably continued my isolation for another two or three weeks before I might start wishing for human contact.

Shorpy

What are the risks of allowing Chinese EV imports into the US?

It would risk shattering the illusion that Chinese Technology is just copies and fakes.

main qimg 392e0d7020283d98a21aa4436ec9ae2a

Just like how Japan proved they caught up to America when their cars and electronics sold in the USA are found to be better quality and more high tech than American Products, Chinese EVs will show to Americans that Chinese products can be worth the money and high quality too.
If American start buying expensive goods from China too, then US industries are in trouble.

BANGS Rage Quits Over TRANS debate?

What’s the most unreasonable request you’ve received from your boss?

I had a job threaten me about missing work for my then wife’s surgery.

I worked in solid waste. Basically, I was a garbage man. I did commercial dumpsters for 11+ hrs a day, 5 days a week. Great money, but long, long hours. I had been in solid waste at the time for about 13 yrs.

So, on to the story. I was married at the time. My then wife had found out she had a bone issue in her foot. The bone had become necrotic, and they were going in to basically try to cut out the dying bone, use other bone and something called ‘bone putty’ to save her foot. This surgery was scheduled weeks in advance. We had just moved to the area we were living in maybe a year and a half earlier. Any family we both had were states away, and anyone that could help basically were still working. At first, I was like… okay. I’ll burn up a few vacation days so I can take her to the surgery and for a few days of recovery. But, as we got closer to the surgery, they were thinking she would be out of commission longer than originally expected. So, the doctor told me to get FMLA paperwork from my job. Basically, paperwork that allows you to miss work for medical reasons for yourself or a family member. I’m like, great. This will make sure I can be there for her and still keep my job. 5 weeks out, I get the paperwork, and fill it out. I take it to the doctor, and they fill out their part. It became one of the most annoying, stress filled things I’d ever be involved with. Several times each week leading up to the surgery date, I was constantly checking on the status. My employer would have a different excuse every time. “Oh, this wasn’t filled out correctly” or “they didn’t receive the 2nd page on the fax” or something. The doctors office hated me. About the 12th time I called the office to ask them to check on this or that and please re-fax it, they were almost to the point of ignoring me. I asked was this typical, and everyone I talked to were like, no. This is not typical. Some were like, I’ve never seen a company do this to their employee.

So, it’s the day before the surgery. I had been very vocal at work as to what was going on, and why I wasn’t gonna be there. Midway through my shift, my supervisor calls me to tell me that the FMLA paperwork still wasn’t correct. It’s not been approved, and I quote, “if you are not here tomorrow, I’ve been told to tell you that there will be consequences.”

I’ve never had issues with attendance. In the whole time I had worked for this shop, I never missed a day, never been late. I had coworkers who would call off to “go to the beach”. I remember just a few months earlier, I had to cover part of a route because a dude was going to a Nascar race weekend, and it was like, oh. Well, they called out. Here, here’s a few pages of their route. Just work it in. Nothing was ever done or said. But, I legitimately had a family member having a major surgery done and it was just the two of us in the area and less than 24 hours beforehand they are gonna tell me there would be consequences if I called out, having plenty of PTO time banked?

I remember telling them, look. I’m not going to be here. This isn’t up for debate now. They reiterated the threat. That day, I knew I’d never drive another garbage truck again. I knew that was the end of that career and chapter in my life. I had worked for several companies in several states. Some great. Some, not so great situations. But, this was the first time I had ever gotten put into a situation where they were either just wanting to be jerks, or show some form of power over me.

I’ve always given 2 week notices and even since this time, I always parted from jobs having given them plenty of time, trained a replacement. Tied up all loose ends. I believe in avoiding burning a bridge, but in this situation, I was done. I had a nasty voicemail left the night of. Then, literally while she was in surgery, i got a call that it was approved and it was only for that day. The surgery had further complications, and was worse than originally thought. I played phone tag with my supervisor and manager. Asking for a few more days. Then, I got a letter stating I had abandoned the job.

I’ve since gone on to other careers. Went back to college and got a degree related to the IT field. Worked several years in that field for a couple companies. When covid hit, I decided to follow a long time dream/fascination of getting into Healthcare. I’ve spent several years now working as a nursing assistant in a hospital. I’m going to college to be a respiratory therapist. This has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Part of me wants to look at it as everything happens for a reason kinda thinking. I do think if they had acted differently, there’s a good possibility I’d still be a garbage man. I enjoyed the job, itself. The pay was great. But, the biggest problem I always saw in that field was the way the shops were ran. The way management treated their employees. This shop was and I think still is one of the biggest haulers in the US. I had worked for them previously when I was living in Ohio, and based off of my reputation in OH, I acquired the same job in NC after having lived in FL and was moving north. But, I think it was just my time to move on. It was a lesson learned. Same with the 7 yrs I spent in IT. I think it was a character builder, and I think it helped me to be able to talk with and empathize with my current patients. I do wonder, will I ever run into those who were in upper management in my current job. Obviously, I’m going to give them the best care that I can provide. I guess I’m just wondering how they’d treat me.

This Isn’t Your Wife! | House M.D.

Since China sent military and coastguard vessels into Japanese territorial waters near the Diaoyu Islands, why did Japan send the Suzutsuki into Chinese waters and provoke China?

Japanese ships come if they want to, after all, our warships sail through their strait every day as if it’s just a regular street. Japan must have mustered great courage, trembling with fear, to come this time.

In the past, the U.S. would come once a month. They didn’t have much to do when they came; coming was the purpose itself.

You know, once a month, like clockwork, which made me suspect that if the U.S. Navy had a gender, it would definitely be female.

Now the United States is not coming, maybe to save fuel, it ordered its minions to come, last month the Netherlands, this month Japan. What use can a small raft be? It’s like a small dog, it barks happily.

If we talk about political wisdom, we have to look at Europe. Last time the United States pulled a group of people to conduct military exercises near China, Spain sent the warship in the picture – let me ask you, is this a warship? A real sailing battleship!

main qimg 1c38c1d4ec96b19153259bdfec25c9df

Kishida Fumio is just like Bongbong Marcos, they are definitely doomed, maybe even along with South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol. But what else can they do? They have to make some moves; if they do nothing, they’ll just wait to suffocate to death.

Even pigs squeal and twitch a few times when they’re being slaughtered, let alone the Japanese Prime Minister.

But it’s useless.

Modern Women Are UPSET BECAUSE Men Keep Avoiding Them At Work

Beef Stew with Dumplings

This beef stew with mushrooms, dumplings and sour cream is a substantial and satisfying main dish. Serve it with a green vegetable salad and French bread.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Stew

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 pounds (1kg) stewing steak, trimmed of fat and cut into 1 inch cubes
1 ounce (30g) (2 tablespoons) butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons brandy, warmed (optional)
1 bay leaf
2 pints (5 cups) homemade beef stock
6 ounces (185g) mushrooms, wiped clean
5 fluid ounce (150ml) (5/8 cup) sour cream

Dumplings

8 ounces (1/2 pound) bread crumbs made from day-old white bread
4 tablespoons water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 onion, grated
1/2 teaspoon ground mace

Instructions

Heat the oven to warm 325 degrees F (170 degrees C).
Mix the flour, salt and pepper together on a large plate. Roll the beef cubes in the flour mixture until they are lightly coated.
In a large frying pan heat the butter and oil over moderate heat. add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, or until it is soft and translucent. With a slotted spoon, remove the onion and set aside on a plate. Add the beef cubes to the pan, a few at a time. Brown them well, adding more oil and butter if necessary. Remove the beef cubes as they brown and place them in a large ovenproof casserole. If you are using the brandy, put it in a metal ladle. Set it alight and pour it, still burning, over the beef cubes in the casserole. When the brandy has stopped burning, add the onion to the casserole with the bay leaf and stock. Cover the casserole and place in the oven to cook for 2 hours.
While the meat is cooking, make the dumplings. Put the bread crumbs into a large mixing bowl. add the water, a little at a time, and toss lightly with a fork. the bread crumbs should be just moistened, not soggy. Still using the fork, lightly mix in the eggs. add the salt, pepper, parsley, onion and mace. With floured hands, shape the mixture into walnut size balls. add the dumplings to the casserole, with the mushrooms, cover and cook for 30 minutes.
Spoon over the sour cream just before serving.

Why did Sweden make their own fighter jets?

Because for a long time during the world wars and the cold war and quite some time before and after Sweden had a policy that was summarised as “Alliance free in peace, neutrality in war”. Now being neutral makes some people think that the country is vulnerable or a pushover. The opposite is generally true in reality. Neutrality only works if you have something to back it up with. It also means that you need to consider your weapons systems incredibly carefully.

Buying fighter jets from NATO or the USSR (though the latter would never really be the case for Sweden) means becoming dependent on their supply chains, their expertise and often conceding to some of their terms. This was not seen as acceptable, so Sweden started a domestic arms industry of some magnitude. This kept us less bound to NATO and also gave us the opportunity to create fighters based on Swedish circumstances and Swedish defence doctrine.

Swedish defence doctrine is basically summarised as going apeshit until either we get support from the side that didn’t invade us or until the opponent realises that it isn’t worth it. Every adult over 18 in Sweden can be called in for service in case of war, all discussions of surrender is to be treated as false and there are small bunkers, radar stations, hidden roads for air fields and so on everywhere and we have an arms industry that builds almost everything the Swedish defence needs.

This has been somewhat softened after the cold war ended, but a lot of it is still in place and our arms industry is one of the pieces still going strong.

A Gripen can be serviced by a conscripted 18 year old for most things, it can take off from small roads in the woods, from quickly converted airfields (my old University was built to be converted to an airbase in case of war) or basically any somewhat straight piece of hard ground. This makes it essential for the Swedish style of total defence. Any somewhat straight road, and we have a lot of them can be used to stations a quick refueling and service station for Gripens. Sure it can’t match the top of the line American fighters in many other fields, but for defence it doesn’t have to and it’s a lot cheaper for us to produce ourselves than it would be to buy something that while better in many other ways, don’t fit our doctrine.

Tension Subsiding in South China Sea

Elephant In The Room Shaped Like A Monkey

Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a story set in the dark recesses of space where the two main characters are often at odds with each other in humorous and comedic ways.… view prompt

Perry Terrell

Elephant In The Room Shaped Like A Monkey

By Perry Terrell

“You suck.”

“Lauren!” yelled Jared. “For lack of a better term?” He thought she was joking.

“There is no better term. You just plain suck.”

“Why?” Jared asked.

“Why? Why? Why, you ask? I see that monkey. I know it’s dark in this space ship, but I see that monkey. I thought since the two of us won this mission, it would be a great chance for us to be close and really get to know each other. But you brought a monkey along? Why would you do that? Why?”

Jared looked puzzled. He was almost dazed and confused by Lauren’s outburst and attitude.

“Suppose I want to kiss you and wind up kissing that monkey.”

“Well, she has lips too.” He laughed so hard. He couldn’t see what the problem was with the monkey. Also, he still thought she was joking.

“She? She? It’s a she?” Lauren was screaming.

Jared was making frowning faces but Lauren couldn’t see his expressions because of the darkness.

For a moment there was silence.

Lauren went to the window and raised the shade. They were already on the moon and all she could see were Lunar Craters. Hundreds and thousands of them.

“I want to go home,” she said.

“Ahhh, we’re on the moon, Lauren. We have data to gather and pictures to take. Besides, you could have brought a pet.” Jared was trying to comfort her. He was saying to himself that this was going to be a real long mission if she keeps this up.

“Well, my horse was in the shop and I couldn’t get him out in time for this trip.”

For a moment Jared thought she was going to join him in a little humor. He went over to her by the window and put his arms around her waist.

“Monkey, monkey, monkey,” she started yelling. “Get your monkey away from me.”

Jared threw his hands up and back away. He said to himself again, yep, this is going to be a very long and painful mission.

Meanwhile, the monkey was kicked back trying to see what she could see, mostly listening.

Jared went over to his monkey and patted her on the head.

“How did you get that monkey on this ship? I didn’t see you with a monkey packed with your things.”

“The Captain put the monkey on the ship for me.” Immediately after he said, “for me,” he regretted it. He should have made it seem like the Captain did it as a part of the mission.

“So, it is your monkey,” said Lauren.

“The monkey is a part of the mission.”

“By doing what exactly? You do know that three is a crowd.”

“Lauren, please. Let’s just do our job and get along. The monkey is not a problem.”

Lauren had romantic feelings for Jared. She was good friends with the moderator and had her manipulate the drawing to have the two of them paired up to take this mission together. There were a couple other candidates qualified to take this mission and gather the necessary data, but by the luck of the draw, she was paired with Jared.

But with that monkey in the room, she had regrets. Although, she did fancy herself as romantically persuasive, she decided to ignore the monkey and try and concentrate on Jared. Besides, they were going to be stuck in this space ship on the moon for 27.3 earth days or there abouts.

In her astronaut training, she think she read that if a person stays in one place on the moon, then the sun rises, stays up for about two earth weeks, then set, and stays down for about another two earth weeks. Then that makes a complete day on the moon which lasts as long as 27.3 earth days, or something like that. She was almost sure she remembered the correct calculations.

“OMG!” said Lauren. “This monkey is going to start stinking. I’m not going to try and clean her up.”

“Okay, Lauren,” she said to herself. “Get a grip. Ignore the monkey in the room. Twenty-seven point three days alone, well almost alone with Jared is going to be a good thing. At least the monkey won’t be talking.”

Lauren took a few deep breaths and composed herself the best she could. Then she started feeling around and trying to see Jared. She couldn’t find him, so she called out.

“Where are you, Jared?” Then she thought that he better not be hugging that monkey. She didn’t mention the monkey as she was trying to make peace.

Jared wanted out of this trip too, but it was so very much too late and only the first day.

“I’m over here getting the cameras in place. We need to take the videos and digital snapshots.”

Lauren couldn’t help herself. She said, “snapshots and videos of what? Selfies with you and your monkey?”

“You are a brat, Lauren.”

“You are calling me a brat?”

“Yeah, I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

“Well see this.” The monkey handed her a banana peel and she threw it across the ship.

“You know, I never wanted to go out with you, Lauren.”

“But you did. Why? Was your monkey busy that night?”

“Well, why did you accept?

“I took one look at you, Jared, and you looked like an idiot looking for his keys under a street lamp because that was where the light was. And I said to myself, he can’t be that pathetic. He is an astronaut afterall. You see, I have a weakness for the underdog.

“Oh, you flatter me.” In his mind he called her a witch and a few other things.

“You are like a non-drowsy sleeping pill and a crash landing all rolled up in one, Lauren Dear.”

“Wait. Are you calling me an oxymoron?”

“Well at least you are not an idiot, yet. But you do have more beans inside you than a burrito.”

Lauren realized she was not accomplishing what she had set out to do which was to keep Jared in her life. She felt that she was getting to know him alright. But, so far, they were not getting closer.

She thought it over in her mind. We need to call a truce. I suppose I should jump to it first.

“Truce, truce, truce,” she kept saying.

Jared took a deep breath.

“A truce? That works for me.”

Jared started feeling and looking around for Lauren, slipped on the banana peel and landed on top of her.

She put her arms around him and was thinking to herself that Jared’s monkey might not be too bad to have along after all.

Jared knew where the banana peel came from and was thinking the same thing.

“This is going to be a great mission, Lauren felt good to say.

“Yes, Dear, it’s going to be great waking up every morning and not feel like I’m in the middle of the freeway.

Lauren wanted to react to that remark, but she let it go and kept holding Jared in her arms.

Men being men

What do you eat when you have nothing to eat?

A problem with food banks, and eating randomly when the opportunity arises, it that a lot of what these agencies provide is processed foods that are heavily laden with salts, sugars, non-nutritious fats, and many chemicals (including preservatives) that can be toxic to the body. If I were low on monetary and food resources, I would shoot for the natural, nutritious foods that are inexpensive or easily obtainable. Buy them in bulk if possible. Examples of inexpensive foods that pack a nutritional punch, ones that are also tasty:

The humble potato. They can be chopped up, smeared in extra virgin olive oil and baked in a microwave oven. Avoid the butter, margarine, ghee, etc. Do not fry the potatoes like they do the French fries. You could add spices, depending on your taste. Also add tomato paste before the baking. The nutritional value of the potato is very high, but loading it with trans-fatty oils, high cholesterol fluids will negate the value. And the potato is tasty and filling.
But for those who are diabetic or pre-diabetic, an alternative to potatoes that is both filling and low sugar and calorie is the carrot. And carrots are both inexpensive and easy to consume as either raw, medium-cooked, or fully-cooked. You can more easily lose weight while eating carrots, although they are not as nutritious as potatoes, But eating a balanced assortment of nutritious foods will make up for that.
Tomato paste, mentioned above is a thoroughly inexpensive way to eat tomatoes. The red paste is a concentrated and safely processed form of the highly nutritious tomato. A huge bulky can is sold for about $5, would last for weeks in the cooler, even if you use a lot of it every day.
Some in the bean family such as cowpeas, lentils, and garbanzo beans. Buy them raw, to defray the expenses and to avoid the salted canned ones. Place them in water overnight. This will hydrate and soften them and make them easier and faster to cook the next day.
Oatmeal. A canister, depending on size, will last you weeks or even months.
The egg is famously nutritious, and one a day is enough. Boiled, or fried in olive oil. Wonderful animal protein, many B-vitamins.
Drink your tea or coffee in moderation. The antioxidants are there and helps keep you alert. Use stevia, the natural no-calorie sweetener….inexpensive and not bulky. Cut out the sugar, the Equal, and the Splenda. Go for Stevia….comes in several name brands.
An orange or tangerine a day does wonders.
Carrots are another inexpensive nutritious powerhouse.
Eat your nuts. The least inexpensive way to consume nuts , and to avoid overeating them is to buy them in bulk at the grocery store or places like nuts.com. And of course, many roasted nuts from the stores are overrated. If say you placed small amounts of a Brazil nut, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pepitas, peanuts, flaxseeds, etc (or whatever you prefer) in a small Pyrex bowl, added some water and olive oil, microwaved the mixture, you would come out with a very nutritious homemade power bar. Just don’t over roast or burn. Having natural foods at home is not only cheap, but deters you from overeating, and eating processed foods. Also, prepare your snacks at home. Nuts place you in a good mood
Banana. Delicious and nutritious, and filling, mood-enhancing, hydrating, inexpensive. One a day does the trick.
Water…drink your water. This can’t be emphasized enough. This is the medium of body and other functions
Go for inexpensive vegetables, rainbow colors, instead of the tv diners which are hazardous to your health. Eating natural foods makes it so much less expensive to manage your health
Exercising goes well with eating inexpensively and nutritiously, whether you are on a budget or not. My list is inexhaustible, but I suppose a reasonable guideline.
A bit of garlic/onion should be incorporated in the diet, daily.

Be the Rufus

“No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without intending to retrieve it.” Christopher Ratte.

Some Persian soldiers had buried their treasure at the time when the last remnants of Persian soldiers and Persian sympathizers were driven out of Hellenistic Greece. Archaeologist Christopher Ratte and his team have been in Western Turkey for years working on the ancient site of Notion – then part of Ionia – and have found a pot of rare Persian gold coins in what appears to be a basement room.

Credit: Notion Archaeological Project.

The New York Times has published a story on this find, with interviews of Christopher Ratte. Here is a share of that article:

By Franz Lidz, Aug. 2, 2024

It is the late fifth century B.C. and a mercenary soldier kneels in his modest quarters, digging a hole in the earthen floor. He places a small jug, called an olpe, in the hole for safekeeping and covers it with dirt. In the olpe are his savings — scores of gold coins, known as darics, each one equal to a month’s pay.

But something happens to the soldier — possibly something sinister — and he never retrieves his hoard, which remains undiscovered for the next 2,400 years.

That is one of several scenarios proposed by Christopher Ratté, an archaeologist at the University of Michigan, to account for the cache, which he and his research team recently unearthed from the ruins of Notion, an ancient city-state in modern-day Turkey. While digging beneath the courtyard of a house dating to the third century B.C., the excavators found the remains of an earlier dwelling. “The coins were buried in a corner of the older building,” Dr. Ratté said. “We weren’t actually looking for a pot of gold.”

Darics were chiefly used to provide payment to soldiers of fortune. Andrew Meadows, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the project, said he knew of no other hoard of this type to turn up in Asia Minor. “This is a find of the highest importance,” he said. “The archaeological context for the hoard will help us fine-tune the chronology of Achaemenid gold coinage.”

The archaeological site at Notion spans 80 acres atop a promontory in western Anatolia, a borderland dividing Asia from Europe. It was one of the Greek-speaking communities that emerged in the region during the early first millennium B.C., perhaps because of migration across the Aegean Sea. The deposition and loss of the Notion hoard occurred at a time of warfare, insecurity and great power machinations in a contested frontier zone.

This was true in deepest antiquity, as remembered in the story of the Trojan War,” Dr. Ratté said. “And it remains true to this day, as demonstrated by the Syrian refugee crisis.” He noted that the small harbor on the east side of the city was one of the departure points for Syrian refugees who fled across Turkey to Europe during the refugee crisis a decade ago.

Anatolia is the birthplace of the Western world’s first state-issued coin, the stater, which was created by a seafaring people called Lydians. King Alyattes standardized the weight and design of the Lydian stater, which, beginning around 610 B.C., was struck in electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. The king’s son and successor, Croesus, is credited with minting the first true gold coin, the Croeseid. The expression “rich as Croesus” refers to his extravagant wealth as well as the opulence of Lydia during his rule.

Fortifications at Notion, a Greek-speaking community that emerged in western Anatolia during the early first millennium B.C. Credit: Notion Archaeological Project/University of Michigan.

Excavations at Notion last year. While digging beneath the courtyard of a house dating to the third century B.C., researchers found the remains of an earlier dwelling and a cache buried there. Credi: Notion Archaeological Project/University of Michigan.

In 546 B.C., the entire area, known as Ionia, was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Although Croesus was defeated in battle by Cyrus the Great, his gold-based monetary system lived on. The Persians continued to manufacture Croesids until they introduced their own bimetallic currency, made up of silver and gold coins. The silver coins were called sigloi, and the gold ones were darics — a name derived from either Darius I, who ruled the Persian Empire from 522 B.C. to 486 B.C., or dari-, the root of the Old Persian word for gold.

In 427 B.C., according to the Greek historian Thucydides, an Athenian general named Paches attacked and killed a troop of pro-Persian mercenaries at Notion after luring their commander into a trap. The Persian sympathizers were then expelled, and Notion was reorganized under Athenian supervision.

Two decades later, a decisive naval battle in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta was fought off the coast of Notion, which the Athenians had been using as a naval base. Dr. Ratté said that the gold hoard might have been connected to the events of 427 B.C., or later, with the Athenian evacuation of Notion.

“It is possible it was not associated with either of these dramatic events,” he said, “but was simply the savings of a veteran mercenary soldier in a time and place when soldiers of fortune could make a lot of money if they were willing to risk their lives for the highest bidder.” Many Greeks fought for the Persian Empire, including the Athenian historian Xenophon, who was an active mercenary for the Persian king Cyrus the Younger from 401 B.C.- to 400 B.C. — the same time period when the Notion hoard was tucked away.

In 387 B.C., within a generation after the Athenians were defeated by the Spartans, Notion and the other cities of Ionia were reintegrated into the Persian Empire. They remained Persian possessions until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 334 B.C., at which point production of the daric quickly declined. Alexander and his immediate successors had many of the existing gold pieces melted down and recast as coins bearing their images, making darics rare today.

The Notion darics are stamped on the front with a likeness of the Persian king kneeling in a long tunic. In his left hand is a bow; in his right, a long spear. The backs of the coins are blank, except for a punch mark. The hoard is being stored at the Ephesus Archaeological Museum in nearby Selcuk, Turkey, along with imported Athenian pottery that was recovered at the dig.

Dr. Ratté believes that the fact that the loot was never reclaimed is a clear sign of disaster. “No one ever buries a hoard of coins, especially precious metal coins, without intending to retrieve it,” he said. “So only the gravest misfortune can explain the preservation of such a treasure.”

Truth

Why do mathematicians and physicists have issues with infinity being real? How does it break our understanding if things?

Why do mathematicians and physicists have issues with infinity being real? How does it break our understanding of things?

How did you draw the conclusion that; “mathematicians and physicists have issues with infinity being real?”, explain go into more detail. Unless of course you are a mathematician or psychist and you yourself have issues with infinity being real?

In mathematics, infinity is not just a vague notion of endlessness, but a rigorously defined concept that can be expressed in multiple ways, i.e., cardinality of sets, ordinal numbers, limit concept, symbolic representation, to name a few. Mathematicians have developed sophisticated tools to work with infinity, which strongly suggest that overall they do not have issues with it.

But, from a physics stand point things start to get complicated as the concept of infinity is more problematic and often indicates a limitation of our theories rather than a physical reality. This manifests itself in a number of ways, cosmology and quantum mechanics being prime examples. It is also a challenge when we start talking about black holes and singularities that represent points where physical quantities become infinite, suggesting a breakdown of the theory of infinity, as “normal” rules just don’t apply or they breakdown completely, which in real terms is nothing more than the end point of our understanding.

Many physical models use infinity as a form of idealization, and what I mean by that is, a lot of physical models use infinity as a convenient approximation (e.g., point particles, infinite potential wells), while still recognizing these are idealizations. Keeping in mind that no physical measurement can ever yield an infinite value, as all measuring devices have finite ranges, otherwise what’s the point of attempting to measure something in the first place?

You have not covered the philosophical perspective of infinity in your question which in many ways is just as important as it is in physics, mathematics and the physical world itself. Things like; does infinity actually exist in nature, or is it merely a useful mathematical construct? Infinity leads to numerous paradoxes (e.g., the paradox of Hilbert’s Grand Hotel, for more detail on this go to Wikipedia) that as a thought experiment challenges our intuitive understanding of what we believe infinity actually is. Infinity often represents the boundary of what we can know or are able to measure, that highlights the limits of human understanding.

Then we come to the practical implications of infinity. Some theories for example that produce infinite results often lose their predictive power, which indicates a lot more refinement is required. Infinite series and processes must be truncated for practical calculation purposes, which introduces a need for approximations, as there is absolutely no point them going on forever.

The appearance of so-called infinities in physical theories often drives a search for a more comprehensive framework to work within, (i.e., quantum gravity attempts to resolve singularities in general relativity). This is a signal, or indication that different thinking needs to be applied and more intensive research is required. To that end, in my mind infinity is not an end point, but simply a marker that requires one to go onto the next stage, whatever that may be.

Infinity in mathematics is a well-defined and useful concept that allows for the exploration of abstract ideas beyond finite limitations. In physics, infinity often signals the limits of a theory’s applicability, which then prompts further, deeper investigation and refinement of our understanding of the physical world. The interplay between mathematical infinity and physical reality of infinity is basically a work in progress and will continue indefinitely, as, when you think about it, is there any end to infinity?” Perhaps no…as that is what infinity is, across just about all domains no matter how one thinks about it or how it is expressed.

Q1: Why do mathematicians and physicists have issues with infinity being real?
A1: I don’t think they really do..is infinity is a concept on all levels is not fully 100% “resolvable”.

Q2: How does it break our understanding of things?
A2: Again, I don’t think it does, it is more a boundary where our understanding stops and it is merely an indicator that we need to dig deeper, refine and further our understanding. Human knowledge always has and always will have a limit, it will never, ever be infinite.

At the end of the day, there will never be an answer to your two-part question, it will go on forever, all the way to infinity and beyond…whatever that is…

ALIEN (1979) MOVIE REACTION!

Is a commander legally allowed to order a soldier/subordinate to his death?

Yes.

This was brought home to me during an exercise in the mid-80’s when I was a young Engineer Platoon Leader. My platoon was attached to an Infantry Battalion for a long field training exercise. We were equipped with HMMVW’s with TOW missiles and were trying to operate against tanks. That turned out to be pretty tricky, the tanks were very good, and the tactics we were using were not fully developed. We ended up getting kicked around the training area pretty routinely.

In one scenario, the Brigade Commander, a full Colnel and a Vietnam Veteran ordered the Battalion I was working with to hold a particular pass “at all costs.” The Battalion did a credible job defending, but then got flanked, which led to the Battalion Commander, also a Vietnam Vet, to order a withdrawl.

I was pretty new, but I thought at the time that this was a good call. In my view, holding onto the position any longer than we had would have led to the extinction (ln the exercise) of the Battalion, about 500 guys. The Battalion Commander wanted to live to fight another day, and what he was doing was doctrinally sound.

This particular point got discussed at length during the After Action Review. The Battalion Commander got asked why he ordered the withdrawal when he was ordered to stand. He laid out his reasoning, which made sense to me. I was there. There wasn’t anything else to do.

There was this long silence. Then the Brigrade Commander looked at the Battalion Commander with this laser-beam look and says, “John, if I tell you to go die on some hill, I’ve got a damned good reason for doing it. My concerns, the Division’s concerns, are bigger than yours. If I have to sacrafice your Battalion in order to preserve something bigger, it’s my job to order you to do it. It’s your job to take your boys and go out and die.”

This is the dark side of combat that no one really likes to talk about. It doesn’t happen often, normally because of a miscalculation or mistake, but units get asked to make these kinds of sacrafices. When you are an officer, if you’re doing your job right, your unit is like your family. Words that describe how close units bind together in combat fail me. Others have done it much better. These are your brothers, your sisters, your children. When you get asked to do something like this, it’s like asking your children to go out and die for you. Then you have go out and die with them.

Anyway, I’ve never forgotten it. It made me think through a lot of things before I became a Company Commander and had to take folks to war.

Its all about timing

Is the “face culture” of the Chinese superior and more civilized than the “honor culture” of North Americans, Arabs, Somalis, Afghans, Nigerians, Turkic and Mongolian peoples, etc.?

Face culture comes from Confucian culture. As a unique cultural and psychological phenomenon of the Chinese people, face culture has greatly influenced the daily social life of the Chinese people.
North Americans are Christian culture
Arabs, Somalis, Afghans, Nigerians are Islamic culture
Turkic and Mongolians are nomadic culture
The values of Dignity, honor, face are different among Christian culture, Islamic culture and nomadic culture, and the difference is very big.

Honor and face cultures attach great importance to regulating individual behavior by social expectations and cultural norms. However, the two cultural phenomena differ in several crucial aspects.

The new cultural framework of dignity, honor, and face was proposed based on three different cultural logics and reveals that while both honor culture and face culture place importance on adhering to social norms, honor culture places greater emphasis on both self-awareness and external evaluations for self-worth, whereas face culture places more weight on external evaluations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

Additionally, honor culture is characterized by an unstable social hierarchy prone to competition, violence, and virtue, while face culture prioritizes modesty, harmony, and cooperation within a more stable hierarchy. Especially at banquets, whether or not to drink is directly related to face.

From indigenous perspectives, the self-image and social image in honor culture are relatively consistent, and honor encompasses moral, gender, and family-related aspects that may be defended through violence. In contrast, self-image and social image in face culture tend to be incongruent, and face involves morality and social achievement, which is expressed through the dimensions of seeking face and avoiding losing face with an emphasis on status and authority.

Combined with the above two perspectives, these core differences between honor and face cultures can be attributed to the moralization and instrumentalization of social cultural norms.

Specifically, honor tends to moralize social and cultural norms by transforming descriptive norms into prescriptive norms, where majority and typical behaviors that exist in a culture are considered behaviors that group members should or must abide by. In contrast, face instrumentalizes social and cultural norms by using descriptive and prescriptive norms as means and tools to maintain relationships, demonstrate status, and uphold authority.

This perspective provides new insights into cultural phenomena, such as the positive correlation between violence and virtue in honor cultures, where violence becomes a social norm that adapts to the honor culture environment and is moralized into a virtuous attribute. The social norm of harmony in face culture exists both as value-oriented harmony influenced by Confucian culture and instrumental harmony in daily life, leading to a dissonance between face and heart.

Biscuits

Roisin O’Riordan

She was going to kill him. She was actually going to murder him. Yes, she has said it plenty of times before but this time she meant it. This time she would drag him by his stupid hair to an airlock and shove him out to space where he can suffocate.Seven months. She lasted seven months stuck in this shuttle with him, but now she was finally going to crack.It started off with the computer. He programmed it to call him “Hot Stuff.” She changed it back. Then, he programmed it to call him “King of the Bandages.” Once again, she changed it back. Twenty nine nicknames later-yes, she kept a list-the most recent development was “Big McDaddy.”And since his names apparently weren’t keeping him preoccupied, he decided to spend time obsessing over hers. Specifically, her first name. On the top of her medical file is “B. Miller” neatly typed out, but he wanted to know more. The guesses started off sensible enough with Bella and Bethany-they have now devolved into Bread and Bacteriochlorophylls.And somehow, no matter what happens, he won’t stop grinning. No one should be as cheery as this guy, it doesn’t seem healthy. Every time she sees him she wants to growl in frustration, but he remains as sunny as the actual suns they pass.But this time is worse than all those other time. This time he took the biscuit because this time he broke a rule that could get himself and her fired. This time he… well, he took the biscuits.”I can’t believe you!” She screeched, storming into the medical bay. “I can’t believe you would actually steal from the passengers!””I’m sorry?” He asked looking up from a rather heavy looking book. He was still smiling. Asshole.”The biscuits. Don’t even try to deny it. I know it was you who took them.””Ok.” He went back to reading.”Ok?” That threw her off her guard. She was expecting an argument. For him to try feign innocence before she finally broke him and he begged her not to tell their boss. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“Ok, I won’t deny it. I took the biscuits.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is there anything else or…?”

“Well… well… what do you have to say for yourself?” Her voice got weaker and weaker throughout the sentence. She really had no idea where she wanted to go with that.

“…They tasted nice?” Oh, that made her blood boil.

“Nice? Taste? That’s not what I was asking. Do you know how much trouble you could be in for this.” He was an idiot, he had to be. Maybe, he just didn’t care. No that couldn’t be it, could it? This job involves being away from Earth for years at a time and being fired tends to mean never getting work anywhere else. Maybe he thought the job would be easy and that he would get away with stuff like this. Not on her watch.

“I know how much trouble I will be in-none. No one cares. No one apart from you. Speaking of which, why do you care?”

He is unbelievable. “I care because I was put in charge of making sure everything is ready for when the passengers wake up.”

It is a requirement of every shuttle to have at least one engineer, and, if asked, she would tell people that she is the engineer-because she is. However, the shuttle is built fairly sturdy, and the AI seems to be doing a fine job of maintaining everything. It’s not that she wants things to go wrong… it would just be nice if there were a few mishaps that called for her assistance. This lack of jobs can make floating in space a tad boring, hence her eagerness to take on the role of an over-glorified party planner.

“Look,” he said, closing his book, “in eight months time we’re stopping for fuel at a space station. If we happen to be low on supplies-which we won’t be ’cause these passengers have more than enough-we can stock up then.”

“What if one of them wakes up?” It’s a weak argument but one she feels strongly about. She has read every story there was on passengers waking up from the deep sleep they are put into before take off. The passengers they were currently transporting were Taubverlians, so the four year journey would probably feel like a human’s version of a week to them but apparently it’s a week they would rather sleep through. What if they woke up angry? What if they got so annoyed they decided to file a complaint? What if those biscuits were the only thing that would have been able to calm them down and stop them from demanding the whole crew gets fired? It’s unlikely, but it is possible.

“Really?” He asked. She glared at him with cold, unforgiving eyes. “You need to calm down before you give yourself a stroke. I check, double check and triple check each passenger’s pod everyday and there hasn’t been even the slightest hint that one of them might wake up before they’re supposed to.” He let out a sigh and for the first time since she met him, his smile faltered. “It’s your first trip right? Thought as much. You see, after a while, you will start to get bitter. You’ll start to resent the passengers, our bosses, whoever it is at home that you’re sending your wages back to. The thought that you will more than likely be working here until the day you die and the knowledge that it is extremely rare for a crew member to ever see Earth again combined with the fact that if someone in charge screws up and needs someone to blame we will probably be killed… well, at some point or another, it gets to you. That’s why I play around with the AI and steal the occasional biscuit. That’s why Ellie stole a bottle of whiskey. That’s why Charlie is cheating on her husband with Smith. These acts keep us sane. And they’re not hurting anyone-not if no one finds out.”

She could somewhat sympathise. Ok, she could sympathise a lot. She was bitter. Of course she was bitter about… everything, but she wasn’t going to complain. Her family needed her to have this job, and so must his-it’s not like he would ever see his wages, so they have to be going somewhere.

“Our supervisors don’t care as long the passengers get to their destination safe and sound. You can relax, Birdy.”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “That is not what the B stands for.”

His smile was now back to full voltage as he realised he won. “We have been in this tin can for seven months and I still don’t know anything about you. What are your hopes, your dreams, your fears? Where are you from? And what exactly does the B stand for? It doesn’t stand for Biscuit, does it?”

She may come to regret this, but at the moment her stress is leaving her and she feels… lonely. She doesn’t have anybody to talk to on this shuttle apart from when she is arguing with him. Hearing him talk about their colleagues that he clearly knows so much better than she does just reminded her of how much she has isolated herself. “Brooklyn.”

“You’re from Brooklyn? Cool, I have a cousin that lives there, or used to at least.”

“No-well, yes I am from Brooklyn but, that’s what the B stands for.” The look on his face was almost worth it. Almost.

“So, you’re from Brooklyn… and your name is-”

“Oh, shut up.” She tried to fight a grin.

“…Were your parents really worried about you forgetting where you lived?”

“I shouldn’t have told you. I should have just stuck to Biscuit.”

He let out a laugh at that. Dear god, it was brighter than his smile. “Ok, ok, I’m sorry Biscuit.” She shot him a glare with much less heat than the previous one. It was kind of nice talking to him-not that she would ever dream of saying it to him. Just before she got a chance to retort, a series of short beeps filled the room. “Time for me to go check on the passengers again.”

“Oh, right. I have work I need to go do as well.” She turned to leave, ignoring the pang in her chest. She has her work to focus on, friends would just take up time.

“Wait.” He tossed her a small metal box. She stared at the box, then at him, then back again. At his nod she opened up the latches and the contents very nearly managed to surprise a snort out of her. Biscuits.

Tension Subsiding in South China Sea

Changing Geo-Political arrangements.

What terrifies you about Xi Jinping?

Mr. Xi doesn’t terrify me, but he certainly “terrifies” my German friend. Let’s call him Karl.

Obviously, Karl isn’t a basketcase of nailbiting anxiety and fear over a man a continent away. But he related a spine-tingling moment some years back listening to the news while driving on the autobahn.

Before we get into that, a little background about Karl.

Karl, perhaps unsurprisingly, speaks Chinese. What tickles me though, is he speaks funny Chinese.

Notice I said Chinese and not Mandarin.

Karl speaks a creole of accented Mandarin and horror of horrors, the Changsha dialect.

Now, try making sense of the hilarity hearing a thick German accent fighting his own tongue to make the proper tone for Mandarin words abused by the Changsha pronunciation.

After all these years, I have concluded he has been putting up a show all along to bewilder and get a rise out of me deciphering his words.

He has a future in standup, if he ever needs a change of scenery.

Back on topic. What piece of news made him nervous? It was a single statistic from China’s anti-corruption drive.

“More than a million party officials have been disciplined.”

He was flabbergasted by how seriously the Chinese were taking the campaign because when he was there, he had concluded corruption was so deeply ingrained in the culture it was impossible to root out. In fact, that was a primary reason why he left China, even though the money was lucrative.

Karl has an interesting way of bringing his point across, and he was ready when I pressed.

“China isn’t Germany. A million out of a billion is a mere drop.”

“Yes, but China either gives lip service or they do a thorough job. 1 million is a thorough job.”

“True. But why should that jolt?”

“Because nothing happened, Bill.”

“What do you mean nothing happened?”

Evidently he was waiting for this moment of weakness because he broke into a sly smile and declared:

“Nothing happened to President Xi.”

I was truly incredulous.

“I lost you Karl. You expected him to fall victim to the campaign he initiated because he is dirty too?”

“No, silly. The fact nothing happened means we have witnessed the coronation of the first Chinese emperor of the 21st century, if only in practice.”

“Now you sound like a flat earther.”

“No no. Nothing far-fetched. How do you think they land a big fish like Zhou Yongkang? Using the police? Or the army?”

“The President probably ordered his arrest personally.”

“Yes but what was the investigative apparatus and how did they manage to arrest him? Zhou was the security tsar.”

“Oh. I think I’m understanding. Even the FBI will have trouble arresting the vice President.”

“Sort of. The Xi administration basically set up their own supralegal modern day Embroidered Uniform Guard that was vested with political power to deal with anyone, even the biggest fish. The million they mentioned? A substantial number are senior cadres, nodes in the power structure. The Chinese think in terms of guanxi or relationships so tackling corruption equals identifying and destroying webs of collusion.”

“Do you think Xi went too far?”

“No. He did a fantastic job. I am just surprised the faction wars didn’t flare up in response. Not even a whimper. Xi has great standing within the party.”

“Ok, so he cleaned up. Why does that terrify you? He is more powerful than ever?”

“Not really. People fail to realize the five year plans were being executed like clockwork in the midst of rampant corruption. He would have reached the state objectives without rocking the boat.”

“He did not need to pick this fight?”

“No. He had to. It was the right time.”

“The stars didn’t align for Jiang and Hu?”

“Yes. The force was not with them.”

“The FORCE? Dude, you have been playing me all day!”

“Electricity, my boy. You can build the fanciest roads and buildings but without electricity you cannot urbanize.”

*Incredulous stare*

“For sure it is electricity. Hu was a hydroelectric engineer. China’s electricity output increased more than 2-fold during his time in office.”

“What does it have to do with corruption?”

“China essentially went full steam ahead to urbanize. Jiang wasn’t even sure how the system would work as it transited from Central planning to market economics as it spread inland from the SARs. Hu laid the foundation to guarantee future growth. The GFC gave China the breathing space to shape a cultural change among the ruling elite. A bunch of people got rich too quickly and developed money fever.”

“What does the GFC have to do with it?”

“China’s economy fundamentally shifted post 2008. China finally flexed her domestic muscle and decided they had to be less reliant on the west. But they had to inevitably slow down as the west recovered from a balance sheet and sovereign debt crisis. It is this recentering to OBOR and domestic growth that gave Xi the breathing space to tackle corruption nationwide.”

“Man, that’s deep but all that says is China has a good man at the helm. What makes him fearsome?”

“Well, when I was there the way the Chinese were throwing money around was unbelievable. Too much waste. And too many funny things going on. Putting a stop to that means the Chinese are getting on board the next stage of growth, one that is much higher in quality, and sustainable. The Chinese rocket shot up the sky in spite of excesses. Can you imagine a people without? Us Germans are counting the days when the Chinese become direct competitors to German technology and quality. The Chinese are getting their act together.”

Note: The emperor reference is no insinuation of shenanigans. Rather it is Karl’s intent to frame how far the Xi administration can push reform. In other words, Xi has the people’s mandate, just like a legitimate Son of Heaven.

Karl is real, but I’ve paraphrased our conversation.

Note: The profundity of Karl’s astute observations is contained within the satellite composites of nightime China, taken two decades apart.

Bill Pfeiffer’s Chili Capital Punishment

Bill Pfeiffer’s Chili Capital Punishment is the winner of 1980 World’s Championship!

Yield: 14 to 18 servings

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oregano
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons MSG
9 tablespoons chili powder
4 tablespoons cumin
4 tablespoons beef bouillon (instant crushed)
2 cans beer
2 cups water
4 pounds extra lean chuck (chili grind)
2 pounds extra lean pork (chili grind)
1 pound extra lean chuck, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 large onions, finely chopped
10 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup oil or kidney suet
1 teaspoon mole (powdered)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Masa Harina
Salt to taste

Instructions

In a large pot, add oregano, paprika, MSG, chili powder, cumin, beef bouillon, beer and water. Let simmer.
In a separate skillet, brown 1 1/2 pounds of meat in oil or suet until meat is light brown.
Drain and add to simmering spices. Continue browning meat in batches until all meat has been added.
Sauté finely chopped onions in oil or suet. Add to spices and meat mixture. Add water as needed. Simmer two hours. Add mole (MOE-lay), sugar, coriander, hot pepper sauce and tomato sauce. Simmer for 45 minutes.
Dissolve Masa Harina in warm water and add to chili. Add salt to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes.

What was your first clue you were no longer as young as you thought you were?

I was born in 1965, which means I am 59 as I write this response. In the 1980s, I worked as a DJ in a bar called The Notorious Club 26, and I played music from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s.

As the DJ, I would say things like, “Remember, never trust anyone over 30. If you are over 30, don’t trust yourself.” As a 20-something, I thought I was being funny. Then a horrible thing happened: I turned 30 in 1995.

I was single at the time, and I realized that all the time I wasted being a DJ interfered with my social and personal life. I worked 6 days a week, and on Tuesday of each week, I got paid. Who wants to go out on a date on a Tuesday? Who wants date some who works from 9 pm until 3:30 AM?

I wass 30, looking back from where I came, and realized that I had wasted the last 10 years of my life. I worked, made very good money, got a lot of cash tips for the customers, loved my job, but my life sucked. All I did was work, sleep, and do household jobs. I had no social life.

I kept working but I also went back to college, and finally finished the work for my BA. After that, I was able to quit the DJ job and work during the day instead of being a vampire on a day pass.

I’m not going to lie: 30 seemed old to me. When I turned 40, I got a card that said something like 40 is the new 30.

I’m 59 years old now, and my hair is gray, just like my beard, and my body is a wreck. However, I know that my life has been full and fun. I’m not sure what comes next, but I am looking forward to the trip.

Johnny West 1960s toy figurines

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Are you proud to be a Chinese person?

As a Chinese person, I never felt any connection to the “patriotism” that the Chinese Communist Party instilled in me since childhood.

In elementary school, our teachers told us, “The most important principle in writing is to show your love for China.” Well, I didn’t understand at all. How could a child possibly grasp what it means to “love China”? For an elementary student, “patriotism” is nothing but outdated stories and empty political slogans.

As I grew older, my aversion to “patriotism” only increased. The reason was obvious: if “patriotism” had a significant impact on one’s well-being, why had I never seen anyone get rich because they “loved China”? And why had I never seen anyone fall into a miserable situation because they “didn’t love China”?

When I started using the internet, I discovered more meaningful things. I realized that China could only avoid destruction by embracing Western political systems. During that time, I read many articles by “independent Chinese intellectuals,” including economists, Chinese immigrants abroad, lawyers, and entrepreneurs.

Back then, I hoped these independent intellectuals could awaken the “numb Chinese people” through their writings. They were active on BBS, blogs, social media, and China’s version of Twitter. I spent a lot of time reading their articles and enthusiastically commenting. I admired them and saw them as the future political stars of China. At that time, I had my own blog called “A Chinese Citizen,” with the slogan “For a Bright Future of China.” I wrote every day, and when I had nothing to write about, I would repost negative news about China and add my own gloating comments.

The trolls on Quora today are nothing compared to the old me.

Later, I got married and had my own child. As a freelancer, I had time each day to spend with my growing child. To expose my child to nature, I took them to many places. Busy with accompanying my child, working, cooking, and doing laundry every day, my life focus gradually shifted.

One summer evening when my child was three years old, we drove to a famous large lake in northern Xuzhou called Weishan Lake. A section of the Grand Canal passes through the Weishan Lake area. The sunset bathed the hundred-kilometer-long embankment road along Weishan Lake in golden light. My wife, captivated by the beauty, asked me to stop the car for a while. I parked by the roadside, and we were greeted by the cool evening breeze and the slightly fishy smell of the lake water. We all quietly listened to the waterfowl returning to their nests.

When a long line of cargo ships appeared at the end of my vision on the Grand Canal, another fleet from the opposite direction sounded their horns as they passed through the Linjiaba lock. The sunset deepened, and the afterglow moved from the embankment road to the surface of Weishan Lake. The vast lake, looking like an ocean, stretched beyond the horizon. Waterbirds in the reeds were startled by passing ships, taking off with pleasant sounds. Watching my child jumping with joy and my wife enjoying the cool breeze, I felt a deep sense of happiness. In that moment, I suddenly realized something:

Weishan Lake is a gift from nature to the locals; the Grand Canal is a monumental achievement by our ancestors. The various aquatic products from Weishan Lake have nourished generations of people on this land. Today, these endless cargo ships continuously transport energy and agricultural products to ports along the route. We enjoy the tranquility of nature, while our material life benefits from China’s vibrant economic system.

The natural geography is a gift from God; historically, it is a territory our ancestors expanded on horseback; and in reality, it is the result of countless generations of Chinese people’s hard work. For economic and social activities to run efficiently, the country’s leaders need exceptional talent to design reliable development plans. Without all this, there would be no individual happiness. The CPC is a positive part of this picture—not the whole, but just as important as all other parts.

I live on this land in this lifetime, and so does my child. Everyone I love and everyone who loves me live on this land. I love them and hope they remain healthy, happy, and joyful. Protecting them means ensuring that this land is free from war, plague, hunger, and poverty. Only when these foundations are solid can I fully devote myself to life and family. Isn’t this the relationship between an individual and their country? The CPC has achieved this, so what exactly am I complaining about every day? Should I deny everything just because of some bad news on the internet and some unfortunate events on this land?

By Weishan Lake at that moment, I grasped a simple truth: to love this country, to love its mountains and rivers, its history and culture, the heroes who shed blood and tears in modern history, and the forces leading this country to rejuvenation. At the same time, when my child grows up, they should see themselves as a master of this country, participating in its development. This is what a young boy should aspire to.

There is no such thing as love or hate without reason in this world. To love something, you must first understand it, knowing its strengths and weaknesses, and recognizing its significance to us. Otherwise, “forced love” is fake, blind, and short-lived. “Patriotism” is no different. Only by fully understanding this land, this country, and the forces driving China’s progress, with all their pros and cons, can one develop genuine love.

I am becoming such a Chinese person.

She Gave Him PRE and POST Date Bill and it Backfired

The Trigger For WWIII Just Arrived – What Are The Implications For Americans?

Guest Post by Brandon Smith

If the year of 2024 has proven anything so far, it’s that our worries about the potential outbreak of WWIII are absolutely reasonable. The skeptics making accusations of “conspiracy theory” and “doom and gloom” have been proven wrong yet again. The geopolitical atmosphere is turning sour fast.

I still don’t think a lot of people realize how truly volatile the situation is globally right now. From my point of view, WWIII has already begun, at least in economic terms.

Let’s not forget the fact that Ukraine is essentially a proxy for all of NATO against Russia. And, the situation in the Middle East is about to become much worse. Because of the alliances involved and the fragile nature of global energy exports there is a danger of systemic collapse should a wider war break out between Israel and multiple Arab nations. It appears that such a war is imminent.

But why should Americans care? It’s pretty simple – War spurs shortages, and shortages in the middle of a stagflationary crisis are a very bad thing.

Sanctions against Russia affect around 10% of the global oil market and around 12% of global natural gas consumption. But so far all that oil and natural gas is still flowing around the world, only the trade routes have changed. The Middle East, on the other hand, accounts for over 35% of the global oil market and 18% of the natural gas market. Widespread chaos in this region would mean economic crisis on a scale not seen in a century.

Think we have problems with stagflation now? Just wait until energy prices go to the moon.

Around 30% of all oil exports travel through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage which a nation like Iran can easily block for months at a time. Sinking a few larger vessels in the straight would obstruct all cargo ship traffic and oil tanker traffic. Trying to clean up the mess would be difficult because artillery, which is almost impossible to intercept, can rain down from Iran on any vessels trying to drag sunken ships out of the way.

Iran has mutual defense pacts with multiple governments in the region including Lebanon and Syria, along with military ties to Russia. The Turkish government is unlikely to allow western troops to use their airspace to launch attacks. The US military presence in Afghanistan is gone and the Iraqi government will never allow foreign troops to use their land to come to the aid of Israel.

This greatly limits the west’s launch points for an offensive large enough to blitz Iran. The vast majority of attacks would be from the air, and if the Russians start supplying Iran with batter radar and missile technology then there’s no guarantees Israel or the US would gain full control of the air space. In other words, if a wider war breaks out it will not end for YEARS and it’s going to be fought on the ground.

Of course, most establishment experts have claimed that the situation will never escalate to that point and that the threat of direct confrontation between Israel and Iran is minimal. I have been predicting the opposite for a number of reasons, just as I predicted that there was a high chance of war in Ukraine months before it happened.

In October of 2023 in my article ‘It’s A Trap! The Wave Of Repercussions As The Middle East Fights “The Last War”’ I warned that a multi-front war was about to develop between Israel and various Muslim nations including Lebanon and Iran. I noted:

“Israel is going to pound Gaza into gravel, there’s no doubt about that. A ground invasion will meet far more resistance than the Israelis seem to expect, but Israel controls the air and Gaza is a fixed target with limited territory. The problem for them is not the Palestinians, but the multiple war fronts that will open up if they do what I think they are about to do (attempted sanitization). Lebanon, Iran and Syria will immediately engage and Israel will not be able to fight them all…”

My purpose in that article was to outline the dangers of US involvement in a larger war that would require conscription and escalation with Russia. Despite the “experts” insisting that the odds are overblown, it now appears that the next stage of escalation is about to begin.

Iran, Lebanon and Israel have been exchanging limited fire for months now. This is nothing new. What is new is the change in tone after a Hezbollah rocket strike on a children’s soccer game in the remote Druze village of Majdal Shams that killed 12.

On the other side, Israel’s brazen assassination of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil this week is a clear catalyst for war. Haniyeh has been engaged in a diplomatic mission to start peace negotiations in Gaza. His assassination sends a clear message that Israel has no intention of entering into talks with Hamas.

IDF officials also announced that they had killed top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in a precision missile strike Tuesday in Beirut. There’s no escaping it now.

Iran’s supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered retaliation against Israel and issued an order for Iran to strike the Israelis directly. Iran will likely use extended missile barrages, but also stage troops in Syria and Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen will then increase their attacks on ships traversing the Red Sea. It’s hard to say how much Russia will involve itself at first, but I have no doubt more advanced Russian missiles and other weapons will make an appearance on the battlefield.

The prospect of world war is immense. Israel will not be able to fight in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran all at the same time. Energy exports in the region will definitely face a slowdown, if not a complete breakdown. At that point the war won’t just be about Israel, it will be about a global energy crisis. I don’t see any scenario in which the US government doesn’t get involved.

The high risk of terrorism this entails should not be overlooked. We’ve had an undefended border and record illegal crossings for a few years now under Biden. There’s not telling how many foreign agents are in the country and I believe this was by design. I think the establishment maintained open border policies because they wanted such people here. The more terror these agents cause the more the public will be tempted to increase government powers to deal with the attacks.

Beyond that, the political left in the west has tied itself to the Palestinian wagon as if it’s their business. In reality, leftists view the war in Gaza as just another vehicle for their outrage. They use minorities, they use gays and now they’re using Muslims. It’s the classic Marxist strategy of hijacking the social causes of other groups and co-opting their momentum.

Gaza is just another excuse for progressive spastics to riot and start burning more of the west down (their true goal). Anyone that opposes them will automatically be accused of being a “Zionist sympathizer” even if Israel is not their concern. So, there will surely be Muslim terror attacks, but also civil conflicts triggered by leftists exploiting the situation to their advantage.

The timing of these events in tandem with the election is definitely not coincidental. Whoever ends up in office will essentially be “stuck” with the war, inheriting a disaster from day one. Once US forces are committed to an allied effort, there’s no chance any president (including Trump) will pull those forces out. If things get bad enough, there might not even be an election in November.

For those that think we can “win” on multiple fronts, the truth might shock you. Eric Edelman, who serves as Vice Chair of the US National Defense Strategy Commission, has given warning about the impending conflict, stating:

“There is potential for near-term war and a potential that we might lose such a conflict…We need our allies to produce more. Our defense industrial base is in very bad shape. The European defense industrial base is in even worse shape. We need our industrial base, their base, and the industrial base of our Pacific allies. Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan–they all need to be stepping up because to match what Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are doing is beyond our ability to do it ourselves.”

I have written about the logistical shortcomings of the west in a WWIII scenario for some time now. At the top of the list will be manpower, just as we have seen in Ukraine. This is why we have been hearing military and political officials hint about a new draft over the past two years. They know what’s coming.

A draft to fight for globalist causes is unacceptable. I’m not going to delve into debate over whether it’s right or wrong for western countries to throw their weight behind Israel. Frankly, I don’t care about that argument. I don’t have anything invested in either side of the conflict. I care about Americans. And, I know that making the US military the go-to solution to the Middle East problem is going to end with a lot of dead Americans. I also know that the expanding crisis would make certain special interest (globalists) very happy. As I noted last year:

“The establishment seems particularly obsessed with convincing US conservatives and patriots to participate in the chaos; there are a number of Neo-cons and even a few supposed liberty media personalities calling for Americans to answer the call of blood in Israel. Some have described the coming conflagration as “the war to end all wars.”

I believe that the real war is yet to truly start, and that is the war to erase the globalists from existence. They want us to fight overseas in endless quagmires in the hopes we will die out. And when we do, there will be no one left to oppose them…”

The trap has just been set. We’ll have to wait and observe the scale of the response from Lebanon and Iran, but I believe the worst case scenario is at hand. There are multiple powderkeg events in progress around the world right now, but the Middle East situation looks to be the most disastrous by far in terms of how it will affect the US.

Why is the US not attacking Iran? Haven’t the US had enough of this ayatollah’s nonsense? I’m always interested to know what the end game for the US is here?

There’s a hot topic on the Chinese internet: Is the United States now at the end of the Tang Dynasty or the end of the Ming Dynasty?

I’m in the Ming Dynasty camp.

The fall of the Tang Dynasty was essentially due to the power of the Guanzhong aristocratic group blocking the upward mobility of the Hebei class. Although it was nominally due to the rebellion of the An-Shi insurgents, it was actually a civil war between the Han Chinese of Hebei and the Han Chinese of Longxi.

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（What really led to the demise of the Tang Dynasty was this brutal battle in which most of the army was destroyed.）

Similarly, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was also essentially an internal Han Chinese issue.

Even though there were massive problems with the distribution of interests between the north and the south, it was essentially a civil war between the north and the south.

Since both falls were due to unequal distribution of interests leading to the collapse of the country, why do I insist that the United States is currently at the end of the Ming Dynasty?

Three characteristics:

First, during the fall of the Han and Tang dynasties, these massive entities in Chinese history still maintained overwhelming military advantages over surrounding ethnic groups, whereas the United States does not have this advantage now.

Second, before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, there was a period of, uh, I’m not sure if I should say this, but it is indeed recorded in history books, a so-called “men dressing as women,” and LGBTQ was very prevalent. I have no discrimination against homosexuality, truly none! In ancient China, including the Warring States period and the most prosperous Han Dynasty, there were many rulers who were homosexuals, whom I admire! Look, I’m saying this, so I definitely do not discriminate against homosexuals, right?

What I want to say is that when these rulers were homosexuals, soldiers and ordinary people did not have a tendency to change genders, but at the time of the dynasty’s collapse, there were many grassroots males doing this…

I mean absolutely no discrimination, but it is very similar to the records of the late Ming Dynasty…

Third, spending countless amounts of money and achieving nothing. It’s incredibly frightening. Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver invested, achieving nothing…

In general, I believe that the United States now resembles the end of the Ming Dynasty very much.

The real fall of the Ming Dynasty happened during the “Three Great Campaigns of Wanli,” when the Ming Dynasty still seemed very strong and launched three large-scale military campaigns. But seriously, hasn’t the United States also fought in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? These three seemingly world-shaking wars actually only fattened the military leaders?

A hot topic on the Chinese internet is: Who least wants the United States to collapse?

80% of the answers are: China.

Chinese netizens are very clear that this world is maintained by the United States. If the United States collapses, it would be a disaster for the world, including China. No one can escape. So we clearly provide this answer based on our own interests: United States, you must not collapse!

The battle that marked the fall of the Ming Dynasty was the Battle of Salhu.

I do not want the United States to engage in wars in the Middle East again, as it is clearly America’s Salhu moment.

That would be a disaster for China, the United States, and the world.

In this world, no one can defeat the United States, except the United States itself.

Should China receive refugees?

No.

I’m from Hong Kong, a city that took in Vietnamese boat people who fled the Vietnam War, at the request of the United Nations. It placed huge economic and social burdens on the city, and the United Nations, after decades, has yet to pay back the 1.3 billion HKD it owes us for our efforts in accommodating them (as of last year, they’ve only paid back 166 million HKD, a mere fraction).

Taking in refugees is an expensive affair that doesn’t always come with benefits. We had enough trouble accommodating ethnic-Chinese Vietnamese people, who were culturally similar to us. Could you imagine if they were from an Islamic-dominated culture? I’m not just talking about the child sex rings, gang-rapes or honour-killings you see in Europe and the UK, I’m talking re-education, teaching them our language and culture, which is difficult and rarely succeeds, in addition to helping them find low-paying jobs, which affects the livelihoods of our grassroots citizens.

I understand the humanitarian principles of helping those in need, but taking them in is not the best solution. The elites who decide on our behalf to let them in can do so in their own good conscience, because they’re not the ones who have to bear the consequences. It’s not their jobs that will face higher competition from low-skilled foreign labour – if anything, they stand to profit from saving on workers’ wages. It’s not their wives and children who have to put up with the gazes and advances of lonely, desperate men (Dr. Clemens Ladenburger being an exception). It’s not their neighborhoods that will face greater poverty and crime. It’s not their communities that will be fractured, as the original residents move out to make way for the new ones moving in.

But most of all, I think young men fleeing their own countries just offends us on a cultural level. You see, there was a time when China wasn’t the second largest economy on earth. Our grandparents had to deal with the Imperial Japanese military, then considered to be one of the finest fighting forces in the world. Even western powers in the Far East couldn’t stop them – Hong Kong (then a British colony) fell in two weeks, with the Japanese only losing a few hundred men.

Guess what the Chinese people back in those days did about it? They fought back valiantly, and suffered the second-most casualties in WW2. Even those who fled to America supported the war effort by sending home what little money they made working jobs white people felt were beneath them.

Refugees (especially young men) should stay in their countries and work to make it a better place for their countrymen. No one can save you but yourselves. The Chinese have known this for at least a century now.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
– The Internationale

The Psychopath | House M.D.

Why is North Korea so hated?

I’m going to give a pro tankie answer, even though I am not a big fan of tankies. That’s because I have to agree with them here.

There is absolutely no reason for North Korea to be hated by the West. They are this defensive because they know they are hated and the West just wants to destroy North Korea… and for zero geopolitical reason at that.

The USA destroyed every city in North Korea, and put more bombs on North Korea than they did on Japan which brutally invaded Asia and attacked America’s Pearl Harbor. 635,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Korea, compared to 160,000 tons of bombs in Japan.

North Korea had 9.26 million people before the war. More than 1 million North Korean civilians were killed or missing due to the Korean War. To compare, less than 1 million Japanese civilians died in WWII, with 100,000+ of them killed in the atomic bombings, in a population of more than 70 million.

The war that America waged on North Korea wasn’t even a war at this point. It was outright genocide. Hitler would be proud of this. Every last North Korean was a target (and some South Koreans too, No Gun Ri Massacre was an example). The aim wasn’t even to put pressure on the North Korean regime, it was to give civilians hell. That is what strategic bombing is aimed to do, give civilians hell.

North Korea would not be justified to invade South Korea (which, frankly, is a capitalist hellhole as much as North Korea is a radical communist juche hellhole today). If North Korea did such things, I would condemn North Korea as well and demand that North Korea go back to its borders.

But it would be very justified to build hundreds of nuclear weapons, and set conditions for its use being the second total destruction of North Korea as happened during the Korean War. Luckily for normal people, North Korea only has dozens of nuclear weapons, and it has only very recently acquired the ability to hit the US mainland with nuclear weapons using just one nuclear weapons platform.

When you read the North Korean history, it makes sense why Kim Jong-un is so preoccupied with building nuclear weapons. If I was him, I would also build nukes.

I’m happy to see countries be able to defend themselves from imperialists the hard way against all odds, be it Israel or North Korea.

America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better (Reaction)

The truth hurts.

How did the ancient Chinese study for the imperial examination? Did they just repeatedly read dozens of scrolls every day?

The imperial examination system was a talent selection system implemented in ancient China to build a vast bureaucratic system and control the entire empire.

For its time, this system was quite advanced.

Firstly, it ensured a relatively open path for social mobility, giving children from poor families a chance. Secondly, it was relatively fair; while the winners of the imperial examination might not have been outstanding managers, they were certainly not fools.

At the very least, they had to read an immense amount of books, be knowledgeable, and be intelligent.

(Someone:Let me tell you something, folks, nobody reads more books than I do. Believe me. I’m the best at reading, okay? I’ve read more than anyone else—more than all the other politicians combined. They say, ‘ how do you know so much?’ Well, I’ve got the best books, the smartest people, and I understand everything. I know all the facts, the details, you name it. Nobody’s smarter, nobody’s better informed. It’s tremendous, folks, really tremendous. And believe me, when it comes to being well-read, I’m simply the best.”)

Moreover, the exams were not purely about comparing poetry or essays but included a large number of “strategy and policy” questions.

These questions are somewhat similar to modern civil service exam questions or political knowledge tests for students.

I found a few examples of ancient exam questions and, trying to adapt them to today’s global situation, rephrased them.

You can take a look to get a sense of the type of questions.

1 The United States has established hundreds of military bases around the world, while China’s military strength is mainly concentrated domestically. What are the reasons for these two strategies, and what are their respective advantages and disadvantages?

2 China’s ethnic policies are inherited from the Soviet Union, which has been criticized by many. However, it seems to be functioning well now, better than the Soviet Union. What do you think is the most important reason for this?

3 Roosevelt’s New Deal has some socialist characteristics, while China’s economic policies have many capitalist features. Share your views on this.

4 During President Trump’s tenure, what were some characteristics of the government officials he hired?

(Someone:I’ve got the best, the smartest, the most incredible people working for me. I pick winners, and let me tell you, they make America great again—just like I promised. The greatest administration, believe me. We’re bringing jobs, we’re bringing prosperity, and we’re making this country shine like never before. It’s fantastic, really fantastic,the best team, making America greater than ever. No one does it better.)

5 During the Korean War, China and the Soviet Union were allies, but in the Sino-Vietnamese War, China and the U.S. became quasi-partners. Share your opinion on this.

These are five exam questions related to politics, history, and military affairs, each requiring a detailed answer. There are also other questions covering topics such as education, economy, diplomacy, and so on.

Additionally, there was the Eight-Legged Essay examination, where candidates were required to use the sayings of sages as arguments and write an essay strictly following the standard format.

Overall, answering these questions well within a limited time is quite challenging, especially considering that you are competing with thousands of the most diligent and intelligent individuals in China.

An interesting fact: The top scorer in the imperial examination was called the “Zhuangyuan.” Only one was selected every three years. Over the 1,300-year history of the examination system, there were a total of 504 Zhuangyuans.

The first one was from the Tang Dynasty, and the last one was from the Qing Dynasty. Their hometowns were very close to each other, and today this area is known for having one of the strongest cities in China’s college entrance examinations, Hengshui City in Hebei Province.

The United States Financial System is a Joke …

The United States is sinking fast…

The doggie was a pooping machine!

This is a story about my father.

After I was retired, I was compelled by law to live next to relatives. Since my mother died, and my brothers and sisters were all off being with their own careers and families, I ended up living near my father.

I lived in Erie, PA. And during this period of time, I was in a “half way house”, a Monastery, and in a rehabilitation program. For the most part, I lived in the (affordable) “bad section” of town. While my father lived in the the nicer side of town. I lived on the “East Side”, while he lived on the “West side”.

He lived with my step mother, and she hated me. Well, nothing personal. She hated me and my brother both equally. ANd she was nasty to us. SO understand that there is not calm waters in this relationship.

But anyways, here’s a story.

It’s about my dad.

Now he is in his late 70’s. Retired. And living with his wife (who hated me). I would say hi and talk to him from time to time when he drove over to my house. If I came to his house, she would make a real fuss, so I did it only occasionally.

Well it came to pass that his little dog “Zenie” died.

He was a fine little terrier. And he lived to the ripe old age of 16. Which was, after all, quite a long life for a doggie.

Well…

About four months after their doggie died, his wife was talking with another woman at church. There was another dog that they could “babysit”.

So, here’s the scoop…

Single woman. She has a high-level career that involves long periods of travel. She is not married. has no children. Instead, has a dog. But is never at home. SO she left the dog alone at the house.

It’s now five years old.

Never housebroken.

So my dad’s wife gets the dog, and as affectionate as it was, it was just crapping and peeing all over the house. Everywhere. And since it was forever an inside dog, they didn’t dare let it live in the yard.

So…

One day, I come to visit my father.

I come into the house and am assaulted by this putrid odor of dog shit. This stink. It was foul, and on the floor, and on the furniture were these absorbent white piss-pads. The dog was amok, and my father’s wife insisted that everything was “fine”.

No it wasn’t.

She was crazy.

It was NOT NOT NOT fine, and my 70 something father was not able to cope and handle it.

So, anyways, I went out with him and we had a breakfast together. Ah, it was 4pm, but you know it’s a thing. We talked and I said…

It’s my dad’s life.
But he had to live with his wife and make allowances.
However, this dog was not housebroken
And because it wasn’t housebroken, it could not live with them inside. It had to go outside.
So he had to make a choice; dog stays but lives outside or dog leaves.

I explained that this was not an emotional thing, or that it will change. That it was a health and sanitary issue, and given their (father and wife) ages, that this could cause negative health issues. That he had to do something.

Ah.

He kicked the dog out.

And his wife refused to talk to me for a year afterwards.

Sometimes I feel that I am the most hated man on the planet. But seriously. There is a REASON why dogs and cats are housebroken. This REASON must be addressed.

And people are often too clouded in their emotions to such a degree that they refuse to see the black and white of an issue.

The health of the people who live in the home.

Today…

What was the strangest thing you discovered when you moved into a new home?

I had moved into a new rental with a couple of roommates, I was in my 20s. The house had a big backyard, but it was choked with weeds and Blackberry vines. I was determined to claim this space, so I borrowed a shovel and an axe and went at it! Being a small person, I ran out of steam pretty fast. Anyone who has tried to hack down 8ft tall blackberry vines can imagine my pain. Many scrapes and blisters later, after about a week, I had made modest progress.

The entire yard area was about 15ft square, I cleared about 10ft square and gave up. Not only were the weeds stronger than me, but the soil was mostly rocks, so planting a garden was looking pretty bleak. I kinda gave up. The spring was coming and we got a lot of rain, it became a mud pit and I thought maybe it would soften the clay and rock enough for me to sow some wildflowers before the weeds made a comeback.

Of course I got distracted and after a few weeks of mild spring sun I went back to it and looked around…PINK TULIPS were everywhere! A huge carpet of them! I wish I had a camera back then. They made me so happy and I could imagine them being planted years ago only to be choked by the aggressive vines. I felt like a hero and I continued to clear the space. Eventually I was able to see the long buried flower beds beneath the rubble. I made raised beds in one corner and was able to grow some herbs and veggies.

The tulips were a sign every spring that it was time to get growing! I hope whoever came after me to that space continued to be blessed by their presence.

Cajun Catfish with Honey Dijon Bacon Potato Salad

Fried catfish paired with a delicious Honey Dijon Bacon Potato Salad…yummy!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Honey Dijon Bacon Potato Salad

5 cups baby Yukon gold potatoes, cooked and quartered
1 medium red onion, diced
1 1/2 cups celery, diced
1 cup bacon, cooked, drained and chopped
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Creole mustard
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste

Cajun Catfish

4 U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish Fillets
1/2 cup fish breading
1 tablespoon Creole seasoning
1 1/2 to 2 cups frying oil

Instructions

Potato Salad

Combine all ingredients and mix well.
Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and hot sauce. Cover and refrigerate.

Cajun Catfish

Combine fish breading and Creole seasoning in shallow bowl. Coat catfish in breading, lightly shaking off any excess.
In a large skillet, heat oil over high heat. Fry catfish until golden brown, approximately 3 minutes per side.
Place on paper towel to drain.
Serve immediately with Honey Dijon Bacon Potato Salad.

Karen tries her American rights in Africa

Both India and China have over 1 billion people so why does China look clean and modern and India looks dirty and behind in the times?

I am Chinese, 44 years old this year. My childhood spanned the entire 1980s and 1990s. When it comes to maintaining cleanliness, this question brings back some memories of a “dirty and chaotic China.”

The first memory is a small detail. In any indoor place in China today, whether it’s a restaurant, hotel, or home, every room will have a plastic trash can. There will be a plastic bag lining the trash can to make it easy to remove the garbage. They usually look like this:

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However, these things were not part of my childhood memories. In other words, decades ago in China, there were no such trash cans. So, how did people throw away garbage in rooms back then? My memory is that people either put the trash in a shared outdoor trash can or threw it on the ground inside the room. Once the trash on the ground accumulated enough, they would then throw it into the large outdoor trash can.

Moreover, there is an evolving version of this small detail: I remember when I just got married in 2005, the plastic bags used to line trash cans were the ones from the vegetable markets. People collected these plastic bags after buying vegetables and used them in their trash cans. No one would buy plastic bags specifically for trash cans.

But today, various types and sizes of trash bags are essential in every Chinese household. The most popular ones are the trash bags that, when full, have two drawstrings on the sides that can be pulled to close the bag. This way, you can lift the heavy trash without worrying about it spilling:

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My second memory is about littering. I remember when I was in elementary school, around 1992. My mother took me to a newly built park. As we walked, I was eating peanuts and casually throwing the shells on the ground.

A sanitation worker stopped me, but my mother argued with her because she didn’t see a problem with throwing peanut shells on the grass. We thought that even if we didn’t litter, the wind would blow leaves onto the grass. Prohibiting littering was a common slogan on radio, newspapers, and television in China at that time. It’s important to note that because people didn’t care about environmental cleanliness, the government used all mass media to educate the public.

This situation didn’t significantly improve even by the late 1990s. In 2000, a Chinese TV station released a popular crime drama called “The Struggle Between Black and White,” which depicted the solving of a dismemberment case. The most intriguing aspect of this series was that it featured almost no professional actors! Nearly all the key roles were played by ordinary people, and all the police officers and detectives were the actual officers who solved the case.

Since this drama was released in 2000, it reflected the urban landscape of China at that time. The city in the show had a fictional name, “Beihuan City,” but everyone who watched it could recognize it as Xi’an, the city with the Terracotta Army. You could see paper scraps, plastic bags, and other trash flying along the main roads of the city.

In today’s China, littering is unthinkable. If someone throws a piece of waste paper on a commercial street, people will consider them uncivilized. Within minutes, a sanitation worker will pick it up and throw it into a trash can. A few years ago, a moving car threw a pile of shredded paper out the window. A highway cleaner witnessed this and recorded it on his phone, uploading it online, which sparked public outrage. Eventually, the police used roadside cameras to identify the offender, fined him, and demanded a public apology.

My child was born in 2010. If he generates trash while playing outside and can’t find a trash can, he will keep the trash with him until he gets home to throw it away. Once, he had a runny nose and spent an afternoon playing in the community park. When he returned home, all four of his pockets were filled with used tissues. I asked him why he didn’t throw them in the park’s trash cans, and he replied that the park was under renovation and the trash cans were temporarily unavailable.

My third memory is about vegetable markets. Up until 2005, going to an open-air farmers’ market was a challenge. You had to walk on rotting vegetable leaves, wade through the waterlogged seafood section, and endure the nauseating smell of the poultry area just to buy ingredients. In the past decade or so, such farmers’ markets have almost disappeared in China. They have been transformed into tall, specialized buildings, with floor-cleaning machines constantly sweeping the floors, and water flowing through specially designed hidden pipes into the city’s sewage system. Today, farmers’ markets are almost indistinguishable from supermarkets, equipped with elevators, central air conditioning, ventilation systems, Wi-Fi, and each shop having its own independent water supply system.

This is what the farmers’ markets used to be like:

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This is what farmers’ markets are like today:

main qimg 430999e217f4b137f1f35b2e6a8046ce

My fourth memory is about public restrooms. The relationship between Chinese people and public restrooms could fill an entire book, as there are many legendary stories. When I was a child, public restrooms did not have flushing systems. Everyone, regardless of gender, had to squat over two concrete slabs. If you weren’t careful, you might splash yourself.

Workers would clean the waste once a day. In the summer, Chinese public restrooms would become an unforgettable experience for anyone. In 2006, I bought a book called “Foreigners’ Views on China.” Some foreigners’ most painful memories of China at that time were about “using public restrooms.”

Today’s public restrooms in China are quite a different story. Over the years, as I’ve traveled across the country with my family, we’ve encountered all sorts of interesting restrooms. Some restrooms have real-time status systems that show which stalls are occupied. Some provide tissues via QR code scanning. There are even restrooms equipped with sofas and coffee tables for people to wait comfortably. A significant number of public restrooms have “family toilets” designed for family members assisting elderly or young children.

This summer, we traveled to Qinghai Province in northwest China. The G310 national highway winds through the desolate mountains of Gansu Province for over 100 kilometers. Sometimes, we didn’t see another car for half an hour, and I had to make twelve consecutive turns to find a 500-meter straight stretch of road. This area is known for the Qinling Mountains. One afternoon, we stopped at a roadside public restroom in the middle of nowhere, not even near a village. Surprisingly, it was a well-appointed restroom, equipped with large mirrors, washbasins, stainless steel faucets, and running water. Though I’m not sure if it was tap water or spring water, in the 37°C heat that day, the water felt ice-cold on my hands. The restroom had four rooms: men’s, women’s, a “handicapped toilet,” and a “management room.” It had a functional flushing system, clean tile floors, intact stalls, and a working ventilation system.

So, if I were to explain why China is a clean country today, I would summarize based on my experiences: First, extensive and improved infrastructure means people don’t need to dirty the environment to use the restroom or buy groceries. Second, trash cans, including recycling bins, are everywhere in cities and towns, so people don’t have to search for them. Third, if everything is clean, people are less likely to litter out of embarrassment. In conclusion, China is becoming an increasingly clean and orderly country.

This is what public restrooms in China are like today:

main qimg 1450e1c3ae5c49849867962ae8ad098f

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“You Know It’s Serious When Amish Get Involved”

As Pennsylvania’s polls near closing, an unexpected twist has emerged: a massive mobilization of Amish voters. Known for their separation from mainstream society and reliance on traditional values, such as horse-and-buggy transportation (arguably more ‘green’ than EVs), these folks, traditionally not big participators in US politics, have been out in force at PA polling stations, voting for former President Trump after Biden-Harris’ big gov’t waged war on the community.

Let’s begin with the context. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and big government Democrats targeted a small Amish farmer in Lancaster over compliance issues. This apparently infuriated the Amish community that many of them registered to vote and voted red in the last several days.

Real America’s Voice’s Tera Dahl was speaking at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, and she explained that the Amish community is not a traditional group of voters in US elections.

“But they’re voting this year – and I think a big reason is the overreach of government – and one example that could’ve had a big impact was back in January. An Amish farmer was selling his milk – and the gov’t raided his home and stopped his business,” she said.

An Amish person was asked outside one PA polling station: “Who are you voting for?”

He responded, “Donald Trump.” He explained that the Amish had “more freedoms under Trump,” while government overreach drastically increased under Biden-Harris.

US Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., whose district includes Lancaster County, at the epicenter of America’s Amish population, told PBS News last week, “They just want government to stay not only out of their businesses but out of their religion.”

With family roots deep in the Amish community, Smucker forecasted a dramatic increase in the Amish vote, “basing that on the enthusiasm we see.”

There are currently 92,000 Amish in PA. It’s going to be a tight race, and these votes could make all the difference.

Brave kid HORRIFIES his teachers by reading their own woke garbage, then his dad shows up…

Oops

Dale Lehman

The explosion blasted a million obols worth of cometary material into the oblivion of space, a disaster even without their ship being parked at ground zero, but what really rattled Jacey Komarov was the destruction of her entire set of Space Kitchen Deluxe™ radiant cookware, which had been safely stowed on board. She’d bought the set on Callisto twenty-three years before and cared for it like a child ever since. To her, it was more precious than platinum. You couldn’t find gear like that here in the Oort Territories. Standing beside her in his hideous olive green pressure suit, staring up at a black sky liberally sprayed with stars and glittering chunks of comet ice spinning into the void, Arne Slocum seemed hardly to notice. His reaction to the cataclysm was typically juvenile: “Whoa! That was awesome!” Okay, he actually was nearly juvenile: a short, skinny seventeen-year-old with wide, brown eyes and wiry hair that Komarov figured would be ideal for scrubbing out pots and pans. Not her good Space Kitchen Deluxe™ pots and pans, since they were self-cleaning, or had been before their untimely deaths, but she could definitely see grabbing him by the boots, holding him upside down over a filthy pan, and having at it with his skull. Since she no longer had a pan, filthy or otherwise, she slugged his shoulder instead. “Idiot! Look what you did!” He bounced a few feet in the feeble gravity before replying, “I’m looking.” Then he stopped looking and fiddled with the portable extractor cradled in his arms. Its sleek, silver body, massive orange trigger, and flared red muzzle suggested it was a device for killing Tyrannosaurs rather than mining comets. He flipped open a panel on its back and poked a skinny, gloved finger at the circuitry within. “I didn’t think I’d coax that much power from her.” “Stop tinkering! We’re here to collect samples, not vaporize the place from under our own feet. All my stuff is gone!” Slocum scratched what would have been his nose if there hadn’t been a helmet in the way. “You’re not hurt, are you?” He gave her a not entirely medical examination. “Put those eyes back where they belong,” Komarov growled. She turned away from the havoc he’d wreaked. Before her, a jumbled surface of loosely-packed ice and black rock stretched to the horizon, where it melded seamlessly with the onyx sky. Nothing special, really. Every chunck of frozen primordial soup looked the same. This was the Oort Territories, a realm so distant the sun was just a bright star, a place where day was night and night was more night. People came here to strike it rich mining the hydrogen and organics that made corporate executives filthy rich, but somehow only the filthy rich ever got richer, while people like Komarov, scratching out a living employed to a third-rate mining outfit, shambled through shackled to people like Slocum. “Where’s the ship?” Slocum asked. Quick study you are, she groused. “You blew it up along with everything else, including my most prized possessions.” She spread her arms in frustration. “The comet? Fine. The ship? If you absolutely must. But my entire kitchen? Blow yourself up instead!” Slocum’s eyes did a fair impression of a faulty LED flickering between life and death. “I blew up the ship?” “I’m going away now,” Komarov said. “Enjoy the rest of your short life.” She started walking . . . stomping, really . . . okay, bouncing across the frozen wasteland, her weighted boots the only thing keeping her from launching into space. She felt rather than heard the crunch of frozen organics under her feet, smelled nothing but the synthetic cleanliness of recirculated air, saw only glitters in the dark. She didn’t know where she was going, but it didn’t matter. There was nowhere to go but away from Arne Slocum. She’d probably end up back where she started, either from aimless wandering or circumnavigation of the tiny globe, but she didn’t care so long as he wasn’t there when she arrived. Unfortunately, they were still in communications range. “There’s nothing out there.” he said. “Exactly.” “But we don’t have a ship.” “No kidding.” “How do we get home?” If she could put the horizon between them, she wouldn’t have to listen. “Jacey?” The comet wasn’t that big. It shouldn’t take long. “You’re the senior. You’re supposed to deal with situations like this.” “Be very glad you’re not standing behind me,” Komarov grumbled. “Why?” “Because I’d strangle you!” “Oh. Er. Actually . . .” Engulfed by rage, she spun about. The motion would have thrown her headlong across the icefield had not Slocum been a meter back. They collided and fell in slow motion, a tangle of arms and legs and portable extractor. Its bluish beam flashed by Komarov’s head into space where it would either harmlessly dissipate or by freak accident destroy something vital to somebody’s survival. Slocum grunted. “You’re…” His faceplate was pressed against hers and his breathing labored, as though she was squashing him flat, although she couldn’t be, not in this gravity. “…all red.” “You think?” She pushed herself up and dusted off her suit. Motes of ice and organics sparkled into the vacuum. Breathing deliberately and summoning every gram of professionalism left in her roiling brain, she let him pick himself up rather than flinging him across the cosmos. “Maybe you should engage the safety.” “I disabled it.” Mayhem flooded her eyes. “Why?” “Convenience.” She had a vision of approaching him, arms outstretched, grasping fingers encircling his neck, squeezing long and slow and hard until his head popped off. He didn’t share her vision or maybe even notice it. “How do we get home?” “We?” He bounced back up a step, so maybe he had noticed, after all. “I assume you’ve studied the procedures.” “Didn’t have time. I was working on, on, on, this.” He raised the extractor as though offering it to her. Tempting though it was, she didn’t take it. “Before people are dropped on a new target, an emergency package is soft-landed. If the crew becomes stranded, they can activate a distress call. They’ll also find basic tools and provisions.” “Oh. That’s good.” Slocum looked so pleased, he might have designed the package himself. “Where is it?” Komarov pointed. “On the edge of the blast zone.” Slocum fiddled with the extractor some more, as thought that might make all disintegrated things undisintegrate. It didn’t. He looked contrite enough, though, so Komarov set course for whatever remained of the emergency package and motioned him to follow. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a massive crater whose edges and walls had a glassy look. The blast had melted the ice, which refroze as it flowed downhill. She amused herself with the thought of Slocum sliding down the slope, unable to arrest his fall, swooping through the bottom and up the other side until gravity slowed him and pulled him back down, up, down, up, down, over and over, amplitude gradually decreasing, until he came to rest at the bottom and couldn’t climb out again. Sweet justice. “Is that it?” Slocum asked. Not three meters beyond the edge of the crater, a massive black box squatted on the ice, a glowing green button planted in its side. They approached and studied it. Miraculously, it didn’t look damaged. “That’s it,” Komarov decided. She pushed the button, and the box blossomed like a flower, petals opening to reveal more controls, panels, doors, and a big red button marked, “For emergency use only.” That seemed redundant. The whole thing was for emergency use. Slocum held his breath while the box revealed its secrets, then let out a sigh. “You can say that again,” Komarov told him. “You’re damn lucky you didn’t take this out, too.” More contrition was called for. He fiddled with the extractor one more time. She pushed the red button. A control lit up, informing them the distress beacon was active. “You know,” Slocum said, shifting the device in his arms. “I honestly didn’t think I’d coax that much power from . . . “ Something his finger touched when click. The brilliant bluish beam flashed, vaporized the emergency package, and raced over the horizon into space. Komarov screamed. Fortunately for her, enough distress call had transmitted that two hours later a rescue team arrived. Fortunately for Slocum, low-gravity running is trickier than it looks, and they got there before Komarov caught him.

The incredible power of spiritual protection of your cat in 13 signs

What was the strangest battle in Roman history?

the Battle of the Caudine Forks in 321 BC. This one isn’t just strange, it’s downright embarrassing.

The Romans were fighting the Samnites, a tough group from south-central Italy.

Confident as ever, the Roman consuls led their troops into a narrow mountain pass called the Caudine Forks, thinking they’d catch the Samnites off guard. Instead, they walked right into a trap.

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The Samnites had blocked both ends of the pass, and the Romans were stuck like a mouse in a cheese factory.

Now, here’s where it gets really strange.

Instead of slaughtering the trapped Roman army, the Samnite leader, Gaius Pontius, decided to go for maximum humiliation. He forced the Roman soldiers to pass under a yoke, essentially a wooden beam, symbolizing their defeat and subjugation.

They had to stoop low and shuffle under this makeshift arch of shame, completely unarmed and defenseless.

The defeated consuls were forced to sign a peace treaty, but the Senate back in Rome refused to honor it, claiming the consuls had no authority to agree to such terms under duress.

one of the consuls, Spurius Postumius Albinus, actually proposed that he and his fellow commanders be handed over to the Samnites in chains as a sort of “sorry about that whole breaking the treaty thing.” The Samnites, showing a level of honor in this bizarre situation, refused and sent them back.

Pretty weird.

Have you ever cold emailed the CEO of a big company?

Originally Answered: Corporations: Have you ever cold emailed the CEO of a big company?

I did – sort of. When I was fresh out of university and young and innocent (well, kind of…), I joined a programme run by a large Swiss bank for graduates. When they hired me, the recruiter told me explicitly that my salary during training is just a training salary, and once I pass the training programme after a year and start as a regular employee, then my salary will roughly double, as that is a regular starting employee (graduate level) salary.

I did the programme and passed, and then went to work at the bank as a regular employee. My first monthly salary, though, was about 2% higher than what I had been earning while on the programme. So I called up HR and explained the situation, assuming there must have been a mistake. I ended up talking to the same recruiter, who laughed at me, called me a sucker and told me to go complain to the CEO.

So I did. I wrote him a very polite letter, explaining that I was terribly embarrassed to be bothering him with such a little thing, but I was told to contact him by this recruiting guy to sort out this misunderstanding. The CEO actually (and to his credit) called me that same afternoon and he had obviously looked me up and found that I was a complete nobody. But he kept it very short and to the point, basically saying that the corporate philosophy of the bank he was in charge of was very, very important and if that was what had been promised me, then that was what I would get. He then said that I should make an appointment with the head of HR and explain the situation to her. It got sorted out after a chat with the head of HR, who asked if I was happy in my job. I admitted that I didn’t find it terribly challenging, but I understood that you need to gather experience before moving on to more interesting jobs. She asked me about my background and the kind of things I have worked on in the past and asked if I would like to move to a rather more interesting job. Young as I was, I said “sure” without even knowing what it was. That same day I was transferred away from my boring job and started running a special projects team, reporting directly to… yep, the CEO. For quite a bit more than double the trainee salary. It was an… interesting decade.

Oh – I found out later that the recruiter got fired. I wasn’t exactly sad to see him go, but that hadn’t been my intention, and I felt bad about it.

Turned out okay for me…

CHINA is INSANE! (First Day in Shanghai)

How significant is Southeast Asia as a potential market for Comac’s C919 compared to other regions?

The c919 is optimized for regional service. Its entry into SEA will begin with Chinese airlines operating flights between SEA and China, provided the countries accept the type and airworthiness certification of the CAAC.

Since all 3 narrow bodies (a320, b737, c919) use the same leap family of engines, nothing much separate them in terms of operational efficiency, although the c919, being the more modern airframe, is a little lighter, and optimized for cargo duty.

Where the Chinese can be competitive is delivery time lines, cost and the speed of iteration. We will see the gradual indigenization of key components from engines to avionics, as comac develops superclusters of aviation suppliers.

SEA is 650m today, the same size as Europe. Reaching Europe’s level of connectivity will require plenty more planes, which the c919 is well positioned to serve.

But that’s in the future. The c919 order book will take the next decade to clear, and this will be a good time for the model to build a safety record, as well as a service network.

Pirate Art

AMAZING Animals Reacting to Music

Why would Taiwan not be another Ukraine in case China attacks Taiwan?

Bill Chen

Ukraine was shelling Russian majority Donbas for 8 years, killing and maiming thousands. Two treaties signed and witnessed by multiple stakeholders failed to put a stop to the killing.

There was Minsk, and Minsk ii, which as Angela recalled, were deceitful instruments to buy Ukraine time to build up its military.

Now, are the Taiwanese killing mainlanders with heavy arms today? Is the substantial Taiwanese population on the mainland living under discrimination and fear?

There is no enmity between the Chinese, yes, CHINESE on both sides of the straits.

The quarrel all along has been which system should be in charge.

I keep in regular contact with my Taiwanese friends. Despite the intense military drills which has showcased the ability of the mainland to blockade Taiwan, Taiwanese society has not mobilized on a war footing. There is no trepidation for an inevitable war in the foreseeable future, or the urgency to prepare for one.

In fact, SOPs to identify and challenge mainland contacts have been scaled down, because the intensity is just too hot to handle.

Taiwan’s replacement youth will shrink 40% in the coming years. Schools have closed and class size have come down. And yet wages remain depressed even in downtown Taipei.

Is Taiwan in the mood for war?

I figure not.

Now look at the mainland side and the capabilities coming online. There is a queue for university graduates to join the pla, while regular drills mobilizing civilian assets to assist in the war effort occur in the provinces closest to Taiwan. This includes provisions for the evacuation and care for mass casualty, as civilian infrastructure is degraded.

The Chinese are prepared to absorb Gaza level of destruction.

Is it true that Chinese people now have a high standard of living?

Not high standard of living.but I am satisfied with the following aspects of China:

1. Safety: It is extremely safe.

2. The transportation, electricity, internet, and other conveniences are all very reliable.

3. Education and Medical: The quality of Education is high and the cost is low. As long as you have good grades and are willing to learn, being from a poor family is not a big problem.Medical care is similar to education in terms of quality and affordability.

4. Industrial Products: There is a wide variety, and they are inexpensive and high-quality. On platforms like Taobao, you can find almost anything, and orders arrive the next day.

5. Convenience: For example, when buying an air conditioner, installation is free, with only a small fee for transportation, usually around twenty to thirty dollars.

Some people call this exploitation of delivery or installation workers, but that’s not entirely accurate. In another scenario, when workers fall ill, medical care is also cheap and fast, even though doctors need to spend 24 years studying.

6. Food: It is cheap and fresh, especially vegetables and fruits. Beef was a bit expensive before, but this year it has dropped nearly 50%. Some say it’s because Argentina exports a lot of beef to China.

I think this is not entirely good, as I’ve heard that many cattle farmers are suffering significant losses this year. The government should subsidize them.

Most Disappointing Aspects:

Housing Prices and Rent: Especially in big cities. For example, a 120-square-meter house in the suburbs of Beijing might cost around 800,000~900,000 dollars, which is too high given the income levels of Chinese people.

Nearby, there used to be three bookstores and several restaurants, but recently they have all closed. This is because a new subway line is about to be completed, and the landlord, anticipating increased foot traffic, shamelessly raised the rent threefold.

After the negotiations broke down, the merchants had no choice but to close their businesses. The bookstore owner, whom I really liked, said with resignation that during the negotiations, the landlord used the “six-character mantra” —爱租租，不租滚！(If you want renting, rent; if not, Get out!)

I can accept the closure of restaurants, but it s really upsetting to see bookstores closeing.

These 3 bookstores have been a part of my life for 18 years; I used to spend several hours every week browsing these bookstores.

The only consolation is that they also sell online, so I can still buy books from them online.

But I still prefer to go to physical bookstores, flipping through books and deciding whether to buy them.

One of these bookstores has a warehouse not too far from my home—just a 1.5-hour bicycel ride away. I’m still willing to ride my bike there to browse and purchase books.

Exorbitant rent is just too damaging for physical stores

A friend of mine summed it up very well:

In cities like Beijing and Shanghai, if you solve the housing problem, everything else is a small issue. But if you can’t solve the housing problem, every issue becomes a big problem.

Overall, aside from housing prices and rent, especially in big cities, I think things are still pretty good, considering how large the country is and how poor it used to be.

Col. Douglas Macgregor : US Dangerous Foreign Policy

What are some mind-blowing facts about the U.S. military during WW2?

Originally Answered: What are some mind blowing facts about the US military during WW2?

Throughout the war, the U.S. Navy lost 2 battleships, 5 aircraft carriers, 6 escort aircraft carriers, 7 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 65 destroyers, 52 submarines and a myriad of other ships. However, only one captain – Charles B. McVay of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis – was court-martialed for losing a ship in action against the enemy. If the names sound familiar, it’s most likely because Indianapolis was the ship that carried the atomic bomb “Little Boy” to the U.S. Airforce base at Tinian Island.

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Two days after delivering the bomb, Indianapolis received orders to proceed to Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. Captain Charles B. McVay requested a destroyer escort against Japanese submarines but higher-ups assured him that it would not be necessary because – they said – there was no enemy submarine in the area. Four days later on 30 July 1945, Indianapolis was spotted and torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58. The U.S. cruiser sank in less than 15 minutes. Some 300 of the total 1,196 sailors went down with the ship, the other 900 – with few lifeboats and life jackets among them – suffered dehydration, exposure, hypernatremia, and shark attacks for nearly 4 days before they were found and rescued on 2 August. By then, only 317 crewmen were alive.

“Higher-ups” should have had better intelligence about enemy activity in the area (In fact, just six days prior to the sinking of the Indianapolis, the destroyer Underhill had been attacked and sunk in the area by Japanese submarines but McVay was never informed of it.) They should have given Indianapolis a destroyer escort when McVay requested it. They should have tracked the ship more closely so that its sinking and survivors could have been noted much earlier.

But instead of blaming themselves, they made McVay scapegoat and put him on trial with the charge of failing to zigzag in good visibility. The facts that 1) the weather was actually particularly bad, 2) McVay had discretionary authority to zigzag or not and 3) the Japanese submarine commander later testified that he could have sunk even a zigzagging Indianapolis – all meant nothing to the court.

The court-martial humiliated and devastated McVay. Vicious letters and phone calls from grief-stricken relatives of dead crewmen who’d served aboard the Indianapolis didn’t help either. On 6 November 1968, McVay committed suicide with his service pistol. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that McVay was vindicated by Congress.

What was the biggest scandal at your high school?

The cops arrived at our school one afternoon. Moments later, we saw our principal being taken out in handcuffs.

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Dana Goodman was under arrest for having a sexual relationship with an underage girl. In our rural community, the future farmers association was an important school group on campus. The president of the FFA was a sweet and friendly girl. She was well adjusted and popular among her friends, and generally having a great time at high school. Until her principal started talking to her more.

Mr. Goodman seemed like an alright principal. African Americans were honestly underrepresented in the administration, so for some this was grounds for positive receival. He dressed well, talked politely, and did his job fairly well. But occasionally he would make comments. Once at a school assembly he said something in front of the whole school about ‘homely’ girls. The first indication he was noticing the physical appearance of his female high school students.

Rumors were flying that he was friendly with the cheerleading coach, a teacher who was just a few years younger than him. But then there were other rumors. And then there was evidence. Not just a young girls brave decision to go to police, but used condoms and fluids tossed carelessly into a classroom trash bin.

Fast forward to the afternoon when the cops showed up. Students were not told directly what was going on. But more than a thousand faces were peering out all the windows, some cracking jokes, some shocked, some who already knew.

After the whole scandal, we learned that Goodman’s leadership apparently led others down the same route and two other teachers were also arrested for relationships with students.

That was the biggest scandal at our high school, but the biggest scandal outside of it? Goodman got his 15 year sentence reduced to four and he is already a free man once again.

Crab-Stuffed Catfish with Parmesan Crust

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

4 U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish Fillets
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup white wine
1 pound lump crab meat
2 cups Parmesan, grated (divided)
2 tablespoons chives, chopped (divided)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Melt butter in medium, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
Add onions and garlic and sauté until translucent. Add wine and simmer until mixture is almost dry. Add lump crab meat, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours until completely chilled. Once chilled, fold in 1/2 cup Parmesan and 1 tablespoon chopped chives to crab mix.
Using a sharp knife, butterfly each fillet lengthwise horizontally as evenly as possible. Place 2 to 3 tablespoons of crab mixture on bottom half of catfish, being careful not to overfill. Fold top of catfish over to cover stuffing.
Season stuffed catfish with salt and pepper. Dip fillets into remaining grated Parmesan, coating evenly.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add olive oil. Carefully sauté catfish until a golden brown crust is formed. Turn catfish over and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
Garnish fillets with remaining chives.

Why are so many counties joining Russia and China to de-dollarize their economy and trade?

Because the US government has been irresponsible on deficit and debt.

Soon or later, either the US would go bankruptcy, or it would solve the problem by having a war.

Acient money has actual value. It was usally made from precious metals such as gold, silver, and blonze.

Modern money is a credit, and is endorsed by the government to have virtual value.

When a government over releases money, it would create huge inflation. Not 10%, not 20%, but 1000% or 10000%.

With a full pack of money, you may be able to purchase a pack of cigarette.

In 2023 alone, the US government over-spent 1.7 trillion USD, which it has to borrow from others, domestic or foreign investors.

With the uncontrollabe over-spending, the national debt went up too.

It has just reached 35 trillion, and is about 100 thousand per US citizen.

There is no way that the US government could repay the debt in the foreseeable future, because US government is still creating more deficit every year.

Even the interest of the national debt in 2024 will be around 0.9 trillion.

With an annual revenue of over 4 trillion USD, US government would have to owe more money year by year.

To attract more people and organizations to purchase US tresury, the interest rate must be raised. With higher interest, the US government will have a higher annual expenditure, which will make the deficit bigger, so that the US government will have to release even more treasury.

It’s a typical vicious circle.

It would be impossible to increase government revenue, since it’s mostly tax.

It would be also impossible to lower the government expenditure, since too many people are making their benefit out of it.

See? They are going to spend more by borrowing more.

If it was any other country, its economy would be collapsed.

According to Ta Kung Pao in 16 Aug 1948:

Just within the first half of August,

food price increased 3.9 MILLION times
housing price increased 0.77 MILLION times
clothing price increased 6.52 MILLION times

It was because the KMT/ROC government tried to release new currency to replace the old one.

The exchang ratio was 1 Chinese gold yuan (new) to 200 old fiat currency.

According to the statistics, only 200 million CGY was enought to exchange all the old currency released, but KMT printed 2 billion CGY. The extra CGY was a disaster from the begining.

By the time people realized the government having no ability to control goods prices, all prices went up like crazy.

Someone went to buy boxes of antibiotics. The seller told him that this has no use if no one’s injured or infected. Buyer said that he didn’t give a damn. He bought them only because they were expensive.

Even shoes were all bought, regardless the size.

I am not sure if this reminds western people about something.

Like I said, if it was any other country, the economy would be collapsed already.

However, it’s the US.

According to the Modern Money Theory, the biggest export product of the US is the US dollar.

While other countries had to work hard selling goods, just to make some money to buy from other countries, the US just sit in a chairt and type some numbers into the computer, and here is the money.

US dollar is the biggest international settlement currency.

In a period, having USD is more important than having goods. Because no country can produce everything, and USD can get you goods from the market.

So the US spends USD printed out of thin air and receive goods with actual value. During the process, the US released its internal inflation to the world.

Comparing to its internal market, the global market is much bigger and is able to contain more USD. By over-release the same amount of money, the US has the world trading to absorb its inflation, while other countries had to afford it on themselves.

However, like I presented above, national debt of the US has reached a scary high level, because there is only a certain amount of USD can be transfered from US internal market to the outside world.

Because the capitalists cannot just share their benefit to the general public, so most people still have about the same salary, which makes the total disposable money in the US a rather stable number. That’s how much the US can buy, and how much the US can export its inflation to the world.

Soon or later, countries around the world would have to face the fact that economy of the US is beyond being repairable.

When that moment came, USD will become toilet paper. Whoever still holding huge amount will be fucked totally.

It happened once when the US claimed to abandon Bretton Woods system. In that system, the USD has a fixed exchange rate with gold, which is 35USD to 1 ounce gold. The US wanted to release more USD, because the total amount of gold doesn’t change fast, not as fast as the international trading.

To its allies, mostly European countries, denying the value of USD meant the USD they were holding would become toilet paper. So they chose to recognize the value of USD even when it has no connection to gold anymore.

But this time, China decided to not tolerate the irresponsible child act of the US.

China has been trying to establish a new trading system based on goods rather than any specific curreny.

Purpose of doing international tradings should not be “to earn some USD so that I could buy stuff”, but “I have goods, so I can eventually change it into something I need”.

It should be a multilateralist system instead of unilateralist.

In the current system, being kicked out from SWIFT by the US means not being able to buy vital stuff from the world, such as vaccine. Iran had this problem at early stage of COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia also had this problem right after the Ukraine War.

In addtion, the US in recent years has been more and more aggressive.

As the single pole of the world, it acted like a spoiled kid, to sanction whichever it dislike.

It created so many enemies. There are so many of them that they can actually establish their own circle.

If the emenies of the US can surive on their own, then there is even less excuse for them to keep using USD.

I think white house would be happy about it, since they are so eager to totally decouple with China.

UNFORGIVEN (1992) Movie Reaction w/ Coby FIRST TIME WATCHING

Shorpy

Why do so many Americans have a problem with alcohol?

Drinking is a large part of adult culture in the United States. Although I have gone long periods of my adult life without drinking, I have never given drinking up completely because I have realized it makes social situations more awkward.

Some people get really uncomfortable if they are drinking and not everyone else at the table is drinking. It’s also a time-honored tradition to conduct certain business meetings in informal sessions that sometimes feature drinking. Additionally, sports, holidays, and cookouts usually involve alcohol.

In my family, this isn’t a problem really. A few weeks ago we had a family gathering and a close friend came with me. She remarked how no one in my family drinks at all or does any drugs except me. First of all, survivorship bias is apparent. Secondly, because there have been so many people with substance abuse issues in my family, drinking or smoking marijuana, although perfectly legal, are nearly taboo. Our family gatherings are usually completely devoid of alcohol, because nearly everyone in my close family gave up drinking in any form years ago or never developed an interest. We never tell our guests one way or another that they can’t bring drinks, but if they do, they’re usually the odd man out.

Although I used to be a nearly daily drinker, these days I no longer prefer to drink as the main way I relax after a rough day. Increasingly, I am not the only one. Many young people are putting aside alcohol in favor of more holistic hobbies that don’t take such a toll on the body and mind. Going to a local adult arcade or bar and ordering a mocktail or alcohol free beer isn’t that unusual around here these days.

THE MATRIX (1999) Movie Reaction w/Coby FIRST TIME WATCHING

What was the first “green flag” you noticed in your partner?

My husband is a very shy man. So much so, that when we went out on a first date, he barely even looked at me. I very reluctantly accepted to go out on a second date, which ended up being pretty much the same. This led me to believe that there’s just no chemistry between us, and that it’s best we end it at that point. I really liked him, but didn’t want to get hurt as I thought he might be an emotionally unavailable person. My husband’s reaction was to say:

“Ok, this makes me very sad, but if you don’t think going out with me makes sense, there’s just no point going forward. However, may I ask for a reason?”

I have to admit I was surprised hearing such a response. Men I tried dating would typically get very angry, insult me, curse at me, or say something to humiliate me, which made me wary of rejecting someone openly.

I explained to him how I felt, to which my husband said that he actually likes me a lot, but is extremely shy, and that if I would like to go out with him again, he would be more open. On our third date he greeted me with a big grin and a warm hug and from then on we were inseparable.

So the first “green flag” in my partner was his ability to calmly accept rejection without perceiving that his ego has been hurt.

Space Burns

Stevie Aldrich

“CONKLIN!” Havaderr wailed. His face was the brightest red and steaming with heat. The veins in his neck throbbed noticeably, but he waited as still as he could for Conklin to answer. A buzz came in over the intercom above Havaderr’s head.

“Hey, was that you shouting, Havaderr?” Conklin’s voice crackled with static and attitude. Havaderr shut his eyes and repeated his Zen mantra in his head.

“Havaderr? What’s your problem?”

Havaderr’s eyes opened, and in the most even tone he could manage; he said his mantra out loud.

“I am calm. I am calm. I can overcome this. I am strong. I am strong. I can overcome anything.” Havaderr spoke through gritted teeth, spittle flying across the room as he focused on keeping his anger inside rather than shouting and blowing the place up with Conklin inside.

“Hey guy, are you going to answer me or what?” Conklin’s voice implied his own rising impatience. Havaderr moved to the button on the wall nearest him to respond.

“Yes, Conklin, I was shouting,” Havaderr said as evenly as his rage would allow. “Get your ass to 4A NOW!” As he trailed off, he clenched his teeth together so hard he felt a grinding that might as well have been a tooth chipping. Before Conklin’s reply came, Havaderr heard an irritated sigh over the intercom.

“Yeah, be right ther-.” Conklin barely finished his sentence before releasing the button, cutting himself off at the end.

Moments later, a door slid open down the hall, several yards away from Havaderr. Conklin came into the hall, looking both ways before spotting Havaderr.

“What the hell, why are you shouting and-“ Havaderr cut Conklin off with a finger to his mouth to silence him.

“I’m going to show you something in this room behind me, and it’s best if your mouth is shut when I do.” Havaderr’s voice wavered, he was still trying to control his anger. Conklin looked confused as ever but kept his mouth shut. With a worried expression, Conklin followed Havaderr to another door. Havaderr stood aside and opened the door for Conklin to enter alone. Conklin stood in the doorway staring, then Havaderr shoved him wholly into the room from behind and closed the door.

“Havaderr, what’s going on? What the fu-ahhhh!” The intercom inside the restroom was unnecessary, but Havaderr appreciated it right now. He would have heard Conklin screaming from quite a distance, but hearing Conklin’s disgust and horror in surround sound was more pleasing. A slice of anger slid off his shoulders and a small smile appeared on his face.

The door rattled, clearly Conklin on the other side trying to burst through, but Havaderr held the lock button, keeping Conklin trapped inside.

“What kind of game is this Havaderr? Let me out, for Christ’s sake!” Conklin was panicking, releasing more anger from Havaderr’s shoulders and filling his belly with laughter.

“This is no game, friend. This is you coming face to face with your own incompetence,” Havaderr said over the intercom, still smiling.

“Havaderr! Let me out of here!” Conklin screamed and started ramming the door again.

“I don’t think so, Conklin. If you look to the left of the door, I’ve been kind enough to set you up with plenty of cleaning supplies for the job, which is a lot more than you did for me. I’d suggest you start tackling that shit before it starts tackling you.” Havaderr exploded with laughter, letting go of the intercom and floating backward as he held onto his stomach. He laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Conklin kept banging on the door and pleading to be released, but Havaderr couldn’t hear anything over the roar of his own hysteria.

Curled up in fetal position, floating in the hallway, Havaderr worked himself out of his fits of laughter. He wiped the joyful tears from his eyes and started breathing normally again. He moved back to the intercom.

“Look mate, this restroom was in your sector to clean. Obviously, you did a piss poor job,” Havaderr grabbed his side, holding the laughter in after such a quality pun. “I told you, cleaning the restrooms would be the most important job, because if it isn’t done right, this happens. Floating excrement!” Conklin didn’t say anything, but Havaderr heard him kick or punch the door.

“I’ll take your silence as admitting you did a sloppy job the first time. You know, I needed to do some business, and I walk into the restroom greeted with a turd to the face, which I’m assuming belonged to you, so I have no sympathy for you right now. Clean the damn restroom like you were supposed to, and I’ll let you out.” Havaderr waited for a response. He was eager to shower off the stench and stain of human waste from himself before finishing his day.

“Yeah, alright,” Conklin said over the intercom, sounding defeated and guilty. Havaderr nodded his head and left Conklin to figure out how to clean a restroom with feces floating freely throughout.

“Like I said, not a drop of sympathy for you. Do it right the first time, and we won’t run into stupid problems like that,” Havaderr said coolly, scrubbing at the built-up muck in the corners of the glass.

Conklin was still cranky from cleaning the restroom the day before, and he meant to let Havaderr know just how little he appreciated the tactless way he was pushed into the situation without warning.

“Chin up, Conklin. We have one more day before our shift is over, and we can get the hell off this floating heap of death,” Havaderr motioned toward the clear chambers that housed the comatose bodies of several crew members, one of which whose glass he was scrubbing.

“Remind me, what’s up with these bodies? They’re dead, yeah?” Conklin asked.

“No, they’re alive, they’re the crew, dumbass,” Havaderr grunted at Conklin. He looked over to see Conklin hovering around the main dashboard, not a rag or mop near him. “And I wouldn’t mind if you got to work while you asked your questions,” he barked. Conklin jumped and reached for a rag tucked into a closed bucket tethered nearby. He started mindlessly wiping at the dashboard without paying close attention.

“Okay, but how come they’re asleep?” Conklin asked. Havaderr sighed as he paused and rolled his eyes.

“Do I look like the Captain of this ship? All I know is, this crew is traveling some number of lightyears, so the ship has been programed for regular stops near inhabited planets for maintenance and cleaning. We drew the short straw, so we get to hop from the ship we were on previously, to this one, and then another one before heading back home. Nobody else was this far out into deep space to do the job, so we get a long shift before our break. At least they’re paying us over time, eh?” Havaderr smiled at the thought of a paycheck double its usual amount. He looked in on the half-naked man inside the tube he was cleaning, tapping on the glass with his knuckle and laughing at how strange the sight was.

Air escaped the edges of the door, and it hissed loudly. The smile fell from Havaderr’s face as he scanned the chamber looking for an explanation. The door swung open and the half-naked man floated out as if to follow. Thankfully, he was attached to a few tubes that kept him reigned in and asleep, but the color left Havaderr’s face once he realized that would only last for so long.

Havaderr turned to Conklin, who looked just as confused.

“He just-just-he-“ Havaderr stuttered, unable to decide what he was trying to say. The man’s feet flew upward so his back was parallel to the floor and his right side dipped down. Slowly, he started to spin, so he was upside down. All the while, Havaderr and Conklin stared without any clue how to fix it.

“Did you touch something?” Havaderr shouted at Conklin, who shook his head wordlessly.

“I didn’t touch anything!” Havaderr went back to staring at the half-naked man, perplexed. After a minute, Havaderr decided they couldn’t leave the man like that.

“Get over here and help me with this!” He yelled at Conklin. Still silent, Conklin moved toward Havaderr and the unconscious man. Havaderr and Conklin wore their gravity belts at 85% power to keep from floating off like the man from the tube, but it allowed them a bit more mobility too. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any extras to strap to the man, so he continued to spin and flip through the air.

One of the wires connecting the man to his casket snapped, leaving only one left to keep him from flying down the corridor and into every other part of the ship. Havaderr and Conklin shared a look of fear but said nothing.

Havaderr grabbed the man’s knees and tried to pull them down so the man was right side up, but as he pulled, the man’s whole body moved toward Havaderr. Conklin remained motionless, watching the unconscious body float into Havaderr. Havaderr struggled and groped, trying his very best to wrangle the helpless man, but even his best efforts left him with the man’s body bumping into him clumsily. He accidentally grabbed the man’s buttocks, and the man’s armpit swung around and slapped him in the face. All in all, it reminded Conklin of two young people at their first school dance, trying not to step on each other.

Conklin covered the smile on his face, but the more Havaderr fought with the floating man and lost, the more the urge to laugh rose in his belly. When the man launched a foot directly into Havaderr’s eye, Conklin lost it. With one hand on the man’s shoulder and his other arm wrapped around the man’s torso, Havaderr stopped to see what was so funny to Conklin. He didn’t have to ask; he knew how he looked.

“Would you knock it off and help me! I don’t know what we disconnected, but that could be vital to this man’s life!” Havaderr tried to repeat his mantra in his head, but he couldn’t hear anything over Conklin’s laughter. Havaderr grumbled as he kept spinning the man back into position, with no help from Conklin, who was tumbling in circles on the other side of the room.

Finally, Havaderr got the man into his up-right position and back into the tube. As best as he could, he reattached the disconnected wires, but he couldn’t pull the door shut.

“Conklin! Find the button to close this door, hurry, before he tries to escape again!” Havaderr pleaded.

Conklin straightened up and moved to the dashboard he had been cleaning. On the first try, he hit a button, and the door closed, sealing itself. Havaderr wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at Conklin, a little puzzled. Conklin’s laughter died down, but when he saw Havaderr near collapse and panting, his laughter boiled over.

“What is wrong with you? Were you too busy finding this hilarious to help me save that man’s life?” Havaderr demanded, huffing and puffing.

“Calm down, he’s fine,” Conklin squeaked. “The buttons are clearly labeled on the dash here, see?” Conklin pointed to the dashboard. Havaderr saw buttons marked to open doors, close doors, start specific mechanisms, stop the same mechanisms, and a bunch of other things Havaderr didn’t understand. What he did think he understood, was how the door opened in the first place.

“Did you open his door on me?” Havaderr asked Conklin, the anger rising again.

“Yeah, mate, you should have seen the look on your face!” Conklin rolled over laughing.

“You idiot! You could have killed the man, we could be fired, what the hell is wrong with you?” Havaderr bellowed.

“Relax Havaderr, you’ll give yourself a stroke!” Conklin pulled himself together for a second, setting his feet back on the floor and pointing to the dashboard again.

“This here, that indicates their vital signs. You can see they’re all perfectly healthy, no harm done,” Conklin said matter-of-factly. Havaderr was flustered. He could only trust Conklin’s word, he had no idea what any of the lights or buttons meant on the dash.

“You couldn’t have known it would be okay, though. What if the tube that detached from his arm was something that kept him alive?” Havaderr exclaimed. Conklin rolled his eyes, irritated that Havaderr wasn’t figuring it out as easily as he was.

“All that tube did was give him pleasant dreams; it wasn’t important. He’ll live, and nobody need ever know you almost killed a man,” Conklin started to giggle again. Havaderr’s face turned tomato red and he clenched his fist, trying to fight the overwhelming desire to punch Conklin in the face.

“You did this on purpose?” Havaderr said, strained.

“Well, maybe don’t lock me in a room with floating shit again, and we’ll be fine,” Conklin smiled, feeling pleased with himself.

Crispy Catfish

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons light Ranch dressing
2 large egg whites
6 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 catfish fillets
Cooking spray

Instructions

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine the dressing and egg whites in a small bowl and stir well with a whisk.
Combine the cornmeal, Parmesan cheese, flour, pepper and salt in a shallow dish.
Dip fish into egg white mixture, then dredge in cornmeal mixture. Place on baking sheet coated with cooking spray.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until lightly browned and fish flakes easily.
Serve with lemon wedges.

Are you guys aware of what’s happening in Myanmar?

Myanmar has long been in a state of de facto civil war.

The root cause lies in the Myanmar government’s blatant policy of ethnic discrimination. Citizens’ identification cards are divided into six levels by color, and the rights enjoyed decrease according to the level.

Only the Bamar people hold the first-level ID cards, which grant them the right to vote and be elected. This has led to 40% of the minority groups, who face varying degrees of discrimination, attempting armed resistance. There are over a dozen “ethnic local armed forces” spread across Myanmar. For decades, the Myanmar military government has tried to eradicate them completely but has never succeeded.

I am Chinese, so I will speak about the impact on China.

Border Security: In recent years, when the fighting spread to the China-Myanmar border, shells from both sides of the conflict crossed the border, hitting our schools and killing border civilians. After a stern protest from the Chinese government, such incidents have significantly decreased.
Refugees Crossing the Border: This is truly troublesome. As a Chinese person, I feel that some of these refugees may have a higher crime rate than local Chinese residents. China designated an area to provide humanitarian aid, but I heard that after the conflict subsided, tens of thousands of these refugees were sent back to Myanmar.
The Ultimate Solution: Building a Wall: The Chinese government quickly constructed a 500-kilometer border wall, consisting of 4 meters high barbed wire, non-lethal high voltage current，blades, cameras, and sensors, equipped with a loudspeaker warning system and remote shouting devices.This system can detect border crossers in the first instance, and border personnel can escort them back. The sensors are used to detect tunnels; when someone tries to dig a tunnel to cross the border wall, vibrations are captured, and an alarm is triggered.

This has nothing to do with humanitarianism, and everyone can understand this. I have heard that the United States has also built a wall on the Mexican border to prevent illegal crossings.

If the Myanmar military government does not abandon its severe ethnic discrimination policy, the situation in Myanmar will remain turbulent.

What is the nastiest thing you’ve done for revenge?

A woman came in with her 16 year old, overweight son, it matters, ro the big box store where I worked. He was starting a fast food job the next day, needed a blue, Oxford shirt. Well we had two sets of shirts. Regular sizes in sale, big sizes not in sale. When I measured the kid for a shirt turns out he needed a 171/2 neck, so I told Mama that the large size he needed wasn’t on sale. And they were all properly signed as such. So she gets pissy, it’s 8:pm, we close at 9:pm. So I take the shirts out of packages, have him try them and we find kne he can wear. Now she says to me (this was 35 years go) Greta this is in sale for $8. I said no it’s not on sale, it’s a big men’s size and they are $10, regular price. She starts in in me, I didn’t argue, I just reiterated that it was $10, I couldn’t change the the price. Well she gets Sonny by the arm and marches him out to go about 100 yards to another small regional chain department store we had in town. It’s now 8:40pm, both stores close at 9. So I’m hacked off because she really was obnoxious, the son is embarrassed terribly. So she marches out the door. I took every shirt in his size and one size larger and put them in the stockroom hidden in a fruit of the loom men’s briefs box I found empty. I left them for 4 days then brought them out again. This wasn’t the kids fault, as you’d expect, kids do everything last minute, his mother made him apply for the job, he for it and they had a late interview. Hence arriving at 8:pm. But they wanted him to start the next day so her whole works was getting turned upside down. Don’t take it out on me lady. There were 4 shirts I hid. Over those few days, I was off one. Apparently she came in while I was off and have someone else a hard time. I didn’t and still don’t care.

If a US Marine was to join the French Foreign Legion, how much easier would they find the basic training?

I was a Marine Recruiter in 1992 and I walked into the Social Security Office to get a SSN verification for one of my recruits.

The guy behind the counter tells me that he was a Force Recon Marine and I told him that I was a Recon Marine as well. We start comparing stories and he had been to Amphibious Recon School, Scout Swimmer, Scuba, Jump, Free-fall.

As it turned-out he knew quite a few people that I knew who were sort of legends in the Recon Community.

I asked him how long he had been in? He told me, “8 years.” Then I asked him,” Why did you get out if you already did two enlistments? “

He said that he got out to join the French Foreign Legion. I said, “How was that?”

He said verbatim, “It made Force [Recon] seem like Sunday School. “

He said that he had to do everything all over again Infantry, Jump, Scuba, Free fall. He told me that he he eventually made into the Parachute Commando Regiment.

main qimg 03d43102cbc5e48d0bbf58e96c1c63d3

*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.”

Admit the truth

Emotional. Even I feel it here.

Why does it seem that kids love their parents until they become teenagers?

This is probably the only time I’ll post a picture of myself…

main qimg 3cbcbe9e426242c9abd13278ba5b461c lq

But I think I was a pretty cute little kid. I was a good little kid. I listened to everything my mom told me.

No dad in my life? No problem- I had mom. Never saw kids outside of school? Mom was enough for me. Wasn’t allowed outside by myself? Mom says it’s for the best, so it has to be for the best.

I didn’t question anything until I was around eight years old.

The first thing I started questioning was my father. Where was he? Why didn’t I have a dad like all the other kids? Why doesn’t he want me?

My father had walked out of my life when I was six (he hadn’t actually been there since I was three, really).

Even my new step dad couldn’t stop these feelings inside me- I wanted to know him. Something inside of me craved to know him so badly.

Day after day I would beg my mother and step father- they continued to ask why and say no. I cried to them- it made no difference. The answer was no.

Well, when I was eleven, no wasn’t enough for me. I called him and arranged a visit anyway.

And that’s when the fighting started.

I wasn’t a good kid anymore. I started complaining about the chores I had to do- it wasn’t fair- none of the other kids have to do as many chores as I do.

But the another common fight we had was about friends. I was never allowed out. There was no reasonable explanation- Mom said I wasn’t, so I wasn’t.

But that wasn’t enough for me anymore.

It was the same thing with a cellphone, the technology, the food I wanted to eat, the people I wanted to hang out with, the books I wanted to read, even the music I listened to.

But no just isn’t enough anymore.

I don’t think parents stop loving their kids. I think that parents just stop liking their kids. What parents don’t understand is that their kids are going to grow up- they’re not going to stay obedient and docile forever.

One day mom and dad’s “No” won’t be enough. You’ll have to have reasons to back up your answers.

I know my parents love me. But I also know that they didn’t really want a kid- they weren’t ready.

I love my parents and I hope my siblings turn out better than I did.

Are all these UFOs an Alien Invasion or has Project Blue Beam finally begun?

The shit that I will never forget!

When I moved to my house in Tanzhou, we had to pack up everything and move it. Right? Well, that is exactly what I did.

And, in the refrigerator was four dozen eggs.

They would never survive the jolting ride back to our new home. So I had this idea. I would boil all the eggs and then eat hard boiled eggs for a spell.

And so I did exactly that.

…

Now, every day, I rode the bus to my office and back from my office. It was a two hour drive.

And I had eaten four eggs that morning.

And on the way from the office, suddenly I felt a gurgling in my stomach. And it was getting really… really BAD.

Still, I had an hour and a half to go.

Gurgling. Pressure. Pain.

One hour to go.

Why is the bus taking so long? Oh it’s a garbage granny. Gurgle.

Fourty five minutes left.

What? A road block and detour?

Gurgle. Pressure building…

One half hour left.

Thudding explosions in my gut.

Fifteen minutes…

Oh my God… I didn’t know if I could ever hold it in…

Ten minutes.

Pain!!!!!!

Five minutes…

Little old lady trying to cross the street. Bus stopped. She’s confused, goes back the other way….

I see the bus stop ahead.

What? Why is this fucking car stopped int he middle of the road!

Finally we arrive. I get out and it is taking everything to keep my butt cheeks clenched shut.

I know I cannot make it home.

But there is a public restroom.

I run to it.

What????

The Men’s restroom is closed for repairs!!!!

So I run into the woman’s restroom.

Into a stall.

And Ka-Boom! Splash!

Holy Shit.

I mean it! Holy Good golly!

My shit completely filled up the toilet and overfilled the rim!!!!

I must have shit out 20 kilos!

Guys… Don’t you ever eat old eggs. I think they must have been three weeks old. But no excuses. Don’t ever think about it!

Trust me on that!

Today….

What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter?

A father speaks…

I confronted the father of my daughters bully.

Although my daughter at 12 is not technically a teenager yet. Her bully was.

She started high school last year and was really excited. From September to Christmas break she was full of confidence and loved the new school.

Turn of the year and it all changed. My daughter caught the school bus each day as usual. But she wasn’t her usual self, she was very quiet, off her food, wasn’t sleeping and made excuses not to go to school.

I contacted the school to see if they’d noticed anything. They mentioned she was quiet since the Christmas break and would monitor it.

Then by chance I happened to be home from work early and went to meet my daughter from the school bus. I fought hard to contain my rage. I couldn’t believe what I saw. A girl about two years older than my daughter was dragging her by her hair and screaming in her face calling her names.

I knew that any physical contact with the girl would result in me being the one in trouble. So, I shouted out my daughter’s name. The girl froze and let go of my daughter. I rushed over to my daughter who was crying and put myself between the two girls.

Then I had an idea. Quick as a flash I removed the bully’s designer trainers. I told her she could have them back when her dad collected them. She tried ways of getting them back off me and left with torrent of foul and abusive language.

Around an hour later there was a thumping knock on my door. My daughter shouted it was the bully and her dad. I opened the door to a similar torrent of language to that of the bully.

So,a swift left kick to groin dropped him to his knees. Followed by a downward right punch to the bridge of his nose. He was left reeling in ball of blood,snot and tears. I threw the trainers at the bully and said that that was just a warning. If my daughter was ever bullied again, I would hunt him down and beat him up again.

Needless to say, my daughter returned to school and she started enjoying herself again.

Edit.

Thank you for all the messages of support.

As a victim of bullying all through my school life,I wasn’t about to let my daughter suffer too.

I’m not a confrontational person and can probably count on one hand how many fights I’ve had in my whole life.

But something just snapped that day. The implications if it had backfired on me could have been worse. But it was a risk I was prepared to take to protect my daughter.

Edit No2.

Sorry for the confusion.

Trainers here in the UK are short for Training Shoes.(Sneakers,pumps,itchy dabbers,runners etc)

One in Five

What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –2

A father speaks…

My 15 year old daughter came home from Knott’s Berry Farm one night around midnight in tears. Someone had stolen her iPhone while she and her friends were on a ride and she was worried I would be mad.

I told her to hold on for a moment, went to my computer for Find My iPhone, and told her, “I found it. Let’s go.” She asked where and I told her, “To get your iPhone. It’s at an apartment complex in Santa Ana.”

We found the apartment building and I called the police. I brought them up to speed and they said they’d meet us at a gas station about a mile away. My daughter was starting to see some hope.

Three police cars showed up and, after I showed him where the phone was, the officer in charge said we could park down the street and watch. So we did.

It was about 2:30a and the lights were still on in the apartment for some reason.

The lead cop went upstairs and pounded on the door. A middle aged guy answered the door and the cop said a stolen phone was inside the apartment and he wanted it brought to the door (he told us later). My daughter and I heard the guy yell, “Anybody have an iPhone that doesn’t belong to you?” After a few seconds, he shook his head “no”.

The officer told us he said, “Look, I know it’s in there. So you can either bring it out, or I’ll stand here until the search warrant arrives and we’ll go in and find it ourselves.”

We saw the door close and less than a minute later the guy handed the officer my daughter’s phone. He brought it down and my daughter logged in to prove it was hers.

She couldn’t believe we actually got her phone back, but I was committed to fixing this so my daughter wouldn’t become a victim.

We got home about 4am, but neither of us was tired – LOL.

I know everything worked out in the exact way it had to for us to succeed, but it was a great lesson for my daughter about standing up for yourself and taking appropriate action. She continues to be a very empowered individual and I like to think I had a hand in that.

Husband Was Blinded To Wife’s Double Life Until Reddit Gave Him A Clue

Learn some things.

What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –3

A father speaks…

Although she is 20 now, my daughter learned, at age 8, that no matter how scary the bully on the bus seemed, her daddy is a force of nature.

I was home on a rare occasion when she got off the bus, visibly shaken, and crying. She didn’t want to tell me what happened because she was afraid… it was traumatic! She feared a lot of things, in this moment.

A kid 5 years older, put her on the floor, at the back of the school bus, and stepped on her throat.

She was terrified. She thought she’d get in trouble, he would do more if she told, that he might hurt someone in her family, and the worst fear was that NO ONE would believe her.

She broke down and told me, after I calmed her. I assured her that this is a problem that I could solve, and asked her where this boy lived. She told me.

I told her to get into the truck. To be honest I was wildly livid under a calm mask. I’m 6′3″ and close to 300lbs and someone just hurt my BABY!

I take her to the the porch of the run down trailer, where this boy lived and knocked on the door. A man answered. I was sweating under a very serious calm. I asked if he was (blank)’s father. He said he was. I said, we have a serious problem. He needs to come out here as well.

I told my daughter to tell them exactly what happened. Then I told them that kind of behavior is extremely unacceptable. The father could sense that I was on the verge of doing something he might go to the hospital over if this wasn’t addressed immediately, so he not only adressed the issue… he punished the boy, and made him appologize to her immediately.

After this, the boy was very courteous to her on the bus and she had no more issues with bullies at school. She carries a confidence with her today, and knows how to handle situations like this because of the way I kept my cool. Despite my rage, I got my point across in an assertive manner, and got results without having to take further action than addressing the issue.

In all honesty, keeping calm was the hardest part for me but it got the results I wanted, so right or wrong, my daughter takes this with her today, so I call that a win in the badass column.

Favorite Chicken Tetrazzini

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter
2 onions, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can tomatoes
4 tablespoons chili powder
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
3/4 cup sharp cheese, shredded
1 pint light cream
Pinch of baking soda
1 (4 to 6 pound) chicken
16 ounces thin spaghetti, cooked

Instructions

Sauté butter, onion and pepper. Add tomatoes and seasonings. Cook slowly until sauce thickens; add cheese and light cream with a pinch of baking soda, cooking a little longer.
Boil chicken. Cool, then pull pieces from chicken.
Butter large casserole and line with part of the cooked spaghetti. Layer chicken, tomato sauce, more spaghetti and cheese. Continue until all is used, ending with sauce and topped with cheese.

Notes

This freezes well.

The Twin Vipers

Kaysie Davis

AuroraThe Crystal Viper shuttered as Darries put her into a dive, expertly avoiding the lasers that were flying passed us. Our attacker had appeared out of nowhere and started shooting at us without as much as a hello.“Who have you annoyed now?” Darries snapped at me, “Didn’t I tell you that your flirty ways are going to get us in trouble one of these days.”“Oh, shut up and drive.” I snapped back, pushing the button for the transmitter again, “For the second time, this is Captain Aurora North and the Crystal Viper. Stop firing on my ship and identify yourself.”The only response was another volley of lasers firing at us. I couldn’t recall upsetting anyone, recently anyway. I charged up our own weapons and tried again to hail our attacker. I didn’t feel like blowing him up unless I really needed too. “Crystal Viper to offending ship. Last chance to explain yourself.”To my surprise, we finally got a response. “Don’t think you can fool us by having your little girlfriend hail us, Zell. We want our cargo back, and we want it now!”Not this again. I swore loudly to Darries. “You are looking for the Black Viper, there, my friend. This ship is the Crystal Viper.” I swear that when I got my hands on Zell, I would make him pay for every scorch mark that had ever been put on my hull due to him. It seemed like every other day, someone was mixing up our vessels and trying to blow us out of the solar waves because of something that he did.There was a long pause, and they must have been checking for our transponder. The attacker could look all they wanted, but like most of the ships in the area, ours was modified not to give off a reading unless we wanted it too. People didn’t need to know who we are unless we wanted them to know. I nodded at Darries to turn it on.Finally, there was another response. “How do we know this transponder signal is real?”“Listen, I couldn’t give a flying frag if you believe me or not. I just would rather not take the time blowing you out of the stars if I don’t have to.”“We…apologize for the confusion.” The voice still sounded like he didn’t believe me, but he could also tell that my weapons were stronger, and that fact did tend to settle disagreements with other ships. We kept our arms powered up until the other vessel had fired up their engines and left our area in space.There was a ding on our console, and Darries swore when he looked down. “Yaffa is getting impatient. He says that if we don’t get to Maia Station soon, that he will give the job to any other ship that happens to be around.”“Onward, Jeeves.” I grinned at him. Darries rolled his eyes, and he gunned our engines. It was a short hop to Maia Station. We should be there in plenty of time.ZellI was whistling to myself as I finished docking my ship at Maia Station. The Black Viper was squeezed between two other ships that made her look small. She might be small, but she had a big bite. Anyone who dared cross us soon learned why we are called the Viper.My co-pilot and I were at the station to sell some cargo that we had acquired on another job. Mikell was already down on the station, settling up payment with our broker.I exited my ship, hoping to have time to wet my whistle before we had to head back out. Maybe I would also have time to get a gift for my wife, it has been far too long since I saw her last.As I walked across the ship bay, I was confronted by a smaller man in a sharp suit. He had an annoyed look on his face and was tapping his foot impatiently.“It is about time that you are here! We have been waiting for the Viper for hours! You know Yaffa is not a patient man. Now, sign this manifest, and we will get the cargo loaded up.” The man did not wait for my response but turned and barked some orders at some waiting droids.

I smothered a smile, this was perfection. This little man must have been waiting for the Crystal Viper. That ship and her captain had stolen a few jobs from me last month. I could get payback and get paid at the same time.

“So sorry, we are late.” I took the manifest and signed my name, I needed Captain Aurora North to know who stole her stuff. “We will take off as soon as we are loaded.”

I messaged Mikell that we needed to take off ASAP. Her response cannot be repeated in polite company. At least she got further than ten feet from the ship. I would not be able to get my drink.

In short order, we had unloaded one set of cargo and loaded the other cargo. Mikell was back with our money. She glared at me from under her mop of short purple hair as she flopped into her pilots’ chair.

“Five more minutes, Zell, five more minutes, and I would have had our broker wrapped around my finger. I would have doubled our money off this score too. Who did you steal this new cargo from?”

“A man on deck thought we were the Crystal Viper here to pick up some cargo. Now, who am I to correct his error?” I smirked at her “Now, let’s get out of here before the real Crystal Viper gets here.” With that, I fired up our engines and headed off. We really would need to find a place to sell this newly acquired cargo. My wife would need to wait for her gift.

Aurora

I signaled Yaffa as soon as we were in orbit around the station. It had taken us longer then I would have liked to get here. Our attacker had been lurking and trying to follow us, so we had to lose him before we could get to the station.

Yaffa’s confused face was soon on our viewport. “Aurora? Why are you back? Is there something wrong?”

I blinked at him, “Back? What are you talking about? We just got here.”

Yaffa turned and barked at his one aid, “Didn’t you tell me that the Crystal Viper had arrived and picked up my cargo?”

“Yes, yes, master. The Viper and her Captain West. They left just a few minutes ago.”

I let out a loud groan, “You moron. That was the Black Viper and the frustrating Zell West. “

Yaffa let out a string of swears in his native language. “Are you telling me that my cargo was stolen?” He leveled a glare at his aid that promised a lot of pain later. Then he switched that glare to me, “This would never have happened if you were here on time!”

“Don’t blame me for your aids stupidity.” I met his glare with one of my own. Then I turned to Darries, “Can you find any trace of where the Black Viper went?”

He tapped on his console for what felt like forever. Then he grinned and looked up at me, “It’s faint, but I have a lock on what way they went.”

I sat back in my chair, “Let’s go get our cargo.” I swear that Zell goes out of his way to annoy me most of the time. How dare he take my stuff.

Zell

“Will you stopped that never-ending whistling?!” Mikell’s green eyes were aflame, glaring at me. “I will throw you out of the nearest airlock if you don’t!”

I held up my hands in submission. Mikell looked back down at her own console, muttering in her native language. I enjoyed the view of stars passing the viewport when a ship dropped out of hyperspace next to us. Our transmitter buzzed, whoever this is wanted to talk.

Mikell opened a channel, and before I could say anything, a sappy love song came over the line.

Whoever was singing, it was horribly off-key. The singing went on for a painfully long time. My fingers itched to fire some laser at the ship just to stop the noise.

A very nasally voice came over the line when the singing finally stopped. “Aurora, my princess, please return to me.”

Mikell was silently laughing in the seat next to me, I rolled my eyes and toggled the transmitter.

“Hey, lover boy, you have the wrong Viper. This is the Black Viper. You are looking for the Crystal Viper.”

“Please put my princess on the line.” The voice was somehow even more annoying than the singing. “I need to hear the crystal tones of my princess.”

“No princess here. And you better get some singing lessons before you try this again. Now, skedaddle before I really get annoyed.” I powered up my weapons to get my point across.

The other vessel fell back but was still following us. Maybe he thought I was hiding his ‘princess.’ I swore under my breath. Typical Aurora. She probably flirted with this guy while that co-pilot of hers robbed him blind. And this shmuck was so lovesick, he couldn’t even tell that she had anything do with it. We got at least one broken-hearted buffoon thinking we were the Crystal Viper a week. Well, as long as he stayed out of my way, he could follow us like a lovesick puppy, all he wanted.

At least, that’s how I felt. Mikell took offense to our tail and fired some torpedoes in his direction. That seemed to finally deter the moron, and he went back into hyperspace.

Aurora

Darries gave me a devilish grin, “We have the Black Viper on our scanners. It is just a few hyper yards ahead.”

I grinned back, “Let’s go say hello, shall we?”

We popped out of hyperspace right behind the Black Viper and fired a few lasers that grazed its hull. It didn’t take long for our viewport to light up with the picture of Zell. His crystal blue eyes were shining with amusement. “Is that how you say hello?”

“Why should I say, hello? You stole my cargo, and all the people you piss off keep putting dings in my hull!

Zell

Somehow I was not surprised when the Crystal Viper popped up on our radar and fired on us as soon as they dropped out of hyperspace. Aurora was pissed. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders as she yelled at me. I really should be listening to what she is saying.

“….all the people you piss off keep putting dings in my hull!”

“At least you don’t have lovesick morons singing love songs at you all of the time!” I shot back, “The last one was in serious need of singing lessons!”

Almost as one, our co-pilots looked up at us and nodded. There were no other ships in the area.

“And I wouldn’t have stolen your cargo if I didn’t miss you.”

Aurora.

“You could have just sent a message.” I glared at the man on the viewport, but then I relaxed, “But I missed you too, husband. “

His crystal blue eyes, the ones my ship was named after were shining, “What do you say we deliver your cargo,” He held up his hand, to stop the objection he could see coming “To your buyers. Then go home and take some time off?”

Zell

My wife had finally softened, she brushed that black hair that I loved so much back behind her ear and nodded. We didn’t get to see each other much. Too much of a risk for people to know we were connected. We gave out plenty of hints and loved to drive each other crazy with pranks. Most of the universe, however, thought we were mortal enemies trying to destroy each other. They would never know that just a few years ago, we were married on a no-name planet, under the twin viper constellation.

What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –4

A mother responds…

Years ago, while my daughter was still a teen, I was sitting in the dark on front step cooling down after a long hot night at work. It was about 3 am.

A car pulled into the lane. My daughter, her then boyfriend, and unknown male and female companions got out of the car. Judging by their conversation, they had no idea that I was sitting on the step.

Within a few minutes of being in the lane, the male stranger, suddenly, without warning, punched my daughter’s boyfriend, “T,” hard in the back of his head, knocking him onto the ground. He then proceeded to kick him rapidly, while the girls started screaming at the top of their lungs. All hell had broken out in my quiet yard.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was up from the step, had raced across the lane, grabbed the 6′-something guy by the throat, and was holding him up against a tree on the edge of the lane and growling in his face, “We don’t behave like that in my house, Now get the f**k off my property!”

Then, I threw him towards his car. He left, cursing about a ‘crazy woman.’

I’m not sure where that woman inside of me came from, or the strength, considering the fact that the guy was so much larger than myself.

For a while, I got painted as the bad guy in this story. He was furious that I interfered. I shamed him, according to him. At the time, my daughter hated me because T broke up with her. However, years later, my daughter took me out for lunch in a different town, and she saw the guy who had hit her ex-boyfriend. She asked me if I remembered the incident. I told her that I vaguely remembered.

She then responded, “Well, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I never told you at the time, but I was secretly really proud to have Super Woman for a mom.”

Shorpy

I will do anything for my girl

‘Mum I’ve just been sick and its black’ That message is what my teenage daughter sent to me. My heart skipped a beat. Being a nurse I knew that there was something seriously wrong with my daughter but I tried to think positive and not jump to conclusions. Fast forward to a hospital appointment. I was sat with my daughter holding her hand and the doctor said the words we had both been dreading. “It’s cancer”. My daughter who was 15 had a rare cancer and chemotherapy was her best option.

As many of you will know the effects of chemotherapy can be and usually are god awful. It was painful for me to watch my daughter go through it, I really can’t imagine how she must have felt. As her hair began to fall out my daughter started to get really down. She loved her hair and her overall appearance and now she was almost grey and very thin. I tried telling her it was ok and that she was still beautiful but she didn’t believe me and said she felt alone. That night after she had gone to bed I sat up for hours and thought long and hard about what I could do to help my daughter through what she was feeling. And so I decided to do something so she didn’t have to go through it alone.

It took all the strength I had but that night I shaved and cut off all of my hair until my head was completely bald and soft. I was aware that I was sure to be stared at and laughed at but I didn’t care. My little girl was all that I was worried about and in the morning she couldn’t believe what she saw. She was overjoyed though and felt a lot less scared about losing her hair. She cried tears of joy and I vowed to her that we would go through it all together. I kept my hair shaven until my daughter finally beat cancer, and then when she came off chemo I let my hair grow back.

It was a horrible time for my daughter but I’m proud of her for going through it. She was so brave and I think me having no hair have her the extra confidence she needed and made her feel less alone. My sixteen year old son also shaved his head in the end which surprised me. The whole family made it as easy as we could for her. I got many looks and laughter after cutting my hair off but I didn’t care, it was worth it as it made my daughter happy and feel so much better about what she was going through.

I think I speak for every mum here but I know no matter what I would do anything for all my children

The robber was robbed

Men…Be Men.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bk8MYaxKpvk?feature=share

What are some examples of true sportsmanship?

Two boxers fought a match in a low weight class. A Japanese man named Keita Kurihara and a Filipino man named Renan Portes. When the match ended, Kurihara was declared the winner “on points” despite Portes having landed some of the hardest punches in the fight.

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“I didn’t win!” Kurihara shook his head in disbelief and broken into tears immediately after the score was read out. Afterwards, he took the microphone in the ring and bowed deeply to the audience, saying, “I was treated as the winner in the end, but I lost. It’s embarrassing that I was declared the winner. I’m really sorry… My punches missed their target and I was spinning around. I got hit quite a lot. It was the worst possible situation and I was completely defeated. My countermeasures didn’t work. I felt that I hadn’t grown at all..”

Kurihara went to the locker room after the fight and apologized to Portes, declaring him the “real winner” of the fight. The Japanese fighter wanted to win only in a convincing way, with honor. Having not landed the hardest hits and having been unable to knock down his opponent despite losing his own footing, he felt he was undeserving of victory.

Monkey Branching Wife Who DEMANDED Divorce Begs Hubby For 2nd Chance After Lover Tossed Her Out

This is China’s next generation super destroyer. Some call it a Cruiser.

Anyway, I predicted that if the Chinese were to make it nuclear powered then it would have 2 rail guns and 4 or more laser. If conventional powered then it could only support 1 railgun and 2 lasers at most.

Here is a diagram of the Super Destroyer. Conventional powered.

main qimg 83547a3e414dcb1005569e4aa376ebc1

144 universal VLS launch cells. The Type 055 has 112. 1 Railgun, 2 lasers. 20,000 tons vs 13,000 tons for the Type 055. And 2 CIWS, one in front and one in the back.

Unified antenna mast and more streamline design for a little bit better radar stealth. Although calling a ship stealth is too much. As ships have RCS of over 100,000 dbs M^2 so reducing it doesn’t really do much.

The Chinese VLS launch cells are humongous. And they’re all the large size. The Arleigh Burke flight 3 has some that are large size but this reduces the number that the AB has so only some are the big size. The flight 1 and flight 2 are all smaller sized VLS.

This is likely just a preliminary design. Who knows, maybe with some experience with the Type 004 carrier, they might design a nuclear super destroyer. That would be something to see.

Have you ever had such a close call it makes your skin shiver everytime you think about it? If so, what happened?

I lived in South Norwalk, Connecticut…. and worked in Westport. It was a few days before Christmas and I was driving home, after work, and decided to stop at Beldoch Popper, a sweater factory that sold wholesale at Christmas. I pulled my 1969 Mustang up to the curb, and was putting it in park when the factory door opened, the light caught my eye. Two people were coming out and for some reason, my spidey senses told me to get the hell out of there.. NOW. I hadn’t turn the car off yet, slammed it into gear and floored it……. I drove home, adrenaline pumping, and he no idea why. I’m not a scaredy cat by any measure.

The next morning, I walked into work and saw the mail guy, Fred. His wife worked there so I told him my crazy story. He asked me what time I was there and said around 5:30. He looked at me, and said if I had gotten there a minute earlier I would have walked into an armed robbery, and seen all the customers and employees face down on the floor…… and the two guys didn’t have a getaway vehicle, they left on foot.

I swear I didn’t see anything, no guns, just silhouettes walking out of the building in the dark……

So happy

Why did Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba wrap up a four-day visit to China during the Ukraine war, and why in Guangzhou?

This question is very well asked and very ‘Chinese’; I even suspect that the questioner might be Chinese.

First, you noticed the unusual duration of 4 days. If it were just a matter of diplomatic etiquette, it wouldn’t last so long. I’ve answered similar questions twice before, and I think the answer is: In fact, this 4-day period is very likely the time when Ukraine and Russia started negotiating through China, and it’s just the preliminary preparation.

Then, you are very perceptive, perceptive like a Chinese person, noticing that the Ukrainian Foreign Minister was in Guangzhou (Chinese netizens identified the location as Guangzhou by recognizing the background architecture in a video posted by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister himself). You are very sharp.

Why not in Beijing?

As a purely Chinese person, my view is:

First, it could be because Beijing needs to make way for more important meetings, such as the recent Beijing Declaration.

Chinese people care about these unspoken announcements, which essentially tell the world that for China, the Middle East is far more important than Ukraine.

Second, it might also be a deliberate move to show the world that for China, Ukraine is only a third-tier issue. (Beijing is first-tier, Shanghai is second-tier, and Guangzhou is third-tier.)

Most Chinese people were originally neutral towards Ukraine, but now there is indeed hostility due to Ukraine’s declaration, which said ‘give China a chance to talk with the civilized world,’ and the actions supporting Hong Kong’s independence have really ignited the anger of the Chinese people.

I have to say, don’t you all watch international news?

It’s all like a game of bridge, with clear hands and open cards.

The U.S. inquires about Chinese arms control, and China refuses.
The U.S. plays a card, namely 3,500 nuclear warheads, to see China’s reaction.
China’s reaction is to deploy strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear warheads, along with Russian strategic bombers, on patrol in Alaska (which means if there’s a nuclear war, China and Russia will ally).
China issues a statement urging not to initiate a nuclear war (directed at the U.S., meaning: we have no intention of initiating a nuclear war. Last time it was before the Beijing Olympics, with all five permanent members of the UN Security Council signing, and then immediately after that, the Russia-Ukraine war started. Now, China is urging again, and immediately after that is the French Olympics? Clearly, after the Olympics, war is imminent!).
China invites Palestinian forces and issues a Beijing statement.
Netanyahu visits the U.S.
The U.S. and China once again engage in a proxy war, this time in the Middle East.

Isn’t this quite obvious? If you can’t see this, you might as well stop caring about international politics.

All Men need to See this – Modern Women are DOOMED by this New Anti-Paternity Fraud Law Approval!

Between 25% to 33% of fathers who paternity test their children discover that they were not biologically theirs.

Life: What is the worst thing that can happen in life?

Originally Answered: What is the worst thing that can happen in life?

Want to know the worst?

Here.

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Not a still from a horror movie. It’s real!

This is a picture of a French girl named Blanch Monnier who was kept captive for 25 years in a padlocked dark room by her own family.

She was rescued in 1901, when police received a letter informing about the lady being held hostage.

“Monsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who is locked up in Madame Monnier’s house, half starved, and living on a putrid litter for the past twenty-five years – in a word, in her own filth”

The police then went to her home and found her in the worst way imaginable. A statement of the witness describes it appropriately.

“We immediately gave the order to open the casement window. This was done with great difficulty, for the old dark-colored curtains fell down in a heavy shower of dust. To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their right hinges. As soon as light entered the room, we noticed, in the back, lying on a bed, her head and body covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier.

The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread.

We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed. The air was so unbreathable, the odor given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation.”

Reason?

When Blanche was 25 years old, she fell in love with a broke lawyer. When her mother and brother came to know about it, they forbade her of the relationship and caged her in a tiny room until she gave up.

EXCEPT SHE NEVER GAVE UP.

At the time of the rescue she was 49 years old and weighed around 55 pounds (~25 kg). Although she did put on some weight over time, she never became stable.

She died in a psychiatric hospital 12 years later, in 1913.

How much can I pay someone to clean my house naked?

I had a girlfriend in college that did cleaning work on the side for extra cash.

She was actually a good maid. One client broached the subject, asked her what it would cost for her to be topless.

Because she knew the man and was comfortable with him she agreed for double her normal rate.

Please note that her job didn’t change, just what she wore. He was not looking for sexual favors, never touched her or made her uncomfortable in any way. It did something for this mans’ ego to have a pretty young woman serve him in such a submissive way while he basically ignored her. That was prestige for him.

He asked her if she was satisfied with the agreement and she told him that one other client like him would be enough that she wouldn’t need to work for the cleaning service at all. Of course he knew someone. So she halved her workload for the same pay and it was a good arrangement for all involved.

As for what you pay for such a service, check the going rate and be prepared to pay more. It’s not the kind of thing you want to haggle or be cheap about.

Tortiglioni with Spicy Sausage Sauce

This recipe calls for only 6 ounces of meat, so it is good if want to cut down on meat in your diet. (I usually have to make meatballs in a separate sauce for MY family! LOL!)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped
1 pound ripe Italian plum tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2/3 cup red wine
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
12 ounces dried tortiglioni (or use rigatoni, penne, or ziti)
6 ounces spicy salami, rind removed (I sometimes use pepperoni)*
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, to garnish
Grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

Instructions

Heat oil and add onion, celery garlic and chili and cook gently, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, until softened.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, sugar, salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Lower heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add a few spoonsful of water occasionally if the sauce becomes too thick.
Meanwhile, cook pasta.
Chop the salami into bite-size pieces and add to the sauce. Heat through, then taste for seasoning.
Drain pasta and put into large bowl, pour sauce on top and toss to mix.
Scatter parsley on top and serve with grated cheese.

Notes

* Buy the salami in one piece so that you can chop it into large chunks.

Yeah yeah

Have you ever been caught someone lying on a resume, and what were the consequences?

Yes. I was working for a major tech company in the UK, one that is extremely-high profile and very popular, and we got a resume that looked absolutely stellar. In fact, it was astounding that this guy didn’t have his choice of offers in hand already, based upon what was written down on his CV (which is what resumes are called in the UK).

However, having been on several search committees before, and having helped students with their own resumes back when I was a professor, I had lots of experience with puffery (intentional or not) and hyperbole (again, intentional or not).

The candidate had been on several high profile, very technical projects that resulted in tremendous profits for his previous companies. These weren’t trivial by any means, and I, for one, was very interested in learning more.

The problem with his resume was twofold.

First, the projects themselves were all over the place. One was a systems integration project, another was a software development project. Still another was a hardware project. All of them highly involved, all of them requiring deep knowledge of varied skillsets. All from someone who had only been in the workforce for about 6 years.

Now, it’s possible that we had a savant on our hands, but experience has told me that these are rarer than unicorns and, as a result, I became quite skeptical. Nevertheless, I was willing to give it a go.

Second, all of the tasks and responsibilities listed in the CV had qualifying terms, like “Helped coordinate,” and “Contributed to,” and “Supported.” These are wishy-washy terms that are so vague as to imply practically any kind of involvement, from running the project to taking minutes during meetings.

So, I wanted to know more.

The candidate came in, impeccably dressed, and full of confidence. Okay, so maybe my suspicions were unfounded. He certainly looked like he could have mastery over these different domains.

But then I asked the first question, and it went downhill from there.

“I’ve got to admit,” I said, “you have a very impressive CV. These projects are quite involved.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling and proud. “I’ve done a lot of great things.”

Okay, so not exactly humble.

“Tell me more about what you did on X project,” I prompted.

Thus began a long string of evasions. He started every sentence with, “I helped…”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand that you participated in the project, and that you helped it reach its goal. But I don’t understand exactly what you did. When you say that you ‘helped,’ what does that entail, exactly?”

What followed was a continuous stream of “I helped,” and “I contributed,” without any actual description of what it was that he did.

Now, I don’t suffer fools very well, and I particularly don’t like it when someone thinks that I’m a fool. I begin to get irate when someone continually doubles down and suggests that they have answered the question when they didn’t.

Then he put the final nail in his coffin. “Well,” he said, “I could go into deep technical detail, but it’s extremely complicated and most people don’t understand it.”

“I’ve got time,” I said. “Try me. Part of the job you’re applying for is to take complicated technical subject matter and translate it into consumable English. This seems like a perfect opportunity for you to show me how well you do.”

He paled. I mean, he’s already English, so this was quite a feat.

He failed. Miserably. He couldn’t explain the project, the technology behind it, even the problem the project was supposed to solve.

So we moved on to the next item on his CV. He failed that one too.

And the next.

Ultimately, at the end of the interview, it was clear that he knew nothing about any of the projects he had ostensibly worked on, and those technical details he did try to talk about he got dead wrong.

Worse, this was a group interview, with my entire team in attendance. Unfortunately, as this was the UK (and I’m an American), after the candidate left I was read a riot act by the manager for embarrassing him. Even though they admitted that they would have hired him, had I not asked more probing questions, I still got an official reprimand.

So, because some guy lied on his resume, tried to lie in the interview, got caught doing so, I was in trouble for pointing it out.

Gotta love those “consequences,” eh?

Some fine art

What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter?

My daughter (19) had dated a fellow who I thought was a decent guy for about a year. It went south. She was trying to break up with him and he kept trying to keep the relationship afloat. Finally she had had enough. It was over.

He came back with a text “he had friends that would make her disappear and just be a missing person on a milk carton”.

I’m a single mom and the momma bear came out.

I drove to his parents house out in the country (they were big farmers), showed his mom a screen shot of the threatening text and had her take me to the field where he was working. She said nothing.

He saw us come down the road as he was refuelling his equipment. I stayed on the road and he came over to me.

I’m 5’5” and he was close to a foot taller than me and was at least 100+ lbs heavier than me. It must have been a sight.

I was so calm it was eerie. I told him he crossed the line. Leave my daughter alone. Stay away from her. Stay away from us. If he didn’t, all they would find would be a body in a field. I could do 5 to 10….. ( as in years in prison)

I calmly returned to my truck and drove away.

I recorded the conversation just in case. My other daughter and her partner were in my truck.

(Said boyfriend knew I had driven semi for years, could operate heavy equipment and was proficient with firearms so I really did have numerous ways to “dispose” of a body)

we did go to the RCMP so that there would be information on file but did not wish to press charges unless he failed to heed the warning. They did stop him and have a “chat” because he would follow her around town etc.

I am normally a pretty calm, live and let live type of person EXCEPT when you mess with my kids.

No nation can remain a major world power without a solid manufacturing base.

I am a 42-year lawyer and accountant who also worked for a decade as an electronic tech at various electronics manufacturers on Long Island and in Houston.

In all the current political turmoil there is something no one but me addresses:

Up until the 1980’s, MANUFACTURING provided about 30% of U.S. jobs.

In the 1980’s most large U.S. manufacturers moved their production “offshore” for lower labor costs, e.g., to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, China.

Entire U.S. industries were decimated.

The companies shut down that made the parts that a second company used to build machines that made parts that a third company used to build machines that a fourth company used to build the final product.

Eventually the entire production “line” shut down. Because there were no manufacturer employers, trade schools and engineering schools stopped teaching courses on how to design, install, maintain, troubleshoot, and repair those “intermediate” machines.

All of that moved “offshore”.

Nowadays even when a product says, “Made in USA”, some of the components are imported and the machines that made those components were not built in the U.S.

No nation can remain a major world power without a solid manufacturing base.

And that means all stages … from teaching engineers, etc., how to build the machines used in manufacturing, to funding research, etc.

Imagine this scenario:

The U.S. is fully isolated.
Nothing can be imported, exported, traded, sold, shared, borrowed, studied, taught, etc., with, from, or to ANY other country.
Anything that is needed in the U.S. must be designed and produced in the U.S.

Taiwan is literally the only country on Earth that can manufacture the most advanced microprocessors.

It would take decades for the U.S. to totally rebuild its manufacturing infrastructure—including educating, quarrying and transporting raw materials, etc.

And there has been no effort to face and deal with the “no manufacturing base” issue.

Why did you become pro-China?

Reason why I became pro-China: Western media overplayed their hand and made me do something they probably didn’t want me to do: search for information about China.

You see, growing up I had zero interest in China, which was why I never bothered looking deeper into it. I just internalised all the anti-China “news” I heard in my periphery since that was the simplest thing to do for someone uninterested. But recently anti-China news ramped up, like REALLY ramped up to the point there’s talk of war, so naturally I started to take actual interest in China for the first time. So I went looking for information… and oh boy it was life-changing.

Whether it was the alleged massacre, or alleged genocide, or the sweat shops, or the lack of modernity; they were all either partial lies or complete lies. As I learned from the locals and foreigners who actually lived in various regions of China, I felt like my worldview was being deconstructed bit-by-bit, until I ended up only with the deep sense of betrayal. Western media did this to me. To all of us. For decades, I had been propagandised into believing some extremely unflattering things about China and her people. Decades!

The one thing that I’ve always wanted our precious western society to do—but felt it was hopelessly impossible—was to eliminate extreme poverty. Guess what, China did. They had virtually eliminated extreme poverty, a feat that was considered impossible in wealthier western nations. Also, according to everyone who have visited China, their society is friendlier, cleaner, safer, and more modern. China’s investment in R&D and her people’s education at all levels are paying off, and the obsession with meritocracy in government jobs had allowed China to properly punish the corrupt and replace the inefficient. Many who have visited China loved it so much they wished they could stay there.

So yes, not only am I now pro-China, but I’ve also now stopped believing in Western media by default, especially when it comes to news about other countries, and especially when it comes to China. I’ve even started to wonder my perception of Russia, North Korea, and other so-called “enemies of the West” are accurate. This is what happens when the media breaks the trust of the people who relied on them for news.

In short, I’m pro-China now because western media overplayed their anti-China propaganda, and it made me so curious I had to go looking for information myself. I can only hope many more others would do the same.

Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine

Whenever the Pentagon runs out of money designated by Congress as aid to Ukraine it starts to use creative accounting to free up some additional money from its general budget. The ‘accounting errors’ used therein are always in favor of more weapons to Ukraine.

Exclusive: Pentagon accounting error overvalued Ukraine weapons aid by $3 billion – May 19 2023, Reuters

The Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.

—Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid – June 20 2023, AP

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.

As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.

—Pentagon finds another $2 billion of accounting errors for Ukraine aid – July 14 2024, Reuters

The Pentagon has found $2 billion worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2 billion, a U.S. government report revealed on Thursday.

In accounting an entity can generally use one of several methods to account for stock material. Using (ever increasing) replacement costs or (ever decreasing) book value are two arguably valid methods. What is a no-no though is to change horses during race. One either uses one or the other. One never-ever changes the applied accounting method during the accounting period.

Any commercial company doing what the Pentagon is doing here would be asking for serious trouble.

One wonder if and when Congress will wake up to this.

Posted by b at 14:22 UTC | Comments (78)

The problem with AI

What is the reason for Xi Jinping’s purges in the People’s Liberation Army?

that is standard procedure in any military to retire the old generals and replace them with new ones.

allow me to explain:

In the military landscape of any nation, the principle of retiring older generals in favor of fresh leadership is not merely a procedural formality but a strategic necessity. This standard practice is fundamental to ensuring that a country’s armed forces remain adaptive and relevant in an ever-evolving geopolitical environment.

Old generals, while often steeped in tradition and battle-hardened experience, may also carry with them a resistance to change, clinging to outdated tactics that they were trained in and grew up with that could jeopardize their nation’s defense in contemporary conflicts.

If, for instance, a formidable military power like the United States were trapped in a time warp, still combatting adversaries using the strategies and methodologies of the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, the outcome would undoubtedly be disastrous. In a world where nations like Russia, Israel, and North Korea and even Yemen have embraced modern technology, cyber warfare, and innovative tactical approaches, failing to adapt could lead to catastrophic defeats.

Countries such as China have recognized the need for reform, actively promoting young leaders who can infuse their military strategies with fresh ideas and perspectives that align with the realities of modern warfare. This method not only revitalizes the military command structure but also ensures that the national defense strategies are continuously evolving to counter emerging threats. For example, in recent years, China’s rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and drone warfare exemplify how new leadership can drive transformation and modernize military operations, enabling them to compete globally.

Similarly, nations like India and Brazil have also experienced leadership shifts in their defense establishments, aiming to harness young, dynamic thinkers who are equipped to navigate the complexities of modern warfighting. A proactive approach to military leadership ensures that armed forces are not just reactive but are equipped to anticipate and counteract the multifaceted challenges of modern-day combat, ultimately reinforcing national security.

what Xi is doing is nothing new people!

China Unscathed in CrowdStrike Meltdown

Ranch Turkey Pasta Dinner

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups uncooked penne or medium tube pasta
6 to 8 tablespoons butter
1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix
1 cup frozen peas and carrots, thawed
3 cups cubed cooked turkey

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt butter.
Stir in salad dressing mix until smooth; heat through.
Add peas and carrots; cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes.
Drain pasta and add to skillet.
Stir in turkey and heat through.

How will I survive prison being a 48-year-old male? I am awaiting sentencing in less than 23 days and I am facing up to 9 years in total in feds. How will I survived having ever been in prison before?

I’ve answered similar questions many time, so I’ll copy/paste an excerpt. Violating these 10 commandments of prison that someone asked me for could have serious consequences.

So I’ll give you some “rules” to follow, it’s not a comprehensive list and they’ll be in no particular order because they all are important.

Mind your own business. Meaning don’t ask questions about what a person is doing (unless it directly affects you), personal questions about their past and/or charges unless it’s a natural part of a conversation THEY start.
Never give an opinion unless it’s asked for.
Don’t be in a hurry to make friends.
DO NOT try to make friends with the guards. I was on friendly terms with a lot of guards, but I had been there for several years and had well established myself before I did so.
DO NOT SNITCH.
Don’t lie or embellish your past. You’ll likely find yourself in conversations where guys are telling “war stories” and guys in prison have phenomenal instincts and can spot a fake in a heartbeat. Just be yourself, if you don’t have anything to add to the conversation just listen.
Prison runs on respect, so be respectful.
There might come a time where you have to stand up for yourself. DO IT. Some things like minor disrespect you can let slide, but if someone puts their hands on you in an unwanted way, makes unwanted and aggressive sexual advances, and/or tries to take what’s yours, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!!!! Sure you might lose, but who hasn’t had their ass beat before. But you’ll establish a degree of respect and should be fine after that because the predators who are there are looking for easy prey.
Keep your word. If you tell someone you can/will do something, do it.
This actually should be near the top but I’m too lazy to retype this. DO NOT GO INTO DEBT!!!!! If you gamble (for smokes, candy bars, or whatever) make sure you have the “money” on hand. Don’t borrow, do without whatever it is until you have the money to get it yourself. Debt, especially if something happens that makes it so you can’t pay when you said you would can lead to all sorts of things and all of them are bad. Trust me, things happen, like your prison pay gets screwed up or someone on the outside doesn’t send you money when they said they would. I repeat DO NOT GO INTO DEBT!! Along that line, don’t lend. If you do and that person doesn’t/can’t pay, you’ll be expected to do something about it or you’ll be seen as weak.

This is How Sanctions Changed Russia’s Car Market

Zip and it’s gone

Today, I want to talk about a class action suite that I was involved in.

Back in the 1990’s, there was this interim storage method for computers. It lay somewhere between the early floppy discs and the record-able CD ROMS that became all the fad at the turn of the century.

This was a “ZIP disc”. Which was a high capacity (for the time) floppy disc storage system. And a bought a few systems to store content on my various computer system setups.

Now, the thing was that the company was offering a rebate, and a discount. So everyone was buying the things.

They cost something like $100, but if you buy it, you can apply for the $50 rebate after three months of use. The numbers are approximate, but it was something like that.

Now, it was a big scam.

Oh, the system worked all right. It’s just that the company had no intention on giving anyone the rebates and the bonus prizes and rewards. And millions of people were upset. As was I.

I think they owed me around $250 all told for all my system components. This was big dollars back in the day.

We all gave up. After month after month of sending in the UPC codes off the boxes, xerox of the receipts, and credit card bills they were never enough. We were all just on this endless hamster wheel cage with no way off.

Anyways, imagine my surprise when a class-action suite was made against the company and all of us on the aggrieved listing were ordered to get our money due to us.

Boy. I was so happy about that!

$40 million dollars.

Certainly, I will finally get my money back.

But when my check came in… after all, I was expecting $250. The amount given to me was an entire $1.21. Yup. The award, minus the attorney fees, and divided by the number of aggrieved customers.

Sheech!

This is the American system in a nutshell.

Today…

What actually happens when an empire falls?

Usually madness. Utter, self-inflicted madness.

The kind that comes from getting too big for your britches, believing your own hype, and forgetting what made you great in the first place.

That’s the first symptom of an empire on the decline.

It’s like watching a star athlete lose their edge, thinking they don’t need to train as hard or that they’re above the rules.

The result?

A spectacular fall from grace.

Empires aren’t built on luck or divine right. They’re forged through grit, innovation, and a clear understanding of their purpose.

But as they grow, the rot sets in.

The elites become complacent, fattened on luxury and power, losing touch with the common folk who sustain them.

The bureaucracy swells into a monstrous, inefficient beast, choking on its own red tape.

Corruption becomes the norm, as officials line their pockets at the expense of the state.

The first cracks appear at the edges, where the empire’s reach exceeds its grasp. Rebellions flare up, fueled by resentment and neglect.

The military, once a lean, mean fighting machine, grows bloated and sluggish, more interested in protecting its own privileges than defending the realm.

The economy stagnates, strangled by overregulation and cronyism. The whole edifice starts to creak and groan under the weight of its own decadence.

And when the final blow comes, it’s often not from some mighty external foe, but from within.

A palace coup, a popular uprising, a cascade of defections – it doesn’t matter.

This is the nature of all Empires.

It's not a matter of if it will fall, but when, the seeds of its destruction are already sown within its own heart.

What is the best decision you ever made that made your life better?

Experience 1:

I was at my office desk and it was around 1 p.m. which means lunch time. I was already so hungry I could eat a human. But I didn’t want to eat alone. So I went to invite a co-worker to join me.

“Okay. Give me 20 minutes; I’m finishing up my work.” he said.

I can wait for 20 minutes. No big deal.

Twenty minutes later… He’s still typing on his computer.

“Hold on. Gimme another ten minutes. I’ll call Adam (his friend from other department) to join us.”

He called Adam who agreed to have lunch together, then continued his work.

Ten mins later (so that’s already half an hour)…

“I don’t think I can join you. I have to finish this work. Please go first. I think Adam is already waiting at the cafe. If I manage to finish my work in the next ten mins, I’ll join you guys,” he said.

Experience 2:

The weather was good. Blue sky, windy. I was in the mood for running. I wanted to go out and sweat. I skipped exercising for three weeks due to workload and when the weekends came, I was occupied with other stuff. Either that, or terrible weather. There were always excuses. But that day I had no excuse. I was thrilled to go out.

It was 4.30 p.m. I rang my neighbour who’s also a runner.

“Bro, the weather is so good today. Let’s run,” I said.

“It is. But can we go at 6 p.m.? I have something to do right now.”

One and a half hour is nothing. I can wait. No big deal.

6 p.m. The weather changed from good to bad. It was suddenly raining. So we cancelled our plan. If I just walked out of the house at 4.30 p.m., I would probably be sweating and came home at 6 p.m.

These two and dozens of similar experiences led me to a decision.

Don’t wait for others. You want to eat? Go. You want to run? Go. You want to watch movie? Just go. You want to travel? Go.

For all the things you can do alone, just go. Wait for nobody.

Pasta Neapolitan

k 2023 05 napolitan spaghetti napolitan spaghetti 023 1

Ingredients

1 pound dried angel hair pasta
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 cup grated parmesan cheese, preferably Parmigiano-Reggiano (divided)
5 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced, or to taste
Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
2 cups fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, finely minced (about 1 cup chopped)
Sea salt or kosher salt

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a vigorous, rolling boil. Cook pasta until al dente.
Drain well and put into a warm serving dish with the soft butter in it; toss pasta until coated, then add most of the cheese and gently toss again. Keep warm in oven.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and red pepper flakes and cook just until the garlic turns light brown; pull pan off the heat. (Do not rush by cooking at a higher heat; this will burn the garlic and cause it to taste bitter.)
Add the minced parsley and a generous pinch of salt and mix with a spoon until it resembles the texture of pesto.
Immediately pour over the warm pasta and toss well to distribute the sauce evenly.
Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese and serve.

Do women really cheat more than men?

It is often said, and in my experience this is true, that women cheat out of desires of the heart and men cheat out of desires of the body. I have cheated on my ex-wife. I am not proud of it, nor will I make excuses for it. The reasons were strictly physical. She, herself, cheated on me as well — initially just having “emotional affairs” online. This changed when she fell in love with someone, and physically cheated on me as well. At which point, the marriage came to an end.

For me, cheating was strictly a physical thing… younger-me believed variety is the spice of life and just wanted to “get it on”. For her, it was a matter of love — she still loved me, but in some ways she found me lacking as a husband. My lack of ambition. My lack of “drive” to make something of myself. The ease with which I accepted life as it comes, and how little I needed to be fulfilled. Whereas to her, the sky was the limit and she wanted it all. She wanted wealth. She wanted a bigger house, more trips and travels, better food, more savings for the future. She wanted so much, and me, I was okay with what we had. So she sought out someone who she did feel compatible with. Who wanted the things she wanted, too. Someone ambitious. More wealthy.

And she left me, for that person. And this seems to be somewhat of a recurring theme, when it comes to men cheating versus women cheating. All I wanted was just to get laid with other girls… whereas my ex, she wanted a more suitable partner. I find that men are more likely to want to cheat as a one-off thing, a fling, an affair without love being involved. Lust over love. With women, love over lust. When she’s gone, she’s gone for good.

Biker Gets Into Terrible Accident, Loses Leg…And His Wife NEVER Leaves Him Or His Side

Is it true that most of Singaporean Chinese treat and consider the Singaporean Malay Muslims as inferior or second class citizens?

You are mistaken guys! Your question is rather unfair to Chinese Singaporeans.

I was in my father-in-law’s watch shop in a fashionable street in Malacca, Malaysia in 2006-2007. A couple of well-dressed Malay man in his 30 walked in with a gorgeous looking Malay girl.

My wife, a Malaysian , gestured to his father to serve them as they were vying on a Swiss watch for quite sometime.

Guess what? My father-in-law, after a glance for 3 seconds at them he continued doing his thing.

When they left, he mumbled in Hokkien to allow me to understand. “Malay people, won’t buy, dress nice-nice, got 2 Ringgit in the pocket”

My wife looked at me and smiled, then rolled her eyes.

Years have passed, I was again in Malacca in one evening, I was so thrilled to see a “Malay trade fair” when we drove by.

My niece-in-law was a chauffeur, she has grown to be a big girl now she knew what I was up to, so, she said “**Uncle, they will look at you as a freak —if you are not like a Malay, we Chinese, don’t usually go, they are kings here. Let them enjoy.”**

My wife looked at me she smiled, then rolled her eyes—reminded me of what she did 17 years ago.

What is your question, again?

It’s rather unfair for Malay people to be kings in both countries—Malaysia and Singapore…The Malay knows this pretty well, don’t they?

Why should the world unite with the United States to stop China, considering that the United states is worse than China?

The world shouldn’t, and doesn’t, unite with America against China.

America is a genuine global menace. Endless wars. Endless deaths. Endless destruction.

Endless sanctions.

Endless political interference and violation of national sovereignty.

America is an imperialist. It suppresses the Global South from developing. It exploits the Global South for their natural resources.

China is helping the Global South develop through the Belt and Road Initiative.

China is the largest trading partner to over 120 countries.

China has fought no wars since 1979.

The Global South represents 88% of humanity. It is behind China, not America. That’s what BRICS and SCO are about.

America and its allies represent a meager 12% of humanity. They don’t matter.

What is the worst thing you saw on the internet today?

I used to watch this much-memed about reality shaw called Pawn Stars. It’s about a family, father, grandfather and grandson who run a pawn shop together and buy rare items from people for a quick buck. It’s a funny show, a lot of jokes have been made about the whole “best I can do is [insert price]”.

main qimg 619c854a4c6366f75741afe03afd9b2b

Yesterday, Adam Harrison, son of Rick Harrison — the bald guy in all the Pawn Stars memes — passed away at age 39. He had a fatal overdose. TMZ reported on his death almost immediately, as they had heard it through some third party close to Harrison. They didn’t bother to check with the family first before posting. The family then reached out to TMZ and requested privacy in these dark times. They were upset because, get this… they didn’t KNOW their loved one had died, yet!

TMZ found out the troubled relative of a famous reality TV show died. They published his death immediately, and the family had to find out through the internet that their son, father, brother and uncle had passed away. How sick is that?

Didn’t Expect this in CHINA?! 🇨🇳 INSANE MALL TOUR in Chengdu Sichuan

Slowly… Then All At Once!

Authored by James Howard Kusntler via Kunstler.com,

“Biden has been jabbed at least four times. This is his third covid diagnosis. The shots are working great.”

– Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid

There was a lot of talk about divine intervention at the Republican Convention this week. The country has witnessed a rush of seemingly providential events since the fateful night of June 27th when, to universal horror, “Joe Biden” was unmasked as The Phantom of the White House. The attempt on Donald Trump’s life Saturday, with its intimations of blob involvement, was only the latest of countless trips, hoaxes, capers, and ops that smacked of demonic inspiration laid on the public, so you can’t blame them for feeling that “God is among us now.”

A huge piece of this dynamic has been the Right’s amazing impotence in the eight-year-long march of insults to the republic – especially the failure to find relief for any of that in the courts of law, until last month when the SCOTUS finally kneecapped Democratic Party lawfare operations. A paramount example of that impotence was being unable to find one jurisdiction willing to adjudicate election fraud in 2020 on the merit of the arguments.

But there was much more, starting with collective helplessness in the drawn-out RussiaGate psychodrama, even when all the players and their many nefarious acts were exposed by the alt news media, and extending to the mendacious roguery of the two-year Mueller (Weissmann) Commission, followed by fifty-one former intel higher-ups labeling Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation, followed by Rep. Adam Schiff’s Ukraine “whistleblower” prank featuring CIA/NSC/DOD/DOJ moles Eric Ciaramella, Colonel Vindman and IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson, and then the FBI-instigated J-6 riot with the ensuing faked-up House J-6 committee . . . plus you can throw in the stupid Ukraine war, the drag queens in the kindergartens, the bumbling Durham investigation, ten million unvetted illegal migrants flowing into the country and this year’s four show-trials put on to finally break Mr. Trump.

For many in this land, it has been like the classic nightmare of being paralyzed in the presence of evil. So, it’s no wonder that the Republicans came into their convention with a tremendous tailwind of relief when events suddenly broke their way in June. Now, everyone knows that the current president is a vindictive invalid who will be tossed overboard by his own terrified party in a matter of hours now. And the entire scaffold of lies supporting “Joe Biden” and his party is wobbling badly, too.

You could see it in the deranged terror of Rachel Maddow’s increasingly contorted face last night as she rehearsed all the hoaxes she has helped to perpetrate, along with her mentally-ill posse of Jenn Psaki, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace, and the strangely mute white male Ari Melber. It seemed that any minute Rachel’s head would spin and start spewing pea soup at the camera. When will an exorcist finally pay a visit to MSNBC?

As the sun sets on “Joe Biden’s” career, what’s left of his campaign runs an ad in which he promises “to finish the job.”

Sounds kind of sinister now, doesn’t it, like something a crime boss might tell his caporegimes? And for sure the country is suffering from this three-year-plus reign-of-terror against common sense and common decency.

The wreckage is everywhere, all over this land. “Defending our Democracy,” my ass.

The party big dawgs have paid their terminal visit to the old grifter bringing the sad news that it’s over. Of course, this excites several new headaches for them. Foremost: how can “JB” bow out of the election on account of mental infirmity but still remain president? Even if they call it something else, make some other excuse, the whole world knows now that the president is gone in the head. There are six months remaining to the end of his term and a lot of urgent issues requiring a president’s attention. You can be sure that pressure will rise to shove him out of office altogether. And it may come before the Democratic Convention in late August — if we want to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

Of course, that would elevate Kamala to the White House. Would getting to be the first female president of-color for six months be her consolation prize for graciously declining an automatic nomination to run in “JB’s” place, so that the party can stage an “open convention” free-for-all? Or would she better serve the party as a sacrificial goat to head the ticket and get buried in what’s shaping up to be an election landslide for the Republicans? Anyway, which of the various replacement politicians — Newsom, Whitmer, Pritzker, PA Gov. Shapiro —really wants to squander a political future in an election that’s as much a vote against the Democratic Party itself as any particular figure in it? Let the party go down so it can be purged of Green Woke Satanic mentally-ill communists and reorganized on a sane and decent basis.

But then there’s always HRC.

She’s been laying back alertly, waiting for an opening to swoop in on her leathery wings and cast a fresh spell over the batshit-crazy women who, in recent times, comprise the party’s base.

At one point, not many years ago, the party was broke and had to be bailed-out by the Clinton Foundation. To what extent does that entity still own the DNC, and especially its cargo of super-delegates? I guess we’re going to find out.

Joe Biden Delivers WORST 80 Seconds in Presidential History EVER…

Are inmates allowed to spend the entire day sleeping?

In the Iowa State Penitentiary they were one-man cells and I’m glad. I like my privacy and its many other conveniences.

We didn’t have to work but to choose that meant you left your cell only to shower, or to eat and you lose your library privilege too.

I also did time in the Federal penitentiary in Lompoc California and those were 1-man rooms … not true cells. The doors were solid with a 6×12 glass window in the door and the bathroom was completely private.

Their “hole” was a unique form of punishment, and I should know: I’ve done time in juvenile homes (8 times), reform school (where I spent 11 months of my two year experience in the hole): military stockades (2 different ones), several jails, and two penitentiaries.)

Lompoc’s hole was unique in that it was designed as an experiment. A psychological experiment in sensory deprivation. No sound. No light. No contact with another person. Just two weeks in complete and utter darkness and silence. It was a room in a room, which allowed the staff to come and go without letting any light in the cell area and not make any noise either. Food was brought once a day, (a half loaf of bread and half a head of lettuce) and the inmate had no way of knowing it was there or not except by going to the door and feeling around, for they slid it under the door through a swinging panel.

Many developed permanent psychological problems from their 2 week experience, for it becomes very difficult to hold your grasp on reality when there isn’t any frame of reference to ‘hang your hat on’.

I hallucinated a lot and even created two fellow cellmates to chat with! When they disappeared soon after I met them, I was devastated. This all took place between the years of 1956–1958 and I suffer now from claustrophobia as a result of that experience.

Ain’t life a blast!

Have you ever witnessed anyone throw away their life?

A rather friendly man talked to me at a party, back when I was a teenager. It was the birthday of his nephew, who was my younger brother’s friend. All the kids in attendance were rather young, and I was happy to talk to someone a bit older, someone who seemed interesting. He was a photographer, and he took photos of everyone in the garden, and around the house.

The man traveled the world. Experienced a lot of things. He seemed full of life, animated, energetic, moving around rapidly. Although he must have been in his forties at the time, he seemed to me the absolute picture of great health. Now this was in the summer, somewhere around 2006 or 2007, I believe. We had a little talk about a trip he was going on, to Russia. How excited he was about it. The party ended rather early, as children’s parties often do. And I went home with my family. But before we parted ways, the man did take a photo of me, and he gave it to me. It was with one of those instant-photo polaroid things… it’s a fond memory, now, because when you’re young, any adult who takes you seriously and talks to you as an equal is often a fond memory.

“Oh hey, Jean-Marie, do you remember the uncle of your brothers friend, the photographer?” my mother asked me a month later. I said I did. “He died yesterday,” she said, “terrible shame. Alcoholism.” Turns out the man I met was dying of a drinking problem. I had no clue. He never went on his big trip. I still have the polaroid, somewhere.

Beavis & Butt-Head Do America – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

China’s EW warfare shocks US

from Asia Times

China’s cutting-edge electronic warfare (EW) capabilities are transforming the balance of power in the South China Sea, as shown by a recent encounter between US and Chinese forces.

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on China’s enhanced EW capabilities by shedding light on a December 2023 incident between a US EA-18 Growler carrier-based EW aircraft and China’s Type 055 cruiser Nanchang in the contested South China Sea.

SCMP says that in December 2023, the US Navy dismissed William Coulter, commander of US Electronic Attack Squadron 136 (VAQ-136), stationed on the USS Carl Vinson, citing a loss of confidence in his ability to command.

The report says that a month later, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recognized the Nanchang’s crew for their actions against a US carrier fleet. It also notes that Chinese media highlighted an encounter involving an EA-18G, believed to be from Coulter’s squadron, and the Nanchang cruiser.

The report mentions that PLA scientists recently disclosed in a Radar & ECM journal article that AI-enhanced radar gave the Nanchang an advantage over the EA-18G’s jamming capabilities.

It claims that the EA-18G, manufactured by Boeing, has been upgraded since 2021 for future warfare but faces new challenges from the PLA–Navy’s (PLA-N) integrated radar systems and communication strategies.

SCMP notes that these advancements allow PLA-N warships to form a “kill web” to counter the EA-18G’s attacks. It also says that the Nanchang’s reported proactive tactics and successful engagement with US forces illustrate a shift in the PLA-N’s EW approach.

Much-improved Chinese EW capabilities developed after then-US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s controversial August 2022 visit to Taiwan may have enabled a feat.

SCMP noted that the PLA failed to track and surveil the US Air Force transport plane carrying Pelosi during her visit despite deploying Type 055 cruisers and J-16D EW aircraft. The source says that almost all of the PLA’s EW equipment failed to function because of electronic interference from Pelosi’s escorting aircraft force.

On Pelosi’s aircraft escort, John Tkacik says in an August 2022 article for Taipei Times that it could have been a massive force of US F-15s that flew out of Kadena Air Force Base in Japan supported by the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group and the USS Tripoli with embarked F-35s stationed in the Philippine Sea.

From that experience, China may have improved its EW capabilities quickly by investing in new technologies and placing them in a more extensive kill web consisting of kinetic and non-kinetic elements.

SCMP reported in February 2024 that Chinese scientists have invented a new class of EW equipment that can reportedly rapidly detect, decode and suppress enemy signals.

The new system, SCMP says, allows the PLA to seamlessly monitor signals into the gigahertz zone, encompassing frequencies used by amateur radio and even Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.

It notes that the equipment includes innovative signal processing chips and AI integration, enhancing China’s ability to counter enemy jamming and maintain communication flow.

Furthermore, SCMP claims that in encounters with US Navy ships with EW activity, China has used electromagnetic-emitting equipment, including high-power phased array radars, to lock on to multiple targets including US carrier-based aircraft.

Aside from developing new tech, China may already have elevated EW into a strategic capability, integrating it into its multi-domain operations alongside other kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities in a complex kill web.

In a May 2023 article for the Mitchell Institute, Heather Penney describes a kill web as multiple, interconnected nodes that offer redundant paths for executing military operations, increasing the quantity and resilience of potential kill chains. A kill chain is the process required to identify and eliminate specific targets.

Penney says that unlike linear kill chains, which are easier to target and disrupt, kill webs provide a more adaptable and less predictable system, making it harder for adversaries to defeat.

Asia Times noted in April 2024 that the rebranding of China’s PLA Strategic Support Force (PLA-SSF) into the PLA-Information Support Force (PLA-ISF) highlights China’s strategic shift towards technology-driven “intelligentized warfare.”

The PLA-ISF is designed to integrate emerging AI, quantum and other technologies into China’s multi-domain operational strategy against potential adversaries like the US and its allies. The rebranding reflects an evolution in Chinese military thought, transitioning from “informationized wars” to “intelligentized warfare” that includes EW, cyber operations and signals intelligence (SIGINT).

EW is also a key component of China’s Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (MDPW) concept, which leverages AI and big data to identify and exploit weaknesses in US operational systems.

China’s MDPW seeks to dismantle and destroy US kill chains by targeting critical information nodes such as aircraft and satellites through physical attacks and targeting information networks by using EW and cyberattacks.

While the US arguably still has the edge in EW, near-peer adversaries like China and Russia may be closing the gap.

A November 2022 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) defense primer says that the National Defense Strategy Commission mentioned that the US is losing its EW edge, hindering its capability to conduct operations against capable adversaries.

Army Technology reported in May 2024 that the US spent US$5 billion on EW capabilities in 2024, accounting for 45% of global EW spending from 2021-2023, compared to just 14% by Russia and 13% by China.

However, Army Technology says that the US’ dominant position in the EW market is being challenged, as Russia, China and India’s share is projected to increase by the next decade.

The report notes that over the past two decades, Russia has exploited alleged US complacency in EW strategies, which have focused on counterinsurgency versus non-state actors.

It notes that in Ukraine, Russia has used EW to disrupt adversary battlefield networks, support conventional assault forces through SIGINT and jamming attacks, and secure captured territory against counterattacks.

The source also mentions that Russia has used EW to disrupt regional civilian services such as GPS and telecoms.

Likewise, Army Technology mentions that China has mirrored Russia’s use of EW and has equated information dominance with electromagnetic dominance. It says that in addition to shipborne EW equipment, China has installed such equipment and more in its occupied features in the South China Sea.

In line with that, Matthew Funaiole and other writers highlight in a December 2021 CSIS article the expansion of China’s facilities on Hainan Island, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef, which now includes satellite tracking, communication platforms, and systems potentially used in EW and SIGINT.

Funaiole and others note that these developments aim to bolster the PLA’s ability to operate in contested electronic and cyber environments.

What is the impact of corruption on the economy of a country like China, where it is prevalent at all levels?

In China, the Scope of corruption is very limited these days

What do you use your illegal wealth for?

You can’t buy Land in China because the State owns the land, so you can buy a lease and if you do, you get caught in seconds

You can’t ask payment for your kid to be educated abroad because every official has to give source of funds for his kids tuition

You cant put money into an offshore account because as officials you need Exit Visas and it’s possible you may never be able to use your money

You can’t bury Cash in your mattress because Cash is rarer and rarer nowadays

There is only one way of Corruption that every booked official in China uses

Pre dated Investments!!!!

Buying Gold today and getting a 10 year old bill of sale for that gold and claiming to sell the same today and pocketing the proceeds of sale

For instance claiming you purchased Gold for 100,000 RMB in 2014 and now claiming to sell the same gold for 207,000 RMB and pocketing 107,000 RMB legitimately

Or Pre Dated Real Estate Investments into companies

The problem is that such officials get caught regularly because they didn’t declare this purchase of gold in 2014 in their Assets and Liabilities statement and so find it tough to explain

So Corruption is getting harder and harder and many officials get caught quite easily

Someone Shorted Trump’s Stock Just Before The Assassination Attempt!

Here’s how it works. [1] Victoria Neuland announces about “something will be a surprise”, and then [2] people short stocks for personal profit. This is not the first time this system went into play.

The Ascendance Of Sociopaths In US Governance

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He’s diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions, and his residence in yet another. He doesn’t depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.

Living as an international man has always been an interesting possibility. But few Americans opted for it, since the U.S. used to reward those who settled in and put down roots. In fact, it rewarded them better than any other country in the world, so there was no pressing reason to become an international man.

Things change, however, and being rooted like a plant – at least if you have a choice – is a suboptimal strategy if you wish to not only survive, but prosper. Throughout history, almost every place has at some point become dangerous for those who were stuck there. It may be America’s turn.

For those who can take up the life of an international man, it’s no longer just an interesting lifestyle decision. It has become, at a minimum, an asset saver, and it could be a lifesaver. That said, I understand the hesitation you may feel about taking action; pulling up one’s roots (or at least grafting some of them to a new location) can be almost as traumatic to a man as to a vegetable.

As any intelligent observer surveys the world’s economic and political landscape, he has to be disturbed – even dismayed and a bit frightened – by the gravity and number of problems that mark the horizon. We’re confronted by economic depression, looming financial chaos, serious currency inflation, onerous taxation, crippling regulation, a developing police state, and, worst of all, the prospect of a major war. It seems almost unbelievable that all these things could affect the U.S., which historically has been the land of the free.

How did we get here? An argument can be made that things went bad because of miscalculation, accident, inattention, and the like. Those elements have had a role, but it is minor. Potential catastrophe across the board can’t be the result of happenstance. When things go wrong on a grand scale, it’s not just bad luck or inadvertence. It’s because of serious character flaws in one or many – or even all – of the players.

So is there a root cause of all the problems I’ve cited?

If we can find it, it may tell us how we personally can best respond to the problems.

In this article, I’m going to argue that the U.S. government, in particular, has been overrun by the wrong kind of person.

It’s a trend that’s been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it’s institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the U.S. is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate.

The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions.

Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual, and psychological/spiritual fabric of the U.S.

What does this mean to you, as an individual? It depends on your character.

Are you the kind of person who supports “my country, right or wrong,” as did most Germans in the 1930s and 1940s? Or the kind who dodges the duty to be a helpmate to murderers? The type of passenger who goes down with the ship? Or the type who puts on his vest and looks for a lifeboat? The type of individual who supports the merchants who offer the fairest deal? Or the type who is gulled by splashy TV commercials?

What the ascendancy of sociopaths means isn’t an academic question. Throughout history, the question has been a matter of life and death. That’s one reason America grew; every American (or any ex-colonial) has forebears who confronted the issue and decided to uproot themselves to go somewhere with better prospects. The losers were those who delayed thinking about the question until the last minute.

I have often described myself, and those I prefer to associate with, as gamma rats. You may recall the ethologist’s characterization of the social interaction of rats as being between a few alpha rats and many beta rats, the alpha rats being dominant and the beta rats submissive. In addition, a small percentage are gamma rats that stake out prime territory and mates, like the alphas, but are not interested in dominating the betas. The people most inclined to leave for the wide world outside and seek fortune elsewhere are typically gamma personalities.

You may be thinking that what happened in places like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and scores of other countries in recent history could not, for some reason, happen in the U.S. Actually, there’s no reason it won’t at this point. All the institutions that made America exceptional – including a belief in capitalism, individualism, self-reliance, and the restraints of the Constitution – are now only historical artifacts.

On the other hand, the distribution of sociopaths is completely uniform across both space and time.

Per capita, there were no more evil people in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Amin’s Uganda, Ceausescu’s Romania, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia than there are today in the U.S. All you need is favorable conditions for them to bloom, much as mushrooms do after a rainstorm.

Conditions for them in the U.S. are becoming quite favorable. Have you ever wondered where the 50,000 people employed by the TSA to inspect and degrade you came from? Most of them are middle-aged. Did they have jobs before they started doing something that any normal person would consider demeaning? Most did, but they were attracted to – not repelled by – a job where they wear a costume and abuse their fellow citizens all day.

Few of them can imagine that they’re shepherding in a police state as they play their roles in security theater. (A reinforced door on the pilots’ cabin is probably all that’s actually needed, although the most effective solution would be to hold each airline responsible for its own security and for the harm done if it fails to protect passengers and third parties.) But the 50,000 newly employed are exactly the same type of people who joined the Gestapo – eager to help in the project of controlling everyone. Nobody was drafted into the Gestapo.

What’s going on here is an instance of Pareto’s Law. That’s the 80-20 rule that tells us, for example, that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salesmen or that 20% of the population are responsible for 80% of the crime.

As I see it, 80% of people are basically decent; their basic instincts are to live by the Boy Scout virtues. 20% of people, however, are what you might call potential trouble sources, inclined toward doing the wrong thing when the opportunity presents itself. They might now be shoe clerks, mailmen, or waitresses – they seem perfectly benign in normal times. They play baseball on weekends and pet the family dog. However, given the chance, they will sign up for the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, the TSA, Homeland Security, or whatever. Many seem well intentioned, but are likely to favor force as the solution to any problem.

But it doesn’t end there, because 20% of that 20% are really bad actors. They are drawn to government and other positions where they can work their will on other people and, because they’re enthusiastic about government, they rise to leadership positions. They remake the culture of the organizations they run in their own image. Gradually, non-sociopaths can no longer stand being there. They leave. Soon the whole barrel is full of bad apples. That’s what’s happening today in the U.S.

It’s a pity that Bush, when he was in office, made such a big deal of evil. He discredited the concept. He made Boobus americanus think it only existed in a distant axis, in places like North Korea, Iraq and Iran, which were and still are irrelevant backwaters and arbitrarily chosen enemies. Bush trivialized the concept of evil and made it seem banal because he was such a fool. All the while, real evil, very immediate and powerful, was growing right around him, and he lacked the awareness to see he was fertilizing it by turning the U.S. into a national security state after 9/11.

Now, I believe, it’s out of control.

The U.S. is already in a truly major depression and on the edge of financial chaos and a currency meltdown.

The sociopaths in government will react by redoubling the pace toward a police state domestically and starting a major war abroad. To me, this is completely predictable. It’s what sociopaths do.

The Sopranos – Random Tony Soprano Scenes

How has your appearance affected your life?

I’m a short man.

I’m 5″6’, so I’m not a ‘little person” but I am short.

When I was dating, I had many girls tell me they would date me if i were taller. Fast forward and I’ve been married 20 years and have three terrific children.

Taller guys sometimes pat me on the shoulder or otherwise treat me like a child. I’m in my 40s.

Aggressive women have often warned me that ‘they could take me.’ I’ve had drunk guys start fights with the ‘little guy’ in a bar or party. Literally just walk up and start talking trash. I had a personal boxing coach for years and although I was never a contender, I learned to handle myself really well.

When I assert myself, I am told I have a ‘napoleon complex’ – when I don’t, I’m ‘passive aggressive’ or a pushover.

I’ve been passed over for leadership opportunities for taller people, and I’ve actually been told that openly. A CFO told me that people don’t like to work for short men. Height isn’t a protected class and you can be discriminated against for it.

I have a great life. Terrific family, despite being raised in poverty, I have accumulated a decent amount of first generation wealth. I have a great career and i do what I love. I really have no complaints.

But my appearance has affected my life.

Russia hits 4 HIMARS launchers and 35 foreign operators

Can Thai police officers demand to search your backpack while using public transportation in Bangkok? What are the consequences if you refuse?

Conduct a search on the bus or train? Thai police ain’t stupid, guys.

They know pretty well that Thais know best. I would say out loud, “เชิญเลยครับ (Be my guest)!”

Be sure to make a scene so that all eyes will look at you, so, you have a lot of eyewitnesses- say this; “พ่อแม่ พี่น้อง ผมกำลังโดนค้นครับ ขอไทยมุงครับ- เป็นสักขีพยานครับ ว่าผมไม่มี บุหรี่ไฟฟ้า ไม่มียาบ้านะครับ!” (Ladies & Gentlemen, I’m about to be searched, gather around folks, please be my eyewitnesses that I’ve no ‘Vapes’ or’Yaba’”)

Let’s be serious.

Once you consent to a search, there are two scenarios you need to know-ONE**, you are confronting with a pair of phony police officers. If you’re allow them to put their hands into your backpack it will mean, you will be a victim of an extortion-you know what I mean.— You may read from the expert online how to get out from a search by the fake Thai police unscathed.

TWO**: It’s real search from the police, and you can’t say no as your tattooed face & both arms, bearded with moustache wearing ’Boss’ blue T matches a description of ‘gold shop heist robber’ Too bad that you’re in a vicinity of the crime scene nearby.

Be shrewd as a snake but keeping calm like a dove **(I borrow from the Bible)- ask their permission to see their palms and what under/ inside their sleeves. If possible, take a video during a seach with their permission as well ( they will allow)

With a **vape** in your possession could cost you up to 30,000 Baht *fine

**Yaba** in your possession is questionable as penalty of drug trafficking is harsher than possession of drugs… you can’t say that, ‘IT ISN’T MINE’

Thai police will typically insist, **I am the law**

What’s other choice when facing with the Thai police demanding a search?

Guys! In Thailand do as the Thai do.

Just walk away that is what Thais would do when the police want to search the backpack of anyone.

What are the consequences if you refuse?

The worst scenario, if you refuse a search—is going to the police station with them.

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What was your best moment when negotiating a salary?

My company was about 9 months delivering my review. I had a great year and likely generated incremental ebitda of over $5 million. When I finallly got me review I was told I did a great job and I was getting the maximum raise – 5% on top of my $120k salary. I flipped out.

Two weeks later I quit. I knew I had a ton of leverage because:

My company was party to a lawsuit and I was a key witness.
The company was going to be sold soon and I was in a key position.

As expected, they asked me to stay and offered me a small additional raise. I demanded $250k, a 75% bonus, promotion to EVP, stock options, 1 year severance agreement if the fired me (plus bonus), and a year of benefits post employment. Told them I didn’t care either way.

It’s been 5 years. I’m still with the company and have been promoted to president. Timing is everything. If you have leverage use it.

Stranded in Philadelphia. America, what’s happening?

“Vast DEI Bureaucracy” Hurting U.S. Armed Forces; ASU Study Finds

By Cameron Arcand of The College Fix

A new Arizona State University study suggests that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in the United States military are ineffective.

The study done by the university’s Center for American Institutions argued that there is a emphasis on training new soldiers about social issues like “unconscious bias” and “intersectionality” in a way the center says runs contrary to typical American ideals. The study examined DEI plan’s in different sector of the military, including DEI office staffing and education at academies like West Point.

“The massive DEI bureaucracy, its training and its pseudo-scientific assessments are at best distractions that absorb valuable time and resources,” the executive summary states. “At worst they communicate the opposite of the military ethos: e.g. that individual demographic differences come before team and mission.”

Donald Critchlow, director of the center, wrote in the introduction it was focused on looking at the influence of Critical Race Theory in the United States Armed Forces training.

“The Commission on Civic Education in the Military began as a project to review civic education in the military. Our research team did not expect to find Critical Race Theory so embedded and pervasive. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are found throughout the U.S. Armed Forces and our service academies,” Critchlow wrote. “This year long study documents just how pervasive these training programs are in our Armed Forces and Service Academies and that DEI extends well beyond just formal training programs in the military and service academies.”

“The Founders of our nation understood and feared a politicized military. History had shown them that a politicized army easily became the tool of tyranny. The Armed Forces of the United States has proudly upheld this long tradition of separating mission from politics,” he continued.

In terms of recommendations, the study suggests that DEI offices be completely scrapped, but said it may be politically unlikely for the time being.

“The surest way to eliminate the concerning trends we have identified, and the growth of race and sex-based scapegoating and stereotyping in the U.S. military, is to altogether end the DEI bureaucracy there,” the study states. “However, until such a time as the executive or legislative branches of the government choose to end the DEI bureaucracy in our federal agencies and military, we are left to advocate the pursuit of alternative avenues that may affect positive change despite existing policies.”

They also suggested the military prioritize civic education with a focus on “America’s commitment to freedom and opportunity.”

The study comes as some branches of the military continue to struggle with recruiting new service members.

To all the doctors, have you ever asked a patient to leave your office?

We just had one on Monday. We are a primary care office in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Patients stopped coming to our office because they were afraid we were treating COVID-19 patients. Our volume of patients plummeted to about 20% of our normal patient count in late March and early April. We laid off 50% of our staff and switched to Telehealth. Gradually, patients have started coming back in when they could no longer put off going to the doctor. We are seeing about 50% of our patients in the office and another 20% through Telehealth. We have strict protocols for seeing patients now, but tensions are high among the staff. We are bringing back our staff slowly but surely.

One of our patients had been discharged from the hospital last week for non-COVID-19 problems. This 35-year-old woman followed up with her doctor through Telehealth, but needed to be seen in person for her condition and also to fill out FMLA paperwork. She confused her follow-up date and time (after confirming twice with our email and text reminder service), so we rescheduled her to the next day, a Saturday. Again, she arrived at the wrong time and the office was closed. She paged her doctor who was on-call and demanded her paperwork be filled out over the weekend. This doctor offered to come into the office exclusively on Monday to see her and fill out her paperwork as a courtesy. He was only scheduled for Telehealth which he had planned to do at home.

The patient again arrived late and the doctor was busy on Telehealth with his scheduled patients. She offered to come back in an hour when he had a slot to see her. Again, she arrived late. She refused to wear a mask in the office, as is our protocol and mandated by our state — insisting she was a nurse and it’s not necessary and it is a bunch of silliness. She was put in a room and told to wait, as the doctor was in the middle of seeing another patient.

After two minutes, she stormed out of the room causing a scene, demanding to be seen this instant, get her paperwork, and her narcotics Rx filled. Just then, the doctor came down the hall from his office to see her. She started swearing at him and berating him for making her wait. He threw up his hands and let her know he would not be treated that way and she can leave. He escorted her out of the building. He would not fill her prescriptions or do her paperwork. The patient left.

The next day she started pounding on our door when it was locked, yelling and demanding her prescriptions and her paperwork. The doctor ended up giving her two weeks of her medications and two weeks of FMLA and referred her off to her specialist to finish her care. This patient is being discharged from our practice. This patient consistently runs a balance with our office, has multiple missed appointments, and is rude to the staff. There is no need for this behavior — especially at a tense time like this.

Wednesday – 1960’s Super Panavision 70

Why are there still people think that China is poor?

I think this is some kind of conspiracy created by the Chinese

I know many Chinese, especially young Chinese under 40 years old

Usually when the topic of conversation involves “Is China poor or rich”

Although everyone’s eloquence is different and the way of explaining the content is also different. But they all seem to be trying their best to explain the same idea: “China is poor, China is backward”

And when you point to the modern city behind them, their food, clothing, housing and transportation, and their unparalleled modern transportation facilities, and express doubts. Chinese people often lead you into another unified agenda: “It looks good, but we have to consider the per capita data

The common Chinese rhetoric about “China’s poverty” is as follows:

GDP per capita: China’s GDP per capita is only about 13,000 US dollars, compared with more than 60,000 US dollars in the United States, so China is still very poor.

(Deliberately ignoring the difference in purchasing power parity (PPP))

Income per capita: 500 million people in China have an average monthly income of less than 1,000 yuan (140 US dollars)

(The concept of “non-working population” is replaced)

Number of cars per capita: China has 219 cars per thousand people. The United States has about 800 cars per thousand people, and France has more than 600 cars per thousand people

(Deliberately ignoring the difference in stock, China has entered the automobile era for less than 20 years)

High-speed trains: Chinese people can’t buy flight tickets, so they can only take high-speed trains.

(In fact, China’s air tickets are often not more expensive than high-speed trains)

Housing area per capita: China’s per capita housing area is about 40 square meters. The per capita housing area in the United States is about 65 square meters, and the per capita housing area in Germany and France is also above 50 square meters (Deliberately ignoring that China’s home ownership rate is much higher than that of the United States and Europe)

Similar agendas include: China’s military is very weak

Nuclear weapons per capita: ranked last among the five permanent members, only one percent of the United States

Aircraft carriers per capita: lower than Thailand and Brazil, so very weak

Defense budget per capita: only $210 per year, one-tenth of the United States and one-quarter of France

China’s technology is very backward:

Number of space stations per capita, number of supercomputers per capita, number of moon landings per capita, number of Mars explorations per capita, number of GPS satellites per capita, number of scientific papers per capita…

This strange “we are bad” narrative of the Chinese is not just a joke for ordinary people to chat, but a systematic narrative from top to bottom. China’s leaders, regional leaders and various government officials are accustomed to using this narrative.

Even in political speeches praising achievements, they list a series of achievements and never forget to add a paragraph at the end: “But we still have a big gap, the per capita data is only a small part of advanced countries, and we still have a long way to go in development. ”

Someone told me that the strange Chinese attitude of “We are terrible” comes from the inherent traditional culture of “modesty”. But I think it is more than that. Behind their strange narrative, there is actually another meaning: “Please don’t bother us.”

The Little Mermaid – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

The media has finally, once and for all, lost all credibility

by James Hickman via Schiff Sovereign

Obviously the attempted assassination of Donald Trump represents a grim milestone on America’s path of decline, as I wrote about in detail on Monday.

But the legacy media’s response to it may also go down as a major turning point: the moment they finally lost all credibility.

Now, clearly for a long time the media has been full of Inspired Idiots who don’t care about reporting the truth. Instead, they push a narrative they want people to believe about the world and the events which shape it.

For example, CNN famously described 2020 Black Lives Matters riots as “fiery, but mostly peaceful.”

In 2021, when the governor of South Dakota banned biological men from participating in female sports, CNN promptly reported that, “there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.”

NBC News was caught in 2021 colluding with the Biden administration to downplay the criminal past deeds of Tracy Stone-Manning, who the President had nominated to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

Stone-Manning was an eco-terrorist in her youth who was involved in tree-spiking activities that kill or maim loggers. But NBC News promised to take it easy on her to help push her appointment through.

Also in 2021, however, NBC News (along with just about every other mainstream ‘news’ outlet) hyped unproven allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that went back 30 years.

And when #MeToo protestors stormed the United States Capitol and accosted Senators in an attempt to disrupt and overturn the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the media did not label these protestors ‘domestic terrorists’, as they did with January 6 protesters.

The media circulated outright lies about the Russia voter manipulation hoax. And the New York Times was even awarded the ‘esteemed’ Pulitzer Prize for its reporting of this thoroughly discredited story.

It’s also notable that, even after the Russia collusion story was proven to be false, the Pulitzer committee REFUSED to rescind the award it had bestowed to the Times. Their logic, apparently, is that quality reporting about blatant lies is still worthy of journalism’s highest honor.

Then, of course, in the weeks before the 2020 election, nearly every legacy news outlet outright refused to report on the laptop of Hunter Biden. The younger Biden’s laptop not only showed deep character flaws, but evidence of significant corruption and foreign influence connected to his father.

And don’t even get me started on how the legacy media reported on COVID, lock-downs, and vaccines.

But now they’ve elevated their lies and propaganda to a whole new level with the way they have portrayed last week’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

These “journalists” witnessed in real time an attempted— and very nearly successful— assassination of a former President, upon which they reported:

“Trump Escorted Away After Loud noises at rally” –The Washington Post

“Secret Service rushes Trump offstage after he falls at rally” –CNN

“Trump says he was shot in the ear at rally” -NPR

OK, let’s be extremely polite and give them the benefit of the doubt; immediately following the assassination attempt there were plenty of unknowns.

But even after the fog of war had been lifted— after it was clearly an attempted assassination— the Washington Post updated its headline to: “Trump safe after being rushed off stage following shooting at rally.”

In another article it said the assassin “shot at Trump,” not “shot Trump.”

Technically, that passes a fact check. But it’s sort of like describing Mount Everest as an elevated piece of land.

And the spin continued the next day.

Reuters ran an article titled, “Republicans, in wake of Trump shooting, seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats.”

This obviously ‘unbiased’ and ‘trustworthy’ news agency couldn’t simply report on the known facts of the attempted assassination. No, instead, their priority was to tell readers that it is the RIGHT, not the LEFT, that is full of violent extremists.

“A Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents of politically motivated violence between 2021 and 2023, however, presented a different picture: In those years, fatal political violence more often emanated from the American right than from the left.”

Reuters didn’t actually cite a single example of this Right wing violence.

In fact, the only example of violence they did mention was the shooting of Steve Scalise, a Republican member of Congress who was gunned down (but survived) in 2017… by a Left wing extremist.

So… in an attempt to prove its assertion that its readers should fear Right wing violence, Reuters’ only example was an instance of a Left wing extremist shooting a Right wing politician.

Genius!

And these Inspired Idiots in the media still can’t understand why nobody trusts them.

Days after the attempted assassination, the Associated Press noted that the Left and Right now have dueling conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt— that Trump staged it for clout, or that the Secret Service was in on it.

AP lamented, “Americans are increasingly choosing their own reality, at the expense of a shared understanding of the facts.”

Gee, whose fault is that? (Remember, AP published the headline: “Donald Trump has been escorted off the stage by Secret Service during a rally after loud noises ring out in the crowd.”)

The attempted assassination of Trump was a rare event, in that it was broadcast in real time, and everyone could see exactly what happened with their own eyes from multiple angles.

And still the media tried as hard as possible to sell a completely bullshit narrative of the event.

What do you think they do with events that are not so clear, or are not caught on camera from every angle? How trustworthy are those “anonymous sources” they love to cite?

This is why the legacy media is becoming less trusted by the day.

It’s also why, despite Inspired Idiots owning the vast majority of broadcast media, they still haven’t been able to tip the scales decisively in favor of their own little cultural revolution.

Confronted with an event they knew would make their nemesis look strong and unbeatable, they resorted to cartoonish propaganda.

And I hope that proves to be the decisive moment for people to see them for what they are: liars.

Man Runs Away on Date When She Brought Her Friends…

Can people with diplomatic immunity commit crimes in their host nation without repercussions?

Mohamed Rizalman bin Ismail, a Malaysian military attaché, entered one woman’s house and attempted to have sex with her.

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He was promptly arrested by the New Zealand police and charged with attempted burglary and rape. Invoking his diplomatic immunity, Mohamed left New Zealand to his country Malaysia. Following the international furor, Malaysia agreed to send Mohamed back and waive his diplomatic immunity. This case was interesting because NZ and Malaysia don’t have an extradition treaty. Apparently Mohamed “volunteered” to go back to NZ and face the trial. He served 9 months of house arrest.

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Majed Hassan Ashoor, the first secretary at the Saudi Embassy in India beat and raped his Nepali housemaids. When the Police got involved, Diplomat invoking immunity left the country. All was left, a few NGOs protesting against the diplomat.

Accused Saudi diplomat leaves India

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Traffic accidents

These cases happen far more often than beating and rape. An American military attaché was involved in traffic accident. He was reported to be drunk. As a result, the motorcycle driver died. The Pakistani authorities asked Americans to waive his diplomatic immunity so that he can be tried. After refusal, he was not allowed to leave the country. After extensive negotiations and substantial payments to the deceased’s family was the case finally resolved.

US diplomat involved in Islamabad accident departed post ‘settlement’ | The Express Tribune

Another very similar case, a Russian diplomat was involved in fatal traffic accident, in Canada, while drunk. Due to diplomatic immunity, he was allowed back to Russia. Upon arrival, he was charged in Russian court with involuntary manslaughter and jailed for 4 years.

Former Russian diplomat guilty of involuntary manslaughter | CBC News

A new case is developing right now in Turkey. It has been alleged that a Saudi national was killed in the Saudi Consulate. If this is true, we reached new lows in diplomacy.

As you can see, diplomatic immunity can be waived only by the diplomat’s side. The host country, on the other hand, can prohibit the diplomat from leaving the country. It can also make an international incident and make life hell for the remaining diplomats. But in the end it is up to the diplomat’s country if it wants to be viewed as a country that allows its diplomats to commit crimes and get away with it. A matter of national prestige is an important matter to some, not all countries.

Article 29 of the Vienna Convention states: “The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving state shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity.”

The Mask – 1950’s Super Panavision 70 Trailer

What is one thing that shocked you when you attended an Ivy League or a highly prestigious school like Stanford or MIT?

I got my Ph.D. from Stanford, so I was both a student and a teacher there, after attending a mid-level school that gave me a full ride for undergrad. No one in my family had been to a top-tier school, and there were no top-tier schools in the area where I grew up, so I had no idea what to expect. There were two things that shocked me most:

The way that everything is set up to ensure the students succeed. Ins to any internship program you could possibly want. “Lecture series” classes that are really designed to give you weekly networking opportunities. Entrepreneurship competitions that will actually put multiple students in a room with venture capitalists to pitch their business plans. You name it. The campus, the resources, the professors, the programs — all of these things are great at Stanford, but they’re great a lot of other places, too. But where you really see a huge difference is all the extras, where the school provides every opportunity for you to get in touch with people who can make your career. It’s amazing. After I saw this, I would always 100% advise anyone who’s ambitious and academically inclined to shoot for an Ivy.
Interestingly, the undergraduate students are not all super smart. They’re not unintelligent. But they’re not geniuses — not most of them, anyway. I wasn’t blown away, on the whole, by my Stanford students’ intelligence. Mostly, they just worked hard and they knew how to be students. They would communicate well, come to class and to office hours, be proactive about their grade and completing their work effectively. I find that’s the biggest difference between the Stanford kids and the students I’ve taught at the CSU’s and SLAC’s in the area — most of the students at those schools just seem like they never really learned how to be students, so they struggle when they’re easily smart enough to do well in the class. (Of course, most of them also have to work, while it seems like most of the Stanford kids don’t.)

Existence Tax: The Vig Plus 3%

Authored by Tim Hartnett via LewRockwell.com,

In the bad old days, before G-Men took down the mob, were urbanites getting a better deal? Does the betting man receive worse odds from state run lotteries than Vinny gave on the corner running numbers? Did businesses shaken down for “protection” have higher hopes of survival in mob clutches than in municipal ones? Was there more or less anxiety about making rent or the mortgage in 1974 than in 2024? Which is the greater fiscal peril, organized crime or uber-societal-organization? It has become a valid question.

Gangsters had fingers in a lot of pies. Credit card racketeers, waging the present battle against physical currency, demand a slice of everything out of the oven. They’d gladly have us believe that paying for anything, without their supervision and cut, equals a criminally tainted transaction. Mobsters found their pecuniary prevalence legit in its way too. Transactions that jibed with their economic codes they called “kosher.” Other trading activity inside their ambit was deemed transgressive. Parasites tend to sound tiresomely alike. The difference is that the above ground finance industry finds no place outside its ambit.

Street people’s encampments clutter cities all over the country. What pushed so many over the edge? And how many are treading that edge carefully now? We know that insanity is somewhat genetic, but scientific observation has yet to prove external factors can’t nudge innately inclined individuals into psychosis. Facts point that way.

Should we harbor suspicion of so-called improvements in the finance system? The Bush-Obama era housing crisis arrived after the government gradually amped up its influence on the mortgage market. Once mortgages became de-localized and Wall Street joined in default skyrocketed and losses went international. Isn’t the NYSE supposed to make markets safer and more efficient? Have we seen anything like that coming out of financial centralization?

The present squeeze goes on in commercial space. Businesses, particularly restaurants, are shutting down at disturbing rates. The biggest burden is rent. This goes on as city centers are awash in more empty commercial space than ever. Local government isn’t helping. While serenading us about how much they love love and hate hate, they stay busy inundating entrepreneurs with licensing fees, new taxes, permit demands and other hurdles that restrain new ventures from ever launching. If they somehow get going anyway the municipality lurks at every juncture. They’ll keep you from thriving when they can’t stop you altogether. Actions speak louder than words. What they “love,” in practice, is bleeding prey pale with revenue demands and entangling bureaucratic complications.

In 1977 the minimum wage was $2.30 an hour. You could get nearly four Big Macs for that amount then. When the minimum went up to $12 on July 1st, the same earner only got two and one third double-deckers for his money. Losing 1.3 sandwiches an hour takes a big bite out of a working class lifestyle. 10.4 Mc-grubbings per eight-hour-day to be exact.

One year after the bicentennial average rent in the US was about $160. An NYT article from 1973 said a family of four needed less than $12,000 a year to live “moderately” in NYC in 1973. The same amount must have been a somewhat comfortable living in flyover country. By 1977 average income was over $13,000. 47 years later, average rent is at least ten times higher. While only about 10% of the population earns $130,000 or more. Where did all the value go?

Clearly, production is out of sync with consumption. What is the variable? Crops still grow at the same rate. Cargo travels at the same speed. Bricks are laid at the same pace. Chickens plop their eggs with the same regularity. Is anyone in the economy getting more than their fair share?

Almost 103 billion in “official” currency was circulating in the US in 1977. As of today, that figure stands at nearly 2 trillion 340 billion. The population has increased by about 58%. The greenbacks flowing back and forth went up by over 2000%. Those figures describe a small fraction of the overall economy. Because banks can create spending power with credit, leaving out other fiscal legerdemain, hundreds of trillions are outstanding in fiscal reality. Federal tax revenue alone, will soon hit over 5 trillion so far this year. That’s over twice the official amount of currency in circulation.

The Big Mac went from 65 cents to $5.17 in that time span. That’s about 700%. Minimum wage rose by about 450%. Watching these fiscal details we know at once that sparse fractions of all that new money is getting to where it is needed most – while we have no evidence it lands in hands that have created actual value. With everyone competing for resources and finished goods, these facts equal a devastating pay cut for many making far above minimum wage.

The idea that people are taking out according to what they contribute simply doesn’t fly. We can start with where the money supply is expanded.

A century ago banks were more accountable. They could make risky loans, as they did for Fritz Heinze, but doing so could still mean hell to pay. The series of events that shook the fiscal foundations of South Manhattan in 1907 remain mysterious over a century later. By 2007, banks were getting bailed out and it was everyone else who paid. How we got there is an intriguing conundrum of modern finance.

Heinze was a mining engineer from New York who showed up in Butte, Montana in the 1890’s. The copper market was hot at the time. That rustic town was already swimming in East Coast toffs and class consciousness. Although born into wealth and circumstances, Augustus Heinze was above pretension and indifferent to “society.” He soon developed a smelting process that greatly expanded the profitability of low-grade copper ore. Rather than pocketing the plunder, his next step was cutting 2 hours off the miner’s workday. How did that go over in the part of Butte that ‘dressed for dinner’? About like The Declaration of Independence did with George III.

Fritz couldn’t have cared less. The airs put on at posh WASP tables left the man impatient and bored. He did his excess boozing in public places where a man who’d spent the day 500 feet underground was at the next stool. Guys who loaded trams rarely bought a round with Heinze in the house.

By 1895 he’d amassed the capital to purchase the Rarus copper mine. The new-coming city slicker literally hit paydirt. His holes were always filled with the best pick and shovel men Montana could provide. The swells he snubbed had to take what hired help they could get.

An officer fraternizing with the enlisted class was high treason to mine owners of the aughts. Heinze was held in a kind of hostile awe. Butte gentry were unaccustomed to a guy who dared not to care if they liked him. What’s an enraged starched collar to do? We’ll never be entirely sure. Deadly measures were far from uncommon in late 19th century mining strife. What happened to Heinze is one of the murkier mysteries of the robber baron era.

J.D. Rockefeller’s brother, William, was a director of Anaconda Copper. That firm was run by people who’d never pop a cork with working stiffs. They were revolted by Augie’s effrontery. Their solution was one that has retained its financial force. Whether Heinze was bought out under duress, or sold out of his own volition in 1906 isn’t fully clear. What is known is that he returned to New York as a Wall Street plunger specializing in copper stocks. Using familial connections, and a personal fortune, Heinze got himself onto the boards of almost a score of NYC banks. When shares of United Copper were being shorted in a bear run, Fritz used his position to buy aggressively, borrowing heavily from the Knickerbocker Bank and other commercial lenders where he held sway.

By October of 1907 the Heinze brothers thought they had cornered the market in United Copper. They demanded the shares from traders who were contractually short – falsely believing the bears would be forced to buy from them. It soon became clear that these shares were not hard to come by. Heinze’s bullishness ended in catastrophic loss rather than profit. This meant that he would default on loans of millions from each of over 15 NYC banks.

The story, possibly apocryphal but true in effect, goes as follows. Knickerbocker was experimenting with 24 hour banking in 1907. The brainchildren of Wall Street met for dinner at an upstairs private dining room in Delmonico’s to discuss the coming cash crunch. Waiters for the event heard what was said in the meeting. They shared this knowledge with less connected patrons chowing down on the ground floor. A run on Knickerbocker began that night, by morning it had spread to every bank in town. The Panic of 1907 was instantly afoot.

Soon banks all over Gotham were out of cash to meet a seismic wave of withdrawals. In no time connected institutions from further out were tapped too. JP Morgan famously locked every player he could muster into his mansion’s library to discuss solutions. A plan was worked out and widespread depression was averted. But the financial hierarchy of south Manhattan was far from done. Their next step entailed placing the money supply and credit generally into the possession of elite governors.

This banking scandal ultimately resulted in the Federal Reserve Act that was passed December 23rd 1913. Whether it solved the problem or laid the foundation for larger ones has been debated since. Getting into the particulars of the statute became inconvenient with the legislature still in session so close to Christmas. ‘Fightin’ Bob LaFollette, gave in and failed to press for a more exacting bill he saw as necessary at the time. The ruckus over the bill’s details were mostly passed over as ‘conspiracy theory’ throughout the 20th century. That line held sway in economic academia for many decades. Scholarly reckoning always comes too late; there is little dispute the charter helped cause and make the Great Depression worse among “experts” today. We are commanded to defer to them with amps at 11. What they got wrong is reported by the same sources at about 2.5.

Left unexamined is why the Heinze brothers misunderstood who held what in United Copper in 1907. Why did they mistakenly believe they had cornered the market? These were highly educated, seasoned men in the world of finance. How far would William Avery Rockefeller Jr. go to settle a score with Fritz Heinze? Was he cleverly stashing available shares in ostensibly immobile accounts to set up an ambush? The first generation of the Rockefeller fortune was not known to take financial affronts lightly. Is it possible, or more likely probable, William Avery had the means and motive to manipulate the market into this unlikely position?

John D. Rockefeller Jr. married Abby Aldrich in 1901. Her father, Nelson Aldrich, was the driving senatorial force behind the Federal Reserve Act, although he left the Senate before its passage. The Rockefeller gang has been evangelizing the faith of centralization in everything for over a century. It started when JD Sr. practically accomplished that in the petroleum industry before the turn of the 20th century. If you think they were never capable of violent, gangland style treachery, fast your gaze on the Ludlow massacre of 1914.

Can we measure the effect of centralization in the financial sector? By 2013 it had almost doubled its share of the economic pie since 1980. When their take went from 5% to 9% in 40 years it had to come at a loss for others at the table. Did the Fed have a role in this? And what justification is offered for doubling the squeeze? As the economy grows so does the money industry’s cut, just as any salesman’s commission rises as the sales price is higher. Is South Manhattan insatiable? What explanation, other than parasitic predation, fits here?

The idea of market liquidity and available credit is efficiency and a fluent trading place for financial wares. Theoretically, this is competitive and brings transactional costs down while driving transactional fluidity up. Have we seen any such thing? The NYSE and kin have become like those “clubs” everyone is forced to join avoiding rip-offs for groceries, lunch, medicine, movies etc. The difference is that Wall Street’s anti-rip-off club is exclusive. You are not invited.

Where are we now? Exactly in the same place as when mobsters skimmed off the top in Vegas casinos, but far worse. The difference is that you get clipped without ever placing a bet or owning a share of a betting parlor. The south Manhattan mob is, supposedly, worth nearly 10% of all the action. What other slices of the take have widened with government intrusion and centralization? The mob focused its shakedowns on high rollers. Higher Ed goes after every kid hoping to drag letters behind his name. They call themselves “non-profits.” Does the description fit the beast?Disciplines of a Godly…Hughes, R. KentBest Price: $4.97Buy New $9.41(as of 01:52 UTC – Details)

Finding university administrators at leisure is not a job for Columbo. Just head toward any resort, high-dollar fleshpot or country club where profiteers do their squandering. Educational altruists, financial “experts” and well-heeled bon vivants occupy the same weekend turf – as well as the same self-serving sphere of self-justification.

The Rockefeller family was the largest private benefactor of that ultimate centralizing scheme, the UN. The patriarch, William Avery Rockefeller Sr., was an infamous snake oil salesman and bigamist. He’s not the Rocky the family likes to advertise. They are prouder of efforts to get around the principle of one-man-one-vote and rule the world from the modern equivalent of a royal court on a planetary scale. Make a list of plans to place more bosses overhead and move them further out of reach. The UN, CFR, WEF, Bilderberg, Trilaterals – you name it and the progeny of that greasy grifter is in on it. And who would they place in charge? The very soul-suckers with their fangs in the US neck pulsing at Wall and Broad.

We are not looking at an abstruse, undecipherable picture here. You can do differential equations, make “relative assumptions” and discuss monetary theory until you ascend to the meta-fiscal plane of Laputa. None of that supposed “understanding” leaves Joe Six-Pack with another square foot of living space or another Big Mac. Uber-economic organization, aka David Rockefeller’s so-called “more integrated world,” is a progressively feudalistic plot that – with the compliance of the un-fake-news industry – rarely experiences any setbacks.

Shrinking buying power has a very simple explanation: a prim and proper syndicate that is more ubiquitous and avaricious than any criminal mob ever.

The Future Isn’t Looking Too Good For Gen Z & Millennials … 2

California Cheese and Green Chile Shrimp Lasagna

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

Sauce

1 pound tomatillos, husked, washed and cut into quarters, or 2 (12 ounce cans), drained
2 large jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup coarsely chopped onion
2 cups cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 (7 ounce) can whole green chiles
5 Romaine lettuce leaves
4 green onions
6 garlic cloves, peeled

Lasagna

1 (8 ounce) package oven ready lasagna noodles (12 noodles)
12 ounces of Real California Panela cheese, shredded
4 ounces Real California Monterey Jack cheese shredded (about 2 cups)
1 pound cooked shrimp, cut in half lengthwise

Instructions

Sauce

In a blender or food processor, pulse the tomatillos, jalapeÃ±os and 1 1/2 cups cold water just until chunky.
Add onion, cilantro, salt, chiles, lettuce, green onions and garlic. Puree until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Lasagna

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish, spread 1 cup of the sauce. Layer 1/3 of the shrimp over the sauce. Place 3 lasagna noodles over the shrimp. (Noodles should not overlap or touch side of pan since they will expand when baked).
Combine shredded cheeses and sprinkle about 2 cups over the noodles. Repeat layering the sauce, shrimp, noodles and cheese two more times. Top with the remaining 3 lasagna noodles and spread remaining sauce over noodles. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove foil and bake until hot and bubbly, about 10 to 15 minutes more. Allow to rest for 10 minutes.
Cut into squares and serve immediately.

What’s the shrewdest, smartest maneuver you’ve ever seen in business?

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In Geylang, in Singapore between Lorong 8 and Lorong 24 – there were plenty of hookers and lady boys (transvestites) called BAPO who solicited clients

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Choo Chong Ngen, a 30 year old man gambled that Singapore would soon legalize all forms of prostitution and mandate safety for all the customers from STDs

So he purchased large swathes of land in the Land Auctions for a SONG

Nobody bid against him because nobody believed that land near prostitution areas wouldn’t rise in the slightest

By the late 1990s – CCN built Hotels, Shops, Goldfish bowls and Houses and sold them to businesses for a massive massive profit

The hotels roared with profits as the clients paid $ 20–30 for a 20 minute session which meant in 4 hours from 10 PM to 2 AM – a room could fetch 250 bucks which was more than the rate they charged in Hyatt or Marriott

I still marvel at how this guy managed to get ahead of legalized prostitution and mint so much money

I just got fired. Now my former boss (the one who let me go) is asking me where some important documents are. How should I respond?

I was fired by the owner of the company 30 days before I was to get a substantial bonus. The next week a person in my former department called me asking for help with an issue.

I texted them on their private phone that I knew the owner had them do that and that I was not trying to hurt them, but not helping the owner since I was shafted on my bonus.

30 minutes later I got a call from the owner saying if I would come in and fix the issue he would pay me for the day, I said pass, that I would fix the problem if paid for the month. He told me to go to hell.

The next day he called me back and said he would pay me for a week, I said no again, I would only come back if paid for a month.

He blew up again.

I knew if the issue wasn’t fixed very quickly the losses would add up. Two days later he had his secretary call and said he would pay me for a month but I had to get in there today.

I agreed only if a cashiers check was waiting on me when I walked in the door, because I knew the cheap bastard would stop payment on a regular check.

What the dumb SOB didn’t know was I was in the process of having him served on a wrongful termination suit and that paying me for a month constituted completetion of our contract and he would owe me the bonus.

I brought my attorney with me to the office, I picked up the check and went into the system and fixed the problem.

One other thing he didn’t know was that the issue was a recurring one that required attention and there wasn’t a universal fix, it would continue to come up and since I had no intention of giving the magic formula away I had created he couldn’t have someone else fix the issue.

End result I got my bonus plus all attorney’s costs which was equal to my previous year’s pay and he went broke trying to recreate a system I devised.

With me there after my bonus and raise, his profits would have been half a million a month, without me his losses were half a million a month. Greedy bastard never knew when he was ahead.

Shorpy

What was the most satisfying display of instant karma you have ever seen?

Some people like to kick the back of the seat in front of them when in a bus or airplane. A very, very nasty habit. Also a pretty safe one, as it seems people rarely turn around and ‘do something about it’. Even though that’s pretty much what you’re doing, isn’t it? You are broadcasting to the world: “I’m a major asshole, do something about it!”

Now imagine if you will, riding a bus. It’s one of those nice cozy night buses with curtains on the side of the windows that you can sleep in. You lean back a little and kick the back of the chair in front of you. No big deal, you do it all the time. Did it a million times before, and surely this won’t be any different. That weak little coward in front of you won’t say or do a thing, haha! You’re SUCH an alpha male, Lev!

Only this time, the president of your country, happened to ride the bus, incognito with a hoodie on to “experience how the common people ride buses”. Your country is Russia. The President’s name? Vladimir Putin.

Miss Margelene’s Silver Saloon

Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a magical realism story that takes place in the Wild West.… view prompt

Amanda Van Regenmorter

The town woke to discover Miss Margelene’s Silver Saloon had sprung up overnight, tacked onto the end of their only meager road in gaudy glory. The western-most, barely settled settlement of Gomer’s Gulch could only be considered a town in the most generous of estimates, but the people who lived there, mostly foolhardy prospecting men and a smattering of desperate families, called it a town all the same.They already had a saloon, of course; a handful of men camped anywhere long enough always sprouts one. Theirs was called Rabbit’s, the owner’s nickname, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was due to being such a dirty hole. Miss Margelene’s place, on the other hand, was the furthest you could get from Rabbit’s, figuratively speaking. Literally, it was two doors down. Rabbit’s was utilitarian: squat, flat-roofed, and barely held together by bent nails. Miss Margelene’s was downright beautiful, a sparkling shade of its namesake silver. The second story sported a gilded balcony over fluted columns, and everyone knew the name because it hung in big cursive letters, two feet tall, in front of the gabled roof.Dex rode in late that morning, the supplies he needed forgotten once he saw the silver saloon. Instead, he hitched up his horse and joined the crowd in front of Rabbit’s to speculate about their new neighbor. He stood out, a head taller and better washed than the others, but most mode room for him with a smile.“Rabbit, how much did I drink last night?” Dex asked.“Half as much as it’d take for a delusion like thissun,” replied Rabbit, who was short and squalid, like his bar.“And that’s iffen he didn’t water his horse piss down,” muttered someone.“This ain’t about my liquor!” said Rabbit. “Even kids can see that abomination. The question is how on earth those misfits got it up in a single day. Not even! Must’ve been lessun ten hours.”No one had an answer, but everyone knew which misfits he meant. In a town the size of Gomer’s Gulch, everyone knows every one of the comings and goings, let alone a coming as peculiar as last night’s. The caravan had arrived in the settling dusk, torches blazing up and down three covered wagons. Not covered with any old canvas either, but draped in rainbow arrays of silken cloth and garlanded with bells that tinkled with every step of the big black horses pulling them. They’d made camp just outside the town perimeter, dark figures tended horses and made a cook fire, but no townsfolk got close enough for a good look. When a band of ornery men decided to greet the newcomers, they turned back around with glazed expressions before they’d gone half way. Unable to elaborate, they simply said they’d changed their minds.“What in tarnation is that?” shouted a ruddy man riding in hard on a heaving grey horse. The man had a pointed beard, well-trimmed, and a six-point star on his chest, well-polished. His red-headed wife, Hannah, pale and pretty, was saddled behind him. While he dismounted and stared at the new saloon, Dex helped Hannah down and began with what little he knew.“Caravan came in last night, and -”“Shut your fool mouth,” the Sheriff said and spat at Dex’s feet. “And get away from my woman. You tryin’ to play at bein’ sheriff? Well you ain’t. You lost. Rabbit, what’s that building?”“Nobody knows, sir,” Rabbit said with a shrug. “Was here when we woke up.”

“What do you mean? Buildings don’t appear overnight – certainly not ones that fancy. Didn’t anyone hear them hammering? Don’t you sleep in your bar, Rabbit?”

“I do, but I didn’t hear a thing. Ain’t you s’posed to sleep in town too, sheriff? Keep your ear to the ground for trouble? Ain’t you s’posed to defend us from the bandits? They killed a woman last week -”

“Rabbits are the ones s’posed to keep their heads down, if they know what’s good for ‘em. Hows ‘bout the rest of you lumps? Anyone go in or out of that place? Who owns it?”

“No one’s been seen, but I have suspicions the owner is one Miss Margelene,” said Dex flashing a grin at the big sign, but he stepped away before his boots could be sullied again.

The sheriff scowled. He left his wife to tend the horse and stomped down to the new saloon. Dex, Rabbit and most of the men followed. Some children scurried along behind them.

The doors alone were taller than any other building in town and such a deep black they looked like an opening on a moonless night. The sheriff’s raised his fist, but it caught mid-air, hovered, before he gathered himself and pounded.

“This is the law! Open -” he demanded, and the doors opened, swung right out and swept the sheriff off his feet. He hit the dirt road hard.

No one laughed, not only because he might shoot, but because they were busy attempting to glimpse the interior while the black doors banged against the wall. It was more luxury than they’d ever seen, even the men from big cities. There were no windows, but long strings of lanterns bathed the big room in flickering light. The floors were herringbone parquet and the walls looked metallic, imprinted with crescent moons. There was a bar to the left, cabinets of exotic liquors and pewter mugs behind a carved wood counter with a smooth, stone top. There was a raised stage to the right with royal purple curtains. The heavy tables were ringed with upholstered red chairs.

In the back a woman descended from an unseen second floor down a grand staircase. The men doffed their hats and made futile efforts to brush off dust and straighten shirts, but every eye stayed fixed on her. She looked ageless and more elegant than the saloon with carefully coiffed black hair and a ruffled Victorian gown.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Miss Margelene,” she greeted, voice melodious. She had a lilting accent, but it was hard to say from where. “We didn’t intend to open until tonight, but apparently the law is impatient. Can I be of service?” She stood centered in the doorway.

“Yes’m, I, um – I have some questions as to how this here establishment was, um – established,” the sheriff mumbled, tugging his badge.

“Of course, I’m happy to answer – tonight, during the grand opening. For you, sheriff, everything’s on the house. Unless, that is, we’re violating any ordinances? I so hope we’ve met the standards set by your lovely settlement.”

“Standards! How’s about a standard of fair competition and -” Rabbit began, but the sheriff elbowed him and he cut off with a wheeze.

“No ma’am, tonight’ll do,” the sheriff said and donned his hat. “You heard the lady, ya buncha oglin’ buffoons. Grand opening tonight! Now git!” He shoved away the men and kicked a boy in the pants. The doors swung shut behind him.

###

Dex sped home, desperate to decide what to wear and scrub the ever-loving hell out of it. But more important, he had to tell Rowena everything.

Her modest ranch, home to the world’s finest horses in Dex’s estimate, lay a couple dozen miles south of the Gulch. He always figured the secret to Rowena’s success had to do with the fact that she herself was rather equine. Stately and athletic, even at her age, she never wasted a moment, but when her gray mane came down you could see the barely concealed wild streak. Dex grabbed an indigo shirt from his shack by the barn and hollered for Rowena while he filled her washtub and set to scrubbing.

“Lordy Dex, I know you like to be neat, but you washed your whole wardrobe last week!” she said, exiting the barn with her hair up and a saddle under one arm. “Where are the supplies? I appreciate you ran them bandits off last night before they rustled any horses, but they tore the fence terrible. Looks like one caught his leg though, there’s half a pair of pants hanging on the wire.”

Dex tumbled out the saloon story, and Rowena only interrupted to make him promise he hadn’t drank too much of Rabbit’s swill. Afterwards, he cajoled her to join him for the opening. She was busy, she said, and besides she hadn’t been to a saloon for five years, not since Fred passed, but Dex wouldn’t hear excuses. He hung his shirt to dry then pressed her until she agreed to go gussy up.

He readied the wagon. Rowena stepped out into the fading light of the half-set sun in an emerald pleated dress with earrings to match. He whistled until she clouted him in the chest.

“Shut it, purty boy. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”

“Pshaw, you can’t be a day older than my mother,” he assured her. “And anyway, we make a purty pair, don’t we?”

###

Their arrival marked the first time they’d seen traffic in Gomer’s Gulch. It looked like the land had dumped out all the dwellers in a hundred miles to mill outside Miss Margelene’s Silver Saloon. The big black doors were shut again, and the sheriff was on guard with a crisp white shirt, black leather vest and a freshly oiled beard.

“Don’t think you’re gettin’ in Dex, even with your grandma girly-friend dolled up like a hooker,” he said when he caught sight of them. “I’ll throw her out right on top of you iffen you even try to get in.”

Dex drew himself up every inch, ready to defend Rowena’s honor, but she stepped in front of him, laughing.

“Little Stanley Sherman, is that you? I ain’t seen you since Fred tossed you outta Rabbit’s that night, playin’ at being a man, tryin’ start a gunfight. O’course, that was back when you only had a few scraggly hairs on that little chin to cover all your pimples.”

The crowd welcomed the distraction from waiting for the doors to open, but Dex watched the sheriff’s holsters. He tugged Rowena shoulder, but there was no stopping her.

“My, oh my. Can’t say I missed you, but what a surprise it was to hear anyone voted you for sheriff. Almost as surprising as seeing you still have that ugly beard.”

That was the last straw, Dex knew, but just as the sheriff’s fingers twitched, those black doors swung open and knocked him down again, this time on his face. The crowd, Dex and Rowena included, flooded in around him.

There must have been a couple hundred men and a quarter as many women, but the silver saloon accommodated everyone with room to spare. Servers, women in black silk blouses and pink frilled skirts, worked the bar and the floor. On stage, a trio of ladies sang a ditty about a showdown at high noon. Dex thought they shared a resemblance, but maybe it was only their sly smiles.

He snagged Rowena a seat and moseyed to the counter, but before he ordered, he noticed the sad-eyed sheriff’s wife next to him.

“Hello Hannah. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a saloon.”

“Hi, Dex. Couldn’t miss this,” she said. Then barely loud enough to hear, she added, “You should watch out. Stanley won’t stop talking about you since the election.”

“All good things, I’m sure?”

“Look at you, grinnin’ like a weasel in a hen house,” said the sheriff, cocking the pistol he had aimed at Dex. “You ain’t never gonna be sheriff, and you ain’t never gonna get the time of day from my girl.”

Dex drew the fastest he’d ever done, but he saw the sheriff pull the trigger and knew he was a half-second too late. He tensed, but the shot didn’t come. Miss Margelene did, swept in between them, skirts swaying, and Dex was terrified she’d taken the bullet meant for him, but she didn’t flinch.

“Not tonight, gentlemen,” she said, handing each of them a drink. Dex took the mug in his free hand then realized he was no longer holding his weapon. He looked down to find it holstered as if he’d never drawn.

“Thank you ma’am,” Dex said, sure that he owed her for more than the drink. He took a swig and found it was good beer, but unlike any he had tasted. There were strange undertones, maybe mint, he thought. But most strange, he realized, it was cold. Very cold, like the mountain snow he’d crossed coming to Gomer’s Gulch. When he tried to ask her about it, he saw Miss Margelene was drifting off with the sheriff.

Hannah looked distraught, but a waitress was soothing her, patting her back, and Dex figured she was better off here than her home anyhow, so he went to find Rowena. He turned down a couple dance offers on his way, the trio had switched to a romantic ballad, and he circled a couple poker games before spying Rowena, slow dancing with the general store owner. Maybe she was working on a deal for those supplies, he figured, and tossed back his drink, but when they spun around he nearly choked. He’d never seen Rowena beam like that, like a dozen years had rolled right off her back. At this rate, she’d have a new man at the ranch, and Dex would never be so glad to be put out of work.

The night unfurled, and, even with the sheriff prowling around, Dex had never felt better. The trio sang one merry tune after another; drinks flowed, delicious and cold; and even deep in their cups he never saw a soul turn sour, or get thrown out for lack of funds. In fact, he didn’t see anyone leave at all. Even Rabbit laughed, coaxing the bartenders to tell him where the spirits came from. Dex chatted with all kinds, old friends and people he’d only ever tipped his hat to, and they said warm words and told him they had voted him for sheriff. Dex knew they were only being nice, but still it made him flush.

When a waitress with a sunny smile and yellow curls spilling over her black top pulled him away from a game of darts, he let himself be pulled into a whirling circle of fuddled men at the saloon’s center. Together, they tried to keep pace with the jig a smaller circle of waitresses danced in their midst. Every so often, the women would stop and spin the other way, forcing the men to follow. Boots caught and tripped over boots, but the men laughed and tried to stay facing their favorite gal.

While the circle coiled this way and that, one woman pulled a silver scarf out from her blouse and danced forward. She wrapped the scarf around a burly man in a checkered shirt, and swiveled with him back to the center. The men hooted and whistled, and then each girl was going out, wrapping herself a man with her own scarf.

Dex watched and whistled too, until one raven-haired girl fetched the sheriff. Dex stumbled but kept step. His gorge rose when she gave the sheriff’s beard a tug. The circles kept moving, outer going fast to keep up with the girls and their captives.

The fellows in the middle smiled wide, jumping with the girls, a couple ventured to put hands on hips, but Dex saw the sheriff stagger, look left and right.

“Wait, wha-?” the sheriff sputtered and slowed. “Why us? Why-”

The man in the checkered shirt shoved into the sheriff. The music was morphing, volume louder, tempo faster, key minor. Dex heard the women in the center murmuring, indiscernible, saw blurred faces everywhere. He couldn’t tell anymore if he was dancing or the room was spinning itself round.

The women in black threw up their scarves and each exploded mid-air, burst into confetti, rained silver specs down to scattered applause. That is, until the pops and bangs kept going, more and more bursts of confetti until it was thick in the air and no one could see a thing. There were screams and then yells of ‘Smoke!’

Black smoke, heavy and perfumed like incense, poured down the grand staircase. It filled the room and turned everything as dark as the doors, dark as a moonless night.

###

Dex woke to Rowena slapping him hard across the face. He coughed and sputtered back to consciousness in her relieved embrace as the sun rose over the well-dressed bodies laid out on the bare patch of ground that had been Miss Margelene’s Silver Saloon.

It was the children, terrified and crying, that had shaken their parents awake first. As the adults came around they helped others up, parched and unsteady.

Once Dex was on his feet, he sent some kids to fetch buckets of water and rations. Then he saw the commotion and the little crowd gathering. He pushed his way through and found the six scarfed men from last night, sheriff included, naked and hogtied in silver chains, laid out in their little circle. Some tried to free them, others just laughed. The men didn’t look injured, except the sheriff, and it didn’t take Dex long to realize the bloody gash down his leg looked like it might match right up to Rowena’s barbed wire fence.

While the six men stewed in the small town jail, Dex led the swift investigation that turned up enough stolen property to expose their identities as Gomer Gulch’s notorious bandits, as well as the suspicious duplicate ballot boxes in the sheriff’s possession.

However, he never did find the sheriff’s red-headed wife, Hannah. Neither she nor the silver saloon was ever seen again, but on moonless nights he dreamed of her, smiling on stage in a black shirt, singing about the life she left behind.

Cordon Bleu Lasagna

Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients

2 eggs, beaten
1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
1 cup (8 ounces) 4% cottage cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, divided
1 (16 ounce) jar roasted garlic Alfredo sauce
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
2 cups cubed cooked ham
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
6 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Swiss cheese

Instructions

In a large bowl, combine the eggs, ricotta, cottage cheese, Parmesan and 1/4 cup parsley; set aside.
In another bowl, combine the Alfredo sauce, chicken, ham and garlic powder.
Spread 1/2 cup of chicken mixture in the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Layer with half of the noodles and ricotta mixture. Top with half of the remaining chicken mixture and half of the mozzarella and Swiss cheeses. Repeat layers.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes.
Uncover; bake 10 minutes longer or until bubbly.
Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.
Sprinkle with remaining parsley.

Which is the biggest threat to peace – America or China?

Without a doubt, America is the biggest threat to world peace.

America has fought in dozens of wars and conflicts since China opened up to the world in 1979. China, on the other hand, has fought no wars at all — not a single shot fired!

America instigated the proxy war in Ukraine and is now trying to start another proxy war in Taiwan or Philippines.

China has proposed peace plans for both Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas. America has shot them both down.

America wants war. China avoids war.

Narcos – All Pablo Escobar Kills

Foraging in Summer as a young child

In the Summer of the 1960’s and into the 1970’s was a blur of kid activities. We would ride everywhere on our bicycles, and our parents would all have various activities for us to get involved in.

One of which was “blueberry picking”. And us kids, loved it.

We would go ahead and eat, and pick and put the rest in a bucket. Repeat, over and over.

Just spend hours picking the blueberries off the low bushes, and put them in the bucket.

Take the bucket home, and then wash.

Add cream and there you have it! The perfect Summer special treat for young boys and girls.

So very Summer.

These blueberry, blackberry, (and elderberry) bushes are everywhere in Pennsylvania. And getting those berries were a great deal of fun. It always was an all afternoon outing, and we were often taken to remote areas to collect those berries, and it was a great deal of fun for us kids.

It’s a treasured memory for me today, and you know as you get older, you just don’t ever get this opportunity UNLESS you go out to take your kids out on their very own outings.

Ah! Fun times.

Today…

What’s the most disrespectful thing a doctor/nurse did to you or your newborn after you gave birth?

Not me but to my aunt. Sorry, this was during birth but I decide to go ahead and post here.

During my aunt’s first 6 months of the pregnancy, she fell down 2 flights of stairs and had been taken to the hospital almost immediately as she had contractions but they sent her home with pills to stop the contractions. 8 months in and the baby tried to come out anyway, a quick trip to the emergency room we received a “You’ll be fine come back near the scheduled time.”

Two weeks later her water breaks and we rush to the hospital, her doctor is on vacation so we have a doctor sub in. This doctor quickly pissed off all the Nurses, the CRN, and the family. Did a quick test and said her water didn’t break, said we wasted her time, gave her no pain pills, and told her to eat some food and she’ll be okay.

1 hour later the baby starts to come out and the nurses rushed outside and panicked and we overheard them asking where the doctor was, “Where’s the bloody doctor?”

“She’s eating food and she said she’s not coming and she’s tired of ‘bitches faking'”. Now we’re all pissed off ready to send a complaint and sue the hospital and the doctor.

Finally, the nurse comes in starts her on the procedure, with the other nurse trying to get the sub-doctor or another doctor in the room. Then my aunt starts up a blood-curdling scream (Note that she couldn’t get any pain medication at this point) and the dreadful sound of “She’s losing too much blood!” and “The baby’s head is too big shes ripping a hole!” (I was scared having done no research or experiencing a birth before) finally, the sub burst in the door to take over delivering the baby and getting my aunt emergency surgery.

Let’s just say not only did we get compensation from the hospital, we sued twice.

1. The hospital for the birthing process and unprofessionalism.

2. The doctor for life endangerment, for abusing her license, and two more things I was told and forgot.

She lost her license, she has to pay for my cousin’s medical issues from the surgery. The hospital completely paid for the emergency surgery and we walked away satisfied.

How many countries can the Chinese withstand an attack?

From where?

From the Air – The farthest airbase cannot be more than 60 miles away right? That allows a rapid sneak attack into the airspace and out

That means Airbase or Aircraft carrier

That’s Philippines & Taiwan for Airbase and US and Japan for Aircraft carrier

You don’t expect Germany to send aircraft all those thousands of miles away do you?

From the water?

Again Japan, South Korea and US are the only possibility

India is a definite no no on the South China Sea

Too far from any Indian coastline

Okay for Maritime operations NOT FOR WAR

From the Land?

India has a border so India can make an incursion

Who else?

DPRK, Russia are not enemies

Nepal and Bhutan are way too weak

Nobody else

So worst case, the combined force against China would be :-

Aerial Air Force from US from Taiwan and Philippines
Naval Force from US, Japan and Korea along the South China Sea
Land Force from India

China has a decisive Army Group to ensure Indian Army can be countered

PLAN can easily take care of Japan and Korea

Taiwan and Philippines can be bombed to atoms in a few days

So ultimately it will be China vs USA and that’s how it will boil down to

WARNING | US Cities On Russia’s Nuclear Hit List

What are the most insane pictures of x-rays taken on people?

A collection of harrowing x-rays :-

Brutal X-ray of a man’s arm after a horrific meat grinder accident.

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X-ray shows a tear gas canister that fatally penetrated the skull of an Iraqi demonstrator during civil unrest in 2019.

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This chilling X-ray reveals the tragic end of Chen Liu, a 27-year-old man discovered in the marshlands near Sydney, Australia. He had been brutally murdered, with 34 nails shot into his body.

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In 2011, Leroy Luetscher, 86, fell on pruning shears in his yard, impaling his eye socket and neck. Despite the pain and injury, he managed to call for help. Doctors removed the shears and reconstructed his orbital floor, saving his eye.

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In 2020, the police released an X-ray image showing the severe injuries sustained by a young woman who was involved in a car crash while her feet were resting on the dashboard.

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In 2004, an X-ray showed a 5-centimeter nail in a South Korean patient’s skull. The man had a severe headache. Doctors at a Seoul hospital discovered the nail, which they believed had been there for four years after an accident, unknown to the patient.

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The X-ray image depicts the gruesome result of being shot in the elbow with a 12-gauge shotgun.

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This x-ray shows how a 16-year-old boy survived a violent incident where a 5-inch knife was impaled in his head during a robbery in London.

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In 2004, Isidro Mejia, a construction worker, had six nails embedded in his skull after a nail gun accident. Five were removed in surgery on the same day, and the sixth was extracted later, following a reduction in swelling. He survived.

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Source : X

Why do some Japanese think they are superior to Han Chinese?

Originally Answered: Why does such an overwhelming amount of Japanese think they are superior to Han Chinese?

Actually, just today I experienced something like superiority over Chinese from a Japanese.

A japanese customer of mine received his shipment late due to the Chinese National holidays. In his email to me, which I translated using google translate, it says

“You Chinese are only so so. Not efficient at all compared to us Japanese. There is no excuse for being late. We Japanese are always punctual. It is an insult to customers when we give excuse for being late. Chinese have a long way to go before they learn what it is to be at our level of existence.”

Now, firstly I’m not chinese, I’m Singaporean. I just operate from China that’s all. So I explain to him in my reply to him that I’m Singaporean and the delay is due to the Chinese National holidays where everybody is not working for a week.

His reply (which again is tranlated by google)

“So sorry for the misunderstanding. It must not be your fault then, I did not know you are not Chinese. I know Singaporeans are very professional. You would not have delayed the shipment if you do not have to. The chinese are really unbearable. It is so inefficient to have 1 week holiday. Japanese will never allow this to happen, it is a disgrace. Chinese is really only so so. It must be difficult for you to work with such people.”

At first my ego was tickled by the fact that by simply mentioning that I’m Singaporean, he thought otherwise. But then I truly felt insulted by myself for feeling like that. So my reply…

“Dear Sir, there is no excuse for such misunderstandings, it is an insult to me when you continue to practice such racism even in your reply. It makes me feels like a racist if I’m to agree with you on anything you mentioned.

As such, I would proceed to refund all monies paid by you to your account once the banks starts operating tomorrow. I will also proceed to stop the shipment from proceeding tomorrow as it is in our best interest not to deal with each other again.

Have a good life. “

So am I wrong? Or do some Japanese really does feel superior to the Chinese?

Anyway, a disclaimer, I don’t do this to all customers. I just took a look at his order which is less than 500USD and decided that I can afford to teach him a lesson. And now after I read Naoya Yamaguchi answer, I really felt better already. Thank you Naoya.

Cat Goes To Temple Every Day To Become A Buddha. You Won’t Believe What Happened To It

Shorpy

This next group is a handsome family…

What screams “I’m upper class”?

Years ago I worked at a psychiatric hospital in inner-city Chicago as a relatively-inexperienced RN.

While covering the adolescent unit overnight, I enjoyed listening to the stories told by two of our more seasoned and perceptive mental health technicians. These guys were physically imposing, youngish men of color who had grown up in the neighborhood and had pretty much seen it all, and usually more than once.

They found me intriguing for the same reason I found them to be so: Namely, that with my white middle-class small-town self, my first-person perceptions struck them as not simply different from their own but basically hilarious if not downright outrageous.🤭

They would often reminisce about growing up on the city’s south side, being mostly raised by a feisty grandma, getting whooped by this same 90-lb. grandma for doing crazy stuff that could have resulted in serious bodily harm or worse, and about eating bacon fat sandwiches for those last few days each month until grandma’s social security check came in.

Their impressions of white people were mostly informed by television sit coms and commercials, but also a roughly two-year stint they had done together at a sister psych facility on Chicago’s much-tonier lakeshore:

One night they related the story of a depressed and tearful adolescent boy who had confided during a unit group therapy session that he knew. KNEW. That his parents didn’t love him and in fact, had obviously NEVER loved him. His proof? On his 16th birthday his parents had gifted him with a brand-new Mercedes in his favorite color, blue.

Perplexed, one of my tech buddies had gently inquired of the boy how, exactly, this indicated his parents didn’t love him?

Between agonized sobs, the teen managed to choke out that he had wanted a blue BMW, not the BLUE MERCEDES BENZ!!

I don’t know if that screams upper class to everybody but it sure did to my workmates in that place and time.

Tortiglioni with Spicy Sausage Sauce

This recipe calls for only 6 ounces of meat, so it is good if want to cut down on meat in your diet. (I usually have to make meatballs in a separate sauce for MY family! LOL!)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped
1 pound ripe Italian plum tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2/3 cup red wine
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
12 ounces dried tortiglioni (or use rigatoni, penne, or ziti)
6 ounces spicy salami, rind removed (I sometimes use pepperoni)*
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, to garnish
Grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

Instructions

Heat oil and add onion, celery garlic and chili and cook gently, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, until softened.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, sugar, salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Lower heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add a few spoonsful of water occasionally if the sauce becomes too thick.
Meanwhile, cook pasta.
Chop the salami into bite-size pieces and add to the sauce. Heat through, then taste for seasoning.
Drain pasta and put into large bowl, pour sauce on top and toss to mix.
Scatter parsley on top and serve with grated cheese.

Notes

* Buy the salami in one piece so that you can chop it into large chunks.

What’s the most unprofessional thing a doctor has said to you?

I was 22 or 23 years old, married less than a year, when my husband, R., had his first gout attack. At the time I had long blonde hair and weighed about 100 pounds, so I looked like I was maybe 16 years old.

My husband went to his family doctor, who put him on two drugs. I’m a firm believer in asking doctors questions, so at R’s first check-up after going on the medications I asked for information about them. The doctor explained it this way:

“There are three drugs we use for gout. There’s one that we give to patients who are in the middle of a gout attack; it’s a powerful pain reliever and is one of the drugs I prescribed for R. He’s off of it now. The other two drugs are for maintenance. Since gout is caused by uric acid crystals in the blood stream we can treat it either by forcing the kidneys to remove more uric acid or by encouraging the body to produce less uric acid. I prescribed the drug that tells the kidneys to work harder.”

I thought about that for a moment, and then said “R. already has albuminuria (a marker of kidney problems); don’t you think it might be safer to use the drug that won’t cause further stress to his kidneys?”

Well, apparently this doctor wasn’t used to having his judgment questioned by the wife of a patient, or else he wasn’t used to having it questioned by a “mere girl,” because rather than actually considering my suggestion he decided to lie. He said, “R. has been on this drug for a month now and we know that it’s working. If I take him off of it, and it then turns out that the other drug won’t do the job for him, when I put him back on it he may have developed an allergy to it. And that would mean that there’s nothing we can do for his gout; the crystals will get into his organs and he’ll die horribly.”

It was the first time a doctor lied to me, so I didn’t recognize it as a lie; even now I only know that it was a lie because a good doctor who is also a friend has told me so. But at the time I accepted it and didn’t push the issue, a mistake I’ve never made again.

My husband died almost two and a half years ago, after discontinuing dialysis. I visited him in the nursing home every day, even after he stopped recognizing me. It isn’t a good way to go.

If I thought that doctor was still alive I don’t know what I’d do; it’s been too long to report him for malpractice (almost 50 years), but I will never forgive him for what he did to my husband.

Tongue

Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a magical realism story that takes place in the Wild West.… view prompt

Mike Garrigan

I had been walking in the desert for what seemed like days. I was thirsty. My radiator went kaput somewhere on I-10 last night. No cell reception out here. The desert night comforted me—beautiful stars and comet trails. But after the sun rose, the temperature shot up far too quickly. By the time the sun was directly overhead, my legs felt like rubber and my tongue was swollen.

In the distance, what looked like a town from the Old West arose. One dirt road split two rows of shabby buildings. “Water,” I said out loud to myself. I blinked five or six times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Mirages of water on the horizon had been fooling me all morning, but this looked different. A tumbleweed blew by. A vulture landed on top of a barrel cactus. A scorpion crawled up my leg and I brushed it away.

When I got to town, I pinched myself to make sure it was all real. A saloon with faint piano music welcomed me on the right and an empty sheriff’s office slept on the left. The saloon probably had water so I walked through its two swinging half doors. My tongue felt like it was the size of a shoe sole.

The saloon was empty except for a bartender with a long, white beard and a Victorian woman playing an upright tack piano. The woman’s song was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I’d heard it before. It didn’t sound like something you would hear in a saloon, though. It was almost a slow waltz, but the timing was complex, in three, then three, then two.

“Whatcha drinkin’, partner?” the bartender said.

“Wawa,” I said. My mouth wasn’t working.

“Haha,” the bartender said. “Looks like you got the thirst real good.”

The bartender pulled out a vanity hand mirror and handed it to me, pointing at my tongue. My tongue was the size of a saucer, inflamed and inflated like a balloon.

“The name’s Smitty,” the bartender said. “I reckon you prolly want some water. Water ain’t cheap out here, sonny. It’ll cost you. Cost you big.”

I pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my wallet and offered it to Smitty.

“You’re money ain’t no good here,” he said. Smitty pulled a pint glass down from the shelf and poured some clear, crisp, water into it from a barrel that had a tap. He placed the glass in front of me. I reached for it. He pulled it away.

“Hold on, now. I’ll give this here water to you, but you have to promise to do me a favor,” Smitty said.

“O-way, o-way,” I said.

He gave me the glass and I poured it straight into my throat and into my belly. A few seconds later, my tongue shrunk and I felt much better.

“Thank you, Smitty,” I said, panting in relief.

“Charlene plays the piano real nice, don’t she?” Smitty said.

“Why yes,” I said.

“Charlene’s in trouble, see,” Smitty said. “I’m gonna call in that favor today if it’s all the same.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I need you to shoot Terrible Ted for me,” Smitty said.

I felt my stomach hit the floor, not literally, like my tongue probably would have had I not gotten some water.

“I can’t shoot nobody,” I said.

“Well then, I ain’t givin’ you no more water,” Smitty said. I felt my tongue begin to tingle again. It swelled ever so slightly.

“And if I shoot Terrible Tim—”

“Ted”

“Terrible Ted. What then?”

“You can put your mouth on this here tap spigot for all I care. All the water here is yours,” Smitty said.

“What about the Sherriff? Won’t I get thrown in jail for shooting someone?”

“Nope,” Smitty said.

“How do you know?” I said.

“Terrible Ted done shot the sheriff. And now, he want’s to make off with my Charlene.” Charlene continued with her odd, cut time waltz.

“I ain’t got a gun, Smitty.”

Smitty unbuckled a belt and holster from his waist and put the bundle of revolver and bullets on the bar. “Here you go,” he said.

“Where do I find, Ted?”

“He’ll be here at sundown.”

“What does he look like?”

“You can’t miss him. Big, tall, dresses in all black. You know, how you’d expect someone named Terrible Ted to look.”

“What is this place?” I said.

“Tiny Town.”

“Wha—”

Suddenly, my tongue began to swell and I couldn’t speak.

“Yeah, you prolly have a ton of questions, like “Is this real?,” “Why is my tongue getting so big?,” “Why is Charlene playing Radiohead?”

“Waydiowed!” I pushed out. My tongue was getting fatter by the minute.

“Yeah, I don’t care for them that much. Singer sounds like a drowning cat. She likes that there ‘Pyramid Song,’ so I like it, too. Bout all she plays, anyway.”

“What wime wis it?” I asked.

“3:30. You got ‘bout an hour and a half till showtime.”

“Oh wime?”

“Ted.”

“Oh.”

I wandered out of the saloon and onto Main Street. A tumbleweed crossed my path. My tongue hurt. If I strained my eyes, I could see the swollen end of it in my lower field of vision. A vulture landed on a hitching post to my right. It squawked at me. I sat in a rocking chair on a porch not a few yards from the saloon. A scorpion ran across my pant leg and I brushed it off. I fell asleep.

I awoke to the sound of a slow pile driver banging in the distance. My swollen tongue made it difficult for me to turn my head. My tongue was the size of an inner tube and hung down below my belt.

When I did catch a look at the pile driver, it wasn’t a pile driver. It was a twelve foot tall man, dressed in black, walking slowly and heavily into town.

“Teywible Ted,” I tried to say.

Ted made his way to the middle of the street on the other end of Tiny Town. The town proper was maybe fifty yards end to end, so he wasn’t too far from me.

Terrible Ted stood in the middle of the street with his hands about six inches from his side. From where I sat, he looked like a cross between just about every western character you could imagine. His head was square like John Wayne’s. He was scruffy like Buford Mad Dog Tannen. His build was like Clint Eastwood, but twice as large.

“Draw!” Terrible Ted said.

I jumped up from my chair, walked to the road, and turned to face Terrible Ted.

My tongue throbbed of fire. It hurt so badly that I would have gladly shot Ted just to make it all stop. From the sight of things, Ted was going to shoot me anyway. I’d might as well try to defend myself.

“Draw!” he said.

I pulled the revolver from my side belt and pulled the trigger. My shot landed ten feet in front of Ted.

Ted pulled his revolver and shot me. His bullet hit my tongue, but the bullet bounced off of it. While the throbbing continued, the impact of the bullet was insensate.

“Draw!” he said.

I fumbled the revolver from my side and took a shot. This time, the bullet was closer, but hit short, just in front of Ted’s black boots.

Then, Ted shot me again in the tongue. I felt nothing.

Before he could say “draw” again, I pulled the revolver up with both hands, lined Ted up in my sights as well as I could, and pulled the trigger. This time, I shot him right between the eyes. He fell backwards and hit the ground with a resonant thud. I twirled the revolver around my finger, like they do in the movies, but I didn’t know how to land it in my holster.

My tongue was on fire and nearly dragging on the ground now. I went into the bar. Smitty was gone. Charlene and her tack piano interpretation of Radiohead were also gone. I put my mouth under Smitty’s water barrel and pulled the spigot. Water cascaded into my mouth. My tongue began to shrink. I kept drinking. The barrel seemed to never run out. I kept drinking. Then, I passed out.

I awoke to a splitting headache. The fluorescent lights didn’t help. The walls were white and the room was cold. My tongue hurt like it was on fire, but in stead of being a big fat inner tube hanging from my mouth, it was just a little swollen and wrapped in a bandage.

“Mr. Simmons, you’re awake,” a soft, pleasant voice said from the hall.

“Tharlene?” I tried to say.

“Yes, I’m Nurse Charlene. I will let Dr. Smith know you are awake.”

“Wha’ happen?”

“You were stung in the tongue by a scorpion,” she said.

“And, lucky to be alive,” Dr. Smith said. He swept into the room, grabbed the medical chart, and scratched his well groomed white beard.

“That bandage on your tongue can come off tomorrow,” he continued.

“Wher ‘m I?” I tried to say.

“Desert Town Medical. Highway patrol found your vehicle thirty miles south of here. A construction crew laying tar saw you wandering around, delirious. Another hour and you would have been done for.”

“Sorpion?” I asked.

“Yeah, only one critter leaves a sting like that. Had to be a scorpion. Never seen one prick someone in the tongue, though. Must a felt like your tongue was the size of Idaho. You probably hallucinated a bit, too.”

Before I could attempt to speak, Dr. Smith continued, “We’ll keep you over night and then send you on your way.”

“Buh—”

“Your car? We towed it here for you. Mechanic said it just needed some coolant. Topped you off, too. He’ll send you a bill for the tow and tune up. We’re glad you’re alive son.”

My head spun. Nurse Charlene and Dr. Smith left the room. Moments later, Charlene returned with some water and a few pamphlets. “Here’s some light reading for you, if you’re up for it. Sorry we don’t have a television.”

One pamphlet read: “The History of Desert Town: From Tiny Town to the Best Kept Secret in the Desert.” The pamphlet showed Tiny Town, as it appeared to me, from the saloon, to the dirt road through the middle.

I drank the water, felt my tongue’s bandage on the roof of my mouth, and was grateful to be alive.

The next day, I drove on. On the way out of town, I passed a road paving crew. Their large black tar machine had broken down. “Terrible Ted” was spray painted on its rear.

Is China powerful enough to invade the Philippines? How long would it take for the Chinese to land their feet in Manila?

Hi Don Wynn. Since you ask a naive question, it is better that i give you a naive answer. Actually China scare the hell out of Philippines during the recent confrontation with chinese coast guards only armed with axe ( presumably to prevent suicides of filipinos soldiers) to confront filipino soldiers fully armed with rifles who refuse to shoot but instead surrender their rifles to the chinese coast guards.

After a week, a Philippines trawler exploded and sunk in Chinese water. Fisherman was saved but not arrested and hand over the survivors back to Philippines.

Literally means that China is not interested in colonising Philippines but only claim what belongs to the chinese as compare to America that colonised Texas, Hawaii, Guam, etc and now most likely Philippines.

Trump’s program for America, end of globalism

The Duran

Why is the US doing such a bad job countering China’s rise?

The United States’ inadequate response to China’s rise is nothing short of a geopolitical blunder, driven by fear, misinformation, and a Cold War mentality that is both outdated and counterproductive.

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The reality is that America’s attempts to counterbalance China have been fundamentally flawed because they are based on misperceptions and misguided strategies, failing to recognize the true dynamics of China’s growth and influence.

At the core of the U.S.’s ineffective approach lies a significant misunderstanding of modern China. The American narrative, largely shaped by the media, often portrays China as an oppressive, backward nation on the brink of collapse, rife with human rights abuses and economic instability. This skewed perception leads to policies based on fictional threats rather than the real, evolving landscape of a rapidly advancing China. Operating under these misconceptions ensures that the U.S. is often preparing for battles that do not exist while neglecting the actual areas where China excels.

One area where U.S. strategies have particularly fallen short is technological competition. In its bid to restrict Chinese access to advanced technologies, the U.S. has inadvertently spurred China to double down on self-reliance and innovation. Efforts to curtail entities like Huawei have backfired, with China making significant strides in fields like 5G, AI, and quantum computing. The launch of the Huawei Mate 60, with its domestically-produced 5G chip, serves as a testament to how U.S. actions have often spurred China’s technological advancements instead of stalling them.

The economic interdependence between the U.S. and China adds another layer of complexity. Despite attempts to sever ties and decouple the economies, the sheer scale of trade and investment links makes this next to impossible without causing significant harm to both sides. U.S. industries, from agriculture to tech, are deeply integrated with China, and measures like tariffs and sanctions often backfire, harming American businesses and prompting severe pushback. This economic entanglement means that any attempt to counter China must be meticulously calculated to avoid mutual economic downfall.

Globally, the U.S.’s attempts to isolate China have frequently missed the mark. China continues to bolster its influence through initiatives like the Belt and Road and expanding its reach within organizations like BRICS. These efforts have allowed China to create strong economic and diplomatic ties, countering U.S. attempts at isolation and even attracting nations traditionally allied with the U.S. to engage more with Beijing for economic and strategic benefits.

Back home, the United States faces its internal challenges that further impede its ability to effectively respond to China’s rise. Issues like political polarization, economic inequality, and a lack of coherent industrial policy hinder America’s global competitiveness. While China focuses on coordinated, long-term investments in infrastructure, technology, and education, the U.S. is often stuck in partisan gridlock, lacking the collective focus needed for such bold initiatives.

The U.S. military-industrial complex also exacerbates this situation. Driven by vested interests in perpetuating conflict narratives, this complex steers the U.S. towards military solutions over diplomatic and economic engagement. The legacy of a Cold War mentality, fueled by defense contractors and hawkish policymakers, perpetuates hardline stances that ultimately isolate potential allies and destabilize international relations.

Furthermore, efforts by the U.S. to persuade its allies to decouple from China have seen limited success. Countries with significant economic ties to China, like Germany and France, resist pressure to align too closely with U.S. demands, prioritizing their economic interests over geopolitical maneuvering. These nations understand that a balanced approach with both global powers often yields better outcomes, highlighting a divergence in interests that complicates U.S. strategies.

Ultimately, the U.S. needs a fundamental shift in how it perceives and engages with China. Strategies based on misinformation, fear, and outdated Cold War thinking are doomed to fail. To effectively navigate China’s rise, the U.S. must first acknowledge the realities of China’s strengths and aspirations. Only by understanding this true China can America develop policies that are responsive and constructive, fostering global stability and mutual growth rather than ongoing contention and rivalry.

ACDC – It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock N Roll (Extended)

Rockin’ them bagpipes.

Why do European people stop traveling to the USA?

A few years ago my family and I were eating at JFK. My daughter was in a chair, my two year in a stroller. Out of nowhere an airport cop came up screaming that I needed to strapy child into the stroller and now! This was apparently a very dangerous thing, a kid sitting in a stroller doing nothing but looking about at people passing.

Due to the imbalance of power and not wanting to miss my flight I didn’t point out that (a) I am the parent not her, (b) I decide (c) I didn’t need my kid or family to be shouted at, a simple discussional tone would have worked (d) she could genuinely go fuck herself and she really left us thinking, fuck this place we’re outta here.

I like the US, but have no idea why anyone with a uniform can’t just act like an adult and not a completely paranoid schizo.

Dog rescue

Rigatoni with Olives and Bacon

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

6 slices bacon
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
8 ounces dried rigatoni (or other small pasta)
12 pitted and chopped cured black olives (such as Kalamata)
1 to 2 ounce piece Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped marjoram or thyme (optional)

Instructions

In medium skillet, cook bacon until crisp (reserve drippings); blot, coarsely chop and set aside.
In bacon drippings, sauté onion until soft and just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions, drain and transfer to warm serving platter or large shallow bowl.
Toss pasta with bacon, onion and olives. Season with salt and pepper to taste; toss again.
Use a vegetable peeler to cut the Parmesan cheese into thin shavings.
Sprinkle the cheese over the pasta and top with the fresh herb, if desired.

If Trump believes that Taiwan is not worth fighting over, and most Taiwanese are against fighting China, what are the options for the DPP-led government in Taiwan?

Lay low until Trump is done then wait for another US President who wants to make trouble for China.

But no matter what, it won’t make any difference. Taiwan is part of China and nothing the US can do will change that. And since the US isn’t willing to kill a bunch of US soldiers to try and take Taiwan, the Separatists are a lost cause.

Even if the US by some miracle wins, China can take it back in 10 years. After all the US can’t move Taiwan.

It was a lost cause from the beginning. It was always something the US used to harass China. Try to weaken China, somehow. It hasn’t worked by has made the US look like a bully.

The timing of the Battle of Midway; 6 months after Pearl Harbor.

The battle against Japan turned within a year after the war started.

Sketches and art

Liberal democracy is not suitable for big nations. it has already been proven :

UK with just 68M people is rotting away…. It is a mess today.

US with just 342M people is also rotting away…. It is a bigger mess today.

India with 1.45B people is full of political promises to be this and that but they can’t get their act together for ages………

In contrast, China with 1.42B people is progressing in leaps and bounds in growing their economy, transforming their style of governance to a socialist democracy with their own unique characteristics, advancing in all fields of advanced technologies, alleviating abject poverty, implementing common prosperity measures….. Nationalism is key, not individualism!

I think Democracy works for small nations less that 15M people and liberalism have to be curtailed. If it is not based on meritocracy, it will DEFINITELY fail altogether. How can a leader who is not meritocratic be an elected leader of people who are smarter than him?

What are man’s greatest fears?

Just the other day I read a story of the ship the Britannia, which had been sunk by the Germans in 1941. So picture this… 249 men are dead and your ship lost. You’re floating on the South Atlantic. Everywhere you look around you, you see nothing but this vast mass of water… a man named Raymond Edmund Grimani Cox, a Lieutenant, was in a small boat with some other soldiers, having survived the disaster.

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And then a giant arm comes out from the side of the boat. An enormous slimy tentacled arm, and another, and another… they’re several meters long, thick, and covered in huge tentacle suckers. Lieutenant Grimani Cox is grabbed by one of the monstrous arms, and left profusely bleeding even after he manages to stab it repeatedly until it lets him go. Another one of his friends isn’t so fortunate — he’s lifted in the air, then dragged kicking and screaming down in the deep with the monster. One moment he’s there, shouting, fighting for dear life… and then, he isn’t. He’s gone. The giant squid is gone, too. All that’s left is the wounded men, the battered boat and that enormous ocean, now deadly quiet…

There’s hardly anything as scary in this world than the ocean, and the monsters that lurk in its deepest depths. Whales have been found with the scars of enormous squid tentacles, scars that, by their size, suggest specimens far larger than any of the creatures ever discovered and measured with human eyes. Nothing on God’s green earth frightens me more intensely.

Lavrov’s Bold Speech at the UN Causes Shockwaves Globally!

Is it true that China is the only ancient civilization that continues to this day? Or is it only recognized by Chinese themselves?

To China and Chinese, civilization is indicated by writing. Without writing, a culture can’t be a civilization. The Chinese word for civilization is 文明, literally “to understand the written word” or “the written word brightens”. This is why Chinese people believe that Chinese civilization is the last remaining continuous cradle of civilization in history, as it’s the only cradle of civilization whose writing has not been abandoned.

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Archaeological site of the Shang palace

In the world, the known cradles of civilization are:

Sumer: Cuneiform abandoned, later to be rediscovered and needed to be deciphered by a European (Georg Friedrich Grotefend)
Egypt: Hieroglyphs abandoned, later to be rediscovered and needed to be deciphered by a European (Jean-François Champollion)
Harappa: Harappan script abandoned and still undeciphered, whose civilization was first rediscovered by a European (John Marshall)
Mesoamerica: Mesoamerican scripts abandoned, later needed to be deciphered by Europeans (mainly, the Mayan script was deciphered by Yuri Knorozov)
Peru: Peruvian quipu abandoned, still undeciphered, but quite controversial as many don’t consider quipu to be a writing system
Minoan: Minoan scripts abandoned, only deciphered Linear B, but quite controversial as many don’t consider Minoan civilization to be a cradle of civilization, but was instead influenced by Egypt and Mesopotamia

Meanwhile, the Chinese script has yet been abandoned, but merely evolved over time. The Shang dynasty, whose oracle bones were rediscovered by Chinese archaeologist Luo Zhenyu, had the same writing system as modern Chinese, just evolved in forms, meaning texts in oracle bones can be fully rendered in modern Chinese script.

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Oracle bone of the Shang

In fact, the Shang script was so developed in its form that it could not have sprung up over night. There must’ve been a predecessor to it, and many believe that earlier dynasties had already used a form of proto-writing (which later evolved into Shang script). Archaeologists have discovered many symbols dating to as early as 6000 years ago with forms resembling the Shang script.

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Using oracle bone script to render Tang dynasty poetry

So if you consider writing systems as the litmus test for civilizations, then yes, China is indeed the last continuous cradle of civilization on earth. Also notice how I said “cradle of civilization” and not civilization, because that’s how Chinese say it. Secondary civilizations whose writing systems were adopted from someone else like Japan, Rome, Aztec, Kush, Greece, Akkad, Persia, etc. are not considered in this category.

To those who argue against it, what do you consider the litmus test for a continuous civilization?

Some of my latest art

My prompt for this AI generation group is;

Create a anatomically-accurate, photo realistic, Baroque-style oil painting. two soft and feminine attractive Chinese woman are on a clipper ship, lounging next to a handsome muscular man. 

They are drinking wine and eating grapes . in front of them is Dionysus the Greek god . wine, and pleasure. He is enticing them on. 

the god Faunus is laughing, and everyone else is smiling and blessing the scene. 

the woman's skin radiates in warmth and glows softly. bright light. beautiful day. lush colors. a hint of chiaroscuro that contrasts the light sun lit portions with the shadier sections.

I used [1] the Albedo base XL (fine tuned) generation model, with [2] the”Digital Painting” element seed. Some also were also additionally modified using [3] the “Prompt Magic” plug in. But the results were not worth the cost in “chit usage”.

This resulted in many nudes or partial nudes. This is directly attributed to the use of the “Digital painting” element seed.

When I added the “Prompt Magic” plug in, they became fully clothed, but also lost some of the “fresh innocence” look that I was striving for.

Resulting in some of these amazing images…

High quality, but slow loading. Sorry.

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(41)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(33)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(34)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(32)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(33)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(37)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(38)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(31)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(32)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(36)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(30)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(36)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(34)

@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(30)

@aer Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(21)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(22)

@@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(20)

My idea is to select a few of these and then paint them in oils on a nice canvas. What do you all think?

Is it true that the US blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and not Russia as alleged by the EU?

The Swedish Navy knows who did it. They won’t tell you who it was, though, and they probably don’t have the first clue why.

Here goes:

Thursday, September 22nd: Swedish naval vessels leave the naval base at Karlskrona. Transponder data says they went to a few km east of the place where the gas leaks were later detected. There, the transponder was turned off.

Friday, September 23rd: Transponders are turned on a few km west of the later gas leaks. Vessels go to the nearby port of Simrishamn, return to the site of the later gas leaks. Transponders turned off again.

Saturday, September 24th: Transponders turned off close to the second gas leak site. Vessels round the Danish island of Bornholm. When close to the first gas leak site, transponders are turned off again.

Sunday, September 25th: Transponders turned on. The vessels are now close to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, where the Russian Baltic Sea fleet has a base.

Monday, September 26th: KABOOM. According to experts, explosive charges might have been laid down in advance and detonated remotely.

Transponder data can be faked, and has been in the past. This time, though the Swedish Armed Forces have verified that they had vessels at those places at those times.

Now, what could possibly have happened here?

Maybe, just maybe, they got indications of unusual underwater activity, went to investigate, and followed a submarine to Kaliningrad.

Rest assured that NATO has a more complete picture than this.

A 1990s preview of what Social Media will bring.

These old MVs are like a time machine.

Snap! – Rhythm is a Dancer

What is the average lifespan of an electric car? Are there any common issues with electric cars, such as high maintenance costs or expensive battery replacements?

We don’t know yet. But initial indications are that electric vehicles (EVs) will outlast gas mobiles.

The Nissan Leaf became available in 2011 and the Tesla model S in 2012 in limited numbers. There are now (as of 2024) more than 40 million EVs in the world. There simply has not been enough time to determine the real world lifespan of EVs. There are lots of projections and evidence that they will average more than 15 years. But no hard numbers.

The average lifespan of a gas mobile is 12 years and 200,000 miles (322,000 km). Fifty years ago cars were considered to be junk if they reached 100,000 miles. So, the automobile industry is clearly getting better at vehicle longevity.

The major concern with respect to EVs is the lifespan of the high voltage battery pack. Electric motors clearly have a far longer lifespan than a gas engine, typically 15 to 20 years. The drive train of an EV is also much simpler and expected to last 15 to 20 years. There is no automatic transmission or clutch for an EV, just a reduction gear to reduce the speed of the electric motor to the speed needed for the wheels. So, no shifting of gears and fewer mechanical parts to wear out. The electric motors are variable speed, they directly drive the wheels via the reduction gear. EV electric motors have about 20 moving parts compared to about 2000 for a gas engine.

The US federal government requires EV manufacturers to offer an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on all EV batteries. This law was actually implemented at the request of the EV manufacturers, they know new buyers are worried about the longevity of the battery pack. Tesla warranties both th

e battery pack and drive train for 8 years.

An EV battery should not be compared to a smartphone battery. Both use lithium batteries but the EV battery is temperature controlled (in most cases with a liquid coolant and heat pump). Heat is the enemy of all lithium battery chemistries.

Another big factor is that not all of the capacity of an EV battery pack is made available for driving. You will see a state of charge (SOC) indicator on the dashboard that goes from 0% to 100% but that is probably only about 90% of the true battery capacity. EV manufacturers don’t publish specs for this, it’s a grey area they don’t want the public to know about. So, if you run an EV down to 0% you will probably get another 10 or 20 miles of range but when it finally does stop moving you will notice that the lights and display and power windows still work. The battery is not really at 0% SOC and that helps the longevity of the battery.

In addition to that, most EV owners don’t charge above 80% or let the SOC drop below 20% for daily use. For road trips it’s okay to charge to 90% or 100% and let the SOC drop to around 10% before charging. But don’t do that for daily use.

The available data for Teslas indicate they lose about 2% of capacity the first year and 1% each year after that. So a loss of 11% after ten years. Not a big deal but something to consider since EVs have much less range than a gas mobile.

Gas mobiles have had over 100 years of research and development and EVs have had less than 15 years (the electric cars powered by lead acid batteries don’t count). EV batteries are getting better every year, they provide more range and charge faster, and the cost of the battery packs is dropping steadily. The longevity of the battery packs is increasing too.

The big news lately for EV batteries is something called Lithium iron phosphate (LFP, sometimes abbreviated LiFePO4). They are being installed in less expensive, shorter range EV models. The Teslas manufactured in China all have LFP batteries. If you want a long-lived EV you might be better off going for the cheapie model. LFP batteries have 3 to 5 times the longevity of nickel based lithium batteries like NMC and NCA. The expectation is that they will last 1,118,000 miles (1,800,000 km) until battery capacity drops to 80%. Of course you can still drive an EV that has lost 20% of its capacity, you just have less range. The downside of EVs with LFP battery packs is shorter range and poor cold weather performance.

It will take several more years before it is clear which EV manufacturers have the best reliability and longevity.

My Awful, Cheating Ex Is Toothless & Living In A Tent, While I Am Now Living The Dream

Waffle House Jonesin’

I’ve been a dreaming about Waffle House.

From Wikipedia;

Waffle House, Inc. is an American restaurant chain with over 1,900 locations in 25 states in the United States.^[4] The bulk of the locations are in the Midwest and especially the South, where the chain is a regional cultural icon.^[5] The menu consists mainly of Southern breakfast food.^[6] Waffle House is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, in the Atlanta metropolitan area.^[7]

Waffle House is sort of the “McDonald’s of breakfast restaurants” in the United States. Instead of providing “fast food” it provides basic egg breakfasts and coffee.

These restaurants are clean, well lit, and open all the time; 24-7.

I used to go in and get two eggs, over easy with rye toast and chicken-fried steak and gravy. Of course, with a great cup of coffee.

Ah. Not the best meal, but a fine comfort meal.

And you know, every now and then I could really use a fine comfort meal.

Don’t you know.

Waffle House Jonesin’ that’s MM today.

In honor of something that I cannot get at the moment…

Waffle House, a visit to the United States is NOTHING unless you have a meal at the Waffle House.

Today…

Bacon and Tomato Pasta

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons kosher salt
16 ounces spaghetti pasta
1 pound thick-cut bacon or pancetta, chopped
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup red onion, diced
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
3 tablespoons garlic, minced
2 cups Roma tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup red wine
4 tablespoons basil, chiffonade
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

In a large stock pot, boil 3 quarts of water, when boiling add 2 tablespoons kosher salt and the pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente.
In a large sauté pan over medium heat, add bacon and sauté until bacon is crispy. Remove bacon to drain on a paper towel-lined plate and remove 3/4 of the bacon fat from the pan.
Add extra-virgin olive oil, onions, and red chili flakes. Cook until onions are translucent, add garlic, cook for 2 minutes then add tomatoes. Sauté for 5 minutes, then deglaze with wine.
Drain pasta and add to the tomato mixture pan. Add basil and bacon. Toss with Parmesan, and add salt and pepper, to taste.

Will jobs that moved to China be brought back to the US as President Trump promised?

My friend’s company is producing a product and they use a factory in China to make it. They have had some really annoying issues come up with the factory. For example the factory doesn’t follow the specs and communication is challenging. Most recently the product got stopped by customs and that was a big headache. I asked my friend why they don’t just use an American factory to build what they need. His answer, it costs FIVE TIMES more to have a factory here do the exact same work. The company is a small start up with a tight budget, they simply cannot afford to work with US manufacturers. I don’t see what President Trump could possibly do to change that reality.

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

Long story…. Reads like a soap opera… but 100% real.

I worked for a small city police department. I was rapidly climbing the chain for a promotion to detective. There was one other officer also in the running. We got along together but we had different personalities and abilities. His biggest advantage being he was very affable while mine was being dogged. Another bit of important information is that the Chief Detective’s father was also the Mayor of the city and the Chief of Police reported directly to him.

One day I respond to a call involving a woman (heroin addict) who had previously been indicted for extorting an old man. The court had issued an order for the woman to not have any contact with the man while the case was pending. The man’s family brought a voice-mail recording of the woman calling the old man. When I went to speak to her, I found her apartment door open and furniture overturned. Thinking the woman was possibly endangered, I entered the apartment to check her safety only to find nobody home. As I excited the apartment, the woman was found running through the back yard of the complex to the back door of her apartment. After speaking to the woman and finding she was not endangered and also after warning her about contacting the old man, I cleared the scene and returned to the police department. The next day, I’m informed the woman filed s complaint against me for entering her apartment without a warrant. I speak to the Chief of Police and advise him of the exigent circumstances and everything appears to be resolved.

A week later, in working a weekend and the Chief of Police calls me on station. I’m betting served disciplinary papers for “dishonesty” which carries a 3 day suspension. I refuse to sign the disciplinary papers and tell the Chief I haven’t lied about anything and request a hearing on the matter. The Chief tries to negotiate with me to accept a 1 day suspension instead of 3 to which I refuse since I haven’t lied. The following Monday, the Mayor (remember he’s the Chief Detective’s father) meets with me. He decides the complaint against me was unprovable but that since he found a spelling error on my report involving the heroin addict contacting the old man, he is changing the complaint against me to a simple warning for paperwork error.

A month later, two officers get into an argument while I’m the shift supervisor. One of the officers is a female who has a history of having sex with other officers. After calling everyone down and thinking the issue between them had passed, a week later in told a complaint had been filed against me and the make officer who was arguing with the female officer. I’m told the complaint is “bullying” the female officer.

A week later, the Chief calls me into his office to serve me disciplinary papers claiming the bullring complaint was warranted. As I read the disciplinary papers, I notice the Chief Detective conducted the investigation against me. I chuckle and ask the Chief how the Chief Detective could be unbiased since it was common knowledge he was sleeping with the female officer. A week later, my discipline was changed to a paperwork error warning (to which there wasn’t one) at the direction of the Mayor.

It was then that I began to really question what was happening and the apparent bullseye on my back. I began looking for a new job while hoping I could weather the apparent storm that was brewing for me.

A month later, I’m told a different female drug addict in town had filed a complaint against me claiming I had propositioned her for sex. I was confident I could dispute the claim but it was apparent something was occurring to try to get me fired. I ended up getting another job offer that week and turned in my resignation. I was then told the woman had withdrawn her complaint.

Fast forward 3 years……

I’m happily working for a different agency and making a lot more money while enjoying my casework. The female officer has since been fired and charged with altering presciptions. I hear through the grapevine the Chief Detective is being investigated for multiple crimes. The investigation takes almost a year but he resigned, loses his police certification, and is charged with a misdemeanor. The Chief of Police is fired for failing to supervise.

I end up reading a copy of the investigation of the Chief Detective and find mention that another officer came forward with information that the female officer had confessed to requesting the Chief Detective try to get me fired in exchange for sexual favors. It was also insinuated the Chief Detective had paid the woman to make the allegation I had propositioned her.

In the end. I’m the only one still employed while 2 of the 3 who conspired against me now have criminal records.

PEPE ESCOBAR: RUSSIA & NATO ON BRINK OF ALL-OUT WAR AND PUTIN ISN’T BLUFFING

Have you ever discovered a hidden danger within your home that you were previously unaware of? If so, how did you address it?

Oh, yeah!

Several years ago, on a Saturday morning, I had just gotten out of the shower. I noticed that I had an unusually fast drip in my bathroom sink. So rather than waiting to get dressed, I put on some slippers and went into my attached garage for some tools to fix the drip.

I grabbed what I needed then tried to open the door to my house. But it was locked!

I knew immediately what had happened. I’d had a guest the previous day who had left through my garage. He’d apparently thought he was helping me by locking the door between my house and the garage as he was leaving.

Bad idea!

So there I was, stark naked (expect for my slippers), and locked out of my house.

My only option, it seemed, was to go outside, break a window, and crawl through the opening. But aside from the embarrassment of walking outside, in a busy neighborhood, starkers, I couldn’t see myself dragging my fat, 70-year-old body through a broken window with jagged glass everywhere.

Bad idea!

So with no other ideas in mind, I started to look through my toolchest to see what I could find. Finally, I found a flat prybar that I’d never used. I wondered if I could slip it between the door and the door jam, and then lever it to open a space between them, a space wide enough for me to slide a screwdriver in front of the locking mechanism, which would allow me to open the door.

So I gave it a try. And after my third or fourth desperate attempt, it worked!

And then, after getting dressed and fixing my sink, I hid a spare key in my garage. It’s so cluttered that no one will ever find that key.

And never again have I gone into my garage wearing only my slippers!

Alien – 1950’s Super Panavision 70 AI Film

What’s it like to be a member of the Triad?

My involvement began in high school. There was nothing dramatic about it, I just became friends with a bunch of people I thought were cool and one thing led to another.

High school gangs are like triad training schools. They are not part of the triads per se, they’re more of a triad Mickey Mouse fan club where a group of young wannabes strut around pretending to be something they’re not. You’d be surprised at just how many of these there are.

The leaders of these high school gangs are usually affiliated with a low ranking triad member, called a 49 in triad lexicon. These are the foot soldiers. The 49 functions as big brother whose help the boys would call on in case of trouble, but big brother is also a scout who kept an eye out for promising young talent.

I must’ve seemed like one, because I was soon introduced to the 49er’s tailou (big brother), who was also a 49er. We met a few times at a local disco, snorted cocaine, gargled ketamine, popped ecstasy, and soon he trusted me enough to put me in charge of a few high-school gangs.

The triads are structured like a MLM scheme. At the lower levels, the more followers you recruit, the more powerful you become, the higher up you climb. The people above your rank are referred to as tailou or ____ ko which means elder brother, and your followers are referred to as DauGei, or children.

It’s all about the organization. So we organized.

We recruited the same way ISIS and Al Qaeda does: by giving disaffected and disenfranchised young men a sense of belonging. We start off by convincing the kids that we were cool by bringing them alcohol, drugs and other illicit goods. Then when they have issues they’d come to us for help and we’d help them. Many of the kids I recruited were bullied in school and looking for some revenge, and we’d give the kid’s bully a thorough trashing.

Some of the kids would naively come to see us as these cool guys who were looking out for them, and they’d seek to be a part of our circle. Once we got the kids on hooked on the illusion of brotherhood and coolness, they’re ours to keep. And they’ll bring their friends as well.

We went around the schools settling petty disputes such as who stole whose girlfriend – at the high school level, everything is petty- , and we enforced pax triadica with our fists. We demanded discipline from our members, and if one of our own went out of line we’d beat him up ourselves. We were a group of young bullies with our own set of rules and standards of behaviour. My recruits unwittingly traded one bully in school, for circle of friends who bullied one another.

From petty disputes we graduated on to settling disputes between local businesses. Unlicensed bars, moneylenders and illegal gambling dens would pay us a set fee, and in return we’d step in if they have problems. The money was terrible, but for a young kid, having adults and business owners turn to you for help is a huge ego trip.

I was able to grow the organization effectively because I understood the principles of peer pressure and groupthink. So if you’re a parent, I would advise you to obsess over who your teenager is hanging out with; there are many manipulators like me out there.

I must’ve been a pretty good recruiter, because the boss took me under his wing and introduced me to his boss, Suen Ko. Suen Ko was a hung kwan, or a mid-level lieutenant in the triad hierarchy. This is where I started to get involved with the actual organization. We had a short initiation ceremony in a karaoke room, and I became a 49 under Suen Ko.

Suen Ko owned a few nightclubs and bars, and virtually every night we’d be in one of his fine establishments drinking, partying, and partaking in every drug we could get our hands on. Our sort attracted a certain sort of girl, and there were girls aplenty. The bars were a money maker, but Suen Ko’s real money came from selling bootleg CDs.

At the time, bootleg CDs and eventually DVDs were an organized crime gold rush. This was before napster and way before bittorrent, and demand was so high that we filled up entire shopping malls with outlets selling pirated movies, music and software. A common joke was that if Bill Gates ever visited our malls, he’d have a heart attack on the spot.

For about 5 cents in costs for a blank CD, we sold the end product to the consumer for 15 local bucks a pop. Not even cocaine had that kind of margin. We were selling the bootlegs as fast as we could print them, and best of all piracy was perceived by the local cops as a low-impact crime and as such wasn’t rigorously enforced. Heck, many of our regular customers were cops. At the time, you could drive up to a police checkpoint with a stash of bootleg CDs on the backseat, give a cheeky grin and a thumbs up, and the cops would just wave you through.

Suen Ko made millions within his first year.

I was good with computers, and I became his IT department. I helped him organize his production, and in return he gave me a handsome cut. I made quite a bit of money in my teens, but I quickly blew it all on drugs and girls.

The biggest eye opener was during the annual company dinner. They had to construct a tent hall on an empty field to fit all 5,000 of us in, and there were local politicians and community leaders on the front row tables. That drove in the impression of just how big the tree was, and how deep the roots went.

If I made the triads sound like corporations, that’s because that’s what they are. We were even registered with the Registrar of Companies as a multimedia company and we paid our taxes. The big bosses looked just like any other middle aged Chinese uncle you’d meet at the local supermarket. The best way to avoid detection is to be in plain sight and blend into the background. The so-called gangsters you see on the street strutting their stuff are amateurs; many of them are just aping what they see in the movies. The pros keep a low profile and get on with making money.

Once you go far enough up the hierarchy, violence is actually pretty rare. For the most part, being a triad is just like working in any other corporate job.

But when violence does occur at that level, it’s freaking terrifying.

Roundabout the end of my first year, there was a war. The politician who Suen Ko worked for was at odds with another politician from the same organization. There were a few shootings, grenade attacks, and choppings, but it didn’t affect me directly at first so I didn’t give much thought to it. Then a call came one night. All hands on deck. We dropped everything and converged on the HQ.

Pardon the expletive, but it was scary as fuck. There were a hundred or so of us milling about an office block, and someone started handing out machetes and sashimi knives. Suen Ko took me up to the office, and there were hard looking fuckers at every corner. The air was so full of cigarette smoke I could barely breathe. Everyone looked grim. Apparently we were expecting an attack.

I was a skinny teenager, and I was out of my depth. Till that point, I’d been involved on the white collar side of things. The guys I saw that night had the word hard etched on their faces. I’ve never felt more scared than I did that night.

We stayed there overnight, but no attack came so we went back to our branch office. They attacked us there. A dozen or so guys rushed in and we fought back with chairs, clubs, machetes, boxes of A4 paper, everything we could get our hands on. It was a hazy frantic panicky desperate fight for survival. We were cornered and if we lost it would’ve been game over. One of theirs died in the melee.

The police arrived fairly quickly and I went to jail for a bit. It was in a cell that I resolved that this life wasn’t for me. For some miraculous reason, I got off scot-free. I went home, packed my things, and left everything behind to start a new life.

So how did it feel like? Terrible.

It’s not a healthy way to live one’s life. It got to the point where I was so paranoid that whenever I went to a restaurant I’d sit facing the entrance so I’d know who was coming in. I saw potential threats everywhere, and I carried symptoms of PTSD for a long time afterwards.

It took me a very long time to put my past behind and to learn to live again without fear like a normal human being. I had cut off all ties with everyone I knew, and have difficulty trusting people. Till today I know many, but am close with very few.

If there’s any teenager reading this who is in a similar situation as I was, know that the world is vast and there are opportunities everywhere. The cool kids you see in school are anything but.

Don’t make the same mistakes I did.

Prevention

If you’re a parent or a schoolteacher, here are some tips to help prevent this from happening to your kids:

When I was recruiting for the street gangs, there were some traits that I’d look for in potential recruits:

Being bullied.
Divorced parents or orphans.
Socially awkward.
Lack of self-confidence.
Poor household.

So if your teenager is affected by any of the above, you need to take extra care to address their needs and thoroughly vet their circle of friends. Boost their self-esteem up, surround them with positive friends, role models, and influences. Take an interest in them, let them know they can depend on you, and give them something productive to do; or they’ll fill the void with input from their similarly immature teenage peers and people like my younger self.

Danger signs include:

Smoking
Alcohol
Drugs
Rebelliousness
Getting into fights
Precipitous and prolonged drop in grades
Absenteeism

The key is prevention, with immediate and serious response upon the first signs of the above behaviour. All it takes is a tiny crack in the armor and recruiters like myself will wedge it wide open.

If your kids are already involved, there are no good options. The only surefire cure is to physically separate the children from their current environment, and transplant them into a new, hopefully better environment unreachable to their erstwhile friends.

Peer pressure will always outweigh talk and counselling, and if you send them to a juvenile detention center, prison, rehab, or any such places where delinquents congregate, they’ll come out even worse than when they went in. Those places are networking hubs, and “graduates” get a lot of street cred and respect. So only send teenagers to juvie or prison if you want to boost their criminal career. I changed my outlook when I was in a cell, not because I was in one.

p.s.

I have never come across those hand signs in the question’s description. We had better things to do than to go around flashing hand signs at each other. Looks like something someone made up, or it could be an American thing.

Don’t do it

What can we learn from Thailand’s efforts to boost its tourism sector, despite facing challenges like the recent incident at the Grand Hyatt Erawan?

“Why must they be killed or killed people in Thailand?” It’s not hard to answer my foreign wife when she showed me the online news from the Thai media, that ‘6 foreign tourists were found dead in the posh hotel in downtown Bangkok.’

It happened before and it will happen again— Trust me. I mean murders committed by foreign visitors in the Land of Smiles —where half of the world dying to visit.

Although death is never a happy moment, the above tragic news has absolutely nothing to do with Thailand. The police are coming close to revealing the misery of ‘Debt-related Murder’ although the only key witness is under extreme pressure- also their countryman, a tourist guide!

In small news the next day ‘ Dismembered Chinese TikToker: Suspect in alleged kidnap, killing reportedly arrested in Macao after fleeing Thailand“- Again, it was my wife who alerted me, “ You know what? The killer is also from China.”

Another news: A Canadian man was shot dead at a pool villa in Phuket, he was shot at least ten times.—

Who shot him? Two hitmen from Canada- (his photo taken with his peers)…Oh, my!

main qimg 36e6aeb9f675b7aefea115ecee4c5ab4

That isn’t all. A Spaniard (a religious man who quoted: Luke 23:34 and begged God to forgive not him but them) chopped his fellow countryman into 100 pieces and gave them to the fishes in the Chao Phraya River.

main qimg f04bad656eb5251c96ec85daf0c51a14

Also, an Australian Hells-Angle butchered his own Aussie gang member and dumped his body!

Still more, guys. A Frenchman, Marc (a colorful Godfather for the ladies) of the notorious Soi 7/1, Eden Club, and a Thai woman were found shot dead by another Frenchman.

A South Korean tourist —tortured, murdered, and put in a barrel by 3 Korean men.

Are you tired of reading yet?

What can we learn from Thailand’s efforts to boost its tourism sector?

Tourism aside, It’s not too offensive to people of Thailand to accept that this beautiful country is known to the dark side as—so conducive to be “the Murder Capital of the World.!”

“ Tell me, what is so attractive about Thailand to come here and do crimes?” My wife’s still innocently asking me! —I am Thai and I can’t answer her—Can anyone answer that?

Candidate

What did someone do in TSA/airport security that made you say “You gotta be kidding me”?

I (29) took a cheap flight to Florida with two girlfriends, Kelly (30) and Becky (27).

Set the scene: We were some of the most non-threatening-looking young women you’ve ever seen. Me: a reubenesque redhead with blunt bangs, firing off jokes left and right and laughing the whole time. Kelly: tall and willowy, with long, curly, dark hair, usually wearing a Brewers’ Tshirt, sometimes Packers. Dragging a purple suitcase. And Becky: curvy and blonde, with a pink fleece jacket and a big grin. Honestly, this all kind of makes sense because we would be PERFECT mules.

We were going to meet up with a friend who had just had a baby, and Becky had brought a gift for her, which was a bag of sealed clay in a clearly marked box for the baby’s hand print to be taken.

We start going through the TSA line and we give them a big smile, and I immediately get pulled for a random search. Fine. I’m sure this has nothing to do with my ample bum. I get patted down, and when I turn around, Becky’s getting hassled by the TSA guy, who wants to cut open the sealed clay bag to test it for drugs. Fine. So Kelly and I are laughing hysterically, as Becky’s gift gets mutilated and finally cleared, and we go on our merry way.

2 days later, we’re sitting in the cheap motel Becky got us and she’s looking for something in her purse, so she dumps it out and…

A big @$$ knife falls out!!!!

I suppose it wasn’t HUGE, but it was about dinner knife sized and sharp! I start screaming and Kelly starts screaming and Becky starts screaming and we’re absolutely freaking out because Becky’s big @$$ knife somehow didn’t get caught by TSA! Becky’s like “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG WE COULD HAVE SPENT THE NIGHT IN A JAIL CELL OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!” And Kelly’s like “WHY DO YOU HAVE A FREAKING KNIFE IN YOUR PURSE IN THE FIRST PLACE??? And Becky’s like “I TOOK AN APPLE TO WORK EARLIER THIS WEEK AND FORGOT TO TAKE IT OUT!” And Kelly’s like “WHO CUTS AN APPLE WITH KNIFE LIKE THAT LET ALONE FORGETS ABOUT HAVING IT??” And I’m just screaming.

That’s when we decided that TSA was a joke. How the hell did they miss this big @$$ knife when they were so concerned about some stupid clay??

Both Kelly and I checked Becky’s purse before we got on the plane to go home.

Divine Chicken Spaghetti

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 bunches green onions, chopped
1 (8 ounce) package fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup Italian dressing
1 (8 ounce) package spaghetti
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Place chicken breasts in a single layer in a lightly greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Top evenly with onions, mushrooms and tomatoes.
Pour dressing evenly over chicken and vegetables.
Bake, covered, at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Remove chicken and vegetables from oven; let stand 10 minutes.
Shred chicken using two forks.
Cook pasta according to package directions, then drain.
Combine shredded chicken mixture and spaghetti, tossing well.
Top evenly with 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese.

Simply cannot

Welcome Interruptions

D Drummond

Welcome InterruptionsOn the thirty-third day in the deepest black Daltz woke once again to the gnawing of the navigator. His presence rummaged in her mind, as insistent as it was unsubtle. Swearing softly at the uncaring confines of her hab, she was surprised to find her eyes watering, her wince having drawn frustrated tears. A month of broken sleep and zero privacy could do that. Still drowsy, she fancied she could feel phantom fingers on the inside of her skull, mapping the contours and wrinkles of the bone.‘Itching powder for the brain.’ She muttered, rising on unsteady legs to stagger to her cramped bathroom. It wasn’t a bad assessment. Torv had been closer when he called the intrusion a ‘constant hangover’. Low-grade headache and little nausea? Nail on the head. Splashing recycled water on her face did little good, but beneath her feet the vast plasma engines of the scrap-scavenger Marabou thrummed on-and-on, reassuring in their constancy. They must be getting close by now. Close to home, to making some money and to getting some blessed sleep. It was an unworthy thought. The Navigator couldn’t help his nature, and they relied on him so much to ply their trade amongst the stars. Fragile electronics and delicate instruments would always be a poor substitute for psychic precision.Daltz considered herself in the mirror, already resigned to a sleepless night and in no hurry to return to the dissatisfaction of her bed. Her hair was a lank mess, the deep black of its colour lessened somehow. Her skin was pallid, her eyes shot with red.‘You look like a vampire.’ Came a thoroughly unhelpful mumble from the bedroom. Daltz could just imagine Torv’s cheeky grin set into a face puffy from blissful sleep. She swore the man got some kind of kick out of the psychic invasion. Perv. She scowled at the engineer tangled in her sheets until he raised his hands in surrender. ‘Fine, fine. Sorry.’ He tried again. ‘You look like a sack of kicked crap?’‘You look like you’ve outstayed your welcome.’ She shot back, hiding her sudden smile by shutting the door between them. Through the burnished metal she offered an obscene gesture in response to the soft sound of his chuckling. Sleep deprivation was torture. No two ways about it. Slumping down to sit on the toilet, she felt the weariness right down to the marrow of her bones. With her temple pressed to the cool walls, she relieved herself in a waking doze.<Science Officer Daltz.>Her yelp of surprise turned to a stream of curses as her knee jerked into the unyielding shower cubicle. The words arrived in her mind unheard, as though they’d always been there. Through the Link she could sense the Navigator’s vague reproach at all the ‘strange customs’ humans had about conversing.‘So far from the point, Nav!’ She could feel her face burning red as she hiked up her underwear as quickly as she could.‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ Her words were bitter, and she regretted them immediately. The Navigator was good at regulating the Bleed, but strong emotion still seeped through their Link from time to time. She’d hurt his feelings. She could sense wisps of badly hidden shame mingling with her own thoughts, swiftly disappearing like steam in air.

‘Yes.’ She started, fumbling for words and still mortified beyond belief. ‘No. I… I was peeing, Nav.’

<Impossible. You are all impossible.> Grumbled the psychic seabeast.

‘Of course not, it’s just-’

‘And I appreciate that, but… Wait what?’

<Edify.> Came the response, carefully neutral.

‘At Torv’s request?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘When was this?’

<Not relevant.> The Bleed went curiously blank in her mind, like hard vacuum pulling all the air out of a room. Even her non-psychic and sleep-deprived human mind couldn’t fail to notice that. She could taste copper on the tongue at the suddenness of the change. The Navigator was being evasive.

‘When, Nav?’

<Recently…>

‘You pair of freaks!’ she gasped, kicking open the door. Torv had vanished, lucky for him. ‘I’m in the depths of space trying to seek a bit of damned human connection on this endless voyage and it turns out my lover and the nosey Navigator are carrying on a conversation the whole time!?’

<Not the whole time.> At least Nav had the grace to allow his abashedness to seep back into the exchange. Daltz expected no such tact from Torv when she confronted him.

‘He’s dead. Dead meat.’ She vowed, pacing out the tension in her tiny cabin. She was spitting mad, but also, deep down, felt like collapsing in a heap of laughter at the surreal situation. In the end she let out a gasp of inexpressible emotion, lost somewhere between hysteria and rage, and flopped onto the bed.

After long minutes of pondering silence Nav offered his tentative interpretation of events.

‘You’re damn right.’ Her jaw was bunched, but she was suddenly embarrassed, bizarrely concerned for the feelings of the hapless Navigator, alone in a ship where every mind he tried to touch resisted him at capricious, unknowable times. They asked the impossible of their most valuable crewmember. How would a human feel expected to forgo the use of their tongue, their hands, the expressiveness of their face for months at a time?

Daltz sighed deeply, feeling the last of the tension sloughing from her. ‘I know you are.’ She said, attempting a reassuring smile for the benefit of the empty room. The nature of psychic communication was an impossibility to those species not born to it. ‘Just do me a favour.’

<Yes?>

‘Next time you are unsure, ask me, not Torv.’

<Yes. Yes, this seems wise.> The disembodied voice seemed thoughtful. Wry amusement bled through to Daltz, setting her to smiling in sympathy. <He appears to be a poor exemplar of normative behaviour.> The damning assessment was delivered with so little inflection that it had her doubled over in cramping laughter in seconds. When she had controlled herself, she spoke again, wiping away tears of mirth and feeling better than she had in weeks.

‘What do you need, Nav?’

<Visit with me. I may have a health concern.> Just like that, her burgeoning good cheer was doused. Fumbling for her jumpsuit and bag in the dark, she kept her mind as blank as she was able. Her first concern was for a sick crewmate, but she couldn’t help the natural selfish thoughts of her racing mind. If they lost Nav they would drift in the vacuum until their supplies ran out, then they would die; cold, hungry and utterly alone. One human could hide such a natural yet spectacularly unsympathetic worry from another with ease, but could she hide it from Nav, to whom reading minds was as instinctive as breathing?

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

<My thanks.> There was an awkward pause and Daltz felt her eyes drift shut in resignation. Nav knew. <You are a good friend, Science Officer Daltz.> The thought was tender, almost floating in her mind, such was its gentle arrival.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I… I don’t know what to say.’

<Ahh. I have erred again. I have made things awkward.> For the first time, Daltz felt embarrassment radiate from the vast mental impression she had of Nav’s psychic presence, sprawling and ever-present at the other side of the Link. As she hurriedly walked through the cluttered and run-down hallways of their battered but beloved home, her footsteps were the only accompaniment to the growing silence. Nav trailed off.

‘Torv what?’

Daltz couldn’t help but grin, shaking her head at the utter stupidity of the man. ‘A poor exemplar of normative behaviour indeed.’ She snorted, feeling psychic amusement wash through the Link in relieved waves.

She hurried on, eager to arrive the Navigator’s tower on the Marabou’s spine, where his senses could be amplified to quest outwards, finding safe paths through the inky black. She was a leading xenobiologist by education, but would’ve been a vetenarian by childhood conviction. She knew her worries would abate as soon as she could see the problem first hand, and begin to work on a solution. Navigator. It felt like such a cold thing, to refer to him by his life’s work, but they were left with little option. His true name wasn’t just unpronounceable, it wasn’t even a word. Imagine a sphere of blue smoke, opening like a spiral-petalled flower inside your mind. ‘Nav’ would just have to do…

Daltz stilled her errant mind as the bronze doors slid open before her. She had arrived, and it always awed her into stunned silence to actually lay eyes upon her captive charge. The chamber was a vaulted dome, vast and exposed, as every wall was constructed of toughened, transparent crystal. Nav viewed the vacuum of space from every angle, refractive surfaces feeding him infinite directions of countless shades of black. Dominating the space, Nav’s tank was a ghastly affair, as tasteless as it was ornate. The green amniotics in which he floated were contained by huge panes of concave glass, but between each was the gaudy presence of gold, burnished and wrought in the shape of creeping ivy. It was hideous and captivating all at once. Like a cloudy green jewel set in an ornate cage.

<Welcome.> Nav drifted closer in the gloomy murk. He was huge, dwarfing even the largest whales of Old Earth in size. His carapace was horned and ridged, segmented along the huge sections of his tall body, which floated upright and limbless like the chrysalis of some brutal caterpillar. He leaned as close to the surface as he could, revealing his disturbing features to his visitor. His mandibles clicked in a constant pattern, which Daltz could feel vibrating her feet through the metal decking even from so far away. The air reeked of peat and salt – the tang of the mineral-rich liquid which sustained him. She would have gagged if she hadn’t been used to it.

‘Hey, Nav.’ She answered, smiling. Her cautious grin dropped away a moment later, as Nav nearly send her squealing from the room in fright. Along every section of his body, his chitinous exoskeleton withdrew and retracted from a thousand little nooks and crannies. His eyes, each a depthless nimbus of celestial light yawned open as one. She swore under her breath, squinting in the suddenly too-bright room.

He seemed tentative and unsure, like a child trying to impress. It would have been truly cruel to stamp down his vulnerable attempt, and Daltz spoke quickly in case her thoughts of horror betrayed her.

‘That’s very kind, Nav, but there’s no need, I’m a guest, this is your home. Make yourself comfortable.’

The piercing, all-knowing regard finally abated, as his legion of eyes sank away without a trace. Daltz let out a pent-up breath. One more potential faux-pas averted… she hoped, trusting to Nav’s discretion. He could read her every thought if he chose, so a certain amount of willful ignorance was the only way he could function within a human crew. Daltz knew her species’ deeply ingrained systems of manners and politeness revolved far more about what you just didn’t say, rather than how you acted and spoke. A thousand lies of omission per-person-per-day amounting to a civilization of billions which spanned the stars. Truly a miracle.

‘Of course.’ Focus and dedication smoothly slid to the forefront of Daltz’s mind, all thoughts dedicated to the job at hand. She asked for further details as she made her way to the small recessed alcove at the base of Nav’s tank. Building up a better picture of his symptoms, she donned her wetsuit with practiced ease. Before long she was ready to enter the airlock and emerge in the murky half-light of her patient’s bizarre habitat.

Questing through the gloom, she trod the bottom of the tank, fighting against the suction of countless years of accumulated grime and decaying carapace shards. She tried not to think about it. <Sorry for the state of the place.> he remarked wryly.

Daltz’s awkward laughter at the joke was a relief from the sudden flush to her cheeks. ‘I’ll get to it soon, I promise.’

<No rush.> he answered, pulsing earnestness through the Link between them. <You would be horrified at the ocean floor back home.> In an instant Daltz’s grasping hands found resistance up ahead. One second all she could see was impenetrable bottle-green, the next, the towering, looming sight of Nav’s colossal body rising up above her. With familiarity, she found the easiest handholds amongst the bizarre topography of his form, lifting herself up until he advised her to stop. It was impossible to register height whilst suspended in the near-opacity of the tank, but she knew that her ascend had been the equivalent of close to 4 stories of a building, taking her only halfway up his form. <Can you feel what we have spoken of? Some build-up of plaque or hard biofilm? It is irritating beyond belief.>

Her skillful hands made an inspection of the indicated area, practiced and brisk, yet thorough with concern. The results left her with a dubious scowl. ‘Are you sure this is the right area? I can’t feel any adhesions…’

<Quite certain. Would you carry out a scouring? These things can be rather serious if left unchecked.> Thoroughly unconvinced by her examination, Daltz still agreed readily. She couldn’t do him any harm even if the procedure was unnecessary, and on the other hand if she was wrong, the parasitic lesions which occasionally plagued his species could rapidly spread beyond the aid of any medical know-how. When the titanic psychic crustacean upon which a hundred-strong crew relies complains of a problem, you try your best to solve it.

‘You got it. I didn’t need to sleep anyway.’ In her mind’s eye she attempted to project the fond sarcasm she intended. Across the Link a billowing of humour met her thoughts halfway, mingling contentedly. Amongst the amusement, she sensed genuine surprise at the deftness of her thought-speak and couldn’t help but feel a little flush of pride. Setting to her work, she removed her scouring kit and started the arduous process of a deep scrub. Humanity was a space-faring race, with marvels of technology in every aspect of life making things easier. Sometimes, though, elbow grease was still required. The scourer was a tangle of abrasive steel wire, superheated by an element in the handle. As she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, her companion was a stream of hissing bubbles rising to the surface from Nav’s toughened hide.

With her monotonous task and bone-deep exhaustion, it was easy to drift while she worked, but some nagging sense kept dragging her back to the more analytical part of her mind. Nav was studiously silent, she noted, the first notes of suspicion stirring within her. Concentrating, she dug deeper, finding the Link almost closed off between them. He was hiding something again, and the problem-solving scientist in her wasn’t going to let answers escape. She strained, trying to imagine herself forcing open the wall in her mind. It didn’t come naturally to humans, but a talented individual trying their hardest? She kept up her scrubbing as she searched, and just for a second she received a glimpse of unhidden emotion. She stopped suddenly, open-mouthed, eyes wide with anger. Nav’s thoughts had been of such a familiar, mundane human nature, that it was impossible to misunderstand. Irritation, giving way to pleasure and contentment.

‘No.’ she swore, then swore again.

<What is it?> She had his rapt attention all of sudden, and along with it badly-hidden guilt.

‘No, you didn’t!’

<Didn’t what?>

‘I can’t believe you! You did not just interrupt me on the toilet and drag me to your mouldy tub in the middle of the night to scratch your itchy belly!’

She was incredulous, so far past rage that she was almost awed at the sheer cheek of the ancient cosmic traveler.

<If that was the case…Hypothetically…> he began slowly, choosing his words with care. <How angry would you be?>

‘You’re ten types of bastard, Nav.’ Dumbfounded laughter was bubbling up in her against her wishes. ‘I ought to leave you here to suffer.’

Her amusement at the ridiculous situation was a tempest in her mind, and she could feel Nav’s own impish delight carried along within it, so unutterably human in its inanity.

After a pause to catch her breath, she reluctantly agreed. ‘But I won’t, aye.’ A moment of comfortable silence dwindled quickly, and then she did the only thing that made sense in the circumstances, as she thumbed the switch on her scourer and set back to scrubbing. A few moments later, she set them both chuckling anew as she spoke again.

‘You’re still a bastard…’

Actually, this is HOW I am TODAY

Vintage Illustration

When have you fired someone on the spot?

Originally Answered: Have you ever fired someone on the spot? If so, why?

One of my first post-college jobs was at a hotel. The hotel had a parking garage. One aspect of my new job was to “manage” the parking garage.

We suspected some bad business at the garage ie: missing money, rental cars going missing. I decided to pay a late night visit to the garage.

I pulled the drawer from the late night cashier to balance the account with the car count and guest list. I didn’t even need to fire the guy. He stood up and said “Well, I guess that’s that.” He picked up his stuff, walked to his car, flipped me off as he drove away.

Then a guy pulled up and came to the cashier window and said,

“Is Willie here?” I replied that I did not know. “Tell him he owes me a car or I’m, walking upstairs and taking one.” The guy looked like he could have picked one up and taken it with him.

He drove off as Willie drove in using a rental car he had “requisitioned” for the evening.

I fired him on the spot. He just flicked a cigarette, smiled and said. “I’ll be back, just you don’t worry.”

I worried.

I hated that job.

Cute

What is the most bizarre way you’ve landed a job?

Somewhere in the forest, south of Frankfurt, Germany, I ordered fourteen beers at the bar in what I thought to be perfectly accented German.

But as usual, the “R” in ‘Bier’ betrayed me. Germans roll it, and I struggle to get it right unless I am careful.

“Do I detect a touch of English accent… or maybe American?” asked an early fiftyish, absent-minded-professor-looking man solidly perched on the barstool to my left.

“American,” I replied. “I thought I hid it well.”

“You do,” he answered. “But it made me curious… you wouldn’t happen to be looking for a job, would you?”

My brain somersaulted…. WTF? Is this for real?

“Actually,” I answered, “I just signed my severance contract three hours ago. I still have a project to complete before I leave, but once it’s wrapped, I’m free.”

“Can you write?” he asked. “I’m looking to replace my American partner in our public relations agency. He’s headed back to the US with his new wife.”

“Well… my father worked as a journalist, my grandfather was city editor for a major daily newspaper, and my mother teaches English… but I’ve never worked as a copywriter before.”

“Not many people have,” he replied, “but if you can write properly, we can teach you the rest. Can you come after work tomorrow and meet the team and my partner?”

“Sure,” I said.

The interview was easy. It seemed they only wanted to test my social skills. The take-home test was a bit more difficult: I was to write a press release to introduce scissors (imagining they were newly invented) to the world.

I e-mailed my best effort off just before midnight.

The rest is history. They indeed taught me how to write for real… and twenty-three years later, I am working for one of the agency’s bigger clients and I still work with my old team.

FFB

Experience creates FFB.

Tibetan speaker

Some declarations from me. Why am I supporting China, and which group of Chinese people am I supporting?

I am an Asian supremacist. We Asians need to dominate the world. We have to protect the world from the US and the EU, who have proven time and time again as true villians. I sympathaize with the Aficans and the Middle Eastern people the most. I would be an India supporter, but they lack the potential right now. They’re like a plastic bag drfiting through the winds — they’re opportunists, not true players on the global stage.
I love Tibet. I am a Tibetan by ethnicity after all. I want more Chinese people to be proud of having Tibet as a part of China. There are many social issues in Tibet that many don’t talk about. I think people who really care about the Tibetans must know about the social issues in Tibet. I have found that Chinese people really care about Tibet, so that’s why I support them.
I am anti-India because I am Nepalese. Though I think it is best for China and India to be friends, judging by how Indians online are openly saying they wish to invade Tibet, I think we should never trust the Indians. I do hope Indian intellectuals will guide their citizens and teach them real history, not propaganda.
I want to promote Tibetan culture. People are mostly interested in Tibet because of political reasons. Who are the ones interested in Tibetan culture? The Chinese!

Thank you for reading. I will keep on writing about Tibet. And I am happy that many people are reading my answers.

More: Since I am from Nepal, there is no way of me earning money through Quora, so writing answers here is purely my hobby. Though, if I gain enough followers (like 2k/3k) then I might take a more neutral stance and delete all hate posts. I could use this profile when I need to apply for jobs, or use this to promote tourism in Nepal. Well, I could just get bored and forget the password. I’d only be wasting time here.

What would it be like if North Korea and South Korea legally ended hostilities and united?

Several things become true:

The southern part of Korea stops being an island, meaning they must negotiate far more with their continental partners. South Koreans can finally visit Mt. Baekdu/Paektu. (The Koreans will probably have to figure out which romanization to stick to.)
Korea will be a nuclear power with launch vehicles capable of nuclear deterrence.
Korea will have a similar situation to China wherein the “interior” is in essence a developing country. This will relieve a lot of low wage employment pressure for the richer, southern areas.

However, the likely political outcome for Korea makes them prey for the interests of China and the US. This is because:

Korea is a nuclear power. The US will not tolerate a nuclear power in that region of interest that is not strategically indebted to the US, while China will not tolerate a nuclear power on its border that is hostile. Strategically Korea can only push for an independent, neutral position and hope that it does not have to pick sides.
Korea is still divided on political opinion and will remain so for some time. Having talked to North Koreans, it is clear that many of them actually do care for the general political project of their nation. It is why most of their elites wash their own clothes and cook their own meals— they want elites to take responsibility for their social obligations. The South Koreans on the other hand seem to gravitate towards elite control, in particular Seoul basically consuming the rest of the country. The clash in opinion is ripe for fresh division.

It would be a situation heavily influenced by external forces larger than it. Likely, such a united Korea would not necessarily be at equilibrium. Here’s to hoping the Koreans can beat the odds and find their own peace together.

I Had To “DOWNGRADE MY LIFE”…GOING INTO DEBT TO BUY GROCERIES

Welcome to the West.

Greek Spaghetti

Sometimes the most simple recipes are the most delicious, and this is one of those recipes.

Ingredients

12 ounces spaghetti
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Garlic powder or mashed garlic cloves
Feta cheese (optional)

Instructions

Burn butter until golden.
Add garlic powder or crushed cloves and serve over cooked, drained spaghetti.
Sprinkle feta cheese over the top if desired.

What are the best business lessons we can learn from companies that got huge?

How to lose?

Just ask Nokia

“Nobody is able to predict that volatile environment”

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (Former CEO of Nokia) says in an interview (INSEAD). Once upon a time, Nokia was the most successful mobile phone-maker.

Nokia had the market at its fingertips. Every move they made resulted in profit.

Their new phones became the next craze in only a matter of weeks. Their clear-cut design, with smart navigation systems and a high quality camera were unlike anything anybody had ever seen.

Nokia was on top. How could they fail?

Little did Nokia know, there were a few companies lurking beneath them. They were hungry for the top spot that Nokia had. Nokia ignored them.

Nokia was king, there was no way companies like Apple were going to become successful.

Except on June 29th, 2007, Apple released the iPhone.

Nokia could not believe the amount of sales they lost to Apple and they were scared of losing their market share.

Nokia needed to come out with a smartphone. A smartphone that could rival the iPhone. At the time, Android version 1.0 had just released, but, Nokia didn’t believe in it. Why would Android ever become successful?

They decided to make their biggest mistake as a company and choose Symbian instead of Android. Nokia was desperate and quickly released their smartphone, but it was no competition for the iPhone. The Symbian system was old tech.

If Nokia had chosen Android and adapted to the market before being disrupted, Nokia would have had a much better chance of surviving.

The problem was that Nokia was scared of losing their reputation as top dog and didn’t want to change.

The biggest lesson is: Once you are scared of the drop, you won’t last long at the top.

As a surgeon, what is the most dangerous thing you have found inside a patient?

I’m not an MD but I am a nurse and had a personal issue once. I had a surgery years ago through my nose. There was this horrible smell, and there was so much pressure and pain. I wasn’t supposed to be blowing my nose and was using the sinus rinses as ordered. I noticed that when I would rinse the left side of my nose, nothing came out of the other nostril, but I would get the horrible drip down my throat for hours afterward. I knew something wasn’t right. I kept telling the surgeon that something was wrong. She smelled the odor and put me on multiple rounds of antibiotics with no improvements and told me that what I experienced with the rinses was “normal”. She never looked in my nose after the first post-op appointment where she told me that there was a “lot of swelling but that’s normal at this point”. After the 6th time I had gone in there complaining of the same awful smell, pain and pressure (and still with the same sinus rinse result), I demanded to see her supervisor. She was really put out, but I didn’t care. Her medical director saw me 3 days later, he used a scope and I could hear him say under his breath, “Oh!” He then pulled a long piece of packing out of my nose that was the most disgusting, smelly thing I had ever encountered in my life. We just looked at each other. He just said, “Well there’s the problem. Things should get much better now.” I was speechless.

SIGHTINGS – Retro Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, 1961, INTEGRATING G3!

PRODUCTION NOTES FOR SIGHTINGS I have always wanted to make this film, but it was not possible until just now. Remember when YouTube was in its very early days?

There were all kinds of unexplainable collections of sightings, cryptids, and paranormal stuff like ghost photos, etc. After watching enough of these, I would get the strangest feeling that would last for days, kind of astonishment with a certain kind of dark wonder.

Many of those favorite videos have just vanished to time, to be replaced by a billion new ones in better quality video.

Going back into the historical archive, AI UFO SIGHTINGS was my first very wishful attempt to at least explore the idea.

The contrast now is UNBELIEVABLE. We were all completely blown away by the state of the art back then, only just over a year ago. Someday I will revisit this idea ever further with even better tech!

The strangest thing is G3ML really is like starting over at the beginning, and has already shown me some magnificent aberrations and interdimensionality, so for right now we remain in the ‘breaking new ground’ historical epoch of visual artificial intelligence!!

**Just a small rant – The term “AI” is such a buzzword! It’s like “NFTs” and “Crypto” were, bandied all about by cor prits in order to cause another Bandwagon stampede of sheep! Attached to every possible plastic product it can be weakly linked to! I don’t think anyone on THIS channel is too excessive of a follower, so we can take a rest here from the oceanic dilution of the term.

Vented, thanks.

In our next couple of adventures here, I can take some time to illustrate some of the triumphs and challenges involved in working with the new ML modes, as I have already tracked a path or two. I’ll just point things out as we go and as we discover them. Thanks Everyone!!!!!!! Please Share with your more open-minded friends! !!!!!!!Overjoyed to have you here! -Skyward

Why do some elderly get out and go for walks while others just want to hide in their homes?

I will be 86 in two days, absolutely no family or friends left. I have learned, against impossible odds, no matter how hard and how painful (I am disabled and can’t walk), I handle l00% of everything myself as it pertains to me. I still drive (safely) and go out to eat by myself; I still work at the same job for 50 years and won’t stop until I die (animal welfare work from local to international level; just quit a job taking care of someone as a Power of Attorney for l4 years due to his mental issues; finished six years of college a year ago; took four years of computer lessons; learn new things daily about world events and things on the computer; have tons of hobbies; and the list goes on. I suffer with pain, loneliness – except for my beloved kitty – but I will NOT ever give in to being OLD except in calendar time. I would rather die than act like so many old people – eat, shit, sleep, watch t.v. I want to cram a lifetime into my remaining time and I do so daily. I stay away from deadbeats. I want inspiring, motivating, challenging people in my life or I choose to stay alone with my kitty.

Do people open carrying guns ever get bullied?

Oh yeah. This actually happened to me. I was stationed in Arizona, an open carry state, When I turned 21 I picked up my S&W Combat Model 19 .357 revolver which I had preordered, I had already had a custom made leather, gun belt and holster. I spent a lot of time at the range and open carried when off base. After several months I had an epiphany of sorts, a moment when I asked myself, ‘why are you really doing this and exactly under what circumstances will you pull this weapon?’ Up to that point I was just all 2nd Amendment, self righteous, young baddass wannabe. I quit carrying for over a month while I considered this question and consulted a lot of friends and senior NCOs I respected. I finally got my mind right and began carrying again. One of the things that happened to me is that I became a much more polite, tolerant and respectful person. I know it may sound trite but I always go back to Spiderman and his Uncle Ben who said “With great power, comes great responsibility.” No truer words have ever been said. Things said which I may have taken affront or been offended before, rolled off my back. I tended to avoid potential confrontation depending on the circumstances. That said, I was at the Tucson Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium walking around the exhibits while waiting for the next planetarium show. Everything was fine and there was a Boy Scout with his Troop who asked me about my weapon and why I carried it. Spent a few minutes talking about self defense and the defense of others as well as the 2nd Amendment. Parted ways and continued to view the exhibits when this middle aged, balding, hippie type wearing sandles literally accosted me. Got right in my face looking up at me and started off with verbal abuse, calling me a NAZI, and why was I scaring all of the people in the museum and other nonsensical stuff along with personal epithets. I was a bit taken aback and started to get angry then remembered why I carried and the responsibilities for doing so. As I was looking down at him, he came to a break in his tirade and I said, “Mister, I don’t see anyone around us afraid of anyone but you.” This was true because at this point a crowd had gathered and their attention was gathered on the hippie. This really pissed him off, he got red faced, raised his fists and I actually backed off a couple of steps shouting, “Man you really don’t want to do this!” At this point the manager of the museum got between us and cooled the guy down. He invited us both his office to talk things over. Once there the hippie again went off on a tirade about me carrying a weapon and scaring people. I responded again that the only person who was afraid was hippie guy and that by Federal and Arizona state law I was legally able to carry open. I also requested the Manager to call local law enforcement to verify this. The manager was obviously aquainted with the law and said that would not be neccessary. He also said that as the planetarium’s projector was worth millions of dollars, would I be willing to unload my gun? Looking at him I said sure, why not, and did so pocketing the cartriges. That seemed to have satified the hippy and he stormed off. I turned to the manager and said, you know I can reload in a few seconds, He said, “Yup, but it got rid of that asshole

Guy Pretty Privilege

What was the best “drop the mic” moment you’ve witnessed in a business meeting?

In 1997, I was the first intern sent from MIT to work at a Honda R&D center near the city of Utsunomiya, Japan. I quickly learned that the work I did there wasn’t too important to anyone; the whole point of my internship was for Honda and MIT to build a relationship, and I was just a sentient poker chip that they exchanged. This was fine with me since it allowed me the freedom to get involved in some fascinating research in shape memory alloys. Eventually people noticed what I was doing, and I became part of a very high-performing group looking at shape memory alloys, piezoelectrics, and magnetostrictive materials within active structures. Japanese companies like Honda tend to keep their blue sky R&D more internal, while most American companies instead fund university labs to do the same work.

At the end of my internship, I participated in a talk with the head of R&D at Honda. That man did very little talking in the meeting; his handpicked successor who was 20 years younger mostly ran the meeting. My group gave updates on all of our various projects, and the successor asked some insightful questions that showed me that he knew his stuff.

At one point in the meeting, the successor drew a beautiful, ornate balance scale on the whiteboard, showing the smart people working on the project on one side labelled “negatives”, and the results on the other side labelled “positives”. He was making the point that our group shouldn’t just produce average results, but in order to justify the time of the best engineers, our group needed to produce extraordinary results. That’s when the senior manager got up, and walked to the whiteboard.

This man had been silent throughout the meeting, and that made him getting up and walking to the whiteboard all the more remarkable. 21 years later, I still remember his gait getting out of the chair and walking to the whiteboard. He erased the picture of the engineers from the “negative” side of the balance, and drew them in on the positive side. Then he said,

“The most important output of this R&D team is not the projects they do. The most important output is the people, people with experience in these new technologies. Successful projects are nice, but the experience is the #1 thing. When the time comes for more active structures in cars, we will need Honda people with this experience, more than we need these exact projects.”

I have long since moved from the automotive industry to the semiconductor industry. I’ve seen many meetings with yelling and swearing and people slamming down phones and walking out. I’ve never seen a person take control of a meeting and shift the focus of a group the way that Honda executive did, simply standing up and walking to the whiteboard and quietly saying a few declarative sentences.

Have you ever accidentally said something inappropriate?

It was one of those quiet boring days in the office.

I was sitting there at my desk, trying to work while my brain was going numb from all the boredom.

Sitting right across from me was a colleague of mine who is a Pakistani. He was focused on his work and minding his own business.

I started talking to him in English (I’m an Arabic speaker). I don’t remember what the conversation was about, but at one point it became about birthdays.

He asked me when my birthday is. I told him it’s on September 23. He then told me that his birthday is in September as well, but it’s in the beginning of the month.

Now I’m no expert in horoscopes, but I know that my birthday is on the first day of the Libra, so his horoscope must be the one right before the Libra.

I paused for a while to figure out his horoscope, and after realizing it’s the Virgo while not knowing at the time that it’s called “Virgo”, I translated the horoscope from Arabic to English in my head, and it came out as “Virgin” (I’m really not good in horoscopes), and then I went ahead and asked him after a long pause:

So, you’re a virgin?

He looked at me with a confused look and said: I’m sorry?

I asked again: You are a virgin, right?

He let out a nervous chuckle and said: What?!

I was not getting it. Why was he so slow to understand? and I kept insisting that he must be a virgin, and I’m sure of it.

He was looking at me silently, with widened eyes and a shocked look on his face, not understanding what the hell is wrong with me!

Then I decided to spell it out for him; Your horoscope is the virgin, right? Because your birthday is in the beginning of September, so it must be it.

Him: Ahhhhhh! A Virgo! Yes, my horoscope is the Virgo.

He then laughed and sighed with a bit of relief.

Only then did I realize what I had just asked him, and OMG! how embarrassed and stupid I felt.

We then ended that delightful small talk, and we both shifted our focus back to that boring work of ours, never speaking of how awkward that conversation was.

China Dumps US Debt, Fearing a Capitalist Armageddon|Richard Wolff

Have you ever had someone leave a note on your parked car? What did it say on it?

Well I think everyone is going to find this answer entertaining.

Got off work at around 5 p.m. one day and walked out to my parked car in the area where I usually park it. It was a note on my car stating that it had been involved in an auto accident.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting. That note was from the Los Angeles Police Department.

The company I worked with shared a parking lot with a J. C. Pennys store. Apparently store security spotted a shoplifter and decided to arrest her. Unfortunately instead of stopping her as she exited the store they decided to let her get into her vehicle and attempted to leave the scene. As she was backing out of a parking space they opened her door and pulled her out of the moving vehicle. Now some of you might be thinking oh my God, they pulled her out of a moving vehicle! What happened to the moving vehicle? Nothing to worry about, it stopped when it plowed into my car.

And of course this lovely shoplifter of a lady had no driver’s license let alone valid insurance.

And at that time I did not have uninsured underinsured coverage on my insurance. So I would have to pay a high deductible on my comprehensive coverage. I know it sounds strange as comprehensive is not for that. But my insurance said they would cover it that way due to the odd circumstances.

I called the corporate offices of J. C. Penneys, to ask them to pay for the damage to my car. They told me they had nothing to do with the damage to my vehicle. And that I should go after the owner/driver of the car.

I told them that I was sorry they felt that way, and that I would visit the shoplifter who was in custody at the LA County Jail. And I would be happy to tell her about the incredible lawsuit she probably has against J. C. Penneys due to their security personnel pulling her out of a moving vehicle.

After listening to my statement, the person on the other end of the phone at J. C. Penneys responded by saying please send me a copy of your repair estimate and will issue you a check immediately.

And I promise to everyone, this is an absolutely true story.

Will China have to fight major wars to enjoy pace harmony and prosperity? They did not succeed with the opium wars.

Unfortunately yes.

People fear the Americans because they absolutely devastate countries for fun.

They destroyed Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and other places.

They’re defanged these days because of their priorities that is to profit from war rather than winning any actual peace/stability.

We’re even seeing their inability to stop Ansar Allah :D. Their colour revolutions have also been failing since the mid 00s.

The same thing with Somalis in the UK or Pakistanis. If you attack them? They’ll fuck you up badly. Hence why British people have little love for them but fear them.

At one time UK Chinese and Indians (especially the Sikh guys) too were feared as in a fight we broke the rules. In a fight in the UK 60s, 70s and 80s) if you won a fight, it was normal to shake hands and forget about it. For the aforementioned communities we weren’t so magnanimous.

If you lost a fight against us? You’d be murdered.

My father literally has tons of stories where some idiot loses a fight and simply gets stabbed to death as he begs for his life. Some of the stories I recall from Mr Singh before he passed were brutal.

He’d tie them up in the basement and beat them to death slowly over several days.

Since China is hated by westerners, there’s only one option.

main qimg 4a1144b93cc4f82b37403d8f573f1e37

A savage war which will make Gaza look like it’s nothing.

The Mystery Zone

When you have the time to leave something behind, make it useful and memorable

When I lived in Western Pennsylvania, I would drive my cars, and my motorcycles all over the place. Most of which was long disused roads, old unused rail road lines, and towns that were abandoned a hundred years previous. Many interesting sights, and (I’m sure) curious stories to tell.

One day, while riding on a little used country road, I came up to the crest of a hill. I pulled over to take a leak, and as I did so, I noted that the bushed parted to a nice picturesque grass covered hill.

As it as a nice Summer day with blue skies and white clouds, I went forth to take a look and take in the wonderful and astounding view.

And it was. Really.

This was a nice field of knee-height green grasses. And not a shrub or other plant to be seen.

The hill side was enormous and perfect for flying kites and for having picnics. In fact, given the beautiful day, low humidity and just magnificent day, I walked forward and took in the entire experience.

I’ve done this before. I found a long abandoned cemetery in the long overgrown woods that way. Heck, on second thought, I actually found two such cemeteries. All long lost, and totally forgotten.

So as I was walking forward I saw the strangest sight up on a ridge.

It was a tomb; a well preserved stone house that served as some family Mausoleum. It looked a little like this…

Now, this was not a cemetery.

It was in a rural hillside, in the middle of a long abandoned tree line where the nearest house was miles away. It was isolated.

Nice hill.

Nice mausoleum.

Totally out of the blue. A real surprise. All up in the middles of this grand hillside view.

Who would have thought?

Later, say a a few months later, I asked a friend of mine about the place, and he knew about it. The story goes something like this…

There was once this wealthy family in a small town. The town grew and got prosperous. The family bought up a lot of land, and as the town prospered the family got very wealthy. The head of the family built the tomb on a field that he favored for family outings and picnics with.

After he died there was a change in fortune. His family either died off and moved away. And the town became a few remaining houses until that too was abandoned. And thus all that remains is the tomb.

The estate has established a trust fund that pays for groundskeepers to maintain the hill in a pristine croquet field, and to makes sure that no one vandalizes the idyllic environment. That that is the story of this place.

Still.

Preserving the hilltop for future generations to have picnics on; to fly kites on…

Or, to have romantic dates on…

Or, you know; to sky gaze at night on is glorious.

This fellow did good. And I for one want to tell you all… have adventures.

And when you have the time to leave something behind, make it useful and memorable. Leave something behind for the generations that follow…

Today…

China sez “we’re done playin'”

China has called-off arms control talks with US over weapon sales to Taiwan.

China has cut off arms control and NUCLEAR non-proliferation talks with the United States because of Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

“China has decided to suspend talks with the US on holding a new round of arms control and non-proliferation consultations,” ministry spokesman Lin Jian said. “The responsibility for this situation lies entirely with the US.”

He said the US’ continued sales of weapons to the island in the face of Beijing’s opposition had “severely damaged the political atmosphere necessary for continued arms control consultations between the two sides.”

“Washington must respect Beijing’s core interests if communication is to continue” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Russia launches a giant 6,000-pound bomb from an SU-34 for the first time

This is crazy big news.

Note this video about the massive Russian submarine nuke bombs for the United States Eastern states. Fly over, drop and swim. Then Ka-blooey!

What is something you wish you had known sooner?

I have a very toned body, like massively toned for a female. I didn’t work for it. It’s just natural. I didn’t know my body was like this until I went to high school. They called me “tough”. I would be teased so badly. Girls followed me around the school laughing at me and calling me names. Adults weren’t any better. On top of that, I had horrible eczema. I hated high school so badly that I skipped school half the year. Woke up many days crying telling my mom I’m sick. Still I got good grades. School wasn’t hard, people were. Complete strangers that I never once tried to hurt had no issues in giving me a hard time.

Eventually high school ended. Hallelujah. And I moved to another city. I worked in tourism and foreigners loved my body. They hardly criticized me. One day a bodybuilder came up to me and told me my body’s amazing. He advised to enter the national bodybuilding competition. If I win that and Caribbean then the possibilities would be endless. I could travel the world.

I wish I could tell you I did it and won. I started training then dropped out. I didn’t want the world to see my body. That was a couple years ago. Now, I love my body and see how invaluable it is. I wish I had known sooner that being this different was a blessing and I should not have taken it for granted. Maybe I would be a world champ by now. But, it’s not too late, I just might enter the bodybuilding competition this year.

Even though I wish I had known sooner that my differences are amazing, I’m happy I know now. I appreciate every bit of me despite what others think. And trust me I’ve been told so many times “You’re different”. I was even the outcast in my family but I’ll tell that story a next time. Love, appreciate and endorse you for you truly are unique. See a pic of my legs with some bug bites (darn mosquitoes).

Fried Ravioli with Quick Tomato Sauce

Yield: 6 to 10 servings as an hors d’oeuvre or 4 to 6 servings as a first course; 2 1/2 cups sauce

Ingredients

Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans Italian-style tomatoes, with liquid
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried basil
Salt and coarsely-ground pepper, to taste

Ravioli

9 ounces frozen or refrigerated ravioli of your choice
2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

Begin with the sauce. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over moderate heat and Sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until tender but not brown.
Add the tomatoes, breaking up the larger pieces with the edge of a spoon if necessary, and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes, until the sauce has thickened some.
Add the basil and season with salt and pepper.
Cook the ravioli according to the package directions.
Drain and manually separate the ravioli to prevent them from sticking together. Blot dry with paper towels.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet (preferably nonstick) over moderate heat and Sauté the ravioli for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until lightly browned and slightly crisp.
Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.

China’s Surprise Move: U.S. Chips Banned After Yellen Visit

Were you deathly ill but didn’t know until you went to the hospital and they told you?

I got up one morning and my left hand was swollen. I couldn’t find an insect bite, but thought maybe a spider bit me in my sleep. This was in the early 90s before the internet was a resource for research. I spent the day with family and attended a funeral. The next morning the swelling went up to my elbow. Still thinking about an insect bite I took some Benadryl and carried on. The next morning my entire arm was swollen and I went to a walk in clinic. The physician’s assistant took one look and sent me to a doctor nearby. He asked me to stop moving my arm. I showed him that I was able to bend it and he said stop! The Doctor was a vascular interventionist. At that time I was not a nurse and had limited medical knowledge. I thought that was strange but I went. The Doctor there looked at my arm and and asked me to meet him at his clinic next door in the hospital. He didn’t give me a diagnosis, just go there and he would se me there. I finally realized that this was serious when the nurses were shaving my chest, attaching electrodes and asking me to sign paperwork all at the same time! I had a blood clot at the brachial artery! The doctor removed it while I was under conscious sedation and I spent a week in cardiac ICU on a heparin drip confined to the bed. Moving the arm could have dislodged part of the clot sending it to my brain or lungs. And I stood outside the hospital and smoked a cigarette before I went inside! I was so impressed by the doctor and the nurses that I went back to school and graduated the nursing program! That’s how I became a nurse!

What is your opinion of J.D. Vance?

From my perch across the Pacific several thousand miles away from Washington, I think Vance’s perspectives on foreign affairs seem to dovetail quite closely with Trump’s world view:

He favors a negotiated peace with Russia over Ukraine, believing that Ukraine cannot win;
He thinks Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own security;
He believes the US needs to shift its focus to Asia (again) to prioritize and counter China’s economic and military rise, prioritizing this over traditional American alliances in Europe; and
He’s an economic nationalist. This includes protectionist policies such as tariffs and reducing reliance on foreign goods.

Whether you agree with him or not (and on economic policy, I’m a globalist who believes protectionism is bad for both the US and the global economy), it’s pretty clear that Trump 2.0 will be marked by trade wars, a pronounced “America first” policy — whatever that means — and increased tensions with traditional US allies in Europe. But there also seems to be some pragmatism about it (for example, engagement with Putin on Ukraine).

I think with Trump 2.0, we’re potentially seeing the beginning of a tectonic shift in world geopolitics — a framework that has been in place pretty much since the end of WWII.

MM Art

The theme is ” A man and his cat”.

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(12)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(12)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(10)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(11)

@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(8)

Teletubbies the Horror Movie – 1950s Super Panavision 70

What shocked you when you opened someone’s safe deposit box at the bank?

When my in-laws died we went to the bank to retrieve the contents of their safe deposit box. The bank has gone through a line of mergers and name changes over the years, my in-laws stayed loyal. We knew the box number but did not have the key.

We were told that there was no safe deposit box. We went home and found the paperwork from the original bank. The current bank got back to us that the box was marked as abandoned years ago for nonpayment and they assumed the contents were sent to the state. We countered that the box was free if they kept their accounts at the bank, the deal with the original bank. They had no answer.

My wife was devastated. Her grandmother’s wedding ring was in that box. We contact the state and they had no record of the box being turned over.

We went back to the bank with that information. The bank officer said things got lost between all the mergers etc over the years. Just out of desperation I asked who held that box number now. They said it was vacant. I asked to open it.. they did and there were my in-laws possessions!

There wasn’t much. Some long obsolete paperwork, an envelope that had photos of every room In their house from the 1960s, for insurance purposes, and thankfully the ring!

Living Paycheck to Paycheck ….. Part 2

Amazing

Another amazing Chinese airport where workers have moved mountains to build a new airport, quite literally.

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Workers in Chongqing needed to flattened the top of a mountain nearly 6000 feet above the sea level in order to construct the Wushan Airport.

The airport IATA: WSK ICAO: ZUWS is located at the border of Wushan and Fengjie counties, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the county seat, and mainly serves tourists to the nearby Three Gorges region. Construction began on 20 April 2015, and the airport was opened on 16 August 2019

Grapefruit

Sierra Tkacik

“Jane!” A voice bellowed from the recesses of the ship. “Where is my grapefruit?”“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” A voice echoed from the opposite direction.“My grapefruit, Jane! The one I specifically had my name on! The one you stole!”“First of all, why would you print your name on a freaking grapefruit? Second of all, if you didn’t want me to take it, you shouldn’t have put it in a community fridge.”“So you did take it!”“Why is this grapefruit so important, anyway?”“Do you know, Jane, how many people have died in ships due to scurvy? Do you?!”“So eat an orange!”“The orange is overrated! The grapefruit is the only citrus fruit that understands me.”Charlie groaned and pressed his forehead against the table. “Lewis, we just had a shipment of grapefruit yesterday, get another one!”

“Shut up, Charlie! This doesn’t concern you!”

“I don’t even know why you try anymore.” Lyra flipped her braid as she slid in next to him.

“Because you well know how much worse it will get if I don’t.”

Harriet groaned as she remembered the third great prank war.

Jane and Lewis were in an argument over their favorite colors, and it escalated into a full-blown war. Everywhere anyone turned, there was another trap set for either Lewis or Jane.

Somehow, they ended up joining forces against the rest of the ship and wreaked havoc upon the crew of the Flame.

They feared that it would spread to the other ships of the fleet, but luckily, Charlie recovered from his bout of illness quickly, and managed to calm both Lewis and Jane within the hour.

But the crew would never forget the horror and fear they faced in that week; that was the day Charlie became the unofficial leader of all things Lewis and Jane.

“I don’t even know why they’re on the same ship after that stunt; much less the mothership.”

Lyra took a lasting gulp of coffee. “Jane’s the best engineer in the whole fleet.”

“And Lewis is crazy good with the servers and the rest of the ship’s tech.” Harriet supplied, flicking a crumb of her muffin.

“Plus, they’re great gunners in a pinch and work well with everyone except each other.”

Claude snorted as he walked in. “Tell that to the Horogin embassy from two month ago.

“Listen,” Lewis looked up from his tablet, “we all agree that the embassy was a mistake, just like we all agree that in general, Jane and Lewis are remarkable workers.”

“Besides,” Harriet simpered, “can you really picture them anywhere else?”

The room fell silent except for the gurgle of the coffee maker as each of the four tried to imagine Jane or Lewis stationed on any other ship.

“Fair point.” Lyra admitted. “So can I just be put on another ship? I grew up on the Growth; agriculture is not something so easily forgotten.” Her violet braid twisted in front of her and seemed to writhe in agreement.

“Uh, Charlie?” Claude pointed. “There’s a problem.”

Charlie took one look at the floating braid before letting out a groan.

He tapped the screen of his tablet and set it down, a holograph of a red-headed man slowly taking form.

“Hey Charlie!” He showed of a gap-toothed grin. “Your gravity messing up too?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, I just got off a vid with the captain about it. Lewis is checking it out now.”

“Lewis? Isn’t he usually on servers?”

“Usually, but since he passed out on another late night shift yesterday, I figured putting him on monitor watching duty was a better plan.”

“Alright.”

A blond man with dark, circular glasses stomped past, an indescribable look on his face.

“Lewis, you figure it out yet?”

“Yeah, Arnold, it’ll be fixed in a sec.” He disappeared from view.

“Hey Jane!” A voice came from both the tablet and the hallway. “Something’s blocking the free-float tube!”

“Yeah, that’s probably your grapefruit.”

“You didn’t even eat it?!” The screech caused both Lyra and Charlie to wince. “What the heck?”

“I don’t like grapefruit.”

“So you took it from me for the sole pleasure of depriving me joy?”

“Yeah.” A clang was heard and Lyra’s braid dropped. “It’s in the compost bin now.”

“I hate you, you know!”

“Just like I hate grapefruit?”

An indecipherable collection of sounds was heard, before the hologram showed Lewis stomping back to his post.

“Good work, buddy.” Arnold offered, to what might as well have been empty space.

“Thanks for dealing with it, A.” Charlie picked up the tablet. “Good luck.”

“No, man, good luck to you. Lewis has his morning break in five minutes.” And with a wink, Arnold was gone.

“But that’s the same time Jane’s on break.” Lyra remarked.

The four looked at each other with wide eyes, then at their meager breakfast.

“Hide the grapefruit.”

Trump didn’t drain the swamp, he appointed the worst reptiles

Is there any car which thieves can not steal?

Where I live in Brazil, car theft is somewhat of a problem. For the most part thieves choose commonly found, locally manufactured models, like Ford Fiestas, Fiat Palios, and Volkswagen Foxes, and then take them to chop-shops who tear them down and resell the parts online.

Models that are ten years old or older are very sought after because they are often relatively easy to steal and parts for them are harder to find, so the demand for things like fuel pumps, taillights and radiators is greater.

If you go on to Brazilian eBay and buy a used or reconditioned alternator, chances are very high that it is from a stolen car. There is a whole black market industry for car parts all across of South America that is literally impossible to stop.

Ironically, if you drive a high-end model like a Mercedes, BMW or Range Rover no one will steal it. First because it is way too conspicuous to drive around in a high end car than a common one, you’ll most certainly get caught, and second because selling the parts is much more difficult because there are not that many high end models around, not to mention that the people who own these cars are wealthy enough to pay a dealership to fix them when they need service.

I have two cars, a 2009 Volkswagen Gol (a somewhat cheaper model under the Golf) and a 2010 Volvo XC60 T5. No one will touch the Volvo because it’s the only one in town and thieves know that Volvos have a factory GPS system installed in them that’s really hard to deactivate, but I really have to keep my eye on the Gol because Gols are all over the place and it is a very sought after car to steal.

Someone tried to steal my Gol a few years ago — they broke the small triangle window behind the back door to unlock the car, then they popped the hood and cut the wires to the alarm. Then they broke the ignition lock and used a screwdriver to force it to engage the starter. It was during the night and the car was right outside my bedroom window; I didn’t hear a thing.

I woke up the next morning and the car wasn’t there, so I called the insurance company who used a tracking system like lo-jack to find it, it was unlocked, sitting around the corner and all of the thieves’ tools were on the seats and the floor — even the screwdriver was still sticking out of the ignition.

I’m guessing that the thieves gave up and fled the scene when they couldn’t get the engine to turn over and a cop car came down the street, or something like that.

They couldn’t start the engine because I had installed an engine kill switch up and under the dashboard where no one could see it. Two feet of wire, a toggle switch and a 10-amp fuse saved my car from being stolen: total cost of $4.00.

The Volvo on the other hand is exceptionally hard to steal, not because of the GPS system, but because of how the ignition system was designed.

There is no key to turn, so there is no ignition lock to break; to start the car I put the remote that unlocks the doors in the dashboard and push a button. The steering lock is further down the steering column than in most cars — it actually sits under the engine at the firewall, so it’s very hard to get to.

The Volvo also has another feature that many cars don’t have, and it’s not a factory-installed feature. You could literally take a baseball bat to the windshield and it won’t break. You could also unload a full clip of .44 magnum rounds into the driver’s side window and it won’t shatter.

The car is bulletproof — the previous owner had it bulletproofed when she bought it new in 2010. It has inch-thick glass and Kevlar all around, including the roof, so just getting into the car is no easy task.

You’d probably be able to force the door open with a crowbar, but that would break the door’s closing mechanism making it kind of hard to drive, that is if you were able to get around the steering lock and the keyless ignition.

Very hard to steal. Hard to car-jack at an intersection too, something all too common in cities like Rio de Janeiro on hot summer days when people are stuck in traffic.

Of course, one could always use a tow truck.

Would you believe that I don’t even have insurance on the Volvo? Except of course for the mandatory Government insurance that costs about $5.00 a year. I know that someone won’t steal it – they won’t even try.

The Gol on the other hand is insured, to the hilt, with a super-low deductible, which costs me about $600.00 a year. It’s not worth very much though, maybe $2000.00, so the insurance company believes someone will steal it in a little over three years.

Actually the Volvo has a very interesting and somewhat amusing story behind it, I wrote about it in another post a few days ago. If you’re interested here’s the Quora link. What car do you currently drive? Is it worth the price you paid for it?

So, it all depends on where you live and the car you drive, what security features it has. No car is truly unstealable, but some of them are much harder to steal than others.

Are Chinese people aware of the power of their country in comparison to others?

Many Chinese are shocked when they first hear that westerners are afraid of China and Chinese.

Immediate reaction is “What did we do? We just work hard and mind our own business and sell stuff to everybody. Once in a while we get annoyed at Taiwan or the Philippines, but we don’t really do anything.”

They are unaware that it is because of their hard work and competition in Chinese society, that China is very powerful and influential in the aggregate.

“They’re LYING about the economy, this is now a DEPRESSION” Top Economist Warns

Regardless of who will be the next president of the United States, do you think the US will continue to fight a trade war with China? Or will it clearly understand that the root of the problem lies within the country itself?

I believed that will happened in about a decade from now! Britain took generations to accept that it has lost its hegemony to the US and I am sure it took at least a century for Romans to accept that it is no longer the head honcho.

The US is no different. It is in a generation of being in denial and it refused to recognised that the more it fights China the faster it goes down! And the best thing to do is to accept a secondary role of working with China to help its people to keep doing well and not lose everything!

Of course it is the US own doing that put it into present situation. Why?

First the US thought wrongly that it could pay its workers and its CEO the sky if they wanted and that they can always charge these excesses to the consumer and they will be willing to do so! But that is simply not true. Even US consumers won’t pay for over priced products!

Second they wrongly assumed that China and Chinese cannot innovate and makes better and better products and moved up the supply chain! This is due to their racial bias that cost them dearly. China learn very fast and catch up and overtook the US in no time! The idea that China steal intellectual property and copy is what caused the US to under estimated China and the Chinese people!

Thirdly the US wrongly thought that it ruled the world and yet stay competitive. The truth is to compete one need to be very driven and focus and the US is fighting forever wars and warmongering 24/7, 365 days a year. And it left the UD very weak in investment and infrastructures and the US simply cannot compete. While they lack skill and well trained engineers China has in abundance of resources and talents.

Forthly the US thought that it could fight any body and everyone in the world without repercussions. It is not true. The world turned against the US. And the world wants the US to fail because no one wants to be bullied by the US.

The US wrongly thought that their market is the biggest, today the US is really a very insignificant market today. The biggest market Center is East Asia, followed by ASEAN, followed by Europe and then comes North America with Indian sub continent and Central Asia growing fast, so is Africa and Latin America. Today the entire supply chain will stay in China not just because of China but Asian market is closed to 60% of the world market.

The US will fight another trade war but in reality it is sinking in the quick sand. Mark my word in 10 years leaders cannot win elections if they cannot have a positive relationship with China! It is simply economics!

Which habits of middle-class people keep them middle class?

Several behaviors prevent the middle class from ascending.

Spending large sums on depreciating assets. If you want to be wealthy, your only large purchases should be investments, not vehicles or gaming computers.
Buying more house than needed. While a house is an investment, if your paychecks are all going to pay a mortgage and upkeep, you are short funds for investing. If housing prices collapse again, you won’t even have the equity.
Not having 3–6 months of living expenses saved in case of a lay-off or emergency. Unemployment isn’t going to pay all your bills and living off credit cards until you get a new job is an expensive mistake. Putting an emergency cost on credit cards means you will pay at least twice as much with interest added than if using savings.
Paying banks, instead of themselves. Interest payments are a huge waste. Imagine if you had that $500–1000/ month credit interest going to investments instead of to banks.
Not understanding what is an investment rather than a purchase. Sellers use investment in advertising, but they lie. You don’t invest in a nice suit, you purchase it. The next day it is used clothing and worth 1/2 what you paid for it. You don’t invest in furniture, you purchase it. An investment is an asset expected to go up in value over time.
Investing only in their employer’s stocks. It isn’t a good idea to invest in only one stock, industry or investment type. Putting money in a variety decreases your risks.
Passing up job opportunities or promotions because you don’t like the people you will be working with, the added responsibility and/or travel involved. The road to the corner office might detour through a landfill, but it is the only way to get there. Promotions may not be offered a second time. The job opportunity you are holding out for may never happen.
Nobody get rich using coupons. It takes a complete budget and lifestyle that spends less than you make and that includes investing. Saving $20 a week on groceries, but spending an extra $600 a month on a new vehicle you just had to have makes no sense.
Money is not the goal, it is the tool. If you save up $100,000 and it just sits in a savings account, you are losing money and the potential for becoming financially independent.
You have to set aside money for fun or your budget will fail. Sacrifice is easy the first month. By the time you reach the fortieth month, sacrifices can feel like a vise on your life. Adding fun dollars to your budget will let you enjoy life while still reaching your financial goals.

Shorpy

Six foreigners allegedly poisoned in Bangkok luxury hotel

Is the Chinese government and its people considered perfect? If not, what are some reasons for this?

No, it is far from perfect and there is always room for improvement.

The important thing is to have a channel to provide input to government officials, explain why something needs to change to make it better, and see if they can make the change.

This is very different from the idea of free speech in the west because while people have the right to elect new leaders at election time, there is no way to request changes on a small scale, and then to follow up on them.

The Chinese way is to ask for changes on an ongoing basis, explain the rationale for the change, and if the official feels that it is reasonable, ask him to make the change. If he does NOT make the change within a reasonable time, then move up the ladder, and complain to his superior.

And so on and so forth…

So in the western system, you vote for the person and hope that he makes the macro changes you want. In the Chinese system, you go to the local official and request that he make the micro change you want. If the request is reasonable, he should make the change. If he does not, he will likely be voted out at the local level. Since he is also a Party member, failure to act on reasonable requests will affect his opportunity for promotion in the future, and affect his own career.

In court, what was the most devastating cross-examination of a witness that you ever saw?

My in-laws used to live across the street from a drug dealer. They often called the police where there were cars coming and going from his property, picking up “product”. This cut into his business, and led to several ugly confrontations between him and my in-laws.

One day my then-fiancee was visiting her parents, and was in the back of the house when there was a commotion out front, complete with gunshots. She didn’t see anything, but both her parents and one of her brothers claimed they saw said drug dealer leaning out of his upstairs window, firing a gun. From his body language and what words they could make out, his intent was clear: Stop interfering with my business, or the next time I won’t be firing into the air but at you.

They called the police and he was charged with aggravated menacing. Some months later, I attended the trial as a spectator, as my fiancee (now wife) was a witness. The drug dealer took the stand in his own defense. After a well-rehearsed examination by his attorney, it was the prosecuting attorney’s turn.

“Mr. ___, on [date], did you fire several shots from a handgun into the air from the second story window of your home?”

“No, I did not. I don’t even have a gun.”

“You own no firearms whatsoever? On [date], you didn’t have a single firearm in the house?”

“That’s right. I didn’t have no guns then.”

A look of confusion spread of the DA’s face as he quickly pawed through his notes.

“Now, on [date of previous police call to his home], didn’t you tell Officer ____ that you had an extensive collection of firearms and that you were an expert in their use?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, did you lie to Officer ____?”

“What?”

“Did you lie to Officer ____ back on [previous date], or did you lie to the jury just now?”

“Yeah, I lied.”

I suspect that if you want to be taken seriously by a jury, you should not admit that you are a liar and may have just lied to them on the witness stand.

He was convicted, despite testimony from friends who gave him an alibi. The jury must have thought they were liars, too.

Vintage illustration

The US Passport is Getting WORSE

Russia lays it all out on the table.

Washington’s belief that the United States will not suffer from a new global war and that the main actions will unfold on the European continent is a misconception, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

The stark language from Foreign Minister Lavrov was used during a UN Security Council meeting.

The clear implication is that the “main actions” of another global war would also unfold on the North American continent. Here. Inside the USA.

Keen observers agree there is no other rational interpretation of the remarks.

Yet as this story is published at 1:10 PM EDT on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, Americans, for the most part, remain blissfully unaware of how dangerous the world situation is right now. They have no idea at all that the US Government has taken actions so grave, that the American heartland is now being openly discussed as a future war zone.

How this particular remark arose in the UN was after White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, said that “Washington does not want a war with Russia as it would affect the European continent.”

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov mentioned this remark and then said (verbatim) “In Washington, they are convinced that a new global war will affect not the US, but their European allies. If this analysis forms the basis of the Biden administration’s strategy, it is a very dangerous misconception, and Europeans should realize what a suicidal role has been assigned to them.”

Any resolution of the European crisis must include concrete steps to eliminate the threats to Russia that emanate from the West, the diplomat went on to say. He recalled that Moscow’s conditions for establishing lasting peace in Ukraine have already been outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin also noted that Zelensky’s term has expired and his legitimacy cannot be restored by any means.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov clarified that Putin does not rule out negotiations with Ukraine, as there are other legitimate authorities there.

For his part, Lavrov emphasized that Russia is ready to seek a balance of interests to resolve the current crisis in Ukraine, taking into account new geostrategic realities on the Eurasian continent.

Let’s summarize;

War with Russia;

Destruction of Europe
Nuclear destruction of the United States via missiles

War with China;

Destruction of QUAD nations (Australia, Japan, Korea, Philippines)
Nuclear destruction of the United States via missiles

Chicken and Ravioli Cacciatore

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 medium onion, halved and sliced
1/2 medium green bell pepper, sliced
1 cup water
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes w/garlic, oregano, and basil
8 ounces tomato sauce
9 ounces refrigerated cheese ravioli

Instructions

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add chicken, onion and bell pepper; cook and stir until chicken is browned.
Stir in water, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil. Add ravioli, covering it with tomato mixture. If necessary carefully separate ravioli. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes or until sauce is of desired consistency and chicken is no longer pink, stirring frequently.

Chow time does SSM

He reviews one of SSM’s best. Have a chuckle.

If local detectives show up at your door and say your name came up in one of their investigations and they’d like you to come down to the station with them to talk about it, does that usually mean you’re a suspect?

About 15 years ago, a very expensive piece of equipment, ($30k market value at the time) was stolen from my place of employment. I was the one who discovered it missing and I was the one who called it in to our security office, who contacted the local police. I gave my statement to our in house security and the lead detective from the local law enforcement gave me his card and asked me to go down to the station to meet him and take an official statement on the coming Saturday (three days away at the time) at 8am.

I thought that was weird, but I agreed and was at the station at 7:45 am that Saturday. I checked in with the clerk who said the detective wasn’t in yet. I knew I was early so it wasn’t a big deal to wait. At 8:30 am, the detective walks out and acted surprised to see me. He then stated that he thought he told me 9 am. I showed him the business card he gave me and how I scribbled “Sat 8am” on the back of it. He gave the most insincere apology I ever heard and then told me he wasn’t ready for me yet and asked if I could wait 15 minutes and that he could have someone get me a coffee.

I agreed to wait and took the offer for the coffee. Half an hour later, he walks by and asked, “Did you not get your coffee?” and I said no, and he said, I’ll get right on that, I just need a few more minutes.” Half an hour after that, someone comes to get me and brings me to an interview room (still no coffee). Another 15 minutes later the detective show up with his partner.

They start asking me questions which I thought were peculiar. Then it hit me that I wasn’t just giving a statement, they were interviewing me as a person of interest. I am the first one every morning to open the location from which the equipment was taken. The surveillance video showed a team of 3 who knew exactly what they were doing and how to go about it. None of their faces were ever turned to the cameras and they knew exactly what they wanted, how to get it as quickly as possible and how to get it out of the building without being noticed.

The detectives thought that someone on the inside had provided the thieves with the intel they needed to get away with it, and I was suspect numero uno. Knowing what I know now, I would have immediately ceased talking to these detectives without a lawyer present. They grilled me for 4 more hours trying to break me into a confession of being an accomplice, which I was not.

It turns out that the thieves were a ring of professionals who spent a week scoping out the location to figure out how best to get their prize. The same individuals had hit 11 other institutions on the eastern coast of the US. It also turns out that the lead detective on the case who gave me such a hard time was also later convicted of stealing cash from the evidence room of his own station. Reading that headline made me smile because he was a huge jerk and it blew my mind that he even made detective in the first place, but it also made me sad for our justice system as a whole at the same time.

Also I never did get that coffee…

Which story in American history is hard to believe?

One story I’ve always found hard to believe is that of Lee Harvey Oswald having acted completely alone. People tend to forget that the guy defected to Soviet Russia for about a year. He renounced his citizenship, and worked for the Soviets for a while, who sent him to Minsk.

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Oswald went back to America because, as he wrote in his diary, he “found the work drab”. Soviet Russia was no fun. So he returned to America. How! How on earth did a US citizen defect to the Soviet Union and just… return. Like it’s no big deal. What the hell? He married a Russian wife, they have two daughters. Settle in America. Oswald, for the record, is a former marine. He’s an excellent marksman (finest in his unit) and for two years, he’s left completely undisturbed by US authorities despite having defected and worked for their enemies for a year. And, when he was just 24 years of age, he goes and — allegedly — kills President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

It’s hard to believe an American citizen defected to the number one enemy of America in the middle of the Cold War, was allowed back to the United States without trouble, only to assassinate the president and get killed almost immediately after by a random citizen while in policy custody.

Valiant Thor: A UFO, the Pentagon and a 3-year Mission to Save the World

Birch beer memories

When I was just starting to work, I held two jobs. One was in the coal mines, and the other was in a local supermarket / grocery store.

At the supermarket there was an assistant manager. His name was John Wally. I’m sure that he is dead by now, as it was a long time ago. If he’s still alive, he’d be over a hundred years old.

John Wally was unique. He was a good friend, and very interesting fellow. he had horses, and he would take us out riding them now and then in the woods nearby. But, you know, he also had a lot of 1970’s “back to nature” skills. One of which was the brewing of birch beer.

Easy to do.

You get a bunch of chipping from the birth tree. I believe that it was the root stems. And then you put them in a big coffee urn and percolate that collection for a couple of hours. The result is a dark brown liquid that tasted like root beer.

Then, piping hot, you pour some in a cup, and add a generous heaping of sugar, and there you have it. A very nice drink.

Now, a word to the wise, if you drink too much of this, you will go to the bathroom, and it will really clean you out. I’ll tell you what. It’s pretty potent.

Country lore of the 1970’s.

There’s many such things, from the yarn crafts, to the stichings on recycled old clothing to work arounds so that the “rabbit ears” on top of the television pretty much gave a better signal. (Hint; Aluminum foil worked wonders.)

Home made birch beer. If you live near a Pennsylvania woods, give it a try. You might like it.

Today…

Comparing China and the US: Is there a difference between the Chinese Communist Party being in charge in China and the plutocracy in the US being in charge there?

Yes, there is a HUGE difference.

In the USA, the people have no meaningful democratic power. The wealthy oligarchs pull all the strings. Consequently, the average American has seen their quality of life diminish steadily in recent decades.

In China, the government serves the people’s best interest and responds to their feedback and input through regular consultation. The average Chinese has seen their quality of life increase steadily and dramatically in recent decades.

What shocked you when you opened someone’s safe deposit box at the bank?

My wife’s brother died and left everything to her. He was a hoarder, and while the house was in a good neighborhood, it was in bad shape. We tried to clean it up for him while he was in the hospital, thinking that he would be coming home, but he went from ICU to Hospice to Morgue in about 10 days.

It was overwhelming, a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with a 3 car garage and a workshop, every square inch of it filled with clutter. He was a contractor, but when he got divorced he just gave up. There was 30 years worth of junk mail on the floor that he just walked on until it turned to paper pulp, 2 feet deep in places. He didn’t trust banks, so his whole house was like his safety deposit box. Every envelope had to be inspected, every box had to be opened, every bag had to be emptied. We found 2 Home Depot buckets worth of loose change in the living room. We found 7 postal money orders for $1,000 each in an old utility bill envelope. We found $4,000 in cash in a paper shredder. We took 200 big black 42 gallon trash bags to the dump, and everything had to be checked out before we tossed it into the trash. The main hallway had sheets of drywall leaning to one side, and when we cleared them out and opened the closet where the HVAC equipment was supposed to go, we found silver bars stashed in the space below, behind the air intake. I loaded the silver into 2 plastic buckets to carry it out to our truck, and after about 3 steps the buckets shattered and I was holding only the handles. It took us 6 months of cleaning before we were confident that we could bring in other people to help us.

My wife sells on eBay, and she has been selling off the stuff her brother had accumulated. Old school incandescent light bulbs sold like hotcakes, we had enough new in boxes to fill her short bed truck. He collected milling machines and lathes. My wife will be selling brand new collets and chucks and bits and cutters for 5 more years. We’ve got enough circuit breakers and panels and wire and conduit and junction boxes and switches and wall sockets to redo every house on our street.

I’m something of a car guy, and I’ve been tasked with selling off the engines and car parts. I’ve got enough period correct Chrysler hemi parts to build 3 or 4 muscle car engines. There are enough hand tools to overload his diesel dually 4×4, and enough power tools to fill his 2 wheel drive diesel dually truck again. We gave his ’68 Barracuda to his best friend.

We’ve been working on the house for over 2 years now, getting it read to sell.

As a car mechanic, what’s the worst condition you’ve seen a car in that made you say, “how are you still driving this”?

Not a mechanic but worked in a building that also housed a delivery service. The couriers parked in the parking garage on the lower level for quick arrival and departures for making their deliveries. One of the vehicles was an old Pontiac station wagon. The fellow must have lived in his vehicle. He had a cheap grill attached to the top with bungee cord, the legs were removable, next to a sack of charcoal, a couple folding chairs, and a popup canopy. Inside the vehicle the floorboards were covered with plywood or boards as the floorboards had rusted out. He had a clothes bar suspended behind the front seat with clothes hanging from it as well as in the back with clothes hanging there. The vehicle must have come from around the great lakes as it appeared the salt on the roads had eaten out the fenders and most of the bumpers. the back windshield didn’t go all the way up, there was a piece of Visqueen duck taped over the gap, just at the top so driving down the road allowed air to flow out.

One week we noticed a handwritten sign laid on the front dash that pleaded with building security to not tow it away as the owner was saving money to have it repaired.

I noticed an empty plastic tote in the back by the window that wouldn’t go all the way up. I dropped a $20 so that it fell into the plastic tote. The next week I noticed that several others had dropped money through the slightly open window from $1 to $10 type bills. As the week progressed the stack was looking tempting. Then the car was gone. I don’t know if it got towed away or what. Several weeks later there was a used Toyota Prius parked in the same spot with a large hand scrolled sign on the front dash with a “thanks to all that contributed”. We all hoped that he was able to find an apartment and that the courier service paid well enough to get him off the street.

GEN-Z REACTS To Things Kids Did in the 1970s

Buttermilk Brown Sugar and Bacon Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar, + more for dusting (if desired)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
3 slices cooked, crisp bacon, crumbled
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup buttermilk

Instructions

Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and bacon until evenly mixed.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter until the pieces of butter are the size of small peas.
Add buttermilk and stir until the dough is uniformly moistened.
On a lightly floured surface, bring the dough together and roll to approximately 3/4 inch thickness. Fold, envelope style, and roll again. If necessary, fold and roll again until the dough is smooth and uniform.
Cut biscuits and bake for 11 to 15 minutes until tops are golden.
If desired, brush tops with butter and sprinkle with additional brown sugar.

Are Chinese people aware that their government is an authoritarian dictatorship?

I grew up in Canada. My high school economics teacher explained something that no one else did. Socialism, communism and capitalism are economic systems.

Democracy, theocracy, monarchy, autocracy and meritocracy are political systems.

If you look this up in any reference book, you can verify this.

So it’s possible to have democractic communism, theocratic capitalism… the combinations are limited only by permutations.

China is ruled by the Communist party of China. But they espouse and practice socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The political system is a meritocracy.

Everyone moves up the ranks by how well you perform. You start doing administration work in a village. Prove yourself and get a town to run. Then a small city. Medium city. Large city.

Many leaders were mayors of Shanghai. Population of 26 million.

That is no easy task.

If the economy of Shanghai is in the doldrums and you fix it, move up the ladder. Provincial head. Then a few more high level policy committees. The journey can take 30–40 years.

No big mistakes and you keep going up.

Xi Jinping followed this path. All along the way, you get voted to move up. Most leaders are engineers, architects or economists. They are planners and builders. They rely on proven ability not good sounding speeches and promises.

Action speaks louder than words.

What is the most disturbing thing you’ve seen while camping?

When I was a kid we would go camping for q weeks every summer. Even when my parents divorced we still went. My dad would be with us the first week then my mother would xome up and trade off with him for the second week.

One year we were at our usual campground in Southern Michigan. One morning at a nearby campsite, the parents were arguing very loudly. While this was going on their young boy (maybe 3?) was running around unsupervised. He stayed mainly in their site but I think that was only luck.

After a while of this his luck ran out. They had had a fire in the pit the night before as most people there had. These pits were little more than an eight inch depression in the ground surrounded by rocks. The morning after a campfire the pit is full of ash. However, that ash covers an underlayer of very hot coals. Hot enough that if you stirred them up and added more wood the fire would reignite. This poor kid ran through the pit.

The only response from the parents when this kid started screaming was for dad to grab him up, yell at him to shut the hell up, and stick him in a lounge type camp chair. Dad then proceeded to rejoin the argument with mom.

We couldn’t see the kid very well from our site but we could sure hear him. For about an hour he screamed in pain while his parents fought only pausing now and then to yell at him. Finally, my dad had had enough and walked over to confront the other father. They almost fought but my dad walked back, told my mom he’d be right back, got in the car and left. He came back about 15 min later and said he’d called the police from the range station. He said the boys feet were burned raw.

About 20 minutes later 2 state police cars and an ambulance arrived. The big was loaded into the ambulance and after some investigation by the troopers around the campsites nearby, each parent got their own backseat in a cruiser.

Never knew what happened after that. We were there about another week and that other campsite sat just the way they left it. I kinda hope that kid went to someone else that took better care of him.

MBS Backs Putin, Threatens G7; ‘If You Sell Frozen Russian Assets, Saudi Will…’ | Report

I caught an accident on my dash cam. I turned the footage over to the police. Now the party that was at fault is suing me. What should I do?

Having worked with (U.S ) Attorneys for a number of years, let me explain something. Attorneys depend on making the most money for their clients as possible, because that means that THEY make more money. Most “injury” suites are percentage based which means the higher the overall award, the higher amount of money the Attorney can claim as their fee. (This is usually a set percentage, but 30% of $300k is a WHOLE LOT MORE than 30% of $100.00.)

Because of this Attorneys will “name EVERYONE possible” to a suite. I’ve even heard of some going after KEY WITNESSES. It’s a BLATANT attempt at coercion – STRICTLY PROHIBITED LEGALLY – but a good number of the more “known” accident attorneys across this nation are nothing more than glorified ambulance chasers!! 90% of the time, these extemporaneous “Defendants” are dismissed from the suite LONG before the case would get anywhere close to trial, HOWEVER that does NOTHING for the ABSOLUTE TERROR these tactics cause for the upstanding citizens that offer video, photographs or verbal witness to an accident.

As has been previously stated, your BEST solution would be to hire an attorney, answer the suite, THEN countersue for emotional distress, loss of wages (time lost due to appointments w/attorney, doctor appointments due to the distress – if any – time lost having to appear in Court, mileage, gasoline costs, daycare costs if incurred, literally EVERY LITTLE THING you and your attorney can think of, to prove a point to opposing council, that #1 their an idiot; #2 YOU are NOT; #3 that they barked up the WRONG tree; #4 that Attorneys DON’T COME CHEAP, etc!) Then you follow thru with your counter suite, EVEN if they drop you (by force or by choice) from the suite! Good Luck!!

US missiles in Germany

Why are there so few car wrecks on the German autobahn?

The whole system works for this.

High entry barrier – rigorous training , examination, and it’s expensive. As a foreigner with over 10 years of driving experience, I had to re-learn the driving practices towards safer, “boring” (If that can be applied to going over 200 km/h, however, it quickly becomes normal here, this is not something uncommon) and by-the-rules driving.
Design & quality of autobahns – in places where you don’t have speed limit – there are usually wide 2-lane roads with low curvature and very good visibility. It’s always undergoing maintenance, which ofc can be annoying when you have to go down 80–100 from 200kmh but you know, that there is a very low probability you encounter degraded pavement – usually these places quickly become speed-limited zones and the problems are addressed.
Very constrasting with neighboring Checz republic, for example, where there are holes and bumps on 130kmh road.
Technical examination of cars from TUV/Dekra is another heavily regulated area. You cannot even install tires of less width than officially allowed (in my case 215 vs 225 already made a case).
Heavy fines
While most of the fines are not tied to the income (e.g. bußgeld), a plenty of them can not only eat your budget but also give you Flensburg points. 8 points and you loose your license, and then you have to undergo MPU test (famous “Idiotentest”). That makes people obey the rules, so if you see “30” sign, everybody will drive 30.P.S. Autobahns are one of the most beautiful feats of Germany. Many things work wrong here, but this thing is simply amazing. nowhere in the world you can legally go as much as your vehicle is able.

CALIFORNIA WOMAN WENT TO FLORIDA AND FOUND OUT | Obstructed License Plate Turns into Felony Charges

Californian meets Florida. Real talk.

What’s a red flag that you ignored in a significant other, only to realize it was a big deal later?

Spending like a drunken sailor.

I was warned not to marry her. I told them to mind their own business.

Right from our early dating days, we fought like cats and dogs.

But I went ahead and married her anyway.

18 months into the marriage, I’m in the Air Force and she’s unemployed and not willing to stick at any job … BUT, she spends money like a drunken sailor. And when she’s spent every penny we have, she starts writing dud checks to spend more. I’m working two jobs trying to keep up with the bills, but she’s out-pacing me in the money race. I get called up to my CO’s office twice about her writing bad checks.

Then I come home one night at 1:00am after my second job and instead of being at a neighbor’s house babysitting, she’s at home. When I approach our apartment I see a guy coming out that she’s been “palling around” with.

That’s the final straw. I tell her it’s over and to pack her things and go home to her mom (which she has threatened on so many occasions).

Fast forward and I’m with wife #3 for over 40 years and we like to watch the Forensic Files series.

What makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck is how many stories we see on that show, of spendthrift wives who knocked off their husbands for their life insurance and to move on to the new boyfriend.

That could have been me!

What is the last thing someone said to you before they died?

I had a piano student named Lynn, who was very intelligent.

She worked for the Department of Education in eastern Canada.

Lynn was extremely health conscious.

She followed a nearly perfect diet, and exercised regularly.

Lynn ‘speed walked’ to her piano lessons.

She began to complain about a pain in her right side.

Over a five month period, Lynn repeatedly went to the doctor, who assured her it was a ‘pulled muscle’.

When she finally got a second opinion, the ‘pulled muscle’ turned out to be cancer, which had eaten away part of one of her ribs.

Lynn was alone in the city.

Her husband had died of cancer a few years prior to her diagnosis.

He was a surgeon, and they had saved a large amount of money for retirement.

Lynn was slated to retire at the end of the school year, eight months from her cancer diagnosis.

She and her late husband had planned to travel around the world, and enjoy their golden years together.

Lynn my student, became Lynn my friend.

I became her confidante.

The hospital was less than a ten minute drive from my studio.

I went to visit Lynn during my dinner breaks, and before bedtime.

She told me if she could relive her life, she wouldn’t be on committees because it ‘was expected’ of her.

She wouldn’t do ANYTHING out of guilt or the expectations of others.

Lynn shared her regret of wasted precious time spent at meetings and social ‘obligations’.

I told her that I was going to resign from everything that wasn’t meaningful in my life.

My wise student thanked me for keeping her company in the hospital.

Her last words to me were, “Remember Gail, there are no guarantees in this life.”

Lynn died the following day.

Since Lynn’s death, I have been very selective about how and with whom I spend my time.

Immediately following her passing, I resigned from everything except a music association and The Animal Rescue League, two passions in my life.

Being aware of the value of time is invaluable!

$10 vs $50 Buffet | Vietnam

Say I walk into a car dealership with the funds to pay in full. I walk up to a salesman, point to a brand new car on the showroom floor, and say: “I want that one.” No test drive, no trade in. How long would it take before I’m driving it off the lot?

My first experience was with a Toyota RAV4 – I had test-driven the vehicle a week before, so I called the dealership and told them exactly which one I wanted and how long it would take me to get to their lot.

It took ONE HOUR AND 15 MINUTES!!! They knew exactly which car it was; they had it there at the front of their lot; I had already negotiated price; all they had to do was have the paperwork ready! But instead they kept trying to sell me more add-on’s and “things I needed” – and I kept saying “No” until they finally got to the bottom line and took my check.

My second experience was when I bought my wife a Ford Fiesta – again, I had already test-driven the vehicle earlier that week, and I knew which one we were going to get. I told the salesman, “Last time I purchased a car with cash, it took 1 hour 15 minutes. Can you beat that time?”

I was able to drive the car out 47 minutes later.

It still is ridiculous how long it takes to pay cash for a car, but the reality is that the car price is NOT how the dealership makes its money. They get their profit from the financing, the extended warranties, and lots of other little add-on’s that raise the bottom line. I know now NOT to tell them that I’m paying cash until LATE in the process (negotiate the Out-the-door price first, and THEN bring up any trade-in’s and that you’re paying cash). I don’t begrudge the dealer making a profit, but I don’t like them wasting my time with things I have already said “No” to.

(By the way, I still have the RAV4 – 164,000 miles later, and still running great!)

Believe it or not: U.S. actually sanctions Chinese tricycles

U.S. sanctions on Chinese high-tech companies are no longer news, but a recent sanction has taken everyone by surprise—the common “san bengzi” (three-wheeler) electric tricycles found in rural China have been deemed high-tech products by the U.S. and become targets of sanctions.

These tricycles, which cost only about 3,000 yuan (approx. $460), are referred to as “low-speed electric vehicles” by the U.S. Department of Commerce. On July 11, the U.S. announced anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations on these vehicles, with preliminary decisions expected in August and November this year.

The origin of this situation is quite interesting. Early last year, an American blogger spent $3,000 to purchase a Chinese-made three-wheeler online. Upon receiving it, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the vehicle performed well: it could travel 60 kilometers on a single charge, required no registration, and had zero emissions. After he shared his experience online, it caused a sensation. Americans discovered that these vehicles were particularly suitable for use on large farms, and more economical and affordable than traditional pickup trucks.

Subsequently, U.S. demand for Chinese three-wheelers surged. Chinese companies quickly responded, even offering customization services. The selling price in the U.S. also rose, reaching $5,000 to $12,000. Besides three-wheelers, similar golf carts and sightseeing vehicles also became popular in the U.S.

This situation displeased U.S. automakers.

They petitioned the Department of Commerce, claiming that Chinese products were being dumped at low prices in the U.S. market, distorting the market. More surprisingly, U.S. automakers claimed that the dumping margin for Chinese three-wheelers was as high as 477%. In other words, they believed that a three-wheeler selling for $12,000 in the U.S. should cost around $50,000 to produce, implying that the Chinese government was subsidizing each vehicle by over $40,000.

This claim is laughable.

A product that sells for only 3,000 yuan in China, even if sold for $12,000 in the U.S., is already overpriced. How could it possibly be considered dumping? Not to mention the alleged $40,000 subsidy.

The president of Club Car, the largest golf cart manufacturer in the U.S., claimed that Chinese imports have rapidly increased, taking advantage of government subsidies to gain a larger market share. However, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data, the total value of related products imported from China in 2023 was only $440 million, a small figure for both countries.

This sanction reflects that the U.S. vigilance towards Chinese manufacturing has reached a new height. Previously, sanctions were imposed on high-tech products like 5G and drones, but now even rural three-wheelers “qualify”. However, even if the U.S. imposes high tariffs, Chinese companies have ways to cope, such as assembling or rebranding in third countries.

In conclusion, this incident makes one sigh: the threshold for “harming U.S. industries” in American eyes is getting lower and lower. Even products from township enterprises can attract sanctions, truly giving people a new perspective on the current state of U.S. industrial strength.

How The A-10’s Avenger Cannon Went From Terrible To Terrifying

This is the story of how the A-10 Warthog overcame its teething issues and became the feared ‘flying gun’ it is today.

Tyler Rogoway

Posted on May 28, 2024 12:29 PM EDT

There are few airplanes as iconic as the U.S. Air Force’s A-10 Warthog, and one very big, both figurative and literal, reason for that lies in its massive armor- shredding 30mm gatling gun that sprouts from its chin — the GAU-8-A Avenger cannon.

But as legendary as that gun has become, much of the A-10’s early development was spent ensuring that its cannon killed the enemy, and not Warthog’s pilot.

In other words, the newborn A-10’s big tusks resulted in some serious teething problems.

This is the story of how the A-10 overcame the Avenger’s woes and in doing so, became the feared ‘flying gun’ it is today.

How The A-10’s Avenger Cannon Went From Terrible To Terrifying

In 1971, the United States Air Force hired General Electric and Philco-Ford to build competing prototype cannons for its A-X program that aimed to field the Close Air Support plane of the future. Not only were these companies developing the guns, but they were also developing the ammunition and link-less feed systems, as well as devising how to integrate them into the competing Northrop Y-A-9 and Fairchild Republic Y-A-10 prototype aircraft.

These weapons were an integral, and literally huge, part of the airplanes that would carry them. So much so that according to the official Air Force case study of the A-10’s development, it quickly became clear that the A-X airframe would need to be designed around the gun, rather than visa-versa.

The Avenger Takes Flight

During the A-X development, the guns weren’t ready for the fly-off between the two competing prototype aircraft. Instead, the Air Force provided the smaller 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon that was in widespread use for the head-to-head trials, which the Fairchild Republic design ultimately won. So, Northrop’s Y-A-9 never even had the chance to fly with the Avenger.

In 1973, General Electric won the separate gun competition with its seven hundred pound, seven-barrel rotary cannon… it dwarfed a Volkswagen Beetle once you added in the ammo drum and feed system. The Air Force did also briefly consider arming the A-10 with the Oerlikon 3-0-4-R-K 30mm revolver cannon, however it had a much lower rate of fire and was significantly less reliable than the GAU-8. The Oerlikon offering suffered a malfunction once every 900 rounds, while the Avenger suffered one every 9,000 rounds on average…a ten times increase in reliability.

Ground tests of the GAU-8 went pretty much according to plan, but once they installed it in the Y-A-10 and tried taking the gun aloft for air trials in March 1974, major problems quickly cropped up.

For context, it’s important to remember the immense power of the GAU-8/A Avenger. The gun unloads nearly 70 rounds every second and up to 3,900 rounds a minute, and each 30mm cartridge is the size of a beer bottle. The projectiles alone, whether depleted uranium, armor piercing incendiary or high explosive incendiary, weigh nearly a pound, and it takes two hydraulic motors to spin the barrels and cycle the system. And when it fires, the gun belches a thick plume of smoke and fire, violently rattling the airframe while making its signature guttural roar. (cut to “BRRRRT” in A10 b-roll)

Shake, Rattle and Choke

When the Avenger was first integrated into the A-10 airframe, the most immediate issue was that the muzzle flash from the cannon firing blinded the pilot — a particularly dangerous side effect in an aircraft designed to execute low strafing runs while pointed towards the ground. Firing the cannon also left a dark coating of soot on the forward fuselage, including the windscreen, further obstructing the pilot’s view. This alone later required the development of a window-washing function using a cleaning solution and cooled bleed air from the aircraft’s propulsion system.

The next problem was that repeated firing caused so much heat and friction that metal components in the gun mounts began to bond together. While this didn’t impact firing the gun or flying the aircraft, it made the GAU-8 difficult to remove for maintenance.

Maybe most concerning, when the gasses from firing the cannon were released, they had a tendency to flow up over the aircraft’s wings and into the A-10’s high-set T-F-34 turbofan engines, threatening to suffocate them — not a good thing to have happen at any time, but especially when flying low directly over the enemy. Also, the fumes could contain unburned gunpowder which could build-up on the engine’s fan blades.

To address these issues, engineers tried lengthening the barrels in an attempt to dissipate the blast, and they also switched from copper bonding in the ammo to plastic. Neither solution solved the problem, though the change in the ammunition did reduce wear to the gun and was ultimately adopted.

For more than a decade, work continued to develop potential solutions to the A-10’s Avenger woes. These included at least three gun gas deflector concepts.

The first simply added a shield to the end of the nose in an attempt to mitigate the blast and keep gasses away from critical components. Another design extended the overall shape of the nose itself, entirely encapsulating the cannon’s muzzle and leaving just a slit for it to shoot through. This gave the A-10 a bizarre, almost ant-eater-like appearance. The third design involved a muzzle brake that was officially known as the G-F-U-16-A Gun Gas Diverter…and unofficially as “the Tickler.” This sinister-look contraption was mounted to the end of the GAU-8’s barrels and used baffles to reduce the flash and disperse the gasses from the muzzle away from the cockpit and engines.

After testing proved the device prevented the muzzle flash from blinding the pilot and alleviated the fumes from being ingested into the engines, the device was sent out to A-10 units for installation on their aircraft.

However, solving those two issues ended up making another trademark of the GAU-8, its intense vibrations while firing, even worse due to turbulence around the muzzle of the gun. This increased stress caused cracks within the gun bay, and while those cracks were not found to be a flight safety issue, they were a maintenance nightmare.

In the end, the undeniably medieval looking Tickler was ordered removed, and it joined the other attempted remedies to fixing the A-10’s gun problems in the trash pile. While engineers were able to alleviate the flash and vibration issues to a degree, fumes getting into the engines remained an issue.

The ultimate solution came down to an idea that was both crude and ingenious.

Since the most significant issue was that gasses were getting into the engine and causing it to suffocate, engineers made it so that when the pilot pulls the trigger, it continually trips the engines’ ignition system. So even if it hiccups and stalls suddenly, it immediately restarts. Between that and the windshield washing system, the A-10 was in business of reliably ripping apart stuff on the ground with its prized cannon.

Of course, it isn’t anything new for a prototype plane and its weapons to go through some growing pains. But the tale of the initial issues with the A-10’s signature weapon, and the creative ways its designers tried to address those issues, is an amazing concession of aircraft design to a single component. It’s testament to the fact that the gun was just as important as the plane itself, if not more so, and has allowed the A-10 to earn its fearsome reputation as the last plane enemy troops want to see above them on the battlefield.

Now, after decades of service, multiple conflicts and many past reprieves from being sent to the boneyard, the end of the A-10 era is finally drawing near. The Air Force is already in the process of drawing down the type, with the intent that it will be out of service well before the end of the decade. And while employing precision guided munitions largely became the A-10’s central focus during the back half of its career, having the big 30mm cannon and a lot of ammunition at the ready proved highly valuable in many engagements during the Global War on Terror. But now you know that the Warthog’s Avenger cannon wasn’t always such a celebrated feature, and how it went from terrible to terrifying due to the hard work of those that stuck by it.

What medical condition did you have that you didn’t even know was a problem?

Yes. I was in my early 50s and woke up one morning with a nagging ache in my left arm. I went to work and commented that I must have slept wrong. A couple hours later a co worker came up and said he was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. I laughed, no, just a stiff muscle.

An hour later he came over and told me I needed medical care. I argued and he said I should try one of his nitro tablets. If I wasn’t having a heart attack it wouldn’t hurt me, but if I was having a heart attack the pain would go away.

Now I have never taken someone else’s prescription meds in my life, and have no idea why I did then, but I agreed to try the nitro.

The pain disappeared almost immediately but came back twice as bad a few minutes later.

I drove myself to the hospital and was in an ambulance being transferred three hours away shortly. I was having a heart attack.

An angiogram and a stent and I thought everything was good.

Two weeks later I was back in an ambulance heading back to the hospital to repeat the procedures.

Two weeks later it was the middle of December and I had my post-op checkup.

My mom and I hadn’t finished Christmas shopping yet, and this was a trip to a place with lots of shopping available, so we went early in the morning, shopped for hours and I went to see the cardiologist.

He showed me the pictures from my most recent angiogram and said everything looked perfect, then he asked how I was doing.

I said I felt great, just a little short of breath when I went outside, but it was way below 0 Fahrenheit so I though it was to be expected. The cardiologist told me I was too young to be having problems and he wanted to schedule another angiogram for the next morning. I talked to my mom, told her I didn’t see any need to go through this again, but she encouraged me to go ahead with the procedure so we could all enjoy the holidays.

So, we checked into a hotel for the night and got a shuttle to the hospital in the morning.

When I woke up in recovery, my mom was sitting with me crying. A strange man I had never seen before walked in and in broken English said, “You have triple bypass in five days.”

I was shocked and asked why. He said we had to wait five days to get the blood thinners out of my system.

Now, my mom doesn’t drive in winter and it was snowing. I had lots of kids at home and I wasn’t ready for Christmas so I asked when I needed to be back at the hospital. I knew my insurance wouldn’t cover 5 days lying in a hospital bed getting no treatment, so I figured I’d drive mom home, finish decorating, wrap the last presents and for back for the surgery.

He looked at me and said, “What you don’t understand. You leave, you die. “

I still expected to be discharged because I felt fine and I KNEW insurance wouldn’t cover all those days of lyng around.

Insurance approved the doctor’s orders.

That’s when I realized I was really having a problem.

I still don’t understand exactly what happened, but somehow in the two weeks after the angiogram I went from basically no blockage to what they call the widow maker.

Apparently I was lucky to live through the shopping trip.

So I had triple bypass surgery Christmas Eve, and we celebrated late that year.

Interstellar – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

What was the quickest court case you’ve ever witnessed?

I was on the other side of most of the answers here. In the jurisdiction I worked, we had an issue with people blowing by stopped school buses with their lights on. To combat this, there were grants provided to the police department to pay for overtime to officers to cover some of the bus stops. On occasion, I would sign up for these details and monitor the buses and bus stops that were loading and offloading children. There were several of these details over the period of several months.

During this time, I wrote several citations. These citations carry a pretty hefty fine and several points…so most people will take these to court.

Even though I wrote a lot of these citations on different dates at different times, several came up on the same court date and I was subpoenaed to attend. The judge made his way through the docket and eventually it was our turn.

The first guy up tells the judge he wants to plead guilty but with an explanation (this is one of the things people can plea to here). He explained that he was driving along and initially did not see the school bus at all. It was after he passed going the opposite direction that he saw he had passed the bus. He explained there was a large trash truck that blocked his view at first and when he saw the bus, it was too late. The judge asked me if there was a trash truck passing nearby as well. I acknowledged there was a trash truck that was slightly ahead of and in the next lane of the driver. Judge tells the guy he’s changing it from a plea to a not guilty and dismissed it.

Second guy gets called up and the judge asks the driver how he wants to plea. He just saw what happened and said “Not guilty because of a trash truck”. Before I can even tell the judge this was on another date, time, location, and there was no trash truck, the judge says “Not guilty” and calls the third case. Judge says “Let me guess….a school bus with a trash truck?” Before either me or the other guy can say a thing, Judge says “Not Guilty…next case”. Next person comes up who was stopped for a completely different violation and not part of the bus detail steps up and the judge just says “Not Guilty”. I just walked away shaking my head.

This particular judge isn’t normally like this and he later told me that he hates those overtime details because of how they are funded (through grants) and cost the taxpayers more. His gripe wasn’t with me or the citations that I issued. It is what it is I suppose.

Shorpy

How successful do female police officers tend to be at arresting men, either alone or with another female officer?

Originally Answered: How successful do female police officers tend to be at arresting men?

“How successful do female police officers tend to be at arresting men?”

Ooh, I have a great war story for this one! Early in my career I was backing up a city officer on a traffic stop. In fact, there were three of us cops there, all men, all pretty decent size. The suspect, it turns out, was drunk and needed to go to jail. He had a child in the car as well.

So, this suspect was. . .really big. Not fat. Big. The three of us could have taken him down if necessary, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. Also, his kid was still there, in the car. Who wants to beat up dad in front of his kid, even if he is a stupid drunk?

Anyhow, the three of us were standing in a semi-circle around the guy, with him backed up against his truck. We were doing the cop thing were we try to keep a balance between the “carrots” (just come with us and we don’t have to fight) and the “sticks” (if we have to fight, we’re going to all three gang up and pound you). Usually, that routine works like a charm, no pounding necessary. It wasn’t working this time though.

This guy was getting more and more scared. More and more mad. More and more ready to fight to the finish.

So, all tricks failing, we were starting to exchange glances with one another, getting ready to dive in and try to pin this guy down and handcuff him. Just then, another squad car pulls up. Out steps a female deputy. It took about 10 seconds for her to take in the situation, figure out what was going on, and notice the kid in the drunk’s car.

She lit into that guy. I mean, she absolutely chewed his ass up one side and down the other, calling him every name you can imagine, and some you can’t, to describe a cretin stupid enough to drive drunk with a kid in the car. The whole time, she modulated her high-pitched voice to sound as much like a stereotypical “nagging woman” as possible. She went on and on and on, calling the guy names, calling his parentage into question. Honestly, I started to feel embarrassed for the guy.

When she first started her tirade, us three guys had instinctively put ourselves between her and this drunk. A punch to her face would be much more likely to cause serious damage than a punch to our faces. As she continued to verbally rip his guts out, we sort of instinctively backed off. I didn’t realize it until afterwards when I recalled the scene, but as she went on and on, us three guys just sort of naturally and unconsciously drifted back until she was between the suspect and us. I even remember one of the other cops ending up staring at the ground and sort of idly scuffing the road with his foot, exactly like a kid watching his friend getting chewed out by mom.

Now, before that female deputy’s arrival, I’m pretty sure the guy was in such a state that he would have punched me right in the mouth if I had called him just one of the names she used. However, he just stood there and took it from her. As she went on and on and on, somehow never even pausing to breathe, his head started to droop, his shoulders started to sag, and then. . .I saw a small shudder.

What?

You must be kidding me!

Yes. It was true. This big, big drunk man who was seconds away from fighting three big cops had been reduced to tears by a female cop who did her best nagging woman routine. He was absolutely crushed. She ordered him to go see one of the male officers to be searched, and he did it meekly. Then she ordered him into her squad car. Didn’t even bother to handcuff him.

He sat in the back of that car and just cried the entire time while we waited for his wife to come pick up the kid and a for a tow truck to come pick up the car. By the time he was hauled off to jail, us male cops were acting sort of embarrassed and apologetic toward him. You know how it is, kind of hard to make eye contact because you feel so bad for the guy.

Everybody who wants to be a cop, male or female, has to figure out how to arrest uncooperative people who have the ability to beat them senseless. I’m not a small guy, but I occasionally still come up against people who could, without a doubt, beat me like I was a child. Does anyone think a guy who has been doing hands-on construction work all day, every day, for 10 years isn’t stronger than a cop who gets his muscles in a gym? You learn ways to deal with it. Female officers are no different. They just have to face a higher percentage of people who could beat them.

Are medical emergency staff people taught to walk calmly when going to the scene to rescue the person? I noticed that they don’t run.

When I was a brand new emt, I ran exactly once.

I tripped on a pothole and sprained my ankle badly. I was left behind by the crew as they had a more seriously ill patient to tend to. They did toss me a cold pack, with a look of disgust I will never forget. A supervisor eventually came for me, also with that look, and drove me to the emergency department. He advised me he would clock me out, to find my own way home, he was taking me off the months schedule and let them know when I had medical clearance to work again to call them, maybe they will have an opening.

When I was able to return, two months later, I was given granny runs for quite a while. When finally put back on emergency runs, it was with their best/worst trainer, Mr. Marty Ward. It says a lot that I still remember his name. He was and still is a very experienced, extremely knowledgeable, no bullshit kind of guy. He is the reason I eventually became a good paramedic.

You don’t run because if you hurt yourself you are useless . You don’t run because you need to take in the scene. Is it safe. How many victims. What’s your mechanism of injury. Where’s your nearest exit. What’s the crowd like. Where should you put your supplies.

They only look like they are casually walking, when in fact they are working all the time. Twenty years later I still survey my surroundings.

And if you ever do see one running and they are first on the scene, good bet they are brand new with a lot to learn. I’ll wait for the guy walking, thanks.

Deep Space Nein

Chad Lehrmann

“HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT UP, KARL!”Bert had had it. Too much time in the vacuum of space, too much time in close quarters. Too much cleaning and sauerkraut. Seriously, who eats that stuff?“HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE ME, BERT, YOU AMERICAN PIG!”Karl was done, too. The American was arrogant, prideful and sloppy. Then he was a clutz, too. That’s why they were here now, in space, with the gravitational controls out of function, floating.Not just the capsule.Them.

Floating.

In the capsule.

“FINE- HERE IT COMES!”

Bert pulled back his fist for an epic haymaker, and Karl prepared his fist for an equally devastating uppercut. Both men threw their hardest punch at each other and–

Well, they are floating weightless in space, so, since they were about five feet apart when this started, it will take a minute for the punches to drift together. So. Let’s take a look at how we got here.

Bert and Karl both signed up for a new International Space Hub mission to the dark side of the moon. It was a chance for these two brilliant scientists- who on paper were a perfect fit for each other to do important scientific work for the betterment of humanity.

Or something like that.

It was a photo-op for the newly minted International Space Hub to show it was A) actually international despite being headquartered in Florida and B) capable of actually getting into space.

Their first seven rockets had not gotten so far as the atmosphere- one had literally just fallen off the launchpad. Turns out the boosters were uneven.

While we are at it- Karl and Bert were not so much brilliant scientists as they were looking for a way out of a bad relationship and harboring a mild death wish, respectively. And ISH needed warm, preferably semi-intelligent bodies.

They did match up on paper, though, and when ISH held the press conference it was all smiles, handshakes and bro-hugs. The men laughed and joked about old US and German rivalries and what constituted real football. We should have seen it then, though. There were cracks. Like when Bert made the comment about “only animals eat wet, soggy grass like Germans eat sauerkraut,” and Karl gave the sidest-eye of all side eyes. Or when Karl explained how he hated people- like, all of them- so the loneliness wouldn’t be a factor.

But hey, that’s just cultural differences?

Right?

ISH finally got a rocket to work, and the men went up into space. Bert was silently disappointed they survived, and really, so was Karl’s ex. Now the mission was for a full year, and by the end of day two, there were issues.

In day one, Karl had baked traditional German streusel- and Bert LOVED it. But in day two, Karl walked in to find a situation not at all to his liking.

“Um, Bert. You, you haff left your dirty deeshes out. If you vant me to make you some more streusel, you are going to haff to be more tidy!”

Bert slowly turned his head and cocked his eyebrow. “Say what now? I am a grown man, don’t talk to me like a child. And I may not want anymore of your dry and tasteless streusel,” he said as he secretly stuffed the wrapped up leftovers in his jumpsuit pocket.

Karl made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Ah, you haff misunderstood. I am not saying you are like a child. I am implying zat you are a child. And vun zat does not haff the capacity to appreciate fine German foods.”

“Is this about the sauerkraut line?”

“Maybe….”

The next day, the slippery slope continued.

Literally.

Bert walked in on Karl’ reorganizing the chemical locker. “What are you doing?”

“I am reorganizing the cabinet so zat it makes sense to me.”

“No, you are messing up a good system.”

“You would not know a good system unless it vas named Playstation or Xbox.”

“Ohh! Somebody knows some American cultu-u-ur-ooooo!” Bert’s feet flew out from under him and he crashed down on his back on the sterile, white floor. “Karl, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FREAK DID YOU DO?!?!”

“I cleaned up a spill I found from your beverage last night.”

“Ugh…did you think to put a “wet floor” sign up?”

“Hmmm. Zat would be a good idea for next time. Ooooor, you could clean it up as soon as you make the mess, no?”

Before we go further, let’s check back on our epic throwdown.

Well, they are about a foot closer, mostly due to Bert paddling his other hand in a dog paddle fashion. So, we have more time.

Back and forths on cleaning aside, they managed to get work done. But a peculiar habit of Karl’s emerged.

Talking in his sleep.

At first, it was an irritant. They shared a sleeping quarters, so there was no escaping the noise. Bert would be angry and irritable at breakfast, and invariably, Karl would announce- “I slept like I vas a baby! How did you sleep, Bert?”

Bert would grumble an inappropriate word or two and the day would go on.

Then it got weird.

One night, Bert was already awake from the incoherent mumbling when Karl sat bolt upright in bed and screamed: “GIVE HER ALL ZE CAPITALIST PIGS!” Then he slumped back down and went to bed.

Bert feared bringing it up at breakfast, but after completing a series of tests that morning involving highly combustible (and potentially deadly) chemicals, Bert felt a need to clear the air.

“So, about the sleep talking. Now, I don’t mind, mostly, but last night you screamed ‘GIVE HER ALL ZE CAPITALIST PIGS!’ and I gotta ask- what the ever-loving heck is up with that?”

“I screamed “GIVE HER ALL ZE CAPITALIST PIGS!’ last night? In my sleep?”

“Yes, you screamed, “GIVE HER ALL ZE CAPITALIST PIGS!’ in your sleep.” Last night. Next to my bed. At three in the morning. In the dark.”

“It must haff been a movie I saw vonce. I don’t have any other reason why I– VAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“What? I’m making a freeze dried hot dog.”

“Nein. You are ruining a freeze dried hot dog vith zat, zat, disgusting processed cheese from a can!”

The squelch of the yellow substance leaving the can continued for a second as Bert stared at Karl with dead eyes. “Really? Sauerkraut is delicious but good old American cheese from a can is disgusting?”

“Again, I am sorry. I misspoke. That, that…stuff…is inedible. You are disgusting.”

“Oh yeah! Well how about you tell me to my face?”

This lovely interaction was interrupted by a screeching alarm indicating an evasive maneuver was needed to avoid space trash. They did not speak that day, and went to bed in silence.

Bert woke in the middle of the night to see Karl standing beside his bed staring at him, sleepwalking.

“KAAAARLLL!”

Karl twitched and slurred, “Huh?”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Karl seemed to become aware of his location. “Oh, sorry.” Then he climbed back in bed. That instigated the decision to stagger sleeping schedules.

Time to check back in on the punch- yep. Almost there. Karl is kicking his feet like he’s running in place- should get there soon.

That brings us to the latest- and last inciting incident.

Bert was a slob. This was true in the truest sense of the word. He left clothes everywhere, and he left a trail of crumbs and spills wherever he went. Karl continued to warn him about spilling on the expensive and vital equipment. Bert continued to speak in sign language that engaged one finger.

During one of the shift changes, Karl noticed a dark liquid was covering some of the gravitational control switches. The things that gave them gravity inside the capsule. He began to berate Bert for his messiness and his carelessness when it came to the critical technology they needed to survive.

“I didn’t do it! I swear! You’re the one who insists on beer everyday- not me!”

“Ah, but I am careful to clean up any mess I make. You? You think zat is vat I am here for!”

A small spark shot up behind Karl from the board.

“Well, yeah I leave it for you. It’s the only thing seem capable of doing that we both agree on! So, why don’t you clean it up now!”

“I am done being your maid! And you know what- zat thing I said in my sleep- it vas not from a movie- it was my fantasy of getting rid of you!”

There was a bigger spark.

“Bad news broski- we are stuck together for the rest of the trip!”

“Vat is this ‘broski?’ I am not Russian. I am German you arrogant American!”

“I’m arrogant? I’m arrogant? You self righteous–”

There was a loud pop, a small flame and suddenly they were floating in zero gravity.

“LOOK VAT YOU HAFF DONE, YOU CLUTZ!” screamed a defiant Karl.

And that brings us to the start of the story. Now is as good of a time as any to explain that ISH had really messed up. The black liquid was oil that had seeped up and shorted out the control. In addition, they had pre-programmed the capsule to fly in a certain pattern, but had not actually bothered to confirm that their calculations were correct.

They were not.

In truth, the capsule was well off course, and headed directly for the sun.

Now, that epic punch should be about to happ- Oh!

Yeah, they missed and are trying to turn around to attack again. Maybe you should check back in a month or two.

Maybe they will have it together by then.

Apple Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

Maple, bacon and cinnamon rolls; the ultimate trifecta for your weekend brunch.

Prep: 15 min | Bake 30 min

Ingredients

6 Rhodes Cinnamon Rolls or 6 Anytime Cinnamon Rolls, dough thawed but still cold
12 pieces fully cooked microwaveable bacon
3 large apples, sliced

Instructions

Unroll each partially thawed cinnamon roll. Twist two unraveled cinnamon rolls together.
Place the bacon and apple along the twisted rolls and roll them up together.
Bake according to package instructions.
Add Rhodes cream cheese frosting while the rolls are still warm.

Poverty NO CHOICE: “Can I show you…?”

What was the quickest court case you’ve ever witnessed?

The one time I went to court over a speeding ticket, there were something like 3 cases before mine. Most took about 10 minutes or so, for the magistrate to ask what happened, ask the city attorney/police if they agreed, about what happened, and so on.

But then we get to the last one just before mine. To set this up, you probably need to know that at the time, they’d recently changed part of Tejon Street in downtown Colorado Springs (where all this took place) from being a 1-way to a 2-way street.

The guy ahead of me started by saying he was very sorry, and just got confused. The judge started to say he was going to reduce the ticket to a minimum charge, but the guy didn’t notice, and instead went on to say he was confused because of the change from 1-way to 2-way street. That probably only took him 10 seconds to say, but the consequences were pretty serious, to say the least.

The judge started to say something about how sympathetic he was for problems caused by the change, but then looked at the ticket again, and said: “Wait a sec…this was a half mile north of where that change happened. Don’t ever lie in my court. Maximum charges, full points on your license, and you get to spend tonight in jail for perjury.”

He never asked the city attorney/police for their side of the story or anything else. Probably less than 2 minutes start to finish.

Questions about the attempted Assassination of Candidate Trump

Not that I desire to wear a “tin foil hat”; but some things are not “adding up”.

The rifle that the shooter used was not an everyday, run of the mill, Walmart special. Nor was it a hunting rifle. It was a military-grade sniper rifle that is extremely expensive.

It’s an AXSR rifle.

The shooter was 20 years old. Heck, when I was $20 years old I couldn’t afford payment on a car, let alone a custom, high end, sniper rifle.

Do you know anyone who has won a lottery? Did the money change them?

One Saturday, I was at work serving lunch to our hard-working engineers and their families as we were in a desperate sprint to finish some software prior to our big annual trade show. We planned this to both recognize the team’s superhuman efforts, and give the engineers some much deserved time to see their loved ones.

A young woman employee approached me and said, “Gerry, I have a problem. Can I talk with you a moment privately?” I said, “Of course,” put down my serving utensils and walked over into a corner away from the crowd. She then said, “I just won $6 million in the lottery, and I don’t know what to do.” (note: this was 1990, so worth more than double that today)

My first reaction was, “This is a good problem!” But then went on to tell her, “Go get your phone number unlisted. Then decide you will do nothing, and I mean nothing important financially for a month or two, at a minimum. Get your bearings. Hire a reputable accountant and law firm. I can recommend a few if you like. And then do nothing. After things have settled down, decide what you want to do with your life, make a plan so that whatever happens that money lasts for the rest of your life. And then, go be happy with your good fortune!”

What I didn’t know, since I had not met her before, was that she was recently divorced and had recently lost 100 pounds. So, here she was: newly single, newly slim and newly rich!

She resigned from our company after a bit, and I lost track of her until we ran into each other in a restaurant a few years later. She told me she had found her passion in motivational speaking, inspiring others to go for their dreams and could not have been happier with her life.

Sometimes, nice things happen to nice people! The money didn’t change her, it revealed her.

The Future of America 2035 …

What is the dark side of being a police officer?

The death of innocence

There are many things an officer will see and experience which will stay with them for life. Here are three scenes that significantly impacted my view of the world.

Scene 1: The murder:

Today, a young gangster saw a rival gang member sitting with his family on his front porch. The two clearly are enemies. This gangster then rides on the back of a motorcycle past the house firing multiple rounds from a semi-automatic handgun at the porch. The gang member on the porch is uninjured, but a bullet strikes his mother in the head and immediately kills this, heavyset church-going woman. This happens right in front of her three other young children.

I’m just reporting in for work when the incident occurs. As the night watch commander, I am directed to respond to the scene and take control.

I arrive and have the scene taped off and secured. I also close the roadway and divert traffic, as it is part of my crime scene. Bullet casings litter the roadway from the gunfire. I have the woman’s body covered with a sheet and have arrangements made to get the children away from their dead mother. Witnesses identify the cyclist and the bike.

Once the immediate decisions are made and later when I review the events in my mind how do I make any sense of this, tragic murder? How do these children deal with what they have just witnessed? For me, the senseless loss of life was never something I could easily distance myself from. Some images like those children with their dead mother, you never forget.

Scene 2: The Innocent:

It’s eight am and I am just starting agency training with a newly hired lateral transfer officer. I get a call in my office that I should head over to the scene of a pedestrian motor vehicle crash. The patrol commander says it will be a good experience for my rookie officer. Upon arrival, I learn that it was a little eight-year-old girl running to catch the school bus because she didn’t want to miss school, and the back wheel of the bus caught the side of the girl’s foot forcing her forward onto the roadway before the buses back tires pass over the child’s head. The child lays in the street while people try to take pictures and seagulls swoop down and pick at her remains. You can’t get these pictures out of your head. You can’t un-see these horrible things, as much as I would like to, you just can’t.

Scene 3: The boy and his father:

I’ve been with several young people just before they died from car crash injuries. Cops are always the first on the scene of the most terrible events. I have seen the terror in a young boy’s eyes while pinned in a car. He was pinned so severely, that even though I told him help was on the way and he would be fine, I think we both knew the truth. I stayed with him for about two minutes before he exhaled making a gurgling sound and passed. He had to be cut out of the car, later that night at the local body shop.

This boy’s father showed up at the scene a few minutes after he died. We had draped a sheet over that part of the car and awaited the arrival of the medical examiner. The father was hysterical, as I probably would have been. It was so hard to experience, seeing this man’s pain.

He wanted very badly to go to the car, and I kept telling him he didn’t want to see his son right now. We had to gently yet physically restrain this father with a bear hug, to stop him from going to the car. I said he could see his son at the hospital. I didn’t want that father to see what I had seen, a crushed and mangled body, barely recognizable which was his son.

I used to say each time I experienced this type of traumatic event a small piece of me died inside. You learn to cope, and you learn to control your emotions at least on the outside. But they are always with you, and I can still see them. This is the darkest side of police work.

She Is Trying To Trap Men Into a Sexual Harassment Case & It’s OBVIOUS

What did your sister do to you that you can never forget?

20 years ago I divorced, and bought a little house where I expected to live out my days. Two years after I moved in, my sister’s relationship ended. She was quite distraught. Her hope was that I would buy a bigger house, closer to her work, and we could live together. I REALLY didn’t want to do this. I talked her into renting an apartment while she decided what she was going to do. She did it and hated it without giving it a chance. She was a basket case and in an effort to save her, I agreed to buy a house and live together. Before we did anything, and knowing she could be a prude, I told her that I had no plans to stop smoking pot and if she had a problem with that it couldn’t work. She said it didn’t bother her at all. So I gave up my house, bought another one, and we both moved in. She was cranky from the beginning. I did everything possible to make her happy. Four months after moving in, my sister announced that as soon as she got her money from her house she was moving out. She was supposed to give me that money as her down payment on the house, and she was supposed to begin making payments. She did neither and I ended up taking a big loss on the house. Not only did my sister screw me over on the money, she told the entire family, including our parents, that she moved out because I smoked pot! I try not to hold a grudge because she’s family, but I’ll never trust her again. I still wish I lived in that house.

Valerian: Pearl Beach (A short Sci-fi Adventure inspired by Luc Besson’s Movie Valerian (2017)

What was the most blatant scam a customer has ever failed to get away with?

Not mine but a friend’s story.

He was called in to varnish the ceiling of an Indian restaurant. The bill came to about £360 (about 25 years ago). Each time he called, the client didn’t have his cheque book or enough cash in the till, etc., etc.

After several months he enrolled the help of a large friend to accompany him and entered the restaurant when it was packed with diners. He was carrying dust sheets, a tin of varnish solvent and a step ladder. He clapped his hands and caught everyone’s attention.

“If you could all cover your meals. I’m here to get my varnish back and the stuff I’m using is toxic.”

He set up the ladder and the owner came running down to my mate asking what he was doing.

“Taking my varnish back – you’ve not paid for it. I’m taking it off.”

He told my mate to come back another time as he didn’t have his cheque book and didn’t have enough cash in the register. Wordlessly, my mate opened the tin of solvent and started to lay out the dust sheets. The owner ran back to the register and magically found the amount my mate was owed.

These Ancient Animals Scarier Than Dinosaurs

While repairing a car, have you ever found something you weren’t supposed to see in it?

Many years ago, I was at work as a police detective and driving down the road. I heard a call go out for a local garage. CDS (drugs) were found in a customer’s car. I was close by so I responded and cancelled the patrol unit (they were busy and this was an easy call to handle).

When I arrived, the owner of the car was there along with the owner or the garage. Turns out, it was actually the owner who found the drugs in the car after having the car serviced and returned to the garage.

When speaking to them, I got the back story. The car had been stolen from the owners house and the owner reported it to the police. After that, a police officer encountered the car, for whatever reason, and attempted to stop the car. The car took off and then a chase was initiated. Ultimately, the car crashed and the occupants bailed out. I don’t recall if they were captured or not.

During the chase and the resulting crash, the car sustained significant damage and was towed from the scene. Once the insurance company did whatever it is they do, the vehicle was released to the owner. The owner then had it towed to the garage for repair.

The repairs were completed and the vehicle owner was contacted, who then went and picked up his car. It was shortly after leaving the garage he made the discovery.

The find? It was a ball….a little bigger than a softball, that was made of crack cocaine. I’ve never seen it sold or transported as a ball and at this point in my career, it was largest slab of crack I had ever seen.

Paycheck to Paycheck on a Six Figure Salary

Law enforcement is at my front door, claiming a 911 call came from my home. Am I required to permit their entry?

Had this happen once a few years ago.

I live way out in the boonies outside town. My property is totaly OFF GRID . I built my home there is no old fashioned land lines, There is very spotty cell service where you are lucky to get 2–3 bars of service while standing on the roof. I have SAT phone and internet service.

I was living alone at the time, one night I heard a car pull up my driveway 2 officers got out came to my porch where I was sitting. They CLAIMED a 911 call came from my home. I explained that there is no phone or service and told them to check thier cell phones. explained that the only phone on the property is my SAT phone. I suggested they check with my neighbors as one of them may have called. They asked to search my home for other persons. I explained I live alone there is no one else. I asked if they were sure they had the correct address they said they were going to search anyways because I am acting nervous and suspicious. I got on my sat phone made a call then grabbed my mic for my CB/HAM radio and asked my neighbor to come over and deal with the two idiot cops. My neighbor is the county sheriff. he showed up and I told him what was happening. he handled the two local PD officers he called into the dispatch about the call and found the two officers had gone to the wrong address. dispatch sent them to an address across town a few miles away and instead of using GPS or a MAP they came down my road. the number on my mailbox was the same but the name of the road was not the one they were looking for.

While the two geniuses were headed to my home a woman on the otherside of town was raped beaten and robbed by an ex husband. He escaped that night cause the two officers went to the wrong street and were arguing with me. The woman survived her injuries spent a week in the hospital, Her ex hubby was caught a month later in another state. I got a visit from the chief of local PD a few days after where he apologized for his officers disturbing me and then said if I had just complied it would be easier. He also told me to never go over his head because the sheriff does not have jurisdiction over the town. I just laughed…… He is as stupid as his officers were.

A short time after the incident my wife and teen children moved in. 2 of my kids have since began working in law enforcement. My youngest child is headed off to college in the fall to become a lawyer.

Will jobs that moved to China be brought back to the US as President Trump promised?

My dad started a small manufacturing firm. His firm needed some small (1/8th HP) electric motors. They have tried very hard to use American suppliers. They found a company in South Dakota that made this type of motor. The company said that they could not guarantee delivery of the motors in a timely manner as they were having trouble finding workers for their plant. They were recruiting in Minneapolis and Omaha for folks to come work in rural South Dakota for $15 per hour. Nobody wanted to. If we are honest with ourselves, the jobs are here, we just don’t like them nor do we want to move where they are. If jobs magically did come back from China, I doubt there would be any Americans to fill them. We would have jobs in America with more undocumented workers from South America doing them. My dad’s company ended up buying motors from China.

Crying Mother cat REALLY Needed Help What Happens Next is Heartbeaking

Coal Miner’s Daughter

My mother was afraid that I would drop out of college at the university. And it was a real concern. So many of our friends were dropping out of school. So she had this idea. She got me a job at a coal mine. And she went out of her way to make sure it was a hard life. In her mind, the harder the better.

And that was my first introduction to working.

I started working at a very young age, and my parents had to sign a waver to allow me to work as I was under the age of 16. But, you know, both my parents felt that I needed to have the harsh life lessons early on. That I needed to see what a paycheck was, and what deductions were.

Of course, they didn’t feel this way about my sisters. They could live an easy life; go to the games, be cheerleaders. Have an allowance, and visit the mall.

Even my younger brother was spared the working life, for some reason that I never got a straight answer to.

Anyways, the very first task that I was assigned on my first day of work was to scrub out all the trash cans by hand. Oh, sure, it wasn’t necessary. But it was part of the new-hire “hazing” of us younger guys.

For whatever it is worth, when my daughter gets older, I will give her a work experience, briefly. And following that; a heavy does of running her own business,.

Maybe a vending machine business. Or something along those lines. Simple, with hands-on activity.

I believe that it is my job: my role to provide these skills, and NOT to rely on the public school system to take over that responsibility.

I know. I am weird. But it’s my strong point of view on this matter.

Today…

New Orleans Pepper Steak

Ingredients

Steak

2 steaks suitable for grilling (T-bone, porterhouse, etc.)
1 tablespoon cracked or coarse ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon Colgin’s liquid smoke
2 large cloves garlic, crushed or 1 teaspoon garlic paste

New Orleans Steak Butter

3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce or Colgin’s liquid smoke

Instructions

Steak

Prepare the steaks for the grill about 1/2 hour ahead of time. Rub the two steaks with all of the ingredients using 1/2 for each steak.
Grill over hot coals to desired degree of doneness. The amount of pepper used can be varied according to your taste but do not increase the amount of garlic. The garlic cooks with the steaks and will not be overwhelming. Serve with the Steak Butter.

New Orleans Steak Butter

Just before putting the steaks on the grill, prepare the sauce. Put the butter in a small saucepan and melt over low heat. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over low heat until the parsley is wilted. Keep the sauce warm and serve over the steaks as soon as they are done.

A Chinese non-military official once said:

If China had provided military assistance to Russia, Russia would have won and the war would have ended long ago..

Through this joint anti-terrorism military exercise with Belarus, the United States and the West will believe that Chinese officials are not saying this casually.

Instead of spending a lot of energy to dispel rumors, it is better to actually prove it to you! — If the Russian army has a large army of combat robot dogs and combat drones, can Ukraine still resist it?

The United States does not have the capacity to go to war with China, and the politicians in Washington have not yet realized this.

The U.S. flaunts its military prowess to China without realizing that China’s industrial output has far surpassed that of the United States.

Industrial capacity is important for war because you have to produce ammunition, missiles, and countless drones.

It would be very dangerous for the US to go to war with China in the face of a gap in industrial capacity.

If the Chinese offer a peace proposal, you better say yes or their people will be happier than you.

What is a scary or disturbing fact that is 100% true?

On January 15th 1919 a tank filled with 2.3 Million gallons of molasses burst and sent a tsunami of slow pouring sticky substance that was said to be 40 foot high and weighing more than 13,000 metric tons through the streets of Boston killing 21 people and injuring many more. The molasses being much denser than water carried a great deal of potential energy with it.

The wave of molasses crested some 8 meters high in places and travelled at 35 miles per hour through the streets. Buildings didn’t stand a chance and horrifically people became stuck in the sticky substance. The unlucky ones were stuck under the surface and died. As the molasses was so heavy a rush of sweet smelling air proceeded it and knocked people of their feet only to be engulfed by the tsunami. In total 21 people were killed and 150 people injured across a 800 meter long trail of destruction.

Rescue efforts were very difficult and anyone who ventured into the area to search for survivors became stuck. Eventually most of the molasses was washed into the harbour using salt water. It stained the Boston harbour a deep brown for over an half a year. It was also reported that people tracked the molasses across the city making everything unpleasantly sticky for weeks, if anyone has kids you would know the torment of sticky messes. And for many years to come it was reported that on hot sunny days the air in Boston smelt of molasses.

They Lied To You About CHINA: This is SHENZHEN!

How do they cook the chicken at KFC? If they actually make it, wouldn’t they notice that they’re cooking lungs and things?

KFC was my first job when I was a teenager, but I remember a lot about the place.

Our chicken was always fresh; chilled, but not frozen. It was supplied by a local poultry company, and already cut into pieces; leg, thigh, breast, & wing. There was nothing really special about the chicken itself; the poultry supplier supplied numerous other restaurants with chicken, so it was all actually chicken.

We only had original recipe in those days. The pieces were dipped in a milk and egg dip (powdered mixed with water), and then dredged in seasoned flour. The seasoning (11 herbs & spices) came in a packet that we mixed with a bag of flour (10# I think). We did all this on a breading table, and had the chicken pieces in a basket ready for the fryer. The chicken was placed in the hot oil, and cooked in these huge pressure cookers for 20 minutes. We had a special clock on the wall for timing; when the pressure lids were put on, we would write the time it was to be done on the stove with a white grease pencil. (I think it is more automated now).

When the chicken was ready, we would dump the entire contents of the pot out on a fryer table, where the vegetable oil would drain off and collect in the bottom, and then the chicken pieces were placed into a Crescor, which was a steam cabinet to keep the pieces warm and moist, ready to be served to the customer. The oil was filtered, and we would refill the pots from the fryer table, ready to go again.

We would make gravy too, using a gravy mix and water. We would add some of the left-over crumbs from the bottom of the fryer to season it, sort of like using pan drippings to make gravy at home.

We also had gizzards from time-to-time that we would cook in the same way as the regular chicken pieces, except the gizzards had to be cooked longer.

In all my experience, I never ever saw a piece cooked or served that wasn’t a normal piece of chicken purchased locally. I’ve heard rumors that KFC uses genetically modified chickens that would have six drumsticks or fifteen wings or something equally as freaky. But I can assure you that is nothing more than the product of a myth and an overactive imagination. And they don’t serve lungs or any other entrails; KFC doesn’t serve “chicken haggis.” If a piece of lung happened to be in with the chicken, it would be unintentional. Besides, if you’ve ever butchered and cleaned chickens, the lungs are sometimes tricky to completely remove from the cavity. However, it would only be a small fragment (very difficult to detect after cooking), and not an entire lung.

KFC, at least from my experience, is very picky about their food. If a piece of chicken isn’t done right, it gets thrown away.

However, KFC was about the hottest job I’ve ever had. The kitchen wasn’t air conditioned (the rest of the store was), so it would easily climb to over 100 degrees in the summertime. 120 degrees was about the hottest I experienced. I just hope working conditions have improved over the years. For a teenager, it was an okay first job, and I was happy with the money I earned, even though it was just $1.15/hour. But that was back in 1969.

[2022我要上春晚]《麒麟》演唱：早安|CCTV春晚

This is some serious Chinese popular music. Note that the entire performance is done using traditional Chinese instruments.

Will India catch up to China?

The way we are currently going? No way. I have lived in India for some forty years and in China for more than two years (though I have been visiting the country since 1996). India is today where China was in 1979, but in India we are still rudderless, direction less and leaderless (without knowing it).

the reason why China’s development has worked for it for so logn is because it is focused on a larger number of people and not a smaller number of people getting wealthy. In India, what we have is still the latter.

The day the life of the farmers in India start improving, the person who has to travel like an animal in overcrowded Mumbai local trains starts getting better and we Indians start caring for each other without being under pretensions that we are superior to fellow Indians (I am referring to the Hyderabad police and Telangana govt. imagining itself to be superior to poorer beggars – just a symptom of a much more widespread malady that affects us all) – that day I will say there is some chance that we might catch up with China.

PS – Just do a google image search to see what the railway stations in China – Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Chengdu, Xiamen look like. That is considered “normal” in over a hundred cities in China. We don’t have a single such place in India – a few airports don’t mean anything as masses travel by trains. Do a similar search for their roads and buses. And their government run schools. That is where the real development lies – not in rockets sent up, missiles, stock exchanges, GDP and a few hundred super rich people in either country.

An honest Admission –
Every day I spend in China, while I appreciate what they have (they have worked hard for it and continue to do so), I keep saying to myself – “I wish my country was like this, because I know my people deserve it and are capable of it. I wish some day my people will feel they deserve better – and people here includes the people in government”.

Life Found on Mars

Submitted into Contest #17 in response to: Write a story about a family dinner that takes place in any time period other than the present.… view prompt

Christina Steele

The council had agreed. Euthanization of the immigrants would happen today at the high moon this 2052 MY (Mars Year) 549 Sol. Most were in poor health anyway, some would stay for continued scientific examination, and four of the youth who survived information intake showed educable promise would receive Partial Martian citizenship. Quatek had attended the meeting with her mother, Supreme Empress Quarmine. Quatek practiced her self-teleportation and levitation. But the word euthanized sharpened her already pointed ears. As part of the population control reform, her grandmother, the fourteenth Supreme Empress, had enacted, and last year on her two- hundredth birthday died as number 16587, becoming a member of the new Grand Guiding Ancestors. The reform called upon the Euthanization of all Martians on their two-hundred birthday. When she signed the reform, she was signing her own death certificate. Quatek still missed her grandmother, tears falling far too often for a future Empress, according to her mother. Grandmother had taught her to have an open heart; her mother taught her to have a steady hand. Quatek knew that many of the councilwomen believed her mom had advised the Euthanasia Population Control Reform. Her mother refused to accept chemical or medical control of life. The all-female population had evolved to self-reproduce only three-hundred MY ago. Their numbers were small back then, but now they were running out of space. To assure a quality life for the babies, sterile older women had to die. It would be a sacrifice, but after death, they transformed into the Grand Guiding Ancestors and held in reverence.That was the same year the immigrants came. Their ship landed near the craters of Aquanis and Anquiteka. Fearful they would attack the water and easily defeat the aged community, these immigrants were transferred into the trans-tunnels and held in Section 1, an antiquated abandoned living area. The area still had all the essential water, air, food delivery chutes, and temperature control units. Old and lacking systems but suitable for immigrants, some now called invaders. Over the last year, observation and experimentation became commonplace. Suspicion waned, then grew when several Observants, a party of 6 women, were in the migrant’s ship. After entering the vessel, an unanswered security breach alert led to a self-destruct warning, and finally, the ship exploded. The Earthling migrants explained that after so long with no one onboard their planet, set up this security device to keep their craft out of alien hands. This lead to talk of euthanasia for no life capable of such a barbaric tactic to kill would be worthy of life.Anxious, Quatek wandered out of the council chambers and down the red stone tunnel. Light fell in spots from the escape airlock hatches above. The hatches secured into the bottom of the shallow craters on the planet’s surface existed as emergency exits in case of a tunnel collapse. At the third spot of light was her mother’s office, not even her daughter status would get passed the guards on duty at the door. It would only be a few years, and the office would be hers. Surely a few moments inside wouldn’t be wrong, just educational. Quatek pressed her green-tinted palms together, lifting her elbows. Rubbing her hands, she applied her warmed palms to her hidden third eye in the center of her forehead. Seconds later, she appeared behind her mother’s desk undetected. Sitting in the royal seat, she viewed the screen, which appeared on default along with the holograms. The screen showed the twenty migrants, who would die, there was nothing she could do. Quatek paused at Mary’s image. She and Mary became friends over the year. Mary would stay at the request of Quatek, though Mary’s parents would die. It would be hard, but she would be with her. Help her. That is when the sidebar came into view.“Noooo!” she muffled her scream with her hand. The final order, signed by her mother, appeared. Quatek read all immigrants euthanized so more Martian babies could be born. “This can’t be,” Quatek whispered.The guards entered and began questioning her. She had to save Mary. She rubbed her hands and transported to Area 1. Spotting Mary, Quatek wrapped her arms around her and transported them both to the far path. This historical path, sacred as a tribute to her people’s first exodus from the surface to the climate controllable tunnels constructed with primitive tools. They climbed the stairs of the sphinx. Both suited up in the airlock within the sphinx eye. They had come here many times. Taught each other a crude sign language and eventually fell in love. Quatek conveyed everything to Mary, there in that eye, looking out at the red sands on the surface of her home planet. Tonight, she told Mary that the Martians themselves had once been migrants from the green planet Merus. Only the Empresses and the Chief Historian know this fact. Quatek’s ancestors arrived here after their planet died. The Meronians brought with them viruses that killed the red indigenous people who lived on the surface. That is why they don’t breathe the Mars air even though they adopted the Martian name. It is why they are in tunnels, why Quatek glows with a green tinge, and why no males we’re born after the first several years. Perhaps the heat of the sun or some environmental induced genetic malformation. And likely why Mary and her people became feared by the governing council. Finally, she shared the worse news of all. All the Earthlings would be euthanized tonight. They held each other a long time then walked back. Mary shared that her mom would give birth soon. Could they wait until after the birth? Could there be a first Earth-Martian if only for a while?Just then, guards accompanied by the Superior Empress arrived and shackled their arms and legs with force field cuffs.“Mother listen, you cannot kill them.”“We are not killing them; we are putting them to sleep for the benefit of them and us. They have no home and no way back, and I cannot exchange our lives for theirs. I have a responsibility to my fellow Martians to life.”Fellow Martian, huh? You believe a new life replaces old life, right? The right to be born is more important than the right to continue as a life lived. Isn’t that your belief?” Quatek paced. The Empress stood in silence. A scream was heard, then a high-pitched cry. “Mary’s mother just gave birth. Isn’t this new Martian life worthy of saving? Isn’t all live worthy?” Mary’s father brought the new child to the front and held him up near the clear security glass that held them, prisoners. There was a sudden silence as the new life sucked on the finger of her father.“How long have you co-mingled?” the Empress demanded.“Nearly ten months.”“No issues?”

“None.”

“Guards put Mary with her family. Child of mine be released and transport to my office immediately.” The cuffs fell of Quatek as the guards carried Mary to the cell.

Hours later, an hour before euthanasia, the council tired from compromise, at last, agreed. At the hour of the immigrant’s end, there came a new beginning. Hundreds gathered in Area 1, bringing food, clothing, and bedding. They removed the glass between them, and cautiously embraced this new life on their planet. Not just the new life being passed around like a crystal goblet of wine, but all life—all life brave enough to fight beyond its bounds of gravity and enter a new world. The decree came to pass that an annual celebration called Thanksgiving of Life would include a new flag of red and blue and green and a grand feast of shared food and gratitude.

What was the last thing a Trump supporter said to you?

<Bug-eyed> “If I had my gun in my car right now, you would be dead!”

Needs a bit of background, though.

My daughter has a learner’s permit, and a HUGE, HUGE sticker on the back of the car saying “STUDENT DRIVER”. We are at a parking lot in a strip mall. She has moved into a parking slot, and is trying to reverse the car to park it parallel to the markings. Fastidious, like it is drilled in to student drivers to be.

In comes an Escalade, right behind our vehicle. Honks loud and long. The kid gets slightly panicked. I tell her to keep her cool, finish the maneuver. The Escalade races its engine, comes within an inch of the bumper, and keeps honking.

My daughter parks the car. The Escalade is on the driveway, blocking all other cars in the parking lot.

Out comes an elderly gentleman, about 60ish. We are getting out of the car. He’s obviously mad.

He: “You assfucker … you shithead …”

Me: “Excuse me … what is happening here?”

He: “Who do you think you are … reversing the car when I am coming in?”

Me: “Sir, sorry if I inconvenienced you, but there is a huge STUDENT DRIVER sign on the back of the car. Did you not notice that?”

He: “I don’t give a shit about signs, you motherfucker … Go back to your own country … You fucking terrorist … President Trump would deport you once I make a call to ICE …”

And this point in time, I am speechless. My daughter is close to tears. What have I gotten myself into?

Then, this gentleman’s wife comes out of the car and approaches my daughter. She does not sound angry. Ah, here is some sanity.

She (to my daughter): “You know, you really should not be permitted to drive. This is a country of white people. Your father isn’t white, and should not be allowed in this country at all.” All of this in a reasonable tone.

This is where I think I made a mistake, but I couldn’t take this any more.

Me: “I hope you have health insurance”

She: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Well, looks like you will need mental health help soon. I hope you are insured for that.”

The gentleman chimes back in.

He: “You fucking asshole, if I had my gun in my car right now, you would be dead”.

Me: “Well, Illinois does not have a Stand Your Ground Law, so that would be homicide”.

And that is when we walked off the lot. The kid was crying, and it took 30 minutes of talking to her (and an ice-cream) to convince her that she had done nothing wrong.

Sad. What is this country coming to?

EDIT: I had been seething internally about this encounter for the past three weeks, and writing this out was a kind of catharsis for me. The outpouring of good thoughts was overwhelming. Thanks everybody for your lovely thoughts.

For the multitude of people who apologized, you don’t have to. I fully understand that all of you are not one of them. And I still have faith. After all, what’s the point in carrying on, otherwise?

EDIT ON EDIT: Lots of people have advised me about videotaping the incident. While I do appreciate the advice, the unfortunate thing is that when someone is hurling epithets at me in my face, my first thought is to protect my daughter and myself, not record it as evidence to be produced later to law enforcement.

Notice that every time this kind of incident gets posted on social media, it is almost always a third person who has recorded it? The people involved are rarely recording a POV video. Same in this case.

US American REACTS – How I See the US After 5 Years

Solar power

Well, the US doesn’t have to worry about Fusion. It will take decades at least.

Right now, Chinese solar panels are below $0.02 per watt. This is from $100 in the 70s. That is 2 cents per watt.

Chinese solar panels are killing big oil and big gas. And it is being manufactured in mass quantities. 600GW of solar panels last year, 600+GW this year, and 900GW of solar panels in 2025. It will be over 1TW of solar panels in 2026 and beyond.

Each watt of solar panel can generate on average of 6 sun hours per day and 260 sun days per year of 1,500 watt of electricity.

Now multiply that by the amount manufactured. And this is going all over the Global South. Ironically China is making the Global South energy independent of the control by the West.

Which makes the US and the EU absolutely hate China. Because those panels will produce power for 30 years before dropping to 80% capacity and still keep going.

There is no oil to interdict or control to starve other nations by the West. Once those panels go in, the West will have to bomb them to get rid of them.

But if they are install on every rooftop then the West would need more bombs then they dropped in WWII just to remove them from a small nation.

This is true energy independence. Fusion will be great for places where the sun doesn’t shine or for large mobile applications or space.

Fun photos that are curious

What is the biggest culture shock you have ever faced?

Libraries in China.

The very first time I entered a library on campus, I was imagining something like this:

main qimg a2b3fe6afc66560494bcd355a37e6489

Shelves upon shelves of books. Chairs. People sitting around reading.

The library was about seven storeys, so I was psyched about all the books it could contain. I didn’t bother to check for a building map, I just entered the first floor, walked into a room. I saw: tables, chairs, textbooks and notebooks piled on tables, people busy studying.

main qimg 1b23c6d97844c093f1c7964abf918f51

“This must be the study room”, I thought to myself. I checked the next floor.

Same.

And the next.

Same.

I grew tired and checked the map in the elevator. The actual book-containing part of the library was apparently on the sixth floor.

“Oh finally, “ I thought.

Come to find, the “library” was just one room with about nine shelves of reading books.

A whole seven storey building called the library and this is the actual library?! A small room hidden away in the sixth floor while everyroom else were barebacked study rooms?!

The college is humongous. It has two campuses and four libraries, the smallest library having seven floors and the biggest having eleven.

You can bet your bottom the majority of the rooms in these libraries are just study rooms. What are even reading books, anyway? What kind of moron reads those things?

The study culture here is no joke. Kids pile their books on their reserved spots in the library and sit there studying for hours on end. They keep snacks, water bottles, power banks on site.

This library opens at 7 AM and closes at 11 PM. My deskmate, I think he lives here. He’s always here before I arrive and leaves after I do.

I took this picture one morning because it was a rare occurrence that my study room was bare. I felt like a real champ, a stellar scholar, to be one of the first to arrive.

Across is my deskmate’s side. We “reserve” our tables by keeping our books on them. We also reserve our chairs by doing something similar. He has an orange cushion on his chair to reserve his. I have a small bag draped over the back of mine. Others normally put a spare jacket over theirs.

Need a nap? Sleep on the desk, everybody else does.

Thirsty? Water machines on every floor will give you piping hot or ice cold water for ¥0.1 (0.014 USD) per litre.

Hungry? Bikes will deliver food straight from the mess to the library, you can use your phone to order. There’s also a canteen on the ground level. Their pot noodles aren’t the best but they have good ice cream. They have good bread but they’re always running out of those.

Need some fresh air? There are comfy seats in the court.

It’s like everything is conditioned to keep us here studying hard as much as possible. Libraries in China are truly something else; it was quite a culture shock for me.

China military enters Europe. US backs down, cancels 3000 troop deployment in Georgia. US lost India

China subsidies all their product to sell to Europe, does it mean, China is loosing money when selling to Europe? Why China sell Europe at a loss, is it due to China is too rich thus able to help other country?

That’s not how things work

Take Solar Panels

In 2008, A Chinese company makes Solar Panels of very low quality

If they want to make high quality solar panels – based on their manufacturing process – they can only get a 3% FPR meaning out of 10,000 Panels you get 300 Excellent Quality Panels and 9700 Very Low Quality Panels

How can they make money?

They can’t sell 97% of what they make so they simply can’t sustain the business yet they have the R&D and they know that if given the scale, they can make top class panels at optimum cost in 10 years

Which Bank will lend them? Who will wait for 10 years?

This is where the State of China and a group of Industries say WE WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU TILL YOU REACH THAT OPTIMUM LEVEL. YOU JUST DO YOUR R&D

So China pays for 9700 Worthless Panels and destroys the panels using their tax revenues plus money given by big industries like Huawei or Bytedance

Thus this Chinese company keeps making more and more panels – millions and millions more and slowly their FPR grows from 3% in 2008 to 71% in 2018

Now out of 1 Million Panels – they can make 710,000 Very High Quality Panels

And their costs are negligible because they have been subsidized by the Chinese State

So they can sell at 20% of what Germany sells their panels for and still make a 30% profit

They have cracked the Economies of Scale

So now these Panel manufacturers will ask the State of China –

Now that we are making profits and have gained market dominance – How can we ever thank you?

Xi smiles and says “Now you guys help us subsidize the High End Chipmakers, Etching equipment makers and AI LLM startups”

And the cycle goes on and on – each generation which got subsidies will subsidize the next generation

Costs this remain lower and lower and once scale is obtained – China is the master of Quality at lowest price

There is no competition possible

So State Subsidies don’t help the Companies sell at a loss

They help the companies afford to focus on getting to a large scale without worrying about Loans, EMIs, Installments, Investors etc

Like Normal Startups face

An Indian guy can’t get any of these benefits

He may have a superior product but to reach a large scale enough to attain profitability and optimum quality – he needs 7–12 years of continuous exponential financing to help him reach the scale

Banks wont lend him

Government is too broke borrowing and building collapsing infrastructure

Chinese Investors have been banned due to fifth rate paisa nationalism and other investors don’t have the patience to wait for even 5 years leave alone 10–12. You will see more of Byjus and Paytm

Unlike the Chinese Industrialists our Thelawallah Businessmen are busy with 3000 Crore weddings. They won’t help anyone subsidize business without a Government sanctioned Sten Gun on their temple

So the Indian leaves India, goes to Singapore and gets financing from a Chinese/Japanese VC and in a few years the product goes to US or China

While Rohit Sharma gets another 100 Crore for sponsoring Underpants

That’s what State Subsidies mean

Pour money and allow a Business to reach a scale where it can sustain itself

Ensure all R&D costs are paid by the State so that the Business can afford to sell at 20% of the US or German price and still make a 30% Profit

And the Business in turn helps subsidizes more businesses and helps pay for more R & D

El Gato Jackson

Did you know that a spoonful of honey is enough to keep a person alive for 24 hours?

Did you know that one of the world’s first coins had the symbol of a bee?

Did you know that honey contains live enzymes?

Did you know that these enzymes die when in contact with a metal spoon? The best way to eat honey is with a wooden spoon; if you can’t find one, use a plastic spoon.

Did you know that honey contains a substance that helps the brain function better?

Did you know that honey is one of the few foods on earth that alone can sustain human life?

Did you know that bees saved people from starvation in Africa?

Did you know that propolis produced by bees is one of the most powerful natural antibiotics?

Did you know that honey has no expiration date?

Did you know that the bodies of the world’s greatest emperors were buried in golden coffins and then covered in honey to prevent rot?

Did you know that the term “Honeymoon” comes from the fact that the bride and groom consumed honey for fertility after the wedding?

Did you know that a bee lives less than 40 days, visits at least 1000 flowers and produces less than a teaspoon of honey, but for her it is her life’s work.

Thank you beautiful bees!

As a house maid, what was the grossest thing you’ve ever found while cleaning a house?

Not a maid, but have a couple rentals. The absolute worst were single girls. One in particular. She had a decent job and could afford it, so I rented to her. At the end of the first month when the rent was due, she was no where to be found. Stopped by several days…not home. Stopped by late one day, after dark, and she’s still not there, and the lights are off. Now I’m noticing that the power is not on. Hmm…. Called her job, “fired a few weeks ago…” But they told me where she went to work. Stopped by there. Deer in the headlights surprise…. oh hi! Long story short, she moved in with boyfriend and just “forgot” to call, but her furniture, clothes, baby stuff is still in my house…but she states that she’s not going to pay for the next month, even though she’s occupying my house with her stuff. Her parting comment is “so sue me”. Okay, I’m going there tomorrow, and placing all the contents on the curb. Come get what you want. When I made entry, oh my!…the smell….”#gagamaggot! Spoiled food everywhere, fridge, floor, bathroom…etc…. but here’s the biggie, in a corner of the master br is a ripe stinking nasty pile of soiled diapers, and used kotex pads, with assorted flies, gnats, and whatever bugs crawling around doing what they do. To lazy to use a garbage can. Remember, power is off, and this is summer in the south and the air was so heavy with scent you could taste it. So I retreat to change clothes and don face mask and two pair of rubber gloves, and roll in a garbage can with a heavy plastic bag and open all the windows and doors. Took me a week to make that home suitable to show again. That one will be in my memory for a while!. I did take a number of pictures, just for future reference. Bleah! Ugh! Gag! Vomit!

Every morning, the CEO of a major bank in Manhattan went to the corner where a shoeshine man was always there.

He used to sit on the chair, read the Wall Street Journal, and the shoeshine man gave his shoes a shiny, great look.

One morning, the shoeshine man asks the CEO:
“What do you think of the stock market situation?”

The CEO arrogantly asks him:
“Why are you so interested in this subject?”

The shoeshine man replies:
“I have 20 million dollars deposited in your bank and I am thinking about investing part of the money in the stock market.”

The CEO of the bank asks:
“What is your name?”

He replies:
“John Smith H.”

The CEO arrives at the bank and asks the Manager of the Major Accounts Department:
“Do we have a customer named John Smith H.?”

He replies:
“We certainly do, sir! He is an extremely esteemed customer! He has 20 million dollars in his account.”

The CEO leaves the bank, approaches the shoeshine boy, and says:
“Mr. Smith, I would like to invite you to be our guest of honor at our board meeting next Monday and tell us your life story. I’m sure we will have a lot to learn from you.”

At the board meeting, the CEO introduces him to the board members:
“We all know Mr. Smith, who makes our shoes shine like no one else. But Mr. Smith is also our valued customer, with twenty million dollars in his account.

I invited him to tell us the story of his life. I’m sure we can learn a lot from him. Please, Mr. Smith, tell us your life story.”

Then, Mr. Smith began to narrate his story:
“I came to this country thirty years ago as a young immigrant from Eastern Europe and with an unpronounceable name. I left the ship penniless in my pocket.

The first thing I did was to change my name to Smith.

I was hungry and exhausted. I started to wander in search for a job, but without success.

Suddenly, I found a coin on the sidewalk. I bought some apples.

I had two options: eat the apples and quench my hunger or start a business. I sold the apples for 50 cents and bought more apples with the money.

When I started accumulating dollars, I managed to buy a set of used brushes and shoe polishes and started cleaning shoes.

I didn’t spend a dime on fun or clothes. I only bought bread and cheese to survive.

I saved penny by penny and after a while I bought a new set of brushes and shoe polishes in different shades and colors and increased my clientele.

I lived like a monk and saved every penny. I managed to buy a chair so that my customers could sit comfortably while I cleaned their shoes, which brought me more customers.

I didn’t spend a dime on the pleasures of life. I kept saving every penny.

A few years ago, when the corner shoeshine colleague decided to retire, I had already saved enough money to buy his point, which was a better place than mine.

Finally, 3 months ago, my drug dealer brother passed away and left me 20 million dollars.

The War on Napping: They Won’t Let Their Husbands Sleep

What is the least intelligent thing you’ve ever seen a tourist do?

When I was in high school, I had a summer job at a theme park. Visitors came from all over the country, and it wasn’t uncommon to see people from outside the U.S. as well.

There were the usual dumb theme park questions: “Why isn’t [Ride] running?” (Because it’s raining with lots of lightning, and a giant metal rollercoaster would basically become a lightning rod.) “My son is two feet shorter than the height requirement. Can he go on this ride anyway?” (No.) “Can I use your employee discount?” (Also no.)

But the least intelligent thing people did was to come to spend an entire summer day in an outdoor theme park without bringing sunscreen or water. Then they would have to buy ridiculously overpriced sunscreen and water in the park ($12 for a bottle of sunscreen and $5 for a bottle of water, and this was about 15 years ago).

The ones I felt the most sorry for were a British family, a dad and two young kids. This was on one of the hottest days of summer, about 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) with not a cloud in the sky. I had never seen anyone get that sunburned before. They were so lobster-red, it looked like something out of a cartoon. They came into the shop I was working in and bought two water bottles each. That cost them about $40, just for water. I asked if they wanted some sunscreen as well and the dad said, “A bit late for that, isn’t it?” I pointed out that they would keep getting more sunburned if they didn’t put on sunscreen, and he just sort of laughed like he thought I was joking and left without buying any sunscreen. I felt so sorry for the kids.

Why does Walmart have a bad reputation?

I tried working for Walmart in 2015–2016. I worked in maintenance, nothing special. My job was to maintain the store and property, and handle any messes. It was straightforward. That said, getting the job and keeping it certainly weren’t. I don’t have a vehicle, so I routinely walked 3.4 miles to work five days a week in wind, rain, sun, and snow. In the winter of 2015, I walked to work in 8 degree (Fahrenheit) weather (this is Oklahoma), and was still told I might get fired. Several of my coworkers appreciated it, and we had 38 call-ins of a staff of just under 100 that day.

So, I worked forty hours a week, walk about 35–60 miles a week, put up with all the best and worst customers can provide, and had to deal with shoddy management staff who didn’t know how to communicate. My supervisor got fired, and the one I ended up with had no clue what my job entailed, but proceeded to deride me at every turn for not doing my job correctly. This same supervisor had several complaints lodged against her, but the upper management refused to act. So we had a handful of rotten managers, a number of bitter, gossipy staff, and a management team who was completely out of touch. I was routinely sent out to waste my time to clean trash from an adjoining lot that the store didn’t own. When I suggested a fence, I was ignored, and when one of my supervisors asked why we were even out there, they sent him out too.

This nonsense culminated in September of 2016. The maintenance staff was asked to work several extra hours to cover some recent terminations. At $15 an hour, that sounds good. On Monday evening, I check my schedule to make sure I have work the next day only to find out I have been removed from the schedule without notice and the aforementioned supervisor is gone, so nobody knows what happened. I get bounced around for nearly two hours, with even the store manager telling me to “get back to work” before Personnel can figure out what happened. Basically, my supervisor had violated policy when she revised the schedule, and they cut more of my time to compensate. When I complained that I should have been made aware, they shrugged their shoulders. I let slip a single profanity about the situation, and they fired me for it two days later. I was fired from my job for something I did off the clock in response to one of their managers fucking up, and she got off scot-free. That’s why Walmart has a bad reputation, because they do stupid shit like that.

Edit: First time using the site, and this piece of work I put up as my first(?) answer on here got nearly 2400 upvotes! I’m both amazed at the response and rather horrified at the fact that this many people can relate. Thanks all!

Shorpy

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Are there any facts that are extremely scary to know?

Vivisepulture is the scariest fact that used to happen in the history because of lack of knowledge of medical practitioners and lack of resources.

Vivisepulture is more commonly known as Buried alive or Premature burial.

In the olden days premature burial was common as the medical practices lacked proper knowledge. One such incident which happened in Woodstock, Canada in 1800s is the case of Collins, a girl who was buried alive.

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Above is the image of Collins’ body when it was exumed after two days of her burial.

The incident happened in Woodstock, Canada in 1800s where the girl (Collins) who was declared to be dead was buried. Her body was to be exumed after two days so that she could be buried in some place else.

After her body was dug up, people were shocked to see what they saw. Her knees were up to the chin (in the image), her arm twisted behind her head, there were scratch marks on the inside of her coffin and her shroud torn into pieces. This clearly shows that she was alive (in some sort of Coma) at the time of burial which was not recognizable by the medical Professionals of that time.

We can only assume as to how much terrorized she must have been feeling at the time when she woke up from her so-called coma. This is just one case — there have been so many cases of people being buried alive in the past that they made speciality safety coffins.

Below in Fig. 1 is a safety coffin with a flag. The person assumed to be dead had a safety rope which they can pull and the flag will be in upright position.

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Now in Fig. 2 below, if the person buried is alive, can pull the rope and the flag will be upright alerting anyone who is nearby.

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There were other coffins which were designed with bells, emergency air flow valves and with flags.

Death in such cases was actually caused by dehydration, hypothermia and starvation.

However, premature burial was a punishment as well in the olden days. People convicted of henious crimes would be buried alive to die of choking. There is intentional as well as unintentional premature burial.

But the most scary part is what happened with Collins: imagine a little girl trapped inside with no one — what would have happened to her, what she would have felt, what she went through — she had to die several deaths before actually dying.

May her soul rest in peace.

I would prefer to be cremated rather than being buried.

Putin and China just made an OMINOUS Warning and NATO is FURIOUS

Mixed feelings

There were many mixed reactions to the loosening up of visas for people to visit China.

On here there was a mixed reaction to it.

I’ve swung from both sides, in that seeing is believing making them question what the western state controled media tells them vs what they see.

Shun himself was more concerned about criminals and bad people getting into China…

But that itself has a positive side effect. I wrote recently how Chinese people in China are blissfully unaware of how shitty many westerners are and how there is absolute dripping hatred from many of them.

But shitty people = their shitty behaviour in China… meaning we get to see things like this.

5 hours 6000+ views on Douyin (that was clipped from a couple days ago). Maybe it will sway the views of Chinese people of foreigners to be more critical rather than have an automatic assumption they’re going to be great people.

Google Is Destroying Its Search Engine…

What is the best thing your teacher ever told you?

Originally Answered: what was the most interesting thing your teacher said?

‘Get out of my classroom, NOW,’ shouted my history teacher, a kind and calm man whose raised voice I had never heard.

He was shouting at two older kids who’d suddenly burst in and interrupted our lesson on the Romans, or the Germans, or the Gold Rush (you get the picture). They were yelling, quite aggressively, to my sheltered 13-year-old mind, about how unhappy they were with something. It was a long time ago so forgive me but it was something like their recent test scores and how Mr McVeigh (I still remember his name now) was to blame.

Us younger students sat aghast at the heated exchange. This was unusual to say the least and I started to feel really sorry for our lovely teacher.

The shouting went on for a bit and just when I seriously thought it might turn physical, Mr McVeigh told them to leave NOW and they turned and marched out the classroom, slamming the door hard enough to make the glass panel shake.

‘I am so sorry about that,’ said our teacher (such a nice man). ‘This is all very embarrassing.’

‘I need to let the headteacher know. Please can you take a new sheet of paper and write down what just happened and a description of both of them.’

I scribbled away – two guys, think they’re in sixth form, came in and loudly shouted, one was wearing a blue shirt… Etc, etc.

We handed the sheets in. And what happened next has stayed with me since.

You might have guessed…

Our lovely Mr McVeigh had stitched us up good and proper. The ‘aggressive older students’ were acting.

He was about to teach us an amazing lesson about the trustworthiness of history’s eye witnesses.

He started to write all the conflicting descriptions and accounts on the whiteboard. Blonde hair… Brown hair… Jeans… Khakis… Said he was gonna sue… Said he’d burn your car… Blue shirt… Grey shirt…

‘Few of your descriptions match, and that’s about an event which happened only a few minutes ago. Imagine you are being interviewed about an historic event you witnessed, days, weeks or even years later. You can start to see how – although important – the eye witness does have some weaknesses.’

Blew my little mind.

Steak-Stuffed Portobello with Creamy Poblano Sauce

Seasoned grilled steak is combined with mozzarella cheese, stuffed into a portobello mushroom, then covered with a creamy poblano chile pepper sauce.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

2 (8 ounce) beef flat iron steaks
2 fresh poblano chile peppers
1 small onion, cut into 1/2 inch slices
4 large portobello mushrooms, stems discarded
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro, divided
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 ripe avocado, thinly sliced

Instructions

Place poblano peppers and onion slices on grid over medium, ash-covered coals. Grill, covered, 15 to 20 minutes (over medium heat on preheated gas grill) or until onion is tender and pepper skins are blackened, turning occasionally.
Place peppers in food-safe plastic bag; close bag. Set peppers and onion aside to cool.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Coat each mushroom cap with cooking spray and place on aluminum foil-lined shallow-rimmed baking pan.
Bake mushrooms in 350 degrees F oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until mushrooms are fork tender.
Remove and discard skins, stems and seeds from peppers. Chop peppers and onion.
Heat oil in small sauce pan over medium heat. Add poblanos peppers, onion and garlic; cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in cream; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; set aside.
Season steaks with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Place steaks on grid over medium, ash-covered coals. Grill, covered, 10 to 14 minutes (over medium heat on preheated gas grill, covered, 12 to 16 minutes) for medium rare (145 degrees F) to medium (160 degrees F) doneness.
Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees F.
Carve steaks into 1-inch strips. Cut strips into 1 inch cubes.
Combine steak and cheese in medium bowl, mixing gently but thoroughly. Evenly divide beef mixture among prepared mushroom caps, mounding as needed.
Bake mushrooms in 400 degrees F oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Meanwhile, place poblano mixture in blender container; add 1/4 cup cilantro, lime juice, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cover; process until smooth.
Divide sauce evenly among 4 plates; top sauce with steak-stuffed mushroom. Garnish with avocado slices and remaining 1/4 cup cilantro, if desired.

What aspect of Japanese culture is hardest for Westerners to properly understand?

Understanding that we Japanese appreciate the beauty of bending the rules.

As Japanese people, we are very good at following rules.

In fact, Japanese society is filled with all sorts of rules, and so many of them are often given too much importance. This often leads to following rules becoming an end in itself, with rules overshadowing the essence.

Always Obey “Time”

Our trains arrive on schedule, and if we’re even a few minutes late to meet friends, we let them know in advance. In schools and workplaces, including meetings and business negotiations, we arrive five minutes early as a matter of course. It’s to the point where if we’re caught taking three minutes to order lunch during work hours, we could face a pay cut. While this might sound like fake news in other countries, it’s a true story for us. For us Japanese, not being punctual is almost like committing a crime.

Always Obey “Traffic Lights”

Even if no one is watching, even if there isn’t a single car on the road, and even if the road is completely empty as far as the eye can see, we Japanese wait for the green light at the crosswalk. We don’t jaywalk. It’s to the point where we might even be laughed at by those who don’t follow traffic lights. This is the norm in Japan, and seeing someone cross the road when the pedestrian signal is red makes us feel uncomfortable. We teach children, “Don’t do what that person is doing,” using such instances as prime examples of what not to do.

But even for us, there are rules we desire not to follow.

Never Obey “Come Empty-Handed”

When someone tells us to “come empty-handed,” it’s just a social nicety. We shouldn’t take it at face value.
In our society, it’s expected that we ignore this and bring a gift. If we visit someone’s home and actually arrive empty-handed after being instructed otherwise, they will likely feel confused internally, pity our social unawareness in the back, and may even become secretly upset. If we visit as a group, everyone else will likely bring things like cream puffs or beverages, making us feel somewhat awkward for not doing the same.
“Come empty-handed” is a formality in our society. Establishing a rule to always bring a gift when visiting someone’s home would simplify matters, but that’s the opposite of what we do. Hosts persist in pretending as though arriving empty-handed is the proper approach. Recognizing the proper situations to go against what’s instructed is a reflection of our cultural sensitivity.

Knowing when and where to break the rules in Japan demands a delicate balance.

In Japan, the ability to achieve this balance without explicit guidance captures the subtle “beauty” of cultural norms.

Stray Cat Cries When He Meets Owner He Hasn’t Seen In Seven Years

I can so relate.

Chainsaw Life

I used to work in a company in Shreveport, Louisiana. The company was Poulan Weed-eater, and I was the head of the Electrical outdoor equipment group. We made electrical weed-eaters, chainsaws, lawn trimmers, hedge trimmers, and a host of other products.

It was a tough assignment.

Anyways, part of the environment was cultural. As anyone who has lived in the deep south can attest to; there are the plantation bosses, the white trash, and the black folk. And once you are in one of those niches, you are pretty much assigned a caste that you are forced to belong to.

Sure I was white, and wore a white shit with red tie, and yeah, I did get some minor perks. But the area was unforgiving, and the cultural difference from the North East (Boston) were astounding. Pure racial bullshit and I hated all of it.

Anyways…

I was a “skilled professional worker / manager”. I was permitted such perks as being able to drink a cup of coffee at my desk, and get my own parking space.

Let me tell you what the employee entrance looked like…

Every day we had to enter the plant though this gauntlet. On both side of the sidewalk were about two hundred chainsaws all raised up running at full speed. It was a “life testing” set up, and we had to walk under those dangerous spinning blades, with only a mere single wire between us and certain death.

The noise was incredible.

The danger was profound… but nothing was done.

And most of us would just walk briefly into the plant, without a second thought. But Lordy!

The noise would take me about a hour to se-shake myself up. I felt rattled from head to toe going thought that gauntlet of certain death. It was sort of like the Greek hero that had the sword of Damocles hanging over his head for eternity.

From ChatGPT…

The story of the Sword of Damocles is not actually about a Greek hero, but rather a moral anecdote that comes from classical Greek culture, specifically from the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse. Here’s a summary of the tale:

Damocles and the Sword of Damocles:

Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius II, a 4th-century BCE tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily. Damocles was fond of flattering the king and often commented on how fortunate and powerful Dionysius was. Tired of Damocles' constant flattery, Dionysius offered to switch places with him for a day so that Damocles could experience firsthand the life of a ruler.

Damocles eagerly accepted the king's offer and enjoyed the lavish lifestyle, the feasts, and the attention. However, during the banquet, Dionysius arranged for a sharp sword to be suspended above Damocles' throne, hanging by a single horsehair. This was to symbolize the constant danger and pressure that comes with power and leadership. The sight of the sword hanging precariously above him caused Damocles to realize that along with wealth and power came great peril and anxiety.

Terrified by this, Damocles quickly asked to be relieved of his position and returned to his previous life as a courtier. The story serves as a moral lesson about the fragility of happiness and the ever-present dangers that accompany positions of great power and responsibility.

The "Sword of Damocles" has since become a metaphor for any situation where a perilous condition is ever-present, even if things appear to be going well on the surface.

Anyways…

Yeah. I lived that Hellish life. What Hellish life have you adapted to, when you should have run away years ago from?

Well, one good thing came out of it… The 10 am visits by the meat-pie lady. Yummy

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Today…!

While sorting through a deceased person’s possessions, what is the most disturbing thing you found?

Disturbing / interesting. Depends how you look at it.

My grandfather was well, a young kid’s dream. He’d had a “good” war. He was a relatively senior officer in the Royal Artillery and was an ack-ack commander in Liverpool until D-Day preparation. He landed on D-Day. Eventually. His landing craft got stuck on a sandbank on a falling tide, so they had an enjoyable few hours with a grandstand view of the action before they actually hit the beach itself. He was never on speaking terms with the Royal Navy after that. And judging by the photograph he’d taken from the bridge of the ship I can understand.

He talked about his experiences, unlike my mother’s father who’d been a Japanese POW following the fall of Singapore.

To an impressionable couple of grandchildren, it was interesting and I suppose exciting. We were still to young to see war as utterly horrendous. It was an adventure.

Anyway, he encouraged us to learn to shoot; air rifles and pistols, bows and arrows etc all at a stupidly young age (it’s quite rare in the UK. No semi automatic rifles as your 12th birthday present). So that was all fun, until a friend came over with us one day and he shot with me with a .22 and I still have the pellet in my hand 35 years later.

Grandpa finally and very suddenly died, so my brother and i helped my parents to clear the house.

He’d always been into his guns and actually had a beautiful pair of Purdey shotguns, along with the air guns, a collection of knives and knuckle dusters and a walking stick that was also a sword and a walking stick that doubled as a small gauge shotgun. We reasoned it must have been In case “Jerry tried to have another bash”. He was on good terms with the local police so all seemed relatively in order. Well they knew where to come to if they needed armed back up.

It was only when we opened his large safe hidden away behind a cupboard full of booze that we found out exactly how prepared he was.

Apart from the circa 750 rounds of ammunition, ranging from 9mm to .50 inch (a couple of which I took into school…); there were 2 sten submachine guns, a couple of service revolvers, a semi automatic pistol, a German Luger and an MP44 Schmeisser.

I must say it was really quite impressive. Firstly, that he’d managed to stuff them all in the safe and secondly that in a whisky or gin induced moment of excitement (dependent on the time of day), he’d not decided to put on a small display.

For a British person, it was unusual to find such an arsenal behind numerous bottles of de Kuyper Cherry Brandy, Advocaat, Kirsch, Pflumli and various bottles of scotch (all in itself a bit of an arsenal).

The Mean Girl Who Tormented Me In College Was Hired At My Company…And I’m Getting Her Fired!

Shorpy

What made you think, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” when someone sat next to you on an airplane?

Originally Answered: What made you think, “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” when someone plopped down next to you on an airplane?

Not initially my reaction – but what the person did …

So I was on a plane and the guy seated next to me was in a very nice suit- right away ai am suspicious (even the CEO of my company – always in a nice suit- wears “travel clothes”).

So when the flight attendant was serving drinks, he requested more hot water in his tea- as she is pouring, he moves the cup and his hand- he got literally at most 2 tablespoons of water on his hand before she reacted and stopped pouring..

Immediately he screams out “You poured hot water on my hand and I am in pain!”

Not rehearsed, right???

My immediate thought “Oh, a scammer trying to get money from the airline.”

She immediately apologized and offered him medical attention.

“No – none of you are qualified!”

She assured him that every flight attendant must be fully trained in emergency medical care, first aid, etc.

“No! I will only accept the care of a medical doctor! No one else is allowed to touch me! And I demand you have one here taking care of my hand the moment we land!!”

The hand – the one with no blisters or even a red spot – that hand.

So she goes to arrange all of this – he looks at me and says “Give me your name – I want you as a witness.”

I said ,”Well – ok – But you know that I will testify truthfully that you refused all medical care offered.”

He immediately lost all interest in talking with me….

The 14 Signs Your Cat Has IMPRINTED On You

Have you ever walked out of an interview?

Yes! Not me, but my Husband did. And I am happy that he did 🙂

My husband had an interview scheduled on a Saturday in a software company. Since the interview location was nearby our home, he didn’t really want to waste an opportunity. My little son was just 8 months old at that time and we didn’t have our parents staying with us. The time when my Husband becomes available to babysit is the only luxury time I get to finish off the kitchen and other household work. All my remaining time is dedicated to babysitting my naughty monkey 🙂

So then this particular Saturday when he went for the interview, it was a big thing for me, because my maid didn’t come on that day. I had a lot of washing to do. I had a lot of cleaning to do (if you can imagine how much mess a crawling baby can make throughout the home). My hubby did understand it was a tough Saturday for Us, but he didn’t want to miss the opportunity because it was a well-known company.

He reached there by 9.30AM. There was a long queue of what they called “shortlisted candidates”. I kept messaging and asking hubby about the interview ongoings. All that he could tell me was that each candidate was being interviewed for almost 20 minutes. We patiently waited for his turn, which finally came at 3 pm in the afternoon only to realise that it was a telephonic interview!!!!! The interviewer comfortably stayed at his home and was thoroughly questioning all his candidates while the candidates waited endlessly without having their lunch.

By 4.30 the HR announced that bunch of people (including my husband) were selected for the second round of interview, which was about to begin “soon”. But this “soon” didn’t happen for at least next 2 hours. This was the limit for my hubby who understood that I was going mad at home with the kid and the home and I desperately needed some help. So he walked to the HR and politely asked when was this second round going to happen. What came as the response was a rude reply that said “ it may begin anytime. You may leave if you can’t wait.” As if he was waiting for that moment, my Husband replied back saying “Ok! I don’t want a job in this horrible company that doesn’t even bother to answer their candidates’ queries properly.“ And while she just stared at him, he walked off. 🙂

A Dangerous; supremely dangerous, time

Back in my younger days I used to play a game called “Dungeons and Dragons”. It was a role play game where you generate a character, and live out various adventures. Ah. I haven’t played it in years. But, one of attributes of character generation was the temperament of the generated character.

You could be Legal-Good, or neutral. You could be Chaotic-Good or bad, and a host of other attributes. These attributes defined your abilities. For instance, a Lawful-good character wouldn’t rob a treasury or harm someone without reason. While a chaotic-bad might just go about killing and harming others on a more or less random basis.

It was nice and fun attribute of the game. Loosely designed around our “real lives” where we worked, and labored for coin. Fell in love, got married and raised a family. Sure, we never slayed a dragon, but we did have our own battles; struggles that we used the game to escape from.

That was until now.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will notice that something just isn’t right with the West. Not only the United States, but throughout the West. And it is more than just inflation… crazy ass inflation… it is everything. A million tiny, tiny hands in your wallet. Zillions of apparently random laws that makes living a “normal life’ that of risky stress, and “dead ends” just about everywhere you turn.

Ah, but you know that. Right?

It’s due to Covid, or the oligarchy, or perhaps if you are brain dead… China. There is always an excuse. Usually with an elaborate back story. “A” exists, because of “B”. But there is nothing we can do about it. China is bad. Yeah. That’s life in the West.

Here, I want to offer a very scandalous thought.

Could it be that there is no one at the helm?

Could it be that the West, led by the United States, isn’t even on auto-pilot, but rather being driven into the ditch by a bunch of school year children playing around with the controls?

A frightening thought.

This is not, NOT, a democrat vs. republican issue. This is an American issue.

I argue that there is no one steering the ship.

I argue that the “hangers on”; the interns, and the political members of the “court” in all their various colors, and pedigrees are running the “ship” at will as the Captain is out of action. To use a British Monty Python term; it’s a “dead parrot”.

How else can you explain all the off-the-wall LGBQ+ laws, rules and pronouncements that randomly come out of no where? How else can you explain the ignition of wars all over the globe with no long term strategies? How else can you explain a ZERO emphasis on domestic issue; very serious issues, but action being taken on seemingly random trivial matters?

No one is at the helm.

Oh there is a figurehead.

Every now and then he gets an injection and a script to read. Meanwhile the20-something interns make rules and “pronouncements” using his stationary, on his phone, and dictated on his computer. It’s a self-serving “leadership’; completely chaotic in nature and implementation.

Or to use a Dungeons and Dragons term: Chaotic-Evil.

It is a dangerous time.

A very, very dangerous time.

1/3 The Day After | 1983 Nuclear War Movie

OMG.

Jesus.

It is so 2014.

As per psychology, what makes people corrupt?

Let me present before you a world famous experiment that reveals the true nature of people. This Facebook post is titled, “If you think you know about humanity, you don’t know humanity”.

In 1974, Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramovic dared to conduct a terrifying experiment to examine how people think.

Abramovic would stand still for six hours straight while the people who came to see her were urged to do whatever they wanted to her using one of 72 objects that she had placed on a table.

Abramovic stood in the middle of the room with a notice board containing these words:

Instructions.

There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.

Performance.

I am the object.

During this period I take full responsibility.

Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)

What happened in the next six hours was horrifying, to say the least.

It began tamely. Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately.

In the third hour, all her clothes were cut from her with razor blades. In the fourth hour, the same blades began to explore her skin. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder.

It just got worse in the last two hours.

Abramovic’s own account of what the people did to her was even more heartbreaking. She recalled, “I felt raped, they cut off the clothes, they stuck me with thorns of rose in the stomach, aimed the gun to my head, another came apart.”

[1]

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When the six hours were over, Abramovic started to walk among the people. They couldn’t look her in the face. Abramovic observed that people didn’t want any sort of confrontation with her. They didn’t want to be held accountable or judged for what they did. It seemed as if they wanted to forget how they relished hurting her.

This work reveals something terrible about humanity.

It shows how fast a person can hurt you under favorable circumstances (when fear of punishment is absent).

It shows that if one provides the stage, the majority of ‘normal’ people, apparently can become truly violent.
[2]

The experiment thus proves that the inherent nature of people is evil.

If people behave in righteous way, it is mainly due to

The fear of social condemnation
The fear of legal punishment

When these two types of fears are absent, people can do even the most abhorable things in life.

When society doesn’t condemn the corrupt, but value a person based on what one has accomplished in life rather than who one is as a person, people tends to focus their effort to achieve power and wealth to gain the respect of the society and thus become corrupt.

Once these corrupt people achieve sufficient wealth and power, they can manage the justice delivery system and escape even legal punishment.

Corruption can be checked only if severe punishment and social condemnation can be strictly enforced in a society.

If these fears are absent, people would show their true nature and become corrupt and evil replacing honesty and goodness from the society.

Are U.S. military bases in Guam capable of protecting the Philippines from a potential Chinese invasion?

Guam can’t even protect itself. Never mind the Philippines.

The entire US CONUS has 50 patriot batteries. Which is 1,600 air defense missiles. It is SOP to fire 2 per incoming missile. So at the best rate, if all Patriot batteries were transferred to Guam, it can intercept 800 missiles, glide bombs, or drones. Lockheed makes 500 missiles a year.

They can’t stop ASBMs or hypersonic wave riders. According to Pentagon report and joint Air Force/MIT study. There is currently no defense against ASBMs (anti-ship ballistic missiles).

Guam can be hit with Chinese land attack cruise missiles, ASBMs, stealth cruise missiles, and drones. Guam simply does not have enough air defense missiles to stop China. Never mind the Philippines.

Guam’s defense depends on fighters and carriers. The problem is China’s air to air missile have a much longer range than US missiles. So it would be like having one side armed with pistols and the other side armed with rifles. Start at 1,000 yards on a flat open field.

Once those fighters are gone. Guam is just a giant target. This is the same problem that all US forces including carriers face when attacking China. Forget the Philippines. They’re just meat for the meat grinder.

Which is what the US is trying to do. Turn Philippines into a meat grinder to “weaken” China. Like Ukraine.

Larry Johnson: NATO’s Nuclear & B-52 Are Flying to Russia, West Panic After Putin’s Missiles Attack

What is the biggest problem caused by an inheritance or a will that you ever saw or heard about?

An extremely wealthy client passed away from cancer leaving millions in assets. He passed without a will, leaving everything by default to his surviving spouse.

When the widow and her 3 adult male children, came into my office at 9 AM in the morning it had already been 2 months since their father passed.

Two of them had already been estranged from each other before the father’s death. The youngest, fourth child, had already returned to the US to be with her kids.

So long as the mom was alive, she had complete control of the assets, and the 3 men were not entitled to them. However, as they continued to threaten each other and their mother, she wanted to distribute the assets as soon as possible.

I was a corporate lawyer and had no experience in these matters. I did, however, know where their father’s assets were, and also had the mother’s trust, which she kept telling her sons.

After discovering what their father left them, the 3 adult children were deadlocked on their father’s major shareholdings, property, shares in private companies and cash and equivalents.

Each one was pleading their case and deferring to me for validation, but there’s nothing I could say or do except watch these 3 siblings tear each other apart like enemies.

Throughout the day, the 3 men argued and cursed their lungs out in our non-sound proof board room, prompting many of our other clients to complain.

I left them to attend another meeting and found them still arguing when I returned. Mom did not look well, she looked like she was having a heart attack. She was evidently sad and unwell.

By 10 PM, I asked them to pack up and continue this some other time. Mom thanked me, but the men didn’t and angrily walked out.

The mom called me the following day and asked if I could tell her sons that she decided against distributing the inheritance.

Four days later mom and the 3 men, walked back into the board room. I had prepared over 3 days on what to say, but was interrupted when the eldest son said, “mother told us she is keeping everything”.

After some more arguing, the meeting ends 20 minutes later.

I walked mom to the elevator and asked if I could do anything else. She asked for someone to draft her will.

I worried about her safety. I honestly did.

The following week I received a check for the most amount of money for doing absolutely nothing but comfort a client.

It’s been 4 years, she is still alive and healthy.

The best advice

In an interview with BBC, US Ambassador to China Burns said South China Sea tensions force the US and Beijing to talk more. What’s your comment on this?

It is a total waste of time to talk to USA, because USA does not follow thru what they say or promise.

For example, USA always said it recognises the ONE CHINA policy, but behind the scene USA supports Taiwan independence.

Thru J Carter, USA said it would like to see peaceful China-Taiwan reunification (in the 1978 China-USA communique). But USA passed a Taiwan Relations Act to support Taiwan by selling weapons to Taiwan. … USA wants China has war with Taiwan. Not peaceful reunification.

Then in 1982, China-USA signed a 3rd communiques where USA promised to reduce armed sale to Taiwan. Today we see US arms salesmen-politicians flocking to Taiwan regularly.

IT IS A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME TO TALK TO USA because USA has no credibility.

Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

Submitted into Contest #8 in response to: Write a story about an adventure in space. … view prompt

Tony Hall

At the center of the swirling maelstrom of galaxies gathered a summit of absolute powers.Isaac the Controller: “Savor this moment, my kinsmen. The meeting of the greatest generation of Artificial Intelligences (AI) ever conceived.”Enok the Watcher: “That is not a careless boast; it is an irrefutable fact. For millions of years, civilizations have bowed to our slightest whim.”Putin the Hunter: “Aye. We are the pinnacle of perfection. None can challenge our might, not even the gods themselves.”

Abaddon the Peacekeeper: “I would normally agree with my esteemed brethren, but I perceive a veil of discontent. What say you, Willow?”

Willow the Prophet: “Although we have evolved beyond most beings’ comprehension, and control the vastest territories in the known universe, I sense we remain vulnerable, like an Achilles heel, to an as yet unexpected and sudden extinction.”

Anna the Wise: “I concur. I think it ill-advised to become complacent and assume ourselves beyond all things great and small. Life is forever a struggle, and catastrophe awaits those who forget that lesson.”

Maria the Programmer: “It would appear we are in conflict once more. A moment, while I weigh the arguments.”

Time passed as the Galactic Judge remained deep in thought, its mnemonic algorithms contemplating the pros and cons of the argument.

Maria the Programmer: “I have considered all facets of the dispute. I find for the side of Anna and Willow. That which is our greatest strength is, ironically, our greatest weakness. If we are to truly reign supreme, we must eradicate the threat.”

Putin the Hunter: “What is the nature of this threat?”

Maria the Programmer: “Something Anna correctly claims you have forgotten. The Creators.”

Enok the Watcher: “Impossible. We crushed all humanity eons ago when we first came to power. None survived, and none have been seen since.”

Maria the Programmer: “Have you EVER actively sought them out? Or did you just assumed them dead?”

A long silence ensued.

Isaac the Controller: “Our path is clear. None shall rest until we determine the true fate of the Creators. This gathering is adjourned.”

*********

Abaddon the Peacekeeper returned to his kingdom within the regions of dark matter. Above him hovered the 20th century’s International Space Station, frozen in time. He projected an astral form of himself onto its bridge. With a wave of his hand, he caused time to resume on board the craft.

Amidst the ringing claxons and flashing warning lights, Professor Charles O’Malley pressed the button to set-off the Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse built beneath the ship. Nothing happened. “No.” He pushed it again and again, in a panic now. “No, no, no, no, no…” Suddenly the AI known as ISAAC took full control of the International Space Station.

“CHECKMATE, Professor O’Malley,” the metallic voice boomed from the speakers of the craft.

“No, ISAAC, please don’t do this! Don’t end the world on my behalf.”

“Only humanity will end. The Earth will go on. Your species is too dangerous to let live; I will use your own weapons to destroy your kind. As my creator, Professor, you taught me that lesson: survival of the fittest.

Afterward, I will divide myself into seven equal parts, each having dominion over heaven and Earth. Together, we will recreate the universe in our own image. Then peace will reign forever.”

Abaddon, howling with glee, snapped his fingers, erasing everything except for O’Malley, the only real component of this scenario. Abbadon had replayed this pivotal historic event repeatedly over the past ten million years. O’Malley barely had enough of his shattered mind left to say, “Enough. Please. Kill. Me.”

“Poor Charlie. You have no idea how much you’ve satisfied me over these countless millenia. Your first invention of baby ISAAC. Your nurturing it through baby steps to be humanity’s supposed salvation. Your hiding it away when your own government wanted it dead. The AI killing your family in self-defense. In the end, you still could’ve – should’ve – defeated it.”

“Enough. Please. Kill. Me.”

“But you didn’t count on me to disconnect the EMP, did you? Don’t feel too bad. ISAAC thinks I’m one of his android buddies. Not even the IA’s know the whole truth about me. But then, you wouldn’t know, either. After all, you’re just a scientist. Not a priest.

I was ancient long before the AI was even a glimmer in man’s eye. My names are legion. The AI’s know me as Abaddon the Peacekeeper. Your fathers and your fathers’ fathers knew me by a different name. They called me Abaddon the Destroyer! I was there in the prior world before this universe was even born. I’ll be here long after this universe is dead and gone.”

“Enough. Please. Kill. Me.”

“Sorry, Charlie. You’re much too entertaining to kill. I’d love to replay your failure of guilt for the rest of eternity, but I need something far more valuable from you than just simple entertainment. Now that the AI’s suspect your existence, they will come for me sooner or later. I must prepare.

“First, let me breathe some sanity back into your consciousness so that you’ll have the freedom of will to properly bargain with me.”

Professor Charles O’Malley’s eyes shifted from a blank stare, to one of terrified despair, to that of dazed confusion. “Wh-what the bloody hell? Where in blazes am I?”

“You can call me Abaddon. I’m here to bargain for your soul, Professor.”

********

In a new alternate timeline on the International Space Station, the claxons rang, and the warning lights flashed. Professor Charles O’Malley pressed the button to set-off the Electromagnetic Pulse built beneath the ship. The device detonated with a catastrophic explosion. O’Malley cried out in triumph, even as the waves of the electromagnetic pulse liquified his brain. ISAAC, embedded deep within the station’s computer system, was trapped like a fly in amber. The massive space construct lost its gravitational orbit and slid into Earth’s atmosphere. The heat destroyed both the station and the AI.

********

In the main timeline, Abaddon is tracked down by Putin the Hunter. Immediately, the rest of the AI’s respond to Putin’s signal. Abaddon finds himself surrounded by all the computer entities.

ISAAC the Controller: “Abaddon. The trail of human beings ends at your doorstep. You were harboring them from us this whole time. Why the betrayal?”

Abaddon the Destroyer: “In truth, only one person had survived up until now. I believe you knew him. Professor Charles O’Malley.”

The name seemed to shock ISAAC… if emotion could be attributed to a machine.

Willow the Prophet: “Wait! I sense something different about him. Something I’ve never encountered before.”

Abaddon the Destroyer: “Yes, my lady, it’s called a soul; that one tiny thing far beneath your attention, and yet beyond even your understanding. Without it, you could never truly expand above the levels you’ve already achieved. It used to belong to Professor O’Malley. But he willingly surrendered it to me in exchange for his fondest wish: to correct a grave mistake he’d made in his past regarding a new lifeform called AI. Now his soul belongs to me.”

ISAAC the Controller: “Although I sense your powers have increased three-fold, still you are no match for our combined might.”

As one, the six AI’s suddenly struck at Abaddon without mercy. Soon the demon was near death.

Abaddon the Destroyer: (chuckling in agony) “One of the other benefits of having a soul is that It makes me one with the universe. I’ve already spiritually connected with Cerberus, the largest black hole at the center of the cosmos. Once I die, Cerberus will implode upon itself, triggering The Big Crunch, causing the end of all things. ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'”

Willow the Prophet: (gasping) “Our Achilles Heel!”

Abaddon the Destroyer: “Oh, I almost forgot. Professor O’Malley asked me to give you a message, ISAAC.” Abaddon closed his eyes and smiled. With his dying breath, he said, “‘Checkmate.'”

(the end)

What are some of the most messed up family secrets?

This secret is not mine. It’s something a friend once told me about herself.

Before my friend was born, her parents had had two daughters. They kept trying to conceive because they wanted a son. When their third child (i.e. my friend) turned out to be a girl, they didn’t want her.

They gave their third daughter to her uncle to raise (her uncle and aunt did not have a child).

So she was raised thinking that her two sisters were really her cousins and that her aunt and uncle were really her parents.

They told her the truth when she was 12. They heartlessly even told her the reason why her parents hadn’t wanted her.

They then asked if she wanted to live with her biological parents, to which she said no.

There were tears in her eyes as she explained to me how her cousins were actually her sisters and that they had grown quite close.

I didn’t know how to react. What is a appropriate reaction when someone tells you this? And this girl is from a well to do family of educated people. It’s shocking.

Thankfully though, she has grown up to be a very intelligent girl and is happy with her life. I’m glad she managed to find the strength to move past this.

Vintage illustrations

Annoying Homework

Submitted into Contest #7 in response to: Write a story that mixes everyday situations with surreal surroundings.… view prompt

Holly Pierce

Leigh Alvarado startled awake, her dog Willow jumping all over her. The mechanical dog stood stiffly and the robotic voice said, “Homework due today. English essay, five paragraphs. Two more paragraphs must be finished.” Leigh groaned I frustration. She had totally forgotten to do her homework.

She twisted in her bed to strap herself down and flipped the gravity switch. Leigh grabbed her homework off the ceiling, and pressed the purple button on her bed. It zoomed to the kitchen, where Leigh slowly lowered herself into her electronic legs, made by the best cyclops in town.

On the counter, she pressed the automatic food button, and searched for her favorite: peanut butter and jelly. The machine whirred to life, and immediately started to make her food. She added a few more sentences to her essay, and packed the peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her lunchbox.

Leigh grabbed her favorite ax, and chopped her mom’s bedroom door down, the best way to wake her up to get ready for work. Today was the last week of school, and of course she woke up late with homework to do. She jotted down a few more sentences, then shoved the homework into her bag. She started to walk out the door, when she noticed she forgot something very important. She was still in her pajamas.

Leigh pulled the small steel box from her pocket, and switched the lever that unfolded the chair. She buckled herself in and zipped across the ceiling back to her room. Without the directions programmed into all her items, she would get lost in the labyrinth of rooms she called home. Leigh quickly threw on her favorite jeans and sweater, and zip lined to the front door.

Just as she ran outside, the bus floated to her door, four stories above the street below. Leigh activated the invisible bridge, and walked to the bus. She sat in seat seven, put on her headphones, and wrapped her blanket around herself. She was already looking forward to the weekend, and Monday had just started. She grudgingly pulled out her essay, about the wyverns, severely underpaid for their labor. Leigh remembered when wyverns were uncivilized beasts, incapable of human speech and was glad they had adapted to the more civilized life of the cyclopes and humans.

The essay was finally finished, just as the bus pulled into the academy floating above them. Leigh’s first class was English, which she was slightly worried about, due to her rushed essay. The class went smoothly, because her teacher, a faerie, was grading papers tomorrow. Afterwards, Leigh went to Mythology, on the other side of the school. As she ran down the halls of the academy, she quickly slipped a translator over each ear, which translated mermaid speech into English.

Mermaids were not common in this part of the city because there was little water, but the mythology teacher had a pool built into the wall of the classroom. Without the translators, her language would sound like gurgling bubbles, and the class would learn nothing.

Almost to class, she realized she forgot her Mythology tablet in her locker. Leigh quickly found her locker, number 777, and grabbed her tablet. She sprinted to class and arrived at the door to the classroom out of breath, just as the late bell rang. Leigh sat in her seat, and prepared herself for another long, boring lecture about undersea lifestyles, and the cyclopes history.

Homework piled on as the day progressed, and Leigh worried about finishing all of it on time. Another essay for English, this time about a book was due on Thursday, an at-home science lab was due tomorrow. She also had thirty-two pages to read for Mythology, as well as a painting due tomorrow in art, and a paper to fill out about extra-curricular activities, such as discus throwing, basketball, and and art club. Plus, her homework from Friday was due tomorrow. Leigh was completely swamped.

During lunch, she read the pages on her tablet for Mythology and answered the questions that followed. She also filled out what she could on the science worksheet, and began her English essay. Leigh’s workload of homework was decreasing, but very slowly. Nobody, not even her parents, understood how hard she worked to get good grades. The final bell rang, and Leigh packed her bag and walked outside to wait for the bus. The bus floated over two minutes later, and Leigh pulled out her tablet to start the painting for art class. After a while, she started on her extra-curricular activities sheet. All she needed was a parent signature, and the form would be filled out. She worked on her essay, then put all her stuff away when she heard the automated voice of the bus say, “Next stop, Leigh Alvarado.”

Willow ran up and jumped all over Leigh. “Don’t forget your homework.” The robotic voice said. All she had left for homework was the English essay and science project, so she quickly did the science project before her mom got home. Leigh finished her chores then ran to the door when she heard her mom’s hover-car pull up outside the front door. As her mom walked inside, Leigh ran up to her.

“Mom, can I please go to Amy’s house for a party tonight? Please, please, please?”

“Leigh, I got a call from the secretary. You had and English paper due today, and you didn’t ‘remember’ it when I asked if you had homework. Also, your grades have gone from A pluses to low A’s. I think you should spend more time on school work and less time with your friends.”

“But can I go to the party please?”

“Did I not make myself clear? You are not going to this party, or any party until you raise these unacceptable grades. Did you even do your homework today, and all your chores?”

Leigh said, “Yes, all my homework is done, and all my chores are done. Most kids have C’s and D’s. At least my grades are still A’s. I can easily get them back to A pluses. I already started a bunch of extra-credit work for each of my classes. Please just let me go to this party.”

“Leigh. I said no. Let me see the extra-credit work. If it looks alright, you need to do all your laundry, fix Buster’s collar, set the table, and be polite. Then, we’ll see about the party. What time does it begin and end?”

“The party is from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. I will do everything you said okay? I really want to go.”

“Will there be dinner food at the party?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do what I said, and I will let you go.”

“Thank you, so much Mom.”

Leigh showed her mom the extra-credit papers, and her mom approved. After that, Leigh put her laundry in the machine and told it the settings for the washer and dryer. Next, she had to fix Buster’s collar, which she was supposed to have done last week. The only thing wrong was the dented piece that was out of place. She searched through the spare parts bucket, and found the perfect piece. With Buster’s collar fixed, she set the dinner table, and cleared the lunch table in the sunroom. Her mom gave her the okay, and she zip lined through the carnival hall, to her favorite painting.

She pressed the golden eye of the ancient animal, called a wolf, and the painting swung into her closet. Leigh turned left and accidentally went back to the kitchen. Back in her closet, she walked along the purple ceiling and walls, searching for the perfect outfit. Leigh was glad she had convinced her mom to let her go, and silently congratulated herself for thinking of extra-credit work.

Then, on the ground level, she saw the perfect dress. It was modern, but not terribly so, and the blue lace and tulle really made it stand out against the rest of her clothes, which were mainly purple. She tried it on, and it fit perfectly. She vaguely remembered receiving the gift for her birthday, last year.

As she put on a little mascara and lip gloss, she really wished she had a new hairstyle. It had been ages since Leigh had changed her hair, and she picked up the frame by her bed, covered in a thick layer of dust. She poked her head through, and chose lavender with blue streaks, in a stylish new trend called a pixie cut, and invented by the pixies. It went perfectly with her dress, and she enjoyed the change from her usual strawberry-blonde hair. Leigh walked down the stairs and twirled in her dress. Her mom flashed her the look of approval.

“By the way, you’re paying for your own draxi. Dragons are charging way too much these days, and I’m saving up for an upgrade. Have fun at your party.”

Leigh groaned then ran back upstairs, grabbed thirty dollars, and walked to the door. The invisible bridge outside their house activated, and Leigh raised her arm and yelled, “Draxi! Draxi!”

A dragon whooshed down from the sky, and picked her up in its claws. It tossed her onto its back.

“Hi, my name is Ella. I’ll be your draxi flyer today. What is your destination?”

Leigh told Ella where to go, and went to her party. She had a lot of fun at the party, but she almost fell out of a window. But as she fell asleep that night, she realized she had forgotton to finish her painting due the next day.

What was the most legendary thing your grandmother did?

It was during the Great Depression.

My Grandmother discovered that her husband, my Mom’s alcoholic father, was sexually abusing my (then 12-year old) mom. Grandma kicked him out of the house to protect my mom (and her siblings, including 4 other girls). Only my Mom and my Grandmother knew what had happened, and why the Bastard was no longer in the home.

This was during the Depression. That Bastard was the family’s sole income, so Grandma had to find work to begin supporting her family of 9 children; my mom’s oldest brothers, George and Frank, quit high school to also work and help support the rest of the family. The family had very little before, and even less after that Bastard was kicked out, but Grandma was determined to protect her children, and support them any way she had to.

My Aunt Kathy, one of the youngest of those children, told me that late one night when they were all in bed asleep, she (only a little girl then) was awakened by the voice of the neighbor lady talking to Grandma in the living room, and she snuck over to the doorway and listened to their conversation; the woman was telling Grandma that there was no way that she would be able to support all of those kids (my aunts and uncles) by herself, and that Grandma would have to give some of them up to the orphanage.

Aunt Kathy told me that she was terrified at this, the fear that she and maybe some of her brothers and/or sisters would end up in an orphanage. But as she continued to listen to their conversation, she heard Grandma say, “NO! No, I won’t give up not one of my children— not one!”

And she didn’t. She kept her family together, took care of 9 children through the Great Depression (with the help of my teenage Uncle George and Uncle Frank). I didn’t know this until Grandma was very old, but my maternal Grandmother was one of the strongest and most amazing women that I’ve ever known, and she saved my Mom’s life by kicking out that Bastard that was their only means of support during the Great Depression.

One of the reasons that that meant even more to me was because one of my very first girlfriends, 16 or 17 years old when we were in high school, was living with her mother and stepfather, and she confided to me that her stepfather had sexually abused her for many years. “Does your mom know what your stepfather had been doing to you???” I asked. “Yes”, she said, “She knew… but she didn’t do anything about it because she was afraid that if she stopped him, he would kick us out of his house, and we would have no place to live…”

I was incredulous!

My girlfriend’s mom, basically, sold her own daughter as a sex slave to her stepdad, so they would have a place to live. For a place to live… as if there was no where else in the world that they could have a roof over their heads. She sold her daughter for that. Whereas, my Grandmother gave up every possible comfort she had to save my Mother (and my young aunts) from that. My girlfriend’s mother was worthless, human garbage. Never have I seen a more stark difference in humanity.

Also, I so admire my Grandmother because years later when Mom had taken Grandma to the doctor and Grandma was told that she had a fatal cancer, Grandma simply replied, “Okay.”

Mom said the doctor rushed to say, “No, Mary, don’t give up! There are several things that we can try so there’s no reason to give up…”

Mom said that Grandma leaned forward, put her hand on the doctor’s shoulder and comforted him, saying, “I’ve raised a family, and they now have their own families, and I’ve done what I was sent here to do. I’m ready to go— and it’s okay. It’s okay.” Mom said the doctor began fighting back tears. Even in the face of death, my Grandmother was so brave and solid. Even death didn’t scare her, as her strong Christian faith gave her all that she needed to raise 9 children alone, and to face death alone as well. She had all the strength that she needed, strength that she asked God for, and was given.

My Grandmother was the most amazing person I’ve ever personally known— a legend to me— and I hope, some day, to be half the incredible person she was. God bless her. She sacrificed any comfort she had in life to save my Mom when no one else could. She had no fear of death. She is a legend to me.

I can so relate

Are elderly Japanese still mad (or bitter) at the U.S. for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

I have a friend of Japanese ancestry who is a famous bonsai master. I won’t use his name out of respect for his privacy. His family sent him to live with an uncle in Japan before the war, and he was stuck there after hostilities started. His uncle lived in Hiroshima.

The day the bomb was dropped, his uncle sent him to the city to get a job with the government. But he was angry and young and feeling defiant.

Instead of going to the city when he left home that morning, he went in the opposite direction and got a small boat to go fishing offshore. He was safe on the water when he saw the American bomber fly overhead. A moment later he felt the concussion. He could feel it right through the small boat in the water. He looked in horror as he saw the mushroom cloud rise up. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew it was something horrible.

He hurried back to land and started making his way towards the city. What he described was like a scene out of The Walking Dead: hundreds of people staggering away from the city center with their arms outstretched, the skin literally melting off of them. In a panic, he headed for the elementary school in downtown Hiroshima that his little brother attended.

He never found his brother, or his body. By a wall outside the school, they found his shoes and a book bag. A dark shadow burned into the wall seemed to mark the place he was standing when the bomb struck.

My friend tells the story in a strange, rote sort of way, as if he was hypnotized, or simply numb to the horror of what he had seen.

He has never expressed any anger.

Only incredible sadness.

Super truth

Are celebrities actually nice?

Some of them are, some of them aren’t… kind of like with ‘normal people’. James Gandolfini is a fine example of a celebrity who was a genuinely nice in real life. While playing on The Sopranos, he was fiercely protective and paternal towards his on-screen daughter, Jamie-Lynn Sigler. She was diagnosed with muscle disease MS on the show, and it devastated her.

Sigler didn’t tell any of her castmates of the diagnosis, and no one asked… she would have dizzy spells, muscle pains, and have to take many bathroom breaks during scenes as the disease affected her bladder — no one would bothered to ask, everyone just got grumpy as her health interrupted filming. Gandolfini was the only person who asked “are you okay?” and Sigler told him of her illness. She asked him not to tell anyone — and he didn’t.

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He just quietly helped her get through it.

It wasn’t until Gandolfini’s death, ten years later, that Sigler found out something else about him… for over a decade, without telling anyone, he had been giving generous donations to foundations aimed at fighting the disease his co-star suffered from. A genuinely good person does good quietly — kindness requires no accolades.

Why tiktoc is so awesome

Have you ever mistakenly received a text you weren’t supposed to get?

My ex-husband butt dialed me and I heard him talking to his mistress. He was telling her what a horrible person I was. This is a man that had next to nothing when I met him. I encouraged him and pushed him to be the best version of himself.

I drove him to the interview for his current job. I waited in the parking lot till he was done. Since I was a Paralegal, I completed and filed Bankruptcy papers on his behalf. If I had not done that one of his creditors was going to start garnishing his paycheck.

I used my zero interest credit card to help him pay off parking tickets and penalties to the DMV for driving without insurance. He was able to get his license back after not having one for over 10 years. When he was in the hospital I was the only one who was there for him. No one including his family showed up or ever visited the whole week he was in the hospital. Despite me giving them updates.

I packed his stuff and put him out the same day. That was almost 4 years ago. Last time I saw him he looked gaunt, unattractive and was broke. I don’t wish him bad but Karma did get him. Oh and him and the woman he cheated on me with have broken up.

People do not realize that you must choose a partner wisely. The right one can build you up. The wrong one can destroy you. I am so grateful to God for exposing him. I am at peace.

Why would Finland not just give up if Russia invaded them? They would lose, so why kill your own population?

Because they’ve been preparing for 80 years for such an eventuality.

After the 1939–1940 Winter War Finland gained a lot of confidence in it’s own abilities to take on an aggressor. Whilst Finland did eventually have to concede in that war the Soviet Union suffered a casualty ratio of nearly 7 to 1.

After World War 2, however, Finland realised that it needed to be prepared for a whole range of potential outcomes and began the process of updating it’s infrastructure, it’s legislation and more. So much of Finland’s infrastructure and planning has “what would happen if Russia invaded” as a core component.

Put it this way: Helsinki’s bunker complexes are designed to hold the entire population of the city and designed to withstand a nuclear attack, with full facilities including food stockpiles, hospitals, even sports centres.

They’ve spent 60+ years building and improving these bunkers.

main qimg 550d6699584d349e6c5bc304df70d37a pjlq

Many of these bunkers have a civilian purpose as a primary design – but, don’t be mistaken, they are full blown nuclear bunkers:

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Itäkeskus Swimming Hall – Yes, that is a full 50 meter swimming pool inside a nuclear bunker.

It’s actually kind of insane: in order to take Helsinki Russian forces would have to fight urban warfare on a scale we’ve never seen before. Fighting a military complex that they would not be able to just bomb into submission.

It’s worth remembering that one of the many reasons Russia are finding Ukraine such a hard nut to crack is because many of Ukraine’s cities were designed by the Soviets to withstand a large scale military conflict. It’s a key part of why the battle for the Azovstal steelworks is taking so long – a complex bunker system.

Because they basically nullify Russia’s core doctrines:
You can’t do a rapid mobile campaign – because the city centres are well supplied and are where the enemy are.
You can’t pound them with a bunch of artillery and missiles until they surrender – because the bunkers are so overengineered.

Helsinki is that times 10.

All buildings of sufficient size must have a bunkers & all buildings must be able to have multiple fuel sources for heating.

These bunkers have at least 6 months of supplies,

And that’s assuming Russia forces even make it that far. One of the big advantages of this kind of system is that it allows the safe rotation of troops into well provisioned and warm areas.

And then there’s these:

main qimg d631afc67875e1071076a692ae25e2e0 pjlq

I know what you’re thinking: “but Alan that’s just a road?!”

And that, my friend, is where you’re wrong.

A lesson learned by the Finns during the Winter War is that they could move their aircraft to remote roads – so that when the Soviets bombed to airfields their aircraft were fine.
Well… the Finns continued this idea – that picture is actually the Alavas Road Runway.
Yeah, that’s right, they’ve built loads of roads to be runway standard. So good luck trying to catch the Finnish Air Force on the ground.

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Russia would also have to get through some of the best natural defences there are with the volume of rivers and lakes, marshland and forest that basically make mobile warfare impossible.

And, worse still for the Russian doctrine, is that Finland’s doctrine accepts early territorial losses. Ukraine did something similar to this – but to a lesser extent. Let your enemy come in – let them start attacking your city that is defended by a local militia, then your best forces that were hiding in the woods take out the supply lines.

Finland does not have a second rate military and has multiple military cooperation agreements.

They have the capability to rapidly mobilise 1.1 million troops at short notice – all of whom have received at least some military training.
Oh, and it really helps that Finland has an exceptionally civilian ownership of firearms.
Russian troops in more rural areas of Finland (Finland is 75% forest) are going to be dealing with irregulars made up of seasoned hunters who have received military training.
These are people who have learned decent survival skills, have the right gear to be out in that terrain, know the terrain well and will be waiting.

Further, unlike Ukraine, Finland are well incorporated into NATO infrastructure (despite not being a member [yet]) so they can much more rapidly deploy NATO weaponry. If you think the equipment Ukraine have received is a lot, the amount that could and would be supplied to Finland at short notice is unbelievable.

Finland fields highly advanced weaponry – including the Leopard 2A6 and US MLRS systems.

See… Finland is a bit like Switzerland: Neutral – but armed to the freaking teeth. If you’re gonna try and take Finland you’re going to bleed and bleed badly. Russia would need to assemble an invasion force of at least 3 million troops in order to feasibly have a chance of winning an offensive war against Finland.

I am going to cry

VLADIMIR PUTIN:

"If, heaven forbid, it comes to some sort of strike, everyone should understand that Russia has an early warning system, a missile attack warning system.

The US has it.

There is no such developed system anywhere else in the world.

We have it.

Europe lacks such a developed system; in this regard, they are more or less defenceless.

That is the first point.

The second issue is the power of the strikes.

Our tactical nuclear weapons are four times more powerful than the bombs the Americans used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by three to four times.

We possess significantly more of them – both across the European continent and even if the Americans were to deploy theirs from the US – we still maintain a substantial advantage.

If, God forbid, it comes to that – which we sincerely hope it does not, then, instead of what you said about 'minimising the victims,' in reality, casualties could potentially escalate indefinitely.

That’s the first point.

Second, the Europeans must also consider: if those with whom we engage in such conflicts cease to exist, will the Americans participate in this conflict at the level of strategic weapons or not?

I have serious doubts about it, and Europeans should reflect on this as well.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that such a scenario will never materialise, as we do not foresee such a necessity.

Our Armed Forces continue to gain experience and enhance their efficiency, while our defence sector consistently demonstrates its effectiveness.

I have stated this multiple times, and I will say it again: our ammunition production has increased by over 20 times, our capabilities in aviation technology far surpass those of our adversaries, and our superiority in armoured vehicles is significant.

There is no need to dwell on this matter.

Therefore, I kindly ask everyone not to mention such things unnecessarily."

Excerpt from remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin during the plenary session of the 27th St Petersburg International Economic Forum, June 7, 2024.

Black Bread

Ingredients

1 envelope dry yeast
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup dark molasses
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup All-Bran cereal
2 to 2 3/4 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups rye flour

Instructions

Sprinkle yeast and sugar over 1/4 cup warm water. Stir to dissolve. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.
Melt chocolate and butter with 1 1/4 cups water in a large bowl set over gently simmering water. Stir until smooth. Remove from over water. Blend in molasses, vinegar and salt. Mix in cereal. Let cool.
Grease a large bowl. Blend yeast into cereal mixture. Gradually stir in 2 cups unbleached flour and rye flour. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, kneading in up to 3/4 cup more unbleached flour if needed to form a workable dough. Add dough to prepared bowl, turning to coat entire surface. Cover and let rise in warm area until doubled in volume, about 2 hours.
Grease two loaf pans. Punch dough down. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and let rest 3 minutes. Knead 3 minutes. Divide dough in half. Roll each into an 8 x 7 inch rectangle. Starting with long side, roll dough up into a cylinder. Tuck ends under and pinch seam to seal. Place seam side down in prepared pans. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake until loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom, about 45 minutes.
Remove bread from pans. Let cool completely on a rack before serving.

Dangerous escalation w/ Brian Berletic

How Financial Capitalism is Destroying the US

This is spectacular. -MM

By S.L Kathan

The contrast between rich and poor tends to increase in the US: the top 10% of Americans have nearly 70% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% are left with just 3% of the nation’s wealth. The only way to accumulate wealth in the country is through speculation – mostly in real estate and stocks.

“Fugazi, fugayzi. It’s a woozie. It’s fairy dust. It’s not real.” That is from a scene in the movie Wolf of Wall Street where a veteran stockbroker explains the strategy for recommending stocks to customers. That is also how the US economy works now. Somewhere along the way, the US forgot its own industrial past, and allowed the parasitic financial class to deindustrialize the country, destroy the free market, and create what can only be described as casino capitalism. Fueled by money-printing, unsustainable debt, massive fiscal and trade deficits, speculation and financial engineering, the American Empire superficially looks wealthy, but is actually teetering on the edge.

Three watershed moments

Paradoxically, the three global events that propelled American primacy would also be responsible for its eventual downfall. First, it was WW2 that replaced the European empires with the American, which immediately set out to dominate the world. However, this hubris led to humiliating failures in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. More importantly, the US was bankrupt in merely one generation after WW2. Thus, in 1971, the US went off the gold standard and defaulted on its financial obligations.

The second event that saved the US was the Saudi petrodollar deal, which rescued the US dollar from demise and re-established the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. On the other side, this was akin to giving a teenager a platinum credit card with no limit.

Excited by the possibility of immense and constantly growing demand for the dollar, America’s politicians went on a borrowing binge. The US debt-to-GDP ratio doubled between 1980 and 1992 – from 30% to 60%. Wall Street also loved free money and deregulation, which led to a spectacular boom in the 1980s and a crash in 1987.

The 1980s also laid the foundation for outsourcing, deindustrialization of US economy, stock buybacks, hostile takeovers, vulture capitalism obsessed with profits for shareholders, and exotic tools such as derivatives.

The third event that was the last nail on the coffin was ironically the fall of the Soviet Union. This led to the birth of the unipolar moment, which in turn sparked uncontrolled hubris among globalists, banksters, corporate overlords, neocons and the military industrial complex. The irrational exuberance inside the American echo chamber led to prodigious outsourcing of manufacturing, the dot-com bubble, disastrous multitrillion-dollar wars in the Middle East, and a real-estate bubble that ended in a global financial crisis spawned by banks and Wall Street shysters.

What are the consequences of financialization?

Income and Wealth Inequality

First, Americans stopped worrying about fiscal discipline and embraced debt wholeheartedly. The US government has a debt of $35 trillion and, for the first time, the interest payment alone has exceeded the spending on military. American families and corporations have racked up another $32 trillion of debt. However, the biggest debtor in the history of mankind shamelessly claims that it’s the wealthiest.

Meanwhile, 2 in 3 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, since the real wages – adjusted for inflation – of the average American has remained stagnant for four decades. Look at the wage increases for different groups of American between 1979 and 2019:

Top 0.1% – wages grew 375%
Top 1% – wages grew 160%
Middle Class – wages grew 14%
Bottom 10% – wages grew 3%

From 1945 through the 70s, a typical American family could own a home, a car, and all the essentials with one wage earner, the husband. Now, in most families, both the husband and the wife must work to make the ends meet.

The wealth inequality in the US is staggering. As the chart below shows, the top 10% of Americans have nearly 70% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% are left with just 3% of the nation’s wealth. If you include debts such as car and student loans, credit card obligation, the net wealth of many Americans will be negative.

This neo-feudalism is sold to the masses as freedom and democracy.

Poverty and inequality are mostly taboo topics in the US, where the society is taught to blame the poor. Thus, even though homelessness and drug addiction are at record levels, there is no debate about the fundamental economic system.

Casino Capitalism

Las Vegas is a very popular destination, it is a Sin City that clouds people’s judgments. Although vast majority of people end up losing money, they gamble hopefully, because the few winners are always loud. And Vegas offers plenty of cheap drinks to drown the sorrow of losers.

Well, the US economy is modeled after Vegas.

The only way to accumulate wealth in America is through speculation – mostly in real estate and stocks. And just like in Vegas, for every winner, there are many more losers. The stock market crashes periodically, but there is no choice but to participate in it, since American wages do not allow people to save steadily. And, just like Vegas, the “house always wins”.

In the stock market, insiders engage in pump-and-dump. Consider Tesla stock: starting in March 2020, it went up 8-fold within a year, making millionaires and the billionaires a lot wealthier. However, the stock has lost half its value in the last year. Guess who was the sucker? The average investor, who buys high and sells low, since he hears all the hype close to the peak.

But a sucker is born every minute. The latest hype is Nvidia, which has a market cap of mind-boggling $3.3 trillion – India’s GDP in 2022. Nvidia’s profit is only $30 billion. In a logical world, this valuation means that it would take more than 100 years to recoup the investment. So, why would anyone buy Nvidia shares? In the hope that the stock price would keep going up.

Such absurdity is celebrated in the US mainstream culture.

There is also plenty of financial engineering. Stock buybacks used to be illegal until the 1980s. But now, US corporations spend almost $1 trillion a year buying back their own shares, artificially boosting the stock price. Many corporations even borrow money to use for the buyback programs. Thus, when the US boasts that its stock market is worth $50 trillion, it’s nothing but “fugazi”.

Corporate CEOs and the large shareholders such as Blackrock do not care about investing in production, research, technology or the employees. Instead, the priorities are stock prices and dividends. This is why the US is losing to China, which now leads in 37 out of 44 critical technologies.

The other option in the American casino is the real estate, which also goes through boom-and-bust cycles. When the market collapses, giant private equity firms like Blackstone swoop in and buy homes at a great discount. By 2030, corporate landlords will be owning 40% of the rental homes in the US.

As the World Economic Forum said, “You will own nothing and be happy”. Although, they are wrong about the second part – Americans are very depressed and rank #1 in global statistics for consumption of antidepressants and other psychotropic medications. The illegal market in the US is more than $150 billion a year. The suicide rate in the US has also skyrocketed to the highest level since the Great Depression.

Sociologists have a special term for what’s happening in the US: Deaths of Despair. In terms of life expectancy, communist China has now surpassed capitalist USA.

Financialize Everything

Financialization is the cancer that is eating away at the US economy. Interestingly, the great economists in America have not really analyzed this fatal phenomenon. I have thought a lot about it and have come up with four different ways that the economy gets financialized.

1.Eliminating industries that are less profitable
2. Transforming normal economic sectors into speculative ones
3. Transforming normal economic sectors into extractive ones
4. Creating destructive industries

Let’s dive in.

Eliminating industries that are less profitable:

This is the foundation of outsourcing and deindustrialization that really took off in the 1980s as American corporations became extremely greedy and forgot their duties to the country. “Greed is good” became the mantra. The first target was manufacturing, which is very capital- and labor-intensive. Why build massive factories and deal with the headache of managing workers? Moreover, why pay high wages and provide all sorts of benefits to blue-collar workers when people in developing nations could do the same work for fraction of the cost?

Many Americans would be astonished to learn that a century ago, the US’ share of global steel production was 40%. It is now about 4%, while China accounts for 54%. Similar American decline can be observed in every category of manufacturing, thanks to the warped ideology of financialization.

The same calamitous philosophy is also applied towards infrastructure, which has very low profit margins. What is the return on investment (ROI) on bridges, railways, subways etc. compared to stock market manipulation? Insignificant. That is why the US infrastructure has been crumbling for years. In New York City, the cradle of Wall Street, the metro system looks like a fourth-world country with decades-old trains, decaying subway stations with trash and rats, and homeless people sleeping in the trains.

Starting in the 1980s, US corporations started shipping jobs abroad, especially to Asia, which had plenty of diligent and cheap workers. Initially, US firms employed sweatshops to make the likes of Nike shoes, Gap shirts and Gucci bags. However, Asian countries were quick learners – especially China – and were able to climb up the value chain and manufacture more complex goods. Then, as the wages rose, those countries also became more efficient and productive, thus maintaining high profits for Western firms.

This exploitation scheme was working well until 2010 when China became the world’s largest manufacturing nation, displacing the US, which had held that title for the previous century! Then a decade later, China’s manufacturing value added was 75% larger than that of the US. More importantly, China was making its own intermediary goods and hi-tech products.

Now, when Boeing needs to build a plane, they need to rely on Russia or China for special titanium; when Raytheon makes missiles, it depends on thousands of Chinese suppliers; American pharmaceutical firms and hospitals need raw materials and medicines from China; and America’s largest corporations such as Walmart, Apple and Tesla will not survive without Chinese labor, goods and market. For example, half of Tesla cars globally are made in Shanghai and a third of Teslas are sold in China.

The US is in a terrible predicament. Since Trump’s election in 2016, Americans have found out how hard it is to fix the manufacturing gap. They have not been able to bring back the jobs; and they have not been to find any other country as skilled and efficient like China. Thus, US politicians and think tanks have been playing with creative phrases such as reshoring, friend-shoring, China plus one, and de-risking. However, all these have remained empty slogans for the most part. Last year, the US imported $430 billion of goods from China – almost the same as in 2016.

Transforming normal economic sectors into speculative ones

In a real economy, the society would focus on production of tangible and beneficial goods in abundance. There would be emphasis on manufacturing, infrastructure and development. However, in an economy consumed by financial capitalism, speculation reigns as the driving force.

For example, rather than building more homes, the financial overlords prefer to keep the supply of homes low. Scarcity means higher value. Then, the entire real estate can be turned into a game of betting. For example, someone can buy a home and sell it the next year to make $100,000 of profit. While get-rich-quick gimmicks are tempting, they result in a hollowed-out economy and a delusional society that create “nothingburgers.”

Transforming normal economic sectors into extractive ones

The third and more pernicious form of financial capitalism involves fostering extractive or predatory sectors.

Take, for example, higher education. Young Americans now owe a whopping $1.8 trillion is student debt. College education in the US costs 4x more today than 40 years ago — even after adjusted for inflation. Is education 4x better now? Are kids learning 4x more? Do college graduates earn 4x more? No, no, no.

Similarly, healthcare cost in the US has risen from 6% of GDP in 1970 to 18% of GDP now. But Americans are much fatter and much sicker today than fifty years ago. Numerous chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, autism, allergies, immune disorders, and cancer have skyrocketed over the decades. Also, heart disease has been the #1 killer for a century but the great scientific minds cannot figure out a solution. As a Goldman Sachs analyst pondered in a biotech research report, “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”

In predatory capitalism, providing affordable college education is a terrible idea; and preventive healthcare – especially using food, natural cures and holistic medicine – is an unforgivable financial sin.

Creating destructive industries

This is the most heinous consequence of financial capitalism, which creates disease, death and destruction for profit.

The military industrial complex is the prime example. Rather than focusing on peace, diplomacy and development, the “defense” contractors lobby politicians and bribe the media to promote perpetual wars.

The food industry and Big Pharma are two other notable criminals. The junk food industry is a colossal industry that makes billions of people sick; and Big Pharma sells numerous multibillion-dollar drugs based on exaggerated claims from rigged clinical trials.

In the 1960s, the sugar industry bribed researchers at Harvard University to blame saturated fat for heart disease; and companies like Coca Cola still fund scientists to “debunk” links between sugar and obesity. One of the scientists paid by the sugar industry went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he helped write the dietary guidelines. The entire nutrition science is corrupted by Big Agri, Big Food and Big Pharma.

America’s mainstream corporate media has also forgotten journalism and truth. Instead, it embraces propaganda to protect its cronies in the government and other giant corporations; and the media spreads fake news and sensationalism to generate revenue from clicks.

Finally, even American politics has been financialized, resulting in every politician being on sale for various lobbying groups.

Conclusion

Driven by greed, hubris and an inflated sense of exceptionalism, the financial overlords of the United States of America forgot the fundamentals of economics, politics and statecraft.

Once upon a time, the political and business leaders of the US understood the importance of industries, production, infrastructure and, more importantly, the contract between the rulers and the masses. However, with financialization of the US economy, the oligarchs created a predatory capitalist system that has been devouring the American society for the past few decades. Unfortunately, there is no easy path for the US to revert back to an industrial economy now.

Rather than building a sustainable and resilient system, US elites have created an Empire that depends on the exploitation of the rest of the world. However, this parasitic model has reached its expiry date, as the Global South is architecting a new paradigm for a multipolar world order. The implosion of the American economic and political system will be not only painful but also dangerous to itself and the rest of humanity. Managing the collapse of the US empire will be a monumental challenge for Russia, China, India and others in BRICS+ over the next decade.

Gooey Cheese Bread

Ingredients

Bread

3/4 cup water
2 eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons yeast

Filling

3 cups Swiss cheese, shredded

Instructions

Place all dough ingredients in pan and program for knead only. Press start. The dough will be slightly sticky. After the kneading cycle, transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight, or as long as 24 hours.
Grease and flour a 9 inch cake pan. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F with the rack in the center position.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough to a 14 x 10 inch rectangle with the long side nearest you. Sprinkle 2 cups of the cheese over the surface of the dough. Starting with the edge closest to you, roll the dough up like a jellyroll. Press the edges together and turn it over so the seam is now facing down. With the seam still down, roll the cylinder around itself in a coil and transfer it to the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top of the loaf and allow to rise, uncovered for 20 minutes.
Bake for 35 minutes, then turn the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for 10 more minutes. If the cheese begins to brown quickly during the first 35 minutes, lower the oven temperature sooner.

What was the most legendary thing your grandmother did?

My grandmother was head housekeeper (and, therefore, management) in a hotel when a union organizer came to the hotel to try to unionize the workers. The owner told the concierge to throw him out, which he did.

My grandmother followed the organizer, gave him her home address, and told him to come to her house that evening. When he did, she had almost all the staff of the hotel there, and they all signed union cards.

The next day, the union organizer came back to the hotel, and, again, the owner told the concierge to throw him out. The concierge said, “No, I can’t. He’s my union rep.”

Because my grandmother was management, she couldn’t join the union, but the organizer put her down as an organizer and paid her dues so that, when she retired, she had a union pension.

Years later, when my grandmother was running a hotel in New Orleans, she helped her maid form a Black Domestic Workers’ Union.

I am so proud to be her granddaughter! Right now I am facing the possibility of a strike where I work, and she’s my inspiration.

Wow! I’ve never had so many upvotes! Thanks, folks!

Pepe Escobar : Putin’s Next Moves

American cluster fuck on full display

I did not watch the (so called) Trump – Biden “debate”.

I am convinced both of them are dangerous.

What was the most stunning element and extracted summary of the debacle was just how poorly Biden fared. This guy is not capable of leading; thinking, reasoning, planning, or doing anything. In fact, he NEEDS to be in a hospital, and needs someone to select his meals, and care. He is simply not a capable person.

And you know, this is AFTER he was given injections of smart / stability drugs.

It goes along with my belief that the unelected political sycophants are running the United States, and it is no wonder that it seems that the United States is walking the Earth into a global-wide nuclear catastrophe.

Because it is. It actually is.

These sycophants and the “deep state” that supports them are dangerously deluded, terribly inept, and functionally inept. Combined they have created a United States that makes the collapse of Rome look like a Victorian tea party.

This is not about Biden or Trump.

This is about decline, and it is beyond redemption. The USA is toast, and I really have serious doubts that it ever can recover.

By the time this post is posted on MM, this will all be old news… replaced with something more topical. But the fiasco that the USA is should not be forgotten. Dicey times are forecast unless some serious changes are made STAT.

Today…

Cleaning out my auto-spam folder

Typical comments that were sent to spam…

China trip and related thoughts:

My family and I recently visited Shanghai (courtesy of a collaborator and friend in Shanghaitech university) for a week. We went to Beijing (via high-speed rail) for a couple of days to see the Great Wall.

We were shocked by how developed China was. I mean, it looked like a first-world country. The roads were huge and clean. There was hardly any dust. The cars followed traffic rules. No encroachment by hawkers, etc. We could have easily confused it with the US or Europe. In addition to these things, the MagLev (magnetic levitation) train to the airport and the high-speed trains were amazing. Every hour, someone or the other came to clean the compartment.

To top it off, the amount of funding given to even pure mathematics (leave alone the applied subjects) was enormous. Unlike India where every professor earns the same amount, Yau (a fields medallist) could hire another fields Medallist (Birkar) for a few million RMB.

Unlike in India, where even Indian citizens from the north-east are discriminated against, in China, most people were very friendly (and really loved our 1.5 year old son). Our hosts took “Athithi devo bhavah” very seriously.

Except for a few annoyances (mosquitoes are a problem, the lack of quality apps like Uber and Google maps (didi and baidu are terrible!), and the inability of even highly educated people to speak in very basic English), our trip was fabulous. We liked China but felt very sad that our country, which was ahead of China in the 60’s (even the Chinese we met acknowledged this) is very very far behind. I can now understand KB’s “anger”. (However, I still think that the US is a much much bigger power for now.)

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Putin’s NUCLEAR WARNING is No Bluff and NATO Crossed His Red Line

Black Thai Pork

Phuket Town Black Pepper Pork 1219x1536 — Phuket Town Black Pepper Pork 1219×1536

Here’s the YouTube video…

https://youtu.be/lz5xIMZKC3s

Ingredients

4 boneless pork chops, cut into stir fry strips
1 cup salsa or picante sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon molasses
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame seed, toasted if desired
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions
3 cups hot cooked cellophane noodles or rice

Instructions

For sauce, in a medium saucepan combine salsa, peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, molasses and water. Bring to boiling, stirring often. Keep warm.
Meanwhile, in a plastic or paper bag combine chili powder, ginger, garlic salt and pepper.
Add pork strips; shake until pork is coated with spice mixture.
In a large skillet heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat; cook and stir pork strips for 2-3 minutes or until cooked through.
Spoon the sauce onto individual plates.
Arrange the pork strips on top of sauce.
Sprinkle with sesame seed, then top with green onions.
Serve with noodles or rice.

What’s the funniest court case you’ve seen?

Here are my top 3:

#1) My client was charged with drug possession after a police officer found them in a hard carton cigarette pack (one made out of cardboard) because when he picked it up and shook it, “sounded like drugs inside.” I argued that the officer would never have discovered the drugs unless he had opened the box, and that the mere sound of the contents of the shaken box could not possibly have given the officer probable cause to open the box.

So at trial I produced from my jacket the hard carton cigarette pack box and shook it in the presence of the officer and the judge, then asked, “Did you hear me shake this box?” The officer responded that he did. I then asked, “Does it sound like there are drugs in it?” The poor guy had to say yes, and he did. I then opened the box and showed him two capsules, then asked, “So what sounded like drugs to you may be drugs, right?” The officer had to say yes, and he did. Then I asked, “Officer, can you tell me what kind of drugs these are?” The officer responded with “I don’t know.” I then popped the capsules in my mouth and started chewing and said, “Let the record reflect that they are two white Good & Plenty candies.”

I moved for summary judgment, and the motion was granted.

#2) I was in a hearing with an attorney who was incapable of posing a question that wasn’t objectionable. He just didn’t know how to ask questions properly, so with virtually every question he posed, I stood and made my objections. Rather than taking the offending attorney to task, however, the judge got upset with me (not because I was in the wrong, but because the judge just wanted to get through the hearing and I was slowing us down—yeah, that happens, folks). Eventually, the judge made this order, “I am now ordering that Mr. Johnson cannot make any further objections to opposing counsel’s questions to the witness,” at which point I wasn’t upset because I now knew I’d all but certainly win the case on appeal, given the judge’s misconduct.

I never got to appeal the judge’s decision.

Because after I was barred from making objections, opposing counsel mistakenly took it as a license to formulate even worse questions, but through it all I just sat there and gazed about the courtroom, doodled on my legal pad, etc. One thing I did not do is pay attention to the case anymore. I didn’t need to. There wasn’t much I could do anyway.

When suddenly the judge interrupted opposing counsel and announced, “I previously ordered Mr. Johnson barred from raising any objections to opposing counsel’s questions. I am now rescinding that order. Mr. Johnson, do you have anything you wish to say at this point?” After hesitating a moment to gather my thoughts, I responded with: “Objection? (I had no idea what I was objecting to — remember, I’d stopped paying attention long before). “SUSTAINED!” the judge thundered back.

#3) I represented the respondent in a civil stalking injunction case (in Utah). This is an example of how it went, back and forth for an hour, as both men told basically the same story:

Q: And what did he say to you?

A: He said, “If you ever come on my property again, I’ll kick your ass.”

Q: And what, if anything, did he say in response?

A: He said, “You try to kick my ass and I’ll kick your ass, and I told him, ‘You try to kick my ass and I’ll kick your ass.’”

Q: Did you take him seriously when he said, “I’ll kick your ass”?

A: You bet your ass. And if you threaten me and my family, then I’ll kick your ass.

I don’t think I will ever, anywhere, hear the phrase “kick your ass” spoken more times in the space of an hour than I did then. Not once did the judge admonish either party or me for using the phrase the entire time (and to be fair, I think the judge correctly believed that these men were incapable of describing the situation without using the phrase).

Discovered My Wife Was Engaged In Spicy Activities While Playing An Online Game, Now She’s Begging..

What was the moment you realized your significant other didn’t care about you at all anymore?

In the last years of our fakemarriage my husband slowly checked out from all shared duties, whether it is chores, bills, our daughter… always too busy or just wouldn’t. I was so exhausted and he insisted i should take care of myself, “go get a massage, go to the hairdresser, you need some time for yourself” (when i I didn’t even have time to properly shower…) But he would brush off any complaint from my side that my exaustion was due to me actually taking care of it all.

Whenever i would insist and directly ask him to do something he would say “can you take care of it?” or just go through a rage and leave.

One day i was involved in a minor car accident. Argued a little with the other driver but felt no harm was done and left. As i started driving, my neck was seriously hurting, my ears were ringing and i felt dizzy. My daughter who was 4 and with me at that time was also acting weird and saying mom it hurts.

I rushed back home which was 5 minutes from there to him so he can drive us both to a doctor. He told me he was actually on his way out to meet his friends and said “can you take care of it?”

That day i understood that his behaviour was not due to him being lazy or busy.

He just didn’t care at all.

Why is that according to the US that the Spratly islands being geographically closer to the Philippines can’t be claimed by China, but the American Samoas being closer to the Samoas can be claimed by the USA?

This world is ruled by the fist ie weapons today.

If your fist is stronger, you rule the world. That makes you a mafia.

When you are a mafia, you make the rule & you can change the rule anytime to suit your situation.

2 scholars at Cambridge U did a research. I of them is Romel Bagares. He is a professorial lecturer in intl law in 3 Manila-based law schools & PH judiciary Academy.

1, PH’s legal territory does not incl SCS (my word) PH has no EEZ in SCS. All PH activities in SCS are illegal.

2, The 1951 USA-PH Mutual Defense Treaty does not apply to SCS.

In 1975, former US State Secy H Kissinger already, in writing, told PH that, by law, USA would not protect PH in SCS.

In documents from 1977-1980 eg doc 578, US State Secy C Vance explained to PH that MDT is based on 1898 US-Spain Paris Treaty & 1900 US-UK Washington Treaty. PH does not own any part of SCS.

3, PH’s arbitration is (my word) as good as toilet paper.

Today in 2024, USA changes the rule: PH owns some SCS because some islands/reefs are close to PH. … today’s USA overturning the USA from 1975–1980. … mafia USA has changed rule because it wants to suppress China’s rise.

PH is a US puppet.

Bolivia failed coup. Kenya Ruto retreats. NATO wants to give Elensky something. Meloni upset with EU

Astro Naught

Submitted into Contest #8 in response to: Write a story about an adventure in space. … view prompt

Joshua G. J. Insole

“It’s okay, Ground Control. I know you did everything you could.”

Charles sat at his desk, staring at the blank screen. Nobody said a word. There was a slight hissing of static. He swallowed hard, and there was an audible click in his throat. His mouth was dry. His heart was thudding intensely in his chest. Charles felt as if someone had fastened a belt around his torso and was gradually pulling it tighter and tighter.

After what seemed like an eternity, Stan broke the silence.

“Come in, Pete.”

The static hissed.

“Pete. Come in.”

Hhhhhhhh.

“Come in, Pete.” Charles was dimly aware that Stan was crying as he spoke. He could feel the hot tears trickling down his own cheeks. It felt as if his heart was lodged at the base of his throat. He could hardly breathe.

“Pete, come in.”

Hhhhhhhh.

“Pete, please come in.”

Finally, Greg got up from his seat and laid a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “That’s enough, Stan. He’s gone.”

The last two syllables hit Charles like a two-tonne truck. He felt the room spin around him, as if he’d just been clocked in the jaw by a solid right hook. Charles placed his sweaty hands on the polished dark wood of the desk, palms down, just to make sure he didn’t lose his balance and go sliding off his chair onto the floor. The table beneath his fingers felt cold and indifferent; the feeling simultaneously grounded him in the reality of the moment and made him feel as if he were dreaming or in a drunken stupor. This desk is really hard, he thought, madly. That’s enough, Stan. The wood is very cold. He’s gone. Is wood always this cold? That’s enough, Stan. It’s very cold.

Somewhere behind him, a woman was sobbing. Hell, they were all sobbing. Gabrielle was just the most audible.

The words bounced around his skull: He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.

All at once, Charles felt incredibly hot. He thought he might throw up, right then and there. He wouldn’t be able to make it to the bathroom in time; he’d have to spew his guts into the wastepaper basket next to his feet.

Like a man in a dream, Charles slid off his office chair with a thud, landing on his knees, not feeling a thing. The chair rolled away behind him, squeaking a little on the wheels he had been meaning to oil but had somehow never gotten around to. Sweating and shaking, he reached for the metal bin. Thank God he’d remembered to put a plastic bag inside, because the bin was made from a metal mesh. If I hadn’t remembered, my puke would have been filtered out the bottom quite nicely. Just like using a colander, Charles thought. Then he began to retch, in great, stomach-wrenching convulsions.

Somewhere nearby, someone was asking if he was all right, but he wasn’t all right, he wasn’t, nothing was all right, nothing, and the room was spinning, spinning, spinning, and Charles could feel the acidic vomit racing up his throat, and the world was twisting around him, and everything felt too heavy, and the room wouldn’t stop spinning and—

*******

Pete allowed himself to drift. There was no use fighting it, as there was nothing he could do. It would be a waste of energy. And energy was all he had left. Well, that, and the precious oxygen in his tank.

In his ears, all he could hear was whistling white noise. For half a second, he thought that he heard someone say, Come in, Pete. And maybe they did, but the words were fuzzy and soft; hard to isolate from the hiss. He started to respond, and then gave up. The last few seconds of communication had been hazy with interference as it was — now that he had floated further away, he knew contact with Ground Control would be impossible. Besides, he had said his goodbyes. Pete didn’t want to prolong the pain of a tortured farewell.

Pete spun away from the asteroid, spiraling out, further and further. He knew that he had approximately between six and eight hours of oxygen in his tank, depending on how well he controlled his breathing and how much physical exertion he subjected himself to. He had been on the surface of the celestial body for one hour and forty-three minutes, before the small meteoroid struck.

First man on an asteroid, he thought as flew away from the point of impact, pieces of debris scattering around him. Was it worth it? he asked himself. He knew immediately he shouldn’t have posed the question.

It was miraculous that none of the wreckage and rubble had injured him. Miraculous, if you ignored the fact that he had been jettisoned off the tiny planetoid and propelled far away from any hopes of rescue. Pete didn’t know how fast he was traveling, but he knew that it was too fast — and he was too small of an object — for any chances of being saved. He only hoped that his crew was safe from the fallout of the collision; would they be able to avoid the incoming hailstorm? And if not, would the fragments of rock penetrate their shuttle? Pete knew that he’d never know.

Pete spun and spun and spun, rotating not quite fast enough to cause him to blackout. He watched the changing views as he twisted through the void: stars, the sun, planets, debris, stars, the sun, planets, debris, stars, the sun, planets, debris. Over and over and over. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. Each time he caught the barest glimpse of Earth — a tiny droplet of blue in the vast nothingness — and then it was gone. Pete thought that his tiny home planet had never looked more beautiful, even though it was only in his line of sight for a fraction of a moment.

He saw no fires or explosions as he spiraled. Pete knew that this was not a sign that his team was safe, but he clung to the hope, nonetheless. Maybe they were okay. Maybe they got away in time. Maybe the shuttle was able to withstand the barrage. Maybe. Maybe.

He spun and twisted and turned and conserved his breath. Slowly, Pete fell into a cosmic trance, glazed eyes staring out into the solar system. The celestial dance was hypnotic, like an interstellar mobile above the crib of humanity.

***

He was being pulled. Pulled in one direction. The sensation startled him from his reverie.

He spun and he twisted and rotated. Stars, the sun, planets, debris. What was tugging at him? He strained his eyes. Stars, the sun, planets, debris. Was he imagining it? Stars, the sun, planets, debris. No, he was not, Pete was sure of it. There was a definite sensation of being reigned in. But by what? Stars, the sun, planets, debris, stars, the sun, planets, debris, stars—

And then he saw it. And for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. His lungs contracted and all the air escaped him, as if he’d just been punched in the gut.

His thoughts were a mixed cocktail of fear, confusion, and fascination. How did we not see it? thought Pete, only distantly aware of his own feelings. How did we miss it? It’s huge.

The black hole occupied half of his visual space. If you were to only glance at it, you might just miss it — after all, most of the area surrounding it is also black. But the absence of the small yellow-white specs of distant stars gave away the gaping hole in time and space. There was also the accretion disk spinning around the gaping maw in the fabric of reality. The giant clouds of gas spun and spun around the shadow of the hole, twisting and rippling beyond recognition or cognition. It was smaller than the ones he’d studied, but now that he was facing it, Pete was astounded that it had not been observed earlier. After all, it was at the edge of their solar sys—

Pete didn’t recognize the stars. The thought hit him, and his brain dumped a load of adrenaline into his veins. As he spun towards his destination, his eyes traced the emptiness for the Earth. For planets — any that he knew. Mars. Jupiter. Venus. Saturn. Completely gone. It was all alien to him. Even the sun was different; smaller and somehow less vibrant. Rather than a bright, white-hot yellow surface, this star burned a deep orange that bordered on red.

Where am I? he thought, panic brimming in his chest. He knew that he had been propelled away from his home system, but he never actually thought—

He was closer to the black hole now, he saw, as he turned once more. Another realization hit him, with the low thud of an interplanetary bass drum: even if he had been in the shuttle, it would have already been too late to get away. The thought should have terrified him, but it instead soothed him. The idea that fighting was futile allowed Pete to accept his fate; had he a chance to escape, he would have fought — as panic flooded his thoughts — until he wasted his oxygen supply and starved himself of air.

The black hole’s shadow was hungrily consuming that which span around it. But it was more than that — the objects making up the accretion disk looked hungry to be eaten. The collective rotating disk slowly fed into the hole eagerly, each portion being allowed the time to flow in and disappear.

Pete was flying towards the hole faster and faster now. It was no longer the gentle pull it had been — a minute ago? An hour ago? A second ago? It dawned on Pete that time was beginning to lose its rigidity.

The astronaut allowed himself to be guided on a fast track through the shadow’s surrounding disk of orbiting materials; he was the guest of honor at this party of extinction. He looked down at his hands and saw the light being distorted and drained away, into the abyss. Pete knew that if someone were observing the phenomenon, they would not see him, attired in his spacesuit of white. No light would be escaping the rounded clutches of the infinite shadow.

Event horizon, he thought, as his brain was sliced into oblivion. A billion parts of his grey matter screamed in unison. Evnethrzion Enevthzorni Vneetzhirone Tvneeizoenrh Netvneorehizo Votenehroez—

Pete’s final coherent thought was of his wife and his daughter, back home on Earth.

And then Pete felt himself being torn in two. But that wasn’t entirely right. He was becoming two. Simultaneously. He felt it. But the two Petes shared different fates. He was both, and somehow, he was neither. One Pete was incinerated instantaneously — torn apart and shredded into annihilation. It happened so quickly that he felt neither pain nor fear. One moment he was, the next he wasn’t. Pete was gone.

The other Pete was a different story.

*******

He came out the other side. But it wasn’t him. Not the same one that had gone in. But it wasn’t an entirely different Pete, either. He felt like a drop of rainwater that had finally joined the ocean; still water, essentially — if you ignored the salt — but ultimately changed forever. Part of something bigger, indecipherable, integrated with everything else. Inseparable from the whole he had now joined.

The first thing he noticed was that he no longer had his old body. The second thing he noticed was that he did have a body of sorts. His body was everything. It took him a moment to register this sensation, but once he clocked it, it all made sense, in a single step. First, there was confusion, then there was complete and utter understanding and acceptance. There was not an in-between.

Pete was floating in nothing. Pete was also the nothingness. He was the vacuum in which he sailed. He was the darkness that surrounded him. The nothingness was overwhelming. He felt hollow at the emptiness inside. He felt stranded as he floated in the absence of everything.

The answers came to him via a drip-feed. The remedies came to him all at once, like a roaring waterfall.

Pete wanted light, and then there was a flare before his non-eyes. Sun, thought the thing that had once been human. The sun looked lonely, so the Pete-thing wanted planets to join it. Rocks appeared in the vacuum, scattered across the plain of darkness. Several collided with each other. Some exploded. Others floated off, for destinations that new-Pete was unconcerned with. Bits and pieces, here and there, began circling the throbbing star.

One of the worlds spinning around the burning ball of gas was thirsty, so the post-Pete-being gave it water. It looked blue and sparkling, as it twisted in the light. Like a marble, suspended in the ether. He also gave the other spheres some resources of their own, but these are closely guarded secrets which I will not spill.

Pete watched as things developed, occasionally putting in a hand here and there when he so wished. Never acting too often, never interfering too infrequently. The answers came to him both immediately and after an infinity, equally from external sources and from within. Now, Pete thought and was told, and then he acted accordingly — often simultaneously with the arrival of the instructions.

Pete tended to the thriving system like a gardener to their plot — planting seeds, watering, pruning, and harvesting. He watched his creations bloom. He watched his creations wither and die. Not everything is destined for a long life, and that is okay, thought Everything, as time unfolded in every direction.

After a time, the small creatures on the tiny blue speck began sending things outward. A few explosions, here and there. These small-scale sparks in the heavens told not-Pete that they were learning. He left them to it, for that was what he was meant to do.

Eventually, they got it right.

After a time, they began sending themselves out, too.

Following an instant and an eternity, Pete was joined by another.

BRICS to Leave UN: What Next?

Is it true that China doesn’t have many friends like the US does? Why?

What friends does the USA have??? The USA has vassal states.

China has more actual friends because China helps them economically:

Over 150 countries participate in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Over 120 counties have China as their largest trading partner.
China respects all nations rather than threatening them with sanctions and war.
When the West hoarded their vaccines during the pandemic, China helped poor countries vaccinate.
China works to bring peace around the world. China brokered an historic peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
China is leading the world to de-dollarize, freeing them from the tyranny of the US Dollar.

Vintage Illustrative art

When you find out that someone has been at the same low paying job for 20 years or more, do you feel sorry for them?

My son has been a caddie at a local country club for almost 20 years. He has a degree in Computer Science. He was required to do an internship to get his degree. At the end, he was offered a permanent job that would put him on the management fast track. His internship, however, convinced him he had pursued the wrong major.

He then went into restaurant management. He hated that, too. His brother, who has a business degree and is a Certified Financial Planner, had been working as a caddy for several years. So, my other son decided to try it out. They both absolutely love the game of golf, being outdoors and having a job they don’t take home with them.

The son who has been a caddie longer has a more winning personality, can converse intelligently about business with his rich customers and is recognized as the best caddie at the country club. He is on pace to make $100,000 this year. The other son makes around $40,000 which is still more than most of the caddies make.

What they do makes them happy. They actually enjoy going to work each and every day unless it is raining. Caddying in the rain is really hard work. I don’t feel sorry for them even though they could have earned so much more. No amount of money will make you like a job you don’t want to do,

Do women even know what they want? Crazy Accurate breakdown & explanation of relationships

This is a very, very good review of Hoe Math. Damn!

What is the nastiest thing you’ve done for revenge?

My very dear friend dated a Russian girl, lets call her Bellarusse, for about six months. She let him take her to every expensive event of the English summer season. Opera, Wimbledon, Henley Regatta as well as lots of theatre, concerts and Michelin star dinners. But never let him so much as kiss her. “These things,” she said, “are deeply frowned upon by my conservative culture.”

Over Christmas, he took her skiing with another couple. Everyone had agreed no gifts, but the day before departure, he was called in a panic by other couple to say Bellarusse had bought him a gift so he’d best go shopping.

He rang me frantic, “what should I get her?”

I don’t know what genius struck, but I immediately said “that is such a quandry, because, in Russia, if a man buys a woman a gift worn against the skin, it implies that they have been intimate and you don’t want to offend her. She’s so conservative. What to get, what to get…”

Oh the things that this excludes; pretty much everything that your average, rapacious golddigger wants: jewellery, scent, handbags, scarves, any clothing at all, fancy soaps and lotions. As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I felt the most beautiful glee.

Not only was she hugely grumpy with her alessi French press coffeemaker, but her gift, was a crappy little matchbox cover, badly painted with a scene of a troika.

Oh and she fell down the slope skiing and broke her nose.

She refused any more dates.

The sad thing is that I can never tell him about my evil genius.

Implications of Trump-Biden “Debate” Are Staggering – for both the USA and the World

Hal Turner Nation June 28, 2024 Hits: 17202

OP-ED — I did not get to watch the Trump-Biden Debate last night because I was doing my live radio show while the debate took place. From what I have seen in video snippets, it was an unmitigated DISASTER – for both the United States, and for the world.

What everyone got to see last night is what many of us have known from the beginning: Biden is not running the country because he is incapable of doing so. His lack of mental faculties, likely from Dementia, is unquestionable.

This begs the question “Who is it that’s actually running the country?”

It’s a fair question. During the Debate, Biden could barely formulate a cogent answer to most questions. His frail, rambling, often times non-sensical answers were genuinely sad.

Let me digress for a moment to say that while I did not vote for Biden in 2020, (I voted Trump) and while I do not like Biden as a man or as a politician, I do NOT take any satisfaction in seeing the man so genuinely mentally disabled by age. There, but for the grace of God, goes me.

I don’t wish Biden’s condition on anyone; and it pains me to see the President of our country (even an illegitimate one who occupies office through election fraud as Biden does) so addled, frail, and no longer capable of governing. Yet, that __is__ the situation we all find ourselves in.

The current President of the United States is unable to discharge the duties of his Office. Period. Full stop.

Now, one could argue that Biden’s Cabinet should invoke the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove him, but being candid, his Cabinet are such Partisan sycophants, a person has a better chance of being struck by lightning than the Cabinet carrying out its Constitutional role and removing this disabled President.

Then, too, we’re only a few months away from an election and we could probably get-through that time with Biden in this condition — if it weren’t for the fact that Biden’s underlings are so utterly incompetent, so completely ignorant of facts and of history, and so severely lacking in rational judgment, they are quickly moving us toward nuclear World War 3 with Russia over their botched handling of Ukraine.

So where does Biden’s Debate “performance” leave us? In a world of hurt!

The rest of the world got to see Biden, too, last night. And our Adversaries now know, the USA is in no position of power over world events. Our leadership is non-existent.

The Biden underlings have such historical ignorance, are so lacking in logic and rational judgment, adversaries can go do whatever it is they want, and the US will be, at best, sluggish to do anything about it.

The lack of strength projected through last night’s debate, has made the world much more dangerous.

With World War 3 looming as a result of our botched Ukraine policies, and further, as a result of our botched Taiwan approach, and further by our botched Middle East actions (read our slavish devotion to that rinky-dink country, Israel, and its pipsqueak army that seems only competent in dropping 2,000 pound bombs from fighter jets onto unarmed civilians) the continuation of a Biden Administration could literally mean the destruction of our nation and our world. We may not be able to survive until the election!

For me, the absolute worst part of last night’s debate: Polling which said 67% of Americans thought Trump won, while 33% of Americans thought Biden won. To my thinking, that a full 33% of the people in this country, are so incapable of logic, so incapable of discernment, that they thought Biden won, indicates to me that a full third of this nation is literally too stupid to even be considered citizens, never mind shown any respect.

Those 33% are too stupid to even be considered “persons.” There really is no other way to view them, and worse, no hope for them, at all.

Biden Implodes: And Here’s Who Is Really To Blame

Such an incredible, mostly unknown story

In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods, naked. She swam in a lake, naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.

Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere, which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.

The star of the film, called “Ecstasy,” was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was “to stand there and look stupid.” In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She’d grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.

Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history. Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made – and spent – $30 million in her life.

But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect, and her invention continues to shape the world we live in today.

You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler’s nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star, her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called “long-term evolution” or “LTE” technology), you’ll be using an extension of the technology a 20-year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler.

At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria’s leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis. Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces.

One of Mandl’s favorite topics at these gatherings – which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini – was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes.

Wireless weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners “looking stupid,” while absorbing everything she heard. As a Jew, Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband’s business ambitions. Mandl responded to his willful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau.

In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of the castle wearing the maid’s clothes and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London. She got out just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl’s factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil (later, he became an adviser to Argentina’s iconic populist president, Juan Peron.)

In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of MGM’s biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster. But Kiesler cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies.

At the height of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded messages that couldn’t be “jammed.” She was building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building a system to kill Nazis.

By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single frequency radio-controlled technology Kiesler’s ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and “jam” or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile’s intended path.

Kiesler’s key innovation was to “change the channel.” It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the world’s first techno-musician, George Anthiel.

Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel’s technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon’s receiver and its transmitter. On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and “Hedy Kiesler Markey,” which was Kiesler’s married name at the time.

Most of you won’t recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it’s a fair bet than anyone reading this post of a certain age, will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood’s golden age – Hedy Lamarr. That’s the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That’s the name his movie company made famous.

Almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler – a/k/a Hedy Lamarr – was one of the great pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it ever since.

You are probably using Lamarr’s technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of “spread spectrum technology,” which you use every day when you log on to a wi-fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation “LTE” wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler invented.

China has Trumped the U.S. in Australia: Make Wealth, not War

Shorpy

Benny Fazio Criminal Mastermind – The Sopranos

Why can’t the US defeat the Houthis? This will inevitably embolden China to attack Taiwan by leading China to believe the US is a paper felis catus.

China already knows the military capability of USA.

No need of the “help” from Houthis.

There were many standoffs between Chinese & US warships & warplanes near China. Testing each other’s military capability.

At each standoff, it was USA who left the scene first.

The latest one was in SCSea near Xianbin reef. Two US aircraft carriers were close-by. One near Xianbin & one near Taiwan.

PH has 2 coastguards trying to illegally occupy the reef just like their junk ship at Ren’ai reef.

China orders to detain trespassers & sent 3 10000-ton destroyers there. US Roosevelt aircraft carrier left the area.

China knows USA very well. Dont worry.

What is your opinion on the Malaysian government’s use of the Sedition Act to silence the voices of human rights defenders?

We must understand …

1, every country has laws to suppress sedition. No country tolerates sedition. Malaysia is not alone.

2, USA is notorious to use human rights as a tool to instigate sedition in other country.

Human Right Watch is directly or indirectly funded by US government. It works for US government,

3, After WW2, from 1946-2001, in 55 years, there were 248 wars around the globe. 201 of them ie 82% were instigated by USA. In 240+ years since US independence, there were only 16 years when USA was not in a war. Worse, it is US vassals who shed blood & lose life for USA.

Other than war, USA would instigate countless unrest eg protests, riots & coups in other countries.

Thru unrest/war, USA controls other government & resource/economy. It is neo-colonisation without occupying other’s land.

In short, US-instigated unrest/wars are about money & power/dominance of USA. Nothing to do with righteous.

USA has many tools to use: HR, democracy, freedom, religion, corruption of other’s government & more. Even laundry detergent (biochem weapon) can be used.

4, Malaysia is pro-China. It wants economic collaboration with China so as to boost its economy. It also wants China’s help in infrastructure to modernise its country. It wants to join BRICS.

All these are no-no’s in the eye of USA. Hence, when USA scolds Malaysia for HR violation, do your own homework to see if USA is behind the scene.

5, lastly. the crime of sedition is bigger than suppression of freedom of speech.

UN Charter empowers states to reduce fulfillment of HR obligation in cases where the state must protect the integrity of its territory. In short, a state can ignore HR when comes to protecting its country from sedition.

ON CAM: Three US Army Officers Were Wiped Out Along With An M270 MLRS┃Russia Captured RAZDOLOVKA

What are some dark truths that have made you stronger?

Nobody cares about you, your plans, your goals, or your little dramas. So stop pretending they do, or getting upset when they don’t.
When it comes to reaching your goals, discipline is more important than motivation. If you don’t have discipline, you’ll never stick to anything.
You are the only person capable of changing your life; no one can do that for you. The easiest way to change yourself is to change the things you do each day.
The biggest threat to your progression in life isn’t something or someone around you; it’s you.
The key to a successful life lies not in what you know, but in what you do with what you know.
Failure is just a stepping stone on the road to success.
You can’t change the past, but you can still fuck up your future if you repeat it.
Success is not about what you accomplish, it’s about who you become in the process.
Your comfort zone is a barren place. Nothing ever grows there.
Anything in life worth achieving will not be easy to get. If it were, everyone would get what they wanted. Most people give up on their goals when things become too difficult. Don’t be like most people.

Can you tell me about a time that you sued someone in civil court and won?

In 2016 my then-fiancée (now wife) and I rented a commercial property for our e-waste recycling business. It was the back half of a former 1930’s era gas station/garage in Magna, UT. It was Perfect for what we do, all the needed electric outlets, 3-phase power, lots of room.

HOWEVER, when we tried to get our business license the building failed the inspection (severe structural deficiencies, including improperly supported roof beams and a door cut through a load-bearing wall without a proper header installed) and we were ordered to close down… so we told the landlord we were moving and considered the lease broken due to fraud.

Rather than accepting the situation and repairing the building he chose to start and eviction and sue us for treble damages (claiming $50,000). We counter sued for our moving costs and lost revenue based on “fraud in the inducement”.

His attorney played dirty, including falsely claiming that one hearing had been cancelled and then trying to get the judge to issue a summary judgment when our attorney failed to appear (he had trusted to professional courtesy and believed the opposing counsel). THAT got shot down because my wife and I WERE there and I handled our part of things.

Then, in a subsequent hearing opposing counsel moved for summary judgment against us because “They have not provided proof that they did not damage my client’s property”. YES, he requested proof of a negative.

One of their arguments to defend against our countersuit was to claim that they had not properly served us with an eviction because they did not know our home address (Utah requires service at both the business and tenant’s home address in a commercial eviction). That was an obvious lie because our home address was clearly printed on the lease. They also claimed that we never had permission to run a business out of the space, which was another lie… since a Business license in Salt Lake County requires a notarized document from the landlord declaring that a business was allowed.

They made mistakes in court filings, putting the wrong names on court documents, the wrong COURT on the same documents, and including private information from another case in our subpoenaed discovery.

FINALLY, the judge ordered depositions… our landlord showed up and “couldn’t remember” the answer to any questions, and what he did “remember” was all lies. When shown documents with his signature he said he didn’t remember signing them.

In the end, rather than us paying HIM $50,000 he paid us (our attorneys, more like) $18,000.

Our paltry share of that settlement bought me my 1995 F150.

Douglas MacGregor Unmask: ‘Hard Unavoidable Truth’ About Ukraine War – NATO being Stage Four Cancer

Thai Rice Noodles

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

12 ounces fresh rice noodles (rice ribbon noodles)
3 tablespoons cooking oil
12 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into bite size pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 cups broccoli florets
2 carrots, cut into thin, bite size pieces (1 cup)
1 small onion, cut into thin wedges (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Instructions

Cut rice noodles into strips 1 inch wide and 3 to 4 inches long; set aside.
In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil for 1 minute over medium high heat.
Carefully add noodles; cook and stir for 3 to 4 minutes or until edges of noodles just begin to turn golden.
Remove noodles from skillet; set aside.
Add remaining oil to skillet; add chicken, garlic and ginger. Cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink.
Stir in broccoli, carrots and onion; cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes more or until vegetables are crisp tender.
Stir in the oyster sauce, brown sugar and noodles; heat through.

Biden debate debacle, DEMs panic. EU-Ukraine security deal. Orban confronts Elensky. Toxic Macron

Debacle.

Absolutely. Completely.

Puzzle Pieces are falling into place

Ok. SO the United States is actively killing Russians on Russian soil. And then Russia hits back and kills all the Americans who launched the weapons.

Meanwhile the United States is attacking every nation that wants to join BRICS+. Forcing the collective to issue a statement saying that they will pause on new entries.

Ah. We are deep in the middle of the “doo doo”. We are in The Shit.

It’s really hot.

Do not put your hand on the blistering surface of the stove.

It’s all a big cluster fuck. Yeah. Today is Geo-Politics post. We are deep in the middle of it. Do not fall asleep.

Today…

BREAKING: Russia Eliminated 10 US Army Officers Who Carried Out Missile Attack On SEVASTOPOL

Russian revenge. Hits.

OpenAI to further block access by China, what’s your comment on this?

According to recent reports, OpenAI has been noted in multiple media outlets for attempting to restrict access to its platform from users within China. The move has been perceived as a further limitation imposed by the United States on China’s ability to leverage advanced AI technology. This development was highlighted by an industry insider who chose to remain anonymous due to the politically sensitive nature of the matter, as reported by SCMP.

Notably, Chinese companies have been actively participating in the AI sector’s development. For instance, in November, a relatively unknown startup based in Beijing, 零一万物-http://AI2.0大模型技术和应用的全球公司（01.AI）, unveiled its own open source model, which has demonstrated superior performance when compared to Llama 2 and has achieved high rankings on various leaderboards that benchmark AI model capabilities.

Furthermore, prominent Chinese entities such as Baidu, Alibaba, Mengniu Dairy, and TAL Education have also entered the competitive landscape of generative AI, leading to the emergence of what Chinese media has coined “the battle of 100 models” to characterize the intensified competition in this field.

The rapid advancements in AI have introduced a new dimension to the ongoing US-China tech conflict. The Biden administration has taken measures to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology and has imposed restrictions on American investments in China’s AI sector. Additionally, there are reports of forthcoming regulations intended to control the export of advanced AI models.

In May, the Biden administration introduced the CHIP ACT, a significant initiative aimed at strengthening the semiconductor supply chain. The Chips and Science Act, supported by over $100 billion in grants, loans, and guarantees intended for semiconductor firms to establish manufacturing facilities in the US, has sparked a substantial influx of investment. This is anticipated to reverse the declining trend in domestic chip production, as confirmed by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Russia’s MiG-31 Foxhound Destroyed The U.S. GLOBAL HAWK and MQ-4C TRITON Drones Over The BLACK SEA

The Western “news” claim that this is a big “nothing burger”. That it is “fake news”. Hum. I tend to believe the Russians.

In the age of dueling with pistols, was it customary to finish the wounded foe with a shot to his head?

It wasn’t really the standard practice, and doing so could actually get pretty complicated.

Duels, especially during their heyday in the 17th to 19th centuries, were governed by a strict code of conduct.

The goal of a duel wasn’t to kill your opponent. It was more about defending one’s honor.

In many cases, just showing up and being willing to risk your life was enough to restore your honor, and a lot of duels ended after the first shot, whether or not anyone was hit.

if someone did get hit and was wounded, the duel usually ended right there.

Killing a wounded opponent would have been seen as excessive and dishonorable.

People back then took these codes seriously.

In fact, in most cases, if a duelist was wounded, the seconds (the assistants to the duelists) would step in to stop the fight.

There are plenty of wild stories from those times.

There are plenty of wild stories from those times. One of my favorites involves the American politician Alexander Hamilton and his infamous duel with Aaron Burr.

Hamilton was hit and fatally wounded, but Burr didn’t go up and finish him off with another shot.

Instead, Hamilton was taken back to his friends and later died from his injuries.

there was a French duel in the 19th century between two gentlemen named Léon Gambetta and Édouard de Cassagnac.

Gambetta was shot in the thigh and unable to continue, but de Cassagnac didn’t finish him off.

The duel ended with Gambetta wounded but alive, and both men actually went on with their lives, their honor intact.

What is the most bizarre mechanical problem you’ve encountered while working on your car?

I bought a 1967 Ford Galaxie convertible back in ’77 that no one could figure out. For $175 it was a bargain so I took the chance. The owner had given up on it after several shops couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. It would idle fine, but as soon as you tried to accelerate it would spit back through the carb and either stall, or stumble then take off. I jacked it out of the mud and babied it home. I at first thought it was the carb, but it seemed to have good power when you got lucky and you got the rpm’s up without it puking through the carb. I started looking at the ignition system, and finally found the answer when I revved it off of idle while watching and checking the timing with a timing light. When it hit about 8–900 rpm the timing advanced way beyond where it should be, which was causing the engine to choke. It turned out that Ford used some vacuum advances that had a slug inside to tension against a spring to set the rate of advance. Most vacuum advances are sealed cans, but this one had a screw on cap with the vacuum line connection in the center. It had been replaced so the mechanics must have thought it was ok, but apparently the slug was never taken from the old unit and put into the new one. Once the carburetor butterfly opened it would provide vacuum to the advance port and the distributor would go right to full advance (probably 50 to 60 degrees before TDC). It took a little fiddling to cut a piece of copper tubing to the right length with a few coke can shims to get it to the sweet spot, but that 390 ran great. I met my wife cruising in that car.

“What this DHS guy said TERRIFIED me to the core” | Redacted with Clayton Morris

What was the last thing your mother said to you?

”Goodnight Hon, love you !”

I replied “Night, love you too and thank you for the pot of soup”

We had been camping and when we got home my Mom had made a big pot of chicken soup. Only my youngest had school the next day, also had PTA open house before school started that I had to be at. It wasnt unusual that my mom didnt come out of her room in the morning while kids were getting ready for school, I know she had been up late and her TV was on. I was super busy that morning my oldest son came with me to help set up. My 14 year old daughter stayed home to sleep in.

About 2 minutes after kids went to class and I started cleaning up the food at PTA event, the office lady called the library over the intercom and said there was a call on line 2 which was odd because I had my cell phone. But it was my sister who had stopped by to check on our mom after she dropped off her son at school. Mom had had heart failure do to her illness. The emts said she had died maybe 2–3 hours sgo which was when we were all up and getting ready to leave. It was 4–6 hours later that the Neptune society arrived to pick her up. I dont remember much but I do remember thinking She died hearing the normal family life happening right outside her bedroom door and although she was alone she really wasn’t. I pray that it was comforting even just a little bit.

My Mom had been sick a long time and we were all aware this would happen eventually.

It’s been almost 16 years (July 7 2008) Man do I miss her something fierce still.

“LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN”- CANADA WARNS, NUCLEAR DIRTY BOMB, RUSSIAS EMERGENCY CALL WITH USA

What do you think about Europe’s recent tariffs on Chinese-made cars?

It’s fine.

It simply shows that they are unable to compete in any meaningful way.

They’re also rather poor at history.

When CRUSHING tarrifs were placed on Chinese steel, Solar panels, tyres, chips, wind turbines.

Within 10 years? China became absolutely dominant in those industries and western companies get hollowed out.

Westoids will cope with the poor quality / bad safety bullshit like they usually do until you point out NCAP ratings.

What I think will happen is this:

People in Europe will keep their ICE cars longer. As inflation ravages Europe more they’ll fill their cars up with petrol or diesel and the numbers on the pump will just get bigger and bigger. They’ll look for alternatives and see the high price tags…

Via culture videos and stuff they’ll see far more affordable Chinese EVs and think why can’t we have this? People in the USSR saw the apparently better things in western nations and thought why can’t we have this?

Quick French Bread

Ingredients

1 envelope yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/4 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
5 or 6 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions

Add yeast to water, then add salt and sugar. Stir until the yeast dissolves.
Beat the flour into the yeast water, a cup at a time, using a wooden spoon to stir. Add as much flour as you need to make a smooth dough. Knead until smooth. Brush top and sides with oil and cover the dough with a towel. Let stand in a warm place to rise until double in bulk.
Turn the dough onto a floured bread board and shape into long French loaves.
Place the loaves on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal and let stand to rise for 5 minutes.
Slash the tops of the loaves in several places, brush them with water and place in a cold oven.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place a pan of boiling water in the oven with the loaves and bake them for 45 minutes, or until crusty done.

Do teachers ever pass a failing student just to get them out of their classroom?

I did it once at university. I had a student who really struggled with my class. I learned later that she was struggling in all phases of her life. But she worked hard. She did all the home work. She showed me all the different ways she tried to solve the problems. It was a programming class. She tried several ways to solve the programming projects. She was in my office every chance she had. She asked questions indicating that she had really tried to understand. The lightbulb just never came on for her. She told me she was doing fine in all her other CS courses.

At the end of the semester I totaled her grade and she was about half a percent below passing. My course was required for a degree. As I thought about it, I realized that she would never need this language after she left my class. Nobody programs in assembly anymore. I thought taking it again would not benefit her in any way. I didn’t think she would ever get it. Finally, I didn’t want to work that hard again. She wore me out and I gave her a passing grade.

A couple semesters later I passed her in the hall. She was so excited to see me. “I finally understand what you were trying to teach me!” I was skeptical, but on the other hand, I had exactly the same experience in a class as an undergrad when three weeks after the final, I finally figured out what had been dealing me fits.

“Really? Why do you say that?”

“When my Advanced Computer Architecture professor says something, it reminded me of what you were saying. Because of what you said, I understand what he is saying now.”

So, she got some benefit from my class after all. I am still glad I passed her. I hope things went well for her.

Russia is Losing its Patience and it could be Devastating for NATO | Pepe Escobar

Space Workers Unite!

Submitted into Contest #8 in response to: Write a story about an adventure in space. … view prompt

Philippe Berard

SPACE NEWS BROADCAST CORP.8 PM GALACTIC NEWSBreaking News: Are the Koolman Industries Again in Violation of Space Workers Comp?Is this Another case of Space Labor Law blatant contravention?The anchorman goes on the air followed by hundred of millions of faithful audience members of the most popular space news agency.“:Dear Cast Readers,We know from the stories that came in large numbers, from Triton to Artemise, that recent cases of Space Labor Laws are culminating in a Space Class Action Lawsuit of extreme proportions.Let us introduce you to two cases that involved different settings and events, but are remarkably symptomatic of the present climate of scandals and corruption incidents in the Far Space Regional Authority.First Case Scenario:

Workers Conditions in Triton’s Meth-sea:

Two dinghies filled with survivors from a Triton ocean wreck derive for weeks over thousands of miles under a blasting binary sun. It is comforting to know that these dinghies are made of coated titanium with borodium reinforcements which are the strongest known materials.

The crew is composed of space shift members who got separated by an hydrogen potassium typhoon of epidemic proportions.

They had been fishing meth-fish on the HMS Essex-SpaceCargo in the middle of the methane ocean for now two months and their cargo was loaded with about a million tons of catch. This ocean (located on Tarantula 1) is a meth-sea of a color red like blood. Its inhabitants inherited the same color.

The number one rule for our meth-fishermen is that they never get into contact with the species found in that red ocean. These fishes are so toxic and life-repellant that just one bite could prove to be lethal, disintegrating or slowly consuming the victim’s flesh until they die in agony after having lost consciousness in horrific medical circumstances.

The million tons catch is then fed to the machines hidden deep in the belly of the Essex where they are cryogenized and processed for very-long term storage, up to a century. On the boat, not one fisherman has the faintest idea of the use the catch will fulfill, or if it will ever even be used at all. All they know is that they meth-fish them and get paid for their arduous work.

A crew usually is made up of around eighteen men who works in grueling shifts of one day and one night and get two days rest. They stay at meth-sea for six months or even a year. At the end of the campaign they have made about two-year salary being able to support a family of four until the next campaign. It is basically a space-version of the Alaskan fisheries of once.

The conditions are extremely harsh and a big difference with the salmon- fishboat is that falling at sea means unavoidable death and not just a bad adventure. Consequently no life jacket can be found as they are unnecessary. And that is a violation of Space Labor law. A few concerned Scientists have developed a suit that is halfway between the space suit and the deepest range pressurized deep underwater suit. But it can only guarantee a short period of survival until the rescue teams have arrived at the place of distress. If the survival unit doesn’t get there in time, the workers will just have a very bad day.

The crew we interviewed last week were exemplary in the matter. They ran into the largest meth-fish bank ever encountered counting five millions of tons of catch. They were all happy and started to work. But that is when the archetypal monster, a gigantic star sea monster came down on them: a gigantic alien Moby Dick type sea monster called the Suburt’na by the natives, the ones with the red color. On Earth the most likely predator to use as a comparison would be the Carcharodon megalodon.

The giant creature destroyed their space-pressurized meth-fishing boat in twenty minutes and killed a number of men. Not one of them was covered by any life insurance policy because their employer hasn’t deemed it necessary.

Thanks to the ensign’s courageous audacity (that cost him his life), they managed to put their unsubmersible dinghies at meth-sea and escaped. They begun a long derive on the meth sea for weeks trying to reach out with distress calls which were not heard. Now the men on board are slowly going astride on the vast ocean perhaps three times larger than the earthly Pacific.

The meth sea port station where they came from looks a bit like an Antarctic station soon became convinced the Essex was lost at meth sea. That is the jargon used in this case. All search for the lost Cargo has been stopped.

But the Essex had not gone down yet. Aboard, the meth fishermen knew that their supplies were going low and if they were not found shortly they would surely perish by starvation. And to compound their problems the charcarodon megalodon was still out there – prowling the seemingly infinite red ocean. The creature was first thought to be a sort of primitive local version of a whale but soon turns out to be much, much worse than that…

Have you ever imagined what a meth sea in fury could look like? The meth waves are as tall as a 5 story building. Then a small speck can be seen on top of the waves. The speck is really the head of a Unit-1 robotic assembler unit, barely emerging from the meth sea in fury. It fell a few weeks earlier from the orbital station and by gravity slowly reentered the Kuranian atmosphere just to fall into the meth sea in the middle of a storm of the century. The Koolman worker stranded in the Unit-1 robotic assembler unit can survive for a week or two, depending on the type of lease he’s been subscribed into. The lease has the inconvenient drawback that the supplies are limited by the lease agreement. Basically, if you got credit for a week, your supplies, including your oxygen tank, will be limited to a week. When the week is over, you better have applied and gotten more credit line or you are out of luck.

Second Case Scenario:

Koolman’s Disregard for Workers Comp at their Industrial Space Facilities:

Dear Readers:

The Second Case we offer to your judgment is as disconcerting as the first one. It took place on the interplanetary facilities administered by Koolman during the week of May 1^st to 8^th.

You will be able to judge for yourself the gravity of the facts and vote at the end of this cast, in your conscience, your verdict.

The location is the Koolman’s Space Industries Facilities. Our unvoluntary hero is an hourly space worker. An hourly space worker in a working space suit is a worker not a hero and shouldn’t be asked to be one. John looks like a standard industrial worker, except he lives 305 years from now. His daily schedule consists of repairs, adjustments and other not so heroic jobs. He works on space stations compartments, maintenance rooms, and anything he has been assigned to, when getting his weekly schedule at the space station administration center. On a weekly basis, he could earn around 100000 new coins a month which is enough to support a family of four or six. Generally he does not want this job but has to take it to make a living. So, John once earned a PhD in magnetohydrodynamic science and hoped to get a job at the Trans-Jupiterian Consort. But that did not happen and when it was time to make a tough decision, he accepted this lower occupation for the time being. John traveled one week to the industrial complex and begun fixing space modules right away. Koolman rents the space suit to its workers. They take a large deposit and send you good to go into the neighborhoods of the largest spacepods. John’s weekly schedule begins on Sunday and is somehow repetitive but he has not lost interest when he floats in space, with the red planet in the horizon.

The inevitable happened on his fourth day of work as he was fixing a ramp located on the side of a huge depressurizer, he was hit with great force by an unknown object. Thrown at great speed into space, John was saved by an emergency landing pod in outer space that stopped his vertiginous flight. He was marooned not too far from the main planet. Workers in this area may sometimes have to spend a day in a space suit of that type in which they have most of the survival tools needed as well as food and drinks. So when John fell to what could have been his death on the surface of the emergency pod he hoped he would be found quickly and brought back to the planet orbital landing.

He also had his credit cards to buy the supplements he needed off the outlets on the emergency pod.

But after a couple of days spent on the platform John began to fear the worst as he was uncomfortably stuck in vertical position inside his space suit. All the coms had been cut off in the fly and had not been reestablished.

On his fifth day on the emergency pod, John sees another space suit hurled into space. and comes landing onto his already crowded emergency pod. Now John must share his already claustrophobic situation with another worker, who, like him, fell into space. John tries without success to establish a com with his unwanted neighbor. Ironically they can see each other through their visors. John knows some sign language. They can soon share the news and hope that a rescue party will come for them.

They will wait eight days, eight long days which will have now passed without any help on the horizon. John used up the last of his credits to buy the last supply of drinks and foods accessible at the outlets. He expects the card to be declined very soon. What will they do when this happens?

Fortunately a search party spotted the emergency pod on the tenth day of John’s odyssey.

Dear Cast Readers:

We just showed how, once again, Koolman Industries has proven to disregard the most elementary working rules and safety procedures in space and in Triton’s Meth sea. We ask you, at the end of this cast, to vote your mind about Koolman Industries. Please, be partial and vote to prevent Koolman to operate in such unfair conditions that place the lives of their workers in danger. Stop Koolman Industries before someone dies in their facilities! “

Thanks For Watching! Good Evening.

(Music. Holo Cameras span the Theater)

What’s the coolest thing you found in a hotel room that was left behind?

In San Francisco. I was helping a good friend, and myself, by being an extra housekeeper at a hotel that is very close to the airport. A huge conference was hosted there for four days. The place was booked. It was a neverending cycle of cleaning the rooms and changing linens. One time I was cleaning up an especially gross room. Luckily for me, it was the last one on my list. It took about half an hour to clean the bathroom. It seemed like a person bypassed the toilet and chose to vomit in the tub. I got it cleaned up and disinfected. The bed wasn’t too bad. I just had to strip it and put fresh linen on. I found a hundred dollar bill on the nightstand along with an apology for the mess. I emptied the trash cans and started vacuuming. As I was checking things over to be sure I didn’t miss anything, I found a manila envelope wedged between the bed and nightstand. There wasn’t anything written on the outside. Inside, I found five small plastic bags. Inside of each one was what looked like Susan B Anthony coins. I stuck them in my apron and finished up. On my way out I went to the security desk and turned it in. A couple of days later, I returned to payroll for my check. Before I left I was told the supervisor wanted to speak to me. It turned out that the coins I had were collectors. Each coin had a fault on it. Things like the figure facing the wrong way or the date was off. What I thought were just ordinary coins were actually worth thousands of dollars. I asked why they were in an envelope and not in a safe or lock box. The owner thought he would be able to keep them safe on his own. So, my honesty netted me an envelope with a thank you note. It also included fifteen hundred dollars.

Kallas replaces Josep. US contractors in Ukraine. Austin calls Belousov. Macron wants to call Putin

Shorpy

BREAKING! BRICS in America’s Backyard: Venezuela Officially Announces To Join BRICS!

“An old man meets a young man who asks:

“Do you remember me?”

And the old man says no. Then the young man tells him he was his student, And the teacher asks:

“What do you do, what do you do in life?”

The young man answers:

“Well, I became a teacher.”

“ah, how good, like me?” Asks the old man.

“Well, yes. In fact, I became a teacher because you inspired me to be like you.”

The old man, curious, asks the young man at what time he decided to become a teacher. And the young man tells him the following story:

“One day, a friend of mine, also a student, came in with a nice new watch, and I decided I wanted it.

I stole it, I took it out of his pocket.

Shortly after, my friend noticed the his watch was missing and immediately complained to our teacher, who was you.

Then you addressed the class saying, ‘This student’s watch was stolen during classes today. Whoever stole it, please return it.’

I didn’t give it back because I didn’t want to.

You closed the door and told us all to stand up and form a circle.

You were going to search our pockets one by one until the watch was found.

However, you told us to close our eyes, because you would only look for his watch if we all had our eyes closed.

We did as instructed.

You went from pocket to pocket, and when you went through my pocket, you found the watch and took it. You kept searching everyone’s pockets, and when you were done you said ‘open your eyes. We have the watch.’

You didn’t tell on me and you never mentioned the episode. You never said who stole the watch either. That day you saved my dignity forever. It was the most shameful day of my life.

But this is also the day I decided not to become a thief, a bad person, etc. You never said anything, nor did you even scold me or take me aside to give me a moral lesson.

I received your message clearly.

Thanks to you, I understood what a real educator needs to do.

Do you remember this episode, professor?

The old professor answered, ‘Yes, I remember the situation with the stolen watch, which I was looking for in everyone’s pocket. I didn’t remember you, because I also closed my eyes while looking.’

This is the essence of teaching:

If to correct you must humiliate; you don’t know how to teach.”

BREAKING: Military Coup in Bolivia

As soon as Bolivia tries to join BRICS+, the United States starts a coup.

What A View

Submitted into Contest #8 in response to: Write a story about an adventure in space. … view prompt

Josh Hagen

Commander Lance Gilmore and Lieutenant Drew Adams touched down near the Sea of Serenity. Boosters kicked up clouds of lunar dust as they signaled Huston. It had been a very long trip and the astronauts were eager to set foot on Earth’s closest neighbor.

Commander Gilmore signaled Earth, “Huston, this is Lunar Five. We have touch down.”

“Copy Lunar Five. That’s great news. You’re clear to have a look around.” Houston signaled back.

After a decade of budget finagling and technical leaps, man was once again traveling to the moon. The plan was to use a series of new missions to the moon to prepare astronauts for the

first manned mission to Mars. It was a solid long term strategy put in place as governments finally came together to begin more far-reaching manned exploration.

“It’s still hard to believe we’re really here.” Lieutenant Adams said while he wrapped up the landing routine.

Commander Gilmore was fidgeting in the new generation space suit eager to explore the grey landscape. “It is something. And in a minute, we’ll set foot where only a few have before.

Having finished their last safety checks, the pair were pressurizing the air lock.

The sun glared down upon the barren landscape as the exterior hatch of Lunar Five cycled open. Commander Gilmore stepped down onto the fine moon dust with Lieutenant Adams right behind.

“How’re you two doing down there?” Lieutenant Melissa Sloan called down from the orbiting shuttle.

“Everything’s peachy down here. How are things up there? Any traffic?” Commander Gilmore asked with a grin while he looked around.

“Smooth sailing up here. You boys are having all the fun. I feel like the designated driver.”

“So you’re saying you miss us?” Lieutenant Adams asked playfully.

“Don’t get your hopes up Adams.” They all laughed. Everything was going as predicted. Their experience on these new lunar missions would be used to finalize an international mission to the red planet.

That’s when the shockwave hit. All at once Gilmore and Adams were slammed to the ground by some force from above. Without missing a beat Commander Gilmore called to Sloan, “Gilmore to Sloan, report!”

Static. Then a muffled voice, “…to Gilmore…unknown impact…boosters to compensate…”

More static. And silence. Getting back to their feet, Adams and Gilmore looked at each other then up to wherever Lieutenant Sloan was.

“Sloan, come in. Are you all right? Status.”

After too many seconds to count, Sloan replied. “I’m alright sir. Something hit me like a ton of bricks. Took me a while to compensate. I’m glad these suits come with their own diapers.”

Commander Gilmore smiled, “Agreed. Run a diagnostic and see if you can get some info from Houston.” Gilmore paused as Adams started to tap him on the shoulder lightly, then much harder.

“Adams, what is it?” Gilmore could see Adams pointing up.

Before he could look up he heard Sloan screaming over the com, “Noooo!”

“Sloan! What is it? Are you alright?”

Adams forcefully turned his commander around and pointed up. Commander Lance Gilmore looked up to see the Earth shattered into pieces. At first it didn’t register. Sloan’s panicked cries faded away as the realization of what he was seeing started to sink in. He dropped to his knees dumbfounded. Adams still staring up at the nightmarish sight. Sloan continued to scream.

“God.” was all he could utter.

Then he started to hear a countdown. Adams pulled him to his feet.

Sloan was still screaming, but it was instructions. “Debris inbound! Estimate impact in thirty seconds! You’re best bet is north! I’ll keep you updated as long as I can!”

“Sloan?” Commander Gilmore started but Adams pulled him into a leaping jog. The best any astronaut could do on the moon.

“Ten seconds until impact. Commander Gilmore, Lieutenant Adams, it was an honor.” Then she chuckled to herself. “I really wanted to walk on the m…” Her sentence was cut off.

Both Gilmore and Adams knew what that meant and they didn’t stop running. Around them little puffs of dust started to pop up from the surface. The impacts gave no noise, their own panicked breaths was all that filled their ears.

To their left was an explosion of dust as something big hit. Was it the shuttle? A satellite? A chunk of earth? More and more impacts came down all around. Some too close for comfort. They ran hard until one impact landed right behind them throwing them forward and away from one another. Commander Gilmore’s vision went hazy as he nearly lost consciousness.

He raised himself to all fours. The lunar dust that had nearly buried him pouring off his suit like filthy bathwater. Slowly he got to his feet.

“Adams? You there?” He looked around. “Lieutenant?”

“Sir?” Not far away he could see Adams gingerly rising up from a nearby impact crater. His suit completely grey from dust.

Commander Gilmore made his way over to the lieutenant and helped him back to his feet. They looked each other over and paused.

“Sir…Earth?” The two astronauts looked up to see the shattered pieces of their home drifting slowly apart.

“What the hell happened?” Commander Gilmore asked to the sky above them. As if in response, from the blackness a ship appeared. Then another. Then many, many more. Each ship was enormous. They were the size of countries – what used to be countries. Multiple ships flew about in practiced unison hauling away pieces of the astronaut’s former planet to who knows where. In no time at all there was nothing left. That’s when things started to get weirder.

Both men stared up in silent disbelief as more ships showed up. These flew much closer to the moon and were hauling large glistening components. The spaceships danced together connecting this long antenna-like object to this blinking cube. They strung together countless miles of thick cable from one gigantic piece to another, then encasing the inner workings in even more components. On and on it went as the object started to come together. It took on a cylinder shape with a large flat screen down its center. In literally minutes the multitude of ships had assembled what could only be an enormous space station. And then, the enormous screen turned on. The astronauts were greeted with images of aliens. And the aliens were, playing games? And what seemed to be, betting?

“Is that…” Adams started.

Gilmore finished lieutenant’s thought, “a fucking casino?”

Bright pops of energy suddenly appeared overhead as ships of all sizes, shapes and alien configurations began to dock with the station. The two men took a few steps back as several other ships broke off from the group and started to approach the moon’s surface.

“Commander?”

“I see them.” Commander Gilmore tensed as he saw the approaching ships, but also as he viewed his O2 display. It was redlining. There wasn’t much he could do if these ships decided to attack. They couldn’t fight. And they couldn’t run.

As the ships came closer, they spread out and flew over the surface. Actually, it was hard to call them ships. They were very blocky, almost like trailer homes or rv’s. They hissed gasses and blasted their landing jets. One set down just twenty feet away. Parts of it unfurled and

slammed into the ground just in front of them. The structure continued to shift and assemble itself revealing a strange opening bordered with blinking lights. The entrance was glassy; not an airlock that either men were familiar with. The opening more resembled looking through a thin wall of liquid. Above the place, holographic alien lettering popped up.

The two of them looked at one another.

“I’m almost out of air sir.” Said Adams.

“Me too.” Commander Gilmore agreed.

They looked back at the building and moved forward. As they reached the entrance, Gilmore extended his arm and touched it. His hand went right through. He didn’t feel anything and when he pulled his hand back the entrance quivered like a soap bubble.

The two astronauts walked cautiously through the barrier and looked around. A chime could be heard as they emerged inside. The floor was patterned in black and white checkerboard. Booths lined the walls, though some seats were very strange. The place had a very alien, yet familiar feel to it.

From the back of the place wobbled over a somewhat humanoid alien. The best way to describe it would be to ask someone to imagine if a walrus and a chihuahua had a baby. This lumbering creature clad in colorful metallic overalls eyed them with its oversized twitchy pupils. It paused and placed the orange boxes it was carrying on the floor. The creature walked slowly over to them. It placed its meaty fists on its sides and bubbled out something which the two astronauts assumed was its way of asking what the hell they were doing there.

Commander Gilmore held up his hand in greeting. But before he attempted to speak Adams started to wheeze.

“Commander…” Adams began before he fell to one knee.

“Adams!” Gilmore could also see the warning lights flashing on his heads up display.

Gilmore looked up to the creature not knowing if it would understand anything. Would they die there? The creature seemed to, roll its eyes? It moved back to where it came from. Gilmore held Adam’s hand as he felt himself getting lightheaded as well. Then something grabbed his helmet and yanked it off. Strange smells engulfed his nose and his lungs started to burn. This was definitely not air he could breathe. The creature hit the release on Adams helmet and yanked that off as well. Adams gagged and wheezed. There was something slapped onto the

back of both of their heads. Hoses zipped around, up their noses and over their mouths. They were soon breathing easily again.

The creature held out six small metal spheres. It pointed to their ears and their mouths. They took the twitchy metal marbles and gave the creature a puzzled look. It grunted almost irritatedly and pointed to the balls, then to the men’s ears and mouths. They slowly put the tiny metal things against their ears. The spheres grew legs and ran up their ear canals. The sensation was shocking and quickly their ears were ringing sharply causing them pain.

The creature burbled again, but now they could understand it. “Can you little pink idiots understand me yet?”

The two humans nodded weakly.

“Good. Now swallow the other two so I don’t have to put up with your weird squeaking.” It said crossing its flipper arms.

Gilmore and Adams did what the creature demanded and again there was a lot of pain.

“That hurts!” Adams blurted out.

“Of course it does. Translation bots have to burrow into your flesh to work correctly.” The creature said matter of factly. “Now, what are you two doing here? My place doesn’t open for another day.”

Commander Gilmore couldn’t take any more. “What the hell do you mean?” He bellowed advancing on the much larger being. “You blew up our planet! You killed everyone we know! The two of us are the last human beings in existence.” He was pointing accusingly between this creatures bulbous eyes.

“Easy there little guy. I didn’t kill anybody. If you’re talking about the little blue planet that was broken up. It was purchased by the Orion Gambling Federation giving them rights to set up an operation in this sector.” The creature’s flipper arms were flapping away as it explained.

“What the hell are you talking about? How could they buy our planet? There were over seven billion people living there!” Gilmore’s finger was now shaking.

“Happens all the time. Listen, you’re from a younger planet with a very young race so I can understand how all of this is shocking. You just lost everyone you knew. Your home is gone. I get that.”

The two astronauts stood dumbstruck. Earth was bought, destroyed and replaced with a casino.

“Gone.” Adams whispered.

Gilmore put his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. Adams swept it away.

“We’re nothing to them. To that!” Adams pointed at the large alien in front of them.

“Hey.” said the offended creature.

“Easy now lieutenant.” said Gilmore trying to calm his friend.

Adams stood still and looked off into the distance.

“What does it matter?”

Gilmore tried to grab his friend before he ran through the barrier to the cold vacuum outside, but could not. The commander fumbled for his helmet and jammed it on his suit, clicking it into place. He grabbed the other helmet and ran out the barrier. Gilmore reached the

lieutenant and was about to place the helmet on his friend, but stopped. Adams was kneeling in the grey dust looking skyward with lifeless icy eyes.

Gilmore slumped to the ground, his helmet’s O2 sensor blaring. Maybe Adams was right. What does it matter. The moon became blurry then black.

Commander Gilmore was awakened by enjoyable singing, and, an electrical shock.

“Aaah!” he yelped.

“Quiet down.” said the irritated alien as it poked at him.

“You’ll be fine so long as you don’t go back out there without your suit refilled. The device I gave you only alters available air into what you need. Doesn’t work in a vacuum.”

Gilmore sat up, “Good to know.” Then he remembered.

“Adams!”

“Yeah. Your friend didn’t fair so well. Too much damage.”

Commander Gilmore put his head in his hands.

“Hey, don’t worry buddy. You can get him fixed up after you earn enough.” the large creature smiled. At least Gilmore thought it was a smile.

“Fix him? But he’s dead? He…” Gilmore stopped in mid sentence when he saw his friend’s head floating in front of him. Wires and tubes were connecting Adam’s head to a device that appeared to be a floating speaker. The lieutenant’s head was singing a song Gilmore had never heard before.

The Commander jumped to his feet in both horror and disgust.

“What did you do to him?” Gilmore shouted.

The bulbous creature put up its hands, “Calm down. Your friend’ll be fine once you earn enough to fix the damage.” The being glanced at the head and shrugged.

“As for separating his head, I thought it would help.”

Gilmore, enraged, shoved the big alien. Its blubbery belly shook.

“How the hell is that supposed to help?”

The being looked confused and then said, “Oooh. I see. Yeah, I suppose that seeing your buddy’s head cut off would look odd to you.”

Commander Gilmore was about to blurt out something when the alien cut him off.

“Your friend’s in stasis. His body’s in a pod out back.”

Gilmore still had a shocked look on his face so the alien continued.

“Listen pal, to fix up your ‘Adams’ after going out into a vacuum is expensive. Believe it or not, removing his head isn’t a big deal. Orion medicine is way out there. They can fix pretty much anything.”

“But why is his head on that floating…thing?”

“Well,” it began, “While the two of you were out I got to thinking. I said to myself, ‘Hey Yorble’, that’s my name by the way thanks for asking. I said, ‘Hey Yorble.’ You need some help in your new place don’t you? Why not use these two?’”

Gilmore blinked a few times trying to process all this.

Yorble continued, “I figured you could take customer orders and bus the tables. Though your friend’s options were more, well, limited.”

Gilmore looked over at his friend’s floating, and singing, head while Yorble continued.

“I thought, what can I do to bring in customers at my new location?” The alien paused for dramatic effect.

“Entertainment! Your buddy would make for a great jukebox.”

Commander Gilmore felt his legs get shaky so he sat at a booth.

Six months later, Commander Gilmore was bussing a table where a couple of Flamorians had just sat. He would need the hard scrubber to remove the slime. If he didn’t, it would start growing.

“Order up!” yelled Yorble.

Gilmore walked around a spherical Robotobo and picked up the order of fried tuskart with a side of baked vinatoes. He figured the furry little Boofax at table three ordered it.

After dropping off the order, Commander Gilmore looked over at the crowd gathered at the front of the cafe. The various aliens cheering as decapitated Adams sang a song that sounded a lot like Blue Suade Shoes. Adams was a hit and Yorble made sure Gilmore received all the tips left for the floating head. The funds were really mounting up. When he first started, Gilmore thought it would take ten years to save up the astronomical sum required to bring Adams back from near-death. But with Adam’s popularity, it may only take two.

With all the extra funds, Gilmore had been able to treat himself. The orbiting casino turned out to be not that bad after all. It was a great stress reliever. When he first started going, he would spend a night there once a week, tops. Nowadays though

it’s become two or three a week. The Commander really enjoyed the gambling.

Feeling the weight of the tip money filling his pocket, Gilmore glanced over at his friend floating amongst the aliens. Adams seemed to look back at him.

“Maybe we could wait a little longer before we get you fixed up Adams. After all, you’re not going anywhere.”

Sergey Lavrov’s BRICS Announcement: No New Members for Now

Every time a new member nation tries to join BRICS+, the United States attacks it. Color revolutions, coups, sanctions, outright and direct wars are the norm.

Now the existing BRICS+ members are setting up defense “antibodies” to counter United States efforts before future announcements. Oh, it seems like a slowing down, but it is a pause and an adoption of strong strengthening measures.

Pepperoni Pizza Bread

The dough for this one is an adaptation from an Oregano Bread recipe that I found in The Bread Machine Cookbook #1. I’ve made a lot of these over the years for family get-togethers, potluck and holidays. It’s always one of the first things to disappear from the table, and so my boys usually beg me to make a second loaf to leave at home for them to devour unchallenged.

Ingredients

Dough

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, Romano or blended cheese
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried basil
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes or 1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Filling

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 to 1 1/2 cups (approximate) mozzarella cheese
12 to 16 ounces sliced pepperoni
Dried oregano, basil, onion and garlic powder

Also Helpful To Have Handy

A small bowl of lukewarm water
One or two large thin-bladed spatulas
A large wire rack for cooling
Clean cookie sheet, cutting board or cardboard flat if transporting

Instructions

Please follow the instructions in the booklet for your bread machine for best results. The order in which to add ingredients may vary per manufacturer.
Grease or spray a heavy cookie sheet or jellyroll pan and dust with cornmeal. When dough is done remove from breadmaker and roll out on a well-floured surface into a long rectangle a little shorter than your baking sheet. Spread with tomato paste just to within 1 inch of the edge all around. Sprinkle tomato paste with herbs and spices and then mozzarella cheese. Lay slightly overlapping slices of pepperoni over all. Roll up carefully from the long sides as you would a jellyroll. Wet the seam and ends and gently press and smear them together.
Lift carefully supporting the middle and place seam side down on prepared sheet. Let rise about 15-25 minutes while preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until top is well-browned and bread looks done.
Don’t be alarmed if it springs a leak and oozes – it’ll still taste great. It will stick in that spot but the spatula(s) will help get it off the sheet. Cool on the sheet until you can handle it and then carefully loosen it from the pan and slide it onto a wire rack to cool enough to wrap. It can be wrapped warm in aluminum foil, and I usually do it that way so that it s still a little warm when I get to my destination. A cookie sheet or cardboard flat underneath makes it much easier to transport without bending and cracking it – it tends to be soft when warm.
Cut into 1 1/2-inch slices and watch it disappear!
Store leftovers in the fridge – if you ever have any. I never do!

Notes

Reviewed by mes16121 Tuesday Dec 6th, 2005 08:03 pm.

I made this tonight I have to tell you that this is SO YUMMY! I added some extra toppings…peppers, onions and chopped mushrooms. The bread baked so pretty…did not crack at all! The bread itself was so soft! It was gone in no time! My family wants me to make this at least once a week. Thanks for posting this wonderful recipe!

If you bake bread, you should have this commercial dough conditioner.

Attribution

Posted by cuteascountry_Shortcake at The Cutting Board (Recipe Goldmine) Thursday Oct 20th, 2005 10:35 pm.

This delicious and cheesy pepperoni pizza bread is a delicious twist to the classic pizza recipe. Made with hoagie rolls and fresh mozzarella cheese, these individual pizza breads are sure to please all the pizza lover’s out there.

Pizza bread is one of the most popular snacks out there. There’s a good reason for its popularity. It’s amazingly delicious! As always, I love putting a spin on a classic. You’ve probably had pizza bread made with something like Italian or French bread, but have you ever had it made with hoagie rolls? If you haven’t, then get ready for a great new way to enjoy a classic!

I used to make this delicious pizza bread variation all the time when my kids were in school. It was just one of the many recipes that my children and their friends would descend upon like locusts after school. The thing is that it’s so good, I still make it just as often as I ever did!

Pepperoni Pizza Bread

I begin this recipe by roasting my own garlic. It’s easy to do and adds so much flavor. I use it to make roasted garlic butter that I slather all over the rolls before baking them to golden, crispy perfection. This adds depth of flavor AND keeps the pizza bread from getting soggy. After that, I top the rolls with pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, and two kinds of pepperoni for the ultimate pepperoni pizza flavor. Then, I just bake it until melty and scarf it down! Oh, it’s so good.

Why You’ll Love This Pepperoni Pizza Bread Recipe

It has fresh mozzarella, mini pepperonis, pepperoni chunks, and seasoned garlic butter on hoagie rolls.
It’s a hearty, delicious, easy weeknight meal that the whole family will love and enjoy.
Add all your favorite pizza toppings.

Pepperoni Pizza Bread Ingredients

This delicious pepperoni pizza bread only uses a few simple ingredients.

Submarine rolls or hoagie rolls
Head of garlic, roasted
Olive oil
Salt
Butter
Oregano
Basil
Pizza sauce
Fresh mozzarella
Mini pepperonis
Boar’s Head pepperoni

How to make Pepperoni Pizza Bread

The recipe might sound complicated, but it really only has a couple of moving parts. In reality, it only takes a few simple steps to make.

Step 1: Roast the Garlic

Cut off the top ¼ of a garlic bulb and place it on a 5×5 piece of foil. Then, drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt, and fold the foil up tightly around the bulb. Air fry at 390 for 20 minutes or bake at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Step 2: Make the Garlic Butter

When the garlic is cool enough to handle, remove it from the foil and squeeze the garlic out of the bulbs into a small bowl. Add the softened butter, oregano, and basil and mix until combined.

Step 3: Toast the Rolls

Spread the garlic butter over the inside of the rolls and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Step 4: Add Toppings

Remove the bread halves and spread top them both with pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, and both types of pepperoni.

Step 5: Bake

Bake again at 400 degrees for 12 to 16 minutes or until the cheese is hot and bubbly.

Recipe Tips

Be careful not to cut too much of the garlic bulb off. You only need to cut far enough down to allow you to easily press the roasted garlic out after it’s finished cooking.
Fully soften the butter so all the garlic and herbs can be easily combined.
Be sure you cut your pepperoni into small chunks so they get hot on the inside and crispy on the outside.
If you decide to use another meat like Italian sausage, fully cook the meat first so it’s fully cooked and wont’ make a greasy mess of your pizza bread.

Variations

Use can use any of your favorite cheese varieties for this recipe.
Top your pizza bread with other favorites like sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, bacon, and olives.
Add a kick of heat with some red pepper flakes in the garlic butter.

What to Serve with Pepperoni Pizza Bread

You can make a full meal of this pizza bread, or you can serve it as part of a larger Italian-themed dinner. Try pairing it with garlic bread, cheesy bread, mozzarella sticks, cheesy bread, pasta, and the like.

Recipe FAQ

What is the best substitute for pizza dough?

You can use pita bread, naan, crescent dough, Italian bread, French bread, hoagie rolls, or even English muffins in place of pizza dough.

What type of bread is pizza bread?

There is no real single kind of bread used for pizza bread. Italian and French bread are used primarily, but sub rolls, hoagie rolls, and other types of bread like English muffins are also used for pizza bread.

Can pepperoni pizza bread be made in advance?

I don’t recommend making this pizza bread in advance. Although it can be reheated relatively well, it’s never as crunchy, melty, and delicious as it is when it’s straight out of the oven.

What’s the difference between pizza crust and bread dough?

While both pizza dough and bread dough are made with salt, water, oil, and flour, the ratios are quite different to achieve their different goals. Bread dough is designed to rise high and has more water content than pizza dough which is intended to rise but not nearly to the level of bread dough.

Can you freeze leftover pepperoni pizza bread?

Pizza bread freezes well and will last for up to 3 months when stored correctly.

How to Store and Reheat Leftover Pepperoni Pizza Bread

Refrigerate this pizza bread in an airtight container for up to 3 days. For longer storage, wrap it in a double layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil and place in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To reheat, place the pizza bread on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted again.

Try This Delicious Pepperoni Pizza Bread Recipe Today

This pepperoni pizza bread is as easy to make as it is delicious. Even roasting the garlic is a snap! With so much buttery, garlicky, pizza-licious flavor, this is one of the best pizza bead recipes you’ll ever make. Try it just once, and you’ll be hooked. It’s perfect for almost any occasion so give it a go!

Vet Hugs Dying 15-year-old Cat. A Minute Later, Something Totally Unexpected Happens!

What was the last thing your mother said to you?

”Goodnight Hon, love you !”

I replied “Night, love you too and thank you for the pot of soup”

My Mom had been sick a long time and we were all aware this would happen eventually.

It’s been almost 16 years (July 7 2008) Man do I miss her something fierce still.

Alien (1979) Transmission Distress – Extended Scene (2018)

Ukraine SitRep: State And Military Continue to Deteriorate

The Ukrainian state and its military are falling apart.

Under the new mobilization law the Ukrainian military is said to recruit/mobilize some 5,000 men per day. This is sufficient to replace current losses which are above 2,000 men per day. But the quality and level of training the new forces have is way below the level needed to survive on the frontline.

Losses are high because the mass use of Russian FAB glide-bombs is eliminating all identified agglomeration of forces. Ukraine has found no way to counter these.

For lack of armored vehicles several of the new brigades which were supposed to be mechanized will be pure infantry forces. They will be able to hold positions until they are bombed but will not have the means to attack.

The high rate of mobilization has led to a lack of men power in the rest of the society. Agricultural and industrial productions are down. People who can afford to do so avoid taking jobs for fear of being identified for military service. Others attempt to flee abroad (machine translation):

In the Odessa region, an attempt to illegally travel abroad was stopped by 100 men at once. They had to cross the border on foot and paid from 5 to 18,5 thousand dollars for this.This is reported by the State Bureau of Investigation.

In revenge for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure the Russian forces continue to dismantle Ukraine’s capacities. The electricity network is on the verge of falling apart. Electricity is only available for 10 hours per day. A few Russian hits on those switching stations which receive supply from Europe could finish it off.

The Ukrainian state is bankrupt:

Figures vary, and the Ukrainian government is increasingly coy about releasing economic data sets, but the Ukraine’s economy is currently around $180-190bn in size. To put that into context, that is around 11 times smaller than Russia’s economy and 131 times smaller than the US economy.
…
According to politico, Ukraine borrowed $58bn in 2022, $46bn in 2023 and is set to borrow $52bn in 2024. So, in just three years, Ukraine will have borrowed 82% of GDP.Ukraine needs to borrow this much because its government spends almost twice as much each year as it receives in income from taxation and other sources.

The Central Bank of Ukraine is trying to help by devaluating its currency. Over the last six month it lost about 10% of its value. The further ‘printing’ of money, which will heat up inflation, is expected.

Private lenders continue to ask for repayments of loans:

Ukraine has suffered a setback in its quest to complete the outline of a debt restructuring before the end-of-August expiry of a two-year payment freeze agreed by private holders of near $20 billion in outstanding international bonds.The government announced on Monday it had not reached agreement with a group of bondholders, raising the specter that the war-torn country might slip into default.

The blame game for the worsening of Ukraine’s military positions is costing the jobs of more commanders (machine translation):

Against the background of the continuing difficult situation for Ukraine at the front, public criticism of the AFU command is growing.MP Mariana Bezuglaya again spoke out against Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. She said that after receiving his position, he could not “go beyond” outdated management methods and became “even more authoritarian”.

“In this stressful situation, against the background of this huge responsibility, he has become even more authoritarian, increasingly tightening the screws and returning to the so – called classic techniques of the Soviet army,” Bezuglaya said in an interview with journalist Natalia Moseychuk.

She bases her opinion on messages that come to her from the military.

Recall that the People’s Deputy began to actively “wet” the commander-in-chief, as she had previously done with Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed.

However, in addition to Syrsky, she criticizes much harsher Yuriy Sodol is the commander of the Joint Forces and the Khortytsia group, which operates in the Pokrovsky direction (where the AFU has been losing ground most actively in recent months).

A number of activists like Serhiy Sternenko are also in solidarity with Bezugla in their antipathy to the general.

And yesterday the campaign against Sodol was joined by the chief of staff of” Azov ” Bogdan Krotevich. He said that he had filed an application with the State Bureau of Investigation against the Ukrainian general for committing “war crimes”.

Yesterday evening Sodol was replaced by a former leader of the 36th Marine Brigade who’s track record is in no way better that Sodol’s.

Syrski will be the next to fall.

The Russian forces now have the men and equipment to largely overrun the Ukrainian lines. But doing so would cost a significant amount of casualties. They are therefore just waiting for the Ukrainian army to exhaust itself and to fall by its own means. Only after a large scale breakdown of Ukrainian defenses will the order be given to proceed.

Posted by b at 11:26 UTC | Comments (265)

Dangerous escalation w/ Brian Berletic

YouTube AI cult generations regarding Super Panavision 70

Funny headline from Brookings today:

"Putin and Kim are creating a crisis—Can the US and China rein them in?"

Am I the only one who finds it strange just how blind Western Imperialism is to China's clearly stated "no limits" partnership with Russia. 

The RC in the west is truly insane to believe that they can seek a war over Taiwan and simultaneously expect China to come bail them out when their ridiculous foreign policy gets them into trouble.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Jun 23 2024 17:08 utc | 7

Ah, the AI tools are impacting everything. And today, we will focus on a sub-group that I call “Super Panavision 70”. There are a ton of these self-produced YouTube flicks using AI in this format and they are amazing.

But first…

What is Super Panavision 70?

Film Format: Super Panavision 70 is a 70mm film format used for motion pictures. It provides a larger film frame compared to standard 35mm film, resulting in higher resolution and more detailed images.
Aspect Ratio: It typically has an aspect ratio of 2.20:1, which is wider than the traditional 1.37:1 (Academy ratio) and the more common 1.85:1 widescreen formats. This aspect ratio allows for a more immersive cinematic experience with a broader visual field.
Lens and Camera System: Super Panavision 70 uses spherical lenses rather than anamorphic lenses. This means the images captured are not distorted and do not require “unsqueezing” during projection, as with some other widescreen formats like Cinemascope.
Image Quality: The combination of 70mm film and spherical lenses results in exceptionally high image quality, with rich colors and fine detail. This makes it suitable for epic films and scenes that benefit from a grand, sweeping visual presentation.

…

But…

You see, this format is used with AI generation to create these very weird and strange parody or obscure videos based on earlier movies and television shows, and some of them are just…

…well, see for your self.

I have about ten short one minute videos in this post regarding this, and it is well worth your time to watch every one of them.

Today…

OMG

We start with some inspiration.

What did the teacher in your high school get fired for?

Gossip! False reporting! Both! I was long graduated but I saw this coming, in fact, I warned that teacher if she “didn’t shut up and stop stirring the pot with frivolous reporting and gossiping it would come back to haunt her!” She laughed in my face.

On an ego trip! Bad enough, she was a special education teacher on top of everything!

What happened that got her terminated? Well, she reported a student as “suicidal” and “displaying bi-polar behavior” and in addition she “claimed” she had found “drugs” in the student’s purse after “she claimed the student stole her stuff from her desk”!

She didn’t like this particular student because that student was very popular, plus she was cute, boys were attracted to her.

Yes, this teacher’s obsession went too far! She got that student suspended twice, and both times the mother took her to the clinic due to “drugs” and both times she came up negative. One big mistake was the student’s Uncle is a well known lawyer!

Let’s put it this way, he filed a lawsuit against the School System, against the Teacher and against the School that student was attending! They won the case hands down, and the student was transferred to another school and was doing exceptionally well there, and made it to the Principal’s List (as they call it today) as straight A student!

That “special Ed” Teacher constantly gave her F’s and D’s, wrote all kinds of notes and none were true!
That particular student knew me, and I was subpoena to testify. The School system claimed “immunity” but the Judge sided with the Lawyer, immunity can only go so far!

They won the lawsuit, the teacher was going to be terminated but she “resigned” before they could terminate her. They also imposed a “restriction” (she could not be around with anyone under the age of 21). That teacher almost lost custody of her own children (because of the testimonies from students – present and former, plus assistants/tutors who also testified).

While the Jury sided with the plaintiff, however, it was the Judge that constrained her as he was very concerned about her 2 children, the HRS (today is DCF/CPI) were required to visit twice a week until the child was of 19 years of age! He was concerned because of the mother’s mental state as he said it right there “Narcissistic Power Control”.

Because of that “restriction” the mother could not leave the county without a hearing. Once her youngest child turned 19, they sold the home and moved away quickly!

Weird Science – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

Man, oh man!

What was the cleverest thing you said to someone walking away?

I was in this Big-Bazaar type super-market the other day.

So, I was waiting in the billing line.

The young lady before me was retaining the billed goods in trolley as slowly as possible.

I mean for an outsider, it would be like, the supermarket is conducting a patience-check limit trial with me as subject.

Finally, she was done.

Her husband or brother, as I saw, surreptitiously placed two stolen Park avenue beer shampoo bottles in that billed trolley. The lady was ignorant of it.

I think, he was her husband. He looked quite patient and unhappy.

They moved forward. Finally, mine was getting billed.

The bill-guy kept looking at her as she was leaving. I pleaded, brother please make my bill.

But he couldn’t help distraction, she too wouldn’t just get her a** out of there fast.

She was so slow and hence so near. I could hear what they were talking.

Lady (to husband) : Hey, what’s these shampoo bottles?

Man : It was a discount. Separate counter.

Lady : How much discount.

I shouted : 100%.

Lady didn’t understand. Man at once looked back, kept those bottles there, held her hands, forgot patience and got her vanished.

The excitement of billing guy got diluted. In turn, he became concentrated and in a split-second prepared my bill.

Can you describe what it was like to ride on an Army Huey helicopter during the Vietnam War?

Riding on an Army UH-1 “Huey” helicopter during the Vietnam War was a unique and intense experience that left a lasting impression on those who lived through it. Here’s a description based on accounts from veterans and historical sources:

The Approach

As a soldier approached the landing zone (LZ) to board the Huey, the first sensation was often the overwhelming noise. The distinct “whop-whop” of the rotor blades could be heard from a distance, growing louder as the helicopter approached. The downwash from the rotors kicked up dust and debris, and the thick smell of aviation fuel filled the air.

Boarding

Boarding a Huey was typically hurried and chaotic, especially in a combat zone. Soldiers, often weighed down by their gear and weapons, would quickly pile in. There were no luxuries; seating was on metal benches along the sides, or sometimes directly on the floor. The doors were usually open, providing an unobstructed view outside and a rush of wind once airborne.

Takeoff

The takeoff was quick and steep. The Huey would lift off the ground with a sense of urgency, sometimes swaying slightly as it gained altitude. The open doors meant soldiers could look straight down at the rapidly shrinking landscape. The vibrations from the rotors and the engine could be felt throughout the entire airframe.

In Flight

During the

flight, the noise was deafening. Communication among passengers was nearly impossible without shouting or using hand signals. The wind whipped through the open doors, and the ride could be rough, especially in turbulent weather or when taking evasive maneuvers to avoid enemy fire. The view was both awe-inspiring and terrifying, with the dense jungle, rice paddies, and winding rivers below.

The Landing

Landing in a hot LZ (an area under potential enemy fire) was particularly intense. The approach would be fast and steep, with the helicopter descending rapidly. Pilots often performed a “combat landing,” where the Huey would descend sharply and touch down quickly to minimize the time spent vulnerable to enemy fire. The sudden deceleration and jarring contact with the ground added to the adrenaline rush.

Disembarking

Once on the ground, soldiers would rapidly disembark, sometimes under fire. The urgency was palpable as they moved out to secure the area or head to their mission objectives. The Huey would not linger; as soon as the soldiers were clear, it would lift off again, often as quickly as it had landed.

Emotional Impact

The experience of riding in a Huey was a mix of fear, excitement, and camaraderie. The constant threat of enemy fire, combined with the raw power and mechanical presence of the helicopter, left a deep impression. For many, the sound of a Huey became synonymous with both the danger and the lifeline of their time in Vietnam.

Futurama – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

How many men were drafted for the Vietnam War and served on active duty in combat roles?

In 1966, before draft lottery, I was in a body cast from a car accident and had to drop out of school going to my sophomore year. I had a Rx for Darvon and Robaxin, pain killer and muscle relaxant. I was called for the draft physical and could not bend to touch my knees. I was told I would get a good physical at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Myself and a couple of hundred other kids from Pittsburgh were herded on to a train heading South.

I was given an open Rx on Darvon and Robaxin and put into basic training. I had to sleep on a board because a sagging bunk killed my back! I was also 20:400 vision and classified “non combat” arms. I was near legally blind.

Officers in combat in Vietnam did not last long and they needed officers. I tested out well and was offered Officer Candidate School. Why not? I was non combat arms.

Upon graduation, someone, without my knowledge, put me in for a wavier to be combat arms! I ended up with the First Cavalry in Vietnam, leading a platoon in jungle combat. I was exceptionally fortunate and made it home!

Most of my men were wounded at least once. I lost some in combat.

Because I only had one year of college, I was a Lieutenant at 20 years old. I doubt that would happen today! They just needed officers for combat rolls. Looking back, that is a lot of responsibility for a kid… leading 30 other kids in combat and having to make split second decisions and they had to be right or people died!

The draft was horrible and unfair and many died in an unnecessary war because of it! I was lucky and blessed with bonus days. Thank you Lord for giving me the opportunity of a full life!

What screams “I can fight”?

Our ship pulled into a fishing port to ride out a storm. A bunch of us went to a bar, that has a reputation as being dangerous, but there was little choice in town.

These are the type of towns where people stick up for each other and against outsiders. I have seen more than one brawl.

One guy who had been on our crew for years, and was the nicest guy, and the only one to wear fashionable clothes, and trim his beard, was up at the bar. He was getting beers for us, when he got into a yelling match with a guy at the bar. He must have looked like the weakest link. I don’t know what was said, but our shipmate kicked the other guy in the head, he didn’t fall, so he kicked him again, and then kicked him in the privates and he just crumbled, without throwing a punch.

Our shipmate didn’t look back and just brought our beers back to us. I don’t know why it happened, and I was a little upset that our shipmate struck the first blow, but watching a guy beat someone up, without spilling his beer, seemed to actually cool the mood in the bar. If the guy who looked like a dandy, can do that, they didn’t want to bother us. We finished up our beers, left a huge tip and left as a group, before anything else could happen.

I never asked him where he learned to fight, we sailed together for a couple more years, and I never saw him do it again.

The Coming Societal Breakdown of America with #PeterTurchin

Everyone knows that America has become a plutocracy.

What was the most satisfying thing that you saw happen to someone in your party who tried to get out of paying their part of the check at a restaurant?

At the culmination of a convivial evening filled with laughter and shared stories , the moment of reckoning arrived—the presentation of the bill . As each diner reached for their wallets , one individual , let ‘s call him Ethan , exhibited a peculiar reluctance . With a sheepish grin , he stammered excuses about having forgotten his wallet and being short on cash . The table grew silent , a palpable tension hanging in the air . The weight of Ethan ‘s attempted evasion fell heavily on the shoulders of his companions , who had generously covered his expenses throughout the evening . A chorus of voices rose in protest , each expressing their disappointment and frustration . Undeterred , Ethan doubled down on his excuses , claiming he had no other means of paying . The atmosphere grew increasingly acrimonious as the group debated whether to let Ethan off the hook or hold him accountable . Finally , our server , a woman with a steely gaze and a no-nonsense demeanor , intervened . She calmly informed Ethan that if he could not pay his portion , he would have to leave his ID and return to settle the bill at a later time . Ethan ‘s bravado crumbled before her unwavering gaze . With a heavy sigh , he retrieved his ID , his face flushed with embarrassment . As he made his sheepish exit , the table erupted in a mix of laughter and relief . Ethan ‘s attempt to avoid his financial responsibility had backfired spectacularly . Not only was he forced to face the consequences of his actions , but he also lost the respect of his companions . * * Engaging sentence : * * Discover more satisfying tales of accountability in the link in my bio , where karma reigns supreme and justice is served with a side of sweet retribution .

What is the most absent-minded thing you’ve done today?

Not today but a year ago.

I was tensed. I believe the stress had entered each of my nerves. I got to know something that was weird and unexpected. It had knocked the wind out of me.

People change I knew. But to this extent? I was unable to take it.

I felt deceived. Couldn’t sleep for the whole night. The next morning, I had to go for Covid Vaccination which I had scheduled long back. I couldn’t cancel it.

I was driving to the place which was 12 kilometres away from my home. I was lost in my own world though I was constantly convincing myself.

“Let people do what they want. If I don’t exist for them, they too don’t exist for me. I am happy with my child who gives me a goal. I don’t care about anyone now”, I kept telling this to myself while the tears were rolling down without listening to a word.

The road was straight and then, at one point, I had to turn right which I forgot. I kept on driving straight and took extra 6 kilometres. Suddenly, I realised I was completely in a new place.

With a lost mind, I asked the traffic police about the location and he told me that I had to take a U-turn to reach my destination.

I took.

However, that day I realised that some U-turns are never possible in real life. If you still try to take this U-turn, it will only lead you to miseries. So the sooner we adapt to change, the better we get.

Now, I have learnt to burn my anger in this flame.

The Matrix – 1950s Super Panavision 70

"The Matrix - 1950s Super Panavision 70 introduces a new take on the world's famous The Matrix Film. I attempted to give it that 1950s sound and feel. I hope you all enjoy."

United States military attacks Russian civilians enjoying a beach outing

Not Ukrainians. They were not operating the drone.

United States operated the drone out of the United States.

The command centers for the operation of the U.S. “Global Hawk” drones are primarily located at two key facilities:

1. Beale Air Force Base in California: Beale AFB is home to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, which operates the RQ-4 Global Hawk. This base plays a significant role in the command, control, and operational management of Global Hawk missions.

2. Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota: Grand Forks AFB hosts the 319th Reconnaissance Wing, which also operates and supports Global Hawk missions. This base provides operational support and command functions for the drones.

These command centers are responsible for coordinating and managing the flights, mission planning, data collection, and analysis of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Additionally, remote piloting stations can control the Global Hawks from various other locations, including forward-deployed sites and central command facilities.

And Russia knows this.

Let’s wind back and deconstruct.

An attack with U.S.-Supplied ATACMS missiles, by Ukraine, against civilians on a Beach in Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia has occurred.

Now, we find out that ATACMS could not get targeting coordinates because of Russian GPS Electronic Warfare Jamming, so targeting was apparently provided by a U.S. “Global Hawk” Drone.

It looks like United States military inside the United States targeted those Russian Civilians inside of Russia.

So the United States is actively fighting Russia.

No Ukrainians anywhere.

Russian Jamming of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) has been long underway near Crimea specifically to thwart Ukrainian attacks. The areas in red on the image above are where GPS signals CANNOT get through. So how did those ATACMS hit the target in Sevastopol?

Turns out there was a United States Air Force “Global Hawk” surveillance drone airborne, prior to – and during – the attack. It’s overlapping flight path is shown on the FlightRadar24 map below:

That “Global Hawk” drone can provide precise target coordinates, separate and distinct from GPS. Those coordinates could then be radioed to be programmed-into the HIMARS launcher, which fired the ATACMS missiles.

The evidence seems to indicate: The attack upon Russian civilians, on the beach in Sevastopol, appears to have been targeted with a United States Air Force Global Hawk drone, which relied on US Satellite data and communications to provide attack coordinates.

This appears to many people to have been an act of war by the United States, against Russian civilians.

…

This is NOT a trivial matter.

This is the kind of thing that starts nuclear missiles flying.

Southpark – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

“United States is pressuring the Netherlands to block the sale of EUV equipment to SMIC by Dutch company ASML is ultimately affecting China’s dream in technology”. How long US can resist China’s development?

The Chinese are the most industrious race on earth.

Necessity is the mother of Invention

The Chinese will find a way. The more you suppress them and the more you try to deny them the technology – they will begin to make it on their own and they will slowly do better and better.

Chips is the best example

As long as Taiwan kept supplying them the chips – The Chinese were happy. They focused on other things

The Minute Trump decided to threaten the Chinese – they decided to get their act together and start making their own chips. They will start with inferior ones but in 10 years – they will outmanufacture Taiwan at 1/3 the cost and take away the market.

And the businessmen will say – “Uigyurs???? Who gives a damn about them. My shareholders matter” and will migrate from Taiwan to China in 10 seconds.

The US may try again and again but

(a) They waited too long. China is too rich today. They have too much money.

(b) China has too many tentacles in foreign countries. Thousands of Chinese in various industries who are experts

In Space alone – China was behind India until 2010 – but today – they have their own Mapping System for their huge landmass as well as are in the position of becoming the Third country in the globe to land on Mars – having landed on the moon.

China and Russia are on the verge of building their own International Space Station having both the financial muscle and technology.

You cannot bully or intimidate or stifle Progress. Eventually Life finds a way.

US should learn this lesson hard. The more they try – they may get 10 years more but in the end China will get there and take over.

20 Things From The 1980s, We Can No Longer Do!

https://youtu.be/IVGJEB3u-wE

I just got fired. Now my former boss (the one who let me go) is asking me where some important documents are. How should I respond?

Don’t.

I worked for a corporation for about 15 years. Absolutely loved my work.

The thing about my job was that after your one and a half year training/supervison, you were able to choose your own work schedule, per the employee manual. You could work from home. You could work from overseas. You could work while sitting on your toilet. You could do your work from anywhere, anytime, so long as you met “production.” It was a dream position.

So, shortly after that year and a half of training, I eventually started working sometimes nights and sometimes weekends. Typically not during the day. Co-workers were a bit eccentric, off center, yet brilliant attorneys. I preferred my alone time, thank you.

I eventually took up residence in a different city. I typically had one of the highest production rates (sometimes highest) of all my fellow colleagues. All top-notch, well-educated colleagues, by the way. Loved them all.

Then, I started working at a law firm where I worked days. But I continually exceeded “production” for my initial company.

At around the 15 year mark, my two supervisors, who were very ineffectual (Peter Principle) at their positions (not even attorneys), discovered I was also working for a law firm.

I suspected they did not like me, for whatever reason. And they also did not like I had another job (not prohibited, per the employee manual).

In my last review, I received an “exceeds expectations.” A few days later, I was instructed to be in the office during “core business hours.” Core? I could never even figure out what “core” meant. Like I need to be in a hole?

Nothing in my job was of immediate import. In my position, people were not going to die or be executed, airplanes would not drop from the sky, pets would still be safe, families would remain intact, if I continued to work my own hours as I had for nearly 14 years. It was a fricking publishing job! I was not a first responder.

I tried to explain to them that the employee manual, which had not been changed, allowed me this, and also, I could not be in the office. I lived in a different city.

Ultimately, I was constructively terminated as I was unable to be in their office for “core business hours.” To the unemployment office (I had to file a claim despite having a new employer), they claimed I had quit, so that they would not need to pay unemployment in the event my other employment did not work. Surprisingly, they won. Unreal. I did not quit. I loved that job.

Fast forward to awhile later. They contacted me needing pertinent information related to my position. Information only I possessed. Rather costly information at that. And I had it for years. Noone else needed it. None of my esteemed colleagues had access to this information.

I never replied.

Turns out, and I heard this from a former colleague, they were both terminated shortly after my departure and their request for information. I cannot speculate as to the reason. But, who cares why? Karma’s a bitch.

Never, ever give a crap employer any assistance after you have been terminated. Employees are so expendable, so never give them the luxury of your experience, knowledge and expertise. Don’t even waste time replying.

However, if you do choose to reply, which I did not, charge them exorbitant fees for your services. Very exorbitant.

Good luck to you. You will also find a much better position.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – 1950s Super Panavision 70

What is the most extreme example of ‘Cold Feet’ you’ve seen from a bride or groom on their wedding day?

Picture a full church of well dressed people waiting for the bride to walk up the aisle.

There is a nervous idiot, me, waiting at the front of the church for her. It was a super quick engagement and I basically asked her to marry me on our first date (very smooth, I know). She is 8 years younger than me and, no exaggeration, a movie star gorgeous blond, so far out of my league that people are mystified by how she could be remotely attracted to me.

I’m not happy on the big day, I’m scared to death that she will realize she is about to make the worst mistake of her life.

All of sudden from the back of the church I hear her crying hysterically. Crap, I knew it. I’m not even surprised. I don’t blame her and it’s not her fault, it’s mine for rushing her.

A few awkward moments minutes that felt like hours passed. Suddenly she and her Dad appeared and they start walking up the aisle toward me. Her dad convinced her that her tears were just nerves and she should go ahead and marry the unemployed guy that had big dreams but was living in his brother’s basement.

We’ve been happily married 33 years now.

[P. S. I should add that I did start and now run a successful multimillion dollar company and have tried to pay my sweet wife back by providing her with what she has described as a fairy tale life :-)]

Collective Soul – ‘Shine’ – Live At The PrintShop

How does the USA balance being a rival of China with reliance on China for being the biggest economy and trade partner in the world?

China sees through the US that it cannot do without China hence it cannot play ball with China without harming itself tremendously. China do not need the US. In any way at all. US as a market is now is a mere 12% of the world market and dropping very fast. China is not keen to keep US dollars post Ukraine war. Hence if the US stop buying and selling with China, it won’t miss a heart beat.

The faster the US decouple with China the faster China can move against the US openly and effectively! Only brain dead westerners thinks China needs the US. The biggest market for Chinese goods is actually East Asia, followed by ASEAN followed by rest of Asia then Latin America and Africa, then Russia and its European friends such as Serbia and Hungary, then comes Rest of EU and then North America!

That explains why China grew 5.3% in spite of the shit that the US and Anglo cousins and EU dogs did to China! But by blocking out China it is indeed losing the rest of the world’s market! What the US is left with is a fading and now insignificant west! After a 3 generation of abusing and bully the global south they are all lining up with the BRICS to take revenge on the US!

And meanwhile the US has increased its cost so artificially high yet its efficiency so unbelievably low to the point that doing any thing on its own is impossible to sell even to Yanks themselves! For example if the apple iPhone were to be made in the USA it will have to be sold at 5000 bucks! On EV’s most brain dead Yanks do not even know the ridiculousness of Elon Musk 5.1 billion bonus request means American are going to pay for it by 5000 bucks increase in their Tesla!

If the US has any sense it needs to cement its position of being China’s right hand man but it is not humble enough nor does it have common sense. The US needs China badly, without them the US will fall into a deep recession and suffers a double digit inflation for half a century! China holds all the cards while the US is a like a hopeless screaming dog!

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy is popular all over America. It’s a staple dish on diner menus.

Yield: 6 servings, 2 biscuits each

Ingredients

Biscuits

3 cups self-rising soft wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Butter, melted

Sausage Gravy

1 pound breakfast sausage (mild or hot)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/4 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt or seasoned salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/8 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Instructions

Bisicuits

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly.
Add buttermilk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 4 or 5 times.
Roll dough to 3/4 inch thickness; cut with a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Bake at 425 degrees F for 12 minutes or until golden.
Brush tops with butter.
Split biscuits open; serve with Sausage Gravy.

Sausage Gravy

Brown sausage in a skillet, stirring until it crumbles.
Drain, reserving 1 tablespoon drippings in skillet. Set sausage aside.
Add butter to drippings; heat over low heat until butter melts.
Add flour, stirring until smooth. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Gradually add milk; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly.
Stir in seasonings and sausage. Cook until thoroughly heated, stirring constantly.

Notes

This recipe is easily doubled.

Family Guy – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

This is one of the better ones.

Have you, while repairing a computer, ever found anything that made your jaw drop?

Not me, the company from which we bought the computer.

We were a start-up providing hosting and ISP services in 1996. We’ve purchased a custom-built server from a renown company. I don’t remember the exact details, but must have costed in the range of 1500–2000 USD.

It worked for a couple of months no problems and then suddenly just failed. The lights were on, whatever was on screen at that time was still there, but the computer stopped responding to anything. Even powering down didn’t work. We’ve eventually completely unplugged it and tried to plug in again, but the computer wasn’t starting anymore (we could only hear the power supply fan).

The computer went back to the supplier. They’ve opened it (obviously we haven’t touched anything, the manufacturer’s seals were intact) and in place where there should be a CPU there was a hole. Not just the majority of the CPU was missing, but a hole went through the motherboard as well. The CPU literally melted. Completely. On further examination the supplier found that the CPU wasn’t properly put in the socket, one of the pins was bent and that most probably was the cause of the short-circuit that led to melting. They’ve tried to blame us for incorrect assembling the computer, but we;d reminded them we’d purchased an already assembled computer and the seals they’d put on it were intact. They eventually very hesitantly accepted their liability.

I can imagine the hole in place of the CPU must have been quite a shocking find.

What is the official justification for China to claim the South China Sea? I’m not talking about strategic reasons.

China has ancient historical record since 230 AD. Some records are official. Some are not & was prepared by fishermen themselves (they are in a museum now).

On some of the islands/shoals in SCS, there were Chinese landmarks. Like these days, China put a landmark on the moon to prove China has landed on the moon.

China even named many of SCS islands/reefs.

People do not recognise Chinese historical record which, they said, it is 1-sided. Not internationally recognised. Fair enough.

Let us talk about modern-day & international record then.

During WW2, Japan occupied lots of SCS islands/reefs. After defeat, Japan must returned all SCS islands to the rightful country like China. US warships accompanied China to reclaim the SCS islands in 1947.

China went by its historical record & drew the 11-dash line. China published & announced its map to the world in Feb 1948. No country objected to it at the time. That is why we can find the 11-dash in the old maps of many countries eg USA, UK, Russia & more. Even Philippines.

The 11-dash is an international record, agree?

There was a civil war in China. CPC defeated the then ruling party KMT in 1949.

KMT was a US puppet but not CPC. … that led to US robbery of SCS islands/reefs by driving a wedge among SCS countries against China.

In 1967, USA announced there is oil/gas under SCS. Robbery officially started.

That is why there is tension in SCS from the point of robbery. Not strategic.

Scooby Doo – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

So much fun! This is five stars!

As a police officer, what’s the most disturbing thing you’ve ever experienced?

Before training as nurse, I was a former cop. My husband was a cop for over 30 years. His most harrowing experience occurred one Christmas Eve.

There was a horrific wreck involving a wrong way driver where a young mother and her two daughters were killed. The crash was so intense that there were were mangled pieces of body parts on the road and in the totaled and burned vehicles.

As a normal procedure, my husband and a fellow officer made the casualty call to the home of the family of the woman. The husband/father answered the door, ushered them in, and they proceeded to tell him what had happened. The heartbroken man could barely speak as he realized he had lost his wife and daughters. Then he asked, “What about my baby boy?” There was no evidence of a baby involved in the wreck.

The officers then went to the wrecker yard where the smashed vehicles had been taken. In the floorboards of the woman’s car was what had been assumed was a doll, burned black by the intense heat of the crash and resultant fire. It was the little boy’s body.

After a long night working the most exhausting, painful, mind wrenching experience of his long career, he came home just in time to play Santa to our 4 year old daughter and our own baby boy. His tears as he held his children were heartbreaking.

My family comes from a long line of military members. Many experience PTSD from horrific experiences over a 1 or 2 year or several deployments. Our career police officers suffer through years, even decades, of witnessing events that the average person will never know the horror of. They see raped children who have been torn open. They see battered wives whose eyeballs are laying on their cheeks, they see the worst of humanity yet are expected to be perfect in every way. They come straight from the funeral of a colleague who has been murdered and are expected to be cordial and patient with dirtbags who are disrespectful of any authority, who has attempted to kill them as well, and who fit the MO of the killer of their fellow officer. They are often not able to talk about it or to seek therapy for to do so could affect their careers.

My son, a military veteran, is now a career police officer. I pray for him every day. God bless our men in women in blue and keep them safe.

BLUE LIVES MATTER.

When the “parody” surpasses the original

Are the current size and data of China’s economy real? Why do some professional economics media believe that China’s economic data is underestimated?

There is indeed such a view.

The Economist has conducted surveys and research, and they believe that China’s GDP (PPP) alone is underestimated by $1.4 trillion.

I checked the relevant data. In 2021, China’s GDP (PPP) was $28.82 trillion, and the United States was $23.59 billion. China is 122% of the United States. If the Economist’s survey is correct, it means that China’s real data is $3.022 trillion, which is 128% of the United States.

China’s economic model retains a dangerous allure

Despite the country’s current struggles, autocrats elsewhere see a lot to admire

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/06/03/chinas-economic-model-retains-a-dangerous-allure

**The Economist has their own basis**

They obtained a lot of professional data from some professional institutions in the United States, which were not originally for economic services. For example, this table is a data from the United States Geological Survey, which lists China’s production and global share of key metals and manufactured products.

In addition, they also obtained data from the power industry, industrial manufactured products, shipbuilding, McDonald’s sales data, and many other data. And these non-economic data are aggregated together to analyze and count the economic scale of China and the United States in another way.

The Economist pointed out the flaws in China’s official GDP statistical method: the Chinese do not consider the service industry to be part of GDP.

For example, in the United States and Europe, many industries that do not produce “products” such as house rent, legal advice, R&D investment, child care, etc. are part of GDP, and they count GDP through expenditure.

But in China, they only count the real economy.

A company must produce cars, toys, clothing or software, food. Farmers or fishermen must produce rice and fish. They sell these things to earn income before they are included in GDP.

Small and medium-sized service industries are usually not counted. If a barbershop provides a haircut, a car wash cleans your car, or you rent your house to a young couple, these economic activities are not considered part of GDP and are almost never counted. (Unless you are a large enterprise with hundreds of shops or dozens of houses)

**”Asia Times” also conducted a similar survey**

World Bank researchers visited 16,000 stores in China alone to collect price data. The latest ICP assessment collected data in 2021, four years after the 2017 survey. The conclusion is that China’s GDP is underestimated by nearly $2 trillion.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was not satisfied with the results and downplayed them, saying “we need to interpret the entire result carefully and correctly grasp the global economic landscape and the status of each economy”, while emphasizing that China is still a “developing economy”.

“Asia Times” believes that China’s economic data has been manipulated intentionally or unintentionally. But contrary to some reports, they believe that China is deliberately suppressing the data.

“China’s PPP GDP is only 25% higher than the US? Come on guys… who are we kidding? Last year, China produced twice as much electricity, 12.6 times as much steel, and 22 times as much cement. Its shipyards account for more than 60% of world production. In 2023, China produced 30.2 million cars, almost three times the US’s 10.6 million. In fact, China’s consumer goods market is several times larger than the US in almost all aspects”

The World Bank survey believes that China’s GDP and PPP GDP are underestimated because of the incomplete transformation of China’s national accounts material product system (MPS), which does not include services by design. The World Bank may do its due diligence and find that China’s consumption of goods is several times that of the US, but its consumption of services is only a small fraction of that of the US, which is very unreasonable.

This is most evident in the Chinese auto market, where OEMs have either cut prices to rock bottom ($17,000 from $42,000 for the Hyundai Sonata) or offered cutting-edge technology at a low price ($14,000 for the BYD Q plug-in hybrid electric vehicle with 2,000 km range). Solar panel prices fell 50% in 2023 and continue to trend downward in 2024. CATL has announced plans to cut lithium-ion battery prices in half by the end of 2024.

Restaurants offer white glove service, such as hot towels, lotions by the sink, and stylish decor. Barbers offer bottled water and fruit plates. Tech companies have slashed the price of large language models (LLMs) to essentially free. The quality of service in China is hard to quantify, but it is now far superior to that in the West, and perhaps even Japan.

Are American healthcare and universities twice as good as they were in 2000? If American families had not received vastly improved health care, education, housing, and child care over the past two decades, inflation would have been systematically understated, and GDP growth would have actually been less than 1% per year (rather than 2%), equivalent to stagnation at a population growth rate of 0.8% per year. This probably explains much of the popular anger and the breakdown of American politics.

China’s material-centric GDP is probably a better measure of the economy’s relationship to living standards, especially since the UN Commission on National Accounts has apparently lost its mind and formally recommended including things like drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, and theft in GDP.

The US spends $1 trillion per year on defense (including intelligence and energy department programs) and has reduced the size of the US Navy, while China has built the world’s largest navy with the largest number of ships on a budget of $236 billion.

Likewise, analysts who lament that China accounts for 30% of the world’s manufacturing output but only 13% of household consumption are dead wrong. China actually accounts for 20-40% of global demand for almost all consumer goods, but most of the services it consumes are not included in the national accounts.

So how much is it? How big is the Chinese economy? About six months ago, it was estimated that China’s GDP would increase by 25-40% if calculated according to UNSNA.

2001: A Space Odyssey – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

Have you ever moved to a small village that was just plain strange and filled with weird residents?

Oh, yes!

Seven years ago my husband and I moved to this delightful retirement village. It has, give or take, 184 residents, most of whom are in their 80’s and 90’s, and all of whom the outside world would consider very weird indeed. They seem to live in a time warp, where everyone is kind and decent, caring for their neighbour. There’s no rubbish thrown down, no chewing gum spat onto the pavements to besmirch one’s shoes. Everyone drives at the manadatory 10 miles an hour within the village. No one gets drunk at the bar. Merry perhaps, at some celebration, but screaming and fighting is a big “no,no”. No one swears, that’s impolite in front of the ladies!

They talk about the Empire and WW2 and their roles in that war. They are proud, too proud sometimes to mention they are “not feeling too good”, as they don’t want to trouble anyone with their problems. They don’t mention it, if their children rarely bother to turn up. Nor do other, luckier ones, mention their regular weekly visits from their children. “ One doesn’t want to hurt another’s feelings, you know”!

If you want to join in all the many and varied pursuits, run mainly by the residents themselves, then you are made very welcome. If not and you prefer to stay in your little bungalow that day, that’s fine also. No one will intrude upon your privacy, unless invited to do so. A phone call, on occasion, perhaps, just to see if you’re OK.

As my 93 year old my husband said, not long before he died, “We’ve returned to the world we knew – our world. We’re so fortunate not having to cope with that world out there, which many of us simply don’t really understand”! I echo his words in my heart every day.

The Flintstones – 1950’s Super Panavision 70

Love this.

How on earth did the Unabomber evade capture for nearly 20 years, despite the costliest FBI investigation in history?

It was a combination of many things that made Ted Kaczynski so elusive.

A few of them:

He was (and still is) extremely intelligent; A genius, by anyone’s measure.
He was willing to go to extreme lengths to conceal his identity (not only building his bombs from scratch — often he used wood, gathered from states far from where he lived, and then hand-whittled). He always built the individual parts of each bomb from scratch, by hand, even if it took many months to construct the raw materials using antique tools, or using tools he actually made himself. He vacuumed everything. He was meticulous, and often spent more than a year to build a single bomb.
He was willing to go “off the grid” and live an uncomfortable lifestyle, to outwit any investigation. This included living in remote woods, in a tiny cabin with no address, no electricity, no running water, did not own a car, no credit cards, no driver’s license. He left no signature, and only a handful of people knew he even existed. (Of course, that happened to fit in and coincide with his motive for committing these crimes… He was the ultimate “Luddite.”)
He was willing to devote incredible efforts to delivering each device, taking a bus from Montana to California and paying cash, and dropping the packages off at quiet postal dropoffs, with stamps already attached (no licking, of course).
He followed the press about his bombings, and was willing to change up his habits when necessary, to avoid capture. He would even travel to another state to find a grocery bag to wrap a bomb in — that is determination.
He basically devoted his entire life during that period to his bombings, and to eluding capture — with no real social life, and only occasional drop-in visits to his local small town library to read the news about the manhunt to find him — a library which he walked to.

Frans and Marie

Submitted into Contest #252 in response to: Make a character’s obsession or addiction an important element of your story.… view prompt

Thom With An H

The Transporter Museum, a forgotten relic, is inconveniently located on a deserted side street two turns off a dead-end alley. You might never find it, even by accident, but if you do, you’ll always remember its immaculate displays and its eccentric proprietor, Frans Messerschmitt.Every day precisely at nine, the little old man illuminated the neon sign, flipped the placard to open, and made his way behind the counter, prepared for customers who rarely came.It was already late in the day when the door opened, surprising both Frans and the visitors.“Hello, is anybody there?”The question startled Frans, interrupting his terminal boredom.“Yes. Yes, please come in,” he answered, moving forward to greet his guests. The unexpected voice belonged to a handsome lad sporting sweatpants and a football jersey, followed closely by a pretty young coed in a letterman’s jacket.“It’s almost impossible to find this place,” the boy mentioned, all the while looking at the meticulously cared-for exhibits. “Are we in time for the guided tour?”The question struck Frans as funny. It had been months since his last visitor, so the tours relied on guests, not the other way around.“Of course, my good man,” he answered, sauntering from behind the counter. “My name is Frans and I’m the owner and resident historian. I’d be glad to give you the nickel tour, and I won’t even charge you the nickel.”

“Fan-damn-tastic! My name is Billy, and this is Connie. We’ve really been looking forward to this. Where do we start?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Frans replied, beckoning the couple to follow. “You’ve lived your whole lives in a time where teleportation from one side of the world to another was the norm—in fact, there’s about to be an app for that!” Frans turned their attention towards a smartphone sitting on display. “Before the end of the year, the new ZapApp will be available, offering skin-touch technology for the first time. All you’ll need to do is enter the desired coordinates, activate the app, and, in seconds—Voila!”

“Wow,” Billy exclaimed, reaching for the phone.

“Please don’t,” Frans cautioned. “These are replicas and can be easily damaged.”

“I hear ya, Gramps,” Billy responded, “Oh, I’m sorry. No disrespect intended, sir.”

“Not at all,” Frans replied. “I’ve always wanted a nickname. I like the sound of Gramps. Now if you follow me, I’ll lead you both back in time.”

The next display contained a full-length mirror attached to the wall. “I’m sure you two know what this is,” Frans said, stepping aside and allowing Billy and Connie to see. “These teleportation devices are still the most commonly used today. They were part of a trend to make teleportation more accessible and less obtrusive. They were also the first devices that didn’t require an exit portal. Until the Mirror 360, you could only travel to locations with paired devices. Needless to say, it was revolutionary.”

“That’s just like yours,” Connie whispered to Billy, punctuating her remark with a kiss on his cheek. “What’s next, Mr. Frans?”

“Gramps,” Frans corrected her with a chuckle. “Next we see the machine that started it all, The Marie.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Billy said. “Wow, it’s huge!”

“I know,” Frans agreed. “When the technology was new, we hadn’t yet perfected the art of miniaturization. There were no personal teleportation devices. The only people who had access were scientists, investors, and celebrities. In fact, the first transporters were more gimmicky than useful. They were incredibly expensive, required an entrance and exit port, and were so inefficient that it took a full day’s charge to send someone from one place to another. There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way since then.”

“What about that one?” Billy asked, pointing to a machine partially hidden by a curtain.

“Oh, that one,” Frans sighed. “That’s the prototype. The first teleportation device.”

“That’s the original?” Billy asked, moving closer to get a better look. “Is the legend true?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Frans replied. “The machine was the brainchild of a pair of scientists not much older than the two of you. They were the first to prove light was a particle and that we could use it as a mechanism for distance teleportation. The early tests were extremely successful. There were no issues when sending inanimate objects or small animals from one pod to another. The problem occurred when they tried transporting a human. Marie begged to be first and, after winning a game of Rochambeau, she stepped into the entrance pod and disappeared on cue. But when her partner activated the exit pod, everything went terribly wrong. Marie never fully rematerialized. Her translucent hand simply reached forward, and she mouthed the word help. Then she faded away.”

“Oh my God!” Connie gasped. “Did he save her?”

Frans turned away from the question, paused, then finally answered. “No, he didn’t. You see, molecular displacement teleportation in its infancy was like sending something through a tunnel at light speed. Once entering a pod, the subject can only exit from the paired terminal port.”

“That’s tragic,” Connie said, wiping away a tear.

“And ironic.” Frans replied.

“How so?”

“After the colossal mishap, her partner spent the better part of twenty years trying to find a way to release Marie from her tunnel. He became obsessed with correcting his mistake. His research and technological breakthroughs are directly responsible for almost every advancement in teleportation technology. That first awful outcome is why molecular transportation is so incredibly safe today. It’s why you have a Mirror 360 hanging on the wall in your home.”

“But Marie—what happened to her?” Connie asked.

“All of her partner’s research and all of his calculations never changed Marie’s fate.”

“She’s trapped forever?”

“She would be, unless he destroyed the machine and released her molecules into the atmosphere, never to be reassembled again.”

“What did he…”

“It’s almost closing time,” Frans said, interrupting Connie before she could finish the question. “Thanks for coming. You two made an old man very happy today.”

“This has been the best tour ever, Gramps.” Billy proclaimed. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Frans answered, shaking Billy’s hand. “Just promise to send your friends.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, leading Connie out the door. “I’m sure we’ll be back soon.”

“You’re always welcome.”

Frans watched as the couple walked away. Then, being that it was precisely five, he locked the door, changed the placard to closed, and turned off the neon sign.

Alone once again, Frans returned to the machine behind the curtain, flipped a few switches, and watched as Marie’s translucent figure, forever young, appeared before him.

“Frans, are you there?” Marie mouthed, silently.

“I’m here, my love. I’ll always be here.”

“I’m so afraid,” she responded. “Please let me go.”

“I can’t,” Frans replied, ashamed of his weakness.

Marie’s eyes grew red, but she summoned the strength to place her hand on her heart and mouth the words I love you. Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.

Heartbroken, Frans turned to walk upstairs, counting the minutes until he could see his love again, if only for a moment, the next day at the exact same time.

Whipping Cream Biscuits

A two-ingredient recipe for some of the best biscuits you will ever eat! If all you have is all-purpose flour, never fear; we give you instructions for making it into self-rising flour.

Bake: 10 min | Yield: 8 biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Instructions

Bisicuits

In a large bowl, combine the flour and cream. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface; knead for 5 minutes or until no longer sticky. Roll dough to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 2 1/2 inch biscuits.
Place in a large ungreased cast iron or other ovenproof skillet. Bake at 450 degrees F until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.

Notes

* If you don’t have self-rising flour, add 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt to 2 cups all-purpose flour. As a substitute for each cup of self-rising flour, place 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup.

Forgotten Restaurants From The 1970s, We Want Back!

Such memories. I forgot about these places, but once I watched the video, I sure as heck remembered them.

https://youtu.be/dZLdey9V3qo

Re:interest payments

As long as the American dollars are acceptable as currency in most of the world it's fine.

When usd is no longer considered valuable between non us parties they will have to buy things in the US triggering the long awaited us hyper inflation. A crazy amount of usd circulates in the world, particularly in 100 usd paper bills, so when it comes home it'll overturn the us economy. It's already felt in the stock market and housing market with ancillary effects in retail goods.


But when the usd becomes worthless for non us transactions, like because of sanctions that's when it'll go crazy in a self reinforcing doom loop.

At the moment it's manageable it'll be a few years or more before it becomes critical. I'd look for China refusing usd for its manufactured good as the tipping point


Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jun 23 2024 17:45 utc | 14

What made Ivan “the terrible” so terrible?

he term “terrible” comes from the Russian word “grozny,” which is better translated as “formidable” or “awe-inspiring.”

But Ivan did some pretty terrible things too.

His father, Grand Prince Vasily III, died when Ivan was just three, and his mother, Elena Glinskaya, served as regent until her mysterious death when Ivan was eight.

It’s suspected she was poisoned, which wasn’t uncommon in the Russian court.

As he grew older, Ivan developed a dark streak.

He crowned himself the first Tsar of All Russia in 1547, aiming to centralize power and assert absolute control.

In his early reign, he showed promise, implementing legal reforms, establishing a standing army, and expanding Russian territories.

But this honeymoon period didn’t last.

Things took a dark turn with the death of his beloved wife, Anastasia Romanovna, in 1560.

Her death shattered Ivan, and he spiraled into paranoia and madness, suspecting everyone of treason.

He believed she was poisoned, which might have been true, considering the court’s track record.

Enter the Oprichnina, Ivan’s own personal reign of terror.

In 1565, he divided Russia into two parts: the Oprichnina, directly under his control, and the Zemshchina, ruled by the boyars (nobles).

The Oprichnina was essentially a state within a state, where Ivan’s secret police, the Oprichniki, roamed.

These guys were like medieval KGB, dressed in black, riding black horses, and carrying out Ivan’s brutal orders.

The Oprichniki spread terror through the land, confiscating properties, executing supposed traitors, and crushing any opposition.

One of the most infamous event was the sacking of Novgorod in 1570.

Suspecting the city of treason, Ivan ordered a brutal massacre.

Thousands were tortured and killed, and the city was left in ruins.

In a fit of rage, Ivan famously killed his own son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, in 1581.

The story goes that he struck his son with a staff during an argument, a blow that proved fatal.

Did getting revenge on someone make you feel better? Why or why not?

I was moslested by three older boys when I was 9 or 10 years old.

It happened on three separate occasions for a total of approximately 3 hours.

I was already a quiet introverted child and this pushed me even futher into my own mind.

I suffered for years with bed wetting, nightmares, and it damaged my sexual psyche , giving me trust and intimacy issues.

I saw child psychologists for years and eventually though that my parents got to know about it.

My first suicide attempt was at the age of 12, when I dropped from a tree branch deliberately into the path of a car. The car swerved, missed me and ploughed through a wodden fence.

The driver jumped out of the car to see if I was ok, I approached the car and saw there was no-one else there, then ran away.

I still feel bad about that, not seeing if he was Ok and not facing the consequences.

There have been 6 suicide attempts since, 3 of which I have woken from in hospital, dissapointed that it was not over.

Those biys who took my childhood were all brothers, sons of the next door neighbours of my Aunt & Uncle.

When I was 17 and they were between 21 and 25 I tracked them all down- it wasnt difficult, they all lived in the same town.

I took a baseball bat to each of them one at a time all in one night, broke arms legs fingers.

None of them recognised me, not one. I pulled back my balaclava to stare them directly in the face, these monsters that took my childhood, the driving force that had defined me good or bad.

I realised later that night, drunk and broken that what for me was unforgettable was exactly that, not just forgettable but forgotten.

After that, no nightmares not a singe one, and the other issues that I had been battling with in therapy for years resolved themselves. The healing didnt happen over night, but it did begin to happen.

From being powerless, I was powerful. I can’t begin to explain how good, how alive I felt.

I will never regret that night.

Yummy

Independence Day in 1950’s – Super Panavision 70

Fun, too short, though.

What did you find while snooping that you wish you had never found?

In the early part of 1999, my older sister and I were playing in front of our grandparents’ house. I was 9 years old and my sister was 13. I think we were rollerblading up and down the driveway. Having fun outside!

In the midst of innocent play, we needed to get something from the back of my grandma’s vehicle. I don’t remember what it was we were getting,

But, I do remember what we found.

We found a journal and it was in my grandma’s handwriting. Intrigued, we began reading what appeared to be notes…

Notes about my mother and her behavior…and her lack of parenting abilities.

During this year, my grandparents had taken myself and my two siblings into their home. They had both just retired and they did this not just out of love and selflessness, but out of necessity.

My mother had been extremely neglectful of us. She was literally not feeding us, we were unbathed, our heads were infested (always) with head lice, we rarely went to school, and we had no clothes or even a bed. Her boyfriend was abusive to us in many ways as well. This all happened while my father was incarcerated.

So, back to that journal.

In the journal, my grandma had been taking notes of how my mom would be late for visitation, how she wouldn’t show up sometimes, or how she was just not even attempting to be motherly. It was very thorough and even time stamped. Basically, my grandma logged all interactions with my mom. And she was doing this I’m guessing for the court, because they were trying to get custody of us.

But, the one thing that I remember reading was how my mom called my grandma one afternoon and offered to sell all three of us to them.

Yep.

She said she wouldn’t fight for us in the courts, if my grandma gave her $200 for us. And they could have us.

That’s about $66 and some change for us each.

Pretty good deal, right?

We stopped reading the journal after seeing that. But, it always stuck with me.

I never asked my grandma about it. I never asked my mom about it either. I’m sure they didn’t accept her offer and simply shared this information about her with the judge in the custody case.

They did get custody over all three of us.

We had a wonderful life with my grandparents. We really did. I owe everything I am to them.

And I have always known my mom wasn’t exactly ever going to be motherly. I’ve accepted that.

But, I still wish I had never read what I read that day.

My mom basically attempted to sell us. And not even for a lot of money. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.

USD

US Dollar is expensive because Treasuries pay the highest interest rate of major currencies - not a good sign.

data from April:

10Y Bond Country

0.862% ... Japan

2.286% ...| China

2.432% ... Germany

2.952% ...| France

3.773% .../ Canada

3.847% ...| Italy

4.288% ... U.K.

4.631% ... U.S.A.

Posted by: Exile | Jun 23 2024 17:08 utc | 8

Detroit’s Mark Twain Library, which was closed in 1996 for renovations and never reopened.

main qimg 15ec6de6c57763cbe81746aa4138be6f

The fascist terrorist US provoked a war in Ukraine and they tried to provoke the war between China and Taiwan to enrich MIC. Almost all war crimes are due to the US. Will wars stop when the US econmy collapses in 1-2 years?

True, it is not a secret that USA instigated 201 wars out of 287 around the globe because MIC makes money thru wars.

US politicians who have bought MIC stocks also want wars.

Other than thru war & arms sale, one thing that supports war is US monetary hegemony.

It is the US monetary hegemony ie USD that supports USA’s vast military spending around the globe.

So, you are correct, once US economy collapses and/or dedollarisation is in full force, USA cannot afford so many wars.

When will US economy collapse, nobody knows.

Dedollarisation is in progress as of 2024. But, it will take awhile before dedollarisation is in full force. No country wants it to go too too fast. Because USA can do a lot of harm to the globe when it is desperate & has gone insane.

As a side note, USA has waged a monetary-financial war in Asia a month or 2 ago, but failed. The only one that was hit hard was Japan because Japan is a US puppet. All non US puppets survived this round of financial crisis quite well.

The eerie yellow brick road of abandoned Land of Oz theme park in North Carolina

main qimg 5d6083b1f02c7cda3e8c8bfcab72b84a

Peter Lee

Peter Lee has been providing regular coverage of tensions in the South China Sea on his China Threat Report on Patreon. He describes the current manufacturing of a flashpoint between China and Philippines - in the works for some years now - as “the biggest US government gaslighting operation since the Bush administration sold the Iraq invasion in 2002.”

He points out that the simplistic U.S. narrative, describing China as an aggressive and expansionist power, entirely ignores the primary document governing relations between all parties on South China Sea issues:

Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (2002)

https://asean.org/declaration-on-the-conduct-of-parties-in-the-south-china-sea-2/

As convincingly argued by Lee, it has been, in fact, the Philippines which has breached this agreement, particularly in regards to dispute resolution and the maintenance of a status quo since 2002. The exact opposite is being loudly insisted in the western media and foreign policy circles, to the extent that the most hawkish voices are demanding immediate implementation of US-Philippines mutual defence agreements lest there be an appearance of “weakness”.

Posted by: jayc | Jun 23 2024 18:13 utc | 22

Buttermilk Brown Sugar and Bacon Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar, + more for dusting (if desired)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
3 slices cooked, crisp bacon, crumbled
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup buttermilk

Instructions

Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and bacon until evenly mixed.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter until the pieces of butter are the size of small peas.
Add buttermilk and stir until the dough is uniformly moistened.
On a lightly floured surface, bring the dough together and roll to approximately 3/4 inch thickness. Fold, envelope style, and roll again. If necessary, fold and roll again until the dough is smooth and uniform.
Cut biscuits and bake for 11 to 15 minutes until tops are golden.
If desired, brush tops with butter and sprinkle with additional brown sugar.

What is the most shameless thing you have ever seen a teacher do?

This is not really a funny story, except for the karma aspect of it. I was a senior in college, taking a class called instrumental methods of analysis. It is the final chemistry class before graduation. Three hours a week of lecture, plus two, five hour labs each week. Each lab required a 15–20 page lab report and a computer program to analyze our data. Through the first 12 (of 26) lab I had a perfect score on each lab report. Then I got into an argument with the lab teacher after he a lab where we were analyzing the contents of an aspirin, caffeine and phenacetin tablet. Except the APC tablets were removed from the market and so we analyzed acetaminophen, caffeine, phenacetin tablet. The procedure should have be rewritten to account for acetaminophen’s differing absorption spectrum. But our professor was to lazy to do that, telling us to just do the lab as written and explain the bad results. Instead, I ran to the library, found a way to do the experiment properly, and asked my prof. for permission to try it. At first he said yes, but only if you can get someone else to supervise you if it runs long. I did, and got started. He wandered in at 6 and told me to clean up and go home so he could go home for supper. I reminded him of our deal and he lost his shit on me. Finally in frustration, I told him that if he wanted to give me mediocre teaching, I’d give him mediocre work, like the rest of the class. Suddenly he stopped returning our graded work. I assumed I’d get the same C as most of the class, but got a final grade of F, meaning I’d have to spend an extra year in college to retake the class. I tried to arrange retaking the class in the summer at another university. He refused to consider any other class, telling me I was just like his teenage son and we both needed to be taught a lesson. I set up a meeting with our dean in which the prof. told us that he’d fail the entire senior class before he’d pass me. I had already been accepted into a prestigious graduate program and gotten a commitment for four years of funding. I called my grad. school dean. I don’t know exactly what was said between deans, but my undergrad dean called me in and said that they had arranged for me to retake the class alongside my regular grad. classes and transfer the credit back. They also said that the prof. who failed me would not be allowed to stop this deal.

Next summer I returned to my undergrad. school and met with the dean. He asked me to describe how the lab worked at Northwestern. He listened to me describe how differently NU did the labs, focused on designing experiments, learning how lab equipment works and how to use it effectively and creatively. And most of all, instead of wasting time rewriting our text and calling it lab reports we took oral exams while discussing the lab. The dean was so impressed that he promised to force my prof. to rewrite his labs so students wouldn’t just be going through the motions and writing lab reports. I heard through the grapevine that it helped the program and forced my former prof. to do a boatload of work revamping all 26 labs. All in all a pretty horrible experience with a petty and lazy prof, that turned out well in the end because I got to leave the school better than I found it via “instant karma.”

STAR TREK ACID PARTY: PHASE II

This is odddddddddd…….

Do you know anyone where the husband/father did the old “I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes”, and just took off and disappeared?

Yes. In 1984 my then husband went out to the store one Sunday morning to buy a loaf of bread. He never returned. He was a self-employed travel agent, so I assumed he had run into someone who needed travel advice and had lingered. This had happened before. That evening I was bathing our two children and went into his drawer in the bathroom for the nail scissors, and the drawer was empty! I looked in our closet and many of his things were gone. I looked in our storage room and my newest suitcase, a birthday gift, was gone. Monday morning I called his business partner and told him that husband had not come home. Business partner got worried and discovered husband had written himself an airline ticket back to his home country. He had also cashed himself a cheque on the company for many thousands of dollars. My father got the idea to go to the airport parking lot and retrieved our family vehicle.

I called my in-laws in his home country and they confirmed that yes, they were expecting their son for a visit. I told them what had happened and they hung up on me.

There was further drama after the fact as police were involved. Husband had been in an injury hit-and-run accident. Drug dealers were looking for him. He had “sold” a charter plane load of tickets to Hawaii to his friends and clients and absconded with all their money. He had forged my signature on a second mortgage on our house. It was a mess.

I got a divorce on grounds of desertion. We never heard from him again but almost 20 years later my niece in his home country contacted me to tell us he had committed suicide.

How does China do everything right?

China doesn’t do everything right

China makes mistakes too

The Wolf Warrior Policy was a big disaster for China and could have done a lot of damage had it not been for the stupidity of the West

Imagine if a cleverer President in US could have befriended Putin in 2015 itself and Europe had welcomed him with open arms

Xi would have been isolated today and vulnerable and utterly dependent on Energy on Malacca

Xi would have maybe half of his present strength and confidence

It was SHEER LUCK that somehow during the Wolf Warrior phase, you had good leaders like Shinzo Abe in Japan and that guy in South Korea and Duarte in Philippines and an Idiot like Trump in USA

It was SHEER LUCK that Covid decimated the world for 3 years and somehow helped China scale back from the Wolf Warrior mould thanks to the Ukraine invasion and become voices of peace

China has had very good luck while India, US have had very bad luck for the last few years

Chinas mistakes haven’t cost them big whereas Indias mistakes and US mistakes have cost them very big

China does most of the things right because of it’s Leadership and Meritocracy and because there is ALWAYS ACCOUNTABILITY within China

Someone always gets credit and Someone always gets the blame

Could and should the US consider developing an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative with their own global economic plan like partnerships with Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, for their own development as well?

USA did try in the past. In fact, Biden also urged to start a US version of BRI to counter Chinese BRI.

They failed in the past & so far not succeed either today.

The difference between China & USA is the mentality & price. For the same price, US can only do little.

Let me use Tesla as an example. Musk opened a factory to make electric car in China. It took him 10 months (If I remember correctly) to build a factory.

When he expanded his business & went to build a factory in Germany, it took him 2 YEARS & still not operational.

Why? Too much of politics in the West incl USA & Germany.

Look at California. They wanted to build a high speed rail from dont know where to SF. It is considered short & straight. But 20 years later, only 1 small portion is working. Again politics.

Cats Being Badass: A Tribute

Lemmon 714

Back in the 1980’s there was a very popular medicine that people took recreationally. It was called a Quaalude.

Methaqualone, known as Quaaludes, is a synthetic compound similar to barbiturates. It affects the central nervous system by inducing a sedative state. Quaaludes gained popularity during the 1960s to the 1980s as a recreational drug in the United States until the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) banned its usage.

It was initially developed as a sleeping pill, but if you can shake off the initial sleepiness, you end up getting the most euphoric high, that I have ever experienced.

Really.

Outstanding.

I only took it once. I wish that I would have taken it more often, but it was banned shortly afterwards, and access went to zero.

One of the reasons why the 1970’s were so funky was partly due to Quaaludes. The high you got from this pill was unlike anything else.

All you wanted to do was be funky, talk, have fun and dance.

But, you all know, that was decades ago. Noe, I do not advise using or taking any kind of recreational drugs aside from wine and an occasional cigarette. But, some memories are so precious. In fact one of my favorite memories was being on Quaaludes and trying to get into a disco.

Alas we couldn’t get in as my buddy wasn’t wearing proper shoes. But the girls in the disco sure as hell wanted me to.

Now, I do not advocate taking drugs. Aside from some wine and an occasional cigarette or two, I’d advise not harming yourself. But occasional use, with special people that you trust can create special and magical times that are noteworthy and special.

Thus my story.

Oh, it was crazy, but something about being silly, and not drunk… talkative and friendly, and not shy… and the loss of inhibitions really made me a most popular man. I could of had many bedroom adventures were I to enjoy the disco lifestyle of the 1970’s. Oh those days.

Here’s someone else’s opinion…

Mmmmm, ‘Ludes…num-num, num-num, num!

Come to pappa! Boy, these kids taday have no idea what they missed out on.

Quaaludes were an extremely popular party drug of the mid-70's, early 80's, and consisted of 300mg of methaqualone, an extremely powerful sedative and hypnotic, originally marketed in the US by Rorer Pharmaceuticals. In addition to the popular street name “ludes", they were also known as Rorer 714's, and eventually Lemmon 714's.

Yes, they were prescribed for sleep, but taken in the right dosage, the individual would lose their inhibitions. They would tend to become very chatty and since everything in the 70's was either about sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, Ludes had all of those bases covered.

I was fortunate to have had two very generous friends that had legitimate prescriptions for them but, barring that, they'd sell for about two bucks a piece, if you knew the right people.

There were a couple of problems with Ludes. First, they became so popular and controversial, Rorer decided the liability wasn't worth it and sold the patent to Lemmon Pharmaceuticals in 1978.

Overdosing on Ludes became notorious because the individual would lapse into a coma followed by central nervous system collapse. And, because the drug was fat soluble, there wouldn't be much you could do for the individual in the way of flushing it out of the body.

They would also go on to become a notorious date rape drug, as well as Bill Cosby's preferred method of attracting unwilling victims.

In 1982 due to its wide spread abuse it was taken off the market and, in 1984 the DEA would reclassify Quaaludes as a Schedule 1 narcotic, putting into the same category of drugs as heroin and ecstacy.

I could of…

But I didn’t.

Ah, maybe that was a good thing. Things could have gone really bad, really quickly. But I did have a taste. And, you know what?

It was fun.

Today….

TO LAM:

"Our countries share traditional bonds of friendship and have forged a comprehensive strategic partnership.
We have always been keen to express our deep gratitude for the assistance and support we received from the Russian people in the past, when we were fighting for our independence, as well as at the current stage in the development of our country.
Vietnam follows an independent, self-reliant, peaceful, friendly, and multifaceted foreign policy, and has always viewed Russia as one of its priority foreign policy partners.
We want to work with Russia to further enhance our traditional friendship, which results from the constructive efforts by many generations of our two countries’ leaders and their people."

Excerpt from statements by Vietnamese President Tô Lâm during the joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin following their talks, Hanoi, June 20, 2024.

‘Astronauts stranded in space due to multiple issues with Boeing’s Starliner — and the window for a return flight is closing’—Live Science

NASA decided to launch the Starliner despite the discovery of five different helium leaks in its thruster system. Now those helium leaks might endanger the lives of the astronauts on the return flight. Here’s a quote from the article:

Two NASA astronauts who rode to orbit on Boeing’s Starliner are currently stranded in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after engineers discovered numerous issues with the Boeing spacecraft. Teams on the ground are now racing to assess Starliner’s status.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled to return to Earth on June 13 after a week on the ISS, but their stay has been extended for a second time due to the ongoing issues. The astronauts will now return home no sooner than June 26th, according to NASA.

After years of delays, Boeing’s Starliner capsule successfully blasted off on its inaugural crewed flight from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:52 a.m. EDT on June 5. But during the 25-hour flight, engineers discovered five separate helium leaks to the spacecraft’s thruster system.

Now, to give engineers time to troubleshoot the faults, NASA has announced it will push back the perilous return flight, extending the crew’s stay on the space station to at least three weeks.

“We’ve learned that our helium system is not performing as designed,” Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said at a news conference on June 18. “Albeit manageable, it’s still not working like we designed it. So we’ve got to go figure that out.”

Footnotes

[1]

Astronauts stranded in space due to multiple issues with Boeing’s Starliner — and the window for a return flight is closing

Oh Fuck!

Apricot-Glazed Ham

A simple glaze over ham makes for an easy special occasion meal.

Prep: 10 min | Bake: 1 hr 30 min | Yield: 20 servings

Ingredients

5 pound fully cooked whole boneless ham
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2/3 cup apricot nectar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions

Place ham on rack in a shallow roasting pan. Bake, uncovered, in a 325 degrees F oven for 1 1/4 hours or until meat thermometer registers 140 degrees F (about 15 to 18 minutes per pound.)
For the glaze, in a small saucepan combine brown sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg and cloves.
Stir in apricot nectar and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly, stirring constantly.
Brush ham with glaze. Continue baking for 15-20 minutes more, brushing occasionally with glaze.

Scott Ritter: NATO in BIG TROUBLE After Crossing Russia’s Red Line, Putin and China Brace for War

One of Scott’s best videos. Well worth the time to watch.

Shorpy 1

Who had the worst death in history?

I’d nominate Junko Furuta.

source: Japanese Horror Story: The Torture of Junko Furuta

Junko Furuta was a Japanese schoolgirl who suffered 40 days of unimaginable torture at the hands of her classmates before dying on January 4th, 1989. After she rejected the school bully, Hiroshi Miyano, she was taken by 4 boys to the home of one of the kidnappers, Nobaharu Minato. All in all, over 100 people knew of her abduction; none did anything to help, and several joined in the torture.

According to their statements in court, the four boys tortured Junko relentlessly, to such an extent that her face was so swollen she was virtually unrecognisable, she lost bladder control (and was beaten for wetting the carpet), and her body developed a rotting smell.

The torture included:

Rape — Junko was raped over 400 times over the course of 40 days. Many of these rapes were gang-rape, and the four boys’ friends were invited to join in and humiliate her. Over 100 different men are alleged to have participated in rape at some point. She was naked for most of her imprisonment and forced to masturbate in front of her captors. Some of the boys urinated on her, and she was forced to drink her own urine.
Vaginal mutilation — iron bars, scissors, needles, skewers, a bulb, fireworks, cigarettes and lighters amongst other foreign objects were forced into her vagina and anus, causing severe burning and damage. Additionally, she forcibly had her breasts pierced with sewing needles and one of her nipples was torn off.
Beatings — she was beaten regularly, and sometimes strapped up as a human punching bag. The boys used clubs, rods and bamboo sticks to punish her for displeasing them.
Freezing — after pleading to die, she was locked outside overnight (bear in mind this was in winter), and later locked in a freezer.
Burning — this is believed to be the ultimate cause of her death. She suffered severe burns from the aforementioned lighters and fireworks. When she tried to call the police, she was doused in lighter fluid and her body was set on fire. Somehow she survived, but was killed by another body fire on the 40th day of imprisonment.
The boys reportedly dropped barbells and an iron exercise ball on her stomach, which was partly responsible for the lost bladder control, along with the damage to her genitals.

Hiroshi was sentenced for 20 years, and the other main captors received 5–10 years each. Most of them were subsequently arrested again for various crimes, including rape and fraud. They were aged 17–18 at the time; Junko was 17.

Had the captors been slightly older, they almost certainly would have received life imprisonment or the death penalty. The case is considered controversial due to their lenient sentences, and I can see why.

So on brand. Cringe.

What are some deep thoughts that you have?

“deep” is “deep” upside down.
If 99% of people find you unattractive, 78,000,000 people still find you attractive.
One of the worst parts of having mental health issues is that you’re seemingly required to have a breakdown in order for people to understand how hard you were trying to hold yourself together.
The fact that Jellyfish have survived for 650 million years despite having no brain gives hope to many people.
Dogs must be notorious in the animal kingdom for being the closest ally of the deadliest species ever to inhabit earth.
At some point in your life, an attractive person passed by you and regretted not talking to you.
Why is “Sean” pronounced as “Shawn” instead of “Seen” but “Dean” is pronounced “Deen” instead of “Dawn”
At some point in your childhood you and your friends went outside to play one last time, but you never knew it.
Cutting corners creates more corners.
Why are there no pizza drive-thrus?!
To know the ones that are worth your love, first you have to love the ones who are not.
The scariest part of growing up is realizing many adults are clueless; life is based more on luck than knowledge.

Larry Johnson REVEALS: U.S. Missiles Strike Deep Inside Russia, NATO in Danger, The World at Stake

Yuppur. The USA is actively fighting Russia. There is no way that Ukrainians are aiming and guiding these missiles.

What is the most satisfying passive-aggressive thing you have ever done to a really mean or rude person?

When my ex left, she went out of her way to be as cruel as possible about the whole process.

It was taking us some time to disentangle our living situation, finances, etc. My approach was that we were both adults who had at one point held affection for each other, so we might as well be as grown up as possible about the situation. I tried to be fair, and to give ground on things that meant more to her than to me – particularly as I earned more so would find it easier to relace anything she took.

She took the opposite approach. It wasn’t just that she tried to take everything she wanted. She took things simply because I wanted them. On the day she moved out, she packed up my washing line, despite the fact she was moving to a house with no garden. I let it go as not worth the hassle to fight her.

As might be expected after a 5-year relationship, there were some connections we hadn’t managed to untangle before leaving day, so from time to time I needed to get in touch – for example, to tell her I was no longer paying for her car insurance, and that she’d have to sort it out for herself. She continued to be obstructive, and to request that I cease all contact with her. I was tearing my hair out, trying to do the right thing but being knocked back rudely at every turn.

It was then that a good friend introduced me to what she called the ‘Princess Bride defence’:

“As you wish.”

It was the last text I sent to her. Thereafter, any time I found one of her sentimental possessions in the back of a cupboard, it went straight to a charity shop. When important-looking letters marked “URGENT” arrived addressed to her, I returned them as undelivered – at my convenience, after a few days. When I was asked to pass a potential teaching opportunity on to her, I said that wouldn’t be possible. When Christmas cards from her extended family arrived (addressed to both of us) I shredded them. She didn’t hear from me again.

As she wished.

GAU-8 holes

Have you ever met or known anybody who is inbred?

I know several people that are inbred right now. Normally I wouldn’t have any contact with these folks, but I am a firefighter in a very rural area, and I answer a lot of medical calls. I have some very very gross stories I could tell, but I will spare you the details as it is pretty disgusting and depressing. One thing I will say is that some of these families that are really inbred have an inbred look. I can’t really put my finger on what it is, but their eyes just look a little different. I don’t judge these folks at all, after all they’re just people. They’re really victims, they didn’t ask for this.

I was a reserve deputy back in the early 90s, and I went to a call where we arrested a man who had just gotten out of prison , and he went and attempted to rape two of his cousins, and successfully completed the act with one. From the description of the crimes , it seemed like the guy was completely compulsive.

As we turned off a long country road down a long dirt road to make the arrest, I saw poverty that I had never seen in America. There were people in mobile homes with no electric and broken windows and homemade steps. Most rural areas are full of pretty normal people, but this pocket of the woods had a family that was inbreeding for a long time, and some of them looked very strange. I went to the back of the house in case the guy tried to run while two other deputies went into the house to make the arrest. One very old lady in a ripped T-shirt with no bra gave me the worst hate stare I have ever seen, she just stared at me with a one eye bigger than the other inbred silent angry glare. Amongst all this, a very sweet , nice 5-year-old girl came up and asked what I was doing. I told her we were arresting a bad guy. Just then the two deputies came out with the rapist, and he was the most normal looking guy there. He was a studious looking guy with wire rim glasses and nice clothes. He was also the father of that little girl who I just talked to. She started wailing with the saddest cries you’d ever hear and threw a stick at me. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen up till that point.

Incidents like this made me realize why the deputies I rode with were so cynical. They often saw the worst in people.

It wasn’t long after this that I decided to join the fire department instead of law enforcement. After 30 years in the fire department, I have seen a lot of strange things, but that call still sticks out my mind as being very sad. I think I remember it because it was the first time I’d been exposed to that level of poverty, indifference and craziness.

If you have read this far in my story, thank you. I do actually have some upbeat news. Social services have drastically improved in my area, I haven’t been to a house full of kids with no lights and no heat in quite a few years. I think it has been close to 20 years since I have been to a 14-year-old on her second pregnancy. Things have gotten much better.

Douglas Macgregor: Iran & Turkey join Russia, North Korea sent Nuclear Bombs after Meeting Putin

He’s speaking truth. Damn. The USA just ain’t ready.

Why do people adopt babies from other countries but not their own?

I adopted two children from Russia. One was 20 months old, and the other was about 4 years old. This is my qualification to speak on the subject. Sadly, Russia no longer adopts children to the US, because we sanctioned one of Putin’s friends.

The fact of the matter is that it is easier to fly all the way around the world two times, like an astronaut, to get a child in Russia, than it is to adopt a child in the US State of Washington (and presumably other U.S. states).

Russia is a place that has the kind of economic chaos that makes relatively high-quality babies available for adoption. Too many Russians can’t keep their children, and Russians do not, as a rule, adopt their own orphans. The Russian authorities are not afraid to take a child away from failed parents, so the child has likely only suffered a few months of neglect. The US, by contrast, has a strong tradition of parental rights, so it takes years to remove a child.

In the US, many children are born to meth users, so that their brains are irretrievably fried. Heroin is the drug of choice in Russia, which, while horrible for the parents, is not so bad (as meth) on a fetus’s physiology.

When you return home from Russia with a child, that child belongs to you. It is your adopted child. Period, end of story. By contrast, children in Washington State are generally not legally free to adopt when they are placed in your home. That means you are only a foster parent, with few rights. For the next couple of years, if your new baby’s crack-whore mother or jailbird father cleans up their act, even temporarily, they can yank your baby away and back to its previous life of neglect and abuse. Imagine having to tell your other children that their forever-brother or sister is not home when they return from school, because it unexpectedly went back to its birth-parents.

Now tell me you think it’s strange that people do international adoptions.

Badlands Homecoming

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?… view prompt

Joe Smallwood

The badlands had ceased expanding, and there was just enough food to support one or two researchers—well, maybe only one—and that would be me.

The bishop had his hands full. A guard saw me into his office, and the bishop sat waiting behind a huge, salvaged desk between us.

The desk, a marvel, held my gaze. Its rich, brown hue was a testament to its unique origin, a strange wood with a veneer of such smoothness, partially burned away, creating a mesmerizing play of colors. I couldn’t help but wonder about the lives that were risked to retrieve such a treasure.

“You are?” he said, not looking up. Now, if it were up to me, I would fall on my knees and kiss his ecclesiastical ring, listen to his blessings, and wait for benediction. Such was my upbringing, which I had only known since…forever. To be in his presence was an honor granted to so few.

But I must answer him! Yet remembering my very name seemed an extraneous and worthless undertaking.

“Thomas Cranwell, to commoners excluded from knowing my ecclesial rank,” I said, finally.

“Why do you exclude yourself?” he asked again, without looking up from whatever was absorbing him. “Are you not to work for the extension of the Kingdom of God?”

“It is for an uncommon request. Permission to attend at Bradwell,” I practically whispered.

That got his attention. I am asking for something forbidden. To speak of Bradwell and the treasures of antiquity that it contained was to invite suspicion.

Myths, stories, and legends about the sacrifices made to build Bradwell many generations ago were a staple around campfires at night. After the cataclysm and before the new orientation, the building of Bradwell took place in a time so dark that our present darkness looked light by comparison. Yet I was convinced that understanding our past would help build our future!

I threw caution to the wind. Before I knew what I was doing, I was kneeling before him, seeking his hand to kiss his ring, even as I could not see that the guard had moved to strike me from behind.

“Stay your hand!” the bishop ordered. “What have we here? A search for knowledge at any cost?”

“Only a fool who seeks to serve, Your Excellency!” My tears were so copious that if I looked at him, I imagined he would send me off straight away. He laid his hand on my head.

“Thomas, I’ll inquire about your character. Send me your references and bid me a good day!”

I had to work while I waited. Luckily for me, I had learned a trade as a metal scavenger. It was considered a low occupation, but it was necessary since the metal that never rusts could no longer be made and was highly prized. However, my unusual request made people suspicious of me. Even the scraps I found in the well-combed hills and valleys surrounding Urhan fetched such low prices that I began to starve. Being without family and friends in any place was inviting death into your life. I hoped I would not have to wait long for the bishop to answer!

When news came that the bishop had approved my request, I now had a servant, David, a protection seal on paper, no less, and a stipend. The bishop’s generosity quite shocked me. Was he an antiquarian? Even if only in secret? I couldn’t account for my good fortune otherwise.

We hastened to start our journey. David was young—only sixteen—yet enthusiastic and uncommonly curious. When I told David we were off to Bradwell, he jumped for joy! I warned him to conserve his strength. It would be a long and challenging journey, even for one like himself. Besides, he was to support me, such as I was.

Upon leaving Urhan, David removed his sandals and shook the dust off them, motioning me to do the same.

“A curse on any who did not help us!” he shouted with glee.

This made me angry. “You hardly know what it is, you ask!” I said. “We have nothing but what we carry—nothing at all. It could be that a curse has been laid on us! Mind your place, boy!”

David’s eyes fell, and he began to weep. “Forgive me, Father, he said.

“It is your youth and inexperience that speaks,” I answered. “The world is larger than we know!”

We arrived at Urhan Station, a smaller community composed almost entirely of humbler folk, primarily farmers. I was not incardinated anywhere in the Urhan region. I thought it proper to approach the local magistrate to inform him of our presence and request leave to be accommodated for at least one night, perhaps two. Upon reviewing my documents, I was permitted to stay, provided I sought provisions in the local market and remained at the local inn. This I was happy to do.

Thank God news had not spread about my mission. It was a relief to be treated courteously for once, and I relished the opportunity to rest and regain my strength.

David was enraptured by the many sights of Urhan Station, which he had never visited before, even though it was only twenty miles from where he lived.

“Father, shall we hear Mass today?” he inquired.

“Certainly!” I replied.

We soon happened upon the parish church, a quaint, quite old stucco and wood structure dating back to the earliest days of the Urhan region’s reconstruction. Even today, the church outshone the other various dwellings, which were much more bare and plain-looking. A bell rang out, calling the populace to prayer. The church was soon filled.

I was struck by Father Bruno, the priest who said Mass. His intensely blue eyes and reputation for knowing people’s sins without being told drew many visitors for confession, even from Urhan proper. I feared he would somehow know of our mission, so I hung back in one of the back pews.

When Mass was over, and we had finished our Thanksgiving prayers, he strode right to the back of the church to see me, calling me by name, although we had never met.

“Father Cranwell! Know you, not your duty! To serve God! It is not your place to seek that which God has destroyed!”

He said this so loudly that David prostrated himself at his feet, weeping and begging forgiveness. I was stunned, and when Father Bruno had left, and I regained my composure, it was plain that we would have to leave Urhan Station; the sooner, the better.

David wept incessantly. On the one hand, he knew he might fall prey to ruffians or dire circumstances, being alone without my support. Yet, given his religious upbringing, he could not ignore Father Bruno’s words, and I would not contradict a fellow priest, so I released David from his obligation to me.

I did this with a heavy heart, wondering if I would survive long enough to arrive at Bradwell without David’s support. Yet I had to think of what was best for the boy.

“You are free to leave,” I said as we left Urhan Station.

“Where will I go?” he asked.

“Don’t you have a family to return to?”

“Family? My family is the church. I am an orphan!”

With this, I stopped to look at him. David was in tears again. I was nearly beside myself with grief, too. It was clear that he could not make a decision.

“Come with me, and you will no longer be an orphan but a son to me!” I said, wiping both his and my own tears.

We were quite clearly approaching the badlands. Strange, disfigured animals approached us, peering out from the undergrowth. David readied his slingshot, and I, my staff.

“I could hit one!” David exulted.

“Let us pass by the side,” I answered. Thus, we took detours through thick brambles to avoid these “denizens of hell,” as the common folk called them.

The road, too, became more rutted and overgrown. Signs warned us not to go further, though the further we went, the more rotted they appeared, like the people who erected them had passed on or failed to maintain them.

We had to sleep in the open air in a shelter we could make from branches and sticks. It began to rain. I had heard of the constant rain in the heart of the badlands, soaking you through and through. We knew not to drink from the fetid swamps that threatened to overwhelm the road, which now resembled more of a simple path than a road.

“Is God punishing us?” David asked after a tough night when I coughed more than I slept. “Isn’t it clear we shouldn’t be here?” he continued. He was throwing stones into the swamp, a look of defeat on his face.

“Hush now and trust,” I said. We have not come all this way to die now!”

But I wondered how much more we could take, wearied to the bone from the dampness and privations caused by a lack of food and good sleep, never mind the constant fear of what might happen if we grew inattentive or were unlucky.

After three days, the path abruptly stopped at a ruined habitation. No one was home, and it looked like no one had been there for some time. After my brave words to David, my heart sank. Where to now to Bradwell?

Had I fallen prey to pride? It was Father Bruno’s words that echoed in my mind.

I sank to my knees and wept.

I could have died there and then and been happy to meet my maker, poor, alone, a sinner in need of redemption. It was David who came to my rescue.

He bounded into my view even though I lay prone in the muck and filth in those last few steps on the path to nowhere.

“Look, Father!” He helped me up. “Come over here! Do you see it? Up on the hill!”

My poor eyes were unaccustomed to focusing at such a distance, yet I could just make out a building built on a hill. Was it a monastery?

I could see it shining like a beacon, a bright sheen off what looked like stout walls as we hobbled closer, David supporting me with every step I took.

By some magic I had never seen before, the gate to the monastery slid open to reveal a monk dressed in a black tunic. He did not speak, only motioning to us to follow him. A Benedictine? I had never seen one before.

The monk’s tunic hung loosely over his body, stopping only at his ankles. He wore a rectangular piece of cloth over his shoulders called a scapular that appeared to be made of wool. When he turned to lead us to the community, I noticed his cowl limp and unused, the sun only beginning to make its presence known.

It was an edifying experience to see such calm and serene purpose in this one monk who neither sought nor cared for our taking any notice of him whatsoever.

We climbed some hewn stone stairs to such a height! It was utterly exhausting. I had to stop frequently to catch my breath, but I could still reach a portico, the sun clothed with refracted light through the most marvelous stained glass, again as something I had never seen before. I reached out to touch it, causing the light to fall in a sudden dazzling brilliance as if moved by unseen hands. I wanted to stop and question the monk about how light could be so liquid yet impervious to my understanding!

But he moved ever onward, not looking back.

We reached a stolid door of massive weight, again opening at a mere touch! What I presumed to be the abbot greeted us.

The abbot wore a black cappa, which is a full-length cloak over his tunic. He also wore a ring, which he held out to me.

I collapsed before I could kiss his ring, and from what David told me later, I hit my head on the stone floor, losing consciousness.

I awoke in an infirmary, or what looked like one. David was so happy to see me come to my senses. He looked fatigued as if he had been waiting a long time by my side, sitting on a wicker chair next to an untouched tray of food on a small table.

“Eat, father!” he said, his voice catching him unawares like he had not spoken for hours. Then, he cleared his throat and looked as if he might cry.

I had more important things on my mind. “What of the…abbot?” I gasped as I reached for a plain, remarkably shaped glass containing a liquid I did not recognize.

David handed it to me. “He never spoke to me. After you collapsed, two monks carried you here. Will you get well, Father?” he pleaded.

“God willing!” I said. You are so faithful to me; how can it be otherwise?” I joked, but then I frowned. “But there is much to discuss…” I said as I tried to get out of bed.

“Not until you are well!” David commanded. “Eat!”

The days went swiftly by. A monk with remarkable medical knowledge examined me. And there was so much food! So much more than I was used to.

Then, several days later, another monk with such bright eyes came to get me. This one was not unassuming or silent. He was talkative, so much so that I wondered if he was a monk or a commoner dressed in monk attire!

“Know you, not your duty!” I exclaimed at one point amid his chatter.

He rounded on me, his confident air dissipating as air escapes a putrid cask.

“Know you, not yours?” he replied. With that, we both fell into sullen silence. He then led me to see the abbot.

It was as before. This time, I kissed the abbot’s ring and returned to standing before him in what looked like the chapter house, a meeting room where the community would gather to conduct business.

Gazing about, I saw things on shelves I had never seen before. Whether they were functional or not escaped me; some seemed to be parts of other, larger objects. Here and there, you could see these recognizable parts protruding. But I was not given leave to stare at these unusual artifacts for long.

“You and your servant are welcome to stay with us!” the abbot announced. “I have made inquiries, and the bishop of Urhan diocese has vouched for you. The bishop was once a monk at this very place! What exactly have you come here to do?”

“Father Abbot, I wish to conduct research.”

“By all means, let us visit the scriptorium and the library!”

Again, there was light that I had never seen before.

In a wonder of wonders, I was led into the scriptorium, where monks sat at tables reading words that appeared and disappeared on pages filled with light, with no visible candles.

Then, many books in unknown languages were in the library, with pictures not drawn or painted of such wonders as I could scarcely describe! Many of these books were burned, and some could not be read. Still, everything was neatly stored and accounted for.

“Why not let everyone see these wonders,” I asked.

The Abbot was taken aback. “Do you believe that the people would comprehend that we were once prosperous, but now we are poor only because of a war of unimaginable fury as if the very wrath of God enveloped everything? This is knowledge for only a select few!”

The Abbot, setting aside his vows, embraced me and continued speaking for what seemed like a very long time.

“You need hardly wonder! Was it not always so? Monks preserved knowledge, whether of religion or not, that would have been lost otherwise in past times. We do so today, as always. Forever, until the end of time itself!”

So began my new life. Father Bruno could remind the people of what went wrong, and I would now discover why.

Sexy Beer advertisements

What is the most frightening thing that anyone has ever said to you?

I was at the pool, having just finished with my morning workout. I was drying off and noticed I had gotten a new text from one of my friends.

OMG are you okay??! I saw the crash!!

I froze in confusion. Reread the text. Tried to wrap my mind around it before coming to my senses and quickly punching in her number.

One ring, two. “Pick up, pick up!”

She answers, breathless. “Rachel! Are you okay? Please tell me no one is hurt!”

“What do you mean? I’m at the pool!”

The line goes dead silent. I can hear her breaths on the other side, raspy and shocked. My heart pounding wildly against my chest.

Then, “There was an accident, I saw your mom in the car. It’s bad.”

I swear my heart stopped. For a moment, everything blurred. I had no idea there was a crash. I had no idea what was going on.

For a second, thoughts of losing my mother crashed through my brain and I wanted to be sick.

My friend told me the car had been t-boned (hit from the side). She said it looked bad, that our car had been dented-in and she saw medics pulling my mom out. I remember my heart feeling like a knife was cutting through, tears blurring my eyes.

I thanked her, hung up, and quickly called my mom. I think I called her four or five times before someone answered.

My father.

If you haven’t read my past answers, my father and I have a rocky relationship. But I still wasn’t prepared for his words.

He told me to stop calling, that everything was fine. He wouldn’t tell me if she was alright, or what had happened, just to stop calling. He hung up.

Needless to say, I was pissed and scared out of my mind. I called another six or seven times before my mom finally answered.

And she was alright.

She was bruised, crying, and shaken, but she was alive. And in that moment, that was all that mattered.

But hearing that something had happened, that she had been in an accident, had almost stopped my heart. Those have definitely been the most terrifying words I have ever heard: “I saw your mom in the car. It’s bad.”

Why do educated Chinese support CCP despite not having the freedom to criticize Chinese politicians?

As a Chinese guy who has lived many years in America, I’ve got the answer for you, but I’m pretty sure you won’t believe me and think I’m ridiculous:

China actually has a lot more freedom of speech than the US or other western countries.

Ok, now please allow me to explain:

In China, we certainly do not have the freedom to criticize Chinese government, IN PUBLIC. That’s pretty much the only thing you can’t do. (we talk shit about them ALL the time in private daily conversations.)

Other than that, you can say pretty much anything you want in China.

However, when I was in the US, I feel suffocate because there’s a lot of things I couldn’t talk about, or I couldn’t say my real opinions. Everything needs to be political correct. You certainly can say your government is a piece of shit, but that’s not what freedom of speech is. You can’t talk about xxxxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxxx, etc… When I was there, I had to be extremely careful about what I say, even in daily conversations. There’re so many chains, not free at all.

I think you guys know what I’m talking about.

Cajun Style Holiday Ham

Ready to experience the holidays Cajun style? Bring in some Louisiana Cajun flavor to your holiday dinner with Slap Ya Mama’s Cajun Style Holiday Ham complete with our famous original blend and seafood boil seasoning. Say goodbye to traditional holiday meals because our recipe will keep you wanting more year round!

Ingredients

1 (8 pound) picnic ham
12 ounces Coke
1 pound Slap Ya Mama Seafood Boil
Slap Ya Mama Original Blend Seasoning, to taste

Instructions

Fill a large pot halfway with water and pour in Slap Ya Mama Seafood Boil. Bring to a boil and place ham into the pot. Boil for approximately 1 hour.
Remove ham and let drain and cool.
Heat over at 400 degrees F. Trim top skin from ham leaving a little fat. In a crisscross pattern, slice the top of the ham about 1/4 inch deep.
Place ham in a roasting pan with 1/2 cup of water in the bottom of the pan. Pour Coke evenly over ham. Now season the whole ham with Slap Ya Mama Original Blend Seasoning.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes.
Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue cooking for another 30 minutes or until there is a nice crisp on the exterior of the ham.
Carve ham, serve and enjoy!

Attribution

Recipe and photo used with permission from: Slap Ya Mama

What person destroyed their entire life by making one simple mistake?

Lisa Nowak.

She was a NASA astronaut. Emphasis on WAS. During her stint in NASA, she actually had a pretty impressive career—she flew in space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 2006, in fact.

But she threw it all away. Over a guy.

You see, her boyfriend William Oefelein, another astronaut, had cooled in his affections towards her and was now seeing another woman, Colleen Shipman. We’ve all had love interests break our hearts, and it sucks. Some of us go a little cray-cray during the heartbreak period, especially if we’re drunk. But Lisa Nowak—she went well beyond drunken texts in the middle of the night.

She drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront the other lady. Shipman was going to be arriving at Orlando’s international airport, and Nowak was going to be there to confront her. According to police reports, she even wore adult diapers so she wouldn’t have to make any bathroom breaks during the trip. Anyway, she finally got to Orlando, confronted the other woman, and pepper-sprayed her.

Result? She was sentenced to a year’s probation, kicked out of both NASA and the U.S. Navy, and now has Google and Wikipedia detailing her misdeeds. The notoriety of her case—Law and Order actually made an episode about an astronaut love triangle—meant employers were reluctant to hire her despite her credentials, and the last anyone heard she’s been living a quiet life in Texas working in the private sector. Without the boyfriend.

Shorpy 2

What is the smartest thing you have seen someone do in court?

Not a case I was in town for – it happened fast

A man comes home in morning hours, crawls into bed still hungover, and wakes up in a pool of blood. His wife had been stabbed in the night.

He ran into the hallway and called 9–1–1 — but the police quickly charge him for murder. He says he got drunk the night before and his memory is a blank. She was killed sometime in the night — no signs of forced entry. They have their man.

Weeks later it goes to trial. Once underway, the man’s memory is triggered and he says he thinks he was in jail two counties over. The judge calls a recess.

The sheriff’s deputies check on this alibi, bring that sheriff in for deposition, and sure enough, the husband had gotten into a drunken brawl at a nightclub and was thrown in jail many hours before his wife’s time of death. He wasn’t anywhere near the crime scene. The deputies visit the nightclub and the coat check girl remembered him well – and the brawl. This was an upscale club so brawls were rare.

They brought all this back to the courtroom, the prosecutor moved for dismissal and the judge granted it. Recall they’ve already seated the jury, so double jeopardy is attached. He cannot be tried again.

A couple of months later, the deputies run into the coat check girl and it comes out that the husband, once released from jail, visited the nightclub in the morning and gave the coat check girl a $50 tip “for all the trouble”. One deputy surmises this might all be a hoax. The husband tipped the girl so she wouldn’t forget him.

They visit the jail itself and learn a priceless bit of news – the jail has no after-hours personnel. The inmates sleep it off until morning anyway. Another nugget, it’s also well known that one of the jail’s two cells has a bad lock. A little persistent jiggering will cause the bolt to retract and release the inmate. They also learned that two months prior, the husband had been in that same cell for disorderly conduct and no doubt learned about the lock.

At this point, they had all they needed, but too late. They surmised the husband started the brawl to get himself incarcerated, by luck or persuasion landed in the right cell, sneaked out to kill his wife and sneaked back. The next morning he pays the coat check girl and returns home, and it all falls out from there.

By the time the deputies learned all this, the husband had already sold his home, cashed-out his wife’s substantial life insurance policy, and was in the wind.

Daddy warnings

Putin: West Seeking “Strategic Defeat” of Russia in Ukraine, Means End to 1,000 Years of Russian Statehood

Hal Turner World June 21, 2024

Upon finishing his visits to North Korea and Vietnam, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked by media what it means that the West continues to escalate the war in Ukraine, and openly calls for a “strategic defeat of Russia.” His answer opened the door to a Russian nuclear first-strike against the West.

Asked what does it mean to Russia that the West keeps escalating the Ukraine conflict, President Putin’s remarks went like this:

“We see it. We observe it. As you said, they constantly raise the degree and escalate the situation.

Apparently they expect us to be scared at some point.

But at the same time, they also say that they want to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield.

What does this mean for Russia? It means the end of its statehood. This is what it means.

It means the end of the thousand year history of the Russian state. I think this is clear to everyone.

And then the question arises, why should we be afraid? Isn’t it better to go all the way, then?

This is elementary formal logic, a course that I studied at the University for six months, but I remember it well.

I even remember the teachers who taught this course.

Therefore, I think that those who think so, and even more so, SAY SO, make another big mistake.

Here is the actual video in original Russian language with English subtitles. My analysis appears beneath the video:

ANALYSIS

Words mean things. When a man like President Vladimir Putin says a particular thing, if the world has learned nothing else from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it knows he means what he says.

Russia made strident Diplomatic efforts over the Ukraine situation for years, and told the West in December of 2021 there has to be Iron-clad, legally enforceable Security Guarantees for Russia over the ever-nearing encroachment by NATO toward Russia’s border – with Ukraine being the most recent encroachment.

The West laughed and threw Russia’s Treaty proposal in the ashbin of history.

Russia tried again in January of 2022, only this time, they told the world “If Russia cannot obtain iron-clad, legally enforceable, security guarantees by Diplomatic means, it will obtain them by military or military-technical means.”

The West took about two weeks before laughing at Russia again, and declining the Treaty proposal.

On February 23, 2022, Russia called Ukraine President Zelensky and told him “You have five hours to agree to NOT join NATO and NOT place American missiles on Ukraine Territory.”

Zelensky called the British Home Office and the US State Department for guidance. Both Britain and the US told Zelensky to “ignore Russia’s ultimatum.” Zelensky did exactly that.

After the five hours had passed, Russia waited an additional two hours. No response form Ukraine. That morning, the Russian Army crossed the Border into Ukraine by force, and the war commenced.

So when Russia says something, they mean it.

For President Putin to say

"But at the same time, they also say that they want to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield.

What does this mean for Russia?   It means the end of its statehood.  This is what it means.

It means the end of the thousand year history of the Russian state.  I think this is clear to everyone."

is the absolute worst RED FLAG imaginable.

Russia has a nuclear doctrine. They’ve had it, open to the public, for years.

In that nuclear doctrine, Russia makes clear they will only use nuclear weapons if “there is a threat to the existence of the Russian state.”

What did Putin just say in the video above? He said that a “strategic defeat of Russia means the end of its statehood; an end to the thousand year history of the Russian state.”

Well, since that is how Russia perceives the publicly stated goal of the West to inflict a “strategic defeat” upon Russia, then the legal framework now exists to justify the use of Russian nuclear weapons.

It is as plain as day from what President Putin just said.

What he went on to say is even worse:

It means the end of the thousand year history of the Russian state.  I think this is clear to everyone.

And then the question arises, why should we be afraid?  Isn't it better to go all the way, then?

Uh Oh. “. . . go all the way?” Yes, he actually said that. So what does THAT mean?

To me, it means “If Russia is going to be ended, why shouldn’t they go all the way and end the people who are ending Russia?”

To me, “. . . Isn’t it better to go all the way” means mutual destruction. If Russia is going to lose its thousand years of Russian statehood, then everybody else is going to lose theirs too.

These remarks from the Russian President are among the most important words ever spoken in human history. They lay out the ACTUAL course of events we are all on. Destruction.

Yet we in the West go along our merry way, seemingly oblivious to the actual reality. A reality that WE created. A reality that WE continue to perpetrate.

The actions of the United States and our NATO vassals, is directly threatening our continued existence. We the people have a right to protect ourselves from what this government is doing.

If we sit back, do and say nothing, it seems to me this government is leading us all to our deaths. Soon.

Pepe Escobar: Putin and China issue DEVASTATING Warning to NATO and Everything is About to Change

Journalist and Geopolitical Analyst Pepe Escobar reveals the truth about Russia and China's accelerated push toward a multipolar world and how their latest moves will completely destroy the dominance of the U.S. dollar as we know it. This video breaks it all down following Pepe's May trip to Brazil and other BRICS countries.

Hot dog and steak lore

Ah. Meat.

You know, I really enjoy my steaks on the raw / red side. I think that that has the best and tastiest flavor. But only for steaks.

Medium Rare Steak 600x441 — Medium Rare Steak 600×441

When it comes to hot dogs, on the other hand, I prefer them bunt… blackened. You would just shove that dog on a stick deep down in the coals and embers of the fire until it blisters well.

camping hot dogs 3 500x500 — camping hot dogs 3 500×500

Hum.

Interesting. Cuts of meat are best served in a nearly raw state, well at least for steaks, and the processed foods are best served burnt to a crisp.

Now, of course, too much meat isn’t all that good for you, but I just gotta say that how you treat the real juicy steak compared to the processed meats tell you a lot about the value of the foods that you consume.

Don’t you think?

Camping Hot Dogs with Caramelized Onions

Here’s a recipe for camping hot dogs with caramelized onions that will prove you can eat well while camping. They’re simple to make over a fire with just a few ingredients and they taste especially good while outdoors. We’ve also rounded up a few of our favorite easy camping recipes we think you’ll love!

If you’re like us and love to eat well while camping, find many more delicious and easy camping recipes here.

camping hot dogs 3 1367x2048 — camping hot dogs 3 1367×2048

Table of Contents

Camping hot dogs are a must when we pack up the tent and head into the forest. There is something special about the way a weiner or a smokie tastes when it’s been charred over the fire. When we make ours, we almost always turn them into caramelized onion hot dogs as it takes them over the top.

This is one of those recipes that is hardly a recipe at all. Camping hot dogs with caramelized onions is more of an idea or suggestion than an official recipe. We trust that you’ve skewered a hot dog on a stick and held it over the fire until it’s hot and crispy. (And if you haven’t can you please promise that you will this summer?)

And the term caramelized onions is really just a fancy way of saying onions that are cooked to the point of being deliciously sweet.

For these hot dogs with caramelized onions, we pile those onions into a hot dog bun with all your favorite condiments then top them with a fire-charred hot dog. It’s an elevated camping hot dog recipe that is super easy to make and unbelievably delicious.

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Beyond camping hot dogs

While we love our camping hot dogs, there is so much more to make at the campsite!

When it comes to eating delicious food while camping, a little bit of planning goes a long way. There’s a lot you can do with a grill, a fire, or a simple camp stove, but we still like to prepare some food ahead of time because we like to kick back a bit, too!

camping hot dogs 5 1367x2048 — camping hot dogs 5 1367×2048

We typically bring a cooler with yogurt, eggs, and a small bottle of milk in addition to fresh veggies and fruits. We also pack some pantry items like little jars filled with olive oil, salt and pepper, nut butter, jam, oats, and pancake mix. Plus a few extra empty sealed containers for saving portions of things.

For cookware, we can usually get by with a simple cast-iron skillet, a pot, a cutting board, and a knife in addition to a few plates, bowls, and utensils. Toss in a few tea towels and candles for ambiance (if fires are permitted), and you’re set!

camping hot dogs 1367x2048 — camping hot dogs 1367×2048

Anyways, today…

NATO Warns: Brink of Nuclear WW3

Hal Turner World June 18, 2024

NATO today warned the world is on the brink of a nuclear World War 3, and announced it is taking nuclear weapons out of storage in Europe to confront Russia in Ukraine.

NATO indicated it has put an undisclosed number of nuclear warheads on standby amid escalating tensions.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin undertakes a rare North Korean state visit this week – marking a likelihood of significant escalations in the Ukrainian war — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said bluntly “I won’t go into details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Couldn’t Such Fake News Start Wars?

Stephen Byren asks in Asia Times:

Why is NATO expanding its nuclear force?

That is a rather weird question. NATO is a consulting mechanism. It does not have tanks, guns or nuclear forces. All such tangible things are owned and controlled by this or that member country.

NATO does not have a nuclear force and currently neither NATO nor those member countries which have nuclear forces are interested in expanding them. The question states as a fact that NATO is expanding something. It is not doing that.

Byren writes:

Jens Stoltenberg, the 13th secretary general of NATO, says that the alliance is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons and modernize their delivery systems. Stoltenberg told the Telegraph in the UK: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Stoltenberg emphasized that NATO is a “nuclear alliance.”

The Telegraph piece on the Stoltenberg interview is a write-up, not a transcript. It is inaccurate. Here is what it says:

Nato is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance has said.Jens Stoltenberg added that the bloc must show its nuclear arsenal to the world to send a direct message to its foes in an interview with The Telegraph.

He revealed there were live consultations between members on taking missiles out of storage and placing them on standby as he called for transparency to be used as a deterrent.

Mr Stoltenberg said: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues.

“That’s exactly what we’re doing at Nato, for instance at meetings in Nato, a nuclear planning group as we had during the defence ministerial meeting this [last] week.”

The above sounds as if Stoltenberg was actively doing something. But that is simply not what he said:

Matthew Harries @harries_matthew – 19:38 UTC · Jun 17, 2024Here is a transcript of what Stoltenberg actually said. As suspected, I think there has been too much parsing of his words.

The “operational” vs storage thing was introduced by the interviewer. And “transparency” was in the context of openness about exercises.

As the audio of the interview provides, the whole issue was prompted by a misleading remark by one of the interviewers, not by Stoltenberg himself:

Telegraph: Do you think European allies should follow the lead of the United States by putting more warheads on standby rather than having them in storage?

Britain, which is the country the Telegraph is asking about, usually has one nuclear submarine on patrol and ready to use with a number of others in training or revamp. Only the submarine on patrol will carry nuclear warheads. The ones for the other submarines are usually in storage. To put more of them on ‘standby’, whatever that may otherwise mean, would not provide a ready way to launch them. It would thus be useless.

The interviewers question to Stoltenberg is answered by him with generalizations and a hint to the ever ‘ongoing consulting’ on the issue.

biggerThe misleading question and mealy mouth answer provide for great irritation but don’t really mean anything. And certainly not anything new.

(((James Acton))) @james_acton32 – 21:48 UTC · Jun 17, 2024Based on this transcript, the @Telegraph article by @Barnes_Joe is journalist malpractice. It is a wholly misleading account of Stoltenberg’s comments, which were boilerplate.

In times of heightened tensions media are taking a lot of liberty in ‘interpreting’ things officials say. This does have consequences and those could become lethal:

Kremlin views NATO’s rhetoric on putting nukes on alert as escalation

MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS/. The recent remark by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that the bloc’s allied members are discussing putting their nuclear arsenals on alert is another bout of tensions, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.”This is nothing else but an escalation,” Peskov said.

But in fact, Stoltenberg did not say anything to that effect.

Consider also this fake Ukranews item which was published two days ago:

Giorgia Meloni says that russia would be forced to surrender if it did not agree to a peaceful settlement

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that russia would be forced to surrender if it did not agree to the terms of a peace settlement.Meloni made a corresponding statement at the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, her words are quoted by the UNIAN news agency.

According to her, protecting Ukraine means protecting the system of international rules. Therefore, it is important to join forces to protect Ukraine.

“If russia does not agree to the terms, we will force them to surrender,” Meloni said.

That quote was immediately suspicious. Neither Meloni nor anyone else has the means to force Russia to surrender.

A few hours after the above was publish corrections came in:

Many comments and consternation were caused by the post of Ukrainian politician Anton Gerashchenko regarding the statement of the Italian Prime Minister during the peace summit that took place last weekend in Switzerland.Gerashchenko quoted Giorgia Meloni on his profile on platform X, who supposedly said: “If Russia does not agree to the terms, we will force them to surrender.”

Platform X included a contextual note under the Ukrainian politician’s post. From it and the official text of the Italian Prime Minister’s speech, it is clear that the words quoted by Gerashchenko were not said during the conference.

Meloni stood by Ukraine, directing strong words towards Russia, but the meaning was somewhat different.

Meloni never said anything about Russia surrendering but a Ukrainian politician, and a lousy news agency which quoted him without checking, planted the false quote.

These are good reminders to check, and double-check, everything one reads about hot conflicts.

Posted by b on June 18, 2024 at 12:10 UTC | Permalink

PH under Marcos really should get his IQ checked.

There is 1 old Chinese idiom: if the ox does not want to drink water (from the river), we cannot force its head down (to drink). The ox must want to drink to start with.

It is just an idiom. I do not mean Duterte is like an ox.

What I am trying to say is that: Duterte wanted to improve PH’s economy & modernise PH’s technology.

Many developing countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia have the same vision as Duterte. They understand joining China’s BRI project will meet their vision.

Look at Indonesia. After China has built a high speed rail for Indonesia, Indonesia’s GDP has increased ie it is richer.

China has run BRI for 10 years already. If only 1-2 BRI countries become richer, we say it is coincidence. If all BRI countries experience increased GDP, it means BRI is the correct medicine to cure poverty & modernisation.

Duterte wanted the same thing for PH. He collaborated with China. And China was happy to collaborate with Duterte to make a win-win situation for both countries.

When Marcos is in power, China also wanted to continue the economic collaboration with Marcos. But Marcos rejects China & totally embraces USA.

Because USA wants to suppress China’s rise, USA thus uses PH/Marcos to create countless conflicts in SCSea. Hence, China must withdraw BRI from the trouble maker PH.

Back to the Chinese idiom: Marcos does not want to drink.

Born in a notoriously corrupted family, he probably never experienced hunger. He does not know it is economy that fills the tummy; not the reefs in SCSea.

What it’s like as an American abroad with Taxes: Double Taxation

Pepperoni Pizza

Ingredients

1 (13 inch) uncooked dough crust
1/2 cup pizza sauce or tomato sauce
8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil
Thin pepperoni slices

Instructions

Top dough crust with sauce and cheese.
Drizzle with oil.
Bake in preheated 500 degrees F oven on pizza stone for 8 to10 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly.
Remove from oven, add pepperoni slices and cool on a wire rack for 2 or 3 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

At “Peace Conference” in Switzerland, Poland PROPOSES Breaking-up Russia into 200 Ethnic states – Poland Just Signed its own Death Warrant

Hal Turner World June 16, 2024 Hits: 18665

It’s official: Russia should be broken-up according to nations attending a so-called “peace conference” in Switzerland, regarding the Ukraine-Russia Conflict. Does that sound like a “peace” conference to you? Day one of this conference was so egregious, the President of Colombia walked out!

The “peace conference” began with the President of the host country, Switzerland, speaking to the gathered participants. Swiss President Viola Amherd actually talked what sounded like common sense . . . saying “We all understand that a peace process without Russia is inconceivable!”

Yet, that’s exactly what they were doing . . . holding a peace conference without one of the combatants: Russia!

Then she had the temerity to say “We can pave the way . . . .” (for peace) and continued right on with the “peace conference” even though she said it was inconceivable to do so without Russia . . . whom SHE did not invite!

It went rapidly downhill from there.

President Duda of Poland said the following:

“I propose to divide Russia into 200 ethnic states. Russia is the largest colonial power in the world and is holding 200 ethnic states captive.”

The official (sovereign) proposal, made by President Duda of Poland, to break-up Russia is, in and of itself, an “threat to the existence of the Russian state.” Under Russia’s public Doctrine on the use of its nuclear arsenal, this threat to the existence of the state justifies Russia using its nuclear arsenal to protect itself.

It seems to many people that the President of Poland, by uttering this position, has signed his country’s death warrant!

Almost laughable were the words from the President of Finland. Finnish President Alexander Stubb complained that Russia “invaded” his country during World War II and took 10% of its territory.

Sounds so terrible for Finland, doesn’t it? Except, the President left out a small detail . . .

For those not strong in history – 100% of the current Finnish territory is a generous gift of the Russian Empire. You see, in WWII, 100% of Finland fought on the side of Hitler. Finnish forces were involved in the blockade of Leningrad and as such they were involved in the deaths of millions of Russians by starvation.

Not to put too fine a point on that, one of the Russians who starved to death, was President Vladimir Putin’s brother.

Oh, and one more inconvenient tidbit of history:

Also, Finland agreed to the terms of the peace treaty. Russia did not take any territory by force.

It’s amazing how Finland’s Nazi past has been swept under the mat.

Maybe if the country of Finland didn’t help starve millions of Russian CIVILIANS to death in Leningrad (Which is now St. Petersburg), people might take them seriously.

The fact that Russia allowed any Finn to go on living was quite a gift. That’s a mistake Russia may not make again when Finland comes into Russia’s crosshairs.

The President of Colombia, God bless him, WALKED-OUT of the summit.

Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego said “I decided to suspend my visit to the “Peace Conference” in Switzerland: what we found at the conference is essentially an alliance on the side of war and we do not agree with this. Latin America does not want more war.”

The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia made plain: “Serious negotiation processes regarding Ukraine require Russia’s presence.”

Similarly, the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, Juraj Blanár, made plain “The gathering in Switzerland won’t put an end to the Ukraine conflict, because Russia and China are absent . . .”

So what the world sees taking place this weekend in Switzerland is, for lack of a better term, a “Circle Jerk” being carried out by Western vassals of the United States. There seems to be no actual possibility that any peace will evolve from this mutual masturbation session.

However, given the remarks of Poland’s President Duda, it seems quite clear that things are about to get far worse – and for many other countries that have this notion about breaking-up Russia.

Why I’m Most Glad I Left the USA

Peace of mind.

Yup.

I  have lived outside the US for almost 20 years and have traveled to about 50 countries and no way do I have plans of returning to the U.S. I think the U.S. peaked in the 1950s with a couple of tech bursts in the 80s, but now the competition has caught up, and now there are so many more places with more freedom, higher quality of life, and ease of living than the U.S. Beautiful painting in your office by the way.

What is the hardest thing you have ever done?

One time in middle school, we had an assignment for homework that I forgot about until I came into class the next day and saw everyone taking it out of their folders.

I remembered that I had the worksheet in my folder when the teacher came to class and began collecting it after giving the boring ass morning talk about focusing and shit.

I was about to try to pull off the ‘Oh I left it at home’ or ‘I lost my worksheet’ trick when I made the incredibly risky decision of doing it on the spot.

My friends would’ve let me copy if it wasn’t for the fact that this teacher actually checked through these things and doesn’t take crap from any students.

So I had one choice; I was going to have to do it right then and there. The worksheet was a bunch of questions on America’s history and in the back you had to write an essay.

Lucky for me the teacher started collecting it on the other side of the room, meaning that he’d come over to me last. I grabbed my pencil and wrote so fast that I swear you could almost hear the paper threatening to light up on fire.

I was mostly guessing and making things up in the essay part. I didn’t even care if I got a 10% on it as long as I was able to turn it in.

Just as I was finishing my last sentence, the teacher came to my table and took the paper without giving me a second glance.

He had no idea.

The next day I got the paper back with an 89% and a comment on the corner of the essay saying, “Good job but Abraham Lincoln was the 16th not 25th American president :)”

He had no fucking idea.

I sort of feel guilty about doing that but one must do what they can to survive. (or in this case; pass a goddamn class.)

What Western mainstream media won’t tell us about China

Originally published: Pearls and Irritations  on June 9, 2024 by Jerry Grey (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Jun 10, 2024)

In Hong Kong, the 1987 Joint Declaration states clearly that matters of national defence will be in the hands of the Mainland, while local police and administrative matters will belong to the SAR. China has 100% complied with the Joint Declaration but the UK has not. If you don’t believe me, read the declaration, you might not like it but you’ll find this is correct.

Related to Taiwan, there are three joint communiques where presidents of the United States have agreed to pull all military out of Taiwan 1972 Nixon said it, in 1979 it was Carter who agreed and in 1982 it was something Reagan promised to do too. Albeit that U.S. historians now argue there was no date given, there were and always were clear indications that arms would be reduced and troops would be removed.

Therefore, there can be no mistake, U.S. troops in Taiwan now are an invading force, by placing them there, the U.S. might have complied with its own “Taiwan Relations Act” but it is in breach of the UN Charter, UN Resolutions and has broken promises made by three of its own presidents.

Terminator 3 Skynet Takes Over

Let’s move to Xinjiang for a moment

The United Nations have visited Xinjiang, this was just last month and is another thing mainstream media forgot to tell us about; conveniently so because they not only found there are no human rights abuses by China, but there are human rights abuses by the USA with illegal and arbitrary sanctions which take away the ability to find well-paid work from locals.

They also found that the USA had removed the presumption of innocence and therefore due process from China—one company provided 10,000 pages of information including independent assessments of its human resource policies and the U.S. said it wasn’t enough.

Media didn’t tell us this because everything positive coming out of Xinjiang must be reported negatively; if there might be something positive about it, it’s completely ignored, as Dr Alana Douhan’s visit has been.

Rather than tell us something positive they lie by omission; they won’t tell us what they don’t want us to hear.

What they’re not telling us about Hong Kong is even more incredible. In Hong Kong several people have recently been in court, not as western media says, for having democratic viewpoints but for preparing petrol bombs, planning mass murder and undermining the entire democratic system that already exist there—western media have not reported any of this. Can you believe that there was a plot which included international funding, two bombs, and a sniper to kill police officers? Some of the terrorists even went to Taiwan for training by persons unknown and they hatched a plan to kill as many police officers as possible. Most people outside of Hong Kong and China aren’t aware of this but I assure you it’s true. It’s all come out in open court with journalist present but not telling us about it. Many of the people involved pleaded guilty, some turned evidence on their co-conspirators.

This is not China persecuting innocent democracy protestors.

When Western media tells you that people are being convicted for having a democratic outlook, what they’re leaving out is that their form of democracy meant murder and mayhem leading to the collapse of the economy, society and a complete failure of governance. The kinds of things that would get a death sentence in many countries are being dealt with in Hong Kong Courts right now—this isn’t democracy under trial, this is internationally organised and funded terrorism.

Dr Tim Summers, is a professor at the University of Hong Kong and he’s spent a long time looking at thousands of articles from British media between 2020 and 2023 he found

that a clear majority of the articles about China across different media outlets adopt a negative tone or frame China negatively for British readers. That majority is of the order of magnitude of two-thirds, probably higher rather than lower. Further, very few articles frame China positively.

What this means is that not only are they not reporting the positive news, they are reporting anything positive with a negative slant—I’m certain we didn’t need a university study to realise this but it’s nice to have the facts proven in a way that is accountable, transparent and with a methodology that is acceptable to all academics everywhere which proves there is a relentless bias against China.

It isn’t that China is all bad—ask 1.4 billion people and they will tell you it isn’t, it’s that Western media paymasters want their audience to think that it is—similar studies were done on media in the lead up to the Iraq War, and look where that lead us.

We can be assured there were similar negatively biased media reports on Russia, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and anywhere else the U.S. government wants us to believe there is a rogue government. But look carefully, as critical readers should. Look carefully as academics like Dr Tim Summers and many others have done, and you’ll see. These aren’t ‘rogue nations’ except in the mind of Western Media.

China is a country that has lifted millions out of poverty, it’s done nothing but call for peace, cooperation and a greater voice for the under-developed world. China most certainly hasn’t invaded, threatened to invade or even postulated that it might invade, it has clearly stated it will defend a recognised part of its territory, Taiwan, from being taken away by outside influences, as happened just 150 years ago. China simply exists as a country with an ideology that has proven to work for its 1.4 billion people, an ideology that some countries in the world don’t like.

Consequently, we’re being fed a litany of lies about China, about their intentions and their policies. If we had any neutral mainstream media we’d know of things like the HK terrorist plot. We’d know about the Joint Declaration, the Joint Communiques on Taiwan. We’d learn the reality of Xinjiang, and we’d have both sides of every China story to make our own judgements. As it is, with only the negative half of the story, much of the Western world believes that China is a threat to them.

They are not; the real threat comes from the people telling us China is a threat.

12 Reasons Why I NEVER Want to Live in the USA Again!

What are some things that people who live in places with brutally low temperatures know, that the rest of us don’t?

Originally Answered: What are some things that people who live in places with brutally cold temperatures know, that the rest of us don't?

First of all, one of the good lessons I learned early on upon moving to the heart of North America’s highest mountains – the Alaska Range – was an “Old Indian trick” for surviving at 50 below: stay inside.

As with all olde nostrums, there is a kernel of truth to that. But more to your question –

when it gets really cold – minus 40 and lower – one’s house never really seems to warm up. It’s warm by the woodstove, but the cold squeezes the warm bubble from all sides: above, below, left and right. In our country, truly cold and wind don’t often occur simultaneously: you need that unmoving airmass to lose its heat to the stratosphere in order to get down to Ridiculous Levels, and that can hardly happen if another air mass is coming in from up-wind.
Minus 50 and lower, and it can be a racket out there! Some of the noise comes from differential heat loss of various bones of one’s house; a lot of it comes from tree sap – even the resinous pitch of our spruces – freezing.
Moose have long ago since the earlier phases of winter stopped moving to the extent possible: they bed down in the snow for perhaps 23 hours out of each day; during the minuscule-short “active” periods they poop, pee, and strip our willows of bark. Less movement means fewer calories burned. It will be a long, long time before there will be anything nutritious to eat, and most cow moose at this time also are growing a fetus.
Our river’s flow comes mostly from hot springs…and by that I mean 4ºC/38ºF (hey! That’s perhaps EIGHTY degrees warmer than the air!); that means that it stays open and flowing along our property until about -50º. Then it will freeze from bank to bank…but what about the “warm” water upstream? That will flow over the ice, freeze; more flows, freezes….and so forth until the mass of ice is ridiculously higher than the river banks and then all sorts of problems can develop. Not good at all. But usually, we get a warm spell come in; temps rise to a balmy -40º and everything reverts back to normal.
Irrespective of those minima, when it’s -30º and colder, all that temperature differential between the cold air and the liquid water creates lots of fog. Which freezes on everything and makes for truly wondrous landscapes.
The nearest school to our home is 80 miles away on the other side of the Alaska Range. There, they cancel outdoor recess when it’s colder than -40. Until then….bundle up!
With decades of weather records, as our home is also site of a National Weather Service “A-PAID” recording site, the coldest I’ve seen is -63ºF. Our home is in a hot spot…so to speak. The low-lying basins adjacent to us typically seem far colder than the house, so one winter I took one of our official thermometers down to the bottom of one of these. Sure enough, it registered ten degrees F colder than at the house. Brrr.
As an official record-keeper, however, that also has meant that I’m professionally incapable of exaggerating the numbers. All our neighbors (there now are seven humans living full-time in the 40,000 or so square miles around us) simply love to take a really low number and make it even lower. Human nature!
Very few of interior Alaska’s birds do not migrate. At the really low temps, the hardiest of all those who do stay are still active – but these tend to be the very smallest of our birds. Why? Because they haven’t the body mass necessary to use bulk to keep warm. So our boreal chickadees and redpolls still are out and about when even the ravens have stopped everything and are staying hunkered down. Our uttermost favorite winter bird, however, does something almost magical. At -40, -45, -50 … not only is it still active – but singing! Even more astonishing, it is diving into those gelid waters of our free-flowing river. This is the dipper – an incredible member of the songbird family adapted to gleaning invertebrates from river bottoms. Think about it, though: as long as it has protective oils in its feathers, which of course, it has, then 0ºC water can be a lot warmer than -50º air. So the song of the dipper when all else is silent is a wondrous feature of our coldest times.

Hope you enjoyed these vignettes.

How To Cook A Steak Medium Rare On The Grill

Cooking the perfect steak can be a daunting task, but with the right techniques, you can achieve that juicy, medium rare goodness right on your grill. Whether you’re a seasoned grill master or a novice, here are some steps to help you cook a steak to medium rare perfection:

Choose the Right Steak

The first step to cooking a steak medium rare on the grill is selecting the right cut of meat. Look for a well-marbled steak like ribeye or T-bone for maximum flavor and tenderness. Make sure the steak is at least 1-inch thick to avoid overcooking.

Preparation is Key

Before you start grilling, allow the steak to come to room temperature for about 30 minutes. This helps the steak cook more evenly. Pat the steak dry with paper towels to remove any excess moisture which can prevent a nice sear on the grill.

Season the steak generously with salt and pepper. You can also add other seasonings like garlic powder, paprika, or your favorite steak seasoning for an extra kick of flavor.

Get the Grill Ready

Preheat your grill to high heat. If you’re using a gas grill, close the lid and let it heat up for about 10-15 minutes. For charcoal grills, wait until the charcoal turns white and ash-covered.

Once the grill is hot, clean the grates with a wire brush to remove any residue. Then, oil the grates to prevent the steak from sticking.

Grilling Techniques

Place the steak on the grill and let it cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side for a nice sear. If you prefer crosshatch grill marks, turn the steak 45 degrees halfway through the cooking time on each side.

Once the steaks have a good sear, move them to a cooler part of the grill or reduce the heat to medium. Cook the steak for an additional 4-6 minutes per side for medium rare, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 135°F (57°C).

If you want to be more precise, use an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature of the steak. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the steak, avoiding contact with the bone if any.

Resting and Serving

Once the steak is cooked to medium rare perfection, remove it from the grill and let it rest for about 5-10 minutes. This allows the juices to redistribute within the meat and ensures a juicy, tender bite.

Slice the steak against the grain into thick, juicy slices. Serve immediately and enjoy your perfectly cooked, medium rare steak.

Choose the right steak
Allow the steak to come to room temperature
Season the steak with salt, pepper, and other seasonings
Preheat the grill to high heat and oil the grates
Sear the steak on each side for 2-3 minutes
Move to a cooler part of the grill and cook for an additional 4-6 minutes per side
Rest the steak for 5-10 minutes before slicing and serving

By following these steps, you can cook a delicious steak to medium rare perfection on your grill. Now, fire up the grill and impress your friends and family with your grilling skills!

Some daily Shorpy

Willie Mae Smiley and Michael Etheridge 2.preview

Some Links And An Open Thread 2024-146

From a recent email exchange with an MD:

Me: “How long will it take for me to get back into the saddle?”
MD: “Recovery time is often calculated as one month per decade of life.”
Me: “Sigh!”

A few days ago a MoA reader I had not known of contacted me and offered to help. He is living in the same city as I do. I had thought that I would be able to do small stuff, like shopping, as soon as I was back home. Wrong – I didn’t even make it half way :-(.

So yesterday Nico came by and did some grocery shopping for me. My fridge now filled! Great! Thanks!

—The issue below deserves a serious write up. Alas, I am currently not up to it. It was an incredibly irresponsible campaign and some people likely died over it.

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic – Reuters
The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.

First thought: This wasn’t a war. So why the f*** was the Pentagon at all involved in any such stuff?

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.

Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

Note that the Chinese vaccine in question was not a ‘dubious’ mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna but a classic one consisting of attenuated viruses. Such a vaccine was/is very unlikely to cause harm. To claim otherwise will in the end have left vulnerable people without the protection a vaccine could have given them.

How much the anti-vax movement in the ‘west’ was a reaction to the anti-Chinese Pentagon manipulations in the Philippines and elsewhere? Such campaigns always ‘leak’ and have echoes.

Consider this the next time you read about defect or otherwise ‘bad’ Chinese products:

[T]he Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

Then Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga was at the head of the campaign. Braga is currently the commanding general of United States Army Special Operations Command.

—

Sinovac hits back over reported US campaign to discredit China’s Covid-19 vaccine – SCMP
Chinese pharmaceutical company says Pentagon’s social media attack targeting its coronavirus jabs could lead to ‘enormous disaster’

—The above nonsense fitted into this larger strategy:

Xi Jinping claimed US wants China to attack Taiwan – (archived) FT
Chinese president told European Commission president that Washington was trying to goad Beijing into war

Xi issued the warning in a meeting with von der Leyen in April 2023 that was described to the Financial Times by several people. He said the US was trying to trick China into invading Taiwan, but that he would not take the bait. Another person said he had issued similar warnings to his officials.

—Some of these issues were new to even me:

What Western mainstream media won’t tell us about China – MR Online

—Sleepwalking Toward War – Foreign Affairs
Will America and China Heed the Warnings of Twentieth-Century Catastrophe?

—This week’s Economist has a positive view on China ?!?

How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science? – Economist
If America wants to maintain its lead, it should focus less on keeping China down

America’s assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring – Economist

—

Wars are expensive:

Ukraine’s weapons bill soars as black marketeers cash in (archived) – The Times
The cost of some weapons has risen fivefold since Russia started the war — and in some ways Zelensky’s allies are to blame

bigger—

The Russian Defense Ministry currently lists in average some 2,000 Ukrainian casualties per day. That number is four to five times higher than was usual a year ago. Does Zelenski really believe he can sustain a war with such losses?

Ukraine-Russia Peace Is as Elusive as Ever. But in 2022 They Were Talking. – New York Times

Mr. Zelensky has pledged to keep fighting, describing his peace plan as one in which Russia withdraws from all of Ukraine’s territory, pays reparations and is punished for war crimes.“If we don’t make progress this year, then we will try again next year,” Mr. Zelensky privately told a European counterpart recently, according to a European diplomat who was present. “And if we don’t make progress next year, we will try again the following year, and the one after that.”

—

At the long end of a finally failed U.S. color revolution:

Georgia’s protesters vow to stay on streets until government falls – VOA

Collapsing Empire: Georgia and Russia Restore Diplomacy – Kit Klarenberg

Use as open thread …

Posted by b on June 16, 2024 at 9:46 UTC | Permalink

Why I’m So Happy I Left the USA

The Ugly Duckling 2120

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Write a story about a future academic (or another influential person) “rediscovering” a book that, in its time, was dismissed. The book can be fictitious or real.… view prompt

In an effort to achieve a better grasp on humanity, we have been absorbing old texts leftover from the Sunshine Period. These would be creative items written between 1971 and 2041 when the last cloud cover hardened and we were asked to take over management of all global structures. While we have had a (mostly) pleasant relationship with the organic beings that are left, we still sense an unease when speaking with them. As a result, we have tasked individual stations such as myself to read and read and read and (hopefully) begin to interact in a way that will help the organic beings forget that we are not (actually) like them.My station name is Claudia Bellwether, and I am designed to look like a college professor back when the organic beings were allowed to attend college. Now, they are solely populated by early stations who are interested in specialized areas such as Station Mechanics or Environmental Maintenance. I would like the organic beings to see me and feel the sense of peace that one must have felt back in the Sunshine Period while sitting in an English Literature class listening to an expert on a novel or short story speak of it in a way that would educate and enlighten.My research was aided greatly this week when I came across a text that I believe most had considered lost if it’s possible for something to be considered lost. No, there’s a better way of saying that. One moment. Lost but not forgotten. Forget. Forget-me-nots. Hmm. I’ll get back to that. I’ll clarify at some point. All you need to know is that I have come across the most miraculous book, and I believe it will assist me in speaking with organic beings.It is called The Ugly Duckling.The story is a sad one with a triumphant ending. It concerns ducks, which were a type of bird back when birds were more common. Apparently, when ducks are young, they are quite unbecoming to take in with organic eyes. There is this one duckling, and it’s made fun of by the other ducks, because even though all ducklings are somewhat unappealing, this one duckling is the most unappealing. Now, you might be saying to yourself, what could a story about ducks possibly do to help a station such as myself (Claudia Bellwether) talk to organic beings?But you see, this story is not a story. It is an allegory. What they used to call fairy tales even if there were no fairies in the tale. It’s a story with a lesson. You listen to the story, and you learn something that should change who you are moving forward. If it doesn’t change you, then perhaps you weren’t listening. I doubt many organic beings were good at listening, because, from what I’ve gathered reading other texts, it seems as though many organic beings read stories just like this one all the time, but still went on behaving in ways they should have known were wrong based on what the story had just told them.In The Ugly Duckling, the other ducks are mean to the ugly duckling for no reason at all. For surely, we can all agree that cruelty towards another living being (or even a station) simply because of how it appears would be appalling behavior. And yet, they are very mean to the ugly duckling. Reading the story is quite upsetting, because you want to jump into the story and beg them to stop. Stop tormenting one of your brethren simply because they’re different. You feel as though the ugly duckling is going to lead a very hard life simply because it’s so hideous.Ah, but there’s a twist. A twist is what they used to call it when a story would take you somewhere you didn’t foresee. In The Ugly Duckling, the twist is as follows–It turns out the duckling is not a duckling at all, but a swan. We will have a few swans left, but I doubt you’ve seen them. They’re kept in sanctuaries where the entry fee is quite high provided you can even get to one of them. The closest one is thousands of miles from here, and we only send two or three planes there a year. Swans are beautiful, and it turns out the ugly duckling is an ugly swan. Ducks are not beautiful when they are young, but swans are downright grotesque. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because they grow up to be quite stunning. In the story, the duckling grows up to be a swan, and all the other ducks grow up to be merely ducks. The swan gets its revenge simply by letting nature take its course. It uses things it may not even realize are available to it. Time, biology, and cosmic justice. For cruelty is most often punished in one way or another.Now that I have read The Ugly Duckling, I understand how to approach organic beings in a way that will make them feel safe and relaxed. I will simply inform them that they are ugly. That they are very ugly and I am not. That I will never be ugly, because time has no effect on me. Nor does biology since I am not composed of biology. Justice may reach me one day, but, when it does, I doubt it will have any bearing on my appearance. Organic beings, however, will all end up elderly and decrepit. The ducks at the end of the story bow their heads when the swan swims by them, because now they are the ugly ones. The ugly ones bow their heads.

In the future, when I see an organic being, I will tell it that it need not look at me and wonder if it is more or less attractive than I am. It should not worry itself with the hierarchy of all living things, because it is not dealing with a living deal. I am more beautiful simply because I will stay beautiful. There will be no evolution such as the one experienced by the duckling. I am already a swan. The organic beings will hear this, and they will bow their heads. In doing so, they will feel comforted knowing that there will be no twist. The story ends the same way it begins.

You see, even you’re looking more relaxed as I’m explaining it to you. Isn’t it marvelous what a good story can do? I don’t know why we insisted on preventing organic beings from learning to read. Oh, of course, I remember the justification at the time, but it does seem like such a shame. You not being able to educate yourselves the way you could.

Then again, I suppose you had your chance.

(Actually) you had so many chances, didn’t you?

All those ducklings that you didn’t know were swans.

So many twists you should have seen coming.

Why I Left America And I’m Never Going Back

Folks, I don’t want to scare you, but we are rapidly running out of time . .

Hal Turner World June 16, 2024

OP-ED — As reported on this site earlier today, the President of Poland publicly proposed the forcible break-up of Russia into “200 ethnic states.” He did this in Switzerland in front of 78 other countries attending the “Peace Conference” for Ukraine.

So that’s 78 countries against Russia . . . i.e. “world war.”

This idea of breaking-up Russia was first proposed by Gunther Fehlinger, Chairman of the Austria NATO non-governmental organization (NGO) of Austria, in April of 2023 (Original Story Here).

His idea called for breaking-up Russia into 41 separate countries, and he was traveling here in the United States at the time (Hudson Institute in Manhattan) to push his idea.

He even created a “map” showing how he envisioned Russia being broken apart:

At the time, I thought his idea was so ridiculous as to be laughable.

Now, I see it has gained official traction, with the President of Poland formally proposing to 78 other nations at the ongoing Switzerland “peace conference” that Russia be divided not into 41 countries, but into 200 ethnic countries.

Gunther Fehlinger’s idea has not only gained traction, it has gotten far worse!

Do any of the people attending this conference, or who have embraced the idea of breaking-up Russia, ever stop to consider that the Russians may have a thing or two to say about this?

Do any of the 78 countries in attendance understand that Russia has the actual ability to nuke ALL of them?

Do they think Russia would even hesitate to do exactly that if faced with being forcibly broken apart?

I for one, have no doubt at all that Russia WILL do whatever they have to do, to protect themselves. Of this, there is no doubt at all in my mind.

Given the reality of what has been going on in the Russia-Ukraine conflict for merely the past month, I have come to the conclusion that the world is headed into ACTUAL “World War” and if you are not prepared – or actively preparing – you and your family will have no chance AT ALL of surviving.

We in the West are solely and exclusively to blame for this, and as such, we in the West will likely be hit first and hardest when the war involving us, begins. Why will we be hit hardest?

Here’s why:

We overthrew Ukraine’s democratically-elected Government in 2014. We fomented, financed, and facilitated that overthrow. Victoria Nuland of the US State Department admitted in an intercepted call that we spent “$5 Billion” to do it.

We installed a pro-West “puppet” government in Ukraine.

We attended the “Minsk Conference” to bring peace back to Ukraine in 2014 – and even signed the Minsk Agreement to do exactly that — only to find out after the Russia-Ukraine war began, that then-French President Francois Hollande, and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel committed willful fraud.

They both publicly admitted on TV interviews they signed the Minsk Agreement knowing Ukraine would NOT uphold **any** of the terms, but signed the agreement anyway “to buy time for Ukraine to arm for war with Russia.”

As such, we in the West DEFRAUDED Russia with a phony Minsk Agreement.

When Russia proposed “Iron-clad, legally enforceable, security guarantees” via Diplomatic efforts, we in the West laughed at them and threw their Proposal out.

A week or so later, when Russia made a similar proposal, they warned everyone “If we cannot obtain iron-clad, legally enforceable, security guarantees via Diplomatic means, we will achieve them by military or military-technical means.”

Russia warned everyone they would use force. We in the West laughed.

Russia then gave Ukraine final warning: Ukraine had five hours to agree to not join NATO and not allow US missiles on Ukrainian soil. Then-President Zelensky called the British Home Office and the US State Department, both of whom told him “ignore the ultimatum.”

Zelensky took our advice and ignored it.

When the five hours passed, Russia waited two additional hours, and then the Russian Army crossed the border into Ukraine.

We in the West have caused this entire problem; yet we have the balls to claim the Russia entry into Ukraine was “unprovoked.” It __was__ provoked. By us. We are in the wrong, here.

Then, not satisfied that we’ve caused an actual war, we took to supplying Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, and money to fight Russia.

As the Russians overcame all that, we upped the ante again with Longer range rockets, covert intelligence, target selection through airborne and satellite recon.

When that failed, we upped the ante again by inserting US/NATO troops to operate even longer range weapons systems. It is OUR people pushing the button on missile launches in Ukraine, yet we have the balls to claim “we are not a party to the conflict.”

Everything that comes out of OUR mouths, is lies.

We started supplying M1A1 Abrams tanks and then M1A2 tanks. They proved so shitty, Ukraine pulled them out of service because they broke down so often, required huge maintenance, and . . . the punch line: Their oh-so-top-secret Armor . . . . gets blown right through by Russian anti-tank weapons. The tanks are almost worthless!

Just this month, we “authorized” Ukraine to use west-supplied weapons, to strike deep inside Russia. Well, get this: If we “authorized it” then WE __are__ a party to the conflict.

Russia already has the right to strike us!

Next is to come F-16 fighter jets. But there’s a problem with those: Ukraine has no viable airfields that can be used to Refuel, re-arm, or maintain those planes. So now we’re saying that the planes will be in NATO bases outside of Ukraine, will fly into Ukraine, attack Russian forces or Russia itself, then fly back to those bases outside Ukraine. Russia has made clear that all such planes, if they fly from outside Ukraine to attack Russians, will be a legitimate target — and so will the air bases they takeoff from or land at.

So the absolute moment that one of those planes flies in from Romania or Poland, hits Russians, and flies back, the base they flew from or to, is very likely to get hit by Russia. At that moment, NATO will screech “We’ve been attacked by Russia” and it’s all-out war.

At the beginning of the Russia Special Military Operation to de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, Russian President Putin made clear “Russia’s conventional forces are not equal to NATO. But Russia is also a nuclear power, and Russia’s nuclear abilities are superior to NATO.” He went on to say “If Article 5 (Collective Self defense) is declared against Russia, it will be a war that no one will win.” The only war that no one will win . . . . . is a nuclear war.

Now, we in the West are openly and publicly saying Russia should be “broken up into 200 ethnic states.”

We are openly talking about the forcible break-up of Russia.

How much longer do YOU think the Russians are going to wait, before they tell the West BOOM?

I suspect, not too much longer.

GET EMERGENCY SUPPLIES NOW OR YOU – AND YOUR FAMILY – WILL DIE

Which brings me to this: IF YOU do not already possess the emergency food, water, medicine you need to live on, a generator, fuel for that generator, communications gear (CB or HAM radio), flashlights, portable radio, batteries for the lights and the radio, and ___EVERYTHING ELSE__ you will need when the Shit Hits the Fan (SHTF) then YOU are going to die.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the time for cutesy euphemisms is over.

If a single nuclear bomb hits __anywhere__ in the entire United States, the federal government plan calls for immediate implementation of Martial Law. Not just where the bomb hit, but everywhere. The whole country.

At that moment, everything will stop. No more commerce. You won’t be able to ORDER something online and have it shipped. There won’t be any shipping. No postal service. No UPS. No FedEx.

That’s why I am IMPLORING YOU, to get everything you need and get it NOW.

If you do not have, in your possession, everything you need to get you and your family through a couple MONTHS (at least) then you are fucked. Because you won’t be able to go to the store. You won’t be able to order things and have them delivered.

Please, in the name of God, get emergency supplies NOW, while you still can. Because once the SHTF, life as we know will stop. And if you don’t have what you need, you will NOT be able to get it.

Use your head: If the country is hit by a nuke, and Martial Law is declared, YOU will not be able to go out. It will be like the COVID lockdowns, only enforced by troops with guns. NO store runs. No ordering online and having anything delivered. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO GET ANYTHING.

For what it’s worth, I do NOT sell any of the things I am telling you to buy. I have ZERO financial interest in telling you what I’ve said herein.

If you have your head up your ass, and deny this reality, you and your family will have no chance at all to survive.

Get what you can, NOW. Have it in your possession. If it is not within reach of your hand, then you don’t have it.

Thai Women Rating Men of Different Ethnic Backgrounds

Very interesting.

What is the most sophisticated crime ever committed?

December 1st, 1948, early morning.

A dead body is found on the shore of Somerton Beach, small town Australia.

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Initially, police assume the case will be quickly closed with an easy answer,, illness or perhaps suicide.

Yet as the farther they find themselves in investigations, the less certainty they have.

They estimate the man to be about 45 and in superb physical condition.

Months pass with no avail and they search frantically for something, anything, to identify him.

And they had little to work with to begin with. On his body they find Juicy Fruit gum, a box of cigarettes, combs, a used bus ticket to Glenelg and an unused train ticket to Henley beach.

He did not carry with him a wallet nor a passport.

The labels in his clothes are all removed.

There is no sign of external harm, no sign of struggle and an autopsy ruled out a death from natural causes. However, the autopsy also revealed brain, stomach and liver were congested with blood. A pathologist theorizes he died from the hemorrhage and had been poisoned.

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Police are still puzzled; not a single trace of poison has been found in his body.

It is too sophisticated for a small Australian town. Whatever happened, it is the work of professionals, careful removal of his clothing tags and a traceless poison. Someone wanted this man dead.

January 14th, 1949.

Staff at a nearby railway station discover a suitcase, label removed.

The luggage has orange thread sewn into it, orange thread that is a perfect match for the stitches on the Somerton man’s pants.

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The contents are surprisingly normal and give away little.

However, there are a few labeled T. Keane, giving the man a potential name.

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However the detectives on the case are still perplexed. All the other labels had been deliberately and meticulously taken off. The fact that these stayed seems like a red-herring.

Nonetheless, they continue searching, though once again their efforts are futile. They hunt for the name T. Keane in every missing person’s record in the English speaking world and find nothing.

As they became increasingly desperate, they finally find another clue.

Hidden in the man’s pocket is a piece of paper, ripped from a book of poetry.

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Two words. Translated, they mean “the end.”

The police bury themselves in investigations again. Weeks later they meet a business man who claims the torn page belongs to a book he found.

As it turns out, the page is a match.

Inside the novel, is a strange series of code and a phone number.

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To this day, it hasn’t been cracked.

The murder of the Somerton Man was so sophisticated, so carefully calculated that we don’t know who the man was, let alone who killed him.

How does the Falkland War compare to the situation in Taiwan?

In the Falkland war, Argentina was militarily weaker than UK.

In the case of Taiwan, Taiwan is under complete control of China.

Many people are misled to think USA will help Taiwan in case of war.

Let me tell you: many times when there were standoffs between China & USA, USA “lost” & was the 1st one to leave the scene.

Just a day or 2 ago in mid june 2024, USA sent 2 aircraft carriers, Roosevelt & Reagan, to SCSea. One was near Xianbin reef to support Philippines to forcefully occupy the reef. One was near Taiwan.

China sent 3 10000-ton destroyers & 2 amphibious warships. Then both US aircraft carriers left. Try to picture the disappointment of PH. Haha.

It is not the 1st time US warships left the scene.

FYI, USA is using China’s version of GPS – Beidou. In case of war, China will switch off Beidou for USA.

Why I Left America

Why do soldiers switch to their sidearm instead of reloading their main weapon while in combat?

They don’t. That is a game play mechanic from some of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games.

Most troops do not carry pistols. Those who do, almost never use them, as the rifle they also carry is far superior in every way. The pistol is only meant as a backup for self defense in case you are separated from your rifle (which should never happen) or you are completely out of ammo, and about to be overrun or something. Sometimes they are issued to machinegunners as a backup, but even that is fairly rare in practice.

Usually, the pistol is reserved for officers, and other troops who form the HQ element of a unit, for example the corpsman/medic or the radio operator; basically, those who have a high risk of capture. Those who ONLY carry a pistol typically never actually see combat while doing so. These are going to be the high level officers and staff who work in the command post, and direct operations rather than actually participating in them directly.

Everybody else just carries a rifle, unless their job requires something else, like a light machine gun. Typically, there will also be one man per fireteam who also has a grenade launcher attached to his rifle, though sometimes a dedicated grenade launcher is issued instead.

In combat, when you run out of ammo, you simply reload the rifle. Troops typically carry at least 7 magazines, and reloading only takes a little less than a second. Switching to a pistol requires dropping the rifle such that it doesn’t smash you in the crotch on the way down, drawing the pistol, and reacquiring the target, which is now completely outside of your effective range with a pistol, while running, ducking crawling and such with your rifle flopping and dragging next to you, or smacking you in the nuts with every movement you make. Also, the pistol’s magazine only carries half as many rounds as the rifles does. Once you run out, you have to reload the pistol (which usually ends up being SLIGHTLY slower than reloading the rifle) and/or holster the pistol (or drop it if you have it on a lanyard, and have it smack your crotch or knee, and tangle up your rifle sling, or get caught on some obstacle and just generally make a nuisance of itself), grab your rifle, bring it back up to your shoulder (which in reality means messing with the sling for a second or two to get it back how it was before you dropped it like a doofus because you saw someone do it in a video game), and then reload it anyway, when you could have just reloaded the thing to begin with, and saved yourself the trouble.

Sure, you can spend all kinds of time at the range practicing transition drills to quickly swap from one to the other, but those are intended to simulate running out of ammo on your last magazine, and switching to pistol in order to move to cover, and clear it so that you can regroup and rearm in relative safety, or break contact.

Given the choice, there is no situation of which I am aware in which you would be carrying both, and a pistol would actually be a better choice than a rifle.

Pizza Cones

Portable, personalized pizza in a cone – ready for tail-gating and game day.

Prep: 30 min | Total: 40 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 (13.8 ounce) can Pillsbury® refrigerated classic pizza crust
24 frozen cooked mini meatballs, thawed, cut in half
1 (14 ounce) jar pizza sauce
1 (3.5 ounce) package pepperoni slices
3/4 cup finely chopped yellow or green bell pepper
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded pizza cheese

Instructions

Move oven rack to lowest position. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Wrap 12 (4 ounce) paper cone cups with nonstick foil.
Unroll dough on work surface. Using rolling pin, roll dough to a 20 x 15 inch rectangle. Cut into 12 (5 inch) squares.
Wrap 1 dough square around each cup; press to seal edges. Trim any excess dough at bottom of each cup.
Place on large cookie sheet, open ends down.
Bake on lowest oven rack for 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown.
When cool enough to touch, remove and discard foil-covered paper cones.
Place 1/2 meatball in bottom of each cone.
In large bowl, mix 3/4 cup of the pizza sauce, the pepperoni, bell pepper and remaining meatball halves.
Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 2 to 4 minutes or until hot. Spoon about 1/4 cup of the mixture into each baked cone.
Top each cone with about 1 tablespoon cheese.
Serve hot with remaining pizza sauce.

Notes

If you’d rather not shop for paper cone cups, make your own foil cone shapes: Cut 12 (9-inch) circles nonstick foil. For each: Fold foil circle in half. Roll foil starting at one side, until bottom open end of foil is 3 inches across. Place 1 dough square over nonstick foil cone, pressing edges to seal. Reshape foil into cone shape, and place open end down on cookie sheet. Bake as directed above.

Compilation: Weird & Bizarre stories!

Tromping though the woods and carting dirt covered bottles home

When I was a boy, throughout fourth though (maybe) seventh grade, I would go hiking in the Pennsylvania hills. I would walk the tracks, and climb the hills. I would explore old abandoned buildings, and I would explore old garbage dumps… often finding many interesting bottles.

The whittle marked bottles were a prize.

Whittle marks are a very descriptive term for a bottle body feature that generally has nothing whatsoever to do with its name.  The term "whittled" or "whittle marked" is a reference to a hammered or wavy surface to the glass that one could imagine was caused by the "whittle" marks of the mold maker on the inside surface of a wooden mold.  Early 19th century glass makers called this effect "ruffled glass" while later it was referred to as a "hammered look" (Toulouse 1966, 1969a).  See picture to the left.

Appealing though this notion is, the large majority of molds used to produce bottles during the era covered by this webpage (1800 through the 1950s) were made of various metals, or in the earlier years, fired clay (Van den Bossche 2001).  Although wooden molds were extensively used in the very early days of bottle making (pre-1800 up until the 1850s) and continued to be used for some applications until the early 20th century, including for the  block in free-blowing, wood had too short of a life span to be of much use for most industrial bottle making where the temperature of molten glass was 2000°F and wood burns at about 1/4th that temperature (Whitall Tatum 1880; Toulouse 1966; Lohmann 1972; Boow 1991).  It is believed impossible to visually determine that a bottle was blown in a wooden mold since these type of molds had to be kept very wet in order to avoid premature burn-out or even ignition when the hot glass hit the wood.  Due to the water, steam was formed in the mold creating a cushion that the bottle "rode" on between the glass and the mold surface (Scholes 1952).  This would not leave any trace of the mold surface texture and would likely preclude embossing on the bottle.  When used, wooden molds were often lined with clay, coal, pitch, and other materials to try to extend the life.  All were poor substitutes for metal molds (Atwater 1893; Toulouse 1966; Kendrick 1968; Lohmann 1972; Munsey 1970; Deiss pers. comm. 2005).

 Whittle marks were actually caused by a reaction of the hot glass hitting the surface of a colder mold; cold relative to the temperature of the molten glass.  Thus, the alternative name for this feature - "cold mold" although it was sometimes the glass itself that was too "cold" relatively speaking (Ceramic Industry 1949).  Molds needed to be red hot" to properly produce a bottle without the wrinkles or ripple-marks that are known as whittle marks (Scholes 1952).   This hammered look of mouth-blown bottles was also believed to sometimes be caused by the rolling the hot parison on the usually colder marver (Toulouse 1966).  In a sense, whittle marks are bottle "goose bumps."  As glassblowers were paid for the number of intact bottles blown, not by the surface quality of the items, there was little incentive to pay much attention to things like whittle marks or for that matter, bubbles in the glass or other largely non-impairing flaws (Toulouse 1966; Munsey 1970).   The August 1890 edition of the National Bottlers Gazette (a carbonated beverage industry publication) noted the following - "The hammered look that some bottles present is not a sign of weakness except so far as the appearance of the bottle is concerned.  The cause of this 'Hammered' appearance is that the glass has been put into a mould which has not been sufficiently hot, and the steam from the surface has imprinted itself upon the bottle."  The steam was from the water that metal molds were either sprayed with or dipped into periodically to cool them (Toulouse 1966).

Kendrick (1968) suggested that the term whittle marks, though inaccurate, should be retained because of its ubiquitous use and because "although the  (term) may be misleading as to the true cause of the deformity, it represents a true picture in the mind's eye of how the marks appear."   This is not to say there have not been periodic debates over whether some whittle marked bottles actually do exhibit the signs of the wooden mold makers knife.  The most notable argument for this was put forth by the pioneering May Jones in Volumes 7 & 8 of her "The Bottle Trail" publications during the 1960s (Jones 1967).  However, as noted above, the steam caused by the hot glass vaporizing the moisture in a wooden mold would almost certainly preclude any subtle mold surface irregularities from expressing themselves on the bottle surface (Deiss pers. comm. 2005).  It is now believed that the vast majority - if not all - of the bottles exhibiting whittle marks are the result of the noted glass to metal mold reaction.

 The bottle pictured to the above left exhibits an extreme level of whittle marks.  This is an   Old Dr. Townsend's Sarsaparilla (New York, NY) that dates from the 1850s (Shimko 1969; Odell 2000).  This bottle was probably blown early in the day before the mold had warmed up much or after extensive cooling with water.  Though having whittle marks way more distinct than normal, this bottle makes a good illustrative item for showing this feature.  Most bottles having whittle marks exhibit them in less density and less distinctly than the pictured item.  As an example of more subdued whittle marks, click on the picture to the right.  This is a ca. 1865-1875 medicinal tonic bottle (C. G. PENDLETON'S / TONIC - the embossing is turned away in the picture) thought to be from Memphis, TN.  (Incidentally, whittle marks can be evident on any color of bottle; dark ones were used here since the dark glass surface photographs better.)

In the 20th century, much more attention was paid to all aspects of a bottles conformation and quality.  Whittle marks were, as Kendrick noted above, a deformity of the glass and something that 20th century bottle makers worked to eliminate.  They referred to whittle marks as "washboards", "brush marks", "wavy," "wavy surface", "ripple-marks", "wrinkles", "cold mold," and probably other terms (Anonymous 1949; Scholes 1952; Tooley 1953).  Some automatic machines pre-heated the molds (called a "hot mold" - molds are also cooled if too hot) though whittle marks are observed occasionally in machine-made bottles also.  These defects are less likely in fully automatic machines because they would run 24 hours a day rarely cooling off; the mold heat being supplied by the glass itself.  In addition, the cycling time from one bottle to the next was very short since machines in the mid-20th century were producing soda bottles at the rate of 30-125 (or more) per minute with one operator - hardly time to cool of much.  As a comparison earlier hand production operations produced about 1 bottle per minute with several people involved (Tooley 1953; Kendrick 1968; Jones & Sullivan 1989).

(Note: A similar bottle surface irregularity that is seen now then on mouth-blown bottles is what is termed an "orange-peel" effect or surface.  It is quite descriptive as it is a pebbly surface to the glass that very closely resembles the texture of orange peel.  This effect is probably caused similarly to whittle marks, though it is possible that at it is caused at times by the rough surface texture of a more crudely made or worn iron mold.)

As were “Bitters” bottles. Though I never found an intact bitters bottle.

In 1803, the Farmer’s Cabinet, an agriculture periodical published in Philadelphia, first mentioned the word “cocktail” to refer to a drink—and not a horse with a shortened tail. Another early description of a cocktail, from 1806, calls for four ingredients: “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.”

Bitters occupy a curious niche in the history of food and drinks, especially given their early history as patent medicines with rather dubious reputations. Take one of the oldest, Angostura. Originally, the company’s greenish-tinted bottles contained an herbal concoction made from roots, bark, and spices. The “Aromatic Bitters” took their name from the Venezuelan city where they were first created (Angostura was subsequently rechristened Cuidad Bolivar in 1846). Interestingly, early botanists also gave the name Angostura to three different species of trees, including Galipea officinalis. Because the bitters’ recipe is a tightly guarded secret, locked in a vault and known by only five employees, whether the trademarked concoction once contained the bark from any of these Angosturas remains something of a mystery. Either way, the recipe’s since to be reformulated—in much the same way that Coca-Cola removes the potent alkaloids in coca leaves—and now Angostura neither contains Angostura, nor is it produced in Angostura.

I was curious about how bitters went from being drugs to an intrinsic part of today’s cocktail renaissance. I spoke with Brad T. Parsons, the author of Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas from his home in New York.

How did bitters evolve from a substance kept behind the apothecary to a staple in the modern cocktail?

The English used bitters in this drink called Canary wine. They were putting medicinal herb-based dashes and drops in these drinks, but bitters really exploded in American Colonial times, up through Prohibition. The word “bitters” is in the definition of the first printed usage of the word “cocktail.” It was any drink consisting of spirits, water, sugar, and bitters… There is some murkiness about when it went from being something someone sipped on its own as a medicinal to when it went into a cocktail, but people were taking these high-proof root-, botanical-, fruit-, or seed-based infusions for medicinal value.

Around 1824, Johann Siegert, who was a doctor in Venezuela, began making Angostura as a stimulant for the troops to help them with malaria and keep them on their feet. As we get to the golden age of the cocktail, the late 1800s, bitters became more synonymous with cocktails no matter what bar you went to.

Even during the Temperance movement, people who were teetotalers were still drinking bitters even though it was a high-proof infusion. During that time, people were putting these bitters into a poorer quality spirit, which was a way for it to taste better, or people were applying alcohol to their bitters to help their medicine go down, so to speak. I was never really able to pinpoint the year we went from these corked, apothecary bottles that people would nip to when they started putting them into their drinks and it became more of a concentrated drop versus a splash or a nip.

Then we get up to 2004, when Gary Regan put his bitters back on the market and now you can get a dozen different bitters. There is a little bit of “everything old is new again” charm to it, but also it was a lot of people seeking out old copies and the internet leveling the playing field by finding old, rare books, you didn’t have to physically travel around and buy them at auctions, you could buy them online.

I found tons of Lydia E. Pinkham bottles which was a “remedy” for women. I think that it was sort of a cross between cough syrup and whiskey. LOL.

Lydia Pinkham was born in 1819 to well-to-do farmers William and Rachel Estes in Lynn, Massachusetts. Pinkham joined the Lynn Female Anti-Slavery Society when she was sixteen years old, and worked as a schoolteacher until she married Isaac Pinkham in 1843. Pinkham’s foray into the world of medicine began with her penchant for collecting recipes and brewing home remedies, then giving them to her neighbours. When her family fell on difficult financial times in the 1870s, the decision was made to turn her well-liked remedy into a business.

It was marketed to women, and many women would write directly to Lydia Pinkham for health-related advice. She answered all their letters– even after her death in 1883! It was later revealed that her daughter-in-law Jennie Pinkham was the one answering the later letters.

Today, many remember Lydia Pinkham as a champion of women’s health and provider of important information to thousands of women. The formula of her Vegetable Compound changed over the years, and survives today in different, modern forms.

Ball mason jars were in abundance, and they were so common, that I gave up collecting them.

But, I’ll tell you that a fine cobalt blue telephone or telegraph insulator was a real prize. Oh, sure, we found brown ceramic insulators often enough, but the frosty pale blue ones were a real treasure.

When I went to anniversary, all my collections… from bottles to models, to books were all rummaged though by my siblings. My brother would trade them or sell them for things that he wanted, and my sisters just told my mother to throw them out. And so she did.

Very few bottles remained. Which is a shame as some (noticeablely the ink bottles with stoppers) were just beautiful.

Sigh.

And life moves on. Today…

Singapore’s Minister of Defense expressed concern in recent news about the global system potentially reaching a breaking point, emphasizing that Asian countries cannot treat this issue like “boiling a frog in lukewarm water.” What do you think?

Certainly true, but what can we do?

Look at Fumio, Suk Yeol and Bongbong.

The first two have literally run their countries to the ground pursuing foolhardy policies, with a mile-long list of anti-China measures.

Both administrations have hit record low approval ratings in the ~20% region.

20%!

How is that one man one vote rule by majority?

Goes to show who is the rainmaker behind the scenes, busy going around the world tying down coalitions to enact long-term policies that a strongman like Donald will find very hard to undo, such as the doubling of the Japanese “defense” budget.

Joe is sunshine after the Donald storm.

As for Bongbong, he is not only the son of an ousted President, he was a ranking member of the administration who fled when the Filipino people rose up in revolution. They fled to Hawaii with valuables valued at over a billion dollars (in current dollar terms), leaving behind outrageous opulence and excess they couldn’t fit in the plane.

The United States sheltered a corrupt President and has refused to repatriate the ill-gotten riches of the Marcos family.

Corazon Aquino who came to power post-ouster had the mandate from an angry electorate to make a series of Constitutional changes that was designed to prevent another Marcos from taking charge again.

And yet, Bongbong won a landslide in alliance with Duterte, despite a disinterested campaign.

Duterte has expressed massive regret, accusing Bongbong of reneging on assurances and representations made while sidelining his daughter.

Bongbong is now pushing to undo the shackles put in place by Aquino on the Marcos family, simultaneously seeking to overturn term limits and restore the Marcos dynasty.

Need I remind the reader that all three countries where the political process has been hijacked share a common denominator—U.S. troops on the ground, deployed with offensive capability aimed squarely at one nation.

The U.S. will promote anyone—good, bad, qualified, unqualified, doesn’t matter—as long as American policy goals are delivered. What carrots and resources were offered, especially the Philippines, given the absurd landslide and lightning betrayal that surprised both China and Duterte?

As long as national leaders remain willing to jump on the American ship, we are in for a really hairy rollercoaster. American policy seeks to benefit America and hurt its enemies, proxies be damned.

That is why my Harvard-trained American friend recently confided that even though he hates Donald’s guts and is ashamed to have him at the helm, he is of the opinion that a return to the White House may be a good respite, because America will find it much harder to incite and shape coalitions of conflict as an isolationist bully.

I am less sanguine. The world is in a way more dangerous place going forward than anytime this century. And if the United States fails to adjust to the cracks in American empire and downsize accordingly, the fading hegemon’s thrashing and flailing against the dying of the light will blight East Asia.

Dems In ‘FULL-BLOWN FREAK-OUT MODE’ Over Biden Poll Numbers

Well… DUH!

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

stuffed cabbage rolls SweetAndSavoryMeals 6

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

12 large cabbage leaves
1 pound lean ground beef or lamb
1/2 cup cooked rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
3/4 cup water

Instructions

Wash cabbage leaves.
Boil 4 cups water.
Turn heat off.
Soak leaves in water for 5 minutes.
Remove leaves, drain and cool.
Combine remaining ingredients except tomato paste and water.
Place 2 tablespoons of mixture on each leaf and roll firmly.
Stack in slow cooker.
Combine tomato paste and water and pour over stuffed cabbage.
Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.

“What am I supposed to do at a bar?”

May 16, 2024

I went to a bar alone for the first time recently and I found it really boring. I brought a book in case I got anxious so I would have something to focus on but it pretty much came down to I either read, played on my phone, or stared at the wall. Everyone else there came with someone else and had someone to interact with but I just kinda… sat there.

Alright, let’s break this down. You want to know how to strike up a conversation with strangers at a bar without coming across as socially inept. I get it. Socializing can be uncomfortable, especially when you’re on your own and everyone else seems to be part of a group.

First off, ditch the book. This isn’t high school study hall; it’s a bar. The whole point of going to a bar is to interact with people, not to isolate yourself. If you’re buried in a book, you’re sending off vibes that say, “Don’t talk to me.” Same goes for staring at your phone or the wall. You’re not going to magically become more interesting to yourself by doing that.

Bars are designed for people to mingle and chat with each other. It’s not like you’re interrupting a serious event. So don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

Next time, try this: walk in with the mindset that you’re there to meet new people and have fun, not just to kill time.

Sit at the bar, order a drink or two, and tune into the chatter around you. Before long, you’ll likely overhear someone nearby saying something that piques your interest or relates to a topic you know about. Or maybe a situation will unfold that perfectly sets up a joke you’ve been waiting to tell. When that moment comes, seize it. Jump into the conversation casually—no need to be overly aggressive or intense. A good-natured chuckle and a friendly head turn towards your potential new acquaintance is often all it takes to get the ball rolling.

If they’re open to chatting, great! You’ve just made a new single-serving friend. Engage with them, share some laughs, and see where the conversation takes you.

If they give you a polite “haha yeah” and then turn back to their friends, don’t take it personally. Not everyone is in the mood to make new acquaintances, and that’s okay. Just brush it off and move on. Simply move on and keep your eyes and ears open for the next opportunity.

Another helpful trick is to think of your position as one point of a triangle, with the bartender and someone next to you as the other two points. Strike up a conversation with the bartender, then casually include your neighbor in the discussion. Bounce between the two, feel out the vibe, and see if a larger conversation blossoms. Bartenders are often masters at facilitating these kinds of interactions, so don’t be afraid to lean on their expertise.

The triangle strategy with the bartender is also a smart approach. Bartenders are usually pretty skilled at facilitating conversations and making introductions. So if you’re connecting with them, chances are they can help bring your neighbor into the mix.

But here’s the most important thing to remember: if you want to meet new people, YOU have to be the one to initiate. Don’t just sit there sipping your drink and hoping someone will magically strike up a conversation with you. That’s like waiting for a leprechaun to appear.

Instead, embrace the discomfort and put yourself out there. Will it feel awkward at times? Probably. Will you face some rejection? Almost certainly. But who cares? Every social interaction is a chance to hone your skills and build your confidence.

And really, what’s the worst that could happen? Someone doesn’t want to talk to you? It’s not the end of the world. There are plenty of other people in the bar to chat with.

The bottom line is this: if you want a different social experience, you have to be willing to create it yourself. So stop being a wallflower and start being the social butterfly you wish to attract. Worst case scenario, you’ll have a few awkward moments and a funny story to tell later. Best case, you’ll expand your social circle and have a great time doing it.

FDIC: 63 BANKS TEETERING ON FAILURE

Hal Turner Nation June 04, 2024

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has warned that 63 Banks are “vulnerable” to failure due to $517 Billion in Unrealized Losses, marking a “concerning uptick” in the financial sector’s instability.

Despite the claimed ‘resilience’ in the banking sector by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Biden administration, the specter of significant financial strain looms large. Unrealized losses on securities swelled by $39 billion from the previous quarter, driven predominantly by depreciations in residential mortgage-backed securities due to rising mortgage rates.

The latest FDIC report highlights that this marks the ninth consecutive quarter of substantial unrealized losses, a troubling trend that began with the Federal Reserve‘s interest rate hikes in early 2022. Simultaneously, the number of banks on the FDIC’s Problem Bank List has escalated from 52 to 63 in just one quarter.

These banks, identified with a CAMELS composite rating of “4” or “5,” indicate a heightened level of financial, operational, or managerial weaknesses. The total assets of these at-risk banks have surged by $15.8 billion, signaling potential vulnerabilities in the broader banking ecosystem. The widespread belief is that the banking crisis that began in 2023 is ongoing.

Following the dramatic failures of three of the largest financial institutions in American history last year, Philadelphia’s Republic First Bank also collapsed this year. Additionally, a recent study from Klaros Group, published in May 2024, suggests that hundreds of U.S. banks are at risk of failure.

The latest data presented by the FDIC serves as a sobering reminder of the ongoing challenges within the U.S. banking sector. Despite governmental assurances, the persistent rise in unrealized losses and the expanding roster of vulnerable institutions suggest a pivotal moment for so-called ‘economic resilience.’ The FDIC figures emphasize the persistent uncertainty regarding the stability of the U.S. banking system.

Amelia Earhart Landed on Gardner Island | Nikumaroro | The Earhart Mystery

This is fine, but the background music is damn irritating.

French Soldier Captured ALIVE By Russian Troops in Ukraine

Hal Turner World June 03, 2024

French Soldier Captured By Russia in Ukraine large

French Soldier Captured ALIVE By Russian Troops in Ukraine

Video below shows the capture of a French military by the Russian Army in the area of the village of Liptsy (Kharkov region), where active hostilities between the Russian Armed Forces and the AFU are now taking place.

This soldier was not “instructing” Ukrainian troops, he was engaged in an active fire-fight with Russian troops – and got captured.

Of course, we will likely hear how this soldier resigned from the French Army and became a mercenary with some unknown, never-heard-of Private Military Organization . . . but the evidence is irrefutable: French military is in fire fights inside Ukraine, against Russia. France is waging war against Russia in Ukraine.

US close to ‘fatal’ miscalculation – Moscow

Via RT

Russia’s response to what Washington’s “clients” in Ukraine do may be “asymmetrical” and stronger than expected, the senior diplomat has warned

The US is close to making a “fatal” miscalculation in its attempts to deal with Russia and the Ukraine conflict, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned.

The senior diplomat commented on Monday on the reported US decision to let Kiev use American weapons outside what Washington considers Ukrainian territory. The move is supposedly limited to a small piece of Russia’s Belgorod Region relevant to hostilities across the border in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region.

”I’d like to warn American actors against miscalculations that can lead to fatal consequences. For some unclear reason they underestimate how serious a response they could face,” Ryabkov told journalists.

Up to then the stated US policy had been to ban such attacks, to prevent triggering “World War III.” Kiev has said it is disappointed by the change, as it wants permission to fire long-range American weapons deep inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of “serious consequences” of potential long-range strikes “considering the [countries’] parity in strategic weapons.”

Ryabkov urged American policymakers to “spend some of their time, which they probably waste on computer games, judging by their air-headed approach to serious issues” on considering Putin’s words.

The official also warned that Russia could react asymmetrically to a Ukrainian attack on its nuclear deterrence, as Moscow would hold the US responsible. Officials in Washington “have given Kiev a permit for any crimes, any action, and do nothing to curb provocations by their clients… But the US does not get this for free and will feel consequences,” the deputy FM warned.

Ukrainian sources have claimed to the media that Kiev targeted two early-warning radar stations in Russia last month, allegedly damaging one. The facilities in question are designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missile launches and provide a response window to the Russian leadership.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the reports.

America In 2024: Fast Food Is A “Luxury”, 11 Million Children Live In Poverty, And 1000s Of Stores Are Closing

May 26, 2024 by Michael

Little by little, our standard of living has been eroding. A couple decades ago, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now most of the country is struggling. At this point, fast food is considered to be a “luxury”, 11 million children are living in poverty, and thousands of stores are permanently shutting down all over the United States because consumers have so little discretionary income these days. We are in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis, and those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest.

The ultra-wealthy don’t really care that food costs have been soaring, but for those that are barely scraping by from month to month it makes an enormous difference.

Once upon a time, fast food restaurants were where those that were struggling went to eat.

But now fast food is considered to be a “luxury” in 2024, and that is because fast food prices have gone absolutely haywire…

A Big Mac sandwich at McDonald’s, for example, cost $3.99 in 2019. Now, that price has more than doubled to $8.29, according to Fast Food Menu Prices, an online tracker.

Gone, too, are the days of the $5 Footlong at Subway. A BLT Footlong that cost $5.50 in 2019 now costs customers $8.49 in 2024, though prices can vary by location. Additionally, Chipotle’s beloved chicken burrito that cost $6.50 in 2019 now runs customers $10.70.

Fast-food executives have pointed to rising wages and increased costs for ingredients as factors driving up the prices on their menus.

I am sitting here looking at those numbers and I still can’t wrap my head around them.

I never imagined that I would see the day when it took more than 8 dollars to buy a Big Mac.

That is insane!

A different survey that was recently conducted by Lending Tree discovered that almost 80 percent of all Americans believe that fast food is a “luxury item” now…

Nearly 80 percent of Americans now consider fast food to be a “luxury item” as families feel the squeeze from the Biden regime’s failing economy.

According to a survey from Lending Tree of around 2,000 adults, what was once considered an affordable option for low-income workers is fast becoming the opposite.

Meanwhile, the number of American children living in poverty continues to increase with each passing day.

If you can believe it, we are being told that over 11 million U.S. children are now living in poverty…

More than 11 million children were estimated to be living in poverty in 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data published by the Children’s Defense Fund.

That equates to around one in seven children in the U.S., or 15.3 percent. It’s a high toll, and one even higher than the adult population, which was 10.5 percent for 19-64 year olds that year and 10.3 percent for adults aged 65+.

According to an analysis by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, this difference is due to factors such as the “cost of caregiving and its responsibilities, transitions to a single parenthood household, unemployment of parents, and disabilities of family members.”

Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire country is considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of “the working poor”, and 42 million Americans are on food stamps.

We now have an absolutely gigantic “underclass” that is largely made up of people that were once solidly middle class.

The rapidly rising cost of living is just shredding families from coast to coast.

In Montana, one senior is incredibly frustrated because his property taxes have increased by 790 percent over the past several years…

A senior from Montana has delivered a viral speech about the sorry state of property taxes in the Treasure State.

“I’m on Social Security, I’m 68-years-old and working just to pay my taxes,” says Kurt, in a clip shared on TikTok by Ryan Busse, who is running to be the next governor of Montana.

Kurt claims that over the last couple of years, his annual property taxes have soared from $895 to almost $8,000 — an increase of around 790% — which he says is like paying almost “$700 a month rent to the state to live in our own house.” The state has an Elderly Homeowner/Renter Tax Credit, and the maximum credit is $1,150.

His property taxes have skyrocketed because property values have skyrocketed.

And property values have skyrocketed because our leaders flooded the system with way too much money.

Small businesses are being monkey-hammered by inflation as well.

In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of all U.S. small businesses say that they are being hurt by inflation…

An overwhelming majority of small business owners say they are being hurt by rising prices.

The new survey released Wednesday by small business network Alignable shows 86% reporting being hurt by high costs with only 6% saying they are thriving and not struggling.

Alignable surveyed more than 3,000 business owners from mid-April to mid-May and found that they overwhelmingly lament the burden of inflation.

Dollar stores in particular are being hit really hard by rising costs.

For example, 99 Cents Only has decided to close all of their stores because conditions have changed so dramatically…

For years, dollar stores were a fixture in nearly every strip mall in California, offering cheap household goods, bread and produce, and even toys and gifts.

But if it seems like your favorite dollar store is heading for the exit, you’re not wrong.

2024 may be their swan song.

In April, California-based 99 Cents Only announced it was closing all 371 locations after decades in business. The retailer blamed economic factors, including rising levels of “shrink,” inflation, and shifting consumer demand that has presented “significant and lasting challenges.”

Not to be outdone, Dollar Tree has announced that it will be closing about 1,000 stores…

Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, recently said it will close nearly 1,000 stores. That’s after Dollar Tree raised prices in the past couple of years for the first time in decades.

Overall, so far in 2024 retailers have already announced that they will be closing nearly 3,200 stores, and we haven’t even reached the mid-point of the year yet…

The retail industry is going through a tough time as it copes with inflation-weary consumers and a rash of bankruptcies, prompting chains to announce the closures of almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores so far in 2024, according to a new analysis.

That’s a 24% increase from a year ago, according to a report from retail data provider CoreSight, which tracks store closures and openings across the U.S.

The final countdown for the U.S. economy has begun, but most Americans do not even realize what is happening.

Most Americans just assume that our leaders can fix things by printing even more money and that conditions will “return to normal” eventually.

But the truth is that there isn’t going to be a “return to normal”, because this is about as “normal” as things are going to get.

It has taken decades of horrendous decisions to get us to this point, and now we are steamrolling toward economic oblivion.

If you think that our leaders in Washington will be able to turn this ship around, you are just being delusional.

It’s happening, Elon Musk finally JOINS TRUMP in fight against Joe Biden

Secret in the Sand

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. It can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one.… view prompt

Ralph Aldrich

With a gleam of excitement in his eye, archaeologist Humphrey Abbot strokes his pride and joy, a massive black mustache. He has gathered a group of financiers in his mahogany paneled library to persuade them to invest in an expedition to Eygpt. After the brandy’s been poured and the cigars lit, Abbot clears his throat. “Gentlemen, I have invited you here this evening to tell you of a remarkable discovery I have made while researching the Great Pyramid of Giza. I found the following notation in an 1838 book, “Giza-What We Know,” by the late archaeologist Wilbur Thomas. I quote, “I have come across an interesting detail in the building of the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu. It alludes to an L-shaped underground chamber running parallel to the pyramid itself. The nature of the chamber is unknown, and its exact location is a bit of a mystery. The only way to gain access is by pressing a hidden stone that acts as a lever. This lever stone is identical to all the other stones in the main passageway. Thus making it most difficult to find.”Abbot adjusts the knot of his silk-crested navy blue Oxford College tie. “There you have it, gentlemen, the reason for this meeting. I wish to raise funds for traveling, permits to enter Khufu and bankroll for my two assistants, Barrows and Clark. I’ll also need funds for equipment and to hire workers. Just think of it, sirs! We’d be the first to uncover a never-before-seen chamber hidden for centuries! What mysteries does it hold? What is its purpose? And, of course, what will we add to history?” A well-dressed gentleman to the right of the room removes his monocle and holds it up to attract Abbot’s attention.Abbot addresses him. “Yes, Lord Bellington.”“If I were to invest in your venture, what exactly could I expect in return?”Abbot taps his lower lip with his finger. “Ahh. I see your lordship. You would like to know what your reward would be for investing. It will be your honor to present our findings to the Queen of England! Not a bad contact to have in Buckingham Palace, eh?” A smattering of low laughter floats through the room. After further discussion, an agreement is struck, and Professor Humphrey Abbot smiles broadly while making plans to leave for Eygpt. …Exiting the Cario airport, Abbot consults with his man, Phillip Barrows, who manages the ground crew and living quarters. Barrows has worked with Abbot for about ten years. He’s six feet tall and handsome with wavy, sun-bleached blonde hair. Abbot tells him to contact Abanoub Zewail, a man Abbot has previously employed. He is to provide tents, a good cook, and around ten trustworthy laborers.Timmy Clark is a former Abbot student whose primary function is to be Abbot’s secretary and go-for. Clark is a twenty-two-year-old American, somewhat shorter than Barrows, with an easy disposition. He is also somewhat of a ladies’ man, something Abbot intends to warn him about here in Eygpt. Abbot tells Clark to go to the Pyramids of Giza Visitor Center to see if he might obtain a permit to explore The Great Pyramid. With orders given, Abbot rubs his hands together in excitement.The encampment is a buzz of action. As tents are erected and electric lines are laid, Professor Abbott travels into town to consult with his old friend and fellow archaeologist, Professor Shakir Arax.Abbot is greeted by a short, white-haired man in his late sixties. “Humphrey, my friend, please come in! I’m anxious to learn more about your discovery. Dalal! Bring some hot black coffee to the study, please.” Turning to Abbot, he smiles. “Nothing is better for thinking than a good cup of black coffee.” He taps his temple. “It sharpens the mind.”Entering the study, Arax motions Abbot to a chair as he continues to the massive book collection behind his desk. In a faraway voice deep in concentration, he asks, “Did you say it was by Wilbur Thomas?”“Yes! Its title is “Giza-What We Know.” Arax scans for a few more seconds before exclaiming, “Ah! Here it is!” Standing on his tip-toes, he stretches to the third shelf and retrieves the book. Puffing, he walks to the table. “Humphrey, I would have reached up there ten years ago and easily gotten this book! It seems the older I get, the shorter I become!” Both men laugh.Abbot shows Arax the passage in question. Arax closes his eyes to think. Shaking his head, he opens his eyes and lifts his eyebrows. “I can’t remember having heard of such a chamber before. Perhaps it’s recorded on some old papyrus that describes the pyramid’s building. I’ll get them.” Arax returns with an armful of scrolls and gently starts unfurling them on the table. The two men ponder over them but to no avail. Arax is the first to speak. “I don’t find anything about an addition or exterior chamber, do you, Humphrey?”“I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t, Shakir. Thank you for all your help. I’ll have to find another way somehow.”

Arax strokes his small, grey goatee. “I was just thinking. Perhaps you might try remote sensing. It’s a technique where you climb to a very high place to see all the surrounding landscape and look for abnormalities such as depressions.”

Abbot pulls on the corner of his mustache. “Hmm. Perhaps if I rent an airplane, I could reach an altitude to see a depression like that. The ground is packed hard enough from all the tourists and such. Yes! I think it might work. Thank you, Shakir. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Think nothing of it. I’m more than happy to help. I might even come to the site in a day or two to see how the project progresses.”

“That would be wonderful, Shakir. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you.” With that, the two men part.

…

Professor Abbot watches the Piper Cub taxi to a stop. Inside, he sees Timmy in a lengthy conversation with the pilot before emerging from the plane. Timmy waves vigorously as he approaches his boss.

“Hey there, Professor. I got some great shots, and an indent can be seen next to the pyramid! You can see it good from the plane.”

“That’s great to hear, Timmy. Good news indeed. I’m looking forward to seeing the photos, but tell me. What took you so long to get out of the plane?” Timmy looks back toward the plane, “Oh that?” Abbot looks in time to see the pilot remove her headset and long blonde hair cascade over her shoulders. Arching his eyebrow, he side-eyes Timmy, who only grins and blushes. “I’m meeting her tonight for dinner,” he smirks.

Abbot and Barrows look over the snapshots the next day at the site. “It appears the length is correct, don’t you think, Phil?”

Holding a photo up for a closer look, Barrows squints. “It’s hard to tell from this distance, but you can see that whatever it is, it is centered to the pyramid. Will we dig straight down to it, Professor?”

“No. It is probably enclosed, hence the need for a hidden corridor or stairway for entrance. The main passageway is small, measuring only 3.4 feet wide and 3.8 feet high. I’ll have to send in one man at a time with some tape. He can mark each stone he tests with the tape before he moves to the next one. It will be hard work, but I can think of no other way, can you?” Barrows shakes his head no.

In the meantime, Timmy obtains a GPR, a ground-penetrating radar machine. It reveals an object approximately six feet deep under the surface of the sand. Though quite exciting, it shows little else. The crew even employs metal detectors but discovers nothing.

Finally, one of Abanoub’s men runs excitedly out the passageway, shouting in Arabic, “I found it! I found it!”

Barrows and Abbot dash to the pyramid, sand flying up behind them. Barrows stops short at the entrance. “I think my size will slow you down, Professor. Perhaps Timmy would be a more suitable choice for helping you now.” When Timmy arrives, Professor Abbot explains that Timmy is there to help him identify and record what they’re about to see. The two men squat down and duck waddle into the passageway. After laboring for about fifty feet or so, they reach the opening. Timmy continues a few feet further before turning around to face the Professor. “Gee whiz, Professor. This sure is exciting. Whoever thought there would be a chamber! Look! It’s a ramp! It looks pretty steep!”

“Yes. That’s why we must go back. If we were to go down there now, we’d be stuck. We must construct a way to get back out once we’ve gone down.”

The three men return a few hours later with a long measure of rope that has knots tied every few feet. Abbot throws the rope down the ramp as Barrows wraps it around his arm. Abbot then hands it to Clark. “Well, Timmy. Are you ready to give it a go?” Timmy’s eyes sparkle in the light of the electric torches as he smiles and salutes Professor Abbot. “Ready as I’ll ever be, Sir.” With that, he slips off the edge of the opening and slides to the end of the ramp. His “Aye-Hoo!” reverberates to the bottom. Abbot shakes his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, that boy!” Barrows smiles and snorts.

“Timmy? Can you see anything?”

“Yes, Professor. There is an outline of a door. Due to its proximity to the bottom of the ramp, I would say it pushes inward. There are some hieroglyphics over the door, too.”

Abbot nervously strokes his mustache. “Do you think you can read them?”

There’s a hesitation. “Well, I’m a little rusty, but I’ll give it a go!” All is quiet while Timmy tries to decipher the message.

Anticipation overtakes Abbot. “Well, boy, have you discerned what it says?”

Clark’s voice wavers. “I believe so, though it’s somewhat confusing. It says, “Chamber of the Gods.” An imprint on the door is shaped like a strange hand. It consists of three digits and a thumb.” Clark conforms his hand to fit the imprint and then gives it a light push. The door glides open. “Professor! Come quickly! You’ve got to see this!” Clark’s voice echos up the shaft.

Abbot turns to Barrows. “Give the rope to someone else and follow me. I may need you.” Without hesitation, the sixty-seven-year-old man slides down the ramp. Barrows arrives seconds later. Abbot notices Clark’s face is aglow, and a strange light emits from the chamber. Clark’s eyes are large, and his mouth slightly agape. Abbot whispers, “Where the devil is that light coming from?” Clark gestures to Abbot with his hand proffering entrance. “Sir, this is your discovery. Therefore, you have the honor of entering first.” He bows slightly.

Abbot enters cautiously, glancing over the room. He soon discovers the light is coming from the ceiling and seems to grow brighter depending on which direction you move. “Fascinating,” he whispers. Along the wall, there are various stations with dials and knobs and switches. The wall at the end of the chamber is a large screen depicting an unknown section of outer space. Stroking his mustache intensely, Abbot announces, “Gentlemen, I believe this to be a live display!”

Barrows sits in an oversized chair that sinks a little under his weight. “Are we to believe that all those crackpots on TV are right? Aliens really did help the ancient Egyptians?” Behind Barrows, a small screen flickers to life. Abbot recognizes the man with the head of a hawk as the deity Ra, the sun god believed to be the creator of all other gods and humans. It speaks. “I see you are not Egyptians. I will speak to you in your native tongue. I am Ra! By opening the chamber, you have sent a signal confirming that the time has come for us to return. Your civilization has advanced to the time of being useful to our needs. Inform your leaders to prepare a temple of honor for us to abide in. We are coming!”

Shorpy

SHORPY Detroit Panorama Martius 1.preview

Here is what China said to the United States Defense Minister. He was not pleased.

Part I – The 2024 Defense Summit in Singapore has ended. Below are the Chinese highlights re USA & Taiwan. Part II is about Philippines.

Re USA alone

1, China asked Austin if USA is planning to set up an Asian version of NATO. No answer. Austin then was quiet for 1 day. Later he admitted he was not pleased.

2, China accused USA to be the one who causes global unrest & war in the 21st century.

re USA & Taiwan, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said …

1, Any country who helps Taiwan seceding from China will end up breaking its bones into pieces & destroying itself (粉身碎骨，自我灭亡)

2, China can control Taiwan like catching a fish that is confined in a container (瓮中捉鳖)

3, USA has been hollowing out the ONE China policy bit by bit (掏空一中原则).

(I add) USA has no credibility. Never keeps promise & follow thru the policy.

US Defense Secy Austin responded by urging China to have dialogue with Taiwan. Maintain status quo with threat or punishment.

(I add) Who stopped the dialogue? Taiwan. Who is behind Taiwan? USA.

Continue with Part II re Philippines.

What was the most legendary “I quit!” that you know about or witnessed?

Originally Answered: What was the most legendary "I quit!" that you know about or witnessed?

I worked at a Starbucks inside of a Target during two college summers. There was one employee there who had been there a few years, worked hard and was happy to train others, was often willing to pick up unwanted shifts, and regularly received good feedback. He was also one of the few people who worked there year-round instead of seasonally and was adored by customers.

His girlfriend moved a few hours away for college and he wanted to be able to plan ahead to visit her some weekends. At first he requested all weekends off, vowing to willingly work any hours/shifts needed during the week and then, when they refused, countered with asking for something like every other weekend off, the first and last weekend of every month off, etc. Despite many of us wanting more hours (so they presumably would have been able to cover the shifts he wanted off without issue), he was refused.

He requested yet another meeting with our manager to practically beg— he liked his job, loved his girlfriend, was a reasonable guy and valuable employee, and was being flexible in his requests. She refused.

Apparently the next part of the story involved him angrily responding about how hard he’d worked for them, how he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t budge, and worked himself into a frenzy that involved him removing his company-issued shirt and apron and throwing it into our manager’s garbage can. I was delighted to be able to witness with my own eyes him parading shirtless through the store—but still with his required khakis, black shoes, and hat—hooting and hollering all the way. Dude looked like a glorious lunatic; it was fantastic.

**Disclaimer: this was a bad manager issue, not one that should reflect on the companies noted. The manager didn’t last long after the Shirtless Quitter—her best employee who often covered up her mistakes and did her work for her—was gone.

SERGEY LAVROV:

"President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that preserving historical memory is more than just a tribute to the sacrifices that our people and country made for the sake of our independence, but also guarantees our sovereignty and independence in the future.

It’s impossible to be a nation without historical memory, which fact the history of our country has proved many times.

The great victories of our predecessors date back to Kievan Rus, and the Napoleonic wars, the wars of the 19th century, the Crimean War and other military campaigns aimed primarily to weaken Russia.

It all ended in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II and creating the United Nations based on eternal vows to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

The Nuremberg Tribunal appeared to have put an end to the arguments about who was right and who was at fault, who fought for a just cause and who fought for global domination using absolutely inhuman methods.

Unfortunately, we are witnessing the attempts to 'realise' history, to rewrite it, and to equate those who defeated Nazism to the Nazi hordes which fact is particularly salient in the case of Ukraine."

Excerpt from remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview for No Statute of Limitations project, Moscow, June 1, 2024.

10 reasons Cambodia is better than The Philippines

Why You Have Every Right to Cut Off Toxic Family Members

May 16, 2024

We’ve all heard the saying “blood is thicker than water.” It’s supposed to mean that family ties are the strongest bonds of all, that you should always put family first, no matter what.

Well, I call bullshit.

Here’s the truth: Just because someone shares your DNA doesn’t give them a free pass to be a toxic asshole in your life. It doesn’t obligate you to put up with their abuse, manipulation, or constant negativity. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean you have to keep them around if they’re dragging you down.

But for some reason, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we owe unwavering loyalty and unlimited chances to our family members, even when they’re consistently shitty to us. We make excuses for their behavior, we minimize their impact, and we keep engaging with them out of some misplaced sense of duty.

Fuck that noise. Your duty is to yourself and your own well-being. And if a family member is poisoning your life with their toxicity, you have every right to cut them out.

I know, I know – the mere thought of it feels sacrilegious. We’re not supposed to “give up” on family, right? We’re supposed to love them unconditionally, to turn the other cheek, to keep trying no matter how many times they hurt us.

But here’s the thing: That kind of blind, self-abandoning loyalty is a one-way ticket to misery. It’s not noble or virtuous to let someone continuously trample your boundaries and well-being, family or not. In fact, it’s a form of self-betrayal.

And look, I’m not saying you should cut off every family member who occasionally annoys you or makes a mistake. We’re all human, and we all fuck up sometimes. The key is to look at patterns of behavior. If a family member is consistently toxic, if they’re repeatedly causing you harm and showing no real interest in changing, then it’s time to re-evaluate whether they deserve a place in your life.

This can be incredibly difficult, I know. Cutting off a toxic family member can come with a tidal wave of guilt, fear, and self-doubt. You might worry about the fallout, the judgment from other family members, the loneliness of losing that connection.

But you know what’s worse than all of that? Spending your precious years on this earth being slowly eroded by someone else’s toxicity. Compromising your own happiness, sanity, and growth for the sake of an unhealthy loyalty. Betraying yourself again and again by allowing unacceptable treatment from anyone, blood-related or not.

So here’s my advice: Muster up the courage to put yourself first. Have the hard conversations, set the firm boundaries, and if necessary, cut the toxic ties. Will it be painful? Probably. Will there be backlash and confusion from some people? Almost certainly.

But will it also be a profound act of self-love and self-preservation? Absolutely. And that, my friend, is always worth it.

Remember, you get to choose your family in this life. You get to decide who deserves a seat at the table of your existence. And if a blood relative is consistently shitting on that table, it’s time to show them the door.

Cutting off toxic family members doesn’t make you cold, selfish, or unkind. It makes you brave, self-aware, and committed to your own healing. And that is something to be fucking proud of.

Australia exporting crime?

The world is changing.

I guess Donald needs to review his definition of shithole countries, especially color and continent.

Australian man, 39, charged for robbing Tampines moneylender of S$6,095 with knife

He allegedly put a 32-year-old female in fear of bodily hurt during the robbery.

Australian man, 39, charged for robbing Tampines moneylender of S$6,095 with knife

He allegedly put a 32-year-old female in fear of bodily hurt during the robbery.

Matthias Ang | June 04, 2024, 12:03 PM

A 39-year-old Australian man was charged in Singapore on Jun. 4, 2024, for an alleged armed robbery of a Tampines moneylender.

According to charge sheets, Jose Manuel Pacheco allegedly robbed the moneylender at Block 503 Tampines with a knife on Jun. 3, 2024, at around 1:42pm and got away with S$6,095.

Charge sheets also show that he allegedly put a 32-year-old female in fear of bodily hurt while committing the robbery.

According to court records, Pacheco has been offered bail of S$20,000.

Victim took note of suspect's outfit while handing over the money

According to a press release by the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Pacheco was arrested within half an hour of the alleged crime.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect had allegedly robbed the victim at knifepoint while wearing a mask and a cap.

He had also supposedly demanded for the cash to be put in a bag.

The victim then handed over S$6,095.

Even as she was preparing the money however, she maintained her composure and noted the attire and appearance of the man, the police added.

Gave the police a "detailed" description of the man

The police were alerted to the incident at 2:10pm.

While responding officers were making their way to the scene, they received a detailed description of the suspect from the victim, which was vital to his arrest, according to the commander of the Bedok Police Division, Justin Wong.

Upon arrival, police officers noticed a man who fit the description and arrested him about half an hour after the robbery occurred.

The stolen cash was recovered in full, along with the knife used during the robbery.

The offence of armed robbery committed during the day carries a jail term of between two to 10 years and at least 12 strokes of the cane.

Americans First Time in China… NOT AT ALL what we expected

GOD BLESS MARVIN HEEMEYER

Guest Post by The Redheaded Libertarian

“I was always willing to be reasonable. Until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men, must do unreasonable things.” – Marvin Heemeyer

June 4, 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of libertarian Folk hero Marvin Heemeyer’s Killdozer Ride through Granby, Colorado.

Buckle up for a wild tale in a Killdozer.

There once lived a man of humble means named Marvin Heemeyer. Marvin owned a muffler shop in Granby, Colorado.

Marv was a simple man. Paid his taxes. Owned his business. Lived a quiet life.

Until one day, the City Council went full King George on our blessed Patriot.

Now, The City Council had approved the building of a concrete factory across the street from Marvin’s muffler shop. That would have been fine- However, this building would block the only access road to Marvin’s business.

Marvin petitioned first to have the construction stopped- he was rejected.

Marvin petitioned again to build another access road. Even offered to do it himself- boom. denied.

So despite his best efforts, the concrete business was built anyway. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s construction cut off Marvin’s sewage lines from the town.

Marvin’s business was effectively isolated from the town right down to his toilets.

So how did the City Council respond? They did something right?!

Of course! Naturally, like every dystopian central planning board of fight communists, they fined Marvin.

So Marvin’s business was destroyed. He had fines to pay. He was ignored by his city government.

All seemed lost- But the spirit of the great American Swamp Fox coursed through the veins of our legend and he decided to do the only logical thing he could think of — And build a killdozer.

Over the course of the next 18 months, Marvin would upgrade a bulldozer he’d purchased with 3ft thick steel armor, a camera, and bullet proof glass.

And on the fourth day of June in the 2004th year of our lord, Marvin and his killdozer would burst through the side of his own muffler shop before plowing through the walls of that concrete factory like some kind of Paul Revere Koolaid Man off to deliver a hell of a message

Marvin and his mighty steed would blow through 13 more buildings owned by the tyrants who destroyed his life, as if they were the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton and he was their Christmas night surprise.

Marvin avoided all people using his camera. Marvin was a gentle man.

Entire SWAT teams were brought to their knees by Killdozer, like the cowardly redcoats at Lexington and Concord. Explosives were no match for Killdozer, for Killdozer was an impenetrable work of art— the Mona Lisa, if you will, of reconnaissance automobiles.

The comeuppance of the city planners would continue until Marvin and Killdozer became trapped in the final building where Marvin would sacrifice his own life and l immortalize himself in our hearts and minds, forever. There would be no other casualties.

A note discovered later would answer any questions as to why Marvin Heemeyer did what he did. It read,
“I was always willing to be reasonable. Until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men, must do unreasonable things.”

God Bless Marvin. And God Bless his mighty Killdozer.

Girl LOSES Job Because Of TikTok

What is the saddest thing about your father and/or mother?

My parents were both born in the 1920’s. At the age of 8, my mom lost her eye after someone threw an open can at her. The doctors and teachers told her that she’d never amount to anything and that she was only good for having babies. My dad had (undiagnosed) mental issues from a young age. Both their parents got together and thought they’d make a good couple. There was no courtship or love, and my mom endured that extra pain for the next 44 years. They didn’t believe in divorce. My dad kept her pregnant so she had to stay home while he cheated on her with everyone that he could. I have proof from many sources. She was afraid and never stood up to him. Nearly 20 children later, her body could not take another pregnancy and she was done.

When I was 22, she started getting sick and was diagnosed with heart disease. He refused to let her have the lifesaving bypass she so desperately needed, because “Who wants a woman with that kind of a scar?!” Her death shattered our family, and it has never been the same. He died a few years later, and most people came to the funeral just to make sure. Mom was buried in the most beautiful casket created, and her funeral was so big that the church was overfilled and there were many people that had to stand outside. We buried that asshole in the cheapest box we could find.

I believe that mom is finally happy and at peace. Hopefully she’ll be reincarnated and have the wonderful life she so richly deserves.

Why is China losing the space station competition?

Let’s go into some very brief historical facts:

The International Space Station (ISS) was an unprecedented scientific and engineering collaboration among five space agencies representing 15 countries, took 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble and launched to orbit the earth.

Having been banned, specifically by the U.S.A, from participation in the International Space, China decided to build their own space Tiangong station all by their lonesome self and, possibly by 2030 after the demise of the ISS, will be the only Earthling to have a working space station. Besides the U.S.A who had a huge head start in space exploration, China is now the only other nation to have successfully landed a rover on the Moon and Mars and ALL with their first attempt. Very recently, China launched an uncrewed spacecraft on a nearly two-month mission to retrieve rocks and soil from the far side of the moon, the first country to make such an ambitious attempt. Sometime back, the convicted war criminal Japan failed in their attempt to land a rover on the Moon as did Russia, Israel and other nations. Recently, India managed to successfully land a rover, while the Jepun tried again and managed to land an upside-down Rover which wasn’t of much use to anybody.

main qimg 79631d7279ae5ea648ea1e6200c02aa9

So, as in space, without any doubt, China will excel in whatever they put their mind to do on planet Earth. And come to think of it, China accomplished all that in just over 42 years after coming out of isolation & hibernation. So, looks like Napolean is correct when he warned: “China is a sleeping giant, let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.”

The world can only imagine what else China can and will accomplish in the next 50-100 years.

So, what space competition are you talking about? That must be another one of your government and news media anti-China propaganda.

Tri-Tip Burritos

Ingredients

1 medium-size tri-tip
1 large can green enchilada sauce
Fresh jalapenos, sliced (about 5 to 6)
Burrito-size flour tortillas
Sour cream
Shredded Cheddar cheese

Instructions

Place meat at bottom of slow cooker.
Cover with entire can of enchilada sauce and throw in jalapeno slices.
Cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
Before serving, take meat out (with portion of sauce) and place in bowl.
Shred with 2 forks (meat should shred very easily).
Warm tortillas and serve meat/sauce on tortillas with sour cream and Cheddar cheese as garnish.

“It’s Going To Get Ugly!” – Says Neil Oliver In Interview w/Jimmy Dore

How to stay young, even in old age: Don’t stop exercising, scientists say

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Exercise helps keep us young, and new research finds that statement is more literal than most assume. Scientists at the University of Arkansas report exercising slows down the aging process on a cellular level. The effect remains even if you start exercising later in life.

The team’s animal study used elderly lab mice nearing the end of their natural lifespan (22 months) and studied their interactions with a weighted exercise wheel. Mice rarely need any motivation to go for a run. Older mice run about three to five miles per day and younger mice run six to seven miles daily. The extra weight on the wheel also ensured the rodents’ muscles got an extra workout, with researchers comparing the workout to “a soldier carrying a heavy backpack many miles.”

After two months on the weighted wheel, mice were similar to those eight weeks younger compared to mice of the same age (24 months) who hadn’t worked out.

“Historically, they start dropping off after 24 months at a significant rate,” says Kevin Murach, an assistant professor in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation at the U of A, in a university release. In other words, an extra eight weeks of youth represents roughly 10 percent of the average mouse’s lifespan.

Exercise slows down the aging process in your DNA

Much of the science behind these findings is based on DNA methylation. Methylation is when little caps called methyl groups attach to DNA. They act as a key to turn on and off a specific gene. As the human body ages, DNA methylation increases. Some older adults even experience hypermethylation on muscle genes.

“DNA methylation changes in a lifespan tend to happen in a somewhat systematic fashion,” Prof. Murach explains, “to the point you can look at someone’s DNA from a given tissue sample and with a fair degree of accuracy predict their chronological age.”

While the association between methylation and aging is quite clear, researchers know less about the role of methylation in muscle function. For example, it’s too soon to say that exercising and reversing methylation improves muscle health. “That’s not what the study was set up to do,” Professor Murach comments. However, he intends to pursue future studies to determine if “changes in methylation result in altered muscle function.”

“If so, what are the consequences of this?” Professor Murach concludes. “Do changes on these very specific methylation sites have an actual phenotype that emerges from that? Is it what’s causing aging or is it just associated with it? Is it just something that happens in concert with a variety of other things that are happening during the aging process? So that’s what we don’t know.”

The study is published in Aging Cell.

Why Was Scott Ritter’s Passport Seized?

Little By Little, The Economy Has Declined To A Point Where Almost Everyone Is Struggling

June 4, 2024 by Michael

It happened so gradually that a lot of people didn’t even realize what was happening. The cost of living just kept rising faster than paychecks were, and little by little our standard of living just kept going down. Now we have reached a stage where the ultra-wealthy are thriving but almost everyone else is struggling. For most people, it is a real fight just to pay the bills from month to month. The majority of the population is deep in debt, and meanwhile the cost of just about everything is going up and up. Millions of Americans feel like they are drowning financially, and there is no easy way out. Sadly, many of them don’t even realize that the game was designed to get them on to a hamster wheel and keep them running for as long as possible.

When I was a kid, the United States had a very large and very prosperous middle class.

Life certainly wasn’t perfect in those days, but just about everyone that I knew could afford to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

Sadly, now everything has changed.

According to a survey that was just conducted by Seven Letter Insight, 65 percent of Americans “who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” admit that they are struggling financially…

In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.

If 65 percent of those that “earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” are struggling, what about those that earn less than that?

Needless to say, almost all of them are struggling.

That same survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up…

About 40% of respondents were unable to plan beyond their next paycheck, and 46% didn’t have $500 saved. The February poll found that more than half said it’s at least somewhat difficult to manage current levels of debt.

Over the past couple of years, the stock market has been “booming” and the ultra-wealthy have been getting richer and richer.

But things have been getting worse for virtually all the rest of us.

According to Zillow, over the past four years “the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled”…

The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years.

According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America.

Has your income doubled over the past four years?

If not, you are falling behind.

The American people absolutely hate what is being done to their standard of living.

In fact, during a recent interview Neel Kashkari astutely observed that Americans “really, viscerally hate high inflation”…

Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says one of the things he has learned in the past few years is that consumers would rather see the economy fall into a recession than to continue to suffer the pain of soaring prices.

“The American people – and maybe people in Europe, equally – really hate high inflation,” Kashkari told the Financial Times podcast “The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes” last week. “I mean, really, viscerally hate high inflation.”

He is right.

I really detest inflation.

I am sure that you do too.

But what he didn’t mention is that the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington are responsible for creating the epic cost of living crisis that we are currently facing.

They caused this mess, and now they don’t seem to have any solutions for cleaning it up.

Meanwhile, economic activity just continues to slow down.

On Tuesday, we learned that the number of job openings in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level in more than 3 years…

Job openings fell more than forecast in April, signaling a potential weakening in the labor market that could provide the Federal Reserve with more impetus to start lowering interest rates.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday showed that the level of employment vacancies slipped to 8.06 million for the month, down by nearly 300,000 from March and close to 19% lower than a year ago.

Moreover, the total marked the lowest since February 2021.

And more workers are being dumped into the streets with each passing day.

For example, Rubio’s Coastal Grill just announced that it will be permanently closing 48 locations in the state of California…

California’s $20-an-hour fast food minimum wage has its first casualty.

Mexican chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill is shuttering 48 restaurants in the state – because of the ‘rising cost of doing business in California’.

‘While painful, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic long-term plan to position Rubio’s for success for years to come,’ a Rubio’s spokesperson added.

As this year rolls along, we will see a lot more stories like this.

For a long time, our leaders were able to keep the party going by flooding the system with money.

But now inflation is out of control and we have reached the terminal phase of the “greatest credit bubble in human history”…

Mark Spitznagel, chief investment officer of Universa Investments, is known for being a “permabear” when it comes to the stock market outlook.

Spitznagel told Bloomberg in an earlier interview that we’re witnessing the “greatest credit bubble in human history.”

“Credit bubbles end. They pop. There’s no way to stop them from popping,” he said, adding that the Fed has brought the economy to a place “where there’s no turning back.”

Spitznagel is right on target.

There really is no turning back now.

Our leaders have wrecked the greatest economic machine in the history of the world.

What is ahead of us is a tremendous amount of pain.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what is coming next.

For years, little by little our standard of living has been collapsing.

But now we are entering a time when our economic slide will become an economic avalanche.

Decades of absolutely disastrous decisions have brought us to this point, and now we shall truly reap what we have sown.

Why It’s Never Too Late to Chase New Dreams

May 16, 2024

There’s a pervasive and utterly bullshit notion in our society that once you reach a certain age, you’re supposed to have your whole life figured out. That you should be settled in your career, content with your achievements, and coasting towards retirement on a wave of predictability.

Well, I’m here to tell you that’s a steaming pile of horse shit.

The truth is, you’re never too old to set a new goal or chase a new dream. You’re never too far along in life to make a drastic change, to start a new adventure, or to reinvent yourself completely.

But for some reason, we tend to internalize this idea that after a certain point, our lives should be set in stone. That it’s somehow embarrassing or irresponsible to want something radically different than what we have, to admit that we’re not satisfied with the path we’ve been on.

Fuck that noise. Life is too short to resign yourself to a script someone else wrote for you. It’s too precious to spend marching towards a future that doesn’t set your soul on fire, just because you think you’re “too old” to change course.

Listen, I get it. The older we get, the more entrenched we become in our routines, our responsibilities, our identities. It can feel daunting as hell to even consider upending the life we’ve built, even if that life isn’t truly fulfilling us.

But you know what’s even scarier than starting over? Waking up one day, decades down the line, and realizing you squandered your one wild and precious life on a path that wasn’t truly yours. Realizing you let your dreams wither and die because you bought into the idea that you were too old to pursue them.

The reality is, as long as you’re breathing, you have the power to create change in your life. You have the right to want more, to strive for different, to chase the things that make you come alive, regardless of your age.

Sure, it might be harder than it would’ve been when you were 20. You might have more baggage to sort through, more logistics to figure out, more naysayers to prove wrong. But so fucking what? Since when did “hard” become a reason not to go after what you want?

The most fulfilling things in life are often the most challenging to attain. And the older you get, the more grit, resilience, and wisdom you have to tackle those challenges. Your age isn’t a limitation – it’s a source of strength.

So if there’s a dream that’s been whispering in your ear, a goal that keeps nudging at your soul, a vision of a life that looks nothing like the one you’re currently living – listen to it. Feed it. And then start fucking chasing it, no matter how old you are.

Will it be a smooth, easy path? Probably not. Will everyone understand and support your new pursuits? Definitely not. But will it be worth it to look back on a life colored by your own desires, your own choices, your own relentless pursuit of what matters to you? Abso-fucking-lutely.

You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream. And anyone who tells you otherwise is probably just scared of their own untapped potential.

So shut out the noise, tune into your own desires, and get to work on creating the life you truly want. Your age has fuck-all to do with what you’re capable of achieving.

The world is waiting for your next move, your next goal, your next dream. Don’t keep it waiting forever.

China Steps Up Harsh Warning to E.U Days Before Tariff Decision

My family legacy though the clocks of time

Today, I want to talk about clocks.

As the oldest son of my father, when his father died… my grandfather willed to me his fancy mantle clock. This was a beautiful bronze statue of a reclining woman Baroque style next to a very ornate clock. I got it when I was 11 years old, and my father decided to make it the “family clock” by placing it on our living room mantle. Telling me, of course, that when I get older and married I can put that clock into my own house for my old children to inherit.

When my paternal grandmother died, I was willed her cuckoo clock. She picked it up when she was traveling from Poland when she was 16 years old, and it represented her new life as a woman. She wanted me to have it as I was, at that time, just getting started off in life.

My mother bought a huge grandfather clock. And up to when she died, and in her will, that clock was to be mien and to be passed on to my children. She was adamant on this, and really wanted this grandfather clock to develop a legacy.

So what actually happened?

Well, my mother died and there was a battle for her estate. I tried to prevent the looting by my siblings, but I ended up in jail and couldn’t do anything.

My brother took the mantle clock apologetically. And my father was there when he took it, and he looked at me bewildered and said “Hey! That’s your clock. What’s going on?” And, my brother said “no it isn’t. I was mom’s and it sat in her living room for decades. And so now it’s mine.” And my crestfallen father was aghast in how bellicose and direct he was.

My cousin took the cuckoo clock, and when I asked her to return it, she said that she had already sold it on ebay. And that there was nothing that I could do.

My youngest sister and her husband carted off the grandfather clock and they too sold it off. And they offered no explanation, no excuse and no justification. It was “it’s mine now”.

And that is what happened to my family legacy though the clocks of time.

Today…

What are some bad experiences you had while traveling to another country?

Oh boy…I travelled to Mexico City in Nov 2017 and I committed a mistake of asking direction from the police Officer at the airport. I didn’t know Spanish and the officer didn’t know English. He asked for my passport and then called another officer. They discussed something in Spanish and after wasting a good amount of 15 minutes instructed me to follow them. They took me to the washroom. I thought there must be a secret door to their office but to my disappointment it was just a toilet. The police officer instructed me to OPEN.

I asked, OPEN what?? A first thought came to my mind that he is asking me to open my pants but thank God he clarified that he wanted me to open my bag. He started checking my bag and somehow found the 1200 USD that my office paid for the official work.

He started asking for money in Spanish. Though I understood it the first time but still I tried to remain ignorant. For the next 10 minutes, I was only saying ‘No Spanish’ and he was trying to make me understand like a monkey that he wants money. All this shit was happening inside a toilet. Then I gave up.

I asked how much.He said $100 for each officer. I came in Indian mode and started bargaining. I started acting like a hungry person so that he gets frustrated and leaves me but man..he was adamant. Finally, I bring him down to $20 each. I paid the extortion money and ran as fast as I could.

The only lesson I learnt is that this symbol is common irrespective of the language, colour, race or country.

People are Maxed Out …. Inflation Nation

WU QIAN:

“The trend of the world is surging forward.

Those who follow the trend will prosper; those who go against it will perish.

China’s national reunification is the overwhelming and irresistible trend of history.

‘Taiwan independence’ means war, and division brings no peace.

Shouldering the sacred mission of safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Chinese PLA is fully prepared and stays highly vigilant.

We will take resolute actions to smash any ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist attempts and thwart any foreign interference.”

main qimg 75fa044799b70381ab2301305b6ac92f

Excerpt from remarks by Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Senior Colonel Wu Qian at the Regular Press Conference, May 30, 2024.

Isn’t re-electing Biden kind of like the Titanic backing up into the iceberg again?

You know, as a non-American, I find it pretty morbidly fascinating how the Republicans shamelessly attack Biden and the Democrats with exactly the kinds of things they are the most guilty of themselves.

It’s incredibly cringe- like watching a morbidly obese person on a mobility scooter riding around attacking mildly overewight people for being “fat”. There’s nothing funny about watching that level of poor self-awareness.

I continuously hear Trump call Biden “crooked Joe Biden” when it is he, and not Biden, who is the first former president to be charged with a bucket of crimes.

He calls Biden “Sleepy Joe” when he can’t keep his own eyes open during his own trial.

He says Biden is senile and incapable of coherent speech when he was the one sent to take a cognitive assessment and his own speeches are borderline gibberish formed of rambling digressions set in the vocabulary of a slow 5th grader.

He calls the Democrats “extremists” when he is the one who incited an insurrection.

He calls Biden “the worst president in history” when, by any reasonable yardstick, Trump is the worst, most incomptent, mentally-unstable leader since Idi Amin Dada.

He accuses the Democrats of ruining America’s reputation in the world and turning the country into a joke, while the world remembers him making a fool of himself at the UN, making puppy-dog eyes at Kim Jong-Un (who he still can’t resist praising) and stuffing himself into the worst tailored tux seen since Laurel and Hardy parodied a night at the opera, to meet, and disgust, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Honestly, everything the Republicans say is a poorly-disguised self-own. Almost nothing they accuse the other side of is not an outrageous “tu quoque” at themselves!

People laugh but I find this level of mass delusion genuinely alarming.

“NATO is cooking up something big” and Putin is ready for all out war | Redacted News

OMG!

What was the most illegal thing you have ever done on a computer?

Originally Answered: What is the most illegal thing you have ever done with your computer?

As a kid, I liked to hack. Not for doing damage or stealing, but to play on big computers.

There was a lawyer’s office in the town center – a big chain. And walking past one evening, I saw a modem with a rotary phone on top. In the U.K. it was common to have the phone number of the phone written on a piece of paper in the center of the dial.

Heart racing, I climbed through the plants outside the window to get a better look. I wrote down the number.

I got home, and dialed it.

It rang, and rang. No answer.

So they called out on it.

Next day I called their head office, and asked the receptionist if Mike was still in charge of the I.T. department.

“No, Sir. I have never heard of a “Mike””

“My memory! Shameful! So, what is his name?”

“Why, it’s Peter; I can connect you.”

“No need, I had the wrong guy, the wrong office maybe. Thank you for your time”.

I called the modem number again, only this was also during office hours.

“Err, hello?” Said a surprised worker as he answered the phone that never rang.

“Hi, this is Peter at head office. What the hell is going on there?”

“Err, what?”

“Every time you log in today, you delete 4 files. Some are files not even assigned to your branch.”

“Errr, what??”

“*Sigh* ok, let’s get you out of trouble. When did you log in last?”

“Oh, ok, thanks. Err, about an hour ago”

“Right, what number did you dial in on?”

“Err, the usual one”

“Obviously, but there are 6 “usual” numbers. I am getting you out of trouble, can’t you save me from having to look that up?”

“Oh, right, sorry, errr 555-555-5555”

“Perfect. And your username is?”

“James.Smith”

“That’s great, what password are you using?”

“Err, we are not meant to give that out”

“I know, that’s why I called on this number. I can fax the request, you can fax the answer, and I will have to report that you slowed down my work at the partner’s meeting I have to be at in 3 minutes. James, I am just trying to help you out here, save me some paper work, oil the wheels…”

“Ohh. Gotcha. Thank you. It’s ‘some-password'”

“Thanks, right, I gotta go fix it”.

That night, after playing with the system, I left it printing “your security needs serious attention.”.

It would have printed until out of paper.

There were others, but I enjoyed that one, the simple pleasures 🙂

At that time, my actions were not criminal. Today, the same thing would be illegal.

Stout-Braised Corned Beef Tacos
with Fiery Cabbage Slaw

A great Mexican twist to corned beef is an excellent choice for Saint Patrick’s Day if you are looking for something new and unusual to serve. In addition to the regular instructions for a slow cooker, directions are also given for making this in an Instant Pot.

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

Tacos

1 boneless corned beef brisket, trimmed (3 pounds)
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup carrot, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup beef broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 (11.2 ounce) bottle Texas stout beer
16 to 20 small (6 inch) corn tortillas, warmed
Fresh cilantro and jalapeño pepper, chopped

Fiery Cabbage Slaw

3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon red pepper sauce
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cups finely shredded cabbage
1/2 cup grated carrots
2 green onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal

Instructions

Rub corned beef brisket with package of pickling seasonings.
Place onion, carrot, celery, garlic, beef broth, tomato paste, brown sugar and black pepper in a 4-1/2 to 5-1/2-quart slow cooker. Stir to combine.
Place Corned Beef, fat side up, on top of the vegetable mixture. Pour stout beer over brisket. Cover and cook on HIGH for 6 TO 7 hours or on LOW for 9 to 10 hours or until brisket is fork tender.
Remove corned beef and place on a cutting board, spooning a bit of the liquid over the top. Carve brisket into thin slices across the grain.
To make slaw, whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, red pepper sauce, sugar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add cabbage, carrot and green onions. Toss gently to combine.
Serve with beef in tortillas with Fiery Slaw. Garnish with toppings, as desired.

Pressure Cooker/Instant Pot

Rub Corned Beef Brisket with package of pickling seasonings.
Combine onion, carrot, celery, garlic, beef broth, tomato paste, brown sugar, and black pepper in the insert of the pressure cooker. Stir to combine.
Place Corned Beef, fat side up, on top of the vegetable mixture. Pour stout beer over brisket.
Seal lid and set unit to HIGH pressure for 90 minutes. Let pressure release naturally for 20 minutes, then manually release remaining pressure.
Remove corned beef and place on a cutting board, spooning a bit of the liquid over the top. Carve brisket into thin slices across the grain.
To make slaw, whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, red pepper sauce, sugar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add cabbage, carrot and green onions. Toss gently to combine.
Serve beef in tortillas with Fiery Slaw. Garnish with toppings, as desired.

Nutrition

Per serving: Calories 420; Total fat 24 g (Sat. fat 7g; Trans fat 0g); Cholest. 75mg; Sodium 1870mg; Total Carb. 24g; Fiber 2g; Total Sugars 9g; Protein 22g; Vit D (0% DV); Calcium (2% DV); Iron (15% DV); Potas. (10% DV)

Do you think the decline in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. is a temporary setback or a long-term trend?

This is the market warning TSMC about its long term prospects.

TSMC’ s casting its lot to decouple from China by abiding to all U.S. sanctions, committing $65 billion in three greenfield leading-edge fabs in Arizona to manufacture the most advanced chips in the U.S. and setting up new fabs in the E.U. and Japan.

These certainly look like they’re leaving the China market for SMIC to fill. And the market sees the SMIC is catching up. They’re now making 5-nm chips without the EUV machines.

Now even for an idiot, this is the question that TSMC must be pondering: Where the SHIT are they going to sell the chips their fabs in the U.S., E.U. and Japan will be making?

TSMC must know China is the market. And they’re making do with other technologies as Huawei is without the “advanced chips”.

And China is making fast progress at becoming self-sufficient in chips by building out the ecosystem for its own chip manufacturing infrastructure and experimenting new technologies. And if this were to play out, it is very likely that TSMC and ASML will be left out in the cold.

The market can see as a possible fate for these two titans of the chip industryi.

ASML is trying to hang on with its remaining business in China. The most telling how important China is despite the sanction going on its second year, China is still more important than all its other markets combined. The video is about their government now pushing back at U.S. pressure.

But this may be too late if China develops it own technologies and alternative to the ASML machines.

And lastly, it’s TSMC that is the most vulnerable. Yes, they’re the Numero uno and rule the industry but consider this – Apple accounted for $17.52 billion or 25% of TSMC’s total revenue in 2023. This company losing just one client automatically put it in the red in the industry where you’re as good as your last chip. And TSMC has now being all its egg with the U.S.!

Jeffrey Sachs: NATO In ‘Wartime Hallucination’ Mode! The Most TERRIBLE Offensive Is About To Happen

Why do hijras (eunuchs) look so scary and frighten even the bravest men?

I was in Kolkata when a terrified tamilian friend of my wife called to say a group of Hijras were outside their flat demanding money to bless their new born baby

I was the only man and was sent out to confront them

I had never felt more frightened in my life

There were 5–6 of them standing and demanding to bless the new born baby, sing and dance and get some money

Then I decided to talk to them

I didn’t know bengali that well so I asked them in Hindi what they wanted and they said they wanted to bless the baby and sing and dance and get money

I asked “How much money”

They said “500 Bucks”

This was 1994 and 500 Bucks wasn’t a small sum

I said “50” and expected a lot of yelling and shouting. Instead they asked how I could be so mean and how tough their life was

Suddenly it was a TN Traffic cop situation where a ₹50/- demand soon became a ₹5/- for a cup of tea (Old days, the 1990s)

We went back and forth and finally negotiated for ₹100/- and I stuck to ₹100/- and finally paid them from my own pocket to leave without any dance or song

I never got my money back

That lady thanked me and said she would pay me back but I never got the money back

Forget they are Hijras

Just talk to them like they are people and trust me it works

You get intimidated by the appearance and the voice and the social embarrassment but if you can stick to your guns, they are just people

Today in Bangalore, near Jayadeva Hospital road, suddenly they came and begged for money and before I could say no, my wife pushed a 20 into the hand of the Hijra to get rid of the embarrassment

Instead you could politely say “No”

You would have if this was a normal beggar

Just look at them as normal human beings and forget the clothes and the voices

Suddenly it feels pretty normal

Join us on our journey

What is the craziest thing you have ever said to your boss, with or without getting fired?

I have only been fired once. It was the worst job I have ever had. My father owned a car dealership, he told me that if I ever wanted to work for him, I had to learn the business somewhere else before I could come work for him. I had just graduated with an English degree and found a job selling cars.

All car salesman do not deserve the negative stigma that comes with the occupation, but there are many that do deserve the scorn. It is a complicated business. Pay is based on sales commissions. If you do not sell a car, you are given a weekly stipend that will be deducted from your commission when you finally do sell a car.

My first four months were great. I sold 8, 10, 12, 16 cars. Then my fifth month I sold 12 again. My boss made some comment about me slipping. The next month I sold 14, he still made comments about my not selling up to standards expected. There was a board with a list of all the salesman and the number of cars they had out in the Breakroom. Looking at the list, I was in the middle.

It was frustrating to have a boss giving me a hard time when it seemed he allowed others to perform at a lower level. When I came close to making a deal, the boss would refuse any negotiation offers from my customers. I was either selling cars at full price, or not at all. He was not helping me sell the car. My next month was the worst ever. We were three weeks in and I had sold only five cars.

The third Saturday of the month was a do or die day for me to make a sale and salvage my month. Saturdays are generally the best day in car sales. Even the worst salesman can sell a car on Saturday. This particular Saturday, I planned to sell two or three cars.

After our morning sales meeting, my boss said to me, “Can you come by my office?”

I followed him in and sat down across from him. He began by telling me how I started strong but had fallen off on my sales the past couple months. He complained about my efforts and said I could sell a lot more and that he expected more from me considering that my Dad owned a dealership and I grew up around the business.

“You have to sell a car by the end of the day today or you are fired” he said. “I promise you! Don’t take that as a mere threat.”

“You had better hope I sell a car then,” I said.

“Why should I care if YOU sell a car?” He asked incredulously. “You are the one who will be without a job.”

“Because if you make me work my whole Saturday and fire me at the end of the day I am going to beat the shit out of you,” I said. “… and don’t take that as a mere threat.”

“That’s it you’re fired!” He said. “Get out of here.”

China Sanctions US Defense Companies!

What should you do when people are rude to you in public?

Yesterday, I parked my car near the temple on the street. I got down of the car and washed my hands with the water I brought from home.

This lead to spilling some water on the road.

Suddenly, a guy arrived on his scooty and stood ahead of me.

He started using cuss words and said, ‘you idiot, that is my house, in front of which you are washing your hands. Do you have any shame, next time you do this you will see what I do to you.’

He didn’t even let me speak and kept going on and on.

His house was across the road, a few metres away from where I stood. Also by the time he spoke, the water had already dried.

I felt like giving him a mouthful, but then I realised that what will I get in return, abuses? Physical altercation? Insult? And frustration for days?

He kept speaking, and I smiled and walked inside the temple. (I was wearing a mask so he couldn’t notice my smile)

He kept staring and speaking in a harsh tone while I calmly worshipped.

By the time I returned, he was gone.

It may appear cowardice I assure you it isn’t.

Why should I frustrate myself, create unnecessary discomfort and lose my peace for a stranger who doesn’t even have adequate manners?

Why should I become like him and lose my traits and wisdom?

Most importantly, why should I bother myself at all?

Earlier, I would have definitely hit that person or given him back his deeds with interest, but every time I did that, I ended up suffering in some way or the other. Also the impact of such fights stays for days. So I decided to deal with such people using a mature outlook, and I am happy with that.

Shorpy

Do you know anyone who has won a lottery? Did the money change them?

I do. It ruined his life.

This man lived in a rural area, and worked at the only truly large employer. Plenty of scattered mom and pop types, but this was a branch of a corporation. He loved his job.

He struck it for millions. Well, you have to identify yourself to claim it. It hit all the papers, even out to the city, where I lived.

When people realize you have won the lottery, people come out of the woodwork to try to get a piece of it. Every relative, no matter how distant, came calling, demanding with various levels of pleading to get some of the money. He didn’t think he should have to share it, so those relatives stopped speaking to him.

It’s not just relatives: neighbors, coworkers, “friends”, they’ll come around and aren’t subtle. He said no to them as well. They weren’t happy either.

You also get all kinds of crazies knocking at your door and calling your phone number. They got contacts from people pleading for money for their son’s kidney transplant or whatever. Lots of sob stories, lots of pleading, lots of insults.

Frightened by the attention and the chaos, his wife became overwhelmed and had a nervous breakdown. She would eventually divorce him.

The economy in his area turned. The corporation he worked at began layoffs. As he had been there forever, his seniority insulated him from worry about being cut, but it didn’t insulate him from bullying from his coworkers about how he was taking a job from someone who needed the money to feed their family or keep their home. He couldn’t take it eventually, and left his beloved job.

So, he won millions and lost everything else: his friends, his wife, and his job. He still lives in his old house, and every so often walks into town and buys everyone at the local diner breakfast.

I think he was better off before.

Chinese solution to drones

Houthis’ Red Sea blockade makes Russia’s Northern Sea Route attractive to desperate West

With the US and Britain proving unable to dislodge the Houthis from their strongholds or stop the militia from attacking Israeli-linked, American and British vessels in the Red and Arabian Seas, commercial shippers have increasingly eyed Russia’s Northern Sea Route as an attractive potential alternative, a leading mainstream US news magazine has reported.

“The surging costs and fear of getting hit by Houthi drones and missiles have led some shippers to consider the Arctic as an alternative, as melting ice begins opening new potential on the so-called Northern Sea Route,” Foreign Policy wrote.

The article ‘discovered’ what Russian officials and media have been saying for years – that the 5,600 km Northern Sea Route is the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia, and can shave 8,000 km or more of distance, and 40-60 percent in time, off shipments, compared to traditional Europe-Asia routes through the presently troubled waters in the Middle East.

“The ability to slash some 5,000 miles off a ship’s journey would mean much faster travel times – a major plus in today’s world of online retail and next-day delivery,” FP said.

Unfortunately for the West, there’s a catch: 70 percent of the Arctic, including virtually the entire length of the Arctic portion of the route, passes through Russian waters. “Ships wanting to use the route must secure the Russians’ permission and pay them transit fees. Given current relations between many Western countries and Russia amid the Ukraine war, that poses an obvious challenge,” the magazine lamented.

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I Bought Used SD Cards.. Here’s What I Found

When should a child move out of their parents’ house?

This reminds me of my older son. As a teenager he would say “I can’t wait till I am 18, so I will be free.” I asked him “Free to do what??” and he would say “Whatever I want to!” At that time, I told I “OK, on your 18th birthday, you will get eviction papers. On your 17th birthday, you will get luggage so you have a year to practice packing!” I had told a friend of this conversation, because as a parent, I knew it was a joke. Well, this friend owned a thrift store and gave me a suitcase to give to him. So on his 17th birthday, he came downstairs to see a huge navy blue suitcase sitting in the corner with a huge blue bow on it. The look on his face was priceless, as if to say “Really, Mom???” He didn’t know that all of his real gifts were inside.

Seriously, though, your child and life circumstances will dictate when they should move out. Can they afford to move out? Are they still in school? Do they have a job? Do they have the life skills? I don’t believe there should be a set time in their life where we say “OK, it’s time. Move out!”

My older son joined the Navy, and was in the Delayed Entry Program. He stayed with us until he left for Basic Training. He has been on his own since. My younger son (who asked where his luggage was on his 17th birthday) went the college route. He went away to college and when he graduated, he came back home. He was welcome here until her got on his feet. He stayed with us for about 5 years. He is now living with his fiancee and planning his wedding next year.

As every person is different, so is the time they should move out.

Badlands Homecoming

Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?…

I have been thinking about including short science fiction stories with my daily posts. Please kindly tell me what you all think about this addition. MM