When I lived in Indiana I owned a speedboat. I named it “Going Coconuts”.

Boats are expensive. Ugh, not only did we buy it, but the upkeep, storage and all the rest was expensive.

We would ride it, perhaps 16 times per year, and the cost per use was prohibitively expensive. Oh, we were warned… but I guess it is one of those things that you have to experience to understand.

When we moved out of Indiana for Mississippi, we ended up selling it to a retired couple. They were nice and berated us for not hanging out with them and spending a meal or two with them. Ugh. Never had the time, I guess.

Listen to me.

Do not invest in a boat unless you plan on living in it, using it for business, or intend to waste money. Other than that, I would advise… do not buy a boat.

Find cheaper hobbies.

A word to the wise.

Today…

How do I tell my parents that I know they put a camera in my room?

How do I tell my parents that I know they put a camera in my room?

1. Say absolutely nothing to your parents.
2. Do all your normal things in the normal way.
3. Once or twice a week, get a sneaky look on your face, tiptoe up to the camera, and cover the lens with black tape.
4. After 15–20 minutes, remove the tape, and go back to doing normal things
5. Enjoy that they are bursting to know what you do during the black-out periods, but can’t say anything for fear of outing themselves
6. If they are so f**ing shameless that they ask what happens in those times, go all aggrieved innocence, and say “Why, have YOU been SPYING ON ME?”. Turn the whole thing around and make them the Bad Guys.
7. Prepare some scorched-earth options, such as:
   1. Stop speaking to them
   2. Avoid all eye contact
   3. If you have to speak, use a dull monotone
   4. When they finally get up the courage to ask what’s wrong, say only “You have not apologised for spying on me”
   5. Stick it out – do NOT start speaking to them again until they apologise for spying on you.

Chic

Have you ever walked into your home and known something wasn’t right? What happened?

I was in 6th grade — still a snot-nosed kid — and I just got dropped off at my home after a good ole boy scout meeting. It was early evening, dark outside, and my folks and my brother were all out. When I entered my home’s foyer, the family dog, Ginger, a collie mix, came to me, which was normal, but I noticed a little dog poop on the floor. At the time, my dog was middle-aged and did not have accidents inside the house. This was the moment that I knew something was not right. But I ignored it…

All the lights in the house were on. This should had set off another signal that something was not right, since my parents were always bugging my brother and I about turning off lights to keep the electric bill down, but I ignored it and went into our kitchen to get something to eat.

In the kitchen there was a door that led to our backyard patio. The door was wide open and one of the windowpanes in the door was broken. I could see a piece of firewood on the patio, which I surmised was what broke the window. This was the second moment when I felt that something was obviously not right. But I think that we all have the tendency to try to rationalize things as being normal when they are not. And I remember thinking, “Hmm… That’s strange… But my parents must know about this…” Clearly, I was not thinking clearly. If my parents knew about it, why would they keep the door wide open, and not cover the window? But I ignored it.

Leaving the poop on the floor for someone else to clean up, I wanted to go upstairs to my bedroom. But when I got to the staircase, I got a strange sensation. As I looked up to the hallway on the second floor, I got the feeling that I should not go up there.

Again, sort of ignoring the warning signs, I instead go into our family room to watch TV. But in this room I see a pillowcase and bunch of books from our bookcase littered on the floor, and our TV is rolled away from the wall where it was plugged into. (This was the 80s, so it was a big CRT TV on wheels.)

Now I am finally putting it all together. I go back into the kitchen, pick up the phone, and call the police. (In this case, since it was the 80s, I dialed the police, which in an emergency takes way too long.) I tell the dispatcher that someone broke into my house. The dispatcher asks for my address and says, “Are you in the house?” I reply, “Yes.” And she responds, “Get out!”

I call for Ginger, grab her leash, and put it on her, and we go outside and stand on our driveway to wait for the police. I lived in the suburbs. There were streetlights, but the neighborhood had lots of big trees, and our back yard had a 1/4-acre wooded area, so it was dark. And now I am getting a little freaked and thinking, “When will the cops get here?” I look back at my house and through the kitchen window, I see movement. It’s a tall figure passing through the kitchen. I can’t see facial features, but it looks like a man in a flannel shirt. I’m guessing that the person is exiting through the kitchen’s door to the patio. I feel like I should pursue the man, but there are no lights in our backyard. As I muster up the courage to pursue him, a police car arrives. I tell the lone officer that I think the perp is in the backyard. He shines his flashlight around the yard and into the woods, but we do not see or hear anything. When more police arrive, they search the house and yard and dust for fingerprints. A detective tells me that I was very brave to go inside the house (clueless was more like it). But he also says that I should never enter my home if I think that it has been broken into or try to apprehend a criminal.

Lesson of this story: If something does not feel right, don’t try to rationalize it. Something is most likely wrong. Get out of there!

The thief got away with all my mother’s good jewelry, my parents’ silverware, plus one of my hand-held electronic games. We believe that he wanted to take the TV, but realized it was too big to carry. We think our dog was frightened when the perp broke into the house, and that’s why she pooped indoors. She was mid-sized and not super-aggressive, but she was territorial, so we were a little surprised that she did not scare the person off. Someone speculated that she was maced. But her job was not to be a watch dog… The house was only empty for a 1/2 hour — maybe 45 minutes — so the punk that broke in must have been staking out our home. We don’t know where the burglar was hiding when I entered the house or if he was a violent person. My brother thinks the crime was committed by someone who lived in the neighborhood.

Saved Gen Z

What’s the shadiest tactic you’ve witnessed HR use at your job?

I have been at the receiving end of one such shady tactic and I think it’s important that people should be aware of this.

This is regarding the Notice Period.

I landed a job in a service based IT company and after salary negotiations the HR told me that she will email the offer letter and asked me to go through it thoroughly and revert with questions. Everything was as per what we agreed and I accepted the offer.

Important thing to note is that the offer letter which was emailed to me had a notice period of 90 Days.

After few months the projects we were hired for were done and we were waiting for new projects. Things started to go south at this point and I started to look for another job. It was really difficult to find another job because of the 90 day notice period. No company would process my profile after I mentioned my notice period As 90 days.

After a couple of months the HR called me to her cabin and said that i was of no use to the company as there were no more projects and told me that I have a months time to look for a new job. I was taken by surprise and told her that the employee and employer have a notice period of 90 days to each other. At this point she told that it is 30 days and not 90 days. I immediately pulled my phone out and showed her the soft copy which was emailed to me. It had 90 days. The whole time the HR had a smirk on her face. Then she opened the hard copy, the copy on which I had signed during induction, and showed me the notice period. It had 30 days!!

It was then I realized what had happened. 90 days notice period would discourage employees looking out for a job but if the company wanted to fire them they would have to pay salary for only 30 days.

I know people reading this will feel that it was my mistake not to read the document before signing. And I completely agree with that. It was stupid on my part. But let me explain the situation to you all, in fact while signing I briefly started glancing at the document, I looked at the finances and the Job Title section when the HR interrupted and told me that the CEO was waiting to meet me and that I should sign the letter soon as we don’t want to keep the CEO waiting. The Notice period section was buried somewhere in the 12th page. Obviously I had no time to look at it.

After talking to a lot of people I realized and was surprised at how many sign the offer letter without reading and assuming it’s the exact copy of the emailed copy. Don’t commit the mistake which I did.

Lesson to learn: When you are signing the offer letter during induction, take your time, go through it thoroughly and only then sign it.

San Francisco today

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

Back when I worked for a computer magazine, the employees had a great sense of pride in our work and would often stay and work till seven, eight, ten at night, for which we were paid no extra and given no comp time. But that magazine went out on time with no errors except those introduced by the witless top editor after everyone who might have corrected them had gone home.

One day, however, we got a memo that everyone was to be at work by eight in the morning, at risk of being docked or fired. This rule was adopted by the managing editor, who was disturbed to find the staff trickling in at various hours of the morning.

The immediate result was that nobody stayed even a minute after five p.m., regardless of whether the necessary work had been accomplished. But we were all on time in the morning. Working only 8 hours a day, but working very hard, we could not meet deadlines and keep quality high. Plus, the esprit de corps vanished that day. We were no longer working for a cause, we were working for a clock. For a check.

But the managing editor would not back down from this destructive policy. Fortunately, I quit soon after, and the magazine was sold to a conglomerate, so the managing editor was never held accountable. Meanwhile, I stayed home and wrote the novel version of Ender’s Game.

Bumped from a flight

Banoffee Pie (England)

Banoffi Pie was invented in 1971 at the Hungry Monk Inn in Jevington near Eastbourne!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 bananas, sliced
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream

Instructions

1. Mix Graham cracker crumbs, sugar, melted butter or margarine, and ginger until well blended.
2. Press mixture into a 9-inch pie plate.
3. Cool in refrigerator.
4. Use one of the following three methods to prepare the toffee.
5. Pour toffee into pie crust. Allow to cool.
6. Slice bananas over toffee.
7. Whip the cream stiff, then spoon it on top of bananas. Refrigerate before serving.

Oven Method:

1. Pour sweetened condensed milk into 9-inch pie plate. Cover with aluminum foil; place in larger shallow pan. Fill larger pan with hot water. Bake at 425 degrees F for 1 hour or until thick and caramel-colored. Beat until smooth.

Stovetop Method:

1. Pour sweetened condensed milk into top of double boiler; place over boiling water. Simmer over low heat for 1 to 1/2 hours or until thick and caramel-colored, stirring occasionally. Beat until smooth.

Microwave Method:

1. Pour sweetened condensed milk into a 2-quart glass measuring cup. Cook on 50% power (medium) 4 minutes, stirring briskly every 2 minutes until smooth. Cook on 30% power (medium-low) 20 to 25 minutes or until very thick and caramel-colored, stirring briskly every 4 minutes during the first 16 minutes and every 2 minutes during the last 4 to 10 minutes.

Lied to…

An overhead view of people on 36th St. between 8th and 9th Aves., New York

An overhead view of people on 36th St. between 8th and 9th Aves., New York. Manhattan’s Garment District has been the center of the American fashion industry since at least the turn of the twentieth century – in 1900, New York City’s garment trade was its largest industry by a factor of three. The entire fashion ecosystem, from fabric suppliers to designer showrooms, exists within an area just under a square mile. Native New Yorker Margaret Bourke-White was in her mid-twenties when she took this picture. She would later become Life magazine’s first female photojournalist and, during WWII, the first female war correspondent. The two cars shown are a 1930 Ford Model A 4-Door Sedan, left, and a Ford Model A Sports Coupe, right.

Both have to be on board

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick is a hugely significant figure in the history of cinema, directing 13 major feature films including Spartacus, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and the ground-breaking 2001: A Space Odyssey. But prior to his film career, the young Kubrick was an apprentice photographer at Look magazine. First using a camera for his school’s publication, he was offered an apprenticeship at Look after he submitted a photograph. This picture of people arriving at the Chicago Theatre, North State Street, Chicago, is drawn from a set of pictures the 21-year-old Kubrick took for the Look series “Chicago – City of Extremes”. The theatre production in question, starring Jack Carson, Marion Hutton, and Robert Alda, was John Loves Mary, a farce.

Optionality

Confederate prisoners at Seminary Ridge during the battle of Gettysburg.

Confederate prisoners at Seminary Ridge during the battle of Gettysburg. Until 1863, both sides in the American Civil War of 1861-1865 used a parole system for prisoners. A captured soldier vowed not to fight until he had been exchanged for a soldier fighting for the opposition. But in 1863, when this picture was taken, the parole system proved untenable, because Confederate authorities would not recognize a black prisoner as equal to a white prisoner. The direct result was that the number of troops being held in prisons increased massively, on both sides. Just over 400,000 soldiers were taken captured and placed in prison camps during the American Civil War. One in ten of all deaths during the war occurred in a prison camp – a total of more than 55,000 men lost their lives incarcerated.

Big Kitty

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BxECe5WOgDw?feature=share

Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch

“11 a.m. Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch, Jefferson near Franklin. They were all smoking. St. Louis, Missouri.” As a photographer working for social reform, Lewis Hine found a number of advantages in photographing “newsies” – boys who sold newspapers on street. Unlike the work he did photographing child workers in mines, factories and mills, Hine could photograph the boys without either seeking permission from employers, or, more typically, circumnavigating them. The photographs could be achieved with more time, and with more focus and attention on the subjects he shot. To achieve this sense of direct connection, Hine would bring his camera down to the eye level of his subjects. Not only taking photographs of child workers, Hine also talked to them and sought to document and record their experience. n aggregate, he created a body of work that displayed an unacceptable standard of living for many thousands of children and which ultimately achieved a change in cultural understanding of what it means to be a child, and in the law.

Blind date

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XjMb23DQVw0?feature=share

Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street was at the very centre of Manhattan’s Little Italy, an ethnic neighborhood that followed from the mass immigration to New York of Italians after the 1880s. By the turn of the twentieth century, nine out of ten people in the Fourteenth Ward of Manhattan had an Italian background. Mulberry Street itself took its name from the Mulberry trees that grew around Mulberry Bend – the point in the street where it curved around what was then the Collect Pond. This scene, shot in 1900, shows something of the breadth of activity of Little Italy – vegetable stalls; barefooted children; shoe, boot and clothing merchants; a wagon of barrels and sacks; furniture removal men; and blankets, quilts and rugs left out to air – or to sell.

Never give up

CONFIRMED: Israel Planning to Dislocate ALL 2.3 Million Palestinians from Gaza Strip

World Hal Turner 26 December 2023

Advertisements are now appearing in Israeli publications touting “Gaza 2030” showing the entire Gaza Strip as a luxury beach front Resort . . . and no Palestinians.

One such ad, shown above, shows what is said to be the actual planning for the Gaza Strip once the Palestinians are forcibly dislocated from their homes.

While rumors of this forced displacement of civilians (a War Crime) have floated for weeks, for the very first time on Christmas Day, the world got confirmation:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Likud Party conference, that Netanyahu confirmed during the Likud Party session that “work is underway to find countries that want to “absorb the residents of Gaza as refugees.”

So apparently, there it is: Confirmation that ousting the Palestinian civilian population by dropping 2,000 pound bombs on them from fighter jets, is now (and likely has always been) the actual plan.

Casablanca (1942)

This is a favorite of mine. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/AJ5JiRKf52Y

US spies clueless on Chinese intentions – WSJ

Washington is beefing up its resources targeting Beijing over a decade after losing most of its local assets

The US is still struggling to rebuild its spy capacity in China over a decade after losing all of its agents in the country, current and former intelligence officials told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

The report described a “titanic, but mostly secret shift at the CIA and its sister US spy agencies” refocusing Washington’s $100-billion-a-year intelligence apparatus from “fighting insurgencies around the world” to “preparing for a possible ‘great power’ conflict with China and Russia.”

Beijing is the top priority for the CIA, director William Burns told the Journal, explaining that his agency had “more than doubl[ed] the budget resources devoted to the China mission over the past three years” and established a China Mission Center as a standalone entity coordinating those activities.

These include a new unit focused on emerging technologies and interfacing with the US private sector. Several US intelligence agencies have also established units focused on analyzing open-source intelligence, while electronic surveillance has become Washington’s main information source inside the country, where Beijing’s own surveillance apparatus makes meeting and recruiting human sources increasingly perilous. 

Even attempting to recruit officials when they travel to third countries has proven difficult, a former senior official admitted, describing how US agents who believed their cover to be intact in a Latin American country were actually followed and filmed by Chinese observers as they tried to recruit a target.

Current and former US intelligence officials acknowledged the CIA’s mission was crippled by the loss of as many as 30 Chinese assets between 2010 and 2012 due to a glitch in the agency’s covert communications systems and a betrayal by one of its Chinese operatives.

The former official, calling the losses “horrendous,” acknowledged “doubts about whether there’s been much of a recovery since then,” the discoveries having put a chill on recruitments that extended far beyond a single country.

The individual explained their reasoning: “Why would I take a call from a US person, I know that Chinese people got bullets in the back of their head.”

While the US maintains a network of spy satellites and cyber-surveillance tools targeting China, the agency has never recovered its on-the-ground intelligence capability in the country, and even now relies on President Xi Jinping’s public statements to gain working knowledge of his plans, the Journal’s sources admitted.

Burns has nevertheless suggested the US knows Xi’s plans for Taiwan, considered a breakaway province by Beijing and increasingly fortified with US weapons against a hypothetical invasion from the mainland. Xi and his military leadership “have doubts about whether they could pull off a successful, full-scale invasion of Taiwan at an acceptable cost to them,” the CIA chief told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum in July.

Hooverville

A “Hooverville” shantytown in Central Park, New York. The Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of October 1929 saw massive rates of joblessness and homelessness across the United States. People without jobs were people without the means to pay rent. Suddenly, civic lodging houses built for the homeless were filling up to capacity. Shanty towns – some housing as many as 15,000 people – began to grow up in close proximity to soup kitchens and other sources of free food. Such spontaneous towns were known colloquially as “Hoovervilles,” after Herbert Hoover. Hoover was the Republican President in 1929, and responsibility for the Depression was laid largely at his door. The Hooverville in Central Park developed on the site of the park’s lower reservoir. At one time drained and set aside to become a lawn, the reservoir project was derailed by the impact of the downturn. When it resumed in 1933, the Hooverville was gone, but not before it had gained notoriety, standing literally in the shadows of the opulent buildings that line the park, including The Beresford – opened mere months before the stock market crash. IMAGE: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

Kittens abandoned in icy water! Meow gradually weakens, A miracle saved the lives of four kittens

https://youtu.be/5zVmaeBS7fo

Can American submarines bypass China’s surveillance and enter China’s territorial waters?

Presently?

No. The Chinese can detect, track, follow, and “lock on” to any and all American submarines. This includes the highly vaulted USN “stealth” submarines.

This has been demonstrated in numerous ways, and though back channels to “key players” in the Pentagon. The public displays of this ability has been disguised as other events.

Oh, I am confident that the guys at NAS China Lake NWC will come up with methodology and techniques. When that will happen is unknown. But I am sure that some ideas are being researched and some preliminary studies are being conducted.

I have a reasonable expectation that some technologies will be fielded before 2030.

There are (highly likely) “black” projects currently in development that will eventually result in some great engineering direction. Of that I have no doubt. But it would be silly to assume that the Chinese are unaware of them. By the time they hit pilot field trials, China will already have counter-measures in place and fielded.

China, as of the time of this writing, has a very strong and significant undersea detection ability that spans the entire Pacific Ocean. This includes the Western coastline of the Americas. I do not know about the rest of the globe, but it can be inferred that the waters in and around Australia are under this umbrella of coverage, as are the Indian Sea, and the Northern navigable ocean.

So, to answer the question, more specifically…

Can American submarines bypass China’s surveillance and enter China’s territorial waters?

No. Any American submarine in the Pacific Ocean, near Australia, near the Indian Ocean, and in the Arctic Ocean can be detected by China.

If China determine that it is a threat, it will warn it away. This will include non-destructive methods such as the “sonic bomb”, and the “sonar ray cannon”. The warning usually is enough to cause the skipper to scamper away, as has already been demonstrated. In the event that the skipper is too recalcitrant, China has the ability to suppress the undersea vessel with extreme prejudice.

…

SOME IMPORTANT NOTES

Technical abilities of all military systems are hidden. The closest that the layman can get to understanding what they are is to either work with publicly available guesswork (such as JANES), or to actually have experience in these technologies.

• If you regurgitate public domain evaluations (such as JANES) you are apt to copy the misinformation purposely fed to the periodical.
• If you offer your personal experience in these matters, you are apt to be called a “fake news shrill” by a host of miscreants.

No one knows the true and real capabilities of the USN and the PLAN. However, people who have worked in these regimes, can make educated guesses and extrapolate towards highest probability conclusions. This is what I have done here.

The alternative is to rely on the public discourse, which is highly inaccurate, and intentionally misleading. If you feel that the anti-China disinfo is of better value to you, then go quite ahead and ignore this answer. No skin off my back.

Men cannot be bored

Workers build the Statue of Liberty

Workers build the Statue of Liberty inside French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s workshop, Paris. The idea for the Statue of Liberty was Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s. The Parisian sculptor wanted to create a gift for the US nation in the wake of the abolition of slavery – referenced in the broken chain at the feet of the statue. Construction commenced in 1877, and Bartholdi brought in engineer Gustave Eiffel to help with the statue’s inner framework. In 1885, the completed statue was shipped to America, assembled and dedicated the following year. IMAGE: ALBERT FERNIQUE / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Confused and messed up

What was the best revenge you’ve ever gotten?

Not me but happened to a friend of mine: she worked in a large law firm in Dublin, Ireland. Her boss was a total prick, probably a psychopath. During the recession they cut people’s wages and even stopped serving coffee at meetings in order to cut costs – not that any of the senior partners took wage cuts. It is very expensive to live in Dublin; the situation was so bad that there was a constant stream of young, under-paid, financially struggling solicitors entering his office and begging for a pay-rise, any kind of pay-rise. With every one of them he pointed to a tray on his desk filled with c.v.’s and said if you don’t want to work here I have a large bundle of applicants who would be happy your take your job. No one got a raise.

Things came to a head when my friend entered an open competition for a position with the state-run Residential Tenancy Board, a kind of mediation body for disputes between landlords and tenants. It was known that my friend, along with several others in the same firm had sat the exam, and she scored extremely high, placing near the top of the panel. It was rumoured that the boss had applied as well. At the end of the office day he approached her desk and basically accused her of rummaging through another colleague’s desk and stealing his notes for the exam – something along the lines of “How can you prove to me that you didn’t go through Brian’s desk, and read his notes?” (Not that he gave a shit about Brian). This is a lawyer, asking another lawyer to prove her innocence under the presumption of guilt, that she was guilty until she could prove herself innocent. She knew this situation was untenable and said well I wouldn’t do that because it’s immoral, and illegal but it now seems clear to me that it might be best if I work somewhere else – she basically quit there and then in the most tasteful and honourable fashion. He exploded on the spot, demanding to know who would take over her cases and workload. She replied, “Well, you have a large bundle of c.v’s on your desk, hire one of them.”

Broken families

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln, without beard, aged 37. It would be another fourteen years before Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States. Here, in an image by law student Nicholas Shepherd, Lincoln is photographed serving as a member of the US House of Representatives, just before he resumed his legal practice in Springfield, Illinois. Notably, Lincoln is clean-shaven. He grew his whiskers in 1860 as a direct response to a letter from an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, who believed Lincoln’s lack of beard was impeding his political career. IMAGE: NICHOLAS SHEPHERD / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Delusion

Ukraine Claims Sinking of Russian Naval Ship in Port

World Hal Turner 26 December 2023

Ukraine claims its aircraft hit — and sank — the Russian naval vessel “Novocherkassk” while the ship was in the port of Feodosia on Crimea.

Numerous confirmations of a very large explosion in that port, came in via video on Christmas Day, but whether the ship was hit, or an ammunition dump exploded, is in dispute:

The ship, allegedly loaded with Iranian ammunition, was reportedly blown up and as a result, fire broke out in the port. Here is a file photo of the ship:

According to Russian-affiliated media, residents reported hearing loud bangs, and seeing plumes of smoke. Traffic on the Crimean bridge was blocked.

Sergey Aksenov, the head of Russian authorities in Crimea, stated that “an enemy attack was carried out in the Feodosia area and the port area was cordoned off.”

Ukraine also claims there were 300 crew aboard and “they are all dead” but that does not seem to comport with the fact that a ship, in port, would not likely have its full crew aboard.

Do not be a coward

What did China’s Xi warn top EU officials about, and what are some of the specific issues causing tension?

China sternly told (not warn) EU chief to sort out what caused trade deficit for EU.

(my word) 1, EU-Netherlands is not allowed to sell EUV & now DUV too to China. China is willing to buy these expensive equipment. EU follows USA. EU is the problem of its trade deficit. Not China.

2, When European firms make money in China & bring back money to Europe, has EU factored in this money into the equation to determine trade deficit?

Germany cars make lots in China. Not France’s cars. Now France asks you EU chief to investigate China, do you EU know it is purely a dog-fight between France & Germany which has nothing with China?

3, If EU is so afraid of trade deficit, then stop buying from China. Buy things from other countries. Then there wont be any trade deficit with China. Simple. China wont force EU to buy.

In short, China sternly told EU chief not to play politics. Do something practical for Europeans.

So many hoes

What has happened to the 1960s hippies, and where are they now?

My uncle was hippie in the 1960s, and continued that lifestyle throughout the 70s and 80s. He was particularly enthusiastic about the drugs and promiscuity. As he was born at the beginning of WWII, not the end, he slightly preceded the baby boom. After his first prison stint, he ended up living in San Francisco where he rode a Matchless chopper and fully imbibed the counter-cultural lifestyle. In many ways he wasn’t just a hippie, he was one of the original hippies.

My uncle was a particularly skilled guitarist and poet. He also had a powerful singing voice, and made numerous attempts to launch a music career. As he aged, he slipped in-and-out of heroine addiction, and consumed other drugs as well. His drug use destroyed most of his opportunities.

My father disappeared from the scene while my mom was pregnant. After my mom’s divorce from my step-father, I went to live with my grandparents on a small farm in Thermal CA. My uncle lived in the other house. There was a constant parade of counter-cultural relics passing through the ranch. As a kid I might be throwing a football with a Hare Krishna one day, and getting a boxing lesson from an outlaw biker the next. Once my uncle took me to a nearby farm where a bunch of his hippie friends lived. I was about 12 or 13 and was sent out to help pick tomatoes. Living on a farm I had done farm work before, but that day was special because I was picking tomatoes with topless hippie girls.

Kind of like this except fewer guys and the girls were topless.

He had been married several times, and spent 20 years with a woman he met in San Francisco in the early 70s. They had two kids together, but didn’t marry because that would have cost her AFDC benefits.

His drug use lead to drug trafficking and by the late 70s/early 80s my uncle had evolved into a full-on hippie-outlaw. He trafficked hard drugs and committed other crimes. The summer before my 9th grade I was working for him on dry-wall taping job. One of his biker buddies showed up 2 of the least attractive biker gals I’d ever seen. They were all bad skin and bad tattoos. “Today’s the day you lose your virginity,” he said pointing at a gal who looked like an inked up version of Calisto from X-Men comics.

This was not as appealing as the topless hippie chicks picking tomatoes.

He showed up at my mom’s apartment around 4AM the next morning. After partying the afternoon away with the gals I avoided losing my innocence to, he stole some type of commercial vehicle, which he sold down in Mexico.

In the 1980s, he was arrested for narcotics trafficking. The police raided the house and arrested his “ol’ lady” and a couple of his kids. He wasn’t there. The DA had a witness against him, but that witness “disappeared.” He would eventually plea to a lesser charge in exchange for charges being dropped against his “ol’ lady” and sons. He serve a short prison sentence at Soledad.

When he came out of prison in 1988, he was healthier than I’d ever seen him before. A couple years of structure, nutrition and daily workouts in the weight pile had done wonders for him. While in prison, he shared a cell with a minor music celebrity. This musician wanted to purchase some of my uncle’s songs. But those deals fell through.

By that time the family farm was a distant memory. My uncle was gifted a house from his father, all he needed to do was pay the monthly mortgage payments which were only a few hundred dollars a month. But as he fell back into drug addiction he lost the house his “ol’ lady” had kept afloat while he was in prison.

After losing the roof over their head, the “ol lady” who stood by him through prison stints and infidelity decided she had enough. She went to live with her mom and became a home-healthcare working. The state of California paid her to take care of her own mother.

By the 2010s, my uncle was living with one of his sons at a hotel on Indio Blvd, a street made famous when Reverend Jimmy Swaggart got caught there with a hooker.

The hotel he lived in was next to the rescue mission. He was living on disability.

He had tried drug rehab a couple times but always fell back into his old habits. His son was employed by CA as a home healthcare worker…taking care of his father. My cousin was basically paid to stay home smoking dope with my uncle and play video games.

He fell ill. My cousin told me that his “guts exploded.” and he died in his hotel room next to the rescue mission.

Speaking cat language

Coney Island’s Luna Park

A ride at Coney Island’s Luna Park. When Frederic Thompson and Elmer Dundy built their A Trip To The Moon ride for an exposition in Buffalo, New York State in 1901, they had a hit on their hands. The centerpiece of the ride was an airship powered by wings which flapped, named Luna. Moving the ride to Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park for 1902, Thomson and Dundy then leased more land and created Luna Park, using 1,000 spires, a quarter of a million lights, and $700,000. On its opening night, 60,000 people paid ten cents each to enter Luna Park – rides cost extra. But in 1908, Luna Park was eclipsed by Dreamland, with a million lights. Dundy died in 1907, and Thompson went bankrupt. Luna Park continued to exist, but successive owners struggled to realize any potential it possessed. In 1944, it was wiped out by fire. IMAGE: GEO. P. HALL & SON / NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY / GETTY IMAGES

A man of Japanese ancestry

A man of Japanese ancestry teaches his grandson to walk at Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center, California. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, around 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes, leaving behind all their business and goods, and were transferred to concentration camps, known as “relocation centers.” Around 80,000 were native-born American citizens. This image by Dorothea Lange was taken at the Manzanar camp, northeast of Los Angeles. More than 10,000 people were detained at the 500 acre camp. Like all such camps, Manzanar was treated as a military installation, with towers, barbed wire perimeters, and armed guards. Before Manzanar closed at the end of 1945, one hundred and forty-six people had died as camp internees. Documentary photographer Dorothea Lange created a significant body of work in the Great Depression, working for the U.S. Farm Security Administration. Born Dorothea Nutzhorn, her parents were second generation immigrants from Germany. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941, she resigned it in order to photograph the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans. Most of her images were seen as critical by the military, and were impounded for more than five decades. IMAGE: DOROTHEA LANGE / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Woke society

Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street was at the very centre of Manhattan’s Little Italy, an ethnic neighborhood that followed from the mass immigration to New York of Italians after the 1880s. By the turn of the twentieth century, nine out of ten people in the Fourteenth Ward of Manhattan had an Italian background. Mulberry Street itself took its name from the Mulberry trees that grew around Mulberry Bend – the point in the street where it curved around what was then the Collect Pond. This scene, shot in 1900, shows something of the breadth of activity of Little Italy – vegetable stalls; barefooted children; shoe, boot and clothing merchants; a wagon of barrels and sacks; furniture removal men; and blankets, quilts and rugs left out to air – or to sell. IMAGE: DETROIT PUBLISHING CO. / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Too many SIMPS

Newsies

“11 a.m. Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch, Jefferson near Franklin. They were all smoking. St. Louis, Missouri.” As a photographer working for social reform, Lewis Hine found a number of advantages in photographing “newsies” – boys who sold newspapers on street. Unlike the work he did photographing child workers in mines, factories and mills, Hine could photograph the boys without either seeking permission from employers, or, more typically, circumnavigating them. The photographs could be achieved with more time, and with more focus and attention on the subjects he shot. To achieve this sense of direct connection, Hine would bring his camera down to the eye level of his subjects. Not only taking photographs of child workers, Hine also talked to them and sought to document and record their experience. n aggregate, he created a body of work that displayed an unacceptable standard of living for many thousands of children and which ultimately achieved a change in cultural understanding of what it means to be a child, and in the law. IMAGE: LEWIS HINE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Reality for men

Nikki Haley says she will stop China from killing Americans with fentanyl. Is the PRC doing this? If so, how?

Fentanyl is an extremely important drug. The World Health Organisation includes fentanyl in its official list of the world’s most essential medicines. Fentanyl plays a particularly important role in pain management for cancer patients. The suffering of cancer patients worldwide would be greatly increased, if not for the wonders of fentanyl.

Of course, fentanyl should be used only as prescribed by doctors. It may be noteworthy that no other country in the world has a fentanyl crisis the way the USA is having it. But it is also noteworthy that before fentanyl became popular among US drug addicts, the USA had already been having a massive opioid crisis for years and years – again, far outstripping the rest of the world.

Basically, nothing much has changed in the USA, except that the drug addicts moved from one kind of drug to another drug. Drug abuse is deeply embedded in the culture of the USA. Sadly, the habit of blaming others for its own problems is also deeply embedded in US culture.

No one should be surprised that most of the active pharmaceutical ingredients for manufacturing fentanyl comes from China. By far, China is the world’s largest manufacturer of APIs, generally speaking, for all kinds of medicines. China keeps the world alive, with its constant supply of modern medicines. China also keeps healthcare costs down for all countries, because of its tremendous economies of scale, as it manufactures medicines for hospitals and clinics all over the world.

Privilege

Airport security officers, what was the weirdest things that you saw through the x-ray?

Not a security officer, but many years ago I had one of my weirdest experiences with an x-ray scanner on a flight home from Canada.

I put my little carry-on shoulder bag on the conveyor belt; it went in, paused for inspection, and then the security officer asked me if I had any metal in the bag.

So I rummaged through the bag, removing several items and putting them in a tray. Then I sent the bag through; it paused for inspection, and then the security officer asked me if there was any more metal in the bag.

So I rummaged through it again, pulled out a number of items with a small amount of metal, and put them in the tray. Then I sent the bag through a third time – and sure enough, it stopped, and the officer had a quizzical look on his face.

At this point I said “Look, I’m a radiologist. If you let me see the image, I can probably find exactly what you’re looking at.”

So they put the bag through again, and a very bright red object came into view. I was puzzled myself – until they stopped the conveyor belt.

Imagine a glass of water. What happens if you push it forward steadily, and then suddenly stop? The water level sloshes back and forth for a moment.

This was exactly what I saw on the screen, and when I recognized it, I laughed out loud.

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I have had asthma for most of my life – relatively mild, fortunately. Nowadays, I have a maintenance inhaler (corticosteroids) to try to prevent attacks, and a rescue inhaler, to open up my airways in the event I do have an attack.

But when I was first diagnosed, inhaled corticosteroids did not exist, and I was basically prescribed the rescue inhaler for maintenance, which isn’t ideal (and not all that safe).

As a supplement, I was treated with a saturated solution of potassium iodide; this loosened up the mucus which tended to clog my airways – and probably didn’t do my thyroid any good, but again, you use the meds you have.

The solution came in a little squeeze bottle with a dropper tip, and I was supposed to add several drops to a glass of juice or water. The bottle was upright in my shoulder bag when it went through the scanner. When the bag suddenly stopped, the liquid sloshed back and forth a bit.

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Why was my medicine so incredibly bright on the x-ray? When you have IV contrast during a CT scan – or during an old-fashioned catheter angiogram, or any other procedure except MRI – what makes the contrast actually show up is the iodine in it.

So I had basically been sending a little bottle of super-concentrated contrast material through that airport x-ray scanner, and just hadn’t made the connection until I saw the way the liquid moved when the conveyor belt stopped.

I pulled it out, and showed it to the officer; he was skeptical, so I told him to put the bottle through the scanner by itself. When he realized that it was indeed the “metal” he was looking for, I explained why it looked so different from ordinary liquids on x-ray.

I stopped using potassium iodide shortly afterwards, and haven’t needed to explain radiographic contrast at an airport for quite some time. But it was certainly a unique experience.

The “Street of Gamblers,” Chinatown, San Francisco.

The “Street of Gamblers,” Chinatown, San Francisco. Two men and one woman on board the American brig Eagle were the very first Chinese immigrants to San Francisco. From 1849, Chinese people were drawn by the laboring opportunities for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, as well as the California Gold Rush – though racial discrimination was pronounced and enshrined in law, culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892, which outlawed immigration from China for the next decade. San Franciscan studio photographer Arnold Genthe was drawn to San Francisco’s Chinatown, capturing many hundreds of photographs of its people – often without their knowledge. The pictures are true to the culture Genthe saw – although he also cropped out Western elements. Here, Genthe has captured the essence of a Chinese hutong market transposed into San Francisco, crowded with men wearing black chángshān shirts and sporting the Manchu queue hairstyles – mandatory for all Chinese men until the 1910s. Excepting Genthe’s images, very few photographs remain of San Francisco’s Chinatown prior to the earthquake and fires of 1906. Most photographic collections were lost, but Genthe’s survived, stored in a bank vault.

What are the biggest lessons you have learned in the corporate world?

6 years of work experience and worked with 2 CEOs. I have doubled my salary every 2 years with only one job change. I am not a hard worker and rarely the smartest in room. My growth is not exceptional or commendable but good enough to make me one of the top paid among my peers.

1. Take ownership. There is no blame game in corporate. If it succeeds, its everyone’s effort. If it fails, its your fault. Its not a school to push the blame on someone. Your seniors will respect you for integrity.
2. Be always smarter than your manager. If you are, then your job is secure and he will respect you. If you aren’t, be ready to listen to his taunts and degradation.
3. If it needs to be done, it has to be done. A mail pops in just before you have to leave after a 10 hour day. And it says urgent. Either you can ignore it or sit for another half hour to complete it. Your decision decides your promotion.
4. Don’t take a day off unless needed. Your hangover doesn’t count as a reason. If its a reason, stop drinking. Stop everything that makes you tired next day to miss office.
5. Be cheerful with everyone from security guard to VP. It will give you 2 benefits: 1. You would be presented as a positive and cheerful employee (and it matters) 2. You can get things does easily.
6. When in office, do office work. Its ok to file IT returns or check quick social media but don’t start making business plans for your startup or start editing photos for your candid photography page. 6–8 hours of solid office work everyday will take you long way.
7. Know your process, know your peers, know about every (most) work getting done in your building. Don’t be a stalker or a nagger. Be a curious candidate who knows what he and his peers are doing. Will help you solve any problems you face in work sometime.
8. Know your company well. Sounds childish? Trust me, most of us do not know what your company does fully. What are the product segments, who are its competitors, where is the headquarter and who is the CEO.
9. Know the current affairs. While this doesn’t directly affect your work, there are moments when you would get a chance to interact with top management and the topics leapfrog from politics to macro economic factors. You shouldn’t be a sitting duck. Your small talk can have a very large impact.
10. Focus on big picture. You are just an ordinary s/w engineer or a junior analyst? Doesn’t matter. Look at your process like your lead or manager sees. Focus on the big picture. See like a bird and work like a worm.
11. Sometimes its donkey work. Do it. I work with senior directors of billion dollar companies who make their own slides. And many times they have to spend time on adjusting the logos or changing the fonts! Part of the job. They have secretaries but on a tight schedule, you are your boss.
12. Never blame your company. Never. if you feel you are excellent worker and your current company is not supporting you, then you are free to take a walk outside. Search for a better company. And if you can’t find a job, well then, its your mistake. You are not competent enough.
13. There is always growth. You have to be ready for it. Every company has a CEO and he/she was once a junior like you. The CEO worked his way up by hardwork, talent and beating all the competition. You can also be that CEO if you put 10–12 hours a day for 10 years in a row. There ain’t any shortcut.
14. Never expect a pat on the back. If you want to go up the ladder, do not strive for pat on backs or acknowledgements for short term projects. To quote Tywin Lannister “Jugglers and singers require applause”. Rise above the competation.

Workers build the Statue of Liberty

Workers build the Statue of Liberty inside French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s workshop, Paris. The idea for the Statue of Liberty was Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s. The Parisian sculptor wanted to create a gift for the US nation in the wake of the abolition of slavery – referenced in the broken chain at the feet of the statue. Construction commenced in 1877, and Bartholdi brought in engineer Gustave Eiffel to help with the statue’s inner framework. In 1885, the completed statue was shipped to America, assembled and dedicated the following year.

Who are some of the most lucky persons ever?

During WWII a young American officer had to take a bathroom break. Returning to the bomber he was supposed to ride, he found another officer had stolen his seat… the plane left without him. He had to take another plane, instead.

The original plane he was supposed to go on was shot down by the Japanese, killing everyone on board including the seat-stealer. The next plane this man took, instead, suffered a severe technical malfunction as its electrical generator failed and caused the plane to lose power and communication. It had to return to base, but it was attacked by eight Japanese fighter planes on the way. The plane was badly damaged, but it managed to evade the enemy fire long enough to land safely in Australia.

Who was this lucky man who escaped death in the air twice, once by a full bladder and the second time through sheer luck and the skill of his pilot? His name was Lyndon B. Johnson, and he would later be elected president of the United States.

Has a hotel maid ever walked in on someone at an awkward moment?

I was on a 2 month roadtrip with my family; preteen son and daughter, and wife. We had an RV but would pit stop at hotels or motels sometimes for the hot showers.

I was awake first and went out to do some roadside repairs under the RV. When i crawled out i learned the wife had checked out early. I was dirty and wanted to get clean before another long drive. I asked the front desk to let me back in the room to clean up and they gave me the key. I grabed my bag and headed to the shower. The family was in the rv getting themselves situated. I had the room to myself.

When i walked out the shower nude, looking for a towel the housekeeping staff was in the room cleaning. The door was propped open. The two ladies were changing the beds and had already removed the towels. I walked out nude and dripping. No towels…😬 The ladies eyed me up and down with suprise. One found a towel and handed it to me as they quickly excused themselves.

A “Hooverville” shantytown in Central Park,

A “Hooverville” shantytown in Central Park, New York. The Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of October 1929 saw massive rates of joblessness and homelessness across the United States. People without jobs were people without the means to pay rent. Suddenly, civic lodging houses built for the homeless were filling up to capacity. Shanty towns – some housing as many as 15,000 people – began to grow up in close proximity to soup kitchens and other sources of free food. Such spontaneous towns were known colloquially as “Hoovervilles,” after Herbert Hoover. Hoover was the Republican President in 1929, and responsibility for the Depression was laid largely at his door. The Hooverville in Central Park developed on the site of the park’s lower reservoir. At one time drained and set aside to become a lawn, the reservoir project was derailed by the impact of the downturn. When it resumed in 1933, the Hooverville was gone, but not before it had gained notoriety, standing literally in the shadows of the opulent buildings that line the park, including The Beresford – opened mere months before the stock market crash.

What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?

Let me begin by saying nurses have a very stressful job. I probably couldn’t go it as a career. I respect the profession. You should too the next time you’re in the ER. BUT they are not the only varsity members of the healthcare team.

I am an X-ray tech to sum up what I do. Almost every routine xray….not ct or MRI can be done with a portable X-ray machine. So one day years ago a doctor ordered an abdomen X-ray on a patient staying in the hospital. I arrived to bring the patient to the X-ray department. The lady said she was feeling so bad could I please go get the portable machine and X-ray her in her bed. I said of course, I’d be right back. The patient’s nurse was in the room and instead of not saying anything or being glad I was taking the patient’s comfort in consideration she tells me that the patient MUST leave the room and go to X-ray. I told her it would be right back and get it the X-ray right away. The nurse said the patient had to go to the X-ray department. The patient started CRYING! the nurse said she was sorry but the doctor needed a good X-ray. I didn’t want to bicker in front of the patient so I asked the nurse to step into the hall. Again I told the nurse the plus side of me xraying the patient in her bed. The nurse said she used to be an X-ray tech and she knew a portable X-ray was not as good detail as a X-ray in the department, blah blah blah. Again stating she used to be a tech and she knows a portable Abdomen X-ray cannot be diagnostic. To which I said, only to her, “well ma’am, if you were a tech and was not able to do a portable abdomen X-ray and get a diagnostic image, then you made the right decision in changing professions.”

I know that pissed her off but I didn’t raise my voice or say it in a smarmy way. Her implying, in front the patient, that I wasn’t qualified to do my job pissed ME off.
So I get a call from the charge nurse asking me what happened. Told her exactly what I wrote above. This was a Friday night. Monday when I get to work my director walked me to HR and he, the nurse, the director of nursing and HR guy told me I had to apologize to the nurse. As pussified as I viewed them, especially my director, I normally would have except they were claiming I was insubordinate to the RN. I-am-NOT-subordinate to a nurse. I will and do defer to a nurse in the case of patient care, meds, their role in an trauma or code situation, but NOT “listen and obey me”. I can’t do what they do but they (at least one) can’t do what I do. So I refused. Since it was an issue of being accused of being insubordinate…I said I will resign before I acquiesce under that stipulation.
The next week I was at a better hospital, more pay and a legend in Baton Rouge X-ray.

thank you for all the upvotes. I wish y’all had been with me when I told my wife I had quit.
“YOU FUCKING DID WHAT?!”

The hanging of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln

The hanging of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln, at Fort McNair, Washington D.C. The assassination of Lincoln in April 1865 by John Wilkes Booth was part of a conspiracy to bring down the Union government. The plot would have seen the simultaneous killing by conspirators of the President; Vice-President Andrew Johnson; and Secretary of State William Seward. Only Booth succeeded. While Booth was killed before he could stand trial, other conspirators were taken and imprisoned. Three months after the assassination, on July 7th, four of them – Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt – were hung at Fort McNair. The scene was captured by Scottish photographer Alexander Gardner. The gallows was constructed specifically for the occasion. Mary Surratt, whose Washington boarding house was a primary location in the conspiracy, became the first woman to be executed by the US federal government.

Do you have any good advice or life lessons that may help others?

Almost all family fights revolve around either Money or Ego/Dominance

Hunger always leads to irritation and a lot of fights so ensure you have a handful of Chocolates with you to prevent low glucose and irritability

Never force your Kid into something he or she is not good at or will not be good at. Dont thrust your ambitions on your kid.

If you have had a bad breakup and you are in College , its better to hire an expensive call girl for a 3 day session rather than flunking after becoming devdas. Most heart breaks are solved this way (Per 2010 Standards)

Limit Coffee and Tea and avoid Aerated Drinks entirely. Drink only Water whenever possible.

Mayonnaise, Extra Cheese, French Fries and Drinks are all to be avoided when eating fast food. They are the ones which lead to diabetes and weight gain. Instead you can order more Coleslaw and Beans.

Never get into trouble with Cops till you get your First Passport. Always be humble and never mouth off a cop.

Be open about watching Porn or doing something. Dont hide such things and pretend to be a goody goody. Such people often cheat on their wives.

Never try to find out if Ghosts are real by taking a camera and visiting an allegedly haunted house.

Never use a Credit Card except for Insurance and Medical Emergencies.

If your Peers force you to smoke, its worth losing the friends than losing your lungs.

Never raise your hands on your kids or Parents or Spouse or Girlfriend

Never cheat a Girl by promising marriage out of lust. It never goes well. Better to watch Pornhub

Never tell a lie that harms you in the long run. Simple lies are fine.

Ensure a BMI of 27.5 at the most if possible if you are a male and 26.5 if you are female.

Ensure you have health insurance at all times if possible

Never invest in a Property where the Total EMI is more than 40% of your combined salary.

Old Age Retirement Communities are not bad places but in India -7 out of 8 are Cheats. So be careful.

The More “I Love You” you tell a girl the shorter the relationship is likely to be.

Even if a Girl wants Physical Sex, think a 100 times before participation. Laws and Time are not on your side.

For Girls – Think 1000 times

Never get into Political discussions with Family Members and Friends. Thats what Quora is for.

The “Empire State Express”

The “Empire State Express” (New York Central Railroad) passes through Washington Street, Syracuse, New York. The Empire State Express was the flagship train of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. It also had world renown as the first passenger train with a speed scheduled above 50 mph, as well as undertaking the longest scheduled nonstop run, between New York City and Albany, for 143 miles. Trains have run on the roads of Syracuse, New York since 1859, earning the city the sobriquet “the city with the trains in the streets.” As well as the obvious safety concerns, the situation also brought noise, dirt and pollution to Syracuse citizens. At peak points, around sixty trains ran along Washington Street – though that era finally came to an end in 1936 with the arrival of an elevated railroad and a new station on Erie Boulevard East. The final train to run on Syracuse streets was the Empire State Express – eastbound.

Western Culture

How Japan’s lost decades are being turned into a ‘Lost Century’

Since 1992, Japan’s economy has been in huge decline. It is no longer the economic powerhouse of the 1980s that shook the world with innovations and the excellent capabilities of Japanese businessmen, allowing Japan to dominate global markets. The myth of Japan being an unstoppable economic force has long been dead. The Japanese economy since the asset price bubble collapse has been characterized by rising debt at an unrelenting rate, an aging population associated with low productivity, and zombie companies propped up by government loans.

Japan’s hope for an economic revival is waning as the country shows no real signs of turning things around, instead falling further behind other growing Asian economies year after year. In this post, I will highlight key points showing how Japan may become the first nation to reach “lost century” status.

The lost innovation era

Since Toshiba’s fall, the cracks in Japan’s economy started to show even more as other Asian nations like South Korea, Taiwan, and China began surpassing Japan in key areas. This accelerating loss of global market share further aggravated the decline.

This outcome holds a sobering lesson for any nation closely tied to the United States. No matter how loyal you are to the master, it won’t save you from their opression if they see the necessary reason to do so, especially when the American Capitalists see their revenues falling.

At the same time, talented Japanese technicians and engineers have increasingly found opportunities abroad as other Asian countries have surpassed Japan in key tech sectors. Many now work in Taipei, China, Singapore, and throughout the ASEAN countries, where they see more financial opportunities compared to Japan. This exodus shows how other nations have attracted Japanese talent that could have benefited Japan domestically if better opportunities existed. Ultimately, the blame lies with Japan itself for failing to sustain an attractive and thriving environment for their people since that’s what they got for pleasing the master.

Zombie firms

When the asset price bubble burst and the stock market collapsed, many major Japanese companies were at risk of bankruptcy. Japanese banks and the government bailed out these businesses with loans so they could avoid folding. While this allowed the companies to survive, they became “zombie companies” – failing businesses reliant on bailouts to operate, with no impetus to innovate.

The rise of zombie companies has been a key driver of Japan’s economic decline, as they contribute little productivity while occupying market share. Typically it’s better to allow failing firms to go bankrupt so new entrepreneurship can flourish in a creative destruction process. However, Japan feared the short-term pains of major corporate bankruptcies and preferred lending money indefinitely to decaying keystone companies.

Aversion to change and status quo bias have prevented Japan from undertaking major reforms. Biting the bullet on corporate failures, as painful as it would be initially, would better incentivize startups and productivity. Economies thrive when inefficient businesses can fail and nimble innovators have space to experiment and grow. Propping up zombies may seem safer, but it locks in stagnation. Japan remains trapped by indecision and fear of change.

In fact, the problem of zombie companies in Japan appears to be worsening rather than stabilizing. Instead of declining, the number of zombies propped up by cheap credit is rapidly growing, especially in 2021 and 2022 as many firms faced bankruptcy due to COVID-19. This perpetual bailout mentality is a critical factor behind Japan’s ongoing economic stagnation and the despair many younger generations feel about the future.

The country’s lack of sovereignty is the most important factor

Japan is known not just for economic stagnation but also as a loyal puppet of the United States, to the point of eben rivalling Europe. Its foreign policy and military fall heavily under U.S. influence. On Japanese sites like Yahoo Japan, users joke about the U.S. military presence being an omnipotent god towering over Japan’s actual government. This dynamic has been evident in Okinawa, where protests demanding removal of U.S. bases led to a referendum supporting their ouster by 70% of voters. Yet the bases remain despite longstanding issues like pollution, as Japan has not asserted autonomy over land usage. More impartially, the U.S. military itself produces immense emissions rivaling top polluter nations if it was a country. It would be known as the seventh country for being top polluter, just imagine how cancerous their impact is towards the world.

Japan’s lack of independence in foreign policy has allowed the United States to continue imposing unfavorable trade deals, similar to the Trump agreement where he forced Japan to open up access for American farmers in the Japanese market and dump goods without any tariff imposed on them. At the same time, this kind of control is what is stopping Japan from reviving economically, because if Japan was independent, then it could work with Asian partners to establish an Asian Monetary Fund and implement trade deals in their own currencies rather than the US Dollar.

In fact, Japan desperately needs China and Vietnam as they are the only key that could help Japan survive, but of course under the ruling LDP elites, such a partnership will never happen. And even if someone tries to steer Japan toward more regional trade and financial cooperation with the East, then the next day he will be assassinated.

Not a single store

Does beer expire if not opened?

Oh yeah!!! If you leave bottled beer in the sun for a month, its brutally skunky. When I was underage, I left a case of beer hidden in a field until I could retrieve it, a month later. Not a wise move.

The weirdest incident was when I went over to my best friends parents farm for Christmas Eve. His father was quite the character, he could be incredibly frugal, but was also quite funny. My best friends parents don’t drink beer. But my best friend and I made up for them.

When I came in they asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I said I’ll have a beer, not wanting to put them out, and not knowing that they didn’t drink beer.

To give some context, up until 1961 Canada allowed any beer bottle shape. Then they switched to a standard stubby bottle, and every brewery had to use the identical stubby, so that they could be reused, instead of recycled. In about 1983, they started allowing any shape bottles again. Most breweries switched to a long neck bottle, with a twist top cap.

The father went down into the root cellar and came up with two long neck beer bottles. They were a little dusty, but I didn’t think anything of it. I tried to twist off the cap, and I couldn’t, the father handed me a bottle opener, and I popped the cap. OMG, the stench, it bubbled and frothed out of the bottle. The father was laughing so hard, I thought he couldn’t stand up. It was a long neck from before 1961 and this was probably 1984.

He said he had bought the beer for company, decades ago, and stored it in his cold room/root cellar. He hadn’t used it, and when organizing this Christmas, he had found it, and wondered if it would still be good, like whiskey kept in a cool dark place for years.

He got his answer. But I wondered how much it had cost him. He had opened, a sealed case of beer, that was probably at least 25 years old. How much could he have sold it for.

So I am here to tell you, beer can go bad within a month in the hot sun, and is definitely pungent after 25 years in a basement.

Six were killed

Oklahoma’s Fort Sill – the burial place of the Native American, Geronimo – housed static kite balloons, inflated with hydrogen such as this one. The balloons were deployed for the observation of artillery attacks, and were secured with guiding cables by groups of ground staff. Six troops were killed in the accident captured here on camera, at Henry Post Field at the Fort. The hydrogen in a balloon was ignited by a what is believed to have been a static electricity charge, created as the folds of the balloon fabric were rubbed together. Thirty more troops were injured.

Have you ever found something unexpected inside of something you bought used?

Not me but a guy I worked with at my local hospital.

Mick was an ex-Para and also ex-Foreign Legion. His hobby was going around car-boot sales and buying up old brasses (vases, pots, decorations etc), cleaning them up and selling them on. He bought a load in bulk and while checking them he heard something rattling around inside a tall vase. When he tipped it out it turned out to be a Victoria Cross complete with ribbon and clasp! For our American cousins it’s the British equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Being a military man Mick immediately knew what it was-now he could have kept it or sold it, but knowing what he did (and being an honourable bloke) he decided to track down the owner, or at least his family. He found the recipients grandson and after speaking with him on the phone they arranged to meet up at a pub. The grandson had brought paperwork and photos to prove that it was indeed his grandads. It turned out that, when he was a child, he loved wearing his grandads medals while playing ‘Army’ (which he wasn’t allowed to do, kids eh?) and had somehow lost the VC, for which his dad had, understandably, never forgiven him. Mick told him where he’d found it and it turned out that the grandsons parents had kept a large brass vase by the door that they put umbrellas in-it had been rattling around inside the vase for over 30years!

Was there ever any examples of countries that became worse after the removal of a dictator, to the point where the people think life was better under the rule of said dictator?

«While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas» (Thomas Sankara).

Have you ever heard about Thomas Sankara?

In 1983 Upper Volta was one of the poorest countries in Africa, then a coup installed Thomas Sankara as president. Sankara changed the name of the country to Burkina Faso and started a number of reforms. «His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nationwide literacy campaign and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles». Sankara improved the living conditions of the Burkinabé people, redistributing agricultural land, planting trees to prevent desertification, creating a widespread program for building roads and railways, which brought jobs and modernization, strengthening the healthcare and education systems. He also outlawed FGMs, forced marriage, and promoted women to the head of the state and at all levels of the administration. Finally, he unilaterally reduced the Burkinabé international debt (mostly based on old interests that had piled up) and renounced international aids where not strictly necessary in order to escape the control of the IMF and World Bank.

In doing so, through, he caused the enmity of the international finance, but also of the Burkinabé middle class and of the old tribal chiefs. These united forces and in 1987 assassinated Sankara, substituting him with Blaise Compaoré, who remained in office through heavily doctored elections, until 2014, when he finally had to flee to Cote d’Ivoire. Despite being nominally democratic, Compaoré undid everything that had been done by Sankara, worsening the human rights conditions, the economy, and the overall living conditions.

Bannock Bread (Scottish)

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup Crisco
• 1/2 cup water to make a thick dough

Instructions

1. Mix dry ingredients together well. Cut in the shortening using a pastry blender.
2. Mix in the water and knead until the dough is very smooth, about 15 minutes.
3. Grease a cast iron frying pan, including the sides, and press the dough into the pan.
4. Bake on top of the stove over low heat. Watch carefully so that the bread does not brown or burn before the center is cooked.
5. When the bread is free from the pan, turn the loaf over and continue to cook. The total cooking time will be about 10 minutes on each side.

Florence Thompson with one of her children, Watsonville, California

Florence Thompson with one of her children, Watsonville, California. Thompson was only 32 in this picture by Dorothea Lange, an outtake from the photo session which generated the iconic “Migrant Mother” image. Born in 1903 in what was then Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma, her parents were displaced Native American Cherokees. Marrying at 17, she and her husband began a family in California. When her husband died, Florence was left with six children at the age of 28. She went on to have four more children, three with a Californian man, Jim Hill. At the moment Dorothea Lange encountered the family, their car had broken down while journeying to find crop-picking work. Hill and the boys in the family had walked into town to get parts for the car.

Purity

Have you ever had a work colleague who was disliked by most of the other staff, but you knew just how much integrity, honesty, and honour they really had?

‘Disliked’ is perhaps too strong of a word. . .

John was a former U.S. Marine, and a karate black belt, and we were colleagues at a large language center in Bangkok.

The alpha male teachers initially assumed John would blend in with them, but they were so wrong.

He was polite, friendly in his own way to them but was quickly bored by their macho bravado and sexual escapade stories. That they demeaned others (foreigners and Thais) to swell their egos did not sit well with him.

The alphas, perhaps sensing that John was a true alpha, left him alone. They said that they disliked him but never explained why. Perhaps it was insecurity?

Some of the center’s academic management cringed each time a teachers’ meeting was held, knowing that John would be there, ready to call them out about unnecessary rules, regulations and for demands made on hourly-paid teachers.

If they insisted on changing teaching methodology or administrative procedures, John’s very valid, direct questions and comments usually exposed their lack of teaching experience and empathy. He made them accountable.

If explanations were clear and reasonable, John accepted them. He wanted what was best for students and teachers.

If he was proven wrong (even by himself), he readily admitted it. He also apologized if he inadvertently upset others with direct personal comments.

He was popular with students because he was what they thought an excellent, caring teacher should be. His standards were exacting and fair, and they knew he wanted them to succeed.

Gossip was never a thing for John. He may have made negative judgments about others, but he usually kept them to himself (occasionally expressing quiet sarcasm but only to close friends).

He had a wicked, subtle, sense of humor that went over most people’s heads. He had his vices, too, but again, only his closest friends knew them.

Why were many of his colleagues uncomfortable around him?

Because he never wavered in his integrity, honor and honesty.

Have you ever had a car that a mechanic said it’s unfixable and told to sell him the car or junk it but turned out to be a minor fix?

I had a 1999 Buick Park Avenue with the 3800 engine. That engine was considered to be bullet proof. I bought the car with 184k already on it. It was a great road machine, 30mpg, and I loved it. I used to go into the northern suburbs to babysit my Grandson one day a week. By then the car probably had about 300k on it but it still ran very well and it was not rusted out. I stopped to get some take out breakfast on a rainy day. The car started ok but when I got on the freeway it didn’t want to get up to speed. I made it to my son-in-law’s house and into their driveway. When I left to head for home, the car would start but when I put it in gear it would die. It wasn’t showing a code so we didn’t have a clue. At that time, my son-in-law did some of my mechanical work so he said that he would take a look at it. They had an extra vehicle so they loaned that to me. Well he tore into it and checked all of the obvious things. Then he took the dash apart. He was stumped. After checking with some of his buddies, it was decided that the computer had gone bad. So he found a professional that came out to their home and replaced the computer. Nothing changed. The professional put the old computer back and wouldn’t take any money. He said that he didn’t solve the problem and he would not take any money. So I was being advised to give the car up, let it go for salvage instead of pouring more money into a lost cause. I told him that I hear you and I know you are trying to keep me from wasting my money. I just don’t believe that a car that has been running perfectly dies so suddenly without any obvious sign of a problem. I think it is going to turn out to be something simple that is hard to detect. So he got in touch with an experts’ expert. The expert showed up and he knew that there was another fuse box under the backseat. So they tore the backseat out and tested. Sure enough they found a dead circuit. They managed to trace that to a wire on the firewall that was corroded. They replaced that wire and the problem was solved. I drove that car to 366k. It was still running great but it had a broken leaf spring and the bushings were shot in the undercarriage. At that point I was going to be a volunteer driver so I felt that it was time to upgrade. I hold all of the cars that I have owned since to the standards of that ‘99. I loved that car.

Portrait

Portrait of Art Hodes, Kaiser Marshall, Henry (Clay) Goodwin, Sandy Williams, and Cecil (Xavier) Scott, Times Square, New York. Although born in the Ukraine, Jazz pianist Art Hodes was brought up in Chicago, and spent most of his career in “The Windy City”. Hodes became known for the Chicago Jazz style, but in order to find success, he had had to move to New York, in 1938. Here, Hodes and his River Boat Jazz Band – Joseph “Kaiser” Marshall on drums, Henry “Clay” Goodwin on trumpet, Sandy Williams on trombone and Cecil “Xavier” Scott played clarinet and tenor sax – are playing on a horse drawn cart to promote their concert that night – with special guest Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden. Writer and (self-taught) photographer William P. Gottlieb spent the ten years from 1938 to 1948 interviewing and photographing the leading, largely New York-based, jazz musicians of the time, including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Billie Holiday. A columnist for the Washington Post, Gottlieb started to take his own pictures when the Post wouldn’t pay a photographer.

How often do you think about the people you have met throughout your life?

-MAYBE TOMORROW-

When I was fourteen years old, my favorite food in the world was pizza.

There wasn’t a good pizza shop in Lampeter, Pennsylvania, which was where I lived at the time. Most, if not all of my friends lived in or hung out in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. At the center of Strasburg, is Pizza City. The owner, Sam, was an over-the-top friendly Italian, with a keen eye for bull-shit.

Every day after school I’d smoke weed and head to Pizza City with a group of friends. I always ordered one crispy slice with a cup of water. Thinking I was cool, I would ask Sam for a free slice after I had ordered. That signature smile would fade and he’d look right through my bloodshot eyes and into my soul.

“Maybe tomorrow.”, was all Sam would say.

For years, Sam fed us and always encouraged us to be the best versions of ourselves. He asked us how our grades were and offered good advice.

At the end of my tenth-grade year,

my principal recommended that I attend inpatient drug rehabilitation to my parents. At seventeen years old, I was admitted into a two-week program in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. I kept a journal of poems and dreams from my stay at that facility.

It was a really scary time and my only escape was to write about it.

I always believed that Sam was against drug use, especially in children. When I got out of rehab, I started getting high immediately. I never went back to Pizza City. I never associated with any of my friends from back then because I was ashamed of who I’d become. I was a homeless heroin addict and didn’t want them to see that. As the years turned to decades things only got worse. My stays at facilities were no longer measured in days, but months.

Last year, I finally got clean. I still thought about Sam and Pizza City. After all, it’s where I grew up and my memories of Pizza City are nothing but fond. This past Sunday, after church, I decided to stop in with my family. I wanted Sam to meet the boys and Jessica and see that I had finally turned it all around. I knew how happy he’d be for me.

When we walked in we were kindly greeted and offered a booth. As my family sat down, I walked up to the counter looking for Sam. Just as I asked if Sam was around, Jessica called my name. I was told by the lady behind the counter that he was and to give him a minute. I walked over to Jessica and she pointed out a picture that was above our booth.

Sam, passed away in 2010. But if Sam passed away, who was the kind lady fetching for me? As it turns out, that little baby from twenty-five years ago, is also, Sam. It was Sam’s son, Sam that was being fetched.

I think about the people I have met throughout my life all the time. Some played a huge part and some played a small part. Sam, was a great role model and a fantastic pizza guy. He was a huge part of my teenage years.

I asked Sam that day if I could share a story. A story about a pizza man that saw the good in all of us kids. A story about a man that played a small part in my recovery with the promise of a free slice. After we talked, I asked Sam about maybe getting that free slice. His only response?

“Maybe tomorrow”

Leon

Boomerang Saturday Morning Cartoons | 2008 | Full Episodes w/ Commercials

Two hours long. You can scan it for some yucks. Enjoy if you have the time.

What is the coolest psychological trick?

1. The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
2. Eye pupil rises to 45% when an individual looks at somebody they love.
3. If a song is not going from your head, then try thinking about the end word of the song.
4. If you want people to take you seriously, just say what you’re saying is what your father taught you.
5. When you nod your head while asking, it tends to make others more willing to help you.
6. When it’s hard to convince someone to do something: give them options.
7. Ask for something huge before you asking for what you really want.
8. One good way to build trust is if you admit when you’re wrong, especially on little things.
9. For an interview, be either the first or the last one to attend in order to stay fresh in the interviewer’s brain.
10. If someone is talking or preoccupied, you can hold out your hand and they’ll give you whatever they’re holding.
11. Copying the person you’re with will make them like you.
12. You can be twice as rich by deciding you need half as much.
13. People will be more favorable to your idea if they think it’s THEIR idea.
14. Staring at peoples forehead irritates them quite a lot.
15. When high-fiving look at the opposite person’s elbow, that way you would never miss.

The U.S.S. Recruit

The U.S.S. Recruit, a wooden battleship built by the Navy in Union Square, New York City, to recruit seamen and sell Liberty Bonds from 1917 to 1920. In order to drive up recruitment to the Navy – and to train those so recruited – the US military commissioned the construction of a full and seaworthy battleship in the middle of Union Square, Manhattan. The ship was staffed, with a captain, and was equipped with wireless and quarters for officers and other crew. It also had searchlights – illuminated at night. As well as functioning as a successful training and recruiting unit – more than 25,000 men joined the US Navy via Recruit – the ship was also deployed as an event and reception location, hosting, amongst other occasions, a visiting group of Native Americans, and a christening. The ship remained in Union Square for the duration of the War and beyond, finally being decommissioned and dismantled in 1920. The six guns it carried were wooden replicas.

Have you ever witnessed a judge go completely ballistic and “lose it” in court?

Oh yes. There’s a woman from Cape Cod named Gina Clark. Gina set up a charity called “Touched by Angels,” in which the charity supposedly offered help to families in crisis; handicapped child in need of special equipment, or families who needed help paying for their child’s funeral. The awkward part was that the family had to basically fund-raise on their own. They had to involve all their friends, and have their friends collect money, which then was SUPPOSED to go to the family in need. However, after going around, begging their friends, and participating in all these things the charity wanted them to do, the “charity” wound up basically charging the people for their services, and the people wound up getting next to nothing.

Anyways, she ripped off one of my friends, who was promised a wheelchair ramp, and used minivan. (For what it’s worth, all my friend really cared about was the wheelchair ramp. The minivan would have been nice, but she really NEEDED that ramp.)

Gina Clark eventually got busted, and served a minimum amount in jail, and part of her sentence was to actually pay the money to those families that it was collected for. Everyone on Cape Cod knew about the case, so when I happened to be in court one day, and Gina Clark was brought in front of the judge, I was interested to see what happened.

Apparently, she was crying poverty, and supposedly couldn’t pay. The judge got PISSED when he looked at her assets, and saw that she and her husband had two high-end cars, and two Harley Davidsons. The judge lit into her, and told her if she didn’t sell those Harley Davidsons to pay those victims, she was going to jail. His face was actually red, and his voice was shaking.

The entire courtroom broke out into spontaneous applause.

The Flintstones | Fred and Barney Go Bowling

What was the rudest thing a guest has ever said or did while visiting your home?

I watched a cousin package up and take all the white turkey meat home with her on Thanksgiving Day.

My dad has a large family. Individuals take turns holding the Thanksgiving gathering. This particular year my parents volunteered to host. Then my father went full overboard and invited cousins and their families. The end result was that over sixty people would be attending. Needless to say, mom was not happy.

In my dad’s family, the host provides the turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Not to mention plates, cutlery, cups, sauces, and at least some of the drinks. So dad stepped up and contacted a friend who managed a local restaurant. He ordered all the food and it was excellent. The turkey was pre-sliced and laid out in long aluminum serving trays. It was separated by dark and white meat. There were trays of dressing and serving containers of the other items. Attendees were expected to bring a side dish.

It was controlled chaos. Fortunately the weather was mild and the kids could be thrown outside. Tables were set up in the sunroom. Tables were set up in the garage. People ate in shifts. Mom was a nervous wreck and exhausted. But everyone enjoyed themselves.

Late in the afternoon people began packing their stuff up to leave. It is typical at these functions for individuals to fix a “take home” plate. Turkey, dressing and veg. Maybe a slice of cake or pie. No biggie.

At a certain point everyone was gone. The next issue was maneuvering the leftovers into the fridge. I began transferring turkey into a storage container. My mother walked over and told me, “There’s no white meat left.” I looked at her in total shock. “Teresa took all of it. Before others could even get some.”

I was stunned. She had made multiple plates, just of turkey, then waltzed out the door.

Now it wasn’t like she had a family to take the food to. She is single. It isn’t like she needed the food. She has an excellent job and owns her own home.

But she is known to be a tightwad. She was taking the meat home to freeze.

I wish I had known. I wish mom had told me. But she knew better because I would have stopped her. Others would have had the chance to have helped themselves.

She didn’t have the decency to leave my parents, her host, a portion. Instead, she was a classless, spoiled brat.

Adaptation

Did you ever have a teacher go completely berserk at your school to the point where someone had to step in?

Yes.

I still think about that teacher from time to time, now some 20+ years later.

When I was in high school, there were five different levels of English class, depending on academic ability. Often, academic ability and behavioral problems go downhill proportionately. That is, the lowest-level class also had the most students with the most behavior problems.

I was in the highest level class. In my sophomore year, we had a student teacher for a few months. She was a very nice young lady… very quiet, but very smart. Loved to read and talk about books. I can say now, with the experience of being a teacher myself, that, in retrospect, she wasn’t really “teacher” material. She was far too kind, too soft-spoken. She was just a woman who was trying to earn a living via her hobby: reading.

But that’s not what teaching is about.

She loved her student teaching experience, because her skill set (knowing a lot about literature) fit the needs of the students in her class (wanting to learn a lot about literature). Then her time as a student teacher was up, and she was gone for the rest of the year.

The next year, she returned as a full-time teacher. This must have been her first teaching job after college. She said hello to those of us she recognized in the hallway on her first day. She seemed happy.

A few weeks later, she left her room in the middle of a class, got security to escort her back into her room to get her stuff, and was never heard from again. Another teacher had to take over that class from that point on. Our newspaper teacher, who was really tight with the 10 students in her newspaper class, told us exactly what happened: She (the new teacher) had a total mental breakdown in the middle of class because the students were so disruptive and disrespectful. She swore at them before crying and leaving the room.

As often happens with new teachers, she was at the bottom of the pecking order for which classes she got to teach. She ended up with the lowest-level English class, full of students with behavior issues who didn’t give a damn about literature.

This was not a good fit for her skill set. Those students needed more of a drill-instructor type of personality, not her soft-spoken style. The administration set her up for failure, and she failed.

I hope she didn’t give up on teaching completely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

When being terminated from a job, have you ever warned the company of something important that only you knew how to do, and your advice has gone unheeded?

I worked in a department with three others and a manager at a radio station. Correction media company which owned multiple radio stations. We entered the contracts for the adverts. I had a inbox that never was less than about 10 cms tall for the two stations I was responsible for.

The morning was spent entering as many contracts as possible. The afternoons finalising which advert played in which break for the following day. Certain companies could not be in the same break as other ones and while the computer was supposed to do most of it the more it was over sold the longer it took me to fix it. The further behind I was in loading the contracts the more likely I would be oversold and spend even less of my day loading the contracts.

Any way my manager was told to fire one of us. She obviously didn’t know how to choose and spent a good month walking past us to her office warning us if we didn’t pull our socks up we would be out of a job. We all were stressing over the threat of being fired. I was already arriving early, leaving late and not taking all my breaks.

One day I came to my senses, they needed me more than I needed them. I would be able to get another job, the world would not come to an end.

I went up to HR and explained that I wanted to take voluntary redundancy as there was too much work for the four of us and there was absolutely no way I still wanted to be there when they reduced the staff to three. No doubt nothing that my manager hadn’t told them already.

I was happy to leave. A year or so later happened to bump into my old manager who admitted she quit about three months after I left. I was not surprised at all. Senior management were idiots. If you were on air staff or a sales rep you could do no wrong. But those contracts weren’t worth the paper they were written on until they were loaded into the computer system, which is what my job was and they treated us like we should be grateful just to work for them. As I said – idiots.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

My son was in algebra class. He was trying hard to get a passing grade and trying to pay attention. Every day the boy behind him would very slightly bump his desk in the back of my son’s chair. He would ignore it but some kids sitting near by would laugh. This went on for weeks and weeks and my son just wanted to pass algebra. One day this boy behind him began very slightly touching his hair with a pencil. My son turned around and told him to knock it off. He told him this off and on before. As soon as my son said that the teacher called on my son to “STOP TALKING”. Then of course the nearby students would laugh again. So finally this boy brushed my son’s hair one last time and my son jumped up out of his desk turned around leaning over this boys desk. He put his hands on this boys desk and screamed into his face “LETS GO OUT SIDE $##@HOLE!! COME ON! LETS TAKE THIS OUTSIDE NOW!” Of course the teacher was yelling at my son to stop but my son was not listening to the teacher at all. The boy just sat motionless and not responding to my son. The teacher came over and sent my son to the office for the rest of the day. I told him I was sorry this happened and my son said “It was worth every minute of it”. The next day he came home and I asked if the boys bothered him again. He said no the teacher had assigned new seats to everyone. I laughed and said “Did he put that kid right in front if his desk!!??” My son said “No, he put me there”. So what happened after that? Well, this boy began to follow my son around asking if he wanted to hang out. My son didn’t though.

How I look at the U.K. after 7 years in China

What are things you shouldn’t do in life?

1. Don’t abandon someone suddenly after giving them attention. It kills them.
2. Don’t waste your time by stalking your ex on fb or checking people’s ‘last seen’ on WhatsApp. If they want to talk to you, they will. If they don’t, they won’t, even in a hundred years.
3. Don’t compare yourself with anyone. You and the rest are so different, that when you realize it, a comparison won’t even be possible.
4. Don’t ignore your body and health.
5. Don’t miss out on important engagements – Birthdays, weddings, your child’s first performance, your dad’s retirement party, reunions – its these events that make the fondest memories.
6. Don’t take things personally. Even if you know its personal, don’t take it personally. Then you win.
7. Don’t be rude to your parents. Or siblings. When everyone else will run for cover, its your family that will stand with you as you drench in your storm.
8. Don’t force someone to be in your life. Let them go, if they want to.
9. Don’t find reasons to be unhappy. It doesn’t pay to be sad. It pays to be joyous.
10. Don’t underestimate the power of people. Network.
11. Don’t let anyone make you feel badly about yourself. Always know your good things and your flaws. Accept them. Correct them. Or don’t correct them. But don’t let anyone else capitalize on them.

Dr. Frankenstein on Campus (1970)

Full Movie.

Also known as Flick. This Canadian-produced comedy horror movie finds a third-generation descendant of the monster-making madman Frankenstein (Robin Ward) performing bizarre electronic mind-control experiments on the students of a Canadian university under the auspices of his sponsor, Dr. Preston (Sean Sullivan).

When the doc isn’t hard-wiring the kids’ brains into the department’s newest computer equipment, he’s making time with a pretty coed (Kathleen Sawyer). Complications ensue when a group of students decide to frame the doctor for selling pot, leading him to use the computer to remote-control a karate champion and chop-socky his enemies to death. Only when the doc loses his control box do things really get out of hand, leading to a whiz-bang climax which reveals the doctor’s true identity. Dated and silly, with needless subplots and numerous drug references, this is occasionally enlivened by some interesting special effects.

https://youtu.be/clnU5Lmxv7c?list=PL0HqN0pcSsIL5KsTe_QklrEzYia123VQz