On a work trip to Sydney Australia, I went out with a chick from an aligned company. We went to a rotating restaurant located in downtown Sydney. It was at the top of one of the skyscrapers there, and it had a rotating floor so that you can get a slowly moving 360 degree expansive view of the beautiful night skyline.
She wore a short little black dress. She was petite. And she looked great in that little black dress. It was plain, but there’s something about a little black dress that really looks great. On all women.
It was fun, and I well remember the Beef Wellington that I ate. Delicious and fantastic. It was the first time that I ever had that dish, and it was so very, very delicious.
Anyways, my date had left her purse on one of the windows ledges, and after a while we both noticed that the purse was missing. And so, I laughingly walked around the restaurant searching for the purse. Oh, yeah. I certainly found it. But it was fine. And my date. Ah she was fine as well.
Life is about experiences. Make them matter.
What scares the U.S. elites about China?
During the Russia-Ukraine war, the United States frantically plundered European interests in Europe. Do Europeans hate the United States? They really don’t hate the United States!
This is because the “rules-based international order” promoted by the United States is supposed to be a jungle world of the weak and the strong, as it has been in the Western world for thousands of years.
Europe is weaker than the US.
Europe, being weak, was supposed to serve as food for the United States. Therefore, European countries believe that the United States is doing the right thing, and if they were stronger than the United States, they would do the same.
US Secretary of State Lincoln said “If you’re not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu”. This represents the general mindset of the American elite.
The Chinese government has emphasized countless times that “China will not be hegemonic even if it becomes powerful”, but Europeans and Americans do not believe it at all, and they think that the Chinese government are very hypocritical and hide their true thoughts.
This is the same as what the Australians said, “If you are stronger than me, but you don’t come to plunder me, aren’t you an idiot?”
They believe it is right and normal for China to plunder and trample on them after it becomes strong, just as they did to China when they formed the Eight-Nation Alliance.
Europeans and Americans have been lied to by their governments since they were children, so they inherently don’t trust what their governments say, and they don’t trust that the Chinese government will practice what it preaches.
It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the 21st century, China, the United States, Russia, Japan, and India announced their space programs to the world, and only China realized all of them step by step.
Have you ever seen any country from the Eight-Nation Alliance apologize to China? No! except for the Soviet Union and East Germany, which apologized to China because they were once part of the socialist camp, the rest of the European and American countries thought it was natural and normal.
They even refused to return the treasures they had stolen from China.
In the discourse system set by the West, Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, the culprits of World War II, are now kind, wealthy, and democratic countries, while China, the victim of World War II, is a evil, poor and bad country.
Look! The robber has become a gentleman, and the victim has become a thug.
They never mention how the wealth of Germany, Japan, Europe and the United States was obtained?
The British Empire stole $45 trillion from India and the Japanese Empire stole $10 trillion worth of gold from China. Did they say they would compensate?
By the same logic, Africa is portrayed as poorer and more evil for a simple reason:
Africa has been plundered by the West for hundreds of years, while Africa has never plundered the West.
However, The Black person has been made into the Evil person all over the world.
Even to this day, Africa continues to provide the West with cheap labor and raw materials to enable developed Western countries to afford their lifestyles.
Watch! This is a discourse set in the West:
All robbers are good people and all victims are bad people.
WHO IS THE BARBARIAN?
In an 1899 cartoon, René Georges Hermann-Paul attacked the hypocrisy of spreading civilization by force by juxtaposing the words “Barbarie” and “Civilisation” beneath Chinese and French combatants who alternate as victor and victim. When the Chinese man raises his sword, it is labeled “barbarism,” but when the French soldier does precisely the same thing it is “a necessary blow for civilization.”
So why do American elites fear China? They are, of course, afraid that China will plunder them when it becomes powerful.
Look at the faces of the leaders of these so-called developed countries. Which one is not a descendant of bandits?
The ancestors of the Euro-Americans were originally a bunch of robbers, and robbers, of course, are afraid of being robbed by robbers stronger than themselves, as they once did to the world.
The Sopranos – Christopher means business
Creamy Santa Fe Cutlets
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1 pound 1/4 inch thick pork cutlets
- 3 teaspoons oil
- 1/2 cup salsa
- 1/2 cup frozen corn
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Combine flour, salt and pepper; dredge pork cutlets in flour mixture.
- Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a nonstick skillet. Sauté half the cutlets 1 1/2 minutes per side until cooked. Remove to a side plate.
- Repeat with remaining oil and cutlets. Cover to keep warm.
- After removing cutlets from skillet, add salsa, frozen corn and water. Simmer for 1 minute.
- Off the heat, stir in reduced-fat sour cream and chopped cilantro.
The son, the family and the gangsters
Submitted into Contest #150 in response to: Write a story that either starts or ends with someone (or something) saying, “Please, don’t do it.”… view prompt
Jobinho 11
Best of Al Bundy | Married With Children
Shorpy
It’s not the police, you idiot. [Die Hard]
“Falling Off A Cliff”: This Chart Proves That We Are In A Major Economic Downturn Right Now
The number of job openings in the United States has been “falling off a cliff”, and that is a major red flag. The last four years have been an economic nightmare for most Americans, and that is one of the primary reasons why Donald Trump won the election. But as we approach 2025, things are starting to get frighteningly bad. When the number of job openings in the U.S. drops by 2 million or more, that normally signals that we are either in a recession or that one is about to happen. Well, as you can see from this chart that was posted by Bravos Research on Twitter, we are witnessing a collapse in job openings that is absolutely unprecedented…
I was floored when I saw that chart.
I knew that job openings were falling, but I didn’t know that things had gotten this bad.
Not too long ago, there were about 12 million job openings in the United States. Unfortunately, here in the second half of 2024 that figure has fallen below 8 million…
There were an estimated 7.4 million unfilled jobs on the last day of September, a drop from August’s revised tally of 7.86 million openings, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The largest drop-offs in openings were in industries that have driven much of the job growth in recent years: health care and social assistance, and government, according to the report.
Meanwhile, major employers continue to shed workers all over the nation.
For example, the U.S. lost a total of 78,000 manufacturing jobs during a recent three month period…
The manufacturing sector continued to shed jobs in October, bringing its tally of job losses to 78,000 over the past three months.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released its jobs report for October, which found that the manufacturing sector lost 46,000 jobs last month, according to the agency’s preliminary analysis.
That followed a loss of 6,000 jobs in September, which is also a preliminary figure, as well as a decline of 26,000 jobs in August.
Every day, there are more layoff announcements in the news, and the number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits increased much more than experts were projecting last week…
The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time jumped significantly last week (from 225k to 242k – well above expectations of 220k) – the highest since the first week of October.
On an un-adjusted basis, claims exploded higher (highest since January)…
Throughout the second half of this year, I have been arguing that the U.S. economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction.
Now we have even more confirmation that this is indeed happening.
Once we get past the holiday season, retailers are going to be dropping like flies.
According to the Daily Mail, it appears that Party City could soon be forced to declare bankruptcy…
A major party and craft retailer with 850 stores across the nation is considering filing for bankruptcy.
Party City has been faced with the possibility of mass closures just a little over a year after the company surfaced from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The celebration retailer, known for selling balloons and essential party supplies, is currently behind on rent at some of its locations, people close to the matter told Bloomberg.
And it is being reported that 670 Family Dollar stores have already been shut down…
Discount behemoth Dollar Tree has shuttered 670 of its underperforming Family Dollar stores so far, about two-thirds of the nearly 1,000 it plans to close, as it considers whether to sell or spin off the struggling chain.
The Chesapeake, Virginia-based retailer provided an update on its portfolio optimization efforts when it reported is fiscal third-quarter earnings. Dollar Tree officials also said they were still reviewing options for Family Dollar, with no set deadline or timeline to complete that process.
Overall, thousands upon thousands of retail stores in the U.S. have been shuttered in 2024, and thousands upon thousands will be shuttered in 2025.
In many areas of the country, the landscape is absolutely littered with once thriving businesses that have now been boarded up.
More than a decade ago, I warned that we were headed for a future when impoverished areas of the U.S. would be filled with boarded up businesses and abandoned buildings.
Now we are there.
On top of everything else, inflation is starting to surge once again, and one recent survey discovered that about a third of all U.S. households have been forced to cut back spending just to keep the lights on…
With the cost of things like food and housing still straining people’s budgets, many U.S. households over the past year have found themselves having to pare their spending on basic necessities just to keep the lights on at home.
That’s according to a recent Lending Tree study which analyzed U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey data from Aug. 20, 2024 to Sep. 16, 2024 to find the percentage of Americans 18 and older that had cut back on necessary expenses to pay their energy bill, kept their home at an unsafe or unhealthy temperature, or was unable to pay the full amount on an energy bill at least once over the preceding 12 months.
The study found that more than 34% of respondents said they have had to cut back or skip spending on certain necessary expenses at least once over the past year in order to pay their energy bill.
As I discussed the other day, prior to the election most Americans believed that we were already in a recession.
Since the election, conditions have only gotten worse.
Many are hoping that our economic momentum can be reversed once the new administration takes over.
We should all be hoping that is true.
But right now we are on a freight train that is steamrolling in the wrong direction, and that is not good news at all.
“I Joked About Him Being My ‘2nd Choice’ — Now He’s My Ex-Husband”
Uyghurs on Chinese social media VS Uyghurs on Western media
China
CNN / BBC
The Museum of Endangered Sounds
A digital museum that preserves the sounds of old technology, like dial-up internet, typewriters, and VHS rewinds. It’s a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
EndangeredSome examples of the content…
Die Hard – McClane vs. Karl Fight Scene (1080p)
Fedora & Stetson Hats
Coffee Roast Beef
This method of preparing a beef roast was often used by cowboys and ranch hands while out on the range.
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (3 1/2 to 4 pound) boneless rump roast
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 yellow onion, cut into quarters
- 4 cloves garlic, cut in half
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 cups medium strength black coffee
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 cup red wine
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Using a sharp knife, make very small cuts in the roast and insert the garlic halves.
- Heat the oil in a heavy roasting pan or Dutch oven (cast iron works best) and sear the roast on all sides.
- Add the onion quarters, tomato paste, coffee and water to the pan and bake for 30 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to 375 degrees F and bake for 1 1/2 hours more or until the roast is done to taste.
- Remove the roast to a warm platter, let cool slightly and then slice.
- Stir the butter and wine into the pan juices and serve with the sliced roast.
Givers and Takers
Submitted into Contest #150 in response to: Write a story that either starts or ends with someone (or something) saying, “Please, don’t do it.”… view prompt
Theresa Fox Turner
I had no choice, I told myself. How else can I live in this world? I wasn’t living, though. The pebbles in my heart burnt a hole in me, tore into me like a dull dagger. That was survival, not living. Tears flow from my eyes, not of a life lost but a life not lived. My tears burn the soft flesh of my face searing a trail of regret and sorrow.
“Is he crying? It looks like lava flowing down his face.” I hear someone say to the right of me.
“That is the heartrock. I’ve never seen a Taker cry, though,” responds a deep voice.
“Maybe he’s having second thoughts,” the first voice says. I recognize this voice as belonging to the woman who believes herself my savior. I think her exact words claimed to “deliver me from evil.”
I don’t believe my evil, if that’s what she’d prefer to call it, will ever be gone. I did it. I am responsible; I cannot take it back. Even if the pebbles in my heart melt and converge into the heartrock, my evil is still in the lifeblood of those I took. I took from living, breathing beings who were given no choice. Worse yet, I took choice away from them. I took, they gave. If I didn’t take, I would have been forced to give. And once I took, giving became an impossibility. Taking took away my choice as well.
I promised myself I would only do it once to relieve the pain and then resume my role as giver. The first time I took, the lifeblood of the Giver filled my senses, their aura wrapped around me, pushing me beyond, and I saw the true meaning of the universe. I finally knew the secret to life, to happiness, to perfection. I saw into the great beyond and spoke to the higher powers in the universe. I became a higher power of the universe.
After the first time, the chance of me returning to the role of Giver, to stop taking, disappeared. Every time I took another pebble, I yearned to see what I saw the first time, but it was always just out of my reach. I could feel it brush my fingertips, beckoning me to take just a little more, and I would find the higher power. The universe could be mine with just one more taking.
I knew, somewhere in the depths of my addled brain, as the pain of the takings became a vise around my heart, that even if I could become that higher power, it wasn’t mine to take. Taking wasn’t the way to enlightenment. How could it be when the pain of taking, so utterly different from the physical pain of giving, felt even more unbearable than giving?
I didn’t understand how the others did it. I’d never met a Taker filled with the remorse that threatened to bury me. Finally, I worked up the courage to ask another Taker how to avoid the hurt.
“Hurt? What hurt? Some of us are givers, some of us are takers. It’s part of the food chain, natural selection.” Then I knew I was not like the other Takera. Was it me that was broken or them?
When DOT found me, they presented an offer I couldn’t refuse. They could take away all the pain and give me the universe. An escape and a life that death would not give me. I would finally get to the beyond; I would finally be able to grasp it. However, a sacrifice would be required of me; my consciousness would no longer be mine.
A face appears before me, breaking me out of my reverie. My savior’s wide, blue eyes search mine.
“The heartrock is active. This is where we will cross to the point of no return. Once we plug you into the network, there is no turning back. Knowing the alternative consequences, would you like us to stop the procedure now?”
Without hesitating and feeling more than I’d ever know again, I said, “Do not stop the procedure. Please, proceed.”
Will China’s hypersonic missile make it too risky to deploy an aircraft carrier? Shouldn’t the DOD invest more in long range stealth fighters and drones?
Yes they will and this is not a theory.
This is the USS Gravely a guided missile destroyer. It’s a fairly new ship by USN standards. Construction began in 2007 and was finished in 2009.
The USS Gravely was involved in this conflict.
The USS Gravely had an incoming missile get within 1 mile (US source).
Ansar Allah doesn’t exactly have the best technology, yet they were able to defeat the two outer rings of the AEGIS equipped missile destroyer.
But wait. USS Gravely is part of the USS Eisenhower group!
Where was the flat top? Oh it was in the Mediterranean sea for much of the conflict. Why was the carrier so far away if the Houthis posed no threat with their old weapons?
It was far away because the Houthis proved to be a threat! Remember Yemen isn’t a huge economy. It’s been in a civil war for a decade. They have limited production capacity. Yet they posed a significant threat.
Next comes the argument you can’t find a carrier!
It’s an old argument based on the sea is big.
Except in 2020 using Jilin-1 a low earth orbit satellite this happened
What’s that?
Jilin-1 the prototype satellite tracked an F-22. It tracked it for a few minutes. It couldn’t track it for a long time because there was only one satellite. Its orbit moved out of position. The theory is the satellite took a photo, beamed the image down to a ground based AI and the AI told the satellite where to look. The Jilin constellation of satellites was completed a few months ago.
An F-22 is a lot smaller than a carrier.
Why does the CCP think they can scare Taiwan into submission? It has been 75 years and they are still standing tall.
What are you talking about?
For the first 30 years of the 75 years you mentioned, it was Taiwan that was trying to “scare” China into submission. They tried to retake China from Korea, and they had a big fight with the US over dropping dozens of nukes on Chinese cities to help with their landing. The Taiwanese government, claiming to represent all China, just couldn’t understand why the US would refuse to kill millions of Chinese civilians to secure Taiwanese rule over China again.
People often remember the ONE U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia or Cuba, but in the same 1960s, China was displaying 4 U-2 wrecks that were shot down over China. That’s how intense the Taiwanese/American incursion into Chinese airspace was back then, collecting target information for their invasion, or nuclear attack.
Then another 15 years went by with both sides engaging in economic collaboration, no side was threatening the other at all.
It was the Taiwanese elections in 1995 when everything changed. That’s when the Taiwanese first started to push for separation from China, and the US decided to side with Taiwan against their promise to China, by sending its carriers to China’s coast, blinding Chinese radar sites with its growlers, which served as a huge wake up call to China and kicked started the current Chinese military modernization process.
The 1996 Chinese military exercise, in response to American carrier attack groups. China also dreamt of fighting the F-22 with J8 (a twin engine Chinese Mig-21) back then, since the J8 could also do Mach 2.
It’s been 10 years tops, that mainland China has shown a credible capability to cross the Taiwan strait and end the Chinese Civil War. China is nowhere near completion in its post-1995 military modernization program (the current publicized CCP time table says the military build up will continue till 2049), nor is it anywhere near the Taiwanese aggressiveness during the Cold War. Whether Taiwan will eventually be “scared” into reunification as China slowly builds up its muscles, the jury is still out.
IMO as time goes by, the Taiwan issue will increasingly become a burden and threat to the US and an useful excuse for China, as China is currently building the equivalent of an entire British Royal Navy every 3–4 years, without much international awareness or any push back. Everybody thinks that the Chinese military build up is just for its still on-going civil war with Taiwan.
Volunteers – 1985 – Full Movie
Today’s treat is a 1980s era movie starring Tom Hanks and a few other big names of the 1980s. I used to have this video on BetaMax and played the heck out of it. It’s a funny comedy and the full movie is right here for your enjoyment. John Candy is great as “Tom Tuttle”. LOL
Please take the time to watch this early masterpiece.
The 23 august article link doesn’t work.
All published links work. Unpublished links are not available to the public. -MM