The other day, a “fan” wrote to me for some of the comments / articles that I have generated on other venues. He said that he was sure that “Communist China must love me”. Huh.

He meant it is a compliment. I am sure, but the truth is that China doesn’t really know be from a “hill of beans”. I’m just another foreigner in China. Nobody special.

Just like the United States chucked me out. Useless. Discarded; a nobody.

And whether we are useful, or just discarded rubbish… it means NOTHING. What matters is how YOU deal with your life, under your own situation.

Are you making the world a better place?

Are you participating?

Are you doing good things and contributing… in your very own and unique way? That’s what is important.

I love China.

But that is just me.

Each and everyone of us must carve out our own little place on this planet. Make the world around you a good and sustainable one. Share your prosperity with others with no concern for profit or benefit. Be the “good guy”. No matter what.

Smile more.

All will be good.

What does a girl really want in a guy?

A girl really wants in a guy:

1. Sense of humor. I’ve never met a single guy who was very funny.
2. Strength. Either physical or emotional. Preferably both. Some girls like “gentle giants” though.
3. Intelligence. Most girls I know are super attracted to smart guys. And if the guy is really gorgeous but dumb as a door knob, the girls get over them quickly.
4. Kindness. Yes, some girls are attracted to jerks. But they’re a masochistic minority. Most prefer a guy who could be nice to their mom and puppies.
5. Good hygiene. That’s a given. No one wants to smell too much body odor and see hairs growing out of your nose. Please.
6. Loyalty. Most girls are turned off by players. We were all raised on the fairy tales where prince and princess lived happily ever after, not where he texted his side chick.
7. Courage. I know, guys are human too. You have your moments where you’re intimidated or unsure. But brave men are inherently attractive.
8. Attraction. A girl wants that the guy to be really into her. Sometimes if a guy is aloof and cold, you’ll have some masochist girls taking it as a challenge. But most girls will just be turned off.

A crystal clear piece penned by Hu Xijin of the Global Times, the mouthpiece of the CCP.

It’s with a dance in my heart and a blazing flame in my soul that I copy down each word of the ante-penultimate paragraph, which absolutely deserves to be quoted in its entirety :

" China's military power is primarily used for strategic deterrence against the US, making it so that although the US military has advantages, it dares not resort to military blackmail against China. 

In addition, our military power is used to defend core interests, especially when it comes to the resolution of the Taiwan question, WE MUST HAVE THE FINAL SAY. 

We adopt a defensive military strategy, but in the Taiwan Straits region, WE HAVE GRADUALLY FORMED A LOCAL ABSOLUTE MILITARY ADVANTAGE. 

We will not engage in military confrontation with the US in regions far away from China's core interests. 

However, if the US military comes to China's nearby waters, especially if it intervenes militarily in the Taiwan Straits and assists the "Taiwanese military" in a possible future Taiwan Straits war, the People's Liberation Army will not hesitate to "BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF" THOSE US TROOPS. 

We will always make our determination clear to the US.

Mac Davis – It’s Hard To Be Humble (1980)

China Punishes U.S Cancels 11 MILLION Ton CORN Order And Shifts To Latin America!

The U.S wanted to strong-arm China by banning Chinese companies, however it never knew it could backfire. The U.S Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen has already said that the U.S decoupling from China would be a disastrous mistake, that’s because she knows how China can make or break the U.S and its economy.

Just to show how essential China is for the U.S it canceled the 1.1 million tons of corn import order from the U.S but this should not be seen only from an escalating perspective, rather China wants to diversify countries so it can import grains at a better price but this has allowed the U.S to see how China can create shock waves and not only Tech but Agriculture and other sectors.

But how does this canceled order change things for not only the U.S and its Farmers but also the world’s grain prices.

According to the observatory of economic complexities (OEC) China is the world’s biggest exporter of goods and services, in other words China tops the list of producing and selling products to other countries and this allows China to generate excess revenues that could finance its phenomenal development.

However it appears that the U.S misunderstood it, it thought that if Chinese products were banned then China could be strong-armed, but this really backfired as the U.S forgot how much of the goods it exports to China, it also ignored the fact that if China stopped buying those products the U.S would struggle.

Then and now

FIRST TIME HEARING Spacehog – In The Meantime REACTION

A short & PERFECT explanation of everything happening now on the World stage by Michael Hudson.

In a nutshell, the most clumsy behavior, coming from a staggering hubris, of the international bully aka US/KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) triggered an awakening of the Global Majority (88% of the global population).

Using Hudson’s words appearing in this piece : ** What happened is a change in consciousness. **

The upshot will be civilizational in scope.

This time, the US/KFC-AZAEL doesn’t have as adversaries the usual downtrodden & disorganized Third World countries but the clear-minded coalition of the REAL international community together with the might of the last Three Sovereign Civilizational States : China, Russia, Iran.

Together, the people of the World will trigger the collapse of the Western World. This collapse doesn’t necessarily mean disorder and chaos in the streets of the Western nations.

That is a caricature more related to fear porn and definitely not going to the core essential.

The collapse of the Western World means the definitive & irreversible end of the Western global predatory system or using Hudson’s technical expression, the rent extraction system.

The collapse of the Western World also means the end of the Western overweening & laughable pretensions to superior morality & better understanding of reality.

That’s what I call the core meaning of the collapse of the Western World. Not wishing to appear too flippant nor too cynical, I still want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the neo-cons; their utter imbecilic decisions having certainly contributed a lot to this marvelous acceleration of Universal History. Whom the Gods want to destroy, they first made mad .. 再 见 ! Quan

Article HERE

New Essay by Michael Hudson

Herodotus (History, Book 1.53) tells the story of Croesus, king of Lydia c. 585-546 BC in what is now Western Turkey and the Ionian shore of the Mediterranean. Croesus conquered Ephesus, Miletus and neighboring Greek-speaking realms, obtaining tribute and booty that made him one of the richest rulers of his time. But these victories and wealth led to arrogance and hubris. Croesus turned his eyes eastward, ambitious to conquer Persia, ruled by Cyrus the Great.

Having endowed the region’s cosmopolitan Temple of Delphi with substantial silver and gold, Croesus asked its Oracle whether he would be successful in the conquest that he had planned. The Pythia priestess answered: “If you go to war against Persia, you will destroy a great empire.”

Croesus therefore set out to attack Persia c. 547 BC. Marching eastward, he attacked Persia’s vassal-state Phrygia. Cyrus mounted a Special Military Operation to drive Croesus back, defeating Croesus’s army, capturing him and taking the opportunity to seize Lydia’s gold to introduce his own Persian gold coinage. So Croesus did indeed destroy a great empire, but it was his own.

Fast-forward to today’s drive by the Biden administration to extend American military power against Russia and, behind it, China. The president asked for advice from today’s analogue to antiquity’s Delphi oracle: the CIA and its allied think tanks. Instead of warning against hubris, they encouraged the neocon dream that attacking Russia and China would consolidate U.S. control of the world economy, achieving the End of History.

Having organized a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, the United States sent its NATO proxy army eastward, giving weapons to Ukraine to fight an ethnic war against its Russian-speaking population and turn Russia’s Crimean naval base into a NATO fortress. This Croesus-level ambition aimed at drawing Russia into combat and depleting its ability to defend itself, wrecking its economy in the process and destroying its ability to provide military support to China and other countries targeted for seeking self-dependency as an alternative to U.S. hegemony.

After eight years of provocation, a new military attack on Russian-speaking Ukrainians was conspicuously prepared, ready to drive toward the Russian border in February 2022. Russia protected its fellow Russian-speakers from further ethnic violence by mounting its own Special Military Operation. The United States and its NATO allies immediately seized Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves held in Europe and North America, and demanded that all countries impose sanctions against importing Russian energy and grain, hoping that this would crash the ruble’s exchange rate. The Delphic State Department expected that this would cause Russian consumers to revolt and overthrow Vladimir Putin’s government, enabling U.S. maneuvering to install a client oligarchy like the one it had nurtured in the 1990s under President Yeltsin.

A byproduct of this confrontation with Russia has been to lock in America’s control over its Western European satellites. The aim of this intra-NATO jockeying was to foreclose Europe’s dream of profiting from closer trade and investment relations with Russia by exchanging its industrial manufactures for Russian raw materials. The United States derailed that prospect by blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, cutting off Germany and other countries from access to low-priced Russian gas. That left Europe’s leading economy dependent on higher-cost U.S. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).

In addition to having to subsidize domestic European gas to prevent widespread insolvency, a large proportion of German Leopard tanks, U.S. Patriot missiles and other NATO “wonder weapons” are being destroyed in combat against the Russian army. It has become clear that the U.S. strategy is not simply to “fight to the last Ukrainian,” but to fight to the last tank, missile and other weapon being deleted from NATO stocks.

This depletion of NATO’s arms was expected to create a vast replacement market to enrich America’s military-industrial complex. Its NATO customers are being told to increase their military spending to 3 or even 4 percent of GDP. But the weak performance of U.S. and German arms on the Ukrainian battlefield may have crashed this dream, while Europe’s economies are sinking into depression. And with Germany’s industrial economy deranged by the severing of its trade with Russia, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the Die Welt newspaper on June 16, 2023 that his country cannot afford to pay more money into the European Union budget, to which it has long been the largest contributor.

Without German exports supporting the euro’s exchange rate, the currency will come under pressure against the dollar as Europe buys LNG and NATO replenishes its depleted weaponry stocks by buying new arms from America. A lower exchange rate will squeeze the purchasing power of European labor, while lowering social spending to pay for rearmament and provide gas subsidies is plunging the continent into a depression.

A nationalist reaction against U.S. dominance is rising throughout European politics, and instead of America locking in its control over European policy, the United States may end up losing – not only in Europe but most crucially throughout the Global South. Instead of turning Russia’s “ruble to rubble” as President Biden promised, Russia’s balance of trade has soared and its gold supply has increased. So have the gold holdings of other countries whose governments are now aiming to de-dollarize their economies.

It is American diplomacy that is driving Eurasia and the Global South out of the U.S. orbit. America’s hubristic drive for unipolar world dominance could only have been dismantled so rapidly from within. The Biden-Blinken-Nuland administration has done what neither Vladimir Putin nor Chinese President Xi could have hoped to achieve in so short a period. Neither was prepared to throw down the gauntlet and create an alternative to the U.S.-centered world order. But U.S. sanctions against Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China have had the effect of protective tariff barriers to force self-sufficiency in what EU diplomat Josep Borrell calls the world “jungle” outside of the US/NATO “garden.”

Although the Global South and other countries have been complaining about U.S. dominance ever since the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955, they have lacked a critical mass to create a viable alternative. But their attention has now been focused by the U.S. confiscation of Russia’s official dollar reserves in NATO countries. That dispelled the thought of the dollar as a safe vehicle in which to hold international savings. The Bank of England’s earlier seizure of Venezuela’s gold reserves kept in London – promising to donate them to whatever unelected opponents of its socialist regime U.S. diplomats designate – shows how sterling and the euro as well as the dollar have been weaponized. And by the way, what ever happened to Libya’s gold reserves?

American diplomats avoid thinking about this scenario. They rely on the one unique advantage the United States has to offer. It may refrain from bombing them, from staging a color revolution to “Pinochet” them by the National Endowment for Democracy, or install a new “Yeltsin” giving the economy away to a client oligarchy.

But refraining from such behavior is all that America can offer. It has de-industrialized its own economy, and its idea of foreign investment is to carve out monopoly-rent seeking opportunities by concentrating technological monopolies and control of oil and grain trade in U.S. hands, as if this is economic efficiency, not rent-seeking.

What has occurred is a change in consciousness. We are seeing the Global Majority trying to create an independent and peacefully negotiated choice as to just what kind of an international order they want. Their aim is not merely to create alternatives to the use of dollars, but an entire new set of institutional alternatives to the IMF and World Bank, the SWIFT bank clearing system, the International Criminal Court and the entire array of institutions that U.S. diplomats have hijacked from the United Nations.

The upshot will be civilizational in scope. We are seeing not the End of History but a fresh alternative to U.S.-centered neoliberal finance capitalism and its junk economics of privatization, class war against labor, and the idea that money and credit should be privatized in the hands of a narrow financial class instead of being a public utility to finance economic needs and rising living standards.

The irony is that America’s historical role has been that although it itself was not able to lead the world forward along these lines, its attempts to lock the world into an antithetical imperial system by conquering Russia on the plains of Ukraine and trying to isolate China’s technology from breaking the U.S. attempt at IT monopoly have been the great catalysts pushing the global majority along these lines.

Russian Reacts to THE CRANBERRIES – Zombie | MADE me CRY

American exports to China

BabantheKidd FIRST TIME reacting to Bobby Brown – Every Little Step

A fun reaction video…

American exports to China

Oven-Fried Tex-Mex Onion Rings

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup plain dry bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon water
• 2 medium onions (about 10 ounces), sliced 3/8 inch thick
• 2 egg whites

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray large nonstick baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
2. Combine bread crumbs, cornmeal, chili powder, ground red pepper and salt in medium shallow dish; mix well. Stir in butter and water.
3. Separate onion slices into rings. Place egg whites in large bowl; beat lightly.
4. Add onions; toss lightly to coat evenly.
5. Transfer to bread crumb mixture; toss to coat evenly.
6. Place in single layer on prepared baking sheet.
7. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until onions are tender and coating is crisp.

Yield: 6 servings

American exports to China

Have Russians done anything significant and good for the world in the past 500 years? If so, what? If not, what makes Russians think they are a great nation?

WE OWE EVERYTHING TO THEM. WE AS IN INDIANS

They are primarily responsible for almost all our Military Industrial and Space Development

Every step we took was with their technical know how and machinery. They trained thousands of our Pilots and Engineers until we could develop our own 100% indigenous training.

They gave us our Rocketry base. They helped almost all our Launch programs until the Late 80s, they gave us our first Space launch Programs, computers and processors until 1994.

Tank Design, Aircraft Design, Tech Collaboration, Wind Tunnel Guidance, Aircraft Carrier Development, Submarine Technology, Naval Avionics – without the Russians we would be nowhere

Radar and Aero Engineering (Cranwell) were the only two areas where Britain has helped us.

They built our entire Foundation so that now we are slowly overlaying ourselves.

Like US to Israel

They taught us to lay our entire Intelligence Apparatus

RAW and IB were British Intelligence oriented

However Radio Surveillance, Radio Tracking, Interception were all taught to us by Russians

From 1955 to 1987, over 2400 Joint Monitoring Intelligence Apps were carried out with Egypt, Yugoslavia and India participating with Czechoslovakia overseen by USSR

During that period post ’62 – we had no intelligence failures especially in the ’65 War

They were our earliest Nuclear Program Helpers

They helped us hugely.

Tarapore, Narora and now the latest in Kundakulam – all have their Roastom training and guidance

Of course France and canada played a role , a good role even by 1979–80

However it was Primarily Russian Collaboration from 1956–1974 upto Smiling Buddha

So we owe them almost everything.

And they did it without any Bullying strings whatsoever

They never demanded we join Military Alliances like US did of Pak

They never demanded we send troops to Afghanistan

They never demanded that we forcibly buy Oil from them at higher rates.

They were instrumental in avoiding a Two front War with Pak today thanks to their 1971 War counter to Nixon

Right or wrong, Russians are our Mentors and Friends

Even God would smite us if we ever went against them

SO CATCHY!!.. The B-52’s Love Shack Reaction

Sad Reality

American exports to China

China’s foreign ministry rejects Blinken’s ‘irresponsible’ remarks

China isn’t taking any more SHIT.

American exports to China

Dmitry Trenin: The US and its allies are playing ‘Russian Roulette’. You’d almost think they want a nuclear war

If the Ukraine conflict continues on its current trajectory, it will end in a total disaster for humanity

Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.

Professor Sergey Karaganov’s “Tough-but-necessary decision” article

– which claims that by using its nuclear weapons, Russia could save humanity from a global catastrophe – has provoked plenty of reaction both at home and abroad. Partly because of the author’s status – he has been an advisor to both President Boris Yeltsin and President Vladimir Putin – and also due to the belief that his opinion may possibly be shared by some people in positions of power.

Dmitry Trenin, an extremely respected Russian expert who served in the Soviet military gives his response.

***

Professor Sergey Karaganov’s recent article brought into public focus the thorny issue of the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Many reactions to the piece boil down to the well-known reasoning that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and thus it cannot be fought.

Against this background, President Vladimir Putin, responding to a question at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, said that nuclear weapons are a deterrent and the conditions for their use is defined in a published doctrine. He explained that the theoretical possibility of using these weapons exists, but there is no need to use them now.

In principle, nuclear weapons have been “on the table” for Russia from the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict precisely as a means of deterring the US and its allies from becoming directly involved. Nevertheless, repeated public reminders from Putin and other officials about Russia’s nuclear status have so far not prevented a growing escalation of NATO’s participation. As a result, it has become clear that nuclear deterrence, on which many in Moscow have relied as a credible means of securing the country’s vital interests, has proven to be a much more limited tool than they expected.

In fact, the US has now set itself the task – unthinkable during the Cold War – of trying to defeat another nuclear superpower in a strategically important region, without resorting to atomic weapons, but instead by arming and controlling a third country. The Americans are proceeding cautiously, testing Moscow’s responses and consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of arms supplied to Kiev, as well as the choice of targets for them. From starting with anti-tank ‘Javelins,’ to eventually cajoling allies to send actual tanks, the US is now apparently pondering transferring F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles.

It is likely that this US strategy is based on the belief that the Russian leadership would not dare use nuclear weapons in the current conflict, and that its references to the nuclear arsenal at its disposal are nothing more than a bluff. The Americans have even been calm – at least outwardly about the deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus. Such “fearlessness” is a direct result of the geopolitical changes of the last three decades and the change of generations in power in the US and the West in general.

The fear of the atomic bomb, present in the second half of the twentieth century, has disappeared. Nuclear weapons have been taken out of the equation. The practical conclusion is clear: there is no need to be afraid of such a Russian response.

This is an extremely dangerous misconception. The trajectory of the Ukrainian war points to an escalation of the conflict both horizontally (by expanding the theater of military action) and vertically (by increasing the power of the weapons used and the intensity of their use). It must be soberly acknowledged that this momentum is heading towards a direct armed confrontation between Russia and NATO. If the accumulated inertia is not stopped, such a clash will take place, and in this case the war, having spread to Western Europe, will almost inevitably become nuclear. And after some time, a nuclear war in Europe will most likely lead to an exchange of blows between Russia and the US.

The Americans and their allies are truly playing Russian roulette. Yes, so far the Russian response to the bombing of Nord Stream, the drone attack on the strategic Engels airbase, the entry of Western-armed saboteurs into the Belgorod region and many other actions by the Washington-backed and controlled side has been relatively restrained.

As Putin recently made clear, there are good reasons for this restraint. Russia, the president said, is capable of destroying any building in Kiev, but will not stoop to the methods of terror used by the enemy. But Putin added that Russia was considering various options for destroying Western warplanes if they are based in NATO countries and directly take part in the war in Ukraine.

So far, Moscow’s strategy has been to allow the enemy to take the escalatory initiative. The West has taken advantage of this, trying to wear down Russia on the battlefield and undermine it from within. It makes no sense for the Kremlin to go along with this plan. On the contrary, it’s a better idea to clarify and modernize our nuclear deterrence strategy, taking into account the practical experience of the Ukrainian conflict. The existing doctrinal provisions were formulated not only before the start of the current military operation, but also apparently without a precise idea of what might happen in the course of such a situation.

Russia’s external strategy includes a basket of foreign diplomacy, information campaigns and other aspects – in addition to the military elements. The main adversary should be given an unambiguous signal that Moscow will not play by the rules set by the other side. Of course, this should be accompanied by a credible dialogue with both our strategic partners and neutral states, explaining the motives and objectives of our actions. The possibility of using nuclear weapons in the current conflict must not be concealed. This real, not just theoretical, prospect should be an incentive to limit and stop the escalation of the war and ultimately pave the way for a satisfactory strategic balance in Europe.

Regarding Russian nuclear strikes against NATO countries, as raised by Professor Karaganov: Hypothetically speaking, Washington would most likely not respond to such an attack with a nuclear response of its own against Russia – for fear of a Russian retaliatory launch against the US itself. This would dispel the mythology that has surrounded Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for decades and lead to a profound crisis for NATO – possibly even the dissolution of the organization. It is possible that, in such circumstances, the Atlantic elites of NATO and the EU would panic and be swept aside by patriotic forces that would see for themselves that their security does not in fact depend on a non-existent US nuclear umbrella, but on building a balanced relationship with Russia. It is also possible that the Americans could decide to leave Russia alone.

It could well be that the calculation just described would ultimately be correct. But it is unlikely.

Yes, a US nuclear strike on Russia would probably not follow immediately. It is unlikely that the Americans would sacrifice Boston for Poznan, just as they were not going to sacrifice Chicago for Hamburg during the Cold War. But there will probably be some sort of response from Washington. Perhaps of the non-atomic type, which, without speculating too wildly, could be sensitive and painful for us. It is likely that with it, Washington would try to pursue a goal similar to ours: paralyzing the Russian leadership’s will to continue the war and creating panic in our society.

Moscow’s leadership is unlikely to capitulate after such a blow, since, at this stage, Russia’s very existence would be at stake. It is more likely that a retaliatory strike would follow, and this time, one can assume, against the main adversary rather than its satellites.

Let us pause before this point of no return and summarize our analysis tentatively.

Should the nuclear bullet be demonstrably inserted into the cylinder of the revolver that the US leadership is recklessly playing with today? To paraphrase a late American statesman: Why do we need nuclear weapons if we refuse to use them in the face of an existential threat?

On the other hand, there is no need to scare others with words. Instead, we have to prepare practically for any possible turn of events by carefully considering the options and their consequences.

The war in Ukraine has become protracted. As far as we can tell from the actions of the Russian leadership, it expects to achieve strategic success by relying on Russian resources, which are many times greater than those in Ukraine. It also relies on the fact that Moscow has much more at stake in this war than the West. This calculation is probably correct, but it should be taken into account that the opponent assesses Russia’s chances differently than we do and may take steps which could lead to a direct armed clash between Russia and the US/NATO.

We must be prepared for such a development. To avoid a general catastrophe, it is necessary to put fear of armageddon back into politics and the public consciousness.

In the nuclear age, it is the only guarantee of preserving humanity.

This piece was originally published by Russia in Global Affairs

American exports to China

“You have 6 months to show your Alien UFO evidence, or else” – US Senate

Is the new United States Navy DDG(X) an attempt to copy the Chinese 055 destroyer? Wouldn’t a new variant of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer be a better cost-effective option?

Nothing is cost-effective to the US military anymore. This DDG(X) program is mostly for cost-cutting by reducing quantity and making up by more advanced features. But US is clearly not the leader in this technological race. China already has 8 Type 055 in active service, plus more on the way (cooking dumplings). In any wars, preponderance in quantity is always the decisive factor. No exception. Same applies to the J-20 vs F-35 (with new ones stored pending final decision on revisions) and all munitions. This trend will continue to exacerbate the US disadvantage. The US is BROKE.

American exports to China

Russia STRIKES US Soldiers In Ukrainian Pizza Restaurant

https://youtu.be/ifaFXnPtOes

What was your first clue you were no longer as young as you thought you were?

I was about 40 and on my way home from my pool league one night, I went home the back way. That’s why I came up over a hill at an intersection and was confronted with a police road block. There was no other way to go.

Of course I’d been drinking, not lots but some. I’d planned to drink more when I got home. Besides that, the case that my cues go in looks like a rifle case and was laying out on the back seat. On top of that, my new insurance card was still sitting home on the kitchen table.

The cop looked in my window and said into his radio, “Let this one through. It’s just an old lady.”

I smiled, thanked him and left and cussed him the whole rest of the way home.

American exports to China

MY MOM IS PISSED!! My Mom Reacts To Thomas Sowell – Facts About Slavery Never Mention In School

United Airlines Flight 232

This to me was some of the most heroic yet tragic crash-landings I have ever witnessed in Aviation. This wasn’t done by one pilot, but an entire crew. Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago suffered a complete loss of hydraulics due to a tail engine explosion, causing the crew to divert to Sioux City. These pilots were flying a plane with zero flight controls.

It had no wing flaps, it had no rudder, no elevators, no VS, no brakes for landing; the plane could not even deploy its wheels without manual deployment and gravity. They could not control the pitch, the orientation, direction or the altitude with their flight controls.

The pilots had to solely rely on their two remaining engines to control the entire plane.

• As there was a loss of flight controls, the plane banked right and nearly became inverted. To combat this, the pilots increased power on the right engine to keep the plane horizontally stable.
• The plane also tried to pitch down, for which the pilots increased engine power even more to stop it from diving. But this caused the plane to overshoot and pitch up, causing a stall, so the pilots repeatedly had to increase and decrease engine power to keep the plane from falling out of the sky while keeping the right engine at high power.
• While calling an emergency, the pilots had to make a right turn to the nearest airport. Since the airplane wants to bank right, the pilots used precious minutes of their time to commit a full left turn circle formation by using maximum power on the right engine to make the move.

For about 30 minutes, against complete loss of flight controls and multiple dangers, the pilots managed to keep the plane steady solely using the wing engines. But as engine power was high, it was flying too fast and too high for a safe landing. These pilots now had another dilemma: they had to slow down the plane to decrease altitude and speed while keeping the plane fast enough to keep it stabilized.

Unfortunately, luck was not on their side. Even after deploying gears to slow the plane down and managing to get the plane to descend, it was going way too fast for the plane to touch down in one piece. And so, the plane shattered across the field in Sioux City Airport going 270 km/h faster than normal.

It might not sound like a successful landing, but it turned out over 60% of the occupants of this flight, including all pilots, survived the crash. There were 52 children on this flight – only 11 died. For such extreme conditions this plane underwent, touching the runway at nearly 3 times over the maximum landing speed and dropping nearly 9 m/s, catching fire, it was a miracle that anyone survived such a trip.

Everybody on this plane was supposed to be dead, but these pilots managed to wrestle back 184 people lives from their fate. Those men, with remarkable decision-making, communication and teamwork under possibly one of the worst conditions a passenger airplane could experience managed to look death in the eye and beat him at his own game.

Edit: Aye guys, thanks for the up-votes. I just wanted to say that this was really a time where people came together at the right time and everybody did their jobs to the most perfect ability that set a standard and changed flying for years to come.

So I want to give credit to everybody on the ground as well, specifically emergency services without whose help and timing, a lot more people would have died. I also want to give credit to the ATC for handling this flight as well as the rest of the airport staff that provided critical medical attention to the injured. Clear weather as well.

And lastly the flight attendants, who unfortunately took the heaviest brunt on that crash for not only getting passengers into crash position but also moving them out of the plane broken in pieces when they were wounded as well! A group effort indeed!

If you instead of Xi Jinping was the dictator of China, how would you have gone about dealing with anti-China alliances like QUAD and AUKUS?

First thing is when you need a QUAD and AUKUS to counter you, that means you have to be congratulated for your growth and rising power

That’s huge FACE for Xi Jingping

That the Western World fears Chinas rise so much that they need so many Abbreviations

Next let’s see how Xi Jingping dealt with either?

With UTTER CONTEMPT

Let’s see the AUKUS first

Australia, UK and USA

Let’s see QUAD next

Japan, India, Australia and USA

First let’s neutralize India

Simplest thing. A Land invasion can pulverize the growing Indian economy and send it into Ukraine mode within a year and send Modi scrambling to the Negotiating Table

So India is neutralized by a simple land threat

That will be so for at least 20–25 years until India really achieve a minimum 60% indigenous mass equipment manufacturing for a full scale defense (India is at 9% as of 2023)

India needs at least $ 10 Trillion to stand upto China by which time China may stand to $ 30 Trillion

Next let’s Neutralize Japan

Japan’s entire Arsenal and manufacturing is 1/18 of China or around 5%

Japan was outproduced by USA in 1943 and today China beats that USA by almost 2.5 times

China’s land batteries can pulverize the entire Japanese shipping lines and blockade their access to Oil and Gas in a matter of minutes with Russia’s help.

That leaves UK and Australia

Lackey puppets whose military is zero

No way would they be the slightest threat to China

That leaves USA

Yes US is a serious adversary. Always was.

So that’s just US again no matter whatever form anything takes

China’s only real adversary is USA and everyone else is a second fiddle player with zero threat perception

South Korea is countered by North Korea

India is countered by a Two front crushing pincher plus a potential Indian Ocean lock in

Phillipines and Taiwan can be pulverized to pieces with mere land based launch attacks alone

Equivalent to Mexico and US

As they say, it’s childs play

---

The only time Xi would be terribly worried would be with a US — Russian alliance

That would worry Xi and give him sleepless nights

Xis greatest piece of luck was Biden treating Putin as a pariah and cementing an alliance with Russia which now makes Chinas position 20 times stronger

There are Two Lions facing an Older Lion and a bunch of small dogs and vultures

Hey guys, going to be in Yogyakarta, Indonesia soon and after in Bali, any tips on how to find weed there and friends?

My husband is a native Indonesian and a retired lawyer from the Indonesian consular section at the Indonesian Embassy abroad( KBRI). .𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀..In Bali, weed is also highly illegal. The possession, sale, and consumption of marijuana in Bali is punishable with 10 years in prison. Those caught trafficking weed in Bali can receive the death penalty. Weed laws in Bali are strictly enforced. Tourists caught smoking weed in public can sometimes manage to bribe their way out of a problematic situation.Using cannabis or weed in Indonesia can lead to a prison sentence of up to four years. Possession of marijuana, cannabis or weed incurs a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison and a maximum 8 billion rupiah in fines (around $560,000).

Producing, exporting, importing, or distributing any kind of drugs comes with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine of 10 billion rupiah.

In some cases, the punishment for weed in Indonesia can be the death penalty. Such cases include the production, import, export, distribution, sales, purchase for dealing purposes, transport, and provision to others leading to permanent injury or death of cannabis in amounts of more than 1 kg or over five plants.

While rare, executions for drug smuggling do occur in Bali and Indonesia, even for tourists. In 2018 eventually nine travelers from Australia were convicted of smuggling cannabis out of Indonesia. Two were eventually sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad. Cannabis trafficking has incurred the death penalty in Indonesia. to death and executed by a firing squad. Cannabis trafficking has incurred the death penalty in Indonesia.

Nine Arrive at Indonesian Execution Island as Jokowi Spurns Clemency Pleas

Australian death-row prisoners Andrew Chan, center, and Myuran Sukumaran, left, are seen in a holding cell waiting to attend a review hearing in the District Court of Denpasar, on the Indonesian island of Bali, on Oct. 8, 2018

In the darkness of early morning hours Wednesday, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were woken by the Kerobokan prison guards in Bali. It took them 10 minutes to wash and dress for the transfer to Nusakambangan, the prison island in Central Java, where death-row prisoners are set to face the firing squads.

Chan and Sukumaran, sentenced to death in for drug trafficking, are among a group of 10 prisoners slated to be executed in Indonesia. Despite numerous and repeated pleas from across the globe to spare them — some of whom, like the two Australians, say they have reformed behind bars — Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, stands firm on his decision not to pardon drug convicts on death row.

BABYMETAL- HEADBANGER. Rock Singer’s FIRST TIME reaction

Why is China always many steps ahead of India in everything, be it in military might, economic strength, making strategic friendship with countries by investments in order to surround India from all corners or surprising India with sudden attacks?

Oh there are so many things you could talk about beginning with the Democracy, Corruption, Rabble dominated elections, Inefficient Leadership, Disjointed Leadership, Poorer Quality of Education, Reservations etc etc. You could end up publishing a 700 Page Book on this.

To summarize why China is so ahead in everything however requires just two words – Decision Making & Accountability

Source: Alamy Stock Photo

China is divided into provinces and each Province has a Provincial Committee.

This Committee controls activities like Commerce, Agriculture, Industry, Education, Water Supply for the entire province, the villages and even the Cities within them.

Each Committee has a Sub committee consisting of Specialists. The Education Sub committee has Teachers and Education Experts most of whom have Degrees from Australia or Singapore or US or UK. The Industrial Sub Committee have experts on Industrial Production etc. No Political Hacks in the Sub Committee (Only in the Committees)

And Sub Committees have extraordinary powers.

They can make decisions in hours. They can offer a subsidy of 30% on a crop in 4 hours after a single meeting if 2/3 of the Sub Committee members agree. Even the Main Committee cannot oppose a Sub Committee decision unless 100% of the Committee members are opposed (Even one single person saying OK will ensure that the decisions go through).

A Sub Committee in a Chinese Province took the decision to Liquidate 36000 Swine (Pigs) to prevent an outbreak of Swine Flu in 2015. The Decision was implemented in 3–4 hours and the Swine Farmers were compensated with Money or Stock Animals. All decided by the Sub committee. Beijing was informed of this only a few days later.

This is called Decision Making Power

A Sub Committee can decide to clear out a Village in 42 days to accommodate a Manufacturing Plant and the Local CCP officials have to comply (The Party Hacks). They cannot object or write to Xi Jingping (Unless Xi Modifies the Laws).

The Result is BRUTAL EFFICIENCY

Decisions get taken in a matter of days or hours compared to months and years.

A New Plant has to be opened. Industrial Sub Committee clears it in 3–4 weeks. No interference from the CCP or its hacks.

A New disease is infecting Chickens – the Sub Committee can authorize liquidation of 500000 Birds without a 10 second hesitation – even if 200000 of them belong to the CCP Head of the District.

In India – the Opposite is true

There is No Decision making that can be done quickly.

You have State Ministers, Central Ministers, MPs, MLAs, Opposition Parties, Laborers, Sanghs, PILS that HC and SC will keep deciding on.

As a result – if there is a fear of a Crop Infection – the Farmer must cooperate – otherwise we have a Crop devastation in months. If some farmers who may not be literate enough ignore the blight even if a Zealous young agricultural officer (Assuming decent quality officers) points it out, the officer has to pass it to his boss to will toss it in the can and his boss and his boss and this minister and this community etc etc – until the Crop infection hits and destroys 50% of the crop leading to higher prices and more cribbing by the farmers.

If a Good Minister makes a decision that could improve life – BANG!!! A Nutcase goes to Supreme Court and files a PIL and delays it for months and months.

If a Decent Minister like Mr Goyal or Mr Gadkari implements a Traffic Fines and Violation Rule (Hasty in the short run since roads are so bad) – BANG!!! State Governments will destroy the plan. Fines on masks are an apt example.

This is one of the Biggest Reason why India fails even when compared to Democratic countries.

---

This is a Former Railways Minister of China.

In 2011 – there was a Train Crash and 47 People Died and 472 were Injured.

The Chinese Government coughed up $ 3.785 Million Equivalent and conducted an Inquiry. In exactly 151 Days- the Committee presented the report.

A Single Signal Box had failed. A Young Engineer had sent 14 Memos to the Corresponding Officials who had ignored them. It would have cost $ 75000 equivalent to have modified the issue.

276 Officials were investigated and 251 were Acquitted or let off with a warning or fired with no further consequences.

25 Officials were found to be guilty and sentenced to terms between 15 months to Death Sentence for 4 People. The Railways Minister was sentenced to death. And not for his politics – as even the most liberal Chinese in US admitted.

The Best part was that in 151 Days or 5 months – the Issue was finished. 25 people were in Jail and new replacements had been hired and the boxes were modified.

Its called Accountability. A Single Signal Box fails because you did not modify it when you should have – Your fault – You are convicted of something called LOSS OF PUBLIC LIFE THROUGH CONSPIRACY OR NEGLIGENCE.

If Negligence is proven its a huge fine or 7 years jail.

If Conspiracy is proven – its a hail of bullets.

(The Man was reprieved and is serving a life sentence now)

Every Action in China is accountable. An Accident – Inquiries and the reason will always be detected and the wrong doers be punished. Brutally at times.

An Engineer who used a slightly inferior cement to finish his work faster on a bridge which collapsed ended up with a 1 year sentence and 100000 Yuan fine for Negligence. The Committee members were sentenced to between 4–7 years and Million Yuan fines for Negligence because They made the decision!!!!

An Abusive Cop was awarded 64 years Jail by the LEPPA courts for PUBLIC ABUSE (Commuted to 16 years in 2019). Policemen cannot beat up anyone (Unless for Political Reasons). A Policeman can beat you if you protest politically but if he beats you for any other reason – he will be roasted alive by the system.

Even in HK- Police have carte blanche to beat up and tear gas protestors but the same police beat someone for not paying interest for a loan shark – the policeman is boiled by the system and spends 1–7 years in Prison and a permanent spot on the blocklist.

Accountability keeps a country in check. Minimizes errors and ensures every decision better be as clean as possible.

---

In India – Engineers get 10 years in Jail while the Ministers and Officials who ordered him to do shoddy work end up with Crores of rupees and a handful of eyewash suspensions.

In China the floods caused a lot of trouble this year.

An Inquiry was set up and 198 people were examined. Ultimately it was found to be a Design error in the 1970s (They did not estimate so much rainfall).

A COVID 19 inquiry was set up and 750+ people were examined to examine the cause.

In India Demonetization destroyed the economy

Has a single inquiry been set up to examine?

We have had 10,000 decisions from 1947 to present which have all been horrible for the country. Millions of Accidents. Yet has a single inquiry resulted in massive change?

The Answer is NO. The Usual Arrest of Scapegoats, Eye Wash Suspensions but at the end of the day – Fearlessness among the Officials that the System is rigged in their favor and even if there is an Accident or public death – nothing is going to happen.

A Failed Giant Wheel in a UP Fair killed 8 people. The Giant Wheel Owner spent 5 1/2 months in Jail and faces a Case (For 21 years from 1999) but the Authorities who permitted the Giant Wheel, the Safety Inspector who issued the safety certificates and permits – all retired comfortably or are in promoted posts.

So China – Excellent Decision Making and Accountability

India – Zero Decision Making and Zero Accountability

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In Every sphere this is the same.

Shri Narvane wants Blankets for his boys – he needs 100 permissions to get them sanctioned.

In China – a single call to the Office of the Procurer and in 10 hours – you have Blankets ready.

XYZ wants to build a Manufacturing plant for a Chemical in India – he needs the same license for safety from State and Centre which will take 9 months at the earliest and 24 months normally as every office in the State has to wet their beaks and every half wit will put in his thoughts.

XYZ wants to build the same Manufacturing Plant in Guangzhou. The Committee will conduct the inspections and issue a permit in 2 Weeks flat. No opposition from anywhere including Beijing.

By the time Indian permissions are still forthcoming – the Chinese factory will have imported their third batch of products.

However…..

In China – Manufacturers who produce shoddy products are hauled up and by law their entire shareholding can be taken by the Govt if they continue to produce inferior products

In India – Manufacturers have carte Blanche and can do what they like.

---

Thats the Long and Short of it.

As they say in Hindi “SAALA SYSTEM HI KHARAB HAIN”

Can China sustain economic growth at its current pace for another couple of decades? Why or why not?

Let’s calculate the economic potential

An Economy becomes saturated when 3/4 of its population becomes Middle Class

Then the only way an economy can keep growing is by migrants

Otherwise the economy can only sustain itself and maintain its prosperity

China is at 120 Trillion Yuan today

Yet only 50.42% of its populace are middle class

Therefore simple equations plus 2.4% annual inflation means the Chinese Economy s Saturation potential is

120 * 1.5 * 1.72 = 310 Trillion Yuan

Thus China’s Economic Saturation Potential is around $ 42 Trillion in 2050

China will reach 310 Trillion at least before it starts stagnating

After that only inflation and govt spending will allow the Chinese economy to maintain itself meaning real growth would be very less

---

Let’s see for India

India has 5.22% inflation

India has 26% Middle Class

Thus

India’s Economic Saturation Potential would be

246* 1.75* 2.83 = ₹ 1090 Lakh Crore

That’s $ 19.30 Trillion by 2050

After that Inflation and Government spending will allow the Indian economy to maintain itself with no real growth

---

Lets see the US Now

US has 77.14% Middle Class

So it’s already stagnating and sustaining itself only through its dollar dominance

If the USD falls to 35% as Global Reserve

US Economic Value by 2050

$ 24.33 * 0.98* 1.453 =$ 34.64 Trillion

---

So no matter what happens except Nuclear War

China will become the world’s largest economy in size and potential and keep growing at least until 2050

India will probably reach around $ 19 Trillion before saturation

Sadly India lost nearly 25 good years 1975–2000 that will affect us permanently plus another 15 good years from 2008–2023 that would affect us badly

---

Nothing the US can do , can change this except maybe delay the same by 5 years or so

Forbidden Archaeology: Lost Giants of America | The Smithsonian’s Biggest Secret

Have you ever bought a car that didn’t run and found that it was an easy fix?

Yes, actually I didn’t buy it. I got it for free……. It wasn’t a car, But an RV…. Yes an actual RV. It was a 2002, 26 foot class A RV. It was in perfect condition. Just didn’t run. Inside was perfect. The RV only had 16000 miles on it. Generator only has 30 hrs on It. The RV was practically new. The guy that owned it didn’t want it anymore. He was paying storage to park it. He said he didn’t want to pay storage anymore for an RV that didn’t work. I guess it wouldn’t start one day. He took it to a shop and they told him the engine was blown and he needed a new one. The cost would have been around $8,000. Crazy. So he just parked it. So this guy who I didn’t know came to my work wanting to dispose of the RV. I said I would take it. I got the RV to my Mechanic. He looked at it and replaced a $70 part on the fuel system…. RV started right up!!!!! Ran perfect. Took it to a smog shop and it passed in a few min. I couldn’t believe it. I got an $25000 (today’s value, new was over $100k) RV for free!!!! Best RV ever. I have driven that thing all up and down California. Amazing. What a find….

The Truth Can Be Scary! Paul Harvey: If I Were The Devil…

The real risk of China’s presence in Cuba

China’s enhanced intelligence-gathering and new military presence in Cuba shows Beijing simply no longer cares what the US thinks

by Evan Ellis June 30, 2023

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that the People’s Republic of China has heavily invested in a cash-strapped Cuba in exchange for access to an electronic intelligence collection (ELINT) facility, and negotiated an agreement to train Chinese soldiers on the north side of the island.

These developments have been met with great concern in Washington, particularly due to the strategic threat that the PRC’s presence in the region poses.

China’s history of US intelligence collection through Cuba can be traced back to 1999 when Cuba granted the PRC access to facilities at Bejucal, a city just south of the capital, previously operated by the Soviet Union, to collect intelligence on the United States.

More recently, the Biden administration’s response to the WSJ’s report confirmed that the Chinese had indeed been operating an intelligence facility in Cuba for some time, and had only upgraded it in 2019. This ran counter to presidential spokesman John Kirby’s characterization of the reports of China’s “building” of the base.

However, the dialogue left unclear exactly how much money the PRC has invested towards the 2019 upgrade and whether or not it was included as part of the debt restructuring and investment credits awarded by the PRC to Cuba this past November.

By contrast, the possible rotation of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military personnel through the island for training crosses a small, if important, threshold with respect to an enduring Chinese military presence close to the US mainland.

Regardless of the minutiae involved, both developments showcase an increased disposition by both Cuba and the PRC to take risks through explicitly US-focused military initiatives, in ways that suggest it’s willing to take similar risks in other areas as well.

This has significant implications for the United States, necessitating an appropriate, and carefully crafted response from Washington to both current and future events involving both parties.

In the case of Cuba, the government’s willingness to host military threats to the United States has remained consistent since the 1962 missile crisis.

That being said, the regime’s willingness to permit PRC military operations on the island, with the added risk that they might be discovered by US counterintelligence, more greatly highlights the regime’s current desperation for resources amid increasingly severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine – which have prompted a growing exodus of refugees from the island and inspired scattered protests that led the government to temporarily shut down the internet.

Such desperation is consistent with Cuban government behavior surrounding shortages, such as offering Russian investors notable tax breaks, long-term land leases, and options to repatriate profits, in exchange for investments aimed at addressing deficiencies in the country’s petroleum supply, rum and food production.

As for the PRC, the willingness to host anti-US-focused military capabilities for both intelligence collection and training in proximity to the continental United States is a stark departure from the PRC’s otherwise restrained military engagements in the region.

Previous PRC military engagements in the region consistently focused on hospital ship visits, participation in the United Nations Peacekeeping force in Haiti (MINUSTAH), training and professional military exchanges and institutional visits.

Even if the PLA electronic intelligence presence in Cuba is not new, the 2019 upgrade suggests a decreased concern over alarming or upsetting the United States, which may be, in part, a move emboldened by Xi Jinping’s government’s growing military power and confidence as well as growing military tensions with the United States.

It suggests a growing PLA willingness to construct military operations against the United States in the Western Hemisphere, which will surely fuel a reassessment of the interpretation of its security, people-to-people and commercial activities in the region.

The presence of the PLA is ever-expanding. The intelligence operations at Bejucal are probably not a game-changer in terms of capabilities. However, they pose a dangerous complement to the expanding array of other PRC operations to act on and use against the United States in both peace and wartime.

These include numerous Chinese commercial facilities close to US shores, from Hutchinson-operated ports in Mexico, the Bahamas and Panama to hundreds of PRC-owned business facilities in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, which could be used to “host” PRC Ministry of State Security personnel.

PRC options to use against the United States also include the numerous Latin American military, police and other government officials who regularly travel  to mainland China for “people-to-people diplomacy,” some of whom may be used to provide insights to the Chinese and be labeled by them as friends or “paid consultants.”

As seen by the practices of PRC “police stations,” other options include ethnic Chinese in the region who may be induced by the PRC to cooperate in the interest of familial ties. In addition, the PRC capabilities may also be supplemented by those of Cuban intelligence and those of other anti-US regimes, with personnel in both the United States and throughout the region.

Beyond its facilities and human intelligence capabilities and options, the PRC also has the ability to capture data relevant to US security in the region through its vast and expanding digital footprint there. This is because any Chinese company operating within the United States, under the 2017 PRC National Intelligence Law, is required to turn over any data that may be relevant to security to the PRC.

Some of these architectures, such as Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi, Oppo and others in the region’s telecommunications infrastructure, can utilize exploitable sensitive data against Latin American government officials and political entities. For example, Huawei uses cloud computing, along with “Smart” and “Safe Cities,” which utilize surveillance technology. Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing application, has been known to collect trip data on its users.

These are but a few examples of Chinese companies operating within the region that deal with sensitive data that can be subject to exploitation.

In the event of war between the United States and China over Taiwan, anti-US countries close to the United States like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua would likely be too vulnerable for the PLA to base in them traditional forces such as aircraft and ships for attacks against the United States.

Still, Cuba and other such countries could serve as key staging areas from which the Chinese could observe and disrupt US deployment and sustainment flows, along with other war-critical operations, which would put the United States and its allies at risk.

Both the presence of the Chinese-operated electronic intelligence facility and the development of a PLA training operation on the island will certainly help the PRC to create favorable conditions to counter the United States.

While it is true that the United States and other democratic states conduct international waters and airspace operations under the freedom of navigation principle (FONOPs), the United States cannot simply tolerate an intelligence collection facility 100 miles from its shore operated by its principal geopolitical rival, nor the rotations of PLA military personnel through the island. Such acts of espionage go beyond the simple characterization of “what rivals do” and should be met with a response.

Besides military strikes or other extreme measures that would ultimately be counterproductive for the relationship with the region, the United States most likely can neither persuade nor coerce Cuba and the PRC into abandoning their US-focused military cooperation.

However, this should not prevent the United States from exploiting all other available means to maintain pressure on, and isolate, the Cuban regime and China. Doing so helps limit the ability to extend both anti-US intelligence collection and other capabilities elsewhere.

It also strongly signals to others that the United States draws the line, and will extract a high price, for explicitly collaborating with extra-hemispheric rivals in ways that threaten US security.

Evan Ellis(r_evan_ellis@hotmail.com) is Latin America research professor with the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. The views expressed here are his own.

This Is So Accurate! Paul Harvey Freedom To Chains 1965 | REACTION

Pennsylvania Dutch Sour Cream Cabbage

Ingredients

• 1 medium head cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (for frying)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 pint (2 cups) sour cream
• 2 cups distilled white vinegar

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Add cabbage, salt and pepper and cook until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Mix sugar and flour together in a medium bowl, then add sour cream and mix well; finally stir in vinegar and mix well.
4. Add mixture to cabbage and simmer all together until desired consistency is reached.

Yield: 8 to 12 servings

“I Was Made In China” – Funniest EVER AGT Audition?! | Australia’s Got Talent 2022

Do you agree with China’s decision to cut key lending benchmark rates to shore up economic activity?

Absolutely

China could have chosen the safe way which was Exports and Real Estate

They could have complied with US orders, done what the US told them to do and by this time Russia would have been in dire straits

China would have been free from Western Propaganda and would have been hiding all those skeletons in their real estate market

However Xi Jingping chose the far more complicated path of ending dependence on US and cleaning the gutter that was Real Estate Regulations

Thus China’s biggest earners Real Estate and Exports have been throttled

China wants to replace them with Domestic Consumption and Domestic Industry

That means more credit and cheaper loans

That means lower rates

That means lesser investments into China

That means lesser demand for the Yuan

---

I wholeheartedly agree

The Chinese are looking 20 years ahead

They may face small troubles now but they will soon manage to catch up and accelarate

In the process they will surely decimate the Western dominated economy

The Dragon is rising and is unstoppable today

The West can see it but seem to be helpless because whatever they throw at the dragon, he absorbs and keeps moving on

I will venture a guess and say Hu Jintao would have bent the knee by now

He was much weaker than Xi Jingping

Avantgardey Full Performance | America’s Got Talent 2023 S18E02

What fictional disease would be scariest if it were real?

I’m a fan of the old school virus, Andromeda Strain.

This is from Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel, made into a film in 1971 by Robert Wise, who had directed West Side Story and the Sound of Music, and would go on to direct the first Star Trek movie. I would describe it as a science fiction medical procedural alien pandemic thriller.

It doesn’t mess with your mind or turn you into a zombie, it just kills you. Death isn’t painful or gruesome, nothing like that, it’s instantaneous. The original un-mutated form clots your blood into dry sand in a matter of seconds.

But… it has no DNA, RNA, amino acids, or common organic chemicals. It’s extraterrestrial, falling to earth on a satellite that was knocked out of orbit. It turns any energy you can throw at it into food, Godzilla style, so it can’t be killed. And it mutates quickly to becoming non-lethal, eating plastic, and escaping out into Earth’s upper atmosphere, where it keeps mutating.

It’s scary as existential dread, us alone in a cold, empty, hostile universe, where the first and only extraterrestrial life we find is a virus that defies our understanding.

There are plenty of real diseases as bad as anything in fiction, by the way.

AFRICAN GIRL FIRST TIME HEARING LUCIANO PAVAROTTI – NESSUN DORMA | THIS IS A MASTER CLASS

What’s been the most mind-blowing example of incompetence ever displayed by one of your coworkers?

My very first professional job in an engineering firm about a million years ago lol.

Designing a concrete retaining wall to stop rubble falling down a hill and into a person’s backyard. A very simple design. Concrete block, reinforcement. I got the sketches from a senior engineer, PhD, always made sure to tell everyone. I drew them as given to me, made a blueprint, and added a note saying I seem to be missing any details for horizontal tie backs, long rods that are drilled into the hill to stop the wall from falling over.

Dick head rights a large angry response in red Sharpie on the drawing basically saying, how dare some scum like me without a PhD have the audacity to question his truly godlike and glorious level of knowledge. Do the fucking drawings as I’m told or quit.

Alrighty then asshole.

I mentioned this to one of my co-workers and he tells me, keep that drawing safe as if it is your firstborn child. Hide it somewhere. Hide it somewhere very good. Make a photocopy of his note. Hide that somewhere even better.

Quite some time passes and a bunch of rubble falls down the hill, and doesn’t the freaking wall fall over. All because there are absolutely no tie backs keeping it from falling over.

Later one evening as I’m about to go home I get called down to the CEO’s office. Inside are a couple of their lawyers, all of the senior staff, and little old me. Probably the youngest person in the entire company.

Lawyer proceeds to tell me I am fucked. I did not do this to PhDs specifications and they are going to screw me six ways of Sunday.

Like fuck I think. I say wait here, under a few protests I stomp out, down to my office, find the drawing, come back in unfold the part with his note on it. He does not look happy. The lawyer does not look happy. In fact no one looks happy except me.

I look up and say any other questions? The lawyer says no I think we’re done here kind of have that drawing please. Me: not a fucking chance. And I’m quite willing to physically fight anyone who tries to take it from me. There were no takers lol. So back to my office, grab my shit and went home. The next day told my boss, he laughed, my coworker laughed, bet the PhD didn’t laugh. And that was that. Not surprisingly, when my term of employment ended, they didn’t renew it. How dare I not become the fall guy!

MY FIRST TIME LISTENING THE CRANBERRIES – ZOMBIE REACTION (Quite Emotional For Me)

China will not be another Soviet Union, but forge its own path

By Hu Xijin Published: Jun 29, 2023 05:15 PM

The New York Times, citing a public opinion poll by the Roper Center, said Americans’ views of China are starting to resemble their views of the Soviet Union decades ago. This has reinforced the hardline China policy adopted by the US government, and vice versa. The NYT article also cited experts who claimed that China and the US “are really in a serious competition,” with escalation on one side leading to escalation on the other, and that they are in a cold war.

The US is moving toward a new cold war.

As the article said, a series of policies toward China since the Trump era, including the “competition” mentioned by US President Joe Biden, have increased the American public’s hostility toward China. However, I believe that China will never become another Soviet Union, participating in the “serious competition” led by the US, or a true Cold War. China will have the wisdom and the ability to increase the powerful variables into the historical trajectory and steer mankind toward a different future.

First, China indeed is not the Soviet Union.

Fundamentally speaking, China is an open country, while the Soviet Union was closed. China’s opening-up was a result of its own will, as well as the general environment. China operates as a market economy, with a prominent export-oriented nature, and there is a high degree of freedom in personnel and cultural exchanges with the outside world. In contrast, during the Soviet Union era, ordinary people of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries were unable to travel to the West. These countries operated under a planned economy, where people earned the same no matter whether they worked hard or not. Additionally, there was no Internet or channel for the public to express their demands, and information was highly restricted.

Today’s Chinese society is completely different.

Chinese people’s views on the US are becoming more and more negative, and the “hostility” toward the US is increasing. However, this “hostility” is primarily directed at the US policy toward China and its hegemonism, rather than being “incompatible” with the US. Most Chinese people support, or do not oppose the idea of easing relations with the US.

As China is not the Soviet Union, the US will certainly miscalculate if it treats China as the Soviet Union. It will mess itself up, and its China policy will yield minimal results. For example, the idea of “decoupling” will not hinder China’s economic development, but will promote China’s independent technological innovation and damage the interests of leading American technology companies. While the US attempts to strategically encircle China, many of these efforts are merely superficial. Despite spending significant resources, the US will not be able to effectively contain China’s rise.

China needs to maintain strategic composure.

This composure, first and foremost, means that we are firmly aware that we are not the Soviet Union. At the same time, we are determined not to follow the Soviet Union’s path, but to forge our own unique strategic path. China will not engage in global military competition with the US; instead, we will pave the way globally through economic cooperation. In doing so, the win-win mechanism of China’s economic exchanges with other countries will mobilize more global forces to stand with China and dismantle the US strategy of containing China. The presence of US military bases and alliance systems around the world will become ineffective and will not be of much help to the US.

China’s military power is primarily used for strategic deterrence against the US, making it so that although the US has military advantages, it dares not resort to military blackmail against China. In addition, our military power is used to defend core interests, especially when it comes to the resolution of the Taiwan question, we must have the final say. We adopt a defensive military strategy, but in the Taiwan Straits region, we have gradually formed a local absolute military advantage. We will not engage in military confrontation with the US in regions far away from China’s core interests. However, if the US military comes to China’s nearby waters, especially if it intervenes militarily in the Taiwan Straits and assists the “Taiwanese military” in a possible future Taiwan Straits war, the People’s Liberation Army will not hesitate to “beat the crap out of” those US troops. We will always make our determination clear to the US.

China’s public opinion will inevitably form an opposition to that of the US. The more rampant the US side is, the more determined we become.

At the same time, as a whole, the Chinese people cannot be restrained by the political and opinion elites of the US. We must prevent ourselves from unconsciously approaching the role of the Soviet Union just because they treat China as such. This should be a long-term vigilance for us.

How the US describes and treats us is one thing, while it’s another crucial matter for us to adhere to China’s comprehensive self-development and maintain a big picture and pace. China’s development must be prioritized over struggle against the US. Self-development and self-strengthening must always be the focus of China.

In this way, the US’ containment strategy against China will ultimately end in shameful failure.

Therefore, I also believe that the most important thing is not how to label the current tension between China and the US, but rather, we need to have a different mindset and approach from the Cold War era. We must fully mobilize and utilize the enormous resources and advantages that the Soviet Union did not have, and draw a beautiful strategic curve for the Chinese people in the 21st century to break through the US containment.

PLA Has Capability, Confidence to Smash Taiwan Separatist Attempts, Foreign Interference: Spokesman