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Remembering the office back in the day
A typical day in my life back in the 1970's into the 1980's was really quite different from what you would find today. And I am talking about work. Not about life.
First off, "salaried" people got different perks from "hourly" people.
As a "salary-man", I entered the complex from our own gate, and we had our own parking lot. Once in, we walked down the office corridor and past the "mahogany corridor" of the "big wigs" of the company.
Once, I took off my coat, and hung up my hat, I made my way to my desk. I put my briefcase down, and pulled out a note book and pen and then changed the page on my daily tear off calendar. This was a little thing that rested on the desk that we all used to use.
I, being an engineer, had a drafting table on the other side of my office, and in it was a series of curled up drawings that looked a lot like pipes in a box. I had an electric pencil sharpener, and an electric eraser, and a little camel-hair brush to clean the surface with.
I would then get up to the coffee tureen and pour myself a cup of coffee and grab a donuts. Both the coffee and donuts were provided free to the staff. All we could drink. And usually a couple of donuts per person. back then, office staff had perks.
If you wanted decaf... well, you were out of luck and had to bring in a jar of instant coffee that you kept in your desk.
Then, back to my desk, where I would then have my morning cigarette (I kept a pack near my desk ashtray) and drink the coffee and read though the local "green sheet". A few guys smoked a pipe, and only one or two smoked cigars. Most of us smoked cigarettes with Marlboro, Salem, Camel and Kent being the most common.
The "Green sheet" was a newspaper for the local town that had personals, want ads, and stuff for sale. It was usually in a stack by the entrance that you would grab when you went in.
Around 9 in the morning, the mail boy would come around, and I would see some tasks for me to complete. And so that is when my actual working part of the day would start.
Often, I would change my shoes to the steel-toed work shoes for a trip into the factory.
I would put on my safety glasses and then venture forth. In the dim darkness of the mill.
Looking at what once was, and comparing it to today, I can see where the youth of today have no idea; no clue as to what work is like.
Soon after that, we would break for lunch.
Friday us in the office would order a pizza that we would all eat at our desks. But most of the week, we would all file out and go to the local bar. Sort of like this...
There, we would file up to the counter, and order a Chili and a beer before going back to work. Sort of like this...
For today, the habits are based on computers, cubicles and food and coffee deliveries. It's like it's a completely different century. No smoking. No drinking. No off-color-jokes. No goofing around. 24-7 company surveillance.
Sheech!
I think that I am just getting old.
Today...
What are some of the most surprising psychological facts about women?
- 80% of women use silence to express pain
- Women take 15 days to fall in love. Men just...8.2 seconds.
- Females take longer to make decisions but once they make it, they are more likely to stick to it
- Girls are born with a super prior sense of intuition
- Women are more likely to fall ino depression because they often blame themselves for the negative situation that they are in.
- Women experience significantly more nightmares than men and have more emotional dreams.
- A girl cannot keep a secret for more than 47 hours. She would share with someone definitely.
- The male brain is 10% bigger than the females but the female brain works more efficiently.
- When a woman is attracted to a man, she speaks in a higher pitch than normal
- Generally, a woman will only argue with someone she truly cares for. Arguing less occurs when she is less interested.
Pastitsio (Baked Macaroni)
I suppose this could be called the "comfort food" of Greek cooking. Pastitsio uses a béchamel sauce, one of the five mother sauces. My sister and I absolutely love this, and we used to make it all the time when we saw each other more often. But I also eat it at the St. Katherine's Greek Festival every year.
Prep: 25 min | Cook: 55 min | Yield: 8 to 12 servings
Ingredients
Macaroni
- 1 pound macaroni
- 1/4 pound butter
- 1 1/2 pounds ground turkey or beef
- 1/2 can tomato paste
- 6 ounces grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- Salt and pepper
Sauce
- 4 cups warm milk, divided
- 5 eggs
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 sticks butter
Instructions
Macaroni
- Cook macaroni (but not well done) in boiling, salted water and drain.
- Sauté onion in a little butter.
- Add ground meat and stir until brown.
- Add tomato paste, thinned with a little water.
- Add salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook until meat is done.
- Melt butter; pour over drained macaroni, mixing carefully.
- Spread half of the macaroni on the bottom of a 13 x 9-inch pan.
- Sprinkle half of the grated cheese on top.
- Spread entire meat mixture on top.
- Cover with remaining macaroni and remaining grated cheese.
Sauce
- Boil 3 cups of the milk with 1 1/2 sticks butter.
- Add flour to remaining 1 cup milk and blend well.
- Add flour mixture to boiling butter and milk. Thicken and cool.
- After this has cooled, add 5 beaten eggs, or drop small amounts of the milk mixture into the eggs while stirring constantly. Once the egg mixture gets warm to hot, add the remaining milk.
- Pour sauce over the macaroni. Shake the pan and insert a knife to penetrate thoroughly.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes.
What's something a flight attendant did to you that you will never forget?
"She arranged for a special meal!
I was flying from Mumbai to Hong Kong, and it was my first international flight. The trip also was planned on short notice while I was away from home and I couldn't get enough time to prepare myself. However, I managed to get all important stuff like medicines, warm clothes, required documents, prior to my journey.
Once boarded, I got myself comfortable in the seat and was quite hungry waiting for the dinner to be served. The air hostess came to me and asked for my choice from the meals available for my economy class. There were only two choices to choose from. (1) Seafood pasta made of shrimp and (2) pork rice.
I don't eat pork and I am allergic to shrimp. I asked her if she could get me a vegetarian meal instead. Sadly, there were no vegetarian meals available and she said that I had to pre-book a vegetarian meal if I wanted that specifically. Having no choice I asked her to give me bread and butter and that should be enough. She looked at me for a while and said, “Let me see what I can do.”
She moved forward serving other passengers and I kept waiting for my bread to come. I saw most passengers completing their dinner and there seemed to be nothing for me till then. I pressed the cabin crew call button to ask for a glass of water before I could go to sleep. An attendant obliged and just when she was handing me over the glass, the earlier hostess arrived with a catering trolley with a nice spread of meal.
She apologized for the delay and said that she was checking if there were any vegetarian meals available in first class.
She arranged the food on my seat tray. That was perhaps one of the best meals I ever had on an aircraft.
I am sure she could have just given me few portions of bread and butter from the food tray that were served to all economy passengers, but she went the extra mile just to bring complete satisfaction to one odd passenger."
would you like to share about your unforgettable memory at a flight?
- Avoid touching the other person while talking, many people dislike being touched.
- Clothes must not hang loose on your body in a formal set up.
- Tie, belt buckle, and zip must be in a straight line.
- There must always be a pinch of seriousness with a mild smile on your face.
- Hair must be properly combed.
- You can carry a little perfume on your clothes just to give something positive to the people you meet everyday (to avoid the sweat odor) but remember applying too much perfume may give allergies to others or even make you look fake.
- You must always be calm, composed & cool about everything. This will build a positive aura around your body attracting people towards you.
- Talk looking into the eyes of the other person.
- Teeth and mouth must always be clean, chew mint gum or use mouth wash to avoid bad breath.
- Never laugh too much in a formal setup. (laugh to your fullest casually)
- Speak a bit less and think before you speak because one wrong word can hurt your personality.
- Never act desperate even if your life depends on something.
- Sit straight don’t bend your back in a formal setup.
Shorpy stuff for today
Are Japanese people impressed by a foreigner who can fluently speak Japanese?
Originally Answered: Are Japanese people impressed by a foreigner who can fluently speak Japanese? ?
“Yes” at first, “no” in the end and it kind of breaks down into this ideology “Japanese people love it when foreigners visit, but hate it when they stay.” It works in roughly 5 stages:
- You don't speak any Japanese and Japanese people like you. At this point you're probably visiting and fumbling your way through saying please and thank you at restaurant and the only Japanese people you'll likely talk with are in the hospitality industry. Any attempt you make will be met with praise and you'll appreciate it.
- You can say some basics and Japanese people will really like you. By now you've been around a few months, can order at a restaurant and say a few general sentences. You'll probably have a few Japanese friends that encourage you but communicating back and forth in Japanese is still out of the question.
- Conversational and Japanese people will love you. By now you can go back and forth about daily life and you're speaking to friends, friends of friends, hospitality workers, co workers and random bar conversations. You'll constantly get praised on your speaking ability and you'll drink it up basking in your new found super powers. Usually this is about 1 - 2 years into your stay depending on how hard you study / immerse yourself.
- Close to fluent and Japanese reaction will start to split. (Partly because you're now interacting with a much broader set of Japanese natives)
- Hospitality industry workers and old ladies will still fawn over you but it's over the same things as before: you can say your name, where you're from and use chopsticks. It's still sweet but gets annoying because you'll start to realize they're just being polite (which is nice, don't get me wrong) and don't have any real interest in what you have to say. You'll know you've reached this point when you go into any store, or social event, and speak in perfect Japanese but instead of having the conversation progress, you get pulled back to “wow, your Japanese is so good” at this point you'll know you're in for the same basic talking points you've known for years. This is like 80% of your daily experience.
- Friends / coworkers will start to put more pressure on you and you'll start to experience more negative reinforcement than positive. Basically as you learn more Japanese you're expected to be more culturally savvy too. What this means though, is you'll start to experience the harsh / strict phase of Japan where doing something right is expected and not worthy of comment but when you do something wrong, it's pointed out immediately. This is probably 15%.
- Frustrating strangers who refuse to understand you. Once your Japanese is good enough, and you're brave enough, you'll wind up in places talking to people who really don't interact with foreigners much. Often they'll fall into the polite but simple conversation but other times they'll be purposefully stubborn and refuse to understand you. Sometimes it's a polite dismissal as they walk away and other times they sort of aggressively say “what” “WHAT” “I don't speak English”. Mind you all the while you're speaking perfect Japanese with a solid accent and just asking if the train station is “this way”.
- Police. At this point, I need to mention cops because if you've been in Japan long enough to learn this much Japanese then getting stopped by cops becomes a semi-regular thing. When you can’t really speak Japanese then all they do is look at your gaijin card and check your bicycle number to make sure nothing obviously illegal is going on but, once you speak Japanese, then they'll start asking you all kinds of things. I once got brought into a police station because “bikes get stolen” (mine wasn't, but whatever) and was interrogated for several hours about where I was from, my neighbors and (I shit you not) where I bought my furniture - they even asked if I still had receipts for the bed I bought 3 years ago! (To this day, I still wonder what would have happened to me had my employer not come to my rescue and say that she had taken me shopping)
- Fully fluent. I only barely got to this level before saying “fuck it”. Why? Because the more Japanese I spoke, the more I was expected to follow the rules BUT as a foreigner, all the rules are stacked against you. Getting a drivers licence, apartment, any non-English teaching job, they're all set up to basically prevent foreigners from succeeding. Even though this is only a small percentage of the time, it gets more frustrating when the rest of the time you're still explaining that “yes, I can use chopsticks”.
So, do Japanese get excited when foreigners speak Japanese? Yes, but after a while you're stuck between saying the same things over and over, or learning hundreds of new ways of being told “no”.
At Dien Bien Phu
Chris Mullin
‘And this,’ our guide said, ‘is where Colonel Piroth committed suicide.’ We were standing by a fenced-off scrap of wasteland on the edge of a busy market. The only evidence that anything of significance happened there is a white cement block carved with an image of two artillery pieces and an almost illegible inscription in Vietnamese. The entrance to Piroth’s bunker, if it still exists, is overgrown and filled with rubble.
Piroth was the deputy commander of French forces at Dien Bien Phu, a one-armed war hero and gunnery expert who had boasted that ‘no Viet Minh cannon will be able to fire three rounds before being destroyed by my artillery.’ In fact the Viet Minh made short work of the French artillery. ‘I have been dishonoured,’ Piroth said. Soon afterwards, using his teeth, he pulled the safety pin out of a grenade and blew himself to pieces.
Dien Bien Phu was one of the decisive battles of the post-1945 era. Not since the British were turfed out of Afghanistan in the 19th century had an indigenous army inflicted so resounding a defeat on a colonial power. The battlefield was a remote valley in north-west Vietnam, eleven miles by three, encircled by mountains, the best part of two days’ journey from Hanoi along precipitous roads winding through jagged limestone hills. Today it is a bustling town, but in the 1950s the valley was inhabited mainly by people of the T’ai minority who grew rice and smuggled opium.
The French strategy seems to have been to block the route into neighbouring Laos, where an uprising against colonial rule was also underway, and to tempt the Viet Minh into a set-piece battle which the French, with their tanks, artillery and aircraft, were confident of winning. The construction of an airstrip meant they were not dependent on roads and well supplied with heavy weapons. They were taken completely by surprise when, on 13 March 1954, the Viet Minh artillery, much of it recycled US weaponry captured by the Chinese in Korea, opened up on them from the surrounding hills. Before long the air strip was out of action and the French troops were trapped.
The Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett was with Ho Chi Minh ‘at his jungle headquarters’ when the battle began:
‘This is Dien Bien Phu,’ said President Ho as he tipped his sun helmet upside down on the bamboo table. ‘Here are mountains,’ and his slim, strong fingers ran around the outer rim of the helmet, ‘and that’s where we are.’ Then his hand plunged down into the bottom of the helmet: ‘Down there is the valley of Dien Bien Phu – that’s where the French are. The best troops they have in Indo-China. They will never get out.’
Burchett also described the extraordinary logistical feat that enabled the Viet Minh to encircle the valley:
The countryside, so quiet and passive – especially as seen from the air – in daytime, boiled with activity at night. From trucks to oxcarts, bicycles and human backs, every imaginable form of transport hauled supplies through the jungle and up and down the steep mountains ... Before dawn and the inevitable reconnaissance planes, shrubs and trees were planted on those supply lines, to be removed as the convoys started moving again at dusk.
A short walk from the derelict place where Colonel Piroth met his end, across a battered bridge, is the bunker of the French commander, Colonel (later General) Christian Marie Ferdinand de La Croix de Castries, described by the American journalist Stanley Karnow as a ‘lean aristocrat with a Roman profile whose ancestors had soldiered since the crusades. Irresistible to women and riddled with gambling debts, he had been a champion horseman, dare devil pilot and courageous commando.’ The three French artillery bases – Gabrielle, Beatrice and Isabelle – were allegedly named after his mistresses. His heavily sand-bagged bunker is well preserved and can be visited for 60,000 dong (£2). It is rather better appointed than Colonel Piroth’s.
Close to what is now the town centre is a 32-metre hill criss-crossed with trenches and bunkers which the Viet Minh did not succeed in capturing until the final day of the battle, 7 May. Towards the end they brought in coal miners from Hong Gai who, unseen by the defenders, dug a long tunnel under the hill and packed it with a thousand pounds of explosives. The crater has been preserved for posterity.
As Vietnam grows in prosperity Dien Bien Phu is an increasingly popular attraction for domestic tourists. There is a large museum, the highlight of which is a huge circular mural, said to have been the work of two hundred artists, depicting every detail of the battle. There are four flights a day from Hanoi and innumerable air-conditioned tour buses winding their way overland.
Up in the hills, the headquarters of the Vietnamese commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, has also been added to the tourist itinerary. It consists of a handful of thatched bamboo huts and a series of rooms dug into the side of a hill, spread out along a forest track. Next to the car park a temple has been erected in Giap’s honour. The centre piece is a large golden bust on an altar piled high with offerings. You wonder what he would have made of it.
The battle at Dien Bien Phu lasted 55 days. On 8 May 1954 the French government announced that France would withdraw from Vietnam. The casualties on both sides were horrendous. About eight thousand Viet Minh were killed and twelve thousand wounded. French casualties, many of whom were recruited from their North African colonies, numbered 2200 dead and 5600 wounded. Many more died on the long march into captivity.
A great power conference underway at Geneva, having dealt with Korea, was about to turn its attention to Vietnam. Given that the French had announced their intention to withdraw, it ought to have been easily resolved. All that was required was to organise an orderly departure followed by internationally supervised elections.
The Americans, however, were having none of it. Already they were bankrolling much of the cost of the French war and for some time the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had been trying to persuade President Eisenhower to use B-29 bombers to help relieve the French. Eisenhower refused, saying he would not contemplate direct intervention without the support of both Congress and America’s allies, notably Britain. Dulles flew to London but for once Eden and Churchill wouldn’t co-operate. According to the French foreign minister, Georges Bidault, Dulles had taken him aside on the eve of the Geneva conference and offered him atom bombs.
The Americans went to Geneva determined to undermine any settlement. Dulles refused even to shake hands with the Chinese prime minister, Zhou Enlai. The Chinese and the Russians were anxious to prevent another war in Asia and leaned heavily on the Vietnamese to make concessions. In the end it was agreed that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, pending elections to be held within two years. The Americans refused to sign. Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs:
I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese affairs who did not agree that, had elections been held at the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh.
He was being disingenuous. There was little or no fighting in the two years following Geneva.
Although they had pledged not to undermine the Geneva Agreement the Americans immediately set about doing so. In the South they created and armed an artificial regime under a stubborn and ruthless mandarin, Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA set up the Saigon Military Mission under Colonel Edward Lansdale, a specialist in psychological warfare and dirty tricks. In the North, which was not yet under fully under Viet Minh control, the CIA sent in agents under Major Lucien Conein with instructions to sabotage the transport network. They contaminated the fuel supply for Hanoi’s buses and concealed explosives in the coal supplies destined for the railway. It would be another 17 years before any of this became public with the release of the Pentagon Papers. Rumours were also spread among the superstitious northern Catholics that ‘the Virgin had gone south’ and a massive evacuation was organised.
The elections decreed by the Geneva Agreement never took place. The southern arm of the Viet Minh, who had regrouped to the North following Geneva, grew increasingly impatient and, despite being discouraged by the Hanoi government, who had enough problems of their own, began to infiltrate the South. By 1961 a new war was underway, in which at least a million Vietnamese were destined to die and much of the country reduced to ruins. A war that might have ended at Dien Bien Phu lasted another twenty years.
John Foster Dulles never lived to see the mayhem he caused. He died in 1959. Ho Chi Minh did not live to see his country reunited, dying in 1969. General de Castries lived until 1991. As for Vo Nguyen Giap, the school teacher turned general, he outlived them all, dying in 2013 at the age of 102.
When did you first realize that life is not fair? How did you respond to it?
This is Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum - the son of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum - the Ruler of Dubai.
This young man is:
- Amazingly Handsome
- Born into Royalty
- Has the most powerful man in the Middle East as his Father
- Has been provided the Best Education in the World
- Has been given the Best Mentors in the World
- Has unlimited access to unlimited money, power, wealth, opportunities and people
- He doesn’t have to go to work
- He doesn’t have to report to anyone
- He doesn’t have to worry about anything
- Whatever he wants - he can get the fastest, most expensive, most sophisticated and most amazing stuff - just with a click of a finger
- And will one day be given one of the most powerful Emirates in the World to Rule
- And did I tell you he is one of the most desired men in the Middle East?
Now - who wouldn’t love to be in the shoes of this man?
How did you respond to it?
Simple. Opened up my MacBook Pro and continued typing my answers on Quora. Why break my bald tattooed head on something I cannot change?
Why the US is a Paper Tiger Vs China
What is the most pathetic thing you've seen an addict do to get their fix?
My sister died (God rest her soul) when she was 24 on January 1st, 2006. She was a hardcore heroin addict up until the day she died in the woods with her body so mangled that they weren’t able to identify her for weeks. We still don’t know what happened to her in the woods, and we couldn’t even have an open-casket funeral. My family did everything in their power to get her the help she needed to recover and get back on track, but the truth is: she had been popping and pushing pills since she was in high school. She went to juvie at age 16 for shooting up in the school bathroom. Needless to stay, my sister had a track record. She did, said, and stole anything and anywhere just to get her fix.
On my 6th birthday she came to visit me in Massachusetts. Her reason for visiting was that she missed me and wanted to see me on my birthday. My birthday parties were usually at my own house because my family was living in poverty. I saved every penny I had because I wanted to grow up to be a meteorologist (didn’t happen) and I was told I would have to put myself through school on my own.
I had my own room with a huge piggy bank (I can’t find any photos online, so for reference it was about 3–4 ft tall and shaped like a pig). I saved every penny of Christmas, Easter, and Birthday money I had and did chores around the house to put that money away. In total I had ~$500 in that bank from previous years. Because I was 6, I trusted my sister. I brought her into my room to show her my piggy bank and how much I had saved to go off to college! She looked and acted so proud of me and even gave me a hug.
My sister stayed for a couple of days to spend time with my mother and I. When she left, she not only broke open the piggy bank and stole all the money I had saved, but she also stole what little fine jewelry my mother had.
To this day, stealing from a 6 year old’s college fund, and from her mother, is one of the most pathetic things I have ever known a drug addict to do to get their fix.
With that said, I loved my sister. She was troubled, but I loved her no matter what she did. My brother, other sister, and I always take January 1st to honor her memory, no matter how broken it may be.
Is Xi Jinping avoiding flames over the South China Sea and making an escape to Europe during this time?
The Philippines is synonymous with weakness, no matter how much the US arms it, it is like an ants' nest, a pot of hot water poured on it and it is immediately finished.
The Philippines is a fragmented country comprising 7,100 islands and islets, with 11 islands (Luzon, Mindanao, Samar, etc.) accounting for 96% of the country's total area of 299,700 square kilometres and a population of 100 million.
Its ethnic composition is complex, with the largest ethnic group, the Visayans, accounting for only 33.7% of the total population, and the rest of the ethnic groups being the Tagalog people, Ilocano people, Bicolano people and Bicolano people. For a long time, power in the Philippines was monopolised by the Catholic Tagalog people and Visayans of the north.
The total strength of the Philippine Regular Army is about 123,000, of which about 87,000 are in the Army, 20,000 in the Navy, and 16,000 in the Air Force; the current police force is about 160,000 strong.
The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has not been equipped with fighters for a decade, since the retirement of its F-5 fighters in October 2005, and finally got jet fighters in 2015 when it purchased 12 FA-50 light attack aircraft from South Korea. The aircraft, converted from the trainer T-50, has a top speed of Mach 1.5 and a maximum load of 4.5 tonnes.
Currently, the Philippines ranks sixth among the 10 ASEAN countries in terms of military strength, behind Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia, and slightly ahead of Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and Singapore.
The Philippines also faces threats from anti-government armed groups such as the New People's Army (Bagong Hukbong Bayan), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Grupong Abu Sayyaf (GAS), Maute group, and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
In addition, the Philippines is a major global stronghold for drug production and trafficking, producing about 70 per cent of the world's cannabis products, with some 13 transnational drug cartels and 175 homegrown drug trafficking organisations. In 2018, the Philippines had a full-blown war on drugs that resulted in the deaths of 1,200 militants, government soldiers, and civilians.
A shithole tool like the Philippines anyway. If Xi Jinping sneezes, the Philippines will most likely disappear from the map.
Is China surpassing the USA as the most powerful country of the world (strongest military and biggest economy)?
Yes. China is advancing very quickly. Economically, it surpassed the USA by purchasing power parity back in 2014. And it’s on track to surpass the USA in nominal terms within 20 years.
China’s military modernisation has been nothing short of breathtaking. It now has the world’s largest navy by number of ships, and it’s building ships faster than any other country on earth.
China is building the world’s second largest aircraft carrier fleet. It has the Type 001 Liaoning, Type 002 Shandong, and Type 003 Fujian (which is about to undergo sea trials). Construction of the nuclear-powered Type 004 has just begun.
The Type 055 cruiser is regarded as the world’s most powerful warship. The Type 052D destroyer is no slouch, either.
China has the world’s most advanced hypersonic missiles. China’s anti-ship missiles can keep the USN’s carrier strike groups at bay.
China has the world’s most advanced ASW tech.
Meanwhile, the US military has been sliding downward for decades. Pockets of advancement such as the USS Gerald R. Ford and the F-35 don’t count for much.
How China breaks the US Hegemony
Carl Zha speaks to @TheRedPillDiariesOfficial about how rise of China's manufacturing superpower status is challenging the US hegemony over the globe. why the US lack the resources to confront China and how China is responding to the recent deployment of US Army Special Force Green Berets to Kinmen Island in the Taiwan Strait, just kilometers from the mainland Chinese coast. How the US Imperial overreach impact its China containment strategy
What is a phrase your children picked up but get hilariously wrong?
Few days ago as I was doing laundry, I heard my daughter’s sing-songy voice from her room:
What the fuck…
I waved my head, concluding that I must have heard it wrongly and continued folding the laundry.
Just a moment later, there it was again, louder this time, still sing-songy:
WHAT THE FUCK…
She is learning English, but doesn’t really speak it yet. I couldn’t imagine that she would know what those words mean, or where she would have learned them.
As I was finishing with the laundry and planning to go check with my daughter about the strange phrase she was repeating, I heard my son, who was playing with her in her room yell in the same melodious voice:
WHAT THE FUCKKK….
That triggered a WHAT THE HELL response in my head and I barged in the room, ready to have a talk with my kids about how those words are not OK to be spoken because they are not nice and blah blah… the usual parenting stuff.
When I entered the room, I saw an adorable scene that looked something like this:
My little performers smiled excitedly and asked me to listen to their song. Then, together, with great stage faces they sang:
WHAT THE FUCK SEN!
TUDUDUDUDUUM… WHAT THE FUCK SEN!
NANANANANAAAAA… WHAT THE FUCK SEEN!
BUUUUNUUUNUUNUUUNUU… WHAT THE FUCK SEN!
I burst out laughing, and clapped my hands with a huge smile on my face. In fact, I couldn’t say much for a while, because I laughed so much. Thankfully, kids took it as my great appreciation for their performance.
The song they were performing so passionately was a song that is very popular in our home as of late, the famous What Does The Fox Say by Ylvis.
- Marriage: That marriage you are trying to save? Yea, that one, isn’t worth it. Go your separate ways and find happiness outside of relationships.
- Fast food: The processed food you are putting in your body, will catch up to you. Nourish your soul, life is longer than you think.
- Health: Make time for exercise. I know you feel like you are indestructible, but you aren’t. Time has a way of catching up to you. And if you don’t use your time wisely, you will know.
- Relationships: If you weren’t married by 30, then you’ve probably experienced some brutal asshole thats taken advantage of your kindness(unless you’re that asshole). Learn from that asshole, accept the lesson and grow. Stop ruminating.
- Clock: Father Time doesn’t stop. We keep aging. The Botox, hair dye, plastic surgery, or whatever you “invest” in to stop the clock, won’t work. Happiness doesn’t come from looks, it comes from what’s inside.
- Self Awareness: As you age, you gain life experience. And with life experience, come lessons, if you pay attention. Pay attention to the lessons, don’t try and escape them.
- Alcohol: It won’t make you prettier, more confident, more likable, or more accepted. But it will result in bad judgement and choices.
- Choices: The choices you make in your 30’s will greatly effect your life in your 40’s. And when you’re in your 40’s looking back, you will see stupid choices. Choose wisely.
- Tomorrow: Quit saying you will make a change tomorrow. Today is your tomorrow. Please believe that.
- Friends: They will come and go, pay attention. Know the difference between friends and acquaintances.
- Life Happens: Yep, it does. And it sure as shit isn’t always fair. Roll with the punches and make your 50’s a time you don’t have to ask about your 40’s.
Daily Comics
Fry Bread
This bread is used as the basis for Navajo Tacos and can also be folded over a stuffing and eaten as a sandwich. At special events through the Southwest they are cooked in large round pots over open mesquite fires by Native Americans.
Ingredients
- 3 cups unbleached flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups warm water or milk
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or shortening
- Oil or shortening, for deep frying
Instructions
- Measure dry ingredients into a deep mixing bowl.
- Add shortening and knead with hands until dough is in small pea-size pieces.
- Add warm, not hot, water and knead with hands until dough is smooth and leaves sides of bowl. Knead for at least 5 minutes.
- Cover with a clean dish towel, and place in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.
- This is the secret for tender fry bread - kneading and resting.
- Divide dough into portions about golf-ball size and pat, slap, or roll out as round as possible, 1/4 inch thick.
- Fry in hot shortening or oil about 1 inch in depth. Fry both sides until light golden, not dark brown.
- Top with refried beans, confectioners' sugar or honey.
Notes
Fry Bread is often served sprinkled with confectioners' sugar or drizzled with honey. Sometimes chopped onions and chiles are mixed into the dough. The Ute tribe forms the tortillas in the same way as fry bread, but they cook them over a charcoal grill outdoors or over an open fire. This method also makes delicious Fry Bread.
Fry Bread is served on the plaza at San Xavier Mission Del Bac (White Dove of the Desert) in Tucson, pow wows, rodeos, etc.
That man didn't have 90% of his brain. The skull was almost entirely filled with cerebrospinal fluid and all that remained of the brain was a thin peripheral portion surrounding the skull.
Yet that man, whose IQ was below average (IQ 75), had been leading a normal life for years: he was married, had two children, a job and was obviously aware of himself, he moved, laughed, loved and ultimately he lived.
The case shocked the world scientific community and was described in the prestigious Lancet journal, becoming the subject of questions and amazement. The evidence of the facts raised, as can easily be imagined, many questions about the very concept of consciousness, understood as "awareness of the self" and the possibility of leading a normal life practically without a brain.
The patient's clinical history was reconstructed and it was discovered that he was born suffering from a form of hydrocephalus. For this reason, a few months before his life, a cerebral shunt was inserted into his skull, capable of draining excess cerebrospinal fluid. That shunt was removed at the age of 14 and the patient, after an initial series of problems that had caused paresis in his left leg, was eventually able to resume an almost normal life and had completely forgotten about the problem. Over the next 30 years, the liquor began to invade the skull again and progressively erode the brain (90% of the brain!), leading to that feeling of weakness in the leg which prompted the patient to undergo a medical examination. at the age of 44. But all this was not able to explain how the brain invaded by cerebrospinal fluid and eroded by 90% of its volume had "known" to recalibrate itself over the years, allowing him to lead a normal life anyway.
Axel Cleeremans, a cognitive psychologist at the Université Libre of Brussels, Belgium, attempted to answer these questions in 2016 during a conference of the Association for Scientific Studies on Consciousness, held in Buenos Aires.
According to Cleeremans, the case of the French patient had demonstrated the extraordinary "readaptation capacity" of the human brain. The frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes of the brain, in fact, preside over the main cognitive and perceptive functions, yet in the patient they were practically completely absent and this demonstrated that the brain of that man - and therefore of every man - had been able to "move" those functions to the residual perimeter section of 10%.
The second ability that was made evident by the clinical case under examination was the "plasticity of the brain". According to Cleeremans' hypothesis, "self-awareness" (or detailed self-cognition) is formed through experience, the relationship between oneself and the surrounding world and learning, and is subject to continuous modifications and adjustments in course of life.
The case of the French man who lived a normal life until the age of 44 without 90% of his brain demonstrated to science a fact that had until then been unknown, namely that just 10% of the brain tissue is sufficient to re-elaborate a “theory of the self” and to make that person a man in all respects.
I asked AI to make a Music Video... the results are trippy
What was the saddest reason you’ve seen an adult crying in public?
This just happened to me today.
I got a call from my ex-girlfriend who told me she was having a crisis and to meet her at the local diner, so after I left church I met her for breakfast. Once we sat in the booth she started sobbing. Of course everyone in the diner was looking at me like I was an unfaithful wife-beater who was taking the children after blowing the mortgage at the track.
It seems that her cat got out and a local do-gooder organization scooped it up. Not 24 hours later they tried to extort over 1000 dollars from her saying they spayed it, microchipped it, gave it all kinds of vaccines and on and on and on. It was thievery and extortion.
She went to the local police. They laughed at her. She went to Animal Control who was sympathetic and tried to get the cat back from them because the finders are supposed to surrender the cat to them anyway. They refused. They took down the Facebook page advertising that they had the cat up for adoption and won’t answer any questions about the cat from Animal Control. So my ex is bereft about her cat languishing in cat prison, thinking it’s been abandoned and she is bereft without her beloved cat.
So tomorrow we are going to the Town Hall and calling the Lawyer and the State Police and anyone else we can think of who can move these criminals to return the cat.
Edit 4/11
So after calling all kinds of government agencies
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the cat napping bitch returned the cat today.
What's a good example of "never mess with the quiet ones"?
I was 14 and had put up with three years of bullying at school. I wasn't a coward. I just didn't want to hurt anyone. Violence wasn't part of my nature and so I avoided any kind of confrontation that was directed at me.
Everybody at school knew I was one of the quiet kids and would not retaliate when I was being bullied.
For several weeks this kid had been poking me in the back during class and calling me a faggot in front of everyone. It was pretty humiliating being laughed at by the whole class.
One day I snapped.
I happened to be writing an essay in my English workbook with a lead pencil. All of a sudden I turned around and stabbed him in the hand with it and told him to leave me alone.
His hand was resting on the desk just behind my back. I am not proud of that moment but the whole class hushed. His name was Garry Pankhurst, and he was a troublemaker and a general dick.
He pulled back and let out a scream. I saw his hand; the pencil didn't go in far, about 1/4 of an inch but enough for him to get the message.
He called me out at lunch time for a fight in the yard, which I accepted. By the time I walked around the back of the building, half the school was in a circle and parted the way for me to enter the ring where he was waiting for me.
I didn't know what to do as I had never had a fight before. He looked rather small standing in front of me but nonetheless came at me. I grabbed him in a headlock before he could get a punch on me. Then he grabbed my hair from the back. I warned him to let go of my hair. All I did was restrain him to start with. I warned him three times to let go of my hair. When he refused, I hit him once in the face, a quick, short but hard jab.
He dropped to the ground. By then three teachers came and broke the ‘fight’ up. They were shocked to see me, the quiet kid, in the middle of it. We were marched up to the office to the cheers of the crowd.
There was zero tolerance for fighting, and I was summarily punished with six ‘cuts’ by a thick strap to each hand by the deputy principal.
After that event he stopped bothering me.
I do not advocate any kind of violence, or condone bullying in any form. What I did was wrong. But after all, I was just a kid who had had enough. Even I had limits.
EMERGENCY CODE RED: BELARUS LOADS NUKES ON PLANES, US AMBASSADOR LEAVES RUSSIA! PENTAGON LIES!
MM, I have sent three emails to you offering to send some money. The electronic transfers just aren't working for me, so I even offered to send A$150 (US$100) in cash to a mailing address so that you could exchange the money at a Chinese bank. So far I have had no reply.
I even registered to join the forum to be able to send a message via that avenue - and then my post got blocked!
Crikey mate, I really resonate with what you are doing and want it to continue. Please respond to my emails and let's work out something.
Speed
I'll be darned, that message actually went through!!