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The Highly Flammable Kumquat of Doom
Is it wrong to desire to make your own cheese?
I have been having this hankering to go nuts and make lots and lots and lots of Cheese.
Oh, sure, I know that one day I'll get it out of my system, and then I'll try making beer, wine, brandy or cough syrup. Who knows.
The videos make it seem so easy...
Only milk and eggs! This homemade cheese recipe is better than any store-bought cheese!
The Dragon Who Purred a Safety Net
Act 1: The Catastrophe of Caution
The sun was performing its daily spectacle over Martha’s farm, but all eyes were fixed on the roof of the great red barn, where a much more immediate drama was unfolding. Perched precariously on the apex, beside a suspiciously dry stack of hay, was Sparky, a kitten so tiny and orange he looked like a highly flammable kumquat.
Sparky wasn't just near the danger; he was actively creating it. He was playing with a strand of twine that had snagged on Professor Quackenstein's forgotten, oversized reading magnifying glass. The sun, acting as a reluctant accomplice, was focusing a pencil-thin beam of pure heat directly onto the dry straw. Smoke was beginning to curl, smelling less like a cozy campfire and more like a very bad decision.
"Oh, for the love of all that is dairy!" declared Sir Whiskerton, who had been mid-afternoon existential reflection. "That's not an emergency; that's an impending fire hazard wrapped in fluff."
Doris the Hen, renowned for her dramatic flair and her ability to lecture squirrels on municipal bylaws, immediately sounded the alarm. "THE ROOF! THE ROOF! WE ARE ALL UNNECESSARILY EXPOSED TO THE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY!"
There was only one creature on the farm with the necessary altitude skills and, crucially, the natural gift of flight: Longwei, the twelve-year-old, gentle, cat-like dragon. He was an honorary farm-hand, a sweetheart, and a creature of immense—if frequently misplaced—power.
Longwei looked at the smoke. He saw Sparky's little tail flicking. He knew what he had to do: launch, grab the kitten, and perhaps mist the flame with a gentle puff of non-toxic dragon-mist. It was a clear, actionable plan that required The Great Power.
The stress hit him like a rogue tractor.
Act 2: The Purr of Existential Dread
Instead of the mighty spring-coil of a dragon preparing for liftoff, Longwei executed a flawless, four-point collapse onto the cool dirt. It was a panic response of absolute, total, and profound comfort-seeking.
"The challenge... requires effort," he muttered to himself, his voice a low thrum that vibrated the hay in the feeding trough. "Effort requires risk. Risk requires a clean coat."
He began to groom.
It was not a casual lick; it was a full, obsessive, top-to-bottom, high-pressure washing of his own scales. He polished his front paws with a meticulousness that would shame a clockmaker, all while letting loose a purr so thunderous it felt less like a sound and more like geological activity.
The entire barn began to shake. The wooden planks rattled a chaotic rhythm. Doris the Hen's lecture was cut short as she was bounced three feet into the air.
"It's a low-grade seismic event!" yelled Professor Quackenstein, who was using the distraction to try and calculate the exact velocity needed to launch a squirrel via catapult.
"No, Professor," said Sir Whiskerton, rubbing his temples. "It's a dragon having an existential crisis about his own fur."
Longwei’s purr rose in volume, sounding like a thousand idling, perfectly tuned engines. He was retreating into his comfort zone, turning the potential use of his power into a habit of self-soothing.
Act 3: The Absurd Result of a Wish
High up in the weather vane, unseen by the panicked farmyard, was Zephyr, the silent observer of cosmic absurdity. Zephyr saw the shaking barn, the grooming dragon, and the innocently oblivious kitten nearing combustion.
"Oh, Longwei," Zephyr sighed, their voice a mere whisper carried on the wind—a whisper that carried the weight of a minor, localized magical anomaly. "I wish you would just act on instinct, not habit."
It was the perfect, imperfect, magical trigger. Longwei’s purr was the habit; breathing fire was the instinct. The magic, being the highly literal and moderately mischievous force it was, decided to merge the two.
Longwei let out a particularly deep, resonating purr that rattled the very teeth of an old plow. He opened his mouth for a deep, satisfying exhalation—and instead of a gentle mist or even a harmless dragon puff, a dense, cerulean ball of yarn—pure, tightly-spun dragon-thread—shot out.
It hit the ground with a soft thwump.
Longwei paused his grooming, blinked at the ball of yarn, then blinked at his mouth. He looked utterly betrayed. He tried again. Purrrrrr. A second ball of scarlet-red yarn. Thwump.
"Did the dragon just... knit?" whispered Gnomeo, who had just climbed out of his perpetually damp boot-house.
The habit of purring was now intrinsically linked to the instinct of 'fire-breathing,' but filtered through Zephyr's wish to break the pattern. The Great Power, stripped of its dangerous nature, was now a great, ridiculous, Yarn Power.
Act 4: The Accidental Masterpiece
As the small fire on the barn roof began to truly flicker into a flame, a new kind of panic set in. Longwei was not just breathing yarn; as his purr grew more frantic with his confusion, the yarn production intensified.
RUMBLE-PURR. CHOO-CHUNK. RUMBLE-PURR. CHOO-CHUNK.
The dragon-thread spewed forth in a torrent, a continuous, surprisingly thick cable of cerulean, scarlet, and moss-green yarn. The sheer force of the frantic purring sent the threads flying outwards. The balls unwound instantly, the dragon-thread weaving itself at a supernatural speed, guided by the random, desperate motions of Longwei’s turning head.
In less than ten seconds, the yarn had crisscrossed and interlocked into a mesh. It billowed out from the side of the barn, forming a gigantic, perfectly tensioned, surprisingly cozy safety net that draped down to the ground.
At the very moment the yarn net clicked into place, Sparky the kitten, startled by a particularly loud PURRRRR-CHUNK and the rising heat, finally slipped.
He plummeted five feet...
...and landed softly, perfectly, and utterly unscathed in the middle of the soft, freshly-knitted dragon-net. The flammable hay remained on the roof, merely smoking now, its potential casualty safe below.
The entire farm held its breath, witnessing the most absurd, accidental act of heroism ever performed.
Longwei stopped purring. He looked up at the barn. He looked down at the kitten, safe in the handiwork of his own anxiety. The danger was averted. The stress was gone.
And then, his gaze fell on the excess yarn. A single, free-hanging strand of moss-green dragon-thread, trailing off into the grass.
The dragon who had just saved the barn and a kitten with his purr, the twelve-year-old Longwei who carried a Great Power, was now just a cat.
With a joyful, instinctive flick of his tail, Longwei forgot the kitten, forgot the barn, forgot the grooming, and pounced on the loose thread, instantly devolving into a fit of gleeful chasing, batting, and wrestling his own absurd handiwork.
Order was restored. The kitten was safe. The barn was intact. And the gentle dragon was now buried under a mountain of his own self-soothing, having finally acted on instinct—the instinct of a house cat presented with string.
Moral of the Story
Don't let your comfort zone become your cage. Sometimes, the thing you use to hide your power is the only thing that can save the day.
Best Lines
- "That's not an emergency; that's an impending fire hazard wrapped in fluff." - Sir Whiskerton.
- "The challenge... requires effort." - Longwei, mid-grooming panic.
- "Did the dragon just... knit?" - Gnomeo.
- "The dragon-thread spewed forth in a torrent, a continuous, surprisingly thick cable of cerulean, scarlet, and moss-green yarn."
Key Jokes
- Longwei’s crisis response: executing a "flawless, four-point collapse onto the cool dirt."
- Doris the Hen's lecture being cut short as she's "bounced three feet into the air" by the purr.
- The yarn hitting the ground with a soft thwump.
- The dragon forgetting the heroism to "devolve into a fit of gleeful chasing, batting, and wrestling his own absurd handiwork."
Starring
- Longwei as The Cat-Dragon Who Knitted His Own Anxiety.
- Sparky as The Highly Flammable Kumquat of Doom.
- Sir Whiskerton as The Cat Who's Getting Too Old for Seismic Purrs.
- Zephyr as The Unseen Force of Literal Magic.
Post-Credit Scene
Professor Quackenstein, who had been hiding in the hay, climbed out and immediately began trying to patent the yarn. He called it "Dragon-Thread™: The Non-Toxic, All-Purpose, Panic-Fibre." When he tried to weave it, the yarn immediately turned back into simple, farm-grade twine. The magic, it seemed, only worked when the weaver was in the middle of a powerful, existential purr.
P.S.
The most powerful form of creation is often found where you least expect it. Also, always check your barn roof for abandoned magnifying glasses.
What’s the biggest scam most people still fall for?
There is one interesting scene in the movie Lucky Bhaskar.
The protagonist, Bhaskar and his family arrive at a jewellery shop in their modest Maruti 800 and simple clothing.
Bhaskar experiences the following:
- Because he drives a modest car, he is neither offered valet parking nor greeted by the staff.
- He isn’t offered water; instead, he’s told to help himself, while wealthy customers are served juice.
- When his wife asks to see diamonds, the staff subtly imply that such items are beyond their purchasing power.
- Behind his back, he overhears the owner instructing the staff not to waste time on them and to focus on richer customers, as they don’t seem likely to bring much business.
Feeling humiliated, Bhaskar immediately heads to a car showroom and purchases a high-end ₹18 lakh vehicle right away.
Next, he takes his family to an upscale apparel store and buys them expensive clothes and luxury accessories.
And then, he drives back to the same jewellery shop, flaunts his wealth, and buys out an entire showcase of jewellery.
The owner and staff are stunned by the transformation and the lavish display of wealth. They feel humiliated while Bhaskar enjoys his ultimate thug life moment.
Do you know who actually won in that scene?
The jewellery shop owner.
Because he managed to sell a year's worth of products in a single day — without any advertising, discounts, or festive sale gimmicks. All he did was trigger the ego of one man.
And the real loser?
Our Bhaskar boy
He ended up spending a fortune on things he never even wanted, just to impress a stranger he’d likely never see again.
Bhaskar himself reflects on this later: We save every penny by cutting costs. But when pride kicks in, we spend it all without a second thought.
One of the biggest traps people fall into is the ego-driven spending spree. They buy things just to feel proud or prove a point. They don’t evaluate the actual value or necessity of those purchases.
Why else do you think a single wedding can wipe out a person’s lifetime savings and leave them in debt?
Fatayer Bisabanikh (Spinach Pastry) Sambosic
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup olive oil or vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- Dash of salt
Filling
- 2 1/2 pounds chopped spinach
- 3 chopped onions
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon each sumac, salt and pepper
Instructions
- Sift flour then mix with oil. Add remaining dough ingredients and mix well. Knead until dough is smooth.
- Roll dough very thin and cut into 3 inch circles.
- Mix the filling ingredients. Take tablespoon of filling mixture and put on each circle. Take each circle and close into the shape of three lines. Secure ends.
- Dip each piece into vegetable oil and put into pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes until brown.
- Serve as an appetizer either cold or warm.
Attribution
One Thousand and One Delights by Nahda Salah
President Execution Scene | CIVIL WAR (2024) Movie CLIP HD
Coming soon to a Whitehouse near you.
HOW TO WATCH the full movie: https://bit.ly/CivilWar-OnDemand
The Endless Downfall of Bradley Longram
Written in response to: "Center your story around someone who has (or is given) the ability to time travel."
Victor Amoroso
***
Bradley stared into that backseat. The blotched skin, the cooked flesh, the wails from the infant tormented him. The child reached for him, and each time, instead of reaching back, pulling from that charnel house, he closed the door. When it closed with a click, Bradley shot straight up, drenched in sweat.
The clock read 3:34 am. The noise of the city drifted through his window, a conveyance honking, the hum of the electric generators, an unfortunate vomiting in the street outside. His heart raced, as it did every time he had this dream. He pushed his feet out of bed, and grabbed the now warm bottle on his nightstand. It was flat, but he drank it anyway.
He sat there until the sun poked through the blinds. Today was going to be the last day that this happened. Bradley let the shower flick away his filth on the outside, leaving the dirt inside intact. “I wonder if she would come back,” he said to no one in particular. Laura left seven years ago, taking their youngest with her. The older two had long stopped speaking with him.
She said it was the drinking, and the yelling. But it wasn’t really those things. He woke each night, sometimes screaming, sometimes punching, sometimes with his piece in hand, after closing that door each time. She asked him and asked him, but he could never really say to her what he saw. Laura went from empathy, to fear, to indifference. She stopped asking, and then just stopped being there.
The glowing nu-florescent lights gave his grey hair a greenish tinge sitting in the waiting room. He waited for what seemed to be an hour, when his name was called. His “handler”, travel agent was the preferred title, stared at him with black eyes, and a small scar above her upper lip. She once was fat, but had lost much of the weight. “Mr. Longram, I hope that I have been clear up to this point.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Well I am going to go through it just one more time. We will be monitoring you. Usually, one of us would go with you, but do to your long service to the community, we made an exception. You will follow the rules, but things can get sticky with time travel. There are certain points that you can be sent back to. You aren’t to interact with anyone. These sightseeing tours work best if you keep a good distance from anyone.”
“I know, I know.”
“Anything you accidentally change will be fixed. As I said, we are monitoring you. You appear to have signed all the necessary forms, and your payment cleared. You mind me asking, why did you choose this date?”
Bradley smiled. “I kissed my wife for the first time on this date. I thought it would be nice to watch it.”
She took a drink from her Pepsi Neg, “Ah, tempting to interfere. Don’t. Just watch.”
“I will.”
She handed him his temporal pass. He put it around his neck, and walked to the back. The travel tubes lay waiting. The tech looked over his pass, nodded and pointed to the nearest tube. “Now you paid for one hour. When that time is up, we will pull you back. That means that if your pass comes back without you, we will stop you from even going. So there will be ten second countdown to allow for that before I send you.”
Bradley stood in the tube, waited for ten seconds, and closed his eyes. He suspected that they really couldn’t watch what they did, otherwise they probably would have stopped this right now. He breathed deeply, and chirping birds caressed his ears.
He was standing at the edge of a parking lot to the College Square Mall. At the far end of the lot, a man exited from a brown Civic, and began walking away. The agency made it a firm policy that no technology could be brought back, but the still functional pay phone was all he needed. He knew the number by heart.
Ring. “Office Bradley Longram speaking.”
“Officer, you need to get to S lot of the College Square Mall. There is a baby locked in an abandoned Honda Civic. He needs your help. Come now!”
“Who is this?”
Bradley hung up.
It took ten minutes for Officer Longram to arrive. He had the car door open, and the infant squalling in his arms within thirty seconds. The sirens of the emergency vehicles swelled, music to his ears. Now, everything would be different.
***
Air raid sirens roared, but Bradley Longram couldn’t care less. If a bomb hit him, all the better. The Dear Leader’s glorious war had cost him everything already. The text message was clear on that front. His last son, Jonathan, was dead. An enemy sniper. Somewhere out east.
He already gave so much for Elim Gonzalez. The Dear Leader had offered the man who had saved his life from the father who abandoned him in a hot car all those years ago a mansion, with a bunker. He turned it down. He could never say it outloud, but ever since Elim had taken power and began his great movement, Bradley wasn’t comfortable with their relationship.
That seemed like a small thing when the bomb that flattened his home came, killing his wife, two daughters and his two youngest sons. His last son enlisted immediately, to revenge himself on the far off forces that destroyed his family. And now Bradley’s failure was complete.
Was he being punished? Almost certainly. He extracted young Elim from the car, but after that he did not guide him, father him, nor mold him. They never found his father, and his mother, well the drugs never were far from her.
When the stories of the camps filtered into his hovel, he decided to act. Contacting the Resistance gave him chills, but what did it matter if they killed him? He was already dead.
A hooded man knocked on his door, a backpack bulging handing from both shoulders, coming in when Bradley opened the door. “So, you are the hero who saved him? How do you like what you did now,” he sneered.
“If you are going to kill me, kill me. My family is dead, because of him. How do you think I feel?”
“Man, I didn’t know. I was just told to come here, and bring my equipment. You might be able to stop all of this from what I heard.”
“I don’t know. I am willing to try. He took everything from me.”
The man nodded. He set down his bag, and pulled a wired device that looked like a hippy bathroom scale out. He also pulled out a pistol with silencer and handed it to Bradley. “Now, because apparently you have a node that touches the Dear Leader, we can send you back to a time where he isn’t so damn hard to kill. And no, don’t ask me how it works. It just does.”
Bradley nodded. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Just give me a moment.” There was a loud pounding on the door. “SHIT!”
“This is the police. You have a fugitive in there. You have ten seconds to surrender or lethal force will be brought to bear.”
The man looked panicked. “Get on dude! Go back, I’ll get you there.”
Bradley stepped on, and heard wood splintering as projectiles punched through the plywood. He closed his eyes, and birdsong filled his ears. He was standing in the parking lot of the College Square Mall. He knelt down behind a lamp post, and waited.
The morning dragged, and he became parched. He didn’t have any money, but that didn’t matter. He would get the job done. And then, he spotted the Honda Civic, pulling into the parking lot. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar looking man standing near the pay phones.
He lost his nerve shooting a child. Bradley remembered thinking young Elim and Jonathan looked exactly alike. They could be cousins. He saw his son’s face in his mind’s eye. He couldn’t kill him.
The man walked to the phones, and picked up the receiver. Bradley remembered the phone call. He knew then what he could do.
***
The floor stank of vomit and blood. Bradley Longram lay curled up, covered in his own ejecta. Every part of his body hurt. But that was normal.
Each morning, when the fog from drinking lifted momentarily, he replayed that fateful morning in his head. The dead child, screaming from the grave at him. From that he had nightmares every night. But it was the dead man found in the bushes that broke him. On some level, he knew it was him, just older.
The department laughed at him. His bitch wife took their son and never spoke to him. Therapists, doctors, and psychics all said he was crazy. The CFPD just filed it under a john doe, and the file went to the basement. After the captain told him for the third time to forget about it, it was his badge or his obsession.
He dove into the bottle. And stayed there.
But sunlight glimmered through the brown haze. An idea formed over the years, after hearing about Timely Expeditions. He could never afford it, but he could afford a gun. He would go back, and he would know the truth. He had to.
The two security guards lay bleeding out on the carpet in the waiting room. Same for the receptionist, a fat woman with a scarred lip and two snooty men who called him smelly when he thrust the pistol into their faces. The bespectacled technician knelt in front of him, sniveling. “Please, please don’t kill me.”
“I ain’t gonna kill you, but you got to send me back.”
“You can’t go back with that. You got no pass, you got a gun. You can’t go back with a gun.”
“I’m taking the gun. Now, send me back.”
“Back to when?”
“The car, and the dead guy. Send me back!”
“I don’t know when that is. You haven’t even been scanned.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Do it, or I’m gonna kill you.”
“Oh no, please, I will do anything, don’t kill me.”
“Start working, smart guy.”
The tech crawled back to his computer, and Bradley sat on the platform, keeping the gun leveled at the tech. “I’m seeing two nodes, do you know which one?”
“No, just send me back to the car. It was twenty years ago, man.”
“Okay, I got one right at the twenty year mark, and then one a year and a half earlier. You want the twenty?”
“JUST DO IT!”
Sirens started to grow louder, and then Bradley yawned, closing his eyes. An oriole warbled, and he felt a breeze caress his face. Was he there?
He opened his eyes, and spotted the College Square Mall across the street. Bradley’s worn out heart leap up, he would finally know! He stepped off the curb, and immediately a crunch and shooting pain radiated from his leg, then his head, and then his shoulder as he flipped over a brown piece of shit car.
A child wailed in the back seat of the vehicle, and he felt his mangled body leaking onto the warming concrete. “No, no, I gotta know.” He tried to move his arms to push himself up, but nothing happened. A car door opened, and a face appeared above his. “Really?”
***
The gate opened, and Bradley Longram walked out of Anamosa State Penitentiary. Finally a free man. He was ready to make things right.
In his heart, he didn’t blame Elim. The boy’s father spent years in prison, starting with the vehicular homicide with Elim in the car as an infant. He grew up in a house riddled with drugs and abuse. He forgave Elim, after the youth and his gang broke into Bradley’s home, intent on robbery, but killing his wife, two sons, and leaving Bradley for dead.
Rage consumed him and in his own failing, he used his resources to find and enact vengeance on that poor boy. Elim went to the ground, and Bradley to the pen. And now Bradley, with love in his heart, saw it clearly. His penance would be to save Elim from the life given to him. He needed a real father.
All those lives destroyed by someone else's choices, well it now was in Bradley’s power to fix it. He spent five additional years inside for the chance to do it. He told himself that the blood would vanish along with the additional pain with success. The jumper would meet him at the halfway house, ready to send him back. All it cost him was the lives of two fellow criminals, a small price.
“Okay man, I don’t suppose you know when you are going? These things can only do so much. For some reason, they can only send people to certain dates, and you got two options.”
“What is the date that is furthest back? There is something that I need to do, and I don’t want to miss it.”
“Whatever man, I’m going to send you to that one. Let me tell you, I’m not pulling you back. You probably won’t last long anyway, the cops are usually pretty quick about jumping back.”
“You got my documents?”
“Yes, I don’t understand, but I do. You can’t hide back there.”
“I’m not trying to hide.”
Bradley stood on the pad, and a whirring sound filled his ears. The sound hurt, and he closed his eyes. A jay chirped, and cool air soothed him. A dark house stood before him. The door opened with a strong push, and he walked up the stairs to the second floor, only a squeak of his shoes on the floor boards making note of his passage.
An occupied bed lay before him, a single body snoring away. Bradley knelt before him, and placed his hand on his shoulder. A quick shake, and the man was awake. “You Bernard Gonzalez?”
The man shook his head, and coughed. “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in my house? I’m Bernard Gonzalez!” He voice rose with each question.
“I’m sorry about this, but its for the best.” The knife he pulled from his back holster caught a bit of moonlight before he plunged it into Bernard’s throat. The clock read 3:34 am.
***
Elim was screaming, but Bradley kept his eyes on the road. He was going to meet the head of mall security for a new job, one that would keep Lena, his new wife, and his new adopted son well provided for. She had been most receptive to Bradley’s offer, since the erstwhile father of her child had vanished not long after Elim was born.
A sudden flash, and Bradley swerved away from the curb, a wild and crazy drunk man somehow coming out of nowhere, waving a pistol. The Civics's brakes squealed, but Bradley managed to not hit anyone. He turned into the parking lot, and parked near the bushes at the front.
He turned back to look at Elim, nestled comfortably in his car seat. He then looked up. That crazy man was running across the parking lot towards them. He stood up, and waved his hands in air, to get him to follow him. He started walking quickly away from the car, hoping that the man would follow him. He could hurt Elim, and Bradley wouldn’t let that happen. He could lose him and double back. He would have to.
***
Officer Bradley Longram straightened his tie and radio as he drank his morning coffee. “I think its going to be a great day, Laura. I can feel it!”
His lovely wife, blonde curls framing her sweet cherubic face, kissed him and then wiped away the lipstick. “You are my brave policeman. Go do good today!”
Why do Navy aviators have such a reputation with their landings compared to USAF pilots, and is there any truth to it?
Because naive, smug know-it-alls don’t realize how big an insult it is to assume that once a pilot learns to fly an airplane one way, that they’ll fly everything else the same.
I got pretty good at this.
But 30+ years later, I’m even better at this.
Let me make this clear: A professional pilot flies the plane they’re in, the way it’s meant to be flown! Be it a Boeing, Airbus, Grumman, MiG or whatever!
There are times when being gentle is at the bottom of your concerns. Short, slippery runways, or strong crosswinds make it more important to get the plane down now, than to float and grease it on. If I plunk it on, it’s not because I’m having F-14 flashbacks, but it’s because conditions dictate that this is the safest thing to do. An Air Force C-5 veteran, or a commuter E-145 pilot would do the same thing.
If there’s any difference at all, it’s in the level of precision that the pilot demands of his/herself, even when it’s not strictly necessary. I’ll always land right on centerline, because I was bringing up to know that’s really important. Would it hurt anything if I landed a little to the right? Only my pride. Am I going to fly the approach right on speed, even though I have a 12,000 foot runway? Yes, because every flight is an opportunity to sharpen my skills. Even though I only have a few years before mandatory retirement.
So please, please don’t insult your pilots by saying “You must be a Navy pilot, hur, hur,hur,” if you experience any firm landing. I want to make it comfortable for me, too.
What is one surprisingly common daily experience for you living in China?
Safe.
My 12-year-old daughter can go out to buy food at 3 a.m.
My 14-year-old daughter can travel across China by high-speed rail without parental supervision.
As a father, I worry, but only about traffic accidents.
There is no other country in the world as safe as China, especially with such a massive population of 1.4 billion.
Sometimes, it’s better for us to truly understand each other.
I’ve seen some Western YouTubers post videos about how safe it is to walk outside anywhere in China, even in the middle of the night, or how they can leave high-value items like laptops in libraries, cafes, or parks and return hours later to find them still there...
But please, don’t leave them in libraries. Thank you. Leaving a laptop in a library is like marking the seat as taken, which actually wastes public resources.
China is so safe that most people here are essentially like babies!
It worries me.
Is China Really a "Communist Country"? "What I Saw Shocked Me"
What is the dirtiest thing you did in public?
I was 18 and dating a beautiful HS sweetheart. She was sexy and teased me with short skirts with no panties on when we dated. I had a rock hard on most of the time I was with her. She stroked me off and I gave her many oral orgasms - but we never FUCKED. One day, her mother called me at my part-time job and asked to meet her at a restaurant- she wanted to talk to me secretly about me and her daughter, and our future plans. We met and had a casual conversation. When it was time to leave, she wanted to talk more, but privately. She said she had rented a room at a local hotel. A quick stop, and she picked up a bottle of wine before the hotel. We went to her room and started talking about plans I have for her daughter. Later, as I was feeling the intoxication now from the wine. She slipped into the bathroom and, in a few minutes, came out in a see-through negligee. She was one hot momma. My dick got rock hard, and I almost tore my clothes off. There were no conversations of remorse or age separations; she just wanted to FUCK as I did. We did the entire night, if we couldn’t fuck then we sucked on each other until we could. Over time, 6 months, her mother and I continued our sexual relationship and rendezvous often. The night I told both, I had been drafted into the Marines and was leaving for Boot Camp 2 days later. We all spent the next two days banging each other in the same bed. This wasn’t the dirtiest thing in public, but I had to share.
Pictures
Fresh Herb and Tomato Salad
(Sabzi Khordan — Iran)
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
- 3 large tomatoes, sliced
- 1/3 cup flat-leaf parsley
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
- 2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves
- 2 scallions (with tops), sliced
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
- Plain yogurt
Instructions
- Arrange tomatoes on serving platter.
- Mix remaining ingredients except cheese and yogurt; sprinkle over tomatoes.
- Sprinkle cheese over herbs.
- Serve with yogurt.
Time Wars
Written in response to: "Center your story around someone who has (or is given) the ability to time travel."
Jack Kimball
****
Emily grew up skipping time. Everyone with the gene could do it. She used her power for the little things—jumping past the wait at train stations, fast-forwarding through boring afternoons, or once, when she was in a car accident, skipping straight to the wail of sirens, pain erased by the promise of morphine.
But now it was different, she knew, while winding the grandfather clock in the foyer of her home, smiling to herself at the irony. She had an incurable disease that only the future could fix, and she was running out of time. The future advancements in medicine called to her, but only she had the gene to jump ahead in time to where a cure might be. Her husband, Isaak, and their five-year-old son didn’t have the gene, and would have to stay behind.
She moved the hands on the clock to the proper time. With each day that passed, she heard the ticking both faster and louder, counting down.
Isaak rounded the corner of the hall and saw his wife adjusting the clock. “You don’t have a choice. Jump, and maybe when you get there, they’ll have a cure. But time’s a thief, Em. We try to outrun it, skip ahead, but in the end, it takes what it wants.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Later, Emily wrapped her arms around her son—small, warm, and trembling slightly—and breathed him in. “And what about Jack?” she asked her husband, perched in his reading chair.
Isaak looked up with his eyes glistening. “We’ll be older. You’ll miss some time with us, and us with you, but you’ll get the chance for a long life, and we’ll get the chance to spend it with you. What else can we do?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack peeked from under his mother’s arms. “Where are you going?” He swiped his hair and stared at her, his eyes wide and scared.
Isaak lowered his voice. “Em, think about it. The doctors are giving you six months.”
“I’ll be giving up six months with you both.”
“Six months of dying?” Isaak tried to smile, but his face twisted into a grimace, reflecting pain in broken shards. “At least I’ll be the older man when you see me again.” His laughter caught in his throat.
They decided on ten years, long enough forward to predict a cure, but short enough that when Isaak and Jack arrived, they would only have aged ten years. For Emily, it would be the same day, and no wait at all.
The day of the jump, the family had a party. The parents explained to Jack that his mother was going away, but he’d see her again. They didn’t mention the length of the ‘going away’. Can a five-year-old understand the value of time? The following morning, Isaak and Emily went to the center of town and found a place that likely wouldn’t change in ten years—a courtyard with a fountain spraying water and in the center a Greek statue of an old man with wings. Emily picked the spot she’d jump from, at the feet of Chronos, holding the hourglass of time.
“Don’t you move in the next ten years to where I can’t find you,” Emily said to Isaak. The day was blue and fresh.
Her husband laughed. “What if I get an offer in five years to move to the West Coast?”
“You better—”
Isaak reached out and grabbed Emily, held her tight, and kissed her. Now, she thought. Now. Or I won’t be able to do it.
Her image shimmered, and she faded from her husband’s arms.
****
Maybe we should have seen it coming—the ability to jump ahead in time. At first, we needed a capsule that helped us move fast enough to skip forward. Then Dr. Forsythe figured out how to splice the trick into our DNA. Suddenly, anyone with the right gene could jump: five minutes, a hundred years, it didn’t matter. The only rule? No one could ever go back.
****
Emily staggered, her heart pounding, as an armored vehicle roared past. Soldiers swarmed the square. The air—so blue and clean before—was now thick and gray, stinging her nose with the reek of cordite.
A man in fatigues pointed Emily out to other men. “A jumper,” he said.
The men handcuffed her and threw her into the back of a transport vehicle. Soon they locked her away with other women in a fenced-in compound. Emily recognized her son’s elementary school, but there was no laughter echoing through the empty schoolyard. No children’s voices. No happy footsteps. Only weeds choked courtyards now abandoned laden with the smell of pending death.
A haggard woman with stringy hair blocked Emily’s path. She eyed her jeans and pink blouse. “New arrival? When did you jump from?” the woman rasped. Her eyes were a deep pink where the whites should be, and Emily saw a faint, unnatural movement, something slivering, deep within them.
“I guess I am a new arrival,” Emily said, her skin crawling under the woman’s stare. There had to be over a hundred women in the compound.
“How long?” the old woman asked.
“Ten years. At least I hope it was ten years.”
“Easy to figure. When did you jump?”
“I jumped from 2040.”
“You’ve landed right on target. It’s March 2050.”
Ten years. Her pulse quickened. All Emily could think about was finding her family. She knew Isaak couldn’t be far. But if they took her, could they also have taken Isaak and Jack somewhere? What had their lives been like over the last ten years without her? She looked at the woman, her lined red eyes pulsing faintly. Emily looked away, and a shiver went up her spine.
A red-haired woman stepped from behind. “Take her boots, Kali!”
They pinned Emily down, her hiking boots soon stripped. Once the two women moved off, Emily lay in the dirt, staring at her bare feet, ignored by the other passing women in the compound.
A week later, a bald officer with a penciled mustache peered at Emily from across his desk. She felt his eyes undress her, and then his Boston accent growled into thick air.
He snickered. “It’s a funny thing, this jumping, don’t you think? The game is jumping or being jumped, and they say the army is losing. Not losing by battlefield deaths, mind you, da’ling, but to our men skipping ahead in time. We’re losing our own to a future sucking them forward, damn right we are.
“But here’s the deal, pretty thing. You desert, or jump, well… we’ll send a tracer. A jumper leaves tracks. But you’re a lucky one, not jumping to the war front. You’ll be helping with the arrivals.” Now he spoke louder so that those around them could hear. “We all need to pitch in for the war effort.”
Lucky one? Would she ever find her family? Isaak and Jack had already waited ten years after she jumped. Imprisoned not by bars, but choice, even if she jumped, she would be further away in time, and then the tracers would find her. She returned to the compound, resigned.
“You’ll die, girl, with that attitude,” Kali said. They were standing in line for the after-work meal. Kali heaped as much slop on her plate as she could. Then motioned for Emily to take more.
“Then I’ll die. What’s it to you?”
“I’m an observer of the human condition, is what I am, Emily. In this case, yours.”
Emily laughed. “What do your observations tell you?”
“You laugh, but I wasn’t always a slave, mistress. The odds are running you’ll fold like what we call a suburbanite, a waste of air.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Don’t look at me like that. My bets on you, not against you.”
“Good to know.” Emily moved away.
Kali called out to her back. “Em! You need to get your damn boots back, is what you need to do!”
Emily crouched with her food for a long time, but didn't eat.
A week later, Kali joined her in line and smiled. Emily was beat up, bruises on her face, her arm angled in a handmade sling. But she was wearing her boots.
Two years later, a line of jumpers queued up in front of Emily’s desk. The latest refugee jumper was in front of her. His clothes hung on his thin frame, and his eyes were red, like so many arriving. “What year did you jump?” Emily asked.
The man stirred as if waking from a dream. He shook his head at her question. “Last year. 2051. The year before. I don’t know. I’ve jumped a lot, ma’am.”
Emily barely looked him over. He was like thousands of others. Can he jump for the military? Or does he have the eyes of an addict, and jumped too many times to gain five minutes of convenience, a day to save time, or to move ahead to hoped-for better times? With each jump, how much of his mind had gone, carrying the burden? His deep red eyes and blank look gave Emily her answer.
The man stepped forward and leaned onto her desk. “I see that look, mum, and you’re right. I was sent up with the 51st in ’44—we jumped out quick as we could. Fire behind us, burning through our lines. My brother Billie died black in my arms, skin still crackling. I jumped again, and next thing I knew, a jumper was behind me, slashing away. We kept jumping, seconds at a time, trying for an edge, you know? But the eyes, Mum—redder every time, our minds peeled away like bloody hides. Now I’m near red-eyed and nothings left. But I’m not as red as some. Please don’t send me to the red-eyed quadrant. I’m begging you, ma’am.”
Emily shuddered. His eyes stared back like organic red stars, no longer his but lost from jumping time. She looked away. He needed to be processed, but there was nothing she could do. A chill rose on her back. “We’re looking for clean jumpers.”
Other red-eyes guided the man to another line.
“I’ve never jumped,” the next man said.
At first, Emily didn’t look up. He was one more person in line to be processed.
“Still like older men?”
Emily’s heart skipped. She’d never forget the sound of her husband’s voice. She sprang to her feet, her chair tipping over behind her. This man was gray at the temples, and lines creased his eyes, but it was Isaak!
He cautioned her with both hands. “Not now,” he said. “I’ll meet you where we last saw each other. Tonight.”
Later, Emily stood at the fountain in the town square. The water was dry and the winged statue was gone, but it seemed like yesterday she had faded from Isaak’s arms, nearly fifteen years ago. Would he really meet her? Was the man she talked to in line a dream? And what happened to Jack?
****
Of course, there were problems. In the early days, people disappeared when they jumped, only to reappear naked in the future. People skipped into death, embedded in walls within a building that hadn’t existed. The proximity monitor solved this, which enabled people to bring artifacts along: clothing, tools, military apparatus. Both armies chased the future until what they were fighting for was forgotten, and long ago in the past.
****
She heard Isaak behind her at the fountain. “I told you. Older men have their charm, Em.”
Emily spun and threw her arms around her husband. She held on until her breath came back, until she was sure he was real.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have been here. I tried.” He pointed to a row of buildings in the distance. “See those? Labor camps if you can’t jump. Those were home for me and Jack. We were locked in those places when I should have met you. Isaak then motioned to the groups of homeless strewn along the streets. “Those are jump addicts, the red-eyed; their minds are nearly gone. They’re no good to the army, and they fend for themselves in refugee camps, living on streets, feeding in dumps.”
“And I’m part of the machine,” Emily said.
Isaak shoved a pack at her. “Not anymore. You’re coming with me.”
Emily picked up the pack. The same old Isaak. Never explaining, just assuming. But I’d go anywhere, I love him so. “So where are you taking me, old man?”
“To the mountains. You’re now a resistance fighter.”
“And Jack? Will we see Jack? He’s a young man, isn’t he? How does he look?”
Isaak stopped and turned back. “It’s not good, Em.”
“What? Tell me. Is Jack ok? Is he still alive?” Emily felt a horrible panic rise in her stomach. If something had happened to Jack…
“He’s alive. That’s not it.”
“What? The truth.”
Isaak’s blue eyes glistened once again, and Emily remembered the last time she’d seen her husband that upset.
“He’s who we’re fighting against, Em. He’s with the State.”
****
If you think about it, when you jump the world moves forward in time, but you stay put. The world around you is doing the changing. They could never figure out why a jumper didn’t just freeze, why they disappeared. But they did, disappear I mean. Then pop back alive sometime later in the exact same spot, a day, a decade, or one-hundred centuries later. Who knows.
****
“They’ve turned us down,” Isaak said, now the fifty-year-old resistance leader. “The negotiating team doesn’t want an armistice. The meat grinder into the future goes on.”
Ambassador Harrington sipped her wine. As she aged, she found she enjoyed the simpler things: wine in the afternoon, a sunset, a quiet moment with her husband where they weren’t having to strategize a campaign. The simpler things, she thought to herself. But enjoyed was the wrong word. ‘Cherished’ was closer. Even the pain in her leg seemed right. To live with it.
“Why would they trust us?” Emily said. “Neither can trust the other. But there’s a solution, and you know what it is.”
Isaak stared at Emily. “The Assembly will never go along.”
Emily’s voice was flat. “The virus stops the jumping, but it kills the host.”
“Which means it could kill you.”
Emily touched Isaak’s cheek. “Or not. I’ve lived longer than most said I would already. But don’t we all live with so little time? Maybe our time is over.”
“Millions will die, Em. They’ll be carnage once it begins, riots, looting. You know people will jump in panic, but the infection will follow them into whatever time they jump to. Imagine the panic as the virus infects jumpers who are generations, hundreds,, thousands of years ahead.”
A guard knocked. “The general will see you now.”
The general, Emily repeated in her head. My son. “Show him in.”
Jack entered. He stood in front of his parents and swiped hair from his eyes.
Emily broke, her face crumpled. She rose and strode to him, her arms outstretched. He turned away, and she stopped. A cold ache rose in her chest.
Jack spoke only to Isaak, his father. “I came because I think we are more on the same side than not. Only for that. The past is the past. I want to stop the jumping, and I think you do as well. It’s only ‘how’ we can’t agree on.”
“Jack, I lost you also,” Emily said.
He turned on her, his face a scarlet red. “Lost me? Can you imagine? A five-year-old?”
“I’m sorry.”
Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry also, but it’s not about us anymore.” He turned to Isaac. “We don’t need a virus. We need a surrender, and then we’ll figure it out.”
Isaac sat back down. “I can’t advise that, son. We’ve gone too far already.”
“Then the war continues,” Jack said.
Emily touched his forearm, and he yanked it away
“I just can’t. It’s too late.”
He left without a word.
Emily stared at the door he’d exited, set her wine down, rose from her seat, and slowly entered another door. The Grand Hall of the United Nations Building opened up. Thousands crowded the layers of stadium seats. When they saw her enter, many cheered, more booed.
Isaac looked on from the side. He laughed, and Emily traced his eyes to her boots.
Her hand found the vial in her pocket. Her secret, her choice. She could stop the madness of jumping, but when?
She went to the podium. Now the hall was a crescendo of people screaming at one another. A fight broke out in the upper chamber, and masses of people turned to stare and jeer. Security stormed in from the rear doors and rushed the crowd.
Emily held out the vial and raised it high above her head as if offering it to the crowd.
A hush. Thousands of people, as one, frozen, fixated.
“Murderer!” screamed a man from the silence.
She unscrewed the cap.
“Emily. Don’t!” Isaak yelled.
Jack rushed from the audience towards the stage.
She held the vial higher with both of her hands, shimmered, and faded from sight.
The American Economy is Crashing and Everyone Knows It
The American economy is crashing, and everyone sees it happening in real time. Families across America are struggling under the weight of inflation, the cost of living crisis, skyrocketing rent, and rising food costs.
Wages can’t keep up, debt is exploding, and millions are realizing the so-called “strong economy” was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
From mass layoffs to hiring freezes, from maxed-out credit cards to mortgage defaults, the cracks in America’s financial system are impossible to ignore. Ordinary Americans are watching their savings disappear, their bills skyrocket, and their ability to simply survive collapse before their eyes. This isn’t just another downturn—it’s the unraveling of the American dream.
In this video, we’ll dive into why the economy is collapsing, why Americans everywhere are waking up to the truth, and how you can prepare for what’s coming next.
Russia always had great engineering, but why don’t they have any popular car brands?
You mean the Soviet Union?
Their auto industry started during the Tsarist times but was given a boost by Ford in the Soviet era, still the development was slow. The thing about them is that they’ve been more heavily focused on their military industry. Their factories prioritized military jeeps and trucks for the expected World War 3.
When it came to civilian cars, they generally just “followed the trends”. Their most (in)famous car, the Lada, was a version of a license-built Fiat. You won’t stand out internationally by doing so.
And it’s the same story all across the Communist bloc. East Germany had their Trabant (the butt of endless jokes). Yugoslavia (not part of the Warsaw Pact but was also communist) had their Yugo. Even China had simply been copying other cars until fairly recently.
Perhaps it really had to do with their Command Economy system and how the state had a heavy hand in deciding who built what. “Western” (by that I also include Japanese and South Korean) manufacturers don’t have to answer to their government about what kind of new cars they were building. Japan went from “haha cheap copy of Western goods” to having numerous world-class brands that everyone loves in a few decades after World War 2 because they are allowed to innovate.
As for modern Russia? They’re still in the shadows of the USSR. Putin seems intent to make it that way, especially in the past few years. They’re getting eclipsed by China, who seems to be going the Japanese route (more or less).
Cheating Ex Wife CAUGHT at Motel 6
Why is a stable Argentina useful for US businesses?
China is now the leading trading partner for the major South American countries except Argentina and Columbia. And Argentina is one of the very few that the U.S. has a surplus trade with.
Argentina is reliant on U.S. support to substain its industries. But Argentina is also the U.S. main competitor for our farm products. Most new orders from China for Argentina come at the expense of U.S. farmers. So no technically. a stable Argentina is not exactly good news for U.S. Ag.
trump has just allocated a big chunk of his emergency fund - $20 out of $50 billion to bail out Argentina but Milei sank everything to support his sinking pesos. But unless there are industrial policies working to backstop a stable currency, buying pesos sinking in a big black hole is throwing good money for bad. It will not make Argentina more politically or economically more stable.
On the other hand, China’s using its Yuan in a swap arrangement to pay off Argentina’s debt and in return is paid with Argentina’s export of farm products. In this way, trump’s grip on Milei is slipping fast. From declaring he’s America and Israel’s best friend Milei is leaning more and more for China’s lifeline of ag order to stay afloat.
Fava Bean Rounds
(Falafel — Egypt)
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup dried white fava or garbanzo beans (chickpeas)*
- 1 egg
- 1 small red onion, minced
- 3 tablespoons minced parsley
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- Dash of ground red pepper
- Vegetable oil
Instructions
- Heat water and beans to boiling in 2 quart saucepan; boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat; cover and let stand for 1 hour.
- Add enough water to cover beans if necessary. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Drain, reserving liquid.
- Mash beans with fork; add 2 to 3 tablespoons reserved liquid if necessary.
- Stir in remaining ingredients except oil; mixture should be thick. Cover and let stand 1 hour.
- Pinch off 1 inch pieces; shape into rounds and flatten. Let stand for 30 minutes.
- Heat 2 inches of oil in a 3 quart saucepan to 375 degrees F.
- Fry 4 or 5 rounds at a time in hot oil, turning once, until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes; drain on paper towels.
Notes
* 2 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained (with liquid reserved), can be substituted. Mash beans with fork and continue as directed.
What is your worst "Karen" story?
Not really a ‘worst’ story, just a Karen thing…
Hasn’t happened for a few years now, but at the height of the feminist ‘craze’ a few years ago a couple of women got quite quite stroppy with me for holding a door open for them - ‘I’m quite capable of opening doors myself I don’t need a man to patronise me’. Yes, I was told that.
In fact - it’s called curtesy and I still open doors for women. And men. But some people (in this case so called ‘feminists’) were just plain rude. They don’t sem to realise that being rude and offensive just makes them look like - well, rude people - and damages the reputation of the particular thing they are supposedly standing for.
For the record, yes, I do believe in women’s rights and that discrimination based on gender is wrong.