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True confidence doesn't need a costume; pride makes for very poor armor
Well, I have been playing around with my Sir Whiskerton stories. I have generated some EPUB3, and xHTML5 texts, and even ESL whiteboard presentations.
All in good fun.
But a hell of a lot of work.
I've been caught up on other projects, but I do plan on doing "something" with Sir Whiskerton. What, I'm not so sure.
But, when something happens, I'll tell you.
Anyways, here's some images from my ESL collections. I hope that you find them interesting...
Today...
AI Took Over the Drive-Thru — Customers Immediately Lost It
What's wrong with the Greyhound bus? What can be done with the greyhound bus to make it better?
I went to drop a friend off in Longview, TX (East TX) one (rainy) evening. The terminal was closed, and there was no place to sit outside of the rain except to huddle in the locked doorway of the station. So, I pulled into the parking area to let my friend wait in the car for the bus.
They say be there 15 mins early. We were 25 mins early. The tracking on the bus wasn’t updating on the app/web. At 17 minutes early the bus pulled in. Which would have been great, EXCEPT:
The bus pulled up, stopped, and by the time I heard the air release from the brakes and looked up, it was already rolling again, leaving my friend behind. (it was stopped for less than 30 seconds, probably less than 10)
The next stop was about 20 miles away, so I hot-footed it there and pulled into the trucker stop that they use as a pickup station. The bus suddenly started updating on the schedule, but it made no sense (said it was still in the station it we had watched it leave, then showed 6 minutes to make the 20 miles to where we were)
The bus didn’t even pull off the freeway at the place where we were waiting. Just cruised right by. I talked to the guy at the gas station and he says that happens all the time, and he ends up with people stuck in his little store overnight on a regular basis.
If you are fit enough to do it, you might be better off walking.
ALSO: PROTIP:
If you are dropping off a friend at a greyhound station and are letting them wait in your car, figure out where the bus pulls through and park your car in their way, or your friend is likely to get left behind.
"Rabbit & Turtle" Dance Trend in China – Viral Kids Performance
Can you name some of the most miraculous events in aviation history?
The most cool-headed address to passengers on a plane in distress.
This was said by Eric Moody, the captain of a Boeing 747 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Perth on June 24, 1982. All four engines had stalled due to the ash from a volcano that had suddenly erupted.
Eric Moody turned on the loudspeaker:
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines on our plane have stalled. We are doing our best to restart them. I hope this is not causing you too much concern."
British Airways Flight 9 was a long-haul service from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand, with scheduled stops in Bombay (now Mumbai), Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne. The flight that night was routine—at first.
The aircraft, with registration G-BDXH, departed Kuala Lumpur just before midnight local time. On board were 247 passengers and 16 crew members. Captain Eric Moody was in command, accompanied by First Officer Roger Greaves and Senior Engineer Officer Barry Townley-Freeman.
A strange sight at 37,000 feet
Cruising at 37,000 feet over the Indian Ocean south of Java, the crew noticed an unusual visual phenomenon. The windscreen appeared to be lit by a strange, white, starlike glow. Soon after, passengers observed flashes outside the windows, resembling fireworks.
The engines were eventually restarted. But while the plane was flying through a cloud of volcanic ash, its livery had been erased, and the windshield had become opaque. It was impossible to land using the instruments; they had failed.
Despite this, the plane was able to land by looking through narrow slits in the windshield. None of the 263 people on board were injured.
Rude and Stupid
What’s one technology that promised to change everything but quietly disappeared?
I traveled through Siberia in the 00s multiple times. There were a LOT of mosquitoes I mean A LOT. You’d see clouds of them.
Similarly:
I lived in Hong Kong in 2009. There were quite a lot of mosquitoes.
I also lived there in 2019–2020. I lived in a more urban area (Tai Wai) where there were less mosquitoes.
I now live in Spain where there are mosquitoes.
I’ve been waiting for this for YEARS. Anti Mosquito laser.
It was announced sometime in the mid 00s, then again in 2010. It then completely vanished and some prototypes in China have been made.
I’ve been waiting for this longer than Duke Nuke’em Forever. It would make sitting outside at evenings much more pleasant. And when a mosquito gets into my home late at night and I have to spend time hunting it and killing it? That would be such a nice thing.
That would also resolve enormous mosquito borne malaria cases in the developing world.
AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet
Truth. Preach!
Muhammara (Hot Pepper Dip)
Muhammara is eaten as a dip with bread. It can also be used as a spicy dip with kebabs, grilled meats and fish. The Lebanese also eat it as a spread on toast.
Ingredients
- 3 medium onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3/4 cup crushed walnuts
- 3/4 cup bread crumbs blended with cold water to a puree
- 2 tablespoons paprika (or 1 teaspoon chili powder for a very hot muhammar) or 1 small can hot pepper puree
- Pinch of ground cumin
- Salt
- 1 tablespoon pine nuts sautéed in a little oil
Instructions
- Using a deep skillet, sauté the onions gently in the oil until soft and golden.
- Add the walnuts, the bread crumb purée, the pepper (chili or purée), the cumin and salt to taste. Continue to sauté gently on a low heat until the ingredients are well blended - about 12 minutes.
- Remove from the heat, place in a bowl and garnish with pine nuts.
Attribution
Cooking the Middle Eastern Way by Christine Osborne
These women are terrible
What are some mind-blowing technologies that exist that most people don't know about?
Once upon a time…
Somebody figured out how to make a material that is 200 times stronger than the strongest steel, transmits heat into electricity, and is extremely lightweight. Its discovery resulted in the Nobel Prize for Physics being given “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.”
Graphene is classified as two-dimensional: it is one atom thick (not pure two-dimensional but as close as we can come) and this form creates several fascinating properties.
So why hasn’t this material exploded? It’s so useful, it could make phones last a week, charge in seconds, and could provide unbelievable body armor.
Well, unfortunately, producing it large scale is super hard. Peeling down graphite on a nanoscale to one atom thick is incredibly hard since just interacting with atoms at that level is nearly impossible. Being unable to stack it quickly, atom by atom, is still the only reason why graphene hasn’t radically altered our lives. Further, we still haven’t been able to use it as a super capacitor. If we are able to do so, everything will change extremely quickly and this could become a massive technological leap.
Eventually, someone is going to discover how to create graphene quickly… and when they do, I’d recommend investing. It isn’t every day that a trillion dollar market is created.
Cassiopeia
Written in response to: "Write a story in which a character navigates using the stars."
Elise G
Fiction Coming of Age Contemporary
I want to turn or run away, but now if I turn around and run to the fields, I’m scared that the red headed clown will jump off its sign and start reciting Baudelaire. The fish keeps its eye intently fixed on the stars, its mouth moving ever so slightly, and my eyes narrow, looking upwards with it, tracing the few constellations scattered amongst the clouds. Then its eye slides downwards and its whole-body twitches, jumping towards the fields.
East. The stars point to the seas.
It tries to hop a bit, helplessly flopping in the grass. I watch the fish jump for a bit, its eye trained towards the horizon, thrashing against the dirt and grass.
“There’s no sea there. It’s just fields. Look.”
Feeling sorry for the thing, I pick it up, beyond caring about the smell on my hands that will by now never wash out. Its body is strangely cold in my hands, despite it having been on display all day in the sweltering heat, and its scales feel slick with saltwater. The fish says nothing, its eye taking in the endless rows of corn and wheat that wave gently with the night breeze. I can almost see it squinting the way a person would, trying to gaze past what is possible to see with the eye, hoping for more. The fish grows heavy in my hands, so I set it down, hunching down beside it, waiting for that deep, melancholic voice that fills the emptiness around us.
“Hey. Sorry. Maybe there is something. I’ve never been that far. I just guessed. I don’t really know where the sea is. The stars don’t talk to me like that.”
The stars speak to all those who listen.
The sea opens its embrace for all those who take the plunge.
The fish trails off, its voice growing weary. It looks at me with that large eye, and I wince a little, looking away.
They are calling.
Its eye blinks, closing shut, and it begins to flop away, inching towards the endless fields bit by bit. By now, its scales are dulled with dirt, and its fin must have torn at some point, but it inches forward, its body slapping against the hard ground with every push forward.
“You won’t make it. You’re a fish I stole from an icebox. I don’t think you’ve ever even seen the sea, beyond those painted aquarium walls they plaster in bright blue to make you feel a little more at home.”
The fish doesn’t speak. It trudges forward endlessly, flopping back and forth in the night, covered in mud and grass, its eye fixed towards the stars. A lump in my throat, I sit on the cold ground beside my muddy shopping bags, and watch it jump forwards, the sky darkening all the while.
By morning, the fish was dead, its eye pecked out by a crow and carried away in the night. I woke up, my cheek stuck to the plastic bag, hair covered in dust, and walked over to the little fish, its empty socket staring up at the sky. I buried it in the field beside the clown as the sun rose, the stars still faintly visible through the orange clouds. Trudging home on that bright, new, black road, I scrounged around for the keys to my once bright blue door one last time, my shopping bags abandoned to the fields of corn. On the patch of grass on my lawn, a dusty red pickup rumbles to life, and through the window I see a single row of stars still visible in the bright daylight, a crooked W in the sky. The stars bow their heads towards the fields, where the red headed clown waits for me, his ruddy cheeks and red nose smiling as he waves me away, a crow perched on his cardboard shoulder.
FIRST TIME REACTION - Kung Fu Hustle - We Laughed So Hard!
What was Hitler's single greatest miscalculation?
The biggest mistake that Hitler did was to never cease being a revolutionary.
People usually mention that it was the greatest error made by Hitler to invade Russia or trust in his racial destiny. Bad, all right — but there was an underlying cause. He did not realize that it is not the same to win a revolution and win a world war.
Hitler was great at chaos. He was a man who knew how to seize power, but not govern a nation. He was constructed to annihilate and not to govern. He continued to perform like a rebel rather than a leader once he assumed power.
He even dismissed his greatest generals because they did not agree with him. He placed high positions with friends rather than with intelligent individuals. Goring put the air force into pieces and nobody managed to tell Hitler the truth. Skill was not as important as loyalty and it was evident.
He always desired quick, flashy victories, fast wars, fast wins. In cases where things dragged, he did not adapt. He believed that will power could only defeat reality. You cannot outyell winter or outdrink bullets.
Hitler never came out of the revolutionary mindset in the end. He believed that the world would be submissive to his desire. It didn’t. It was through a transgression that he got into power, and it is through transgression that he lost all the things since he never understood how to obey rules.
What are a dog’s weaknesses you can exploit if you're attacked?
I grew up on a farm in the 1970s. Nobody cared about safety. The absolute terror comes when there are two dogs… or three, or five. This technique might give you a chance; it has worked for me.
Always face the dog(s) and stare at them as you slowly back away. While backing away, yell at them like they are your dogs, you own the dogs, you are the alpha. “No! Go Home!”
Point angrily above the dog’s head in the opposite direction from where they came. This will always freeze them for (at least) a critical second or two. If you have an iPhone, yell at Siri to dial 911.
I have held dogs at bay for extended periods using this technique. It confuses them. I have never had it fail to freeze a dog. During this time, you continue to slowly back away and keep commanding the dog(s), “No! Go Home!” Use all your adrenaline to be loud and very angry at the dog for disobeying you, while looking for a weapon, a big stick, a large rock, a mace, anything. Do everything you can to avoid engaging, while hopefully getting another human's attention.
Pictures
What are some interesting things about money that only a few people know about?
Gather round, children, and let me tell you of the secret international mark on all sorts of money. Money probably in your pocket at this very moment.
Reach into your wallet. Pull out a crisp new $20 and look at the back.
Note the decorative "20" repeated in yellow:
When you look at it closely, the pattern and spacing are a little odd. But not too odd.
Now peer at the back of a $5 bill and you'll see this:
That's a little bit weirder, right? 05 instead of just 5? Plus, just like on the 20, the zeros are a little too circular and a little too far from the fives. And there's something geometrically similar in the grouping of the five sets of digits. Hm.
Now look at the back of a Euro note. Here's a close-up of a 20:
Once again, we find 5 circles in a particular layout. But this time there are no digits. And we can find similar patterns on the back of every other Euro note. What the hell is this thing?
It turns out it's the EURion constellation, an anti-counterfeiting measure found on at least 50 different currencies, from the baht to the zloty. The exact details are understandably secret, but apparently some color copiers and scanning programs refuse to work with things bearing this mark.
And now you have something to freak people out with next there's a conversational pause at the bar. But let's keep the truth to ourselves, yes? Tell them it's the Illuminati or the Knights Templar or how Obama's secret black helicopters track their every purchase. That's more fun. Enjoy!
TOP "WHO IS THIS JOHN WICK?" Reactions! JOHN WICK (2014) Movie Reaction First Time Watching
What is the most considerate and meaningful gesture someone has ever extended towards you?
DISCLAIMER: This may not be understood by people not connected to the entertainment industry.
In the late 1960’s, I was, among other things, a young professional vocalist appearing in nightclubs and supper clubs in my hometown of Philadelphia, PA, New Jersey and New York City. At that time, people would dress up, go to a nightclub or supper club, have dinner and, over alcoholic drinks, watch live entertainment. The opening act would perform for 20 to 30 minutes and then the headliner(s) would perform for an hour. The entertainers would do two shows a night, 8 PM and 10 PM. I was an opening act.
If both of the acts were singers, they would meet ahead of time and compare the list of songs they planned to perform and if the opening act and the headliner had both wanted to do the same some, the opening act would change their set list and replace the song with a different song.
I was opening for singer Dean Martin at The 500 Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey, temporarily replacing his regular opening act (comedian/dancer Leonard Barr) who was ill. Dean and I compared set lists and found we had both chosen the same song “The Shadow Of Your Smile”. Since I was the opening act, I immediately started looking for a replacement song, but Dean stopped me and said
“You sing it better than I do, Pally. You do it”.
I know he was lying but…..
His kindness to a young teenage singer that night is still one of my fondest memories.
A common theme in the USA today
Sir Whiskerton and the Matchmaking Genie: A Tale of Tinfoil and Tumbles
Ah, dear reader, you have returned to join me, Sir Whiskerton, for another adventure on our peculiar little farm. Today's tale is one of pride, a pinch of magical mischief, and the importance of knowing when to leave well enough alone. It involves my rather insufferable brother, a groovy genie with a penchant for pranks, and a goose whose glare could curdle fresh milk. So, settle in as I recount the rib-tickling and ultimately humbling tale of Sir Whiskerton and the Matchmaking Genie.
A Tuesday of Tremendous Ego
It began on a Tuesday so ordinary that the only point of interest was Porkchop’s heated debate with a particularly stubborn rock about its mineral rights. The air carried the familiar, comforting scent of sun-warmed hay and distant wildflowers. I was observing the farmer, who was having a spirited conversation with Bartholomew the Piñata about the merits of polka-dot overalls, when the peace was shattered.
“Rejoice, you simple creatures!” a voice boomed from the fence post. “For I, Sir Cattenton, have arrived to bestow upon you the gift of my presence!”
It was my brother. His tail was held so high it practically created its own weather system.
Nearby, Zephyr the Genie floated serenely above his lava lamp, which the farmer had placed on an old barrel after Bessie discovered it in the 垃圾梦幻乐园 (Trash Fantasyland).
“Whoa, heavy energy, man,” Zephyr mused, his psychedelic robes shimmering. “That ego’s gotta be a tripping hazard.”
-
“Ego?” Cattenton scoffed, inspecting his own flawless reflection in a pail of water. “It is not ego if one is, in fact, superior in every measurable way.”
-
“Dude,” Zephyr said, his round glasses glinting. “Challenge accepted.”
With a snap of his fingers that smelled faintly of bubble tea and patchouli, a scroll of parchment materialized in Cattenton’s paw. It was perfumed with the distinct aroma of pond scum.
-
“To the Magnificent Sir Cattenton,” it read in elegant script. “I have watched you from the reeds, captivated. Meet me by the duck pond at noon. Yours, in secret admiration.”
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Cattenton’s chest puffed out. “At last! A being of discernment and taste! It was only a matter of time.”
The Prank Unfolds
Unbeknownst to my brother, the letter was Zephyr’s creation. The intended “admirer” was Gertrude the Goose, who was at that moment leading her gaggle in a synchronized swimming drill and was entirely unaware of the farce about to unfold.
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“This is gonna be more fun than a squirrel in a nut factory,” Zephyr whispered to me, offering a spectral bag of popcorn.
-
I sighed, a gesture I find myself employing often in my brother’s company. “Zephyr, this is a terrible idea.”
-
“The best ones always are, my feline friend!”
At the stroke of noon, Cattenton made his grand entrance. He had fashioned himself a suit of armor from discarded tinfoil—a relic, I noted, from Chef Remy LeRaccon’s failed “Invisible Enchilada” experiment. A twig served as a scepter, and his cape was a napkin that read “Poultry Days ‘09.”
-
“Arise, my hidden beloved!” he declared, striking a pose that he undoubtedly believed was dashing. “Your knight has arrived!”
-
Gertrude waddled into the clearing, stopping dead in her tracks. “What in the name of all that is migratory is this?” she honked, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
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“Your one true love,” Cattenton proclaimed, utterly missing the murderous glint in her eye. “I am here to claim your heart!”
-
Gertrude’s beak fell open. “My what?”
Zephyr, now floating overhead with a magically amplified kazoo, began his commentary. “LADIES AND GENTLEBEASTS, WELCOME TO THE POND OF PASSION! IN THIS CORNER, FELINE ROYALTY! IN THE OTHER, AVIAN AUTHORITY!”
The Duel of Disillusionment
Gertrude, a veteran of the Great Feed Fiasco and not one to suffer fools, cats, or foolish cats in tinfoil, took immediate action.
-
“You preening puffball!” she hissed. “You think I would court a creature who gets his tail stuck in screen doors?”
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“I—that was one time!” Cattenton sputtered, his confidence cracking like a dropped egg.
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“LET THE ROYAL PECKING DUEL COMMENCE!” Zephyr kazooed.
What followed was less a duel and more a masterclass in humiliation.
-
Round One: Gertrude lunged. Cattenton’s tinfoil breastplate crumpled with a sound like a thousand squirrels screaming.
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Round Two: Cattenton attempted a pirouette of power. He became entangled in his “Poultry Days” cape and fell face-first into a mud puddle.
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Round Three: Gertrude delivered a single, precise peck to his pride. You could almost hear the hiss as it deflated.
The rest of the farm had gathered to watch. Doris and her entourage provided a running commentary.
-
“Oh, the drama!” Doris clucked.
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“The sheer spectacle!” Harriet added.
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“The… the mud!” Lillian screeched, and promptly fainted onto her overturned feed bucket.
Porkchop, meanwhile, had organized a betting pool and was now three acorns richer.
The Heartwarming Resolution
As Cattenton lay in a heap of muddy tinfoil and shattered delusions, Zephyr floated down.
-
“Pride cometh before the fall, my dude,” he said, not unkindly. “And that was a solid eight-out-of-ten on the dismount.”
-
“I despise you,” Cattenton groaned, picking a piece of algae from his ear.
-
“Nah, you’re just starting to like yourself a little less. It’s the first step. It’s groovy.”
Gertrude gave a final, dismissive snort and waddled back to her gaggle, muttering about “the decline of modern chivalry.” I approached my brother and offered him a paw up.
-
“A word of advice,” I said. “Next time, perhaps skip the armor.”
-
He sighed, a truly defeated sound. “It looked so regal in the reflection…”
That evening, peace had returned. The farmer was seen talking to the scarecrow about the unusual amount of tinfoil in the pond, and a slightly more humble Cattenton was quietly grooming himself in a sunbeam. The farm was, once again, content.
The End
Moral: True confidence doesn't need a costume; pride makes for very poor armor.
Best Lines:
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“That ego’s gotta be a tripping hazard.” – Zephyr
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“What in the name of all that is migratory is this?” – Gertrude
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“You think I would court a creature who gets his tail stuck in screen doors?” – Gertrude
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“Pride cometh before the fall, my dude. And that was a solid eight-out-of-ten on the dismount.” – Zephyr
Post-Credit Scene:
A week later, Mr. Ducky the Sales-Duck arrives, holding up Cattenton’s crumpled tinfoil suit. “Limited edition! Pre-crumpled for your convenience! Once worn by royalty! A steal at only ten acorns!” The animals just roll their eyes and walk away.
Key Jokes:
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Cattenton’s "armor" being recycled tinfoil from one of Chef Remy's failed experiments.
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Zephyr narrating the duel like a sports commentator using a kazoo.
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Lillian fainting at the sight of mud.
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Porkchop running a successful betting pool on the duel's outcome.
Starring:
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Sir Whiskerton (The Narrator and Long-Suffering Sibling)
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Sir Cattenton (The Ego in Shining Tinfoil)
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Gertrude the Goose (The Unimpressed Judge, Jury, and Executioner)
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Zephyr the Genie (The Groovy Agent of Chaos)
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Doris, Harriet, & Lillian (The Dramatic Chorus)
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Porkchop the Pig (The Entrepreneurial Bookie)
P.S.
Remember, a little humility is like catnip for the soul—it makes everything more enjoyable and stops you from tripping over your own cape.
Is it true that prisoners learn how to more effectively commit crimes during their time spent in jail or prison?
They think they do. It’s imaginary. An illusion.
Here’s the first common sense that should pop in their head but doesn’t. If anybody in there has a plan on how to commit crimes without getting caught? What are they doing in prison? Youre only talking to the ones who got themselves locked up.
There isn’t any way to effectively commit crimes. They never figure that out. It always comes back to bite you in the ass one way or another.
Several of my cop friends told me this after they retired.
“ The bad people aren’t in prison. They are all out here with us. The stupid people are in prison. Bad people either don’t caught or they beat the charges. They don’t go to prison. They stay out here.” Those retired cops told me that independently of each other. The neighbor next to me is loaded with gangs. The Italian mob. The ALKN. A local gang. I’ve been watching that for forty years. I’ve known them since high school. A whole life of crime and never went to prison. Most of them have never been arrested.
So you have the stupid ones trying to figure out how not to go to prison. In prison. Talking to other people about not going to prison.
That’s the same thing as everyday drunks at the bar telling other drunks how to figure out their marriage/financial/health/ family problems. Never gonna happen.
Here’s why that ‘effective crime’ is an illusion.
Those guys that have been doing that for forty years? No health insurance. No Social Security. No pension. Were all old. Those guys are basically outcast with no income. The young guys forced them out. True that at one time they made piles of money, never worked. They also paid really high lawyer bills from time to time.
So overall? No. Jail and prison are crime academies. They were already criminals. It doesnt make them better criminals.
On top of that you have lots of one time offenders in there. They got drunk and run over somebody. Got in a fight and accidently killed the guy. They never broke the law once in their life. Then made a really bad mistake and went to prison. They are one and done.
"Zombie Attack in Jerusalem" Reactions! World War Z (2013) Movie Reaction *First Time Watching*
The rising
Written in response to: "Start or end your story with a character looking out at a river, ocean, or the sea."
Alexander Colfer
Drama Science Fiction Speculative
Her father took her hand. His palm was slick with sweat.
"Don't look," he said.
But she did. She saw the man's face, slack and grey. She saw the wet stain spreading across his pants. She saw the flies already gathering.
They walked for three days. At night they collapsed in designated rest zones, parking lots, fields, anywhere flat enough for thousands of bodies. The sky stayed grey, heavy with Zara's outer bands. Rain came in sheets, warm as bathwater, and Saharah opened her mouth to it, grateful even as thunder crashed around them like artillery. The lightning turned the world white, then black, then white again. No one slept.
On the second day, a woman went into labour. The soldiers radioed for medical support that never came. The woman screamed for hours. Saharah pressed her hands over her ears but she could still hear it, that animal sound of agony. When the screaming stopped, the soldiers carried the woman away on a stretcher. Saharah never saw what happened to the baby.
On the third day, her father stopped walking.
"I can't," he said, sitting down on the hot asphalt. "I can't anymore."
Her mother knelt beside him. "We're almost there. Just a few more miles."
"You go. Take Saharah."
"No."
"Please."
Saharah watched her parents, not understanding. Her father's face was red, his breathing strange and shallow. Her mother was crying without making any sound.
A soldier approached. "You need to keep moving."
"He needs rest," her mother said.
"There's no rest. You keep moving or you stay here. Those are the options."
Her father stood up. His legs shook but he stood. They kept walking.
2048
The Tennessee Valley Relocation Centre sprawled across what had been farmland outside Knoxville. Rows of prefab housing units, each one housing eight families. Communal kitchens. Communal bathrooms. Communal everything.
Saharah was eighteen now, thin as wire, her childhood softness burned away by years of rationing. The sea level had risen another metre since her last glimpse of the ocean. The Gulf Coast was gone. Florida was an archipelago. The Eastern Seaboard had retreated fifty miles inland, leaving drowned cities as monuments to hubris.
She worked in the camp's vertical farm, tending hydroponic vegetables under LED lights. Twelve-hour shifts, six days a week. The pay was camp scrip, worth less every month as inflation spiralled. Food shipments from the Midwest had become unreliable as the breadbasket dried up, as the Ogallala Aquifer finally ran dry. Everything they'd been warned about came true with mathematical precision.
Her father had died two years ago, heat stroke during a work detail. Her mother had followed six months later. Pneumonia, officially. Grief, actually. Grief and exhaustion and the slow realisation that the world they'd known was never coming back.
Saharah lived alone now in a corner of a housing unit she shared with seven other families. She had a mattress, a blanket, a plastic crate for her possessions. The stuffed dolphin sat on top, its fur matted and grey.
The scrip ran out three weeks into every month. Always three weeks. The rations were calculated for survival, not comfort, and they assumed you had nothing else wrong with you, no extra needs, no medical issues, no bad luck.
Saharah had bad luck.
She got sick in March, some kind of intestinal infection that left her unable to work for a week. No work meant no scrip. No scrip meant no food. She spent five days in her corner, dizzy with hunger, watching the other families eat their rations and carefully not look at her.
On the sixth day, a guard named Torres stopped by her corner.
"Heard you've been out sick," he said.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"That's tough. Real tough." He looked at her for a long moment. "You know, I could help you out. Get you some extra rations. Medicine, maybe."
She knew what he meant. She'd heard the other women talking in whispers, late at night when they thought everyone was asleep.
"What do you want?" she asked.
He smiled. "I think you know."
She thought about the hollow ache in her stomach, the weakness in her limbs, the way her vision had started to blur at the edges.
"Okay," she said.
The first time, she left her body. That's what it felt like. She floated somewhere near the ceiling of Torres's quarters, watching this thing happen to someone else, someone who looked like her but wasn't her, couldn't be her. When it was over, he gave her a week's worth of rations and a bottle of antibiotics.
She went back to her corner and ate half the rations in one sitting, her stomach cramping with the sudden abundance. Then she threw up in the communal bathroom, retching until there was nothing left.
She stared at herself in the cracked mirror. Same face. Same eyes. But something had changed. Something had broken or maybe just bent, reshaped itself to fit this new world.
She went back to work the next day.
Torres came by every week after that. Sometimes he brought food. Sometimes medicine. Sometimes just scrip. She stopped floating away. She stopped feeling much of anything. It was just another kind of work, another kind of survival.
At night, she climbed to the roof of her housing unit and looked south, towards where the ocean was. She couldn't see it from here—she was still two hundred miles inland—but she could feel it. In the humidity that never broke. In the storms that came with increasing fury. In the news reports of new evacuations, new camps, new lines of refugees marching north.
The sea was coming. It was always coming.
2055
In July, the temperature hit 135 degrees Fahrenheit.
Saharah was twenty-five and looked forty. She'd survived two cholera outbreaks, one riot, and countless nights of hunger. She'd learnt to fight for her rations, to sleep with one eye open, to trust no one completely.
The heat wave lasted three weeks. The power grid failed on the fourth day. The cooling centres went dark. People died in their sleep, their bodies simply giving up. The camp had protocols for heat emergencies, but protocols meant nothing when the infrastructure collapsed.
Saharah survived by going underground, into the maintenance tunnels beneath the hydroponic farm. It was cooler there, maybe ninety degrees instead of 135. She brought water, food she'd saved, a torch. She stayed for five days, listening to the rumble of trucks hauling bodies away.
When she emerged, the camp had changed. Half the population was gone. Some dead, some fled. The soldiers were fewer now, their uniforms dirty, their eyes hollow. The government was retreating to the Canadian border, to the northern territories where it was still possible to live. The centre couldn't hold.
Torres was gone. Most of the guards were gone. The system that had exploited her had collapsed, and she felt nothing about it. No relief. No satisfaction. Just the same hollow numbness she'd felt for years.
She packed what little she had, some clothes, a water bottle, a knife she'd traded for. She left the dolphin behind. It belonged to a different person, a different world.
She walked north because there was nowhere else to go.
2071
The march through the drowned South took two years.
Saharah moved with a loose group of survivors, the composition changing constantly as people died or split off or simply disappeared. They followed old highways, now cracked and overgrown. The South was emptying out, becoming uninhabitable. Temperatures regularly exceeded 120 degrees. The humidity made breathing feel like drowning.
They passed through what had been Chattanooga, water up to their waists, moving through streets that had become canals. Fish swam through living rooms. Snakes coiled in trees. The sea had reached Tennessee, pushing inland through the river systems, turning the landscape into a vast delta.
Saharah tried to remember that day on Miami Beach, tried to recall the beauty of it, but the memory was corrupted now. The sea wasn't beautiful. The sea was a monster, patient and inexorable, swallowing everything.
They ate what they could find. Snakes, mostly. Rats when they were lucky. Sometimes nothing for days. A woman named Running Bear taught her which insects were safe to eat, which plants wouldn't kill you. Running Bear had been a botanist before, in the world that was. Now she was just another refugee, her knowledge worth only slightly more than ignorance.
"You ever think about before?" Running Bear asked one night as they huddled under a highway overpass, rain hammering the concrete above them.
"No," Saharah lied.
"I do. All the time. I had a garden. Roses. Can you imagine? I spent hours worrying about aphids." Running Bear laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Aphids."
"What happened to your family?"
"Dead. Yours?"
"Dead."
They sat in silence, listening to the rain. In the morning, Running Bear was gone. Saharah never saw her again.
The group reached Kentucky after eighteen months. They'd started with over a hundred people. Twelve remained.
The Kentucky camp was worse than Tennessee had been. Overcrowded, undersupplied, violent. Warlords controlled sections of it, demanding tribute for protection. The soldiers who remained were indistinguishable from the warlords. Everyone had guns. Everyone was desperate.
Saharah found work in the medical tent, such as it was. No real medicine, no equipment, just people dying of diseases that had been eradicated a century ago. Typhoid. Dysentery. Measles. She cleaned wounds with boiled brown water, held hands as people died.
The sea level had risen three metres since her birth. The maps were redrawn constantly. The coasts were gone. The river valleys were flooded. The Great Lakes had expanded, swallowing cities. Chicago was Venice, then Atlantis.
She was forty-one and felt ancient. Her hair was grey. Her teeth were loose from malnutrition. Her lungs were scarred from breathing smoke, the fires came every summer now, massive conflagrations that burnt for months, turning the sky orange, the sun a dull red coin.
She left the camp when the food ran out completely. Just walked away one morning, heading north with nothing but the clothes on her back and the knife in her belt.
She didn't know where she was going. Just north. Always north.
2087
Saharah found herself in what had been Ohio, though borders meant nothing now. The government had collapsed completely. There were warlords, petty kingdoms, zones of control that shifted like the weather.
She survived by scavenging through the ruins of drowned towns, pulling copper wire from walls, finding tinned goods in attics that had become ground floors. She traded what she found for food, for water, for safe passage through territories controlled by men with guns.
The world had become mediaeval, brutal, short.
She travelled alone now. Companionship was a liability. People would kill you for your shoes, for a tin of beans, for nothing at all. She slept in trees when she could, in abandoned cars, in culverts. She kept moving.
The sea level had risen four metres. The ocean had pushed up the Mississippi valley, turning it into a vast inland sea. The Appalachians were islands now, their peaks jutting from the water like broken teeth. The coasts were memories, stories told by old people like her, though there weren't many old people left.
She was fifty-seven. She'd outlived almost everyone she'd known from before.
One day she came across a settlement, twenty or thirty people living in what had been a shopping centre, now half-submerged. They had a garden on the roof, rainwater collection, some semblance of order. They let her stay for three days, fed her watery soup, asked her questions about the outside.
"Is it true about the Rockies?" a young man asked. He couldn't have been more than twenty. "That the rich people are up there? That it's like paradise?"
"I've heard that," Saharah said.
"You ever try to get there?"
"No."
"Why not?"
She looked at him, this boy who still had hope in his eyes, who still thought there might be something better somewhere else.
"Because they'd kill you before you got within a hundred miles," she said. "The military protects them. Drones, automated guns, minefields. You can't get there. Nobody can."
The hope died in his eyes. She felt nothing about it.
She left the next morning.
The jet stream had collapsed years ago, and now storms came from impossible directions with impossible fury. The temperature swung wildly scorching heat that killed in hours, followed by freak ice storms as the climate system spasmed and convulsed. Nothing was predictable.
Saharah kept walking north until she reached Lake Erie.
The lake had merged with the ocean, saltwater pushing inland through the drowned river systems. The sea had reached the Great Lakes. The sea had won.
She found a shack made of scavenged materials on what had been the shore, now just another piece of the endless waterline. No one lived there. She moved in.
She was too tired to move anymore. Too tired to care.
2094
She was sixty-four and starving.
There was no food. The fish were gone, poisoned by the warming water, by the pollution, by the toxic algae blooms that turned the sea green and made the air smell like rot. The birds were gone. The insects were gone. Everything was gone.
She'd eaten the last of her supplies, a handful of dried beans three days ago.
Today she'd found nothing.
She sat on a piece of concrete that had once been part of a building, watching the water lap at the shore. It was higher today than yesterday. It was always higher.
Her body was failing. She could feel it shutting down, system by system. Her vision blurred at the edges. Her hands shook. Her heart beat irregularly, skipping and stuttering. She was cold despite the heat, her body no longer able to regulate its temperature.
The sky was yellow with smoke from fires burning somewhere to the west. The air was thick, hard to breathe. Her chest rattled with every inhalation, a wet sound that reminded her of her mother's last days.
She thought about that day on Miami Beach, sixty years ago. The blue water. The warm sand. Her father's hand on her shoulder, heavy and reassuring. Her mother's laugh, bright and unselfconscious. The taste of salt on her lips.
The water had been beautiful once.
She tried to remember her father's face but couldn't quite grasp it. The details had worn away, leaving only an impression. Kindness. Worry. Love.
Her mother was easier. She'd looked like Saharah, or Saharah had looked like her. The same eyes. The same stubborn chin. The same hands.
Saharah looked at her own hands now, skeletal and scarred, the skin hanging loose. These weren't her mother's hands. These were a stranger's hands.
She watched as a wave rolled in, higher than the last, reaching for the concrete she sat on. The sea was still rising. It would never stop rising. It would swallow everything eventually—the ruins of cities, the bones of billions, the memory of what had been.
Another wave. Closer now.
The water touched her feet.
It was warm, like bathwater, like tears.
Her heart stuttered, paused, beat once more.
The water rose around her, patient and inexorable.
Saharah's heart beat its last, and she let the sea take her home.
🔴Men... give me ANSWER, Why SOCIETY CRUMBLED…? Why So many MEN Have GIVEN UP
What are the biggest historical inaccuracies in Saving Private Ryan?
There are many historical inaccuracies in Saving Private Ryan, but nearly every one of them has exactly the same cause. Where are all the radios?
This is June of 1944 we’re talking about. The radio was already king and the single most powerful tool and weapon of the entire War. Without it there’s no communication, no reinforcements and no artillery support.
And writing the film without them is just plain lazy.
The correct way to locate a missing Private in the 101st Airborne, for instance, is to get on the radio to his regimental commander and ask where he is. If the Colonel doesn’t know, he gets on the radio to the Private’s company commander. After only a few radio calls it should be easy to locate him, despite the confusion of the mis-drops.
And given the order to find Private Ryan came directly from US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, this scene should play out within every regiment of first the 101st Airborne and then the 82nd Airborne until some officer figures out which ad hoc formation Ryan is part of and where those troops are located. Anything less would be gross insubordination and dereliction of duty.
Worse yet, the unrealistic situations Captain Miller and his men get into are a direct result of not having a radio.
The US Army approved way of resolving nearly every combat situation presented in the latter half of the film is, hunker down and call in artillery. This was one of many reasons infantry officers at the company level always had a radio. You can’t call in artillery, after all, if you don’t have a radio to contact your assigned support battery. And even if your own guns are out of range, they can contact a closer battery to support you.
You don’t pointlessly charge a machine gun nest when artillery can resolve the problem without muss or fuss. You don’t engage enemy tanks at point blank range with Molotov cocktails and enter into house to house fighting to protect a bridge when you can comfortably defend the opposite shore and call in artillery on the enemy armor.
And all that’s required to do this is a radio - a mission-critical piece of equipment every infantry Captain would have available.
Unfortunately, Captain Miller does not bring a radio, and worse yet, he doesn’t even have a Radio-Telephone Operator (RTO) in case he accidentally stumbles across an American radio or captures a Nazi one. Instead of an RTO he brings along the most useless specialist imaginable; a translator. This is an idiotic choice since the only people who can help find Private Ryan are American paratroopers who speak English.
Women LEARN The Hard Way She Needs MAN
Qady Qooda (Meatballs in Batter)
Yield: 3 to 4 servings
Ingredients
- 3/4 pound ground meat
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 4 tablespoon rice
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Salt
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Oil (for frying)
Instructions
- Mix the meat, garlic, rice, black pepper and salt in a bowl. Shape into balls half the size of an egg; put in a pan with a little water and cook over medium heat until ready.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder, yeast, eggs and a little water to form a dough-like batter. Set aside to rise for at least two hours. (Alternative: use pancake mix to make the batter.)
- Coat the balls in batter; fry in very hot oil and serve hot.
Attribution
Saudi Arabia Magazine (an official publication of the Information Office of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia), Winter 1997
Interesting invention
What's something a flight attendant did to you that you will never forget?
Some years ago I was flying from Sydney, Australia to Cork in Ireland. As you could imagine I was incredibly fatigued, with my body clock all over the place as it is a very long series of flights, with one change of carrier at Heathrow for the flight to Cork.
I boarded the Aer Lingus plane, settled in for the flight and started to relax. GREAT! I’ll be home before I know it !!!!
Then the Captain got on the intercom “Good evening this is flight 1234 to Dublin, Ireland, we’ll be flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet, flying over North Wales and arriving in about an hour. The temperature is Dublin is a cool 17oC…..”
I immediately FREAKED out - I was on the WRONG plane !!!! What !!!!!!!!! There was no real reaction though from the other passengers but l wasn’t concerned about them ..
Then suddenly a flight hostess ran from the back of the aircraft up to the flight deck and just disappeared somewhere.
Then the Captain slightly awarkly got onto the intercom again and said “I have just been informed by air hostess Molly Murphy that this flight is actually going to Cork …”
I just completely broke out LAUGHING - fellow passengers were INCREDIBLY amused at my reaction - little did they know the reason why.
This could only but happen on an Irish flight …….
Is China’s rare earth separation and refining technology considered high-tech? If so, how long might it take for the United States to catch up?
It was obviously high technology — and not just any technology, but highly advanced and complex.
The Chinese people are not stupid; it’s just that we had fallen so far behind in modern times that catching up was extremely difficult.
Moreover, our resources were limited, so we had to be very careful in deciding where to invest them.
The first priority was nuclear weapons and other national defense projects — without them, we would be bullied.
So the earliest breakthroughs were in nuclear weapons and defense. Then came heavy industry, including the rare earth sector you mentioned.
In 1972, a nuclear weapons expert Mr.Xu was ordered to switch his research focus from nuclear weapons to rare earth extraction. He was an exceptionally talented scientist.
Eventually, he raised China’s rare earth technology to a very high level.
You may find it hard to believe, but by 1980, he had already brought China’s rare earth industry up to the level of the United States and Japan.
By around 1987, China had actually surpassed Japan in this specific area — rare earth extraction technology.
During trade negotiations with Japan, the Japanese delegation said: “We will only purchase your ores, but the purification technology must remain confidential — we will not teach it to you.”
I don’t know what the Chinese representatives were thinking at that moment, but on the surface, they agreed — also for the sake of confidentiality.
That scientist eventually received the highest scientific honor in China — the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award.
Mr. Xu passed away ten years ago. He was truly a pillar of the Chinese nation.
This award carries immense prestige — at most two people receive it per year, and if there are no deserving candidates, it is left vacant.
(Mr.Xu)
Every laureate is among the elite of China’s scientific community — including the fathers of China’s hydrogen bomb, nuclear submarine, nuclear defense engineering, the pioneers of the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, satellite programs, and the father of hybrid rice.
Looking at that list, you can see how great Mr. Xu’s achievements were.
(A little fun observation — when I looked at photos of these great scientists, I noticed many of them have high, rounded foreheads. I wonder if that’s a sign of high intelligence, haha. Well, I also have a high forehead — my mother used to say it means I’m smart, though I suppose that’s probably just coincidence.)