Barrel wear. Instead of thousands of rounds through the barrel before requiring a change of the barrel, the USN found after years of testing that the barrel would wear out after 12–24 shots.

A barrel change would require a return to the docks and a large crane and electrical work. So the program was stopped as they couldn’t figure out how to overcome this problem.

Good news is that the Chinese say that they have. So it is likely that the US rail gun program is back in operation to replicate what the Chinese did.

This Nashville hot chicken is to die for

The USA has already been doing everything that they can think of to suppressed and to halt the progress of China because they know China has ALREADY surpassed them in many fields.

While the USA, Canada, the UK, many EU countries, Australia, and the majority of other nations are still contemplating and imagining future advancements, China is already experiencing and living these futuristic ways of life.

There is absolutely no doubt that China has already and will further outpace not only the USA but the rest of the world in technological advances in the decades ahead.

The West grapples with various issues: some nations cling to their bygone glory and power, others attempt to revive it, while countries like the UK are deluded into thinking they still possess their former strength. The rest either overestimate their own capabilities or believe others will protect them.

On the other hand, China, while proud of its long, rich, and enduring history, adopts a pragmatic approach. They understand the importance of modernization and embracing new technologies for the benefit of their nation and people.

They can try, but they will never stop China from their technological progress. That should be obvious when the USA specifically banned China from participation in the International Space Station (ISS) and China not only went ahead to build and operate their own space station, but successfully sent unmanned Rovers to the Moon and Mars and even remotely retrieved and sent back soil samples from the far side of the moon back to planet Earth which even the USA couldn’t do. When the International Space Station is decommissioned in 2028-30, China’s space station, the Tiangong space station or Heavenly Palace, will be the only space station orbiting Earth.

China is the largest direct trading partner for at least 62 countries, making it the world’s most important trading partner.

The US is the largest trading partner for about 31 countries, forming the center of the world’s second-largest trading hub.

Germany is the largest trade partner of 26 countries and the third-largest exporter at about $1.7 trillion in 2022.

What will USA do to damage BRICS?

USA uses India to damage BRICS in the 2024 BRICS summit.

1, One of BRICS’ goals is dedollarisation. India opposed it but failed at the end.

2, India asked to use Indian currency Rupee for settlement in BRICS trading, instead of Chinese yuan ie RMB.

India is not a country rich in natural resources, agriculture or manufacturing. Russia has earned lots of Rupee thru oil sale during Ukraine war. But Russia found it could not buy anything from India. India then asked Russia to buy Indian financial stocks. Stocks when India does not have a strong economy? Russia then insisted India to use RMB to pay the oil.

China is a global economic powerhouse. It is natural to use RMB for settlement. It is not China who asks for it. Mind you, BRICS also uses gold.

3, India set a rule: those who wish to join BRICS must support India to become a permanent member in UN Security Council. That is, India intentionally blocks new member to BRICS. … USA does not want BRICS to become too powerful either.

Haha. the 2024 BRICS summit did not add any new MEMBERS but add 13 new PARTNERS. … BRICS outsmarts India.

(Words said that USA may have pressured Turkiye, Saudi & Brazil not to attend the 2024 BRICS summit. Brazil pres attended thru virtual. Saudi sent a diplomat. Turkiye pres attended but suffered a riot in Turkiye.)

Other than BRICS, India is also destructive in SCO.

Americans Are Trauma Dumping on China + Xiaohongshu/Rednote Update!

This is worth watching. Must watch!

Mearsheimer on China-US: Hot war is possible

Mearsheimer is wrong, and he is a propagandist of power politics. Jeffrey Sachs is right, and he is not a propagandist. Mearsheimer’s understanding of China cannot compare with that of Jeffrey Sachs or Martin Jacques.

Camping inspirations

Chinese response

The Chinese have already responded. The government has decided to pull all Chinese direct foreign investment from every country that voted to tariff Chinese EVs.

That is going to devastate those countries.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 1 2024 15:51 utc | 38

China’s H-20 Stealth Bomber: It Can Be Explained in 2 Words

-Capable of carrying a 40-ton payload, the H-20 marks China’s significant progress in stealth technology, aerodynamics, and manufacturing efficiency, rivaling even the U.S. B-2 Spirit bomber.

-Despite potential technical challenges, China’s ability to mass-produce advanced bombers indicates a shift in the regional power balance, underscoring the need for strategic reassessment by the U.S.

China’s H-20 Stealth Bomber: The Game-Changer in Nuclear Capabilities

China’s military capabilities are developing at an extraordinary clip. Even from ten years ago, the People’s Republic continues creating the weapons and tactics it will need to, if not defeat the United States, then deter U.S. military intervention against them in a time of geopolitical crisis.

One area that Beijing is keen on having parity with the Americans is in the all-important strategic domain of nuclear weapons. Specifically, the development of the nuclear triad, having a redundant nuclear weapons capability on land, at sea, and in the air.

In the air, China is pressing ahead with the buildout of their Xi’an H-20 strategic stealth bomber. Not only does this capability ensure that China’s military will have an air-capable component of its nuclear triad but, more importantly, the H-20 stealth bomber, like America’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, extends the range of that air capability significantly. Indeed, it is believed that the H-20 can reach deep into the Second Island Chain, where the key U.S. military base on Guam is located.

Some have insisted that the H-20 might be able to go beyond the Second Island Chain, too.

Some Specifications of the H-20

Other sources claim that the H-20 can operate at a range between 8,077 miles without refueling, possibly reaching as far as Hawaii if they did refuel midair, which might be too difficult given current Chinese midair refueling limitations, though those can be easily overcome. It is further expected that the H-20’s payload capacity is around forty tons. In other words, the H-20 can compete with any U.S. stealth bomber in terms of the load and type of munitions it can carry.

The ability to threaten Guam with a massive nuclear attack is key, though. Many of America’s land-based air assets are located there. Knocking out the runways or obliterating U.S. warplanes and bombers on the tarmac before they can take off in the event of a conflict between the U.S. and China, is an incredible advantage that China did not possess even a decade ago.

Whereas the Americans are limited to a handful of B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers, thanks to China’s mass production manufacturing capabilities, China could conceivably churn these birds out of their production facilities like sausages.

What’s more, the development of such advanced stealth technology by China indicates that China’s military is not some backwater institution that can be easily pushed around by the more sophisticated American force. With the advent of the H-20, China is showcasing that in the realms of stealth technology, aerodynamics, and materials science, they have progressed significantly.

And that progress now has the chance to fundamentally upend the regional, and possibly the world order in significant ways.

Possible Problems with the H-20

Of course, as with any advanced engineering program, the H-20 is not without its share of problems and real-world limitations. Many American aerospace engineers argue that the H-20 is inferior to the U.S. B-2 Spirit. Certainly, it will not be comparable to the U.S. Air Force’s newest B-21 Raider long-range stealth bomber.

Although, given how constrained the Air Force currently is in terms of funding, the B-21 might never make it off the ground. Other skeptics believe that China’s stealth technology is not as good as American stealth tech. Beyond that, the Chinese have struggled for some time with indigenously built engines for their warbirds.

Again, though, even with the Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon” fifth-generation warplane, the Chinese were able to overcome these engineering deficits.

Other China skeptics in the West believe that the H-20 is less about enhancing real capabilities than it is about bluffing the Americans into believing that China is more capable than it is. That may be. But, the Americans can ill afford to rest on their laurels with such self-serving clap-trap like this.

Stop Underestimating China

The fact is that the Chinese are catching up to the Americans technologically. In certain important cases, they are leapfrogging their American rivals.

Where the Chinese aren’t pushing ahead of U.S. defense technologies, they are keeping a good pace, and when married to China’s superior manufacturing capabilities, Beijing will have thus created a significant advantage for themselves over the Americans, whose stealth bombers may be more advanced but are highly limited in number. And that advantage could be decisive in any conflict with the United States and its regional partners.

Why Modern Leadership Has Become a Joke in Democracies | Lee Kuan Yew

Why does the Indian media keep hyping up fake news about China-India relations?

The main reason why India creates false information about China to discredit China is that it defines China as its main enemy and competitor.

If India cannot change this perception, even if the current situation on the Sino-Indian border has eased, in the long run, this time bomb will eventually be detonated by the fanatical BJP.

For many years, fake news, fake media, fake websites, fake think tanks, fake NGO anti-intellectual groups composed of anti-China forces such as the United States, Germany, and Japan have launched fierce smear attacks on China.

Among them, India has also played a very bad role.

In December 2020, the European independent think tank “EU Disinformation Lab” released an investigative report titled “Indian Chronicles”, revealing the fact that Indian intelligence agencies have been creating and spreading false information around the world to discredit Pakistan and China since 2005, which has attracted the attention of the international community.

In fact, the EU Disinformation Lab only revealed part of the facts of India’s information war against China in the past 15 years.

The history and scope of India’s public opinion information war against China are longer and wider than those revealed by the EU Disinformation Lab.

In fact, India has long positioned China as its biggest threat and opponent. Therefore, India’s information warfare against China is a whole-government, whole-society participation model.

Participants include not only government departments and their affiliated institutions, but also political parties, social groups, think tanks, media, and even scholars and individuals.

Indian intelligence agencies are the main operators of spreading false information abroad.

This is mainly reflected in two aspects: First, as reported by Western media in December 2020, the “Indian Chronicle” published by the “European Disinformation Laboratory” lists a large number of Indian intelligence agencies, which organized and premeditatedly created large-scale false information involving China and Pakistan on the Internet, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other international social platforms with a large number of users.

The Indian intelligence agency Investigation and Analysis Bureau has set up a special agency to undermine the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Under the leadership of the Srivastava Group headquartered in Delhi, this false information network is based in Brussels, Belgium and Geneva, Switzerland, and remotely controls 750 fake media, fake think tanks and fake NGOs in 116 countries and regions in the world to use the mainstream Indian news agency “Asian International News Agency” to launder false information and lies, and to amplify its influence.

After similar information is created, the Indian intelligence department abuses search engines by copying the same content hundreds of times to enhance its dissemination effect.

The Dark Side of Laos

Chinese manufacturing

In the latest Nima, Hudson and Wolff video Wolff talked about how much investment Silicon Valley has in China and how they will conflict with the folks that want to isolate China.

More to that theme are postings at Xinhuanet

Starbucks sets new store-opening record on Chinese mainland

quote

SHANGHAI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) — Starbucks has set new records by opening 790 net new stores and entering 166 new county-level markets on the Chinese mainland in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 29, 2024, despite a decline in its global comparable store sales, the company said in its annual fiscal report Thursday.

 

China fully opens manufacturing sector to foreign investors in landmark opening up move

quote

China’s manufacturing value added surpassed that of the United States for the first time in 2010, and accounted for approximately 30 percent of the global total in 2023, making the country the world’s largest manufacturer for 14 consecutive years.
The country has seen steady foreign investment growth in its high-tech manufacturing in recent years. In the first nine months of this year, the medical equipment and instrument manufacturing industry, as well as the computer and office equipment manufacturing sector, saw actual utilization of foreign investment up 57.3 percent and 29.2 percent year on year, respectively.

While China’s industry has made significant progress in development, overall, it is still at a crucial juncture of “transitioning from being large to being strong and proceeding on an uphill journey,” Jin Zhuanglong, China’s minister of industry and information technology, said in a July press conference, citing prominent weaknesses in areas like key core technologies and basic industrial capacities.

China will leverage its vast market advantages to support exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises, and make the manufacturing sector higher-end, smarter, and more eco-friendly, according to the NDRC.

 

China only exports 10% of their products to US and so losing that 10% would hurt the US more than China, IMO

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 1 2024 19:20 utc | 67

Was it a myth that a man could support a family in the 50s in the USA?

No, that wasn’t a myth, but the portrayal on old television shows that you could have a big gorgeous home, gorgeous clothes, and a maid is.

Houses were smaller then. The average size of a home in the 1950s was 983 square feet. Children of the same sex shared bedrooms. If there was a TV, there was only one. Broadcast TV was free. There was usually only one telephone, and it was in the kitchen. You had to pay for extra connections.

Children only had a few changes of clothing, and their good shoes were only worn to church on Sunday. When the clothing was outgrown, it got passed on to the next child. Often clothes were handmade because it was cheaper.

Food was plain and simple and portions were not gigantic. You sat down and you ate what you were given, period. Leftover food was not thrown away, it was served later in the week. Something such as a pot roast was occasionally, not often. Soda was a treat for when you went out.

If there was a car, there was only one. The husband got priority for it.

Children did not have scads of toys. Toys weren’t that expensive anyway.

In 2021, the average size of a home was 2,480 square feet even with fewer people in the households. There are multiple TVs, and virtually everyone has cable and/or streaming services, which are not free.

Children want lots of clothing, jewelry, fancy shoes, designer clothing, fancy purses, expensive jackets. There are multiple cars in the driveway, and children often have their own. I know plenty of parents who pay for dance lessons, skating lessons, and expensive sports.

Toys and games are expensive. “American Girl” dolls start at $125. Children have xBoxes, Wiis, ipads, Nintendos, and pay for the game cartridges. Children have cell phones. The phones and the service are expensive.

The prices of everything have gone up, and there are more things to buy. I was astonished to find a winter jacket at LL Bean for my son on clearance and a discount for $200. That was my entire school year clothing budget.

I don’t necessarily see a lot of these things as bad. Video games were frowned upon when I was growing up, but I bought a lot of them for my son. He enjoys them, and he only gets one childhood. He has scads of educational toys that I’ve passed on. And yes, he has a cell phone. I see it as a safety issue, but he plays games on that as well. He has a laptop for school assignments, it cost me $3000.

I don’t force my son to eat things he doesn’t like, and he doesn’t have to eat every bite on his plate.

If you want to live as if you live in the 50s, you can, but it’s hard and it requires a lot of sacrifice that a lot of people, including me, don’t want to make.

2 Friends Went Out Hoping to Be Approached Only to Be Shocked by Reality

Russia’s Medvedev warns the US: Avoid World War Three

Hal Turner World November 02, 2024

Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Russian security official who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, warned the United States on Saturday to take Russia’s nuclear warnings seriously to avoid World War Three.

Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful security council, told RT broadcaster that top US officials did not want World War Three but for some reason they believe “that the Russians will never cross a certain line.”

“They are wrong,” Medvedev told RT, adding that Moscow believed the current US and European political establishments lacked the “foresight and subtlety of mind” displayed by the late Henry Kissinger.

“If we are talking about the existence of our state, as the president of our country has repeatedly said, your humble servant has said, others have said, of course, we simply will not have any choice,” Medvedev said.

The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what Russian officials say is its most dangerous phase as Russian forces are advancing in eastern Ukraine and the West considers how to shore up Ukraine.

Russia has been signaling for weeks to the West that Moscow will respond if the United States and its allies help Ukraine fire longer-range missiles deep into Russia, while NATO says that North Korea has sent troops to western Russia.

Russian officials say the leaders of the West have failed to heed the signals Moscow has sent over European security and the escalation of the war in Ukraine.

US diplomats say the relationship with Russia is worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War but that Washington does not seek to escalate the war in Ukraine.

What notable figures had the hardest fall from grace?

Can’t think of anyone who fell harder and more disgracefully than former 1980s action hero Steven Seagal.

He currently weighs 500 pounds and was spotted in late October 2024 visiting Kursk Oblast, Russia. You can see Putin’s most hefty propaganda asset in the picture below, testing the sturdiness of Russian furniture with his rhinoceros’ sized behind.

Before he fled America in disgrace, running away from charges of sexual misconduct, Seagal was a major action hero in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a fit, handsome 6′5″ aikido master who opened his own dojo in Japan as a twenty-year-old who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese — he was honestly, and it pains me to admit this, but he was honestly a pretty impressive dude?

Steven Seagal dated and married various models and actresses, fathered seven children, worked as a bodyguard to stars and a martial art advisor to others — he once famously broke Sean Connery’s wrist while working on a Bond film as a young man. Seagal was, for at least a decade or so, “The Man” in Hollywood. He’s become a sad laughing stock in the last twenty years or so but before that, he was kind of a big deal and people often forget that…

He wasn’t a good dude, of course. In fact many sources close to Seagal growing up have mentioned his ties to organized crime. The Russian mafia, to be more precise. His imposing frame and mob ties served Seagal well, as it clearly wasn’t his non-existent acting skills that got him famous. Now he’s the size of a small horse and serving as a propaganda asset for the Russians. He can never set foot in America for fear of a major jail sentence for rape.

Defense Secretary Orders More Firepower to Protect Israel

Hal Turner World November 02, 2024 
Defense Secretary Orders More Firepower to Protect Israel

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyer ships, fighter squadron, tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the Middle East region.

The Biden administration are making sure they go all out before the elections, just in case things doesn’t go as planned.

We are witnessing the fall of America in real time.

Hal Turner Analysis

It seems to me that with these additional B-52 Heavy Bombers being sent, and the B-2 Stealth that were already moved in-theater over a week ago, the plan SEEMS to me to be the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.

The B-2’s were the giveaway last week.

It also seems to me that Israel intentionally hit Iran last week, not as “retaliation” for the Iranian strike a week earlier, but rather to set the stage for Iran to strike again, thereby green-lighting the destruction of their nuclear program.

The trouble is, a LOT of people are convinced Iran already has actual nuclear bombs, and has had them for many years.

If the US and Israel undertake the kind of complete destructive attacks I foresee, the Iranians may use the nukes they have; and open Pandora’s box.

NONE of this has to be.

But Israel simply will not behave; they will not stop attacking other countries, and the US is being grossly manipulated by Israel to even be involved in any of this.

Are crazy women DESTROYING the west?

The Time and Space Furnace, Episode 1: Sanlun Che

Submitted into Contest #196 in response to: Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.… view prompt

“But did it even really happen?” Dewan wants to know.“We both remember it, so it must have, right?” Mindy answers, kicking up some dirt with her worn sneaker.“Are those the rules?” He shrugs with sweeping hands. Mindy’s face looks blank with just a hint of “you’re supposed to be the brainiac, why isn’t it obvious to you?”“What I mean is, teleporting tricycles and stopped time are not part of the regular rules, so what’s to say that those things happened and not this other thing that breaks the rule, where we remember the same thing that didn’t really happen. You see?”“It wasn’t a tricycle.”“Fine, a teleporting sanlun che.”“And time didn’t stop.”“It didn’t stop in Linhai, but it stopped here!” Dewan stops. He’s been dragging his feet the whole way, but now he sees his chance to turn this whole thing around and head back to the kitchen. Doritos are way better than teleportation vehicles.“So? That’s how it worked in Narnia too!” Mindy has come back for him, circled around and not so much pushed him as stood uncomfortably close on the homeward side in order to get him moving back toward the school.“Again, and I can’t stress this enough. Narnia is not real.”“Linhai might not be real either. Let’s go see Li Luxi and find out.”“Linhai is definitely real, but did we go there? Or did we go to the one in China and not one in some other universe?”“Your mom was right. We were too young to watch the Multiverse of Madness.” She rolls her eyes at him. “Let’s just assume it was the regular Linhai and let’s just go.”“Can we just think about it for a second before we go? I mean don’t you have questions? Don’t you think that some of it was just a little too coincidental?”Now Mindy does stop, pulling the strap of her overall back up on her shoulder and flipping her braids behind her back. “What do you mean?”“Well, like we ran into the groundskeeper’s shed and just happened to need to burn papers. That part’s all right. Maybe anybody who opened the furnace would get a time and space trike.”“Sanlun che.”“Sanlun che. Same thing. It literally means three wheel vehicle. Anyway, maybe Mr. Jander is pulling the sanlun che out of the furnace and going to China all the time. But Li Luxi sure hadn’t heard of any other laowai visiting on pedicabs.”“Okay…” Mindy’s attention has finally been snagged and she’s really listening to Dewan’s objections now. She stands out in the sunshine while Dewan hovers close to a tree trunk, feet balanced on the buckled joint of the sidewalk beneath it.“Don’t you remember how everybody stared at us? We were the first foreigners they had ever seen.”She does remember. They gathered in little circles pointing, shouting out “Kan! Laowai!” which Dewan’s phone repeated back to them, “Look! Foreigner!” Dewan had been scared, huddled in the back of the pedicab with Li Luxi, passing the phone between them, trying to make sense of the scene. Mindy defiantly stuck out her chin and kept pedaling, aware (some minutes before the translation-software-mediated conversation with Li Luxi got the point across to Dewan) that the crowd was just curious and excited. A man craning his neck to watch them go by fell off his bike. Even the dogs barked at them.“Lots of dogs are racist,” Dewan offered. He would know. He might get almost this much attention just walking to school in Iowa.“Okay,” Mindy concedes. “They probably hadn’t had any other foreign visitors before that.” She’s quick to follow up, “but that doesn’t mean it was like a one-time thing. And if it was, what do we lose by trying it again?”“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Dewan wipes his sweaty hands on his pockets before reaching for his phone. He waves it around for emphasis. “Don’t you think it’s weird that I just happened to have Chinese translation software downloaded on Mimic when we were transported to China?”“That wasn’t just Google translate?”“No. My mom won’t let me have data on my phone.” He takes on a slightly mocking tone. “You can’t just stare at a screen all day, Dewan!”“At least you have a phone.” They both shrug. Mindy definitely doesn’t want a phone to worry about falling from her pockets while she climbs trees and turns cartwheels. It’s just something to say.“So why’d you download Chinese translation?” she asks.“I thought it would make a cool hook to a speech I had to give in IT class about coding languages.” Dewan doesn’t wear glasses, but at moments like this everyone would swear that he does. He looks around for something to do other than push glasses up on his nose.“Geek,” is all Mindy says after several seconds of blinking at him.“Ravenclaw,” he corrects.“Whatever.”“Anyway, there’s no way my phone would have connected to the network there to get the translation we needed. And what about the videos? Just lucky that I had those?”“The recipes for Zhongqiu foods?” Mindy asks astonished. “Those were saved on your phone?”“Yeah!” He responded in a tone that said “now do you see why I’m saying it’s weird?”“Your mom won’t let you have data but she lets you just download youtube videos? How does that stop you from watching screens?”“She’s like 35. She doesn’t know you can download youtube videos.”

“Wait, why did you have those downloaded? You just thought maybe you’d open a furnace door and a magical vehicle would transport you to China where you’d coincidentally run into a kid who needed to make a holiday feast?”

“No. I had a report on festivals in social studies class.”

“Oh my gosh, Ravenclaw. Let’s just go. It’ll take less time than figuring it out.”

“Okay, Gryffindor. I’m just saying we might not go back to the same place or time.”

“I’m Hufflepuff. No! Amity.”

“You aspire to be Amity. You’re Dauntless.”

“Whatever, Erudite. Those books didn’t even make any sense.”

But Dewan has gotten distracted. “But not Abnegation. Or Candor,” he went over in a calculating tone.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shakes the distraction out of his mind. “I’m just saying what if it wasn’t that you open the furnace and it gives you a ride to Linhai, and if you’re lucky you have with you all the tools to solve some problems and come back, but like it checks out what tools you have for solving problems and gives you a ride to the place where that problem exists?”

“Like Quantum Leap?”

“I don’t have Prime.”

“I don’t either,” she says, duh-faced, indicating her ratty overalls. “I meant the old one. The guy jumps into different people’s bodies at different times in the past and he can’t leave until he’s solved their problem.”

“Well, we did help Li Luxi with her problem,” Dewan says, remembering. “She needed a ride.”

 

She had come running out of her house when they pedaled by shouting at them “I need a ride!” They didn’t know that’s what she was shouting. She was practically crawling in the back with Dewan before she looked at his face and recoiled in surprise. Dewan pressed his back against the side of the cart in terror and called to Mindy “why did you stop?”

“It got hard to pedal. Like it wanted to stop.”

“Should I let her get on?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Li Luxi had checked around Dewan, seen Mindy, a no less alarming person with wiry red curls working overtime to escape her braids, shrugged and resumed climbing in beside Dewan, explaining herself in rapid Chinese as she went.

“What should we do now?” Dewan asked. In fact, it was what Dewan had been wanting to ask ever since they opened the furnace door, but Mindy was more of a do-now-ask-later type. A Gryffindor. And in defense all she could explain later about pulling the cab by the shape-shifting handlebars out of the furnace, climbing aboard, and shouting at Dewan to get in the back was that it had been a very assertive bicycle.

“Sanlun che,” Dewan would correct.

“Sanlun che,” she would agree.

But at this moment, Li Luxi was pointing a very assertive finger forward and Mindy Griyffindored it on down the shabby potholed road.

By the time they got to the covered bridge, Dewan had solved communications and Mindy had fallen in love with the place. Iowa was green enough, but not this humid mountain green. At this time of year the corn fields were yellow-topped and dry, and she’d never seen anything like the soaring mountains or glinting rice fields terraced down their sides, dark green jungle struggling at the edges to reclaim them. She began overhearing the conversation from the back. Dewan and Li Luxi introducing themselves. We were near Linhai in ZheJiang province.

Li Luxi had to get to town to prepare for Mid-Autumn festival and it was just lucky they’d come by in their sanlun che, which the program kept translating as tricycle. Mindy, standing up to get enough power to pull the pair uphill to the bridge, resented the word. No snotty toddler ever sweated this hard on a tricycle! But she only half listened to what they were saying. The land in the distance seemed to reach up offering embracing arms to the sky. It was nearly as astonishing to her as the vehicle that had brought them there and much more worth her attention than whatever the chatter was about.

“It’s so old.” Li Luxi was saying. Mimic couldn’t catch tone of voice, but she had said “tai jui le,” like any eleven-year-old rolling eyes at whatever her mom sang along to on the car radio. But what she was indicating was a timber bridge over the river, supported from below by massive diagonal beams. Though not all of the planks were equally worn, most were gray with age, and splinters curled out from them. Still there was such a weighty solidity to the whole that Mindy had no hesitation pedaling them into the cabin-like dark of the covered bridge. It immediately got several degrees cooler.

“How old?” he asked his phone. “Jisui?” Mimic asked Li Luxi.

She giggled at the awkward phrasing, but answered, “Seven hundred years.”

“Wha??” Mindy stopped pedaling and hopped down to look closely at the wall.

“No nails,” Li Luxi explained.

“You’re telling me that the only thing keeping us from falling a hundred feet to the rocks is a bridge that was already here when Columbus sailed and the only thing holding it together is gravity?” Dewan exclaimed.

“Co-oo-ol!” Mindy blurted in three syllables, running her fingers along the timber.

Dewan remembered something he’d learned from a Youtube video and began explaining that the Dao of a thing, it’s nature, would be offended by nails and respect for its way could fit it together without the need for them. Li Luxi nodded. She liked these foreigners caring about her bridge, even if it was older than her mom’s pop songs.

Mindy was completely absorbed in wondering what tools could have been used to plane these boards back before Henry had whacked off his wives’ heads. She loved her dad’s woodshop, but now she looked at these boards as if she could see the loving tenderness soaked into their fibers along with the sweat drops from labor of that sort.

 

As they’d pulled up to the first village shops, Li Luxi shouting answers to the crowd’s questions about her visitors, their new friend tugged at her lower lip in worry and counted a handful of coins. She had made a few small choices, explaining to the clerk that when her parents got back from the city, they would pay the difference.

They had taken her little brother after his accident and would return tomorrow afternoon. She’d gotten a note about it this morning. But when the old neighbor who was supposed to look after her had gotten sick, she realized that she had to prepare for Zhongqui Jie. The moon would be full, her family would be around the table, but what went on the table would be up to her. And here she was with no money and no idea how to make the dishes. At least she had made it to the village and could get something. Not mooncakes, but maybe a few eggs. They were round…ish.

But Dewan had come to the rescue, selling the shopkeeper six dollars of American money, a five and a one, for less than the exchange rate but more than Li Luxi needed to buy the necessities.

Dewan and Li Luxi took turns pedaling back to her village home while Mindy took it easy looking at the mountains from the back. She liked the way Li Luxi said their names like Chinese words: Di Wan with a forceful first syllable and a loose second that seemed to roll around in a circle. Min Di with the “Min” a hopeful question and the “di” a note of music that should have found a home with “mi” and “la.”

Li Luxi’s home was like pioneer camp for her American friends. They filled basins of water at the pump outside and went in to heat it. Filled thermoses to take up the rickety stairs that looked about the same age as the bridge for washing before bed. There was plenty of room since her parents and brother were away and once she delivered some soup to the sick elderly neighbor, they had the place to themselves to learn new card games, a few words of Chinese, and all about what brought them together.

“Tai hao le!” Li Luxi exclaimed when Dewan finally pulled the picture Jason Lomax drew of him from his back pocket. “It’s wonderful! You were going to burn this?” The phone repeated.

Flabbergasted, he demanded, “Wonderful? My ears! That skinny neck! I don’t even wear glasses!”

“But you look like you do,” Mindy interjected. Dewan side-eyed her.

“But your ears do stick out like that,” Li Luxi defended. “And you are skinny.” She ran her finger across the paper admiring the crosshatched lines that gave texture to the skin.

“But still it’s mean,” Dewan said, hurt.

“Oh. Was it mean when I said it?” Li Luxi wanted to know.

“No. You just…” He couldn’t explain. “To exaggerate a person’s worst features.”

“Is your neck your worst feature?” she asked.

“No!” Mindy shouted. “His worst feature is he can’t shut up about stuff he learned even when nobody wants to hear it!” Dewan shrugged and nodded a little in concession.

“You would be happy with a fat neck?” Luxi probed. Dewan chuckled softly while Mindy nearly guffawed herself off her chair. “Hao. Good,” she went on thoughtfully. “The kids at school say I look like a boy because I cut my hair short. I cut it off because my mother brushes it so hard. I think it’s a fair trade. I look like a boy; it doesn’t hurt to brush my hair.” She pulled a spoon of hot soup up to her mouth.

The visitors observed her quietly. “It’s like the bridge. You respect the way of it and you can make it go the way you want. You look like you wear glasses because you like to learn. And you’re proud of that.”

“Like a Ravenclaw.”

“Like a Ravenclaw.” Li Luxi agreed. “Make that picture what you want. And Ja Sun. He’s good at drawing. This picture is good.”

 

“If it was another universe, it was one with Harry Potter,” Mindy says, yanking open the door to the groundkeeper’s shed. They step together into the gloom.

“Do you think it’s the thing about having the tools to solve a problem?” Dewan asks.

“I don’t know. You were the one with the problem.”

“What? We gave her a ride. Bought the food, looked up how to cook.”

“And you made friends with Jason and got him to join art club.”

He thinks about it. “It was nice. Eating around the family table and looking at the harvest moon.”

“Yeah, nice. And you started to eat dinner with your family every night after the moon thing.”

“So did you! You took up woodworking.”

“Yes! I did! See? It was good for everybody when we went before. Maybe it’ll be good now, too.”

Dewan narrowed his eyes at her. “Why? What’s your problem?”

“I need new overalls and my curveball’s not getting any better,” she declared, flattening her mouth and shifting her eyes to the corner.

Dewan took a step toward the furnace. If she was right, maybe he wouldn’t need to press her about her brother. Maybe a solution would just assert itself from the furnace.

“What do you have downloaded on Mimic?” she asked, her eye caught by a shelf of books beneath the dingy window.

“Arabic,” he replied.

“Arabic?” she asked in surprise before realizing just how pretty Fatima was and how unlikely Dewan was to impress her on the soccer field. “Oh! Okay. And we’ve got French on Duolingo.”

“Mr. Richardson’s choice. Are you ready to pedal?” Dewan pointed toward the furnace.

“Yeah!” she practically squealed.

He swung the door open, but instead of handlebars, there pressed forth–assertively indeed, he had to admit–the head of a camel. “Ummm..” Dewan backed toward the door as the camel got larger and stepped into the room.

“Oh!”  Mindy flapped a book at him. “This one has a camel!” “Morocco” was printed in bold letters across the cover, in the midst of a deep blue sky, above the face of a camel striding atop a red dune. “They speak Arabic and French there?”

Dewan swallowed hard as the camel nuzzled at his collar bones, back pinned to the door. “Yep.”

“Great!” shouted Mindy. “Let’s go!”

“Dauntless!” he called back.

How I See The UK After 9 Years Living in China (I was SHOCKED!)

Italian Dressing

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 1/3 cups olive oil
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Instructions

1. Dissolve sugar in vinegar.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in blender and blend very well.
3. Seasonings may be adjusted to taste.

Will everything be made in China MIC and sold cheap at Walmart? Is China + Walmart + Internet, iPhone, cheap cell phones the true future of the world?

Take a GE Engine made for Boeing

They are made in Ohio and Massachusetts and North Carolina and their final retail price is around $ 35–45 Million

Their profit is close to 45%

They are made in US because

A. There is a large scope of profit

B. The Workforce & Manufacturing Infrastructure is not available in too many countries today

Thats the same for quite a bit of advanced manufacturing products

They all have enough profit to be manufactured in USA

No Issues today

Tomorrow say China gets its own workforce and infrastructure and makes Commercial Engines with 15% profit

Suddenly China can sell Engines for $ 12–15 Million and Chinese Carriers and Aircraft makers will buy Chinese Engines because they are the least priced

That’s at least 200 Engines a year that’s lost for GE and Safran

That’s potentially $ 3.4 Billion a year gone!!!!

Even worse if other carriers decide to buy COMAC Craft at half the price of what Boeing and Airbus quote

China is a country today that has huge advantages where you can manufacture at

A. Best Profit

B. Best Workforce

C. Best Manufacturing Infrastructure

D. Best Logistics for Exports

The Law of Capitalism dictates that all manufacturing will drift to China because that’s where the PROFITS ARE

It costs $ 90 to assemble an Iphone in China and everyone gets an average profit of $ 440–470 per piece

You want to assemble the same Iphone in Evendale Or Cleveland?

It would cost at least $ 340

So now the profit dips to $ 100–130 from $ 440–470

That’s 75% Dip in Profits

When Trump says everything should be made in US, he expects people to give up 75% of their profits or even more

In short he is proposing some Soviet Union Formula Model

Imagine being asked to give up 75% profits

That would throttle any and all notions of free enterprise & innovation

So Trump has to offer the same $ 250 profit in subsidies

That means More Debt for the US

Rising from $ 35 Trillion to even $ 50–55 Trillion in the next two decades or 15 years

China is currently the manufacturing hub

That can’t be changed with tariffs or legislation

Capitalism will always flow to where the PROFITS ARE

Airbus want to assemble Aircraft in India but that’s based on a certain market demand they anticipate by Indian Carriers

If the market demand isn’t generated, they will pack up and leave

Like Harley Davidson did or Ford did

However if market demand is sufficient, then they will build more craft for the Indian market, train the Indian workforce and maybe after 20–30 years we can built our own commercial airframes

You can’t fight economic forces

What’s the scariest thing you’ve witnessed in public?

This happened in 1987, I believe.

I’d driven into Little Rock, Arkansas, to do some shopping. My first stop was Western Auto. I was stopped in the left turn lane, and there were two cars in front of me at the light.

Suddenly, a man got out of the car directly in front of me. He went up to the car in front of him, and was yelling at the woman inside, and kicking and banging on her car. The light turned green, she drove away, and the man got back in his car and left.

The Western Auto was immediately after the turn, and I pulled into the lot and parked. As I was walking into the store, I heard a scream. I turned in time to see the man who’d been yelling at the woman punch the woman from the other car. She fell to the blacktop. He then put his foot on her chest, put a small semi—automatic pistol against her forehead, and pulled the trigger. The pistol just clicked.

I ran inside the store just as everyone there ran toward the back. I looked around and grabbed an aluminum baseball bat. As I headed out the door, the manager asked where I was going. I told him I was going to stop the man from killing the woman.

The man with the gun racked the slide, and put the pistol against the woman’s forehead again. Again, it just clicked. At that point, he looked around and realized there was an audience. I’d have been on him in another couple of seconds, but he stood up, ran to his car, and left.

People told me I was stupid, and that he could have killed me. That was true. I just knew I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d stood by and done nothing

Ballad of Xiaohongshu: From California to Xiaohongshu 从加州到小红书

Signs of the times.

If you overexceed the towing capacity of your truck and you might bend the frame, then how did a VW Touareg tow a Boeing 747 in the Fifth Gear TV series without anything happening to its frame?

I’ve towed RVs and hauled rock beyond what my truck can carry so this is how I can answer the question. This question contains three different parts that’s I’ll address separately.

Exceeding towing capacity: There is a reason why a vehicle says it can pull a certain weight. Can it pull more? Most likely. Safety? Depends. Besides from having the engine and the ability to keep itself from overheating while going forward, the vehicle’s length and weight is also important for trailer sway.

Frame bending – When engineers design a pickup, they think about how it will handle fully loaded (maximum hauling weight). There are general norms taken in consideration. People don’t buy a half ton and haul two tons. Therefore, if you buy a half ton truck, it will haul 1700 pounds. Of course you can exceed this by an RCH with dirt but you’ll feel it on the road. The frame won’t bend. Your shocks will blow out before your frame does.

The only way a frame will bend is by dropping a heavy object from a high distance onto the bed.

Towing a plane – I don’t know.

What’s the creepiest thing someone has ever said to you personally?

I was playing Blackjack at a casino when a man sat next to me. We spoke casually for a few minutes when he leaned over and told me that when I left, I was going home with him in the trunk of his car.

My elbows were on the table and he reached under my arm and touched my breast!!

HUGE MISTAKE!! My reflex was to smash him in the nose with my elbow! He went over backwards in his chair with blood pouring from his nose and screaming that I had broken his nose for no reason!

Luckily the dealer had paid close attention and as soon as the pit boss approached explained exactly what had happened and that I had defended myself. They called security and literally carried him to the door to wait for the police.

As I was giving my statement, they let me know that he was a convicted sex offender who had been released from prison just 4 weeks before he walked through the doors of the casino.

It was well worth the sore elbow not to have ended up in that trunk. And it was really nice to know that my fight or flight response was an elbow to the nose!!

…

中美小红书对账后，美国人疯了！Americans were shocked when they poured into Red Note

More about the American “slave contract”.

Riveting.

And with that, I now provide a great present for you all….

Tom Hank’s Greyhound

Full movie for FREE!