Yeah. This is what it is like. I’ve got a video that you’ll all will want to see. It’s pretty good. Almost as good as being here. It’s a pretty much grass-roots view of China in one of the “back water” towns in the “hinterland”. LOL. I think that you will all enjoy it.
But first…
… let’s talk about things that aren’t so serious. I mean, why not? Right? Like Pistachios. And Jarts. And blueberry pop-tarts, and big breakfasts with baked beans, easy over eggs, and lots and lots of bacon. And coffee. Percolated coffee. Thick.
Not so serious things.
Or, maybe serious.
And right off the bat I want to discuss some of the odd things that make me scratch my head in thought. Well, actually pet my beard, up and down, and go hummmm.It’s some thoughts that aren’t big enough for a post of their own, but curious enough not to omit.
And the first up is this little critter. Kinda cute. You know.
I always thought that dragons were a creature from fantasy, and the legends of dragons might be from remote memories of dinosaurs in our common shared humanity. But here, it pretty much seems definitive. Here be an actual dragon.
So here I am, minding my own business and I come across this little picture. I look at it, scroll past it. Pause. Stop. Think about the little guy, and go back to him.
He’s sort of cute, eh?
And here’s a group of guys from “Trailer Park Boys”. Not so cute. They remind me of my friends from Arkansas. In fact, their stereotype can pretty much be found all over America. Not that it’s bad mind you, but that it is not the narrative, its the way people interact with each other at different levels of financial success or distress.
Here’ to “the crew”!
I know that it is supposed to be a comedy, but really I actually know a lot of people like this. It’s the human experience, don’t you know.
The human experience.
You all have a front-row-seat. Don’t you know.
And speaking about the human experience, look at this little tool. It’s advertised to massage the gums. But come on! You aren’t going to tell me that that’s the real purpose of this little gizmo. Are you?
No. The real reason and the real purpose of this little device is to make it easier to pick your nose. Now with this vibrating finger your nose can be really get all clean and worked up.
Next up is a nostalgic picture.
When a government is working, and efficient, and has crime under control, inflation doesn’t exist. All inflation can be traced back to government mismanagement at some level. And sure there are all kinds of excuses justifying it’s existence, I like to believe that it is a measure of government mismanagement.
With that in mind, look at this picture please…
…and then, boom!
We are back to serious things.
Where has Americans’ income gone? By Ding Gang Ten years ago, I went to New York City with the correspondent group of then Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's delegation. After we arrived, the Chinese side invited some former US senior officials and entrepreneurs to hold a symposium. At that time, the trade imbalance between China and the US was already prominent. Wen gave the example of an iPod player, whose price was about $290 in the US at the time, but a Chinese manufacturer can only get $6 from each sale. I remember there was a heated discussion in China at that time - we would exchange 800 million shirts for a Boeing plane. Do Americans earn more because they make more money? From what I have learned during my visits to the US these years, prices of commodities did not change much, or even become cheaper as production bases have been moved to China and other countries. But wages for middle- and low-income Americans have not risen much, or none at all. Reports show that in a 2015 contract between the United Automobile Workers and the Detroit automakers, senior workers received just a 2 percent annual pay increase, after suffering a 10-year pay freeze. Where has Americans' income gone? To answer this question, we need to look at the earnings of the biggest companies in the stock market. Apple, for example, was number one, with a net income of $57.4 billion in 2020, up from $14 billion in 2010. Of course, the growth of income of the senior executives at big companies and the big investors is even more startling. In January, The New York Times reported that "America's richest 10 percent, who own more than 80 percent of US stocks, have seen their wealth more than triple in 30 years, while the bottom 50 percent, relying on their day jobs in real markets to survive, had zero gains." Economist Jonathan Rothwell listed an example in his book A Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society: In Spain, Sweden and Iceland, doctors earn twice as much as the average worker, but in the US, physicians and surgeons earn nearly five times as much. Such a huge gap between the rich and poor will bring at least two troubles for the future reforms in the US. First, the large-scale relief measures which aim at helping relieve the pressure of middle- and low-income Americans will actually help big enterprises, the rich and the upper class. In other words, the measures won't address the problem of the rich-poor gap. Second, the US design of system is based on the principle of "profits first." But the increase of profits for big companies comes more and more at the cost of unemployment of the middle and lower classes. As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote, "We're in the middle of a pandemic that has crushed jobs and small businesses - but the stock market is soaring. That's not right. That's elephants flying. I always get worried watching elephants fly. It usually doesn't end well." Both of these issues touch upon the old issue of raising taxes from big companies and from the rich. This will inevitably touch the foundation on which the US is built - competition in the free market economy which aims at improving efficiency. Moreover, getting vested interests to concede benefits is not an easy task. If money can't be obtained from taxes, there is only one way to go: printing more money. When things get to this point, it is no longer just a question of whether the social divisions can be healed, whether people can be united to move forward. US economist Stephen Roach recently pointed out that last year, the combined COVID-19 relief packages in the US hit a total of $5 trillion, or 24 percent of GDP in 2020. This far exceeds all records. On March 6, US Senate passed President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Will this destroy the world's confidence in the dollar? After all, green note is the foundation of US hegemony.
Will all this destroy the world’s confidence in the United States dollar? Heck! You bet. It’s already destroyed, and most nations welcome alternatives. Leading the pack is China with Gold Backed digital yuan. And trading directly and electronically.
Which brings up this most timely article from the Economic Collapse Blog;
Brace Yourselves For The Most Dramatic Shift In The Standard Of Living In All Of U.S. History
They are assuring us that we don’t have to be concerned about “inflation” because they have everything under control. Do you believe them? The value of the U.S. dollar has been steadily declining for a long time, and most Americans have grown accustomed to having the cost of living rise at a faster pace than their paychecks do. But over the past 12 months an enormous paradigm shift has begun. Instead of devaluing our currency a little bit at a time, now our leaders are going “full Weimar”.
Our money supply is growing at an exponential rate, and this is becoming a major national crisis. As I pointed out yesterday, it took from the founding of our county all the way to 2020 for M1 to reach 4 trillion dollars. But then from the start of the pandemic to today, M1 has gone from 4 trillion dollars to 18 trillion dollars. To call that “economic malpractice” would be way too kind.
The truth is that it is complete and utter lunacy, and we are all going to literally pay the price for such madness. Sadly, inflation is already starting to show up in a major way all throughout our economy.
For example, most Americans have noticed that the price of gasoline has really started to shoot up over the last several weeks…
Gas prices have been increasing at the pump for the past few weeks, reaching a national average of $2.77 a gallon as of Monday, which is 39 cents higher than the same time in 2020, according to AAA.
A lot of people are alarmed by this, but the Federal Reserve insists that this is completely normal.
Meanwhile, the price of agricultural commodities has risen by 50 percent over the past year…
The price of agricultural commodities traded on the global stage has shot up by 50 percent since the middle of 2020, according to economists at Rabobank.In a new report, the bank pins the lift in the price of wheat, corn, soy, sugar, and a range of other commodities on the northern La Niña, a weakening US currency, market speculators, and rising demand from importing nations.
As those prices are passed along to the consumer, you will be paying more for groceries at your local supermarket, but authorities assure us that prices will stabilize once the economy returns to “normal”.
The good news is that at least the price of food is not rising as fast as the price of lumber is…
Lumber prices have increased more than 180 percent since last spring, and this price spike has caused the price of an average new single-family home to increase by $24,386 since April 17, 2020, according to the NAHB standard estimates of lumber used to build the average home.
Now that is some serious inflation!
There are so many people that have had to put their plans to build a home on hold in recent months because the price of lumber has gotten so ridiculously high.
But the experts at the Fed insist that those that are warning of hyperinflation just have wild imaginations. Over the course of the past year, our leaders have pumped trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars into the system, and all of that money has to go somewhere.
In such a highly inflationary environment, this sort of a thing can happen…
A digital collage by American artist Beeple which exists only as a JPG file sold Thursday for a record $69.3 million at Christie’s, fetching more money than physical works by many better-known artists.‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’ became the most expensive ever ‘non-fungible token’ (NFT) – a collectible digital asset that uses blockchain technology to turn virtual work into a unique item – after being listed at the start of the two-week auction for only $100.
The U.S. dollar is being transformed into “toilet paper money”, and we are rapidly approaching the point of no return.
At least if our paychecks were rising as fast as the cost of living was, American families would be able to keep up with the escalating prices. But of course that is not happening, and more Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day.
In fact, vast numbers of formerly middle class Americans no longer have jobs at all. Last week another 712,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and the number of claims continues to hover around “four times the typical pre-crisis level”…
Weekly jobless claims have remained stubbornly high for months, hovering around four times the typical pre-crisis level, although it’s well below the peak of almost 7 million that was reached when stay-at-home orders were first issued a year ago in March.There are roughly 10 million fewer jobs than there were last year in February before the crisis began.
This is not what an “economic recovery” looks like.
The truth is that the U.S. economy is broken, and the only solution our leaders have is to print, borrow and spend even more money. Now Biden and his minions are about to pump another 1.9 trillion dollars into the system. Do you think that will make the inflation crisis better or do you think that it will make it worse?
You don’t need to answer, because the answer is self-evident.
As prices soar into the stratosphere, life is going to become increasingly difficult for most Americans.
If your income does not rise as fast as prices are going up, your standard of living will go down. Of course you will be far from alone. The vast majority of Americans are about to experience a dramatic shift in the standard of living, and most of the population doesn’t even realize what is happening.
All they know is that more government checks are on the way, and most of them are absolutely thrilled about that. But all of this printing, borrowing and spending has put us on a path to national financial suicide. As we continue to recklessly destroy the value of our currency, other nations will begin to realize that a move to a different reserve currency is needed.
And once the U.S. dollar is no longer the reserve currency of the world, there will never be any going back to the “good old days”.
We are so close to the economic endgame, and the word “collapse” is not nearly strong enough to describe what is eventually going to happen to the United States.
It makes me yearn for the good old days.
Well for all the good stuff that I have to say about China, now I am going to vent on some of the bad stuff. It’s not that I want to, but sometimes it’s just so frustrating. You want to eat some olives, and some slices of cheese, maybe Swiss or a fine Lorraine, and the only think that you can find is the pseudo cheese slices. Ugh!
It is difficult to truly enjoy cheese.
Ah. The Chinese enjoy everything, but cheese seems to elude them. Sigh.
Oh sure, you can find it here, but it’s not common and it’s not enjoyed the same way. It is sprinkled on items like you would sprinkle salt and pepper. Not layered and melted into a smooth creamy consistency. Like on Pizza.
It’s treated like a spice. Not as a major food group.
Which brings me to the delicious subject of Fondue. Now, I know it’s not all that popular in America these days, but at least there’s a few Americans get to try it at least once a year or so. And at that, when you pair it with a fine wine, it becomes a wonderful occasion.
Oh, and do not mistakenly believe that you need to buy any expensive fondue pots, pans or utensils to make it. You don’t. All you need is a pan, and the ingredients, and some long stemmed forks. That’s it. So what is stopping you?
Eh?
From HERE…
Fondue is a traditional Swiss dish that is prepared from pieces of cheese, thermally melted with white wine in a special fondue pot – “caquelon”, to a creamy consistency, flavored with cherry rakia or cherry brandy. It’s tasted by dipping hard bread cubes, rolled in the melted cheese with special fondue forks. Fondue is a warm dish that can contain one or more types of cheese, usually Gruyere and Vacherine Fribourgeois. It is the main national dish of Switzerland together with с raclette. It is also known in the Eastern French regions Savoie and Franch-Comte since the 1950s where it is prepared with Beaufort cheese or Comte cheese.
Now, maybe the “officially correct” way of making fondue uses the dish, the forks, and the special cheeses. But we are just simple people wanting to have simple pleasures with our friends… RIGHT NOW.
Here’s a hint, you make use of what you have. And you call up your friends, and you add some wine. Some nice music, and you all work together to make that delicious cheesy fondue happen.
And he continues on the narrative…
At the table, the fondue of melted cheeses is served in the so-called “caquelon” (a type of enameled, cast iron or ceramic pot) in which pieces of bread are dipped with a special fork with three prongs (there are also forks with two prongs, but they are mainly associated with the meat fondue – the Bourguignon or the Chinese type). The fondue pot (caquelon) is located on a metal pad (usually made of wrought iron) at the base of which is located the heat source (a heater or candles) that keeps the fondue at the desired temperature throughout the meal. Fondue forks are long-stemmed with a round handle. A piece of bread or rarely potato slices (traditionally consumed with Fondue fribourgeoise) are dipped into the melted cheese stirring in a circular or a figure-eight motion of the fork. When removing the fork from the fondue, it should be rotated continuously in a circle so that the melted cheese doesn’t drip outside the pot. The soaked mouthful is served towards the mouth when the cheese is already cooled to a suitable temperature for consumption and thus a full taste is achieved. It is a common rule for cheese producers to sell ready-made cheese mixes, especially for fondue preparation, which makes it possible to avoid the difficult choice of the cheese combination. In Switzerland, these cheese mixes can be found in supermarkets.
They are not generally found in the United States, and most certainly not in China.
But that’s the price you pay when you live in different areas. If I lived in Switzerland, I would be in “seventh Heaven” smunching on all that delicious food. I’ll tell you what.
There are many and varied Fondue recipes. For example, before beginning the fondue preparation, several cloves of garlic can be crushed at the bottom of the caquelon, then add the grated or sliced cheese and finally pour the wine. The specific thin in the Fribourgeoise fondue recipe is that the wine is replaced with water. The fondue set is turned on on a slow fire while stirring periodically until the cheese is completely melted. Then pepper and other supplements are added according to the desired recipe, such as sliced in cubes shallots, morel mushroom, mustard, etc. Corn starch dissolved in a little bit of cherry brandy can be used to thicken and improve consistency in cases where more wine is added, for example, or when the fondue is more liquid. Sometimes, a little bit of cardamom powder (which improves digestion) or other spices can be poured directly into the plate, where the cheese dipped bite is rolled right before consumption. Finally, when the fondue is over, it is possible to have dregs or crust of toasted cheese, called “religieuse”, which is removed with a fork, sometimes it is quite difficult. Also, at the end of the fondue you can add and prepare scrambled eggs.
Main varieties of Swiss cheese fondues
| FONDUE | CHEESE CONTENT |
| Moitié–Moitié | 50% Gruyére and 50% Vacherin |
| Fribourgeoise | 100% Vacherin Fribourgeois |
| Appenzelloise | 100% Appenzeller |
| Neuchateloise | 50% Gruyére and 50% Emmental |
| Central Switzerland | 1/3 Gruyére, 1/3 Emmental, 1/3 Sbrinz |
| Savoyard | 50% Emmental of Savoy and 50% Beaufort or Comté |
| Franc-Comtois | 100% Comté |
Now my deep secret…
I love cheese. Oh I really do. And you know you don’t appreciate things until you live without them. And that is so very true about cheese and China.
Like on hamburgers turning them magically into cheeseburgers. (It’s magical how it works.) You put the cheese on top of the burger after you cooked one side, and then you let the heat from inside the burger melt the cheese on to the paddy. You don’t rely on the heat around the burger to do it. Then you watch the cheese melt. It gets soft at the edges and then starts to wrap around the burger and starts to clutch it like a firm loving embrace.
Ahhh.
And…
As much as the delicious improvements to hamburgers come from cheese, so do improvements in just about anything else. You know like this…
Do you know what is better than thick gooey cheese on top of a cheeseburger? It’s thick gooey cheese inside of a cheeseburger. That’s what.
You know, it’s been years, but I used to make the “pizza burgers”. I would mix pizza sauce with the hamburger meat. Then put a chunk of mozzarella cheese in the middle of the patty and cook it that way. My only problem was that the meat would tend to crumble and resemble a “sloppy Joe” more than a burger. But it tasted oh so good. I’ll tell you what.
What a pizza burger is not…
There are many ideas of what a pizza-burger is. I’m gonna tell you all what it is not…
- It is not a burger with pizza sauce instead of ketchup.
- It is not an open bun burger (the top missing) with pepperoni slices.
- It is not a mini-pizza the size of a hamburger.
And if you try to do an image search on Bing that is what you are going to find. Sad. So very, very sad.
Nope. A real pizza burger has the burger consisting of meat and pizza sauce, and lots and lots of gooey melted cheese. That’s a pizza burger!
Smunching on a burger, and then enjoying life.
Maybe it’s time to go out and do some shopping. Eh?
Moving on
You know that there is one very special thing that would really improve the taste of cheese. Aside from friends, and your favorite pets, and some nice tunes (music). Can you guess what I am thinking about?
Yes. You are right.
Alcohol.
Or, more specifically… wine.
While I have my thoughts, other people are far better versed in explaining the nuances between the different kinds of wines.
A good hamburger is an indulgence. It is also pretty much always a little decadent, rich and hearty, which makes it a natural match for red wine. Sure, some white wines could work, and lots of sparkling wines too. But come on, let’s drink some red wine with our red meat.
- A Red wine goes best with a hamburger / cheeseburger. You can tell if it is a red wine by it’s color. Red wine has a red color.
Below are some classic wine styles (and bottle recommendations) that pair with burgers, plus a couple of not-so-classic picks that worked well recently with a variety of burger styles — from a simple Swiss cheeseburger with all-American condiments, to a black-truffle-mayo-and-fried-egg stunner, to a bison burger with cheddar, caramelized onions and wasabi mayo.
I would never suggest a ho-hum wine just because burgers are, at the end of the night, just hot sandwiches with toppings. With that in mind, only one of these 10 bottles rings up higher than $20. (140 RMB for those of you in China.)
Zinfandel
Not a “white Zinfandel” which is everywhere, but rather a “red Zinfandel”. A red Zinfandel wine is both fruity and spicy. Some fruit aromas such as raspberries, blackberries, cherries, cranberries. And there is a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and black pepper. Depending on the winemaking and ageing methods it undergoes Zinfandel can display a range of secondary and tertiary aromas.
Red Zinfandel Wine Information
Zinfandel is one of the all-time classic burger wines. Big, jammy, juicy and spicy, it’s almost as if it were invented for this most-American of sandwiches.
Cabernet
A Taste of Cabernet Sauvignon | wine.co.za https://wine.co.za/wine/wine.aspx?WINEID=41057 2021-2-16 · Cabernet Sauvignon is a noble variety red grape - and is usually deep red in colour, full-bodied, with dark fruit flavours. It arose out of an accidental breeding between a red Cabernet Franc and a white Sauvignon Blanc grape plant - which subsequently has become one of the most planted and popular varieties in the red wine world.
There used to be an old television commercial. I forget what was being sold. Maybe it was a Heinz product for “57 Steak Sauce”. Encouraging people to shake a particular steak sauce onto their hamburgers instead of ketchup, the TV advertising campaign went something like this:
"...Is a hamburger made of ground ham? No — it's made of ground steak."
As long as it is not a tannic powerhouse, a California cabernet sauvignon, best friend of the juicy steak, is probably going to be a good match for your burger. It’s got a rich flavor, and when you drink it after a bite of a fine thick, cheesy burger the taste really excels.
Oh, I get goosebumps thinking about it.
A nice Cabernet is my favorite, as well as a fine sweet Shiraz.
Malbec
Taste and Flavor Profile Malbec wines are dry, full-bodied, and exhibit rich, dark fruit nose and flavors like blackberry and red plum. They're juicy and jammy, with notes of vanilla, tobacco, dark chocolate, and oak. With medium acid and moderate levels of tannins, they pair well with food. What Is Malbec Wine? - The Spruce Eats www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-malbec-wines-3511186
Argentines love their beef, and they wouldn’t dream of eating one of their famous steaks without a glass of malbec. Naturally, malbec is also a great burger wine, with its velvety plum, blackberry, chocolate and earth.
Rhone varieties
The Rhône, a major river in France, rises in the Alps and flows south to the Mediterranean Sea. This river lends its name to the southern French wine region on its banks, the Rhône Valley, as well as its major AOC, Côtes du Rhône.
The indigenous grape varieties that grow in the region, like Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Viognier and Roussanne, are often referred to as Rhône grapes. So, regardless of their place of origin, wines made from these grapes are said to be Rhône-style wines the world over.
Rhone Blend https://www.tastemonterey.com/rhone=blend Definition: The Rhone region of France has a delightful selection of red varieties. There are 22 grapes allowed in the Rhone AOC, about half of them red. Most of these varieties are used as secondary blending partners, often comprising less than 10% of the blend. The primary red players of Rhone blends are Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre.
Can you imagine not seasoning a hamburger patty with a little bit of salt and black pepper? This is where the Rhone grape varieties come into play, especially the powerful and legendary syrah, which can range from floral to leathery, often with a bite of pepper.
Merlot
Most Merlot wines are thick and full-bodies. It’s sort of the “milkshake” of the wine world. It’s considered to be “heavy”, and if you are not used to it, it will get you drunk faster than the lighter wines. Because of this, you will need to drink it slowly and eat it with some fine beef or mutton.
A Taste of Merlot - wine.co.za https://cellardirect.co.za/a-taste-of-merlot The Eikendal Merlot 2017 has an attractive nose that reminds one of forest floor, violets, plums, black berries, cherries and peppery spices. On the palate the wine and full and rounded, with soft tannins and a rich taste of black berries and plums.
With richness and a silky mouthfeel, merlot is sort of the wine equivalent of a milkshake in this pairing scenario — if you consider that some people like the fizz and tang of soda with a burger, and others opt for a mouth-coating chocolate shake.
Here’s a picture where someone went into a White Castle fast-food franchise and got some sliders with their wine.
What a better moment than to think of Harold and Kumar…
So, here I am enjoying a home made cheese burger. (And no, I did not skimp on the tomatoes, and yes, I do enjoy a nice onion with my burger) and drinking it with a fine local wine; Great Wall. It’s a very reasonably priced good real wine. Basic. Just the way I like it.
And I thought that I would cruse the internet, like I used to back in the mid 1990’s during the Bill Clinton years. Back then I actually believed the “news”. Now I know better.
The state of American “news”
Let me say a few words about the state of “news” in America today…
It sucks.
Yup, that’s pretty much it.
For Shits and Giggles
So, for shits and giggles I visited Free Republic to check out what narratives are being promoted these days.
I used to frequent it excessively. But it’s become the mouthpiece of the hard-right, and no longer stands for anything resembling free discourse. And my being perma-banned pretty much validated that belief. After all, what is more hypicritical than to promote the idea of a “Free Republic” where you can freely experss ideas, and then perma-ban a member because “your ideas and thoughts are not welcome here.”
No longer searching for truth and providing a medium for free exchange of ideas it has become a money making venue which now maintains a niche market that caters to a mixture of old-world-conservatives, war-mongering neocons, and the religious right.
One of the first things you learn once you've been out of the United States for six months or longer is just how absolutely bad the American "news" actually is. It's horrible. They lie, and they distort and they do everything in their power to make you afraid.
I check up on the American media enclaves from time to time so that I don’t go too far off the deep end. (It’s easy to do.) Hard right. Hard left. Mainstream. I mostly just scan the headlines. It tells me all that I need to know.
I try to give equal time to all the “news” venues. They all have soemthing to say. They all are visited by people who are searching. It’s just that they all manipulate to push their own agendas.
I am NOT saying bad things about liberals or conservatives, or moderates or any other flavor. I am saying that there are some seriously ill people with some very little minds, and very big mouths. If not properly corralled they will end up causing all the rest of us to endure some real pain.
Contemporaneous news…
BUCS Sign Brady To 4-Year Contract... Michelle Obama considers 'retiring' from public life... Rubio sides with Alabama workers in AMAZON union battle... Bezos invited by Sanders to hearing on income, wealth inequality... Congress Leaning Towards Big Tech Breakup... What the AT&T Split Teaches About Antitrust... GOOGLE Faces 'Very Large' EU Advertising Probe, Vestager Says... Claims MICROSOFT's Stance on News Is Effort to Distract from Hack... 'NEWSROOM' actress appears to have plagiarized NYTIMES essay... Spring forward forever? Push to keep daylight saving time year-round grows... UPDATE: 'Historic' snowstorm to pummel Wyoming, Colorado... '6 FEET'... 'Impossible travel conditions'... USA had coldest February in 30 years... ISIS creates 'elite new cell of jihadis to carry out attacks on West'... Rioters Set Fire to Federal Courthouse in Portland 1 Day after Fencing Removed... MYSTERY: Number of twins being born at 'all-time high', researchers say... Two-Thirds of Italians Set For Lockdown as Pandemic Worsens... Germany declares 'third wave' has begun... LA primed for disaster, but virus took it to another level! HALF adults infected with virus have symptoms of depression... Mexico czar got infected -- then walked through Mexico City... EU Governments Push to Relax Ban on Travel From Rest of World... Maskless, boozing JETBLUE passenger faces $14,500 FAA fine... Latest hotel amenity: Free test...
And yeah, Free Republic hasn’t changed, it’s still the anti-China crusade running hard and hot, plus the usual fearful articles, and a bunch of shit about anti-vax, anti-5G, anti-social reform, and anti-huawei. It’s anti-everything. Except for guns, walls, and war.
The only thing positive that I can say about it is that the culprits are pretty well brazen. They aren’t hiding their disgust about the rest of the world at all. It’s all pretty open, and well-aired. I’ve got to give them credit for that.
Yeah…
So I went through the first three pages and pulled out a slew of anti-China articles. And guess what? They are all from the same source. I wonder why they are spamming FR so aggressively?
Theyare all from the hard-religious-Right publication The Epoch Times.
What is The Epoch Times?. Dangerous Propaganda ... https://medium.com/politically-speaking/what-is-the-epoch-times-e8f80d152a6f May 15, 2020 · The Epoch Times was started by John Tang in the year 2000 as a Chinese language newspaper. John Tang is a graduate of Georgia Tech who publicly supports the Fulan Gong...
All of the articles came from this singular source.
All of the anti-China articles are from this publication that advocates world war III to bring about global social change. Yeah, not all that different from other dooms-day-cults. Like Heaven’s Gate. Or the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. It’s curious to know that so many American conservatives are willing to listen, follow and fund a lunatic that follows in the same footsteps as the Jim Jones when he lead more than 900 followers to their deaths.
Check out their religious-justified Anti-China war-mongering…
Let’s start here with this one. This one is simple. This article is just a rewording of a Reuters piece to bang-on China. Now the Reuters piece pretty much reports that the FCC is following the already in-place policies of the former Trump Administration. This republishing keeps the narrative alive. Giving the FR readership the idea that the Biden Administration is “keeping the heat on China”.
-
Five Chinese Companies Pose Threat to US National Security: FCC 3/13/2021, 12:20:16 PM · by Yong · 5 replies The Epoch Times ^ | March 12, 2021 | Reuters WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday designated five Chinese companies as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting U.S. communications networks.
My comments:
It’s all fun and games for now. Just wait in ten years. When China and Russia tire of all this and the American electronic industry and software industry is under a graduated state of collapse. (Just like every other industry in America over the last few decades.) And then when it is tottering before the big fall, China, Russia and all of Europe pulls the rug out, and performs a “tit for tat” payback.
Oh, you all think that cannot happen?
How about this next article…
This one is a laugh. It’s implying and making statements that the Chinese people are fearful of what is going on and how the government is handing things. At a 93% Chinese approval rating the narrative doesn’t make sense. While I am sure that the local government is very active in Beijing, just as they are here, no one, and I do mean NOBODY is concerned. But the American readership knows none of that.
So they believe these LIES.
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Beijing Pushes for Door-to-Door COVID-19 Vaccinations, Citizens Worry 3/13/2021, 9:38:12 AM · by SeekAndFind · 11 replies Epoch Times ^ | 03/12/2021 | Alex Wu Chinese authorities recently launched a door-to-door COVID-19 vaccination program in Chaoyang District, in the capital city of Beijing. Some residents shared their concerns with The Epoch Times over their distrust of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its propaganda about COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic. Mainland Chinese media reported on March 10 that Beijing’s Chaoyang District began a new door-to-door vaccination program in residential communities and villages. The program is also carried out in five types of places such as government offices, the Central Business District (CBD), industrial parks, business offices, and school campuses. Chaoyang is where international companies, foreign...
Now of course, all this anti-China narrative makes you think certain things about China. And since there are NO NAMES, and there are NO PICTURES, and there are NO VIDEOS, and no one is willing to provide links to the ACTUAL CHINESE DOCUMENTS, you all just believe what is being told. Yet the actual validity of what you read has as much worth as the ten year old riding the bike down the street.
And this one… it really cracks me up!
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Nearly Half of Trump Supporters Won’t Take the CCP Virus Vaccine: NPR, PBS, Marist Poll 3/13/2021, 9:35:04 AM · by SeekAndFind · 94 replies Epoch Times ^ | 03/12/2021 | Samuel Allegri Almost half of former President Trump’s supporters don’t plan to take a CCP virus vaccine according to a poll by NPR, PBS, and Marist. The poll indicates that 47 percent of people who identified themselves as Trump supporters would not want to be vaccinated when the doses became available to them. Upon widening the demographics, the survey found that 41 percent of Republicans would not take the vaccine, compared to only 11 percent of Democrats saying they wouldn’t take it. In total, about two-thirds of Americans polled said that they’ve already taken a vaccine or would take one when they...
Do you want something funny? Half the Trump supporters won’t take ANY vaccine, let alone one from China. But it’ll be hard for them to get the Chinese vaccine inside of America because it is not being shipped to America.
Uh Duh!
I’ll tell ya, you’ve got to be a fucking brainless morn to actually believe the bullshit that is being peddled in America today.
Here’s another…
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3 Deaths in 9 Days After Hongkongers Get China’s Sinovac Vaccine 3/13/2021, 5:21:07 AM · by SeekAndFind · 12 replies Epoch Times ^ | 03/12/2021 | Emma Yu Since Hong Kong began vaccinating the public with the China’s domestically-produced Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac, on Feb. 26, three deaths in nine days have increased anxiety about the vaccine’s safety. On March 8, a 71-year-old man in Hong Kong died four days after receiving his vaccine shot. The patient was reported to be in good health before the vaccination. This was the third death in nine days in Hong Kong following a CoronaVac injection. It’s unclear whether the vaccine contributed to the deaths. Authorities have said they are investigating the causes of death. The first known death in Hong Kong...
This one is simple. This article is just a rewording of a Jimmy Lai piece to bang-on China. He might be behind bars, and probably getting ready for organ harvesting, but his papers and media empire lives on…
…for now.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
And you all wonder why these sources and editors, and writers are being banned off the min platforms?
And here’s a hate spewing nonsense trying to associate the COVID-19 lite with China. You all want to know what these people look like to me…
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Florida Gov. DeSantis Cancels All CCP Virus Fines Issued by Local Officials 3/13/2021, 3:15:54 AM · by lightman · 36 replies epoch times ^ | 12 March A.D. 2021 | Lorenz Duchamps Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order that will eliminate all fines issued by local government officials over the past year to people and businesses in the state who violated restrictions related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The order (pdf) was signed after the Board of Executive Clemency approved DeSantis’s proposal on March 10 to categorically remit all fines related to local government CCP virus restrictions. “I hereby remit any fines imposed between March 1, 2020, and March 10, 2021, by any political subdivision of Florida related to local government COVID-19 restrictions,” DeSantis confirmed in the order,...
It’s all war-mongering antagonistic bullshit. And if left unchecked it will lead to war. And people are gonna die!
Listen to me.
These NEOCONS are Dangerous.
The History of the Neocon Takeover of the USA
Copied as found with editing to fit this venue. It’s a good read and worth your time. All credit to the author.
This is the interview I just did with authors, Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, who have written a definitive 4-part article on the origins and the history of the Neocon movement. The influence of the Neoconservatives has been catastrophic to the American government – and to much of the world, yet as they point out, it never seems to end. The authors describe it as an elitist cult; a rabid ideology which doesn’t rely on facts to justify itself. This is the interview I just did with authors, Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, who have written a definitive 4-part article on the origins and the history of the Neocon movement. The influence of the Neoconservatives has been catastrophic to the American government – and to much of the world, yet as they point out, it never seems to end. The authors describe it as an elitist cult; a rabid ideology which doesn’t rely on facts to justify itself. Senator J. William Fulbright identified the Neocons’ irrational system for making endless war in Vietnam 45 years ago, in a New Yorker article titled Reflections in Thrall to Fear: “Cold War psychology is the totally illogical transfer of the burden of proof from those who make charges to those who question them”, leading to “The ultimate illogic: war is the course of prudence and sobriety until the case for peace is proved under impossible rules of evidence [or never] – or until the enemy surrenders. Rational men cannot deal with each other on this basis…But these were not rational men and their need to further their irrational quest only increased with the loss of the Vietnam War.” This same ideology drove the failed War in Iraq – and now, they’re at it again, with their foolhardy saber-rattling towards Russia. The birth of the Neocon movement grew out of what had previously been known within the Eastern Establishment as “Team B”, in which official policies were tested by “competitive analysis”. The first Team B was created by George H. W. Bush, while he was Director of the CIA. This brought together very unlikely bedfellows, such as the ex-Trotskyite, James Burnham and Right Wing business interests, both of whom lobbied heavily for big military budgets, advanced weapons systems and aggressive action to confront Soviet Communism. This Team B/Neocon doomsday cult managed to weather the defeat of the Vietnam War and their non-fact-based analyses continue to maintain a stranglehold on US policy. James Burnham’s nihilist, elitist vision was criticized by George Orwell in his 1946 essay, Second Thoughts on James Burnham, in which he wrote, “What Burnham is mainly concerned to show [in the latter’s book, The Machiavellians] is that a democratic society has never existed and, so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud… Power can sometimes be won and maintained without violence, but never without fraud.” In fact, George Orwell’s classic book, 1984 was based on Burnham’s vision of the coming totalitarian state, which he described as “A new kind of society, neither Capitalist nor Socialist, and probably based upon slavery.” There are many well-known godfathers of the Neoconservative agenda of “Endless War”, the guiding principle of America’s foreign policymakers today but Gould and Fitzgerald identify James Burnham as by far its most important figure, although he is little-known today. Burnham was born in Chicago, the son of an English immigrant father. He attended Princeton University and later Oxford University’s Balliol College. He briefly became a close advisor to Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, from whom he learned the tactics and strategies of infiltration, political subversion and dirty tricks. Gould and Fitzgerald note that the Right Wing Neocon cult of “Endless War” is ironically rooted in Trotsky’s permanent “Communist Revolution” and they describe how James Burnham helped to turn this into the permanent battle plan for a global Anglo-American empire. They write, “All that was needed to complete Burnham’s dialectic was a permanent enemy and that would require a sophisticated psychological campaign to keep the hatred of Russia alive for generations.” In 1941, Burnham renounced his allegiance to Trotsky and Marxist idealism and he moved towards a cruel realism, with his belief in the inevitable failure of democracy and the rise of the oligarch. During the following years, he wrote several books and memos, predicting the rise of a technocratic elite. By 1947, Burnham’s transformation from Communist radical to New World Order American Conservative was complete, landing him smack into the loving arms of America’s Right Wing defense establishment during and after World War II. In my own writings, I’ve noted that the use of the word “Freedom” by the US Government, whether it be “Freedom Fries”, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” or “They hate us for our freedom,” has completely mangled the significance of this F-word, certainly from a Constitutional perspective. Gould and Fitzgerald trace the bastardization of this word to James Burnham: “Burnham’s Freedom only applied to those intellectuals (the Machiavellians) willing to tell people the hard truth about the unpopular political realities they faced. These were the realities that would usher in a brave new world of the managerial class who would set about denying Americans the very Democracy they thought they already owned. As Orwell observed about Burnham’s Machiavellian beliefs, in his 1946 Second Thoughts, ‘Power can sometimes be won or maintained without violence, but never without fraud, because it is necessary to use the masses.’” With the CIA’s 1950 founding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), Gould and Fitzgerald write, “By its own admission, the CIA’s strategy of promoting the non-Communist Left would become the theoretical foundation of the Agency’s political operations against Communism over the next two decades.” Today, it appears that this strategy has been a smashing success, where we see the so-called Left in the US playing the role of fulminating, pro-Establishment Statists, a behavior formerly relegated to the Right. Never, in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the “tolerant Left” behaving like an army of Phyllis Schlaflys! Prior to the catastrophe that was the Vietnam War, the Right was the establishment. The factual defeat of the ideals which drove this war was instrumental to the rise of the 1960s Counterculture movement, which was an even bigger disaster for the Neocons than losing the war. The Counterculture needed to be co-opted by any means necessary and I believe this has been successfully achieved. Gould and Fitzgerald write that, “CIA’s control over the non-Communist Left and the West’s ‘free’ intellectuals [enabled] the CIA to secretly disenfranchise Europeans and Americans from their own political culture in such a way they would never really know it.” Gould and Fitzgerald cite historian Christopher Lasch, who wrote in 1969 of the CIA’s co-optation of the American Left: “The modern state… is an engine of propaganda, alternately manufacturing crises and claiming to be the only instrument that can effectively deal with them. This propaganda, in order to be successful, demands the cooperation of writers, teachers, and artists, not as paid propagandists or state-censored time-servers but as ‘free’ intellectuals capable of policing their own jurisdictions and of enforcing acceptable standards of responsibility within the various intellectual professions.” We see this very much today, in the Late Night comedy of Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and SNL, the staff writers of which are largely hand-picked from the Harvard Lampoon, where young comedians are trained in a particular brand of comedy that deftly implants a fascist philosophy of extreme elitism and which fuses the ideals of the old Trotskyist left together with those of the right-wing Anglo-American elite, aka the Deep State. The product of this fusion is called “Neoconservatism” – or its sneaky twin, “Neoliberalism”. The overt mission of this ideology is to roll back Russian influence everywhere. The covert mission is to reassert British cultural dominance over the Anglo-American Empire, maintained through propaganda. Traditionally, comedy has been used as a form of social and political criticism. Today, it cows the hapless consumer into submission to the hegemony. Gould and Fitzgerald then inform us about the secret Information Research Department of the British and Commonwealth Foreign Office known as the IRD, which was funded by the CIA and served as a covert anti-Communist propaganda unit from 1946 until 1977. Gould and Fitzgerald cite Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, authors of Britain’s Secret Propaganda War, which describes how the IRD spread ceaseless disinformational propaganda (a mixture of lies and distorted facts) among top-ranking journalists working for major news agencies, including Reuters and the BBC and all other available channels. This was but one of many similar initiatives launched by the CIA’s Psychological Strategy Board, including Project Mockingbird and the abovementioned Congress for Cultural Freedom. The mind is the ultimate battlefield. In my next talk with Gould and Fitzgerald, we will go into how the Deep State has designs on our dream life, in such figures as Robert Moss, a former assassin who now gives New Age workshops on “Active Dreaming.” (Incidentally, the New Age Movement was a CIA subproject of MK Ultra mind control programs). The soon-to-be-released 5G network will enable Virtual Reality, as predicted by Gould and Fitzgerald’s book, ‘The Voice: An Encrypted Monologue’, which takes the reader through the process of reclaiming one’s own narrative from the “noize” of unrelenting psychological warfare that saturates our environment. Check out their book, ‘The Voice’ here: https://www.forbiddenmedia.com/product/the-voice/
All this neocon “firehose” of disinformation from the hard-right seriously give me a headache. It’s like this…
(Since we are talking about 1994, and the Bill Clinton years of surfing the “web”.)
Oh, and where was I, oh yeah…
Video on the fifth tier cities in China
Let’s move away from the American “news” and let’s see a taste of what real reality actually is.
Here we just provide a video that is making the rounds in China. A fellow from the UK, who lives in China, has been making various You-tube videos of his experiences in China. And you can come across these kinds of videos all over the internet. But what makes this particular video so special is that it isn’t a first or second tier city. He’s making videos in the smaller “back woods” communities within China. It’s the real deal.
You see, most you-tube videos are of expats exploring Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Cool and big cities most certainly. But they are first-tier enormous urban landscapes. But those of us, like myself, live in the smaller communities.
Here he is visiting some of the “smaller communities”. To an American, or Brit, it looks like a city. To a Chinese person, it is considered a small village. It’s not big and it doesn’t qualify for high speed rail, or subway access. But it is still vibrant and alive as all of China is these days.
Here’s the video. Click on the picture for the video to open up in a new tab. It’s around 12 minutes or so long, and is narrated by a British expat. Please excuse his accent, and his “squirly” appearance. He’s a typical. Don’t you know.
I do hope that you enjoy it. It’s pretty much what it is like when you enter the Chinese version of “Fly over country”, and a “Red State”.
Now, go and get some cheese, a bottle of wine, some music and call up some friends. Time is too short to waste!
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Oh man Mr. Man!
Ranting about fondue – also one of my favourite pastimes. I beg to differ, the choice of cheese is essential for the taste of the fondue.
( As you might have noticed, Im living close to switzerland and have some friends there – so I can get hold of *real* Swiss cheese from time to time )
But fondue is just the second best table cooking you can get – have you ever had the opportunity to have a Swiss Raclette ?
This is the cheese lovers heaven!
If you go to the Suisse heartland, nearly every valley has their own Raclette cheese – and nothing of it reaches export logistics, they all consume that by themselves. And what a difference that makes – the taste is real incomparably delicious.
As an ordinary man, I like it simple, too, but as a gourmet, once you start with the good stuff you can’t stop, hehe.
Will certainly try your pizza burger when it is time for bbq again! Cheers.
You are a truly fortunate man! My experience with fondue is American. Which means it’s but a shallow, pale copy of the original. In America baguettes (fresh and piping hot) are rare, so everyone buys pre-sliced white pre-packaged loaves of bread. Cheese is available, but pricey, most Americans use pre-sliced, pre-packaged cheese-substitute. And wine has alcohol, and is expense, you don’t want to lose your job for drinking the stuff at home or get arrested for 0.00001 alcohol in your blood at a road block, so many drink icy cold Pepsi-cola instead.
But, all joking aside (well, partial joking at least) I will tell you that you are a truly fortunate man, and I wish that someday we should share such a wonderful experience. I believe you, and I just wish that I had your knowledge, understanding and experience with fondue. I used to have it (well, at least the Americanized versions) back before I joined MAJestic and the slides took me further away from this reality. I well remember the delicious tastes and the textures of the breads. And I wasn’t even drinking wine with it (back then!) I can only imagine what a wonderful experience it must be.
Incidentally, I’ve been tracing my family roots back. On my father’s side they are Polish, but at the time they emigrated they were West Prussian, and goes back to a tiny, tiny village where the records have been lost to time. My mother’s side is Irish, and her family goes back, way, way back to Germany and Switzerland. And they did keep records. Oh my Goodness! Your comment put a smile on my face, and I just want you to know that my experience is but a rare one, and you ans the expert can sense my love for this subject. Sigh. Thank you for that.
I have to thank you !
Yes, it is the little things that matter.
And I sincerely hope we will get the chance for some ” carne con queso” , as an Argentinian friend of mine calls it.
Cheers, mt
Big thank you for the smile you put on my face.
I came home from the office today and the house smelled like meat and cheese. The prayer campaign intended for you, MM, boomeranged back on me. Rolled lasagna with ricotta, mozzerella, Ragu instead of home made sauce though but hey, aint complainin’. I’ll try harder, brother. Cheers!
Big Smile. Ah that’s the way it works with prayer campaigns don’t you know. Enjoy!
All this talk of food is making me salivate.
Chinese are lactose intolerant hence aren’t big fan of dairy products.
Instead of cheese fondue, the Chinese has the hotpot. Am sure MM is very familiar with the hotpot.
Btw, try Saint Emilion wine. It’s a Bordeaux. Get the Grand Cru or Grand Cru Classe vineyard.
I do love a fine hotpot. But I am also a big fan of Ma-La-Tong. And I’ll drink any wine, as long as it’s real. LOL.
As a South East Asian that loves spicy foods, Ma La Tong is just a wee bit over the top for me.
Not so much the mouth numbing spiciness but the stomach aches and burning of the ass. LOL
The Brit who did the video has a YouTube channel called Living in China.
The YT link to your video
https://youtu.be/4AYQBmk3yiQ
And a big THANK YOU for this. Good stuff, and a big thanks for contributing and participating. You know, I cannot get YT inside of China.
Yup, which was why I tried looking for the YT video for your readers who are more comfortable with viewing it on YT.
The chap looked familiar as his channel poped up on my YT feed a couple of times previously.