1960s science fiction meets TODAY.

According to the readout from China’s MFA and other official sources, Yellen’s visit to China is described as the result “after the discussion by both sides (China and US)”, which means she was not officially invited by China . (Some Chinese observers pointed out there was no red carpet at the airport when Yellen arrived.)

Same wordings regarding Blinken’s visit to Beijing.

China did not hand out official invitation to them because China knew there wouldn’t be any constructive and meaningful diplomatic dialogues with the perfidious American politicians.

China accepted Blinken and Yellen’s visit just to show China’s good intention for talk to de-escalate the tension caused by US wonton behavior.

But the Americans take it as China showing weakness, feel they could force themselves upon China, lecture China and, at the same time, get favorable deals for US, such as, to force China buying more US debts, to give free license to WSJ banksters to rob of China.

Like the colonial masters, American politicians believe and act as if they own the world and everyone should obey American/Western orders…

…

Those days are LONG gone.

What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve ever had to explain to a third party?

“Can I have my gift card back?” I asked the cashier.

“Um. Ok. Sure.”, she replied.

“Dude why did you ask for that back? It’s not worth anything.” My friend said.

“Well. A guy gave it to me for saving his life.”

“What the hell?”

“So, I was driving back home from a party at about 3 AM in February and I see this guy sitting on the curb in the middle of nowhere in a t-shirt. It’s below freezing and he looks dazed so I roll down my window and ask him if he’s ok.”

He says to me, “have you seen my skateboard?” He sounded really mellow (read: stoned). Then he stares off into the distance again.

I wait for maybe ten fifteen seconds. Then I ask him to say that again. Just to make sure.

He says “he can’t find his skateboard.” “I don’t know where it went” he says.

This is probably bad. He’s rambling. So, It’s twenty five degrees degrees outside. “Do you want get in the car and I’ll help you look for it?” I ask.

“Oh. Ok. Yeah. That’s nice of you.” He says.

I stop the car next to him. Unlock the door.

“I can’t get up,” he says. “I think I broke my leg.” He continues.

I think for a moment. He’s got thirty pounds on me easy. Looks like he exercises. Thick neck. Well built. But I’m missing something.

That tone.[1] He’s harmless. I get out. Walk to his side. Open the door. Help him in. God he’s heavy. Smells like Vodka.

I get back to my side and wait for him to buckle himself in. It takes him quite a while.

“I’m sorry man, I’m so sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s ok,” I reply, biting my lip gently and trying to not frown. “Oh. I’m Mike,” I say.

“Kevin,” he replies, taking my hand.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll attack you or something,” he asks me off handed.

“No,” I say. “If you were going to, you would have while I was picking you up. Or before you strapped yourself in.”

“Ah.” He nods.

“Besides, you carry yourself like a fighter.” I say. “Martial arts?” I ask.

“I box,” he says, “for the school team, and I swim.”

I nod. “See, you’re harmless,” I say. “Martial artists don’t abuse their power.”

“Generally.”

“Also you’re drunk, stoned and your leg is probably broken.”

He laughs. “And you,” he asks?

“MMA I suppose, black belt in Karate. Do some Brazilian Jujitsu. Some street fighting.”

He nods.

I ask him, “what’s the story?”

He replies, “I was partying with some friends. And then we left and I told them I wanted to go and skateboard by myself. I fell off. I don’t know where it is. “

Pausing for a minute, “I ask What color is it?”

“Black,” he replies.

I shake my head and smile, and say,” that’s not good. We can look I guess.”

I drive around for a bit. We can’t find it.

Suddenly he says, “I just realized I don’t know where my coat is.”

“Oh. I have an extra coat in the back. You should wear it,” I replied.

“You sure?” He eyes me.

“Yeah . . . “

“Do we want to get you to a hospital or something?” I ask. (Does it make us bad people that both of us were more concerned about the board than his leg/his possible hypothermia?)

“Nah. Can you drop me home?” He suggested. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, where’s that?”

I get him to his house. Fifteen minute drive. Lights are off. He can’t find his keys. He calls his room mates. No good.

“So what now?” I ask.

“I guess I call my parents.” He calls them. Explains this, sort of. They say they’ll be right here (in 30).

So we wait. He says he’s done this sort of thing before. A lot. I talk about my on and off battle with depression. Convince him to see a therapist.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Do you ever get the feeling that you’re alone when you’re in a crowd?” he says. “Or even with friends, you don’t care about the things they care about. You don’t want to do the things they do. But you want to be a part of it.”

“Very often so. Most people our age don’t think too much. Life is short. Life is serious business. Life is insane. Life is beautiful.”

His parting words to me. As his parents came to pick him up. “Thanks man. Anything I can do for you just say it. Do you like pizza? I make a mean pizza. Do you smoke pot? Do you want to come over and just hang out sometime?”

I smile. “Sure. We’ll see. Take care of yourself.”

Oh and a few weeks later we got lunch. He gave me my coat back. And a ten dollar gift card.

He said, and I quote, “Thanks for saving my life dude. Here’s a ten dollar gift card to Subway. Wow I sound like horrible person.”

And we laughed like idiots.

[1] Depressed/self destructive people have a very distinct way of speaking. They’re very resigned.

The French Riots Just Exposed a MASSIVE Problem for USA

The French Riots have been a disaster for France but if we zoom out these protests represent a real problem for the US and many Western countries around the world. What’s the biggest threat to the future of world security? Well Richard Haass, one of America’s most respected foreign policy experts reveals a bombshell in today’s video.

Home-made Amaretto

What Is Amaretto?

Amaretto is a sweet liquor that originated in Italy. Originally, Amaretto was flavored with butter almonds, but these days commercial brands can be made from apricot stones, peach stones or almonds.

Amaretto can be mixed with cocktails or sipped on its own. While we have many, many different cocktails to make with Amaretto, this delicious homemade version is so delicious as an after dinner drink or aperitif.

The History Of Amaretto

The name “Amaretto” comes from the Italian word amaro which means “bitter”. A funny little fact is that cyanide is found naturally in almonds and it has to be processed out of the almonds before its use in this liquor.

A old tale tells the story of a student of Leonardo da Vinci’s students was painting a church and needed a model to paint his Madonna. The women he found became his model and lover and in turn, because of how poor she was, she gifted him a liquor that was made from apricot kernels steeped in brandy.

Why Homemade Amaretto Is Best

Typically we find modern day Amaretto to be on the sweeter side, which is one of the reasons why making it from scratch is totally the way to go. You can balance out the level of sweetness that you like and how long you let the liquor steep. This homemade Amaretto isn’t very bitter at all, which is the way we like it.

Another reason that you should try making this recipe at home is because it is much more cost effective than buying a bottle at the store. Obviously stores mark up the prices of everything, so when you can save a few bucks and make a quality product at home you should!

Yield: 6 cups

How Do You Make Homemade Amaretto?

The process is easy, you start out with plain (good quality) vodka. Then you add in the flavoring – vanilla beans, almond extract and sugar. That’s basically it – and then you let it sit.

The longer you let it sit, the better it gets. But you definitely have to give it a few days or up to a week before trying it.

Once you’re ready to drink it though you can remove the vanilla bean if the flavor is right for you, or leave it in and let it flavor the amaretto some more. I took the vanilla bean out after a week since for me the flavor tasted right on target.

I’m telling you this tastes as good if not better than the expensive store bought brand – I like that it’s less sweet and also has more almond flavor.

Ingredients

• 1 lemon
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups water
• 3 cups vodka
• 3 tablespoons brandy
• 2 tablespoons almond extract
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon chocolate extract

Instructions

1. Peel lemon, leaving inner white skin on fruit; reserve lemon for another use. Cut lemon rind into 2 x 1/4 inch strips. Combine lemon rind strips, sugar and water in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.
2. Remove from heat; remove and discard lemon rind strips. Cover and chill thoroughly. Add vodka and remaining ingredients to chilled mixture; stir well.
3. Store in an airtight container at room temperature at least 1 week before serving.
4. Use in any recipe calling for amaretto.

Russia Confirms “BRICS” To Launch Gold-Backed Currency

World Hal Turner 07 July 2023

According to state-run Russian Television (RT), the Russian Government HAS CONFIRMED Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known as the “BRICS” nations, will introduce a new trading currency backed by Gold.

The official announcement is expected during the upcoming BRICS Summit in South Africa, this August.

If this takes place, it will likely mark the end of “fiat” currencies like the US Dollar, which is backed by nothing.

How fast nations around the world switch to using this new gold-backed currency for their foreign trade, is anyone’s guess.   

The more countries that choose to use this new currency, the more foreign-held US Dollars will come rushing back to the USA from those countries, which no longer need to hold US Dollars for their foreign trade.   As those Dollars come back to the USA, it will cause inflation to spike in ways never-before seen here in America.

The US manufactures almost nothing here anymore.  Almost everything we buy and sell in the USA is made overseas.   As US dollars come flooding back from overseas, the value of the US dollar will plummet versus other currencies, which means it will take many more US Dollars to buy goods from foreign countries.

Hence, sudden and dramatic inflation here at home.

It is worth pointing out that the US has, on more than one occasion, gone to actual WAR to stop this exact thing from taking place in the past.   Two recent examples would be Libya and Iraq.

In Libya, Mohamar Qadaffi wanted to create a gold-back Pan-African currency.   Within a month of his announcement, there were riots and uprisings in Libya that ultimately resulted in Qadaffi being mobbed and brutally killed in the streets.

Iraq made a similar effort under Saddam Hussein.    He announced that Iraq would begin selling oil in currencies OTHER THAN the US Dollar, which sent the US to Iraq War 2, toppling Hussein from power.  Ultimately, Hussein was found hiding in a hole in the ground, was arrested, tried, and HUNG BY HIS NECK until dead.

The US takes it ___ V E R Y ____ serious when anyone around the world tries to do anything that would unseat the US dollar as the world’s defacto Reserve Currency.

The US is already itching to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.   With today’s announcement about a Gold-Backed BRICS trading currency, it seems logical that the US “gloves” will come off.

If Russia and the BRICS Nations do what they have announced, it would mean the total collapse of US world dominance.  There are many people inside the US Government that would rather burn the entire world to the ground, rather than lose control of it.  Put simply, they will stop at NOTHING to maintain their financial control power; and will actively, viciously, brutally, destroy anyone and anything threatening their power. 

(HT REMARK: This is gonna get ugly.)

What are the implications of China’s poor track record on food safety?

During the 1990–2000s , it was true that China’s Food Safety record was quite poor

Greed dominated often and people would undercut and often sell low quality grain or immature crops to make quick profits

Pesticide quality was low

Fertilizer quality was low

However today things are drastically different

Today China knows every grain of Food must be preserved because today China imports on an average around 21% of their food

Had China followed the same careless way of the 1990s, China would be importing almost 40% of their food today

Food Security is crucial today and China has introduced an efficiency that is brutal

Today every grain is preserved

Wastage is at its lowest (0.42%) against nearly 4.36% in 2001, reflecting a 90% improvement

Likewise poor quality stuff is no longer acceptable

Sure one bad thing is China turns a blind eye to those exporters who export poor quality pesticides and fertilizers out of China

However within China, you only have top quality stuff and highest safety standards today

---

China has only 9.88% Arable land by Area left and so China cannot afford to compromise an inch today

Food Security is crucial and since reliance on imports must be kept to a minimum, it’s mandatory that safety has to be top notch

Bashing China Has Replaced The Diplomatic Dialogue

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is currently in China where she does her best to further piss off her host.

Yellen, in Beijing, Criticizes China’s Treatment of U.S. Companies – NY Times, Jul 7, 2023
The concerns of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reflect continuing tensions between the two countries.

Yellen Urges China to Step Up Climate Finance Investments – NY Times, Jul 7, 2023
Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, said China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, can have “greater impact” tackling climate change by working with other nations.

Washington Raises Pressure on China to Combat U.S.’s Fentanyl Crisis – NY Times, Jul 7, 2023

The general attitude of the U.S. is that it can harass China with whatever it likes under its ‘national security’ mantle while it has a right to expect China to cooperate in other fields. It is a ‘don’t look at what we do but at what we say’ policy.

This anecdote from the last link explains it well:

During the Blinken visit, the secretary told reporters that the two countries had agreed to “explore setting up a working group or joint effort” to combat fentanyl trafficking. But any prospects for cooperation faded just days later when U.S. federal prosecutors announced the indictment of four Chinese companies accused of trafficking chemicals used by Mexican drug cartels to manufacture vast quantities of fentanyl sold in the United States.

China can easily deflect these accusations. Citing the Cocaine find in the White House it underlines that the failure of U.S. internal drug policies has nothing to do with China:

‘White lines’ in the House: Can the US ever eliminate its drug epidemic? – Global Times, Jul 6 2023

The presence of drugs in the White House serves as a perfect example of the inability of the US, as a drug-infested nation, to manage illegal substances effectively. Apart from showing a sense of embarrassment, Biden’s mysterious smile probably also proved how resignedly Biden is in the face of the drug epidemic in the country. With illegal substances infiltrating the White House and US presidents setting an example as drug users, one wonders if the US can ever truly eradicate its drug crisis.

China is ready to cooperate but the way the U.S. behaves makes it impossible. If you sit in a glasshouse and throw stones don’t be surprised when other will point this out.

China urges US to create conditions for counter-narcotics cooperation – Global Times, Jul 7, 2023

Analysts said that public data shows that the US population accounts for only 5 percent of the global population, but consumes 80 percent of the world’s opioid, and the US has not permanently scheduled fentanyl-related substances as a class yet. In May 2019, China took the lead in the world by scheduling fentanyl-related substances as a class, effectively curbing the flow of these scheduled chemicals into illicit drug production channels through international trade and contributing to the prevention of trafficking and drug abuse.

At Naked Capitalism Richard Wolff is pointing to a major problem with accusing China of this or that.

It’s Hard for Americans to Engage in China-Bashing Without Tripping on Contradictions

The contradictions of China-bashing in the United States begin with how often it is flat-out untrue. The Wall Street Journal reports that the “Chinese spy” balloon that President Joe Biden shot down with immense patriotic fanfare in February 2023 did not in fact transmit pictures or anything else to China. White House economists have been trying to excuse persistent U.S. inflation saying it is a global problem and inflation is worse elsewhere in the world. China’s inflation rate is 0.7 percent year-on-year. Financial media outlets stress how China’s GDP growth rate is lower than it used to be. China now estimates that its 2023 GDP growth will be 5 to 5.5 percent. Estimates for the U.S. GDP growth rate in 2023, meanwhile, vacillate around 1 to 2 percent.

China-bashing has intensified into denial and self-delusion—it is akin to pretending that the United States did not lose wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more. …

Stephen Roach fears correctly that the way the U.S. currently handles China will only make things worse:

In a three-hour meeting in Bali last November, Presidents Biden and Xi agreed on the broad parameters of what to do — namely, to put on a floor on this worrisome deterioration. The recent diplomatic flurry can be thought of in that light — restarting a dialogue with the sole intent of limiting any further damage. That took a while, but diplomatic reengagement is now under way.

But then what?  The image of a floor speaks to the minimum that both leaders expect from each other as responsible stewards of a fragile world.  Yet with the impacts of additional tough actions likely to come in the next few weeks and months — namely, further tech sanctions, widely telegraphed restrictions on outbound US foreign direct investment into China, and Chinese tit-for-tat actions on selected rare earth exports — there is no guarantee that the newly established floor will be strong enough to withstand additional blows.

Without reinforcement, this floor could turn out to be surprisingly shaky. …
…
The diplomats are emphasizing the thaw after a big freeze. I remain very wary of concluding that the worst is over. For the time being, conflict escalation is on a tenuous hold, at best. It remains to be seen if both security-focused superpowers are doing little more than running in place.

On hope is that large U.S. companies, which make good profits in China, will use the election campaign to press for a less hostile China policy.

Should that not work out the U.S.-China relation may well slip down a costly path towards a larger conflict.

Posted by b on July 8, 2023 at 14:54 UTC | Permalink

The Outer Limits (1990s TV Series) – Vanishing Act

This episode was made in 1996. It is episode 21 from season 2.

Government of Netherlands Collapses; Prime Minister and Cabinet Resign

World Hal Turner 07 July 2023

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced his resignation and that of his Cabinet on Friday, citing irreconcilable differences within his four-party coalition about how to rein in migration.

The decision by the Netherlands’ longest-serving premier means the country will face a general election later this year for the 150-seat lower house of Parliament.

“It is no secret that the coalition partners have very different views on migration policy,” Rutte told reporters in The Hague. “And today, unfortunately, we have to draw the conclusion that those differences are irreconcilable. That is why I will immediately … offer the resignation of the entire Cabinet to the king in writing”
Opposition lawmakers wasted no time in calling for fresh elections.

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, tweeted, “Quick elections now.” Jesse Klaver, leader of the Green Left party also called for elections and told Dutch broadcaster NOS: “This country needs a change of direction.”

Man Dies, Sees Future & Says Don’t Freak Out (Powerful NDE)

Gary Wimmer had an NDE (Near-Death Experience) and discovered what happens after death. He saw seven beings/angels, and after leaving his body was shown future events. Gary’s NDE (Near-Death Experience) showed him that there is life after death, and it was a life-altering experience that changed him forever.

Punishing Sanctions

Xi to Biden:

Do you really want to hamper our chip producing companies?

Really?

China curbs critical metal exports in retaliation for Western restrictions on chip industry

China on Monday ordered export restrictions on two technology-critical elements in retaliation for new Western sanctions on its semiconductor industry.

The restrictions, which take effect on August 1, will apply to gallium and germanium metals and several of their compounds, which are key materials for making semiconductors and other electronics.

The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the export controls on gallium- and germanium-related items were necessary “to safeguard national security and interests”.

Exporters in China will need to apply for permission from the ministry, with information about the end users and how the materials will be used.

Gallium and germanium are used in lots of electronic components. AESA (active electronically scanned array) radars used on modern warships and fighter airplanes can not be made without those metals. China produces some 95% of those available on the global market.

It will take one or two years until the currently available stocks outside of China are diminished. But it takes much longer to open up new mining and processing facilities for replacement of the Chinese production. The processes used therein are quite dirty. A not-in-my-backyard attitude will make any setup of new facilities difficult to pursue.

The situation will soon become similar to the titanium market where Russia is the biggest global supplier but has restricted access for certain customers.

This is just one of many cards China (and Russia) can play in their anti-sanction games.

The U.S. is reaching the limits of its sanction power.

Posted by b on July 4, 2023 at 7:21 UTC | Permalink

Alien Bases On The Moon | The Amazing True Story of Ingo Swann

This is a fun video.

Ingo Swann claimed to be a psychic who was employed by the CIA to remote-view the dark side of the moon. Specifically to look for an alien presence. It sounded like science fiction. But in 2006, when the CIA started releasing documents on the Stargate Project, Swann’s participation in the program was confirmed. When Swann was asked about the existence of extraterrestrials, he said not only were they already here, but they are building something on the far side of the moon. And, according to Swann, these aliens — aren’t friendly.

The biggest thing China has done right in achieving development is to keep its sovereignty: French entrepreneur

By Global Times

Editor’s Note:

In today’s Western world, how likely is it to win a debate which argues that the Chinese system is better than the American one at providing stability, prosperity, and freedom?

Arnaud Bertrand (Bertrand), a French entrepreneur and commentator on economics and geopolitics, did so.

A debate held by US’ Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Abigail Adams Institute in April, themed “Is The Chinese System Better Than The American System,” between Bertrand and Adrian Zenz, an infamous anti-China scholar, has recently become the talk of the town. How did Bertrand win? And why has Bertrand been rooting for China’s development? Bertrand shared his views with Global Times (GT) reporter Li Aixin in an exclusive interview. 

GT: What aspect of the debate left the deepest impression on you? 

Bertrand: What surprised me the most was the openness to my arguments, given the audience. The debate took place right next to the campus of Harvard University. Most people in the audience were American. It was a debate about the Chinese system – which model is better, the Chinese or the American, to give prosperity, stability, and freedom to its people. 

At the end of the debate, there was a vote on who won the debate. Quite incredibly, I won it as per the audience’s votes. So that was a huge surprise for me. I never expected that I would win the debate, by arguing that the Chinese system is better than the American system at providing people with freedom. 

I guess it shows that when you have compelling arguments and explain things in a way that’s rational, you can go beyond ideology and make people realize that, actually, there are really some merits in the Chinese system.

GT: Have you received more feedback from the West, like Europe and the US to be more specific, after the debate?

Bertrand:I spoke with people in the audience after the debate, and there are many comments on YouTube. People are overwhelmingly positive about what I said. Even though there were some people, during the debate, raised some questions about social credit scores or things like that. 

To me, that reflects more a lack of knowledge about what really happened, a form of – brainwashing maybe is a strong word – but a lack of exposure to alternative arguments and reflects some Western people are only being exposed to how the West sees China. From my discussions with people and from the YouTube comments that I read, I think people are more open than we commonly imagine in terms of seeing a different view, and realizing that what they have been told about China and Communism isn’t the whole picture; there is another side to this story. 

GT: During the debate, Adrian Zenz tended to separate the Chinese government from the Chinese people by saying China’s achievement has been brought about not by the Chinese governance model, but by the people. You made a solid case by noting India also has a large population of hardworking people, the difference between China and India is due to the government. Why do you think some Western politicians and scholars often try to separate the Chinese government from the Chinese people?

Bertrand: The reason is quite obvious – the purpose is to ultimately try to have China adopt a different political system. If they say that China’s political system or the Chinese government is responsible for the development of China, then it really weakens the argument that China should change its system, since the system has given Chinese people a good life. 

But if, on the contrary, they say that China developed, despite its system, and will do even better without it, their argument is “stronger.” That’s the key reason.

I think that them doing this is actually shortsighted, because they don’t realize that they actually undermine their own objectives by trying to set the Chinese people against their own government. By doing this, they actually strengthened the unity of China.

GT: You touched upon China’s achievements in poverty alleviation during the debate. Quite recently, a Chinese scholar said that US spending in the Afghanistan War could almost eliminate extreme poverty worldwide. What’s your take on the contrast? 

Bertrand: The vision on poverty in the West is very different from the vision in China. The key value in the West is individual freedom. And poverty is largely an individual choice – Anyone, if they work hard, can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and extricate themselves out of poverty. They see some of the stuff that China does to alleviate poverty as running counter to their values.  

The thing is, when you study poverty, a lot of the poverty is deeply entrenched and systemic. Individuals have only limited power to do anything about it. Take remote villages, which need hospitals, schools and so on… Only governments can do that. 

When it comes to spending on the military, the US believes its way of life today is backed by its military power and its hegemony. Take the dollar, the world’s reserve currency, our former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing called it America’s “privilège exorbitant,” which enables the US to run extraordinary deficits at the expense of the rest of the world. 

They wouldn’t have the privileges if the US lost its hegemony – they couldn’t do extraterritorial legislation, spy on the whole world, or not to apply international law itself – these are privileges they can have because of their military and their hegemony. 

So they put themselves in the situation where their way of life, sadly, depends on their military and hegemony. And it’s not easy to see how they can get out of this. That’s why they’re also so afraid of the rise of China because it puts US hegemony into question.

The US is the beneficiary of its hegemony, but it’s also a prisoner of its hegemony, when it cannot make the choice to extricate itself from that huge, bloated military with 800 bases around the world, all those actions that are hostile against other countries, the extraterritorial law, all the sanctions, and so on. 

That’s not freedom. It is constrained to stay that way. It is not obvious how it can begin its freedom and go for a different system. It won’t be easy. 

GT: You mentioned the surveys by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, which show that Chinese citizens’ satisfaction with their government has been increasing. In the US and Europe, it’s a vastly different story. What do you think China has done right? 

Bertrand: I think the biggest thing that China has done right is to keep its sovereignty. It’s absolutely for sure China could not have developed if it had not been ruthless in keeping its independence in its own way of thinking, free of foreign interference. 

If you look at the Chinese way of development, it is very unique. If China just followed the methodology advised by the IMF or the World Bank or all those organizations that typically advise countries on their development, China would become all those other countries that have not developed. That was the key – to be able to think for itself, picking what makes sense, what was good for China, but also having the strength to refuse what wasn’t.

GT: What is the biggest misconception of the West when looking at China’s development?

Bertrand: I guess the key misconception is that the West thinks China is very centralized — central planning, the central government in Beijing deciding what all of China’s 1.4 billion people ought to do. But when you actually look at the way China is organized, it’s actually one of the most decentralized countries in the world. 

I was looking at the budget difference between the central government and local governments of provinces, cities and so on. The difference is like 15 percent central government vs 85 percent local government, which is, I think, the highest budgets in the world for local governments versus the central government. If I’m not mistaken, in the US it is something like 55 percent federal (central) vs 45 local. 

It shows that local governments have an extraordinary amount of leeway in deciding the way they spend the money. That was also a key to the success of Chinese development: Being able to have a lot of local initiatives competing with each other. Shanghai does something one way and then you have Chongqing doing something another way, which maybe works better in Chongqing. And it then becomes an inspiration for the rest of China. 

That experimentation at the local level is something we don’t often speak about. That is a big misconception around the planning in China. 

GT: You quoted Franklin Delano Roosevelt by mentioning “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want,” two of the fundamental freedoms, and noted that people do not really feel free to go out anywhere in the US at any time of the day or night. But in China, the freedom exists. What caused the contrast? 

Bertrand: An anecdote. My wife’s bag was snatched in London and she went to the police. But they basically told her – we are not going to catch the guys, there are just too many thefts in London; We’re not even going to try because we don’t have the resources for it. 

Out of curiosity, at one point we were in a Chinese police station. She asked a policeman what they would do in the same situation. They were like, that’s a serious crime, they will dispatch the whole team and the guy will get caught. That makes a huge difference.

Poverty is also an important aspect, because poverty is a common root cause of violence. China has done a lot of work to eradicate poverty, and the side effect of that is it decreases the need for violence and theft, because people don’t need to do that to survive.

GT: Do you think more Western politicians and observers will share your views on freedom? 

Bertrand: I’d like to look at this in terms of different generations of politicians in the West. Francis Fukuyama said the end of the Cold War shows the end of history – liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations, the best system of all possible systems in history, which will end with the world becoming a big liberal democracy. 

That generation believed essentially in liberal hegemony, that the purpose of the West was to unite the world and be one big liberal democracy. We are seeing that this was a complete pipe dream, a complete illusion. Bit by bit, we will see a new multilateral order appear, and soon politicians in the West will realize the mistakes made by the previous generation. 

They will realize the value of sovereignty and may be inspired by the strength of other systems. It will probably take time because the liberal hegemony generation is still in charge. But they will soon realize that this is going nowhere. And the more they realize that, the more new players will appear and get voted in, there will be a shift in mentality on freedom of sovereignty, collective freedom, and so on. Different types of mind-sets will appear, hopefully.

GT: Do you think the two systems can peacefully exist?

Bertrand: Like I said in my talk, the Chinese model applies uniquely and only to China. It’s the product of China’s long and unique history and it fits the context that China is in today, like the economic context, geopolitical context. No intention is ever expressed to spread the system. From China’s standpoint, there is no issue for the two systems to peacefully coexist, because it’s not trying to impose its system elsewhere. 

The difficulty is with the other system, the American or Western system, no matter how you call it. It claims universality. It’s a system that tries to convince others to adopt it. It’s very deep in our religious roots in the West. And it’s not something that’s easy to change. 

Whereas if you look at Chinese religious roots. China never went around the world trying to make everyone Taoist, for instance. It is just not in the culture. 

So that’s the big question: Can the Western model accept different models that coexist alongside it? What we need at the end of the day is a democratic world order with different civilizations coexisting instead of a totalitarian world order where one civilization and one system wants to force itself on the others.

GT: How do you see future ties between China, the EU, and the US? 

Bertrand: Europe likes to speak a big game, but at the end of the day, they rely on the US in absolutely essential ways. If you look in terms of defense, what the Ukraine war has made clear is that NATO is the US. Europe is totally dependent on the US for its defense. In terms of technology, which big technology firms exist in Europe? Now there is almost none. It’s crazy. Europe depends on the US for almost everything. 

The amount of work needed to restore European sovereignty is absolutely huge. I think that French President Emmanuel Macron genuinely wants that. It’s very deep in French culture to have our own independent politics and way of thinking. But when you depend on the US so much, that’s not easy in the short to medium term. 

In terms of the relationship between China and the US, at the meeting between Secretary of State Blinken and senior Chinese officials, based on the transcripts I read, some good things were said, but deeds need to follow words. The US knows it is under a lot of pressure from its allies and the whole world to cool things down with China. So we hear some nice statements, but it might only be performative. 

Europeans are talking about “de-risking” instead of “de-coupling.” I think “de-risking” is actually the risk, because interdependence is not risky in and of itself. 

When you are interdependent between two countries, you might actually reduce the risk of conflict, because there are more costs to the conflict. But when you’re completely independent from a country, a conflict is not that costly, so people may think less before triggering it. And of course, there are a lot of economic risks stemming from “de-risking.” China is Europe’s biggest trading partner. Reducing trade will come at a lot of economic cost to Europe. 

Hopefully Europe will see the wisdom in what the Chinese premier said recently [during his European trip]. 

In geopolitics, if you’re just a follower, you don’t exist. You only exist if you have a different view from others; then you have some identity on the international stage. China gives Europe that opportunity to exist, not to be the voice of the US, not to be the voice of China, but to be the voice of Europe. I think Europe should take that opportunity. 

The USA is over. Stick a fork in it.

Just In! Here’s How Europe Will Be The Battlefield Of The U.S China Cold WAR

https://youtu.be/0oqpwU4qVZ8

44 (Homemade Orange Liqueur)

Orange liqueur, or “44,” is one of the most traditional European homemade aperitifs. You’ll find versions in Spain, Italy and France – some made with cloves and cinnamon; some with a mix of oranges, bitter oranges and lemons; some flavored with coffee beans; and those sweetened with honey.

Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1 large orange
• 44 coffee beans
• 22 sugar cubes (or 6 tablespoons granulated sugar)
• 1 quart clear eau de vie or vodka

Instructions

1. Thoroughly scrub and dry the orange. With the end of a sharp knife, pierce the orange all over. Insert the 44 coffee beans into the skin, embedding each bean into the orange. Place the orange in a 1 1/2-quart canning jar. Add the sugar cubes and the eau de vie. Cover securely. Turn the jar upside down and shake to help dissolve the sugar. Place in a cool, dry, dark spot. Shake the jar daily until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside for 44 days. During this time, the liquid will turn from clear to a pale orange and will take on a lovely coffee-orange fragrance.
2. The 44 can be stored indefinitely as is, or the liquid can be filtered and transferred to an attractive liqueur bottle.
3. he orange and coffee beans are not consumed and should be discarded once they lose their vigor.
4. Serve 44 chilled or at room temperature, added to white wine, or in tiny liqueur glasses as an accompaniment to fruit desserts or as an after-dinner drink.

Notes

The original recipe given to me called for a single orange studded with 44 coffee beans, mixed with 44 sugar cubes and a bottle of clear eau de vie. The mixture is then set aside for 44 days. The result is a fragrant, fruity drink that can be mixed with a bit of white wine as an aperitif or served “as is” with dessert or as an after-meal liqueur. I found the original version too sweet for my taste, so have cut the amount of sugar in half.

In Provence, many cooks prepare their orange liqueur by piercing the orange with cloves, tying the fruit with string, then suspending it in a clear glass jar partially filled with clear eau de vie. (The orange should never touch the alcohol.) The jar is sealed, and the aromatic oils of the orange infuse the alcohol with their fruity essence, turning the eau de vie a pale, glistening orange. After about one month, the orange is discarded, and the aperitif is sweetened to taste and transferred to a sealed bottle.

The WEST Has COLLAPSED

https://youtu.be/EifrrRcyxoc

Church of England Collapsing: “Our Father” is called “Problematic” due to Patriarchy

World Hal Turner 07 July 2023

The archbishop of York has suggested that opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, recited by Christians all over the world for 2,000 years, may be “problematic” because of their patriarchal association.

In his opening address to a meeting of the Church of England’s ruling body, the General Synod, Stephen Cottrell dwelt on the words “Our Father”, the start of the prayer based on Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4 in the New Testament. 

“I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have labored rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life,” he said.

After Cottrell’s speech, Canon Dr Chris Sugden, chair of the conservative Anglican Mainstream group, pointed out that in the Bible Jesus urged people to pray to “our father.”

He said: “Is the archbishop of York saying Jesus was wrong, or that Jesus was not pastorally aware? It seems to be emblematic of the approach of some church leaders to take their cues from culture rather than scripture.”

Rev Christina Rees, who campaigned for female bishops, said Cottrell had “put his finger on an issue that’s a really live issue for Christians and has been for many years”.

She added: “The big question is, do we really believe that God believes that male human beings bear his image more fully and accurately than women? The answer is absolutely not.”

(HT Remark: With people like this “leading” churches, is there any wonder no one pays much attention to them anymore?  How dare they?)

‘Mr. X’ would not approve of China containment

George Kennan would find the current trajectory toward confrontation with Beijing dangerous and unnecessary.

June 27, 2023

Written by
Daniel Larison

Today, the United States finds itself on a crash course toward escalation with China. Washington often denies that it seeks to contain Beijing, but actions have spoken louder than words. Through export controls, increased military spending, and expanded base access, the U.S. aims to weaken China economically and keep it hemmed in, even at the risk of a great power conflict. 

It is a dangerous and unnecessary policy.

America has pursued a militarized “containment” approach before, with results that can only be described as disastrous for millions across the world. Even George Kennan — the father of anti-Soviet containment — came to regret his support for this approach, and there’s reason to think that we will too.

In the latter half of his life, Kennan was a staunch critic of Cold War hawkishness and deplored the conventional and nuclear arms racing that made up such a large part of the U.S. rivalry with the USSR. He constantly warned against the perils of militarism and nuclear warfare and feared that the superpowers were blundering toward a world-ending reprise of the 1914 march of folly. 

As Frank Costigliola noted in his recent biography, “While most people focus on the inflammatory manifestos he penned in 1946 and 1947 that helped ignite the Cold War, they underplay his pivot in the opposite direction soon thereafter.”

If Kennan could see the burgeoning U.S.-China rivalry today, he would be appalled that our country is once again on the track of the same dead-end policy of armed confrontation that it was on more than thirty years ago.

Kennan was one of the great American policy intellectuals and scholars of the twentieth century, and modern Americans have much to learn from his time in government and his later work as an academic. Much of what he said over the years was ignored, often to the detriment of U.S. interests and international security. When the government dismissed Kennan’s advice, it usually later regretted it. He is not here to advise us now, but we can still learn from him through his writings and his career. 

George Kennan was not always right or consistent in his views, but he had a remarkable gift of understanding when vital U.S. interests were at stake and when they were not and then making policy recommendations accordingly.

He recognized the futility of the Vietnam War when the government and much of the foreign policy establishment were still wedded to fighting it.

He foresaw that the invasion of Iraq would be disastrous and spoke out against it.

He understood that NATO expansion would antagonize Russia and needlessly create instability and new divisions in Europe. 

If he were with us today in 2023, he would no doubt view the pursuit of militarized rivalry with an increasingly powerful China with dismay. Having raised the alarm about the dangers of a new great war during the Cold War, he would likewise be warning against the reckless courting of great power conflict that Washington has been engaged in for the last several years.

While Kennan is best known for his understanding of Russian and Soviet foreign policy, he had a considerable impact on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia during his time in government. His views on U.S. interests in East Asia then and his later criticisms of U.S. policies provide important lessons for policymakers today. 

Paul Heer’s important 2018 study of Kennan’s legacies in East Asia, Mr. X and the Pacific, details the role that the legendary policymaker played in shaping early Cold War policies in this part of the world and his later career as a dissident against an overly militarized form of containment. If Kennan rejected the over-militarization of the original containment doctrine against the Soviet Union, which posed a far greater threat to U.S. interests than China does today, it is hard to believe that he would approve of something similar against China.

In the years after he left government, Kennan insisted that he never intended containment to be applied everywhere, and he opposed the militarization of the doctrine he formulated. He subsequently rejected the abuse of containment when it served as a justification for unnecessary and destructive military interventions. 

While Heer has argued that Kennan “would have approved” of an anti-China containment policy in the present, this fails to take into account Kennan’s intense hostility to the arms racing and militarism that our current policy involves. It is more than likely that he would have recoiled at the cost that such a containment policy will impose on the United States. China containment will inevitably involve the ongoing expansion of the military and an explosion in military spending beyond its already obscene levels. For his part, Kennan “opposed a bristling, overbuilt American military,” as Costigliola puts it, and so he would oppose a policy that requires the overbuilt military to be built up even more.

Kennan was also a sharp critic of jingoistic nationalism, and, if he were with us today, he would warn us that pursuit of a militarized rivalry with China would encourage the worst instincts in our government and our people. If Kennan was mystified by the sentimental attachment to China that many Americans had in the past; he would be similarly bewildered by the intense hostility towards China that has been cultivated over the last decade. 

Shortly after the Soviet collapse, Kennan faulted the pursuit of hardline, militarized policies for having kept the Cold War going for as long as it did. “Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s,” he wrote in an October 1992 op-ed for the New York Times.

Moreover, Kennan rejected the mythology that anyone “won” the Cold War, which he called a “a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party.” Considering how much he deplored the costs of the Cold War, there is little chance that he would have been in favor of another one.

In the end, Kennan would be opposed to China containment because of the dangerous, overreaching strategy to which it belongs.

As Costigliola reminds us, after the Cold War, “Kennan wanted the United States to pull back from trying to manage a global informal empire. He believed that such efforts were not only doomed, but also diverted attention and resources from America’s pressing domestic problems.”

Today the U.S. is even more overstretched by more commitments than it had when Kennan was still with us, and our domestic problems have become no less pressing. Kennan would not approve of a policy that will increase the burden on the United States and preoccupy our government for several decades to the detriment of the country’s welfare, and neither should we.

Man Shocked by What He Saw His Pets Doing in Heaven | Near Death Experience | NDE

John Davis died for 6 minutes and was taken on what seemed like a 2 hour tour of Heaven. This is his Amazing Near Death Experience (NDE) and testimony of heaven. A Near Death Experience (NDE) is something that someone never forgets and changes them forever.

This one is pretty good.

Apricot Brandy

Apricot Brandy is a sweet apricot flavored liqueur also known as Apricot Cordial.

Dried apricots are soaked in vodka for a month or more, to extract their flavor. Adding sugar to this recipe makes this easy homemade apricot brandy a sweet, syrupy drink – a sipping liqueur, or an ingredient for cocktails.

What is the difference between Brandy, Liqueur, Liquor, and Cordial?

Liquor is the term for alcoholic beverages that are made of grains or any other plants and fermented to a “hard alcohol”. Examples are rum, vodka, gin, whiskey, etc.

Brandy is a liquor distilled from fermented juice, flesh and kernels.

Liqueurs and Cordials are not only sweet, they carry pronounced flavors. An alcohol base is mixed with natural flavors, often from fruits or plants. The word liqueur is interchangeable with the word cordial, except in the U.K., where cordial is used to refer to any very sweet, non-alcoholic liquid.

So even though our family has always called this recipe Apricot Brandy – it is not a true brandy since it is not distilled from fruit, but a neutral liquor (vodka) sweetened and flavored with the fruit.

Yield: about 6 cups

Ingredients

• 4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups water
• 2 pounds dried apricots
• 2 fifths vodka

Instructions

1. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring often. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Cool to room temperature.
3. Place the apricots in 1 or 2 large decorative glass jars.
4. Add the sugar syrup and vodka, stirring to blend. Cover tightly and store in a cool, dark place for at least 1 month, turning or shaking the jar every week.
5. Before serving, strain the liquid.

Notes

Apricot Brandy may be stored at room temperature for up to 3 months. Refrigerate it for longer storage.

What is something someone who has never been poor wouldn’t understand?

During the Depression my grandfather would use a knife to cut squares of linoleum from relatively unseen parts of the kitchen floor to put in his children’s shoes because the soles were worn and full of holes. When they couldn’t get linoleum they used folded cardboard. My mother said more than half the kids in the class had feet wrapped in cardboard tied on with twine.

Once, my grandmother sat at the table sobbing because there was no food for the family for dinner. The dog scratched at the door. It had brought home a large piece of meat it had taken from the Butcher. The dog knew. They ate it that night.

During the Depression the poor, including my mother, would walk the tracks with a bucket to find coal that fell off the trains as they sped by. Sometimes an understanding fireman would throw a shovelful off as they passed. This was the only way the family could cook food or make hot water – or even heat the house.

Even when I was little and slept in my grandmother’s house in winter, I (and they) would wake up to a coating of frost on the comforter. It was the result of water expelled from the body breathing during the night in a house with no heat. When you went to pee, there was a film of ice in the toilet bowl.

My mother’s family depended on finding wild grapes, blueberries and other fruits to survive. The kids would go into the woods and meadows and spend all day picking and their mother would can. The boys spent their free time picking up wood to start the coal stove. Nothing was wasted.

My uncles hunted for food in the meadows – if they could afford five rounds of .22 ammunition. They brought back any meat or fish they caught to be cooked and eaten. This was in the City of Boston, on the outskirts.

During the Depression my father and his brothers would collect scrap wire and burn off the insulation in the back yard to sell to the scrap man. Everyone did it. A haze of burning insulation smoke covered the neighborhood some days. It wasn’t just wire – it was any covered metal.

My uncles used to break into the freight yard to find discarded, bent nails which they would straighten and sell to tradesmen walking to work in the morning. They had to get up at 4:30 to sit on the curb with their bucket of nails as they passed.

When the water was turned off by the City, people took buckets of water from the nearby pond. They used it for everything.

In some places people boiled their old wallpaper to get the starch to make soup.

When my aunt died and we cleaned out her house we found mountains of elastic bands, balls of twine, tinfoil from gum wrappers and many things like that. When you are poor, you save everything because you never know when you will need it. In the old days, you could collect enough gum tinfoil to sell to the junkman for a penny or so. A penny was still valuable then. A silver quarter was a literal fortune.

My mother’s family never ate fresh anything. The bread was bought stale; the vegetables were the rotten things that fell off the wagon in Haymarket; the milk was curdled because it could be bought cheaply and disguised. Lots of people did things like that. People literally had nothing.

How do you know if someone truly cares for you or is just using you?

I’m a tiny person, just 5’ and 100 lbs. So, the sun shade on the passenger side of the car means nothing to me. The sun shines on my face, I pull down the sun shade, the sun still shines on my face because I’m too short.

I whined about it once. A couple days later, when I got into the car, I noticed this:

My boyfriend made a sun shade extension – just for me.

I know that he loves me.

Love has its own language, you will hear it when it really speaks.

THEY ARE COMING – Bob Lazar FINALLY Breaks Silence On Recent UFO Sightings

A NATO Aircraft Enters Belarus Air Space!!!!!

World Hal Turner 10 July 2023

A Boeing E-3A “Sentry” Airborne Early Warning (AEW) and Control plane designated “NATO 11” entered the air space of Belarus today as seen on the FlightRadar24 map above.

This does ***not*** appear to be a Flight Radar error.

The Boeing E-3 Sentry is an American airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft developed by Boeing. E-3s are commonly known as AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System).

Derived from the Boeing 707 airliner, it provides all-weather surveillance, command, control, and communications, and is used by the United States Air Force, NATO, French Air and Space Force, Royal Saudi Air Force and Chilean Air Force.

The E-3 has a distinctive rotating radar dome (rotodome) above the fuselage. Production ended in 1992 after 68 aircraft had been built.

Awaiting more information or official confirmation.

UPDATE:

This has to be deliberate fuckery, it’s possible someone is using Electronic Warfare to make a plane appear somewhere it isn’t.

All record of this apparent incursion are no longer showing on FlightRadar24.

Whether by accident or design, for this to happen on the eve of the Vilnius summit seems very suspect indeed.

China Sanctions US Tech Giants Over Unpaid $10 Billion Fine, US Faces Consequence

Counter Sanctions by China.

A very good, and MUST WATCH video.

Since last year, the US has been imposing sanctions and pressure on China to an almost insane extent. They have limited the export of high-end GPUs from Nvidia to block China’s AI computing power, formed a three-country alliance with Japan and the Netherlands to cut off the supply of semiconductor equipment to China, and used billions of dollars in subsidies to lure TSMC to the US, attempting to turn Taiwan’s TSMC into “ASMC”

https://youtu.be/6bvCh_11DL4

What do you think about the Chinese spy balloon?

It was NOT a Chinese spy balloon

China is one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth with orbital satellites that could read your tattoos from space, and has sophisticated electronic warfare platforms that can intercept comms for miles around.

It’s frankly insulting to suggest that China would essentially waft a balloon randomly over the US with a Kodak tied to it – China’s military tech is far more advanced

This was most likely either a weather balloon sent up by an amateur group of armchair scientists, or a spy balloon sent up by tinfoil conspiracy theorists looking for evidence of aliens

As usual America has to blame others for the crazy behaviour of its own people

Why are Americans mad at China counter-sanctioning Micron?

Because those Americans mad at China’s counter-sanctions are really mad.

They have lost their basic saneness to be normal people with healthy mentality.

LikeChina2021 on TikTok

In their insane world, they can do whatever they want to, they can hurt whoever they want to, they can bomb whichever country they want to. But never vice versa.

As a normal and mentally health people, do you think there really exists such a world?!

So, this group of Americans are living in their own Madhouse.

Yellen’s Visit To China Has Failed

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen visited China. There she tried to press the worlds biggest economy on several issues.

• Yellen, in Beijing, Criticizes China’s Treatment of U.S. Companies – NY Times, July 7, 2023
• Yellen Urges China to Step Up Climate Finance Investments – NY Times, July 7, 2023
• U.S. Raises Pressure on China to Combat Global Fentanyl Crisis – NY Times, July 7, 2023

None of these points are in China’s interest. In the U.S. Chinese companies are treated badly. U.S. financed climate investments in foreign countries, which are small, usually come with additional extraordinary demands that benefit the donating country rather than the receiving one. China does this differently. Fentanyl is not a global problem rather a specific U.S. one the causes of which are general social problems China and other have avoided to have.

The last demand Yellen made was even more crazy. She called for a full turn of China towards neoliberal policies:

“I pressed them on our concerns about China’s unfair economic practices,” [Yellen] said, citing barriers to access for foreign firms and problems involving intellectual property. She added that a more market-oriented system in China “would not only be in the interests of the U.S. and other countries. It would be better for the Chinese economy, as well.”

Would China be where it is today if it had privatized its banking system and state owned companies? Would China be richer if it had let U.S. vulture funds buy up and bankrupt Chinese companies? Would it have managed to lift 800 million of its citizens from poverty if it had followed the economic advice of the U.S., the IMF or World Bank?

The answer to these questions is of course an emphatic “No”.

Why Yellen thinks she can impress China with advice for a ‘more market-oriented system’, even as the U.S. blocks Chinese investments, sanctions Chinese companies and limits sales of certain products to China, is beyond me.

Yellen’s visit failed to achieve anything. She had some talks with Chinese officials but achieved nothing. She lectured and made demands that no one in China will be willing to fulfill.

The Chinese side for one seems unimpressed by her performance:

Yellen mentioned multiple times the US is seeking a healthy competition with China rather than a “winner-take-all” approach. While this may sound good, the key lies in how we define “healthy competition.” Is it a US-style one in which the geopolitical appetite of the US is satisfied while China unconditionally cooperates? Or is it based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation? The root cause of the challenges in the China-US relationship lies in Washington’s flawed perception of China. Unless the issue of the ‘first button’ is addressed, no matter how wonderful the ideas and wishes may be, they will remain nothing more than castles in the air.

Unless the U.S. accepts China as equal the relations between the countries will not turn around.

The U.S. can grow with China only when it accepts that China is different from itself and has its own path towards further development.

As neither is the today’s dominant viewpoint a further deterioration of the relations, largely to the disadvantage of the U.S., is the most likely prospect.

Posted by b at 9:28 UTC | Comments (174)

Former NASA Employee Tells ALL About What Transpired

For fun. Watch passively. FYI.

What is the strangest failure you have ever seen on a car?

For years I worked on old cars, raced them, show cars, fixed them up for fun.

I purchased a old 55 Chevy 4 door from a woman who was in her late 80’s. It was her husbands car and he only drove it to town (5 miles away) for groceries, PO, bank ,etc.

I spent a few months getting the car back in shape, paint, engine, interior and finally insured it and tagged it.

Proud of the old car I decided to drive it to work, about 10 miles away.

I got about a mile away and the car quit running.

So I walked the rest of the way to work. A co-worker gave me lift to the old Chevy and we decided to see if it would start, sure enough it fired right up, he would follow me home.

As soon as I pulled into the driveway the Chevy coughed and stopped.

The next week I rebuilt the carb, new fuel filter, checked the wiring, everything I could think of, even changed the fuel tank sending unit and replaced the fuel filter sock that went into the tank.

Decided to drive it to work, one mile short of work it quit running again.

Got the old car home again and decided to drain the gas tank, new filters, etc. Drove it again same thing.

I finally figured it out (just to make the story short) it seems the old man who owned the car was a depression era guy, he never put more than a few gallons of gas at a time in the car.

Over the years the tank starting rusting at the top of the tank due to condensation and water in the gas.

Even though I drained the tank I could not see the rust in the corners and as I drove the car the rust started breaking off a little at a time and clogged the little fuel filter soak and cutting off gas flow.

Seems like 9 miles was all she could go till the fuel filter sock was full, the funny thing was when I stopped the car and the fuel pump wasn’t working the rust and debris fell away and opened back up the fuel flow.

Drove me crazy. A new gas tank from Year One Auto Parts and the old Chevy lasted many years of good service.

Part two of the NDE Above

Details: I met John several months ago when I invited him to appear at a Helping Parents Heal meeting. John told a fascinating tale of a Near-Death Experience that may be more detailed than any other I’ve ever heard.

He was taken on a guided tour of “heaven” while he was out of his body and reports some fascinating details. I asked John to share his experience for my Grief 2 Growth audience.

John “died” while having surgery on his hand and found himself going through many of the familiar aspects of the Near-Death Experience culminating with a mission given to him to come back and deliver a message.

Is the US celebrating the Chinese Ge and Ga export control so that the US can manufacture by the US? Will the US be able to catch up the Ge and GA, especially Ga resources and manufacturing technologies in 20 years?

Extremely difficult, extremely costly and takes 20 years, if and when US production comes on line after tens of billions spent in 20 years, China will release cheap and abundant supplies to totally destroy and dominate the market, again.

That is one of many reasons why it is not an outright ban on exports, but subjected to case by case approval, they have the opponents on a tight leash, yank or let lose depending on the master. “What have you done for me today?”

BTW, that is a 100% copy of American sanctions and embargoes methods.

Do you think America is falling apart?

Yes. However, this was not overnight or even the last four years. I have been observing the politics and social movement since the Carter years.

A deep nihilism was observable in the psyche of much of the Country back then and it has only grown. Underneath much of the political rhetoric, there was a meanness of spirit. It was always there but Nixon and Reagan actively played to it.

Nixon’s war on drugs for example, was aimed at imprisonment of specific portions of the population: Top Nixon adviser reveals the racist reason he started the ‘war on drugs’ decades ago.

Do you understand? The national government turned its full power against specific portions of its citizenry with NO upside for anyone. Which portion of the population benefited from this? It did not save money or uplift ANY portion of the population. The intent of this internal war was to hurt members of its citizenry.

This continued under Reagan. The insane were dumped on the street, taxes were cut while spending went up, cocaine flooded the USA, the government ignored the AIDS epidemic, laws were selectively enforced, etc. Madness and irrationality ruled as “conservatism.”

In other words, there is a sort of MALICE that thrives in the USA that has only grown over the years. A deep desire to hurt the OTHER, even if it does not serve them (in fact, even if it hurts them).

Here is an example:

This is “rolling coal.” This guy modified his vehicle specifically to pollute. It cost thousands, it voids all warranties, decreases mileage, etc. It has NO upside for the owner or anyone. Why do it?

They say, we are sticking it to the environmentalists and libruls (sic.). So, these people are spending their own money, hurting their own interests, to hurt the feelings of others? Is this sane? That is like smoking because you dislike doctors.

Yet, this irrationality grows. More interestingly, it is seldom vocalized beyond “dog whistle” conversation. Once in a while, the double speech slips. This woman from the Florida Panhandle was such a case Trump supporter complains shutdown is ‘not hurting the people he needs to be hurting’:

“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

So, much of the US has no real positive agenda of their own. They vote to hurt and exclude others, even as it does not serve them.

Here is another example. Lead pellets in shotguns cause poisoning in Bald Eagles:

Obama wanted to phase out the use of lead pellets on federal land. Among Trump’s first actions was to rescind the rule. What possible upside was this for anyone? Just “stick it” to people trying to save eagles?New Interior head lifts lead ammunition ban in nod to hunters

How long can a culture exist when so much of it is intentionally destructive of itself?

As I said before, it only grows. I saw massive chunks of the country reject sane republicans and pick the dumbest guy in the room.

If this insanity does not stop, the USA will fall apart.

Why are there more than 600 billionaires in China who control most of the wealth of the country as compared with the majority of the Chinese population?

China doesn’t control the wealth of the country

They only control the LAND and RESOURCES

If you own a factory with a massive foundry,machinery etc in China — that’s regarded YOUR PROPERTY

Only the land is leased by the State

The Coal is owned by the State and sold to you for generating power

The Water is owned by the State

---

Thus there are Billionaires in China like all other nations

Theh became billionaires by industrial or trade or business profits, speculation and stockholdings like regular billionaires across the globe

They can stay billionaires provided they didn’t make their billions by breaking the law

If they did — THEY DIE OR SPEND ALL THEIR LIFE IN A 10*10 CELL

An Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, and Irishman are captured by the Afghan Taliban

An Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, and Irishman are captured by the Afghan Taliban and sentenced to death by firing squad.

Before being shot they are asked if they have any last requests:

The Welshman says “Before I die, I would like to hear 1000 Welsh voices singing ‘Land of my Fathers’”.

The Irishman says “Before I die, I would like to see 1000 Irish dancers performing ‘Riverdance’”.

The Scotsmen says “Before I die, I would like to hear 1000 bagpipes playing ‘Scotland the Brave’”.

“And you, English pig! What is your last request?”

“For fucks sake, please shoot me first!”

The Last Man on Earth (1964) | Vincent Price | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi | Full Length Movie

Today’s special gem…

The movie that inspired “I Am Legend” with Will Smith. When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire /zombie hunter.