When I was in my teenage years, I would work.
My father told me that it was life; my purpose as a young man.
And doing so, earning a dollar earned (by me) enabled me to earn the privileges of a “working man”; which was drinking beer at home and at the dinner table.
I started at 14, but really went full time at 16 years old.
At that time, I started to drive a car, drink and hang out. I had friends that I hung out with. Clyde (who also drove a GTO like I did)…
…and some friends like J Eck with his Ford pickup “beater”…
…as well as my brother with his crappy Vega…
I was a piece of shit car. Fucking aluminum engine…
…and the “Bracky Boys” and their Duster (a very popular muscle car)…
Those Bracky Boys were RICH. All the time I thought that they were just some hillbillies, but no. Their parents were loaded. They came from Mo-ney! Who’d figure.
…and a few others with Comaro’s and Pinto’s.
We used to drink Miller Pony bottles in a 8 pack after work. That and smoke. Both cigarettes and the dreaded reefer! If there was one thing that I would tell my younger-self, now that I am an older man… it’s stay away from drugs.
Good times.
Good times.
Cruising late at night on the country roads and stopping at keggers and strip mines. A simple life. But that was what it was like.
It was a social – cultural thing.
Ah… And something else.
Miller pony bottles.
Rolling a joint in the “shotgun” seat, and listening to BTO, Boston, Led Zepplin, and Yes. (Oh, and let’s not forget Robin Trower, and Neil Young.)
Miller Pony bottles.
Takes me back.
Oh, man…this was what it was like. No shit!
1. No one’s coming to save you. Get up and be your hero.
2. Never force anyone to choose you. You’ll learn the art of spending time alone.
3. Master your emotions. A calm mind can handle any situation.
4. To avoid disappointment, you need to take people for who they are not for what you want them to be.
5. Everyone will show you who they are, give them time.
6. You’re at peace with yourself when you mind your own business.
7. Ensure you take good care of yourself, if anything happens to you, the world will move on.
8. Nobody cares, work hard to get better every day.
9. If you don’t work to build your dream, someone will hire you and give you a purpose.
10. Free yourself from society’s advice, most of them do not know what they’re doing.
11. Life doesn’t wait for you to be okay. Get up every day and keep pushing through.
12. You shouldn’t take advice from people who are not where you want to be in life.
13. Life is 100% better when no one knows anything about you.
14. You become 10x smarter when you quit the news and put politics out of your topics.
15. You need to be smart enough to create your opportunities, don’t wait for them to come to you.
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
This is, by far, my favorite homemade chicken noodle soup recipe because it’s simply the perfect mix of easy, wholesome, and satisfying. It’s creamy yet light, and benefits from the addition of potato, thyme, oregano, and convenient pre-cooked rotisserie chicken.
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Light & Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
- Lightened up, yet still creamy and so satisfying
- Can be made on the stove or in a slow cooker
- 1-pot meal
- Using a cooked rotisserie chicken saves time
- So much more delicious than store-bought soup
- Make ahead of time and freeze
- Good way to use up leftover chicken
- Flavorful spices, herbs, and vegetables
- Ultimate winter comfort food!
Best Ingredients to Use:
You need 1 big pot and a few staple ingredients. This is a forgiving recipe, so let’s review what can change if needed.
- Butter: Just a Tablespoon, to soften the vegetables.
- Vegetables: Onion, carrots, and celery form the mirepoix flavor base for this soup.
- Herbs/Flavors: Use a blend of garlic, dried or fresh thyme and oregano, fresh ground pepper, and salt. Feel free to use other herbs you enjoy instead, if desired.
- Flour or Cornstarch: Flour (or cornstarch) thickens the liquid, taking this soup from brothy to creamy. See recipe Note for that substitution.
- Chicken Broth: Or stock.
- Potato: 1 medium potato is the first magical ingredient in this recipe, because it cooks down and makes the soup SO creamy, hearty, and satisfying.
- Chicken: This recipe saves time because you can use pre-cooked chicken. You could also use leftover cooked turkey, like we do in this turkey pot pie! I usually pick up a small rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, shred it, and add it right into the soup. Or you can boil/poach chicken breasts or roast them with a little garlic and thyme, let cool slightly (or refrigerate for a day or two), then shred or chop. If you have leftover chicken, you can also use it in recipes like my chicken quinoa salad or peanut chicken zucchini noodles.
- Milk or Half-and-Half: This is the other magical ingredient that turns your homemade chicken noodle soup into the creamiest soup ever. Use 1 cup of whole milk or 1 cup of half-and-half. If you want to make regular (non-creamy) chicken noodle soup, replace the milk with more chicken broth.
- Noodles: I prefer wide egg noodles in chicken soup, but you can use any type of dry pasta you like, or go noodle-less.
Ingredients
- 2 cans condensed creamy chicken mushroom soup
- 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
- 1 (10 ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables (green beans, peas, corn, carrots)
- 1 teaspoon seasoned pepper or garlic-pepper seasoning
- 1 1/2 cups dried egg noodles
Instructions
- In a slow cooker gradually stir 5 cups water into the soup. Whisk until smooth.
- Stir in chicken, vegetables and seasoned pepper.
- Cover; cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours.
- If using low heat setting, turn to HIGH.
- Stir in noodles.
- Cover and cook for 20 to 30 minutes more or until noodles are just tender.
How Does the Soup Thicken Up?
Cooking down the onion, carrots, and celery is a key step in the recipe. After you cook them down, add flour and your herbs. The flour will absorb the liquid from the softening vegetables, and create a nice thick base for the soup. This is exactly how we start biscuit vegetable pot pie, too.
Whole milk or half-and-half also thicken up the soup. I’ve even made it with half the amount (1/2 cup or 120ml) heavy cream in a pinch. (Add more chicken broth if you use heavy cream; see recipe Note.)
Nice and thick, without being too heavy.
Can I Skip the Noodles or Use Rice Instead?
Yes. Feel free to skip the noodles entirely with no other changes to the recipe. Or you can use 1 cup of uncooked rice instead. Add it when you would add the noodles.
This Soup Satisfies. Period.
One bowl of this light & creamy chicken noodle soup will leave you feeling satisfied for hours, without feeling weighed down. This is the meal that keeps on giving because if you have a smaller family, there will be plenty of leftover soup to enjoy during the week.
Take shooting lessons
Do you think China steals American spacecraft designs?
THE CHOICE OF WORDS BY THE WEST IS ALWAYS – BIAS & PROPAGANDA.
Chinese CCTV cameras are being called surveillance cameras, but the Western CCTV cameras are called security cameras
Chinese landing on Mars is called conquer, US landing on Mars is called exploration.
Terrorist in China is called – freedom fighter, terrorist in the West, of course, is called – terrorist.
US government is called administration. Chinese government is called regime.
US/West invasion in Middle East is called liberation. Russian invasion … well, is called invasion.
The US invasion and organized coup on more than 25 countries since WWII is referred to as following “International rule-based order”.. China fought 4 borders wars and voluntarily withdrew to its borders (before the wars) since WW ll is referred to as “A threat to international rule based order”
The US government that can be bought with money is called “Democracy.” The Chinese government that cannot be bought with money is called “Dictatorship”.
Wars led by the US with the support of the West – killed and maimed millions all over the world is called the “Civilized West”. China which lifted 800 million from extreme poverty in the past 40 years (according to the UN and World Bank) is referred to as “Totalitarian.”.
JUST A SINGLE WORD DIFFERENCE – CAN BRAINWASH YOU.
What is the most jaw-dropping method for shoplifting that you have seen?
I had a friend in college at the University of Utah.
He was at the University of Utah because he’d gotten kicked out of BYU.
The reason he was kicked out was listed as “criminal mastermind”.
What actually happened was much more mundane, but, he was a criminal mastermind of sorts.
His roommate, and a friend of his roommate, were planning on a theft at the BYU bookstore. Realize that there was nearly absolutely no security in those days, and though cameras were a thing, you never saw them outside high end retailers, like jewelry stores, and certainly not in college or University bookstores.
His roommate, and the roommate’s friend, were plotting a burglary, and pretty much ignoring my friend, who was studying.
They eventually settled on grabbing as much high end camera equipment as they could (the most expensive thing in the store at the time, since it predated laptops, which tells you how long ago this was), and then running for the door.
Finally, my friend could stand their stupidity no longer, and pointed out that they would be caught, how they would be caught, and the fact that, since they were going to school there, if no one recognized them immediately, they would be eventually, as in, the next time they had to buy textbooks.
They sneered at my friend, and asked him, “If you’re so smart, what would you do?”.
And my friend told them.
The entire store had hanging ceilings- including in the dressing room.
These ceilings wouldn’t hold their weight, but they’d hold some weight.
And the store had a camping department, where there were a variety of display sleeping bags, hung from the bottom, against the wall.
And the store, as college bookstores tend to do, sold backpacks.
And with these things in mind, my friend laid out a plan, never really expecting that his roommate, and the roommate’s friend were idiot enough to follow through on it.
The next Tuesday, there was a burglary reported of the BYU bookstore. Authorities were mystified, because there were no signs of breaking and entering, all the locks were securely locked, and when searched, there was no one in the store.
His roommate, who’d been missing since late Monday, showed up Wednesday morning.
Having implemented the first part of the plan, of course.
He and his friend had hidden (standing) in the sleeping bags against the wall until the store closed, everyone left, and the store was locked up.
Then, they loaded up a bunch of identical blue backpacks with the stuff they wanted to steal, and hid them in the hanging ceiling above the men’s dressing rooms.
And then, they hid in the sleeping bags again, until the store reopened normally, then left with the after-lunch crowd.
And then, they implemented the second part of the plan.
Each day, for the next week…
They walked in with a blue backpack.
They tried on clothes and, occasionally, bought a T-Shirt or other item of clothing.
They walked out with a blue backpack.
They walked in with a blue backpack.
They walked out with a blue backpack.
How was the case cracked?
Guilt.
The friend of the roommate started hearing “God”.
“God” told him to confess.
That nothing bad would happen.
But that he needed to confess.
Two weeks after the last backpack exchange, he did so.
The police found backpacks full of crumpled newspaper in the hanging ceiling in the men’s dressing room, confirming the confession.
The thieves got kicked out of BYU; the one that came clean got 3 months plus probation; the one who didn’t, got six months plus probation.
My friend (the one not involved in the robbery) saw the whole thing as nothing more than an intellectual exercise and felt he could help solve their problem in a better way after hearing them planning the burglary badly (in front of him)- he got expelled.
They couldn’t charge him though because there was no intent, and it was pretty clear he didn’t expect the roommate, or the roommate’s friend to go through with it — and all the loot was stored in the friend’s dorm room — but they had to do something. You know: send a message.
And so… they expelled him.
For being a criminal mastermind.
He cracked the code
What’s the most impressive thing your parent(s) have done?
They lied to me for 54 years. Successfully.
at 21 I was complaining to my cousin that I loathed my father and was sick of his abuse. Her reply “what if I told you that he’s not your father?” for two years my parents told me that it’s a lie and to drop it.
dad dies in 2004. A few years later I get suspicious again because my siblings have diabetes (perfectly healthy and fit). I don’t. Dads parents and aiblings ll had it by 50. But I don’t act on it.
2010 youngest goes off to college and the hubs and I get a call from mom that she would like to share her home with us. I asked why, she said “because I need one of my kids on my side, the other 4 want me in a nursing home.” Her only health issue was Parkinson’s. She had it for 30 years but wasn’t disabled or senile until 2–3 years before her death in 2021 (Jan 2021)
One day in 2014 she is asking me to show her how to look up and old beau. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find him. He had a super rare name so I was surprised. I don’t think twice about it but it’s really important.
2018, my sibs and I are arguing over our heritage. Some think we are Scottish. Some Irish. We all order tests, take them the same day and ship them off. We all get our results the same day. We are in fact Scottish, or should I say THEY are. And right there were it says father is a name I recognize. Moms “old beau”. Wtf? So the man had his dna on ancestry dot com at 84, could he have known about me? I quickly email him. No answer but he has two sons. I quickly emailed one of them. He gets back to me. They had no idea and sadly my birth father had died 7 months prior. They say he would have welcomed me with open arms and would have loved me
So they successfully lied. I was suspicious because I was the only one he physically disciplined. First I was angry that mother allowed this man to lay hands on me. Knowing he wasn’t my father and most likely taken it out on me that mom lied to him.
The saddest part is they had at least 3 chances to tell me. Instead I found out myself 7 months too late. They cheated me out of a dad and a better life. I don’t grieve for them. Not like a Daughter would really. I loved them, I just can’t grieve with all this anger over being their dirty little secret and robbing me of knowing my biological dad. Friends say “oh but he was your father, he raised you and blah blah blah. No. He’s not my father. He mistreated me and abused me. So to hell with him.
Anyone that read this far, I thank you. Those that didn’t, I’m sorry I babbled on.
UPDATE – Yes I am in contact with and have a relationship with one of my half brothers. The other I was told to contact with extreme caution as he is “trouble” and lord knows I don’t need that. Maybe someday I’ll reach out. I don’t know. I don’t see my half brother as much as I’d like but we are 3 hours away from each other. We do exchange pleasantries and such on holidays.
SERGEY LAVROV:
"The West must be factoring our response into its projections all while plotting against us. They are trying to put themselves into our shoes, while sticking to their own mentality. As for their mentality… Only recently, Mark Episkopos, a prominent American political scientist, chastised the West, including from a purely utilitarian and pragmatic standpoint. Take sanctions, for example. Usually, they are designed to change the way their subject behaves. If you want them to be effective, you need to adjust these sanctions based on the response from those who endure them. The West has been carelessly expanding its sanctions without giving any thought to the possible outcomes. But the outcome was clear to begin with, even before the special military operation when the Crimean sanctions, as well as a host of other sanctions, were already in place. The result was clear. We pulled together, and I do hope that we will become even more focused. We have to go further, as Vladimir Putin said many times. We pulled together and decided not to depend on them in any sectors where they can restrain or hold back our development, and possibly in other sectors too. Today, they pride themselves for getting rid of Russian gas. First, supplies have been on the rise in many countries, including France. Italy took pride in claiming that over the past three years the share of Russian gas in Italian imports declined from 90 percent all the way down to zero. This is what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz boasted of when describing his efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on Russian energy imports, while promising to end the dependence on them completely down the road. Many European have been making statements along the same lines, including the Netherlands, and almost all Western and some Eastern European countries. But at what cost? How much did they have to spend and how have their spending on serving their people increased? Nobody answered these questions. Still, people can see through these ramifications. Mr Episkopos went on say that failing to anticipate the way Russia would respond to these developments was a huge mistake. The West fails to understand that sanctions can be effective only if the subject is ready to change its behaviour for the sake of having these sanctions lifted. The second point Mr Episkopos made was that if the country subjected to sanctions already said that it was not going to change its behaviour, keeping these sanctions in place would be pointless and careless. This is the kind of policy our would-be colleagues have opted for."
Excerpt from remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview with the radio stations Sputnik, Govorit Moskva, and Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow, April 19, 2024.
How to be a man
One of the unremarked things that has happened over the past ten years is the collapse of the so-called man-o-sphere. There may be people still working that land, but all the big names have moved on or disappeared. The pickup artist have all disappeared from the internet entirely. That whole scene just seems to have folded up and gone the way of the dinosaur without anyone noticing.
One reason is the demographic aged out of the material. A guy like Heartiste, for example, could do the pickup artist stuff when he was early middle-age, but once you hit fifty you become a skeevy weirdo, not a Don Juan. The same holds for the other subcultures in that space. Once you reach middle-age, it all starts to sound a bit weird and pointless, even to the people making money off it.
There is another aspect to it. That whole scene was a reaction to the feminization of the culture starting with second wave feminism. The next generation of males have no frame of reference in which to have a reaction. The typical Zoomer has been raised in the longhouse, to use the cool kid’s term. He has no way of knowing that all of this is both weird and unnatural.
That is the point of the show. The male role is not a slippery concept that changes from one generation to the next. It has been revolutionized and pulverized over the last few decades, but that is what makes this age anomalous. The male role in society is timeless, at least in the Western world. There are certain immutable characteristic to being a man that will reassert themselves in the coming years.
IT JUST DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE! Retirement and Jobs ARE FINISHED!
And then a large group of activists who had taken over a university surrendered to police, causing the newspaper publisher to declare: “That wiped out my best men.”
Meanwhile, Lai’s right-hand man, former US intelligence officer Mark Simon, gave the go-between a company he said was of a covert nature and could be used to liaise with foreign organizations and collect funds.
.
.
ASTONISHING REVELATIONS
Extraordinary revelations came this week from the ongoing trial of newspaperman Jimmy Lai, 76, confirming US involvement, and the role of the publisher and his former US intelligence officer partner Mark Simon in backing the violent protests that roiled normally peaceful Hong Kong five years ago.
Testimony from a go-between named Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, 32, detailed the problems that arose during the period after a legal extradition amendment was withdrawn. Protesters continued to use it as an excuse for an increasingly violent insurgency, with terrorist-grade bomb factories discovered at several locations.
.
.
G7 RECOMMENDATION
Background: In 2018, civil servants at Hong Kong’s Department of Justice continued their routine updating of the city’s British Common Law legislation. The city already had Asia’s highest-rated legal system, but to keep at the top, they followed a recommendation from a G7 financial law committee to upgrade the city’s extradition law.
In the British era, arrested individuals from Mainland China had been simply put in vans, driven to the border, and dropped off “over the line”.
The new extradition amendment gave people detained for specific serious crimes due legal protection. They could only be extradited after a lengthy process of hearings, typically taking 12 to 24 months.
.
.
MISINFORMATION
However, by the first half of 2019, an extreme campaign of disinformation had totally misrepresented the amendment. The amendment was falsely painted as a new law “from Beijing” that enabled people (and even tourists) to be “snatched” from the city and “disappeared” in mainland China for political misdemeanours.
The misinformation led to hundreds of thousands of protesters (organizers claimed “millions”) hitting the streets in June calling for its withdrawal.
The amendment was withdrawn the same month, but anti-China groups continued the protests, turning it into a violent insurgency that caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage, shutting down the airport and wrecking scores of metro stations.
.
.
STOP THE VIOLENCE
In July of 2019, US officials told newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai to tone down the violence, the court heard.
This was a problem for several reasons. First, he had repeatedly told his newspaper staff to report events in a way that deliberately removed the gap between Hong Kong’s peaceful protesters and the violent “localist” thugs that smashed up or burned restaurants owned by families from Mainland China. This was described by his staff in earlier court hearings.
Second, he had been financially backing the “old school” pro-American political individuals and groups in Hong Kong for years – often exactly the same anti-China politicians receiving cash or support from various US groups. But did not personally know the new generation of young “localist” leaders. He would need a go-between.
.
.
THE GO-BETWEEN
In July, the publisher arranged to meet Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, a paralegal aged 32, who he believed to be a high ranking activist who could spread the new message to a cluster of violent groups known as “the valiants”.
The paralegal was invited to go to a designated restaurant and was asked to hand over his phone “for security reasons” before Jimmy Lai talked to him, the court was told.
When he had done so, the publisher told him that things would have to change. The United States now wanted “no police or civilian fatalities”. Furthermore, they had said that the violence “should stop at some point”.
Lai wanted this message taken to the violent groups, which were divided into multiple sub-groups with their own names, including JD Team, G20, Pink, Dragonslayer and others. (The code name for Jimmy Lai and Mark Simon was “Backer”.)
Wayland Chan met with the publisher several times, he said, always having to give up his phone before conversations started. On one occasion, they met in a car parked near Hong Kong’s Supreme Court, the court heard.
.
.
US OPERATIONS
Between face-to-face meetings, the younger activist received Whatsapp messages from Jimmy Lai about US progress in the anti-China effort, he told the court.
Two American operations had been set up with Hong Kong in their names. One was a lobby group working to create the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” and the other was a group called the “Hong Kong Democracy Council”.
They were working to get western countries to sanction Hong Kong, remove its privileges, and damage its main sources of income – finance and tourism — although the community had done literally nothing to deserve such a punishment.
.
.
INITIALLY UNAWARE
Wayland Chan told the court that he had not been aware at first of the nature of the relationship between the anti-China publisher and US officials.
“Only when he told me at a later stage about the US Government’s internal considerations, did I realise Jimmy Lai was not simply rallying for international support, but he knew certain criteria [set by US officials] and was trying to meet them,” he said at the hearing in the West Kowloon court this week.
Chan contacted leading “valiant” individuals but struggled to get the message over to them, he said. In one case, his contact refused to believe that the message came from Jimmy Lai.
.
.
MAN SET ON FIRE
The insurgency remained out of control, and the violence got worse. Bomb factories were set up, and weapons smuggled into the city. One group started making TATP, the explosive used in the London bombings of 7 July 2005.
In November of 2019, an old man tried to stop protesters smashing up a metro station in Ma On Shan, in a rural part of Hong Kong. The old man was doused in petrol as they tried to burn him alive.
Jimmy Lai was dismayed, and contacted Wayland Chan for another meeting, also calling representatives of the old-school pro-American political groups known as the pan-democrats.
.
.
MAROONED
The newspaper publisher also faced another setback later the same month, when protesters marooned themselves at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which was situated on a single city block.
Police took no action, but simply waited at the entrances, playing a range of popular music. After about 12 days, the protesters, bored and hungry, gave themselves up, walking out with their hands up.
“That wiped out my best men,” Jimmy Lai told Chan, the court heard.
.
.
CHAN’S REWARD
About two weeks later, Wayland Chan was invited to meet Mark Simon at the Hyatt Hotel in Shatin. As a reward to Chan, an overseas company with money in its bank account would be set up, he was told.
This idea ran into an immediate difficulty. Hong Kong had strong policies against money laundering, which meant that it was difficult to open a bank account in the city for a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
When Jimmy Lai was told this, the publisher decided to offer one of his unused companies to Chan as a reward, and asked an assistant named Evan Lau to handle the formalities, the court heard.
In early 2020, Chan attended a meeting where a company named Lacock Inc, owned by Jimmy Lai, was transferred to him. It had an HSBC account containing HK$80,000.
.
.
FOREIGN ORGANIZATIONS
But then came another issue. Wayland Chan saw the company as his personal reward, and wanted to use it to develop his own business.
Mark Simon had other ideas, of an ideological nature. He felt it should be used to as a channel for overseas groups to continue to contribute to their anti-China campaign.
Mark Simon told Chan that the company was of covert nature and could be used to liaise with foreign organizations and collect funds, the court heard.
The trial continues.
Have you ever stolen something back after getting robbed?
The company I work for gave everyone a nice company coat for Christmas. I took a marker and marked the inside tag with my name so that I would know if it was mine (all the coats looked the same).
One day, before heading for home, I looked at the peg where my coat had been hanging, and it wasn’t there. I checked all the coats…mine was gone, as were my favorite sunglasses.
I told management, who expressed regret, but there were no coats left.
Two weeks passed…and I periodically did a check to see if any hanging were my coat.
After about two weeks, I came across it hanging on a peg on the opposite end of the room. I grabbed it and hid it at my work station.
One of the night crew workers came storming up to me demanding HER coat. I told her that I didn’t have it…I had mine. I then showed her the tag, which showed my name. I then asked her where my sunglasses were. She responded she didn’t know.
I told her she had 24 hours to come up with them or I was going to tell them who had stolen my coat.
This would have been a termination offense.
She handed them to me the next day, saying she found them in her husband’s truck.
She has since transferred, but when I see her, she avoids me like the plague.
Some views of Pago Pago
What are your thoughts on Chinese automaker BYD’s $11,500 Seagull, an extremely cheap EV that is not available in the US due to high tariffs?
Freedom of trade? What a hypocrite! The U.S. burnt down nations just to install freedom but it ensures that it’s people buy from profiteers and keep prices high to give its people no choices! The U.S. citizens are the real loser! Are US citizens not aware that they are worst than Chinese citizens who can buy Tesla if they do wish! I fact out of the cars that Tesla made in 2023, 69.7% are sold in China! Can you Yanks not see the irony that China a supposedly unfree nation can buy Tesla and a nation screaming freedom like there is no tomorrow cannot buy BYD?
Let me school all of you on this! China U.S. a very smart and intelligent nation, by allowing Tesla to sell it ensures that those cars are made in China too! They got jobs and are learning all the while about western demands and western customers. So by the time BYD goes international it knows their taste, their likes and dislikes and they made a killing! Thanks to being open and free they are successful.
The U.S. is left as a pathetic slur grape nation without principle nor freedom!
A fun quote
Have you ever been knocked unconscious in a car accident?
I have. For 20 minutes.
It was 2011, and I was meeting a couple for lunch for my birthday. He worked at Oakley, and lunch “came with“ a new pair of Oakley‘s as a gift. It should’ve been a great day.
I was in a convertible, traveling on highway 73 in Orange County, California. I exited and was waiting for the light to turn left onto a surface highway. The approaching cars stopped, the light turned green and I started to make a left turn. As soon as I passed the stopped cars and made it to the centerline, a speeding Chevy Suburban, three times the size of my car, came into view. My last conscious thought was “They’re not going to stop“. I swerved, and it was lights out.
She ran a red and T-boned me; smashed into my side, forward of the door, near the front wheel. She crushed the entire front like a tin can, my car spun and we collided twice. So I heard…
Twenty minutes and lots of bystander activity went by. My next conscious moment was in the ambulance, looking up at a female emergency medical tech as we were heading to the trauma center. I was an EMT decades ago, and my first thought and words were “so this is what it looks like in the other direction“…
My head had hit the frame of the convertible top and it split my scalp, but fortunately didn’t crack my skull, though you could see it from the wound. My hand broke on the steering wheel, my ribs were cracked where they impacted the door. I was covered in blood and bruises. The airbags never went off.
Two guys jumped out of their cars and ran over. My window was a curtain of blood and of course I was out. They couldn’t open the door and thought I was dead. One called 911, and the other ran over to the woman’s car. It was totaled.
The impact of my head hitting the car was so forceful, my brain violently bounced off the inside of my skull. The brain stem flexed with such force it caused “micro-tears.” They sewed me up, patched me up, gave me X-rays and a CAT scan and I left the trauma center late that night with my wife instructed to ensure I woke up the next morning.
To give you an idea of how much it shook me up? I had been arranging a huge business dinner for two nights later. I still made phone calls to make sure the plans were set, and then the night of the event? I forgot to go… Par for the course with bad concussions, I had a slightly volatile temper for a couple of months. I forgot, seemingly everything randomly. I had minor bouts with depression which I’ve never had otherwise in my life.
The brain impact prevented me from remembering proper nouns for almost year and a half. I got to know my neurologist and the neuropsych testing people very well.
You can’t be unconscious for that long without taking a huge shot to the brain. And you can’t be unconscious for that long without having a long-term challenge. My ability to recall proper nouns is still pretty poor. That’s mostly it…
But it could’ve been much worse. Had she hit the driver’s door? It would’ve been the other kind of “lights out.”
What is the craziest purchase you’ve seen someone make on a work credit card?
This was a series of purchases, over a period of around six months. The company I was working for hired an employee who apparently had left her prior job under a cloud of felony charges. She hadn’t been convicted, so there was no record to find in a background check, plus the individual reversed a few numbers on her SSN when she applied. She managed to then hit a perfect storm of processes that allowed her to run up some significant charges on the company credit card. First, she was a remote employee with an also remote boss (this was well before COVID). She immediately requested a company credit card so she could fly to HQ for new hire orientation. A card was issued and FedExed to her. Her first charge was a cash advance (in those days, this was a holdover from days further in the past where it was unheard of for an employee to use the credit card — or their own money — for small purchases). During the ensuing investigation, we found that her subsequent purchases were for household bills, groceries, and utilities. Interestingly, she never submitted the expenses for the trip to HQ. Her manager never noticed that.
Fast forward six months or so and the employee went missing. Her manager woke up and discovered from media reporting that said employee had been convicted of some felony charges related to her prior employment and sent off to be a guest of the state for a few years. Alarm bells went off and an investigation began. As we unwound the credit card bill, we continued to see the various household purchases, utilities, cash advances, etc. Then we found that she had used the card to pay her lawyer as well as take some family members on a (modest) cruise. By the time we added things up, the company was out well in excess of $10,000. Arguably, not a ton of money for a large company, but something that caused immediate changes in expense policy and company credit cards. We found that she was able to exploit a fairly liberal payment window (established to accommodate time for employees to submit expenses, get them approved, and get them paid out to the credit card company). She further managed to (probably) use cash advances to make payments on the card to avoid showing up as delinquent. It appeared that she made some additional payments from other sources, but it wasn’t something we were in a position to confirm. The company didn’t have a good process for tracking personal charges, so there was no process to have the employee report and reimburse such expenses. There were also no categories of expenses that could not be charged to the card. There were quite a number of additional learnings, starting with why the background company didn’t flag a SSN mis-match.
The employee’s manager was fired (in addition to the initial failure to submit expenses, there had been some communications from the credit card company that charges were aging, which the manager had never looked into) and the lawyer was advised to pay the company back the fees charged against the credit card. Beyond that, I wasn’t privy to any other events outside of a flurry of expense and credit card policy changes.
Retro Underground Comix
Why is the US so desperate to compete with China when the world knows it cannot?
The ONLY people who realize that the United States is unable to compete with China is the Western “news” media, and the people that consume it.
The rest of the world, INCLUDING the American “leadership” and the Pentagon understand the futility of “Tonya Harding” competition strategies.
However, the United States is not a “healthy” nation. It is a nation in “free-fall”. There is no one at the helm, and those that are in control of various functional aspects of the government are stymied by a complex web network of counter-productive political polarization. Often led by those with self-interest at their core, and incapable of actual subjective reasoning. For everyone in the West are under the propagandized narratives that they themselves create.
Like (for instance) the “brick wall” of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.
…
But there is an “out”.
Cooperation NOT Competition.
China wants to see a better world, but in order for that reality to play out, some very toxic behaviors, and legacy dysfunctions must be excised (one way or the other) from the West. I am afraid that it will be a painful process.
The United States NEEDS friends, and help. China is willing to take on this role. But I am fearful that that will not materialize until a period of disharmony adjusts the objective reality of the West.
What makes you jealous?
Even though he passed away years ago, I still find myself feeling a bit envious. I’m talking about my granddad—my lifelong hero and mentor. He kept grinding every day until he hit 90. Getting up at 6:00 AM, he’d down his coffee and head off to work. Surprisingly fit for his age, not exactly a six-pack, but definitely in good shape.
I remember working on physically demanding tasks with him, and I’d be wiped out afterward. For him, it was a walk in a park. Once, we chopped wood for eight hours, and I passed out right after. But he? He moved on to his next job without missing a beat.
What I envy most is how he never lost his ability to handle physical tasks. While others his age struggled just to stand, he could do everything as if he were still in his thirties. I never quite grasped how he managed it all. I really wish I could be like he was.
Joe Rogan Goes Quiet as Tucker Carlson Drops Bone-Chilling Reality
“Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I’m not guessing at that. They’ve told me that, including people who run the intel committee.”
What Tucker said next was even more revealing.
“I said to somebody, a very powerful person, the other day, in a conversation in my kitchen, an elected official — holds a really senior position… But I was like, ‘All these people are controlled. They’ve all got weird sex lives, and all these things they’re hiding, and they’re being blackmailed by the intel agencies.’ And he said, and I’m quoting, ‘I know.’ I was like, okay, so at this point, we’re just sort of admitting that’s real? Like, why do we allow that to continue?”
This is the Amerikkkan Deep State.
What are some examples of the “wussification” of the United States of America?
About six years ago or so when I was still in high school, we were playing soccer in gym class. After about five minutes in or so, the kid who was playing as my team’s forward (we’ll call him “Brock”) came up to me, who was playing goalie, and said he wanted to be the goalie now. I politely declined, because the game was only five minutes in, and that’s just not how soccer (or the real world) works.
After about 30 seconds of arguing back and forth over it, he presumed the second best option to be to grab me by the shirt and try to drag me out of the goalie box. Or in other words, physically assaulted me.
As a natural reaction and in accordance with what the law actually says, I laid into Brock with one good hit.
I then see the gym instructor approaching us to break up the scuffle that was occuring. When he gets to us, he sends us both to the principal’s office.
Brock’s punishmen was a week of out-of-school suspension. And I received the exact same punishment.
Why? Because according to my school’s policy on fighting, if you are even merely involved in a fight, it’s an automatic out-of-school suspension, so the principal technically doesn’t even get to use his own discretion regarding disciplining students regarding these types of matters.
I remember him even saying to me “Geraldo, coming from person to person, I would have done the exact same thing as you. However, as a school official, I unfortunately have no choice but to suspend you”.
What my school expects you to do if you are to find yourself in the situation I was in, is to passively submit and take your beating, and then once that is finished, you are to go to a teacher and tell on the person who attacked you. (Because it’s not like the person you just told on isn’t going to kick the shit out of you for rolling on them once you’re outside school property, right?)
Say you were to get jumped by five people at my school. Well that means that a total of six people will be getting suspended. That being the five dudes who assualted you, and yourself, for being assaulted.
If that’s not an example of institutionalized wussification, I don’t know what is.
Some of my AI generated pictures
Girls and alcohol with cats.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
This happened when my dad was just out of high school. One of his longtime friends confirmed the details.
My dad and some friends were at a roller skating rink having fun and flirting with some girls. There was a black family skating there as well. Suddenly they hear this guy saying, “You n%#s, we don’t want your kind here.” He kept harassing them and it pissed my dad off. He went up to the jerk and told him to knock it off, that this family was more than welcome to be here, and he is the one who should leave.
The bully asked, “You n%# lover, are you going to make me?”
My dad told me he was terrified because this guy looked like someone who had been in a lot a fights. But the looks on that poor family’s faces was more than he could bear. So, he agreed to take it outside. While he was putting on his shoes an employee told him he should take off, that the guy he was facing was a known troublemaker and he had just gotten out of jail for assault. That didn’t help my dad’s nerves. Then as he was getting up the father of the black family told him not to bother, that they will just leave.
I don’t know how he mustered the courage to walk out that door, but he went to face him anyway. A crowd gathered around them as they faced each other. The bully said, “Now I am going to teach you a lesson you n#% lov…” He never had a chance to finish that sentence. My dad hit him squarely on his chin and the racist bully crumpled to the pavement. One punch and he was out.
Everyone cheered, the girls were all swooning over my dad, and the family thanked him for being the only one standing up for them. Yep, my dad was a true badass that day.
What is the best thing a teacher did for you that you still remember?
I was in 6th grade and 11 years old. I had started menstruating at 10 and didn’t have it all figured out quite yet. I was wearing a pale yellow skirt and jacket that my grandmother had sewn me and I really liked it. When school ended, I stood up to leave and the teacher snapped at me to come see her. I was pretty shocked. She never raised her voice to me. When I reached her she spun me around so my back was toward the wall. Then she whispered to me that the back of my skirt was stained and to just stay there with her until everyone left. When everyone left she told me to just keep waiting. She knew that my mother came and picked up my brother and I each day. Eventually, my brother came to see why I wasn’t coming out to the car. He was about 7. When he came into the classroom, first she yelled at him for not getting out of bed in the morning and making me late several days (I felt bad about this, but she wasn’t wrong) and then she told him to give her his jacket. She wrapped it around my waist and told us we could leave. I have never forgotten her kindness. Especially because several of the girls could be really mean to me. I’m pretty sure no one ever saw the stain.
Creamy Asparagus Soup
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh asparagus
- 2 onions, finely minced
- 2 potatoes, peeled, diced small
- 2 ribs celery, diced small, with tops included
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 teaspoons granulated chicken or vegetable bouillon (or 8 cubes of bouillon)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped or 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 sprig fresh tarragon, chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, minced, or 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt (or to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 cups Half-and-Half
- Sour cream
- Chives, chopped
Instructions
- Break off and discard the tough, thick end of each asparagus spear. Chop the spears into 1/4-inch slices and add to the slow cooker along with all remaining ingredients down to and including the white pepper.
- Add water to within 1 inch of the top of the slow cooker.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 6 to 7 hours.
- About two hours before serving, use a slotted spoon to remove most of the vegetables to a blender. Use a ladle to add some of the liquid from the slow cooker to the blender. Puree the mixture and add back in to the slow cooker.
- Repeat once or twice more as necessary (you can leave some of the pieces in the slow cooker for effect.)
- Add approximately 1 cup of the Half-and-Half to the slow cooker.
- Add the cornstarch to the remaining Half-and-Half in the carton.
- Close the carton well and shake vigorously.
- Add the mixture to the slow cooker.
- Continue to cook on HIGH for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
- Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream and chopped chives sprinkled over the sour cream.
Op-Ed: One Woman’s Anguish at Being Vaxxed
by DUPED LADY
For those who cannot imagine what it’s like to be vaxxed, and living with it once the evidence becomes available, l can answer you: it’s day-to-day grieving and cellular remorse.
Many of us were just living our daily lives without any idea of the World Economic Forum or the World Health Organisation. We trusted our doctors – l’d had mine for over 25 years, and we knew our government lied at election times, but we voted the best we could based on the B.S. presented to us.
We went about our lives innocently – working, raising kids and babysitting grandkids – and many of us had not one person in our circles to warn us of the dangers.
We didn’t even know that we had to do ‘research’. Unbelievable as that may seem, it’s absolutely true.
So off we went and had the shots. And now us ‘sheeples’ – as we are sometimes referred to – are dying in our millions, some suddenly, while some are destined for slow, malingering, pain-filled deaths.
But we are dying, and ironically, we are the evidence; the proof you will all use later.
Some of us argued with others who knew about the dangers, and words and actions hurt both sides. And that is the greatest weapon of the psy-op: it’s actually greater than the vax itself.
There is a level of toxic hatred and gloating online that condemns the vaxxed to silence in regards to seeking help. l see it in the forums, how they are abused by total strangers, so we stay silent and die alone, unforgiven for our naivety and fear.
But back to the point above – of what it is like to be vaxxed and to then become aware of how we’ve been done. It is hell. Living with the knowledge that I took three of them; that my wonderful, kind, hardworking husband took four; that our children and grandchildren had them;
it haunts me, it breaks my soul, it has destroyed me… simply because we were naive.
My husband and l were already injected when a cousin contacted me through Messenger after seeing a post about my rapid decline in health and asked me questions. l then spoke to my sons, but it was too late – they had been jabbed already.
It’s reading endless detox protocols and wondering IF they truly work or IF they too are part of the B.S., because how would we ever know when there is no long-term proof? It’s endless medical tests that come back ‘normal’, but you just know and feel the changes in your body.
It’s seeing the videos of the ‘calamari’ clots and reading about graphene microblades slicing up veins, and spikes adhering like velcro to tissues and organs.
It’s the breathlessness and palpitations on the slightest exertion that doctors can’t explain.
It’s the knowing that it was all for nothing, though we believed it was for the best of intentions.
It’s this tattoo on my arm of the vax batch numbers that l use to open conversations and share my adverse reactions with every doctor, specialist and pathologist, radiologist and ambulance paramedic l meet.
It’s knowing that any second, any second, could be IT… the last one l breathe before l die.
It’s grief – deep, empty, gut-wrenching grief for all my family and friends, all those l love and care for.
It’s loss – the loss of my future dreams and plans, the loss of my husband and family, it’s the pain felt by the name-calling and ongoing online abuse.
l may be a sheeple to some, and cop endless abuse online for speaking up with my truth, but that will not stop me.
Not every vaxxed person acted like an A-hole when approached by someone who cared enough to take the risk of warning them.
Yet we have ALL been tarred with that one brush. And it’s there that humanity debased itself even further. They did not have to do a thing except sit back and watch us fall apart.
Sounds Of The Department Store 1979
