They will allow it. EDIT, mostly because they’re powerless to stop it. Russian military production capability exceeds all of NATO and westerners are still just TALKING about ramping up production.

But what will happen yeah? Is the state controlled media in NATO countries will simply stop talking about it and hope everybody forgets.

Remember this? I sure do.

The Americans with their SUPER SOLDIERS, SUPER MEGA ULTRA TECH weapons and the best training and best everything… were humiliated by a bunch of men with beards.

They spent trillions to replace the Taliban… with the Taliban.

Note how little news coverage this absolute humiliation gets.

The same will happen.

It’s a lot of fun, but will have a tragic ending. Octopuses are fairly well known for being intelligent, which is something that makes them interesting pets. Most octopuses are nocturnal by nature, meaning they are most active at night, like bats. Thing is, many of the octopuses I’ve kept quickly realized that Jim and other humans are harmless and, in fact, friendly. From there, the octopuses also quickly realized Jim is the Food God, which naturally helped jump start our relationships. Once that is established, they happily started following my schedule. Just like an affectionate dog or cat is excited to see their master when they get home from work, a pet octopus will also come out in anticipation of a treat or some interaction. This friendship will grow. You will get to know your octopus, and it will get to know you. Some of my octopuses loved being petted. Some loved playing tug-O-war games. Some just enjoyed running their sucker-covered arms over my hands (which is how they smell us- their suckers are full of sensory cells) Others enjoyed getting a Lego submarine or other toy they could tear apart and destroy. Several octopuses I kept seemed to be music lovers- I was a guitar player/singer in several bands and when we practiced at my house, my octopuses routinely came out and danced around on the glass all night while we played. They are very complex animals, and no two are alike in personality or demeanor. Some will become your best friend, but others may just want to be left alone.

The problem is that they are also very short lived critters. Most octopuses only live about a year. They hatch as teeny tiny little things and grow very quickly. What that means for the prospective keeper is that a wild-caught octopus is likely already more than 6 months old (so it has grown large enough for collection divers to find). By the time you bring it home and have tamed it to the point of a relationship I described above, it’s close to the end. It’s usually heartbreaking. Male octopuses often suffer from senescence- a sort of cephalopod-based senility. They lose their minds and start doing strange things. They stop eating food and begin nibbling the ends of their arms off. They will do strange things. One hung upside down from some of the tank plumbing and refused to move. In the wild, they often stop hiding and get snapped up by predators. Despite their reputation for being escape artists, most of my escaped octopuses were suffering senescence. Then one day your little buddy will just die, and it can be just like losing that loyal dog or cat: it’s going to hurt. Just as you started to get to know him, his time is over. Female octopuses will often lay eggs whether they mated or not. At that time, she will guard those eggs literally with her life. She will refuse food and do nothing but hide in her den and groom the eggs religiously. In the wild, when the eggs hatch the babies go off on their own and the mother will die hours later. At home, she will defend those eggs for a month or so until she expires. There’s no avoiding it.

I’ve been keeping and studying octopuses for over 20 years now. You learn to brace for that early end, but it does not get any easier, especially when you happen upon an especially interesting and unique octopus.

When Chinese environment is bad you guys demonised China and blamed them for global warming and accused them of being uncaring to their population. Well the acted positively. They now cultivate the most wind, water and solar energy and they subsidise their population to stop using Internal combustion Engines and moved into full EVs that made their environment healthy and their skies blue again and now you find fault with these too!

China can never ever win! China should not care about what the west says at all! China should and is doing what is good for China and the world! The west also gave subsidies to their EVs too except that they are simply not as strategic or as smart as BYDs and the likes. That is your problem it has nothing to do with China.

The U.S. and the west made a racial profiling that they meaning white people and only they can makes stuffs so they can charge whatever they wanted. Hence they allowed their workers and their CEO get whatever they wanted. As these cost can always be passed on to consumers! But the are dead wrong. The Japanese, then Koreans, ASEAN and now Chinese can do everything faster, cheaper and way better than the west and today it cannot sell everything unless it is heavily subsidised. It not only EVS. It is everything.

Two cases come to mind.

1. Flood Insurance case: I represented a lady who had the misfortune to rent an apartment in a flood zone, and it flooded. She did have the good sense to buy a flood insurance policy, but FEMA declined to pay for an obscure reason. The apartment owner also had flood insurance, and FEMA paid that claim. I filed suit on behalf of the lady, and said that her apartment was the exact same apartment insured by policy # XXX issued to the owner, and that the owner’s claim was paid. Three days before Christmas I got a call from a Department of Justice attorney representing FEMA and she said “We read your complaint. You’re right. How do we write the check?”
2. Collection case: I represented a guy who was being sued on a credit card account. After preliminary skirmishes it’s the day of the trial – client asked where should he meet me, and I said he wasn’t to meet me unless I called him. I told him to stay away from the courthouse but close enough he could be there within 10 minutes if I called. He objected and I told him to trust me on this. I went into court and the lawyer for the credit card company (who had interned for me a few years earlier) showed up; we exchanged pleasantries. She then asked ‘where’s your client?’ and I said I didn’t know but was ready to try the case without him. She had a blank look for a moment, then said something about my maternal canine ancestry as she realized my tactic (to my immense grinning) and had to take a dismissal of the case. She had planned to call my client as an adverse witness to introduce the credit card documents (credit card collection companies almost never send a witness to court) which had to be done to prove the collection case. But my client wasn’t subpoenaed as a witness so didn’t have to be there. Without a witness to the debt (which probably was in fact owed) they couldn’t get a judgment.

Yes of course you are unless you become a US lackey in that case you become a U.S. dog! Taiwanese are like me an ancestor from Hokkien or Fuxian province in the south of China. I am what you called a Singaporean with a Chinese origin and you are a Chinese living in a province of China call Taiwan! We both loved our motherland and we will do everything to helped the cause of Chinese successes.

The U.S. and the west are Chinese haters simply because the failed to steal China into their spheres and could not break China up into a hundred minute nations so that it can swallow up one by one. Hence it us trying to destabilise Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinxiang using false pretences and war mongering. But it has failed so far and it is costing the US an arm and a leg doing so. So to China it is like providing the US with a long and strong rope to kill it selves. If that is what they wanted!

Taiwan will forever be a part of China and that status can never changed no matter ho much the U.S. tries to prised it away.

Not in any meaningful way.

Let’s say you went to prison with an artificial leg. The leg enables you to walk and you’ve used it for so long that, with pants on, most people think you just have a bad limp.

The prison says you can’t bring your prosthesis in with you because it might have drugs hidden in a secret compartment. No worries they say… we’ll get you fitted for a new leg when the doctor comes around… in September. So you wait… and wait… and wait in a prison issue wheelchair.

The day of the doctor’s visit finally comes. Uh oh… there was a fight at the higher security prison next door. We’re on lock down. Nobody is going anywhere. No worries they say… the doctor will be back next year.

So, you file a grievance. You have the right to write down whatever angers you on a form and give it to your case manager. He dismisses your concerns… you try to go over his head, but you need copies of his denial…hard to get when he’s only in his office an hour each week… It’s amazing how often the man can lose paperwork. Case managers are often the folks not friendly or efficient enough to work at the DMV.

Nine months later, you’ve made it through three levels of appeal and only have a couple more to go… what are you crying about says the next appeal response… the doc will be there in just three short months! They mark your grievance as “resolved” and list it as a success for the process.

Yes. On paper prisoners have rights. In reality they are locked away from being able to help themselves or exercise those rights. They are completely at the mercy of a staff that could not care any less.

Oh, and my story about the artificial leg? He was still stuck in the chair when I left.

I went out with a co-worker who asked me to go furniture shopping with him because he wanted a woman’s opinion when decorating his new house. He said that for taking the time to go shopping with him, he wanted to buy me dinner.

I met him at his place and he drove the furniture store.

He asked for my opinion on different pieces of furniture and, if I liked anything, he would examine it thoroughly and then tell me everything that was wrong with it and why I was wrong to like it. 2 hours later, we left the store without buying so much as a lamp.

He stopped by Kentucky Fried Chicken and bought a bucket of chicken. He then drove us back to his house.

We ate the KFC at his kitchen counter (he had no table or chairs) and then he announced it was time for us to go to bed (more accurately, to mattress on the floor since he had no bed).

I picked up my purse and headed for the door. He was insulted and disappointed that we weren’t going to end that fantastic evening with coitus.

Worst part — I had to look at this moron every day at work for the next 5 years.

Yup! They have no trouble at all distinguishing one human from another. In fact, my first octopus hated my ex. She always tickled the octopus in a way that really annoyed the little cephalopod, and the octopus responded by squirting water at her.

It got to be a running joke, because if she even opened the lid slightly the octopus would surge up to the surface and give her a face full of water, then retreat and hide under its den. It was like a cartoon!

It liked me though. It would greet me and play tug O war and take food right from my hand. The octopus clearly could tell us apart, but I wanted to know: how far did the recognition go? It gave me an idea: we tried to fool the octopus.

I put on her hat, her sunglasses and jacket, and I let my hair down (I’ve had long hair since the ‘90s)

Nothing. He knew instantly it was me.

Then it was her turn: she tied her hair back in a ponytail, wore one of my shirts and sunglasses. She opened the lid and:….…GOOOOSH! Not even a little hesitation.

That was a long time and many many octopuses ago, but the trend is clear: That first octopus wasn’t unique. Since then, we have had many, many octopuses that could very obviously and easily tell us apart. Now I’m married to a fellow ceph expert, and now my darling wife and I make sure to take turns interacting with our octopuses to make sure neither of us winds up on the wet side of an unfavorable cephalopod yelp review.

It’s a myth that when you leave prison, you’re done.

You see it happen in movies… the prisoner is finally released after years. He walks out that front gate into a new life full of opportunity and hope.

Ahem… bullshit.

After you walk out that gate, your movements are monitored; you’ll have court ordered requirements and a probation officer to enforce them. You may be enrolled in classes, substance abuse sessions, public service, etc. You might have to take a weekly urinalysis. Maybe you’ll wear a drug patch. You might sport a nifty GPS ankle monitor that can shout helpful things at you like, “Call your PO, NOW!” You might have to cough up a chunk of your meager salary to pay for all these things.

You could have fines or restitution to take care of, and the courts are a creditor that doesn’t take no for an answer.

You’ll have a hell of a time finding a decent job. Apartments aren’t any easier. Would you want to rent to a felon, or hire one? Even people that say they would, still quietly look for ways not to.

I applied for a county job and had the job in the bag until my felony came up. The hiring manager said he believed in second chances… Ten days later I received a terse letter from the HR department explaining that “due to adverse information” I could not be considered for hire. The second chance wasn’t mine, it was theirs… a second chance to back out. Even if the hiring manager was 100% sure that I was the perfect candidate, he doesn’t want to stick his neck out for a felon. I don’t blame him.

Instead I wound up working at a car wash for minimum wage for my first year. Now I’ve got a warehouse job, but I still make only a quarter of what I made before my journey started. After child support and insurance are deducted, my job pays me $125 a week (don’t even raise the topic of getting support reduced… I’ve tried).

Your PO can knock on your door any time of the day or night and can ransack your place for any reason or suspicion. They can show up at your job to ask questions or talk to your neighbors (hasn’t happened to me, but I’ve heard plenty of state cases where it has).

My probation is for five years, but I’ve known a few guys who have lifetime probation. Imagine looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. One forbidden beer and you’re off to cell block seven!

The “help” the state provides to get you under way after release was the biggest impediment to starting over. I’m sure some guys need what was provided if they’ve burned every last bridge in their lives. For me, the halfway house just frustrated my efforts.

The felony will haunt you for as long as you live.

Truth is that once you’ve seen the inside of a prison, you never really get to walk out free again.

After Nearly 24 Years With My Queen, Our Journey Is Over 💔

All good things end. This is a tribute, but I can feel it’s reality.