Happy new year. 

I pulled out a Paetron video for you all to enjoy. It’s the start of the Dragon Year 2024. Please enjoy it, you all. For those who already watched it, please check it out again.

Enjoy this video.

MM discusses a rebuilding of the Reality Universe substructure

 

A question…

I really enjoyed this but now I have so many more questions! 

Didn’t know you still do missions and I wish I knew what “polishing” is…

 

An answer

I am retired from MAJestic. But I am still active in Domain.

As far as “polishing” is concerned…

“Polishing” is like dipping a piece of fly paper into a thick vegetable soup. Then pulling it out. 

The chunky bits all cling to the paper. You then scrape the paper clean (or get a new sheet), and repeat the process.

Over time, the soup gets less “chunky” and full of stuff, and is more like really sluggish and calm water.

(You can thank the DC for this explanation.)

What is the most selfless thing you did?

Hmmm. I guess it was when my parents were divorcing. My father purposefully put mom in dire financial trouble. He even somehow cancelled my credit cards and cleaned out my college fund which I hadn’t touched yet, even tho I was 21. She was suddenly behind in house payments and taxes, because even tho he said he was paying everything, he pocketed the money for months and years. So, yeah. I gave mom all my savings, dropped out of school midterm and went to work full time to get her back on track. I gave her my entire paychecks. After about a year she was ok again. And karma found the sperm donor and took him down. Story for another time tho. Secondly was quitting my job to care for my mom when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, which had spread everywhere. She became bedridden pretty quickly I was her 24/7 caregiver for over a year. I wouldn’t let her go to a place where she couldn’t get one-on-one attention. She had every complication possible. Rashes, wounds, meds, diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, everything. She would be confused and call me every 15 minutes for something. She required 3–5 full bed changes and cleanings a day at times. Hospice told me it was the worst case they’d seen in 25 years. But I stayed. Caregivers I hired at $50/hr to get a few hours relief would leave because it was “too much work.” But I stayed. I may have had no outside life, only got 3–4 hours of sleep a night, and was an emotional wreck, but I know I did everything I could have done for her. She passed a few months ago and I’m still riding all the emotions while trying to figure out my life again.

 

If another coworker didn’t show up for work, how would you handle their responsibilities besides your own?

Not my coworker; my supervisor.

Already entitled and lazy, once she realized that I’m reliable, not stupid and could be trusted to do her work, she started dumping on me. Eventually I was doing her job and mine for four days out of five while she called in either “sick” or “working from home today” or .”out on appointments” or “cold-calling” every day except payday Fridays.

Or one or the other of her children or husband was sick, or had an appointment, or the car broke down. Like she fucking thought I was that damned stupid. Every. Single. Day.

When I complained to her brother the company owner about my overwhelming workload, I was told that I just needed to learn how to prioritize.

Eventually he was spending more and more time on the golf course and dumping on me himself. I became a de facto office manager without the salary, I was running their company for them in their absence on my secretary’s wages. Everything from invoicing, collections, and banking to sales and installation support and inventory to making coffee and vacuuming to painting walls.

Yeah, I quit without notice. And without me, they not only had to get off their asses and do their own jobs but had to figure how I’d spent 45 hours a week, because neither one of them had any idea. Clueless about customer service, answering the phone, taking and filling customer orders, shipping and receiving, reception and typing and filing and billing. Without me they didn’t even know where the vending machine keys were. I guess neither one was smart enough to figure it out, because less than a year after I quit they bankrupted the business.

My supervisor ended up giving $6 haircuts at the Hair Cuttery for tips.

Are ‘Girls Trips’ on Spring Break Okay When Married?

 

What was the most disgusting display of entitled behavior that you ever witnessed?

I’m sure there are examples more disgusting than this, but this is the one that sticks in my mind.

I was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard while getting my Ph.D. There was a student in my section who clearly had money to burn and the attitude that the world was his toy to play with. He came to me on the day a paper was due, smiled his expensive Tom Cruise smile, and said he hadn’t gotten his assignment done because he spent Spring Break in the Bahamas, so he’d get it to me when he had a chance. He seemed to think this would be absolutely fine. I told him how much his grade would drop each day it was late, and he shrugged and sauntered out.

Later, close to the end of a semester of this kind of performance from him, I explained exactly how many points he needed on the Final to pass the course.

He didn’t pass.

He then proceeded to come in with a multi-page detailed analysis explaining how I had graded his exam wrong. If he had put that much effort into studying for the test, he would have passed.

He clearly expected me to change his grade and pass him, because otherwise he wouldn’t graduate and would have to take summer school to get his diploma, and he already had a job lined up at his dad’s law firm. And to my amazement, the professor of the course wanted me to do exactly that — either he was afraid of what the powerful lawyer-dad might do if we failed his kid, or he just didn’t want the bother. I had to fight to get him to follow through with the clearly stated consequences for this kid’s actions.

I saw the kid later during the summer term. He didn’t look quite so entitled then.

What is the wildest reaction you have seen to someone getting fired?

It seemed pretty wild to me.

I was hired by a Director at a software company, she was remote, her team was remote, I was remote, and the team was Project Management (overseeing the implementation of enterprise facility management software). BUT then the Director of the implementation team was more short-handed, so I was given that director instead. Fine. I’d done all of the roles before, I was just happy to be working there, and able to help the clients, and give articulate feedback to the dev team, which I did.

I was the only one on the Implementation team (including the Director) who’d actually been a Solutions Consultant before. Talking to the clients about their needs, importing their existing data, customizing the software to meet their needs, helping them with training, etc. The rest of my team were total noobs. It’s cool, we all had to start somewhere. So, everyone on the team would come to me with questions.

I’d started off as a CAD Manager (dealing with the drafting and design software), so when our tech support team would have a difficult issue with a client’s drawing files, they’d call me in, and I’d help them out. They were SUPER grateful. Like they knew all about their own software, but AutoCAD and Revit are a whole different company, and they weren’t experts.

About six months in, my Director told me I needed to move to a different state because the remote work wasn’t working out. Uh, really? Because my two biggest clients were actually in the same city as me, and I’d been doing this job remotely for clients all over the country for years.

Whatever. I was let go because I couldn’t relocate. (I was in the middle of a divorce, and I’m physically disabled. My kids and I needed family support, and they legally needed to remain near their Dad.)

***The wild thing was, when the head of the support team heard that I’d been let go… he quit.***

He was tired of not having anyone else in the company to turn to for help, and I’d been that person for him, and the clients were all happier with quicker, more effective resolutions, and clear documentation for the knowledgebase.

He and I are still friends. That director didn’t last much longer there either and went back into real estate.

Can’t Escape The Gender Roles

 

 

What were the worst two minutes of your life?

A little background: I was a 13yo city kid. I previously joined the Boy Scouts but having made only 2nd Class, I was invited to leave by the Scoutmaster for swearing. Hey..we were city. Short time later we were snow sliding not far from the tenement and I got the bright idea to pick up a long sheet of scrap metal from a nearby mill. I found out if you pulled the end up like a toboggan you rocketed down the hill. On one run I really picked up speed and my ‘sled’ went out of control spinning and I landed at the bottom covered in snow and laughing. I looked up the hill and a line of my friends were just staring at me. I yelled “what?” and they pointed to my hand. I had gone out wearing a pair of my sisters white wool gloves. I looked at my left hand and that glove was soaked in blood and dripping fast. I stumbled up the hill to try and run home. At one point I knelt and pulled the glove off. I had severed my left thumb down to the bone along with the arteries and blood was pumping out of my body. A friend stayed with me as everyone went to get help. By this time the snow around me was crimson. I was getting dizzy. I knew I was in trouble. I told my friend to find a stick and told him to give me his bootlace. I told him how to tie a tourniquet and told him to keep winding that stick until the blood stopped. He was shaking and crying. I remember telling him it’s going to be all right. The bleeding did stop but there was blood everywhere. I looked up to see my mother running towards me. I remember saying “I’m sorry mommy” and I guess I passed out. I woke up in a rescue and the EMT asked who tied the tourniquet and I said I remembered from Boy Scouts and out again. A week in the hospital and my thumb reattached and today as good as new. One of the things I remembered before getting kicked out of Scouts was First Aid.

Have you ever seen someone treat someone else horribly and receive instant karma?

The suicide bomber who died alone.

In 2016, Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh was a suicide bomber who had explosives in his laptop as he boarded airplane from Somalia,Daallo Airlines.

He had come in as someone who had difficulty in walking and he claimed his purpose for travelling was health related.

Twenty minutes after taking off from Mogadishu, Somalia at an altitude of 14,000ft an explosion occurred inside the aircraft. There were 74 passengers and 7 crew members on board.

The explosion created this opening.

He was sucked out of the plane from this opening.

His intention was to kill everyone on the plane, but as fate had it, He was the only one who died.

He was the only fatality and the plane’s controls were unaffected by the blast allowing the pilot able to fly the plane back to Mogadishu safely.

Karma some times works like magic.

No one could have seen this coming!

 

 

What are some golden advice you want to give for free?

1. Don’t rely on others for happiness – it often leads to disappointment.
2. Take risks while you’re young, because youth doesn’t last forever.
3. Love isn’t about escaping suffering, but sharing a beautiful life with someone.
4. Use your pain to grow and learn, don’t let it go to waste.
5. Don’t let religion or beliefs stop you from loving and empathizing with others.
6. Forgiving yourself is key to finding inner peace in life.
7. Stay united with your family – they’re your support system.
8. True love doesn’t just follow trends, it’s genuine and supportive.
9. Explore life, but don’t forget to listen to your conscience.
10. Stay open to learning – no one knows everything in life.

What is the worst prank someone did to you on April Fools?

My boss was a prankster so I should have seen this coming.

Not sure if it was April fools but the joke was on me!

I worked for a company based very near Heathrow Airport. One year I booked a three-week holiday to the Philippines with my family.

Long-term car parking would have cost hundreds of pounds, but my boss had a secretary lived nearby. She said I could use their driveway as they would be away too. Just pop the keys in their letter box, bring a spare and drive myself home when we got back since she would be at work.

It all worked fine.

About a week after I got back I had a meeting with my boss. I am a field manager so we used to meet at a local Hilton convenient to us both.

So we meet up and were having our discussion when he excuses himself to go to the loo. He’s away a while so I assume he’s just having a dump.

At the end of our meeting we say our goodbyes, I go off to my car. Its gone! I check everywhere! I’m sure I remembered where I parked it! No it’s gone! Some bastard stole it! My beautiful blue Mercedes C class!

I run back in panicking! I see my boss still packing up his lap top. I tell him what happened. He’s not surprised! He’s laughing!

What?

He waves my key at me !

The bastard had been given my key by his secretary and asked to return it to me . He’d taken the opportunity to move my car to the far corner of the car park! No wonder I couldn’t find it!

The bastard!

But I got him back about a year later….

4 signs she’s cheating on you

 

What did you do when you saw someone stealing while on the job?

When I saw a significant theft on the job, I held off, thinking on the subject until quitting time. As my fellow employee prepared to leave I approached him, saying I knew what he wanted to take and it was in his knapsack. He gave me an innocent look and denied any such thing. I advised him what would probably happen if management “accidentally” found out about attempted theft as he exited the building. Then I explained how he would feel later, how it would probably affect his performance, and what little gain he was going to get -vs- his possible loss of employment as well as a black-mark on employment history.

He stood quite for a moment then explained the item was supposed to be a birthday gift to his son. Sympathetically, I asked him how much he could afford for a gift. He had about half the money he needed if he paid retail price. I knew the owner/manager well so I told my fellow employee to replace the item while I asked what could be arranged.

The owner seemed proud the employee’s son would receive an item his company produced and gave me a reduced figure. I paid the difference, asking the owner to accept the amount the employee had saved. We went to the production area, selected a newly inspected item, packaged it and presented it to the employee who beamed with excitement. Then he hesitated, explaining he only had half the value saved. The owner simply accepted the amount, grinned and told him not to tell other employees about today’s deep discount. The day, and a man’s dignity had been saved.

 

What was the first thing that blew your mind when you became a police officer?

In my first two weeks after finishing in the training school I was put with Alan.

Alan was a very experienced officer and I was assured I would learn plenty from Alan.

So we are driving down the street when Alan suddenly declares “There’s Fingers Malone. He must have just been released. Sit in the back!”

Alan then pulls up alongside this criminal.

“Hi Fingers. How are you doing? Just got out have you?

“Yeah.”

“Where are you heading? Home?”

“Yeah”

“Well we’re heading that way. Why don’t you jump in and we’ll give you a lift?”

Fingers then gets in the patrol car where I had previously been seated.

“So did you have a bit of a party when you got out?”

“Yeah”

“I bet your old mates Wiry and Doggo were there eh?”

“Yeah”

“Anyone else”

“Yeah, Jacko and Freddie were there too.”

“Here we are King Street. What number was it?

“28”

“Here we are number 28. Right to your door”

“Thank very much. Sometimes I think you guys are better to me than my mates”

“Stay out of trouble”

“OK Steve you can come back up front now. Have you got your notebook?

“Yes” says I.

“Take this down”

“Fingers Malone is residing at no 28 King Street. He is still associating with known criminals Wiry Burns, Doggo Johnson, Freddie Duggan and Jacko Carpenter.”

I was blown away. Alan had skilfully attained information that was highly useful to the collator. (It would now be done on a computer but in those days by paper.)

To illustrate how useful – I took a call from someone who had their tool van broken into and they had noticed a man known to us (criminal) hanging around.

Found that man’s address from the collator sent a car there and it arrived just as this person was unloading his van of a load of stolen tools.

As he was arrested and cautioned his reply was “Fuck me that was the fastest I have ever been arrested.”

Policing is not always what you think!

Italian Pork Roast

Ingredients

• 1 (3 to 3 1/2 pound) rolled boneless pork loin roast
• 4 cloves garlic, halved
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 to 2 tablespoons dried Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon coarsely-ground pepper

Instructions

1. Place roast in a shallow roasting pan. Cut 8 small slits in roast at 2-inch intervals; insert garlic clove halves deep into slits.
2. Brush olive oil evenly over roast, and sprinkle with Italian seasoning and pepper. Insert meat thermometer, making sure it does not touch fat.
3. Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 1/2 hours (30 minutes per pound) or until meat thermometer reaches 155 degrees F.
4. Remove from oven, and cover loosely with aluminum foil. Let stand 15 minutes or until meat thermometer reaches 160 degrees F.

Made in Shenzhen, China…

 

I am 60+. I lived alone for nearly 15 years. I have tried everything to meet someone. Is it simply never going to happen to me again? No one can imagine how lonely it is. I just want to scream.

After my father died, my mother was incredibly lonely, she was the type of person who couldn’t be alone. My dad, brother and I were never like this. She just never felt complete if she didn’t have someone in her life.

I was a workaholic, and wasn’t giving her the attention she needed, my brother had his own young family to look after. We just didn’t understand how lonely she was, because when we visited, she wasn’t lonely, she had us.

We started going on road trips, and at first she would lose her train of thought, and not be able to finish a sentence. She couldn’t walk a half block without resting.

After taking a three week road trip, and going for a walk every night, she was back to normal.

But she quickly backslid, and I asked her to move in with me. She was reluctant, because she didn’t want to ruin my life. But she said she would give it some thought, and then she had a stroke and died.

For people who don’t get lonely, its hard for us to imagine what someone who does, feels after years of loneliness.

But I finally got it, albeit, too late.

You say you have lived alone for 15 years, and tried everything. Does that include online dating, there are plenty of fish in the sea, especially if you aren’t too picky, and just need someone. Don’t be afraid to contact men, don’t wait for them to approach you. This is how I met my wife. If this hasn’t worked, try volunteering to fill up your empty hours. You will undoubtedly meet other lonely souls, and don’t be afraid to make the first move. All of my long time girlfriends and my wife, approached me first.

Cheating wife

 

What has an employee said that immediately caused you to fire them?

“I never even used that pot! It was the morning shift!” – this was the last lie Stefani told me while she was still employed by me, because I fired her on the spot. Somehow everything that happened around her was always someone else’s fault, but people do occasionally lie, so I let it go until she lied about three different coworkers in one day, trying to get them in trouble for no apparent reason.

Stephani was the sole lunch cook in a small store I own, and she was a problem from day one. She spoke to her coworkers like they were dogs, constantly corrected and bullied them even when she was a new hire being trained by them, and she excused it all by saying that she “always speaks the truth and won’t hold her tongue” and “that’s just how she talks, she can’t help it”. She was also a sneaky bitch, because she tried to kiss my ass, but even with me her temper and pathological need to be right would assert itself, and she’d flash out until she got it under control again. With everyone else, she was constantly insulting them, berating them, and lying about them. You might think that it takes more than one person to carry on a feud, but Stephani proved that she could do it all on her own.

Her job wasn’t hard, because sales were low at that store when I bought it and we’re branded by a chain that mostly has ready-to-fry foods. She had to come in and fry chicken, sides, and make a lunch special, and she had to do the occasional burger or sandwich. Other than that she just needed to prep for the following day, and clean the kitchen and the equipment at the end of her shift, which only takes an hour. The other cooks who had worked her shift had all had lunch out on time, gotten the special orders (those the cashiers can’t put together by the hot case) out in a timely manner, cooked until an hour before their shift ended, and left a clean kitchen with food prepped for the next shift. Stefani, on the other hand, couldn’t get the food out on time, and it was always the breakfast cook’s fault for not getting out her way. She had similar excuses for why she couldn’t prep, and when the kitchen was a filthy mess it was always because someone else made it that way.

We cook our own lunch specials but everything else is branded, and those foods have to be made and they have to be made according to certain standards, but Stefani tried to take advantage of my absences from the store (I have other businesses, a full time job, and a family) to stop doing those items and just do her own cooking that wasn’t even selling in this small town. When her more senior coworkers would politely remind her about the way she was supposed to cook, she make arrogant statements like: “Oh, I know how to cook. I don’t cook according to recipes, I do my own, and these people will either eat it or they can go somewhere else”. I knew about her behavior but for almost two months that little store just wasn’t my focus, as I’d mainly just bought it so it wouldn’t be soaking up sales from my bigger store across the road, which meant that she got away with way too much. Finally I got a chance to focus on this store, so at the beginning of the month I had a serious talk with her. I told her what she had to cook, I transferred an experienced cook from the other store who needed a less demanding job for health reasons to cook breakfast at the little one, and I appointed her kitchen manager so she could stay on top of Stephani.

What I’d hoped was that she’d do what this cook asked, especially since this woman gets along with everyone and has an incredibly tactful way about her, but it didn’t work. She doesn’t complain much but when I asked for updates she admitted that nothing had improved. I tried spending more time in the store, and it did make Stephani at least pretend to do what she’d been asked, but pretend is all she did. I had already made up my mind to fire her, but I was short on staff at both stores and in the process of buying a third, so I was going to wait a bit. When she snapped back at me after I once again told her that she couldn’t bully her coworkers, I went ahead and told her that I was going to fire her if she didn’t start getting along with people, and when I found a very unclean kitchen a day later I made it clear that she was out of chances. She went about two weeks without causing any issues big enough for the other ladies to bring them to me (although they try too hard not to bother me), only instead she started to call me about every little thing.

The big store has a general manager who runs it for me, and I’d tried putting her in charge of the little one too but it was too much for her, so those few employees were temporarily allowed to contact m directly. Other than her calls, the only one to call was the kitchen manager and the assistant manager in the store, and that was for serious trouble like a broken walk-in cooler and a fire marshal showing up to inspect us. Stefani called multiple times about little shit even though I told her every time to go through her immediate manager for that, and then she started to call to complain about her coworkers. One time a cashier had told her that she was being mean, which was exceedingly mild and entirely appropriate under the circumstances, but Stephani wanted her fired. Apparently she’d even looked at her smugly and announced that she was about to get her job taken away from her, as she grabbed her phone and walked outside to call me. This was when I reached out and hired someone to replace her, and started to count the twelve days until that woman could start.

I didn’t want her to leave immediately when I didn’t have her replacement yet, so I didn’t tell her. In fact I was just going to send out the new schedule the day before the new cook started, and let Stephani figure out that she was fired, but she couldn’t stop making trouble. Last Tuesday she called and woke me up after my late shift in the ER (the schedule in the store includes my hours at the hospital so they can know when it’s okay to call), to complain that the same cashier who had said she was mean had called her the n-word. She was gleefully happy as she informed me that I’d have to fire the girl now or she was going to sue me, but I was 99 percent sure she had made the accusation up. I’ve never used it to spy on my workers, but my stores have hidden cameras with microphones and speakers in addition to the visible cameras. I had them installed for precisely this reason, to avoid having to fire someone innnocent, and because audio is useful evidence too in case a crime is committed. It took me a while to find their confrontation on the footage and then search out the audio based on the time stamp, and before I finished the assistant manager of the store calls to tell me that a group of regular customers had come in to say that Stephani had started a fight with them outside when she was smoking. According to the men, they had half-jokingly asked why she never had the fried foods out at lunch time, and she’d gotten pissed and told them that she wasn’t ever cooking for them again. When they asked what the hell she meant, she’d banned them from both my stores.

At that point I got dressed and drove to the store, only to find my cook sitting outside in the middle of the lunch rush, smoking a cigarette. She immediately said it was her first break, but having just watched most of that morning on the cameras, I knew she’d already taken at least seven smoke breaks in less than four hours. She comes inside as I’ve asked the other cook if she’d done any work that day and she’s explaining that no, she has not, so then Stephani starts screaming at the other cook – the kitchen manager – that it’s none of her business if she works. I tell her stop, and I explain that Mary is her supervisor so it absolutely is her business. I tell her to apologize and she does that thing where she says “I’m sorry if you thought what I said was mean, but I can’t help how I talk”. When I insist on a proper apology, while I’m also answering an important call, she says something to Mary just out of earshot. I finish my call and ask Mary if she apologized, and I’m told that no, what Stephani really told her was “to mind her own business because people who crossed her had a way of regretting it”. It was my turn to fly into a rage, especially since I’d just seen a text Stephani must have sent just as I was pulling up to the store, one complaining that another employee had been the one who spilt a lot of gravy on the floor she just left it. I already knew it was Stephani because her coworkers knew she’d blame them, and so they’d sent me the exact time so I could easily check the cameras. That and the veiled threat was it, so I was done with this bitch even if I had to cook lunch myself for the rest of the week!

Up until that day I’d never fired anymore in public, but I followed Stephani out into the store where she was getting her some more free coffee, and told her to get her shit and go home. She’d been suspended once before, because of her attitude, so she put her hands on her hips and said: “Really?? You’re suspending me for taking a smoke break?!”. She’s a big woman who uses her body and voice to bully people, so she wasn’t particularly discreet with her question, which meant that her coworkers and the customers all stopped to stare at us. Knowing her it was deliberate, as she likely thought she was about to verbally own me, so the look on her face was priceless when I told her that she wasn’t suspended; she was fired. It was the first time she didn’t immediately snap back, so I actually got a chance to tell her that I was firing her for failing to perform her job, bullying her coworkers, lying, and making false allegations of racism. Once she recovered from the shock she started to argue with me, about the specific reasons, but I told her to get her shit and go home, and I would mail her last check and her separation papers.

She was starting to cry a little when she grabbed her purse and left, but my sympathy is with the coworkers she terrified and tried to get fired! I wish I’d known just how bad it all had gotten, but my employee are great women who didn’t want to bother me unless it was urgent. I’ve made it clear that everything Stephani did qualified as a valid reason to call me, and I’m training the assistant to run the store. A cashier is filling in until the new cook starts, all five employees at that store got a 50 cent raise for all they’d had to put up with, and now that they know about the microphones and speakers, we’re having some fun with them. Last night I played “Haunted House” sounds from YouTube over the speakers, just as the cashiers looked like they were starting to fuck off a bit too much, and their reactions were hilarious. Oh, and Stephani called to ask that I say she was laid off rather than fired, so she could get unemployment. Even as she was asking for a huge favor, she couldn’t stop being a bitch, because she actually went ahead and said: “you know, since it’s your fault if my kids have to starve”. As you can probably guess, I made it abundantly clear that she’d been fired for cause, and that there are plenty of available jobs around here. None of them are paying as much as I do, but she had her chance.

Truths

 

Have you ever called in a “welfare check” to the police? Did it turn out there was a real need? Officers, how often are “welfare checks” something where a person does need assistance?

One of the weirdest stories we covered when I worked at the TV station involved a welfare check. The police received a call from the coworkers of a woman who hadn’t showed up at work that day, nor had she called. Coworkers tried to call her but she didn’t answer multiple calls. Normally the cops are not going to go check on someone because they didn’t feel like going to work. But in this case, her coworkers insisted this was not like her, she’d worked there ten years and never failed to show up without calling, and she was also an older woman who lived alone and had a heart condition. They were concerned she might be sick and unable to get to her phone. Given all that info, the police dispatcher agreed to send a unit to do a welfare check.

The officers got to the door, thinking they were probably going to find an old woman who died in her sleep. That happens a lot with welfare checks. Usually they will start by ringing the doorbell or knocking, and if they don’t get an answer, they walk around and look in the windows to see if they can see the person. If they spot someone who’s not responsive despite repeated yelling and pounding, they might consider that probable cause to break in.

But that wasn’t really necessary in this case. They got to the door, one of the officers knocked, and it just swung open. Wasn’t fully closed, let alone locked. The old woman was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, clearly dead and not from a heart attack. She had been stabbed multiple times. The coroner was called, Homicide detectives and crime scene techs came. One of the detectives knelt down to look at the body and noticed something on the wall. It was a name, written in blood. Turned out it was the name of her cousin, who turned up a few days later at a hospital in another state, claiming to have amnesia. She had the dead woman’s ID on her. I seem to recall she was charged with the murder but not how that turned out.

Bizarre story. I always thought it would be good inspiration for a work of fiction, and I did eventually write a short story loosely based on it.

Yes it can

 

What needs to be said out loud?

I was at a hospital for some tests recently. The doctor prescribed some medicines and asked me to get them from the in-house pharmacy as they weren’t available elsewhere. I went to get the same and stood in the queue.

The hospital had put a queue barricade for easy maintenance of crowd. The counter was equipped to handle only two people at a time. There was a lady ahead of me in the queue. She was getting irritated for being made to wait and started shouting at the staff. They offered a mumbled apology. Meanwhile she tried to push her way through, even though the previous guy was still waiting to collect his medicines. His hospital file grazed this lady’s arm and all hell broke loose!

The lady started shouting at the poor guy and accused him of harming her. The poor fellow did not know what had happened exactly. He was a very young lad and was cringing at the lady’s accusations. He tried to reason with her and said that he had not budged from his place at all. It was her own fault. This retaliation was unacceptable to the lady and she took it as a serious affront to her! So she started calling for the management and resorted to threats.

However, everyone present there stood by the boy. That was almost a miracle! No one spoke against the boy and instead told the lady to mind her language. Frustrated at this sudden turn of events, the lady marched away calling all of us a bunch of “bumbling idiots”. Yes… her exact words!

What needs to be said out loud? The message that the perception of people is changing. Slowly but surely. Now women can’t expect immediate and blind support just because they are females. If you are wrong, you are wrong. It’s as simple as that. So it’s the need of the hour to refrain from such stunts so that a genuine case of harassment does not get ignored and a victim is not denied help just because some of us decided to cry wolf and made people wary of every female!

Generations looking at their Bank Account

 

What was the most outrageous repair quote a mechanic has ever given you to fix your car?

I am still thanking the mechanic who told the guy I bought my new truck from that the engine was bad! 2016 Dodge RAM 1500 and it barely had 50,000 miles on it. This was a few years back.

As I drove this truck around on the highway she rode and smelled like new. It had great acceleration and power, and didn’t have the burning smoke exhaust like an engine using oil should have. I look at the oil on the dipstick, and the percentage the computer says left was 40%. If it had blowback, that oil should be really black and smell of exhaust. It was pretty clean and smelled ok. Nothing was pointing to a bad engine. So I thought maybe bearings or something? I quickly check pricing on a new engine core just in case. Heck doing the work myself I was only looking at $3600.00 for an entire brand new engine core. The price he was asking ($15,000) was half its worth of around $32,000.00. How could I go wrong?

I once again told the seller I didn’t think the engine was bad, he was making a big mistake, etc. Nope he already bought a new truck he likes better and he was happy with the deal he got. Ok, I tried, so I hand over the cash and signed the papers. Best decision i have ever made.

Next morning I go out to a chilly 48deg truck. At this temperature if the rods and bearings are bad they will knock like crazy at first start. I turn the key and listen intently. I hear noises, but not rods or bearings. Now Dodge Hemi engines are noisy. Their design you will hear various rattles and ticks here and there. My last work Dodge lasted 390,000 miles and rattled to high heaven. I listen intently to a very loud tick on the passenger side, as the noise begins to fade away. Using my scope i quickly found what I suspected, a leaky exhaust header. Very common on these. A good look underneath confirms several broken bolts. A pain to remove, but nothing serious. At first it did sound like an internal problem, but any good mechanic with a scope should be able to pinpoint that noise or should have known it was a problem.

At this stage we are at 85,000 miles and doing great. I have never owned a newer vehicle before with so many buttons and things to touch. Most of the miles have been cross country to see relatives. So yes, thank you whoever you are! You got me a new vehicle I otherwise would never get for a fantastic price.

Jesus!

 

What happened in a courtroom that gave the judge a belly laugh you will never forget?

My buddy was 17, the legal drinking age was 18, and he would be turning 18 on Sunday. But he wanted a party in the bar Saturday night to celebrate. So we all go down to the small town bar. A good time was had by all, until about 11:00 pm, when the police do a walk through. Being a small town, they notice that they hadn’t seen my buddy in the bar before. They ask for his ID, and he is underage. They write him up an illegal possession of alcohol, the fine is about the equivalent of 15 dozen beer.

This happened a long time ago, so giving dollars wouldn’t mean much.

My buddy wants me as a witness, to say that I didn’t see him drinking, and the beer on the table wasn’t his. I hadn’t seen him drinking, because I had only arrived 10 minutes before, and so I could tell the truth and get him off. There is a different charge they could have used, with a lesser fine, for being underage in a bar.

He is called before the judge, and the police officer is sitting in the back of the court.

The judge asks my buddy how old he is, and he says 18. The judge says. It says here you were found in the bar, last Saturday night and were under age. He says, yes thats true.

The judge asks when was your birthday. My friend says Sunday. The judge burst out laughing, and says a dollar a day fine, please pay the clerk a dollar. My friend says, but I wasn’t drinking, I have a witness. The judge says, don’t push your luck. its a dollar, do you want to have a trial.

I never had to testify.

You won’t believe what the Filipino girl said

 

Does hard work really pay off?

You decide for yourself.

The world owes a debt to Israel for how they took on the terror-maniac Saddam Hussain’s vision of designing an atom bomb.

Iraq was a sworn enemy of Israel and it was just days away from the berserk tearing down of Israel.

Israel had only one reason in its favour before trying for the no-win.

They ticked all the boxes in the domain of ‘HARD WORK’.

• For long, Israel had mastered the art of flying aircrafts at a height less than 30m( to avoid radar detection).

• Israel can’t magically appear wherever they want to, they have to fly over enemy nations. They practised speaking the accent of those arab nations.

• Israelis mastered the art of diversion tactics and deceiving radio signals.
• Israel effected the speed of execution and precise-hitting because they get only one chance.

Israel had mimeographed the entire Iraqi nuclear plant and drilled several times before final execution.

Israel launched Operation Opera on June 7, 1981. Let’s see if the hard work paid off.

• Israel flew over Jordan and interacted in Saudi accent. Jordanes assumed them as Saudis(ally of Jordan).
• When over Saudi Arabia, Israelis produced a sham of Jordanese using Jordan radio signals.
• Now, they were in Iraq, the High-Israel got low, I mean literally. They were flying less than 30m altitude and thus evaded detection.
• A diversion was played using F-15 aircrafts while F-16s were ready for attack.

King Hussein of Jordan was enjoying in yacht when Israeli planes had flown just over him. He had communicated it to Iraq.

Iraqis had turned the detectors off so Israelis capitalized as their anti-aircraft attack was a no-threat but it’s time their lunch-break was over. .

• The F-16s reached an height of 2000m then dived into 1000m, dropped off the Mark-84 bombs.
• 8 of the 16 hit and were enough to reduce the nuclear plant to ashes. The attack took less than 2 minutes.
• Jordan-king’s message would never reach and the Iraqi anti-aircraft attack was circumvented successfully by Israel.

Ramon was the youngest Israeli pilot who later on became an astranaut and was with Kalpana Chawla when the space shuttle disaster occured.

Technical details reference :

Operation Opera – Wikipedia

Never judge a book by its cover | 850k mudhouse in Africa

 

What’s the saddest celebrity moment ever caught on camera?

Simply known as “The Greatest”, Muhammad Ali had it all – enormous wealth, exceptional good looks, freakish athleticism, and hundreds of millions of adoring fans. According to international polls, it was Ali who finally toppled Elvis as the “The Most Famous Person in the World”. This is his final picture before taking exit from his frail, withered body.

After someone stole his bicycle, a young Cassius Clay decided to “whup the thief”. He never got the chance, but, hoping for the opportunity, took some boxing lessons at a local gym. Six years later, while still in his teens, he would win an Olympic gold medal. And less than three years after that, Clay became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

Although somewhat shy, Clay watched professional wrestlers with their outlandish behavior and remarks filling the seats with fans. Wanting to do the same, Ali took on a new persona – the supremely pompous “Louisville [Kentucky] Lip”, drawing attention to a sport that seemed to be struggling with mediocrity and a plummeting fan base. People loved him or hated him. Everyone had an opinion and it was never in the middle of the spectrum.

But, although he kept on winning, something was not right. Punches to the head from George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton were taking their toll. Still in his thirties, and no longer calling himself by his “slave name”, Muhammad Ali, was developing early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. But he kept boxing, even as his disability made every moment a chore.

Eventually, there was nothing left. Ali had no choice. It was time to retire or face the prospect that one more punch to the head might take away his last breath. Dedicating the remainder of his life to charity, it is estimated that Ali provided 22 million meals for the hungry in Africa. Among his many other contributions, Ali became one of the biggest donors to the United Negro College Fund, talked a suicidal man off a 9th floor ledge and negotiated the release of American hostages held by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Eventually, his ailing health would no longer allow him to speak. His body would quake. His brain was damaged, losing its ability to function on virtually all levels. His bladder failed. Ali would have regular bouts with pneumonia and infections in which he could never fully recover.

For the last years of his life, Ali was not able to leave his house. His once agile, quick and strong body capitulated to a much stronger, microscopic virus. It would be his last fight.

Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016, R.I.P.

A little king

 

Who are some of the dumbest criminals ever to be caught?

In 1983 a German couple was on a holiday in Sicily. They were minding their own business, alternating mornings at the beach with little road trips in the afternoon.

On one of those afternoons coming back from a hike, their rented car broke down. In the middle of nowhere. They got out of the car and tried to push it to the side of the narrow dirt road. The car was stuck in gear and wouldn’t budge. The German couple was happy to see a car approaching in the distance, preceding a cloud of dust. The car stopped and a man flung out, screaming. The Germans did speak some Italian but had a hard time understand what he was shouting: do you know who I am!?

They didn’t. And worse, instead of helping the wedged his Fiat through the little space between their car and the edge of the road. Metal against metal, scratching the rented car from front to rear.

Later that evening the couple reported what happened to the local police. They described the man who scratched the car and added he was probably famous since he couldn’t seem to understand they did not recognise or knew him. Well the police sure did who he was. After being on the run for three years Masino L. was arrested. The price he paid for asking stupid questions.

Elon Musk’s Frustration with the Biden administration.

The United States is a joke.

 

Can a workplace fire an employee for an argument that took place outside of work?

Yes.

I consulted a business where someone in a work uniform took his break at a nearby coffee shop. He was clocked out. He got into a dispute with another customer over something stupid but decided to check all the boxes in his argument. He insulted an old black woman and implied that she needed to practice better feminine hygiene.

The woman took note of the company name on his coveralls and noted it in her police report. No charges were filed, but the woman made sure to contact the business claiming that this man represented their company and she planned to share with everyone she knew that the company hired racist, sexist assclowns.

When we asked the employee about it, he freely admitted every detail, telling us that we “can’t do a fuckin’ thing about it” since he wasn’t on the clock at the time. He was fired on the spot but police had to trespass him and march him out in handcuffs.

To the woman, she had no power over a large, loud man in the moment, but she chose to get her revenge for his disrespect. Employees who are off the clock usually have instructions about how they can conduct themselves in public while wearing company apparel. This is why companies don’t approve of people wearing company apparel in their off-hours, because they can act like assclowns while also serving as a walking billboard for the company that pays them.

Imagine If The Roles Were REVERSED

 

What is it like being a police officer in a small town?

Boring most of the time. After I got out of the military I went to work for a small town of 1000 residents. We had three officers, one for the day, mid day, and night. I was chief of police there and took the day shift. Most of the things that happened were an occasional stop sign violation, a domestic once in a while, and just keeping things safe.

Kids were kids, always trying to get a beer or two past me. Not always successful too. When I would catch a minor with booze, I would take them to the office, sit them down and call parents to come get them. However I did not arrest them as here was the deal. Parents and child could decide if I took the kid to jail, booked them in, gave them a police record, and have them spend time behind bars for their stupidity. OR….they could show up each weekend for the next year, Pick up trash in the park, sweep the sidewalks downtown, Paint the fire hydrants, Plant flowers on the corners downtown, etc. I had the prettiest park, corners, and hydrants in the state. The kids learned a lesson and knew if they did it again they would go right to jail, no parents involved. Which did happen I think three times. After word got around in the younger citizens I and my fellow officers were treated with respect and as a friend of the younger people and parents.

The only bad thing I can think of was the small town politics, When I started I was handed a piece of paper with names and addresses on it as to who to arrest, who not to arrest, who to trust and who to do every thing possible to get to move out of town. After reading the list, I tore it up right in front of the city council meeting, told them I do not discriminate, do not do what they wanted, but I enforce the law equally of all citizens.

I lasted there for two years and when I arrested the Mayors daughter for possession of drugs, with intent to distribute ( $75000 worth of meth, $100000 worth of coke, and more, The city council fired me., She still went to jail, found guilty and spent 5 to 10 behind bars. I went on to a sheriffs dept in the same county and later even arrested the mayor of the town on similar charges. After which I was asked to come back to the town to work and I refused.

So small towns are quiet, boring most of the time, but occasionally have some excitement and danger.

USA Gen-Z

 

 

What happened to nurses captured on Bataan and Corregidor?

They endured many of the same deprivations the soldiers did.

“The Angels of Bataan (also known as the “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor” and “The Battling Belles of Bataan”) were the members of the United States Army Nurse Corps and the United States Navy Nurse Corps who were stationed in the Philippines at the outset of the Pacific War and served during the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42)

. When Bataan and Corregidor fell, 11 Navy nurses, 66 army nurses, and 1 nurse-anesthetist were captured and imprisoned in and around Manila.“

“They continued to serve as a nursing unit while prisoners of war

. After years of hardship, they were finally liberated in February 1945.“

At Santo Tomas

Army Nurses in Santo Tomas, 1943. Left to right: Bertha Dworsky; Sallie Durrett; Earlene Black; Jean Kennedy; Louise Anchieks; Millei Dalton.

“The campus of the University of Santo Tomaswas converted to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp

by the Japanese during their occupation of the Philippines.“

“The camp is described in detail in The War by Ken Burns

. In addition to its civilian population, Santo Tomas became the initial internment camp for both the army and navy nurses, with the army nurses remaining there until their liberation.“

“Capt. Maude C. Davison, 57 years old and with 20 years of service experience, took command of the nurses, maintained a regular schedule of nursing duty, and insisted that all nurses wear their khaki blouses and skirts while on duty. She worked with Josephine Nesbit.”

At Los Baños

“In May 1943, the navy nurses, still under the command of Lt. Cobb

, were transferred to a new internment camp at Los Baños, where they established a new infirmary and continued working as a nursing unit.“

“At Los Baños they came to be known as “the sacred eleven.”

On the Home Front

“While the capture of the nurses was widely publicized in the U.S., little specific information was known of their fate until they were liberated.

US Government Poster

“Lt. Juanita Redmond

, one of the few nurses to escape, published a memoir of her experiences on Bataan in 1943 that concluded with a dramatic reminder that her colleagues were still prisoners.“

“The nurses’ story was dramatized in several wartime movies, including:

• Cry ‘Havoc’(MGM 1943)So Proudly We Hail! (Paramount 1943) (based on the Redmond book)They Were Expendable
• (MGM 1945)

“When So Proudly We Hail was shown in the theaters, a recruitment booth staffed with Red Cross volunteers was set up in the lobby.“

Final year of Internment

“In January 1944, control of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp changed from Japanese civil authorities to the Imperial Japanese Army

, with whom it remained until the camp was liberated.“

“Access to outside food sources was curtailed, the diet of the internees was reduced to 960 calories per person per day by November 1944, and further reduced to 700 calories per person per day by January 1945.“

“A Department of Veterans Affairs study released in April, 2002 found that the nurses lost, on average, 30% of their body weight during internment, and subsequently experienced a degree of service-connected disability “virtually the same as the male ex-POW’s of the Pacific Theater.”

“ Maude C. Davison’s body weight dropped from 156 lbs. to 80 lbs.”

Angels of Bataan – Wikipedia

 

When surrounded by a mob and you have a fully loaded pistol, what would you suggest: to fire in the air or fire on people?

A few years ago I’m in Uganda and we drive through a village. Everyone is running out of their houses with spears and machetes (they call panga), knives and pitchforks. So, I ask the driver to stop and ask the mob WTF is happening.

Within a few seconds, we’re surrounded by about 200 people who look fucking mad as hell.

They tell the driver that some dude just stole a motorcycle and that they’re going to hunt him down and chop him up into lots of tiny pieces. Our curiosity satisfied, we thanked them and continued on with the journey.

Naturally, I had questions for the driver on the way:

1. if the guy has a bike will they catch him. He says yes. They normally catch people within 24 hours.
2. I pointed out that the border to the Congo is less than 24 hours away by bike. He says people have tried that in the past and they still get killed.
3. I ask why the police aren’t going after this guy. He says that the police only catch a guy if they’re paid to. The village is poor and can’t afford the bribes.

And that was that. I had witnessed the beginning of murder, but glad I wasn’t there to see it happen. I know they would have gutted him like an animal. And he must have known this too since he lived in that village. How desperate must that man have been to take such a risk?

When surrounded by a mob and you have a fully loaded pistol, what would you suggest: to fire in the air or fire on people?

If that happened I’d just tuck the pistol in my belt. If the mob is after someone else, they don’t give a fuck about me. If they’re after me, I’m already dead.

Edit: That was the nicest image I could find. A lot of the other ones show the person being chopped up – no censorship. Brutal.

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Edit: For those people in the comments trying to turn this answer into a culture war, I recommend you educate yourself about the history of Africa before you call them savages. The most savage thing done to Africa was by Westerners – lest we wilfully forget, yet again.

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10k bonus edit:

So, something like this has happened to me before. 1997, Edinburgh, Scotland, during the day. I’m waiting at a bus stop when two young guys come up and offer me a swig of wine. I look at it and say, no thanks. Then they demand, “DRINK IT”. So I take a swig and hand it back. Then one of them comes up to me and says, “Give me all your money or I’ll cut your fucking throat.”

I look down at his hands to see if he has a knife, but he has no hands, just stumps. So I ask him, “how are you going to hold a knife?” He puts one stump behind his back and says he has a knife in his back pocket. Now I only had 53 pence and the bus ticket was going to cost 50 pence, so I told them to “get tae fuck” and walked along the road to the next bus stop while they shouted after me that they were going to murder me.

I just can’t take anyone seriously if they don’t have any hands.

What do mediocre employees do that the best employees don’t do?

Having been a boss for several decades I feel qualified to give an answer here.

I am smart enough to realise that I am unlikely to attract extremely high intelligence employees to mix detergent! I own two chemical manufacturing companies. So I am talking about normal everyday people with this answer.

For me a good employee is one that is consistent. In other words they produce the same quality and quantity of work/results every day consistently. They are set and forget with little to no effort required from me or their supervisor. I don’t need them to be a superstar. I am happy with them giving me 80% of what a superstar could give me in theory because I know I am always going to get it from them and I can more easily predict business/job outcomes as a result.

This doesn’t mean I don’t try to get them to 85% or greater, of course I try.

The above employee tends to arrive on time and have less than average personal/sick leave too in my experience.

By contrast, the mediocre employee is brilliant one day and off with the fairies for the next three days, then rounds out the week with a day off for a sprained eyelash!

Mediocre employees work output is up and down and hard to predict resulting in far more time spent supervising them. This adds cost and complexity to the business as a result.

So if you want to impress a boss – work consistently. Produce at the same level everyday and try and find ways to gradually improve or become more efficient.

Russia Launch on Feb 9 Causes U.S. National Security “Threat” Today

World Hal Turner 14 February 2024

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Five days ago, on February 9, Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, conducted a rocket launch into space carrying cardo for the Russian Ministry of Defense.  Today, February 14, Americans are being told of a new “threat” described as “destabilizing.”

Earlier today, February 14, U.S. Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH) head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), announced to the nation a new “Destabilizing threat to national security” and revealed all members of Congress are now able to go into the secure House Briefing area to learn details.

Within the offices of the US House of Representatives is a SCIF: Segmented, Compartmentalized, Information Facility.  Anyone entering the SCIF is searched for any electronic devices, which are forbidden.  Entrants are also barred from taking any notes.   They are “read-in” on the Classified Material and when they depart the facility, they are reminded they are forbidden to talk to anyone about what they have learned under Penalty of prison.

Congressman Turner issued the following notice to fellow members of Congress:

In the notice above, the words “destabilizing foreign military capability.”   “Destabilizing” means it is a power THEY have, but which we DO NOT have.  That’s what “destabilizing” means in this context.

CNN and other media outlets are claiming this has something to do with Russia.   It may. 

On February 9th, the Cosmos-2575 Mission was launched by Roskosmos using a Soyuz-2 Rocket carrying an “Unknown Payload into Space for the Russian Ministry of Defense.  It is almost guaranteed our spy satellites and ground-based information gathering capabilities have kept close watch on whatever went up.   

Based on our current capabilities for intel-gathering, it seems likely (to me) that we now have some idea of what it is — or possibly know EXACTLY what it is.  So here we are, just 5 days later, being told there is some new, “destabilizing” foreign military capability.

My personal layman’s FIRST guess: Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) weaponry.

FOBS are space-based nuclear bombs (actual warheads)  that can be released at ANY time, orbit the earth several times under their own power for months or years (or just once), then come down anywhere on the planet with ZERO advance warning to the intended target.

A particular city in a particular country would go from happy-go-lucky to vaporized with ZERO warning.

There is no defense to such weaponry.

 My SECOND guess:

Iran may now be confirmed to have a working nuclear bomb.

 Of course, it is common knowledge that Mike Turner is a RINO, he supports the aid package for Ukraine and Israel (but NOT our own Border), he wants to push the Ukraine support, end of story.  SO coming up with some new Russian “threat” may be the impetus to get that passed.

Kicked her off

Ukraine Sinks Russian Navy Ship in Black Sea

World Hal Turner 14 February 2024

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Ukraine has attacked and sunk another Russian navy ship in the Black Sea; this one the “Cezar Kunikov“ shown in a file photo above.

According to information released by the Ukraine armed forces, “Magura V5” drones sank the Russian warship near Alupka, Crimea as shown on the map below:

Below, after being hit by THREE sea drones, the ship listed onto its side and sank.

It’s the fourth landing ship from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that Ukrainian military has sunk since the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation.  The Caesar Kunikov was a large landing ship with a crew comprising 87 personnel.

BUILT IN 86 ….38 years old 

Class and type: Ropucha-class landing ship
Displacement
2,768 long tons (2,812 t) standard
4,012 long tons (4,076 t) full load
Length 112.5 m (369 ft 1 in)
Beam 15.01 m (49 ft 3 in)
Draught 4.26 m (14 ft 0 in)
Ramps Over bows and at stern
Installed power 3 × 750 kW (1,006 hp) diesel generators
Propulsion 2 × 9,600 hp (7,159 kW) Zgoda-Sulzer 16ZVB40/48 diesel engines
Speed 17.59 knots (32.58 km/h; 20.24 mph)
Range
6,000 nmi (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
3,500 nmi (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Endurance 30 days

CAN CARRY 10 TANKS AND 340 SOLDIERS

This Clip Will Disillusion All Young Men

Escalation In Northern Palestine

The situation on the northern Israeli border is escalating. It is likely to soon evolve into a full fledged war. The situation is already increasing the economic price Israel has to pay for its misdeeds.

The international rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Israel’s credit rating. This will lead to higher interest payments on Israeli government debt:

In a report dated last Friday but not issued until Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, the agency officially reduced Israel’s rating from A1 to A2, and added pointers of further downgrading to come. The Anglo-American press immediately reacted against Moody’s.

“Israel hits back”, the Financial Timesheadlined.  The newspaper added: “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, in a rare statement over the Jewish Sabbath, said: ‘The rating downgrade is not connected to the economy, it is entirely due to the fact that we are in a war. The rating will go back up the moment we win the war — and we will win the war.’” In the Associated Press report, “Israel’s finance minister blasts Moody’s downgrade”.   Rupert Murdoch’s platform Fox claimed: “Israel has a strong, open economy despite Moody’s downgrade”.  “Israel’s creditworthiness remains high,” according to the New York Times, “but the rating agency noted that the outlook for the country was negative… A rating of A2 is still a high rating.”

There are several negative issues that could lead to a further downgrading:

According to Moody’s report, “downside risks remain at the A2 rating level. In particular, the risk of an escalation involving Hezbollah in the North of Israel remains, which would have a potentially much more negative impact on the economy than currently assumed under Moody’s baseline scenario. Government finances would also be under more intense pressure in such a scenario.”

Shortly after the Moody’s report appeared Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah set out to increase the pressure on Israel:

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah will continue its border offensive against the Israeli occupation sites near Lebanon border till the Zionist barbaric war on Gaza ends.

“When the aggression on Gaza stops fire will be ceased in South Lebanon,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
…
Hezbollah Secretary General commented on the recent threats made by the Zionist defense minister Yoav Gallant who said that the IOF will not stop aggression on South Lebanon even after Gaza ceasefire, stressing that, then, Hezbollah will continue its offensive.

“When the war on Gaza ends, we will stop our offensive. If the enemy resumes its hostilities, we will, act in light of the rules and the formulas.”

Nasrallah rejected western demands, passed through the Lebanese government, to pull back Hizbullah’s forces and to cease fire:

It is Hezbollah duty and responsibility to deter the enemy and prevent the assault on Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed, adding that the Resistance responses will be proportionate, yet effective and productive.

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the hundreds of thousands of settlers already displaced from the North will not be able to return to their homes in case of escalation.

‘Israel’ must prepare shelters, basements, hotels and schools to house 2 million settlers who will be displaced from northern Palestine if it expands the war zone, Sayyed Nasrallah warned.

If the Israeli enemy expands its war zone against Lebanon, Hezbollah will do too, Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized.
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“It is easier to move Litani River forward to the borders than pushing back Hezbollah fighters from the borders to the Litani River,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

More will be announced later:

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that ‘Israel’ has failed over 130 days to achieve any target in Gaza war, except the monstrous attacks on the civilians.

Concerning the Zionist war on Gaza, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that he will address more details about during a speech he is scheduled to deliver on Friday (February 16) the anniversary of Hezbollah Martyr Commanders.

Rarely mentioned in western news is the extend of Hizbullah’s activities against the military of the Zionist entity:

Al-Manar correspondent:

The resistance in Southern Lebanon, has so far attacked:

• HQ of the Northern Region Command in Safad.
• Command HQ of the 91st Galilee Division in “Branit”
• HQ of the 769th Eastern Brigade in Kiryat Shmona.
• Meron Air command and control base
• Beit Hillel IOF base
• Training camp in Kela, in the occupied Golan Heights
• Ma’ale Golan IOF base on Mount Hermon
• Most artillery positions along the rear front and military concentrations
• Every single border military IOF sites

All of these attacks carried out by the resistance confirm that all military and fire pressure and Israeli threats will not deter it from continuing its operations. The resistance is proceeding with full confidence, first relaying on God, and then its military capabilities, the spirit of its fighters, and the resilience of its people.

The Safad headquarter site was only hit this morning. This followed after more Israeli attacks had hit civilian structures in southern Lebanon.

Hala Jaber @HalaJaber – 23:01 UTC · Feb 13, 2024

URGENT: #Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets targeting an army base #Israel’s northern city of Safed.
One reportedly killed & eight wounded, one in serious condition.
The IDF said some of the rockets hit the Northern Command headquarters base in #Safed, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Lebanese border.

Hitting Safad was a (mild) escalation after previous attacks.

Unlike the daily Palestinian victims of Israel’s brutality, the Israeli casualties of the strike created headlines in Israel:

An Israeli woman was killed and eight others were wounded as a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into Safed and an army base in the northern city, the military and medical officials said.

In response to the attack, the IDF said it launched “widespread” airstrikes in Lebanon.

There was no immediate claim for the rocket fire, although it was believed to have been carried out by the Hezbollah terror group, which has been launching daily rocket, missile, and drone attacks on northern Israel in recent months, saying it is doing so in support of the Hamas terror group in Gaza, against whom Israel is waging war.

The Israel Defense Forces and Safed’s municipality said rockets hit an army base in the area, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Lebanon border.

The casualty count on Israel’s northern border is still very uneven:

So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in six civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of at least nine IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 194 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 29 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and some two dozen civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.

If Israel does not evacuated more settlers, at high economic costs, the casualty ratio is likely to change.

The Lebanese Hezbollah expert Amal Saad, who is currently teaching in Cardiff, Britain, explained Hizbullah’s thinking:

Amal Saad @amalsaad_lb – 10:58 UTC · Feb 14, 2024

There are several messages behind Hizbullah’s qualitatively different strike on Safed this morning, which Israel is treating as the gravest attack since the start of the war, with Ben Gvir calling it a “declaration of war”.

At the forefront, is Hizbullah’s message that it won’t capitulate to Israeli and western demands that it cease hostilities across the border, as per Nasrallah’s speech yesterday. It’s also a response to several Israeli assassination strikes in South Lebanon, reaching as deep as Sidon.

But the timing of this escalation also appears to be related to Netanyahu’s scuppering of the Paris cease-fire proposal and his government’s threats to invade Rafah, which in turn, would make a full-out attack on Lebanon more likely. Hizbullah is giving Israel a taster of the type of strikes and casualty tolls its military will have to bear, should Netanyahu continue to reject a cease-fire.

Predictably the Israeli occupation forces responded to the strike on Safad by escalating further:

The Israeli military said Wednesday its fighter jets “began a series of strikes in Lebanon”, raising fears of a war between the two countries after months of cross-border fire.

The military gave no further details of the air strikes, while Lebanese media reported air raids on southern villages including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh.

The strikes came hours after fire from Lebanon wounded multiple people in northern Israel, according to medics.
…
Fears have been growing of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border and regional tensions soaring.

“I don’t know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past,” Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said last month.

Following the last Israeli strikes, the Lebanese side said that four civilians had been killed or wounded by them.

The increase of hostility is getting to a point where there will no longer be the question “if” another war between Israel and Hizbullah will occur but only the question of “when”.

Posted by b on February 14, 2024 at 15:23 UTC | Permalink

Who makes the best cheese burger in America?

 

Has a friend ever hurt you so badly, emotionally speaking, that you considered not being friends anymore?

Yes. This past week. She is a lot older than me but our personalities clicked. We met at work and were really close for 7 years. We both left the department we met in for new jobs but still met up every month. I supported her through breast cancer. Then we both got offered promotions in our old department. Both accepted and were so excited to be working together again. She started a month before me and struggled to settle back in, feeling old colleagues were freezing her out. I comforted her as she sobbed down the phone to me and helped her talk things through with them. Then last week I started back. One particular colleague was very angry I was back as I had given evidence in a bullying case against her involving another colleague and she got very nasty, even refusing to sit beside me in the office and screaming at caretakers to move her desk on my first day. I was very upset and intimidated. I shared my feelings with my friend. Her response was that SHE didn’t feel any toxicity and I needed to just stay away from people. Also she and this woman had now bonded because they were both new grandmothers. I was crushed and texted her about it later, saying I was hurt by what she had said. Her response was to tell me to never text her again. Fine. I figured I’d leave her to cool off and then maybe we could talk.

A couple of days later I developed chest pains in the office. It was early morning and my manager wasn’t in so I left a message on her desk and went for an Emergancy GP appointment. He sent me straight to the hospital. On the way there I was trying to get through to our office to let my manager know what was happening, but couldn’t get through on the office line. So I phoned my friend, told her I was having an emergency and couldn’t get through and asked her to tell the manager what had happened.

She said no, she couldn’t do that. And then hung up. And blocked me.

And now I’m done. Because whether we were fighting or not, I would have taken the call and helped her.

Thankfully I’m ok, it was just a torn chest muscle and pluerasy but I learned that day that some people only like you when you’re the one carrying them. And frankly, she doesn’t deserve my friendship. Don’t waste time trying to heal relationships with people who don’t value you.

 

Employers Do NOT Want To Hire Gen Z

What are the best new products or inventions that most people don’t know about?

How did a lake go from this:

to this?

The reason is this man:

… and one incredible invention he made.

Japanese-Peruvian Marino Morikawa found that his childhood lake was contaminated and decided to put his master’s degree and Ph.D. to work. His goal was to change a plant-covered, unsanitary swamp into a place that animals and people could use.

He began by taking a break from school and taking a loan from the bank. He wanted to create something that could clean the lake. He had to use several different methods to get there, though, and research took 6 months.

One tool he tried was microbubbles. Microbubbles are tiny bubbles invisible to the naked eye. Morikawa put them into water. As they traveled up, they caught diseases and other harmful elements, acting like a spider web. Once they finally reached the surface, the bacteria were killed and the bubbles were destroyed by ultraviolet lights. Unfortunately, bubbles take hours to rise due to their size.

Another tool he used was biofilters. Biofilters work by bringing foul pollutants to the surface of a lake while leaving clean water and useful organisms at the bottom. He made his ceramic biofilters by himself in a pottery class.

Eventually, Morikawa created an organic nanotechnology compote to clean dirty water. The compote was so natural that it was even edible! Morikawa admits that it is quite expensive, but he believes that it is worth it.

To use it, one simply had to put it in dirty water and wait for about 15 minutes. This is what the water looks like before and after treatment:

Look, I’m on TV! Hi mom!

Once he had done the hardest part of the work, he was ready to clean his lake. Using homemade biofilters, the compote, and science, he was able to clean the lake in 15 days (although other sources say that cleaning the entire wetlands took 4 months).

As a result of cleaning the lake, people, over 40 species of birds, and 10 species of fish came back to inhabit it. This man should truly be respected. His efforts are not for money or fame; he simply wants to make the world a better place.

And he still wants to do more, zoning in on other polluted lakes and prioritizing Lake Titicaca. With his intelligence, passion, funding, and ingenious technologies, I think he may just be able to do it.

Nana’s Spinach and Sausage Pies

This spinach pie is a family recipe passed down for generations.  It stems from a traditional Greek (or in our case Albanian) recipe.  It calls for homemade crust, and is truly wonderful when the time is taken to make it from scratch!  But if you’d like you can substitute homemade crust for store bought Phyllo dough.

My grandmother would make this spinach pie every New Year’s day.  She would wrap a quarter or silver dollar in wax paper, and place it near the crust.  Whoever received the lucky dollar would be blessed with good luck for the year!  Before you start baking, mark the quarter with a toothpick so you know where it is and it stays in the slice.  Cut the pie, take the toothpick out, and randomly provide everyone with a slice.  Everyone uses a fork to poke through their slice to find the lucky dollar.  Don’t start eating until you find the lucky dollar, or it could become an unlucky choking hazard!

Prep Time: approx. 1 hr. 

Cook Time: approx. 40 Minutes. 

Ready in: less than 2 hours

Ingredients:

• Pie Crust
  • 5 cups of flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup warm water
  • ½ lb melted butter
• Filling
  • ¾ lb spinach (remove stems from the end)
  • ½ cup yogurt or cottage cheese
  • ½ lb Feta cheese
  • ½ cup parsley
  • 2-3 stems of chopped scallions
  • 3 tablespoons parsley
  • Salt & Pepper
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 3 eggs

If you’d like to skip making your own dough, purchase Phyllo (not country style) dough for this crust.  It’s more and more common in grocery stores these days.  It can be very thin, so use up to 10 layers on for your crust.

For homemade dough mix flour, salt, water for dough with your hands until soft.  Knead for 5 minutes.  Then place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough in half, roll it out until thin and spread with melted butter well.  Fold the sides to the center and butter again.  Now fold one half over the other and butter and fold in the opposite direction until you have a 5 inch folded square formed.  Butter the top and cover with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 12-15 minutes (or overnight if you’d like) and do the same with the other half.

Now it’s time to make your filling!  Just add all your filling ingredients into a bowl and mix well to make your filling.

Remove your dough from the fridge and roll out to the size of your square or round buttered pan.  A 12–15-inch pan is perfect.  Place the dough on the bottom of the pan with a ½ overlap around the edges.  Add your filling and cover with more dough.  Wrap the edges of the dough into a crust and bake uncovered at 350˚ for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a bit crispy.

I will never forget my wonderful Nana Tefta, and all the ways she showed her love.  Cooking this family recipe and giving us the joy of finding a lucky quarter was just one of the many ways she did that.

Ingredients

• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage links, casing removed
• 6 large eggs
• 20 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeeze dry or 1 pound fresh salad spinach leaves, stemmed
• 1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 5 1/2 ounces (1/2 container) ricotta cheese
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 10 to 11 ounces piecrust mix or 2 (9-inch) deep dish pie crusts

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Crumble sausage in a medium skillet and brown meat over medium heat, breaking up with a spoon. Drain on paper towels.
3. If using fresh spinach, bring a large pot of water to a boil and put spinach in water. Boil 1 minute and drain; squeeze dry.
4. Separate 1 egg. Combine 5 eggs with 1 egg white, sausage, spinach mozzarella, ricotta and pepper and set aside.
5. Prepare pie crust mix if using. Lay 1 pie crust in pie pan and spoon mixture into it. Lay another crust on top and flute with a stand-up edge. Carefully cut a 2-inch circle out of the top crust.
6. Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water and brush on top of pie. (Can decorate with scraps of dough.)
7. Bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes until golden and bubbly. Check crust after 1 hour and put foil on edges to prevent over-browning.
8. Let stand for 10 minutes and cut OR chill uncovered until cold; cover and refrigerate until serving cold.

 

Internet Crazy

What was your most horrible wedding experience as a guest?

It wasn’t ‘horrible’ exactly but… maybe just odd.

When I was 15 our cleaner invited our whole family to her wedding and reception. We were friendly with her as she’d given one of our puppies a home when our dog had a litter, but we hadn’t known her long. Being 15 I didn’t really want to go, but my mum said we wouldn’t have to stay long and we would just go for the reception, dance a bit and come home. It was in the Town Hall, a big, grand room in the nearby town.

When we got there we saw the bride and groom dancing, but hardly anyone else in the room. My mum checked the time thinking we were early or late but it turns out no one had turned up! There were my parents, my two brothers and me, and then no more than 7 other people in this huge, heavily decorated room with a large buffet that would have fed around 100 people.

We felt bad for the bride and groom so tried to make up for the lack of people by dancing and eating a lot, but they were acting as if it was totally normal. They seemed to be having a really good time. After a while a couple of people left and the 5 of us in my family made up half of the guests! I felt very awkward, and instead of staying an hour or two we had to stay the whole night, all the while pretending we were having a great time.

We found out later the reason no one had showed – it turns out that the bride and groom had been married before. In fact, they’d been married and divorced 9 times! The reception we went to was their tenth wedding… which explains why none of their family and friends wanted to waste anymore time on them. A match made in heaven! I wonder if they are still married, or how many more weddings they’ve racked up now…

Putin on the Collapse of the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency

 

What is the greatest display of kindness you have witnessed in your life?

I was at a thrift store, just looking around for anything interesting.

Standing in the entrance area was a mother with a baby and a toddler, and a large toy chest she had just purchased, which was sitting in her cart.

Thus she had a dilemna.

The baby was too small to walk, so she had to carry the baby. The toy chest was too big to carry one-handed, and too big to allow the baby to sit in the cart with it. Even if she could carry the baby and the toy chest, the toddler’s hand needed held in this busy parking lot.

What to do?

The thrift store was especially busy that day. People walked in, gave her situation a glance, and kept walking. She stood there for at least five minutes (which doesn’t seem very long, but it seems like a long time if you’re just standing there), occasionally trying to pick up the chest. Not a single person stopped to help.

A family walked into the store. They all gave the woman a glance and kept walking, just as the others had.

Well, most of the family kept walking.

A teenager slipped away from the family and went up to the woman.

“Hey. You need some help?”

The teen carried that toy chest all the way to the woman’s car. I saw the woman pull out her wallet, and the teenager backed away, waving their hands.

Any show of kindness is great in the eye of the recipient.

 

You’re Not Broken, The Dating World Is

What did your boss do that you decided to quit?

One and only time I ever left a job because of a boss was when I was doing software engineering at a major aerospace company on contract.

The direct manager was a micro-manager and apparently didn’t have a life outside of work.

He would take home the code listings of that day’s work from his team members to do “code reviews.’

The next morning you would get back your listings with “suggested changes” in red pencil.

You would dutifully spend the first half of the day coding and testing the suggested changes then try and make some new progress before turning the day’s listing back to the boss.

The next day it would start all over again except, more often than not, the day’s “suggested changes” basically had you putting the code back to the way you had it to begin with.

I implemented my own code management system so I could easily roll back changes.

I lasted all of a year before finding a new job.

When I became a people manager some years later I used the experience as a life lesson of the kind of manager NOT to become.

The Pathology of America: Dehumanization, Greed, and the Decline of Empire