Entering the reconstruction period

Well, this is the first post for my new series: “Correcting Society Ills“.

This new series, as I have mentioned previously, is concerned with RECONSTRUCTION of the West.

As I have already mentioned, the threat of Global War has passed the DANGER ZONE. That was in 2020 through 2022. What we are experiencing now is a “lesser” state of war. Oh, sure, nuclear weapon threats are being bantered about, and provocations are seemingly everywhere at a global level, but the unseen global counter-threats are not being made public and they will quench any aggressive moves against the great Asian powers.

So, global change resembles this dynamic…

  • Change; old to new.
  • Threat of war… either occurs or fizzles out with a *pop*.
  • I claim that it fizzled out.
  • What is left is a ruined Western society.
  • And a need for RECONSTRUCTION.

So we are going to discuss that reconstruction and what needs to occur.

Mind you, actual war can still occur, it’s just that it becomes less and less probable as time progresses forward.

In our reconstruction discussions and talks we will cover all sorts of issues and maladies that the West are suffering through. From fat-generating use of polyunsaturated oils in Western foods, to the destruction of family culture, and the strange ideas of modern Western youth.

You will find all sorts of videos and discussions on related topics herein. It’s part of a phase in our society, and the world must go through this to get to the other side; one of an overall better quality of life.

I hope that you enjoy this new chapter in MM…

Do you think you are a selfish person overall?

My friend’s two-year-old son developed a fever. He started shaking and vomiting. They rushed him to the hospital.

That first sleepless night spent watching the doctors scramble to administer medicine and draw blood for lab tests became two. And then five.

And then twenty.

Something was wrong with the boy, but no one could figure it out. Meanwhile, his medical bills were piling up.

Costa Rica offers free public healthcare. But if you want immediate help, you need to go private.

After many months of sickening worry, the boy got better.

But my friend had already taken predatory loans at 20% interest. And to keep up with the payments, he had to sell his phone, and then his car.

The lenders would show up at his house unannounced, threaten him, and yell profanities.

His life had become unbearable.

When I found out I was furious and sad. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

“I was ashamed,” he replied.

I couldn’t stand his suffering. I felt it burning inside of me. His misery had become mine.

I had to do something about it.

So I lent him money. He paid up and closed a few of the accounts. Got his first full night’s sleep in a year.

I realized something startling about helping others along the way—

It’s the most selfish act in the world.

But it’s the only kind of selfishness that makes sense.

10 Unwritten Rules you should live your life according to them

  1. You just have to play the role of a fool to fool the fool who thinks they are fooling you.
  2. Things end, people change, and life goes on.
  3. Sometimes your problem is that you think everything is embarrassing.
  4. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
  5. Your soulmate is money. Stop forcing relationships.
  6. An over-thinker must date a great communicator.
  7. First, know your worth. Second, control your emotions. Third, never settle for less than you deserve.
  8. You are the reflection of your partner. Choose wisely.
  9. Life gets better when you see people for who they are, not who you want them to be.
  10. Sometimes the disrespect is all the closure you need.

Texas T-Bones

2023 11 07 15 35
2023 11 07 15 35

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 (1 1/2 pound) beef T-bone steaks, 1 1/2 inches thick
  • 1 clove garlic, cut in half
  • 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, crushed
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon lime juice
  • Salt and pepper to taste, if desired

Instructions

  1. Trim fat on beef steaks to 1/4 inch thickness.
  2. Rub beef with garlic.
  3. Press pepper into beef.
  4. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
  5. Mix butter, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and lime juice; reserve.
  6. Heat coals or gas grill.
  7. Cover and grill beef 4 to 5 inches from medium heat 16 to 18 minutes for medium doneness, turning halfway through grilling.
  8. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  9. Place beef on warm platter; remove bone.
  10. Cut beef at slanted angle into thin slices.
  11. Serve with butter mixture.

What religion do the Chinese outside mainland China practice the most?

I can’t answer for near overseas Chinese (that is Chinese in Asia). I can write about my UK experiences.

It was Christianity and FG being a very distant second.

Christianity preyed on recent immigrant types and how they were often alone and isolated having migrated. I had numerous xian types try convert me constantly mistaking me for a migrant.

Same shit when my mother got cancer, some how the jesus types found out and went to find her to try convert her.

I told them to fuck off.

Mother told them to fuck off.

$240 Billion Lithography Machine Order Canceled,China Achieves Full Technological Autonomy!

SMIC, a prominent chip manufacturing company, operates in various areas such as chip design, manufacturing, packaging, and sales. The quality and efficiency of chip production heavily rely on the technological level and precision of the lithography machines, a crucial equipment in chip manufacturing.

However, due to escalating global trade tensions and US export control policies on Chinese high-tech companies like SMIC, the company has been unable to purchase advanced lithography machines and other equipment from the United States. This has prompted SMIC to cancel a $24 billion lithography machine order with the US company ASML, attracting significant attention and raising concerns about alternative markets for chip sales.

The cancellation of the lithography machine order by SMIC is influenced by both the global trade environment and domestic policies. As one of the largest chip manufacturers globally, SMIC’s decision has implications for the global chip industry. The uncertain global trade environment has disrupted the chip supply chain, while the Chinese government’s support for the chip industry has limited its domestic development.

The event’s impact on the global chip industry is two-fold. On one hand, competition in the global chip market will intensify, requiring major chip companies to enhance their technological capabilities and supply chain management. On the other hand, SMIC’s actions may inspire imitation by other countries, further intensifying global chip market competition.

Analyzing the impact of this event reveals that SMIC’s cancellation affects not only the global chip industry but also the US technology sector. Intel, one of the major US tech giants, has highlighted the significant impact on the global chip supply chain, prompting questions about the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s policies for the US industry.

Addressing this challenge requires several approaches. Firstly, China should strengthen international cooperation to collectively navigate the uncertainties in the global trade environment. Secondly, domestic policies should be enhanced to support and promote the development of the chip industry within China. Lastly, SMIC should focus on capacity building, continuously improving technological capabilities, and enhancing supply chain management.

https://youtu.be/6Wh_YDUaOXg

What is Rule 1 of success?

I want you to go online right now and type in the name of some of your heroes or the successful people you look up to.

Find their Biographies.

Then go look at their “Early Life” section and find the answer to this question:

When did they start?”

Very often you’ll find sentences like: “… started at the age of 26, and got his first big achievement of … at the age of 43…”

To most of us that seems like just another random fact, but look at what that really means.

It means that that person worked on their craft for 17 years before making it.

Do you really think that in that time they never failed? Do you really think they never cried or were doubtful of what they were doing?

Do you really think that those 17 years just went by like that?

What made them keep going for so long?


Most of us look at the successful few and say they got a lucky break or assume they reached their success immediately.

Actors, Athletes, Writers, Authors, and Entrepreneurs encounter failure after failure.

They loose, fall, and crash but they still stand up.

Success is not about winning but about being willing to lose once more than everybody else.

When everyone has gone home, you kept working.

When all you encountered was failure, you kept trying.

When none of the habits took, you kept starting.

When no one believed anymore, you kept trusting.

And when everyone quit, you kept going.

Do that and it will leave you as the last person standing in the ring.

For the #1 Rule of Success is to get up once more often than you fall.

Do you think China’s large consumption of the NBA influences how the league responds to calls to ban the use of shoes and other apparel made by forced labor in China?

China doesn’t use forced labour to make shoes and apparel. It is another political bit of nonsense that the US government made up.

The US government even claimed that China uses forced labour to pluck cotton, just like how the USA enslaved black people to pick cotton in the past. Goodness gracious, what nonsense, who even uses human beings to pluck cotton nowadays. That’s the old primitive way of the USA. Most of the cotton in China is machine-picked and high-speed packed.

So, This is Happening in West Maui, It’s changes EVERYTHING for Oprah & the Rock

The way these people have been treated is beyond disgusting. Greene lies through his teeth. Banks should freeze their mortgages for at least a minimum of three years to allow the people to get back on their feet.

Is there a military branch that will allow me to start as an E4 because I already have a 4 year degree?

Funny story. In 1986, I went through basic at Fort Cambell, Kentucky. I had a two-year degree, and so I entered as an E3. A couple of weeks into the training, the 1stSgt called me into his office. He’s reviewing my record and commenting that he thinks my records are wrong. Because of my two-year degree, he thinks I should have entered as an E4.

He looks at me and asks, “When you enlisted, did they promise you E4?” I quickly answered, “Yes, 1stSgt.” He quickly responds, “I knew it! I will have you promoted to E4, but it will take a week or two. I said, “Thank you 1stSGT!” and was dismissed.

A couple of weeks later, the C.O. of the training company stopped me on the way back from evening chow and said, “I wanted you to know that your next LES will reflect that you were promoted to E4. I cannot have you pinned while you are in basic, nor can you wear the rank because you would be the same rank as some of the soldiers assigned to the company, but, you have been promoted to E4.” I said, “thank you sir,” saluted and went on my way.

As soon as I graduated, I upgraded all my rank insignia to SP4. I get to Aberdeen Proving Grounds for schooling, and as I check-in, the soldier behind the counter asks, “Are you promotable?” I did not know what that meant, but I said, yes. Because I identified as E4 promotable, I was assigned to the barracks with all the other E4s and NCOs going through the same school for retraining. No drill sergeants for me!

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

My Mum was a very formidable Italian lady (all five feet three inches of her!) and took very little nonsense from anybody!! When my sister was 15 and I was 9 my sister went out for the night with a young guy who was 18 (Mum didn’t know this or it would not have been allowed) She was told to be back by 10.00 pm, no later! Midnight approached and my parents were not happy (this was in the days before Mobile Phones) They finally turned up and my Dad went out to remonstrate with the young man whilst my Mum exploded at my sister who was well aware what kind of trouble she was in. Dad came back in with a cut lip where the young Guy had punched him!! Mum grabbed one of my Dad’s hobnail boots went outside and proceeded to bash the young guy around the head and shoulders, loudly cursing him in Italian! The guy screamed at my Mum that he would get the Police on her, she shouted back ‘Do it! my daughter’s 15!! I’ll have you in prison! and every syllable corresponded with another blow to his head and face! After about 10 minutes of the the guy ran away screaming in fear. The next day, right outside our house, the pavement was covered with bloodstains!

New IRS $600 Tax Rule For 2023 (Venmo & Cash App & PayPal)

Americans screwed over YET AGAIN. Good thing, everything is in my Chinese family, not me personally. $20,000 threshold to $600. No fucking way!

Do you actually have to get a driver’s license to drive your privately owned automobile? I have seen some say that a driver’s license is for commercial drivers. Is this true?

You need a drivers license in order to drive your privately owned automobile on public roads. If you drive on your own private property, or someone else’s private property with their permission? No.

The whackos who told you that a driver’s license is for commercial drivers belong to a weird fringe conspiracy cult called “Sovereign Citizens.” To give you an idea how dumb these loonies are, they’re the ones that Flat Earthers point to and say “god, those people will believe anything.”

Sovereign Citizens have all kinds of bizarre beliefs that basically focus on the notion “you do not have to obey any law you do not consent to.” They believe they do not have to obey any law enforcement officers except county sheriffs, they do not have to pay taxes, and that (yes, I’m serious) the Federal government sells each American citizen at birth, and so a “birth certificate” is actually a record of sale to a foreign government.

As you might imagine, these dingbats get arrested rather frequently. When they do, they generally go into court shaking their fists and screaming that the government has no jurisdiction over them and no right to put them on trial, which…goes about as well as you might imagine.

What are the biggest culture shocks people face when coming to Germany?

People and people, but this will put Americans into a coma:

Older people going naked in city center parks. (I am not going to post pictures, because if I do I will get blocked by Quora moderators who obviously are not German and have never been to Germany).

16 year olds drinking beer or wine.

Kids riding alone on buses and trains.

Autobahn on a Friday.

Some people will behave like concentration camp guards but when you forget your credit card they will send it to you in the mail.

How has the US reacted to China’s rise and what are the consequences of its attempts to curb China’s development?

The U.S. thinks that it is exceptional and that the U.S. must always lord over the world. There lies the problem it is certainly not exceptionally strong or good. It may be seen as exceptionally cruel and evil to the developing nations of the world.

China’s phenomenal growth and rise in a way, together with the phenomenal rise of the non western world has resulted in the ending of a Western centric or U.S. dominated world that is in fact a virtual colonisation post colonialism for 300 odd years.

In effect the poor and underdeveloped countries were forced or connived into the so call rules based international order but in effect it is a set of rules to preserve the wealth of the west and continue the looting and theft of resources of the poor to enriched the west. From 1946-at least 2000. You can call this virtual colonialism.

China together with BRICS effectively put and end or at least the beginning of the end of this virtual colonialism order. That upset the U.S. to no end. That is easy to understand. If the biggest mafia in town lost its ability to steal, to or loot at will it may burnt down some buildings and businesses and probably go on a shooting spree. So you can expect war mongering and doing some shit.

But it does not matter what or how U.S. rave and rant. Asia alone represents 60% of the worlds GDP and U.S. is now a mere shadow of itself since 1945 where its economy alone represented 52% of the world’s economy. Today in 2023 China’s growth alone is 36.4% and the entire G7 including the U.S. together adds up to a mere 25.6%! The Ukraine war and the U.S. sanctions and pure robbery of Russia’s reserves will lead to the end of U.S. dollar hegemony and so will western financial institutions.

To me the more the U.S. try to curb China the faster China will eclipse the U.S. There is nothing the U.S. that can do that don’t make the status worst for the U.S. Today it tries to stop the export of Chips to China. It won’t work. It actually means it actually heighten. It’s inflation and suffer crippling shortages. You see China itself now represent 30% of world demand and another 30% of worlds manufacturing. This ban in effect, deprives the U.S. companies of doing business to 50–60% of the world’s demand.

This act will means bankrupting US and its allies chip makers. China will face some challenges. But in a short 5 years 90% of its chips requirements will be Chinese made and in a decade China will totally handle its own demand and it will totally kill off the U.S. chips. Like everything China will make it faster, better and cheaper.

ANGRY Young Man DIES; Meets ANCIENT Soul Family He Has Known for LIFETIMES!

Very down to earth awesome gentleman.

In combat situations and under special circumstances, can leaders in different branches command soldiers that are not in their branch, like a Marine Sergeant giving orders to an Army Infantryman?

Still shot of a Blackwater contractor during the Battle of Najaf in April of 2004

Service members of different stripes in a circumstantial combat situation can certainly order each other around if it’s in a joint environment, but in the most recent conflicts, now private military contractors may just be giving the orders too.

During the Battle of Najaf in the early days of the Iraq War, Iraqi insurgents from the Mahdi Army began to surround a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Building within the city of Najaf. Within the confines of the CPA compound, the personnel consisted of CPA employees, Spanish/El Salvadoran soldiers, a detachment of US Marines, and an eight man team of Blackwater contractors.

The situation was deteriorating with insurgents having grabbed an unfortunate El Salvadoran soldier, shoving a grenade into his mouth then pulling the pin in full view of the CPA compound. This was on top of the firefights were breaking out between those in the CPA compound and insurgents who were now attempting storm the compound with the mob that had just killed the soldier.

While this was all occurring, a Blackwater contractor called for help to his higher up’s in Baghdad who had been monitoring the situation. The Blackwater contractors in Baghdad then made an ultimate judgment call to intervene with the CPA compound battle when it became apparent that the US military itself will not provide any sort of assistance in the confusion.

Three Little Bird helicopters were then loaded up with six Blackwater contractors coupled with one Little Bird filled with boxes of ammunition and equipment due to the CPA contractors notifying that they were now dangerously low on ammunition.

The contractors then flew to the CPA compound, unloaded the ammunition and additional support, then evacuated a wounded Marine who had been shot during the battle.

With the additional support of the contractors and ammunition, the combined force of Blackwater contractors, Marines, Coalition troops managed to keep the insurgents from reaching the CPA compound. CPA employees would reload empty magazines then run it up to the men who were fighting off the insurgents, keeping everyone busy.

The Blackwater contractors would find themselves dictating where the Marines and other troops to head to during the battle, which would later draw controversy from critics who claimed that now mercenaries were giving orders to military troops.

Eventually, the siege of the CPA compound would subside after almost two days of battle which could be viewed on many videos via Youtube.

Infamous video of Blackwater contractor Travis Haley during the Battle of Najaf. Critics would later use this video to denote how he had no qualms killing random people with a second nature attitude when he was literally going after insurgents attempting to assault the compound.

The Battle of Najaf would serve as an example of how private military contractors mixed with troops in circumstances that called them to fight side by side.

This does not look like it would end anytime soon with the Russo-Ukraine conflict where Russian private military contractors from the Wagner Group and Russian troops are fighting alongside each other in the conflict.

SCOTT RITTER, ANDREI MARTYANOV, AND GARLAND NIXON JOIN ON NATO, UKRAINE’S TIME RUNS OUT

In this special roundtable, Scott Ritter Andrei Martyanov and Garland Nixon join the program to discuss the ongoing developments of the Ukraine proxy war, what it tells us about Russia, and the growth of the multipolar world in the context of history.

Great crew. Great discussion.

Why do Westerners like you defend China online?

I’m going to try to provide an answer with a slightly different perspective.

First off, I’m an Australian Chinese (in that order), born and educated in Singapore. My family is Peranakan or Straits-born meaning that we were the products of intermarriage between the Chinese and locals in what was then British Malaya.

So I grew up speaking English and Malay and a smattering of dialects. As I was educated in English mission schools, I did not learn Mandarin.

As far as I can remember, I was taught to hate Chinese and Communists. Pretty much everything I read about Communists described them as a threat peace-loving people everywhere. And China was communist.

I think I was 17 when I first read Dick Wilson’s A Quarter of Mankind. This was followed by Emmanuel Hsu’s The Rise of Modern China. In those pages I glimpsed a very different China. So I started reading Chinese history, from the Qin dynasty, and continued my inquiry at university.

Most of my working life was spent as a journalist, a sub-editor to be specific, and much of my work involved, among other things, fact checking.

Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy opened up a new era of ties with China and Singapore was quick to get in on the act (read quick to realise the profits that could be made trading with China. That is the subject of a whole different set of questions and answers). Trading with the enemy? No, it cannot be. But it was.

The opening up of relations with China also led to a relaxation of travel restrictions on travel to the Middle Kingdom. Up till then, I had visited Hong Kong and could only imagine life across the border. I also visited Taiwan and imagined China to be everything the opposite of Taiwan.

Fast-forward many years when I moved to Australia and started travelling to China (Shenzhen, Chengdu, Guangdong, and Shanghai).

I saw modern cities, efficient public transport, rampant capitalism, and I felt completely safe even in quiet streets in the wee hours of the morning.

Many of the Chinese I met were as friendly as people in other places that I have travelled. Often friendlier. Especially to an ethnic Chinese who did not speak the language (I started learning conversational Mandarin at 54 and can now read a write a little).

To the core of the question: Much of the information about China that’s peddled about is false. Many people have very wrong impressions and ideas about the PRC. And most of the people who hold these ideas will never go to China to see and verify for themselves if what is reported is anywhere near the truth.

So I, and many others, try to provide a balance by correcting the grosser erros of belief held by many as a result of, well, propaganda.

A footnote: In my youth I wanted to move to the West (America, UK, the Scandinavian countries, … thataway). If I were young again, I would go east. To China.

Netherlands Reconsiders Huawei After 5G Successes

If US is not learning from China, it is more important that China learns from US. China should never forget who forsaken her in its hours of need. To be kind to enemy is to be cruel to oneself .”

https://youtu.be/pt9mnzwUj4I

People say you should get an attorney if you win the lottery, but why? Say I win the Mega Millions, and I sign the back of the ticket, photograph it, and show up at the lottery office bright and early the next day. What bad things would happen to me?

The reason you want a lawyer is to protect you.

I won a scratch ticket for $100,000 one hundred thousand. the accoutant handled the taxes.

After claiming my prize we had 2 weeks where different reporters were looking for pictures and wanting to do an interview with the store that sold the winning ticket. churches and charities knocking on the door looking for a slice.

3 people i went to grade school with came knocking I had not seen them in 10 years. Family calling wanting to get a share or asking for a loan they cant afford to repay.

people were confused when I told them I spent it all.

I divided it up 3 ways and gave equal amounts to my 3 kids for thier college funds. I

f I ever hit another winning ticket I am getting a lawyer to deal with the bullcrap and I am gonna move to Alaska to a remote cabin in the middle of nowheresville with no phone or roads.

What are the myths that need to be busted about China?

The number one myth?

That you can hope to understand China using the English medium.

I am confident I am in the top 1 percentile when it comes to Chinese proficiency in the pool of English speakers beyond the mainland.

I won’t be surprised if I am in the top 0.1 percentile either.

But if I were honest, I will admit as an east Asian that I find it difficult to keep up with the mainland, even though I possess skills and networks to access media and contacts within greater China.

No, it’s not just about the language struggle, which exists even for someone like me with more than a decade’s worth of formal education in the Chinese language.

It is about developing a contextual understanding for mainland frames of reference and how the mainlander thinks.

That is mostly absent in this medium, even among the rare pool of articles grounded in facts. Most are written by east Asians, not westerners.

My advice? Don’t waste time on the China expert who doesn’t speak Chinese. Even foreigners who do are often wrong or misguided, because that is what it takes to pass through the stringent msm filter these days.

When have you fired someone on the spot?

Yes and within the first HOUR of employment!!…

The new employee was just starting, his first day, first morning on the job…

Every morning employees would gather all of their supplies, tools, etc. and load their vans to be ready for the day’s work.

All new employees are to ride with a senior person to gain knowledge and get the hang of things. This was our busiest season and the day was FULL of jobs that needed to be done – all previously scheduled and set in time slots.

This employee was in the process of helping load the van when he came to me and said:

“I need to go to an appointment today; I need the (driver) to drop me off and then pick me up, or wait for me to get done.”

Me: “I am sorry, we are too busy to be able to do all of that on work time. If it is important why don’t you just take the day off, go to your appointment and come back tomorrow ready to go?”

Employee: “Are you F@*king kidding me? What kind of place is this that you don’t care about your employees!!”

Me: “Ummmm, I said you can have the day off, it’s your first day here and I still said go ahead and take the day and come back tomorrow ready to go, I am not sure I understand?”

Employee: “This is BullS@@t, I can’t believe you won’t take care of your employees and have him drive me to my appointment across town and wait for me, you’re F@*ing ridiculous.”

Me: “Um, I am trying to be reasonable here and work with you. How about you can take your own car and follow behind him and when you need to go you can just cut out and go to your appointment. We don’t have the time to do that for you. ”

Employee: “This is ridiculous, I can’t believe you treat your employees this way, you are being so unfair, this is Bull S#@t, F@*!ng ridiculous!”

Me: “Actually, why don’t you go ahead and go home and not come back at all. Thank you for your time.”

Employee then was shocked that I fired him and could not believe or understand why I was letting him go.

This was truly shocking to me. Fired him on the spot within ONE hour of being employed.

“Ukrainian soldiers are being DRUGGED and forced to fight” Ex-CIA Larry Johnson

We now have reports that captured Ukrainian soldiers are turning up drugged out of their minds on some kind of inhibition blocker. Reports say these soldiers are going on withdrawals after being captured. Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson joins us to discuss.

What is the current relationship between China and the United States? How did this come to be, and what are the implications for the rest of the world?

The relationship with China from the U.S. perspective as always needs to be one of subservience and submissive to the U.S. That has been the default mode of what US expect it to be since 1945. Let’s call a spade a spade. The U.S. cannot deal with a nation that can and will say no to the U.S.

But if I should be completely honest to the US I will recommend to them to move on and keep your winnings. China with 1.4 billion highly discipline, extremely hard working people who are driven and industrious, today equipped with the state of art infrastructure and leading in 37/44 key and strategic technology cannot be push aside without untold damages to the U.S. itself.

But the U.S. political system, one based totally on popularity contest means that it cannot be pragmatic and realistic. It has to drain tremendous resources to try to keep its hegemonic place, even if it means bankrupting the U.S. that is precisely what the U.S is doing today.

For China is is so simple. Let the US have a long and strong rope to hang itself slowly to death. Lure the U.S. to fight China in a way that drains away the U.S. resources, influence and turned away its allies one by one. It does that be staying the moral high ground. It is the U.S. that is desperate so while the U.S. goes low, China stays high. It is winning without a fight. Remember Mohamad Ali “Rope a dope” the big George Foreman drains all its energy and knock him out in 15 rounds.

China is doing the “rope a dope” while the U.S. is ranting and panting away. Trump thought it wins popularity by starting the trade war with China. China pretends to avoid war but knows so well that it will hurt and harm the U.S. several folds of what it hurts China. Do you notice Biden wants to end the tariff and China says. Not so fast Amigo!

The implications to US allies are particularly bad and the more of a U.S. lackey the worst it gets. Asia is doing just fine and dandy.

How did it come to be? Well China grew astronomically strong economically, politically and even militarily and the U.S. is in denial and Americans are ignorant and naive about China till it is way past too late. The U.S. is in a quick sand. The more it struggles. The faster it sinks.

Since you asked about implications, The US pay the highest price for doing shit on China. The world is moving on faster than the U.S. realised. The U.S. dollar hegemony is all but gone. The U.S. and western order may appeal to a handful of its close allies. No different from a pack of street hoodlums hanging on to its biggest bully as beneficiaries.

US debts will reach 100 trillion in a decade, US deficits cannot go down. It cannot make anything at less than twice it cost worldwide. US standard of living has stagnated back 60 years to the 1960s. And the poor U.S. growing while it’s middle class is collapsing.

Meanwhile for China, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Once it made T-shirts and Toys. Today it makes your computers and smartphones. Soon it makes your EVs and AI and Jet planes. It middle class is now at 700 million will grow to 1 billion people within a generation. 4–6 times the size of the U.S. middle income.

Harvard Economist Reveals Shocking SECRET About China In 2023

Dr. Keyu Jin is one of the most outstanding China insiders. She is a professor at the London School of Economics and has an incredible knowledge of how the US and China both work. In today’s video I share with you her insights into China innovation and how China really works.

16 People Describe What A Dead Body Smell Like

1. “Understand that a pound or two of rotten meat only gives you a faint whiff of the smell of a full-grown corpse. The power of the smell is incredible. Personally, I’m not sure it’s describable. You want to gag when you’re fifty feet away. It can take years for the smell to leave a house. It just lingers in the background. Cars are totalled by the insurance company for the odor. And the guy driving the wrecker can’t drive fast enough to get away from the smell.

It gets on your skin and clothes. (People use bio-suits for body removal for a reason.) Maggots abound, fluids abound, and I’ve never read a good description of the experience. No matter how well you write, it will be but a pale imitation of the experience.”

2. “Buy a Boston Butt pork roast and let it rot. Pigs and humans are apparently similar, meat-wise. It actually turns like a sea blue-green color. (It smells like farts and then gets worse.)”

3. “A dead body, specifically a human corpse has a rank and pungent smell mixed with a tinge of sickening sweetness. Imagine a rotting piece of meat with a couple drops of cheap perfume and you’re halfway to understanding what a human corpse smells like.”

4. “It varies from person to person and how long they have been decomposing.

You get a very sharp, foul smell similar to horrible cheese mixed with the same smell you get from a full trash can in the sun.

If the body decompressed and they had a full bladder, you’ll also smell body fluids, so stale urine and straight fecal matter. For those who don’t know, toilet poop smells bad, but shit that is airborne, not water logged or anything is straight horrific on its own.

If you have flying insect and larva development increase smell this far times two. If it’s hot outside times three and if it’s cold out and the heat in the house is cranked it’s times five at minimum for the dry heat.

The worse part is the materials they died on. Wood mixed with death has a woody slime smell mixed with the death ratio above, carpet has a wet padding smell (like cat wizz) plus death and it’ll it’s on furniture it’s really fun as it usually leaks through to the carpet and wood subfloor.

If you’re smelling these things outside a house, you don’t want to be near it when they go in. Cleaning and deodorizing that is pretty rough.”

“I have assisted in an autopsy on a body several days old, and even though it was in a huge chilling compartment, the smell was in the whole complex. It smells like there are a million dead and rotting rats around you.”

5. “Rotten eggs, feces, and a used toilet left out for a month x 1000. It is unholy.

The smell gets into your throat and you can taste it. You will literally run to find some clean air. Even then, it lingers and you can’t quite get the smell away. Even though you can no longer physically smell it, you remember it and it takes quite a while to get over it.”

6. “A dead body to me smells like a cross between rotting meat and very dirty kitty litter box. Very distinct smell that you won’t forget.”

7. “You ever have like a dead mouse or something hiding somewhere and you just smell something awful? It’s pretty much that. The best I can sum it up to is like shit mixed with meat…in a weird way

8. “In my experience, any formerly living creature, whether human or non-human, has that same powerful, pungent, disgusting odor that I can only describe as a garbage can left to ferment in high heat for an extended period of time. It does vary some between species, though.

A couple of other answers written in this feed point to some things that are accurate. First, two chemicals, Putrescine and Cadaverine, are both found in decomposing tissue. Both are diamenes and they are produced as a result of amino acids (most notably Lysine) breaking down. They each gave their own characteristic odor which by themselves are bad enough. When they are combined due to the simultaneous presence, they are indescribable.

Second, pigs are indeed closest to humans in terms of the odor they give off when decomposing. Any animal with a musk gland (skunks, badgers, and muskrats are some examples. I’m sure there are many others as well) are also pretty stinky when they break down. All produce these same two chemicals because when you think about it, any creature that breathes in Oxygen and releases Carbon Dioxide is going to have a similar metabolic makeup that, when stopped is going to respond in a similar manner.”

9. “Once, I took a trip. When I returned, there was a terrible odor in my den. I know the odor of dead animals on the road or in the forests. Mom puts out poison for mice, so I have smelled them under things in her home. There was a rotten odor like this in my den, so I looked under everything, but I found nothing. The next day, I saw some cops and medics at the next apartment. I learned that my neighbor had died and decomposed for days before anyone found him. The odor is sickening. It’s hard to describe fully.”

10. “It depends how long it’s been dead but if you have ever smelled rotten meat it’s similar to that. some words commonly used to describe it would probably be rancid, foul, putrid, the smell of decay, etc. If it’s decomposed down to the skeleton there probably won’t be any smell anymore since the flesh, muscle, and organs are the ones that create the most smell and decay quickly.”

11. “I recently in countered a dead body that had been rotting in a van near my home for 5-7 days. At first, I though it was Korean people making kimchi, but after seeing the body removal with my own eyes I know that the smell was not of pickled vegetables. I work for a plumbing company so I’m always finding myself walking in raw sewage in basements. And I have to say the smell is similar to sewage or waste. Its nauseating and quite foul. Authorities have removed the body, but the area still smells of fragrant corpse. To be honest, I don’t know why you’d ever wonder about this. But yes indeed, it’s very disgusting. As a female I always find myself running out of breath when I’m dealing with sewage, but a body is about 10 times worse.”

Now, death depends on the environment in my opinion. I’ve smelt a few bodies in morgues and things like that, they just smell of death, it’s indescribable really, but you remember that smell. It’s a cold smell, a heavy smell (this is the best way I can describe it).

Rotting corpses of course just smell like any other rotting mammals, next time you spot some road-kill, stop and give it a sniff, pretty much what a rotting human corpse smells like.”

12. “I was a volunteer firefighter and police had to enter the residence before any of us could. The SCBA is automatic. So I quickly put it on a cop to enter the residence of a woman who neighbors haven’t seen in weeks. Those SCBAs block toxins and the cop ran out of the house drowning on his vomit. He claims he smelled her through the mask….That’s how bad a dead person smells. We eat everything. Those toxins in our bodies is what makes us stink so bad when we die. And to make it worse, when I got home I snorted soap while in the shower. A few hours later I began smelling the stench of her again. The bacteria is said to cling to your nostril hair and remultiplies later until it’s gone. I can’t tell you what it smells like. You’ll know it when you do.”

13. “Not very pleasant. It is a very strong, stomach turning, smell. It does in a way smell like rotten eggs, but it is much more intense. That is the best I can describe the smell, but I heard from someone else on how to make a small replica of it. Take a bag of soy beans, saturate them in water,let them stand a few days in heat above 70F while keeping them moist,crush some of the mixture.In a few days you will smell what decaying flesh/protein smells like.”

14. “My brother-in-law died in his appt. & was there 5 days before being found. When my wife & I went for the funeral (just a picture of him, no body) we went to help clean his place. I can’t describe the smell nor will I ever forget it. It permeated all soft things so badly they had to be throw out, we managed to keep a couple tables only. Even the TV stunk after airing out for week.

15. “Take some meat and leave it in a bag outside for about 3 days in the middle of summer. Then open the bag and mix in some Mexican food diarrhea. Add a good helping of the strongest catfish stink bait you can find. Mix well. This is the best that Death will ever smell.”

16. “Living in an apartment building and the guy next door fell in his bathtub (apparently). We didn’t see him often, so it wasn’t anything weird to not see him but his audio books were put on his doorknob and stayed for a couple days (he was blind, they delivered books to him to listen to).

Started smelling really weird, and since my son was just a baby at that time we’d initially thought somehow we hadn’t put a diaper in the garbage and it had ended up somewhere and was stinking up the place, searched high and low but couldn’t find it. The landlady knocked on his door (all our doors, handing out notices) and we mentioned we hadn’t seen him in a bit…half an hour later she was letting the police into his place.

I can’t imagine the smell in the same room though, it was bad enough being in the next apartment!”

What is the current relationship between the United States and China? Does China still need the United States for its economy?

No China don’t need the U.S. to survived or even to be a moderate growth economy in 2023. I will argue that containment, decoupling or de-risking of China which to me and most in the world means the same thing, is counter beneficial to the U.S. and good for China in the long term. The U.S. meanwhile loses the worlds. Biggest market or equivalent to the 2nd to the 10th biggest market for the U.S. put together.

There lies the enormity of the U.S. problem. Without China, the U.S. will suffer between 25–50% inflation which will highly impoverish American’s on the one hand with its U.S. brands becoming unsaleable and losing market share by half at least. All these while losing a humongous market.

By right the U.S. ought to not even dare to utter those threatening words but U.S. politicians lose too much to go soft after their media demonised China for a century. Sure China could be richer with the U.S. being rational. But China don’t take threats by the U.S lightly. The US political system is essentially a popularity contest and even if is suicidal the politicians compete to be a bigger China hawk while its own people suffer.

The trouble with threat is once you utter the word on banning China, sanctioning China, decoupling from China, containing China or even de-risking from China. China won’t hold back to defend itself. And China will make sure it will never depend on the U.S. and the west. That means China will totally do its own thing from now onwards.

That is very bad news for the U.S. as China do everything better, faster and cheaper than anyone on earth by a long shot. And the Huawei Mate 60 pro proved beyond doubt that there is nothing it cannot do! The U.S. should really think many times over before it challenge China for American sake. But the trade war and the chip ban proved to me and the world beyond doubt that the U.S. government don’t care about its own people and it’s own economy.

What are your general advices/tips for a college graduate (fresher) stepping into the corporate world?

Same advise I gave my son :-

  • Don’t follow any instruction related to investing money or sanctioning a loan or allocating money UNLESS YOU HAVE A WRITTEN INSTRUCTION from your superior/cby email or whatsApp or paper letter
  • Never start smoking due to peer pressure or tension. Use bubble gum instead
  • First Beer with first month paycheck. First hard liquor after six months of paychecks at least.
  • Don’t express any political opinion or make any comment apart from work and movies and games and sports
  • Don’t ever go over your superiors head unless he is on leave or unreachable or is a total dumbo
  • When a woman wants to come to your office to talk to you, keep your door open or ask a friendly female colleague to sit in the office during the meeting under the pretext of taking notes
  • Never meet any Vendor or Supplier outside work or at your home. Always meet in office and keep your door open during the meeting and ask a colleague in to pretend to take notes
  • Never accept any gifts from Vendors or Suppliers whose value exceeds ₹2000/— unless everyone else is accepting the gifts and it’s been approved by your superiors
  • Never ever accept a meeting in a Hotel room with a potential client or customer. Always MEET IN THE LOBBY OR COFFEE SHOP where you have CCTV cameras
  • You may be finding yourself forced to spend a lot of money by being in the company of your superiors and indulge in pubs, golfing and high class call girls. Resist. Make excuses and resist until they get the message
  • No more than 120 ml of Scotch / Rum with 180 ml Club Soda Or Tonic Water Or 3 Tequila Shots at any office party , in fact my son makes the excuse that his liver is weak and avoids any drink entirely
  • Save around 45% of your paycheck if possible. At least 30%
  • Don’t ever eat Chickpeas, Beans, Cauliflowers, Kadalai, Sundal for breakfast. If you fart, you become a joke and it’s tough to recover your reputation
  • Never assume your female colleague who laughs and talks to you likes you romantically. Always ASK if in doubt. Simply ask “Are we friends or could this turn into something more”. Don’t presume.

She Is Against Mandatory Paternity Tests At Birth

This is trending in the United States. Jeeze!

That woman who said requiring DNA testing would open up a can of worms scared the daylight out of me. Is she suggesting that a whole host of men are providing for children that aren’t theirs and letting this be known would blow up lots of families? What on earth have you women been up to?”

Graham Perry on China and US

Graham Perry is a UK-based China observer, and wrote a good piece on China/US relations which is worth reading at length:

On the surface things look good in the US; unemployment is low; their economy is growing at 2.4% and inflation is falling. And yet consumer confidence, according to Irwin Stelzer in the Sunday Times, is at its lowest in four months. And Prof Percy Allen – in Pearls and Irritations – concludes that American society is more divided than it has been since its Civil War of the 1860s. “According to a Pew Research poll

about six in ten Republicans and more than half of Democrats have a very unfavourable view of the other party. Thirty years ago, fewer than a quarter in both parties rated the other party badly.”

A recent CNN poll showed almost 70% of Republicans do not accept the electoral legitimacy of the Biden administration. And almost 60% of voters lack confidence that elections in the US today reflect the will of the people.

Other polls by States United Action and Chicago University’s CPOST Research Centre found that over half US voters think elections won’t solve America’s most fundamental political and social problems, and almost half consider political elites, both Democrats and Republicans, are the most immoral and corrupt people in America. The US is fast becoming a dysfunctional nation – and that was before yesterday’s sacking of Speaker McCarthy.

But when it comes to China, Americans unite and rally around the flag. Hatred of China is the one single issue that brings America together.President Biden’s #1 worry

is that China will become the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. Biden has promised to stop that. He has referred to China as “bad people” who when they have problems do “bad things” The demonisation of China has clearly worked. The 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 83% of Americans hold negative views of China. The share who says China is an “enemy” is now 38%. An IPSOS poll

found one-third of Americans view China as an imminent threat and two in five Americans think that war with China is likely in the next five years.

The US under Bush and Obama held to the view that China’s economic growth and increased prosperity would bring a relaxation of political rhetoric as the number of Chinese middle class citizens increased. Expanding economic rights would lead inevitably to increased political rights and the downgrading of the role of China’s Communist Party. China would become “compliant reasonable and accommodating”. It has not happened. Billionaires may flourish in China (800+ in number) but the Party remains at the apex of power. China has not changed.

Trump heralded a new and antagonistic approach to China when he started a trade war by unilaterally imposing high tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the US. And when that did not work, he resorted to allegations of genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province to try to demonise China in the eyes of the world. But it, too, has not worked. China remains China and continues to be welcomed by the rest of the world in part because of its Belt and Road Initiative – as historian Professor Francis Fukiyama has said “China has lent more than $1 trillion to more than 100 countries through the Initiative, dwarfing Western spending in the developing world and stoking US anxieties about the spread of Beijing’s power and influence”.

Trump’s successor, President Biden increased economic sanctions on China and announced that “he would not allow China’s economy to overtake America’s” even though, as Prof Allen notes, most economists think that this is inevitable given China’s huge population and income gap.

The flashpoint is Taiwan for two reasons. First, China’s long-standing policy to reunify China with Taiwan and, second, as explained in yesterday’s Post #473, the US is worried sick that a confrontation with China could seriously jeopardise the US economy by impeding, even stopping, the export from Taiwan to the US of essential semi-conductors. Within the US hierarchy – the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff – there are those who want to give China “a bloody nose” and fundamentally derail China’s economic growth by military action – the Hawks – before China is way ahead and out of sight. “Act Today Because Tomorrow Is Too Late” is their cry.

There are also Doves who fear hostilities and prefer an uneasy but non-confrontational approach to China. For the Doves, second place to China is preferrable to war with China It is not clear who will win but certainly if the Hawks prevail over the Doves the world will be set on a most dangerous path.

Oliver Anthony- Rich Men North of Richmond (Remix Mashup ft Dax & Jo Tyler)

Another great mashup remix.

What is the lamest “benefit” you’ve been offered by an employer?

At Papa John’s Pizza I was getting fed up that they weren’t hiring the sufficient amount of staff to properly run the store. Along with doing bike deliveries I also cashed, took phone calls, entered orders, swept, mopped and emptied garbage. They kept a skeleton staff of 3 workers per shift and whenever they had to pay overtime they grumbled and wanted explanations as to why.

Frustrated and fatigued I applied for Dominos Pizza delivery. This is how snippets of the conversation went during the interview.

Interview Lady: We pay the highest hourly rate of all pizza restaurants. $21 per hour.

Me: Papa John’s paid $20 an hour. This is just a dollar more.

Lady: Yes! The highest rate for delivery riders in the country!


Lady: When you come to the restaurant you’ll be happy to see that you’ll be getting so much deliveries. Endless deliveries!

Me: How much do I get paid per delivery?

Lady: $7 per delivery!

Me: That’s the lowest delivery payment of all the pizza restaurants.

Lady: Yes but you’ll be doing so many deliveries, getting so much tips that it wouldn’t matter.

(I later found out that Dominos charged customers $20 for delivery, the highest delivery charge of all fast food restaurants in the country. They paid the driver $7 out of the $20 charge and the restaurant pocketed the remaining $13 for themselves.)


Me: What are the closing hours?

Lady: 10:30pm.

Me: You mean like only on Fridays and Saturdays?

Lady: No everyday.

Me: Thats a bit late and taxis round here stop working around 8pm. Any transport provided for me to get home?

Lady: No.

Me: Will I be able to use the Domino’s motorcycle to get home? (I was allowed this benefit in a previous restaurant I worked that had this same issue)

Lady: No.

Me: Can I leave earlier then?

Lady: Of course. Due to your transport situation we’ll allow you to leave 10 minutes earlier!


Lady: We are a very flexible organization.

Me: How so? (inwardly groaning, expecting more bullshit)

Lady: We give you the choice to work either as contracted or non-contracted.

Me: What does that mean?

Lady: Contracted means that you work somewhat as a permanent staff. You can work all the overtime hours you want. However overtime would be paid at the usual rate of $21 an hour. No time and a half. The same applies for public holidays.

Non contracted is like temporary staff. We pay the usual time and a half for overtime but as you are non contracted you don’t get overtime hours as we send you home after you’ve made your 40hrs a week. We don’t allow you to work on holidays so you basically get your flat salary every week whereas with a contract you are allowed more hours.

Me: More hours at the same rate?

Lady: Yes.

Me: Wouldn’t that be a lose-lose situation?

Lady: No. It’s a win-win!


Me: Am I entitled to a free meal?

Lady: No.

Me: And the uniform?

Lady: We are the only pizza restaurant that provides free uniforms for staff?

Me: How many uniforms?

Lady: Two free Dominos shirts and a cap. We are having them laundered after being returned by a delivery driver who recently left.

Me: You’re giving me a guy’s used clothes?

No: No. She only used them for two days. They’re practically new.

Me: You’re giving used female clothing?

Lady: It’s a free uniform!

Suffice to say I instantly and humbly returned to Papa John’s and their skeleton staff.

Mystery Cambodia

A nice fun video that takes you to another world. LOL.

It will probably upset some folks, but too bad. This is real life. This guy interviews some prostitutes in Cambodia. If you don’t want the experience then you can pass on this video. It’s ok.

How can we become a winner at everything in life?

Originally Answered: How can we become a Winner at everything in Life?

What made Muhammed Ali the best Boxer in the world?
What made Michael Phelps go above and beyond every time he swam?
How come Gandhi made so much more of an impact than anybody else?

None of them were exceptional people since birth.

Sure, there is the claim that Michael Phelps, for example, has double the lung-capacity of most humans, which has been disproven.

And while he does have some physical advantages, like longer arms and shorter legs, while being tall, so does everybody else he is competing against!

What made the difference in their ability was not their born talents but rather the way they approached what they did.

They were willing to work harder and produce more than anyone else was willing to.

They are willing to do whatever it takes, go the extra mile and do more than those around them, which is what eventually gets them to succeed.

I remember reading an article back when Michael Phelps was just getting traction, that talked about how ridiculous his training regiment is and how it was way too intense.

At the time many doctors and health experts argued about his routine.

Today, I cannot find any article even mentioning that he was doing too much anymore.

After about 2 days of looking for that article I gave up.

All articles about him only praise his efforts and his routine; obviously because it worked.

He revolutionized the field.

The same can be said about Mahatma Gandhi, who did something no one else dared to do to make a statement that inspired millions.

And the effort that Muhammad Ali made can be clearly seen by one of his quotes:

I don’t count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. That is when I start counting, because then it really counts.

That’s what makes you A CHAMPION. — Muhammad Ali

Each of them made their entire day about training, sacrificing a lot of their day so they could focus on just that one thing.

And then we wonder why we cannot succeed.

The big question you need to ask yourself is: Are you doing enough?

Are the results showing up in the way you want to? Are you succeeding or do you need to do more?

Now, I cannot give you the exact stats of the men named above, as every page I visited had different numbers they boasted about, most of them disclaiming each other.

So I will instead share my own story and numbers to make this point.

Now I am by no means even close to as great as the men above, but I hope the point still comes across.

I started out as a Writer with a WordPress Blog.

At the beginning, it was just to practice my consistency and I wrote about 300 posts in my first year, yielding a total of 20 followers.

This was very little and so I switched to a site called Quora. In my first 6 months there I wrote about 1,000 posts, averaging 3 a day, before I wrote one answer that went viral.

This was back in 2016. Since then I have averaged about 3 posts a day consistently over the years.

I have been published on The Huffington Post, Time, and many more sites, have over 75,000 followers, 60M content views and get over 1M views a month still, and none of it because I was a good writer!

My very first post that I wrote was a page long block of text that was essentially a Writer’s Nightmare.

The only thing that pushed me through was that no one else wrote that much.

Many people wrote one post a day, if that, some even less.

And let me tell you this, after 18 Months of writing every day, the one viral post did not feel like a stroke of luck anymore, it felt deserved.

The point I want to make here is it is not about where you start or what prerequisites you have.

Winning is not about being better than everybody else.

Winning is about being the last person running in a race where everyone else gave up.

If you want to win you have to break through the noise by either doing more than others are willing to or doing it longer than they want to.

I have seen so many amazing writers leave Quora to never write again because they just did not break through the noise.

Mahatma Gandhi just did not eat, Michael Phelps only swam a lot, and Muhammad Ali trained a bit.

We have all done these things before, they are nothing special when you look at them like that. It’s not like they invented something none of us could ever dream of or did something that was so unbelievable it looked like Magic.

What made them special was the fact that they kept pushing and kept going with it when many people around them gave up or would have given up!

So let me ask you this then: Are you doing anything that stands out?

When you are working out do you do more and take shorter breaks than anyone else? When you are with your partner do you give them more attention and love than they can handle? When you are working at your job, do you work 10x more than any of your colleagues?

Are you doing anything that stands out?

You cannot expect yourself to win by just doing what everyone else is doing.

Sorry, but you are just not that special!

You have to become special by doing something extraordinary, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible:

Extra-Ordinary!

That means you do not overexert yourself.

Don’t expect to be able to train 6–8 hours a day, 7 days a week after having done no training at all.

Take it one step at a time but work yourself up and stay committed to it.

If you have the time and energy, then you can push further faster; it will get easier.

The 3 posts I wrote took anywhere from 3–6 hours a day at first. Now I can often write better posts in 15 minutes.

It does get easier.

Pick something, anything in your life that you wish to win at, and commit yourself to more of that.

Even if it is just an hour a day, if you do it long enough you will become absolutely amazing at it.

Push your limits day by day, even one more minute each day gets you 6 hours more in just one year.

“Let me tell you something you already know.

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.

It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard ya hit.

It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.

That’s how winning is done!” — Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

Breaking US Sanctions: How Huawei Changed US-China Tech War

Carl Zha talks to tech expert TP Huang about how latest Huawei breakthrough in advanced chip design and manufacturing is a game changer in the US waged tech war and economic war against China. Why ultimately US sanctions on China will fail. The rest of this interview is on my Patreon site

Of those who join the U.S. military, how many end up in unglamorous jobs like driving a supply truck or handling paperwork in an office?

During WW2 there was a company that always submitted excellent paper work, head Quarters noticed this and moved their clerk typist to Headquarters, Battalion noticed him and moved him up to their office, he continued to be so dependable the higher ups wanted him, so eventually he ended up in Eisenhower’s front office.

One day, A hard nosed colonel came in to the office and demanded to see Ike, now. The clerk typist asked him, what does this pertain to? The Colonel started getting loud, said he didn’t need to explain anything to a clerk typist.

Ike came out to see the commotion, the colonel again was indignant.

Ike looked around the waiting room, saw another colonel sitting there, took an eagle pin off that colonel’s collar, and pinned it on the collar of the clerk, and said “ Now tell the colonel what you want”, and returned into his office.

The clerk was a colonel for the duration of his enlistment.

What did you learn in the military that has been useful for your civilian life?

During basic training, I did a lot of cleaning.

On a daily basis, my team and I would clean toilets, floors, rooms, the kitchen, our rifles, the floor around the barracks, our vests, our magazines and even the dog who lived in the barracks. I hated it.

I truly did not understand why I was spending months of paratrooper training time to clean up places that were spotless, instead of shooting and learning to fight.

And then I experienced my first operation.

My team and I were sent with four vehicles to meet up with a field intelligence unit, and prepare for the operation.

I remember meeting the field intelligence guys. It was the first time in my service meeting men, on duty, serving in a different unit than mine.

Their gear was obviously ill maintained, their vehicles were disgusting and dusty, and I could see the soot on the barrels of their rifles who have obviously not been cleaned in weeks. I wanted to tell their commander he was doing a shit job at maintaining his team’s gear.

And then it struck me.

All that cleaning during training has turned me into a neat freak.

Everything, even now in my apartment, needs to be perfectly placed, spotless and maintained. There are no excuses, and there should be none. An organized living is the basis for an organized life.

The lesson I took from all this epiphany?

There is shit in life you will not want to do, and you might even hate doing it, but truly successful people do the things they do not want to do, as best as they can, because eventually it will pay off in the long run.

China-Japan-South Korea Upcoming Summit: What’s Behind this Surprising Diplomatic Shift??

In a surprising turn of events, China has recently announced its willingness to hold a summit with Japan and South Korea leaders. This unexpected move begs the question: what has prompted this significant change? Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, revealed that the three countries have reached an agreement to convene a meeting of their foreign ministers “in the next few months,” with the intention of facilitating a gathering of leaders as soon as possible. Undoubtedly, this initiative is driven by the collective interests of the three parties involved.

This development comes on the heels of China’s denouncement, in late August, of the statement released at the conclusion of the Camp David summit. The gathering, which brought together the leaders of the US, Japan, and South Korea, raised concerns about transforming the Asia-Pacific region into a geopolitical battleground. However, China’s willingness to engage in dialogue with its neighboring nations demonstrates an intriguing diplomatic shift. Be sure to subscribe to my channel for regular updates on global affairs & geopolitical shifts. Don’t miss out on my in-depth analysis of significant events shaping the world today!

The US is digging for a deeper hole.

As Washington reportedly plans to update its export curbs against China in October, an analysis report by a Dutch media posits that the previous export curbs imposed a year ago exposed the Biden Administration seem to have no clear idea of their objectives.

According to Dutch media Bits&Chips, the semiconductor restrictions against China are likely a product of the US struggle between hawks and doves concerning the China issue, leading to loopholes and a lack of clear goals.

To consider the interests of US-based semiconductor equipment and material suppliers, the US government allows the delivery of equipment that may be used to make advanced chips, highlighting the incompleteness and inconsistency of the curbs.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security set a threshold that requires exporters to get a license before shipping to China for equipment that can make logic chips with FinFET or GAAFET architecture of 16/14nm or below. However, the current export controls are insufficient if US export controls aim to deny China’s production capabilities of 14nm and below.

For example, ASML’s NXT:1980Di, capable of making 7nm chips using multiple patterning, is not subject to the current curbs . Suppliers, such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA, continue to deliver advanced products to China.

On the other hand, the US may not achieve its intended results if it aims to prevent China’s progress in the semiconductor industry, as demonstrated by Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro, which highlights the fact that China can make advanced chips without advanced equipment.

As Reuters reported that the US is reportedly expected to unveil an update for the export controls in the coming days, it may be challenging for related suppliers to adapt to tighter controls if the US tries to close the loopholes.

Huawei has obtained crucial patents on 6G technology, which may allow the Chinese company to thrive in the 6G era, according to Simon Chen, chairman of Adata Technology.

When did you realize small things matter?

7:02 am:

The shop’s doors just opened for the day.

A green Toyota Celica drove into the customers’ parking space and a man alighted and walked into the store.

He was a first-time caller.

He was supporting his trousers with his hands.

Please I just need a belt. My belt snapped in the car, and I live far away from here. I am late for work and I don’t have money on me now. Can you trust me, I will bring the money at the close of work today’.

O My God!

First business of the day!

A man I never knew?

And here in this country, Nigeria?

Give him, he looks genuine. Could as well happen to you!’, one side of the brain was preaching.

Don’t!! Could be one of them. You’ll lose if you do!!’, the other side was screaming and countering.

Why can’t we live in a world where we can trust people and help them without fear?’, I was trying to make sense of this mental back-and-forth.

I gave him a very good quality belt, made the necessary perforations and he thanked me profusely and left.

5:06 pm:

The green Toyota Celica pulled up.

It was him.

To make good his promise.

Why isn’t life just this good!

Today, many years after that day, he no longer works around the area or passes through the route daily, but for such a small thing, he is one of my most valuable customers and has repaid the trust many, many times over.

Texas Jambalaya

2023 11 07 15 37
2023 11 07 15 37

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
  • 1/2 cup diced celery
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic
  • 1 cup converted rice, uncooked
  • 4 ounces smoked sausage, cut into 1/4 inch slices
  • 4 ounces ham, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 2 cans Ro*Tel diced tomatoes and green chiles
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 cans Ranch Style Texas beans, undrained

Instructions

  1. In a 5 quart saucepot over medium-high heat, heat oil.
  2. Add onion, green pepper and celery; cook until onions are translucent.
  3. Add garlic, cook 1 minute longer.
  4. Add rice, sausage and ham. Cook 2 to 3 minutes to coat rice with oil, stirring frequently.
  5. Add next 4 ingredients and heat to boiling.
  6. Cover and steam 20 to 25 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed.
  7. Remove bay leaf, stir in beans and serve.

The Exhausted and Unable to Survive, the Cat was Thrown Out on the Grass to Die

Bless you for saving this baby from death…

Why did Chariots lose their popularity on the battlefield?

On the 1st of October, 331 B.C.E., the Persian king Darius III finally had that Macedonian pest Alexander the Great right where he wanted him – on a big flat plain where Darius could make full use of his cavalry and 2–1 numerical advantage against the Greek upstart.

The location was Gaugamela in what’s now northern Iraq. For the past three years Alexander had been making Darius’s life a living hell but it was payback time.

At the head of Darius’s forces were 200 heavy chariots. The plan was, as usual, to unleash these monsters running at full speed into the Greek infantry lines. The weather was good, the field was dry – perfect conditions for slaughtering the Greeks and sending them all the way back to the Aegean.

Things…. didn’t work out. As with any battle that took place 3,300 years ago there were different stories about what happened. The only things we know for sure are:

  1. Alexander’s forces killed or captured most of the Persian army at a loss of no more than 1,500 troops; and
  2. The chariots turned out to be entirely useless.

Alexander knew the problem posed by the chariots and was ready for them. He drilled his men to fall back into pockets that would allow the chariot to penetrate the line, only to be met by infantrymen with their spears jammed into the ground pointing directly at the pocket.

What would happen is the horses, running at full speed, would run into the pocket but, facing the spears, would stop suddenly. The charioteers would find themselves surrounded on three sides and no way forward, and horses and chariots don’t reverse easily. As you can see, the chariots mostly went through the gap in the Macedonian line, only to find Alexander leading a cavalry charge back at the gap that wiped them out entirely.

The tactic remained a military favourite against horse soldiers for most of the next 1,800 years.

When the tactic was revived in the 15th century, it similarly made knights on horseback pretty much obsolete.

After Gaugumela, Alexander’s tactics were similarly widely adopted and the use of chariots started to tail off as they became ineffective and easy to lose.

Rich Men North Of Richmond, but it’s a Rap Type Beat

Made a beat to the song everyones talking about rn – Rich Men North Of Richmond by Oliver Anthony. Had a lot of fun with this one, went from idea to finished product in a day. The song isn’t set to a bpm so forgive me for parts that are off time, it was tough putting it all in time. Also shoutout to @TimGuitarLessons I used his audio in some parts.

Why do Westerners like you defend China online?

As you get older, you realize that people who lie constantly have some kind of mental problem. It might be a habit; a neurosis, or a DMS-4 illness. But they are not “right in the head”. Something (not saying what it is) is wrong.

Fully functioning adults do not need to lie. They say things as they are. If they don;t want to answer a question, they say so. They have self-confidence, pride and a sense of self-worth.

When I first came to China I started to compare my life as an American, to that of China.

And, as such, I quickly realized that SOMETHING was seriously, very seriously wrong with the United States.

The best way for me to describe this is to imagine that you are married to a mentally ill person. (I was, by the way. My first wife was schizo-effective; which had the worst qualities of bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia). Then you get divorced, and meet up with a healthy person.

It was like that.

I am in China. It is a healthy nation. It is calm and peaceful. The leadership works towards allowing people freedom and happiness, and it shows.

When I was in the United States, however, everything was a struggle. One problem after the other. And today, it’s only getting worse.

Why do I defend China?

Because a mentally ill nation is attacking it using every single DSM-4 technique in the book.

Has a patient ever been forgotten in an exam room?

My girlfriend was to remove the patient’s prostate through a so-called radical prostatectomy. It was Wednesday morning, a couple of weeks ago.

And Wednesdays can be tough.

A typical Wednesday typically includes brutally waking up very early, getting ready, driving to the hospital, and starting the first scheduled surgery at 8AM sharp. Usually a number of operations are planned, depending on the time they take, and urgency.

The afternoon typically consists of a large number of consultations.

After consulting, she usually drives to her father’s house (which is pretty far away from the hospital), because our daughter will be there, but before leaving the hospital, she always visits the patients who had surgery in the morning to have a little chat about the operation, about how the patient is feeling, and about everyday stuff.

When she was back home, we fetched a drink and talked about our day (“what a day, what a day, what a day”), and watched some TV before dinner.

Suddenly she shouted:

I forgot to see my patient !!”

The prostate man. In all the Wednesday hubbub, she had totally forgotten about the patient, and driven out of the hospital with other things on her mind. She immediately called the hospital and asked a nurse to tell the patient that she would visit him first thing next morning — promised !

The poor man had been a bit worried, thinking that something was wrong, that the cancer was worse than she had expected, and that this was the reason why she did not come.

But next morning, when the doctor was in the house again, he was a happy man. The operation went as planned, and the cancer would be gone now.

Thursdays are often much better than Wednesdays.

What is China’s response if Germany proceeds with banning Huawei and Chinese manufacturers from its 5G networks?

Germany is not the US.

Just because China puts up with US bullying doesn’t mean China has to put up with the same shit from a much weaker nation. In fact, Germany is seen kind of like a joke nowadays by the Chinese public, politically, due to it staying silent on NATO blowing up its Nord stream pipeline, and this public sentiment limits how much compromise the Chinese government can have with Germany. Instead of sitting idle and just take the unfair abuse on what’s now pride of Chinese companies for Huawei’s standing up to the US, China would more likely set Germany up as an example in the Chinese philosophy of “kill the chicken to scare the monkeys”.

I can see China starting by reacting proportionately with banning of Siemens from some operations inside China, as well as making life miserable for German cars, which are extremely dependant on China as their largest market worldwide and their factory as well since energy prices drove up costs in Europe, but China being China, it would reserve the stronger responses in hopes of descalation, and would only apply them if Germany escalates things further.

Things are going very, VERY, wrong; Netanyahu Tells Israelis to “Leave Egypt”

World Hal Turner

Things in the Hamas-Israel fight are going very much wrong for Israel.  This afternoon, The US ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to move into the eastern Mediterranean Sea to be closer to Israel. This signals ALL the players that the US is moving-in to get involved militarily.  The Players are NOT backing away.

Hamas: Moving the American aircraft carrier does not scare us, and the American administration must realize the consequences of this step.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office calls on Israelis to leave Egypt ‘as soon as possible.’  This is a HUGE . . . no . . . . GIGANTIC . . . flashing RED sign.

Egypt was the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel, and depending upon what course Israel pursues in Gaza (i.e. possible Ground Invasion) that peace with Egypt may now be in very real jeopardy.

The Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas, who was safely away in Jordan, is now leaving Jordan and heading into Syria.

In earlier reporting, I mentioned Intelligence info that Palestinians in Israel got word to their allies elsewhere to be ready to turn up the heat on Europe if Israel engages in a ground war.   Now, we see they also got word to their pals in New York City, where, this afternoon, supporters of the Palestinians and supporters of Israel faced each other in Times Square.   Chanting . . . for now . . . .

American Middle Class Is the New Poor | Renters Are Out of Options

Working and homeless! The new slogan. It’s not always drug addiction that leads to this. We NEED to stop this stereotype. Cost of living, especially rent is far outpacing wages which are not even remotely keeping up.. For people with no roommates or family to move in with and not making more than 75K, it’s rough out there.

Having fun with the 007 movie Goldfinger (1964)

This is part 2 of my orgy of James Bond movies. This time it’s with a classic movie titled “Goldfinger”.

Usually during Christmas I spend extra time to make the holiday a little bit special. One way that I do this is with rituals, and pomp. That means a Christmas tree, some decorations and music. I also like to wear a special Santa hat. Another way is with food. KFC, and hot ham and tomatoes on fresh bread. Mustard with sausages, and lots of cold cuts. And a third way is with movies. Not just Christmas movies, but some older movies just for the fun of it. Today, we will chat a little about a nice fine James Bond movie “Goldfinger” (1964).

So you sit down with your favorite beverage. You gather your friends, family and pets. Or if it is late at night, you gather a bowl of potato chips alone, and sit down to enjoy this movie.

Today I would like to promote the idea of enjoying some delicious chocolate moose, on a nice tray, while you enjoy the movie.

A delicious chocolate moose.

Doesn’t that look tasty…?

And here is our hero;

James Bond fighting the powers of evil during the Cold War. He does look good in suits, and I really do like how he is able to keep his hair all nice and tidy when he gets involved in a tussle.

James Bond in Goldfinger

This movie differs from Dr No in that it is more action / adventure. There is more fighting. More science. More gadgets. and really only one girl that James Bond cavorts with.

Just one. Or maybe two.

Perhaps three.

But that’s it.

Tops.

It’s treated as a top 007 Bond movie because of that, but you know, I think that it fails in that regard as much as it is praised.

Certainly the laser beam that going to cut bond in two is enticing for the six year old boy inside of me, and the idea of scientific geniuses taking over the world has merit, but really, where’s the interesting chit-chat and the fine bed-side manner?

It’s all cavort and plunder. Cavort and plunder.

Hum…

James Bond in Goldfinger

She’s a feisty vixen. Eh?

I’ll bet you that she (removes the snarl and fierce expression) would be a blast to go out with. Maybe go for some nice dessert. And in my mind, a nice dessert is a strawberry shortcake. No question about it at all. hands down.

I know. I know. I know.

Strawberry shortcake is for Springtime dates, and Summer outings. Oh don’t fall for that disinformation. It’s just perfect anytime of the year. Look at just how Christmassy festive it is.

A nice strawberry shortcake.

So imagine that you are out with this chick (girl). Her name is Pussy Galore…

Which in American slang means “always open for copus quantities of indiscriminate sex”. Which is kind of an “inside joke” if you are an American.

And then after a fine delicious strawberry shortcake, a nice walk down the boardwalk (well, I am imagining a seaside stroll after all). Then a stroll to the hotel, or bungalow.

Maybe a passionate embrace and wet sexy kiss once the door is closed.

I wonder what is going to happen in their relationship? Well, knowing what I know about James Bond movies I can extrapolate. Let’s see how accurate I am…

Adventures in bed.

Oh my!

By their expressions it does seem like they are having some fun. I’ll bet that about twenty to forty minutes later, Bond is smoking a cigarette, and she’s just purring while looking at herself in the mirror, and primping a bit.

And I am not complaining. I think that women look their best while they are getting pretty. Not afterwards. Life is a journey. Not a destination. Which is why I wrote my article on why it is critically important for a woman to have her own very special vanity, with a HUGE circular mirror. HERE.

But you know, being a secret agent is difficult business…

James Bond in Goldfinger

You never know when a car passes you by and shreds up your tires! Yikes.

I’m not sure, but I believe that this movie was the one that set the trend for automobile gadgets in the James Bond vehicles. When I was younger I had a Corgi version of the James Bond car. It had a escape passenger seat, a rear shield that would cover the rear window, machine guns in the front, shredding do-hickeys in the wheels, and a jet engine exhaust in the trunk. It was pretty cool, I’ll tell you what.

Toy James Bond Car.

Here we see Jame Bond in a well appointed private jet, and a very attractive Chinese stewardess. You know, I could never figure out why the costume would expose her cute belly, but not show her bellybutton. That belly button is the most erotic part of a woman’s belly, don’t you know.

But that’s life.

Hollywood has distinct rules on what can and cannot be shown on the “big movie screen”. And belly buttons are absolutely verboten! (Sounds of marching, goose-stepping Nazi Germans in the background. No. I’m not insulting Germans. I’m just playing with mental images of World War II movies.)

I see all the classics are on the shelves, as well as a quaintly dated telephone on the desk.

That “wood trim” is obviously cheep vinyl wall-paper. Sheech! You would think that evil scientists would appreciate the natural hues and textures of real wood in their private jet aircraft.

Vinyl is just…

…tacky.

Well, it is.

It’s sort of like giving a starving dog a rubber bone. It looks like the real things, but it isn’t and once you taste the bitterness of vacuum, the nightmare memories of what you thought you were getting ring like a hollow bell in a deep dark cavern.

Anyways, James Bond is a man of many talents.

Here’s James Bond tackling with some kind of a bomb. I’ll bet you that there a count-down going on and that he only has seconds left before every thing goes kablooey! How nice that the bomb has these red and yellow indicator lights and wires that you can rip out to render the bomb inert.

James Bond in Goldfinger

And here we have the “bad guys” trying to use a laser to break into Fort Knox to get all the gold there. Good luck with that! That place has been looted and sitting empty for decades.

Is it me, or does that laser look like a giant syringe?

The uniforms are curious. They are wearing battleship greys, and Chinese 19th century Boxer slipper. Though, I have yet to figure out what the black and yellow thing-a-min-jib around their waists are. Maybe it’s some kind of henchmen life preserver. Eh?

Why does the door to the vault look like a suburban garage door?

James Bond in Goldfinger

This movie has lots and lots of twists and turns. We’ve got James Bond fighting with landing a plane, laser beams, lots and lots of gold, henchmen, pretty girls with some fine charms and incredibly strong vixen capabilities.

The movie starts off with a bomb.

Seriously. There a bomb that has to be dealt with. And you know, it’s a job that only James Bond can handle.

James Bond bomb.

That’s where things start to get interesting.

After a quick tussle, some fighting and the bathtub electrocution, we are introduced to the always calm and confident James Bond. I do love him in the white tux, and I have to admit that the red carnation is a nice touch. Don’t you all think so?

You will note that a white tux is formal, while a deep blue tux is for semi-formal events. Nice lapels, but I think a shawl collar would have been a slightly better touch. Look at those nice shoulders. A nice cut suit for certain.

Too bad he’s in what appears to be a garbage-variety boat garage. I can just smell the rotting fish, the stale dried sea moss, and hear the waves lap up against the bollards.

James Bond in top style.

So many cool things in the movie don’t you know.

There’s all sorts of cool adventures. All done and carried out in a span under five minutes. Bombs, killings, good guys, bad guys. Nice fancy and swanky venues.

Even a few cats.

Somehow Bond finds his way into a room with an attractive nude woman taking a bubble bath in the tub. Of course, this is the 1960’s and since he is wearing a tux, and he is (after all) James Bond, he seduces her which his devilish good looks…

…and well, you can guess the rest.

James Bond getting some “nooky”

After the credits finish rolling, we find James Bond by the pool.

Certainly the fashions have changed, but a beautiful girl is a beautiful girl, and I for one would not throw her into the pool. I’ll tell you what.

I do like her cleavage. I wonder whats down there. Maybe some money, a set of keys, or a venomous poison spider to attack 007 with. Being a secret agent is a risky business, don’t you know.

Nice cleavage.

Boy!

James bond is hairy. Don’t you think?

Ah. But the ladies don’t mind. They think it is sexy.

Of course, my chest hair is all white, and sometimes my wife absentmindedly plucks a chest hair away. Ouch! Come on girls. It’s sensitive!

Oh, and by the way, I do like how all the maids fall into the arms of James Bond. He’s quite the “Ladies Man” don’t you know.

Look at his legs. So very hairy as well. No wonder he is rarely shown rearing shorts.

Ladies man.

He really is, however, quite the ladies man.

Here’s James Bond “copping a feel” with the fine girl that massaged the oil on his back. I note that the evil villain NPC smiles in approval.

Copping a feel.

There’s many half-clad girls in James Bond movies.

Here’s a chick that will feature predominately later on. Shes busy on the VHF, or is it a UHF, or maybe just a CB radio.  She’s got a fine backside. Nice and oiled up and toasty from the hot sun. She’s really just eye candy for the audience, though, don’t you know.

She’s a lure to take James Bond on an adventure.

Nice backside.

Of course, we know that shes a spy.

Gasp!

And James Bond is going to use her… well, he thinks anyways. Here she is spying away. And James is very interested in her technique. And she, obviously, is very interested in his manly chin.

Spycraft. Always a tense moment.

The movie has all sorts of interesting adventures and situations.

And some of the most interesting occur in, on, and beside, the beds. But you know, for some reason there’s always telephones near and on the beds. I mean… really. You want to rest on a bed, or you want to have sex on a bed. But the telephone is just a distraction. You really don’t want to be interrupted when you are in a dream, or having sex. I mean, that’s just not fun. How can you concentrate?

Right?

Nothing quite breaks up the mood as a ringing telephone when you are in the middle of something interesting.

Telephones and beds so not match.

Oh, and by the way, she’s a pretend blonde. You can tell by her eyebrows. She’s intentionally dyed her hair a harlot platinum blonde. Not that it’s bad, mind you. I happen to enjoy harlots. It’s a personal favorite activity of mine, don’t you know. But I do like women to be themselves.

I am so turned on by a woman wearing pajamas, in the house, or a tee shit and jeans outside rather than get all dressed up. Of course, I do enjoy when a woman gets dressed up, but on the sexiness scale, a “real” woman being herself just oozes sex. It’s like when they cook food. OMG.

There is few things sexier than a woman cooking.

Well, aside from coming out of the shower.

Anyways…

Anyways, having sex with James bond can be dangerous. As is shown in this scene here…

…Yikes!

Yikes!

For you all who are unawares, this chick didn’t get a chance to read the “Time magazine” on the table, nor flick though those stacks of phone books. Poor girl. She has missed on on so much.

Well…

Life goes on.

Here he is flirting with his bosses secretary…

Flirting for fun and advantage.

Ah, there’s a lot of things happening…

And I don’t want to give away the plot.

But, I can give you a hint of things to come. There’s guns, sex, difficult situations, lasers, plans, evil, and airplanes.

Oh my goodness!

A lot of things happen from here to there.

There’s a guy , Asian no doubt, that has this decapitating hat, and he’s a sight to behold. The evil genus is a pug-like portly fellow.

However, things aren’t always tea and crumpets. Sometimes you can get hit on the head and wake up on a slab with a evil laser ready to cut you into two.

Not that I ever had THAT particular experience, don’t you know.

Things aren’t always tea and crumpets.

And on and on.

Oh! By the way. Do you all put up stockings for Christmas? We do. And we fill it with these little Japanese (actually Chinese, sold under a Japanese brand name) little figurines, and some healthy candy.

You do not have to spend a lot of money on Christmas. All you need to do is make it special for the ones you love.

And that, of course means left over turkey sandwiches…

Left over hot turkey sandwich.

This one looks like it uses English muffins, or grilled crumpets, potato bread with coleslaw, cranberries, stuffing, and turkey to make the delicious dish. I would add hot turkey gravy, myself.

Or, turkey soup..

A nice bowl of hot turkey soup.

And what is soup without some nice crusty bread and butter / cheese. Eh?

Here we see Bond and his latest newly acquired vixen friend trying to land a dangerously out of control airplane.

James Bond in Goldfinger

Of course, everyone is concerned.

You can tell that they are by looking at their expressions in the airport control tower.  It’s all a matter of high international importance!

James Bond in Goldfinger

But you know all ends well.

James Bond lands safely using a parachute, and he and his vixen friend decide to celebrate! You know, in ways that are relaxing, strenuous, and enjoyable.

Twenty minutes later, Bond is smoking a cigarette, and the Vixen (whose name is Pussy Galore – wonder if she lives up to the name) is adjusting her hair so the next great adventure.

A happy ending

James Bond in Goldfinger

Now wasn’t that nice?

If I were to host a movie party…

Obviously I don’t. My idea of a movie is a rare thing that I do as a special family time. But in the past I would host a movie “party”. But I used to do it. And if I were to do it again, I would project the movie big on the wall. (I used to do this, but the projector remains stolen. Sigh.)

And I would play some vintage  “Let’s go to the movie” cartoons, and about three or four vintage movie trailers. To get the entire scene going. Not to mention popping some popcorn for the proper smells of a movie theater.

If you are going to do something, why not go all out and make it special? Hum?

Now for some fun

Now for a real gold-finger girl. Video 2MB

And a Christmas girl…

Merry Christmas to you all from China. video 2MB

Sexy video 1

This video is so sexy! video 3MB

Sexy video 2

Man oh man! Sexy! video. 1MB

Sexy girl 3 plus a fine pussy.

How to make delicious gourmet cat food. OMG, and a kitty cat too! video 3MB

And some real deal fun . fun . fun.

Bouncy – bouncy – bouncy. Put it on a loop. Jeeze!

I could watch this all day. LOL. Video 1MB

Finally…

Spend time with your friends. Life is too short not to have fun. video 2MB

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my Movie Index here…

MOVIES

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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Enjoying the 007 movie Dr No (1963) as a fine pastime with friends and family

Usually during Christmas I spend extra time to make the holiday a little bit special. One way that I do this is with rituals, and pomp. That means a Christmas tree, some decorations and music. I also like to wear a special Santa hat. Another way is with food. KFC, and hot ham and tomatoes on fresh bread. Mustard with sausages, and lots of cold cuts. And a third way is with movies. Not just Christmas movies, but some older movies just for the fun of it. Today, we will chat a little about a nice fine James Bond movie “Dr No” (1963).

It’s a classic, and I love it. Guys wearing tuxes, nice suit jackets, cavorting with pretty ladies who are wearing gowns, bikinis, or just a simple towel. And the gambling, alcohol and the cigarettes. Not to mention the occasional fist fight and small arms fire. Classic. It speaks to the man in me.

No CGI here. It’s mostly dialog and chatting.

I can really relate to this scene. Can’t you?

Why do women look so tasty when their hair is disheveled? And my oh my, why aren’t men wearing blazers any more. Look at now nice it fit him.

Simple blazer. Simple black tie. Simple blue-white shirt. All alone in a tropical bungalow. You can almost smell the tropical lushness, hear the ocean waves, and listen to the tropical birds out the window.

Oh, and my she does have nice shoulders. Doesn’t she?

Nice tux. With a nice thin bow tie. He looks good, don’t you think?

When a man wears a tux, all eyes should be on the lady that accompanies him. In this case she is wearing an eye-popping red dress with one shoulder exposed. It’s her best shoulder, I believe. Nice lips. Look at her lips. And by the way, those earrings are nice match for the dress. Lips, fingernails, dress all nicely coordinated.

She’s carrying a gold purse and lots and lots of gambling chips. My goodness!

Here’s a great shot showing all the cool gadgets 007 has. In this scene he is off picnicking and cavorting with a beautiful gal in a nice pattern bikini, while talking on a telephone in his car! Imagine that! A phone in the convertible. WOW!

Love those James Bond gadgets.

The phone plays a big role in this particular James Bond flick. You have phones in cars. Phones in hotel rooms. Phones in the rooms of the beautiful girls. Phones with the bad guys. Phones with the evil doctor. Phones in the 007 office and phones on the bed.

Nothing like making a quick call while you are discussing important matters in bed with the girl you just met.

Pack of cigarettes, and a notepad by the bed. Oh, how charming!

I once read that by wearing a tux, the perceived attractiveness of a man increase three points. (On a scale of zero to ten.) There’s something about a well made, well fitting, tux, with the clean lines and appearance that speaks to me. Too bad I never have any opportunities to wear my tuxes any more. The last time I wore it was at my father funeral.

I think that a tux is better reserved for seduction, personal enjoyments and pleasures. Who doesn’t want to look their best? And besides, any (American) policeman would think twice before pulling over or arresting anyone in a tux.

Doesn’t he look good?

The room decor seems a bit dated. For a while in the 1960’s everyone seemed to have paintings / pictures of clowns, cats with big eyes, and old fashioned cars. Don’t ask me why. It was a “thing” back then.

Like this…

Big eyed kids.

Yeah. I guess that you would need to have lived through that area to appreciate it.

I do love this next picture. He thinks he’s in control, but it’s really the woman who is controlling the entire scene.

This interplay is just great.

Hey! Do you all know what goes great with a nice James Bond classic movie? Aside from beer or wine?

That’s right.

Cheese, crackers, bread and cold cuts. My father used to make up a platter of these kinds of cheeses, sardines, olives, pickles, and crackers when he would watch a movie. It sort of looked a little bit like this…

Cold cut spread.

I suppose everyone is different. I hear that the preferred snack food in the States these days are Doritos, or Lays potato chips. I can understand why, but you all know that you need to have a decent dip with them to fully appreciate and savor the enjoyment of the food.

Now, when I was growing up, one thing that my father liked to do was eat Limburger cheese sandwiches with a big thick slice of tomato. Yeah, I guess it’s sort of a generational thing don’t you know. He also liked liverwurst. I ended up getting a taste for it myself, but only on sandwiches.

Liverwurst sandwich.

Anyways, Christmas is a time of many things. For me I really enjoy the movies, the food, the friends and the general atmosphere. It’s a chance to eat well, and to eat things that you enjoy. You know, most of the time people don’t give pickles a second thought, but at Christmas time, well that’s when all the dill pickles, the baby gherkins, and the Grandma’s butter chip pickles come out. Yum!

This next picture show some lousy bread, but some pickles and good selection of cheese. Personally I think that the ingredients are enough for one or two sandwiches max. Kinda skimpy if you ask me. But it looks good. Oh, yeah. Don’t forget the horseradish, the wasabi, the kielbasa, and  the various kinds of relishes that can be bought and found everywhere.

Sometimes you don’t always have the right ingredients on hand, so you make do.

i think that it’s really a great thing to do, don’t you know, to sit down with a glass of wine. Some fine cheeses, and watch an older movie. I really enjoy the older movies. they are not so adrenaline-rush run-run-run action packed CGI affairs. It’s full of personal interactions, gestures, and movements. It’s more intellectually stimulating.

And more so with wine, cheese, and olives.

Did I ever mention that olives go great with wine? I really think so. A fine green or black olive dip is just wonderful. You heat up some olive oil with some thin cut up olives and mushrooms. A little Italian spices, and then spread the olives and mushrooms on the french bread. Oh so tasty.

The you sit down and watch the interesting interplay on the movie.

I do love that phone. It was state of the art back then. See the nice rattan chairs on the balcony on the porch, and the Chinese themed dangling red ornamental lantern. Curious eh? I most especially love the shadow of the phone cord on her soft chest. Sexy but not overt.

Of course, I am an old man, and this lass was my mothers age. So I’m looking back in time. When this movie was made, we had Robert Kennedy in office, and he was talking about getting out of Vietnam and shutting down the military-industrial complex. As it was getting too powerful.

Well, we do know what happened to him, don’t we?

Here’s some lox and bagels. You see the salmon to the left, and a fine cream cheese spread. You put the cream cheese on the bagel. Then lox, then lemon, then tomatoes and onions. Don’t forget the olives. (I note some sliced hard boiled eggs. What an interesting turn of events!) The wine is not shown, but no matter. Maybe a fine glass of orange juice is near by.

A good movie serves as a perfect excuse to eat.

And speaking about Christmas, James Bond, food and movies… I will bet you all that the most festive places to spend Christmas at must be in a pub or a brasserie. I remember one Christmas (When I say Christmas, I actually mean the entire month of December, and into January.) I went to an Irish Pub. Wow! So very festive. Drinking pints. Singing songs. Eating bangers and mash.

Bangers and mash served with a good stout. Yum!

I think that there is something really magical and special about the pub environment. It’s something that never was present in the Untied States. Pretty soon, America will probably ban bars completely. You know follow in the footsteps of NZ in banning everything. You know. “For the children”. Sigh.

I can only imagine what it must be like in Scotland, Ireland or in the UK today. Chilly and damp, but warm inside the pubs. I tell youse guys that you are so fortunate to be where you are. Don’t take what you have for granted. It’s special.

Here’s the interior of a typical British pub. People are hanging out. Talking, chatting. Drinking beer. Not too much in the way of electronic media, eh? Nope. Just companionship, friendship and acceptance. I really love that.

British pub.

I hear that some pubs really get festive and decorate everything up. I have no first hand knowledge about that. What I do know is what I have seen on the internet, and some places do more than just put up a tree. They make it special.

Christmas themed pub.

There are pubs in Hong Kong, and some are very nice. I can imagine that there would be pubs all over the former British territories.  I haven’t gone to the pubs in Hong Kong in years, even though I can see Hong Kong from my living room. It’s the Coronavirus thing don’t you know.

British pub in Hong Kong.

Now in Australia, they have these things called a brasserie. They are not found in the USA because one reason or the other.  It’s hard to tell why. I happen to like them.

In France, Flanders, and the Francophone world, a brasserie is a type of French restaurant with a relaxed setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. The word brasserie is also French for "brewery" and, by extension, "the brewing business". A brasserie can be expected to have professional service, printed menus, and, traditionally, white linen—unlike a bistro which may have none of these. Typically, a brasserie is open Wednesday to Sunday and serves the same menu all day. A good example of a brasserie dish is steak frites. 

-Wikipedia

The last time that I was in Sydney, Australia it was near Christmas time, and I truly enjoyed the Brasserie’s there. Again, like a pub, it was cheery and festive and warm. It was a very comfortable atmosphere to hang out in and enjoy the time with friends or family.

Sydney Australia, Brasserie.

Anyways, one of the things about Christmas is that you can socialize and spend time at home too relaxing. Good food. Being around those that you care about. Talking. Chatting. Exploring. Listening. Man, I need to do more listening, I’ll tell you what.

And watching good movies that relaxes and stimulates. Like 007 James Bond.

James on the beach being warned by the locals of hidden dangers and adventure.

In Dr. No, James Bond travels to the Caribbean. Being well attired, he meets interesting and colorful people. He embarks on a mission to save the world from evil and their evil influences. All the time enjoying the company of the attractive lasses whom he meets along the way.

Typically, as I would watch this kind of movie, I would set a platter or a plate of food nearby to smunch and nibble with. During Christmas, I’m trying to assign special foods like French breads, chocolate, and peanut-butter.  Not to mention the aromas wafting from the kitchen of fresh bead in the bread making machine (fun fact, I helped design bread makers for Sunbeam-Oster) and simmering sauces on the stove with garlic, onions, spices and peppers.

Here’s a lox and bagel platter.

Salmon snack tray.

Or course, my household always has alcohol.

You know, I never drank as much as I do now prior to my “retirement”. After I was retired, I  pretty much said “Fuck this”. And stopped worrying about what other people thought. If I wanted to smoke, I smoked. If I wanted to drink, I’d drink. If i wanted to to spend some time in a bedroom with a new friend, I would. You know, the USA has so many restrictions on you, that you have to tear them off and say STOP!

Live life on your terms.

Like James Bond.

Jame Bond talking with his bosses secretary. I do love the tea set on the filing cabinet.

Most men like to imagine ourselves like James Bond. Wearing a tux. Going to interesting places. Eating good food, and drinking. Being the master of our world. Cavorting with pretty women, and making new friends every night.

Alas, most of us is something else. We are actually more like Bruce Willis in “Die Hard”. That movie resonated to me on all sorts of areas and for all sorts of reasons. Of course, one is simply because of my MAJestic role. But another is because I am really just a normal guy; a regular man.

That’s John McClane. (Bruce Willis).

Die Hard

It’s neither good or bad. It’s just that being Bruce Willis in “Die Hard” is far more painful than being James Bond in “Dr No”. It’s something that us men can relate to. It’s about life, and being thrown into situations that aren’t really what you ever intended to happen.

Which is why movies are great. All movies, if they are well done, can become something that you not only enjoy, but something that you can relate to on some level.

Like food.

Now, doesn’t this look tasty?

Move review of Dr No, on “Empire“;

The beginning of the super-successful franchise, this remains one of the most satisfying Bond films.  Connery, with only a hint of irony, is the suave secret agent, introduced at a gaming table while lighting an expensive fag, enjoying an expense account Caribbean holiday that must have seemed like  unparalleled hedonism to British audiences who’d only just got over rationing. 

The license to kill gets several endorsements as Bond efficiently and brutally sees off dastardly baddies who are threatening world peace, and – in another fantastical touch – Britain holds the key to the balance of power. 

Dr No, a German-Japanese genius with metal hands, is about as credible as Fu Manchu, but Joseph Wiseman mints all the Bond villain clichés, from the gorgeously-designed island lair (courtesy art director Ken Adam) with built-in nuclear power plant (and a then-famously-stolen portrait of the Duke of Wellington hung on the wall) through to purred threats and attempts to convince 007 to sell out and join his evil organization (‘I thought you had some style, Mr Bond, but I see you’re just a stupid policeman’).  And, of course, there’s Ursula Andress as prototypical Bond girl Honey Ryder, emerging from the seas in a bikini with a knife strapped to her thigh, with her own reasons for wanting to see Dr No’s scheme for world conquest thwarted. 

That twangy guitar theme and the gunsight-iris titles sequence are in place already.  Series regulars Bernard Lee (M) and Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny) make their debuts, but Peter Burton plays Q (to be replaced by Desmond Llewellyn) and Jack Lord is CIA agent Felix Leiter (to be replaced by a succession of stooges).

Here’s James Bond deep inside the secret lair…

I do love how the attractive woman gathers near to him. You know, I like her better in this dress than the bikini (with the knife strapped to her thigh).  Notice that she has her top button unbuttoned. That’s not how you wear a qu pao. But it is erotic.

What do you think of her hair?

In those days all the ladies wore their hair “bee hive” style. I think that she started the trend for flowing lions manes like Raquel Welch in “one million years BC.”

Jame Bond rides the elevator.

You know, as much as I love this movie, you have to admit that the women of the 1960’s were all stunners.

Here’s Raquel Welch. I personally think that she would have made a fine, fine Bond girl. Don’t you?

Raquel Welch

Well, the point here is that Christmas is a time of togetherness. And that means making friends, spending time with the friends and family that you do have, and that you spend the time eating, drinking and talking. Emoting and sharing.

Whether it is in a pub, or at home in a restaurant. It does not matter.

Now, I do have to admit that my little daughter is not so interested in these kinds of “grown up” movies. She is more apt to watch “Peppa Pig”, or some kid-oriented Christmas movie. So you have to take that into account.

Though, she really enjoys “Two Broke Girls”. Who figures?

But she also really likes to sit by me (MM) – her daddy, and taste what I am eating, and be next to me. As a two year old she has a short attention span, so it’s still a trial. But it’s a precious trial. it’s family. It’s togetherness. It’s special.

I believe that a good movie is best shared with friends, family, alcohol and lots of delicious food. Oh, and a cat or two as well.

Oh yes. Did I fail to mention that cats love snack trays as well.

What would your cats do to a snack tray with thin sliced meats, salmon, and sausages? Well, I can tell you that they would jup up, snag a tasty morsel and then scamper away with it. Especially the ham. My goodness!

James Bond eating with Dr. No, and enjoying a fine smoke. Not much on the table though. Fruit and wine.

I love that view of the underwater ocean behind Dr. No. Not only does he have a secret lair built inside a volcano, but it reaches deep down underground and has windows so that the staff can enjoy the ocean view. How thoughtful of him. You see, bad guys aren’t all that terrible!

Here’s another scene. I love the newspaper on the bed, and the rotary dial phone nearby. What’s with her wearing high heels to bed? Are those her house slippers? If so, where the fur lining? Oh, sometimes the 1960’s can be so very confusing to me, don’t you know.

I have always loved the simple white robe on a woman.

You know, eating all the foods while you watch these olde timey movies can put some weight on, and make your belly grow. You don’t want to look nine months pregnant with twins, do you?

The way to control this is to add some nice fruit. Pay the extra money and buy some fruits that you normally don’t buy. Like cherries, or duran, or grapes. Don’t let the cost dissuade you. Let Christmas be the time for “outrageous” purchases.

Notice the generous quantities of cheese and meats.

Of course, with James Bond, you will always have the guns and the violence. But in Dr. No it’s rather tame. Less than 50 people were killed, and the karate chops were all rather quick and simple. No matrix-style events, or Chinese flying warriors walking on tree tops here.

It’s all rather calm and relatable.

Hot gun action!

Nice grey suit. I do like the black tie with the grey suit. It fits him nicely. It’s a nice color combination, and the cut of the suit fits him. It’s well cut, nice thin material, it’s the tropics after all, and his hair is always in place. Must be the Brill-creme hair tonic.

Here’s another view. You know it must be sweltering on the beach, but James Bond is calm and composed. His nice jacket sways in the slight breeze, while the boat captain is sweating in his red tee shirt.

James Bond on the beach.

When you make up a food spread choose your foods carefully.

Don’t go for processed cheese spread. Use real cheese instead. Do not use cheap inexpensive margarine. Use real salted bread instead. Do not use cheap chocolate with fillers. Use real chocolate. Pay the extra money to make the holiday special.

And presentation is everything.

Ok, so you aren’t going to drink wine. You are going to drink coke instead. Well then, crush up the ice and fill a tall glass with crushed ice, then pour the coke into the hyper iced glass. Presentation is everything. Wine uses wine glasses. Whiskey uses thick glass base tumblers, and beer, well… an iced mug is precious.

We should all appreciate cheese.

And when you are enjoying the movie, taking the savory bites, and chatting with friends and loved ones observe. Observe what they are doing, and saying and what is going on in the movie. All sorts of little details will “pop out” at you if you just are mindful…

Evil villain in anti-radiation attire.

And enjoy yourself.

Smile, say only good things. Listen to what others want and GIVE IT TO THEM. No need to argue. SO what? Make their day special. It’s a good feeling. And if someone wants to sing Christmas carols, then sing along. Get the dog a barking, and the cats following with you all as your all parade around the house to “Frosty the Snowman”.

Live life.

Food done right. Live life on your terms.

Live life on your terms.

Live like James Bond.

James Bond.

And be your best.

Smile, be kind, be helpful and do what you can to make the season special for all those around you.

Christmas is not about buying gifts, but you know, if you have gifts to wrap up, go overboard. Like @old-wine has. My goodness!

Making Christmas special .

And if you are not so talented, like MM here, perhaps something simpler like a bunch of aluminum foil wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches that toast comfortably in the oven.

Have a great time with your loved ones.

Show your appreciation, and share a good 007 James Bond movie. You will enjoy it. I promise you.

Ham and cheese sliders.

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my Movie Index here…

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Interview and remembrances of a United States Naval Aviator who flew A-6 Intruder bombers

Naval Aviation is a small club. As it should be. Here’s a great write up of the experiences of Paco and his experiences with the A-6 Intruder.

This guy flew “shake n’ bakes” in pursuit of “crispy critters”. Or at least that’s what we used to call it decades ago… “in the day”…

It's a great read. All credit to him for his autobiography, note that this was edited to fit this venue. The original article was found on .

Confessions Of An A-6 Intruder Pilot

Strap in alongside veteran pilot Francesco “Paco” Chierici for a trip back in time when A-6s still rocketed through canyons in the black of night.

It may not be as well known as its maker’s point-nosed, swing-wing counterpart, the F-14 Tomcat, but Grumman’s A-6 Intruder was also a movie star and served as the backbone of the carrier air wing’s all weather, deep strike capability for decades. The all-business A-6 was capable of doling out a very heavy punch far from its home at sea and it was most at home down low, deep in the weeds, barrelling through enemy territory under the darkness of night.

One A-6 pilot, Francesco “Paco” Chierici, flew the blunt-nosed attack jet during the twilight of its career and is about to share exactly what it is like to strap into the ‘flying drumstick’ and take it over hostile territory, down deep and dark ravines, and into the history books as it began to fade from the Navy’s inventory once and for all.

Paco’s experiences at the controls of the Intruder are especially noteworthy as he would go on to fly higher-performance aircraft, transitioning into the F-14 and later becoming an aggressor pilot in the F-5—areas we will discuss in part two of this series. So, suffice it to say, with thousands of hours in fast jets, Chierici has plenty to compare the A-6 to.

Francesco “Paco” Chierici

Paco has thousands of hours in fast jets, with the A-6 being the first fleet aircraft he was assigned to fly.

This tell-all feature also comes just as Paco released his first novel, Lions Of The Sky. If what you are about to read is any indication, his novel should be outstanding and we look forward to reviewing it soon.

​So, without further ado, let’s climb the intakes and step into the side-by-side cockpit of Grumman’s legendary deep strike phenom, and launch on alongside Paco on a ride to remember.

So ugly you had to force yourself to be fiercely proud of it

I’ll never forget the first time I walked up to an A-6. It was huge compared to the TA-4 Skyhawk jet trainer I had most recently flown. Nearly three times heavier. Two engines, versus one. Whereas the TA-4 was sleek and spindly on its tall landing gear, the Intruder was beefy and serious. The TA-4 looked nimble, the Tomcat was movie-pretty, the Intruder looked like what it was—a war club.

The cockpit of the Intruder was radically different as well. The visibility over the big bulbous nose wasn’t as good as the Skyhawk, but the side glass went all the way down to my hip. It was insane, you could practically see underneath the plane without even rolling.

USN

The instrument panel was much more serious, as well. It was absolutely filled with screens and switches. It was clearly a huge step up from the trainers I’d spent the last few years mastering. Now it would be less about the flying and more about the mission.

The biggest difference in the Intruder cockpit was the seat to my right, though. The Bombardier/Navigators (BNs) sat just below and aft of the pilot, but basically beside us. It was initially irritating to give up half of the cockpit, sacrificing visibility and primacy, to the BN, but I soon discovered that the camaraderie in that cockpit was unlike anything I would ever experience again. We would literally high-five after rolling off-target and spotting the bomb hit.

It was awesome.

Bill Abbott/Wikicommons

The Intruder’s unique side-by-side seating layout

One of my favorite stupid-pilot tricks was asking the BN to check the right side just before coming into the overhead break. While he was looking out, I would disconnect his G-suit hose just before break-turning at 6.5Gs. I got Gradymon Hackwith to pass out a couple of times. He would punch me in the arm until I rolled into the groove and he was forced to let me fly the ball to landing.

I would be laughing so hard there were tears.

The exterior of the Intruder was dominated by its giant nose. The plane was quite obviously built around the enormous terrain-following radar. We also had an extremely prominent refueling probe permanently jutting out from where the radome met the lower part of the windscreen.

The plane was kind of like a bulldog, so ugly you had to force yourself to be fiercely proud of it.

USN

A heavy hitter

One of the great things about the Intruder was its punch. During its heyday, it was second only to the B-52 in payload. That was remarkable because she was only 54 feet long with a wingspan of 53 feet, as compared to the BUFF, which is 159 feet long and 185 feet wide. Also, she was launching off of a 1,100-foot carrier, whereas the BUFF rumbled down a two-mile runway before it was able to claw itself into the sky.

Without any modifications, the A-6 could carry 28 MK-82 500-pound bombs. If the gear doors were removed, it was an even 30. That was 15,000 pounds of ordnance on a plane that only weighed 27,000 pounds empty. Fill her up with gas and we were launching off the deck in 300 feet, zero to 160 knots, at 60,000 pounds of gross weight.

That was quite a ride.

USN

One of the advantages of having such an aerodynamically challenged airframe was that she didn’t handle much differently fully loaded than when she was clean. Alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but in all honesty, she was a dream to fly low, fast, and laden with weapons.

The wing root, where the wing attached to the fuselage, was enormously thick. We could fly all day (and night) with a serious bomb load-out at low-level and pull five Gs or more. The Intruder was impervious.

The addition of the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) pod—which happened well before my time—enabled the A-6 to transition from a mere heavy-hitter to a precision striker. Whereas before there were two basic modes of delivery, the pilot doing a visual dive and the BN using the radar to drive the plane to a bomb release point, the FLIR introduced a level of precise aim-point fine-tuning that was completely unique at the time.

In the target area, the BN would transition from the radar picture to the FLIR. Using the laser and the crosshairs in the FLIR picture he would fine tune the information the pilot used to arrive at the proper delivery point. Those capabilities enabled the Intruder to precisely deliver iron bombs and laser-guided bombs in almost any weather conditions and at night.

USN

A-6Es releasing thousands of pounds of Mk82 Snakeye bombs.

A dark wizard by your side

The Intruder was unlike any other plane I flew in that it was built with the other crew in mind—the BN. The A-6 was an all-weather, low-level, day/night, medium attack plane. Basically, a bad-ass bomber that could fly at treetop level through the enemy’s backyard and drop tons of ordnance.

To accomplish that mission we had an amazing terrain following radar—again that big ugly thing on the nose. We also had a super-capable FLIR gimbaling pod under the chin. The FLIR pod didn’t add anything to the appearance, it looked like a wart on a witch’s chin, but it did add precision to the already impressive payload.

The BN was responsible for using the radar to navigate through steep valleys and canyons using the raw returns. The pilot used computer-generated information on the screen in front of him to hand fly the plane along the general path the BN laid out. Once the target area was penetrated, the BN would activate the FLIR ball. He would ‘laze’ the target, both for accurate ranging regardless of what weapons were delivered, and as a target designator for laser-guided ordnance. He would also slew the crosshairs of the FLIR to sweeten up the final phase of targeting. The pilot would again follow the computer-generated guidance on our screens derived from all of the BNs efforts, flip the Master Arm on, and then pickle off the weapon.

USN

We would routinely do this at night, though the mountains, in the clouds and rain, and at 200 feet and 420 knots. There was zero automation, the pilot hand-flew the plane at all times. But to me, the craziest aspect was that the BNs stuck their heads in the boot covering the radar and FLIR screens through the whole mission.

The boot was essentially a shroud with a padded hole where the BN would stick his face. It shielded the cockpit from the light of the radar so it wouldn’t blind the pilot during night flying. But when using it, the BN couldn’t see what was going on outside in the real world. So we would be flying through steep ravines at seven miles a minute at night as low as we dared, I would be glancing nervously at the granite cliff wall I could barely make out and the BN was stuck with his head down, arms spinning dials and switches like some dark wizard, immersed in his virtual world of radar returns and seemingly oblivious to the violent yanking and banking as we jinked through the low-level route.

The flying became even more aggressive once we entered the target area and executed any number of dynamic weapons delivery pops, all while the BN kept his head glued in his boot.

Craziness.

Because of that dedication to the mission and the simple fact that the Intruder was designed to be optimized by the BN, the community was as flat as any I’ve ever seen. Meaning that there was almost no greater weight placed on whether someone was a pilot or a BN. This was definitely not true in the fighter communities, where pilots considered themselves far superior to anyone, whether they were in aviation or not.

USN

An accidental fighter pilot

I was as close as you can be to an accidental fighter pilot. As a kid, I built plane models and hung them from the ceiling of my room in a huge Battle of Britain dogfight. But as I got older, I drifted away from the romance of aviation.

I didn’t grow up around planes. No one I knew was a pilot. I wasn’t one of those kids who washed Pipers at the local airport for gas money. Fortunately, I needed money to pay for college and I joined the Navy ROTC. What began as a means to an end morphed into an opportunity of a lifetime.

As a Midshipman, I was exposed to all of the communities that were available to me after graduation. After a couple of years, I was strongly inclined to pursue Naval Aviation and then something decisive happened the summer before Junior year. I got a back-seat ride in an F-14 with VF-51 and it was love at first flight. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else after I got a taste.

I was obsessed.

In the spring of our senior year, we received our community assignments. All the graduating ROTC and Naval Academy kids were ranked, then the slots were given out in order. It was, and is, extremely competitive to get aviation and I was beyond thrilled to receive my dream shot.

Hundreds of SNAs—Student Naval Aviators—gathered in the Cradle of Naval Aviation—Pensacola, Florida—that summer and we churned our way through the sausage factory that was flight school. I made it through all the fail points: academics, physical training, and primary training in the T-34. After all that I was selected for jets.

I went through intermediate training in the T-2 Buckeye, where I saw the carrier for the first time, and finally advanced flight training in the TA-4J Skyhawk. After carrier qualifying in the Skyhawk, I had finally completed the multi-year odyssey that began when I was first smitten.

The winging ceremony was an emotional, momentary personal victory. I was finally a Naval Aviator sporting wings of gold.

Little did I realize that the real work was about to begin.

 

Francesco Chierici

A young Paco standing in front of his mount.

The night is dark and full of terrors

The A-6 was super honest to land. It had a great combination of wing sweep, responsive engines, and drag which allowed for quick and fine corrections while flying the meatball.

Near the completion of training, we would carrier qualify, day and night. It was a big deal, our final exam. In the Intruder community, we would go to the boat for the first time with a fellow student, a BN that was our classmate. I was lucky enough to go with my good friend Gradymon. It was an intense experience for both of us, but especially for Grady since he had never seen an aircraft carrier from the air. The first time the BNs ever got to land on a ship was with a fellow knucklehead student (who routinely disconnected his G-suit hose at inappropriate times) piloting him.

Those guys were either crazy or brave as shit.

USN

The day landings were awesome and similar to the landings I had done in the T-2 and TA-4, but the night landings were going to be a completely new ballgame for me. It was going to be a huge comfort to have Grady by my side. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it up that night.

We spent the evening on the USS Ranger, having dinner and waiting for our turn to climb into a jet. The plan was for us to hot-switch into a plane that our classmates were currently flying. After their last night landing, they would be chained to the deck. With the engines still running, we would switch crews one at a time until Grady and I were safely strapped into the still running jet. Then we’d get fueled up and taxi to the catapult to take our turn at six night traps.

We tracked our jet as she went around the pattern, successfully landing five times. After she took off for the last time, we made our way up to flight deck control to await the last landing and the hot-switch. There were multiple TVs and a window facing the landing area.

I’ll never forget watching my jet on the TV as she was about to land. I leaned over to tighten my chest strap and she hit the deck and caught a wire. As I stood up, I could see her through the window. One moment she was decelerating with both engines howling at full power, just as normal. The next, the pilot and BN ejected, the jet angled out of the landing area toward a row of parked F/A-18s, slammed into them, then flipped into the water.

One of the F/A-18s snapped out of her chains and flipped into the water as well. Another was impacted so hard it also snapped its chains and spun 180 degrees, managing to barely stay on the deck. I stood there in Flight Deck Control with my hands still on my straps, my jaw hanging open.

The Intruder I was supposed to climb into and fly my very first night carrier landings had just broken its tailhook, smashed into three Hornets, and flipped into the sea.

Welcome to naval aviation!

USN

At home in the weeds

In the Intruder, flying nap-of-the-earth was our bread and butter. We did it during the day, free and loose, darting down the tiniest riverbeds and through the slightest cracks we could find. During the night and in bad weather, we also flew low and fast, but in a much more prescribed manner.

The low levels we flew were delineated in a huge manual, which contained the lat/long fixes defining the routes themselves. For the most part, the routes were ten miles wide, five miles to each side of the center-line running from fix to fix. A ten-mile corridor actually gives a pilot a tremendous amount of leeway to find the most tactically relevant course through the terrain, as well as the most fun. So, even the same route was not always the same.

Night low levels were a different beast. To become night proficient, a pilot and BN crew would have to complete three steps within a week. First, they would have to fly a route in the dome simulator. Then they would fly the same route during the day, and finally at night. This gave the crew two opportunities for the BN to familiarize himself with the radar picture before flying the actual route in darkness.

Once you were night low-level qualified, you could then fly any route, day or night.

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A-6 Intruder rocketing through a very deep canyon as seen from the BN’s position.

Nuclear chariot

One of the missions the A-6 was initially designed for was nuclear delivery of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb, affectionately known as the ‘dial-a-yield.’ There was literally a rotating switch inside a panel where the ordnancemen could select from .3 to 340 kilotons for when the bomb detonated. It was an incredible amount of power in a weapon that measured only twelve feet by one-foot and weighed just 700 pounds. By comparison, ‘Little Boy’ which was dropped on Hiroshima, weighed almost 10,000 pounds and had a defined yield of 15 kilotons.

It was chilling to imagine that something so diabolically versatile and powerful could be carried on a small jet and weigh less than an AGM-88 Hight-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM).

The main method of delivering the B61 was through a specific maneuver selectable in the computer, the LABS-IP, which stood for Low Altitude Bombing System – Initial Point. To practice this delivery, we would ingress to the target at low-level, usually at 480 knots, and once reaching the target area, we would accelerate to 540 knots.

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B61 and its components.

At a certain distance from the target, which the BN was constantly fine-tuning through the radar and FLIR, the computer would command the pilot to pitch up. We would get guidance on our primary instrument commanding us into a 4G pull and we had to correct the horizontal flight path as well. Despite the Gs, we had to be as smooth as possible because at some point during the pull, 50-75 degrees nose high, the computer would release the weapon into a massive loft.  The pilot would then keep his pull through a Half Cuban Eight, ending the maneuver heading in the direction they came from, at 200 feet, pedaling as fast as they could go.

The bomb would be lofted as high as six miles into the sky, and depending on the programming for the specific target, a parachute would open allowing the B61 to float toward earth, thus giving the delivery aircraft valuable time to race away before detonation.

The procedures called for each crew to close one eye at the time of detonation, in case the flash caused blindness. We used to joke that the pilots would close both eyes and the BNs would keep theirs open, since their jobs were done.

It was a heartless crowd.

I came into the fleet just after Gulf War I, in the summer of 1991. The Cold War was done, and we had just shed the onerous nuke delivery mission. I was one of the first pilots in my squadron not to have to go through the two-month drudgery of getting my ‘Nuke Cert.’

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The Navy was out of the tactical nuclear bomb delivery business by the early 1990s.

Joining the fleet

I joined VA-155 the day they triumphantly flew in from their Gulf War cruise. The Silver Foxes were heroic in the conflict. They flew the first-night sorties into Bagdad at low-level, attacking vital military targets as surface-to-air missiles flew in all directions overhead. Throughout the forty-day air campaign, they were instrumental in completely demolishing Saddam’s military. Tragically, they lost one plane in combat in the waters just off Kuwait.

After combat ended, they partied their way home through various exotic ports of call, drunk from all their death-defying exploits. I remember swelling with pride as I stood in my khaki uniform on the flight line and watched them fly in.

The next six months, on the other hand, sucked as bad as any in my Navy career.

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VA-145 A-6E on the ramp in 1992.

I was the first new pilot the Foxes had gotten in over a year. They were all heroes and I was just the FNG (F’n New Guy). It was almost impossible to penetrate the camaraderie they had naturally forged. It took a few of the older guys rotating out and an additional influx of new guys, including a bunch of my classmates, for us to finally feel like we belonged.

The Foxes ended up being an amazing experience for me, filled with incredible adventures and great people.

The work-ups for our first cruise were instrumental in building the new collection of Foxes into a cohesive squadron. The experienced aviators trained the new guys well and we quickly bonded into an effective unit.

It was during this early stage of my fleet career that I first experienced the shattering pain of loss. Air Wing Two lost a Tomcat during a night mission while we were all at NAS Fallon. And much closer to home, my good friend Grady and his pilot Dewey, fellow Silver Foxes, perished in a low-level training accident.

Of the twenty-plus friends I lost during my career, Grady’s was one of the most difficult to endure. We had come up through the RAG together as fast friends. I had flown with Grady more than any other single BN in my brief career. We rejoiced when we were both assigned to VA-155 and looked forward to three more years of fun and flying.

The sudden shock of his death shook me to my core, damaging my confidence for months.

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Intruder’s place in the Air Wing

When I cruised on the Ranger, we were the last of the all-Grumman Air Wings [read all about this unique arrangement in this past post of ours]. There were a number of other NSFW and non-PC terms that were used to reference the absence of the new kid on the block, the F/A-18 Hornet.

Air Wing Two was composed primarily of two squadrons of Tomcats and two of Intruders. My first squadron assignment was with VA-155, the Silver Foxes. Our sister squadron was VA-145, the Swordsmen.

Air Wing Two on the Ranger was basically the last of the old-school air wings. The division of labor was absolutely clear, if you needed the skies swept of enemy jets, the Tomcats took to the air. If you needed bridges demolished, buildings leveled, hardened bunkers penetrated, ground-armor destroyed, troops-in-the-open decimated, or SAM sites taken out, then the Intruder was on the job.

Though in the competition between Top Gun and Flight of the Intruder movies, the f^@%!*g Tomcats clearly won the battle. But the long list of accomplishments achieved by the Intruders in Air Wing Two during the first Gulf War clearly overshadowed their more glamorous Grumman brethren.

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Ranger with its Grumman Air Wing.

All that gas

Most of my career was spent operating in the Persian Gulf where we had ample Air Force tanker support, but I flew a handful of tanker hops where we would strap four 2,000-pound drop-tanks and a centerline mounted D-704 refueling-pod, which aside from containing the retracting hose and basket, held another 2,000-pounds of gas.

The most fun tanker hops were the daytime yo-yo missions where you would launch before the fighters and strikers, meet them a couple hundred miles from the carrier along their strike route, give them almost all of your gas (18,000-20,000 pounds of give!) and then race back to the carrier for a solo shit-hot break.

The most rewarding tanker hops were when you were assigned as a recovery tanker for the last event of the night. Your job was to orbit overhead and be prepared to offer emergency gas to the planes that were coming down to land in the event they boltered (missed all the wires) or were waved off.

During Blue-Water ops, when we operated beyond the range of possibility to divert to a land-based runway, it was particularly challenging and a massive responsibility. Carrier-based jets are fuel-critical from the moment we start our engines. When we fly far enough out to sea where calling ‘uncle’ and landing on a runway isn’t possible, every ounce of gas becomes precious.

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An A-6E Intruder about to tank from a KA-6D Intruder. The KA-6Ds were uniquely configured with an internal hose and drogue system and were notoriously hard worn with extreme limits on their flight envelope due to being passed around from deployment to deployment. By the time Paco was flying Intruders, the A-6E carrying a refueling pod was the common ‘buddy tanker’ setup.

Once the night missions are complete and it’s time to land, the jets have enough gas for maybe two attempts to catch a wire. Throw in some weather, a pitching deck, a dark night and the knowledge that you either are landing safely on the ship, or ejecting into the frigid ocean, a pilot can get so tense that they practically suck the seat cushion up their butt.

Everyone I know has had a ‘night-in-the-barrel,’ a night where they had difficulty beyond normal catching a wire. And after every miss, the tension became more intense. You knew that five-thousand people were watching your every failed attempt, including your peers, your CO, the Skipper of the ship, and most likely the Strike-Group Admiral.

As the recovery tanker you were the last line of hope for a strung-out pilot who had already failed to land a few times. His, or her, nerves were surely shattered and confidence was in their boots. On the last pass before the troubled plane would need to refuel, the recovery tanker would drop down to shadow, or ‘hawk,’ the jet.

 

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You would have to maneuver yourself to time it perfectly so that if the jet failed to land once again you would be just in front of them at 2,000 feet. Then that shaky, panicky pilot could spot you immediately as they cleaned up and climbed to your altitude right behind you. Then they would have to perform an activity just slightly less challenging than landing on a carrier at night, they would have to plug their refueling probe into a basket dangling into the slipstream fifty feet behind the tanker at night, maybe in bad weather, at 2,000 feet. Or, they were going swimming. And the reward for a successful plug and refuel was another look at the boat.

Yay.

I know a guy who had to go around so many times he plugged the hawking tanker three times.  After he finally landed, he was so wrung out he had to be helped from the cockpit.

And after all the drama was complete for the night, the recovery tanker had to come in and land. And there was no one hawking you with extra gas if you couldn’t make it aboard.

I didn’t love flying tanker missions and thankfully I didn’t have to fly many, but the yo-yo, and especially the recovery tanker missions were always gratifying.

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Ranger into the storm

By the time our workups were complete and we headed out on my first deployment I felt very comfortable in the Intruder and in the squadron. There was an undeniable thrill about leaving on my first deployment. It felt very grown-up, even though I was barely twenty-five. I was a junior officer, though we had had enough new guys where I wasn’t an FNG anymore. I had been in the squadron for over a year and become a Landing Signals Officer (LSO) as well, which was a fantastic position of responsibility and a job I thoroughly enjoyed.

After multiple detachments to Fallon and working from the Ranger I also felt extremely comfortable as a member of the Air Wing. Many of my friends from flight school ended up in the same Air Wing, scattered throughout the Tomcat, Intruder, Prowler, and Hawkeye squadrons. It was one of the closest Air Wings I was a part of, with great friendships and camaraderie across all the squadrons.

We pulled into Yokosuka, Japan. I climbed Mt. Fuji after a big night at the O-Club, which ended up being more of a challenge than it should have. Many of us spent five days partying in Tokyo, which was amazing. The ship left Japan for Busan, Korea, spending a few days at sea so the pilots could all fly at night.

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Ranger pulling into Yokuska in 1992 with Paco and VA-155 onboard.

At sea, each pilot is required to get a minimum of one night trap aboard the ship every seven days. One of the lesser-known pains of leaving port after four to five days of hard-charging was climbing into the cockpit for a night ‘re-qual’ all exhausted and hung over.

It was in Busan, on our second day of a planned four-day visit, where the cruise ratcheted up in intensity. The entire Strike Group was emergency recalled to their ships. We were pulling out immediately. Saddam had repeatedly violated the terms of the 1991 Cease Fire agreement. The powers that be demanded a US carrier on scene in the Persian Gulf to keep the dictator in check. The Ranger and her Strike Group sped away from the Korean Peninsula with great urgency.

It seemed there was action to be had again.

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Leadership was so intent to have a carrier presence as soon as possible that Ranger was sent directly through a Category 4 typhoon while en route. All of the other ships in the Strike Group were sent far south in the Indian Ocean to skirt around the massive storm, delaying them by many days. The Ranger rocked like a cork for three straight days. All non-essential activities were suspended, inside and out. The galleys closed and the only food available was sandwiches and cereal.

The ship was rolling so steeply that when you walked along the passageways it felt as if you were walking on the walls at times. We stuck our flight boots under the edges of our mattresses so we wouldn’t roll out of the bunk beds.

I’ll never forget watching the TV footage of the flight deck. During the peak of the storm, the Ranger, an 80,000-ton displacement, 1,000-foot, Forrestal class supercarrier with 70 aircraft on board, was hitting the waves so steeply that we were taking green water over the bow. Not sea spray, not splashes. The bow of the huge ship, with an entire Air Wing worth of airplanes exposed and chained to the deck, was digging into the oncoming waves so deeply that it was briefly submerged.

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Needless to say, after we came out the other side, the planes were a mess. Our incredible maintainers had a week to perform a miracle. They essentially had to rebuild a third of the planes that had been bathed in corrosive salt water. It was one of the most incredible feats of dedication I witnessed in my career. Those guys worked around the clock untill they dropped so that when we arrived in the Gulf we would have up jets to cross the beach with.

The transit from Korea to the Gulf was an amazing feat in itself. The Ranger steamed over 7,000 NM in under two weeks. A trip that would normally have taken three weeks, plus a port call in Singapore, to accomplish.

Sound asleep over Iraq

I’ll never forget the excitement that was building those last few days before we relieved the Independence on-station in the Persian Gulf. The other new guys and I were certain we were going to leap right into combat missions. My new BN, Pauly B, and I were tasked with planning the first mission in country. This was a huge honor and responsibility—or so I thought.

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Ranger relieving Independence on station in Persian Gulf in 1992.

Pauly and I stayed up for two days straight planning a 25-plane mission that involved three KC-135 Air Force tankers and two laps around Southern Iraq. I was so spooled up I couldn’t sleep the night before. Pauly and I briefed a packed ready room full of aircrew from the entire Wing. We were putting Saddam on notice, the Ranger and Air Wing Two were on station and we were ready to play.

The brief ended in the early afternoon and Pauly and I grabbed a quick dinner. We dressed and launched as the sun hung low on the horizon. I was fielding massive waves of excitement and trepidation as we flew toward the tanker rendezvous on the Saudi/Iraqi border. Not only was I leading my first mission in-country, but I had never before tanked off the feared KC-135, known as the ‘Iron Maiden.’

It certainly didn’t help my nerves that night was falling rapidly. If I failed to tank, I would have to return to Ranger in shame. If I damaged the basket by being ham-handed, the entire evolution could be scrapped.

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An A-6E approaches a KC-135E equipped with the dreaded Iron Maiden. The basket, which is attached to the KC-135’s boom via an adapter, is made of metal instead of the softer materials found on other hose and drogue systems. This makes it far less forgiving and it can even wheel around in turbulence and smash into the aircraft causing damage. Hence its other nickname—The Wrecking Ball.

Fortunately, I was able to fight my way through the ordeal and get my gas.

Once the whole package had tanked, Pauly conducted the roll call and we were off, heading into Iraq for our first lap.

I’ve had never seen anything as black as western Iraq. There wasn’t a light on the ground for a thousand miles. It was a moonless night and the stars were the brightest I had ever seen, but they provided no illumination of the earth below. I felt as if we were flying into a black hole.

The Intruder had a basic autopilot, just heading and altitude, and I engaged it once we were on the correct heading. After two sleepless nights and the excitement of the mission and stress of meeting the Iron Maiden under such intense circumstances, I was absolutely drained. My eyes blinked longer and longer until I actually fell asleep in a combat-loaded A-6E Intruder flying through hostile territory while leading a strike package.

Not one of my prouder moments. But as it turned out, Pauly B was dead asleep right next to me, too.

 

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I still get shivers thinking about how long we would have flown on that heading. How far we would have gone. We were pointed directly at Syria, which surely would not have appreciated a U.S. Navy strike package coming close to its border. Ultimately, we were saved by chance, though it nearly gave me a heart attack.

While I was sleeping on a hard ejection seat in a cramped cockpit as deeply as I’ve ever slept in my life, our ALR-67 radar warning receiver (RWR) began a high warble. We had been locked up by a radar. I woke with my heart in my mouth disengaged the autopilot and jinked hard.

I looked down at the ALR-67 screen to determine the direction of the radar and saw that we had been locked up by one of the F-14s in our group. The RIO came up on the secure radio and quickly apologized. It was one of their new guys screwing around with his radar. He hadn’t meant to lock us up.

Pauly and I looked at each other, realizing we had both been asleep and that we had just dodged a virtual bullet. We were wide awake, but it only lasted fifteen minutes before exhaustion set in again. We worked really hard telling dirty jokes and stories for the next four hours till the terror of the night trap was enough to bring us fully awake again.

The remainder of our four months in the gulf was a series of similar patrol missions punctuated by port calls in Dubai. Though I never saw any action in Iraq, I did achieve a measure of detente with the KC-135’s Iron Maiden. She never bit off my probe or shattered my canopy, I never ripped off her basket.

How to kill MiGs in an Intruder

At its prime, which unfortunately coincided with its retirement from service, the Intruder could carry just about every piece of air-to-mud ordnance in the US inventory. And, the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

Being a frustrated fighter pilot, I devised a game plan for how I would get the first Intruder air-to-air kill should any Iraqi MiG-29 be so foolish as to come at us. If we were flying a counter-radar mission our standard loadout was an AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) missile and an AIM-9 Sidewinder.

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Silver Foxes’ sister squadron, the Swordsman, seen carrying an AIM-9 Sidewinder during a mission over the Persian Gulf in 1992.

My plan of record was to go nose-to-nose with the Fulcrum, wait till he got to three miles on our nose then shoot the HARM in his direction. The big missile with a huge smoke trail would spook the Iraqi fighter into break turning just in front of me. When he was close enough, I would fire the Sidewinder for the victory.

In the folly of youth, I thought this was an excellent plan and no so secretly hoped an unwitting MiG-29 would come poking around. Thankfully it never became an issue. Though I still like to think it might have worked.

The glory!

Intruding into Somalia

As we were nearing the end of our time in the Gulf, another global hot-spot flared up and Ranger was, once again, tasked with being on-station. In early December of 1992, the feeble government of Somalia completely collapsed and the warlords were battling each other for primacy. The thugs were stealing farmers’ crops immediately after harvest and the country was on the verge of massive starvation. The United Nations was sending in relief but the warlords were stealing those supplies, as well.

The Ranger and Air Wing Two skipped our last port call in Dubai and made for the coast off Mogadishu at high speed. It was exciting to plan for a new mission in a new country. We were initially tasked with providing high cover and close-air-support for the U.N. personnel. The threat to us was minimal, ground fire from technicals—civilian pickup trucks modified with heavy guns. There was also a slim possibility of shoulder-launched SAMs, though none had been reported in the area. For the most part, we expected to operate with impunity, so long as we stayed above the range of the heavy guns.

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USS Ranger taking part in Operation Restore Hope in 1992.

The Commander of the Air Wing set the floor at 5,000 feet for normal operations and as low as we wanted for special circumstances. Those included low, fast fly-bys called ‘shows of force’ designed to strike fear into the hearts of bad actors on the ground below. We would come in at 50 feet and 500 knots, sneaking in from behind their position. It was a hugely effective and non-lethal tactic.

We were briefed that the biggest threat to our health was the diseases on the ground in the event we ejected. Since the Somalia visit was unplanned, none of us had received the proper inoculations. I’ll never forget our flight doc briefing the ready room about two additions to our flight gear. Two pre-filled syringes loaded with a cocktail of who-knows-what designed to keep us reasonably safe should our boots actually hit Somali soil. If we punched out, the moment we landed we were supposed to yank out the syringes, pop the tops and inject ourselves straight through our G-suits into the meat of our thighs.

What a trip.

By this time, the various squadron crews in the Wing had become very close. The E-2 Hawkeye guys were not allowed to cross feet-dry. One day, while we were telling them about the incredible views we were enjoying as we flew, they told us they couldn’t see us on their radars after we were a certain distance inland. Naturally, we devised a code word so we could break the 5,000-foot deck and fly low, where the Intruder was meant to be.

Whenever we flew with all junior officer crews, we would skim over the Somali heartland marveling at the change in topography. We saw giraffes and camels and strange chimney-like structures that, after some time, we determined were actually massive anthills. It was depressing to see fertile farm fields filled with water and crops, but devoid of farmers. They were starving because the warlords stole their harvest, not a lack of production.

My most enduring memory from the three weeks over Somalia was flying high cover for the amphibious landing. My BN and I began orbiting at 0400 in the pitch-black directly over the landing spot on the beach, loaded with laser-guided bombs. The BN scanned the shoreline with his FLIR, ensuring there was no opposition while dozens of landing craft came ashore disgorging trucks, APCs, and Marines.

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VA-155’s sister squadron seen flying over Somalia during the Ranger’s mission there in 1992.

Over the course of a couple of hours watch the empty beach fill with troops and machinery in an orderly manner and organize into a massive formation. As the sun peeked over the horizon, the headlights came on and the mechanized columns snaked away, dispersing in various directions into the countryside. It was an impressive and slightly emotional display.

A few days later, the Ranger and her Strike Group were released from Operation Restore Hope and we proceeded to Perth, Australia for our first port call in over six weeks.

Six quick interesting thoughts on flying Intruders

1)  The Intruder was super fun to fly low and fast. It was like a Cadillac, smooth, powerful, and stable, with great visibility.

2)  There were a number of landmarks along low-level routes that were traditional check-in-the box items. For instance, a derelict red pickup truck rusting away high in the Cascade Mountains in Washington. My personal favorite was checking the price of unleaded gas on a station marquee just before Winnemucca, Nevada when flying to Fallon.

3)  We had the Pickle Barrel bombing patch. To earn it the pilot had to literally drop a Mk-76 ‘Blue Death’ practice bomb into a barrel on the Boardman, Oregon target range on his first visual delivery of the month. Only one chance every month.

Took me forever to get that damn patch.

 

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4)  We had a not-so-stealthy manner of doing awesome fly-bys of the Officer’s Club, which was on the beach at NAS Whidbey Island. Coming back to base you could request an “Intruder Attack.” If the pattern was clear, it was generally approved. Ostensibly, we were conducting a practice bombing run on the valuable assets of the base. In reality, it was a license to do a 200 foot, 420-knot run right over all your buddies heads at the club.

Everyone would come out to watch. It was truly awesome.

5)  Even though we had spin/departure procedures in the event of out-of-control flight, in reality, all the pilot had to do was release any pressure on the stick and rudders. The giant nose was an Earth-seeking magnet. Eventually, you ended up pointed at the dirt and the plane was flying again.

6)  When we flew through clouds and rain at night, as we often did in the Pacific Northwest, we would frequently get arcing blue static electricity across the windscreen called Saint Elmo’s Fire. What was unique to the Intruder was that the refueling probe sticking up prominently between the windscreen panels would also be affected, developing a bizarre cone of blue static electricity pointed aft.

Retiring the Intruder to conquer the Cat

Shortly after returning from the ’92-’93 cruise, VA-155 was decommissioned. It had been planned for a long time so it was no surprise, but it still stung.

Most of the junior officers were dispersed into other fleet squadrons. I was lucky, I got to go to our sister squadron in Air Wing Two, VA-145 The Swordsmen. I showed up for work in April of ’93 only to discover that the Swordsmen had just been put on the chopping block, as well. VA-145 was to be decommissioned five months later, at the end of September.

The nice thing was that they were a good squadron whom we were familiar with and we all flew our butts off in those few months together. The challenge was that now there would be another thirty pilots on the streets looking for a home.

I had not-so-secretly always wanted to fly the Tomcat since my backseat ride as a Midshipman. I spent many weeks putting together a bulletproof transition package to submit to the board, which was ultimately approved. I left for the east coast RAG (Replacement Air Group training squadron) in September of ’93 as excited for a move as I had ever been.

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Going through a RAG the second time was almost stress-free, even though I was completing the full, new-guy syllabus. The basic systems were almost identical—thank you Grumman Iron Works—so the academic portion was fairly rote. But quite obviously, despite sharing a huge amount of DNA, the Tomcat was a significantly different beast than the Intruder. And I was absolutely thrilled to the core!

The power differential even in just the F-14A-model with the TF-30 engines was so insanely superior I didn’t stop smiling for three months. The B-model with the F110 engines was just ludicrous.

During my B-model demo hop I was flying in the Whiskey areas, about a hundred miles east over the ocean. The RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) had me go down to 200 feet, accelerate to 450 knots, then pull 4 Gs till I was straight up as I plugged in full afterburner. The plane had no tanks nor rails—slick as a newborn—and she leaped into the sky like a Saturn-5 rocket. Maybe 30 seconds later I was rolling over to level at 50,000 feet while still doing 250 knots.

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The air-to-air mission was also completely new to me. But I found it intuitive and creative in a manner that felt very natural. I loved working with the RIO to solve the angles for the long-range intercepts and missile employment and I had waited my whole life to dogfight in the visual arena. If I had been half as skilled at dogfighting as I was enthusiastic, I would have been pretty good.

All in all, I enjoyed the three-year head start in flying fleet jets over my classmates immensely, but all of that came to a screaming halt when it came time to bring the beast aboard the ship, especially at night.

I already had a couple hundred fleet traps in the Intruder and I was an experienced LSO. The ship didn’t intimidate me, in fact I had been the Top Nugget – the best new guy – on my first cruise. But landing the Tomcat was a completely different, and quite humbling, affair.

Where the Intruder was instantly responsive to power, angle of attack (AOA), and glide slope corrections, the Tomcat was anything but. The TF-30 engines had a nasty lag, which made power corrections a combination of guesswork and experience. The wings stuck out to 20 degrees in the landing configuration, which was much more than the Intruder. Combined with a massive, flat fuselage designed in itself to provide significant lift, the airframe had a tendency to float and decelerate when power was removed.

 

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Lastly, the Tomcat had a massive hook-to-eye distance meaning that as the pilot sat far head, at the very tip of the jet, maneuvering to keep his eyeballs on the glide-slope, sixty-three feet behind him was a hook which hung about fifteen feet below. With even the slightest movement of the nose, the hook could move many feet at the end of that moment-arm causing the pilot to either catch a 1-wire or completely miss all the wires even if he could still see the meatball in the center.

In short, the F-14 was a huge challenge to land aboard the ship, much less to do it actually well consistently.

Bombcat’s brain trust

A few of my former Intruder peers and I were drafted into VF-213, the Blacklions, after the Tomcat RAG to help them spool up their air-to-ground program. As much as I’d always wanted to be a ‘fighter-guy’ flying nothing but BFM and air-to-air sorties at supersonic speeds, it was my experience in air-to-ground that brought me to the ‘World Famous Blacklions.’

VF-213 was in the process of integrating the LANTIRN targeting pod with the Tomcat and eager to get smart on air-to-mud tactics. The LANTIRN was a massively capable FLIR pod that was easily mounted on a shoulder station. It proved to be an immensely capable pairing between off-the-shelf technology and a legacy air-superiority fighter that extended the F-14’s service life for another fifteen years. With the LANTIRN pod the F-14 became the most capable platform in the Navy to deliver LGBs, far exceeding the F/A-18C’s targeting capabilities, speed, loiter time, and range.

Also, the Tomcat looked a billion times more badass.

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Having a thorough background in delivering ground ordnance and weaponeering certainly made for an easy integration into the fighter Ready Room. We former A-6 folks were welcomed and tasked with sharing best practices with the rest of the squadron. But I thirsted for BFM missions more than anything.

Anytime I could get in the air for some high-aspect air combat maneuvering, I was happy. So, I made sure to include an off-target aerial engagement scenario at the end of the bombing hops whenever I could get away with it.

The age of the Intruder had come and gone

The newest jets I ever flew in the Navy were Intruders in VA-155. We began receiving newly winged SWIP (System Weapon Improvement Program) jets as soon as I checked in on board. Many had come right out of the factory, then diverted into the program to upgrade them with new wings and digital integration. I flew jets that had barely ten hours on them, with none of the paint worn off and all of the labels for the buttons and switches still visible.

Yet even with the upgrade in capabilities, the Intruder was not survivable in the modern battlespace. With the advent of the newest Russian SAM systems, the sanctuary of low-flight was removed. The Intruder could carry a massive bomb load, but modern warfare demanded precision over quantity. Anyone could carry LGBs at that point and the introduction of GPS-aided JDAM made delivering ordnance precisely in any weather almost as simple as entering GPS coordinates.

The mission the Intruder had been designed for and had excelled at, all weather, day/night, low-level delivery of tons of ordnance, had disappeared.

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A huge thanks to Paco for sharing his incredible experiences with us. And make sure to pick up a copy of his new book, Lions Of The Sky.

Do you want more?

I have more in my Happiness Index under my Aviation Sub-Index here…

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The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan. It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives.

Yet another great article on America. This one smashes the neocon narrative that nukes were needed to save lives during World War II. You know, as time moves forward, and the ruling oligarchy becomes stranger and stranger, we (us normal’s) sit back and are amazed just how “hood-winked” they kept us all. They told us that we needed to use nuclear weapons. They told us that we had to fight for democracy. They told us that eight simultaneous wars were necessary. They tell us that we are winning the war in Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation. They have been stringing us along this entire time.

This is a great article titled “The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan. It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives.” It was published on February 10, 2020 by Enrique Suarez and can be found HERE. I would suggest that any reader who likes this article to go to the source and pay the author a visit. I am sure that he has other pieces of value.

Enrique Suarez Note: Washington's Blog understands that "The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living"  (Socrates).

By Washington's Blog

Global Research, February 09, 2020

Washington's Blog and Global Research 12 October 2012

Relevant article selected from the GR archive first published on Washington Blog and Global Research in October 2012.

Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.

But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):

Based  on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the  testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s  opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability  prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:

The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

-Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike

Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):

In  [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. 

I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my  grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was  already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary,  and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking  world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no  longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. 

It was my belief  that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a  minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…. 

Admiral William Leahy – the highest-ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

It  is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and  Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. 

The  Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the  effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional  weapons.

The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in  the future are frightening. 

My own feeling was that in being the first  to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians  of the Dark Ages. 

I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars  cannot be won by destroying women and children.

General Douglas MacArthur agreed (pg. 65, 70-71):

MacArthur’s  views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and  Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed  …. 

When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the  bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I  asked, would his advice have been? 

He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have  ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it  later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.

Moreover (pg. 512):

The Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrenders 
unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ MacArthur was appalled. 

He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. 

Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.

Similarly, Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy noted (pg. 500):

I  have always felt that if in our ultimatum to the Japanese government  issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of  the emperor as a constitutional monarchy and had made some reference to  the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese  government, it would have been accepted. 

Indeed, I believe that even in  the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the  Japanese to give it favorable consideration. 

When the war was over I  arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese  officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then  Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. 

I  believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender,  completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the  bombs.

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bird said:

I  think that the Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had  approached the Russians and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of a warning [of the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition  for them, and one that they could have readily accepted.

In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atomic bomb. Thus, it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb. 

- War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60, pg. 73-75. 
Hiroshima, after America improved it "for democracy".
Hiroshima, after America improved it “for democracy”.

He also noted (pg. 144-145, 324):

It  definitely seemed to me that the Japanese were becoming weaker and  weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn’t get any imports  and they couldn’t export anything. 

Naturally, as time went on and the  war developed in our favor it was quite logical to hope and expect that  with the proper kind of a warning the Japanese would then be in a  position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and have had to bring Russia in.

General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force “hawk,” stated publicly shortly before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan:

The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.

The Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bombing Survey Paul Nitze wrote (pg. 36-37, 44-45):

[I] concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945. ... Even  without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly   unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese   government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands [scheduled for November   1, 1945] would have been necessary. 

Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Ellis Zacharias wrote:

Just  when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and  introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen  and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia.

Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb.

I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.

-Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look (magazine), 6/6/50, pg. 19-21. 

Brigadier General Carter Clarke – the military intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman and his advisors – said (pg. 359):

When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.

Many other high-level military officers concurred. For example:

The commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. 

Also, the opinion of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was reported to have said in a press conference on September 22, 1945, that “The Admiral took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” 

In a subsequent speech at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated: “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.” 

It was learned also that on or about July 20, 1945, General Eisenhower had urged Truman, in a personal visit, not to use the atomic bomb. 

Eisenhower’s assessment was “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime.” 

Eisenhower also stated that it wasn’t necessary for Truman to “succumb” to [the tiny handful of people putting pressure on the president to drop atom bombs on Japan.]

British officers were of the same mind. For example, General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defense, said to Prime Minister Churchill that…

 “when Russia came into the war against  Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms  short of the dethronement of the Emperor.”

On hearing that the atomic test was successful, Ismay’s private reaction was one of “revulsion.”

Why Were Bombs Dropped on Populated Cities Without Military Value?

Even military officers who favored the use of nuclear weapons mainly favored using them on unpopulated areas or Japanese military targets … not cities.

For example, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss proposed to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal that a non-lethal demonstration of atomic weapons would be enough to convince the Japanese to surrender … and the Navy Secretary agreed (pg. 145, 325):

I  proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated  before it was used. Primarily it was because it was clear to a number of  people, myself among them, that the war was very nearly over. 

The  Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate… 

My proposal to the Secretary  was that the weapon should be demonstrated over some area accessible to  Japanese observers and where its effects would be dramatic. 

I remember  suggesting that a satisfactory place for such a demonstration would be a  large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. 

The cryptomeria  tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… 

I anticipated that a bomb  detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees  out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as  though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the  center. 

It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to  the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will… 

Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation…

It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…

General George Marshall agreed:

Contemporary documents show that Marshall felt “these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave–telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers….”

As the document concerning Marshall’s views suggests, the question of whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified turns … on whether the bombs had to be used against a largely civilian target rather than a strictly military target—which, in fact, was the explicit choice since although there were Japanese troops in the cities, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was deemed militarily vital by U.S. planners.

(This is one of the reasons neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the war.)

Moreover, targeting [at Hiroshima and Nagasaki] was aimed explicitly on non-military facilities surrounded by workers’ homes.

Historians Agree that the Bomb Wasn’t Needed

Historians agree that nuclear weapons did not need to be used to stop the war or save lives.

As historian Doug Long notes:

U.S.  Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker has studied  the history of research on the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan.  

In his conclusion, he writes, “The consensus among scholars is  that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end  the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to  the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisors knew it.” 

-J. Samuel Walker, The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update, Diplomatic History, Winter 1990, pg. 110).

Politicians Agreed

Many high-level politicians agreed. For example, Herbert Hoover said (pg. 142):

The  Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945…up  to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; 

…if such leads had  been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs.

Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew noted (pg. 29-32):

In the light of available evidence I myself and others felt that if such a categorical statement about the [retention of the] dynasty had been issued in May 1945, the surrender-minded elements in the [Japanese] government might well have been afforded by such a statement a valid reason and the necessary strength to come to an early clear-cut decision.

If surrender could have been brought about in May 1945, or even in June or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the [Pacific] war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer.

Why Then Were Atom Bombs Dropped on Japan?

If dropping nuclear bombs was unnecessary to end the war or to save lives, why was the decision to drop them made? Especially over the objections of so many top military and political figures?

One theory is that scientists like to play with their toys:

On September 9, 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publicly quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a “toy and they wanted to try it out . . . .” 

He further stated, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it.”

However, most of the Manhattan Project scientists who developed the atom bomb were opposed to using it on Japan.

Albert Einstein – an important catalyst for the development of the atom bomb (but not directly connected with the Manhattan Project) – said differently:

“A great majority of scientists were opposed to the sudden employment of the atom bomb.” In Einstein’s judgment, the dropping of the bomb was a political-diplomatic decision rather than a military or scientific decision.

Indeed, some of the Manhattan Project scientists wrote directly to the secretary of defense in 1945 to try to dissuade him from dropping the bomb:

We  believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an  early, unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United  States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate  destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the  possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control  of such weapons. 

-Political and Social Problems, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy files, folder # 76, National Archives (also contained in Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 1987 edition, pg. 323-333).

The scientists questioned the ability to destroy Japanese cities with atomic bombs to bring surrender when destroying Japanese cities with conventional bombs had not done so, and – like some of the military officers quoted above – recommended a demonstration of the atomic bomb for Japan in an unpopulated area.

The Real Explanation?

History.com notes:

In  the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of  historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective  …. 

It has been suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union.  

By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United  States had deteriorated badly. 

The Potsdam Conference between U.S.  President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston  Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days  before the bombing of Hiroshima. 

The meeting was marked by  recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and the Soviets.  

Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and  many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer  diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. 

In this fashion, the dropping of  the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War.

New Scientist reported in 2005:

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather  than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who  say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.

Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. 

And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.“He  knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species,” says  Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American  University in Washington DC, US. 

“It was not just a war crime; it was a  crime against humanity.”

...

[The  conventional explanation of using the bombs to end the war and save  lives] is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell  University in Ithaca, New York, US.

...

New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman’s main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia,  Kuznick claims. 

Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an  invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the  atomic bombs themselves, he says.

According to an account by  Walter Brown, assistant to the then-US secretary of state James Byrnes,  Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on  Hiroshima that Japan was “looking for peace”. 

Truman was told by his  army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval  chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.“Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan,” says Selden.
Hiroshima, after America improved it "for democracy".
Hiroshima, after America improved it “for democracy”.

John Pilger points out:

The  US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was  “fearful” that the US air force would have Japan so “bombed out” that  the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. 

He later  admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to  achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”. 

His  foreign policy colleagues were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. 

General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: 

“There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.” 

The  day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his  satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.

We’ll give the last word to University of Maryland professor of political economy – and former Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and Special Assistant in the Department of State – Gar Alperovitz:

Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. 

Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended:
 
Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of “liberals,” as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II.

...

Instead [of allowing other options to end the war, such as letting the Soviets attack Japan with ground forces]

 , the United States rushed to use two  atomic bombs at almost exactly  the time that an August 8 Soviet attack  had originally been scheduled:  

Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on  August 9. The timing itself has  obviously raised questions among many  historians. 

The available  evidence, though not conclusive, strongly  suggests that the atomic  bombs may well have been used in part because  American leaders  “preferred”—as Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Martin  Sherwin has put  it

—to end the war with the bombs rather than the Soviet  attack.  

Impressing the Soviets during the early diplomatic sparring that   ultimately became the Cold War also appears likely to have been a   significant factor. 

...

The most  illuminating perspective, however, comes from top World War II American  military leaders. The conventional wisdom that the atomic bomb saved a  million lives is so widespread that … 

...most Americans haven’t paused to  ponder something rather striking to anyone seriously concerned with the  issue: 

Not only did most top U.S. military leaders think the bombings  were unnecessary and unjustified, but many were also morally offended by  what they regarded as the unnecessary destruction of Japanese cities  and what were essentially noncombat populations. 

Moreover, they spoke  about it quite openly and publicly.

Shortly  before his death General George C. Marshall quietly defended  the  decision, but for the most part, he is on record as repeatedly  saying  that it was not a military decision, but rather a political one. 

The original source of this article is Washington’s Blog and Global Research

Conclusion

We can see now that the civilian government of America did not want to use the nuclear bomb, or any such weapons. They felt that [1] they were not necessary, and [2] they should be used only against military targets.

They were not alone. Even Adolf Hitler felt this way.

Hitler actually told his scientists to abandon the project after German scientists learned how to split atoms in 1938.   

"When Dr. Todt visited me I read that the energy set free by such a bomb  could destroy an area as large as the state of Arizona or make as big a  crater as the meteor had caused in Siberia. That means that all life  within such an area would be destroyed, not only humans but all life,  but animals and plants would not be able to live within a radius of 40  km for hundreds of years due to radiation. That would mean an  Apocalypse. 

No land, no group of civilized people could bear the  responsibility for such a slaughter. In battle after battle human beings  would destroy themselves if such a bomb were used." 

- A. Hitler 
youtube. com/watch?v=sVVwrhdS5DU 

Now, somehow in the 70+ years since World War II, the American government has developed a completely different mindset. It is one where there are no differences between civilian targets and military targets. Instead, you totally devastate a nation using whatever means available. Then you “police it” using military forces while you steal it’s resources for your benefit.

We can see this new philosophy played out in all the many, many wars since World War II. Whether it is Yemen, Vietnam, Syria, Libya, or Afghanistan, the wars devastate civilians and military forces alike and no discernment is provided to minimize civilian casualties.

With a neocon administration under president Trump, we can clearly see that this identical and same philosophy being present when the coronavirus was unleashed on an unsuspecting China during the annual Chinese migration in 2020…

Was the 2020 Wuhan Coronavirus an engineered biological attack on China by America for geopolitical advantage?
It does seem farfetched, doesn't it? That the United States will risk World War III, using nuclear weapons, by launching a coronavirus inside China during the 2020 Chinese New Year celebrations? But that is exactly the scenario that I fear has occurred. Here we discuss this horror. If this is the actual case, and it is actually intentionally engineered and used against China, it means that the USA is flirting with global nuclear annihilation. This is nothing that should be treated lightly.

People! Whenever you decide that wars (hot, trade or economic) can be won using WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction), and…

…and you intentionally unleash them on civilians…

… you live in a nation of madmen.

neocon negotiation team.
Trump’s neocon negotiation team.

And nothing good will ever come of their actions, or your participation (active, or inactive), in it.

The universe has a way of evening the score, and whether you agree or not, you must certainly agree that targeting infants, young mothers, old men and women, and school children is wrong.

It’s not “collateral damage” it’s an evil. And if our government is involved in these kinds of activities then it is evil too.

We are all judged when we die.

We all have to face up to, and defend our lives. What will you say when asked about how you stood by and permitted these crimes to occur?

Defending Your Life is one of the best movies of all time. However, the message is not about the afterlife but very much about your life now. Especially if you believe that you live only once, the message in this movie should speak to you even more, because that means there is only one chance, and if you fear to much to take it, well, that's that. Let's realize folks: Life has so much to offer us.
Defending Your Life is one of the best movies of all time. However, the message is not about the afterlife but very much about your life now. Especially if you believe that you live only once, the message in this movie should speak to you even more, because that means there is only one chance, and if you fear to much to take it, well, that’s that. Let’s realize folks: Life has so much to offer us.

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