We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
When we lived in Indiana, we lived in a mobile home. We moved that home from park to park, and must have lived in perhaps eight different locations. Living in a trailer park is an experience in itself.
I do not recommend it.
Weekends are non-stop grass mowing and 200 families take turns on the hour mowing their grass from the crack of dawn to sunset. And let’s not talk about the poor quality of people that invariably inhabit SOME of the trailers.
I have many stories of this period in my life, but today, I wish to relate one that is charming.
It’s late July.
The sun is setting, and the fireflies come out.
You can still see them, but they turn on their mini lights and pop in and out of sight. And there, my wife and I are sitting outside on our chaise-lounges enjoying the evening when we notice our cats playing.
They all try to catch the fireflies. The light attracts them, and then they go pounce up and catch the little bugs.
I will tell youse guys that they all were having a blast, and we were truly enjoying watching them. Those little guys were just having a blast! It was the time of their little kitty-hood. Don’t you know.
…
These little moments… we all have little moments… but they should be treasured, and appreciated. Who knows what little moments that you so absent mindlessly ignore though the day, only to one day twenty years from now, look back in wistful nostalgia.
Like me.
Today…
More Voices Call On Biden To Withdraw From The 2024 Race
I do not know who is supposed to manage Biden’s public relations but whoever that is is doing a bad job.
The strategists for the Democratic Party and those concerned with winning elections should seriously think about replacing Biden with someone who is better at handling himself.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday directed top congressional Republicans to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, reversing his previous stance that such an investigation should be initiated only with a vote of the House.
In doing so, Mr. McCarthy leveled a series of accusations against Mr. Biden that he said amounted to a “picture of a culture of corruption” and warranted the House using its most potent investigative tool to try to make the case for removing the president.
The impeachment proceedings, like those against Donald Trump, are mostly a public relation gimmick. But they are also likely to show that the Biden family business is as corrupt as they come.
The British establishment, largely on the Democrats side, is clearly concerned.
Yet although Mr Comer’s investigation is failing to prove the existence of what Donald Trump calls the “Biden crime family”, congressional inquiries will now multiply. … Indeed, the younger Mr Biden’s legal problems are intensifying. On September 6th prosecutors serving under David Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter, announced that they expect an indictment by the end of the month. The president’s son is likely to be charged with not paying taxes and lying on a form when buying a gun at a time when he was addicted to crack cocaine. A plea deal that would have kept him out of jail on those charges fell apart in July. And other, more damaging charges—such as lobbying for a foreign government without registering—have not been ruled out.
None of that implicates the president. Yet he may suffer for it nonetheless. According to a CNN poll, three-fifths of Americans think Mr Biden was involved in his son’s business. Pump out enough smoke and you might create fire.
The CIA’s influence peddler and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is the latest establishment voice to warn of a likely defeat of Biden should he decide to keep running:
Like the Economist writers Ignatius is as friendly to Democrats as they come. The CIA and FBI had both intervened after the election of Donald Trump. They launched Russiagate, a series of fake stories, to hamper Trump’s ability to govern and to get Biden elected. That its senior management has commissioned Ignatius to call on Biden to give up can be understood as a warning.
Ignatius names two points that put Biden’s reelection into jeopardy:
Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign. He would be 82 when he began a second term. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years. Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.
Because of their concerns about Biden’s age, voters would sensibly focus on his presumptive running mate, Harris. She is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight. Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.
Biden at least should get rid of Harris who is a bit of a millstone to popularity:
Biden could encourage a more open vice-presidential selection process that could produce a stronger running mate.
Ignatius goes on to ask Biden to step down and to immediately announce that he will not be available for another round:
Biden has never been good at saying no. He should have resisted the choice of Harris, who was a colleague of his beloved son Beau when they were both state attorneys general. He should have blocked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which has done considerable damage to the island’s security. He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone.
Biden has another chance to say no — to himself, this time — by withdrawing from the 2024 race. It might not be in character for Biden, but it would be a wise choice for the country.
I doubt that Joe Biden, or the people around him, will follow that advice. They are too full of themselves to voluntarily make room for others. It will require more intervention, probably from former president Obama, to convince Biden to give up.
Or someone could create some ‘medical emergency’. That should not be too difficult given Biden’s general condition and age.
Anyway. If the Democrats want to keep the presidency, something needs to be done.
Soften yeast in warm water and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add milk to sugar and salt. Mix and cool to lukewarm.
Add 1 cup flour and mix until smooth. Stir in yeast. Add remaining flour mixing well. Knead dough on floured board until smooth. Put in greased bowl, grease top, cover with towel and let rise in warm room until double.
Punch down dough, and roll into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Brush with the softened butter and spread with mixture of raisins, currants, citron, the 1/4 cup brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up like a jellyroll and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices. Lay the slices in a buttered 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan. Cover and let rise until doubled.
I’m in my second week of at home suspension for striking a teacher. He locked me in a classroom and attempted to assault me when I wouldn’t consent to his advances on 14 year old me.
The knock on the door was a deputy that served legal papers in our little town. The papers he served me was a summons to court for legal action pertaining to expenses incurred from point there after. I’m being sued by this teacher.
My dad exploded, that jerk has bigger problems than money, just wait I don’t care if he’s in a courtroom. OMG I was saying daddy calm down a lot, I only call my dad “daddy” when I need him to calm down and focus on me so he doesn’t get into trouble or worse.
The day of court arrived and there stands Mr Smug in his neck brace, bandaged nose, and black eye. I am holding my dad by both hands, telling him to look at me, please I don’t want you in jail dad.
It doesn’t help that I’m shaking and I’m sure dad can feel it.
Then the judge starts reading the case notes, Mr Smug is suing one Miss Key for medical expenses incurred during an altercation that resulted in a fractured nose, two chipped teeth, severe painful swelling in the groin, blurry vision, slight concussion, and upper neck pain.
So young lady how do you plead?
I asked the judge if I could present my papers (please don’t laugh we couldn’t afford a lawyer).
He accepts my papers which are the affidavits from the custodian, vice principal and teacher (the witnesses that pulled me off of Mr Smug), the arresting deputy, and the school nurse that treated me before my dad arrived.
His whole demeanor changed. WTH?!
You mean to tell me that you are suing this girl because she kicked your but during an assault?
His lawyer started trying to make an argument about me being malicious, and over bearing about defending myself.
The judge told him to shut up, in what world does a 30 year old man believe he has a case against a 14 year old child that he is attempting to assault?
Lawyer sets in with that is just allegations and hear-say, there’s no proof.
I didn’t ask you lawyer I asked your client because as it stands this is the stupidest case I’ve ever heard of.
In fact it’s so stupid that I’m dismissing it without prejudice, on grounds of incomprehension and competence.
And might I extend my gratitude to you Mr Key for raising an able and resourceful young lady.
After the accident, she was left on the side of the road, no one stopped the car to help her
A severely injured cat was found on the road, accompanied by meowing kittens. A man called for help, unable to afford vet care. Promising assistance, we advised taking the cat to a nearby clinic. Despite financial constraints, we assured the man we’d cover the costs. We directed him to the nearest clinic known to us.
Team members searched for kittens nearby and found three. Unfortunately, the cat couldn’t be saved due to delay, leaving us saddened. Confirming her as the mother, we arranged a burial.
We decided to adopt the motherless kittens and raise them with another cat.
The loss saddened us, but we hoped for a better life for the kittens.
As many of you know, there is a lot of stray paws in Punjab and I try my best to take care of them. When I get off from my job, I go every day to feed these poor hungry cats. On weekends I get a lot of time to help these stray cats and kittens. I go for street feeding everyday. It gives me great pleasure to help these poor animals. I get internal peace. I want to share these moments with you.
My opinion: 5G apps. Apple has yet to produce its own 5G transceiver. Today, it uses Qualcomm. Media reports think it will be 2025. By that time, Huawei will be promoting 5.5G heavily and experimenting with 6G. When Harmony OS can show the same number of apps, it has a good chance of surpassing Apple. In the current generation of mobile phones, Huawei can communicate via satellite, achieve data rates comparable to 6G, and come at a lower price point than Apple. Apple’s annual comfab on its mobile phones revealed nothing exciting, The biggest deal was Apple incorporating USB to charge because the EU forced them to. Everyone is speculating what will Huawei do with photonics, graphene, and quantum chips, the near term poses exciting possibilities.
I bought a home with 16 acres and a week after I moved in while staining the exterior a pickup came up the driveway and a man got out and informed me he would be hunting on my property that fall. I told him that no, no one would be hunting on my property and if I caught anyone doing so I would have them trespassed. He said the pervious owner said he could so he would be hunting. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy.
I came down from the ladder and told him it did not matter what anyone had told him before, I now owned the place and he was not going to hunt on my property and was going to get back in his truck and get off of my property immediately. I also told him I had cameras up and I had better not catch him here again or I would take the steps that needed to be taken to ensure he would come to realize how serious I am that my private property was just that, private, and that the previous owner had warned me about him.
I never caught him on any of the trail cameras I put up and never caught him on my property again, but I did catch him on camera leaving deer entrails next to my mailbox which was across the road a couple times during the following deer season, but after than nothing more. The foxes, coyotes, and buzzards took care of his mess in short order too.
No one believe he will alive over the night but he beat all odds and thrive now!
There are some really great answers, but I figure I’ll add mine. I’m going anonymous for my own, personal reasons.
When I was a little kid I had a pretty decent life- upper middle class, two parents, live-in nanny, lots of pets. The works. The problem was, none of it was real. All the money was borrowed, and every piece of luxury was a facade to hide my parents’ crumbling lives.
When I was six my mother got into a car accident. She wound up with nerve damage and went on some pretty heavy duty painkillers- we’ll come back to that. The more immediate effect was that this accident triggered a resurgence of repressed memories from her own childhood. She spent the next year or two in and out of psychiatric care. I don’t know how long, exactly; time is a little blurry.
My most vivid memory of that year is laying awake in my bed, my door cracked, my mother on all fours in the hallway, dragging my father’s safe, and screaming “He’ll never get us again. He’ll never get us again.” This went on for a long time. I pretended I wasn’t there.
When I was seven my father also got into a car accident. He walked away relatively unscathed, but used the accident as cause to start seeing a neurologist. He complained of headaches, which he had apparently always had. He also got a prescription for heavy painkillers. Within months, both my parents were taking enough Dilaudid to kill a horse. Even at seven years old, I could tell that they weren’t as sharp as the used to be.
I have a sister who is much older than I am. Years later, she would confirm my suspicions, the ones that were just starting to form at this time: both my parents were long-time drug addicts, who had only temporarily gotten clean. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I wasn’t there.
When I was eight my parents sent me to a private school. Not only were they addicted to narcotics, they were also addicted to the perception of wealth and social status. Sending me to private school furthered this. I didn’t fit in. My grades plummeted.
When my first report cards came back, my father’s belt came out. I’d never been hit before, not more than spanked, anyway. I don’t remember the moment of contact of the belt, or the palms, or the fists. I only ever remember the swing. I only ever remember the feeling of the carpet against my cheeks, wet with tears. I never remember the moment of contact.
Every time I would get beat by my father, my mother’s response would be the same. She would cry, rocking herself to comfort, a few feet away, but watching the whole thing. Sometimes, she would come up to me afterward and say, “Don’t you dare fuck this up for me.” It took a long time before I found out what that meant.
I wonder if I never remember the moments i got hit because I was pretending I wasn’t there.
When I was eleven my father had his major breakdown. We had moved to a new town, a cheaper house. We didn’t have as many cars, and luxuries were becoming fewer and fewer. The facade was crumbling, and the rot inside was starting to show. Both of my parents were high most of the time at that point. I guess part of it was to cope with the stress of their crumbling lives, and part of it was just their nature. It was a cycle, a spiral, and they were coming unhinged.
My father was the first one to snap. One day I woke up to banging and screaming. My parents fought a lot, and I would usually pretend I wasn’t there. Something was different this time, though. I could tell. I went out of my room to see what was happening, and the next moment are a blur. I don’t know if, in the excitement, I failed to form memories for a minute, or if I’ve blocked something out entirely.
What I do remember starts shortly after leaving my room. My mother and I are running down the stairs, each carrying as many guns as we can. My father was running close behind us, screaming, naked. He wanted to kill us. This I remember. He tried to get to his guns, but we got to them first. This I remember. I have never been so scared in my life. This I remember.
He was an avid gun collector, despite a history of drug abuse and instability. For obvious reasons, I am an avid supporter of strict gun control legislation.
Sometimes I think of the boulder scene from Indiana Jones. That’s exactly what it felt like, but instead of treasure, we were running away with guns. Instead of a boulder, it was a doped-up maniac who wanted to kill my mother and me.
We ran outside, pulling things down behind us however we could without dropping the guns. We managed to get to my mother’s car and lock the guns inside. We knew it wouldn’t stop him, but it slowed him down. That’s all we needed. The cops showed up shortly after we got the guns in the car. He struggled, but at least half a dozen cars were there. He had no chance. That was the day I watched the cops take my father away.
I don’t remember the next days very well. I tried to pretend I wasn’t there.
When I was fourteen I went to visit my father. They were always supervised visits, so my mother was there as well. On the way out, she told me to wait in the car, and they stayed back in the entryway for a couple minutes. I started to hear raised voices, then saw my mother try to leave. I saw my father grab her by the arm, twist it behind her back, and pin her against the garage door.
I didn’t know what to do, so I did what I wanted.
I got out of the car, and ran over to the two of them. I yelled at my father. It was the first time I really yelled, instead of screaming. It was a terrifying noise. Every time I have to yell, I still think about that moment. I don’t yell much.
He didn’t respond to the noise, so I did the next logical thing.
I hit him.
I hit him again.
And again.
And again.
I pressed my forearm into his neck and made clear, in no uncertain terms, that he had better never hurt either of us again. I got into the car, and my mother and I left.
That was the day I didn’t pretend I wasn’t there.
When I was fifteen my mother started drinking. She had been clean for a few years, since my father got taken away, but it got really bad, really quickly. She had trouble holding down jobs, kept driving drunk and getting into car accidents. She broke a bunch of bones, lost a bunch of weight. She was killing herself.
We had no money, no food. She could hold a job for maybe a week or two. Any cash she had went into cheap alcohol. I used to look for change on the street. When I had enough, I’d go to the gas station and get a gallon of kerosene for our furnace. That got harder when it started snowing. We went without heat a lot. I stayed over at friends’ places as much as possible. Their parents would let me eat family meals with them. Nobody asked questions. Nobody had to. By January of that year I was stealing money for food. I made a little extra cash by selling small amounts of drugs, but it wasn’t enough to make a living.
In February, my mother got drunker than I’d ever seen her. She kept telling me she wished I was never born, that I was a mistake. She told me why she decided to have a child. My father was planning on a divorce. So she sabotaged the birth control. I was her tool. Now I understood why she was always so upset that I would fuck it all up for her.
After a while, words weren’t enough. She picked up a knife, and tried to stab me in the neck. I was so shocked that I almost didn’t get out of the way in time, but she was very drunk, and I was 15 and spry. I grabbed her by the wrist, took the knife from her, and locked myself in the bathroom until I figured out what to do.
I wanted to pretend I wasn’t there, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I called the cops, and, for the second time in my life, I watched them take away one of my parents.
I was alone, and I had no idea what to do.
I called my father.
When I was sixteen I was living with my father. He had cleaned up, sort of. He was at least functional. We lived with his girlfriend in a huge house in a rich neighborhood. He had found his way back into the glamour. My room was, quite literally, a large closet under the stairs. I read Harry Potter multiple times that year. It made me feel a little better.
Things were generally okay between my father and I at that point. At least, I smoothed things along. He was pathological liar, and used every chance he had to manipulate people. That never changed. But… it was better than foster care, it was better than being homeless. We moved around a lot back then. I think six moves in two years. It made it hard to make friends, but I was biding my time. I knew I’d get through it.
Then I was raped.
Back then, I didn’t think men could be raped, at least not by women. It took a long time for me to call it what it was. In fact, it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I could really say it. I was raped. Over, and over. The difficulty in calling it rape was that 1) I was so hung up on traditional gender roles at that age, and didn’t know better, and 2) that this happened inside of a relationship. I was in an abusive relationship, and I had no idea. I had no idea that it was wrong.
I thought that I was what was wrong.
Whenever it was happening, I would just close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t there.
Then, one day, I snapped.
When I was twenty I got so tired of pretending. I got so tired of acting like I wasn’t being hurt. I got so tired of letting people have power over me. So I stopped it all.
One by one, ended every abusive relationship.
I called my partner. I told her I never wanted to see her again. I still didn’t call what she did rape at that point, but I knew it was wrong. I knew I was done with it.
I called my mother. I told her I never wanted to see her again. We had tried to repair our relationship after she tried to kill me, but it never really worked. She never could see that she did anything wrong. It was always about how it affected her life. She’s not my responsibility.
I called my father. I told him I never wanted to see him again. Living with him for the two years I needed before I was eighteen was tolerable, but only because I would always pretend I wasn’t there. It was harder to leave him, because I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he’s just profoundly narcissistic, unable to control himself, and incredibly dangerous to all those around him. In the two years I was living with him, he almost shot me again, but I talked him down. I knew, no matter what his intentions were, I would never be safe with him in my life.
Out of all of these, I do miss my father. Or more accurately, I desperately miss the person he could have been.
That was when I stopped pretending.
I would never again pretend I wasn’t there, because now I really wasn’t.
Leaving was the best, and hardest, thing I have ever done in my life. Beyond every single nightmare moment- leaving was the hardest.
But I’m so glad I did.
When I was twenty one I started my first semester of graduate school. Five and a half years later, and I’m doing really well. I’m in therapy, and have been for a few years. It really helps, but there’s so much left to work through. I have good friends, healthy relationships, and a satisfying life. I’m defending my doctoral dissertation in three weeks, and then starting a job that I’m really excited for. I managed to get my life on a really good track, and I’m immensely thankful.
Leaving was so incredibly, incredibly hard, but it was so good for me.
I don’t have to pretend I’m not there anymore.
Now I’m here.
THIS HITS HARD!!! OLIVER ANTHONY – COBWEBS AND COCAINE (REACTION)
You guys are great. I love your reactions… They seem real to me so if they’re not you’re doing a great job if they are you’re doing a great job. Oliver…. Mr. Christopher Anthony is a blessing to us all…. Unexpected…. Breath of fresh air… With divine timing. We all need more people like Oliver… Mr. Christopher Anthony. We are All just as great as he is…. He is a blessing because he created a spark worldwide . His message is for all …
The Dutch sucked up to the U.S. and refuse to sell their EU.V machines to China. A fatal mistake. China did it with other technology that is cheaper, better and faster. Now the Dutch EUV machines will lose not only Chinese business but businesses across the world. It will go bankrupt in no time or at least until the U.S. stop paying billions of subsidies to them. And if and when the U.S. stop the Dutch company ought to sue the U.S. for trillions of dollars.
What can the US do? If it is smart it change a president and forget containing China. But I suspect it is not smart enough. It will hurt the US to no end by killing US industry one by one.
Opera Singer Reacts to Dio – The Last In Line
Dio wasn’t just a once in a lifetime vocalist… He was a once in a century talent.
The BRICS alliance inducted six new countries into the bloc at the 15th summit in Johannesburg last month. Out of the six countries, five are oil-producing nations that export millions of barrels across the globe every year. The six countries joining BRICS are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Iran, and Ethiopia, while Argentina is the only non-oil-producing country.
There’s a high risk that Saudi Arabia and the UAE might start accepting local currencies for oil and ditch the U.S. dollar.
The new mission of BRICS is to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and promote local currencies for global trade. Therefore, chances are high that Saudi Arabia might consider accepting local currencies as payment for oil to reduce its dependency on the U.S. dollar.
BRICS is looking to control the oil markets, and inducting Saudi Arabia was the best choice. But what could happen to the U.S. dollar if Saudi Arabia accepts local currencies to settle oil and gas payments.
First and foremost, the weakening of the U.S. dollar would begin if Saudi Arabia accepted local currencies for oil trade. If Saudi Arabia demands that other countries pay in local currencies only, then demand for the U.S. dollar would dip drastically. The move could lead to the dollar facing a depreciation in the international forex and currency markets. A weak dollar would make imported goods more expensive in the United States and potentially impact the overall U.S. economy.
Secondly, other nations will begin to diversify their reserves and accumulate other currencies apart from the U.S. dollar. The development would increase demand for other local currencies and put them in direct competition with the dollar. Central Banks around the world will keep reserves of all currencies and commodities like gold, making the USD dip.
BREAKING NEWS: Oprah Winfrey INVESTIGATED For Maui Fires!
That woman needs to be investigated for much more egregious kind that involve the kiddies. There are some serious questions here. Something suggests some profit motives by the mega-wealthy.
I had a daughter. Her mother became pregnant and we moved into a house together. Six months later my daughter was born. Mom had four children from another marriage and made an effort to remind the older children she was their half-sibling. When she was two, the older siblings went from full time with us to half the time with their dad. When she was five, I started to notice mother’s subtle abuses through passive aggression and blame: having my daughter’s hair develop tangles and using a comb to brush, blaming the five-year-old for the tangled hair, and then chopping her hair off. This happened three times by the time she was five years old — and her mom was a hairdresser.
I filed for divorce and custody was joint. My daughter looked a lot like me. So it was a shocker when paternity was challenged. Police knocked on my door and showed me a court order. Mom waited across the street with her ex-husband while a social worker had to pull my daughter away screaming and begging to stay. The social worker kept apologizing and let my daughter come running back when my daughter started to have an asthma attack. After about 20 minutes, a police sergeant came up to the front porch where I was with my daughter, who had started to calm down and her breathing was under control at this point. He just looked at me and said, “I’m sorry,” then walked back to the curb. He spoke to the other two officers, who got in their cars and left. Then he walked across the street and talked to my wife and her ex.
After a few minutes he handcuffed her ex-husband, put him in his cruiser, and left. Mom walked across the street and stood at the curb. I told my daughter that everything was going to be all right, that I’d see her soon, that I loved her and I was so proud of her. I promised her I’d see her soon. Mom told her she’d see me the next week as she took her hand, then they drove off. I haven’t seen her since. I decided a long time ago I was not going to fight it. The divorce court changed the case to divorce without children and it was over.
I haven’t heard anything and have no rights to inquire about how my daughter is doing. She is 8 now and likely can’t remember what I look like, and in a few more years she’ll barely remember me at all. Better for her that I fade away than to risk more traumatic incidents. I miss all of the kids, my daughter and her siblings. I was their father, and now I’m not.
I don’t think I will ever stop hurting.
First Time Hearing Oliver Anthony – “90 Some Chevy” Reaction | Asia and BJ
This guy is just GOLDEN… every. single. song. He could cash out now and put to shame just about any country act out there. 100% pure talent and soul.
Fresh out of the US Navy, I went to work for Burger King as an assistant manager for $140 a week. Six months later, BK raised the starting pay to $150 a week. I asked my boss to raise me to at least the same rate, but he said no, I had to wait for my annual review. I said: You’re going to hire somebody off the street with zero experience and pay them $10 a week more than me with six months of experience? He said yes. I said no. I went across the street to McDonald’s for $175 a week.
Several years later, I was studying accounting to become a CPA and took a job in January with a small CPA firm for $4 an hour. At the end of tax season, Friday, April 15, he called me into the office and said he didn’t need me anymore, the busy time was over. I was shocked. The following Monday, I called him and said I had a wife and child to support, could he at least pay me two weeks severance pay? He said he would pay me one week. I started with another small CPA firm on Wednesday at $5 an hour. So I got a 25% raise AND I was paid 5 days for my 2 days without work.
By the way, a classmate of mine went to work for Touche Ross, one of the Big Eight Accounting Firms, in July 1979. He scored Number One on the national CPA Exam, out of 42,000 participants. He asked for a raise, they said he had to wait for his annual review. He went across the street to Price Waterhouse with a big raise. Some employers are just STUPID !
Give Huawei whatever it needs and then let it compete against the Iphone 15
On one hand you throttle Huawei with every ban on earth and bullying everyone you know of and at the same time you preach about free trade to the whole world
How can you have a fair assessment of which model is better?
This was originally in my drafts because I expected the Iphone 15 to be vastly superior to the Mate 60 Pro
Instead turns out the Mate 60 Pro held its own against the Iphone 15 which was deemed as “Non Innovative” by Western Experts
In my humble opinion, I don’t think so. The population would have declined with the rapid pace of the urbanization and modernization, even if without this One Child Policy. Please come to think about it, Japan, Korea and ROC on Taiwan all witness the declining of the population growth, but without such a drastic social engineering imposing on the people.
It’s quite natural that population would plummet with the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial and urban society. The modern mindsets and lifestyles, the improving health and education standards, the higher cost of having children and raising them up could contribute to the low expectancy among people to have more children.
Chinese people are also people, who have human agencies and vitalities. Chinese people could and would adapt to these changes without having to undergo this basic state policy for few decades. As a matter of the fact, there was a county, Yicheng, which was once a pilot experimenting place, where the policy of two children in a family was implemented from 1985–2015, however, many folks from there didn’t choose to have more children.
Many answers here jump in and are quick to discredit Sun Tzu.
Have you actually read the book, like, really read the whole book?
It’s not a long book. It’s got 7,573 Chinese characters. In comparison, my graduation paper in Chinese University was 20,000 Characters.
Why does the Art of War say to never put your enemy in a corner?
“Really? Did Sun Tzu write that? Ha! How shallow and obviously wrong! What an overrated fraud!”
Urgh….
Had you read it thoroughly, other than seeing this question on Quora and enters “triggered” mode and discredit Art of War, you’d realize why he said that.
I cannot find the exact quote for “Never put your enemy in a corner”, because I have not read the English version, nor would I ever be interested to do that. But here is the Chinese version of, what I assume to be where the idea come from:
Therefore, the art of war lies in: never face a high mountain, never retreat from a down hill, never follow an enemy army faking defeat, never attack an elite enemy army, never bite a shark-bait, never chase after a retreating enemy army, leave opening for a surrounded enemy army, never pressure a desperate enemyarmy. This is the art of war. The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Chapter Army Conflict
Whoever says Sun Tzu is wrong because surrounding enemy happens all the time in reality, it’s a good strategy; or enemy can always surrender, etc., has evidently not read the book at all, or had interpreted it wrong.
First of all, he never said, you shouldn’t surround an enemy force. He said, surround them, but never completely. Leave a small opening for them.
If you have watched Game of Thrones: Battle of the Bastards, you’ll see why this makes sense. Althought it was fictional, I’m sure good medieval European strategists would have agreed with Sun Tzu, if they had read about it.
If you surround an army completely, even the most cowards will forget about escape, unite and fight you with all they’ve got. But if there is a chance to get out, even the bravest will try to squeeze through that hole and flee.
Would you rather fight a united army? Or a fleeing one? This is a no-brainer.
Why should you never pressure a desperate enemy?
First, what is a “desperate enemy”?
Clearly, you could physically surround an enemy army. But if peaceful surrender is on the table, they are hardly “desperate”, or “cornered” as the question put it.
And that is why most formal armies in the world would shout: “Lay down your arms and we guarantee your safety” when they had the enemy surrounded.
Imagine if you shout: “Stop struggling! You have nowhere to go! Stay where you are and we will come to kill you all, piss in your skull, rape your women, and enslave your children!” instead. The surrounded will no doubt fight you to their last breath, and will rejoice for every bullet they managed to put inside one of you, even at the cost of ten of their lives.
That is when you create a “desperate and cornered” enemy.
Sun Tsu’s book does not only focus on winning a battle, it focuses on winning a war. In the book, you’ll find plenty of sentences like, avoid physical conflict if possible, do not fight unnecessary battles, etc. He is trying to make you understand how casualties are costly, and you must avoid it.
This particular argument here is coherent with that idea. An absolutely “cornered” enemy will fight you and possibly injure and even kill your soldiers, no matter how onesidedly stronger your troops are. It will always lower your morale, and put a financial burden on your country. That doesn’t help you win a war.
Is it really so wrong?
Read this book before you comment on it, seriously, guys. You do realize there are Chinese speakers who can read English and prove you wrong with credible sources, right?
The book Art of War is not outrageously long, or even obscure. Most of the language is quite simple and easy to understand.
The U.S. has established a technical team to study the Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip!
“The Chinese chip is too advanced for the Americans.”
I have spent the bulk of my adult life working at car dealerships, so I have heard a ton of complaints, especially since I was the fix-it person at some of those dealerships.
One day one of the salesmen came up to me to warn about what was walking up to the door.
His customer had been calling his cell phone for days about how pissed off he was that he sold him a lemon. That was all the guy would say or text, never saying what the problem was.
So he gets directed to me of course.
He starts complaing that he just purchased his car a week and a half ago and that the other day an idiot light came on on the dashboard, he was close to home and the car stalled out as he got to his driveway so he slammed on the brakes and had to pay for a tow truck to tow it into his driveway.
I asked him if the tow truck driver looked at anything in the car to see why it stalled and told me no, he only paid him to put it in the driveway and that we will be reimbursing him for that, the days of having a rental car, free repair for the issue and give him at least 1 year of free oil changes.
I went onto computer and googled warning indicator lights for his vehicle and asked him to show me which light was on. He pointed at the indicator light of a gas pump. Yup folks, he ran out of gas.
I asked him how many times he got gas in his car in the week and a half he had it, thinking maybe there was a leak. His honest to god answer was “Why should I have to put gas in my car, I just got it and only drive miles to and from work”
It took just about everything in me not to bust out laughing in face, but then a woman who overheard everything said “and they think us women are stupid”, well that was where none of us could hold it in anymore and just about every employee and other customers busted out laughing.
After finally calming down, I told him I’d be more than happy to have a runner go over to put some gas in the car so he can get to a station, however told him that he needed to pay for it.
He was not happy and needless to say never came back for anything and left a bad review, but all who read the review commented on how it was his fault for being stupid and not getting gas.
Bobby Driscoll was the original voice of Peter Pan and a successful child actor. He was one of the first people signed into a contract with Disney and starred in many successful films for both MGM and Disney.
Known as Disney’s sweat heart, Bobby Driscoll was riding high on his fame. That was all to change once Boddy became a teenager and Disney dropped him.
Up until he got the booth he was one of Disney’s favourite stars, with a salary 1,700 a week. That all changed once puberty set in and he developed a bad case of acne, forcing Disney to drop him
When he was dropped from Disney, his parents placed him in an ordinary school, but the kids rejected him and started to bully him for his roles in movies. This had a big effect on him so he turned to drugs.
Bobby’s career struggled to take off, and he could only land minor roles in TV series. His drug use got worse, and he was arrested in 1956. He had another run in with the law when he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and by 1962, he was unable to land any new roles.
He moved to New York to try and land roles on Broadway, but that didn’t work out for him. He gave his last performance in a film called Dirt in 1965.
Three years, later two kids playing in an abandoned Tenement block in New York stumbled upon the 31-year-old’s decaying body lying in a cot with two beer bottles next to him and religious pamphlets scattered around the cot.
Since the body had no identification and police couldn’t identify him he was buried in an unmarked pauper grave. It wasn’t until a year later when Bobby’s mother was trying to get in contact with her son that she discovered that her he had died.
His death wasn’t reported until 1971 when a reporter was researching the whereabouts of the young film star, and learned of his death. Although his name is on his father’s tombstone, his body remains in the pauper’s grave.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Sitting Bull meets Colonel Miles
Movie: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)
He’s got a point. The Crow tribe hated Sitting Bull and his tribe – Lakota Sioux – for continuously raiding them and aggression towards them. They were actually devastated by the news of the fate of 7th Cavalry. When the Lakota Sioux gave up, the Crow were relieved that they could sleep soundly at night.
Apple Execs have RUSHED to Beijing to reassure them that APPLE IS NOT RELOCATING ANYWHERE and proposes to expand operations in China
Guess what?
China said “No Need. Thanks”
That is CHINA for you
All these MSM Propaganda and all these “Economic Collapses”
Yet if China announces a small ban, the reaction is worth a $ 200 Billion burn
Sure Apple may recover but that panic and impact – THAT’S THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON AND IT’S MIGHT
Now. Imagine China does a scorched earth and bans all SC companies
China may lose 10 years
US Companies will lose at least $ 1.7 Trillion plus a Tech domino that could hit US Banks and Institutions
China is a patient nation but it’s patience is slowly wearing thin
Xi skipping G20
The Mate 60
The Iphone decision
The Decision to rescind Japanese Seafood Imports
The Decision to ban the Iphone for Government officials
It is even likely Xi will allow Country Garden and Real Estate Companies to refuse to pay their debt and default on their bonds completely and keep doing business in China
After all i doubt Country Garden sells homes in Cook County Chicago
Heres another look at how STRONG CHINA IS
Russian Girl First Time Hearing Judy Garland-Over The Rainbow!
It was a sunny day. I was going to my class. Suddenly I saw a lot of people gathered at one place. I stopped my bike and saw a cow badly injured with her broken leg. She was trying hard to get up.
I just couldn’t take it!
I called a tempo and took the cow to the hospital.
There,
Doctor: it will take around 5000 rs to treat her(a big deal for a 17 year kid)
Me: I will arrange the money you start her operation.
I rushed to my home broke my piggybank and gave money to the doctor
i just saw how calmly the cow was walking after treatment i smiled and got away
after 6 days!
I was going by the same road and suddenly I lost my balance and fell from my bike
I felt like someone took me in hands and put me on road
I got no injury!
when I opened my eyes I had fallen on the road.
I saw the same cow looking at me with the bandages still on her!
I felt she saved me. I was on the 7th sky feeling the feel of karma!
Sorry for the grammatical mistakes if any!
so I made this tag line of my life!
karma right
future bright 😉
What matters is how we achieve things Bedazzled
Much evil that is generated in the world is because of the conviction that the end justifies the means.
I was in a commercial for Campbell’s Chunky Soup about 10 or 11 years ago. It was a massive advertising effort by Campbell’s and was constantly on TV. I was in a couple shots and one was the final shot where there was an extreme close-up of me taking a bite of the “soup”.
When we were filming, there was a person that was “pre-loading” spoonfuls of soup for me to “eat”. They would take a few cans of the soup and disect all the contents and reassemble them in “perfect” spoonfuls. They would bring one up to me every take, and I had to pretend to enjoy it. I had to hold the bowl in an awkward angle, and the soup in the bowl was also carefully arranged.
Little do the viewers know that there was a big, white, spit bucket 🪣, that I would chew, smile, look into the wildernerness….then spit it out.
They had me do no less than 20 takes. Each spoonful was heaping and if I had eaten them, i would have destroyed probably 4 full cans of the soup.
I was game to do anything pretty much for what they were paying me, and said that I would eat it, but they said not to do it. Fair enough.
I was on duty and this 55 year old lady was admitted in ICU. She had breast cancer spread to her lungs and was literally struggling for breath. I went to check on her, as her saturation was dropping. There was nothing much I could do. After asking the nurse to give her some medicines, I turned to leave.
That was when I slipped and fell, as there was a little water on the floor, probably from a leaking iv fluid bottle. The lady, while struggling for her breath, asked me:
‘Son, are you all right?’
You may call it touching rather than shocking. Whatever, it was indeed shocking to me that even gasping for the last breath can not stop a human being from caring for someone else.
I saw an answer for this when the person being ‘lit up’ got a parabolic or dish mirror and affixed it so the light was collected and shone back to the bedroom of the owner of the light. When they asked her to turn off the light, she was able to explain it was their light and they could turn it off.
I just loved that answer!
Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Butter
Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Butter
Ingredients
3 quarts sweet cider
8 pounds ripe, well-flavored apples
2 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Cook cider over high heat, uncovered, about 30 minutes or until it is reduced to half.
Wash, quarter and core unpeeled apples. Add to cider, and cook over low heat until very tender. Stir frequently. Work apple mixture through a sieve, returning the puree to the kettle. Stir in sugar, all the spices, and salt. Cook over very low heat, stirring almost continuously, until mixture thickens.
My main “beef” with my parents was a simple one. At every opportunity for me to do something outside of the school narrative…
“Study hard. Get a good job, and you will be set for life with a good pension.”
…They pretty much sucked at helping me.
I asked my mother; “How do I buy land”? And she looked at me for a moment and answered…
“You just go and buy it.”
Gosh, Mom. That was so helpful.
NOT!
At that time, there wasn’t any Google about. No internet. Only a small town library, and neither the teachers or anyone would help me out. No one could answer my questions.
I’d ask my dad; “How do I buy stocks”?
He would chuckled. Then thought about it, and he answered…
“You just go and buy them.”
Gosh dad. That was so helpful.
NOT!
And it wasn’t just that.
I asked my dad, “How do I ask a girl out for a date”?
And his answer was…
“What, who’s the girl?”
And I would say, “No one you know. So how do I do it”?
And he would chuckle, and he said…
“Oh, you just go up to her and ask her if she wanted to go out with you.”
Wow! So very helpful.
NOT!
…
Do not make the same mistakes that my parents made. Take the time. Enunciate. Explain. Be empathic, and be kind and considerate.
It will make a BIG difference.
Todays…
How China Destroyed US Sanctions and Changed Microchip Forever!
The USA did not declare war on Huawei. They declared war on hundreds of thousands of motivated Chinese set to go starving on the streets, unless they pushed themselves…
What many people don’t know is Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei only owns roughly 1% of the company, and the employees own 99% of the company, so imagine a body of hundreds of thousands of supercharged and super-talented people giving their all, not only for survival of their families but also with a vengeance to prove that they can’t be suppressed and will fight back.
Huawei is a networking equipment maker which makes mobile phones. This means it knows the backend first, and then how to connect the network to its Frontend devices, including mobile phones.
Apple only focuses on Frontend consumer devices, and not connecting with backend devices because its focus is on the user experience.
Apple relies on Qualcomm for its 5G transceiver; Huawei designs its own 5G transceiver.
That is the difference.
Newborn kitten cries when she sees her mother lying motionless on her left side full of thorns
Newborn kitten cries when she sees her mother lying motionless on her left side full of thorns The mother cat and her cubs have an accident on a strange fruit full of thorns A mother cat crashes next to the fruit back.
We have seen the mother cat and her two young children lying here. kittens just a few days old swaddled around their mother. and cried out of voice when he saw his mother in trouble.
next to it is a fruit full of thorns. This cat family is pitiful.
when I thought the fruit from the other corner fell on the mother cat. but luckily the other fruit is just next to the mother cat and the kittens.
Maybe the mother cat was exhausted.
We are walking in a tropical forest. There are a lot of dry leaves here. I came across a family of cats in distress here.
The kittens were crying when they saw their mother lying motionless. The mother cat lies next to the thorny fruit weevil. I come closer to check and will help the cat family.
The kittens are quite small. Luckily this thorny fruit didn’t hit the kitten. The mother cat is very weak. it needs immediate care. I will help this poor meod family.
Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add sweet potato, water and vanilla extract; mix well.
In a small mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff; fold into the sweet potato mixture.
Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; add to potato mixture.
Stir in pecans.
Pour into three greased 9-inch round cake pans.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 to 27 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks.
Frosting: Melt the butter in a saucepan; whisk in sugar, milk and egg yolks until smooth. Cook and stir over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes or until thickened and bubbly.
Remove from the heat; stir in the coconut, pecans and vanilla extract. Cool slightly.
Place one cake layer on a serving plate; spread with a third of the frosting.
When I was in high school, in my senior year, I had a co-op job as an electronic tech, and worked for a small business. The business was on Rt 11, in a business district leading into Bloomsburg Pa.
One afternoon, while at my bench, we heard a car accident occur outside our building. Apparently, a young man no older than me was speeding and decided to use the enter lane to pass people, and caught a young family getting read to turn off to the seasonal hamburger place next door to so (to the right when facing the highway)
Tye family was ok, but a group of workers from the welding/fabrication shop next to us (on the left) ran out to the car and attempted to pull the young driver out.
But he apparently had a broken neck… I will never forget seeing how his head moved, it just sort of flopped around on his shoulders. That was 43 years ago, and I still remember that part vividly.
A day or two later his sister dropped by and asked us if we had seen a ring of his that was missing. We did walk around the accident scene but never found it.
Because he broke his neck on his steering wheel, I started to wear my seatbelt while driving, long before there was a campaign to require it.
Don’t know if this was a thief or not, but a number of years ago there was a rise in fake “Utility Company Representatives” knocking on people’s doors. In many cases things went missing if these people were allowed into people’s homes (they worked in pairs).
At the time we were living in a duplex. The first floor level was about 6–8 inches higher than the level of the front porch. We had a Siberian Husky/German Shepherd mix (both sides of his parentage were pure blood pedigrees), and he was the best burglar alarm even invented. 60–70 lbs of solid muscle, the face of a wolf, and the most disconcerting part, 1 blue eye and one brown eye. Our storm door had a solid panel that went about halfway up the door. High enough that you couldn’t see the dog if he approached the door. The top was screened.
My wife answered the door and was faced with 2 “Utility Company Representatives” that were checking the water meters which were inside, down in the basement. Their trick was to gain entry, get the person who answered to accompany one down to the meter while the other one stayed in side the front door and “waited”, picking up anything they could find that might be valuable. Like wallets from purses. True to form, they wanted to come in and check the meter. My wife knows better and told them they couldn’t come in without some sort of ID. They started arguing that they had a legal right to inspect their hardware (they didn’t), and she kept telling them no and flicked the lock on the storm door.
Our ever faithful guard dog had walked over to the door while they were trying to talk their way in. When their tone started changing he got interested and decided to see who was talking to the boss-lady like that. He popped up on his hind legs which put his face not too far from level with the people on the porch, who suddenly decided they no longer had to gain entry, and said ‘someone else will contact you later’ as they left for greener pastures.
Best alarm system ever.
EDIT… Punctuation repairs (Thanks Ed), and I thought you all might like to see this buddy of mine. We lost him to The Bridge from cancer 29 years ago now, and still miss him every day. Sadly, we didn’t do a lot of picture taking back then, so my choice of pictures is limited.
He had the black and white Husky markings, and the longer snout and some brown from the Shepherd side. Check out his eyes, and imagine them staring at you through a screen door at eye level.
China and technology
The reason Trump thought that he could stop China from making DUV machines is because DUV machines encompass a lot of technologies.
If China is unable to produce any of these technologies then the DUV machines China purchased from ASML would be completely useless in a year or so. The parts need to be replaced. No parts, no working machine.
The light source breaks down all the time. The coating on the lenses only last for a few months. 1 year at most. All those machines that China bought from ASML for over $500 billion would become very expensive scrap metal.
But China managed to develop these core technologies. And it required the entire Chinese scientific community to do so.
But now that China has the core technologies, there is nothing the US can do to stop China from advancing. The US no longer controls Chinese chip industry.
This video explains just how intricate chip production is and how much leading edge technology is required to make on of these machines work.
The Sopranos || Get It Up
This should get more views, it’s such a perfect clean edit
Start buying them lavish gifts, like expensive vacations at 5-star luxury resorts, free airline flights to exotic destinations, Rolexes, things like that. Then buy their mom’s house and let mom continue to live there for free. Then donate the money for their kid’s education at an expensive university.
Okay, that’s an extreme case, but it works. Most famously, the first black mayors of Los Angeles and Detroit suspiciously became a lot more pro-business after they were elected than before, and that was just the result of freely given campaign contributions, invitations to nice dinners, and perks like the odd bottle of whisky that remain within the rules for gifts.
Take a look at Krysten Sinema, who got elected mostly because she had a massive team of young volunteers who saw her as a progressive. After she got elected, she started getting massive donations from pharmaceutical companies and, all of a sudden, she’s shifted a lot further to the right.
One of the reasons why this works is that running for office is incredibly expensive. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign cost $2 million, mostly spent on the Democratic primary. She was funded by a group who wanted someone more progressive, and now she’s elected to a safe Democratic seat, she will need less money going forward, but her $170,000 salary (seems a lot doesn’t it) still doesn’t pay for her New York rent, her Washington rent, and her student loans.
One of the best tricks plays on vanity. The politician writes a book, which gets published, and “friends” buy enough copies to make it a best seller. This is really sleazy, but it happens all the time, and it is in no way illegal. There are allegations that Hilary Clinton’s success in the futures market was a set up where a benefactor essentially ate losses and just passed on the gains.
This is why the rich are heavily into “charity”, showing how good they are by building college buildings and universities (with their name on them of course). It’s certainly cheaper than paying taxes for the same thing, that’s for sure. Andrew Carnegie started it with libraries, and is seen as a saint, but governments still had to maintain those (most are now over a century old, including one or two in my home town of Toronto) and the donors usually don’t pay for the upkeep.
I’ve already written about some shocking things I’ve come across in the states in another post, so I suppose this is part 2, but here we go:
Heard people going at it…you cannot imagine my shock as a person coming from a conservative area, one who hasn’t even seen her parents kissing, to witness such a thing. But while staying at a hotel, for the first time in my life, I heard two people going at it very loudly so that it was impossible to ignore them. I was so embarrassed and my husband was laughing at me for looking so shocked.
Serving water for free in restaurants. For a capitalist country like the states, I was surprised they didn’t benefit from this one thing that people will undoubtedly pay for. You certainly have to pay for water over here in restaurants.
Ice.. always. Continuing from the last point, water is always served with ice. Someone like me who can’t have very cold water had to specifically ask for it to be omitted.
Medical issues. I needed antibiotics during my visit because of an infection that I get frequently. Not having insurance as a simple visitor, we had to pay 400$ to see a doctor and get this simple prescription. Meanwhile back home, I got it for less than a dollar. So I swore to pack lots of meds next time I come over.
Vast spaces. Perhaps because I’ve been only to Buffalo, Niagara, and Oregon but there was always a ton of space between buildings. The markets were huge with vast parking lots. And the roads were very big for the most part.
Black people everywhere. In New York airport (JFK), almost all workers were black! That was a surprise because I always heard of the diversity in the states. But even later in Oregon, almost everyone was white.
Security at the airport. That one was quite funny. When you get scanned at the JFK airport, you have to stand in a certain cabin, face your right, raise your arms like a criminal, then they scan you. The woman worker shouted, “Put your arms up!” and I had no clue what she was talking about. She kept repeating then showed me the exact position and where to face. Then she said “Seems like you don’t travel often”. I wanted to say “Excuse me? I’ve been traveling since I was 4 but this doesn’t exist anywhere else I’ve been!”.
Coffee. That was no coffee. That was dirty water. Period. Lol. For real though, our definition of coffee in Egypt is Turkish coffee which is very heavy, dense, and intense in flavor.
Huge meals. Everyone said so before and yet I made the mistake of ordering an appetizer before the main dish, only to be surprised that the appetizer is so big that it’s a meal on its own. I felt so sad throwing half the food away as we were traveling and I couldn’t take it with me.
Reese’s everywhere. It was Reese’s heaven! All sort of sizes, shapes, and mixes. Like mixed with Cadbury, Oreos, and so on.
Credit card everywhere. I am not exaggerating when I tell you there hasn’t been a single place I’ve been to that doesn’t take credit.
Rich wildlife. Coming from a desert, it was so impressive to just casually come across deer and squirrels. And at some point, I saw a massive number of seals. I learned the hard way that they stink.
They use their attractions wisely. I’ve been to countries that don’t give enough attention to grand places that leave you in awe, meanwhile, the states try to give such attention to whatever place they feel people may like visiting. Whenever you go to an especially cool place, you’ll find stores near it selling stamps, mugs, and stickers with pictures of that attraction. I’ve seen that at Niagara Falls and the redwoods in California. Did I mention that I’d never seen such huge trees in my life?
The world’s third-largest contract semiconductor maker, GlobalFoundries, on Tuesday opened a $4-billion manufacturing plant in Singapore as part of a global expansion to help ease an industry supply crunch.
The new Singapore facility will produce an additional 450,000 wafers annually at full capacity by 2025 to 2026, general manager Tan Yew Kong told reporters, raising the city-state’s overall capacity to 1.5 million wafers each year.
The chips, usually used in smartphones and other mobile devices, are also increasingly in demand by automakers, especially for electric vehicles, adding to the pressure to raise production.
“The key megatrends of our industry — digitisation, connectivity, cloud computing — are all driving acceleration to a more connected and data-centric world,” GlobalFoundries president and chief executive Thomas Caulfield said at the launch.
“It demonstrates how central and critical the industry is to the world economy and how pervasive semiconductors are in enabling and enhancing all aspects of human life.”
Caulfield said that despite current economic headwinds, the company estimates the industry will double in the next decade.
“The catalyst for this growth will be AI (artificial intelligence),” he said.
The firm’s 23,000-square meter Singapore facility, which broke ground in 2021, will expand the global footprint of the company, which already has plants in the United States and Europe.
Singapore’s chip output currently makes up 11% of the global semiconductor market.
The global semiconductor market is predicted to experience a downturn of 10.3 percent this year but recover in 2024 and grow by 11.8%, according to estimates by the industry monitor World Semiconductor Trade Statistics.
Very often, the answer is no. Not only do intelligent people very often fail to realize how much smarter they are than everyone else, they also tend to overestimate other people’s intelligence even when they do. Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, I was at a bar with some friends. The bar had an outdoor area where you could stand around and drink beer. There was a guy who thought it would be funny to ride past the bar repeatedly on an extremely loud moped. At certain times, he would stop, rev the moped so loud that nobody could hear themselves think, and begin whooping loudly. This same guy had been at it all day, not just by the bar, but riding up and down the streets and residential neighborhoods, screaming and hollering and bothering everyone he could with his moped.
I mentioned, casually, that I wouldn’t mind chucking my beer mug at his head if he were close enough. A friend of mine, whom we shall call Angus (not his real name), said, “Well, you should probably leave someone as unstable as that guy alone. He obviously has some serious emotional difficulties.”
Angus is a smart dude, but he misread the guy on the moped. The issue is that the guy on the moped was probably not suffering from some deep emotional trauma that had made him so obstreperous. Rather, Moped Guy’s thought process was, most likely, no more complicated than this: “YEAH! YEAH! LOUD! LOUD MOTHERFUCKER! YEAH LOOK AT IT MAN! YEAH! LOUD!”
The issue that Angus was having is that Angus, being an intelligent and empathetic individual, was trying to understand Moped Guy’s motivations and look at things from Moped Guy’s perspective. Angus was thinking to himself, “What would have to happen to me to get me to act that obnoxiously?” The thing is, intelligent people of high character, like Angus, are not moved to act like idiots unless they suffer something really bad, at which point a complicated emotional process leads to bad behavior. Angus’ miscalculation was that Moped Guy would have to have suffered some horrible trauma to act in the way he did. The big issue is that Angus did not account for Moped Guy’s stupidity, and forgot the simple fact that stupid people will act stupid without any suffering or instability. Dumb people just act dumb.
I have suffered from this problem myself. For the longest time, I did not realize that so much of human behavior was posturing, and did not realize how to read people correctly. I thought that, when someone talked to me about their interests, they were merely stating facts and not trying to talk to me about themselves. The vast majority of humans are so subjective that most of their communication is about themselves and not about things or ideas or even other people. Intelligent people have problems grasping that.
My father, as I may have said before, is an ER doctor.
One night, a case arrived to the hospital of a teen girl with what seemed like a regular fever. The team gave her the necessary meds and started running a few tests.
Her mother had rushed to the hospital with her and looked particularly nervous. The doctor asked her some typical questions such as when her daughter showed signs and so on, but she would have vague half-assed answers.
However, within a few hours, the girls fever was sky rocketing, and her blood pressure was getting very low, and for some reason she wasn’t responding to regular meds or fluids.
The mother looked very nervous then she timidly approached a nurse and told her “actually, I forgot to tell you something. My daughter just went through a liposuction a couple of days ago. I don’t know if these two things are related”.
Yet by the time this piece of information reached the doctors, the girl had already died. She was being treated for a regular fever until test results showed the real issue.
Turns out that the mother took her daughter, who was not even chubby to begin with, to undergo a liposuction. Given that the girl was underage, a parent’s approval is a must. Her father was completely against it but the mother went ahead and sneaked it with the daughter anyway.
And she was too scared of her husband knowing what she did so she didn’t want to let the secret out until she realized that the complications are more serious than she thought. But it was too late by then.
Lessons of the day:
1-Don’t put your child through unnecessary plastic surgery.
2-And don’t hold back information from the doctor for God’s sake.
Christopher Moltisanti – So Far (The Sopranos)
The most tragic character in fiction, even with all his flaws he will always be one of the greatest characters in the history of television…
The Chinese government is a lot lot lot more transparent than the western government on the economy. It is simple Chinese government don’t need to be popular it need to be effective!
The U.S. government need to and use their media to fool Americans and hoodwinked them so that Yanks will always be highly naive and ignorant. How do they do that? Western media are profit motivated so they are free to make money by writing what westerners like to hear. So they write or broadcast what westerners like to hear.
After conniving you that China is at fault, China is your enemy, China is backward, China is evil, China steal your technology, China cheats, China take your jobs…..What do you like to hear? China fail and U.S. is great, it is exceptional, its economy is still wonderful. Your technology is unmatched. So you media cohort with your government to fool you and guess what that is what you want!
Chinese government don’t face election and popularity contest every 2 years! You do! China says and report as it is and encourage or motivate its citizens that it needs to buck up and work harder. Hence all the superlatives such ad the U.S. is exceptional, Britain is Great, US is the mist innovative, Britain invents everything…
China don’t do that. To us Empty vessels makes the most noise! Western media are simply lying media that spread half truths, fake news, misinformation, fabrications. Demonising others to distract your people from your impending collapse.
I was studious, which resulted into me getting a scholarship in college. One of my friends asked me for some money (2500/-). He was my good friend, not best, and I was completely aware of his gambling and drinking habits.
I wanted to say “No”, because I knew the importance of money at that moment of my life. I was aware of the fact that he will never return it, but I still lent him the money, which was obviously never returned.
It was my first breakup and I was leading a miserable life. There was this girl who was my junior and she started taking interest in me.
I was uncomfortable, but she was pretty. I wasn’t ready for a relationship and she kept pushing me. Again, I wanted to say “No”, but it could have hurt her feelings.
Unwillingly, I said Yes. And that relationship survived for a month only.
Don’t judge me, I was an immature teenager back then.
There were many incidents in my life where I desperately wanted to say “No”, but ended up saying otherwise. And in return, I paid a huge price, not monetarily, but emotionally and mentally.
But today, things have changed. I have changed for my own good. And I have learned the art of saying “No”. People call me rude, arrogant etc, but who cares about their opinion?
This is my life, these are my struggles. They will only give their absurd opinion which is never required. Sometimes people think that saying “NO” is hard because your image will get maligned or it will hurt other people.
My question is, what will you do with your false pride? Maybe momentarily you will hurt people by saying “No”, but in the long term it will save you from huge disappointment.
This is what I learned the hard way: How to say “No” to the face when/where I am hesitant/uncomfortable.
It comes with multiple benefits:
You don’t have to lie.
You don’t have to make excuses.
You don’t have to justify anything.
I refused to please others at the expense of my emotional well being. Even if it is saying “No” to thepeople who are used to hearing “Yes”.
Learn the art of saying “No”. Don’t lie, don’t make excuses, don’t over explain yourself. Just simply decline.
The Sopranos || Easier
“Man, thanks for this awesome work! This gives me power every time I rewatch it to deal with tough shit in evercold Moscow. I’d love to see more motivating sopranos vids from ya!”
When I first started High School, I had a guy that rode the bus with me every day, and made my life a living hell. His name was David R-. He was 18 years old and still in the tenth grade. He was bigger than me, and cussed like a sailor. He was mean and vicious, and he absolutely scared me to death.
I have vivid memories of him sitting behind me on the bus, slapping me in the back of the head as we rode home from school. It happened almost every day. This was 27 years ago and, back then, bullying was just a “common thing.” It was something you had to deal with. You had to learn to stand up for yourself and “be a man”. I would complain to the bus driver and the principal. Mr. Dave would get a good scolding, but he was right back at it the next day.
Well, after six months of this B/S, I’d finally had enough. I just snapped one day. I turned around and dove over the seat, and started pounding on him. Everyone went crazy. The driver slammed on the brakes, and brought the bus to a stop.
I was getting my tail kicked by this guy. He was bigger, faster and stronger, and the only thing I had on my side, was rage. We were up against the emergency exit, slugging it out, when, all of a sudden, the door just popped open, and we went tumbling into the street.
When we hit the pavement, Mr. Dave had his arm twisted behind his back. He landed on it, and I heard it snap like a piece of kindling. He pushed me off of him, and got up with a bone jutting out of his wrist. He was screaming his head off, and blood was pouring onto the asphalt.
Maybe I should have backed off at that point, but this guy had made my life hell for several months, and I wanted revenge. I twisted his broken arm behind his back, and took him down on the ground where I proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him. There were several cars that had stopped by this time, and it took two grown men to pull me off of him. It was the worst fight I’d ever had in my life, and it remains so to this day. My nose was busted and I had a black eye. Mr. Dave had a broken arm, a busted lip, two missing teeth, and a huge laceration across his forehead. They actually called an ambulance for him.
Both of us were suspended. Dave’s mother contacted my dad a few days later, and threatened to sue us. She wanted us to pay for Dave’s medical bills. However, I had a bus full of people, who absolutely hated Dave, and all of them were telling the principal about my six months of hell, and insisting that Dave had started the fight.
I was suspended for two weeks. I also got a month of detention, and couldn’t ride the bus for the rest of the year, but that was the end of my punishment. As far as I know, Dave never returned to school at all. I didn’t see him again for 15 years.
Then, right around 2005, I moved from Mississippi back to my hometown in Georgia. One day as I was walking out of a convenience store, I spotted my old high school bully picking up aluminum cans along the side of the road.
It totally shocked me, and I wasn’t absolutely sure that it was really him. After all, it had been 15 years. Still, I was PRETTY sure. So, I strolled over to the edge of the parking lot for a better look. Just as I walked up, he turned to stare at me, and I recognized him beyond a shadow of doubt. I’m not very good with names, but I rarely forget a face.
He looked terrible. His hair was long. He hadn’t shaved in several days. His clothes were torn and ragged, and he smelled like a wet dog. He was very thin and dirty, and half of his teeth appeared to be missing. He also had an old duffle bag slung across his shoulder, and I got the distinct impression that he was homeless.
“I’m sorry, you’re David R-, aren’t you?” I asked.
His eyes brightened for a moment, and he looked at me long and hard before responding. “Yeah, who are you?”
My first impulse was to tell him. I wanted to remind him of all those days that he had harassed the hell out of me, and then ask him if he remembered our little brawl and his trip to the hospital. Then I wanted to let him know how much money I had made the year before, and tell him all about the new job I had just started down in Atlanta. Instead, I just stood there, staring at him.
“I think we might have gone to school together,” I replied.
His eyes narrowed again, and he really studied my face. Still, I don’t think he had a clue who I was. Apparently, I had changed a lot in 15 years.
“What’s your name?” He finally asked.
I shook my head. “Not important”, I replied. I dug in my wallet, and pulled out a ten dollar bill. I held it out to him, and he took it. I said, “God bless”, and then slowly walked away.
A push-back against Western influence is reportedly prompting countries to reject the pro-Ukraen agenda. Zelensky during a UN General Assembly session.
Western officials have overestimated the willingness of neutral nations to join anti-Russia policies in support of Ukraen, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It’s clear that the West overall has been surprised by the pretty widespread reluctance by many of the countries in the so-called Global South… to come on board.
“animosity toward the US and Europe” in some parts of the world and the desire of rising powers, such as Brazil and South Africa, to “assert their independence”, the article said.
The WSJ detailed purported successes and failures of Western diplomacy to rally the support of neutral nations for what it called “a fair peace settlement for Ukraen” ahead of next week’s gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
Loozensky has been internationally promoting his “peace formula” with Western backing. It includes Ukraen regaining control over all former territories, war reparations from Russia, and a tribunal for the Russian leadership. Moscow has dismissed the Zelensky plan as being detached from reality.
My oldest son was driving a red Toyota 4×4 pick up . It was used but solid .
He worked at an auto parts store and had done a pretty good job of fixing it up . One weekend he did a tune up . Plugs , rotor , cap, plugs etc .. about a week later while I was working , he called and said it had statrting running rough then died.
At that point I had more money than time so we had it towed to a shop I had used before .
Next day shop calls me to tell me it jumped time and the engine was a complete loss .
Quoted me 2500 to rebuild .
Only paid 1500 for the truck .
I told them never mind and had it towed to the house .
Finally I was off work a few day and decided to check it out . Pulled the timing belt cover and checked the orientation of the cams to the crankshaft . It was perfect ! So at their point I’m a bit confused . Pop the distributor cap and noticed the rotor was on the wrong cylinder .
Come to find out my son forgot to put the holding screw back in the rotor and it had turned just a bit . This meant the timing was so far off it wouldn’t run .
Put the screw back in, cranked it up and it ran like a champ !
Drove it up to the shop and called out the boss .
Showed him and explained what was found .
His face turned 4 shades of red lol ! Come to find out the tech that looked at it got paid extra to do rebuilds and was condemning engines every chance he got !
Needless to say the tech got fired .3 hours of my time and I saved 2500$ and my son got his truck back .
As an Ordinary user of a smartphone, can you really tell the difference between the 3nm and the 7nm Chips?
You can’t
The difference is more from an engineering point of view and a design point of view than a commercial point of view
The Average customer doesn’t understand 3nm and 7nm.
There is Zero difference from the POV of a retail customer who doesn’t understand Semiconductor Design Or Power Consumption Efficiency (99.9% of the world’s retail customers)
Here are the top six parameters based on which people decide which Smartphones to buy :-
Price
Camera
Battery & Charging
Gaming
Color & Design
BRAND
Do you see ‘Performance’ anywhere?
No
Performance is impossible to gauge for a normal user
You need advanced tools that tech blogger guys from YT have
Sure you can see the difference between a 32 nm Laptop Chip and a 7 nm Smartphone Chip
However it becomes tougher as you come closer and closer to each successive process
Take the I7 vs Loongson 3AC6000
Assuming Loongson had Windows integration
An Average user could not distinguish the two apart unless by GPU performance or Memory superiority
Yet a professional with tools can see that the Loongson is performing only at 50% the rate of the I7
So the answer is YES
My guess is the 3/2nm Chips are redundant for modern smartphones. They are too advanced and unnecessary for the average retail user
Cost effective 7/5 nm Chips are the Uppermost limit for smartphones
The Iphone 15 vs Mate 60 is the best example
The greatest advantage of the Iphone 15 was the GPU of NVDIA according to retail users
Mate60 won with the Camera, Gestures, Satellite Calling, 5G speeds etc
Iphone won with the Graphics
Nobody mentions the A17 Chip except as part of the textbook spec comparison table
3/2 nm Chips will be pathbreaking for the NEXT GENERATION after the Smartphone like maybe Advanced AI systems etc
TSMC will find the 3nm process overkill
Yet if they keep at it, they may find it easier to progress to the next generation of communication technology
We have built a vacation home in a nearby province. Husband took on the contracting while maintaining his full-time police job – so proud of him!
I did not announce this; I dislike the comparison games people play and do not want to be perceived as bragging.
A good friend asked to see pictures at a reunion luncheon. As I flipped through pix on my phone, an acquaintance from long ago came up behind us.
She peered over our shoulders and exclaimed, “When you married that low-ranked cop, I knew you’d end up this way! How far you’ve fallen! How can you live like THAT!!”
The look on her face was not one of concern, but a sneer.
She was looking at a picture of the shed where building materials had been kept (that has since been removed).
*sigh*
*Note Some have asked about my response. I smiled, told her that it was the raw materials shed and went back to my conversation.
Why didn’t I snap back, go for her throat, etc?
Because that (and to embarrass me) is what she expected, what she wanted. She is in her element when someone defends herself or gets angry.
But she has never been able to handle a calm, non-defensive response.
My time in the Marines didn’t go at all as I expected; in fact, I was disappointed with almost all of it. However, I am grateful for these very disappointments. It took me a long time to come this viewpoint, but I am finally able to see the experience in a more wholistic way. As a Christian, I see it through the lens of Romans 8:28:
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (ESV)
When I was planning to go into the Marines, my father encouraged me as he always had. He thought I had sound judgment and that I had made a wise decision. It was a sickening shock for me to find out in the Marines that very few people, men or women, thought this way.
I was generally despised as a woman Aircraft Maintenance Officer. Women hadn’t been allowed into this MOS for very long. I was about the sixth woman to choose it. People thought women couldn’t understand machinery or aircraft.
I personally got ugly comments. One was a note passed to me in AMO school that read, “A woman is a life support system for a cunt.” I was very quiet back then and kept to myself a lot, but other Marines’ hatred for me was so great they went out of their way to humiliate me.
At some point I found out I could not be assigned to a deploying squadron; no women Marines could deploy back then. So this fact meant I would not be assigned to any unit that actually had aircraft, unless it was to a training squadron. My dream of going to a deploying squadron and to a carrier ended.
I was so miserable. I had no friends after a while. A woman captain I knew went to Germany, and a woman TBS classmate with whom I was also close had to take a medical discharge. I was lonely and frightened and made bad personal decisions as a result.
But when I was at my lowest point, I reached out to God in desperation, and He answered. It was the beginning of our relationship which continues to this day. It was about that time my EAS rolled around, so I was then set free from the Marine Corps.
In spite of the traumatic stuff and in addition to my now having God in my life, I did however benefit from my service.
I was able to work for Sikorsky Aircraft as a technical writer. I wrote repair manuals for the SH-60B helicopter when it first came out. The job included testing the manuals out on the helicopter by doing an R and R (remove and replace) of all the parts on it, including the engines, blades, and rotor head.
Being a Marine helped me get a job with the Texas Department of Public Safety as a security officer. Marines are highly respected in the Department, and there are a lot of them in it. To my surprise, many other members of the Department admired me for my Marine service and accepted me because of it. That had hardly ever happened before.
A huge benefit was that my husband, a highly decorated combat Marine, chose me to be his wife. He said that when he learned I was a Marine, he knew I could understand him like no other woman could. We got married six weeks after we met.
So my military service was a rough go, but it prepared me for the rough life I had ahead of me. But most importantly, God used it to bring me to Him and to my wonderful husband.
At so many levels… I was a small child in the 60’s. I remember on the news there was a symbol- a silhouette of a soldier walking – with a number in it, and that number was the number of casualties there had been that day. My cousin was in the 101st Airborne- it would take forever to hear anything so we both were encouraged and afraid when they mentioned the 101st.
Many people say the Gulf War was the first war played out on television. It wasn’t. It was Vietnam. I remember it so distinctly. It was terrifying. I asked my Dad what the war was for… he started to explain but in the end, he just said “There is never a good reason for war, and in the end, it won’t change anything anyway…” Looking back now, what did all that death and pain- on both sides- accomplish?
The city I lived in had a Marine base. Many of the kids I played with had dads who were “in country”, or mothers and fathers who worked at the base. I saw many of them saying goodbye because their lives had suddenly changed, either because their dad would not be coming home, or that he had come home and was now facing extended time in rehab. I remember playing in the stadium right in front of the entrance to the housing area for the base… when we saw a black car with a driver, an officer… and a chaplain… all the kids would run home in terror. Someone was about to get some bad news.
I was grateful that my Dad didn’t have to go to Vietnam. He was in the navy as the war started but I was a sick baby and he was discharged on compassionate grounds.
I remembering wearing a bracelet with the name of an MIA soldier… he didn’t come home, well, his remains didn’t come home, until the late 1970’s, I folded up his bracelet and sent it up to his family.
One of my dearest friends, “Sarge” Robert Hultgren, was a 2 tour vet- he campaigned tirelessly for the MIA and POW. “I can’t forget a single brother” he said. Sarge died several years, of Alzheimer’s Dementia. He forgot his daughter, his wife, his own name… but he thought he was in Vietnam. His PTSD pierced his soul so deeply it was too deep even for Dementia to wash away.
Sarge used to put up a bamboo Christmas Tree in front of Boston’s City Hall each Christmas. Lest we forget.
I remember standing on the front steps with my Mom when all the church bells and sirens from Fire Trucks and Civil Defense were sounding to say the war was over. But how could it be over? My friends were still waiting for their dads.
That next year at Memorial Day, the 1st World War vets marched, all snappily dressed and although old were orderly and looked dignified. The same was true of the World War 2 vets, the Korean War vets… then came the Vietnam vets. The looked slouched, and where people had cheered for the other men, they yelled things at the Vietnam Vets… Baby killer. Rapist. Bastards. WHy didn’t you just die there….
Some of the my friends were there watching their dads marching and they winced at the hatred. We had already seen it, protests at the gates of the base, “peace protesters” telling the small children there that their daddies were murderers and rapists. Who did they think they were to “peacefully” destroy these kids?
Neighbours of my grandparents, the place where we spent every spare minute, were a military family. One day when visiting them, the news came on the TV and they turned it off. “We don’t listen to that when we are here… this is our escape” said the lovely Mrs Wittman. Her husband was a senior military officer. This was the reason:
Lance Corporal Narvin O WIttman 26–9–1946 – 7–8–1967 Their son had died in Vietnam. When I went to see the “Wall”, I took a rubbing of his name. He didn’t even make it to 21.
It was years before we learned our lesson. It is this deep wound of guilt that led to Americans thanking Vets for their service… never again would we forget that it’s not the soldier’s fault when he does what his country asks him to do. I hope.
All those of my generation had the same experience… the pain and horror of Vietnam was all over the news, inescapable, imbedding itself in our psyche.
Thanks for your service… as my generation joins those who pass away, I just pray we as a human race never forget. We inflicted pain on those young men- draftees- and their families. For what?
The Sopranos || Lovely
Breaking bad is my all-time favorite show.. But this show is… its a masterpiece. I remember the first time i finished it. Had a feeling i need to watch it again right away…. They don’t make them like they used to before. What a great time it was for entertainment back then.
Southern Crusty Coconut Pie
IMG 0070
Ingredients
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cups shredded coconut
1/4 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell
Instructions
Pour milk over coconut and set aside while creaming butter and sugar together.
Add eggs to creamed mixture and beat well.
Add milk, coconut and vanilla extract.
Pour into an unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until pie is golden brown and firm.
Chinese are not closed off from the world; more than 130M Chinese travel outside China annually, and they spend about US$250B annually on their travels, making them the single largest tourist group by nation, and the biggest spending one.
Just because you disagree with Chinese government policies, do not say that Chinese are closed off from the rest of the world. It is you who are out of touch with what is really going on.
Three mile island is / was a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. They had a leak of radiation in the late 1970’s and served as the back-drop for the story that I am about to relate today.
At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, one of the worst accidents in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises.
After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people.
As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.
Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over.
Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.” This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns.
On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.
At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident and no one died as a result of the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again.
I, like most of my classmates, at meals at the school cafeteria, and drank a lot of beer in between our classes.
Now…
There was a scandal that occurred at that time.
You see, after the three mile island event, the local government ordered that all the cattle that was grazing on the grass near the plant be killed and no milk be produced, and no beef be sold.
But…
Yeah. You guessed it.
Not all the cattle was accounted for. Some couple of hundred of head couldn’t be found, accounted for or located. They just “disappeared”.
One week after the “scandal” our school announced a “all you can eat steak holiday” at all of our dorm cafeterias.
Yeah.
No shit.
And sure as shit, tons of beef, steaks and roasts galore.
…
In the four years that I attended the university, there was only ONE such event. And that was one week after the missing radioactive cattle couldn’t be accounted for.
…
Now, I (who read the local and state news) wouldn’t touch the meat at all. And my classmates relentlessly made fun of me.
Saying that I was the one losing out. I was truly the butt of jokes. I was considered “stupid”, an “idiot”, and just too caught up in “stuff that didn’t matter”.
While they, who lived on campus, and was isolated from ALL OUTSIDE NEWS, lived a very secluded and pampered existence. They had no idea what was going on “outside”.
Maybe I was the fool.
Maybe not.
Of the three classmates who made fun of me, and who ate that steaks, two of them got cancer and died. One in the 1990’s, and the other around 2004 or so. The last one Peter, was still kicking around on Linkedin about eight years ago.
No signs of cancer yet. Knock on wood.
…
Today…
Rustic Southern Sweet Potato Pie
2023 09 17 10 42
Ingredients
Filling
2 large yams
2 large sweet potatoes
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter (melted)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter
Dough
3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
Filling: In a large pot, boil yams and potatoes for about one hour or until tender.
Drain water and let potatoes cool.
When cool enough to handle, peel skins off and place yams and potatoes in a ricer or potato masher.
In a bowl, combine yams and potatoes, sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla extract. Mix well.
Dough: Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a small saucepan, heat the butter until it turns golden brown. When done, it should have a nutty-like aroma.
Remove from heat and let cool.
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and sugar, mixing well.
In another bowl, whisk together olive oil, vanilla extract, milk and melted butter.
Pour into the flour mixture and mix with a fork. Dough should hold together. If too crumbly, add ice water, a tablespoon at a time.
Cover and let sit for about a half an hour.
Assemble: On a floured surface, roll out dough to fit a 14-inch round or rectangular baking pan. Place dough on pan.
Spoon filling into the center of the dough, leaving about a 1 1/2-inch border. Gently fold the sides of the dough up and over some of the filling.
Egg Wash: Mix the egg and tablespoon of milk together with a fork.
Coat the bread with egg wash using a pasty brush.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Maduro displays Huawei phone at press conference
image 86
The latest cellphone of Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei not only caused quite a stir in the consumer market, but also became the gift presented by the Chinese side to visiting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moros.
When addressing a press conference at the Latin American country’s embassy in Beijing on Thursday, Maduro took out a foldable Huawei mobile phone, attracting a flurry of flashlights.
“It’s Huawei’s newest cellphone that uses the latest technologies, and you can use this phone to directly communicate via satellite,” he said.
He unfolded the new device, and the large screen that emerged showed a photo of President Xi Jinping shaking hands with Maduro.
“Take a look at this cellphone. How does it look? Look at the screen. It’s a very big screen,” Maduro said with great pride. “Look at this moment when an ideal becomes a reality!”
The Venezuelan leader did not conceal his confidence in the quality of made-in-China electronic devices.
“I want all my young friends to buy a good Huawei cellphone,” he said. “I believe this is the most secure cellphone I’ve ever used and I believe it won’t be tapped by any country.”
Source: chinadaily
Chairman of Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, “Retiring” End of Month . . . Ukraine?
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “retiring” at the end of this month. Quite a number of Pentagon staff seem to think this has to do with the utter failure of the Ukraine situation. One Pentagon Officer said “rats are fleeing the sinking ship.”
In a signal as to how unscheduled this “retirement” actually seems to be, Milley told reporters he “doesn’t even know yet where he is going to live, quipping that he has told his wife “we can go to Dicks and get a tent. I’m good with that. We lived a tent before.”
On their face, such words do not give the impression this was a long-planned retirement and gives credence to the notion that something unexpected is forcing the General out. In many people’s minds, Ukraine losing to Russia is the obvious catalyst for Milley’s rather sudden departure.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
I am not a fan of General Milley in any way. After the November, 2020 Presidential election, when Milley penned a letter – also signed by the rest of the Joint Chiefs – telling members of the armed forces they would serve Joe Biden, despite what I saw as clear and obvious election fraud which put Biden illegitimately into office, I thought Milley should have been gone right then and there. Instead of defending the actual vote which re-elected Trump, Milley embraced the illegitimate Biden “victory.” It made _me_ sick to my stomach.
Once Biden was in, the whole Ukraine thing flared back up. It had quieted down to nothing during the Administration of President Donald Trump, yet within weeks of Trump’s departure, war was back on the agenda in Ukraine.
That agenda reached its peak in February, 2022, when Russia, having tried every Diplomatic effort imaginable, had to send troops across the Ukraine Border to protect Russia from continued NATO expansion, and from the placing of American missiles on Ukraine soil.
So here we are, 19 months into the Russia Special Military Operation (SMO) to “de-militarize and de-Nazify” Ukraine, and Russia is winning big.
Even staunch NATO allies like Poland, see the writing on the wall. Just yesterday, the Poland President said “Ukraine entering NATO is out of the question now.”
The Ukraine fiasco is falling apart day-by-day and there is no saving it.
I suspect – but cannot prove – that Milley was among the Hawks pushing this Ukraine-Russia fiasco. Perhaps deluded by his own propaganda, Milley never seemed to realize that Ukraine never stood a chance against Russia.
Now that the Ukraine thing is falling apart, Milley is high-tailing it into retirement.
It was my neighbor. She shot a message to me, all capitalized: “DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT?!”
and then, she proceeded to tell me the story about our County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a delivery driver stated that he was unable to deliver a package due to a llama standing in the middle of the road and blocking the traffic.
A cop responded to the location and found said llama in the middle of the road, refusing to move. He finally found a way to sweet talk the llama into putting on a leash and to get it off the road way. If there wasn’t a picture, I’d refuse to believe it.
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People! Keep your pets in the house!
Chinese Innovation Foils U.S. Tech War — Clifford A. Kiracofe
Washington calculated that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
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China’s rapid advances in technology will inevitably foil the United States-led Western technology war against China. Huawei unveiled its stunning new high tech Mate60 cell phone and timed the announcement with the visit of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Sending a message?
The Donald Trump administration launched an intensive trade war and a tech war against China. President Joe Biden continued Trump’s policies and ratcheted them up to a new level. Rather than engage in mutually beneficial trade relations and scientific and technological cooperation, Washington openly admits it seeks to contain and suppress China’s economic growth and development.
Playing this zero-sum game is a dead end for the United States. China is very well equipped in the pursuit of technological innovation. Fundamental to China’s tech progress is the human factor. For example, it is no secret that China every year produces far more STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) students than does the U.S.
Tech war is economic war
Export controls and restrictions on technology development are nothing new in international commerce. During its colonial period, the North American colonies faced an array of trade restrictions and technology restrictions imposed by the British Empire. These were designed to prevent the colonies from becoming rivals to British manufactures. They also were a factor leading to the American Revolution and War of Independence.
In World War I, the United Kingdom enacted a “Trading with the Enemy Act” which created an export control regime deigned to deny Germany war related imports. After the U.S. entered the war, Congress passed its own Trading with the Enemy Act modeled on the British legislation. These wartime legislative measures were applied again during World War II.
After World War II, export controls on a multilateral basis were created by the West to restrict various exports to the Soviet Union and Communist bloc. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was created at the beginning of the Cold War. The U.S. thus coordinates, in turn, with NATO allies, Australia, and Japan to restrict the export of sensitive technologies to designated countries.
So the Western use of export controls for the purposes of economic warfare is nothing new. But the revival of this mechanism intensively directed specifically against China is a key feature of the U.S.-led New Cold War. The technological encirclement and blockade of China, however, is not sustainable.
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Washington miscalculates
Washington calculates that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
Logically, because China’s population is four times larger than that of the United States, there would at some point be a larger pool of STEM trained specialists in China than in the U.S. This is so because of the continuous upgrading of higher education in China and the massive commitment to research and development.
Several years ago, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. released a study on the STEM issue. The university’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology reported that in 2000 the U.S. issued twice as many doctorates in STEM field as did China. But in 2007, China began outpacing U.S. universities. The report assessed that by 2025 China would produce twice as many STEM Ph.D. graduates.
Because the U.S. cannot compete with its own population base, Washington seeks to import specialists in STEM fields from India as one stop gap measure.
But Chinese innovation is very dynamic and advanced with great future potential. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that China would develop the necessary technology for state-of-the-art semiconductors. This national objective combines the growing pool of high-tech specialists with a large pool of skilled labor together with billions of yuan for investment.
It was not difficult to foresee that China, through innovation and targeted investment, would be able over time to produce the machines and industrial processes to fabricate advanced state-of-the-art semiconductors. This applies to Chinese semiconductor design capability as well.
Why did the Washington miscalculate?
An inter-agency task force on the Chinese semiconductor issue would have concluded that the attempt to block and limit Chinese advances is not sustainable and thus would fail.
Some critics of the administration point to the lack of competence in President Biden’s foreign policy team. They say that Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are just not up to their jobs.
Be that as it may, it is possible that racial prejudice affects Washington’s assessments. There was a time after World War II when it was common to look down on “cheap” Japanese goods. But Japanese success in electronics and auto manufacture by the 1980s showed another story.
Anyone from the U.S., a tourist or an official who visits China’s National Museum in Beijing will see exhibits displaying many centuries of Chinese skill and innovation not only in art, such as ceramics and bronze, but also in inventions and technology. China’s history of science and technology goes back millennia.
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File photo shows technicians of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) inspect the company’s facilities in Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)
What does the Huawei Mate60 portend?
Clearly, the advanced smartphone is a perception changer at a minimum. No doubt, it will be seen as a game changer as well. Other high-tech breakthroughs are in the news.
It is now reported that the Chinese firm SMIC has a 7 nanometer (nm) N+2 process semiconductor project that is produced entirely in China with no access to Western equipment and technologies. All of the core components in China’s EUV lithography machines are said to be ready and that the prototype is being tested.
On the day that the new Mate60 phone was announced it was sold out in one minute online. Huawei boosted production to 15-17 million units and beginning September 10 Chinese can purchase the smartphone in Huawei’s offline stores. The phone has a satellite capability.
As Chinese firms develop independent semiconductor design and fabrication capacity, U.S. firms inevitably will lose out on this vast export market. It seems logical that the more intense the anti-China trade and tech wars become the more Chinese consumers will turn to homegrown products other than those from the U.S.
The U.S. lifted a stone only to hit its own feet.
The U.S. politicians must come to their senses and adopt a China policy of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and mutual benefit. Washington’s belligerent and destabilizing foreign policy disrupts the international community, increases tensions, and can lead to a war which will harm the U.S. side in the end.
As an American, I can answer this and feel no remorse for brutal honesty: because America sucks. There I said said it. The American Dream was a lie invented by Madison Avenue to sell Packards and cigarettes. Pick a developed (or hell, even a middle income) country and you’ll usually discover the US is usually worse at everything that matters. Healthcare, education, public transport, child mortality, infrastructure quality, violence, city layout, etc. Those are the most glaringly obvious. Here are some more that are more subtle, but you start to feel them the longer you’re away.
There is no community in the US. How many Americans can tell you they know the names of the neighbors? How many Americans would trust their kids walking to a mile to school or the grocery store? For Christ’s sake you can’t even send your kid to a public school without having to worry about a classmate shooting up the place.
Next, we’re even bad about about the thing we go on most about and claim the entire country was founded on…freedom itself. Want to build a house on a vacant lot? Your local NIMBYs will make sure the local government keeps that from happening. Want to walk down the street drinking a beer in any town or city (other than New Orleans or Austin)? Say hello to your arrest for public intoxication. As a general rule, free men choose and unfree men comply. And in the US today, you’re going to find yourself always complying.
And for the flag waving keyboard warriors who are currently furiously typing, “LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!!!” I’m already ahead of you and will be a citizen of Belize before the month is out.
Originally Answered: What is the differences between Huawei's version of 5G versus other companies? And why is Huawei ahead of everybody else in this technology? Did they steal it from US DARPA?
Three years old article , but still very good. Godfree Roberts always delivers -MM
…
It’s not Huawei’s version of 5G that is different: 5G standards are set by international agreement and Huawei and others must adhere to them.
It is Huawei’s implementation of 5G that sets it apart. It’s the lowest-cost provider and the only provider of end-to-end solutions for national telecoms: from servers to cell towers to handsets, all designed to perform perfectly with each other.
Unless it approves Huawei the US will be forced to integrate more costly, less functional, less compatible, less upgradeable components and pay twice as much, take twice as long and endure years of inferior service.
Huawei is literally unrivaled in enhanced mobile broadband. Only Huawei produces every element of a 5G system and assembles turnkey networks–from antennas to the power stations to chips–at scale and cost. It’s just what busy telcos want: one-stop shopping at a fraction of the cost of competitors. And Huawei manufactures its own stuff, too. Here’s one of their many production lines:
Much of the cost of implementing 5G (and much of its benefit) stems from the fact that it requires 5 times more cell sites than 4G. Cell sites are heavy and expensive to install because they need a crane operator to lift them into place and technicians in cherry-pickers to hook them up.
So Huawei shrunk cell sites’ dimensions by 50% and cut the weight of its 64T64R 5G base station to 70 pounds so two people can install them without expensive cranes.
Installation is expensive! The US needs to install 100,000 more cell sites, an investment that runs into billions. US corporations are reluctant to invest the necessary billions because they prefer to use their money for stock buybacks but China will spend $200 billion on 5G network construction by 2025.
Because electricity is expensive, Huawei also reduced the power requirements of their equipment, so it’s 30% more energy efficient than competitors and reduces connectivity cost-per-bit by 80-90% compared to 4G.
Huawei is also innovative: Apple, for example, uses 790 Huawei patents while Huawei uses 90 Apple patents. And Apple cannot ship 5G handsets until late 2020, a delay that postpones America’s full implementation to 2025–an eternity when competing with China, where 5G phones are working in Lhasa. (China is making trendy Monaco the first country on earth to be fully 5G operational).
The US and Apple are effectively out of the 5G race, but China, Russia and the EU are heavily committed to 5G. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is a PhD scientist and her ministers and CEOs see 5G as a way to boost national productivity, a German obsession.
Even worse for the US is the fact that, by 2027, the first specs for 6G will be issued and 600 Huawei mathematicians and engineers have been working on them for almost a year.
In other words, except as a consumer of Chinese technology, America is becoming irrelevant in mobile telecommunications, an American invention, because it has no industrial policy and its CEOs are shortsighted, greedy and unpatriotic while China and Chinese CEOs are precisely the opposite.
2021 UPDATE: Tibet now has broader, faster 5G service than America’s leading technology cluster, the San Francisco Bay Area.
Yes, except for satellite calls, this phone is not much different from the latest iPhone or Galaxy.
It’s just a mobile phone. It’s not a hydrogen bomb, it’s not nuclear fusion, it’s not even a Mars landing.
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Why a mobile phone can attract huge attention.
This is because the appearance of this mobile phone represents the end of an era and the beginning of an era.
The power of the United States is so strong that all countries/businesses in the world must obey it. Americans say “Hey. You are not allowed to deal with this company, he is evil!” All companies can only obey. Because even if they are not American companies, their governments cannot protect them.
So before that, no country or company could withstand US sanctions.
In the past, a civilian enterprise that was comprehensively sanctioned by the United States could only go bankrupt, cease operations, be acquired, or shrink to a closed field to survive.
Originally everyone thought Huawei was the same. Without the support of American technology and global supply chain, this enterprise will suffocate to death.
However, the emergence of this mobile phone subverted everything.
It proves at least four key pieces of information
1. The Chinese government has become so powerful that it is not afraid of the United States and has enough power to protect its own companies.They even pranked Raimondo, saying she was the spokesperson of Huawei
2. American technology is not unique, and the Chinese can do it if they spend some time. Since the most complex semiconductor industry can do it, so can other industries.
3. China has built a complete semiconductor technology and industrial chain, and their country can stand shoulder to shoulder with the world. They sent a clear signal: cooperation, welcome; confrontation, come and try.
4. China’s market is huge. In extreme cases, they don’t need global trade, and they are enough to maintain world-class enterprises. If you don’t give me your market, you will lose mine too.
In short, the appearance of this mobile phone has sent a signal to all other countries in the world: when you feel that you don’t like the United States or are oppressed by the United States, we will give you a second choice.
Therefore, it is not just a mobile phone, but a historical milestone.
I believe I am living a good life. I have a fun job, and my own house, and cars I enjoy, in a great place. I also have a very nice family.
What makes it possible:
I live within my means;
my means are adequate;
they are adequate because I deliver something to be considered of value (I teach);
I am apparently not a monster, so people don’t run away from me;
I am surrounded by very nice people, in a very nice society.
And that may very well be the recipe for a good life.
So, be realistic, productive, and nice, in a nice place, and you should be ok. Not rich, perhaps, but a good life doesn’t need to mean you’re rich. In fact, a certain lack of ambition for riches may very well provide you with a more rewarding life than aggressive pursuit of riches, because people will still like you, and that’s a major part of having a nice life.
Here’s my not-rich-life, and it’s good enough for me.
This JUST Destroyed US Sanctions China’s Huawei Smile & America Shocked!
1,025 views Sep 5, 2023
Since 2019, the US government has imposed a series of sanctions on Huawei, alleging national security concerns and effectively cutting off the company from vital components and software. These sanctions have been a significant hurdle for Huawei, but the tech giant has proven its resilience and innovation time and again. The latest chapter in this saga brings us to the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, a flagship smartphone release that has garnered attention for potentially defying US sanctions. In today’s Video, we will delve deep into the intricate web of events, policies, and technological advancements that have allowed Huawei to seemingly outmaneuver US sanctions.
Huawei grant the United States a BACK DOOR to Ukraines Security Network for Trump to be able to prove Biden was corrupt in Ukraine
Huawei promptly refused
Trump then demanded something even stronger :-
Huawei would transfer all their patents and all their 4G Equipment Licenses and all their Network Equipment in US & Europe to an American Entity for a flat sum. Lock Stock and Barrel sale.
Huawei would manage 5G Networks and get a Operations Fee but the entire network would be controlled by the Americans or their companies
Otherwise Trump threatened to Bankrupt Huawei and destroy them
Huawei again said NO
The US always had their way in these things and Trump was very angry
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Huawei was hit with the worst sanctions for absolutely no reason whatsoever
The US refused to allow Huawei a chance to withdraw from Military contracts of the PLA in order to avoid the Sanctions
Huawei refused to sacrifice their Network and 5G patents in exchange to keep selling phones
It would have been the easier thing to do
Huawei was selling 216 Million Units a year of smartphones
These Restrictions took it to a mere 27 Million Units a year the following year
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After Trump lost, Biden came to power and Huawei hoped for a peaceful return
Yet Apple lobbied ferociously to keep Huawei down as they saw their sales rising rapidly in Mainland China, their second largest market
Biden complied as he wanted China to follow his BIDEN DOCTRINE
So as you can see, Apple vs Huawei is not an Economic Or Technology War
It’s a Coercive Political War steeped in protectionism on behalf of Apple and on spurious and baseless charges made by Donald J Trump
Without an Economic issue or proper competition, how can Huawei and Apple ever compete?
Apple is protected so much it has forgotten to Innovate anymore
Huawei is being throttled and conspired against every second day
Unless 6000 US Politicians die and the Neo Cons and Insane Trumpers disappear – No American will allow Free Competition
American citizen living in Germany here.
I get asked often about how long I will stay in Germany and why Germany. I want to stay indefinitely and the reason why is precisely because the USA is not the best country in the world (there is no such thing). I am treated better and have more opportunities in Germany. Here are some things that I can do in Germany that I could not do in the USA.
I can go to the doctor without fear of bankruptcy, without having to argue with insurance companies, without receiving random medical bills at a later date.
I and my husband can have a child and get paid maternity and paternity leave.
I can go to university without taking on debt.
I get 30+ days of vacation each year that I am encouraged and expected to take.
I can feel secure in my job because they cannot fire me without cause. There is no such thing as so called “employment at will” laws.
I can raise kids who are bilingual in an environment that values bilingualism.
I can drink in public places. I can crack open a beer or wine on the sidewalk, in a park, on public transit, nearly everywhere.
I don’t have to worry about taking a bullet at my place of work (I’m a teacher). When I do have kids I won’t have to worry about them being shot in school either. In fact I don’t have to worry about guns at all because they just aren’t prolific here.
I don’t have to worry about CPS (Child Protective Services) being called or being arrested if I let my kids be independent and go do things by themselves. It’s considered normal for even a 6-year-old to walk to the bakery by themself, go to the park by themself, and to walk to school by themself… even in big cities.
I don’t have to leave a tip because I know that my servers are paid fair wages. My servers don’t push me out of a restaurant when I am finished eating. I can sit and enjoy a drink and conversation and I can let my server know when I am ready to leave.
I don’t have to worry so much about nudity. People here tend to have the perspective that it’s just a body and being nude is generally not illegal.
I don’t need to have a car to get just about anywhere. I can use public transit.
I have more freedom of movement. As a woman, I can walk around alone in a big city at 2 in the morning and feel safe. I experience far fewer (nearly zero) instances of street harassment.
I don’t have to tolerate religion being shoved in my face on a regular basis. Yes, people here can be religious too, but they nearly always keep it to themselves.
IS SHE A MAN?! | The Truth Of Barack & Michelle Obama… *MUST WATCH*
The stupidest thing the US government did was to try to stop Chinese progress in technology.
It didn’t work 30 years ago when the US tried to stop Chinese launches of satellites. It didn’t work when the US tried to stop Chinese machine tools, and hey, it didn’t work this time either.
Every single time the idiots in D.C. did this, China ended up with the majority of the world market for that industry.
You would think that since it didn’t work several times before, they would have stopped doing it but no. lawyers only know one thing. Try to screw you over.
So this time, it didn’t stop China either. Instead Huawei alone has a GPU that is as fast as Nvidia’s A100. I thought it would take at least a couple of years for China to catch up to the latest generation GPUs but no. China has caught up.
The only thing is that China can’t make enough. But once those new Chinese fabs that are slated to come online in the next year and the year after that. China will not only be making chips for China but also to the rest of the world.
Micron has already fired over ten thousand people, same for Intel, and AMD. Nvidia will be doing the same once their market share drops due to Chinese chips coming into production.
This is just the start.
US chip companies are going to lose more revenue because of US government sanctions. This isn’t just the Chinese market. After all the US is sanctioning about 1/4 of humanity right now.
No one knows if the US government is going to come after you. So everyone, ironically, including the Europeans are designing out US made components. No one wants their business to be interrupted because a US senator or President woke up and decided to sanction you.
The US simply can not be trusted to carry out normal business.
Business contracts are meaningless as the US government will sanction you for saying the wrong thing or not saying what the US orders you to say.
So US companies have not only lost the Chinese market, they are also going to lose the world market.
…
With the exception of the White nations and US lapdogs.
It won’t be the Indian century because Indian society does not meet the basic requirements for being a modern society.
A modern society does not discriminate against members of society simply on the basis of birth, because they believe human talent should be allowed to flourish regardless of anyone’s social background at birth.
Because of the Indian caste system, India does not do this, and caste discrimination continues. As Indian becomes more powerful and grows, more countries will become aware of the caste system, and this will form a glass ceiling for India’s growth.
The only way for India to deal with this problem is to meet it headfirst, and through a combination of social reform and legislation, make a clean break with the caste system.
China had a class system, and Mao challenged and broke the Chinese class system.
India needs its own Mao to shatter the caste system before it can become a modern state.
Niger Africa Has Beat The French Military – French Military Evacuating Niger
He stopped and froze, a bit concerned. He then points under the trees and says: “Tiger!”
I approach him and look. We were in the USA, what did he see there?
A big orange tabby cat!
His picture book at home doesn’t indicate scale, so tigers, ants or apples are all the same size. How could he have known what size a tiger really was?
Central American Parliament Votes In Favour Of China And Says This About Taiwan Being China’s Part
This is no different to Australia being a Commonwealth Country of UK. We function as a Republic, and we have our own Country … so to say the UK will invade Australia is absurd. The same applies to the Republic Of China (aka ROC Taiwan). ROC Taiwan is already a province of the People’s Republic of China (aka PRC Mainland China). Why would PRC China want to attack ROC Taiwan? It’s already a province of PRC China. The ROC Taiwan functions a Republic and has its own currency … just like Australia.
https://youtu.be/nJRuT88ApT4
Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichangas
Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichangas, a Tex-Mex favorite, features a delicious cheesecake filling wrapped in a flour tortilla, fried to perfection, then coated with cinnamon-sugar.
Divide the mixture evenly between 6 tortillas. Slather the filling in the lower third of each tortilla, fold the two sides of each tortilla toward the center and then roll the tortilla up like a burrito. Secure it with wooden picks.
Combine 1/3 cup sugar with 1 tablespoon cinnamon in a shallow bowl and set aside.
Line a large plate with paper towels.
In a deep saucepan place about 2 to 2 1/2 inches vegetable oil for frying and heat it over medium-high heat until it reaches 360 degrees F.
Fry the chimichangas until golden brown and crispy, about 2 to 3 minutes, and flip them as needed.
Remove the wooden picks.
Transfer the chimichangas to the paper towel-covered plate to drain for a minute, then roll them in the cinnamon and sugar mixture.
Serve with sliced strawberries on top, if desired.
Huawei was once the world’s top smartphone vendor, shipping over 200m phones in 2018.
Last year, under a de-facto embargo by the US, it shipped 28m, an eight-, almost nine-fold decrease from its peak.
The volume has been cannibalized by Apple, Samsung, and other Chinese brands.
Apple, in particular, now sell more iPhones in Greater China than stateside, all thanks to Huawei’s demise.
That’s “national security” and “clean networks” for all you Apple fans.
How bad were the curbs applied on Huawei? Phone assemblers froze assembly lines overnight and refused to fulfill their contractual obligations, components on order were canceled, and design license agreements ripped up.
Huawei had no OS, a completely disrupted hardware supply chain, a deficient set of highly specialized software design tools and its CFO under house arrest in Canada.
It would not have surprised anyone had Huawei announced its withdrawal from the consumer device space.
Amazingly, Huawei the 5G telecoms champion sold off Honor, its sub-brand, and issued 4G phones under the Huawei brand, weathering a gut-wrenching revenue drop off a cliff.
It conducted an internal review of the entire supply chain, from its core telecoms equipment business to consumer devices, and began the painful and expensive task of de-Americanization. Any component that had even the hint of American IP was marked for domestic substitution. The process was completed for its telecoms equipment earlier, but the device side lacked two pieces—a capable GPU for AI-assisted gestures, payments and the camera, and a 5G modem, which was protected behind Qualcomm’s giant patent wall.
Huawei found hacks around EDA restrictions, and designed its own GPU.
It also introduced novel transistor geometries to boost the performance of 7nm to the 5nm node. It rapidly upgraded its inhouse Hongmeng OS to 4.0, turning it into a polished platform with large language AI and IOT capability baked in. Its software ecosystem is coming along nicely, and the platform is well beyond the market share needed to ensure survival.
To add icing on the cake, the flagship Huawei phone of 2023 can make satellite calls, showcasing its space comms tech maturity and the bandwidth/coverage of the Chinese commercial satellite network.
In field tests conducted by a Hong Kong user, the Mate 60 Pro matched the iPhone 14’s 5G network speed, demonstrating Huawei’s 5G modem was a match for Qualcomm’s implementation. Not a bad milestone for a first effort, eh?
Huawei had no need for GPS, Qualcomm’s 5G, LG’s OLED, Samsung’s storage, Micron’s memory, or even upstream chip design tools that were vulnerable to US sanction. In fact, even if we took the best in class features from Apple, Google and Samsung and put them into a hypothetical hybrid champion, the Mate 60 Pro can still stand shoulder to shoulder, because it has a couple of industry-first or performance leading features. It is truly worthy of a 2023 flagship designation, earned fair and square.
Huawei did all these in less than 4 years, a remarkable turnaround despite becoming a corporation targeted for destruction by the US government, probably a historic first.
Huawei is finding its mojo again on way firmer footing, and it will sell every Mate 60 pro the production lines can churn out this year.
Chinese do not really believe in propaganda, otherwise known as marketing.
What you mention are statistics. Statistics are routinely interpreted differently by governments in ways to suit their needs, but this does not make them lies. Western governments do this about inflation.
For example, when talking about inflation, the US government usually does not include gasoline prices. How much do Americans use automobiles for transportation? Would you say then that the US government is lying about inflation?
You see, when it comes to statistics, there is no such thing as objective truth.
There are just different ways of counting.
Internet DESTROYS Oprah, The Rock For FRAUD Maui ‘Fundraiser’
The Rock and Oprah are facing backlash after they tried to save face by “raising money” for Maui. The people of Hawaii aren’t buying it..
In 1986, a fire broke out in an apartment complex in Chicago. The fire was responsible for the death of two brothers and one of these brothers was believed to be a part of the Latin Kings gang. The police suspected a woman living in the building was responsible for the fire because he had a brother killed by a member of the Latin Kings.
The woman was brought in for questioning, but she denied being involved in the fire and instead pointed the finger at 18-year-old John Galvin, and two other boys.. The night of the fire, John had stayed at his grandmother’s house, and there was no evidence to say these boys had done it, but they were brought in for questioning anyway.
When they were brought in for questioning, the police used extreme tactics to get the boys to confess. After an intense interrogation, deceptive tactics and physical violence, John snapped and confessed to the fire.
He signed in a confession that himself, Arthur Almendarez and Francisco Nanez threw a bottle of gasoline at the building and then threw a lit cigarette into a pool of gasoline on the porch to light the fire. The Judge sentenced all three to life without parole.
After being in prison for 27 years, John was watching an episode of MythBusters where they attempted to light gasoline with a cigarette and they couldn’t get it to light, even after many attempts.
After waiting 8 years and many courtroom battles they were finally exonerated in 2022 after spending 35 years in prison.
Douglas Macgregor: UNITS GOT MASSACRED WHILE RETREATING.
I called the woman interviewing me “Tina”. Her name was not Tina. I did this on purpose.
I was being interviewed for an IT position with a very high end resort. From the moment I started interacting with this woman, I knew I wasn’t going to take the job even if it was offered. She was that unpleasant.
However, being the professional that I am, I figured I should at least complete the interview.
That was before she started talking down about her employees as if they were her personal servants. She was elitist beyond belief. She outright laughed in my face when I told her I had experience dealing with wealthy people. She generally made no effort to hide her disdain for “poor people” and told me that I would not be permitted to ever talk to the clients.
It was at some point during this conversation that I had Ron Swanson running through my head.
The woman in question was named Toni, but by the time she was done with my interview, I wanted to call her Satan.
So, at the end of my interview, I stood up, reached out my hand and said “Thank you for the interview, Tina. I’ll see myself out.”
I thought her face was going to explode. HOW DARE THIS PEASANT CALL ME BY THE WRONG NAME!!!!
Yeah, I nuked that bridge from orbit, but I have absolutely no desire to work for a person like that, nor anyone who would associate with her.
Living in CHINA: Culture Shock!
I briefly describe the experiences I’ve had and discuss the theme of convenience in Chinese culture.
Well, I’m a woman who works in Engineering. To say I’m familiar with this would be an understatement.
The ones who walk into my office and give me a high school level explanation of something, and I gesture to the books on the shelf behind me (either as a co-author or technical reviewer) while complimenting them on their grasp of the basics and offer a lend if they’d like to learn more in-depth.
Or the ones whom I helped with some 1950’s HVAC equipment nobody else could, who later swung by my office to thank me, shake my hand, and try to palm me a TWO DOLLAR TIP. ~blink blink~ I laughed and handed it back, helpfully explaining that my tastes run to 20 year old scotch, not Natty Light.
And the constantly being hit on at technical conferences, and when I politely thank them and say I’m already seeing someone, they go off on how I should enjoy my middle class life and tell me how much money they make. With those… I don’t tell them that I make significantly more than they do, they’re already too fragile in ego anyway.
He cried and hugged my leg for help, he had been starving for a long time… I couldn’t pass by!
Thank you so much for helping this sweet innocent defenseless kitten. Poor baby was probably traumatized by some heartless souls who painted him and heaven knows what else they did. You are an angel with such a beautiful loving soul. Thank goodness you saved him, took him to the vet for vaccines and an exam to make sure he was healthy. We, in the USA, have many people who are also cruel to animals,, so it is no different here. You are “The Power of One” to help these sweet beautiful animals.
About 18 months after marrying my husband who was a very fit manual worker, he collapsed in our field with what I thought was a heart attack. I gave him first aid until the ambulance arrived and he was blued and twoed to the main hospital. Turns out it wasn’t a heart attack but he had an aortic aneurysm and a leaking heart valve. He had emergency open heart surgery and was in hospital for quite a while. When he got home he was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome (look it up, it interesting but too long to explain). As he was recovering I cared for him night and day. I never left his side. He slowly started to feel worse. After numerous trips to and from doctors and hospitals, he was diagnosed with leukaemia. I held his hand and wiped his brow as he had bone marrow extracted. He went through hell as you can imagine. Never once did it cross my mind to leave him let alone divorce him!
He started out on the road to recovery but I developed an almighty headache. The doctors treated me for migraine. Nothing touched the intense pain. I rubbed my head on the bedroom wall in absolute agony. I wore the paint and plaster from the wall down to the bare bricks. How much my poor husband did to try to help me. He rang an ambulance when I was at my worst but they refused to attend as “migraine wasn’t classed as an emergency”. He carried me to the car and drove me to hospital, worried out of his mind. I was given ct and mri scans and they discovered a giant aneurysm on my brain. I had emergency brain surgery. That man never left my side. I don’t think he thought of divorce either.
Twelve years later, we are still together, very much in love and we care for each other. Life is hard but we stick together through thick and thin!
China-U.S Clash: China DESTROY The Entire U.S Car Industry
In today’s video, we dive deep into the seismic shift in the global automotive and tech industries. China’s decision to restrict raw material exports has sent shockwaves across sectors, reshaping the landscape and posing significant challenges and opportunities for the U.S. Join us as we unravel the intricacies of this power play, its implications, and the potential paths forward. If you value staying updated on the latest geopolitical and economic trends, this is one discussion you won’t want to miss!
China doesn’t listen to what the US tells it to do; Japan does.
The Chinese currency, central bank, banking system and real estate market take their orders from one organization: the Party. When the Central Committee announces a policy decision, the decision is final. When the US told Japan to overvalue the yen to cut Japanese exports, Japan did. When the US complains about the yuan being valued lower than it should be, China ignores the US.
The US has military bases in Japan. It has no military bases in China.
China has 1.4B people; Japan had about 120M people.
China is dominant in all manufacturing sectors; in the 1990s Japan was dominant in automobiles and machine tools. China had not become significant yet.
China is one of the founding members of an increasingly important economic organization, BRICS. Japan did not have leadership in any international organizations.
China is the leading trading partner for 150+ countries.
What Happened to Millionaire’s Row in Pittsburgh?
US, Europe need China EV batteries to help own firms — Global Times
image 53
There have been calls in the US and Europe to reduce China’s advantage in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. But China’s supply-chain advantage in this area has become so important for the global EV industry that giving up that edge could put a country’s development of its own EV sector at an obvious disadvantage.
Maybe that’s why UK Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said that her country won’t impose import restrictions on those products from China.
When asked whether the UK was overly reliant on China for its EV supply chain, Badenoch said on Monday, “At the moment, China is leading on this technology, so we wouldn’t be able to get to where we want to get to on net zero by completely stopping or banning Chinese products … You can’t exclude Chinese-made products from the battery ecosystem.”
Despite what Badenoch said, it doesn’t mean that Chinese-made EV batteries will not face any trade barriers when entering the UK market, given the “rule of origin” requirements for electric cars in the EU-UK post-Brexit trade deal. Under the deal, starting from next year, carmakers could face tariffs of 10 percent on EV exports to the EU if at least 45 percent of the value of an electric car’s components and 60 percent of its battery don’t come from the UK or EU.
Badenoch’s response was more like an attempt to consolidate carmakers’ confidence in the supply chain. It is no secret that the UK government has been looking for ways to boost its domestic EV and battery industries, but the problem is that it is struggling to attract such investment, especially from foreign companies, as the UK has lagged behind China and the US in terms of EV-related industries.
Under such circumstances, any negative signal to Chinese battery suppliers would constitute another source of risks to the development of the UK’s domestic EV industry. This is because Chinese companies account for more than half of the EV battery market and satisfy as much as 90 percent of demand for some battery materials, according to Bloomberg NEF.
Such economies of scale have allowed Chinese manufacturers to outperform US and European rivals, which is probably why when the US and European EV industries are still dependent on increasing subsidies, while Chinese manufacturers, especially those on the battery supply chains, have already shifted from being entirely subsidy-driven to being market-driven.
In this case, if a country really shuts Chinese batteries out over geopolitical reasons or fear of competition, then its domestic EV companies will probably face higher costs and slower development due to insufficient domestic supplies. The logic applies not just to the UK, but also Europe as a whole.
There are many concerns in the EU about excessive reliance on Chinese electric cars and components like batteries, with some following the geopolitical thinking of the US.
As a result, concerns are rising when it comes to Chinese electric cars and batteries entering the European market. For instance, last month, the EU’s Batteries Regulation entered into force, which stipulates how batteries are collected, reused and recycled to a high degree in Europe. This is seen as one of the newest thresholds for Chinese carmakers and batteries in going overseas.
Of course, it is reasonable for the EU to safeguard its own supply chain stability and economic development, but it should be advised that to achieve the goal of promoting EV development, the EU needs to follow rational voices that are based on the judgment as to whether it is conducive to promoting green development, rather than being derailed by protectionism or geopolitics that will only backfire.
Well, me – 3 or 4 times. The first time was as a new boy, middle of freshman year in high school, moved to West god help us Texas. I was a late bloomer, prepubertal, 100 pounds (maybe) soaking wet, 5 foot nothing tall.
The school was not what you call big, and PE was all four ages from frosh to senior, your schedule with academic classes being considered more important.
A senior kid, obviously bigger, started in as class had ended, we were dressed and waiting for the bell for the next class. “Your old man’s a stupid pig!” “Yeah,” I said. “P-I-G. Pride, Integrity, Guts.” Turned my back and walked out. Axxhole grabbed my shoulder, spun me around for a sucker punch to give me a black eye.
That was the last he landed. Did it not occur to dumb-dumb that a cop’s kid just MIGHT grow up learning self-defense? He missed the next three days of school. I had a shiner.
Word got around. That was the last anyone tried to bully me in high school.
I was going to school in Chicago, USA. I definitely didn’t have much money. At the time, I typically donated plasma weekly for my food allowance.
Walking to class and the train (tube) station weekly (this particular lecture was only once a week), I would pass a small eatery. Near the eatery, there was a homeless person with one leg sitting in a wheelchair with a collection cup. He would ask every time I’d pass by.
One week, the eatery was advertising a special: 1/4 chicken dinner, potatoes, green beans for $5. What a treat! I barely had $5 but decided to purchase on my way back to the train home.
I don’t remember exactly what the lecture was, but surely on gratitude or counting blessings. After, I bought the food. I passed the man in the wheelchair. While I didn’t have much, I did have a roof and some bread. I gave my food to the man. I explained I didn’t touch it yet and had planned it for my dinner. He thanked me and I started to walk away feeling like I maybe made a small difference in his day.
He called after me and I turned. He asked about a drink. I told him I didn’t purchase a drink. He told me it was $2. I told him I didn’t have $2 and I paid in change to purchase the meal. He stood up from his wheelchair on TWO legs. “Bullsh—”. He threw the food down on the ground next to my feet which spilled it. “Who buys a dinner without a drink?”
I walked away. I was embarrassed and hurt. I cried on the train ride home. I went home and ate the only food I had left for the week- some bread with peanut butter. I ignored him every week after that.
1930s USA – Fascinating Street Scenes of Vintage America [Colorized]
Nobody is your enemy. You are everyone’s enemy because you think you owned the world and that everyone must be submissive and subservient to you!
You who ask this question is your own enemy! China is not your enemy. China want to be strong and powerful so that you cannot threat them. That is simply a right thing to do. If you think China is only a friend if they lie down and let you walk all over them you are wrong. You are simply not clever.
China won’t and so is the rest of the world. Nobody likes a bully like the U.S. no one wants a self proclaimed world policeman that no one appoints. No want wants a trouble maker and a war monger.
Breaking Bad – TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT
Tuco was, BY FAR, the funniest dude on breaking bad, every time he takes a hit of meth, is pure entertainment.
Did knights have to be kind to peasants in medieval times?
Yes, especially if he wanted to get in your pants. (Although lower-class medieval women generally did not wear trousers.) So the Duke of Normandy was looking at his fortress. He saw a beautiful tanner’s daughter dipping animal skins into the water. She had lifted her skirt. The Duke liked what he saw. He sent a soldier to fetch her. She said she would go to the duke’s castle if she rode the soldier’s horse. The soldier agreed. She borrowed a pretty dress. Then she mounted the side saddle of the soldier’s horse. She and the Duke had sex and the future William the Conqueror, King of England was conceived.
I really liked this girl, she was funny, charismatic and helpful.
Until one day, I met a friend of hers and she was really pleased to meet her. Right after the other friend left, she said “look at her, if she gets a boyfriend before me, I’ll kill myself.”
I found this a rather odd thing to say but I shrugged it off, but it didn’t stop there.
Time and time again… she would smile in people’s faces and what she would say behind their backs was awful.
This had me feeling really sympathetic for people that called her a “friend”. It was also a wake up call like damn, what could she be saying behind my back.
We still talk but not much especially after I confronted her to tell her that what she was doing wasn’t cool. I’m in a place in my life where I’ve lost interest in her and honestly my respect for her too.
Don’t backbite your friends it’s not cool people, not cool at all.
The states have been different from all countries I’ve been to so far. I visited NewYork state then went all the way to Oregon. And I had some general impressions on both:
1- People are so friendly. In fact, too friendly for someone like me, lol.
Everyone chats with you like they’ve known you for a while. They ask “how are you today?” and answer in length something like “oh not doing my best given the weather but other that it’s all good” with a bunch of giggles and smiles.
Not to mention, the waiters constantly check on us, asking if we need something.
Having been raised in Kuwait, the small chat is usually kept to the very bare minimum. And how are yous are replied to with 2 words no more.
Not only that, but Americans also apologize furiously and sincerely for things that look very normal to me. People would apologize deeply that they couldn’t help you find something or that they had to do something that caused you a minute inconvenience.
I found it sweet but way too deep for interaction between strangers. But that’s just a matter of what I’m used to.
2- Traffic light for every lane.
image 78
I had never seen or heard about this before I landed in the US. I would look up and there is 4-5 traffic lights for one street only ! My husband then explained to me that the right or left lanes can sometimes move when the others aren’t, hence each has their own traffic light.
In Kuwait there is usually one traffic light on each side of the street is all.
image 79
3- Diversity in products.
You can ask my husband how my first visit to target then Walmart went. I was basically like a child in an enormous candy store.
There is a huge number of products suitable for everything.
I found hair products in huge numbers for each hair type. I found makeup shades with huge ranges. Given that back home, accepting diversity isn’t that big of a trend yet, I had to get myself some supplies.
4- Doing everything yourself.
Call me spoiled, but back home I never fill up my gas tank myself, or carry my luggage into an hotel, or check myself out of a supermarket without interacting with a cashier worker. But in the US, I had to it all myself.
However, the most shocking thing I had to do myself is this:
We finished eating in a restaurant, so I informed the waitress the I wanted my food for takeaway. So she came, left this carton on the table then walked away:
image 80
If my husband hadn’t explained to me that this is normal there, I would’ve been pissed at the poor service and laziness. But it was just the norm as I had to do to pack my food into boxes in a couple of places after that.
5- Asking for a bag and a straw.
Being so environmentally conscious isn’t a big thing yet back home, so I was definitely taken by surprise that I have to go out of my way to ask for a bag or a straw for my drink. Most people didn’t get bags if they purchased few things and some had their own bags with them.
6- Interaction with the waiters.
When I went to restaurants with my husband in different countries, I never understood what he was doing. We’d want our cheque but he kept sitting there only to tell me that no one’s looking at us yet. So I would just raise a hand and shout “excuse me”.
Then I came to the US and I realized that service there is all about eye contact.
You close the menu, they see that and come pick it up and get your order. You need the cheque, you give them a look and they know that you need something and come right away.
Everyone in my family thought that’s hilarious. If I kept waiting for a waiter to look at me, I’d spend the night in a restaurant every week over here.
And of course, I was not used to tipping at all and forgot to do it all the time.
In fact, I had no clue how to tip when paying with a credit card until my husband showed me. You basically write the amount you want to tip on the receipt.
I still think that giving 20% of the receipt as a tip is way too much. But I guess I have to follow the norms because the system is very different over there.
7-Calories on the menu.
Everything on the menu has the calories written next to it. Thank you for ruining my chance to have a guilt-free dessert America ! Lol. I definitely see how it’s useful for others though.. just not to someone as obsessive as me.
8- Dogs everywhere.
I had a vague idea about this… but oh boy, I underestimated the size of it. There were dogs everywhere I went. The supermarkets, airports, houses, elevators and so on.
In the few hours I spent in the airport of San Francisco, I’ve seen more dogs than I see in Kuwait for weeks.
9- The bathrooms are shocking.
This has been mentioned by most people before for a reason. There is no squirter/ hose/ bidet. You only use toilet paper. I forgot that most of the time and therefore didn’t prepare for it so I had to keep wetting tissues before using the toilet.
image 81
Also, I had no clue how to shower without drains on the floor. Back home, we have a drain in the bathroom. So even if you spilled a ton of water on the floor, you simply push it into the hole with a squeegee in the ground and you’re good.
image 82
So my husband showed me that I have to shut the shower curtains tight- as I don’t have any at home. And that I should keep the towel very close to me to dry myself before leaving the shower and so on.
10- The houses are modest and not as fancy as I expected.
I had always thought that everyone in the US lived in a huge fancy house as shown in hollywood movies.
One time I even squabbled with my husband because he wanted to live in a house. I said “ I don’t want to have to clean all that much all the time !”. He explained to me again and again that it’s not that much bigger than an apartment but I wasn’t convinced.
And I wasn’t the only one. One of the things my family asked me is “does their house (my in-laws) look like the one from home alone?”.
image 83
But to my surprise, houses can be as small as you want them to be. From the inside, when it’s a one-storey house, it looks exactly like an appartment.
So basically, they were like apartments sliced up into units, instead of being gathered in a building.
I am that person. I sunk money into a large deck, hot tub, atrium, in ground pool, 3 car detached garage, a third floor, 15kw solar array, an extra bath and a half, over size hot water system, built in BBQ, gardens, and all sorts of other amenities. All the stuff a realtor will tell you not to do because there would be little, if any, return on the money.
Some people don’t care about getting their investment back. I just wanted to live well with all the stuff I ever wanted. Been here 20 years now and I got my money’s worth. I’ve always known that eventually I’d be selling the place but I didn’t do it to make a profit. I’m getting too old (77) to take care of things and am going to have to downsize within the next few years, but the last two decades were worth the money. What good is money if you can’t enjoy it???
At the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2023, 40+ countries applied to join, and six nations were admitted.
China is already the leading economic power.
But these countries are not applying to join BRICS because China is the economic world power. They are applying to join because they are not satisfied with the current economic order as represented by the G7, and they want a system where they can be treated fairly as equals, instead of being dominated by a minority.
San Francisco Is So Bad That Construction Projects Are Being Cancelled
There is very little value enhancement due to market pricing or Brand pricing or Technology Pricing
Even a Boeing makes at the most a couple of million dollars commission to a Chinese Importer while earning nearly 100 Million Dollars to the US Economy
You see right?
No Nation on earth can export $ 564 Billion worth of goods to the USA
It’s estimated that at thrice the manufacturing potential today – India, Vietnam and Mexico combined can export $ 338 Billion worth of Goods by 2030
This that’s around $ 226 Billion of Exports but also around $ 700 Billion of final retail goods
That’s the amount that US players and entities will be deprived off if US entirely decouples from China EVEN IN 2030 with India, Vietnam and Mexico tripling their Industrial Output
Even then US Economy and it’s players will be deprived of $ 700 Billion Dollars which by 2030 could be around $ 1 Trillion with inflation
That’s a lot of jobs, lots of payments GONE
Meanwhile China?
China may lose around $ 564 Billion of Exports in decoupling
At 0.4% inflation
That’s $ 580 Billion vs $ 1 Trillion
So even in the worst case scenario of US entirely decoupling from China and India, Mexico and Vietnam tripling their Industrial output today – China would lose $ 580 Billion while US would lose a whopping $ 1 Trillion
At normal Industrial output for these three nations, US would lose $ 2.4 Trillion or nearly 4.5 times as much as China stands to lose as an economy
Same for EU
Same for ASEAN
Same for India
Its why Raimondo visits China
It’s why 27 Chinese entities were removed from a Blacklist recently
The Media has been spinning fiction and propaganda so far and China hasn’t cared
Now if China decides to take their revenge by drastically cutting off key exports of say $ 100 Billion, then US cannot source more than $ 30 Billion from other countries
China loses $ 100 Billion but US loses around $ 210 Billion of value to it’s economy
That’s 44% of the projected $ 470 Billion that the US Economy hopes to enhance itself this year at 1.8% growth
So Raimondo says
Please keep trading with us as usual. Ignore what we say in our media. Our contention with you is for the $ 10–15 Billion portion of our Trade, let’s keep the balance $ 685–690 Billion of Trade as normal
That’s why China doesn’t need to visit everybody and reassure anyone much
Everyone loses far far more by decoupling with China
So ultimately it creates a slow down globally where China albeit having very low growth still beats the rest of the world
He was part of a huge family of film financiers but his father was among the poorest members of the same family
He roomed in the same area as Bachchan and Amjad Khan and Shatruguan Sinha in 1970–1972
He eked out a living as a small time writer and selling shirtings and acting in small parts for various studios
Then in one day his life changed
He was WILLED almost 4 Acres of Land in Bombay in the mid 1970s and 14 Luxury Cars
A Very Wealthy marwari financier who was pissed off with his family, willed his entire estate to Sudhir solely because Sudhir drove him on his last journey as a favor
A Clear will naming Sudhir as the sole beneficiary of the mans will witnessed by a reputed doctor and by a famous producer
Obviously the Will was contested ferociously
Meanwhile Sudhir received a monthly rent of ₹ 210/- for each Unit of the Chawl due to rent ceiling and had to pay almost ₹40, 000/- in Taxes
He was cited for illegal construction in 1986 and warned to hand over the property to someone else in exchange for a ₹7 Lakh compensation
He leased out those 14 Cars for film shootings. The Courts allowed him these lease amounts as earnings but any sales sum would have to be placed in a separate account
For 31 years, Sudhir and his family saw an avalanche of litigation during which Sudhir sold his cars but had to put the money in a separate account
He refused to settle with anyone
Meanwhile he survived on handouts for his treatment for Pulmonary Something and struggled financially
In 2007, the Courts decided in his favor
They acknowledged that the Financier had clearly said all the earned wealth would go to Sudhir and it was not the courts business to interfere in why certain people made certain decisions
Sudhir was entitled to ₹ 46 Lakhs earned from the sale of the cars plus interest in the bank
Then he sold one car for ₹3.3 Crore to Vijay Mallya – a Vintage car
His financial position improved dramatically by 2009
Still the legality of the Chawl was pending
Sudhir died in 2014 , willing the Chawl to his son and daughter and wife equally
In 2019, the Courts decided that the Chawl belonged to Sudhir legally as Lalwani had paid a sum of money and legally purchased the land on which the Chawl was built
The Value of the Land?
Roughly ₹ 240 Crore
The State protested and used the Land ceiling in Mumbai and said No Individual could own 4 Acres of Land in that area single handedly
In 2021, the courts valued Sudhirs estimated ownership at 0.96 Acres per the 1976 standards
Thus Sudhirs share was estimated at around ₹59 Crore
The family finally got ₹46 Crore after all taxes by the State Government Or Local Corporation
Sudhir had been gone for a decade but still HE EARNED ALMOST ₹50 Crore cumulatively just by a single will and a moment of anger and indecision by this Marwari financier
Tariffs on China Backfire as American Companies Are Leaving US, Eyeing to Set in China!
The American government ought to consider if it would not be wiser to have a more friendly attitude to China instead of making enemies all the time.
Only 2000 Taiwanese are allowed to travel to the mainland every day
Around 120,000 Taiwanese are restricted from visiting the mainland
Mainlanders who visit Taiwan are literally spied on to the last minute of their visit and cannot spend overnight in Taiwan without an express permit
Taiwanese Researchers are forbidden from visiting the mainland anytime
In fact it’s a GODDAMN CRIME in Taiwan
If a person restricted to travel to the Mainland, goes anyway – he could be jailed!!!
Why do you think they have such rules or restrictions?
Why not boldly say “Any Taiwanese can visit the mainland if he wants”
After all MAINLAND has no such laws
Anyone can leave and spend 10 days in Taiwan and 30 days in US and 30 days in UK and 30 days in Spain and return back
Taiwan is the East Germany of Asia
It’s people are developing a pull to go to Mainland China which is now developing and growing faster than Taiwan outside numbers
The Vast Spaces, the vast Tier Two and Three Cities, the emerging railways, the cleaner crisper air and the boundless opportunity for more research and a huge scope of expansion
Against
The congested island, the crowded cities, the overkill saturation of US influence that is having a reverse effect on the Taiwanese and the fewer opportunities to expand or handle research
The Mainland is their home too
There will come a day when Nature wins and when ultimately the Chinese on both sides decide to unite to maximize their growth and development
Just like East and West Germany and the Berlin Wall Moment
Taiwan is a slave satellite to USA just like GDR was to USSR
Not to mention the Anti China wave in US is also affecting the Taiwanese in US as they very much look the same
So Why would China rock the boat by Invading Taiwan?
That’s what US and the West want today
To divert attention from the Ukrainian horrors that they are facing plus finding a divide between the Mainland and Taiwan
No need to invade even if Lai Wins
Even if Taiwan under US influence make some demented declaration of Independence
By simple Natural Economics, China will succeed in reunification
Richard Wolff on How Europe DESTROYED Itself in America’s War on China
Dying for America must surely be a good cause. Well done, EU. Do it for America. </sarcasm>
Originally Answered: What is the best case of “you just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you've witnessed?
I was that kid!
Let’s set the scene. It’s 1975. I’d just started at a state Grammar School, a short, weedy 11-year-old first-former.
For some reason, some mop-haired blond idiot of a fourth-former bully decided I was going to be this year’s soft target. Think Draco Malfoy. Similar looks, similar attitude. He took every opportunity to threaten me: “I’m gonna get you after school! You’re going home in an ambulance!”
The threats continued, day after day. I was starting to think he was all wind.
One day, he proved me wrong. Waiting until I was just out of sight of the school—the only smart thing he did—he and his retinue of about eight or so other idiots surrounded me in a wide ring, and he advanced with all the swaggering menace a half-grown young man can show a little kid.
I wasn’t going to talk my way out of this one.
Now, a little flashback. Ripple, ripple.
When I started this school, a few weeks prior, my Dad gave me a new case. It was made of ABS plastic, a relatively new material, and this briefcase—hinges, handles, the lot—was one single moulded piece, folding in the middle, with added locks. It looked smart. Grown-up. I was proud of it.
Ripple, ripple. We’re back.
That day, it was full of textbooks and homework. It weighed (it seemed to me) a metric tonne. Turned out, that was quite handy.
I was terrified, but that fear inspired me to something I could never imagine any other time. Like an Olympic hammer thrower, I started a turn. Imagine this, but with a scrawny 11-year-old and a heavy plastic briefcase:
image 45
As I completed the 360, I took aim.
>CRACK!< The far corner of the briefcase, with all its accumulated speed and weight, and at the full extent of my reach, crashed into the right temple of the bully. Instantly smacked him flat on the road.
I didn’t even stop to see if I’d knocked him out. I ran through the circle of his stunned former admirers, straight back to school, and into the Headmaster’s study. I described him, his friends, and what happened. They showed me three-year-outdated photos of kids. I commented that even if I’d not picked the right picture, he’d be easy to spot next day.
He was. Apparently, he turned up to school with an angry-looking, brightly coloured lump the size of a swan’s egg on his forehead.
He never made it to his first class. I gather this wasn’t his first offence—but with perfect proof attached to his face, the school had a cast-iron case to expel him on the spot.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome near the town of Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Far East’s Amur region to discuss a number of pressing issues, including those related to bilateral cooperation, as well as regional and global security.
The two leaders conducted negotiations on Wednesday both as part of their countries’ delegations and in a face-to-face format, in a meeting that lasted a total of about six hours.
“Thank you for inviting us, despite your tight schedule,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin before the two started the tour of the Soyuz-2 space launch facility ahead of the negotiations.
and the Angara rockets, among other things. He notably left a short entry in the book of honorary guests of the cosmodrome, writing, “The glory of Russia, which gave birth to the first space explorers, will be immortal.
Putin, for his part, noted that the Vostochny Cosmodrome was an unusual venue for his meeting with Kim.
“We are proud of the development of our space industry, and this facility is new for us. I hope that you and your colleagues are interested in it,” the Russian president said.
He also recalled several memorable dates for North Korea
as the two met at the cosmodrome, located near the town of Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Far East’s Amur region.
“I am very glad to see you. Especially after such events took place: 75 years since the [Democratic People’s] Republic’s [of Korea (DPRK)] formation, the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, and 75 years since the establishment of [Russia-North Korea] diplomatic relations,” the Russian head of state said.
Kim on North Korea’s ‘First Priority’
The North Korean leader called Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow his country’s top priority.
“Our friendship has deep roots, and the very first priority for our country now is relations with Russia,” Kim underlined, stressing that his visit is taking place “at a very important period.”
He signaled Pyongyang’s readiness to “further develop ties [with Russia],” adding, “We have always supported and support all the decisions by President Putin and those by the Russian government.”
Kim also expressed confidence that his meeting with Putin will raise bilateral relations between Moscow and Pyongyang to a new level, pledging that North Korea would always stand together with Russia in the “fight against imperialism
.”
In this vein, the North Korean leader pointed out that Russia “has risen for a sacred fight to protect its national sovereignty and safety against hegemonic forces.”
Productive Parleys
Speaking to Russian media after the Wednesday talks, Putin said he, in particular, held an open exchange of views on the situation in the Far East region.
“It is a good start, [and] very productive [one]. A very frank exchange of views took place on the situation in the region and on bilateral relations,” Putin emphasized, adding that he and Kim also discussed the development of bilateral relations in the field of agriculture. The statement came after the Russian head of state noted that Kim’s visit “is taking place in a truly comradely and friendly atmosphere.”
The North Korean leader, in turn, said during a gala dinner after the talks that high on the agenda was the situation in Europe and the Korean Peninsula.
“Comrade Putin and I just discussed in depth the military and political situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe and [we] arrived at a satisfactory consensus on further strengthening strategic and tactical cooperation, supporting solidarity in the struggle for the protection of the sovereign right of security, for creating guarantees of lasting peace in the region,” Kim underlined.
He expressed hope that his visit will serve as a catalyst to further bolster bonds between Pyongyang and Moscow.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, 2023.
“In conclusion, I would like to express my confidence that our [delegation’s] current visit will serve as an important moment in the further development and transformation of traditional friendly Russian-DPRK ties into unbreakable relations of strategic cooperation,” the North Korean leader stressed.
He said that such strengthening is in line with the countries’ interests, signaling Pyongyang’s intent to build long-term relations with Moscow.
Sign to Washington
Konstantin Asmolov of the Moscow-based Institute for China and Modern Asia Studies with the Russian Academy of Sciences has, meanwhile, told Sputnik that what matters most from the Putin-Kim meeting
is “the visible show of support” of Russia by the North Korean leader.
Asmolov pointed to Russia becoming the first country where Kim arrived after three years of self-isolation, which he said is “a rather important fact in itself.”
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives at the Vostochny Cosmodrome for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 13, 2023.
The expert suggested that the two most likely focused on changes in the geopolitical situation in the region during the closed-door talks, especially in light of emergence of regional alliances, such as the Washington-Tokyo-Seoul bloc, which was created amid “global turbulence.”
When asked if the US is alarmed about closer ties between Russia and the DPRK, Asmolov said that America just “pretends that they are terribly afraid of apocalyptic consequences from this relationship in order to justify the formation of an Asian NATO.”
Victor Teo, a Singapore-based political scientist who specializes in the international relations of the Indo-Pacific region, for his part suggested that the two discussed “strategic matters of common interest” during the face-to-face talks.
Asked about the signal Putin and Kim are sending to the West, the political scientist said that “one key message this meeting is sending is that despite the United States’ strength in the Asia-Pacific, Russia too has allies in the region.”
“I personally think that Russia and North Korea are already on good terms, and that while Western press reports have raised various concerns, the United States government understands that the DPRK has traditionally relied on the Soviet Union/Russia for help in various aspects. The US security establishment is therefore not all that concerned with Russia-DPRK interactions unless it involves sensitive military technology exchanges that the US does not wish for the DPRK to possess,” Teo pointed out.
Sea launch 1st by Chinese private entity!
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China on Tuesday sent a sea-launched rocket into space from the waters surrounding Haiyang, a coastal city in the eastern province of Shandong, placing four satellites into planned orbit.
The commercial launch vehicle, CERES-1, blasted off at 5:34 p.m. (Beijing Time). The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center conducted the offshore mission.
The rocket maker Galactic Energy said it was the 9th flight and the first sea-based mission of the CERES-1 series. The launch also makes it the first Chinese private company to complete a liftoff from the sea.
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Compared with a land-based launch, the sea launch is a new mode, having more flexibility, better adaptability, and more cost-effective services. Furthermore, flexible positioning of the launching and landing areas can ensure spent rocket stages. Other debris falls into the sea rather than on land close to populated areas.
These advantages give the rocket company the confidence to increase the frequency of sea launches in the future.
Aboard the CERES-1 rocket were four satellites Tianqi 21-24, developed by Guodian Gaoke, a Beijing-based commercial sci-tech firm, which are part of the Tianqi low-Earth orbit Internet of Things constellation.
The 38-satellite constellation will go into operation in 2024. It will provide global data services for application scenarios such as emergency communications, ecological environment monitoring, and tower detection.
He was a young man who ended up splattering his brains all over the side of the pavement in the UK. He was well known amongst the petrol head community in the UK for all the wrong reasons.
He was a young man who seemed hell bent on dying young and impressing other people and trolling others.
If I recall correctly (it;s been years) he crashes his car impaling himself in the face and losing an eye. He seemed unfazed by this and bought a high power motorbike and scared the shit out of people by riding recklessly. Within a year he crashes and ends up spreading his brain on the pavement.
I recall his GF’s mother said she was glad he was dead, she was glad because he kept taking her daughter for dangerous drives around various roads.
Originally Answered: What science photos are hard to believe but are indeed real?
The most amazing photo in science ever taken and the one so hard to believe, is this one:
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This is a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012 of a tiny tiny section of night sky. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, it took 11 days of exposure to capture the light from these small dots. What is so mind-blowing about it is the fact that with the exception of four small objects, no dot of light in this photo is a star. They are all entire galaxies of stars, over 10,000 separate vast islands of stars spanning quadrillions of miles in size each. The dimmest dots actually represent galaxies that are over 12 billion light years from Earth. Because light travels at finite speed, it took over 12 BILLION YEARS for the light from those galaxies to arrive at Earth. Stare at the photo for a bit and realize the incredible vastness it represents! Look deep into the image to find those dim dots.
The Hubble team did something really cool. Using hard data of how far each galaxy in the above image was from Earth, they created an actual video simulation of what it would look like to fly INTO the galaxies in the Ultra Deep Field image above. Every dot in the video is an entire galaxy of stars passing you by. Here is that video. To really appreciate the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo, click the video below to fly into that scene: (Note: At the speed of the video, it would take you trillions of years to fly at that speed through these galaxies in real time).
Scientists also looked deep into the blackness beyond the above galaxies and asked if there were even more galaxies to see, if the Hubble took an even longer exposure. A few years later, with upgraded camera software, Hubble took an even longer and closer view of the same above spot. Sure enough, called the “Extreme Ultra Deep Field”, it contained a slew of even fainter galaxies. Here is the result:
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In all likelihood, there are even more fainter, more distant galaxies hiding in the above darkness, beyond Hubble’s ability to see.
OK, so the sky has lots of galaxies. Surely that is crazy to grasp but perhaps not so hard to believe. Well, to understand better what is so mind-blowing about the above photos, consider this image below:
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So, just how much of the sky did the Hubble telescope photograph to capture those 10,000 galaxies in one shot? It is the answer that is impossible to believe. Look at the image above. See that tiny faint yellow square in the upper left center? THAT is the area of space the Hubble photographed. All of those 10,000 galaxies in the first image, stretching back in time almost to the beginning of the universe, came from inside that tiny yellow box. WHATTTTTT????? In fact, the space occupied by that image would fit into an area smaller than a grain of rice, held up to the night sky at arm’s length. Move it a millimeter to the right, left, up or down, and it will block 10,000 more galaxies, then another 10,000, then another and another and …. Imagine how many galaxies you can cover if you contemplate the entire night sky? WHOA!
Well, was this some kind of fluke? Perhaps Astronomers pointed the Hubble at a section of sky known to have lots of galaxies. In response, the Hubble took a dozen additional long-exposure photos of different parts of the sky over the years, also spanning no more distance than that tiny box above.
Here was the result of another such exposure:
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This one, taken in 2018, is a time-exposure of another tiny part of the sky and found a whopping 15,000 galaxies in a single image. Called the Hubble Legacy Field, it used the upgraded cameras on Hubble. It reveals galaxies stretching almost to infinity. Again, look deep into it to understand its magnificence.
Here was another exposure from yet a third tiny part of the night sky, named simply the “Hubble Deep Field” (it was in fact, the first photo taken of them all):
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As you can see, it is filled with over 3,000 galaxies (the black area at top right is a camera artifact).
For a final view, this one is a closeup of a cluster of galaxies, one of hundreds known to exist. Most of the objects in it are massive galaxies, clustered together by their mutual gravity. It is called MACS JO717 (objects with long cross-hatch lines are stars in our Milky Way).
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In short, everywhere Hubble looked in its dozen+ photos, it saw galaxies of stars … thousands upon thousands of them. No one knew the night sky had that many islands of stars. Every Astronomer on Earth was blown away by the realization that when you look out at the night sky tonight, the darkness you see is not dark. It is FILLED with thousands upon millions upon billions of galaxies of stars, each containing hundreds of billions of suns and possibly trillions of planets of their own. In fact, latest surveys estimate that our visible universe contains over 2 TRILLION galaxies, stretching to distances that no one can even comprehend. That is an almost impossible number to contemplate and is so humbling to realize.
Modern computers can draw simulations of what 2 trillion galaxies might look like, if we could see just a tiny fraction of them from a distance. Here is one such simulation (called the Large Scale Structure of the Universe)
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Each dot above would be a galaxy of billions of stars positioned by the computer in its correct spot in the night sky. WHOA!
To best understand this, choose just one tiny dot in the above image … anywhere. Do it now. Stare at it a bit. Then imagine that dot is our entire Milky Way galaxy. With our current technology, it would take humans 2 BILLION YEARS to cross just from one side of that tiny dot you picked out to the other side of that same dot. Really! Now, look around it in space. Imagine how vast is the universe when you contemplate traveling between these galaxies, between those tiny dots. We are just a tiny blob of protoplasm on a tiny planet orbiting one star out of septillions, in just one galaxy among trillions, in an impossibly immense space. That is why the Hubble photos of these galaxies have been voted by many scientists as the most amazing photos ever taken in science. I totally agree!
It is like allowing the U.S. have a long rope to hang itself. Every time the U.S. media and politicians look down and pretend that China grow slowly or China don’t grow. And that the U.S. grows when in effect it is in a technical recession, it allows China to zoom past them.
So westerners who repeat such lies are in fact helping Chi a and not hurting China at all. This situation helps China. It wants to hide its strength. Not behave obnoxiously like the U.S. boaditing and showing off.
One year. I arrived in Nov 1967 and worked Huey night maintenance at Bien Hoa airbase for the 118th Assault Helo Co. My first exposure to combat was when the VC attacked the base in the Tet offensive, Jan 1968.
In April 1968 I was assigned a crewchief slot with the 68th AHC, the TopTigers and by mid May, I’d lost three helicopters and 2 pilots to enemy action and a crash. By June I was flying with the Mustang gun platoon and by November, my year was over. But I still had a third year of total service obligation left and my unit was short experienced crewchiefs. So my CO asked if I would extend my tour six months and in return, at the end of the extension, the ARMY would grant me an “Early Out” thus forgiving my last half a year of service. And in a decision only a VN vet could understand, I decided my place was with my flying buddies and I signed up for the extra six months. I made three.
In March 1969 my gunship crashed and I was medevaced out of VN a 20 year old casualty of the war. Recovery took a year and the VA granted me 30% disability and a monthly check of $42 which today has increased to $560. The California VA also paid for my Engineering degree as well as college for my two daughters. These bennies were well worth the discomfort of my injuries.
Interestingly, extensions in VN was not unusual in my unit. Several of my fellow crewchiefs came home, realized how tedious stateside service was, and missed the camaraderie of their aircrew buddies. So in 1970 – 71, they returned to our old unit and to a man, regretted it. The buddies they’d known had been replaced and the unit espirit had changed as well. VN was winding down.
As for me, my service in VN is no doubt the most memorable time of my life. I’d accumulated approx. 1000 hrs in the air and managed to avoid doing anything that would haunt me later in life. As a result, I have no regrets and sleep very well at night. I guess I’m one of those boring VN vets that made a normal adjustment to civilian life.
Huawei Chips are no longer made in Taiwan!
After 1566 days, Huawei Kirin 9000s is back, and it’s now made in China.
The chip is released in HW Mate 60.
McConnell appears to freeze for more than 30 seconds during press conference
A few days ago, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center of China and 360 Total Security Company jointly issued a report entitled “‘Empire of Hacking’: The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – Part I”.
The report details the CIA’s long history of leveraging its technological advantage to eavesdrop on or launch cyber-attacks against countries, businesses and institutions around the world.
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As the initiator of cyber warfare, the largest supplier of advanced cyber weapons, and the world’s largest cyber spy, what has the United States targeted in its cyber attacks? The answers mainly include: Personal privacy, communications industry, critical infrastructure, and core network facilities.
According to the U.S. Army Times, the U.S. Army has requested $16.6 billion for the fiscal year 2023 to support its network and IT departments. Approximately $9.8 billion will be used for military network modernization, and about $2 billion for offensive and defensive network construction, and research and development in the field of cybersecurity.
Internet technology originated in the U.S., making it the first country to plan and deploy cybersecurity issues. However, this first-mover advantage did not lead the U.S. to a path of inclusiveness, fairness, balance, and cooperation when formulating cyberspace strategies; but, rather, maintaining and protecting its existing hegemonic advantage.
In 2013, American whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the secret and comprehensive monitoring of the leaders of France, Germany and other European allies by the United States.
As the evidence shows, the U.S. is clearly the biggest threat to global cybersecurity. The “Hacker Empire” U.S.’s eavesdropping and cyber-attacks on other countries are fundamentally aimed at using digital hegemony to maintain its military and financial hegemony in the real world.
As the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson pointed out, cyberspace is not a battlefield or wrestling ground, still less should it be used as a tool to split the international community or contain and bring down other countries. A secure, stable, and prosperous cyberspace is of great significance to world peace and development.
They got made a prisoner. Usually interrogated, then sent to a POW camp.
True story. My mother lived in Kent during the Battle of Britain, she and her friends often watched the planes fighting.
One day, they saw a plane shot down. They knew it was a German Aircraft , and they saw the pilot bale out, and his parachute land in a field not far away. So they cycled over to the field. On the way, they met the local gamekeeper, on his bike, who had seen it too. He had his shotgun with him. They all went to the field. They saw the parachute laying in the field.
As they went across the field, the pilot stood up from behind some hay bales, with his hands up.
The gamekeeper pointed his shotgun at him.
The pilot shouted in English “ hallo! “ he pointed at his waist where he had a pistol “ I give you gun!”
And slowly pulled it out and threw it .
“ my leg hurts”
They went up to to him; and said “ sit down, it’s OK”
My mother was a nurse. she spoke some German, as she had an Austrian cousin. It turned out that he also spokequhite good English.
She had a look at his leg, it seemed his ankle was badly sprained.
The gamekeeper gave him a cigarette. They decided that they should take him to the farmhouse while they waited for the police. They helped him across the field and got him to the farm house .
Grandmother already had the kettle on so they had tea while the farmhand was sent to find the local policeman. About an hour later, he arrived, with two members of the local home guard in a car and the local doctor
Every one saluted each other; the doctor strapped up his ankle.
They all had some more tea , then the policeman said “” well sir, we have to take you to the police station, and wait for the Army to come and get you “
“Of course, thank you for the tea”.
And off they went.
Thé follow up is that in 1950, there was a knock on the door, and it was the pilot. He had spent the rest of the war as a POW in Scotland, then returned to Germany, and had got a job as a civil engineer, rebuilding Germany. He was visiting on business. He became a family friend.
Thousands of kids missing in Maui as walls go up to hide the truth | Redacted
It’s been 22 days since a massive fire destroyed the town of Lahaina on Maui… 2,000 homes incinerated, hundreds of people killed and all in an area largely owned and lived in by long time native islanders. What is really going on here? Why are drones being blocked, residents arrested when they try to return home? Why are 2,000 kids missing?
China is committed to building its own semiconductor industry and has invested billions of dollars in chip manufacturing projects, which has also boosted the performance of chip equipment manufacturers.
The Chinese scientists and engineers have already made their own reflectors, lithography equipment and control methods in extreme ultraviolet lithography and core technologies. Through independent research and development and innovation, China has gradually reduced its dependence on external technology and equipment and achieved a series of breakthroughs by relying on the huge domestic market demand. Therefore, in the fields of lithography machines, chips, etc., the Chinese are increasingly emerging and becoming a leader in global technology development. At the same time, China will continue to be committed to increasing its efforts to further promote independent research and development and innovation in key areas. This not only provides impetus for the sustainable development in China, but also makes a positive contribution to global scientific and technological progress.
At Harbin Institute of Technology, there have been frequent breakthroughs in the field of lithography machines. In February, a self-developed ultra-precision high-speed laser interferometer won top awards such as the “Golden Sui Award” gold medal at the World Photonics Conference. In March, a new solution for the development of miniaturized short-wave lasers was made. In April, the realization of an “electric energy conversion plasma circuit” and the realization of a DPP-EUV light source were all set to go.
Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Specreation Company, headquartered in Hefei, Anhui, have all applied for patents on EUV light source technology in the past year.
The front-end lithography machine for chip manufacturing, mainly consists of four parts: extreme ultraviolet light source, reflective projection system, photolithography template (mask), and photolithography coating (photoresist) that can be used in extreme ultraviolet. The machine is simply called EUV for short.
In the technical fields of optical chips and 3D stacking, China has already begun to deploy and has achieved good results. These can bypass ASML’s EUV lithography machine.
Regarding the workpiece platform in the core technology of EUV lithography machines, the Chinese Huazhuo Precision Technology Co., Ltd.’s self-developed dual workpiece platform has completely broken ASML’s technology monopoly. Huazhuo Precision Technology Co., Ltd. (中国华卓精密科技有限公司) has become the second company in the world to master the core technology of dual workpiece platforms.
A small factory in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province broke Japan’s 20-year monopoly in one fell swoop, increased the purity of domestic photoresists by 10 times, and enabled mass production of high-end KrF and ArF photoresists, the 100% domestically produced upstream photoresist materials.
Shanghai Microelectronics is expected to deliver the first domestic SSA/800-10W lithography equipment by the end of 2023.
On the road to domestic substitution, a number of excellent suppliers have emerged in the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor fabrication industry, such as lithography machine light source system manufacturer Fujing Technology, objective lens system manufacturer Aopu Optoelectronics, and photomask manufacturer Feilihua, defect detection manufacturer Dongfang Jingyuan, photoresist manufacturers Nanda Optoelectronics and Rongda Photosensitive, photolithography gas manufacturers Jacques Technology, Walter Gas, etc.
Shanghai Microelectronics is already producing 28nm lithography machines and 14nm lithography machines are also under development. In terms of etching machines, China Microelectronics has developed an etching machine with a 5nm process and is making faster progress.
According to customs data, as of May 2023, China has successfully reduced the import of 45.5 billion chips. Based on this scale, it is expected that China will further reduce the import of more than 100 billion chips in 2023.
Generally speaking, the breakthroughs made by the Chinese companies in dual workpiece stages, objective lenses, light sources, masks, photoresists and other semiconductor core systems and materials prove that the Chinese are going further and further on the road of independent research and development of chip manufacturing. The Chinese are increasingly confident that under the environment of unity and cooperation between domestic enterprises and clear division of labor, and with the strong support of the state, the future of domestic chips is promising.
China has obviously understood that relying on the foreigners will not last long after all.
Bluntly, it’s a total and complete catastrophe, a shocking combination of yellow-bellied cowardice and overwhelming incompetence. It’s offensive to the natural world, God, morality, ethics, and sentient life itself.
Dozens of highly armed and armored and well trained police stood outside in the hall while little kids bled out.
In the picture above, taken 46 minutes before the police did their fuckin’ jobs, at least five officers with rifles are visible. One has a ballistic helmet. Two have ballistic shields.
They did nothing.
Active shooter protocols vary. Some are simple: The first to arrive moves aggressively toward the subject and neutralizes them, or dies trying. Others suggest that a brief wait for a small ad-hoc team, between two and four, may be worth it, but as soon as such an element is formed, it should aggressively move and neutralize the subject.
None call for more than four.
There were four men within five minutes.
They did nothing.
Instead, they allowed themselves to be directed by a shockingly incompetent on scene commander to simply wait, while he waited for radios, shields, rifles, swat, a key, and a motherfucking invitation before he did his damned job.
While they did nothing.
The excuses from the chief are just ‘You know, this doesn’t make it better’. His radios didn’t work in the school? The schools are literally his only responsibility. If his radios don’t work, it’s his fault. If he can’t move with his radio, it’s his fault. The doors not being locked was his fault. That he didn’t know that the door didn’t lock is his fault. All of this makes it worse.
To add on to the basic fact that he did nothing.
Indeed, we have credible reports of individual parents, with no training or weapons who acted in a vastly superior tactical manner to the chief. A woman who was handcuffed, and managed to have the presence of mind to get herself uncuffed, sneak into the school, and rescue her children. Make that mom the chief of police!!!! She clearly has both the courage and problem solving skills to do the job, unlike the abject failure that is currently employed.
This incident has forced my to seriously recalibrate what role I think that police should play in society. If they can’t do this, then what’s the point? Shut it down and go home.
I’m not quite standing with the ACAB and defund people, but I can sure as hell hold a friendly conversation with them at this point, with no need to shout.
When seconds count, the police are 83 minutes away.
Gympie Gympie, also known as the suicide plant, is known to drive people insane. This notorious Australian plant is one of the worlds most poisonous plants, and those nettle like stingers pack a punch.
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The pain is described as being burnt with acid and getting electrocuted at the same time. The tiny hairs that cover the leaves are described as being like little hypodermic needles, which embed themselves deep into your skin before injecting you with a neurotoxin.
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The pain is said to last for weeks, even months and in some cases years. The little hypodermic stingers sink deep into the skin, and it’s really difficult to remove them. The plant was first discovered in 1886 when a road surveyor’s horse got stung by the plant, went mad and died two hours later.
The embedded hairs can stay in the skin for up to a year and release a toxin during triggering events like touching the affected area, pouring water on the area, or even a temperature change. Once it releases the neurotoxin, a severe burning sensation will increase in intensity for about 30 minutes, and it could last for weeks.
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A British officer is said to have committed suicide after he mistakenly used a leaf as toilet paper causing him to go insane from the pain before shooting himself in the head.
The hairs are so small the skin will grow over them, making it almost impossible to remove them. The best treatment for it is to use acid to remove layers of skin to expose the needles and plucking them out.
Dear Americans
You all must check out this American advertisement. You must watch it. It’s super short.
For years I worked on old cars, raced them, show cars, fixed them up for fun. I purchased a old 55 Chevy 4 door from a woman who was in her late 80’s. It was her husbands car and he only drove it to town (5 miles away) for groceries, PO, bank ,etc. I spent a few months getting the car back in shape, paint, engine, interior and finally insured it and tagged it. Proud of the old car I decided to drive it to work, about 10 miles away. I got about a mile away and the car quit running. So I walked the rest of the way to work. A co-worker gave me lift to the old Chevy and we decided to see if it would start, sure enough it fired right up, he would follow me home. As soon as I pulled into the driveway the Chevy coughed and stopped. The next week I rebuilt the carb, new fuel filter, checked the wiring, everything I could think of, even changed the fuel tank sending unit and replaced the fuel filter sock that went into the tank. Decided to drive it to work, one mile short of work it quit running again. Got the old car home again and decided to drain the gas tank, new filters, etc. Drove it again same thing. I finally figured it out (just to make the story short) it seems the old man who owned the car was a depression era guy, he never put more than a few gallons of gas at a time in the car. Over the years the tank starting rusting at the top of the tank due to condensation and water in the gas. Even though I drained the tank I could not see the rust in the corners and as I drove the car the rust started breaking off a little at a time and clogged the little fuel filter soak and cutting off gas flow. Seems like 9 miles was all she could go till the fuel filter sock was full, the funny thing was when I stopped the car and the fuel pump wasn’t working the rust and debris fell away and opened back up the fuel flow. Drove me crazy. A new gas
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tank from YearOne Auto Parts and the old Chevy lasted many years of good service.
So you’re a multi billion dollar transnational corporation, or working for one, and you want all those sweet natural resources located near people too poor and disconnected to sue you for hazardous mining operations, but you also don’t want to pay a cent to the country where you’re doing this? I got great news for you, we can manage that, in this easy step by step plan.
We find a country with proven resource reserves, but who are too poor to actually develop them without help.
We offer them to develop their resources under the deal that the facilities and actual resources extracted will be ours, but the labour will be locally employed, and the country’s government will get a percentage of the value of the resources in the form of tariffs which they control. If this deal doesn’t immediately sound appealing, then pay who ever is in charge of negotiating it 10–20 million dollars, which is an absurd sum for an individual especially in a poor country. Make sure the deal is verified by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
We construct the facilities with efficiency in mind, but it is vitally important that the machines used for extraction is reliant on parts and preferably on site engineers from out country. Call this a safety measure against countries who would have the idea they could take it over in the future.
Now we got the operation going. Let’s say copper for example. We have managed to mine copper and refine it on site (it’s pretty dangerous and pollutes a lot so best keep it there) and we now want to sell it on the world market, for an estimated price of 3 billion dollars. However, our deal earlier says the government takes 20% of the value on exported items. So what we do is that we shell the entire storage of copper to our own separate paper company for 1 dollar, the government takes 25 cent. This is a fair price.
Our company paper company in Switzerland now owns 3 billion dollars worth of copper, obviously Switzerland is a great place for copper imports, because their taxes are low and the questions are few. Things which are good for an effective company.
We don’t actually import the copper to Switzerland, we just pay the minimal tax there when we convert our 1 dollar copper to 3 billion, the copper is still in the original country. It is being shipped to various places in EU for electronics manufacture, loaded on ships with flags in Panama by minimum wage labour.
In summary, we built a facility worth half a billion, bribe an official about 20 million, and pay our workers probably less than 10 million per year in total. One time investment of 530 million dollars, annual 10 million in salaries, 25 cent in export tax, 8% in Swiss import tax (240 million), and a few costs for maintenance. Roughly 780 million in expenses, 2.22 billion in profits. Switzerland gets around 24 times more per year than the local government does of course, but this is good because it keeps pressure on them to keep wages low.
Just in case anyone ever wonders why Switzerland a land locked nation not part of the EU with no bilateral trade agreements with Zambia has an OEC page that looks like this.
Why don’t they just nationalize it?
Because it’s difficult to operate.
Don’t they realize the tax evasion scheme?
Sure they do, but their deal allows for it.
Why don’t they cancel their deal?
Because that would violate the principles of the WTO and constitute contract breaking and that would land them with economic sanctions they can’t afford.
Why don’t they get rid of the corrupt officials who make these deals?
They do actually when ever possible, the person making this deal is already in jail for corruption.
But if the deal was made with the use of bribes with a person who is convicted of corruption, it is clearly not valid.
A contract is a contract, does you country have corruption, that’s your problem. WTO isn’t here to fix corruption, it’s here to enforce trade agreements, no matter the circumstances they were written under.
Dallas Tacos
This is a Tex Mex-favorite in Dallas – mini soft corn tortillas topped with smoked brisket, chopped red onion, shredded red cabbage and pepper jack cheese.
dallas tacos
Ingredients
Beef
3 pounds brisket or chuck roast
Salt
Black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or bacon grease
1 large yellow onion, cut into quarters
8 cloves garlic
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 cups beef broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 jalapeño peppers, seeds and stems removed, cut in half, lengthwise
2 leafy stems cilantro
1 bay leaf
Tacos
2 poblano chiles
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup shredded red cabbage
1 large red onion, chopped
1 cup (4 ounces) pepper Jack cheese
Corn or flour tortillas
Flour tortillas
Salsa
Instructions
Heat the oven to 250 degrees F.
Sprinkle the brisket or chuck roast with salt and black pepper.
In a large ovenproof pot, such as a Dutch oven, heat up the oil on medium-low, and brown the beef on both sides, about 5 minutes per side.
Remove the beef from the pot and add the onions. While occasionally stirring, cook until they begin to brown.
Add the garlic cloves and cook for another 2 minutes.
Turn off the heat and pour the red wine vinegar into the pot, scraping along the bottom to loosen all of the particles.
Return the beef to the pot. If using brisket, place it fat side up. Pour in the beef broth and add the cumin, jalapeños, cilantro and bay leaf. Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook the brisket for 6 hours or until it’s fork tender.
After removing beef from the oven, let it rest in the pot uncovered for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, to make the taco toppings, roast the poblano chiles under the broiler until blackened, about 5 minutes per side.
Place chiles in a paper sack or plastic food-storage bag, close it tight and let the chile steam for 20 minutes.
Remove the chiles from the bag and rub off the skin. Remove stem and seeds and cut the chiles into strips.
Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium low, and add the chopped onion. While occasionally stirring, cook until softened, about 10 minutes.
Add the cut poblano strips and cook for 1 more minute.
After the beef has rested, remove it from the pot, cut off the fat cap (if using the brisket) and shred the meat with two forks until it’s in long strands.
To make the gravy, strain the cooled broth, throwing out the vegetables. Remove the fat from the broth with a gravy separator. Or alternatively, you can take a quart-sized plastic storage bag and pour some broth into it. Snip a bottom corner of the bag and drain the broth, stopping when you get to the fat layer that is on top. Add 2 tablespoons of the gravy to the shredded brisket, reserving the rest for serving. Taste the beef and adjust seasonings.
To make the tacos, place on one side of each tortilla some pepper Jack and slide the tortillas under the broiler for 30 seconds or until the cheese is melted. Fill the tortillas with shredded beef and top with some of the onions and poblano strips.
Serve with the pot juices and salsa.
Serve with a side of salsa, mashed avocado and a jalapeño.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Nebraska: 4 Mile Evacuation Ordered; Rail car Explosion with Toxic Chemicals
A rail car has exploded and is burning in North Platte, Nebraska and very unusual things are now taking place. 1) An evacuation area of four MILES is in effect around the rail car. 2) The US Air Force Deployed a WC-135 “Nuke Sniffer” plane to fly over the scene.
While an evacuation zone around a burning railcar is not unusual, there are very many questions about why the US Air Force sent a WC-135 “nuke sniffer” aircraft above the scene.
the WC-135 with flight ID AE048D flew repeated circles over the rail yard at North Platte, NE today, as well as over the rail lines due west of the railyard:
ATOM 01 North Platte NE 1
And west of the rail yard as well:
ATOM 01 North Platte NE 2
Word is already leaking out that the Union Pacific Rail Yard in North Platte is the world’s largest rail yard. Word is also leaking out that “more than 70% of the rail engines had safety defects, as did 20% of the rail cars!”
Three days ago, the Federal Rail Administration stated publicly “the nations largest rail carrier failed to fix and continued to use faulty equipment.”
Ukraine Scores Big Hits; Destroys Russian Submarine and Landing Ship
Ukraine has successfully attacked the Russian port of Sevastopol on Crimea, and destroyed the Russian Submarine “Rostov-on-Don” and the Landing Ship “Minsk” (pictured above). Both vessels were in dry dock for repairs.
We learned about the consequences of Ukraine’s attack on the Sevmorzavod (dry dock/shipyard) in Sevastopol last night. Sources in the Black Sea Fleet, in the General Staff and in the Sevastopol government told us the following:
As a result of the missile strike, 11 people were killed – factory workers and military. 31 people, according to the latest data, were injured.
The Ukraine missiles completely destroyed two vessels – the large landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-on-Don. Both vessels were in for repair but are now not salvageable. In addition, two more vessels were damaged at the Sevmorzavod Ship Yard, and it may be possible to restore them. Authorities refused to say the names of these ships, “so that the enemy would not receive valuable information about the result of his attack.”
According to updated data, eight Ukrainian missiles and two naval drones were fired at Sevastopol. The drones were destroyed, and only two of the missiles were shot down, so the damage from the impacts is serious.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev has already demanded to strengthen the city’s air defense.
During the missile strike last night, panic began in Sevastopol. The police received information that saboteurs were operating in the city, and sent several patrols to search for them. One of them mistook an armed military patrol for saboteurs and opened fire on his own. As a result of the shootout, four people were killed – three soldiers and one policeman.
The Submarine B-237 “Rostov-on-Don”, passed tests and entered the Russian Navy fleet in 2014. It cost about $300 million and was a Kalibr missile carrier.
Living in the Us is extremely hard in many ways.
Economically speaking is very very expensive. Even the places that are called affordable are still expensive and the truly affordable places are stagnant economically.
The rat race, socially speaking you are continuously pushed to want more, try to earn more, do more, it is never enough. You have to be VERY strong mentally to escape that and go against the flow.
Radicalized, dogmatic, borderline lunatic masses. Everything is an issue, the media loves to blow it out of proportion, politicians love the circus. As a result, a lot of hatred, divsion, anger, fringe lunatics compleely deranged, this translates into violence.
Violent society. Less than a month after Uvalde there were 33 mass shootings all over the US. So many the media does not even report it anymore.
A lot of poverty with almost no way out. Grow up poor in the US chances are you will die early and poor in the US.
LAck of health care, that is a BIG BIG issue.
Backwards and purtiannical…. thinking 18 year olds with assault riffles is fine, but that same 18 year old having a beer is terrible! The neverding gun debate, now women-s rights taken away by religious lunatics in power *Saudi arabia like*, today I read the same lunatics in power want to revisit gay rights.
Fading glory. The Us feels tired. You drive around the country and it feels like it was a wow place to be back in the 50s and 60s…. today, not much! At times is like a time capsule to the mid 20th century!
Infrasctructure surprisingly mediocre. Options for public transportation minimal and very mediocre.
Car dependancy…. you literally have to drive EVERYWHERE in 95% of the country.
Religion, scary kind of it with lunatics thinking it is a sin to not live like humans did in the dark ages!
Guns, there are four guns per person in the US.
Double standards, the US can bomb, dismantle, destroy governments left and right, wait for Russia or China to do it and it is an international outcry.
Peach Pudding Cake
peachcake591
Ingredients
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter or margarine
10 peach halves, fresh or canned
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 cup whipping cream
Instructions
Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together.
Cut in butter until mixture resembles cornmeal; sprinkle over bottom and sides of greased 8 x 2-inch round ovenware cake dish.
Place peaches, cut side up, over crumb mixture.
Combine brown sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over peaches.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 mintues.
Combine egg yolks and cream; pour over peaches.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Serve warm.
So Surprising!..| FIRST TIME HEARING Robin Trower – Bridge Of Sighs Reaction
Robin Trower is a genius, but vocalist James Dewar is on an equal footing with his own genius. In my opinion (and many, many others’) Jimmy Dewar was the finest blue-eyed soul/white blues singer in British history. Rest In Power Jimmy!
Finally, signs over the weekend that US getting frustrated with Chinese offering countries who wish to be neutral, a robust alternative to the Western sanctions regime.
After a meaninglessly polite agree-to-disagree meeting with Xi and Biden, Chinese ambassador was thoroughly disrespected on CNN yesterday.
I'm keeping eyes open for moves by US State Dept etc to play some of its options in the department of strategic destabilization of countries adjacent to China, and/or neutral countries.
- PTB
The obvious plan is for the United States to unify itself; a collapsing nation, by a unifying major war.
Initially, it was thought that a long, drawn out conventional war against Russia was possible, and then while Russia is preoccupied and “bled to death”, a second one could then be “pivoted” towards a war against China.
The hot flash zones are well known.
These are the RED LINES. For Russia, And the RED LINES for China.
For Russia, it is nuclear weapons and NATO in Ukraine.
For China, it is outside involvment, independence, or nuclear weapons in Taiwan.
For the United States to initiate these long, drawn out wars, it needs to [1] cross those RED LINES, and then [2] manage the conflict on its own terms.
It’s pretty obvious. Not reported in the West, but really quite obvious.
So far, it appears that things are moving ahead according to plan.
This article collects a long series of events and reports regarding both China and Russia at this (frozen) moment of time. Most of these reports and narratives have been submerged under the enormous and spellbinding American psyops machine that has been saturating the airwaves for months now.
Here, we are going to pick though the bits and pieces (twigs and thissles) in that big gushing flood of disinformation just spewing forth from the mighty American propaganda machine.
To begin, we provide the Chinese viewpoint of why America wants China to join with it in sanctioning Russia (over the Ukraine invasion)…
Why the USA wants China to sanction Russia
This is the official point of view of the Chinese government.
2022 03 22 07 56
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And here is a comment on the above tweet from the Chinese Government. It flushes it out using better English and parses the nuiances in clear language.
A recurring theme in the American telling of history is that the bad guys do bad things for no reason at all. The general plot is that things were going along just fine and then all of a sudden, for no reason at all, the bad guys started doing bad things. Inevitably, the good guys, which will always be the Americans, were forced to break away from minding their own business to save the world from badness.
The Great War was probably the first run at this form of mythmaking. According to legend, America was trying hard to stay out of the war in Europe, then for no reason at all those very bad Germans started preying on American ships. Finally, those evil Germans sunk a perfectly innocent passenger ship called the Lusitania. The fact that it was stuffed with munitions is conveniently omitted from the tale.
Of course, the Second World War is the full expression of this myth. In the Pacific, the great yellow menace decided out of the blue to attack Hawaii. America was at peace and for no reason at all the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. In Europe, America’s peace plan created by Woodrow Wilson was working perfectly, but then for no reason at all those very bad Germans declared war on the world.
“According to the myth, America has been minding its own business and for no reason at all the Russians launched this bloody war against innocent civilians.”
The important elements of the story are always the same. America is the innocent bystander, doing its best to mind its own business. The villain is not just the aggressor, but they have no justification for their actions. Whatever reasons they have are dismissed as irrational or evil. The final element is that America must reluctantly swing into action to save the world from the bad guys.
This sort of stuff makes sense after success. The winners get to tell the story of their victory and that always means mythmaking. The only example we have of the winner declaring themselves the villain and the loser being cast as the morally superior party is colonialism. In America that means the natives are the innocents and the paleface is the bad guy. This tale, however, is not written by the actual victors in the fight, but the winners in the 20th-century culture war.
This now-standard form of American mythmaking is not just a post hoc justification, but a justification for future action. The crusades against Islam were framed the same way by the neocons running foreign policy. Instead of mythmaking to explain past action, it is mythmaking to justify one of their schemes. American must reluctantly attack some country, in order to avoid being forced to do it later.
In their booklet The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission, Bill Kristol and Larry Kagan used this exact framing to argue for the invasion of Iraq in the second Bush administration. Preemption is the claim that it is morally justified to attack another country if it can be argued that the target country could one day be a threat to American interests or the interests of American allies.
It is fair to say the entire crusade against Islam was framed as a reaction by America to actors suddenly doing things for no reason at all. Saudi terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center for no reason at all, so America reluctantly attacked and occupied Afghanistan. Saddam could possibly have thought about getting nukes for no reason at all, so America invaded Iraq and deposed the ruling regime. The same narrative was ready for Iran, but the clock ran out on the Bush administration.
Now we are seeing the same arguments with regards to Ukraine. America is being dragged into this conflict against its will because Russia, for no reason at all, has invaded the sacred lands of Ukraine. Members of Congress are being marched out in front of the cameras by their neocon handlers to tell us that we have no choice but to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine.
Of course, there is never any mention of the endless meddling by Washington or the meddling in other former Soviet republics on the Russian border. According to the myth, America has been minding its own business and for no reason at all the Russians launched this bloody war against innocent civilians. Even if they have a reason, it is Russian disinformation and only Putin puppets believe it.
It is clear from the massive public-relations campaign put on by the American media that they were sure the old myth of America would work again. Everyone dutifully started chanting “Keev” and donned the colors of Ukraine. The big social media platforms swung into action to suppress dissent. Everyone assumed this was going to work and the public would rush to support a war with Russia.
The fact that this has not happened, despite the enormous bombardment from the mass media, suggests the myth of America as reluctant warrior has run out of road. Most Americans are willing to accept Ukraine as the victim and Russia as the aggressor, but they draw the line at acting on it. Even the mouth breathers who consume conservative talk radio have started to question the flag-waving.
At the end of the Cold War, the hope was that America could go back to being a normal country again, instead of the savior of the world. Instead, it was a generation of pointless wars of choice cooked up by neoconservative nutters with an ancient grudge against humanity. Like a drug-resistant virus, they have infested the foreign-policy establishment, leading to one disaster after another.
Their final act may very well be destroying America’s image of itself as a positive force in the world. That will be a difficult thing for people to accept, especially the older generations, but it will be a small price to pay if it means the removal of this carbuncle from the face of the country. If humiliation in Ukraine means America turns back to normalcy, then the end of that myth will be worth it.
It is time for the United States Empire to die
“Our media is filled with silly lies, like Russians not having access to information from outside their country. Because that’s believable in the internet age. Or that the Russian military does evil things for no reason, like blowing up hospitals and theaters full of children (though these atrocities miraculously never leave any evidence behind, like bodies). Then why are civilian casualties from more than three weeks of heavy fighting so low? By all accounts, much lower than Russian military casualties? Isn’t that pretty compelling evidence that they’re tiptoeing through Ukraine being extraordinarily careful to not cause civilian casualties?
Well, ackshullllly that’s only because they’re too weak to use the means necessary to win! Oh, I see. That famous Russian weakness again. First off, it’s interesting that we see goodness as weakness and are proud of it. And yes, that is a true statement. Our first month in Iraq inflicted 4-7 thousand civilian deaths and that’s probably undercounted. It’s also interesting that we tell lies that obviously contradict each other and see no problem with this.
Try to have a memory span longer than a goldfish.
Remember Day 3 of the operation when a bunch of Russian armored vehicles parked near Kiev and American “experts” declared they were out of fuel? Because as we all know, Russia is famous for not having enough oil. I’m sure their tanks running out of fuel within 75 miles of their own border is a plausible thing that could happen and not total nonsense.”
Presiden Biden WARNS Xi Peng that there will be CONSEQUENCES if China provides material support to Russia. The meeting between Biden and Xi Peng was an effort by Biden to break-up the relationship between Russia and China which is catastrophically shaking up the United States led current world order. It failed. As Xi Peng will continue to stand strong with it’s next door neighbor, and not help the United States; it’s enemy.
The last seconds of China Eastern Airlines MU5735 were caught on a CCTV camera.
Everyone is dead. This is a near vertical dive. The plain aimed for the ground and slammed into it at full speed. It’s a very unusual crash. Color me suspicious.
This article below states that the crash has aviation experts puzzled because the crash “profile” was very unusual with the angle of descent essentially plunging straight down.
Was this crash an accident; another Boeing 737Max demonstrating that it is a dangerous plane; or even terrorism?
I find it curious that this crash happened after the recent attempts by America to pressure China to distance itself from Russia over the Ukraine issue.
Coincidence?
Aviation Experts Baffled By Crash Of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735
From MM’s email…
I am sure you have seen the video by now of the Chinese plane dropping at a perfect perpendicular angle to the horizon out of the sky? Wondering your thoughts about this. Seems highly suspicious given America's little pep talk with China that ended with them having an even bigger bruised ego. Surely this is an act of war on America's part. I have never seen a plane head for the ground like that. Usually they are still upright/upside down, aren't they?
Crash of China passenger plane ‘very puzzling’
"It's unheard of that such a modern passenger plane would take such a vertical plunge and crash."
The plane crash resembles the Nazi Ukrainian symbol
It is of a bird flying straight down to the ground.
Ukrainian bird symbol.
Here is the aftermath of #MU5735#crash of the #b737-800. The size of the impact is consistent with the last ADS-B data the aircraft sent – the aircraft was in a straight nosedive. We will have to wait for FDR/CVR data to know what caused the accident.pic.twitter.com/MaJoIao8B9— The 737 Handbook (@737handbook) March 21, 2022
Why is everyone on my feeds suspecious of the plane crash?
Chinese passenger plane goes straight into the ground like a missile:
Experts: "We've never seen a plane do THAT before!"
Reminds me of MH370 ... never seen a plane do THAT before either.
Reminds me of MH17 ... another plane doing odd things.
Just around the time Uncle Sam is turning up the pressure on China ... Coincidence?
In the meantime:
Blinken: "Bend the knee, chinaman!"
Boris: "Bend the knee, chinaman!"
-Arch Bungle | Mar 22 2022 5:58 utc
What does the Chinese government think?
I don’t know.
Within the next six months keep your eyes open for another plane mishap. Only this time in the United States, or in one of the “five eye nations”.
If one happens, there’s a 90% chance it’s part of the on-going tit-for-tat fight and response actions between the USA and China.
I strongly urge American readers to MM not to take any airplane trips in the coming Spring or Summer.
Russia’s New Buk-M3 Air Defense Missile System Now Appears To Be In Ukraine
Russia no doubt hopes the latest iteration of the Buk surface-to-air missile system helps turn the tables against the Ukrainian Air Force.
There are signs the Kremlin is now willing to throw new and high-end surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) into the fray, including the 9K317M Buk-M3, known as the Viking in its export form, the latest iteration of the self-propelled, medium-range Buk system.
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9K317M Buk-M3.
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As for the latest Buk-M3, this system is significantly different enough from its predecessors to warrant a new U.S. Department of Defense designation — SA-27. In service since around 2016, the Buk-M3 employs new 9M317M missiles and electronic components to provide much-improved capabilities compared with the older Buk systems. According to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) manual, it “outperforms even the old S-300P long-range air defense system” — the SAM that’s known in the West as the SA-10 Grumble.
It’s a true “blast from the past”. Simple and delicious. Beef meatballs with rice, simmered in tomato soup. Not really something that you might give to guests, but a great easy meal that mixes up normally available ingredients for something unique and different for the household.
It’s really great for a fast meal on a busy schedule. Oh, and guess what? It goes great with beer.
Porcupine Meatballs
Ingredients
1/2 cup of water
1.5 pounds of ground beef
1 cup of uncooked (instant) rice
I tablespoon of minced onion.
1 teaspoon of salt
1 dash of ground black pepper.
Directions
Information/Propaganda/Psyops Theatre
On the Information/Propaganda/Psyops Theatre, today’s Global Times editorial provides a little comic relief:
"The above lies are well concocted, but without any evidence. Certainly, the problem of no evidence may be a bit of overthinking, because when does Washington need to provide evidence to smear others? Isn't it always following the logic of 'if I say so, it has to be so?' If you must ask for any 'evidence, it will again hold up a tiny vial of white powder, or produce a video of the White Helmets being instructed to pose...
"Of course, what's behind it is Washington's hegemony and ambition. Kurt Campbell, the NSC's Indo-Pacific policy coordinator, 'took the initiative' to say at the end of February that the US will keep its focus on the 'Indo-Pacific region' despite the Ukraine crisis. In order to maintain the US' hegemonic self-interests, fabricating lies has become a 'necessary means' for Washington. In the words of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, 'The US, as usual, lies to try to achieve its political goals'....
"When looking back at his past as CIA director, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo once said publicly, 'We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.' So how does the US lie and deceive people? It is easier for Washington and the US media to quote 'anonymous officials' to spread lies as shocking 'exclusive news.' The cooperation between US propaganda machines and diplomatic and intelligence services has greatly increased the deceptiveness of those lies. Moreover, the US' alliance system and hegemony in public opinion can make sure that even though Washington is a habitual liar, it can obtain a certain amount of assentation and support. This has become the bases for the US to play politics as it wants.
"While US media maliciously falsifies the truth, Washington deliberately pretends to know nothing. These two to some extent have even formed an integral production, supply and distribution chain of fake news. This is unprofessional, immoral, and irresponsible, and will only further discredit the US in front of the world. As some comments pointed out, whenever people see the news reports that include sentences like 'anonymous officials revealed…' and 'US intelligence agencies claimed…,' they should in their minds replace everything in those sentences with 'They may be lying.'" [I'd say they're probably lying or They're lying again.]
And as if more proof was required, we again see China seconding Russia’s reasoning and explanations of what it’s doing:
"Right now, when the military conflict in Ukraine is getting increasingly serious under Washington's provocation, and when the energy and refugee crises become more and more severe in Europe, the US' smear campaign will only unmask it as the initiator. More and more people will see the true face of the US - an 'empire of lies.'" [All emphasis mine]
How many millions within the Empire agree? Polling suggests that just 30% of the public see media as credible giving us 70% who think otherwise or about 230 million, and since media is the main messenger of the Empire of Lies, we might assume that same number agrees.
But even if that number is only 50 million, I’d say the lies aren’t sinking in as hoped. Of course, this whole paragraph will be controversial as opinion polling within the Outlaw US Empire of Lies has its own credibility problems.
Phil understands
Yes he does.
Coffee.
Republican Congressman Tiffany maps out aggression towards China
One step at a time.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
An amendment under the new Consolidated Appropriations Act has banned the creation or use of maps by the Department of State and its foreign operations that depict Taiwan as part of China.
The Appropriations Act, which provides appropriations to federal agencies for the 2022 fiscal year, is a 3000-page piece of legislation that proposed $1.5 trillion spending, including military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
This amendment was introduced by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and other Republican representatives, first in the House bill passed on State Department and related foreign service funding in July 2021, then again for the Consolidated Appropriations Act. This is sneaky because it would be unwise to vote against such an enormous spending bill due to one amendment.
This amendment undermines the fundamental principle of Sino-American relations by violating the longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity and unofficial relations with Taiwan enshrined in the Shanghai Communique, a diplomatic document signed by Beijing and Washington.
Further, Tiffany said “Beijing’s bogus argument that Taiwan is part of Communist China” should be abandoned, and that the bill would “require honest maps that stop perpetuating the ‘One China’ lie.”
What it is like to fight the Chinese
Oh, you think that Russia is tough? The Chinese have heart. They have history, and if you FUCK with them they WILL FUCK you right back. Know your history. Movie dramatization of true events. video 6MB
Patrick Lawrence
Patrick Armstrong may have closed down but Patrick Lawrence is still firing on all cylinders:
“..When those purporting to serve as America’s statesmen and stateswomen think calling other world leaders names is properly part of the diplomatic repertoire — a prominent part, I’ll add — we are left with only one conclusion: The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its ship of state, no one in a position of influence worthy of the title “diplomat.”
“…Simply stated, power obviates the need for serious statecraft. The powerful nation has no need of diplomacy. A figure such as George Kennan was the exception proving the rule, and he was an exception because he saw the need to understand how the world looked to the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger proved the rule: For all his claim to diplomatic skill, Hank K. was a wielder of American power with a calculating mind, nothing more.
“The rest follows naturally: Antony Blinken is not a serious diplomat. Samantha Power is not a serious diplomat. As a diplomat (and various other things), Hillary “He’s Hitler” Clinton is a walking calamity. Biden, who’s spent his career selling snake oil off the back of a buckwagon, is not a statesman of any kind, serious or otherwise….”
“The lineup of secretaries of state and senior diplomats prior to the attacks in New York and Washington is other than brilliant, but it was by and large accepted that talking to one’s adversaries was at least as important (and often more so) as talking to one’s friends. It was the Bush II regime, with all its kooky ideologues in positions they never should have gotten near, that declared: “We don’t negotiate with our enemies.”
“This pronouncement was advanced, if you recall, as if it were a sound, baseline rule of wise statesmanship. There were corollaries. Diplomatic contacts with those deemed enemies would “give them credibility.”….The all-but-stated assertion is America would not any longer take interest in other people and their perspectives. The American way of defining the world was the only acceptable way. Nothing else need be considered. …”
“…Diplomacy is an essential skill in the century swiftly taking shape around us. But every time Biden or another American “leader” hurls one of their playground insults at the leader of another nation, (Putin as the Beelzebub du jour) they are reminding us: There will be no diplomacy emanating from Washington because they have no idea how to conduct it.
“Power and coercion are all they know.”
This is dangerous. As Americans are really not ready to take on a REAL peer competator. And forget what the American “news” says. Russia is not running out of bullets, stalled or suffering massive defeats. video 8MB
I know it is a chicken and egg question.
I found this on one of my feeds. Interesting.
As a matter of interest, I have noticed a similar correlation of pro and anti war/ hate Russia opinion between the vaxxed and unvaxxed as the Canadian poll below demonstrates. My observations are anecdotal.The question remains are vaxxed people inherently more likely to be receptive to government/MSM propaganda or do they become docile and deliberately ignorant sheep because of their vaxxed status? "How Covid vaccination status might predict views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Canadian poll)"..."How vaccination status might predict views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine New poll indicates that “vaccine refusers are much more sympathetic to Russia.”
Unvaccinated Canadians are about 12 times more likely than those who received three doses to believe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, according to a new survey by national polling firm EKOS.The poll found 26 per cent of those who identified as unvaccinated agreed the Russian invasion is justified, with another 35 per cent not offering an opinion. This compared to only two per cent of surveyed Canadians who said they had three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and who supported the attack, and four per cent who offered no view..."
China’s digital yuan is in the US’s crosshairs in what is likely to be the first of many proposed laws against its use!
It’s clear that the US has no love for China’s new digital yuan (e-CNY) central bank digital currency, and now a group of nine Republican senators has come up with the first Act that attempts to limit its use while stopping short of an outright ban.
The e-CNY is in the glaring hot spotlight for its ability to potentially evade sanctions imposed on Russia and sadly not for its gold medal performance at the Olympics. It is essential to clarify that China made no attempt to use the digital yuan to evade sanctions and is unlikely to do so with its new currency still undergoing domestic trials. Still, the e-CNY is deemed a potential threat to US interests, resulting in the new Act.
Senator Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) statement clarifies the concern: “China’s Digital Yuan allows the CCP to collect personal data on their own citizens and foreign users alike.” “This bill holds China accountable as they introduce their new digital currency.”
The stated goal of the Act
From the Senator’s summary:
• Require the Department of State to issue a warning on the Digital Yuan.
• Require the Secretary of Commerce to report to relevant Congressional committees on the Blockchain- Base Service Network and provide recommendations related to the report.
• Require the Secretary of Commerce to report on trade enforcement actions with respect to the digital yuan.
• Require United States Trade Representative to report on the effect of the digital yuan on trade and investment agreements.
• Require Office of Management and Budget to develop standards and guidelines for agencies that transfer, store, or use digital yuan.
• Require that any foreign government that receives assistance through the Foreign Military Financing Program to disclose if the government uses digital yuan as a settlement or reserve currency.
U.S. targets planes inside of Russia
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday moved to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate U.S. export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich.
Many girls in China tend to be of thin build and nice chests. Here she is displaying a nice cleavage. video 2MB
U.S. warns servicing or refueling some Russian-owned planes may violate trade restrictions.
Export controls introduced in late February prohibit exporting aircraft that were made in the U.S. or use some U.S. parts to Russia, effectively grounding some international flights, the Commerce Department said.
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Perhaps the world should boycott anything linked to America. Otherwise, products you paid for will not belong to you.
She’s in a car looking really adorable. video 1.4MB
Update on the military situation in the Ukraine
There’s a lot of bullshit out there. The massive, MASSIVE psyops is so full of lies and distortions it’s mind-boggling. Just today, I saw an article on my LinkedIN feed discussing how Russia was bogged down in Ukraine, and used a map showing the first day of action. It’s now one month later. Sheech!
The Ukraine situation is Russia following though on it’s 2014 displeasure in the USA violation of it’s treaties, as well as the non-ultimatum of January 2022. There’s many parties involved in this issue, but the psyops only tell one side of the story, and it is a stack of cards with very little actual content.
Here’s a summary from the Russian daily briefing. More sensible, and certainly more accurate.
China’s Foreign Ministry issues dire warning to QUAD as it toughens stand on Taiwan | English News
China is WARNING the USA and the West. Listen up! Things are going on that isn’t really being well reported in the West. video on You-tube.
2022 03 22 16 07
This video underscores a very important point…
The QUAD is composed of;
The USA
Japan
Australia
India
And India is specifically making public statements that they are not in the QUAD as a “Pacific NATO” to counter China. They are NOT a treaty ally.
2022 03 22 16 09
I think India has told the US to FUCK off.
I have been watching debates on an Indian talk show, Republic World.
The latest one is called: India delivers diplomatic masterclass amid Russia-Ukraine-West tightrope. You can look it up on YouTube.
India WILL NEVER abandon Russia, so strong is the mutual trust between the two nations.
In fact, this war, as many pointed out, will bring Russia and Asia a whole lot closer. -Peter Schmidt
President Zelensky Phones Taiwan’s Leader Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai: Hello Volodya. I hope you do not mind my calling you that.
Zelensky: (Sobs, wordless.)
Tsai: What is it Volodya? Calm down.
Zelensky: (Sobbing continues.) We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.*
Tsai: But the Americans have given you weapons, rifles. The Germans even gave you helmets — right away — and now they are promising more. And they also sent military advisors “little green men”– I think that is what they call them when they are Russian.
Zelensky: We are facing tanks and missiles. I am afraid what we have is pretty small potatoes. As the American politician Ron Paul said, it seems the Americans are ready to fight Russia – down to the last Ukrainian (more sobbing).
Tsai: But Volodya, you got to address the U.S. Congress and plea for help – certainly that shows support.
Zelensky: Support? The script that the Americans handed me centered on a No Fly Zone, in other words, a call for WWIII, nuclear war. I looked like a madman! (More sobbing.)
Tsai: I did not think that made you look like a madman. I admire someone who is willing to risk nuclear war for our beliefs. That shows real spine, real guts. And those Congress people applauded you. If you looked mad, would that not make them all insane too. Surely you cannot believe that.
But I know how you feel about those scripts. The Americans stuff one in my face every now and then with the “advice” that it would be good to read it. I feel I am getting an offer I cannot refuse as they say in the American movies.
But you do not have to accept the script – you are safe in hiding in Ukraine.
Zelensky: I cannot comment on where I am – if you understand what I mean.
And I do not know what kind of company you are keeping, Tsai, but most people are appalled and frightened by the prospect of nuclear war. My stance allowed Biden to look sane by turning thumbs down. I was the fall guy.
Tsai: Look Volodya. You have to get hold of yourself. The U.S. has managed to get the whole world behind you. Just like the US has got the whole world behind me. Not to worry.
Zelensky: Are you serious, Tsai? You know that not only China but also India has refused to join US sanctions on Russia – that is 35% of the world’s population right there. China is the number one economy in the world by PPP-GDP and India number three as you surely know. So two of the big three are not backing sanctions. Also refusing are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico. That is over half the world’s population! And there are many more refusenik nations including the 40 countries not in that list on which the US has sanctions – I have lost count.
And NATO is showing cracks. Macron and others are talking to Putin all the time. Sweden has refused to join NATO, saying that would be “destabilizing.”
The world is changing, Tsai.
Exactly how many countries are behind you, Tsai? You better check — carefully. I wish I had. (More sobbing.)
Tsai: (Now looks very worried) Good point, Volodya.
Zelensky: And now Germany is rearming under the influence of the crazy German Greens, the most hawkish of the Parties in the governing coalition. That of course is a dream come true for the neocons – having Germany fight Russia. Two principal competitors of the U.S. fighting one another. It will destroy Ukraine and the rest of Europe. As I have said in the past, this war will engulf Europe.
Tsai: (Now a bit shaken.) But why did you not stop all this as soon as you were elected. You ran as a peace candidate.
Zelensky: (Even more upset). I could not. The Americans would not permit it, and Russia is well aware of this as Lavrov has made clear. And America’s Neo-Nazi friends like the Azov Battalion fiercely oppose it – and together they have enough clout to stop an elected President – or even depose him as we saw back in 2014. I am keenly aware of that as is any President until the U.S. grip on this country is broken and it is “de-nazified,” if I may borrow a term.
So here I am presiding over the unnecessary destruction of my beloved country, unable to agree to the simple terms of peace that the Minsk accords established.
My place in history is not going to be a glorious one.
Tsai: But at least you have the Ukrainian people united behind you. Here on Taiwan there is considerable pro-Mainland sentiment.
Zelensky: United? I have had to ban a dozen political parties, including the main opposition one. I have had to bring all TV under control of one platform. And I have had to declare martial law. Do you think everyone here is happy that instead of implementing the Minsk accords we have brought ourselves to this point?
My advice to you, Tsai, is do not allow Taiwan to become the Ukraine of East Asia, because right now that is the plan the Americans have for you.
I have to go now. I am being called. I am not even supposed to make calls like this.
(Nervously) Keep this call between us. Good-bye.
Tsai: (Shaken) Good bye Volodya.
(Hangs up, summons her assistant.) I need to place another call. Please get President Xi on the line. He has wanted to talk. Tell him I want to discuss the One Country, Two Systems Policy.
And tell him it is the Governor of Taiwan Province calling.
* These are the exact words that Zelensky used in a midnight speech to Ukraine on February 25.
After so many decades of eating at chain restaurants, and fast food places, and then just simply making simple and quick meals, Americans have forgotten what AMERICAN FOOD actually is. Sad. So Sad.
Caitlin Johnstone : It’s Not Okay For Grown Adults To Think This Way About Ukraine
Cute. But accurate.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the US is pouring weapons into a foreign nation to defend freedom and democracy. It isn’t.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe serious military conflicts consist of Good Guys fighting Bad Guys like a children’s cartoon show. That’s a fantasy that most people grow out of when they turn eleven.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the same western media institutions who’ve lied about every war are now telling the truth about this one. Liars cannot stop lying. This is learned, by most people, by the time they are seventeen years old.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe we’re seeing an unprecedented wave of censorship because the European Union, Silicon Valley megacorporations, and TV service providers want to protect everyone from “disinformation”. They instead want to protect their franchise. You are their commodity.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe Ukraine is just a scrappy little underdog acting completely independently of the dictates of the largest power structure on this planet. That a fun childhood nursery rhyme and makes a great Hollywood movie, but in the real world, nope it just doesn’t work that way.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the globe-spanning power structure centralized around the United States is merely a passive witness to this war and not a key player in creating its emergence. It’s known as cognitive dissonance, and is a mental illness.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe that governments who’d have every incentive to lie to the public about what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine are simply choosing not to do so. It’s called “denial”, and it is common feature of many mental illnesses.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the politicians who’ve demonstrated ice cold indifference to their own citizens dying of poverty and disease care passionately about the plight of the Ukrainian people. The politicians have demonstrated psychopathic personalities. It is a mental illness to randomly disassociate behaviors with habitual serial criminals.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the most powerful and murderous government in the world is orchestrating the economic collapse of a nation it has long targeted for destruction in order to defend Ukrainians. It’s called wishful thinking, and most adults grow out of this in their 20’s.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the “anti-war” position is to support pouring weapons into a foreign country and cold war brinkmanship that could lead to World War 3 while shouting down anyone who advocates de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe anything which doesn’t align with what the TV tells you about this war is “Russian propaganda”.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe anyone who disputes the TV narrative about this war is defending Putin or thinks he is awesome. Adults do not behave like they still are in kindergarden.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and accuse people who disagree with you of working for a foreign government. It’s lazy. Ignorant, and slothful.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and find it strange and outlandish when someone criticises the most powerful empire that has ever existed for its role in starting a war. The United States is the largest military empire in the history of the world. You cannot associate peace with Military Empires. You associate war with Military Empires. To deny that fact is a sign of being in possession of a serious mental illness.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and be fine with only knowing one side of the story. It will cause you to made very bad decisions, and eventually contribute to getting you into very bad situations.
Fabrications are rife during wars. The say, and no doubt it has validity, that the first victim of war is the truth. Here is a translation from RIA Novosti in Moscow, of some of the fake stories we in the west have been spinning.
Video from the other day. This is what it is like near my house. video 30MB
Capture of the “Bitch of Ukraine”
About the nazi “Taira” #14, her name is Yulia Paevskaya, and there is this Free Yulia and/or Free Taira campaign in the Nazi sections of Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Yulia is a well-known personality, she actively spoke on the Maidan and participated in military operations in the Donbass in the ranks of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment. During 8 years 14000 people died in Dobass.
"Captured Commander of the medical service of Azov is watching a report about the consequences of a strike on Donetsk.She pretend now that she got no idea"
The U.S. government is sending Soviet-era air defense systems in its possession to Ukraine, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. These systems will reportedly come from stocks of foreign materiel that elements of the U.S. military and Intelligence Community have obtained in various ways over the years for intelligence analysis and training purposes. The possibility that these so-called foreign materiel exploitation, or FME, programs could offer a useful source of additional air defense capabilities that Ukraine badly needs is exactly what that The War Zonelaid out just recently.
The Journal‘s piece did say that the U.S. government has already shipped a number of systems to Ukraine that had been in storage at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes reportedly picked them up at an unspecified airfield in the Huntsville area. The story notes that Redstone is home to the Army’s Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), but it also hosts the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s (DIA) Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), which has an FME role. DIA serves as the focal point for the Department of Defense’s entire FME enterprise, as well.
The U.S. military has been very active in delivering and otherwise facilitating the shipment of military aid to Ukraine, even before Russia launched its invasion. This includes various air defense systems, especially different types of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). In addition, American officials have made clear that there is a heavy emphasis on sending weapons and equipment that Ukrainian forces are already familiar with, an idea The War Zonehad earlier explained the merits of. The core idea behind that philosophy is that this will make it faster and easier for Ukraine’s military to actively put what it receives to use in combat. Ukraine’s ground-based air defenses have been essential in preventing Russian forces from gaining air superiority over the country after more than three weeks of fighting.
Beyond all this, it’s still unclear what systems specifically may ultimately be transferred to Ukraine. The SA-8 Gecko is the only specific system that the Journal‘s sources named as being among the planned deliveries to Ukrainian forces. The SA-8, also known by the Russian nomenclature 9K33 Osa, is a wheeled short-range surface-to-air missile system. DIA’s MSIC is known to have at least one example of this system in its inventory.
(Natural News) Members of the U.S. Marine Corps have been deployed to Australia in preparation for China potentially invading Taiwan. The Marines will be helping their counterparts in the Australian Defense Force (ADF) to ensure preparedness for any crisis or conflict in the region.
According to 100PercentFedUp.com, a rotational force of approximately 2,200 Marines will be based in Australia’s Northern Territory until September 2022. One thousand Marines had earlier arrived in Darwin, the Australian state’s capital, to train alongside the ADF. The contingent of Marines forms
“part of an ongoing U.S. initiative in the Indo-Pacific region to prepare for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan in coming years.”
Colonel Marcus Constable, commanding officer of ADF Northern Command, reiterated the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and Australia.
“It is a key way we increase regional cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific. Together, we conduct a comprehensive range of training activities including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end live-fire exercises,”
Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said conflict with China “shouldn’t be discounted,” warning that the communist country may move to invade Taiwan while the world is focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He emphasized that Australian forces would come to the aid of the U.S. should the latter help defend the island nation.
“It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the U.S. in an action if the U.S. chose to take that action. I think we should be very frank and honest about that [and] look at all of the facts and circumstances without pre-committing. [Maybe] there are circumstances where we wouldn’t take up that option, [but] I can’t conceive of those circumstances.”
I am not the only one who misses Ol’ Remus. Remus posted some of my SHTF posts for me and brought a lot of people to MM. But it’s more than that. he was a good, genuine guy.
Here’s what my ‘buddy Phil at bustedknuckles has to say about him…
I remember when I first stumbled on The Woodpile Report, realizing that what I had found was an absolute treasure.
As future posts confirmed, I was spot on with my gut feeling.
Ol’ Remus himself was a treasure.
Filled with wisdom gathered over his many years and blessed with an insight that I have so far, been unable to find duplicated anywhere else.
Even after extensively searching.
I also realized after a few posts that what I had found was also very likely to have a limited window of new inputs. Also due to his advancing age.
Unfortunately I was correct in my assessment there, our reluctant mentor will have been gone two years here shortly.
Very, very fortunately, someone else realized what a treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge he left behind and they immediately set about gathering up into a repository, as much as they could possibly glean from what he did leave behind. Unfortunately, Ol’ Remus didn’t archive his posts.
Occasionally I get a hankering for a touch of that and off I go, searching for that font of knowledge, stashed away still on the internet.
Every time, I am very happy to see it is still there. Some day it might not be. I may try to find the time to download it all and save it on a removable hard drive for safe keeping.
I found this old post a few minutes ago, re-read it and found that it is just as applicable today as it was when he first pecked it out and shared it with us’. So I copied it and I am pasting it here, along with a link to the site that still has many of his old posts.
This is another post from Ol’ Remus at The Woodpile Report. I like his style of writing quite a bit, and agree with him entirely.
He is forecasting catastrophe – and how could it be otherwise?
And yet I get the US Trust “Investment Strategy Overview” newsletter in the mail, and, of course, it is completely in opposition to Ol’ Remus – it’s bullish!
Apparently, we are only 5 years into a bull market of 20 years! Major advances in technology are coming! Progress towards US energy independence! A manufacturing renaissance! The imbalances of the past cycle are correcting themselves! Etc.
How does one reconcile these two views?
What an absolutely bizarre time we live in, when there is such a massive disconnect between the mass media hypnosis and reality. Every day is another chapter in Cognitive Dissonance…
HERE
The Coming Unpleasantness
The guilty are sneaking away unpunished, nobody’s fixing anything, there’s an orderly-so-far devaluation of the dollar going on, the Treasury has fallen into the hands of counterfeiters and the election process has gone third-world.
The home folks are broke, or nearly so, and unemployed, or about to be.
Suddenly they understand DCisn’t on their side and now they’re debating whether DC is run by the criminally insane or the merely criminal.
Oh yeah, this will end well.
According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003.
Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36% decline… it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.
-Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com
Now the people who warned of 2008 are saying the market is running out of Greater Fools.
They say few retail investors are in equities that don’t have to be—meaning the funds, the 401ks and IRAs, the insurance companies, the compulsive gamblers. And those that don’t hate the market fear the market.
They say it’s a gas leak looking for detonation.
They say the event will arrive before the warning does.
There are usually no warnings that trouble is coming because everyone at the top of the financial food chain are highly incentivized to keep quiet about problems…
Just about every CEO from every major bank spent much of 2008 claiming that all was well…
As former banker Jean-Claude Juncker put it, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
-Phoenix Capital Research at zerohedge.com
.
In early 2008 I noted a fairly serious decrease in online “revenue per impression” in the advertising space.
This was not reflected in so-called “official” reports from various online ad firms, but I saw it quite-clearly across data I had available to me.
What followed, of course, was quite clear in the markets. I am seeing the same pattern develop now.
-Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org
Due diligence and fundamentals count for nothing because the arithmetic makes no sense, successful investing amounts to insider information and front running the Fed.
The oscillations are wild and coming closer together.
But still it goes up.
One day it won’t.
The crash will be 2008 on afterburner because no one trusts anybody, no one honors anything, no one believes anything.
The flash-crash will look stately by comparison.
It’ll be like being pushed out of a tree in the dark—pain and terror every inch of the way.
Another horrific stock market crash is coming, and the next bust will be “unlike any other” we have seen.
We have never had this before.
It’s going to be very painful for investors.
-Jeremy Grantham, GMO, via moneynews.com
.
Warren Buffett’s “best single measure of where valuations stand,” comparing the market value of UScompanies to the gross national product before inflation, is flashing near record bubble red.
Still we are sure, you’ll be able to exit before everyone else when this ends.
-Tyler Durden and Bloomberg at zerohedge.com
.
The most reliable valuation measures have never been higher except in the advance to the 2000 peak (and for some measures the 1929 and 2007 peaks), but they have started to treat these prior pre-crash peaks as objectives to be attained…
Make no mistake—this is an equity bubble, and a highly advanced one. On the most historically reliable measures, it is easily beyond 1972 and 1987, beyond 1929 and 2007, and is now within about 15% of the 2000 extreme.
-John Hussman at hussmanfunds.com
.
We have no right to be surprised by a severe and imminent stock market crash.
-Mark Spitznagel via moneynews.com
The market isn’t the economy, true enough, but a couple dozen trillion dollars isn’t exactly budget-dust.
The citizenry would see a yawning crater where their 401ks and IRAs used to be.
They’d notice when their checking account is gone but their debt isn’t, and when the ATM doesn’t recognize their account number, or when their bank is an empty storefront and their car loan has been sold to Vinnie, or when their insurance company doesn’t answer the phone.
As always, people don’t go nuclear until reality invites itself into their living room and defecates on the carpet.
That’s when things get interesting—when people notice, when they have to face what was formerly unthinkable and their only fallback is what good people they are.
Those who drove the financial bus off a cliff know the controls still work fine—the brakes and accelerator and steering wheel, all of ’em, but when the rubber isn’t on the road the effect just ain’t the same.
But all that “driving” stuff keeps the passengers from panicking.
We’ve seen the grandest larceny in all history.
Now, after we’ve been cleaned out, we know the wacko conspiracy guys were right.
In fact we’re worse than cleaned out, the place has been turned into a debtor’s prison from sea to shining sea.
Some would have us believe things are turning around—the market’s up and the trend is your friend.
Trend?
Trend?!
The market made gains after the Crash of 1929 too, genuine record recoveries.
“Prosperity is just around the corner” referred to those 1930-1931 upticks, not to the unstoppable plunge that followed.
As they say, it’s not the fall, it’s the sudden stop.
The fall itself can be surprisingly profitable.
But what a fall it was.
By July of 1932 the Dow had dropped from its high of 367 down to 41.
Ten years later, in April of 1942, it touched 100 or so, and that was after foreign panic-money poured in from a Europe at war.
The highs of 1929 weren’t seen again until the 1950s.
That’s a trend.
There’s always been fraud, but sometime in the recent past the market buckled in a fundamental way and the fraud poured in.
Proven reforms painfully enacted over decades were swept away.
Fundamentals no longer counted.
Creative finance counted.
Bubbles and deceit counted.
It became a criminal enterprise top to bottom.
Accounting firms and regulatory agencies went over to the dark side en masse.
As Mark Twain said, every profession is a conspiracy against the common man.
Finally the retail investor did something sensible—he ran for his life.
The players left are those who have to stay; the funds, the retirement accounts, the insurance companies, et al, and HFT piranhas are eating them alive at millions of tiny nibbles a second.
What used to be an investor’s clearing house has become a betting parlor on the Federal Reserve’s next move.
The market goes up on tiny volume and bad news, and way up on very bad news and nearly no volume.
They know dark horizons light up the printing presses.
Meanwhile, the banks don’t know what they own, or don’t know what it’s worth, but they do know they’re insolvent and so does everybody else.
So DC gives money to the banks and then pays the banks to lend it back to them.
It’s IOUs paid with IOUs and they can’t write ’em fast enough.
The bottoming is not completely done.
In fact, it has barely even gotten underway yet.
We keep propping up losers.
The result is we still need to see a repudiation of debt at a massive scale and until that happens, the Long Wave bottom won’t be here.
We’re just dancing on the front end of real economic collapse.
-George Ure at urbansurvival.com
What to do.
The demand for collateral will be ferocious when the debacle starts. Treat debt like any other roadside bomb.
Staying current isn’t enough.
Any collaterized debt is too much debt.
You can’t know which exit is the last exit.
The grace period with the trillion-dollar price tag is ending and it’s ending badly.
This disaster has been bought off for decades.
When it happens it’ll go down fast.
Exactly how and when can be sorta-kinda foreseen but not actually known.
A cascade can start from anywhere.
But this much can be said: the collateral chaos will hit the system like a weapons-grade laxative. Everything that’s been contained, covered up and denied will come spewing out looking for daddy.
It’ll take weeks, not months to come apart.
Maybe days.
Get as independent as you can while you can. There are parts of this game where the only winning move is to not play.
Doesn’t mean you have to go all Rambo and head off to some mountain valley, although that’s one way.
But it does mean putting stuff by so you can get by.
“Stuff” means food stored long-term and the wherewithal to get or grow more, uninterruptible for-sure potable water, an off-the-grid heating system, meds and medical supplies, clothing for hard times and hard work and being out in life-threatening weather because you have to be, the means to defend hearth and hoard, batteries and a way to recharge them, cash and real money—meaning gold and silver—all the things you already know but haven’t done.
Knowing isn’t doing, doing is doing.
FDR‘s bailout of the Federal government also went so far as to also issue Executive Order 6814 “Requiring the delivery of all silver to the United States for coinage.”
And what was that worth at the time?
In terms of present dollars, that works out to about $22.77 per ounce. Given that silver is trading below current dollar equivalents of the Depression confiscation prices and gold is still trading at 3.44-times Depression confiscation prices, my personal bias may be inferred.
-George Ure at peoplenomics.com
Plan B.
If you’re in a city, have a viable destination and two or three tried and proven ways to get there.
Practice and take notes.
Again, only doing is doing.
Plan as if your life depends on it.
Take a hike, go the hard way through the hills and woods, you’ll discover how long an unpaved mile can be.
Make a squirrel dinner, yes they’re cute, but there may come a day when only one of you is going to live. Besides, they’re yummy.
Mankind acquired these tastes over geological epochs, you’ve not lost them, merely misplaced them.
Everything seems obvious and predictable in retrospect.
This stuff is pretty obvious and predictable now. And there are always better reasons to not do something than to do it.
You know most people won’t get serious until after it was absolutely necessary. Too late.
They’ll fail, mostly.
Worse, they’ll needlessly fail at the easy part of the learning curve.
Prepared is prepared, you are or you aren’t. Do what you can. And as always, stay away from crowds.
…
The man could see what was coming from a mile away.
What he didn’t get to see, Thank God, was the Covid Hoax and The Fed dumping several TRILLION more FRN’s into the market and The Bubble having had at least two more years of expansion.
Afterburners indeed.
It is now virtually on our doorsteps.
That makes posting this again very timely.
God rest your soul sir.
I am grateful at this point that you aren’t here to see what is about to unfold on a completely unsuspecting general public.
An interesting statement
Regarding the briefing of the MOD submitted by <redacted> I found one section to be quite interesting:
"Due to hypersonic speed and ultra-high kinetic energy, the warhead of Kinzhal missile complex destroyed a protected underground arsenal located in a mountainous area, built in Soviet times to store special ammunition and missiles.
The destruction of a large fuel depot in Konstantinovka by Kinzhal hypersonic missile was due to its invisibility and invulnerability to any means of enemy air and missile defence.
Combat use of Kynzhal aviation missile system confirmed its effectiveness in destroying highly protected special enemy assets. The strikes on the military infrastructure of Ukraine by this missile system will continue within the special military operation.
I would like to emphasize that Kinzhal system is used with a conventional warhead. Although experts are well aware of the capabilities of this weapon, not only in terms of range, but also in terms of the type of charge."
This seems to be a rather clear message that “we can put a nuclear warhead on this any time we want and deliver in less than 10 minutes to any NATO base in Europe”. Or wherever else they might choose.
Cheesecake Cookies
Now here’s a great cookie. Why doesn’t anyone make these anymore?
No wonder that so many in the money-money-money West cannot understand China. They think with their minds. Not with their hearts. This is China, and this is why China will lead the world to a new and better existence. video 58MB
Stand up for others
Don’t be a spectator. Participate in life. Protect the week, and do your part to make the world a better place. You don’t know when the calling will be, or how you will be tested, but you will be. And when that test of who you are arrives… well be the person that would make your grandmother PROUD. video 68MB
Cleaning lady gives Hard Boiled eggs to students
She doesn’t have to. She wants to. There’s a big difference, when you are a Rufus. video. 4MB
4MB.
Be the Rufus
You do not know when the calling will strike, but it’s up to you to participate in your community. participate. Help others. Pick up trash. Help dogs and cats. Be kind. Smile. Say good things. Be the Rufus, and let the rest of the world howl! video 5MB
Conclusion
We are in World War III.
The agressor is the United States. Eventually all these American “pushes and shoves” will result in an Asian shotgun being pulled out. Something bigger, deadlier, and more colorful than the military-technical measures that Putin is using.
There will be blasts, blood, entails, crying and sobbing.
Asia does not want this, but it is clear that preemptive action, at some time, will be necessary. You all should be happy that MM is not making Geo-Political decisions. Everything would be resolved by now. It would be a mess, but things would be resolved.
Don’t you know.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
