There’s a giant steam-roller of change moving forward, and a combination of bubbles, and systems are starting to explode, pop, collapse, and shake. Many things are “up in the air”, the the historical paths are clear, and the elements are plain to see. Mainsteam American and British narratives openly argue that this is a global recession the world is moving towards, but that is not true. It is the collapse of the West. And if you live in the West you are witnessing this collapse. If, however, you live in the East (Russia, India, Iran, China, Africa, and South America) you are experiencing something else (if anything). Here, we review what is going on as a snapshot of this true unique period of time.
Have some fun and browse around.
Alice Cooper – “Big Apple Dreaming”
A classic for all of us small town America, high schoolers in the early 1970s.
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
Inside an abandoned and decaying ruin.
Pizza Hut is dying inside the United States
But thriving inside of China.
Pizza Hut went “woke” inside the USA, and alienated it’s customer base. Meanwhile, in China, it’s against the law to be “woke” as that goes against the fundamentals of traditional Chineses culture. No one in America would dare vocalize it, but China is doing things right. From HERE.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card
The only antidote to propaganda dementia is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed.
Especially since the onset of GWOT (Global War on Terror) at the start of the millennium, no one ever lost money betting against the toxic combo of hubris, arrogance and ignorance serially deployed by the Empire of Chaos and Lies.
What passes for “analysis” in the vast intellectual no-fly zone known as U.S. Think Tankland includes wishful thinking babble such as Beijing “believing” that Moscow would play a supporting role in the Chinese century just to see Russia, now, in the geopolitical driver’s seat.
This is a fitting example not only of outright Russophobic/Sinophobic paranoia about the emergence of peer competitors in Eurasia – the primeval Anglo-American nightmare – but also crass ignorance about the finer points of the complex Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
As Operation Z methodically hits Phase 2, the Americans – with a vengeance – have also embarked on their symmetrical Phase 2, which de facto translates as an outright escalation towards Totalen Krieg, from shades of hybrid to incandescent, everything of course by proxy. Notorious Raytheon weapons peddler reconverted into Pentagon head, Lloyd Austin, gave away the game in Kiev:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
So this is it: the Empire wants to annihilate Russia. Cue to War Inc.’s frenzy of limitless weapon cargos descending on Ukraine, the overwhelming majority on the road to be duly eviscerated by Russian precision strikes. The Americans are sharing intel 24/7 with Kiev not only on Donbass and Crimea but also Russian territory. Totalen Krieg proceeds in parallel to the engineered controlled demolition of the EU’s economy, with the European Commission merrily acting as a sort of P.R. arm of NATO.
Amidst the propaganda dementia cum acute cognitive dissonance overdrive across the whole NATOstan sphere, the only antidote is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed. The West ignores them at their own collective peril.
Patrushev goes Triple-X unplugged
Let’s start with President Putin’s speech to the Council of Legislators in St. Petersburg celebrating the Day of Russian Parliamentarism.
Putin demonstrated how a hardly new “geopolitical weapon” relying on “Russophobia and neo-Nazis”, coupled with efforts of “economic strangulation”, not only failed to smother Russia, but impregnated in the collective unconscious the feeling this an existential conflict: a “Second Great Patriotic War”.
With off the charts hysteria across the spectrum, a message for an Empire that still refuses to listen, and doesn’t even understand the meaning of “indivisibility of security”, had to be inevitable:
“I would like to emphasize once again that if someone intends to interfere in the events taking place from the outside and creates threats of a strategic nature unacceptable to Russia, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning fast. We have all the tools for this. Such as no one can boast of now. And we won’t brag. We will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know about it – we have made all the decisions on this matter.”
Translation: non-stop provocations may lead Mr. Kinzhal, Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat to be forced to present their business cards in select Western latitudes, even without an official invitation.
Arguably for the first time since the start of Operation Z, Putin made a distinction between military operations in Donbass and the rest of Ukraine. This directly relates to the integration in progress of Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkov, and implies the Russian Armed Forces will keep going and going, establishing sovereignty not only in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics but also over Kherson, Zaporozhye, and further on down the road from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, all the way to establishing full control of Nikolaev and Odessa.
The formula is crystal clear: “Russia cannot allow the creation of anti-Russian territories around the country.”
Now let’s move to an extremely detailed interview by Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where Patrushev sort of went triple-X unplugged.
The key take away may be here: “The collapse of the American-centric world is a reality in which one must live and build an optimal line of behavior.” Russia’s “optimal line of behavior” – much to the wrath of the universalist and unilateralist hegemon – features “sovereignty, cultural and spiritual identity and historical memory.”
Patrushev shows how “tragic scenarios of world crises, both in past years and today, are imposed by Washington in its desire to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world.” The U.S. goes no holds barred “to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it would not play by the imposed rules.”
Patrushev could not but stress how War Inc. is literally making a killing in Ukraine: “The American and European military-industrial complex is jubilant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine, it has no respite from order. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to delay it at least to the last Ukrainian.”
And that mirrors the psyche of American elites: “You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate other people’s lives. Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed the Serbs with radioactive munitions, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine (…) As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one.”
Previously, in an interview with the delightfully named The Great Game show on Russian TV, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had once again detailed how the Americans “no longer insist on the implementation of international law, but on respect for the ‘rules-based world order’. These ‘rules’ are not deciphered in any way. They say that now there are few rules. For us, they don’t exist at all. There is international law. We respect it, as does the UN Charter. The key provision, the main principle is the sovereign equality of states. The U.S. flagrantly violates its obligations under the UN Charter when it promotes its ‘rules’”.
Lavrov had to stress, once again, that the current incandescent situation may be compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis: “In those years, there was a channel of communication that both leaders trusted. Now there is no such channel. No one is trying to create it.”
The Empire of Lies, in its current state, does not do diplomacy.
The pace of the game in the new chessboard
In a subtle reference to the work of Sergei Glazyev, as the Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union explained in our recent interview, Patrushev hit the heart of the current geoeconomic game, with Russia now actively moving towards a gold standard: “Experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a two-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble, which should be secured by both gold and a group of goods that are currency values, to put the ruble exchange rate in line with real purchasing power parity.”
That was inevitable after the outright theft of over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves. It may have taken a few days for Moscow to be fully certified it was facing Totalen Krieg. The corollary is that the collective West has lost any power to influence Russian decisions. The pace of the game in the new chessboard is being set by Russia.
Earlier in the week, in his meeting with the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Putin went as far as stating that he’d be more than willing to negotiate – with only a few conditions: Ukrainian neutrality and autonomy status for Donbass. Yet now everyone knows it’s too late. For a Washington in Totalen Krieg mode negotiation is anathema – and that has been the case since the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine meeting in Istanbul in late March.
So far, on Operation Z, the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery. The pain dial is set to go substantially up – and with the total liberation of Mariupol and the resolution one way or another of the Donbass cauldron there is nothing the hysteria/propaganda/weaponizing combo deployed by the collective West can do to alter facts on the ground.
That includes desperate gambits such as the one uncovered by SVR – Russian foreign intel, which very rarely makes mistakes. SVR found out that the Empire of Lies/War Inc. axis is pushing not only for a de facto Polish invasion to annex Western Ukraine, under the banner of “historical reunification”, but also for a joint Romanian/Ukrainian invasion of Moldova/Transnistria, with Romanian “peacekeepers” already piling up near the Moldova border.
Washington, as the SVR maintains, has been plotting the Polish gambit for over a month now. It would “lead from behind” (remember Libya?), “encouraging” a “group of countries” to occupy Western Ukraine. So partition is already on the cards. Were that ever to materialize, it will be fascinating to bet on which locations Mr. Sarmat would be inclined to distribute his business card.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Will You Starve to Death This Year?
Maybe. Maybe not. It’s all up to you.
A video with a flood of charts and data. It’s not for everyone. But if you love that kind of stuff, this video helps explain why there is a “perfect storm” approaching. Yikes!
A perfect storm for famine…
Yes. In the United States.
You see, John Boltona nd Donald Trump tried to create famine inside of China from 2017 through 2019. It failed, but the Chinese documented a carpet-bombing of livestock, and all kinds of genetically-modified insects that started to decimate Chinese crops.
But, you know, China survived, but did not forget.
And China does “tit for tat”.
My personal email is being flooded with all sorts of reports on fires hitting food warehouses, viruses attackign livestock, and all kinds of insects attacking crops and trees. All you need to do is be aware…
A coincidence, or something else?
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
Stone Temple Pilots – Plush (Unplugged)
I had just moved from Kentucky to Mississippi, and we were living in Pervis and commuting to my job in Hattiesburg. This was the music of that time. It was fried catfish, boudin, hush puppies, and heavy scented pine trees going on forever…
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
A True Angel Indeed
What did a big Wall Street banker say to Alan that spooked him and should spook every RV owner.
An insight into domestic America.
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
Other Countries Warning STOCK UP NOW | Buy Food NOW | Prepping SHTF
He’s right. I can tell you that the Chinese government has told all of us to stock up on food. He’s also saying that the United States isn’t doing this. Why?
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
‘Is someone out there using Orwell’s work as an owner’s manual?’ says Neil Oliver
A decent discussion. Check it out.
The destruction of a second Russian ship was a lie
What a surprise! (Not!)
H.I. Sutton, an independent journalist focusing on naval warfare, has spotted more than a dozen of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s remaining warships, intact and underway. They include Admiral Makarov, one of the fleet’s three frigates and arguably the top target for Ukraine’s drones and anti-ship missile batteries. Sutton’s analysis of new commercial satellite imagery seems to confirm that last week’s rumors about a successful Ukrainian attack on Admiral Makarov were just that—rumors. The frigate survives. But it’s worth noting where Sutton found Admiral Makarov on or before Monday: sailing near Sevastopol in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. In other words, close to home. Indeed, Sutton narrowed the locations of most of the underway Black Sea Fleet to a narrow swathe of ocean off the west coast of Crimea. Just two ships—a landing craft and one unidentified vessel—were near Snake Island, the current locus of naval combat between Ukraine and Russia. Near to Crimea, Russian ships enjoy the protection of shore-based S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries and the Russian navy’s Su-30 fighter jets. Closer to Snake Island—which sits astride the main shipping route to Ukraine’s strategic port Odesa, 80 miles to the north—ships are at greater risk of coming under attack from Ukrainian TB-2 armed drones and whatever Neptune anti-ship missiles Ukraine has left.
From HERE.
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
15 Survival Foods Every Prepper Should Stockpile before they Run Out – Food Shortage Preps
I do not want MM to become a “prepper blog”, but everyone SHOULD have a supply of these 15 items in storage. It’s a good video.
Roasted Greek Chicken Drumsticks
Roasted Greek Chicken Drumsticks are delicious, tender, and full of flavor right out of the oven.
Greek chicken is by far one of my favorite things to eat.
The combination of oregano, lemon, olive oil, and tons of garlic – it just goes so well with delicious, crunchy chicken.
We’ve been eating a lot of chicken thighs and drumsticks lately (they are so economical and easy!), and I wanted to make a good riff off a Whole Roasted Grecian Chicken – but with drumsticks!
These drumsticks are incredibly delicious, super easy, and a great dinner party meal since they aren’t fussy and are inexpensive for a group!
Ingredients
- 4 lb chicken , drumsticks
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp greek oregano
- 1 tbsp sage
- 1 tbsp basil
- 2 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp onion powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Thoroughly pat chicken dry with a paper towel.
- In a small bowl, mix together spices and chicken.
- Coat chicken in oil and spice mix, let sit 30 minutes to overnight.
- Add chicken to oven on a cooling rack sitting atop a baking sheet.
- Cook chicken for ½ hour, then flip. After an hour, turn the heat up to 400 degrees.
- Flip chicken drumsticks every 10 minutes to ensure it crisps evenly on all sides.
- When chicken is ready, fat will be rendered and skin will be crispy. If it needs a bit more crunch, turn on broiler and broil for two minutes on each side to give a little extra crunch to chicken skin.
- Serve immediately.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Information On Food Shortages You WON’T BELIEVE | Stock Up NOW | Prepping
Check out this video…
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
This Nice Old Man Just Came Into McDonald’s Asking For Directions, And The Manager Has Taken At Least 10 Minutes To Set Up Google Maps On His Phone
The Real Reason the US Can NEVER Sanction China
Accurate. Yeah. I completely agree with this…
Forgotten Architectural Beauty
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
When bullshit goes off the scale
Here below/at the link, A. Martyanov is referring to Lt. General Keith Kellog, who recently appeared as a professional liar, I mean ex-military man/expert, on Fox “news”…
"....So, he better resign himself to this US war record of the last 70 years and face the truth. While it may be too late for him due to his age, he still has the time (God bless his soul and I sincerely wish him long and healthy years) to update himself on how Russia fights real wars and why she manged to pacify Chechnya, demolish in 72 hours "NATO trained" and equipped Georgian Army, how Russia decisively defeated ISIS and saved Bashar Assad government in Syria and how she now annihilates VSU and Nazi forces in 404. All this just in the last 20 some years. I know, comparisons are not only warranted but they are irresistible and that hurts. I am not going to comment on his utter BS "interpretation" of Putin's speech. Evidently embarrassing themselves and parading themselves as buffoons is a new Modus Operandi of all those military "experts" in US MSM. Professional envy is a powerful drug."
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
The Ukrainian Conflict Is a U.S./NATO Proxy War, but One Which Russia Is Poised to Win Decisively – Scott Ritter
The West has sown the wind in sanctioning Russia; Russia will not reap the whirlwind, says Scott Ritter in an interview with the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who has gained international respect for his independence and integrity as a commentator on conflicts and foreign relations. This week, he was banned on the Twitter social media platform for challenging Western claims of a massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, allegedly carried out by Russian troops. Moscow denies the claims, as have other independent analysts who point to evidence that the incident was a false-flag provocation perpetrated by NATO-backed Ukrainian Nazi regiments to undermine Russia internationally and bolster Western objectives. It is a foreboding sign of the times that Ritter should be banned for daring to question dubious narratives. (He was later reinstated following a public outcry against censorship.)
In the following interview for Strategic Culture Foundation, he makes the crucial point that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is exposing the involvement of the U.S. and NATO in the training and weaponizing of that country’s dominant Nazi regiments. That is why Western media have been so vehement in trying to distort the conflict and blame Russia. The truth about Western dirty involvement in Ukraine would be too much to bear for the Western public.
When Ritter served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s he later challenged Western media and government claims that Iraq was harboring WMDs. Those claims were used as a pretext for the U.S.-British war on Iraq launched in 1993 that cost over one million lives, destroyed a nation, created millions of displaced and millions of casualties, as well as spawned international terrorism. It later turned out that the WMD claims were based on deliberate lies for which no Western leader has been held accountable. Scott Ritter was vindicated in his warnings against that war and it is one reason why he is widely respected among international public opinion.
Ritter is a critical commentator on U.S. conflicts and foreign relations. He is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the Soviet Union implementing nuclear arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and as a UN inspector in Iraq (1991-98) overseeing the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. He is the author of Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump (Clarity Press, 2020).
Interview
Question: Do you think that Russia has a just cause in launching its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24?
Scott Ritter: I believe Russia has articulated a cognizable claim of preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The threat posed by NATO expansion, and Ukraine’s eight-year bombardment of the civilians of the Donbass fall under this umbrella.
Question: Do you think Russia has legitimate concerns about the Pentagon sponsoring biological weapons programs in laboratories in Ukraine?
Scott Ritter: The Pentagon denies any biological weapons program, but admits biological research programs on Ukrainian soil. Documents captured by Russia have allegedly uncovered the existence of programs the components of which could be construed as having offensive biological warfare applications. The U.S. should be required to explain the purpose of these programs.
Question: What do you make of allegations in Western media that Russian troops committed war crimes in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities? It is claimed that Russian forces summarily executed civilians.
Scott Ritter: All claims of war crimes must be thoroughly investigated, including Ukrainian allegations that Russia killed Ukrainian civilians in Bucha. However, the data available about the Bucha incident does not sustain the Ukrainian claims, and as such, the media should refrain from echoing these claims as fact until a proper investigation of the evidence is conducted, either by the media, or unbiased authorities.
Question: Do you think the alleged Russian bombing of a hospital and an art theater in Mariupol were false-flag provocations?
Scott Ritter: Both locations are available for detailed forensic examination that would either confirm or refute Ukrainian allegations that these locations were struck by Russian aerial bombs. Other data, such as the existence of any NATO radar data that would put Russian aircraft over these two locations at the time of the alleged attack, should be collected. A detailed forensic examination of each site would go a long way in proving or disproving the Ukrainian claims through the collection of weapons fragments and the evaluation of environmental samples which would show the chemical composition of any explosive used, thereby allowing a better idea of what weapon or explosive was used to destroy the sites.
Question: Western governments and mainstream media have denigrated Russian objectives to “demilitarize and deNazify” Ukraine. The West says Russia has invented or grossly exaggerated these problems as a pretext for invasion. Do you think this Western denialism is because it doesn’t want to acknowledge that Russia may indeed have legitimate concerns, and secondly that to acknowledge would mean admitting that the West is part of the problem in the current war?
Scott Ritter: The irony is that the West had thoroughly documented the extent of the Nazi ideology in Ukraine’s civil, political, and military structures during and after the 2014 Maidan coup. This documented reality was deliberately obscured by the same sources that had previously documented its existence once the Russian invasion occurred. To acknowledge the existence of this odious ideology by NATO would require NATO to acknowledge the role it played in training and equipping Azov regiment personnel since 2015. The Russian documentation of its ongoing de-Nazification effort in Ukraine is a source of continual embarrassment to NATO, as it exposes the scope and scale of NATO’s role in empowering the militarization of Nazi ideology in Ukraine.
Question: For about four months before the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the Biden administration was asserting non-stop that Moscow was planning an invasion. Do you think this is a case of great intelligence on the part of Washington or the culmination of provocation by Washington resulting in Russian military action in Ukraine?
Scott Ritter: We now know that the U.S. intelligence community under the Biden administration is committed to a policy of haphazardly “declassifying” intelligence for the purpose of shaping public opinion (so-called “getting ahead of the story”). There is no evidence that the intelligence regarding potential Russian military action was based upon anything other than politicized speculation derived from a crude analysis of Russian military dispositions void of any context. Any genuine intelligence assessment regarding the timing of any Russian military action would have incorporated the domestic political imperative of getting Duma [Russian parliamentary] approval for the deployment of Russian forces outside the borders of Russia, which carries with it the requirement of a cognizable justification for this military action under the UN Charter. This required political steps such as Donetsk and Lugansk declaring independence, and then petitioning the Russian parliament to recognize this independence, so that Russia could legitimately invoke Article 51. None of these factors was knowable when the Biden administration was issuing its warnings of imminent attack, thereby certifying the “intelligence” as being derived from fact-free speculation, and not intelligence at all.
Question: The Western media are reporting that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is floundering because it has not over-run Ukraine entirely. As a military expert, how do you see the Russian operation proceeding?
Scott Ritter: Russia is fighting a very difficult campaign hampered by its own constraint designed to limit civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure and the fact that Ukraine possesses a very well-trained military that is well led and equipped. Russia deployed some 200,000 troops in support of this operation. They are facing some 600,000 Ukrainian forces. The first phase of the Russian operation was designed to shape the battlefield to Russia’s advantage while diminishing the size and capacity of the Ukrainian ability to wage large-scale conflict. The second phase is focused on destroying the main Ukrainian force concentration in eastern Ukraine. Russia is well on its way to accomplishing this task.
Question: Do you see danger from Ukraine being turned into a proxy war by the United States and NATO partners against Russia in a way that attempts to repeat the West’s covert war in Syria or the Afghanistan war (1979-89) with the Soviet Union? There are reports of foreign legions being sent to Ukraine via NATO countries. Do you think there is a Western plan to embroil Russia in a proxy war that is aimed at sapping Russia politically, economically, and militarily?
Scott Ritter: The Ukrainian conflict is a proxy war, but one which Russia is poised to win decisively. While there appears to be a NATO/western plan to embroil Russia in a “new Afghanistan”, I don’t see any risk of this conflict dragging on for more than a few more weeks at the most before Russia accomplishes a strategic victory over Ukraine.
Question: There is an arrogant assumption among Western governments that they can impose crippling economic sanctions on Russia in a similar way to what they did on Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea among others. But would you agree that if Russia begins to impose its own counter-sanctions by restricting oil and gas exports then the Western states may end up reaping a whirlwind that is devastating to their societies?
Scott Ritter: Russia was warned well in advance about the scope and scale of U.S.-led sanctions that would be imposed if Russia were to invade Ukraine. Russia has prepared its own counter-sanction strategy which will not only defeat the Western sanctions but further strengthen Russia’s economy by decoupling it from the West and Western control/influence. We see evidence of the effectiveness of this counter-campaign as the Russian ruble is strengthened, the Russian stock market enjoys positive traction, and Europe and the U.S. flounder economically. The West has sown the wind in sanctioning Russia; Russia will not reap the whirlwind.
The Restaurant I Work For Is Closing Until Further Notice. My Manager Gave Me A Gift
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Oasis – Live Forever (Official HD Remastered Video)
OMG! My all-time favorite song to sing at the KTV. Of course the rent-a-chicks don’t understand what I’m singing about, but they clap enthusiastically, and I usually get some great nuggies later on.
I Work Construction In The Midwest And My Boss Just Delivered All Of These Food Goodies To Our Home In Time For The Holiday
U.S. Hospitals RUNNING OUT of CT-Scan Contrast Dye
A reader provided the following email he received from his hospital, concerning them running-out of Contrast Dye used for medical CT Scans. This shortage of Dye is now global in scope due to the COVID lockdown of Shanghai, China.
Here is the e-mail:
Many people rely on Cat scans. Guess what? The US President and these fricking liberal politicians are letting us die on the vine. Need proof you say? Trinity here you go- real doom for a change I just received this by email below from my doctors. Fricken Biden better do something or many of our family members and us could die. The contrast media is used in every part of the body- from the brain and heart to the feet. Its time to stop these asshole politicians from talking about social fricking issues and concentrating on keeping our families alive. Dear Patient, Due to unprecedented COVID-related supply chain disruptions in China, all hospitals in the United States are experiencing a shortage of contrast media (sometimes referred to as X-ray dye) used to perform CAT or CT scans. This may affect ERCP procedures as well. As at all U.S. hospitals, LVHN and other imaging providers’ ability to perform these scans in all but the most critical cases will be limited until these supply chain issues are corrected. This shortage has been caused by the Chinese government’s COVID lockdown of Shanghai, where most of the world’s supply of contrast media is manufactured and then subsequently distributed by GE Healthcare and Bracco. This disruption is expected to last until at least the end of June. LVHN is exploring various strategies to conserve contrast media, including using other imaging technologies and materials and postponing non-emergency scans. As always, we are 100% committed to providing the best possible care to our patients. If you have any questions or concerns about a scheduled test at LVHN, please contact the scheduling department at LVHN at 610-402-8378. Facebook LinkedIn Website Copyright © 2022 Eastern Pennsylvania Gastroenterology & Liver Specialists, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Eastern Pennsylvania Gastroenterology & Liver Specialists 1501 N Cedar Crest Blvd Allentown, PA 18104-2309
Stanford Scientists Reverse Engineer Moderna Vaccine, Post Code on Github
Stanford scientists saved drops of the COVID-19 vaccine destined for the garbage can, reverse engineered them, and have posted the mRNA sequence that powers the vaccine on GitHub for all to see.
The GitHub post is four pages long. The first two are an explanation by the team of scientists about the work, the second two pages are the entire mRNA sequence for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. “RNA vaccines have become a key tool in moving forward through the challenges raised both in the current pandemic and in numerous other public health and medical challenges,” the scientists said on GitHub. “Despite their ubiquity, sequences are not always available for such RNA. Standard methods facilitate such sequencing.” The GitHub posting is HERE (We have a download of the posting in case GitHub deletes it.)
According to Stanford scientists Andrew Fire and Massa Shoura, this isn’t technically “reverse-engineering” a vaccine. “We didn’t reverse engineer the vaccine. We posted the putative sequence of two synthetic RNA molecules that have become sufficiently prevalent in the general environment of medicine and human biology in 2021,” they told Motherboard in an email. “As the vaccine has been rolling out, these sequences have begun to show up in many different investigational and diagnostic studies. Knowing these sequences and having the ability to differentiate them from other RNAs in analyzing future biomedical data sets is of great utility.”
The scientists were light on details about how they acquired the Moderna sample. “For this work, RNAs were obtained as discards from the small portions of vaccine doses that remained in vials after immunization; such portions would have been required to be otherwise discarded and were analyzed under FDA authorization for research use,” they said.
Fire and Shoura explained that none of what they studied came from usable vaccines. “This project did not waste vaccine material or reduce in any way the number of vaccine doses available to the public,” they told Motherboard. “None of the residual ‘dregs’ that we used for this work came from vaccines that could have been otherwise administered. Think of the thin layer of milk coating a carton that had been fully used and emptied yesterday and sitting on the kitchen counter—if we sequenced that, we’d get a full picture of the cow genome even though the small quantity of milk would be of no use.”
The scientists requested permission from the FDA to keep emptied vials that were going to be discarded at Stanford and Veteran’s Affairs vaccination sites. “Given the ability of Next Generation Sequencing technology to detect even minuscule amounts of RNA, this was more than sufficient to assemble a coding region for the two vaccine RNAs,” they said.
The scientists told Motherboard they felt that their peers working at Moderna/NIH and BioNTech/Pfizer had done the world a great service and that releasing the RNA sequences will help continue to benefit humanity. “While anyone interested could data-mine and filter these sequences out later, there is a substantial economy of scale and educational value in having the sequences available ASAP and in not having to guess where they have come from,” they said.
This isn’t the first time a COVID-19 vaccine has been reverse-engineered and shared online. On December 25, 2020, PowerDNS founder Bert Hubert used publicly available information about the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to figure out its mRNA sequence.
According to Shoura and Fire, the FDA cleared the Stanford project’s decision to share the sequence with the community. “We did contact Moderna a couple of weeks ago to indicate that we were hoping to include the sequence in a publication and asking if there was anything that we should reference with respect to this… no response or objection from them, so we assume that everyone is busy doing important work.”
This is all exciting, and it’s great for the public to have access to the mRNA code that’s part of a vaccine many of us are injecting into our bodies. It also probably won’t make more people get the vaccine. The supply chain behind this kind of medicine is complicated and isn’t easily DIYed. It’s worth noting, however, that this sort of research makes information about the vaccine more accessible to everyone, which is a big deal considering the patents that big pharma has on many of the vaccines, and the fact that the world has a massive task ahead of it in trying to distribute the vaccine to billions of people around the world.
“Nobody will be making an mRNA vaccine in their garage any time soon,” engineer Jason Neubert said in a blog post about the reverse-engineered Pifzer vaccine.
COVERT INTEL – France Has Sudden (and Dramatic) Change of tune . . .
French President Emmanuel Macron made a startling series of statements today, and my former colleagues in the Intelligence Community conveyed to me exactly why. It TERRIFIED Macron!
Welcome To The Greatest Energy Crisis In History – Things Will Only Get Much More Painful From Here
by Michael
Just as the western world was accelerating the transition away from traditional forms of energy, the COVID pandemic caused the most epic supply chain crisis in history, and now the largest land war in Europe since World War II has thrown global energy markets into a state of complete and utter chaos. And if you think that things are bad now, just wait until a huge war erupts in the Middle East. Energy prices are ridiculously high now, but they will eventually go much higher than this. Needless to say, skyrocketing energy prices will have a catastrophic impact on worldwide economic conditions during the troubled months and years ahead of us.
Do you remember when Joe Biden promised that he would do all that he possibly could to drive down the price of gasoline?
Yeah, that isn’t exactly working out too well…
Retail gasoline prices in the United States rose on Tuesday and hit another all-time record, surpassing one set in March, as global refineries grappled with a bottleneck that has sent prices soaring ahead of driving season.The average cost of a retail gallon of gasoline hit $4.374 early Tuesday, according to the American Automobile Association, surpassing the former record of $4.331.
Ultimately, it really is a matter of supply and demand.
We need more drilling, we need more refineries, and we need less regulation on traditional forms of energy all over the western world.
But with the leaders that are currently in place, you shouldn’t expect any significant changes any time soon.
So the price of gasoline will continue to rise.
And actually the price of diesel has been going up even faster…
Tom Kloza, head of global energy research at OPIS, said that in years past a barrel of diesel typically sold for $10 above the price of crude oil. Today, that differential – known as the crack spread – has surged to a record high above $70.“It’s become untethered, unmoored, a little bit unhinged. These are prices we’re not used to seeing,” he said, adding that there are large price differences across the U.S.That is really bad news, because our economy runs on diesel fuel.
As I pointed out yesterday, our trains and our trucks are powered by diesel, and so rapidly rising diesel prices are going to have a huge economic impact.
In addition, most farm equipment uses diesel as well, and this is yet another factor that is putting an enormous amount of financial stress on America’s farmers.
One farmer that was asked about this admitted that he is “really concerned how bad it can get this next year”…
“My family is preparing now and stocking up our freezers and pantry because we are really concerned how bad it can get this next year.”He estimates that fertilizer prices near him have increased 200 or even 300 percent, “dependent on what program you are running.”The rise in diesel prices has hurt him the most. “Farm equipment runs on diesel,” he pointed out.According to AAA’s gas price website, diesel in Texas is running at an average of $5.231, up from $2.820 a year ago.
Needless to say, you should be stock up too, because things are going to look completely different a year from now than they do today.
Of course things are already getting quite crazy. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal warned that widespread electricity shortages in the U.S. could be coming as early as this summer…
From California to Texas to Indiana, electric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, a gap that could lead to rolling blackouts during heat waves or other peak periods as soon as this year.California’s grid operator said Friday that it anticipates a shortfall in supplies this summer, especially if extreme heat, wildfires or delays in bringing new power sources online exacerbate the constraints.
I am stunned that things have gotten this bad already.
And the Ukrainians have decided to make things even worse for the western world by cutting off a key source of Russian natural gas that Europe depends upon…
Ukraine’s state-owned gas grid operator GTSOU said May 10 it had declared force majeure on the transit of Russian gas entering the Ukrainian system at Sokhranivka and would not accept gas at the entry point from May 11.The force majeure declaration, the first of its kind since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, sent European gas prices sharply higher.
As energy prices rise, so will prices for everything else.
Because it takes energy to produce and transport virtually everything that we buy and sell.
So the inflation spiral that we are currently enjoying is likely to intensify even more in the months ahead.
At this point, economic conditions are already shifting so rapidly that some restaurants have decided to put stickers on their menus so that they can be easily changed…
It’s not the prices on the menu so much that’ll shock you. They’re actually still very cheap (and the tacos really good). It’s the fact that the prices were scrawled in pen on stickers slapped on the menu. Those stickers are a tell-tale sign that prices are going up at such a rapid-fire clip that the staff is struggling to print new menus fast enough. Rewriting prices on old menus is easier and cheaper, too.A quick scan of the restaurant’s Facebook posts lays out the increases. The special, offered every Wednesday and Friday, had been $1 per taco for years. That changed in February of last year, when it was raised to $1.25. A month later, it went to $1.50. This January, it shot up to $1.75. And now it’s $2.00.
This is the sort of thing that happens in Venezuela.
And now it is happening in the United States of America.
When I bring up the years 1929 and 2008, what do you immediately think about?
The answer to that question is obvious.
Now we stand on the precipice of another major financial disaster, but this time around there will not be a “return to normal”.
The entire western world has been on a suicidal path for decades, and now a day of reckoning has finally arrived.
And since the U.S. and Europe are the two core pillars of the global economy, the whole world will feel the pain of the coming collapse.
So I would encourage you to buckle your seatbelts, because the road ahead is going to be exceedingly bumpy.
Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels (Official Music Video)
It’s the 1980s, and I am working as a short order cook in San Louis Obispo waiting, waiting, waiting for a call-up to get my MAJestic training. This song is playing everywhere, all the time.
Time is ticking away, and the doors to a bright future of cooperation close faster with every passing minute.
Every day, the American and European public is subjected to a barrage of information telling them what they should think about the events in Ukraine now moving into the 3rd month of conflict since Putin launched his military intervention on February 24th.
From CNN, BBC, Fox News and everything in between, streams of talking heads perform spin while pictures of gruesome horror are flashed in front of our eyes. Narrative framing ensures that watchers of mainstream media are kept in a constant state of fear, hysteria and repulsion over Russia’s supposed crimes against humanity. Where evidence was once a precondition for judgement, under the careful management of Five Eyes ‘perception managers’, mere accusation and repetition are sufficient. Viewers doubting the trustworthiness of those same media sources that lied about weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons by Assad or Russia gate crockery, have increasingly found themselves cheerleading the very empire which many a liberal had protested and despised for years.
Despite the tendency to doubt the credibility of CIA-infested media outlets, recent Pew Surveys published on April 6 tell us not only that “seven-in-ten Americans now see Russia as an enemy” but also that “NATO is seen in an increasingly favorable light” by the majority of Americans. It is rare in this day in age to find agreement from both sides of the political aisle on anything, but on the issue of Russia being America’s enemy, an exception has been found with 72% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans falling into lockstep. Such numbers were not even approximated during the days of America’s illegal assault on Iraq or Libya which saw nearly a million deaths and great cultures driven back into the stone age by U.S.-tax payer money.
And so we find ourselves careening ever more quickly towards an abyss, as members of the UK special forces have officially entered Kiev with “boots on the ground” on April 15 in order to provide training to Ukrainian forces. This obviously increases the risk of military exchanges with Russian forces (and thus activating NATO’s Article 5 collective suicide pact).
As a “good ally to the UK”, the USA is feeling much pressure to follow suite.
The British journalist Michael Tracey recently noted that “Chris Coons, the Democratic Senator from Delaware who occupies Joe Biden’s old seat, and basically serves as a personal emissary to the Administration, started making the rounds to float the next phase of U.S. intervention. Again: Coons isn’t just some Senator, he’s the Senator who basically operates as a conduit directly to Biden. And so for Coons to all the sudden start going around declaring that it’s high time Congress and Biden figure out when they’ll be willing to send “not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine” — that’s very telling. “Putin will only stop when we stop him,” warned Coons on TV this past Sunday.”
Some assert that this is no big deal since the western alliance has already been supplying lethal weapons and training for years to prepare Ukrainian cannon fodder for their inevitable war with Russia, so what difference does it make if NATO-affiliated troops enter the fray now while a hot war is in play? Russia is, after all, the modern Hitler and poor Zelensky is the greatest human being since Martin Luther King Jr so it seems like we are morally obliged to do everything we can right?
Moreover, other nations like Finland and Sweden are now making their intention to be absorbed into NATO known and why shouldn’t they? Russia did intervene militarily into Ukraine over the danger that the Kiev would join NATO, so it stands to reason that the best protection for other countries sharing borders with Russia should be to… join NATO?
Despite the fact that ISIS-affiliated groups from Syria have been deployed into Ukraine to continue their jihad against Russia, and despite the fact that even mainstream press agencies have had to begrudgingly admit the presence of neo Nazi groups in Ukraine, westerners barely blink an eye brushing off such uncomfortable facts with the statement “there will always be some bad apples”.
Sanctions continue to drive new fissures between east west relations and breakdowns of the already fragile supply chains which require vast inputs of Russian oil, coal and natural gas, not to mention minerals, wheat, and fertilizers to keep from collapsing. Millions of Europeans and Americans are already suffering after 2+ years of lockdowns with the danger of new “health crises” looming on the horizon. Job insecurity, inflation, and exploding gas prices are what most Americans and Europeans truly care about, but online survey systems like Pew are always ready with new statistics to help people re-calibrate their wrong thinking according to more “acceptable values”.
We are assured by these same media spin doctors that there was never a solution to this crisis beyond a military confrontation with Russian villains in some abstract fight to the death over liberty and democracy. We are constantly told that the blame of the terrible events of the past two months of war falls squarely on the shoulders of Putin who, we are assured by streams of experts, truly desires to overturn the western order, undermine democracy and restore a neo-Soviet authoritarian empire upon the world.
These claims are of course bunk. The fact is that Putin had done everything imaginable to avoid the military escalation now underway starting from his 2008 Munich Security speech calling out the designs for military containment of his nation and demanding the west respect Russia’s existential security concerns.
From the moment that Victoria Nuland installed a puppet regime in 2014, the predominant ethnic Russian populations of east Donbass watched their fellow citizens in Odessa burn alive by hoards of Nazis and wasted no time to vote for their secession from Kiev in the form of two breakaway republics.
Putin could have quickly recognized these newly aspiring states in 2014 but chose to go the way of Minsk II instead, doing everything possible to keep the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples’ Republics integral members of an undivided Ukraine. For eight years we saw Russian diplomats try everything imaginable to keep Minsk II alive and for eight years we saw only the abrogation of this peace process and over 14,000 lives of eastern Ukrainians lost in turn.
By December 2021, the fact of a planned military intervention into in the East Donbass and Crimea was impossible to ignore, and Putin made it clear that all conflict could easily be avoided by simply obeying the Minsk II treaty while signing binding agreements to keep Ukraine a neutral territory outside of any anti-Russian military bloc. Simple.
The benefits to such an elegant solution are infinitely more favorable than the accelerated breakdown of supply chains, food production, energy supplies which will hurt Europeans, Americans and most importantly Ukrainians even more than they will hurt Russians who are finding new markets hungry for their bountiful resources in Asia. The obvious avoidance of thermonuclear war is also no small win for those who chose to think with clear heads during this time of existential crisis.
But time is ticking away, and the doors to a bright future of cooperation close faster with every passing minute. It is thus important to take the opportunity of the anniversary of Elbe Day (April 25) to recall and revive the spirit of U.S.-Russian brotherhood that jointly put down the Nazi machine in WWII and whose joint sacrifices created the possibility for an age of cooperation and brotherhood that even at this late stage may possibly be revived.
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Pork Schnitzel
Here's a tender, juicy pork schnitzel recipe of thin, breaded pork cutlets that are sautéed and served with a creamy dill sauce. Ideal for a quick dinner, it's ready in just 30 minutes!
“The first time I traveled to the land of my Austrian ancestors I was taken to a restaurant where I saw “schnitzel” on the menu.
Of course, I ordered it, thinking I could use a good German sausage in a bun. (You have my permission to pound your head on the wall now.)
I mean, who in America didn’t grow up with those fast food joints with the giant hot dogs on the top of them? That was schnitzel, right?
When the order came, I was stunned by how far off it was from what I was expecting; even my gracious hosts had a hard time believing me when I told them that in America, a wiener schnitzel was a hot dog (at least where I was from in suburban California).”
How To Make Schnitzel That Shines
To ensure your schnitzel turns out well, follow these tips.
- For less pounding, start out with thin cutlets, no more than 1/2 inch thick.
- Pat the cutlets dry with a paper towel. The flour will stick to dry cutlets better.
- If you’re concerned about the breading staying on the cutlets, bread them an hour before cooking. Put them in a single layer, uncovered, on a tray in the refrigerator; the breading will adhere better. The cooking time may increase a minute or two for cutlets straight out of the refrigerator.
- If you’re cooking the cutlets in batches, place a metal rack on a baking sheet, and keep the cooked cutlets in a preheated 180°F oven on the rack. Placing the cutlets directly on the baking sheet may result soggy breading.
The Best Cuts of Meat for This Schnitzel Recipe
While this recipe calls for pork chops, you can substitute other meats.
- Veal cutlets
- Chicken cutlets
- Turkey cutlets
- Round steak
Pork Schnitzel or “Cutlet”
Curses! Yes, we tend to distort some traditional dishes here in America, but this one? We weren't even close. "Schnitzel", for the uninitiated, is German for "cutlet" which is usually made with veal and thinly pounded, breaded and fried. As for this schnitzel recipe, it is made with thinly pounded pork cutlets. Those of you looking for a quick, mid-week dinner may be happy with this one. I love it. The sauce alone is worth making this pork schnitzel for, and could easily be used on chicken, for turkey meatballs, or over fish.
Craig Morgan – That’s What I Love About Sunday – Nashville Connection Heroes Salute
One of my all-time favorite Country songs. I am my fellow inmates sang this together while doing time.
How to Make Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup
You may never buy cream of chicken soup at the grocery store again!
I love nothing more than a comforting soup, especially when snow is falling outside. I’m also all about cooking with simplicity. As a busy mother of two—and with one on the way—I need quick, easy recipes that are also delicious. Of all the different types of soup, cream of chicken ticks off the all the boxes.
Now, what comes to mind when you think of cream of chicken soup? Is it a can of glop? What if I told you that this substitute for canned cream of chicken soup will change your life? You can whip it up in 30 minutes, including prep. It’s true!
How to Make Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup
Kathleen Rappleye, from Mesa, Arizona likes to serve this soothing cream cheese chicken soup on a chilly winter night with a crusty French bread.
Ingredients
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 3 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch slices
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 2 cups cubed cooked chicken (Use rotisserie chicken!)
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese (This is the trick!)
Directions
Step 1: Saute
Get out your favorite large saucepan and heat the butter on medium heat, then toss in the onion and saute. Now add your broth, carrots and potatoes. Hike up the heat and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat; cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until veggies are tender. The beauty of this stage is that you can leave it to simmer while you go break up the fight over Legos in the next room!
Step 2: Add the chicken
Now you’re going to add the chicken, parsley, salt and pepper until heated through.
Step 3: Cream cheese it
OK, here’s where the real magic happens. In a bowl, whisk the flour and milk until smooth, then stir it into your pan of vegetables. Bring the mixture to a boil, cook and stir for about 2 minutes (until soup has thickened). Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the entire block of cream cheese (psst…here’s more ways to use cream cheese in recipes). Stir until melted and heated through. Ladle into eight of your favorite soup bowls—or save some for later—and sprinkle on any fresh herbs you like.
Let’s Eat!
You can pair this substitute for canned cream of chicken soup with a loaf of crusty French bread. This recipe is truly love at first spoonful (even for the pickiest of eaters) and will be your homemade go-to.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Dark Shadows – Alice Cooper
A funny scene from the Johnny Depp movie “Dark Shadows” where Alice Cooper sings at the mansion.
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot (Official Music Video)
Based off of a true story about an American councilman who killed himself in front of his staff.
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding US To Defeat
By Judith Bergman of The Gatestone Institute
Neocons are FREAKING OUT over China. Check out this article. -MM
- “The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020.” — Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021, US Dept. of Defense.
- “In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and “fielding operational systems at an incredible rate.” — General David Thompson, the Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations, quoted in The Washington Post, November 30, 2021.
- “Look at what they [CCP) have today…. We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed.” — General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, breakingdefense.com, November 4, 2021.
- “[T]he Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It’s all happening at the same time.” — Timothy Heath, senior international and defense researcher at Rand Corporation, Business Insider, January 4, 2022.
- “To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well.” — Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
- There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination…. a strategic partnership of “no limits” and with “no forbidden areas” in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.
- This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine.
- “The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad.” — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Associated Press, March 7, 2022.
- “For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently.” — Admiral Charles Richard, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
- [T]his is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.
- Meanwhile, Biden’s proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. “This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it’s almost 8%,” said Milley. “Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate.”
- “Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation. Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability.” — Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.) House Armed Services Committee, Defense News, April 5, 2022.
When the Pentagon assessed China’s nuclear arsenal in its annual report to Congress on China’s military power in November 2020, it projected that China’s nuclear warhead stockpile, which the Pentagon then estimated to be in the low 200s, would “at least double in size” over the next decade. The Pentagon also estimated that China was “pursuing” a “nuclear triad”, meaning a combination of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear capabilities.
Just one year later, in November 2021, the Pentagon found itself acknowledging that China’s nuclear buildup was taking place at an astonishing speed, with the nuclear warhead stockpile now possibly quadrupling from the estimated low 200s in 2020 over the next decade:
"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."
In addition, China is no longer merely “pursuing” a nuclear triad but appears to have already achieved the basics of it:
"The PRC has possibly already established a nascent 'nuclear triad' with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities."
China, according to the report, is also “constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion, including increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities,” while “building hundreds of new ICBM silos, and is on the cusp of a large silo-based ICBM force expansion comparable to those undertaken by other major powers.”
The accelerating pace of China’s nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China’s general military buildup and modernization. Last summer, for instance, China tested its first hypersonic weapon. In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and “fielding operational systems at an incredible rate,” according to General David Thompson, the Space Force’s first vice chief of space operations. China and Russia’s combined in-orbit space assets grew approximately 70% in just two years, following a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018 according to Kevin Ryder, Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst for space and counterspace in the U.S.
According to General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:
"If you look at, again, 40 years ago, they had zero satellites...They had no ICBMs...They had no nuclear weapons... They had no fourth or fifth-generation fighters or even more advanced fighters, back then... They had no navy...They had no sub-force. Look at what they have today... So if you look at the totality, this test [of a hypersonic weapon] that occurred a couple weeks ago, is only one of a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese. That is very, very significant. We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed."
According to Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation think tank:
"It's important to see the modernizing nuclear arsenal as part of the bigger picture, in which the Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time."
On April 20, 2021, U.S. Strategic Command’s chief Admiral Charles Richard made it clear in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that China is no longer a lesser nuclear threat than Russia:
"While China's nuclear stockpile is currently smaller (but undergoing an unprecedented expansion) than those fielded by Russia and the United States, the size of a nation's weapons stockpile is a crude measure of its overall strategic capability. To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well. They are no longer a 'lesser included case of the pacing nuclear threat, Russia." (Emphasis in original).
China’s nuclear acceleration is not all, however. There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination: In February, the two powers declared that they were entering into a strategic partnership of “no limits” and with “no forbidden areas” in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.
This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine. China has not only supplied material support through a variety of deals with Russia, it has also refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion and has criticized the sanctions.
In March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Russia the “most important strategic partner” for China.
"No matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of a comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era... The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad."
On April 19, China reassured Russia that it will continue to increase “strategic coordination.”
China-Russia cooperation is going to affect US strategic deterrence. Admiral Richard told the Senate Armed Services Committee in early March that the US needs to have plans for scenarios in which the two powers cooperate militarily, adding:
"I'm very concerned about what opportunistic aggression looks like. I'm worried about what cooperative aggression looks like... We do not know the endpoints of where either of those other two are going either in capability or capacity. We're just now starting to work out what three-party stability looks like, what three-party deterrence dynamic works out."
In his April 20, 2021 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard said:
"For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low."
In the light of China’s accelerating nuclear buildup — and the nuclear threat that Russia poses with its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons — this is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.
The missile, according to the Wall Street Journal, “is considered a ‘tactical’ nuclear weapon that has a lower yield than ‘strategic’ options and might be used on battlefield targets. The missile could be launched from submarines or destroyers” and “is needed to deter Russia and others” and, according to the article, would also be useful “in dissuading China from using a nuke on Taiwan, without the longer and fraught debate of, say, putting American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil… [and] reduce proliferation at a volatile moment.”
The acceleration of China’s nuclear and military modernization, and the new situation of tri-polar deterrence that the U.S. finds itself in for the first time, necessitate increases in US military research and development, acquisition and procurement. Meanwhile, Biden’s proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Gen. Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. “This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it’s almost 8%,” Milley noted. “Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate.”
“Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation,” Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said. “Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability.”
Transforming Subway Passengers Into Renaissance Paintings
“People DON’T KNOW What’s Coming!” Prepare For The CHANGING WORLD ORDER | Ray Dalio
Things are going on. Pay attention.
Beautiful Life Of Florida In The 1950s
Planting POTATOES In FREE Containers SIMPLE and EASY
Really easy to do, and fun. Grep prep skill.
I Started A New Job A Few Months Ago And I Have Never Felt More Appreciated And Valued. Here Is A Christmas Card From My Boss
NEW CRISIS That Will Affect EVERYONE In 1 to 2 WEEKS
Pay attention! By early June 2022 the USA is going to experience some serious issues.
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.
New Beginnings 4.
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